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If he had told the truth to his hearers-who like himself had

often heard stories of attacks and had formed a definite idea of

what an attack was and were expecting to hear just such a

story-they would either not have believed him or, still worse,

would have thought that Rostov was himself to blame since what

generally happens to the narrators of cavalry attacks had not

happened to him. He could not tell them simply that everyone went

at a trot and that he fell off his horse and sprained his arm and

then ran as hard as he could from a Frenchman into the wood.

Besides, to tell everything as it really happened, it would have

been necessary to make an effort of will to tell only what

happened. It is very difficult to tell the truth, and young

people are rarely capable of it.