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"What does it mean? What is it? Whom are they firing at? Who is

firing?" Rostov kept asking as he came up to Russian and Austrian

soldiers running in confused crowds across his path.

"The devil knows! They've killed everybody! It's all up now!" he

was told in Russian, German, and Czech by the crowd of fugitives

who understood what was happening as little as he did.

"Kill the Germans!" shouted one.

"May the devil take them-the traitors!"

"Zum Henker diese Russen!" * muttered a German.

* "Hang these Russians!"

Several wounded men passed along the road, and words of abuse,

screams, and groans mingled in a general hubbub, then the firing

died down. Rostov learned later that Russian and Austrian

soldiers had been firing at one another.

"My God! What does it all mean?" thought he. "And here, where at

any moment the Emperor may see them.... But no, these must be

only a handful of scoundrels. It will soon be over, it can't be

that, it can't be! Only to get past them quicker, quicker!"