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The idea of defeat and flight could not enter Rostov's head.

Though he saw French cannon and French troops on the Pratzen

Heights just where he had been ordered to look for the commander

in chief, he could not, did not wish to, believe that.

CHAPTER XVIII

Rostov had been ordered to look for Kutuzov and the Emperor near

the village of Pratzen. But neither they nor a single commanding

officer were there, only disorganized crowds of troops of various

kinds. He urged on his already weary horse to get quickly past

these crowds, but the farther he went the more disorganized they

were. The highroad on which he had come out was thronged with

caleches, carriages of all sorts, and Russian and Austrian

soldiers of all arms, some wounded and some not. This whole mass

droned and jostled in confusion under the dismal influence of

cannon balls flying from the French batteries stationed on the

Pratzen Heights.