Graduate

Signed-off-by: Matt Strapp <matt@mattstrapp.net>

18 files changed, 67879 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/csci1913/Java/lab10_strap012.java b/csci1913/Java/lab10_strap012.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..06c0dfa
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Java/lab10_strap012.java
@@ -0,0 +1,148 @@
+class AssociationList<Key, Value> {
+    private class Node {
+        private Key key;
+        private Value value;
+        private Node next;
+        private Node(Key k, Value v, Node n) {
+            key=k; value=v; next=n;
+        }
+    }
+    private Node head;
+    public AssociationList() {
+        head = new Node(null, null, null);
+    }
+    public void delete(Key key) {
+        Node left = head;
+        Node right = head.next;
+        while (right!=null) {
+            if (isEqual(right.key, key)) {
+                left.next=right.next;
+                break;
+            } else {
+                left=right; right=right.next;
+            }
+        }
+
+    }
+    public Value get(Key key) {
+        Node where=head.next;
+        while (where!=null) {
+            if (isEqual(where.key,key)) {
+                return where.value;
+            } else {
+                where=where.next;
+            }
+        } //No matching key found
+        throw new IllegalArgumentException();
+    }
+    private boolean isEqual(Key leftKey, Key rightKey) {
+        if (leftKey == null || rightKey == null) {
+            return leftKey == rightKey;
+        } else {
+            return leftKey.equals(rightKey);
+        }
+    }
+    public boolean isIn(Key key) {
+        Node where = head.next;
+        while (where != null) {
+            if (isEqual(where.key, key)) {
+                return true;
+            } else {
+                where = where.next;
+            }
+        } // No matching key found
+        return false;
+    }
+    public void put(Key key, Value value) {
+        Node where=head.next;
+        boolean found=false;
+        while (where!=null){
+            if(isEqual(key, where.key)) {
+                where.value=value;
+                found=true;
+                break;
+            } else {
+                where=where.next;
+            }
+        } //End of while
+        if (!found) {
+            Node temp=head.next;
+            head.next= new Node(key, value, temp);
+        }
+    }
+}
+
+//
+//  Tests for CSci 1913 Lab 10
+//  James Moen
+//  08 Apr 19
+//
+//  The TRY-CATCH statements catch exceptions thrown by ASSOCIATION LIST's
+//  methods, so that the program can continue to run even if a method fails.
+//
+//  Each test has a comment that shows what it should print and how many points
+//  it is worth, for a total of 40 points.
+
+//  HOGWARTS. The Hogwarts dating service.
+
+class Hogwarts {
+
+    // MAIN. Make an instance of ASSOCIATION LIST and test it.
+
+    public static void main(String[] args) {
+        AssociationList<String, String> list = new AssociationList<String, String>();
+
+        System.out.println(list.isIn(null)); // false 2 points.
+
+        try {
+            System.out.println(list.get(null));
+        } catch (IllegalArgumentException ignore) {
+            System.out.println("No null"); // No null 2 points.
+        }
+
+        list.put(null, "Wormtail");
+        list.put("Ron", "Lavender");
+        list.put("Voldemort", null);
+        list.put("Dean", "Ginny");
+
+        System.out.println(list.isIn("Dean")); // true 2 points.
+        System.out.println(list.isIn("Ginny")); // false 2 points.
+        System.out.println(list.isIn("Ron")); // true 2 points.
+        System.out.println(list.isIn("Voldemort")); // true 2 points.
+        System.out.println(list.isIn(null)); // true 2 points.
+        System.out.println(list.isIn("Joanne")); // false 2 points.
+
+        System.out.println(list.get("Ron")); // Lavender 2 points.
+        System.out.println(list.get("Dean")); // Ginny 2 points.
+        System.out.println(list.get("Voldemort")); // null 2 points.
+        System.out.println(list.get(null)); // Wormtail 2 points.
+
+        try {
+            System.out.println(list.get("Joanne"));
+        } catch (IllegalArgumentException ignore) {
+            System.out.println("No Joanne"); // No Joanne 2 points.
+        }
+
+        list.delete(null);
+
+        System.out.println(list.isIn(null)); // false 2 points.
+
+        list.put(null, null);
+        list.put("Harry", "Ginny");
+        list.put("Ron", "Hermione");
+
+        System.out.println(list.isIn(null)); // true 2 points.
+        System.out.println(list.get(null)); // null 2 points.
+        System.out.println(list.get("Harry")); // Ginny 2 points.
+        System.out.println(list.get("Dean")); // Ginny 2 points.
+        System.out.println(list.get("Ron")); // Hermione 2 points.
+
+        list.delete("Dean");
+
+        try {
+            System.out.println(list.get("Dean"));
+        } catch (IllegalArgumentException ignore) {
+            System.out.println("No Dean"); // No Dean 2 points.
+        }
+    }
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/csci1913/Java/lab11_strap012.java b/csci1913/Java/lab11_strap012.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..7eb146a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Java/lab11_strap012.java
@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+class Deque<Base> {
+    private Node head;
+    private class Node {
+        private Base object;
+        private Node left;
+        private Node right;
+        private Node(Base o, Node l, Node r) {
+            object = o;
+            left = l; right = r;
+        }
+    }
+    public Deque() {
+        head = new Node(null, null, null);
+        head.left=head; head.right=head;
+    }
+    public void enqueueRear(Base object) {
+            Node tempL = head;
+            Node newNode = new Node(object, tempL.left, tempL);
+            tempL.left.right = newNode;
+            tempL.left = newNode;
+    }
+    public void enqueueFront(Base object) {
+            Node tempR = head;
+            Node newNode = new Node(object, tempR, tempR.right);
+            tempR.right.left = newNode;
+            tempR.right = newNode;
+    }
+    public Base dequeueRear() {
+        if (isEmpty()) {
+            throw new IllegalStateException();
+        } else {
+            Node temp = head.left;
+            temp.left.right = head;
+            head.left = temp.left;
+            return temp.object;
+        }
+    }
+    public Base dequeueFront() {
+        if (isEmpty()) {
+            throw new IllegalStateException();
+        } else {
+            Node temp = head.right;
+            temp.right.left = head;
+            head.right = temp.right;
+            return temp.object;
+        }
+    }
+    public Boolean isEmpty() {
+        return head.right==head && head.left==head;
+    }
+}
+
+// OBSERVATION DEQUE. Test the class DEQUE. 40 points total.
+class ObservationDeque{
+// MAIN. Test the DEQUE on various example arguments. 
+    public static void main(String [] args) { 
+        Deque<String> deque = new Deque<String>();
+        System.out.println(deque.isEmpty()); // true 2 points. 
+        try {
+            System.out.println(deque.dequeueFront()); 
+        } catch (IllegalStateException ignore) { 
+            System.out.println("No dequeueFront."); // No dequeueFront. 2 points. 
+        } 
+        try { System.out.println(deque.dequeueRear());
+        } catch (IllegalStateException ignore) { 
+            System.out.println("No dequeueRear."); // No dequeueRear. 2 points. 
+        }
+//Enqueueing to the rear and dequeueing from the rear makes the DEQUE act
+// like a stack. 
+        deque.enqueueRear("A");
+        deque.enqueueRear("B"); 
+        deque.enqueueRear("C");
+
+        System.out.println(deque.isEmpty()); // false 2 points.
+
+        System.out.println(deque.dequeueRear()); // C 2 points.
+        System.out.println(deque.dequeueRear()); // B 2 points.
+        System.out.println(deque.dequeueRear()); // A 2 points.
+        System.out.println(deque.isEmpty()); // true 2 points.
+// Enqueueing to the rear and dequeueing from the front makes the DEQUE act
+// like a queue.
+        deque.enqueueRear("A"); 
+        deque.enqueueRear("B"); 
+        deque.enqueueRear("C");
+
+        System.out.println(deque.dequeueFront()); // A 2 points.
+        System.out.println(deque.dequeueFront()); // B 2 points.
+        System.out.println(deque.dequeueFront()); // C 2 points.
+
+        System.out.println(deque.isEmpty()); // true 2 points.
+//Enqueueing to the front and dequeueing from the front makes the DEQUE act
+//like a stack. 
+        deque.enqueueFront("A"); 
+        deque.enqueueFront("B");
+        deque.enqueueFront("C"); 
+
+        System.out.println(deque.dequeueFront()); // C 2 points.
+        System.out.println(deque.dequeueFront()); // B 2 points.
+        System.out.println(deque.dequeueFront()); // A 2 points.
+
+        System.out.println(deque.isEmpty()); // true 2 points.
+
+// Enqueueing to the front and dequeueing from the rear makes the DEQUE act
+// like a queue.
+        deque.enqueueFront("A"); 
+        deque.enqueueFront("B"); 
+        deque.enqueueFront("C");
+
+        System.out.println(deque.dequeueRear()); // A 2 points.
+        System.out.println(deque.dequeueRear()); // B 2 points.
+        System.out.println(deque.dequeueRear()); // C 2 points.
+
+        System.out.println(deque.isEmpty()); // true 2 points. 
+    }
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/csci1913/Java/lab12_strap012.java b/csci1913/Java/lab12_strap012.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..351cc1c
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Java/lab12_strap012.java
@@ -0,0 +1,103 @@
+class PriorityQueue<Base> { 
+    private class Node { 
+        private Base object; 
+        private int rank; 
+        private Node left; 
+        private Node right; 
+        private Node(Base object, int rank) { 
+            this.object = object; 
+            this.rank = rank; 
+            left = null; 
+            right = null; 
+        } 
+    }
+    private Node root;              // Root node of the BST.
+
+    public PriorityQueue() {
+        root = new Node(null, -1);  // root is the lone King of Kings
+      }
+    public boolean isEmpty() {
+        return root.right == root.left;
+    }
+
+    public Base dequeue() {
+        if (isEmpty())
+            throw new IllegalStateException();
+        Node top = root;
+        Node bottom = root.right;
+        while (bottom.left != null) {
+            top = bottom;
+            bottom = bottom.left;
+        }
+        if (top.object == null)     // Special case for top being the head node
+            top.right = bottom.right;    
+        else
+            top.left = bottom.right;
+        return bottom.object;
+    }
+
+    public void enqueue(Base object, int rank) {
+        if (rank < 0)               // No extra negative ranks allowed
+            throw new IllegalArgumentException();
+        boolean lessOrEqual = false;
+        Node top = root;
+        Node bottom = root.right;
+        while (bottom != null) {
+            top = bottom;
+            if (rank <= bottom.rank) {
+                bottom = bottom.left;
+                lessOrEqual = true;
+            } else {
+                bottom = bottom.right;
+                lessOrEqual = false;
+            }
+        }
+        if (lessOrEqual)
+            top.left = new Node(object, rank);
+        else 
+            top.right = new Node(object, rank);
+    }
+}
+//  SNOBBERY. How the aristocracy behaves in a queue. 20 points.
+
+class Snobbery {
+
+    // MAIN. Queue them up.
+
+    public static void main(String[] args) {
+        PriorityQueue<String> queue = new PriorityQueue<String>();
+
+        System.out.println(queue.isEmpty()); // true 2 points
+
+        try {
+            System.out.println(queue.dequeue());
+        } catch (IllegalStateException ignore) {
+            System.out.println("Blimey!"); // Blimey! 2 points
+        }
+
+        queue.enqueue("Lancelot", 5);
+        queue.enqueue("Fawlty", 7);
+        queue.enqueue("Elizabeth", 0);
+        queue.enqueue("Charles", 1);
+        queue.enqueue("Turing", 7);
+
+        try {
+            queue.enqueue("Zeus", -100);
+        } catch (IllegalArgumentException ignore) {
+            System.out.println("No gods!"); // No gods! 2 points
+        }
+
+        System.out.println(queue.isEmpty()); // false 2 points
+
+        System.out.println(queue.dequeue()); // Elizabeth 2 points
+        System.out.println(queue.dequeue()); // Charles 2 points
+        System.out.println(queue.dequeue()); // Lancelot 2 points
+        System.out.println(queue.dequeue()); // Turing 2 points
+        System.out.println(queue.dequeue()); // Fawlty 2 points
+
+        // It's OK if Fawlty comes out before Turing, but both must come out last.
+
+        System.out.println(queue.isEmpty()); // true 2 points.
+    }
+
+}
diff --git a/csci1913/Java/lab13_strap012.java b/csci1913/Java/lab13_strap012.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8645a98
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Java/lab13_strap012.java
@@ -0,0 +1,31 @@
+class Test 
+{ 
+  private static final String [] reserved = 
+   { "and", 
+     "begin", 
+     "define", 
+     "do", 
+     "else", 
+     "end", 
+     "if", 
+     "not", 
+     "or", 
+     "return", 
+     "then", 
+     "while" }; 
+ 
+  private static int hash(String name) 
+  { 
+    return ((name.charAt(0) + name.charAt(name.length()-1)) * name.length()) % 255;
+  } 
+ 
+  public static void main(String [] args) 
+  { 
+    for (int index = 0; index < reserved.length ; index += 1) 
+    { 
+      System.out.print("h(\"" + reserved[index] + "\") = "); 
+      System.out.print(hash(reserved[index])); 
+      System.out.println(); 
+    } 
+  } 
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/csci1913/Java/lab4_strap012.java b/csci1913/Java/lab4_strap012.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..de3f2f6
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Java/lab4_strap012.java
@@ -0,0 +1,101 @@
+//  DRIVER. The MAIN method has tests for your class ZILLION. Each test has a
+//  comment that shows what the test should print if your code is correct. It
+//  also has the number of points you will receive if the test is successful.
+//  These tests are worth a total of 25 points.
+
+class Zillion {
+  private int s;
+  private int[] number;
+  public Zillion(int size) {
+    number = new int[size];
+    s = size;
+  }
+  public void increment(){
+    int n = 0;
+    boolean isCorrect = false;
+    while (isCorrect==false) {
+      number[n]+=1;
+      if (number[n] >= 10) {
+        number[n]=0;
+        if (n<(s-1)) {
+          n+=1;
+        }
+        else {
+          isCorrect = true;
+        }
+      }
+      else {
+        isCorrect=true;
+      }
+    }
+
+  }
+  public String toString(){
+    String test = "";
+    for (int n=(s-1); n>=0; n-=1) {
+      test+=number[n];
+    }
+    return test;
+  }
+}
+
+class Driver
+{
+  public static void main(String[] args)
+  {
+    Zillion z = new Zillion(2);
+    System.out.println(z);  //  00  2 points
+
+    z.increment();
+    System.out.println(z);  //  01  2 points
+
+    z.increment();
+    System.out.println(z);  //  02  2 points
+
+    z.increment();
+    z.increment();
+    z.increment();
+    z.increment();
+    z.increment();
+    z.increment();
+    z.increment();
+    z.increment();
+
+    System.out.println(z);  //  10  2 points
+    z.increment();
+    System.out.println(z);  //  11  2 points
+
+    z = new Zillion(4);
+    System.out.println(z);  //  0000  2 points
+
+    for (int j = 1; j <= 999; j += 1)
+    {
+      z.increment();
+    }
+    System.out.println(z);  //  0999  2 points
+
+    z.increment();
+    System.out.println(z);  //  1000  2 points
+
+    for (int j = 1; j <= 999; j += 1)
+    {
+      z.increment();
+    }
+    System.out.println(z);  //  1999  2 points
+
+    z.increment();
+    System.out.println(z);  //  2000  2 points
+
+    for (int j = 1; j <= 7999; j += 1)
+    {
+      z.increment();
+    }
+    System.out.println(z);  //  9999  2 points
+
+    z.increment();
+    System.out.println(z);  //  0000  2 points
+
+    z.increment();
+    System.out.println(z);  //  0001  1 point
+  }
+}
diff --git a/csci1913/Java/lab5_strap012.java b/csci1913/Java/lab5_strap012.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..45a101b
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Java/lab5_strap012.java
@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+//
+//  SIEVE. The Sieve of Eratosthenes.
+//
+//    James B. Moen
+//    08 Oct 19
+//
+//  Test the SIEVE class, for 30 points total.
+//
+
+//
+//  Put your code for the class SIEVE here!!!
+//
+class Sieve {
+    private boolean[] numbers;
+    private int realMax;
+  public Sieve(int max){
+    if (max<2) 
+      throw new IllegalArgumentException();
+    numbers = new boolean[max];
+    realMax = (max - 1);
+    for (int i=2; i<max; i+=1) { numbers[i]=true; }
+  }
+  public void findPrimes() {
+    for (int i=2; i<=realMax; i+=1) {
+      //Only look for composite numbers if the number is prime
+      if (numbers[i]) {
+        for (int j=(i*2); j<=realMax; j+=i) {
+          numbers[j]=false;
+        }
+      }
+    //  System.out.println(i);
+    }
+  }
+  public String toString(){
+    String str = "";
+    for (int n = 0; n <= realMax; n += 1) {
+      if (numbers[n]) {
+        str += n; str += " ";
+      }
+    }
+    return str;
+  }
+}
+//  TOSS THE KNEES. Run SIEVE on some examples.
+
+class TossTheKnees
+{
+
+//  MAIN. Find some primes.
+
+  public static void main(String [] args)
+  {
+    Sieve sieve = null;  //  We must initialize SIEVE or Java will cry.
+
+//  5 points. This must print "Sieve size must be at least 2." but without the
+//  quotes.
+
+    try
+    {
+      sieve = new Sieve(0);
+    }
+    catch (IllegalArgumentException oops)
+    {
+      System.out.println("Sieve size must be at least 2.");
+    }
+
+//  5 points. This must print nothing.
+
+    try
+    {
+      sieve = new Sieve(100);
+    }
+    catch (IllegalArgumentException oops)
+    {
+      System.out.println("Sieve size must be at least 2.");
+    }
+
+//  10 points. This must print integers from 2 to 99, separated by blanks.
+
+    System.out.println(sieve);
+
+//  10 points. This must print the prime numbers between 2 and 99, separated by
+//  blanks. They are:
+//
+//  2 3 5 7 11 13 17 19 23 29 31 37 41 43 47 53 59 61 67 71 73 79 83 89 97
+
+    sieve.findPrimes();
+    System.out.println(sieve);
+  }
+}
diff --git a/csci1913/Java/lab6_strap012.java b/csci1913/Java/lab6_strap012.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..df8d3d3
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Java/lab6_strap012.java
@@ -0,0 +1,64 @@
+class Polygon {
+    private int[] sideLengths;
+
+    public Polygon(int sides, int... lengths) {
+        int index = 0;
+        sideLengths = new int[sides];
+        for (int length : lengths) {
+            sideLengths[index] = length;
+            index += 1;
+        }
+    }
+
+    public int side(int number) {
+        return sideLengths[number];
+    }
+
+    public int perimeter() {
+        int total = 0;
+        for (int index = 0; index < sideLengths.length; index += 1) {
+            total += side(index);
+        }
+        return total;
+    }
+}
+
+class Rectangle extends Polygon {
+    public Rectangle(int l, int w) {
+        super(4, l, w, l, w);
+    }
+    public int area() {
+        return this.side(0)*this.side(1);
+    }
+}
+
+class Square extends Rectangle {
+    public Square(int l) {
+        super(l, l);
+    }
+    // public int area() {
+    //     return this.side(0)*this.side(1);
+    // }
+}
+
+class Shapes {
+    public static void main(String[] args) {
+        Rectangle wreck = new Rectangle(3, 5);
+
+        System.out.println(wreck.side(0)); // 3 1 point.
+        System.out.println(wreck.side(1)); // 5 1 point.
+        System.out.println(wreck.side(2)); // 3 1 point.
+        System.out.println(wreck.side(3)); // 5 1 point.
+        System.out.println(wreck.area()); // 15 1 point.
+        System.out.println(wreck.perimeter()); // 16 1 point.
+
+        Square nerd = new Square(7);
+
+        System.out.println(nerd.side(0)); // 7 1 point.
+        System.out.println(nerd.side(1)); // 7 1 point.
+        System.out.println(nerd.side(2)); // 7 1 point.
+        System.out.println(nerd.side(3)); // 7 1 point.
+        System.out.println(nerd.area()); // 49 1 point.
+        System.out.println(nerd.perimeter()); // 28 1 point.
+    }
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/csci1913/Java/lab7_strap012.java b/csci1913/Java/lab7_strap012.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..cfb89ed
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Java/lab7_strap012.java
@@ -0,0 +1,62 @@
+class BinaryVsLinear
+{
+
+  private static int linearSearch(int key, int[] keys)
+  {
+    int searchCount = 0;
+    for (int i=0; i<keys.length; i+=1) {
+      searchCount += 1;
+      if (keys[i]==key) {
+        return searchCount;
+      }
+    } return -1;
+  }
+  
+
+  private static int binarySearch(int key, int[] keys)
+  {
+    int left=0; int right=(keys.length-1); int mid=0;
+    int searchCount=0;
+    while (true) {
+      if (left>right) {
+        mid=-1;
+        break;
+      } else {
+        mid=(left+right)/2;
+        searchCount += 2;
+        if (key<keys[mid]) {
+          right=mid-1;
+        }
+        else if (key>keys[mid]) {
+          left=mid+1;
+        } else {
+          break;
+        }
+      }
+    } return searchCount;
+  }
+
+  public static void main(String[] args)
+  {
+    for (int length = 1; length <= 30; length += 1)
+    {
+      int[] array = new int[length];
+      for (int index = 0; index < length; index += 1)
+      {
+        array[index] = index;
+      }
+
+      double linearTotal = 0.0;
+      double binaryTotal = 0.0;
+      for (int element = 0; element < length; element += 1)
+      {
+        linearTotal += linearSearch(element, array);
+        binaryTotal += binarySearch(element, array);
+      }
+
+      double linearAverage = linearTotal / length;
+      double binaryAverage = binaryTotal / length;
+      System.out.println(length + " " + linearAverage + " " + binaryAverage);
+    }
+  }
+}
diff --git a/csci1913/Java/lab8_strap012.java b/csci1913/Java/lab8_strap012.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..5335f79
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Java/lab8_strap012.java
@@ -0,0 +1,166 @@
+class RunnyStack<Base> {
+    private int numRuns;
+    private int numDepth;
+    private Run top;
+    //Constructors
+    private class Run {
+        private Base base;
+        private int l;
+        private Run next;
+        private Run(Base base, Run next) {
+            this.base=base;
+            this.l=l+1;
+            this.next=next;
+        }
+    }
+    public RunnyStack() {
+        top=null;
+    }
+    //Methods
+    private boolean isEqual(Run b1, Base b2){
+        if (b1 == null || b2 == null) {
+            return b1 == b2;
+        } else {
+            return b1.base.equals(b2);
+        }
+    }
+    public boolean isEmpty() {
+        return top==null;
+    }
+    public int depth() {
+        return numDepth;
+    }
+    public Base peek() {
+        if (isEmpty()) {
+            throw new IllegalStateException();
+        } else {
+            return top.base;
+        }
+    }
+    public void pop() {
+        if (isEmpty()) {
+            throw new IllegalStateException();
+        } else {
+            top.l--;
+            numDepth--;
+            if (top.l == 0) {
+                top=top.next;
+                numRuns--;
+            }
+        }
+    }
+    public void push(Base base) {
+        numDepth++;
+        if (isEqual(top, base)) {
+            top.l++;
+        } else {
+            numRuns++;
+            top=new Run(base, top);
+        }
+    }
+    public int runs() {
+        return numRuns;
+    }
+   
+}
+
+//
+//  Tests for CSci 1913 Lab 8
+//  James Moen
+//  20 Mar 17
+//
+//  The TRY-CATCH statements catch exceptions thrown by RUNNY STACK's methods,
+//  so that the program can continue to run even if a method fails. We still
+//  haven't talked about TRY-CATCH'es in the lectures yet.
+//
+//  Most tests have comments that show what they should print, and how many
+//  points they are worth, for a total of 40 points.
+//
+//  Camembert is a soft French cheese. It may be runny. It can be stacked.
+//
+
+class Camembert {
+    public static void main(String[] args) {
+        RunnyStack<String> s = new RunnyStack<String>();
+
+        System.out.println(s.isEmpty()); // true 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.depth()); // 0 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.runs()); // 0 1 point
+
+        try {
+            s.pop();
+        } catch (IllegalStateException ignore) {
+            System.out.println("No pop"); // No pop 1 point
+        }
+
+        try {
+            System.out.println(s.peek());
+        } catch (IllegalStateException ignore) {
+            System.out.println("No peek"); // No peek 1 point
+        }
+
+        s.push("A");
+        System.out.println(s.peek()); // A 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.depth()); // 1 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.runs()); // 1 1 point
+
+        System.out.println(s.isEmpty()); // false 1 point
+
+        s.push("B");
+        System.out.println(s.peek()); // B 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.depth()); // 2 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.runs()); // 2 1 point
+
+        s.push("B");
+        System.out.println(s.peek()); // B 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.depth()); // 3 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.runs()); // 2 1 point
+
+        s.push("B");
+        System.out.println(s.peek()); // B 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.depth()); // 4 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.runs()); // 2 1 point
+
+        s.push("C");
+        System.out.println(s.peek()); // C 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.depth()); // 5 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.runs()); // 3 1 point
+
+        s.push("C");
+        System.out.println(s.peek()); // C 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.depth()); // 6 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.runs()); // 3 1 point
+
+        s.pop();
+        System.out.println(s.peek()); // C 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.depth()); // 5 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.runs()); // 3 1 point
+
+        s.pop();
+        System.out.println(s.peek()); // B 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.depth()); // 4 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.runs()); // 2 1 point
+
+        s.pop();
+        System.out.println(s.peek()); // B 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.depth()); // 3 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.runs()); // 2 1 point
+
+        s.pop();
+        s.pop();
+        System.out.println(s.peek()); // A 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.depth()); // 1 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.runs()); // 1 1 point
+
+        s.pop();
+        System.out.println(s.isEmpty()); // true 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.depth()); // 0 1 point
+        System.out.println(s.runs()); // 0 1 point
+
+        try {
+            System.out.println(s.peek());
+        } catch (IllegalStateException ignore) {
+            System.out.println("No peek"); // No peek 1 point
+        }
+    }
+}
diff --git a/csci1913/Java/lab9_strap012.java b/csci1913/Java/lab9_strap012.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..8dd0032
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Java/lab9_strap012.java
@@ -0,0 +1,139 @@
+import java.util.Iterator;
+
+//  ARRAY QUEUE. A fixed length queue implemented as a circular array.
+
+class ArrayQueue<Base> {
+    private int front; // Index of front object in BASES.
+    private int rear; // Index of rear object in BASES.
+    private Base[] bases; // The BASEs in the queue.
+
+    // Constructor. Make a new empty queue that can hold SIZE - 1 elements.
+
+    public ArrayQueue(int size) {
+        if (size >= 1) {
+            front = 0;
+            rear = 0;
+            bases = (Base[]) new Object[size];
+        } else {
+            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Size must be at least 1.");
+        }
+    }
+
+    // DEQUEUE. Remove a BASE from the front of the queue and return it.
+
+    public Base dequeue() {
+        if (isEmpty()) {
+            throw new IllegalStateException("Queue is empty.");
+        } else {
+            front = (front + 1) % bases.length;
+            Base temp = bases[front];
+            bases[front] = null;
+            return temp;
+        }
+    }
+
+    // ENQUEUE. Add BASE to the rear of the queue.
+
+    public void enqueue(Base base) {
+        int nextRear = (rear + 1) % bases.length;
+        if (front == nextRear) {
+            throw new IllegalStateException("Queue is full.");
+        } else {
+            rear = nextRear;
+            bases[rear] = base;
+        }
+    }
+
+    // IS EMPTY. Test if the queue is empty.
+
+    public boolean isEmpty() {
+        return front == rear;
+    }
+
+    // IS FULL. Test if the queue can hold no more elements.
+
+    public boolean isFull() {
+        return front == (rear + 1) % bases.length;
+    }
+
+    private class ArrayQueueIterator implements Iterator<Base> {
+        private int where;
+        private ArrayQueueIterator() {
+            where = (front + 1) % bases.length;
+        }
+        public boolean hasNext() {
+            return where != (rear + 1 ) % bases.length;
+        }
+        public Base next() {
+            if (hasNext()){
+                Base temp = bases[where];
+                where = (where + 1) % bases.length;
+                return temp;
+            } else {
+                throw new IllegalStateException("Queue is at its end.");
+            }
+        }
+        public void remove() {
+            //Do nothing
+        }
+    }
+    public Iterator<Base> iterator() {
+        return new ArrayQueueIterator();
+    }
+}
+
+
+// QUEUETERATOR. Test ARRAY QUEUE's iterator. It's worth 20 points.
+
+class Queueterator {
+
+    // MAIN. Start execution here.
+
+    public static void main(String[] args) {
+
+        // Make an ARRAY QUEUE and enqueue some STRINGs. It can hold at most three.
+
+        ArrayQueue<String> queue = new ArrayQueue<String>(4);
+
+        queue.enqueue("A");
+        queue.enqueue("B");
+        queue.enqueue("C");
+
+        // Make a FIRST iterator for QUEUE and use it to visit QUEUE's elements.
+
+        Iterator<String> first = queue.iterator();
+        while (first.hasNext()) {
+            System.out.println(first.next()); // A B C one per line 5 pts.
+        }
+
+        // Make sure FIRST hasn't changed QUEUE.
+
+        System.out.println(queue.isEmpty()); // false 1 pt.
+        System.out.println(queue.dequeue()); // A 1 pt.
+        System.out.println(queue.dequeue()); // B 1 pt.
+        System.out.println(queue.dequeue()); // C 1 pt.
+        System.out.println(queue.isEmpty()); // true 1 pt.
+
+        // Let's enqueue more three more things to QUEUE.
+
+        queue.enqueue("X");
+        queue.enqueue("Y");
+        queue.enqueue("Z");
+
+        // Now make a SECOND iterator for QUEUE. The FIRST one does not work any more,
+        // because QUEUE has changed. Use SECOND to visit QUEUE's new elements.
+
+        Iterator<String> second = queue.iterator();
+        while (second.hasNext()) {
+            System.out.println(second.next()); // X Y Z one per line 5 pts.
+        }
+
+        // The new iterator hasn't changed QUEUE either.
+
+        System.out.println(queue.isEmpty()); // false 1 pt.
+        System.out.println(queue.dequeue()); // X 1 pt.
+        System.out.println(queue.dequeue()); // Y 1 pt.
+        System.out.println(queue.dequeue()); // Z 1 pt.
+        System.out.println(queue.isEmpty()); // true 1 pt.
+    }
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/csci1913/Java/project2_strap012.java b/csci1913/Java/project2_strap012.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..3cbfa80
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Java/project2_strap012.java
@@ -0,0 +1,148 @@
+//  SORT. Sort a linear singly-linked list of INTs.
+
+class Sort {
+
+    // NODE. A node in a linear singly linked list of INTs.
+
+    private static class Node {
+        private int number; // The INT in the node, duh.
+        private Node next; // The NODE that follows this one, or NULL.
+
+        // Constructor. Initialize a new NODE with NUMBER and NEXT.
+
+        private Node(int number, Node next) {
+            this.number = number;
+            this.next = next;
+        }
+    }
+
+    // MAKE NODES. Return a list of NODEs that contains INTs from NUMBERS in order
+    // of their appearance.
+
+    private static Node makeNodes(int... numbers) {
+        if (numbers.length > 0) {
+            Node first = new Node(numbers[0], null);
+            Node last = first;
+            for (int index = 1; index < numbers.length; index += 1) {
+                last.next = new Node(numbers[index], null);
+                last = last.next;
+            }
+            return first;
+        } else {
+            return null;
+        }
+    }
+
+    // WRITE NODES. Write the INTs from a list of NODEs in paired square brackets,
+    // separated by commas, with a newline at the end.
+
+    private static void writeNodes(Node nodes) {
+        System.out.print('[');
+        if (nodes != null) {
+            System.out.print(nodes.number);
+            nodes = nodes.next;
+            while (nodes != null) {
+                System.out.print(", ");
+                System.out.print(nodes.number);
+                nodes = nodes.next;
+            }
+        }
+        System.out.println(']');
+    }
+
+    // SORT NODES. Sort UNSORTED, a list of NODEs, into nondecreasing order of its
+    // NUMBER slots, without making new NODEs.
+
+    private static Node sortNodes(Node unsorted) {
+        Node left = null, right = null;
+        if (unsorted==null || unsorted.next==null) {
+        //unsorted is either empty or of length 1
+            return unsorted;
+        } 
+        //Halving phase
+        else {
+            int step = 1;
+            while (unsorted != null) {
+                Node next = unsorted.next;
+                if (step % 2 == 0) {    //Even case
+                    //Pops out first value and puts into Right
+                    unsorted.next = right;
+                    right = unsorted;
+                } else {                //Odd case
+                    // Pops out first value and puts into Left
+                    unsorted.next = left;
+                    left = unsorted; 
+                }
+                step++;
+                unsorted = next;
+            }
+        }
+        //Sorting (recursive) Phase
+        left = sortNodes(left);
+        right = sortNodes(right);
+
+        //Combining phase, variables needed for Q funs
+        Node end = null, temp = null, sorted = null;
+        //Special Initial Case
+        if (left.number < right.number) {
+            sorted = left; 
+            end = left;
+            temp = left.next;
+            left = temp;
+            end.next = null;
+        } else {
+            temp = right.next;
+            sorted = right;
+            end = right;
+            right = temp;
+            end.next = null;
+        }
+        //Loop for rearranging pointers. Easily the hardest part of the assignment
+        while (left != null && right != null) {
+            if (left.number < right.number) {
+                end.next = left;
+                end = left;
+                temp = left.next;
+                end.next = null;
+                left = temp;
+            } else { //Right is smaller or equal, put it at the end.
+                end.next = right;
+                end = right;
+                temp = right.next;
+                end.next = null;
+                right = temp;
+            }
+        } 
+
+        if (left == null) {
+            end.next=right;
+        } else if (right == null) {
+            end.next=left;
+        }
+        return sorted;
+    }
+
+    // MAIN. Run some examples. The comments show what must be printed.
+
+    public static void main(String[] args) {
+        writeNodes(sortNodes(makeNodes())); // []
+        writeNodes(sortNodes(makeNodes(1))); // [1]
+        writeNodes(sortNodes(makeNodes(1, 2))); // [1, 2]
+        writeNodes(sortNodes(makeNodes(2, 1))); // [1, 2]
+
+        writeNodes(sortNodes(makeNodes(1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)));
+        // [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
+
+        writeNodes(sortNodes(makeNodes(9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1)));
+        // [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
+
+        writeNodes(sortNodes(makeNodes(3, 1, 4, 5, 9, 2, 6, 8, 7)));
+        // [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
+
+        writeNodes(sortNodes(makeNodes(5,5,5,1,2,3,6,90,12,1,14)));
+        // [1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 5, 6, 12, 14, 90]
+
+        writeNodes(sortNodes(makeNodes(1, 100, 6, 100, 1, 15, 10000, 12, 2, 0, -15)));
+        // [-15, 0, 1, 1, 2, 6, 12, 15, 100, 100, 10000]
+    }
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/csci1913/Java/project3/Words.java b/csci1913/Java/project3/Words.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..0487267
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Java/project3/Words.java
@@ -0,0 +1,90 @@
+package project3;
+//
+//  WORDS. An iterator that reads lower case words from a text file.
+//
+//    James Moen
+//    19 Apr 17
+//
+
+import java.io.FileReader; //  Read Unicode chars from a file.
+import java.io.IOException; //  In case there's IO trouble.
+
+//  WORDS. Iterator. Read words, represented as STRINGs, from a text file. Each
+//  word is the longest possible contiguous series of alphabetic ASCII CHARs.
+
+class Words {
+    private int ch; // Last CHAR from READER, as an INT.
+    private FileReader reader; // Read CHARs from here.
+    private StringBuilder word; // Last word read from READER.
+
+    // Constructor. Initialize an instance of WORDS, so it reads words from a file
+    // whose pathname is PATH. Throw an exception if we can't open PATH.
+
+    public Words(String path) {
+        try {
+            reader = new FileReader(path);
+            ch = reader.read();
+        } catch (IOException ignore) {
+            throw new IllegalArgumentException("Cannot open '" + path + "'.");
+        }
+    }
+
+    // HAS NEXT. Try to read a WORD from READER, converting it to lower case as we
+    // go. Test if we were successful.
+
+    public boolean hasNext() {
+        word = new StringBuilder();
+        while (ch > 0 && !isAlphabetic((char) ch)) {
+            read();
+        }
+        while (ch > 0 && isAlphabetic((char) ch)) {
+            word.append(toLower((char) ch));
+            read();
+        }
+        return word.length() > 0;
+    }
+
+    // IS ALPHABETIC. Test if CH is an ASCII letter.
+
+    private boolean isAlphabetic(char ch) {
+        return 'a' <= ch && ch <= 'z' || 'A' <= ch && ch <= 'Z';
+    }
+
+    // NEXT. If HAS NEXT is true, then return a WORD read from READER as a STRING.
+    // Otherwise, return an undefined STRING.
+
+    public String next() {
+        return word.toString();
+    }
+
+    // READ. Read the next CHAR from READER. Set CH to the CHAR, represented as an
+    // INT. If there are no more CHARs to be read from READER, then set CH to -1.
+
+    private void read() {
+        try {
+            ch = reader.read();
+        } catch (IOException ignore) {
+            ch = -1;
+        }
+    }
+
+    // TO LOWER. Return the lower case ASCII letter which corresponds to the ASCII
+    // letter CH.
+
+    private char toLower(char ch) {
+        if ('a' <= ch && ch <= 'z') {
+            return ch;
+        } else {
+            return (char) (ch - 'A' + 'a');
+        }
+    }
+    // MAIN. For testing. Open a text file whose pathname is the 0th argument from
+    // the command line. Read words from the file, and print them one per line.
+
+    public static void main(String[] args) {
+        Words words = new Words(args[0]);
+        while (words.hasNext()) {
+            System.out.println("'" + words.next() + "'");
+        }
+    }
+}
diff --git a/csci1913/Java/project3/project3_strap012.java b/csci1913/Java/project3/project3_strap012.java
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..ff4ce3a
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Java/project3/project3_strap012.java
@@ -0,0 +1,118 @@
+//package used to bundle with Words class
+package project3;
+class AnagramTree {
+    private TreeNode head;
+    private class TreeNode {
+        private byte[] summary;
+        private WordNode words;
+        private TreeNode left, right;
+        private TreeNode(String word, byte[] summary) {
+            words = new WordNode(word, null);
+            this.summary = summary;
+            left = null; right = null;
+        }
+    }
+
+    private class WordNode {
+        private String word;
+        private WordNode next;
+        private WordNode(String word, WordNode next) {
+            this.word = word;
+            this.next = next;
+        }
+    }
+
+    public AnagramTree() {
+        head = new TreeNode(null, null);
+    }
+
+    public void add (String word) {
+        byte [] newSumm = new byte [26];
+        newSumm = stringToSummary(word);
+        TreeNode top = head, bottom = top.right;
+        boolean goLeft = false, addWord = false;
+        while (bottom != null) {
+            int comp = compareSummaries(bottom.summary, newSumm);
+            if (comp > 0) {        // left is greater than right, go left
+                top = bottom;
+                goLeft = true;
+                bottom = bottom.left;
+            } else if (comp < 0) { // right is greater, go right
+                top = bottom;
+                goLeft = false;
+                bottom = bottom.right;
+            } else {
+                WordNode badNode = bottom.words;
+                boolean wordExists = false;
+                while (badNode != null) {
+                //Traverse word list to find already added entries
+                    if (badNode.word.equals(word)) {
+                        wordExists = true;
+                        break;
+                    }    
+                    badNode = badNode.next; 
+                }
+                if (!wordExists)
+                    bottom.words = new WordNode(word, bottom.words);
+                addWord = true;
+                break;
+            }
+        }   
+        if (!addWord) {     //Word was not added, add it
+            if (goLeft)
+                top.left = new TreeNode(word, newSumm);
+            else
+                top.right = new TreeNode(word, newSumm);
+        }
+    } 
+
+    public void anagrams() {
+        findAnagrams(head.right);
+    }
+
+    private void findAnagrams(TreeNode subtree) {
+        if (subtree != null) {
+            if (subtree.words.next != null) {
+                System.out.println();
+                while (subtree.words != null) {
+                    System.out.print(subtree.words.word);
+                    System.out.print(" ");
+                    subtree.words = subtree.words.next;
+                }
+            }
+            findAnagrams(subtree.left);
+            findAnagrams(subtree.right);
+        }
+    }
+    
+    private int compareSummaries(byte[] left, byte[] right) {
+        for (int i = 0; i <= 25; i++) {
+            if (left[i] != right[i]) {
+                return left[i] - right[i];
+            }
+        }
+        //Summaries are identical here
+        return 0;
+    }
+
+    private byte[] stringToSummary(String word) {
+        byte[] temp = new byte[26];
+        for (byte i = 0; i < word.length(); i++) {
+            temp[word.charAt(i) - 'a'] += 1;
+        }
+        return temp;
+    }
+}
+
+class Anagrammer {
+    public static void main(String[] args) {
+        Words words = new Words(args[0]);
+        AnagramTree anagrams = new AnagramTree();
+        while (words.hasNext()) {
+            anagrams.add(words.next());
+        }
+        anagrams.anagrams();
+        //Print extra line for neatness
+        System.out.println();
+    }
+}
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/csci1913/Java/project3/warAndPeace.txt b/csci1913/Java/project3/warAndPeace.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..9ad28f9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Java/project3/warAndPeace.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,66055 @@
+

