Till the Tsar reached it, each regiment in its silence and immobility seemed like a lifeless body, but as soon as he came up it became alive, its thunder joining the roar of the whole line along which he had already passed.
Rostov was not far from the trumpeters, and with his keen sight had recognized the Tsar and watched his approach.
The Tsar stopped a few minutes in front of the hussars as if undecided.
"How can the Emperor be undecided?" thought Rostov, but then even this indecision appeared to him majestic and enchanting, like everything else the Tsar did.
The Tsar's foot, in the narrow pointed boot then fashionable, touched the groin of the bobtailed bay mare he rode, his hand in a white glove gathered up the reins, and he moved off accompanied by an irregularly swaying sea of aides-de-camp.
The issuer of Birmingham's warning was actually Dame Louise Casey, aka 'The
Tsar for all Seasons', having seemingly made a career of what for most is a single, short-term, part-time appointment.