Near the village of Pratsa Rostovu was ordered to look for Kutuzova and the Emperor. But not only were they not here, but there were not a single chief, and there were heterogeneous crowds of upset troops. He drove a horse, which was already tired, to pass these crowds, but the farther he moved, the more upset the crowds became. On the big road, on which he left, were crowded wheelchairs, crews of all grades, Russian and Austrian soldiers of all kinds of troops, wounded and not wounded. All this was humming and mixed to the gloomy sound of flying nuclei from the French batteries installed at the Pratzen Heights.
- Where is the Emperor? Where is Kutuzov? - Rostov asked everyone he could stop and could not get an answer from anyone.
Finally, grasping the soldier's collar, he forced him to answer himself.
- Hey, brother! For a long time everybody ran away! - The soldier told Rostov, laughing at something and breaking out.
Leaving this soldier, who was obviously drunk, Rostov stopped the horse of a batman or an important person and started asking him about it. The officer announced to Rostov that the Emperor had been taken in a carriage on this very road an hour earlier and that the Emperor was dangerously wounded.
- It can't be," said Rostov, "that's right, the other one.
- I saw it myself, - said the batman with a self-assured smile. - It is time for me to know the Emperor: it seems how many times I have seen him in St. Petersburg like this. The pale pale one is sitting in the carriage. My dear Fathers, the quartet of ravens will come as if by us: it's time to know the king's horses and Ilya Ivanovich; it seems that Ilya the coachman doesn't go with the other, as with the king.
Rostov let his horse go and wanted to go further. A wounded officer who walked past him turned to him.
- Who do you need? - The officer asked. - The commander-in-chief? So killed by the cannonball, killed in the chest in front of our regiment.
- Not killed, wounded," another officer corrected.
- Who is it? Kutuzov? - Rostov asked.
- Not Kutuzov, but how do you beat him? Go over there, to that village, where all the superiors are gathered," said the officer, pointing to the village of Gostiyeradek, and passed by.
Rostov was going in steps, not knowing why he was going to go to see whom. The Emperor is wounded, the battle is lost. It was impossible not to believe it now. Rostov was going in the direction that he was pointed out and in which the tower and church were seen far away. Where was he in a hurry? What would he say to his king or Kutuzov if they were alive and well?
- This dear, your nobility, go ahead and they will kill him right here," the soldier shouted. - Here they will kill him!
- Oh! What do you say! - The other one said. - Where will he go? It's closer here.
Rostov thought about it and went exactly in the direction where he was told he would be killed.
"Now it doesn't matter! If the King is wounded, should I really take care of myself? - He thought. He entered the space where the people running from Pratzen died the most. The French had not yet occupied this place, and the Russians, those who were alive or injured, had left him long ago. On the field, like mops on a good plough, there were ten or fifteen dead, wounded in every tithe of the place. The wounded slid down two, three together, and were heard unpleasant, sometimes pretend, as it seemed to Rostov, their screams and moans. Rostov let the horse trot in, so as not to see all these suffering people, and he became afraid. He was afraid not for his life, but for the courage he needed, which he knew would not stand up to the sight of these poor people.
The French, who stopped shooting at this field dotted with dead and wounded, because no one was alive on it anymore when they saw the Adjutant riding on it, pointed a gun at it and threw a few nuclei. The feeling of these whistling, terrible sounds and surrounding dead people merged into one impression of horror and regret for Rostov. He remembered his mother's last letter. How would she feel," he thought, "if she could see me here on this field with the guns pointed at me?
In the village of Gostiyeradeke there were tangled, but in a larger order, Russian troops marching away from the battlefield. The French nuclei were no longer there, and the sounds of firing seemed distant. Everyone here has already clearly seen and said that the battle was lost. Whoever Rostov addressed, no one could tell him where the Tsar was or where Kutuzov was. Some said that the rumor about the wound of the Emperor is fair, others said that it is not, and explained this false rumor by the fact that really in the carriage of the Emperor, the pale and frightened ober-hofmarshal Count Tolstoy, who left with others in the retinue of the Emperor on the field of battle. One officer told Rostov that behind the village to the left he saw someone from the highest authorities, and Rostov went there, not hoping to find anyone, but only to clear his conscience before himself. Having passed three versts and passed the last Russian troops, Rostov saw two horsemen standing against the ditch near the ditch. One, with a white sultan on a hat, seemed familiar to Rostov for some reason; the other, a strange rider, on a beautiful red horse (this horse seemed familiar to Rostov), drove up to the ditch, pushed the horse with spurs and, having released the reins, easily jumped over the ditch of the garden. Only the ground fell off the mound from the horse's hind hooves. Coolly turning the horse, he again jumped back over the ditch and respectfully addressed the rider with a white sultan, apparently suggesting he do the same. The rider, whom the figure seemed familiar to Rostov, for some reason unwittingly caught his attention, made a negative gesture with his head and hand, and by this gesture Rostov instantly recognized his beloved sovereign.