+The Project Gutenberg EBook of War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy

+

+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost

+no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use

+it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this

+eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org

+

+

+Title: War and Peace

+

+Author: Leo Tolstoy

+

+Translators: Louise and Aylmer Maude

+

+Posting Date: January 10, 2009 [EBook #2600]

+

+Last Updated: December 17, 2016

+

+Language: English

+

+Character set encoding: UTF-8

+

+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAR AND PEACE ***

+

+

+

+

+An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger

+

+

+

+

+

+

+WAR AND PEACE

+

+

+By Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi

+

+

+

+

+

+    CONTENTS

+

+

+    BOOK ONE: 1805

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIV

+

+    CHAPTER XV

+

+    CHAPTER XVI

+

+    CHAPTER XVII

+

+    CHAPTER XVIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIX

+

+    CHAPTER XX

+

+    CHAPTER XXI

+

+    CHAPTER XXII

+

+    CHAPTER XXIII

+

+    CHAPTER XXIV

+

+    CHAPTER XXV

+

+    CHAPTER XXVI

+

+    CHAPTER XXVII

+

+    CHAPTER XXVIII

+

+

+    BOOK TWO: 1805

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIV

+

+    CHAPTER XV

+

+    CHAPTER XVI

+

+    CHAPTER XVII

+

+    CHAPTER XVIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIX

+

+    CHAPTER XX

+

+    CHAPTER XXI

+

+

+    BOOK THREE: 1805

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIV

+

+    CHAPTER XV

+

+    CHAPTER XVI

+

+    CHAPTER XVII

+

+    CHAPTER XVIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIX

+

+

+    BOOK FOUR: 1806

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIV

+

+    CHAPTER XV

+

+    CHAPTER XVI

+

+

+    BOOK FIVE: 1806 - 07

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIV

+

+    CHAPTER XV

+

+    CHAPTER XVI

+

+    CHAPTER XVII

+

+    CHAPTER XVIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIX

+

+    CHAPTER XX

+

+    CHAPTER XXI

+

+    CHAPTER XXII

+

+

+    BOOK SIX: 1808 - 10

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIV

+

+    CHAPTER XV

+

+    CHAPTER XVI

+

+    CHAPTER XVII

+

+    CHAPTER XVIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIX

+

+    CHAPTER XX

+

+    CHAPTER XXI

+

+    CHAPTER XXII

+

+    CHAPTER XXIII

+

+    CHAPTER XXIV

+

+    CHAPTER XXV

+

+    CHAPTER XXVI

+

+

+    BOOK SEVEN: 1810 - 11

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+

+    BOOK EIGHT: 1811 - 12

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIV

+

+    CHAPTER XV

+

+    CHAPTER XVI

+

+    CHAPTER XVII

+

+    CHAPTER XVIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIX

+

+    CHAPTER XX

+

+    CHAPTER XXI

+

+    CHAPTER XXII

+

+

+    BOOK NINE: 1812

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIV

+

+    CHAPTER XV

+

+    CHAPTER XVI

+

+    CHAPTER XVII

+

+    CHAPTER XVIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIX

+

+    CHAPTER XX

+

+    CHAPTER XXI

+

+    CHAPTER XXII

+

+    CHAPTER XXIII

+

+

+    BOOK TEN: 1812

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIV

+

+    CHAPTER XV

+

+    CHAPTER XVI

+

+    CHAPTER XVII

+

+    CHAPTER XVIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIX

+

+    CHAPTER XX

+

+    CHAPTER XXI

+

+    CHAPTER XXII

+

+    CHAPTER XXIII

+

+    CHAPTER XXIV

+

+    CHAPTER XXV

+

+    CHAPTER XXVI

+

+    CHAPTER XXVII

+

+    CHAPTER XXVIII

+

+    CHAPTER XXIX

+

+    CHAPTER XXX

+

+    CHAPTER XXXI

+

+    CHAPTER XXXII

+

+    CHAPTER XXXIII

+

+    CHAPTER XXXIV

+

+    CHAPTER XXXV

+

+    CHAPTER XXXVI

+

+    CHAPTER XXXVII

+

+    CHAPTER XXXVIII

+

+    CHAPTER XXXIX

+

+

+    BOOK ELEVEN: 1812

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIV

+

+    CHAPTER XV

+

+    CHAPTER XVI

+

+    CHAPTER XVII

+

+    CHAPTER XVIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIX

+

+    CHAPTER XX

+

+    CHAPTER XXI

+

+    CHAPTER XXII

+

+    CHAPTER XXIII

+

+    CHAPTER XXIV

+

+    CHAPTER XXV

+

+    CHAPTER XXVI

+

+    CHAPTER XXVII

+

+    CHAPTER XXVIII

+

+    CHAPTER XXIX

+

+    CHAPTER XXX

+

+    CHAPTER XXXI

+

+    CHAPTER XXXII

+

+    CHAPTER XXXIII

+

+    CHAPTER XXXIV

+

+

+    BOOK TWELVE: 1812

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIV

+

+    CHAPTER XV

+

+    CHAPTER XVI

+

+

+    BOOK THIRTEEN: 1812

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIV

+

+    CHAPTER XV

+

+    CHAPTER XVI

+

+    CHAPTER XVII

+

+    CHAPTER XVIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIX

+

+

+    BOOK FOURTEEN: 1812

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIV

+

+    CHAPTER XV

+

+    CHAPTER XVI

+

+    CHAPTER XVII

+

+    CHAPTER XVIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIX

+

+

+    BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIV

+

+    CHAPTER XV

+

+    CHAPTER XVI

+

+    CHAPTER XVII

+

+    CHAPTER XVIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIX

+

+    CHAPTER XX

+

+

+    FIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+    CHAPTER XIII

+

+    CHAPTER XIV

+

+    CHAPTER XV

+

+    CHAPTER XVI

+

+

+    SECOND EPILOGUE

+

+    CHAPTER I

+

+    CHAPTER II

+

+    CHAPTER III

+

+    CHAPTER IV

+

+    CHAPTER V

+

+    CHAPTER VI

+

+    CHAPTER VII

+

+    CHAPTER VIII

+

+    CHAPTER IX

+

+    CHAPTER X

+

+    CHAPTER XI

+

+    CHAPTER XII

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+BOOK ONE: 1805

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+“Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the

+Buonapartes. But I warn you, if you don’t tell me that this means war,

+if you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that

+Antichrist—I really believe he is Antichrist—I will have nothing

+more to do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my

+‘faithful slave,’ as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I

+have frightened you—sit down and tell me all the news.”

+

+It was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pávlovna

+Schérer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Márya Fëdorovna.

+With these words she greeted Prince Vasíli Kurágin, a man of high

+rank and importance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna

+Pávlovna had had a cough for some days. She was, as she said, suffering

+from la grippe; grippe being then a new word in St. Petersburg, used

+only by the elite.

+

+All her invitations without exception, written in French, and delivered

+by a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:

+

+“If you have nothing better to do, Count (or Prince), and if the

+prospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible,

+I shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10—Annette

+Schérer.”

+

+“Heavens! what a virulent attack!” replied the prince, not in the

+least disconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an

+embroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had stars on

+his breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that

+refined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought, and

+with the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of importance

+who had grown old in society and at court. He went up to Anna Pávlovna,

+kissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented, and shining head,

+and complacently seated himself on the sofa.

+

+“First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend’s

+mind at rest,” said he without altering his tone, beneath the

+politeness and affected sympathy of which indifference and even irony

+could be discerned.

+

+“Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times

+like these if one has any feeling?” said Anna Pávlovna. “You are

+staying the whole evening, I hope?”

+

+“And the fete at the English ambassador’s? Today is Wednesday. I

+must put in an appearance there,” said the prince. “My daughter is

+coming for me to take me there.”

+

+“I thought today’s fete had been canceled. I confess all these

+festivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome.”

+

+“If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have

+been put off,” said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force

+of habit said things he did not even wish to be believed.

+

+“Don’t tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosíltsev’s

+dispatch? You know everything.”

+

+“What can one say about it?” replied the prince in a cold, listless

+tone. “What has been decided? They have decided that Buonaparte has

+burnt his boats, and I believe that we are ready to burn ours.”

+

+Prince Vasíli always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a stale

+part. Anna Pávlovna Schérer on the contrary, despite her forty years,

+overflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had

+become her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not

+feel like it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the

+expectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile which, though it

+did not suit her faded features, always played round her lips expressed,

+as in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her charming defect,

+which she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it necessary, to

+correct.

+

+In the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pávlovna burst

+out:

+

+“Oh, don’t speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don’t understand

+things, but Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war. She

+is betraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign

+recognizes his high vocation and will be true to it. That is the one

+thing I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign has to perform

+the noblest role on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble that God will

+not forsake him. He will fulfill his vocation and crush the hydra of

+revolution, which has become more terrible than ever in the person of

+this murderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood of the just

+one.... Whom, I ask you, can we rely on?... England with her commercial

+spirit will not and cannot understand the Emperor Alexander’s

+loftiness of soul. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She wanted to

+find, and still seeks, some secret motive in our actions. What answer

+did Novosíltsev get? None. The English have not understood and cannot

+understand the self-abnegation of our Emperor who wants nothing for

+himself, but only desires the good of mankind. And what have they

+promised? Nothing! And what little they have promised they will not

+perform! Prussia has always declared that Buonaparte is invincible, and

+that all Europe is powerless before him.... And I don’t believe a

+word that Hardenburg says, or Haugwitz either. This famous Prussian

+neutrality is just a trap. I have faith only in God and the lofty

+destiny of our adored monarch. He will save Europe!”

+

+She suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity.

+

+“I think,” said the prince with a smile, “that if you had been

+sent instead of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the King

+of Prussia’s consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you give me

+a cup of tea?”

+

+“In a moment. À propos,” she added, becoming calm again, “I am

+expecting two very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Mortemart, who

+is connected with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of the best

+French families. He is one of the genuine émigrés, the good ones. And

+also the Abbé Morio. Do you know that profound thinker? He has been

+received by the Emperor. Had you heard?”

+

+“I shall be delighted to meet them,” said the prince. “But

+tell me,” he added with studied carelessness as if it had only just

+occurred to him, though the question he was about to ask was the chief

+motive of his visit, “is it true that the Dowager Empress wants

+Baron Funke to be appointed first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all

+accounts is a poor creature.”

+

+Prince Vasíli wished to obtain this post for his son, but others were

+trying through the Dowager Empress Márya Fëdorovna to secure it for

+the baron.

+

+Anna Pávlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she nor

+anyone else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or was

+pleased with.

+

+“Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by her

+sister,” was all she said, in a dry and mournful tone.

+

+As she named the Empress, Anna Pávlovna’s face suddenly assumed an

+expression of profound and sincere devotion and respect mingled with

+sadness, and this occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious

+patroness. She added that Her Majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke

+beaucoup d’estime, and again her face clouded over with sadness.

+

+The prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly and

+courtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pávlovna

+wished both to rebuke him (for daring to speak as he had done of a man

+recommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him, so she

+said:

+

+“Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came

+out everyone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly

+beautiful.”

+

+The prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude.

+

+“I often think,” she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer

+to the prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that political

+and social topics were ended and the time had come for intimate

+conversation—“I often think how unfairly sometimes the joys of life

+are distributed. Why has fate given you two such splendid children?

+I don’t speak of Anatole, your youngest. I don’t like him,” she

+added in a tone admitting of no rejoinder and raising her eyebrows.

+“Two such charming children. And really you appreciate them less than

+anyone, and so you don’t deserve to have them.”

+

+And she smiled her ecstatic smile.

+

+“I can’t help it,” said the prince. “Lavater would have said I

+lack the bump of paternity.”

+

+“Don’t joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know

+I am dissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves” (and her

+face assumed its melancholy expression), “he was mentioned at Her

+Majesty’s and you were pitied....”

+

+The prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly,

+awaiting a reply. He frowned.

+

+“What would you have me do?” he said at last. “You know I did all

+a father could for their education, and they have both turned out fools.

+Hippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active one. That

+is the only difference between them.” He said this smiling in a way

+more natural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles round

+his mouth very clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse and

+unpleasant.

+

+“And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a

+father there would be nothing I could reproach you with,” said Anna

+Pávlovna, looking up pensively.

+

+“I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my

+children are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That

+is how I explain it to myself. It can’t be helped!”

+

+He said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a

+gesture. Anna Pávlovna meditated.

+

+“Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?” she

+asked. “They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and though I

+don’t feel that weakness in myself as yet, I know a little person who

+is very unhappy with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess

+Mary Bolkónskaya.”

+

+Prince Vasíli did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory and

+perception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a movement of

+the head that he was considering this information.

+

+“Do you know,” he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad

+current of his thoughts, “that Anatole is costing me forty thousand

+rubles a year? And,” he went on after a pause, “what will it be in

+five years, if he goes on like this?” Presently he added: “That’s

+what we fathers have to put up with.... Is this princess of yours

+rich?”

+

+“Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is

+the well-known Prince Bolkónski who had to retire from the army under

+the late Emperor, and was nicknamed ‘the King of Prussia.’ He is

+very clever but eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy.

+She has a brother; I think you know him, he married Lise Meinen lately.

+He is an aide-de-camp of Kutúzov’s and will be here tonight.”

+

+“Listen, dear Annette,” said the prince, suddenly taking Anna

+Pávlovna’s hand and for some reason drawing it downwards. “Arrange

+that affair for me and I shall always be your most devoted slave-slafe

+with an f, as a village elder of mine writes in his reports. She is rich

+and of good family and that’s all I want.”

+

+And with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised the

+maid of honor’s hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and fro

+as he lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction.

+

+“Attendez,” said Anna Pávlovna, reflecting, “I’ll speak to

+Lise, young Bolkónski’s wife, this very evening, and perhaps the

+thing can be arranged. It shall be on your family’s behalf that I’ll

+start my apprenticeship as old maid.”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+Anna Pávlovna’s drawing room was gradually filling. The highest

+Petersburg society was assembled there: people differing widely in age

+and character but alike in the social circle to which they belonged.

+Prince Vasíli’s daughter, the beautiful Hélène, came to take her

+father to the ambassador’s entertainment; she wore a ball dress and

+her badge as maid of honor. The youthful little Princess Bolkónskaya,

+known as la femme la plus séduisante de Pétersbourg, * was also there.

+She had been married during the previous winter, and being pregnant did

+not go to any large gatherings, but only to small receptions. Prince

+Vasíli’s son, Hippolyte, had come with Mortemart, whom he introduced.

+The Abbé Morio and many others had also come.

+

+     * The most fascinating woman in Petersburg.

+

+To each new arrival Anna Pávlovna said, “You have not yet seen my

+aunt,” or “You do not know my aunt?” and very gravely conducted

+him or her to a little old lady, wearing large bows of ribbon in her

+cap, who had come sailing in from another room as soon as the guests

+began to arrive; and slowly turning her eyes from the visitor to her

+aunt, Anna Pávlovna mentioned each one’s name and then left them.

+

+Each visitor performed the ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom not

+one of them knew, not one of them wanted to know, and not one of them

+cared about; Anna Pávlovna observed these greetings with mournful and

+solemn interest and silent approval. The aunt spoke to each of them in

+the same words, about their health and her own, and the health of Her

+Majesty, “who, thank God, was better today.” And each visitor,

+though politeness prevented his showing impatience, left the old woman

+with a sense of relief at having performed a vexatious duty and did not

+return to her the whole evening.

+

+The young Princess Bolkónskaya had brought some work in a

+gold-embroidered velvet bag. Her pretty little upper lip, on which a

+delicate dark down was just perceptible, was too short for her teeth,

+but it lifted all the more sweetly, and was especially charming when she

+occasionally drew it down to meet the lower lip. As is always the case

+with a thoroughly attractive woman, her defect—the shortness of her

+upper lip and her half-open mouth—seemed to be her own special and

+peculiar form of beauty. Everyone brightened at the sight of this pretty

+young woman, so soon to become a mother, so full of life and health, and

+carrying her burden so lightly. Old men and dull dispirited young ones

+who looked at her, after being in her company and talking to her a

+little while, felt as if they too were becoming, like her, full of life

+and health. All who talked to her, and at each word saw her bright smile

+and the constant gleam of her white teeth, thought that they were in a

+specially amiable mood that day.

+

+The little princess went round the table with quick, short, swaying

+steps, her workbag on her arm, and gaily spreading out her dress sat

+down on a sofa near the silver samovar, as if all she was doing was a

+pleasure to herself and to all around her. “I have brought my work,”

+said she in French, displaying her bag and addressing all present.

+“Mind, Annette, I hope you have not played a wicked trick on me,”

+she added, turning to her hostess. “You wrote that it was to be quite

+a small reception, and just see how badly I am dressed.” And she

+spread out her arms to show her short-waisted, lace-trimmed, dainty gray

+dress, girdled with a broad ribbon just below the breast.

+

+“Soyez tranquille, Lise, you will always be prettier than anyone

+else,” replied Anna Pávlovna.

+

+“You know,” said the princess in the same tone of voice and still in

+French, turning to a general, “my husband is deserting me? He is going

+to get himself killed. Tell me what this wretched war is for?” she

+added, addressing Prince Vasíli, and without waiting for an answer she

+turned to speak to his daughter, the beautiful Hélène.

+

+“What a delightful woman this little princess is!” said Prince

+Vasíli to Anna Pávlovna.

+

+One of the next arrivals was a stout, heavily built young man with

+close-cropped hair, spectacles, the light-colored breeches fashionable

+at that time, a very high ruffle, and a brown dress coat. This stout

+young man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezúkhov, a well-known

+grandee of Catherine’s time who now lay dying in Moscow. The young man

+had not yet entered either the military or civil service, as he had only

+just returned from abroad where he had been educated, and this was his

+first appearance in society. Anna Pávlovna greeted him with the nod she

+accorded to the lowest hierarchy in her drawing room. But in spite of

+this lowest-grade greeting, a look of anxiety and fear, as at the sight

+of something too large and unsuited to the place, came over her face

+when she saw Pierre enter. Though he was certainly rather bigger than

+the other men in the room, her anxiety could only have reference to

+the clever though shy, but observant and natural, expression which

+distinguished him from everyone else in that drawing room.

+

+“It is very good of you, Monsieur Pierre, to come and visit a poor

+invalid,” said Anna Pávlovna, exchanging an alarmed glance with her

+aunt as she conducted him to her.

+

+Pierre murmured something unintelligible, and continued to look round as

+if in search of something. On his way to the aunt he bowed to the little

+princess with a pleased smile, as to an intimate acquaintance.

+

+Anna Pávlovna’s alarm was justified, for Pierre turned away from the

+aunt without waiting to hear her speech about Her Majesty’s health.

+Anna Pávlovna in dismay detained him with the words: “Do you know the

+Abbé Morio? He is a most interesting man.”

+

+“Yes, I have heard of his scheme for perpetual peace, and it is very

+interesting but hardly feasible.”

+

+“You think so?” rejoined Anna Pávlovna in order to say something

+and get away to attend to her duties as hostess. But Pierre now

+committed a reverse act of impoliteness. First he had left a lady before

+she had finished speaking to him, and now he continued to speak to

+another who wished to get away. With his head bent, and his big feet

+spread apart, he began explaining his reasons for thinking the abbé’s

+plan chimerical.

+

+“We will talk of it later,” said Anna Pávlovna with a smile.

+

+And having got rid of this young man who did not know how to behave, she

+resumed her duties as hostess and continued to listen and watch, ready

+to help at any point where the conversation might happen to flag. As

+the foreman of a spinning mill, when he has set the hands to work, goes

+round and notices here a spindle that has stopped or there one that

+creaks or makes more noise than it should, and hastens to check the

+machine or set it in proper motion, so Anna Pávlovna moved about her

+drawing room, approaching now a silent, now a too-noisy group, and by a

+word or slight rearrangement kept the conversational machine in steady,

+proper, and regular motion. But amid these cares her anxiety about

+Pierre was evident. She kept an anxious watch on him when he approached

+the group round Mortemart to listen to what was being said there, and

+again when he passed to another group whose center was the abbé.

+

+Pierre had been educated abroad, and this reception at Anna

+Pávlovna’s was the first he had attended in Russia. He knew that all

+the intellectual lights of Petersburg were gathered there and, like a

+child in a toyshop, did not know which way to look, afraid of missing

+any clever conversation that was to be heard. Seeing the self-confident

+and refined expression on the faces of those present he was always

+expecting to hear something very profound. At last he came up to Morio.

+Here the conversation seemed interesting and he stood waiting for an

+opportunity to express his own views, as young people are fond of doing.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+Anna Pávlovna’s reception was in full swing. The spindles hummed

+steadily and ceaselessly on all sides. With the exception of the aunt,

+beside whom sat only one elderly lady, who with her thin careworn face

+was rather out of place in this brilliant society, the whole company had

+settled into three groups. One, chiefly masculine, had formed round

+the abbé. Another, of young people, was grouped round the beautiful

+Princess Hélène, Prince Vasíli’s daughter, and the little Princess

+Bolkónskaya, very pretty and rosy, though rather too plump for her age.

+The third group was gathered round Mortemart and Anna Pávlovna.

+

+The vicomte was a nice-looking young man with soft features and polished

+manners, who evidently considered himself a celebrity but out of

+politeness modestly placed himself at the disposal of the circle in

+which he found himself. Anna Pávlovna was obviously serving him up as

+a treat to her guests. As a clever maître d’hôtel serves up as a

+specially choice delicacy a piece of meat that no one who had seen it in

+the kitchen would have cared to eat, so Anna Pávlovna served up to

+her guests, first the vicomte and then the abbé, as peculiarly choice

+morsels. The group about Mortemart immediately began discussing the

+murder of the Duc d’Enghien. The vicomte said that the Duc d’Enghien

+had perished by his own magnanimity, and that there were particular

+reasons for Buonaparte’s hatred of him.

+

+“Ah, yes! Do tell us all about it, Vicomte,” said Anna Pávlovna,

+with a pleasant feeling that there was something à la Louis XV in the

+sound of that sentence: “Contez nous çela, Vicomte.”

+

+The vicomte bowed and smiled courteously in token of his willingness to

+comply. Anna Pávlovna arranged a group round him, inviting everyone to

+listen to his tale.

+

+“The vicomte knew the duc personally,” whispered Anna Pávlovna to

+one of the guests. “The vicomte is a wonderful raconteur,” said she

+to another. “How evidently he belongs to the best society,” said she

+to a third; and the vicomte was served up to the company in the choicest

+and most advantageous style, like a well-garnished joint of roast beef

+on a hot dish.

+

+The vicomte wished to begin his story and gave a subtle smile.

+

+“Come over here, Hélène, dear,” said Anna Pávlovna to the

+beautiful young princess who was sitting some way off, the center of

+another group.

+

+The princess smiled. She rose with the same unchanging smile with which

+she had first entered the room—the smile of a perfectly beautiful

+woman. With a slight rustle of her white dress trimmed with moss

+and ivy, with a gleam of white shoulders, glossy hair, and sparkling

+diamonds, she passed between the men who made way for her, not looking

+at any of them but smiling on all, as if graciously allowing each the

+privilege of admiring her beautiful figure and shapely shoulders,

+back, and bosom—which in the fashion of those days were very much

+exposed—and she seemed to bring the glamour of a ballroom with her as

+she moved toward Anna Pávlovna. Hélène was so lovely that not only

+did she not show any trace of coquetry, but on the contrary she even

+appeared shy of her unquestionable and all too victorious beauty. She

+seemed to wish, but to be unable, to diminish its effect.

+

+“How lovely!” said everyone who saw her; and the vicomte lifted his

+shoulders and dropped his eyes as if startled by something extraordinary

+when she took her seat opposite and beamed upon him also with her

+unchanging smile.

+

+“Madame, I doubt my ability before such an audience,” said he,

+smilingly inclining his head.

+

+The princess rested her bare round arm on a little table and considered

+a reply unnecessary. She smilingly waited. All the time the story was

+being told she sat upright, glancing now at her beautiful round arm,

+altered in shape by its pressure on the table, now at her still more

+beautiful bosom, on which she readjusted a diamond necklace. From time

+to time she smoothed the folds of her dress, and whenever the story

+produced an effect she glanced at Anna Pávlovna, at once adopted just

+the expression she saw on the maid of honor’s face, and again relapsed

+into her radiant smile.

+

+The little princess had also left the tea table and followed Hélène.

+

+“Wait a moment, I’ll get my work.... Now then, what are you

+thinking of?” she went on, turning to Prince Hippolyte. “Fetch me my

+workbag.”

+

+There was a general movement as the princess, smiling and talking

+merrily to everyone at once, sat down and gaily arranged herself in her

+seat.

+

+“Now I am all right,” she said, and asking the vicomte to begin, she

+took up her work.

+

+Prince Hippolyte, having brought the workbag, joined the circle and

+moving a chair close to hers seated himself beside her.

+

+Le charmant Hippolyte was surprising by his extraordinary resemblance

+to his beautiful sister, but yet more by the fact that in spite of

+this resemblance he was exceedingly ugly. His features were like his

+sister’s, but while in her case everything was lit up by a joyous,

+self-satisfied, youthful, and constant smile of animation, and by the

+wonderful classic beauty of her figure, his face on the contrary

+was dulled by imbecility and a constant expression of sullen

+self-confidence, while his body was thin and weak. His eyes, nose, and

+mouth all seemed puckered into a vacant, wearied grimace, and his arms

+and legs always fell into unnatural positions.

+

+“It’s not going to be a ghost story?” said he, sitting down beside

+the princess and hastily adjusting his lorgnette, as if without this

+instrument he could not begin to speak.

+

+“Why no, my dear fellow,” said the astonished narrator, shrugging

+his shoulders.

+

+“Because I hate ghost stories,” said Prince Hippolyte in a tone

+which showed that he only understood the meaning of his words after he

+had uttered them.

+

+He spoke with such self-confidence that his hearers could not be sure

+whether what he said was very witty or very stupid. He was dressed in

+a dark-green dress coat, knee breeches of the color of cuisse de nymphe

+effrayée, as he called it, shoes, and silk stockings.

+

+The vicomte told his tale very neatly. It was an anecdote, then current,

+to the effect that the Duc d’Enghien had gone secretly to Paris to

+visit Mademoiselle George; that at her house he came upon Bonaparte,

+who also enjoyed the famous actress’ favors, and that in his presence

+Napoleon happened to fall into one of the fainting fits to which he was

+subject, and was thus at the duc’s mercy. The latter spared him, and

+this magnanimity Bonaparte subsequently repaid by death.

+

+The story was very pretty and interesting, especially at the point

+where the rivals suddenly recognized one another; and the ladies looked

+agitated.

+

+“Charming!” said Anna Pávlovna with an inquiring glance at the

+little princess.

+

+“Charming!” whispered the little princess, sticking the needle into

+her work as if to testify that the interest and fascination of the story

+prevented her from going on with it.

+

+The vicomte appreciated this silent praise and smiling gratefully

+prepared to continue, but just then Anna Pávlovna, who had kept a

+watchful eye on the young man who so alarmed her, noticed that he was

+talking too loudly and vehemently with the abbé, so she hurried to the

+rescue. Pierre had managed to start a conversation with the abbé about

+the balance of power, and the latter, evidently interested by the young

+man’s simple-minded eagerness, was explaining his pet theory. Both

+were talking and listening too eagerly and too naturally, which was why

+Anna Pávlovna disapproved.

+

+“The means are ... the balance of power in Europe and the rights of

+the people,” the abbé was saying. “It is only necessary for one

+powerful nation like Russia—barbaric as she is said to be—to place

+herself disinterestedly at the head of an alliance having for its object

+the maintenance of the balance of power of Europe, and it would save the

+world!”

+

+“But how are you to get that balance?” Pierre was beginning.

+

+At that moment Anna Pávlovna came up and, looking severely at Pierre,

+asked the Italian how he stood Russian climate. The Italian’s

+face instantly changed and assumed an offensively affected, sugary

+expression, evidently habitual to him when conversing with women.

+

+“I am so enchanted by the brilliancy of the wit and culture of the

+society, more especially of the feminine society, in which I have had

+the honor of being received, that I have not yet had time to think of

+the climate,” said he.

+

+Not letting the abbé and Pierre escape, Anna Pávlovna, the more

+conveniently to keep them under observation, brought them into the

+larger circle.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+Just then another visitor entered the drawing room: Prince Andrew

+Bolkónski, the little princess’ husband. He was a very handsome young

+man, of medium height, with firm, clearcut features. Everything about

+him, from his weary, bored expression to his quiet, measured step,

+offered a most striking contrast to his quiet, little wife. It was

+evident that he not only knew everyone in the drawing room, but had

+found them to be so tiresome that it wearied him to look at or listen to

+them. And among all these faces that he found so tedious, none seemed

+to bore him so much as that of his pretty wife. He turned away from

+her with a grimace that distorted his handsome face, kissed Anna

+Pávlovna’s hand, and screwing up his eyes scanned the whole company.

+

+“You are off to the war, Prince?” said Anna Pávlovna.

+

+“General Kutúzov,” said Bolkónski, speaking French and stressing

+the last syllable of the general’s name like a Frenchman, “has been

+pleased to take me as an aide-de-camp....”

+

+“And Lise, your wife?”

+

+“She will go to the country.”

+

+“Are you not ashamed to deprive us of your charming wife?”

+

+“André,” said his wife, addressing her husband in the same

+coquettish manner in which she spoke to other men, “the vicomte has

+been telling us such a tale about Mademoiselle George and Buonaparte!”

+

+Prince Andrew screwed up his eyes and turned away. Pierre, who from

+the moment Prince Andrew entered the room had watched him with glad,

+affectionate eyes, now came up and took his arm. Before he looked round

+Prince Andrew frowned again, expressing his annoyance with whoever was

+touching his arm, but when he saw Pierre’s beaming face he gave him an

+unexpectedly kind and pleasant smile.

+

+“There now!... So you, too, are in the great world?” said he to

+Pierre.

+

+“I knew you would be here,” replied Pierre. “I will come to supper

+with you. May I?” he added in a low voice so as not to disturb the

+vicomte who was continuing his story.

+

+“No, impossible!” said Prince Andrew, laughing and pressing

+Pierre’s hand to show that there was no need to ask the question. He

+wished to say something more, but at that moment Prince Vasíli and his

+daughter got up to go and the two young men rose to let them pass.

+

+“You must excuse me, dear Vicomte,” said Prince Vasíli to the

+Frenchman, holding him down by the sleeve in a friendly way to prevent

+his rising. “This unfortunate fete at the ambassador’s deprives me

+of a pleasure, and obliges me to interrupt you. I am very sorry to leave

+your enchanting party,” said he, turning to Anna Pávlovna.

+

+His daughter, Princess Hélène, passed between the chairs, lightly

+holding up the folds of her dress, and the smile shone still more

+radiantly on her beautiful face. Pierre gazed at her with rapturous,

+almost frightened, eyes as she passed him.

+

+“Very lovely,” said Prince Andrew.

+

+“Very,” said Pierre.

+

+In passing Prince Vasíli seized Pierre’s hand and said to Anna

+Pávlovna: “Educate this bear for me! He has been staying with me

+a whole month and this is the first time I have seen him in society.

+Nothing is so necessary for a young man as the society of clever

+women.”

+

+

+Anna Pávlovna smiled and promised to take Pierre in hand. She knew his

+father to be a connection of Prince Vasíli’s. The elderly lady who

+had been sitting with the old aunt rose hurriedly and overtook Prince

+Vasíli in the anteroom. All the affectation of interest she had assumed

+had left her kindly and tear-worn face and it now expressed only anxiety

+and fear.

+

+“How about my son Borís, Prince?” said she, hurrying after him into

+the anteroom. “I can’t remain any longer in Petersburg. Tell me what

+news I may take back to my poor boy.”

+

+Although Prince Vasíli listened reluctantly and not very politely

+to the elderly lady, even betraying some impatience, she gave him an

+ingratiating and appealing smile, and took his hand that he might not go

+away.

+

+“What would it cost you to say a word to the Emperor, and then he

+would be transferred to the Guards at once?” said she.

+

+“Believe me, Princess, I am ready to do all I can,” answered Prince

+Vasíli, “but it is difficult for me to ask the Emperor. I should

+advise you to appeal to Rumyántsev through Prince Golítsyn. That would

+be the best way.”

+

+The elderly lady was a Princess Drubetskáya, belonging to one of the

+best families in Russia, but she was poor, and having long been out of

+society had lost her former influential connections. She had now come to

+Petersburg to procure an appointment in the Guards for her only son.

+It was, in fact, solely to meet Prince Vasíli that she had obtained an

+invitation to Anna Pávlovna’s reception and had sat listening to

+the vicomte’s story. Prince Vasíli’s words frightened her, an

+embittered look clouded her once handsome face, but only for a moment;

+then she smiled again and clutched Prince Vasíli’s arm more tightly.

+

+“Listen to me, Prince,” said she. “I have never yet asked you

+for anything and I never will again, nor have I ever reminded you of my

+father’s friendship for you; but now I entreat you for God’s sake to

+do this for my son—and I shall always regard you as a benefactor,”

+she added hurriedly. “No, don’t be angry, but promise! I have asked

+Golítsyn and he has refused. Be the kindhearted man you always were,”

+she said, trying to smile though tears were in her eyes.

+

+“Papa, we shall be late,” said Princess Hélène, turning her

+beautiful head and looking over her classically molded shoulder as she

+stood waiting by the door.

+

+Influence in society, however, is a capital which has to be economized

+if it is to last. Prince Vasíli knew this, and having once realized

+that if he asked on behalf of all who begged of him, he would soon be

+unable to ask for himself, he became chary of using his influence. But

+in Princess Drubetskáya’s case he felt, after her second appeal,

+something like qualms of conscience. She had reminded him of what was

+quite true; he had been indebted to her father for the first steps in

+his career. Moreover, he could see by her manners that she was one of

+those women—mostly mothers—who, having once made up their minds,

+will not rest until they have gained their end, and are prepared if

+necessary to go on insisting day after day and hour after hour, and even

+to make scenes. This last consideration moved him.

+

+“My dear Anna Mikháylovna,” said he with his usual familiarity and

+weariness of tone, “it is almost impossible for me to do what you

+ask; but to prove my devotion to you and how I respect your father’s

+memory, I will do the impossible—your son shall be transferred to the

+Guards. Here is my hand on it. Are you satisfied?”

+

+“My dear benefactor! This is what I expected from you—I knew your

+kindness!” He turned to go.

+

+“Wait—just a word! When he has been transferred to the Guards...”

+she faltered. “You are on good terms with Michael Ilariónovich

+Kutúzov ... recommend Borís to him as adjutant! Then I shall be at

+rest, and then...”

+

+Prince Vasíli smiled.

+

+“No, I won’t promise that. You don’t know how Kutúzov is pestered

+since his appointment as Commander in Chief. He told me himself that

+all the Moscow ladies have conspired to give him all their sons as

+adjutants.”

+

+“No, but do promise! I won’t let you go! My dear benefactor...”

+

+“Papa,” said his beautiful daughter in the same tone as before,

+“we shall be late.”

+

+“Well, au revoir! Good-by! You hear her?”

+

+“Then tomorrow you will speak to the Emperor?”

+

+“Certainly; but about Kutúzov, I don’t promise.”

+

+“Do promise, do promise, Vasíli!” cried Anna Mikháylovna as he

+went, with the smile of a coquettish girl, which at one time probably

+came naturally to her, but was now very ill-suited to her careworn face.

+

+Apparently she had forgotten her age and by force of habit employed

+all the old feminine arts. But as soon as the prince had gone her face

+resumed its former cold, artificial expression. She returned to the

+group where the vicomte was still talking, and again pretended to

+listen, while waiting till it would be time to leave. Her task was

+accomplished.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+“And what do you think of this latest comedy, the coronation at

+Milan?” asked Anna Pávlovna, “and of the comedy of the people of

+Genoa and Lucca laying their petitions before Monsieur Buonaparte, and

+Monsieur Buonaparte sitting on a throne and granting the petitions of

+the nations? Adorable! It is enough to make one’s head whirl! It is as

+if the whole world had gone crazy.”

+

+Prince Andrew looked Anna Pávlovna straight in the face with a

+sarcastic smile.

+

+“‘Dieu me la donne, gare à qui la touche!’’ * They say he was

+very fine when he said that,” he remarked, repeating the words in

+Italian: “‘Dio mi l’ha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!’’

+

+     * God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware!

+

+“I hope this will prove the last drop that will make the glass run

+over,” Anna Pávlovna continued. “The sovereigns will not be able to

+endure this man who is a menace to everything.”

+

+“The sovereigns? I do not speak of Russia,” said the vicomte, polite

+but hopeless: “The sovereigns, madame... What have they done for Louis

+XVII, for the Queen, or for Madame Elizabeth? Nothing!” and he became

+more animated. “And believe me, they are reaping the reward of their

+betrayal of the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! Why, they are sending

+ambassadors to compliment the usurper.”

+

+And sighing disdainfully, he again changed his position.

+

+Prince Hippolyte, who had been gazing at the vicomte for some time

+through his lorgnette, suddenly turned completely round toward the

+little princess, and having asked for a needle began tracing the Condé

+coat of arms on the table. He explained this to her with as much gravity

+as if she had asked him to do it.

+

+“Bâton de gueules, engrêlé de gueules d’azur—maison Condé,”

+said he.

+

+The princess listened, smiling.

+

+“If Buonaparte remains on the throne of France a year longer,” the

+vicomte continued, with the air of a man who, in a matter with which

+he is better acquainted than anyone else, does not listen to others but

+follows the current of his own thoughts, “things will have gone too

+far. By intrigues, violence, exile, and executions, French society—I

+mean good French society—will have been forever destroyed, and

+then....”

+

+He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. Pierre wished to

+make a remark, for the conversation interested him, but Anna Pávlovna,

+who had him under observation, interrupted:

+

+“The Emperor Alexander,” said she, with the melancholy which

+always accompanied any reference of hers to the Imperial family, “has

+declared that he will leave it to the French people themselves to choose

+their own form of government; and I believe that once free from the

+usurper, the whole nation will certainly throw itself into the arms

+of its rightful king,” she concluded, trying to be amiable to the

+royalist emigrant.

+

+“That is doubtful,” said Prince Andrew. “Monsieur le Vicomte quite

+rightly supposes that matters have already gone too far. I think it will

+be difficult to return to the old regime.”

+

+“From what I have heard,” said Pierre, blushing and breaking into

+the conversation, “almost all the aristocracy has already gone over to

+Bonaparte’s side.”

+

+“It is the Buonapartists who say that,” replied the vicomte without

+looking at Pierre. “At the present time it is difficult to know the

+real state of French public opinion.”

+

+“Bonaparte has said so,” remarked Prince Andrew with a sarcastic

+smile.

+

+It was evident that he did not like the vicomte and was aiming his

+remarks at him, though without looking at him.

+

+“‘I showed them the path to glory, but they did not follow

+it,’” Prince Andrew continued after a short silence, again quoting

+Napoleon’s words. “‘I opened my antechambers and they crowded

+in.’ I do not know how far he was justified in saying so.”

+

+“Not in the least,” replied the vicomte. “After the murder of the

+duc even the most partial ceased to regard him as a hero. If to some

+people,” he went on, turning to Anna Pávlovna, “he ever was a hero,

+after the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one

+hero less on earth.”

+

+Before Anna Pávlovna and the others had time to smile their

+appreciation of the vicomte’s epigram, Pierre again broke into the

+conversation, and though Anna Pávlovna felt sure he would say something

+inappropriate, she was unable to stop him.

+

+“The execution of the Duc d’Enghien,” declared Monsieur Pierre,

+“was a political necessity, and it seems to me that Napoleon

+showed greatness of soul by not fearing to take on himself the whole

+responsibility of that deed.”

+

+“Dieu! Mon Dieu!” muttered Anna Pávlovna in a terrified whisper.

+

+“What, Monsieur Pierre... Do you consider that assassination shows

+greatness of soul?” said the little princess, smiling and drawing her

+work nearer to her.

+

+“Oh! Oh!” exclaimed several voices.

+

+“Capital!” said Prince Hippolyte in English, and began slapping his

+knee with the palm of his hand.

+

+The vicomte merely shrugged his shoulders. Pierre looked solemnly at his

+audience over his spectacles and continued.

+

+“I say so,” he continued desperately, “because the Bourbons fled

+from the Revolution leaving the people to anarchy, and Napoleon alone

+understood the Revolution and quelled it, and so for the general good,

+he could not stop short for the sake of one man’s life.”

+

+“Won’t you come over to the other table?” suggested Anna

+Pávlovna.

+

+But Pierre continued his speech without heeding her.

+

+“No,” cried he, becoming more and more eager, “Napoleon is great

+because he rose superior to the Revolution, suppressed its abuses,

+preserved all that was good in it—equality of citizenship and freedom

+of speech and of the press—and only for that reason did he obtain

+power.”

+

+“Yes, if having obtained power, without availing himself of it to

+commit murder he had restored it to the rightful king, I should have

+called him a great man,” remarked the vicomte.

+

+“He could not do that. The people only gave him power that he might

+rid them of the Bourbons and because they saw that he was a great

+man. The Revolution was a grand thing!” continued Monsieur Pierre,

+betraying by this desperate and provocative proposition his extreme

+youth and his wish to express all that was in his mind.

+

+“What? Revolution and regicide a grand thing?... Well, after that...

+But won’t you come to this other table?” repeated Anna Pávlovna.

+

+“Rousseau’s Contrat Social,” said the vicomte with a tolerant

+smile.

+

+“I am not speaking of regicide, I am speaking about ideas.”

+

+“Yes: ideas of robbery, murder, and regicide,” again interjected an

+ironical voice.

+

+“Those were extremes, no doubt, but they are not what is most

+important. What is important are the rights of man, emancipation from

+prejudices, and equality of citizenship, and all these ideas Napoleon

+has retained in full force.”

+

+“Liberty and equality,” said the vicomte contemptuously, as if at

+last deciding seriously to prove to this youth how foolish his words

+were, “high-sounding words which have long been discredited. Who does

+not love liberty and equality? Even our Saviour preached liberty and

+equality. Have people since the Revolution become happier? On the

+contrary. We wanted liberty, but Buonaparte has destroyed it.”

+

+Prince Andrew kept looking with an amused smile from Pierre to the

+vicomte and from the vicomte to their hostess. In the first moment of

+Pierre’s outburst Anna Pávlovna, despite her social experience, was

+horror-struck. But when she saw that Pierre’s sacrilegious words

+had not exasperated the vicomte, and had convinced herself that it was

+impossible to stop him, she rallied her forces and joined the vicomte in

+a vigorous attack on the orator.

+

+“But, my dear Monsieur Pierre,” said she, “how do you explain the

+fact of a great man executing a duc—or even an ordinary man who—is

+innocent and untried?”

+

+“I should like,” said the vicomte, “to ask how monsieur explains

+the 18th Brumaire; was not that an imposture? It was a swindle, and not

+at all like the conduct of a great man!”

+

+“And the prisoners he killed in Africa? That was horrible!” said the

+little princess, shrugging her shoulders.

+

+“He’s a low fellow, say what you will,” remarked Prince Hippolyte.

+

+Pierre, not knowing whom to answer, looked at them all and smiled. His

+smile was unlike the half-smile of other people. When he smiled,

+his grave, even rather gloomy, look was instantaneously replaced by

+another—a childlike, kindly, even rather silly look, which seemed to

+ask forgiveness.

+

+The vicomte who was meeting him for the first time saw clearly that

+this young Jacobin was not so terrible as his words suggested. All were

+silent.

+

+“How do you expect him to answer you all at once?” said Prince

+Andrew. “Besides, in the actions of a statesman one has to distinguish

+between his acts as a private person, as a general, and as an emperor.

+So it seems to me.”

+

+“Yes, yes, of course!” Pierre chimed in, pleased at the arrival of

+this reinforcement.

+

+“One must admit,” continued Prince Andrew, “that Napoleon as a man

+was great on the bridge of Arcola, and in the hospital at Jaffa where he

+gave his hand to the plague-stricken; but ... but there are other acts

+which it is difficult to justify.”

+

+Prince Andrew, who had evidently wished to tone down the awkwardness of

+Pierre’s remarks, rose and made a sign to his wife that it was time to

+go.

+

+Suddenly Prince Hippolyte started up making signs to everyone to attend,

+and asking them all to be seated began:

+

+“I was told a charming Moscow story today and must treat you to it.

+Excuse me, Vicomte—I must tell it in Russian or the point will be

+lost....” And Prince Hippolyte began to tell his story in such Russian

+as a Frenchman would speak after spending about a year in Russia.

+Everyone waited, so emphatically and eagerly did he demand their

+attention to his story.

+

+“There is in Moscow a lady, une dame, and she is very stingy. She must

+have two footmen behind her carriage, and very big ones. That was her

+taste. And she had a lady’s maid, also big. She said....”

+

+Here Prince Hippolyte paused, evidently collecting his ideas with

+difficulty.

+

+“She said.... Oh yes! She said, ‘Girl,’ to the maid, ‘put on a

+livery, get up behind the carriage, and come with me while I make some

+calls.’”

+

+Here Prince Hippolyte spluttered and burst out laughing long before his

+audience, which produced an effect unfavorable to the narrator. Several

+persons, among them the elderly lady and Anna Pávlovna, did however

+smile.

+

+“She went. Suddenly there was a great wind. The girl lost her hat and

+her long hair came down....” Here he could contain himself no

+longer and went on, between gasps of laughter: “And the whole world

+knew....”

+

+And so the anecdote ended. Though it was unintelligible why he had told

+it, or why it had to be told in Russian, still Anna Pávlovna and the

+others appreciated Prince Hippolyte’s social tact in so agreeably

+ending Pierre’s unpleasant and unamiable outburst. After the anecdote

+the conversation broke up into insignificant small talk about the last

+and next balls, about theatricals, and who would meet whom, and when and

+where.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+Having thanked Anna Pávlovna for her charming soiree, the guests began

+to take their leave.

+

+Pierre was ungainly. Stout, about the average height, broad, with huge

+red hands; he did not know, as the saying is, how to enter a drawing

+room and still less how to leave one; that is, how to say something

+particularly agreeable before going away. Besides this he was

+absent-minded. When he rose to go, he took up instead of his own, the

+general’s three-cornered hat, and held it, pulling at the plume,

+till the general asked him to restore it. All his absent-mindedness and

+inability to enter a room and converse in it was, however, redeemed by

+his kindly, simple, and modest expression. Anna Pávlovna turned toward

+him and, with a Christian mildness that expressed forgiveness of his

+indiscretion, nodded and said: “I hope to see you again, but I also

+hope you will change your opinions, my dear Monsieur Pierre.”

+

+When she said this, he did not reply and only bowed, but again everybody

+saw his smile, which said nothing, unless perhaps, “Opinions are

+opinions, but you see what a capital, good-natured fellow I am.” And

+everyone, including Anna Pávlovna, felt this.

+

+Prince Andrew had gone out into the hall, and, turning his shoulders

+to the footman who was helping him on with his cloak, listened

+indifferently to his wife’s chatter with Prince Hippolyte who had also

+come into the hall. Prince Hippolyte stood close to the pretty, pregnant

+princess, and stared fixedly at her through his eyeglass.

+

+“Go in, Annette, or you will catch cold,” said the little princess,

+taking leave of Anna Pávlovna. “It is settled,” she added in a low

+voice.

+

+Anna Pávlovna had already managed to speak to Lise about the match she

+contemplated between Anatole and the little princess’ sister-in-law.

+

+“I rely on you, my dear,” said Anna Pávlovna, also in a low tone.

+“Write to her and let me know how her father looks at the matter. Au

+revoir! ”—and she left the hall.

+

+Prince Hippolyte approached the little princess and, bending his face

+close to her, began to whisper something.

+

+Two footmen, the princess’ and his own, stood holding a shawl and

+a cloak, waiting for the conversation to finish. They listened to

+the French sentences which to them were meaningless, with an air of

+understanding but not wishing to appear to do so. The princess as usual

+spoke smilingly and listened with a laugh.

+

+“I am very glad I did not go to the ambassador’s,” said Prince

+Hippolyte “—so dull—. It has been a delightful evening, has it

+not? Delightful!”

+

+“They say the ball will be very good,” replied the princess, drawing

+up her downy little lip. “All the pretty women in society will be

+there.”

+

+“Not all, for you will not be there; not all,” said Prince Hippolyte

+smiling joyfully; and snatching the shawl from the footman, whom he

+even pushed aside, he began wrapping it round the princess. Either from

+awkwardness or intentionally (no one could have said which) after the

+shawl had been adjusted he kept his arm around her for a long time, as

+though embracing her.

+

+Still smiling, she gracefully moved away, turning and glancing at her

+husband. Prince Andrew’s eyes were closed, so weary and sleepy did he

+seem.

+

+“Are you ready?” he asked his wife, looking past her.

+

+Prince Hippolyte hurriedly put on his cloak, which in the latest fashion

+reached to his very heels, and, stumbling in it, ran out into the porch

+following the princess, whom a footman was helping into the carriage.

+

+“Princesse, au revoir,” cried he, stumbling with his tongue as well

+as with his feet.

+

+The princess, picking up her dress, was taking her seat in the dark

+carriage, her husband was adjusting his saber; Prince Hippolyte, under

+pretense of helping, was in everyone’s way.

+

+“Allow me, sir,” said Prince Andrew in Russian in a cold,

+disagreeable tone to Prince Hippolyte who was blocking his path.

+

+“I am expecting you, Pierre,” said the same voice, but gently and

+affectionately.

+

+The postilion started, the carriage wheels rattled. Prince Hippolyte

+laughed spasmodically as he stood in the porch waiting for the vicomte

+whom he had promised to take home.

+

+“Well, mon cher,” said the vicomte, having seated himself beside

+Hippolyte in the carriage, “your little princess is very nice, very

+nice indeed, quite French,” and he kissed the tips of his fingers.

+Hippolyte burst out laughing.

+

+“Do you know, you are a terrible chap for all your innocent airs,”

+continued the vicomte. “I pity the poor husband, that little officer

+who gives himself the airs of a monarch.”

+

+Hippolyte spluttered again, and amid his laughter said, “And you were

+saying that the Russian ladies are not equal to the French? One has to

+know how to deal with them.”

+

+Pierre reaching the house first went into Prince Andrew’s study like

+one quite at home, and from habit immediately lay down on the sofa, took

+from the shelf the first book that came to his hand (it was Caesar’s

+Commentaries), and resting on his elbow, began reading it in the middle.

+

+“What have you done to Mlle Schérer? She will be quite ill now,”

+said Prince Andrew, as he entered the study, rubbing his small white

+hands.

+

+Pierre turned his whole body, making the sofa creak. He lifted his eager

+face to Prince Andrew, smiled, and waved his hand.

+

+“That abbé is very interesting but he does not see the thing in the

+right light.... In my opinion perpetual peace is possible but—I do not

+know how to express it ... not by a balance of political power....”

+

+It was evident that Prince Andrew was not interested in such abstract

+conversation.

+

+“One can’t everywhere say all one thinks, mon cher. Well, have

+you at last decided on anything? Are you going to be a guardsman or a

+diplomatist?” asked Prince Andrew after a momentary silence.

+

+Pierre sat up on the sofa, with his legs tucked under him.

+

+“Really, I don’t yet know. I don’t like either the one or the

+other.”

+

+“But you must decide on something! Your father expects it.”

+

+Pierre at the age of ten had been sent abroad with an abbé as tutor,

+and had remained away till he was twenty. When he returned to Moscow

+his father dismissed the abbé and said to the young man, “Now go

+to Petersburg, look round, and choose your profession. I will agree to

+anything. Here is a letter to Prince Vasíli, and here is money. Write

+to me all about it, and I will help you in everything.” Pierre had

+already been choosing a career for three months, and had not decided

+on anything. It was about this choice that Prince Andrew was speaking.

+Pierre rubbed his forehead.

+

+“But he must be a Freemason,” said he, referring to the abbé whom

+he had met that evening.

+

+“That is all nonsense.” Prince Andrew again interrupted him, “let

+us talk business. Have you been to the Horse Guards?”

+

+“No, I have not; but this is what I have been thinking and wanted

+to tell you. There is a war now against Napoleon. If it were a war for

+freedom I could understand it and should be the first to enter the army;

+but to help England and Austria against the greatest man in the world is

+not right.”

+

+Prince Andrew only shrugged his shoulders at Pierre’s childish words.

+He put on the air of one who finds it impossible to reply to such

+nonsense, but it would in fact have been difficult to give any other

+answer than the one Prince Andrew gave to this naïve question.

+

+“If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no

+wars,” he said.

+

+“And that would be splendid,” said Pierre.

+

+Prince Andrew smiled ironically.

+

+“Very likely it would be splendid, but it will never come about....”

+

+“Well, why are you going to the war?” asked Pierre.

+

+“What for? I don’t know. I must. Besides that I am going....” He

+paused. “I am going because the life I am leading here does not suit

+me!”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+The rustle of a woman’s dress was heard in the next room. Prince

+Andrew shook himself as if waking up, and his face assumed the look it

+had had in Anna Pávlovna’s drawing room. Pierre removed his feet from

+the sofa. The princess came in. She had changed her gown for a house

+dress as fresh and elegant as the other. Prince Andrew rose and politely

+placed a chair for her.

+

+“How is it,” she began, as usual in French, settling down briskly

+and fussily in the easy chair, “how is it Annette never got married?

+How stupid you men all are not to have married her! Excuse me for saying

+so, but you have no sense about women. What an argumentative fellow you

+are, Monsieur Pierre!”

+

+“And I am still arguing with your husband. I can’t understand why he

+wants to go to the war,” replied Pierre, addressing the princess

+with none of the embarrassment so commonly shown by young men in their

+intercourse with young women.

+

+The princess started. Evidently Pierre’s words touched her to the

+quick.

+

+“Ah, that is just what I tell him!” said she. “I don’t

+understand it; I don’t in the least understand why men can’t live

+without wars. How is it that we women don’t want anything of the kind,

+don’t need it? Now you shall judge between us. I always tell him: Here

+he is Uncle’s aide-de-camp, a most brilliant position. He is so

+well known, so much appreciated by everyone. The other day at the

+Apráksins’ I heard a lady asking, ‘Is that the famous Prince

+Andrew?’ I did indeed.” She laughed. “He is so well received

+everywhere. He might easily become aide-de-camp to the Emperor. You know

+the Emperor spoke to him most graciously. Annette and I were speaking of

+how to arrange it. What do you think?”

+

+Pierre looked at his friend and, noticing that he did not like the

+conversation, gave no reply.

+

+“When are you starting?” he asked.

+

+“Oh, don’t speak of his going, don’t! I won’t hear it spoken

+of,” said the princess in the same petulantly playful tone in which

+she had spoken to Hippolyte in the drawing room and which was so plainly

+ill-suited to the family circle of which Pierre was almost a member.

+“Today when I remembered that all these delightful associations

+must be broken off ... and then you know, André...” (she looked

+significantly at her husband) “I’m afraid, I’m afraid!” she

+whispered, and a shudder ran down her back.

+

+Her husband looked at her as if surprised to notice that someone besides

+Pierre and himself was in the room, and addressed her in a tone of

+frigid politeness.

+

+“What is it you are afraid of, Lise? I don’t understand,” said he.

+

+“There, what egotists men all are: all, all egotists! Just for a whim

+of his own, goodness only knows why, he leaves me and locks me up alone

+in the country.”

+

+“With my father and sister, remember,” said Prince Andrew gently.

+

+“Alone all the same, without my friends.... And he expects me not to

+be afraid.”

+

+Her tone was now querulous and her lip drawn up, giving her not a

+joyful, but an animal, squirrel-like expression. She paused as if she

+felt it indecorous to speak of her pregnancy before Pierre, though the

+gist of the matter lay in that.

+

+“I still can’t understand what you are afraid of,” said Prince

+Andrew slowly, not taking his eyes off his wife.

+

+The princess blushed, and raised her arms with a gesture of despair.

+

+“No, Andrew, I must say you have changed. Oh, how you have....”

+

+“Your doctor tells you to go to bed earlier,” said Prince Andrew.

+“You had better go.”

+

+The princess said nothing, but suddenly her short downy lip quivered.

+Prince Andrew rose, shrugged his shoulders, and walked about the room.

+

+Pierre looked over his spectacles with naïve surprise, now at him and

+now at her, moved as if about to rise too, but changed his mind.

+

+“Why should I mind Monsieur Pierre being here?” exclaimed the little

+princess suddenly, her pretty face all at once distorted by a tearful

+grimace. “I have long wanted to ask you, Andrew, why you have changed

+so to me? What have I done to you? You are going to the war and have no

+pity for me. Why is it?”

+

+“Lise!” was all Prince Andrew said. But that one word expressed

+an entreaty, a threat, and above all conviction that she would herself

+regret her words. But she went on hurriedly:

+

+“You treat me like an invalid or a child. I see it all! Did you behave

+like that six months ago?”

+

+“Lise, I beg you to desist,” said Prince Andrew still more

+emphatically.

+

+Pierre, who had been growing more and more agitated as he listened to

+all this, rose and approached the princess. He seemed unable to bear the

+sight of tears and was ready to cry himself.

+

+“Calm yourself, Princess! It seems so to you because.... I assure you

+I myself have experienced ... and so ... because ... No, excuse me!

+An outsider is out of place here.... No, don’t distress yourself....

+Good-by!”

+

+Prince Andrew caught him by the hand.

+

+“No, wait, Pierre! The princess is too kind to wish to deprive me of

+the pleasure of spending the evening with you.”

+

+“No, he thinks only of himself,” muttered the princess without

+restraining her angry tears.

+

+“Lise!” said Prince Andrew dryly, raising his voice to the pitch

+which indicates that patience is exhausted.

+

+Suddenly the angry, squirrel-like expression of the princess’ pretty

+face changed into a winning and piteous look of fear. Her beautiful eyes

+glanced askance at her husband’s face, and her own assumed the timid,

+deprecating expression of a dog when it rapidly but feebly wags its

+drooping tail.

+

+“Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!” she muttered, and lifting her dress with one

+hand she went up to her husband and kissed him on the forehead.

+

+“Good night, Lise,” said he, rising and courteously kissing her hand

+as he would have done to a stranger.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+The friends were silent. Neither cared to begin talking. Pierre

+continually glanced at Prince Andrew; Prince Andrew rubbed his forehead

+with his small hand.

+

+“Let us go and have supper,” he said with a sigh, going to the door.

+

+They entered the elegant, newly decorated, and luxurious dining room.

+Everything from the table napkins to the silver, china, and glass bore

+that imprint of newness found in the households of the newly married.

+Halfway through supper Prince Andrew leaned his elbows on the table and,

+with a look of nervous agitation such as Pierre had never before seen on

+his face, began to talk—as one who has long had something on his mind

+and suddenly determines to speak out.

+

+“Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That’s my advice: never marry

+till you can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of,

+and until you have ceased to love the woman of your choice and have seen

+her plainly as she is, or else you will make a cruel and irrevocable

+mistake. Marry when you are old and good for nothing—or all that is

+good and noble in you will be lost. It will all be wasted on trifles.

+Yes! Yes! Yes! Don’t look at me with such surprise. If you marry

+expecting anything from yourself in the future, you will feel at every

+step that for you all is ended, all is closed except the drawing

+room, where you will be ranged side by side with a court lackey and an

+idiot!... But what’s the good?...” and he waved his arm.

+

+Pierre took off his spectacles, which made his face seem different and

+the good-natured expression still more apparent, and gazed at his friend

+in amazement.

+

+“My wife,” continued Prince Andrew, “is an excellent woman, one

+of those rare women with whom a man’s honor is safe; but, O God, what

+would I not give now to be unmarried! You are the first and only one to

+whom I mention this, because I like you.”

+

+As he said this Prince Andrew was less than ever like that Bolkónski

+who had lolled in Anna Pávlovna’s easy chairs and with half-closed

+eyes had uttered French phrases between his teeth. Every muscle of his

+thin face was now quivering with nervous excitement; his eyes, in which

+the fire of life had seemed extinguished, now flashed with brilliant

+light. It was evident that the more lifeless he seemed at ordinary

+times, the more impassioned he became in these moments of almost morbid

+irritation.

+

+“You don’t understand why I say this,” he continued, “but it is

+the whole story of life. You talk of Bonaparte and his career,” said

+he (though Pierre had not mentioned Bonaparte), “but Bonaparte when

+he worked went step by step toward his goal. He was free, he had nothing

+but his aim to consider, and he reached it. But tie yourself up with

+a woman and, like a chained convict, you lose all freedom! And all you

+have of hope and strength merely weighs you down and torments you with

+regret. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, and triviality—these are

+the enchanted circle I cannot escape from. I am now going to the war,

+the greatest war there ever was, and I know nothing and am fit for

+nothing. I am very amiable and have a caustic wit,” continued Prince

+Andrew, “and at Anna Pávlovna’s they listen to me. And that stupid

+set without whom my wife cannot exist, and those women.... If you only

+knew what those society women are, and women in general! My father is

+right. Selfish, vain, stupid, trivial in everything—that’s what

+women are when you see them in their true colors! When you meet them

+in society it seems as if there were something in them, but there’s

+nothing, nothing, nothing! No, don’t marry, my dear fellow; don’t

+marry!” concluded Prince Andrew.

+

+“It seems funny to me,” said Pierre, “that you, you should

+consider yourself incapable and your life a spoiled life. You have

+everything before you, everything. And you....”

+

+He did not finish his sentence, but his tone showed how highly he

+thought of his friend and how much he expected of him in the future.

+

+“How can he talk like that?” thought Pierre. He considered his

+friend a model of perfection because Prince Andrew possessed in the

+highest degree just the very qualities Pierre lacked, and which might

+be best described as strength of will. Pierre was always astonished at

+Prince Andrew’s calm manner of treating everybody, his extraordinary

+memory, his extensive reading (he had read everything, knew everything,

+and had an opinion about everything), but above all at his capacity for

+work and study. And if Pierre was often struck by Andrew’s lack

+of capacity for philosophical meditation (to which he himself was

+particularly addicted), he regarded even this not as a defect but as a

+sign of strength.

+

+Even in the best, most friendly and simplest relations of life, praise

+and commendation are essential, just as grease is necessary to wheels

+that they may run smoothly.

+

+“My part is played out,” said Prince Andrew. “What’s the use of

+talking about me? Let us talk about you,” he added after a silence,

+smiling at his reassuring thoughts.

+

+That smile was immediately reflected on Pierre’s face.

+

+“But what is there to say about me?” said Pierre, his face relaxing

+into a careless, merry smile. “What am I? An illegitimate son!”

+He suddenly blushed crimson, and it was plain that he had made a great

+effort to say this. “Without a name and without means... And it

+really...” But he did not say what “it really” was. “For the

+present I am free and am all right. Only I haven’t the least idea what

+I am to do; I wanted to consult you seriously.”

+

+Prince Andrew looked kindly at him, yet his glance—friendly and

+affectionate as it was—expressed a sense of his own superiority.

+

+“I am fond of you, especially as you are the one live man among our

+whole set. Yes, you’re all right! Choose what you will; it’s all the

+same. You’ll be all right anywhere. But look here: give up visiting

+those Kurágins and leading that sort of life. It suits you so

+badly—all this debauchery, dissipation, and the rest of it!”

+

+“What would you have, my dear fellow?” answered Pierre, shrugging

+his shoulders. “Women, my dear fellow; women!”

+

+“I don’t understand it,” replied Prince Andrew. “Women who are

+comme il faut, that’s a different matter; but the Kurágins’ set of

+women, ‘women and wine’ I don’t understand!”

+

+Pierre was staying at Prince Vasíli Kurágin’s and sharing the

+dissipated life of his son Anatole, the son whom they were planning to

+reform by marrying him to Prince Andrew’s sister.

+

+“Do you know?” said Pierre, as if suddenly struck by a happy

+thought, “seriously, I have long been thinking of it.... Leading such

+a life I can’t decide or think properly about anything. One’s head

+aches, and one spends all one’s money. He asked me for tonight, but I

+won’t go.”

+

+“You give me your word of honor not to go?”

+

+“On my honor!”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+It was past one o’clock when Pierre left his friend. It was a

+cloudless, northern, summer night. Pierre took an open cab intending

+to drive straight home. But the nearer he drew to the house the more he

+felt the impossibility of going to sleep on such a night. It was light

+enough to see a long way in the deserted street and it seemed more like

+morning or evening than night. On the way Pierre remembered that Anatole

+Kurágin was expecting the usual set for cards that evening, after which

+there was generally a drinking bout, finishing with visits of a kind

+Pierre was very fond of.

+

+“I should like to go to Kurágin’s,” thought he.

+

+But he immediately recalled his promise to Prince Andrew not to go

+there. Then, as happens to people of weak character, he desired so

+passionately once more to enjoy that dissipation he was so accustomed to

+that he decided to go. The thought immediately occurred to him that his

+promise to Prince Andrew was of no account, because before he gave it

+he had already promised Prince Anatole to come to his gathering;

+“besides,” thought he, “all such ‘words of honor’ are

+conventional things with no definite meaning, especially if

+one considers that by tomorrow one may be dead, or something so

+extraordinary may happen to one that honor and dishonor will be all the

+same!” Pierre often indulged in reflections of this sort, nullifying

+all his decisions and intentions. He went to Kurágin’s.

+

+Reaching the large house near the Horse Guards’ barracks, in which

+Anatole lived, Pierre entered the lighted porch, ascended the stairs,

+and went in at the open door. There was no one in the anteroom; empty

+bottles, cloaks, and overshoes were lying about; there was a smell of

+alcohol, and sounds of voices and shouting in the distance.

+

+Cards and supper were over, but the visitors had not yet dispersed.

+Pierre threw off his cloak and entered the first room, in which were the

+remains of supper. A footman, thinking no one saw him, was drinking on

+the sly what was left in the glasses. From the third room came sounds of

+laughter, the shouting of familiar voices, the growling of a bear, and

+general commotion. Some eight or nine young men were crowding anxiously

+round an open window. Three others were romping with a young bear, one

+pulling him by the chain and trying to set him at the others.

+

+“I bet a hundred on Stevens!” shouted one.

+

+“Mind, no holding on!” cried another.

+

+“I bet on Dólokhov!” cried a third. “Kurágin, you part our

+hands.”

+

+“There, leave Bruin alone; here’s a bet on.”

+

+“At one draught, or he loses!” shouted a fourth.

+

+“Jacob, bring a bottle!” shouted the host, a tall, handsome fellow

+who stood in the midst of the group, without a coat, and with his fine

+linen shirt unfastened in front. “Wait a bit, you fellows.... Here is

+Pétya! Good man!” cried he, addressing Pierre.

+

+Another voice, from a man of medium height with clear blue eyes,

+particularly striking among all these drunken voices by its sober

+ring, cried from the window: “Come here; part the bets!” This was

+Dólokhov, an officer of the Semënov regiment, a notorious gambler and

+duelist, who was living with Anatole. Pierre smiled, looking about him

+merrily.

+

+“I don’t understand. What’s it all about?”

+

+“Wait a bit, he is not drunk yet! A bottle here,” said Anatole, and

+taking a glass from the table he went up to Pierre.

+

+“First of all you must drink!”

+

+Pierre drank one glass after another, looking from under his brows at

+the tipsy guests who were again crowding round the window, and listening

+to their chatter. Anatole kept on refilling Pierre’s glass while

+explaining that Dólokhov was betting with Stevens, an English naval

+officer, that he would drink a bottle of rum sitting on the outer ledge

+of the third floor window with his legs hanging out.

+

+“Go on, you must drink it all,” said Anatole, giving Pierre the last

+glass, “or I won’t let you go!”

+

+“No, I won’t,” said Pierre, pushing Anatole aside, and he went up

+to the window.

+

+Dólokhov was holding the Englishman’s hand and clearly and distinctly

+repeating the terms of the bet, addressing himself particularly to

+Anatole and Pierre.

+

+Dólokhov was of medium height, with curly hair and light-blue eyes. He

+was about twenty-five. Like all infantry officers he wore no mustache,

+so that his mouth, the most striking feature of his face, was clearly

+seen. The lines of that mouth were remarkably finely curved. The middle

+of the upper lip formed a sharp wedge and closed firmly on the firm

+lower one, and something like two distinct smiles played continually

+round the two corners of the mouth; this, together with the resolute,

+insolent intelligence of his eyes, produced an effect which made it

+impossible not to notice his face. Dólokhov was a man of small means

+and no connections. Yet, though Anatole spent tens of thousands of

+rubles, Dólokhov lived with him and had placed himself on such a

+footing that all who knew them, including Anatole himself, respected him

+more than they did Anatole. Dólokhov could play all games and nearly

+always won. However much he drank, he never lost his clearheadedness.

+Both Kurágin and Dólokhov were at that time notorious among the rakes

+and scapegraces of Petersburg.

+

+The bottle of rum was brought. The window frame which prevented anyone

+from sitting on the outer sill was being forced out by two footmen, who

+were evidently flurried and intimidated by the directions and shouts of

+the gentlemen around.

+

+Anatole with his swaggering air strode up to the window. He wanted to

+smash something. Pushing away the footmen he tugged at the frame, but

+could not move it. He smashed a pane.

+

+“You have a try, Hercules,” said he, turning to Pierre.

+

+Pierre seized the crossbeam, tugged, and wrenched the oak frame out with

+a crash.

+

+“Take it right out, or they’ll think I’m holding on,” said

+Dólokhov.

+

+“Is the Englishman bragging?... Eh? Is it all right?” said Anatole.

+

+“First-rate,” said Pierre, looking at Dólokhov, who with a bottle

+of rum in his hand was approaching the window, from which the light of

+the sky, the dawn merging with the afterglow of sunset, was visible.

+

+Dólokhov, the bottle of rum still in his hand, jumped onto the window

+sill. “Listen!” cried he, standing there and addressing those in the

+room. All were silent.

+

+“I bet fifty imperials”—he spoke French that the Englishman might

+understand him, but he did not speak it very well—“I bet fifty

+imperials ... or do you wish to make it a hundred?” added he,

+addressing the Englishman.

+

+“No, fifty,” replied the latter.

+

+“All right. Fifty imperials ... that I will drink a whole bottle of

+rum without taking it from my mouth, sitting outside the window on this

+spot” (he stooped and pointed to the sloping ledge outside the window)

+“and without holding on to anything. Is that right?”

+

+“Quite right,” said the Englishman.

+

+Anatole turned to the Englishman and taking him by one of the buttons

+of his coat and looking down at him—the Englishman was short—began

+repeating the terms of the wager to him in English.

+

+“Wait!” cried Dólokhov, hammering with the bottle on the window

+sill to attract attention. “Wait a bit, Kurágin. Listen! If

+anyone else does the same, I will pay him a hundred imperials. Do you

+understand?”

+

+The Englishman nodded, but gave no indication whether he intended to

+accept this challenge or not. Anatole did not release him, and though

+he kept nodding to show that he understood, Anatole went on translating

+Dólokhov’s words into English. A thin young lad, an hussar of the

+Life Guards, who had been losing that evening, climbed on the window

+sill, leaned over, and looked down.

+

+“Oh! Oh! Oh!” he muttered, looking down from the window at the

+stones of the pavement.

+

+“Shut up!” cried Dólokhov, pushing him away from the window. The

+lad jumped awkwardly back into the room, tripping over his spurs.

+

+Placing the bottle on the window sill where he could reach it easily,

+Dólokhov climbed carefully and slowly through the window and lowered

+his legs. Pressing against both sides of the window, he adjusted himself

+on his seat, lowered his hands, moved a little to the right and then to

+the left, and took up the bottle. Anatole brought two candles and

+placed them on the window sill, though it was already quite light.

+Dólokhov’s back in his white shirt, and his curly head, were lit

+up from both sides. Everyone crowded to the window, the Englishman in

+front. Pierre stood smiling but silent. One man, older than the others

+present, suddenly pushed forward with a scared and angry look and wanted

+to seize hold of Dólokhov’s shirt.

+

+“I say, this is folly! He’ll be killed,” said this more sensible

+man.

+

+Anatole stopped him.

+

+“Don’t touch him! You’ll startle him and then he’ll be killed.

+Eh?... What then?... Eh?”

+

+Dólokhov turned round and, again holding on with both hands, arranged

+himself on his seat.

+

+“If anyone comes meddling again,” said he, emitting the words

+separately through his thin compressed lips, “I will throw him down

+there. Now then!”

+

+Saying this he again turned round, dropped his hands, took the bottle

+and lifted it to his lips, threw back his head, and raised his free hand

+to balance himself. One of the footmen who had stooped to pick up some

+broken glass remained in that position without taking his eyes from the

+window and from Dólokhov’s back. Anatole stood erect with staring

+eyes. The Englishman looked on sideways, pursing up his lips. The man

+who had wished to stop the affair ran to a corner of the room and threw

+himself on a sofa with his face to the wall. Pierre hid his face, from

+which a faint smile forgot to fade though his features now expressed

+horror and fear. All were still. Pierre took his hands from his eyes.

+Dólokhov still sat in the same position, only his head was thrown

+further back till his curly hair touched his shirt collar, and the hand

+holding the bottle was lifted higher and higher and trembled with the

+effort. The bottle was emptying perceptibly and rising still higher

+and his head tilting yet further back. “Why is it so long?” thought

+Pierre. It seemed to him that more than half an hour had elapsed.

+Suddenly Dólokhov made a backward movement with his spine, and his arm

+trembled nervously; this was sufficient to cause his whole body to slip

+as he sat on the sloping ledge. As he began slipping down, his head and

+arm wavered still more with the strain. One hand moved as if to clutch

+the window sill, but refrained from touching it. Pierre again covered

+his eyes and thought he would never open them again. Suddenly he was

+aware of a stir all around. He looked up: Dólokhov was standing on the

+window sill, with a pale but radiant face.

+

+“It’s empty.”

+

+He threw the bottle to the Englishman, who caught it neatly. Dólokhov

+jumped down. He smelt strongly of rum.

+

+“Well done!... Fine fellow!... There’s a bet for you!... Devil take

+you!” came from different sides.

+

+The Englishman took out his purse and began counting out the money.

+Dólokhov stood frowning and did not speak. Pierre jumped upon the

+window sill.

+

+“Gentlemen, who wishes to bet with me? I’ll do the same thing!”

+he suddenly cried. “Even without a bet, there! Tell them to bring me a

+bottle. I’ll do it.... Bring a bottle!”

+

+“Let him do it, let him do it,” said Dólokhov, smiling.

+

+“What next? Have you gone mad?... No one would let you!... Why, you go

+giddy even on a staircase,” exclaimed several voices.

+

+“I’ll drink it! Let’s have a bottle of rum!” shouted Pierre,

+banging the table with a determined and drunken gesture and preparing to

+climb out of the window.

+

+They seized him by his arms; but he was so strong that everyone who

+touched him was sent flying.

+

+“No, you’ll never manage him that way,” said Anatole. “Wait a

+bit and I’ll get round him.... Listen! I’ll take your bet tomorrow,

+but now we are all going to ——’s.”

+

+“Come on then,” cried Pierre. “Come on!... And we’ll take Bruin

+with us.”

+

+And he caught the bear, took it in his arms, lifted it from the ground,

+and began dancing round the room with it.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+Prince Vasíli kept the promise he had given to Princess Drubetskáya

+who had spoken to him on behalf of her only son Borís on the evening of

+Anna Pávlovna’s soiree. The matter was mentioned to the Emperor, an

+exception made, and Borís transferred into the regiment of Semënov

+Guards with the rank of cornet. He received, however, no appointment

+to Kutúzov’s staff despite all Anna Mikháylovna’s endeavors and

+entreaties. Soon after Anna Pávlovna’s reception Anna Mikháylovna

+returned to Moscow and went straight to her rich relations, the

+Rostóvs, with whom she stayed when in the town and where her darling

+Bóry, who had only just entered a regiment of the line and was being

+at once transferred to the Guards as a cornet, had been educated from

+childhood and lived for years at a time. The Guards had already left

+Petersburg on the tenth of August, and her son, who had remained in

+Moscow for his equipment, was to join them on the march to Radzivílov.

+

+It was St. Natalia’s day and the name day of two of the Rostóvs—the

+mother and the youngest daughter—both named Nataly. Ever since

+the morning, carriages with six horses had been coming and going

+continually, bringing visitors to the Countess Rostóva’s big house on

+the Povarskáya, so well known to all Moscow. The countess herself and

+her handsome eldest daughter were in the drawing room with the visitors

+who came to congratulate, and who constantly succeeded one another in

+relays.

+

+The countess was a woman of about forty-five, with a thin Oriental type

+of face, evidently worn out with childbearing—she had had twelve.

+A languor of motion and speech, resulting from weakness, gave her a

+distinguished air which inspired respect. Princess Anna Mikháylovna

+Drubetskáya, who as a member of the household was also seated in the

+drawing room, helped to receive and entertain the visitors. The young

+people were in one of the inner rooms, not considering it necessary to

+take part in receiving the visitors. The count met the guests and saw

+them off, inviting them all to dinner.

+

+“I am very, very grateful to you, mon cher,” or “ma chère”—he

+called everyone without exception and without the slightest variation

+in his tone, “my dear,” whether they were above or below him in

+rank—“I thank you for myself and for our two dear ones whose name

+day we are keeping. But mind you come to dinner or I shall be offended,

+ma chère! On behalf of the whole family I beg you to come, mon cher!”

+These words he repeated to everyone without exception or variation, and

+with the same expression on his full, cheerful, clean-shaven face, the

+same firm pressure of the hand and the same quick, repeated bows. As

+soon as he had seen a visitor off he returned to one of those who were

+still in the drawing room, drew a chair toward him or her, and jauntily

+spreading out his legs and putting his hands on his knees with the air

+of a man who enjoys life and knows how to live, he swayed to and

+fro with dignity, offered surmises about the weather, or touched on

+questions of health, sometimes in Russian and sometimes in very bad but

+self-confident French; then again, like a man weary but unflinching in

+the fulfillment of duty, he rose to see some visitors off and, stroking

+his scanty gray hairs over his bald patch, also asked them to dinner.

+Sometimes on his way back from the anteroom he would pass through the

+conservatory and pantry into the large marble dining hall, where tables

+were being set out for eighty people; and looking at the footmen, who

+were bringing in silver and china, moving tables, and unfolding damask

+table linen, he would call Dmítri Vasílevich, a man of good family and

+the manager of all his affairs, and while looking with pleasure at the

+enormous table would say: “Well, Dmítri, you’ll see that things are

+all as they should be? That’s right! The great thing is the serving,

+that’s it.” And with a complacent sigh he would return to the

+drawing room.

+

+“Márya Lvóvna Karágina and her daughter!” announced the

+countess’ gigantic footman in his bass voice, entering the drawing

+room. The countess reflected a moment and took a pinch from a gold

+snuffbox with her husband’s portrait on it.

+

+“I’m quite worn out by these callers. However, I’ll see her and

+no more. She is so affected. Ask her in,” she said to the footman in a

+sad voice, as if saying: “Very well, finish me off.”

+

+A tall, stout, and proud-looking woman, with a round-faced smiling

+daughter, entered the drawing room, their dresses rustling.

+

+“Dear Countess, what an age... She has been laid up, poor child ...

+at the Razumóvski’s ball ... and Countess Apráksina ... I was

+so delighted...” came the sounds of animated feminine voices,

+interrupting one another and mingling with the rustling of dresses and

+the scraping of chairs. Then one of those conversations began which last

+out until, at the first pause, the guests rise with a rustle of dresses

+and say, “I am so delighted... Mamma’s health... and Countess

+Apráksina...” and then, again rustling, pass into the anteroom, put

+on cloaks or mantles, and drive away. The conversation was on the chief

+topic of the day: the illness of the wealthy and celebrated beau of

+Catherine’s day, Count Bezúkhov, and about his illegitimate son

+Pierre, the one who had behaved so improperly at Anna Pávlovna’s

+reception.

+

+“I am so sorry for the poor count,” said the visitor. “He is in

+such bad health, and now this vexation about his son is enough to kill

+him!”

+

+“What is that?” asked the countess as if she did not know what the

+visitor alluded to, though she had already heard about the cause of

+Count Bezúkhov’s distress some fifteen times.

+

+“That’s what comes of a modern education,” exclaimed the visitor.

+“It seems that while he was abroad this young man was allowed to do

+as he liked, now in Petersburg I hear he has been doing such terrible

+things that he has been expelled by the police.”

+

+“You don’t say so!” replied the countess.

+

+“He chose his friends badly,” interposed Anna Mikháylovna.

+“Prince Vasíli’s son, he, and a certain Dólokhov have, it is said,

+been up to heaven only knows what! And they have had to suffer for it.

+Dólokhov has been degraded to the ranks and Bezúkhov’s son sent

+back to Moscow. Anatole Kurágin’s father managed somehow to get his

+son’s affair hushed up, but even he was ordered out of Petersburg.”

+

+“But what have they been up to?” asked the countess.

+

+“They are regular brigands, especially Dólokhov,” replied the

+visitor. “He is a son of Márya Ivánovna Dólokhova, such a worthy

+woman, but there, just fancy! Those three got hold of a bear somewhere,

+put it in a carriage, and set off with it to visit some actresses! The

+police tried to interfere, and what did the young men do? They tied

+a policeman and the bear back to back and put the bear into the Moyka

+Canal. And there was the bear swimming about with the policeman on his

+back!”

+

+“What a nice figure the policeman must have cut, my dear!” shouted

+the count, dying with laughter.

+

+“Oh, how dreadful! How can you laugh at it, Count?”

+

+Yet the ladies themselves could not help laughing.

+

+“It was all they could do to rescue the poor man,” continued the

+visitor. “And to think it is Cyril Vladímirovich Bezúkhov’s son

+who amuses himself in this sensible manner! And he was said to be so

+well educated and clever. This is all that his foreign education has

+done for him! I hope that here in Moscow no one will receive him, in

+spite of his money. They wanted to introduce him to me, but I quite

+declined: I have my daughters to consider.”

+

+“Why do you say this young man is so rich?” asked the countess,

+turning away from the girls, who at once assumed an air of inattention.

+“His children are all illegitimate. I think Pierre also is

+illegitimate.”

+

+The visitor made a gesture with her hand.

+

+“I should think he has a score of them.”

+

+Princess Anna Mikháylovna intervened in the conversation, evidently

+wishing to show her connections and knowledge of what went on in

+society.

+

+“The fact of the matter is,” said she significantly, and also in a

+half whisper, “everyone knows Count Cyril’s reputation.... He has

+lost count of his children, but this Pierre was his favorite.”

+

+“How handsome the old man still was only a year ago!” remarked the

+countess. “I have never seen a handsomer man.”

+

+“He is very much altered now,” said Anna Mikháylovna. “Well, as

+I was saying, Prince Vasíli is the next heir through his wife, but the

+count is very fond of Pierre, looked after his education, and wrote to

+the Emperor about him; so that in the case of his death—and he is

+so ill that he may die at any moment, and Dr. Lorrain has come from

+Petersburg—no one knows who will inherit his immense fortune, Pierre

+or Prince Vasíli. Forty thousand serfs and millions of rubles! I know

+it all very well for Prince Vasíli told me himself. Besides, Cyril

+Vladímirovich is my mother’s second cousin. He’s also my Bóry’s

+godfather,” she added, as if she attached no importance at all to the

+fact.

+

+“Prince Vasíli arrived in Moscow yesterday. I hear he has come on

+some inspection business,” remarked the visitor.

+

+“Yes, but between ourselves,” said the princess, “that is a

+pretext. The fact is he has come to see Count Cyril Vladímirovich,

+hearing how ill he is.”

+

+“But do you know, my dear, that was a capital joke,” said the count;

+and seeing that the elder visitor was not listening, he turned to the

+young ladies. “I can just imagine what a funny figure that policeman

+cut!”

+

+And as he waved his arms to impersonate the policeman, his portly form

+again shook with a deep ringing laugh, the laugh of one who always eats

+well and, in particular, drinks well. “So do come and dine with us!”

+he said.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+Silence ensued. The countess looked at her callers, smiling affably,

+but not concealing the fact that she would not be distressed if they

+now rose and took their leave. The visitor’s daughter was already

+smoothing down her dress with an inquiring look at her mother, when

+suddenly from the next room were heard the footsteps of boys and girls

+running to the door and the noise of a chair falling over, and a girl

+of thirteen, hiding something in the folds of her short muslin frock,

+darted in and stopped short in the middle of the room. It was evident

+that she had not intended her flight to bring her so far. Behind her in

+the doorway appeared a student with a crimson coat collar, an officer

+of the Guards, a girl of fifteen, and a plump rosy-faced boy in a short

+jacket.

+

+The count jumped up and, swaying from side to side, spread his arms wide

+and threw them round the little girl who had run in.

+

+“Ah, here she is!” he exclaimed laughing. “My pet, whose name day

+it is. My dear pet!”

+

+“Ma chère, there is a time for everything,” said the countess with

+feigned severity. “You spoil her, Ilyá,” she added, turning to her

+husband.

+

+“How do you do, my dear? I wish you many happy returns of your name

+day,” said the visitor. “What a charming child,” she added,

+addressing the mother.

+

+This black-eyed, wide-mouthed girl, not pretty but full of life—with

+childish bare shoulders which after her run heaved and shook her

+bodice, with black curls tossed backward, thin bare arms, little legs

+in lace-frilled drawers, and feet in low slippers—was just at that

+charming age when a girl is no longer a child, though the child is not

+yet a young woman. Escaping from her father she ran to hide her flushed

+face in the lace of her mother’s mantilla—not paying the least

+attention to her severe remark—and began to laugh. She laughed, and in

+fragmentary sentences tried to explain about a doll which she produced

+from the folds of her frock.

+

+“Do you see?... My doll... Mimi... You see...” was all Natásha

+managed to utter (to her everything seemed funny). She leaned against

+her mother and burst into such a loud, ringing fit of laughter that even

+the prim visitor could not help joining in.

+

+“Now then, go away and take your monstrosity with you,” said the

+mother, pushing away her daughter with pretended sternness, and turning

+to the visitor she added: “She is my youngest girl.”

+

+Natásha, raising her face for a moment from her mother’s mantilla,

+glanced up at her through tears of laughter, and again hid her face.

+

+The visitor, compelled to look on at this family scene, thought it

+necessary to take some part in it.

+

+“Tell me, my dear,” said she to Natásha, “is Mimi a relation of

+yours? A daughter, I suppose?”

+

+Natásha did not like the visitor’s tone of condescension to childish

+things. She did not reply, but looked at her seriously.

+

+Meanwhile the younger generation: Borís, the officer, Anna

+Mikháylovna’s son; Nicholas, the undergraduate, the count’s eldest

+son; Sónya, the count’s fifteen-year-old niece, and little Pétya,

+his youngest boy, had all settled down in the drawing room and were

+obviously trying to restrain within the bounds of decorum the excitement

+and mirth that shone in all their faces. Evidently in the back rooms,

+from which they had dashed out so impetuously, the conversation had

+been more amusing than the drawing room talk of society scandals, the

+weather, and Countess Apráksina. Now and then they glanced at one

+another, hardly able to suppress their laughter.

+

+The two young men, the student and the officer, friends from childhood,

+were of the same age and both handsome fellows, though not alike. Borís

+was tall and fair, and his calm and handsome face had regular, delicate

+features. Nicholas was short with curly hair and an open expression.

+Dark hairs were already showing on his upper lip, and his whole face

+expressed impetuosity and enthusiasm. Nicholas blushed when he entered

+the drawing room. He evidently tried to find something to say, but

+failed. Borís on the contrary at once found his footing, and related

+quietly and humorously how he had known that doll Mimi when she was

+still quite a young lady, before her nose was broken; how she had aged

+during the five years he had known her, and how her head had cracked

+right across the skull. Having said this he glanced at Natásha.

+She turned away from him and glanced at her younger brother, who was

+screwing up his eyes and shaking with suppressed laughter, and unable

+to control herself any longer, she jumped up and rushed from the room as

+fast as her nimble little feet would carry her. Borís did not laugh.

+

+“You were meaning to go out, weren’t you, Mamma? Do you want the

+carriage?” he asked his mother with a smile.

+

+“Yes, yes, go and tell them to get it ready,” she answered,

+returning his smile.

+

+Borís quietly left the room and went in search of Natásha. The plump

+boy ran after them angrily, as if vexed that their program had been

+disturbed.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+The only young people remaining in the drawing room, not counting the

+young lady visitor and the countess’ eldest daughter (who was four

+years older than her sister and behaved already like a grown-up person),

+were Nicholas and Sónya, the niece. Sónya was a slender little

+brunette with a tender look in her eyes which were veiled by long

+lashes, thick black plaits coiling twice round her head, and a tawny

+tint in her complexion and especially in the color of her slender but

+graceful and muscular arms and neck. By the grace of her movements,

+by the softness and flexibility of her small limbs, and by a certain

+coyness and reserve of manner, she reminded one of a pretty, half-grown

+kitten which promises to become a beautiful little cat. She evidently

+considered it proper to show an interest in the general conversation by

+smiling, but in spite of herself her eyes under their thick long lashes

+watched her cousin who was going to join the army, with such passionate

+girlish adoration that her smile could not for a single instant impose

+upon anyone, and it was clear that the kitten had settled down only to

+spring up with more energy and again play with her cousin as soon as

+they too could, like Natásha and Borís, escape from the drawing room.

+

+“Ah yes, my dear,” said the count, addressing the visitor and

+pointing to Nicholas, “his friend Borís has become an officer, and

+so for friendship’s sake he is leaving the university and me, his

+old father, and entering the military service, my dear. And there was a

+place and everything waiting for him in the Archives Department! Isn’t

+that friendship?” remarked the count in an inquiring tone.

+

+“But they say that war has been declared,” replied the visitor.

+

+“They’ve been saying so a long while,” said the count, “and

+they’ll say so again and again, and that will be the end of it. My

+dear, there’s friendship for you,” he repeated. “He’s joining

+the hussars.”

+

+The visitor, not knowing what to say, shook her head.

+

+“It’s not at all from friendship,” declared Nicholas, flaring

+up and turning away as if from a shameful aspersion. “It is not from

+friendship at all; I simply feel that the army is my vocation.”

+

+He glanced at his cousin and the young lady visitor; and they were both

+regarding him with a smile of approbation.

+

+“Schubert, the colonel of the Pávlograd Hussars, is dining with us

+today. He has been here on leave and is taking Nicholas back with him.

+It can’t be helped!” said the count, shrugging his shoulders and

+speaking playfully of a matter that evidently distressed him.

+

+“I have already told you, Papa,” said his son, “that if you

+don’t wish to let me go, I’ll stay. But I know I am no use anywhere

+except in the army; I am not a diplomat or a government clerk.—I

+don’t know how to hide what I feel.” As he spoke he kept glancing

+with the flirtatiousness of a handsome youth at Sónya and the young

+lady visitor.

+

+The little kitten, feasting her eyes on him, seemed ready at any moment

+to start her gambols again and display her kittenish nature.

+

+“All right, all right!” said the old count. “He always flares up!

+This Buonaparte has turned all their heads; they all think of how he

+rose from an ensign and became Emperor. Well, well, God grant it,” he

+added, not noticing his visitor’s sarcastic smile.

+

+The elders began talking about Bonaparte. Julie Karágina turned to

+young Rostóv.

+

+“What a pity you weren’t at the Arkhárovs’ on Thursday. It was so

+dull without you,” said she, giving him a tender smile.

+

+The young man, flattered, sat down nearer to her with a coquettish

+smile, and engaged the smiling Julie in a confidential conversation

+without at all noticing that his involuntary smile had stabbed the heart

+of Sónya, who blushed and smiled unnaturally. In the midst of his talk

+he glanced round at her. She gave him a passionately angry glance, and

+hardly able to restrain her tears and maintain the artificial smile

+on her lips, she got up and left the room. All Nicholas’ animation

+vanished. He waited for the first pause in the conversation, and then

+with a distressed face left the room to find Sónya.

+

+“How plainly all these young people wear their hearts on their

+sleeves!” said Anna Mikháylovna, pointing to Nicholas as he went out.

+“Cousinage—dangereux voisinage,” * she added.

+

+     * Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood.

+

+“Yes,” said the countess when the brightness these young people had

+brought into the room had vanished; and as if answering a question no

+one had put but which was always in her mind, “and how much suffering,

+how much anxiety one has had to go through that we might rejoice in

+them now! And yet really the anxiety is greater now than the joy. One is

+always, always anxious! Especially just at this age, so dangerous both

+for girls and boys.”

+

+“It all depends on the bringing up,” remarked the visitor.

+

+“Yes, you’re quite right,” continued the countess. “Till now I

+have always, thank God, been my children’s friend and had their full

+confidence,” said she, repeating the mistake of so many parents who

+imagine that their children have no secrets from them. “I know I shall

+always be my daughters’ first confidante, and that if Nicholas, with

+his impulsive nature, does get into mischief (a boy can’t help it), he

+will all the same never be like those Petersburg young men.”

+

+“Yes, they are splendid, splendid youngsters,” chimed in the count,

+who always solved questions that seemed to him perplexing by deciding

+that everything was splendid. “Just fancy: wants to be an hussar.

+What’s one to do, my dear?”

+

+“What a charming creature your younger girl is,” said the visitor;

+“a little volcano!”

+

+“Yes, a regular volcano,” said the count. “Takes after me! And

+what a voice she has; though she’s my daughter, I tell the truth

+when I say she’ll be a singer, a second Salomoni! We have engaged an

+Italian to give her lessons.”

+

+“Isn’t she too young? I have heard that it harms the voice to train

+it at that age.”

+

+“Oh no, not at all too young!” replied the count. “Why, our

+mothers used to be married at twelve or thirteen.”

+

+“And she’s in love with Borís already. Just fancy!” said the

+countess with a gentle smile, looking at Borís and went on, evidently

+concerned with a thought that always occupied her: “Now you see if I

+were to be severe with her and to forbid it ... goodness knows what they

+might be up to on the sly” (she meant that they would be kissing),

+“but as it is, I know every word she utters. She will come running to

+me of her own accord in the evening and tell me everything. Perhaps I

+spoil her, but really that seems the best plan. With her elder sister I

+was stricter.”

+

+“Yes, I was brought up quite differently,” remarked the handsome

+elder daughter, Countess Véra, with a smile.

+

+But the smile did not enhance Véra’s beauty as smiles generally do;

+on the contrary it gave her an unnatural, and therefore unpleasant,

+expression. Véra was good-looking, not at all stupid, quick at

+learning, was well brought up, and had a pleasant voice; what she said

+was true and appropriate, yet, strange to say, everyone—the visitors

+and countess alike—turned to look at her as if wondering why she had

+said it, and they all felt awkward.

+

+“People are always too clever with their eldest children and try to

+make something exceptional of them,” said the visitor.

+

+“What’s the good of denying it, my dear? Our dear countess was too

+clever with Véra,” said the count. “Well, what of that? She’s

+turned out splendidly all the same,” he added, winking at Véra.

+

+The guests got up and took their leave, promising to return to dinner.

+

+“What manners! I thought they would never go,” said the countess,

+when she had seen her guests out.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+When Natásha ran out of the drawing room she only went as far as the

+conservatory. There she paused and stood listening to the conversation

+in the drawing room, waiting for Borís to come out. She was already

+growing impatient, and stamped her foot, ready to cry at his not coming

+at once, when she heard the young man’s discreet steps approaching

+neither quickly nor slowly. At this Natásha dashed swiftly among the

+flower tubs and hid there.

+

+Borís paused in the middle of the room, looked round, brushed a little

+dust from the sleeve of his uniform, and going up to a mirror examined

+his handsome face. Natásha, very still, peered out from her ambush,

+waiting to see what he would do. He stood a little while before the

+glass, smiled, and walked toward the other door. Natásha was about to

+call him but changed her mind. “Let him look for me,” thought she.

+Hardly had Borís gone than Sónya, flushed, in tears, and muttering

+angrily, came in at the other door. Natásha checked her first impulse

+to run out to her, and remained in her hiding place, watching—as

+under an invisible cap—to see what went on in the world. She was

+experiencing a new and peculiar pleasure. Sónya, muttering to herself,

+kept looking round toward the drawing room door. It opened and Nicholas

+came in.

+

+“Sónya, what is the matter with you? How can you?” said he, running

+up to her.

+

+“It’s nothing, nothing; leave me alone!” sobbed Sónya.

+

+“Ah, I know what it is.”

+

+“Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!”

+

+“Só-o-onya! Look here! How can you torture me and yourself like that,

+for a mere fancy?” said Nicholas taking her hand.

+

+Sónya did not pull it away, and left off crying. Natásha, not stirring

+and scarcely breathing, watched from her ambush with sparkling eyes.

+“What will happen now?” thought she.

+

+“Sónya! What is anyone in the world to me? You alone are

+everything!” said Nicholas. “And I will prove it to you.”

+

+“I don’t like you to talk like that.”

+

+“Well, then, I won’t; only forgive me, Sónya!” He drew her to him

+and kissed her.

+

+“Oh, how nice,” thought Natásha; and when Sónya and Nicholas had

+gone out of the conservatory she followed and called Borís to her.

+

+“Borís, come here,” said she with a sly and significant look. “I

+have something to tell you. Here, here!” and she led him into the

+conservatory to the place among the tubs where she had been hiding.

+

+Borís followed her, smiling.

+

+“What is the something?” asked he.

+

+She grew confused, glanced round, and, seeing the doll she had thrown

+down on one of the tubs, picked it up.

+

+“Kiss the doll,” said she.

+

+Borís looked attentively and kindly at her eager face, but did not

+reply.

+

+“Don’t you want to? Well, then, come here,” said she, and

+went further in among the plants and threw down the doll. “Closer,

+closer!” she whispered.

+

+She caught the young officer by his cuffs, and a look of solemnity and

+fear appeared on her flushed face.

+

+“And me? Would you like to kiss me?” she whispered almost inaudibly,

+glancing up at him from under her brows, smiling, and almost crying from

+excitement.

+

+Borís blushed.

+

+“How funny you are!” he said, bending down to her and blushing still

+more, but he waited and did nothing.

+

+Suddenly she jumped up onto a tub to be higher than he, embraced him so

+that both her slender bare arms clasped him above his neck, and, tossing

+back her hair, kissed him full on the lips.

+

+Then she slipped down among the flowerpots on the other side of the tubs

+and stood, hanging her head.

+

+“Natásha,” he said, “you know that I love you, but....”

+

+“You are in love with me?” Natásha broke in.

+

+“Yes, I am, but please don’t let us do like that.... In another four

+years ... then I will ask for your hand.”

+

+Natásha considered.

+

+“Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,” she counted on her slender

+little fingers. “All right! Then it’s settled?”

+

+A smile of joy and satisfaction lit up her eager face.

+

+“Settled!” replied Borís.

+

+“Forever?” said the little girl. “Till death itself?”

+

+She took his arm and with a happy face went with him into the adjoining

+sitting room.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV

+

+After receiving her visitors, the countess was so tired that she gave

+orders to admit no more, but the porter was told to be sure to invite to

+dinner all who came “to congratulate.” The countess wished to have

+a tête-à-tête talk with the friend of her childhood, Princess Anna

+Mikháylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she returned from

+Petersburg. Anna Mikháylovna, with her tear-worn but pleasant face,

+drew her chair nearer to that of the countess.

+

+“With you I will be quite frank,” said Anna Mikháylovna. “There

+are not many left of us old friends! That’s why I so value your

+friendship.”

+

+Anna Mikháylovna looked at Véra and paused. The countess pressed her

+friend’s hand.

+

+“Véra,” she said to her eldest daughter who was evidently not a

+favorite, “how is it you have so little tact? Don’t you see you are

+not wanted here? Go to the other girls, or...”

+

+The handsome Véra smiled contemptuously but did not seem at all hurt.

+

+“If you had told me sooner, Mamma, I would have gone,” she replied

+as she rose to go to her own room.

+

+But as she passed the sitting room she noticed two couples sitting,

+one pair at each window. She stopped and smiled scornfully. Sónya was

+sitting close to Nicholas who was copying out some verses for her, the

+first he had ever written. Borís and Natásha were at the other window

+and ceased talking when Véra entered. Sónya and Natásha looked at

+Véra with guilty, happy faces.

+

+It was pleasant and touching to see these little girls in love; but

+apparently the sight of them roused no pleasant feeling in Véra.

+

+“How often have I asked you not to take my things?” she said. “You

+have a room of your own,” and she took the inkstand from Nicholas.

+

+“In a minute, in a minute,” he said, dipping his pen.

+

+“You always manage to do things at the wrong time,” continued Véra.

+“You came rushing into the drawing room so that everyone felt ashamed

+of you.”

+

+Though what she said was quite just, perhaps for that very reason no one

+replied, and the four simply looked at one another. She lingered in the

+room with the inkstand in her hand.

+

+“And at your age what secrets can there be between Natásha and

+Borís, or between you two? It’s all nonsense!”

+

+“Now, Véra, what does it matter to you?” said Natásha in defense,

+speaking very gently.

+

+She seemed that day to be more than ever kind and affectionate to

+everyone.

+

+“Very silly,” said Véra. “I am ashamed of you. Secrets indeed!”

+

+“All have secrets of their own,” answered Natásha, getting warmer.

+“We don’t interfere with you and Berg.”

+

+“I should think not,” said Véra, “because there can never be

+anything wrong in my behavior. But I’ll just tell Mamma how you are

+behaving with Borís.”

+

+“Natálya Ilyníchna behaves very well to me,” remarked Borís. “I

+have nothing to complain of.”

+

+“Don’t, Borís! You are such a diplomat that it is really

+tiresome,” said Natásha in a mortified voice that trembled slightly.

+(She used the word “diplomat,” which was just then much in vogue

+among the children, in the special sense they attached to it.) “Why

+does she bother me?” And she added, turning to Véra, “You’ll

+never understand it, because you’ve never loved anyone. You have no

+heart! You are a Madame de Genlis and nothing more” (this nickname,

+bestowed on Véra by Nicholas, was considered very stinging), “and

+your greatest pleasure is to be unpleasant to people! Go and flirt with

+Berg as much as you please,” she finished quickly.

+

+“I shall at any rate not run after a young man before visitors...”

+

+“Well, now you’ve done what you wanted,” put in Nicholas—“said

+unpleasant things to everyone and upset them. Let’s go to the

+nursery.”

+

+All four, like a flock of scared birds, got up and left the room.

+

+“The unpleasant things were said to me,” remarked Véra, “I said

+none to anyone.”

+

+“Madame de Genlis! Madame de Genlis!” shouted laughing voices

+through the door.

+

+The handsome Véra, who produced such an irritating and unpleasant

+effect on everyone, smiled and, evidently unmoved by what had been

+said to her, went to the looking glass and arranged her hair and scarf.

+Looking at her own handsome face she seemed to become still colder and

+calmer.

+

+

+In the drawing room the conversation was still going on.

+

+“Ah, my dear,” said the countess, “my life is not all roses

+either. Don’t I know that at the rate we are living our means won’t

+last long? It’s all the Club and his easygoing nature. Even in the

+country do we get any rest? Theatricals, hunting, and heaven knows what

+besides! But don’t let’s talk about me; tell me how you managed

+everything. I often wonder at you, Annette—how at your age you

+can rush off alone in a carriage to Moscow, to Petersburg, to those

+ministers and great people, and know how to deal with them all! It’s

+quite astonishing. How did you get things settled? I couldn’t possibly

+do it.”

+

+“Ah, my love,” answered Anna Mikháylovna, “God grant you never

+know what it is to be left a widow without means and with a son you love

+to distraction! One learns many things then,” she added with a certain

+pride. “That lawsuit taught me much. When I want to see one of those

+big people I write a note: ‘Princess So-and-So desires an interview

+with So and-So,’ and then I take a cab and go myself two, three, or

+four times—till I get what I want. I don’t mind what they think of

+me.”

+

+“Well, and to whom did you apply about Bóry?” asked the countess.

+“You see yours is already an officer in the Guards, while my Nicholas

+is going as a cadet. There’s no one to interest himself for him. To

+whom did you apply?”

+

+“To Prince Vasíli. He was so kind. He at once agreed to everything,

+and put the matter before the Emperor,” said Princess Anna

+Mikháylovna enthusiastically, quite forgetting all the humiliation she

+had endured to gain her end.

+

+“Has Prince Vasíli aged much?” asked the countess. “I have not

+seen him since we acted together at the Rumyántsovs’ theatricals. I

+expect he has forgotten me. He paid me attentions in those days,” said

+the countess, with a smile.

+

+“He is just the same as ever,” replied Anna Mikháylovna,

+“overflowing with amiability. His position has not turned his head

+at all. He said to me, ‘I am sorry I can do so little for you, dear

+Princess. I am at your command.’ Yes, he is a fine fellow and a very

+kind relation. But, Nataly, you know my love for my son: I would do

+anything for his happiness! And my affairs are in such a bad way that my

+position is now a terrible one,” continued Anna Mikháylovna, sadly,

+dropping her voice. “My wretched lawsuit takes all I have and makes no

+progress. Would you believe it, I have literally not a penny and don’t

+know how to equip Borís.” She took out her handkerchief and began to

+cry. “I need five hundred rubles, and have only one twenty-five-ruble

+note. I am in such a state.... My only hope now is in Count Cyril

+Vladímirovich Bezúkhov. If he will not assist his godson—you know

+he is Bóry’s godfather—and allow him something for his maintenance,

+all my trouble will have been thrown away.... I shall not be able to

+equip him.”

+

+The countess’ eyes filled with tears and she pondered in silence.

+

+“I often think, though, perhaps it’s a sin,” said the princess,

+“that here lives Count Cyril Vladímirovich Bezúkhov so rich, all

+alone... that tremendous fortune... and what is his life worth? It’s a

+burden to him, and Bóry’s life is only just beginning....”

+

+“Surely he will leave something to Borís,” said the countess.

+

+“Heaven only knows, my dear! These rich grandees are so selfish.

+Still, I will take Borís and go to see him at once, and I shall speak

+to him straight out. Let people think what they will of me, it’s

+really all the same to me when my son’s fate is at stake.” The

+princess rose. “It’s now two o’clock and you dine at four. There

+will just be time.”

+

+And like a practical Petersburg lady who knows how to make the most of

+time, Anna Mikháylovna sent someone to call her son, and went into the

+anteroom with him.

+

+“Good-by, my dear,” said she to the countess who saw her to the

+door, and added in a whisper so that her son should not hear, “Wish me

+good luck.”

+

+“Are you going to Count Cyril Vladímirovich, my dear?” said the

+count coming out from the dining hall into the anteroom, and he added:

+“If he is better, ask Pierre to dine with us. He has been to the

+house, you know, and danced with the children. Be sure to invite him, my

+dear. We will see how Tarás distinguishes himself today. He says Count

+Orlóv never gave such a dinner as ours will be!”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV

+

+“My dear Borís,” said Princess Anna Mikháylovna to her son as

+Countess Rostóva’s carriage in which they were seated drove over the

+straw covered street and turned into the wide courtyard of Count Cyril

+Vladímirovich Bezúkhov’s house. “My dear Borís,” said the

+mother, drawing her hand from beneath her old mantle and laying

+it timidly and tenderly on her son’s arm, “be affectionate and

+attentive to him. Count Cyril Vladímirovich is your godfather after

+all, and your future depends on him. Remember that, my dear, and be nice

+to him, as you so well know how to be.”

+

+“If only I knew that anything besides humiliation would come of

+it...” answered her son coldly. “But I have promised and will do it

+for your sake.”

+

+Although the hall porter saw someone’s carriage standing at the

+entrance, after scrutinizing the mother and son (who without asking to

+be announced had passed straight through the glass porch between the

+rows of statues in niches) and looking significantly at the lady’s old

+cloak, he asked whether they wanted the count or the princesses, and,

+hearing that they wished to see the count, said his excellency was worse

+today, and that his excellency was not receiving anyone.

+

+“We may as well go back,” said the son in French.

+

+“My dear!” exclaimed his mother imploringly, again laying her hand

+on his arm as if that touch might soothe or rouse him.

+

+Borís said no more, but looked inquiringly at his mother without taking

+off his cloak.

+

+“My friend,” said Anna Mikháylovna in gentle tones, addressing

+the hall porter, “I know Count Cyril Vladímirovich is very ill...

+that’s why I have come... I am a relation. I shall not disturb him,

+my friend... I only need see Prince Vasíli Sergéevich: he is staying

+here, is he not? Please announce me.”

+

+The hall porter sullenly pulled a bell that rang upstairs, and turned

+away.

+

+“Princess Drubetskáya to see Prince Vasíli Sergéevich,” he called

+to a footman dressed in knee breeches, shoes, and a swallow-tail coat,

+who ran downstairs and looked over from the halfway landing.

+

+The mother smoothed the folds of her dyed silk dress before a large

+Venetian mirror in the wall, and in her trodden-down shoes briskly

+ascended the carpeted stairs.

+

+“My dear,” she said to her son, once more stimulating him by a

+touch, “you promised me!”

+

+The son, lowering his eyes, followed her quietly.

+

+They entered the large hall, from which one of the doors led to the

+apartments assigned to Prince Vasíli.

+

+Just as the mother and son, having reached the middle of the hall, were

+about to ask their way of an elderly footman who had sprung up as they

+entered, the bronze handle of one of the doors turned and Prince Vasíli

+came out—wearing a velvet coat with a single star on his breast,

+as was his custom when at home—taking leave of a good-looking,

+dark-haired man. This was the celebrated Petersburg doctor, Lorrain.

+

+“Then it is certain?” said the prince.

+

+“Prince, humanum est errare, * but...” replied the doctor,

+swallowing his r’s, and pronouncing the Latin words with a French

+accent.

+

+     * To err is human.

+

+“Very well, very well...”

+

+Seeing Anna Mikháylovna and her son, Prince Vasíli dismissed the

+doctor with a bow and approached them silently and with a look of

+inquiry. The son noticed that an expression of profound sorrow suddenly

+clouded his mother’s face, and he smiled slightly.

+

+“Ah, Prince! In what sad circumstances we meet again! And how is our

+dear invalid?” said she, as though unaware of the cold offensive look

+fixed on her.

+

+Prince Vasíli stared at her and at Borís questioningly and perplexed.

+Borís bowed politely. Prince Vasíli without acknowledging the bow

+turned to Anna Mikháylovna, answering her query by a movement of the

+head and lips indicating very little hope for the patient.

+

+“Is it possible?” exclaimed Anna Mikháylovna. “Oh, how awful!

+It is terrible to think.... This is my son,” she added, indicating

+Borís. “He wanted to thank you himself.”

+

+Borís bowed again politely.

+

+“Believe me, Prince, a mother’s heart will never forget what you

+have done for us.”

+

+“I am glad I was able to do you a service, my dear Anna

+Mikháylovna,” said Prince Vasíli, arranging his lace frill, and in

+tone and manner, here in Moscow to Anna Mikháylovna whom he had placed

+under an obligation, assuming an air of much greater importance than he

+had done in Petersburg at Anna Schérer’s reception.

+

+“Try to serve well and show yourself worthy,” added he, addressing

+Borís with severity. “I am glad.... Are you here on leave?” he went

+on in his usual tone of indifference.

+

+“I am awaiting orders to join my new regiment, your excellency,”

+replied Borís, betraying neither annoyance at the prince’s brusque

+manner nor a desire to enter into conversation, but speaking so quietly

+and respectfully that the prince gave him a searching glance.

+

+“Are you living with your mother?”

+

+“I am living at Countess Rostóva’s,” replied Borís, again

+adding, “your excellency.”

+

+“That is, with Ilyá Rostóv who married Nataly Shinshiná,” said

+Anna Mikháylovna.

+

+“I know, I know,” answered Prince Vasíli in his monotonous voice.

+“I never could understand how Nataly made up her mind to marry that

+unlicked bear! A perfectly absurd and stupid fellow, and a gambler too,

+I am told.”

+

+“But a very kind man, Prince,” said Anna Mikháylovna with a

+pathetic smile, as though she too knew that Count Rostóv deserved this

+censure, but asked him not to be too hard on the poor old man. “What

+do the doctors say?” asked the princess after a pause, her worn face

+again expressing deep sorrow.

+

+“They give little hope,” replied the prince.

+

+“And I should so like to thank Uncle once for all his kindness to me

+and Borís. He is his godson,” she added, her tone suggesting that

+this fact ought to give Prince Vasíli much satisfaction.

+

+Prince Vasíli became thoughtful and frowned. Anna Mikháylovna saw that

+he was afraid of finding in her a rival for Count Bezúkhov’s fortune,

+and hastened to reassure him.

+

+“If it were not for my sincere affection and devotion to Uncle,”

+said she, uttering the word with peculiar assurance and unconcern, “I

+know his character: noble, upright ... but you see he has no one with

+him except the young princesses.... They are still young....” She bent

+her head and continued in a whisper: “Has he performed his final duty,

+Prince? How priceless are those last moments! It can make things no

+worse, and it is absolutely necessary to prepare him if he is so ill.

+We women, Prince,” and she smiled tenderly, “always know how to say

+these things. I absolutely must see him, however painful it may be for

+me. I am used to suffering.”

+

+Evidently the prince understood her, and also understood, as he had done

+at Anna Pávlovna’s, that it would be difficult to get rid of Anna

+Mikháylovna.

+

+“Would not such a meeting be too trying for him, dear Anna

+Mikháylovna?” said he. “Let us wait until evening. The doctors are

+expecting a crisis.”

+

+“But one cannot delay, Prince, at such a moment! Consider that the

+welfare of his soul is at stake. Ah, it is awful: the duties of a

+Christian...”

+

+A door of one of the inner rooms opened and one of the princesses, the

+count’s niece, entered with a cold, stern face. The length of her

+body was strikingly out of proportion to her short legs. Prince Vasíli

+turned to her.

+

+“Well, how is he?”

+

+“Still the same; but what can you expect, this noise...” said the

+princess, looking at Anna Mikháylovna as at a stranger.

+

+“Ah, my dear, I hardly knew you,” said Anna Mikháylovna with a

+happy smile, ambling lightly up to the count’s niece. “I have come,

+and am at your service to help you nurse my uncle. I imagine what you

+have gone through,” and she sympathetically turned up her eyes.

+

+The princess gave no reply and did not even smile, but left the room as

+Anna Mikháylovna took off her gloves and, occupying the position she

+had conquered, settled down in an armchair, inviting Prince Vasíli to

+take a seat beside her.

+

+“Borís,” she said to her son with a smile, “I shall go in to see

+the count, my uncle; but you, my dear, had better go to Pierre meanwhile

+and don’t forget to give him the Rostóvs’ invitation. They ask him

+to dinner. I suppose he won’t go?” she continued, turning to the

+prince.

+

+“On the contrary,” replied the prince, who had plainly become

+depressed, “I shall be only too glad if you relieve me of that young

+man.... Here he is, and the count has not once asked for him.”

+

+He shrugged his shoulders. A footman conducted Borís down one flight of

+stairs and up another, to Pierre’s rooms.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI

+

+Pierre, after all, had not managed to choose a career for himself in

+Petersburg, and had been expelled from there for riotous conduct and

+sent to Moscow. The story told about him at Count Rostóv’s was true.

+Pierre had taken part in tying a policeman to a bear. He had now been

+for some days in Moscow and was staying as usual at his father’s

+house. Though he expected that the story of his escapade would be

+already known in Moscow and that the ladies about his father—who were

+never favorably disposed toward him—would have used it to turn the

+count against him, he nevertheless on the day of his arrival went to

+his father’s part of the house. Entering the drawing room, where the

+princesses spent most of their time, he greeted the ladies, two of whom

+were sitting at embroidery frames while a third read aloud. It was the

+eldest who was reading—the one who had met Anna Mikháylovna. The

+two younger ones were embroidering: both were rosy and pretty and they

+differed only in that one had a little mole on her lip which made her

+much prettier. Pierre was received as if he were a corpse or a leper.

+The eldest princess paused in her reading and silently stared at him

+with frightened eyes; the second assumed precisely the same expression;

+while the youngest, the one with the mole, who was of a cheerful and

+lively disposition, bent over her frame to hide a smile probably evoked

+by the amusing scene she foresaw. She drew her wool down through the

+canvas and, scarcely able to refrain from laughing, stooped as if trying

+to make out the pattern.

+

+“How do you do, cousin?” said Pierre. “You don’t recognize

+me?”

+

+“I recognize you only too well, too well.”

+

+“How is the count? Can I see him?” asked Pierre, awkwardly as usual,

+but unabashed.

+

+“The count is suffering physically and mentally, and apparently you

+have done your best to increase his mental sufferings.”

+

+“Can I see the count?” Pierre again asked.

+

+“Hm.... If you wish to kill him, to kill him outright, you can see

+him... Olga, go and see whether Uncle’s beef tea is ready—it is

+almost time,” she added, giving Pierre to understand that they were

+busy, and busy making his father comfortable, while evidently he,

+Pierre, was only busy causing him annoyance.

+

+Olga went out. Pierre stood looking at the sisters; then he bowed and

+said: “Then I will go to my rooms. You will let me know when I can see

+him.”

+

+And he left the room, followed by the low but ringing laughter of the

+sister with the mole.

+

+Next day Prince Vasíli had arrived and settled in the count’s house.

+He sent for Pierre and said to him: “My dear fellow, if you are going

+to behave here as you did in Petersburg, you will end very badly; that

+is all I have to say to you. The count is very, very ill, and you must

+not see him at all.”

+

+Since then Pierre had not been disturbed and had spent the whole time in

+his rooms upstairs.

+

+When Borís appeared at his door Pierre was pacing up and down his room,

+stopping occasionally at a corner to make menacing gestures at the wall,

+as if running a sword through an invisible foe, and glaring savagely

+over his spectacles, and then again resuming his walk, muttering

+indistinct words, shrugging his shoulders and gesticulating.

+

+“England is done for,” said he, scowling and pointing his finger

+at someone unseen. “Mr. Pitt, as a traitor to the nation and to the

+rights of man, is sentenced to...” But before Pierre—who at that

+moment imagined himself to be Napoleon in person and to have just

+effected the dangerous crossing of the Straits of Dover and captured

+London—could pronounce Pitt’s sentence, he saw a well-built and

+handsome young officer entering his room. Pierre paused. He had left

+Moscow when Borís was a boy of fourteen, and had quite forgotten him,

+but in his usual impulsive and hearty way he took Borís by the hand

+with a friendly smile.

+

+“Do you remember me?” asked Borís quietly with a pleasant smile.

+“I have come with my mother to see the count, but it seems he is not

+well.”

+

+“Yes, it seems he is ill. People are always disturbing him,”

+answered Pierre, trying to remember who this young man was.

+

+Borís felt that Pierre did not recognize him but did not consider

+it necessary to introduce himself, and without experiencing the least

+embarrassment looked Pierre straight in the face.

+

+“Count Rostóv asks you to come to dinner today,” said he, after a

+considerable pause which made Pierre feel uncomfortable.

+

+“Ah, Count Rostóv!” exclaimed Pierre joyfully. “Then you are his

+son, Ilyá? Only fancy, I didn’t know you at first. Do you remember

+how we went to the Sparrow Hills with Madame Jacquot?... It’s such an

+age...”

+

+“You are mistaken,” said Borís deliberately, with a bold and

+slightly sarcastic smile. “I am Borís, son of Princess Anna

+Mikháylovna Drubetskáya. Rostóv, the father, is Ilyá, and his son is

+Nicholas. I never knew any Madame Jacquot.”

+

+Pierre shook his head and arms as if attacked by mosquitoes or bees.

+

+“Oh dear, what am I thinking about? I’ve mixed everything up. One

+has so many relatives in Moscow! So you are Borís? Of course. Well, now

+we know where we are. And what do you think of the Boulogne expedition?

+The English will come off badly, you know, if Napoleon gets across the

+Channel. I think the expedition is quite feasible. If only Villeneuve

+doesn’t make a mess of things!”

+

+Borís knew nothing about the Boulogne expedition; he did not read the

+papers and it was the first time he had heard Villeneuve’s name.

+

+“We here in Moscow are more occupied with dinner parties and scandal

+than with politics,” said he in his quiet ironical tone. “I know

+nothing about it and have not thought about it. Moscow is chiefly busy

+with gossip,” he continued. “Just now they are talking about you and

+your father.”

+

+Pierre smiled in his good-natured way as if afraid for his companion’s

+sake that the latter might say something he would afterwards regret.

+But Borís spoke distinctly, clearly, and dryly, looking straight into

+Pierre’s eyes.

+

+“Moscow has nothing else to do but gossip,” Borís went on.

+“Everybody is wondering to whom the count will leave his fortune,

+though he may perhaps outlive us all, as I sincerely hope he will...”

+

+“Yes, it is all very horrid,” interrupted Pierre, “very horrid.”

+

+Pierre was still afraid that this officer might inadvertently say

+something disconcerting to himself.

+

+“And it must seem to you,” said Borís flushing slightly, but not

+changing his tone or attitude, “it must seem to you that everyone is

+trying to get something out of the rich man?”

+

+“So it does,” thought Pierre.

+

+“But I just wish to say, to avoid misunderstandings, that you are

+quite mistaken if you reckon me or my mother among such people. We are

+very poor, but for my own part at any rate, for the very reason that

+your father is rich, I don’t regard myself as a relation of his, and

+neither I nor my mother would ever ask or take anything from him.”

+

+For a long time Pierre could not understand, but when he did, he jumped

+up from the sofa, seized Borís under the elbow in his quick, clumsy

+way, and, blushing far more than Borís, began to speak with a feeling

+of mingled shame and vexation.

+

+“Well, this is strange! Do you suppose I... who could think?... I know

+very well...”

+

+But Borís again interrupted him.

+

+“I am glad I have spoken out fully. Perhaps you did not like it? You

+must excuse me,” said he, putting Pierre at ease instead of being put

+at ease by him, “but I hope I have not offended you. I always make it

+a rule to speak out... Well, what answer am I to take? Will you come to

+dinner at the Rostóvs’?”

+

+And Borís, having apparently relieved himself of an onerous duty and

+extricated himself from an awkward situation and placed another in it,

+became quite pleasant again.

+

+“No, but I say,” said Pierre, calming down, “you are a wonderful

+fellow! What you have just said is good, very good. Of course you

+don’t know me. We have not met for such a long time... not since we

+were children. You might think that I... I understand, quite understand.

+I could not have done it myself, I should not have had the courage, but

+it’s splendid. I am very glad to have made your acquaintance. It’s

+queer,” he added after a pause, “that you should have suspected

+me!” He began to laugh. “Well, what of it! I hope we’ll get better

+acquainted,” and he pressed Borís’ hand. “Do you know, I have not

+once been in to see the count. He has not sent for me.... I am sorry for

+him as a man, but what can one do?”

+

+“And so you think Napoleon will manage to get an army across?” asked

+Borís with a smile.

+

+Pierre saw that Borís wished to change the subject, and being of the

+same mind he began explaining the advantages and disadvantages of the

+Boulogne expedition.

+

+A footman came in to summon Borís—the princess was going. Pierre, in

+order to make Borís’ better acquaintance, promised to come to dinner,

+and warmly pressing his hand looked affectionately over his spectacles

+into Borís’ eyes. After he had gone Pierre continued pacing up and

+down the room for a long time, no longer piercing an imaginary foe with

+his imaginary sword, but smiling at the remembrance of that pleasant,

+intelligent, and resolute young man.

+

+As often happens in early youth, especially to one who leads a lonely

+life, he felt an unaccountable tenderness for this young man and made up

+his mind that they would be friends.

+

+Prince Vasíli saw the princess off. She held a handkerchief to her eyes

+and her face was tearful.

+

+“It is dreadful, dreadful!” she was saying, “but cost me what it

+may I shall do my duty. I will come and spend the night. He must not be

+left like this. Every moment is precious. I can’t think why his nieces

+put it off. Perhaps God will help me to find a way to prepare him!...

+Adieu, Prince! May God support you...”

+

+“Adieu, ma bonne,” answered Prince Vasíli turning away from her.

+

+“Oh, he is in a dreadful state,” said the mother to her son when

+they were in the carriage. “He hardly recognizes anybody.”

+

+“I don’t understand, Mamma—what is his attitude to Pierre?”

+asked the son.

+

+“The will will show that, my dear; our fate also depends on it.”

+

+“But why do you expect that he will leave us anything?”

+

+“Ah, my dear! He is so rich, and we are so poor!”

+

+“Well, that is hardly a sufficient reason, Mamma...”

+

+“Oh, Heaven! How ill he is!” exclaimed the mother.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVII

+

+After Anna Mikháylovna had driven off with her son to visit Count Cyril

+Vladímirovich Bezúkhov, Countess Rostóva sat for a long time all

+alone applying her handkerchief to her eyes. At last she rang.

+

+“What is the matter with you, my dear?” she said crossly to the maid

+who kept her waiting some minutes. “Don’t you wish to serve me? Then

+I’ll find you another place.”

+

+The countess was upset by her friend’s sorrow and humiliating poverty,

+and was therefore out of sorts, a state of mind which with her always

+found expression in calling her maid “my dear” and speaking to her

+with exaggerated politeness.

+

+“I am very sorry, ma’am,” answered the maid.

+

+“Ask the count to come to me.”

+

+The count came waddling in to see his wife with a rather guilty look as

+usual.

+

+“Well, little countess? What a sauté of game au madère we are to

+have, my dear! I tasted it. The thousand rubles I paid for Tarás were

+not ill-spent. He is worth it!”

+

+He sat down by his wife, his elbows on his knees and his hands ruffling

+his gray hair.

+

+“What are your commands, little countess?”

+

+“You see, my dear... What’s that mess?” she said, pointing to his

+waistcoat. “It’s the sauté, most likely,” she added with a smile.

+“Well, you see, Count, I want some money.”

+

+Her face became sad.

+

+“Oh, little countess!” ... and the count began bustling to get out

+his pocketbook.

+

+“I want a great deal, Count! I want five hundred rubles,” and taking

+out her cambric handkerchief she began wiping her husband’s waistcoat.

+

+“Yes, immediately, immediately! Hey, who’s there?” he called out

+in a tone only used by persons who are certain that those they call will

+rush to obey the summons. “Send Dmítri to me!”

+

+Dmítri, a man of good family who had been brought up in the count’s

+house and now managed all his affairs, stepped softly into the room.

+

+“This is what I want, my dear fellow,” said the count to the

+deferential young man who had entered. “Bring me...” he reflected

+a moment, “yes, bring me seven hundred rubles, yes! But mind, don’t

+bring me such tattered and dirty notes as last time, but nice clean ones

+for the countess.”

+

+“Yes, Dmítri, clean ones, please,” said the countess, sighing

+deeply.

+

+“When would you like them, your excellency?” asked Dmítri. “Allow

+me to inform you... But, don’t be uneasy,” he added, noticing that

+the count was beginning to breathe heavily and quickly which was always

+a sign of approaching anger. “I was forgetting... Do you wish it

+brought at once?”

+

+“Yes, yes; just so! Bring it. Give it to the countess.”

+

+“What a treasure that Dmítri is,” added the count with a smile when

+the young man had departed. “There is never any ‘impossible’ with

+him. That’s a thing I hate! Everything is possible.”

+

+“Ah, money, Count, money! How much sorrow it causes in the world,”

+said the countess. “But I am in great need of this sum.”

+

+“You, my little countess, are a notorious spendthrift,” said the

+count, and having kissed his wife’s hand he went back to his study.

+

+When Anna Mikháylovna returned from Count Bezúkhov’s the money, all

+in clean notes, was lying ready under a handkerchief on the countess’

+little table, and Anna Mikháylovna noticed that something was agitating

+her.

+

+“Well, my dear?” asked the countess.

+

+“Oh, what a terrible state he is in! One would not know him, he is so

+ill! I was only there a few moments and hardly said a word...”

+

+“Annette, for heaven’s sake don’t refuse me,” the countess

+began, with a blush that looked very strange on her thin, dignified,

+elderly face, and she took the money from under the handkerchief.

+

+Anna Mikháylovna instantly guessed her intention and stooped to be

+ready to embrace the countess at the appropriate moment.

+

+“This is for Borís from me, for his outfit.”

+

+Anna Mikháylovna was already embracing her and weeping. The countess

+wept too. They wept because they were friends, and because they were

+kindhearted, and because they—friends from childhood—had to think

+about such a base thing as money, and because their youth was over....

+But those tears were pleasant to them both.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVIII

+

+Countess Rostóva, with her daughters and a large number of guests, was

+already seated in the drawing room. The count took the gentlemen into

+his study and showed them his choice collection of Turkish pipes. From

+time to time he went out to ask: “Hasn’t she come yet?” They

+were expecting Márya Dmítrievna Akhrosímova, known in society as le

+terrible dragon, a lady distinguished not for wealth or rank, but for

+common sense and frank plainness of speech. Márya Dmítrievna was known

+to the Imperial family as well as to all Moscow and Petersburg, and both

+cities wondered at her, laughed privately at her rudenesses, and told

+good stories about her, while none the less all without exception

+respected and feared her.

+

+In the count’s room, which was full of tobacco smoke, they talked

+of the war that had been announced in a manifesto, and about the

+recruiting. None of them had yet seen the manifesto, but they all knew

+it had appeared. The count sat on the sofa between two guests who were

+smoking and talking. He neither smoked nor talked, but bending his head

+first to one side and then to the other watched the smokers with evident

+pleasure and listened to the conversation of his two neighbors, whom he

+egged on against each other.

+

+One of them was a sallow, clean-shaven civilian with a thin and wrinkled

+face, already growing old, though he was dressed like a most fashionable

+young man. He sat with his legs up on the sofa as if quite at home and,

+having stuck an amber mouthpiece far into his mouth, was inhaling the

+smoke spasmodically and screwing up his eyes. This was an old bachelor,

+Shinshín, a cousin of the countess’, a man with “a sharp tongue”

+as they said in Moscow society. He seemed to be condescending to

+his companion. The latter, a fresh, rosy officer of the Guards,

+irreproachably washed, brushed, and buttoned, held his pipe in the

+middle of his mouth and with red lips gently inhaled the smoke, letting

+it escape from his handsome mouth in rings. This was Lieutenant Berg, an

+officer in the Semënov regiment with whom Borís was to travel to join

+the army, and about whom Natásha had teased her elder sister Véra,

+speaking of Berg as her “intended.” The count sat between them and

+listened attentively. His favorite occupation when not playing boston, a

+card game he was very fond of, was that of listener, especially when he

+succeeded in setting two loquacious talkers at one another.

+

+“Well, then, old chap, mon très honorable Alphonse Kárlovich,”

+said Shinshín, laughing ironically and mixing the most ordinary Russian

+expressions with the choicest French phrases—which was a peculiarity

+of his speech. “Vous comptez vous faire des rentes sur l’état; *

+you want to make something out of your company?”

+

+     * You expect to make an income out of the government.

+

+“No, Peter Nikoláevich; I only want to show that in the cavalry

+the advantages are far less than in the infantry. Just consider my own

+position now, Peter Nikoláevich...”

+

+Berg always spoke quietly, politely, and with great precision. His

+conversation always related entirely to himself; he would remain calm

+and silent when the talk related to any topic that had no direct bearing

+on himself. He could remain silent for hours without being at all put

+out of countenance himself or making others uncomfortable, but as

+soon as the conversation concerned himself he would begin to talk

+circumstantially and with evident satisfaction.

+

+“Consider my position, Peter Nikoláevich. Were I in the cavalry I

+should get not more than two hundred rubles every four months, even

+with the rank of lieutenant; but as it is I receive two hundred and

+thirty,” said he, looking at Shinshín and the count with a joyful,

+pleasant smile, as if it were obvious to him that his success must

+always be the chief desire of everyone else.

+

+“Besides that, Peter Nikoláevich, by exchanging into the Guards

+I shall be in a more prominent position,” continued Berg, “and

+vacancies occur much more frequently in the Foot Guards. Then just think

+what can be done with two hundred and thirty rubles! I even manage to

+put a little aside and to send something to my father,” he went on,

+emitting a smoke ring.

+

+“La balance y est... * A German knows how to skin a flint, as the

+proverb says,” remarked Shinshín, moving his pipe to the other side

+of his mouth and winking at the count.

+

+      * So that squares matters.

+

+The count burst out laughing. The other guests seeing that Shinshín

+was talking came up to listen. Berg, oblivious of irony or indifference,

+continued to explain how by exchanging into the Guards he had already

+gained a step on his old comrades of the Cadet Corps; how in wartime

+the company commander might get killed and he, as senior in the company,

+might easily succeed to the post; how popular he was with everyone in

+the regiment, and how satisfied his father was with him. Berg evidently

+enjoyed narrating all this, and did not seem to suspect that others,

+too, might have their own interests. But all he said was so prettily

+sedate, and the naïveté of his youthful egotism was so obvious, that

+he disarmed his hearers.

+

+“Well, my boy, you’ll get along wherever you go—foot or

+horse—that I’ll warrant,” said Shinshín, patting him on the

+shoulder and taking his feet off the sofa.

+

+Berg smiled joyously. The count, followed by his guests, went into the

+drawing room.

+

+It was just the moment before a big dinner when the assembled guests,

+expecting the summons to zakúska, * avoid engaging in any long

+conversation but think it necessary to move about and talk, in order

+to show that they are not at all impatient for their food. The host and

+hostess look toward the door, and now and then glance at one another,

+and the visitors try to guess from these glances who, or what, they are

+waiting for—some important relation who has not yet arrived, or a dish

+that is not yet ready.

+

+     * Hors d’oeuvres.

+

+Pierre had come just at dinnertime and was sitting awkwardly in the

+middle of the drawing room on the first chair he had come across,

+blocking the way for everyone. The countess tried to make him talk,

+but he went on naïvely looking around through his spectacles as if in

+search of somebody and answered all her questions in monosyllables. He

+was in the way and was the only one who did not notice the fact. Most of

+the guests, knowing of the affair with the bear, looked with curiosity

+at this big, stout, quiet man, wondering how such a clumsy, modest

+fellow could have played such a prank on a policeman.

+

+“You have only lately arrived?” the countess asked him.

+

+“Oui, madame,” replied he, looking around him.

+

+“You have not yet seen my husband?”

+

+“Non, madame.” He smiled quite inappropriately.

+

+“You have been in Paris recently, I believe? I suppose it’s very

+interesting.”

+

+“Very interesting.”

+

+The countess exchanged glances with Anna Mikháylovna. The latter

+understood that she was being asked to entertain this young man, and

+sitting down beside him she began to speak about his father; but he

+answered her, as he had the countess, only in monosyllables. The other

+guests were all conversing with one another. “The Razumóvskis... It

+was charming... You are very kind... Countess Apráksina...” was heard

+on all sides. The countess rose and went into the ballroom.

+

+“Márya Dmítrievna?” came her voice from there.

+

+“Herself,” came the answer in a rough voice, and Márya Dmítrievna

+entered the room.

+

+All the unmarried ladies and even the married ones except the very

+oldest rose. Márya Dmítrievna paused at the door. Tall and stout,

+holding high her fifty-year-old head with its gray curls, she stood

+surveying the guests, and leisurely arranged her wide sleeves as if

+rolling them up. Márya Dmítrievna always spoke in Russian.

+

+“Health and happiness to her whose name day we are keeping and to her

+children,” she said, in her loud, full-toned voice which drowned all

+others. “Well, you old sinner,” she went on, turning to the count

+who was kissing her hand, “you’re feeling dull in Moscow, I daresay?

+Nowhere to hunt with your dogs? But what is to be done, old man? Just

+see how these nestlings are growing up,” and she pointed to the girls.

+“You must look for husbands for them whether you like it or not....”

+

+“Well,” said she, “how’s my Cossack?” (Márya Dmítrievna

+always called Natásha a Cossack) and she stroked the child’s arm as

+she came up fearless and gay to kiss her hand. “I know she’s a scamp

+of a girl, but I like her.”

+

+She took a pair of pear-shaped ruby earrings from her huge reticule and,

+having given them to the rosy Natásha, who beamed with the pleasure

+of her saint’s-day fete, turned away at once and addressed herself to

+Pierre.

+

+“Eh, eh, friend! Come here a bit,” said she, assuming a soft high

+tone of voice. “Come here, my friend...” and she ominously tucked

+up her sleeves still higher. Pierre approached, looking at her in a

+childlike way through his spectacles.

+

+“Come nearer, come nearer, friend! I used to be the only one to tell

+your father the truth when he was in favor, and in your case it’s my

+evident duty.” She paused. All were silent, expectant of what was to

+follow, for this was clearly only a prelude.

+

+“A fine lad! My word! A fine lad!... His father lies on his deathbed

+and he amuses himself setting a policeman astride a bear! For shame,

+sir, for shame! It would be better if you went to the war.”

+

+She turned away and gave her hand to the count, who could hardly keep

+from laughing.

+

+“Well, I suppose it is time we were at table?” said Márya

+Dmítrievna.

+

+The count went in first with Márya Dmítrievna, the countess followed

+on the arm of a colonel of hussars, a man of importance to them because

+Nicholas was to go with him to the regiment; then came Anna Mikháylovna

+with Shinshín. Berg gave his arm to Véra. The smiling Julie Karágina

+went in with Nicholas. After them other couples followed, filling the

+whole dining hall, and last of all the children, tutors, and governesses

+followed singly. The footmen began moving about, chairs scraped, the

+band struck up in the gallery, and the guests settled down in their

+places. Then the strains of the count’s household band were replaced

+by the clatter of knives and forks, the voices of visitors, and the

+soft steps of the footmen. At one end of the table sat the countess with

+Márya Dmítrievna on her right and Anna Mikháylovna on her left, the

+other lady visitors were farther down. At the other end sat the count,

+with the hussar colonel on his left and Shinshín and the other male

+visitors on his right. Midway down the long table on one side sat the

+grown-up young people: Véra beside Berg, and Pierre beside Borís; and

+on the other side, the children, tutors, and governesses. From behind

+the crystal decanters and fruit vases, the count kept glancing at his

+wife and her tall cap with its light-blue ribbons, and busily filled

+his neighbors’ glasses, not neglecting his own. The countess in turn,

+without omitting her duties as hostess, threw significant glances from

+behind the pineapples at her husband whose face and bald head seemed

+by their redness to contrast more than usual with his gray hair. At the

+ladies’ end an even chatter of voices was heard all the time, at the

+men’s end the voices sounded louder and louder, especially that of the

+colonel of hussars who, growing more and more flushed, ate and drank so

+much that the count held him up as a pattern to the other guests. Berg

+with tender smiles was saying to Véra that love is not an earthly but

+a heavenly feeling. Borís was telling his new friend Pierre who the

+guests were and exchanging glances with Natásha, who was sitting

+opposite. Pierre spoke little but examined the new faces, and ate a

+great deal. Of the two soups he chose turtle with savory patties and

+went on to the game without omitting a single dish or one of the wines.

+These latter the butler thrust mysteriously forward, wrapped in a

+napkin, from behind the next man’s shoulders and whispered: “Dry

+Madeira”... “Hungarian”... or “Rhine wine” as the case might

+be. Of the four crystal glasses engraved with the count’s monogram

+that stood before his plate, Pierre held out one at random and drank

+with enjoyment, gazing with ever-increasing amiability at the other

+guests. Natásha, who sat opposite, was looking at Borís as girls of

+thirteen look at the boy they are in love with and have just kissed for

+the first time. Sometimes that same look fell on Pierre, and that funny

+lively little girl’s look made him inclined to laugh without knowing

+why.

+

+Nicholas sat at some distance from Sónya, beside Julie Karágina, to

+whom he was again talking with the same involuntary smile. Sónya wore

+a company smile but was evidently tormented by jealousy; now she turned

+pale, now blushed and strained every nerve to overhear what Nicholas

+and Julie were saying to one another. The governess kept looking round

+uneasily as if preparing to resent any slight that might be put upon the

+children. The German tutor was trying to remember all the dishes, wines,

+and kinds of dessert, in order to send a full description of the dinner

+to his people in Germany; and he felt greatly offended when the butler

+with a bottle wrapped in a napkin passed him by. He frowned, trying to

+appear as if he did not want any of that wine, but was mortified because

+no one would understand that it was not to quench his thirst or from

+greediness that he wanted it, but simply from a conscientious desire for

+knowledge.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIX

+

+At the men’s end of the table the talk grew more and more animated.

+The colonel told them that the declaration of war had already appeared

+in Petersburg and that a copy, which he had himself seen, had that day

+been forwarded by courier to the commander in chief.

+

+“And why the deuce are we going to fight Bonaparte?” remarked

+Shinshín. “He has stopped Austria’s cackle and I fear it will be

+our turn next.”

+

+The colonel was a stout, tall, plethoric German, evidently devoted to

+the service and patriotically Russian. He resented Shinshín’s remark.

+

+“It is for the reasson, my goot sir,” said he, speaking with a

+German accent, “for the reasson zat ze Emperor knows zat. He

+declares in ze manifessto zat he cannot fiew wiz indifference ze danger

+vreatening Russia and zat ze safety and dignity of ze Empire as vell

+as ze sanctity of its alliances...” he spoke this last word with

+particular emphasis as if in it lay the gist of the matter.

+

+Then with the unerring official memory that characterized him he

+repeated from the opening words of the manifesto:

+

+... and the wish, which constitutes the Emperor’s sole and absolute

+aim—to establish peace in Europe on firm foundations—has now decided

+him to despatch part of the army abroad and to create a new condition

+for the attainment of that purpose.

+

+“Zat, my dear sir, is vy...” he concluded, drinking a tumbler of

+wine with dignity and looking to the count for approval.

+

+“Connaissez-vous le Proverbe:* ‘Jerome, Jerome, do not roam, but

+turn spindles at home!’?” said Shinshín, puckering his brows and

+smiling. “Cela nous convient à merveille.*(2) Suvórov now—he knew

+what he was about; yet they beat him à plate couture,*(3) and where

+are we to find Suvórovs now? Je vous demande un peu,” *(4) said he,

+continually changing from French to Russian.

+

+     *Do you know the proverb?

+

+     *(2) That suits us down to the ground.

+

+     *(3) Hollow.

+

+     *(4) I just ask you that.

+

+“Ve must vight to the last tr-r-op of our plood!” said the colonel,

+thumping the table; “and ve must tie for our Emperor, and zen all vill

+pe vell. And ve must discuss it as little as po-o-ossible”... he dwelt

+particularly on the word possible... “as po-o-ossible,” he ended,

+again turning to the count. “Zat is how ve old hussars look at it, and

+zere’s an end of it! And how do you, a young man and a young hussar,

+how do you judge of it?” he added, addressing Nicholas, who when he

+heard that the war was being discussed had turned from his partner with

+eyes and ears intent on the colonel.

+

+“I am quite of your opinion,” replied Nicholas, flaming up, turning

+his plate round and moving his wineglasses about with as much decision

+and desperation as though he were at that moment facing some great

+danger. “I am convinced that we Russians must die or conquer,” he

+concluded, conscious—as were others—after the words were uttered

+that his remarks were too enthusiastic and emphatic for the occasion and

+were therefore awkward.

+

+“What you said just now was splendid!” said his partner Julie.

+

+Sónya trembled all over and blushed to her ears and behind them and

+down to her neck and shoulders while Nicholas was speaking.

+

+Pierre listened to the colonel’s speech and nodded approvingly.

+

+“That’s fine,” said he.

+

+“The young man’s a real hussar!” shouted the colonel, again

+thumping the table.

+

+“What are you making such a noise about over there?” Márya

+Dmítrievna’s deep voice suddenly inquired from the other end of the

+table. “What are you thumping the table for?” she demanded of the

+hussar, “and why are you exciting yourself? Do you think the French

+are here?”

+

+“I am speaking ze truce,” replied the hussar with a smile.

+

+“It’s all about the war,” the count shouted down the table. “You

+know my son’s going, Márya Dmítrievna? My son is going.”

+

+“I have four sons in the army but still I don’t fret. It is all

+in God’s hands. You may die in your bed or God may spare you in a

+battle,” replied Márya Dmítrievna’s deep voice, which easily

+carried the whole length of the table.

+

+“That’s true!”

+

+Once more the conversations concentrated, the ladies’ at the one end

+and the men’s at the other.

+

+“You won’t ask,” Natásha’s little brother was saying; “I know

+you won’t ask!”

+

+“I will,” replied Natásha.

+

+Her face suddenly flushed with reckless and joyous resolution. She half

+rose, by a glance inviting Pierre, who sat opposite, to listen to what

+was coming, and turning to her mother:

+

+“Mamma!” rang out the clear contralto notes of her childish voice,

+audible the whole length of the table.

+

+“What is it?” asked the countess, startled; but seeing by her

+daughter’s face that it was only mischief, she shook a finger at her

+sternly with a threatening and forbidding movement of her head.

+

+The conversation was hushed.

+

+“Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?” and Natásha’s voice

+sounded still more firm and resolute.

+

+The countess tried to frown, but could not. Márya Dmítrievna shook her

+fat finger.

+

+“Cossack!” she said threateningly.

+

+Most of the guests, uncertain how to regard this sally, looked at the

+elders.

+

+“You had better take care!” said the countess.

+

+“Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?” Natásha again cried

+boldly, with saucy gaiety, confident that her prank would be taken in

+good part.

+

+Sónya and fat little Pétya doubled up with laughter.

+

+“You see! I have asked,” whispered Natásha to her little brother

+and to Pierre, glancing at him again.

+

+“Ice pudding, but you won’t get any,” said Márya Dmítrievna.

+

+Natásha saw there was nothing to be afraid of and so she braved even

+Márya Dmítrievna.

+

+“Márya Dmítrievna! What kind of ice pudding? I don’t like ice

+cream.”

+

+“Carrot ices.”

+

+“No! What kind, Márya Dmítrievna? What kind?” she almost screamed;

+“I want to know!”

+

+Márya Dmítrievna and the countess burst out laughing, and all the

+guests joined in. Everyone laughed, not at Márya Dmítrievna’s answer

+but at the incredible boldness and smartness of this little girl who had

+dared to treat Márya Dmítrievna in this fashion.

+

+Natásha only desisted when she had been told that there would be

+pineapple ice. Before the ices, champagne was served round. The band

+again struck up, the count and countess kissed, and the guests, leaving

+their seats, went up to “congratulate” the countess, and reached

+across the table to clink glasses with the count, with the children, and

+with one another. Again the footmen rushed about, chairs scraped, and

+in the same order in which they had entered but with redder faces, the

+guests returned to the drawing room and to the count’s study.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XX

+

+The card tables were drawn out, sets made up for boston, and the

+count’s visitors settled themselves, some in the two drawing rooms,

+some in the sitting room, some in the library.

+

+The count, holding his cards fanwise, kept himself with difficulty from

+dropping into his usual after-dinner nap, and laughed at everything.

+The young people, at the countess’ instigation, gathered round the

+clavichord and harp. Julie by general request played first. After she

+had played a little air with variations on the harp, she joined the

+other young ladies in begging Natásha and Nicholas, who were noted for

+their musical talent, to sing something. Natásha, who was treated as

+though she were grown up, was evidently very proud of this but at the

+same time felt shy.

+

+“What shall we sing?” she said.

+

+“‘The Brook,’” suggested Nicholas.

+

+“Well, then, let’s be quick. Borís, come here,” said Natásha.

+“But where is Sónya?”

+

+She looked round and seeing that her friend was not in the room ran to

+look for her.

+

+Running into Sónya’s room and not finding her there, Natásha ran to

+the nursery, but Sónya was not there either. Natásha concluded that

+she must be on the chest in the passage. The chest in the passage was

+the place of mourning for the younger female generation in the Rostóv

+household. And there in fact was Sónya lying face downward on Nurse’s

+dirty feather bed on the top of the chest, crumpling her gauzy pink

+dress under her, hiding her face with her slender fingers, and sobbing

+so convulsively that her bare little shoulders shook. Natásha’s

+face, which had been so radiantly happy all that saint’s day, suddenly

+changed: her eyes became fixed, and then a shiver passed down her broad

+neck and the corners of her mouth drooped.

+

+“Sónya! What is it? What is the matter?... Oo... Oo... Oo...!” And

+Natásha’s large mouth widened, making her look quite ugly, and she

+began to wail like a baby without knowing why, except that Sónya was

+crying. Sónya tried to lift her head to answer but could not, and

+hid her face still deeper in the bed. Natásha wept, sitting on the

+blue-striped feather bed and hugging her friend. With an effort Sónya

+sat up and began wiping her eyes and explaining.

+

+“Nicholas is going away in a week’s time, his... papers... have

+come... he told me himself... but still I should not cry,” and she

+showed a paper she held in her hand—with the verses Nicholas had

+written, “still, I should not cry, but you can’t... no one can

+understand... what a soul he has!”

+

+And she began to cry again because he had such a noble soul.

+

+“It’s all very well for you... I am not envious... I love you and

+Borís also,” she went on, gaining a little strength; “he is nice...

+there are no difficulties in your way.... But Nicholas is my cousin...

+one would have to... the Metropolitan himself... and even then it

+can’t be done. And besides, if she tells Mamma” (Sónya looked upon

+the countess as her mother and called her so) “that I am spoiling

+Nicholas’ career and am heartless and ungrateful, while truly... God

+is my witness,” and she made the sign of the cross, “I love her so

+much, and all of you, only Véra... And what for? What have I done

+to her? I am so grateful to you that I would willingly sacrifice

+everything, only I have nothing....”

+

+Sónya could not continue, and again hid her face in her hands and in

+the feather bed. Natásha began consoling her, but her face showed that

+she understood all the gravity of her friend’s trouble.

+

+“Sónya,” she suddenly exclaimed, as if she had guessed the true

+reason of her friend’s sorrow, “I’m sure Véra has said something

+to you since dinner? Hasn’t she?”

+

+“Yes, these verses Nicholas wrote himself and I copied some others,

+and she found them on my table and said she’d show them to Mamma, and

+that I was ungrateful, and that Mamma would never allow him to marry

+me, but that he’ll marry Julie. You see how he’s been with her all

+day... Natásha, what have I done to deserve it?...”

+

+And again she began to sob, more bitterly than before. Natásha lifted

+her up, hugged her, and, smiling through her tears, began comforting

+her.

+

+“Sónya, don’t believe her, darling! Don’t believe her! Do you

+remember how we and Nicholas, all three of us, talked in the sitting

+room after supper? Why, we settled how everything was to be. I don’t

+quite remember how, but don’t you remember that it could all be

+arranged and how nice it all was? There’s Uncle Shinshín’s brother

+has married his first cousin. And we are only second cousins, you know.

+And Borís says it is quite possible. You know I have told him all about

+it. And he is so clever and so good!” said Natásha. “Don’t

+you cry, Sónya, dear love, darling Sónya!” and she kissed her and

+laughed. “Véra’s spiteful; never mind her! And all will come right

+and she won’t say anything to Mamma. Nicholas will tell her himself,

+and he doesn’t care at all for Julie.”

+

+Natásha kissed her on the hair.

+

+Sónya sat up. The little kitten brightened, its eyes shone, and it

+seemed ready to lift its tail, jump down on its soft paws, and begin

+playing with the ball of worsted as a kitten should.

+

+“Do you think so?... Really? Truly?” she said, quickly smoothing her

+frock and hair.

+

+“Really, truly!” answered Natásha, pushing in a crisp lock that had

+strayed from under her friend’s plaits.

+

+Both laughed.

+

+“Well, let’s go and sing ‘The Brook.’”

+

+“Come along!”

+

+“Do you know, that fat Pierre who sat opposite me is so funny!” said

+Natásha, stopping suddenly. “I feel so happy!”

+

+And she set off at a run along the passage.

+

+Sónya, shaking off some down which clung to her and tucking away the

+verses in the bosom of her dress close to her bony little chest, ran

+after Natásha down the passage into the sitting room with flushed face

+and light, joyous steps. At the visitors’ request the young people

+sang the quartette, “The Brook,” with which everyone was delighted.

+Then Nicholas sang a song he had just learned:

+

+   At nighttime in the moon’s fair glow

+     How sweet, as fancies wander free,

+   To feel that in this world there’s one

+     Who still is thinking but of thee!

+

+   That while her fingers touch the harp

+     Wafting sweet music o’er the lea,

+   It is for thee thus swells her heart,

+     Sighing its message out to thee...

+

+   A day or two, then bliss unspoilt,

+     But oh! till then I cannot live!...

+

+He had not finished the last verse before the young people began to

+get ready to dance in the large hall, and the sound of the feet and the

+coughing of the musicians were heard from the gallery.

+

+

+Pierre was sitting in the drawing room where Shinshín had engaged him,

+as a man recently returned from abroad, in a political conversation in

+which several others joined but which bored Pierre. When the music began

+Natásha came in and walking straight up to Pierre said, laughing and

+blushing:

+

+“Mamma told me to ask you to join the dancers.”

+

+“I am afraid of mixing the figures,” Pierre replied; “but if you

+will be my teacher...” And lowering his big arm he offered it to the

+slender little girl.

+

+While the couples were arranging themselves and the musicians tuning up,

+Pierre sat down with his little partner. Natásha was perfectly happy;

+she was dancing with a grown-up man, who had been abroad. She was

+sitting in a conspicuous place and talking to him like a grown-up lady.

+She had a fan in her hand that one of the ladies had given her to hold.

+Assuming quite the pose of a society woman (heaven knows when and where

+she had learned it) she talked with her partner, fanning herself and

+smiling over the fan.

+

+“Dear, dear! Just look at her!” exclaimed the countess as she

+crossed the ballroom, pointing to Natásha.

+

+Natásha blushed and laughed.

+

+“Well, really, Mamma! Why should you? What is there to be surprised

+at?”

+

+

+In the midst of the third écossaise there was a clatter of chairs being

+pushed back in the sitting room where the count and Márya Dmítrievna

+had been playing cards with the majority of the more distinguished and

+older visitors. They now, stretching themselves after sitting so long,

+and replacing their purses and pocketbooks, entered the ballroom. First

+came Márya Dmítrievna and the count, both with merry countenances. The

+count, with playful ceremony somewhat in ballet style, offered his

+bent arm to Márya Dmítrievna. He drew himself up, a smile of debonair

+gallantry lit up his face and as soon as the last figure of the

+écossaise was ended, he clapped his hands to the musicians and shouted

+up to their gallery, addressing the first violin:

+

+“Semën! Do you know the Daniel Cooper?”

+

+This was the count’s favorite dance, which he had danced in his youth.

+(Strictly speaking, Daniel Cooper was one figure of the anglaise.)

+

+“Look at Papa!” shouted Natásha to the whole company, and quite

+forgetting that she was dancing with a grown-up partner she bent her

+curly head to her knees and made the whole room ring with her laughter.

+

+And indeed everybody in the room looked with a smile of pleasure at the

+jovial old gentleman, who standing beside his tall and stout partner,

+Márya Dmítrievna, curved his arms, beat time, straightened his

+shoulders, turned out his toes, tapped gently with his foot, and, by

+a smile that broadened his round face more and more, prepared the

+onlookers for what was to follow. As soon as the provocatively gay

+strains of Daniel Cooper (somewhat resembling those of a merry peasant

+dance) began to sound, all the doorways of the ballroom were suddenly

+filled by the domestic serfs—the men on one side and the women on

+the other—who with beaming faces had come to see their master making

+merry.

+

+“Just look at the master! A regular eagle he is!” loudly remarked

+the nurse, as she stood in one of the doorways.

+

+The count danced well and knew it. But his partner could not and did not

+want to dance well. Her enormous figure stood erect, her powerful arms

+hanging down (she had handed her reticule to the countess), and only her

+stern but handsome face really joined in the dance. What was expressed

+by the whole of the count’s plump figure, in Márya Dmítrievna found

+expression only in her more and more beaming face and quivering nose.

+But if the count, getting more and more into the swing of it, charmed

+the spectators by the unexpectedness of his adroit maneuvers and

+the agility with which he capered about on his light feet, Márya

+Dmítrievna produced no less impression by slight exertions—the least

+effort to move her shoulders or bend her arms when turning, or stamp

+her foot—which everyone appreciated in view of her size and habitual

+severity. The dance grew livelier and livelier. The other couples could

+not attract a moment’s attention to their own evolutions and did not

+even try to do so. All were watching the count and Márya Dmítrievna.

+Natásha kept pulling everyone by sleeve or dress, urging them to

+“look at Papa!” though as it was they never took their eyes off the

+couple. In the intervals of the dance the count, breathing deeply, waved

+and shouted to the musicians to play faster. Faster, faster, and faster;

+lightly, more lightly, and yet more lightly whirled the count, flying

+round Márya Dmítrievna, now on his toes, now on his heels; until,

+turning his partner round to her seat, he executed the final pas,

+raising his soft foot backwards, bowing his perspiring head, smiling

+and making a wide sweep with his arm, amid a thunder of applause and

+laughter led by Natásha. Both partners stood still, breathing heavily

+and wiping their faces with their cambric handkerchiefs.

+

+“That’s how we used to dance in our time, ma chère,” said the

+count.

+

+“That was a Daniel Cooper!” exclaimed Márya Dmítrievna, tucking up

+her sleeves and puffing heavily.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXI

+

+While in the Rostóvs’ ballroom the sixth anglaise was being danced,

+to a tune in which the weary musicians blundered, and while tired

+footmen and cooks were getting the supper, Count Bezúkhov had a

+sixth stroke. The doctors pronounced recovery impossible. After a mute

+confession, communion was administered to the dying man, preparations

+made for the sacrament of unction, and in his house there was the bustle

+and thrill of suspense usual at such moments. Outside the house, beyond

+the gates, a group of undertakers, who hid whenever a carriage drove up,

+waited in expectation of an important order for an expensive funeral.

+The Military Governor of Moscow, who had been assiduous in sending

+aides-de-camp to inquire after the count’s health, came himself

+that evening to bid a last farewell to the celebrated grandee of

+Catherine’s court, Count Bezúkhov.

+

+The magnificent reception room was crowded. Everyone stood up

+respectfully when the Military Governor, having stayed about half an

+hour alone with the dying man, passed out, slightly acknowledging their

+bows and trying to escape as quickly as possible from the glances fixed

+on him by the doctors, clergy, and relatives of the family. Prince

+Vasíli, who had grown thinner and paler during the last few days,

+escorted him to the door, repeating something to him several times in

+low tones.

+

+When the Military Governor had gone, Prince Vasíli sat down all alone

+on a chair in the ballroom, crossing one leg high over the other,

+leaning his elbow on his knee and covering his face with his hand. After

+sitting so for a while he rose, and, looking about him with frightened

+eyes, went with unusually hurried steps down the long corridor leading

+to the back of the house, to the room of the eldest princess.

+

+Those who were in the dimly lit reception room spoke in nervous

+whispers, and, whenever anyone went into or came from the dying man’s

+room, grew silent and gazed with eyes full of curiosity or expectancy at

+his door, which creaked slightly when opened.

+

+“The limits of human life ... are fixed and may not be

+o’erpassed,” said an old priest to a lady who had taken a seat

+beside him and was listening naïvely to his words.

+

+“I wonder, is it not too late to administer unction?” asked the

+lady, adding the priest’s clerical title, as if she had no opinion of

+her own on the subject.

+

+“Ah, madam, it is a great sacrament,” replied the priest, passing

+his hand over the thin grizzled strands of hair combed back across his

+bald head.

+

+“Who was that? The Military Governor himself?” was being asked at

+the other side of the room. “How young-looking he is!”

+

+“Yes, and he is over sixty. I hear the count no longer recognizes

+anyone. They wished to administer the sacrament of unction.”

+

+“I knew someone who received that sacrament seven times.”

+

+The second princess had just come from the sickroom with her eyes red

+from weeping and sat down beside Dr. Lorrain, who was sitting in a

+graceful pose under a portrait of Catherine, leaning his elbow on a

+table.

+

+“Beautiful,” said the doctor in answer to a remark about the

+weather. “The weather is beautiful, Princess; and besides, in Moscow

+one feels as if one were in the country.”

+

+“Yes, indeed,” replied the princess with a sigh. “So he may have

+something to drink?”

+

+Lorrain considered.

+

+“Has he taken his medicine?”

+

+“Yes.”

+

+The doctor glanced at his watch.

+

+“Take a glass of boiled water and put a pinch of cream of tartar,”

+and he indicated with his delicate fingers what he meant by a pinch.

+

+“Dere has neffer been a gase,” a German doctor was saying to an

+aide-de-camp, “dat one liffs after de sird stroke.”

+

+“And what a well-preserved man he was!” remarked the aide-de-camp.

+“And who will inherit his wealth?” he added in a whisper.

+

+“It von’t go begging,” replied the German with a smile.

+

+Everyone again looked toward the door, which creaked as the second

+princess went in with the drink she had prepared according to

+Lorrain’s instructions. The German doctor went up to Lorrain.

+

+“Do you think he can last till morning?” asked the German,

+addressing Lorrain in French which he pronounced badly.

+

+Lorrain, pursing up his lips, waved a severely negative finger before

+his nose.

+

+“Tonight, not later,” said he in a low voice, and he moved away

+with a decorous smile of self-satisfaction at being able clearly to

+understand and state the patient’s condition.

+

+Meanwhile Prince Vasíli had opened the door into the princess’ room.

+

+In this room it was almost dark; only two tiny lamps were burning before

+the icons and there was a pleasant scent of flowers and burnt pastilles.

+The room was crowded with small pieces of furniture, whatnots,

+cupboards, and little tables. The quilt of a high, white feather bed was

+just visible behind a screen. A small dog began to bark.

+

+“Ah, is it you, cousin?”

+

+She rose and smoothed her hair, which was as usual so extremely smooth

+that it seemed to be made of one piece with her head and covered with

+varnish.

+

+“Has anything happened?” she asked. “I am so terrified.”

+

+“No, there is no change. I only came to have a talk about business,

+Catiche,” * muttered the prince, seating himself wearily on the chair

+she had just vacated. “You have made the place warm, I must say,” he

+remarked. “Well, sit down: let’s have a talk.”

+

+     *Catherine.

+

+“I thought perhaps something had happened,” she said with her

+unchanging stonily severe expression; and, sitting down opposite the

+prince, she prepared to listen.

+

+“I wished to get a nap, mon cousin, but I can’t.”

+

+“Well, my dear?” said Prince Vasíli, taking her hand and bending it

+downwards as was his habit.

+

+It was plain that this “well?” referred to much that they both

+understood without naming.

+

+The princess, who had a straight, rigid body, abnormally long for her

+legs, looked directly at Prince Vasíli with no sign of emotion in her

+prominent gray eyes. Then she shook her head and glanced up at the icons

+with a sigh. This might have been taken as an expression of sorrow

+and devotion, or of weariness and hope of resting before long. Prince

+Vasíli understood it as an expression of weariness.

+

+“And I?” he said; “do you think it is easier for me? I am as worn

+out as a post horse, but still I must have a talk with you, Catiche, a

+very serious talk.”

+

+Prince Vasíli said no more and his cheeks began to twitch nervously,

+now on one side, now on the other, giving his face an unpleasant

+expression which was never to be seen on it in a drawing room. His eyes

+too seemed strange; at one moment they looked impudently sly and at the

+next glanced round in alarm.

+

+The princess, holding her little dog on her lap with her thin bony

+hands, looked attentively into Prince Vasíli’s eyes evidently

+resolved not to be the first to break silence, if she had to wait till

+morning.

+

+“Well, you see, my dear princess and cousin, Catherine Semënovna,”

+continued Prince Vasíli, returning to his theme, apparently not

+without an inner struggle; “at such a moment as this one must think

+of everything. One must think of the future, of all of you... I love you

+all, like children of my own, as you know.”

+

+The princess continued to look at him without moving, and with the same

+dull expression.

+

+“And then of course my family has also to be considered,” Prince

+Vasíli went on, testily pushing away a little table without looking at

+her. “You know, Catiche, that we—you three sisters, Mámontov, and

+my wife—are the count’s only direct heirs. I know, I know how hard

+it is for you to talk or think of such matters. It is no easier for

+me; but, my dear, I am getting on for sixty and must be prepared for

+anything. Do you know I have sent for Pierre? The count,” pointing to

+his portrait, “definitely demanded that he should be called.”

+

+Prince Vasíli looked questioningly at the princess, but could not make

+out whether she was considering what he had just said or whether she was

+simply looking at him.

+

+“There is one thing I constantly pray God to grant, mon cousin,” she

+replied, “and it is that He would be merciful to him and would allow

+his noble soul peacefully to leave this...”

+

+“Yes, yes, of course,” interrupted Prince Vasíli impatiently,

+rubbing his bald head and angrily pulling back toward him the little

+table that he had pushed away. “But... in short, the fact is... you

+know yourself that last winter the count made a will by which he left

+all his property, not to us his direct heirs, but to Pierre.”

+

+“He has made wills enough!” quietly remarked the princess. “But he

+cannot leave the estate to Pierre. Pierre is illegitimate.”

+

+“But, my dear,” said Prince Vasíli suddenly, clutching the little

+table and becoming more animated and talking more rapidly: “what if

+a letter has been written to the Emperor in which the count asks for

+Pierre’s legitimation? Do you understand that in consideration of the

+count’s services, his request would be granted?...”

+

+The princess smiled as people do who think they know more about the

+subject under discussion than those they are talking with.

+

+“I can tell you more,” continued Prince Vasíli, seizing her hand,

+“that letter was written, though it was not sent, and the Emperor knew

+of it. The only question is, has it been destroyed or not? If not, then

+as soon as all is over,” and Prince Vasíli sighed to intimate what he

+meant by the words all is over, “and the count’s papers are opened,

+the will and letter will be delivered to the Emperor, and the petition

+will certainly be granted. Pierre will get everything as the legitimate

+son.”

+

+“And our share?” asked the princess smiling ironically, as if

+anything might happen, only not that.

+

+“But, my poor Catiche, it is as clear as daylight! He will then be the

+legal heir to everything and you won’t get anything. You must know,

+my dear, whether the will and letter were written, and whether they have

+been destroyed or not. And if they have somehow been overlooked, you

+ought to know where they are, and must find them, because...”

+

+“What next?” the princess interrupted, smiling sardonically and not

+changing the expression of her eyes. “I am a woman, and you think we

+are all stupid; but I know this: an illegitimate son cannot inherit...

+un bâtard!”* she added, as if supposing that this translation of the

+word would effectively prove to Prince Vasíli the invalidity of his

+contention.

+

+     * A bastard.

+

+“Well, really, Catiche! Can’t you understand! You are so

+intelligent, how is it you don’t see that if the count has written a

+letter to the Emperor begging him to recognize Pierre as legitimate, it

+follows that Pierre will not be Pierre but will become Count Bezúkhov,

+and will then inherit everything under the will? And if the will and

+letter are not destroyed, then you will have nothing but the consolation

+of having been dutiful et tout ce qui s’ensuit!* That’s certain.”

+

+     * And all that follows therefrom.

+

+“I know the will was made, but I also know that it is invalid;

+and you, mon cousin, seem to consider me a perfect fool,” said the

+princess with the expression women assume when they suppose they are

+saying something witty and stinging.

+

+“My dear Princess Catherine Semënovna,” began Prince Vasíli

+impatiently, “I came here not to wrangle with you, but to talk about

+your interests as with a kinswoman, a good, kind, true relation. And I

+tell you for the tenth time that if the letter to the Emperor and the

+will in Pierre’s favor are among the count’s papers, then, my dear

+girl, you and your sisters are not heiresses! If you don’t believe me,

+then believe an expert. I have just been talking to Dmítri Onúfrich”

+(the family solicitor) “and he says the same.”

+

+At this a sudden change evidently took place in the princess’ ideas;

+her thin lips grew white, though her eyes did not change, and her voice

+when she began to speak passed through such transitions as she herself

+evidently did not expect.

+

+“That would be a fine thing!” said she. “I never wanted anything

+and I don’t now.”

+

+She pushed the little dog off her lap and smoothed her dress.

+

+“And this is gratitude—this is recognition for those who have

+sacrificed everything for his sake!” she cried. “It’s splendid!

+Fine! I don’t want anything, Prince.”

+

+“Yes, but you are not the only one. There are your sisters...”

+replied Prince Vasíli.

+

+But the princess did not listen to him.

+

+“Yes, I knew it long ago but had forgotten. I knew that I could expect

+nothing but meanness, deceit, envy, intrigue, and ingratitude—the

+blackest ingratitude—in this house...”

+

+“Do you or do you not know where that will is?” insisted Prince

+Vasíli, his cheeks twitching more than ever.

+

+“Yes, I was a fool! I still believed in people, loved them, and

+sacrificed myself. But only the base, the vile succeed! I know who has

+been intriguing!”

+

+The princess wished to rise, but the prince held her by the hand. She

+had the air of one who has suddenly lost faith in the whole human race.

+She gave her companion an angry glance.

+

+“There is still time, my dear. You must remember, Catiche, that it was

+all done casually in a moment of anger, of illness, and was afterwards

+forgotten. Our duty, my dear, is to rectify his mistake, to ease his

+last moments by not letting him commit this injustice, and not to let

+him die feeling that he is rendering unhappy those who...”

+

+“Who sacrificed everything for him,” chimed in the princess, who

+would again have risen had not the prince still held her fast, “though

+he never could appreciate it. No, mon cousin,” she added with a sigh,

+“I shall always remember that in this world one must expect no reward,

+that in this world there is neither honor nor justice. In this world one

+has to be cunning and cruel.”

+

+“Now come, come! Be reasonable. I know your excellent heart.”

+

+“No, I have a wicked heart.”

+

+“I know your heart,” repeated the prince. “I value your friendship

+and wish you to have as good an opinion of me. Don’t upset yourself,

+and let us talk sensibly while there is still time, be it a day or be it

+but an hour.... Tell me all you know about the will, and above all where

+it is. You must know. We will take it at once and show it to the

+count. He has, no doubt, forgotten it and will wish to destroy it.

+You understand that my sole desire is conscientiously to carry out his

+wishes; that is my only reason for being here. I came simply to help him

+and you.”

+

+“Now I see it all! I know who has been intriguing—I know!” cried

+the princess.

+

+“That’s not the point, my dear.”

+

+“It’s that protégé of yours, that sweet Princess Drubetskáya,

+that Anna Mikháylovna whom I would not take for a housemaid... the

+infamous, vile woman!”

+

+“Do not let us lose any time...”

+

+“Ah, don’t talk to me! Last winter she wheedled herself in here and

+told the count such vile, disgraceful things about us, especially about

+Sophie—I can’t repeat them—that it made the count quite ill and he

+would not see us for a whole fortnight. I know it was then he wrote this

+vile, infamous paper, but I thought the thing was invalid.”

+

+“We’ve got to it at last—why did you not tell me about it

+sooner?”

+

+“It’s in the inlaid portfolio that he keeps under his pillow,”

+said the princess, ignoring his question. “Now I know! Yes; if I have

+a sin, a great sin, it is hatred of that vile woman!” almost shrieked

+the princess, now quite changed. “And what does she come worming

+herself in here for? But I will give her a piece of my mind. The time

+will come!”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXII

+

+While these conversations were going on in the reception room and the

+princess’ room, a carriage containing Pierre (who had been sent for)

+and Anna Mikháylovna (who found it necessary to accompany him) was

+driving into the court of Count Bezúkhov’s house. As the wheels

+rolled softly over the straw beneath the windows, Anna Mikháylovna,

+having turned with words of comfort to her companion, realized that

+he was asleep in his corner and woke him up. Rousing himself, Pierre

+followed Anna Mikháylovna out of the carriage, and only then began

+to think of the interview with his dying father which awaited him. He

+noticed that they had not come to the front entrance but to the back

+door. While he was getting down from the carriage steps two men, who

+looked like tradespeople, ran hurriedly from the entrance and hid in the

+shadow of the wall. Pausing for a moment, Pierre noticed several other

+men of the same kind hiding in the shadow of the house on both sides.

+But neither Anna Mikháylovna nor the footman nor the coachman, who

+could not help seeing these people, took any notice of them. “It seems

+to be all right,” Pierre concluded, and followed Anna Mikháylovna.

+She hurriedly ascended the narrow dimly lit stone staircase, calling to

+Pierre, who was lagging behind, to follow. Though he did not see why it

+was necessary for him to go to the count at all, still less why he had

+to go by the back stairs, yet judging by Anna Mikháylovna’s air

+of assurance and haste, Pierre concluded that it was all absolutely

+necessary. Halfway up the stairs they were almost knocked over by

+some men who, carrying pails, came running downstairs, their boots

+clattering. These men pressed close to the wall to let Pierre and Anna

+Mikháylovna pass and did not evince the least surprise at seeing them

+there.

+

+“Is this the way to the princesses’ apartments?” asked Anna

+Mikháylovna of one of them.

+

+“Yes,” replied a footman in a bold loud voice, as if anything were

+now permissible; “the door to the left, ma’am.”

+

+“Perhaps the count did not ask for me,” said Pierre when he reached

+the landing. “I’d better go to my own room.”

+

+Anna Mikháylovna paused and waited for him to come up.

+

+“Ah, my friend!” she said, touching his arm as she had done her

+son’s when speaking to him that afternoon, “believe me I suffer no

+less than you do, but be a man!”

+

+“But really, hadn’t I better go away?” he asked, looking kindly at

+her over his spectacles.

+

+“Ah, my dear friend! Forget the wrongs that may have been done you.

+Think that he is your father ... perhaps in the agony of death.” She

+sighed. “I have loved you like a son from the first. Trust yourself to

+me, Pierre. I shall not forget your interests.”

+

+Pierre did not understand a word, but the conviction that all this had

+to be grew stronger, and he meekly followed Anna Mikháylovna who was

+already opening a door.

+

+This door led into a back anteroom. An old man, a servant of the

+princesses, sat in a corner knitting a stocking. Pierre had never been

+in this part of the house and did not even know of the existence of

+these rooms. Anna Mikháylovna, addressing a maid who was hurrying past

+with a decanter on a tray as “my dear” and “my sweet,” asked

+about the princess’ health and then led Pierre along a stone passage.

+The first door on the left led into the princesses’ apartments. The

+maid with the decanter in her haste had not closed the door (everything

+in the house was done in haste at that time), and Pierre and Anna

+Mikháylovna in passing instinctively glanced into the room, where

+Prince Vasíli and the eldest princess were sitting close together

+talking. Seeing them pass, Prince Vasíli drew back with obvious

+impatience, while the princess jumped up and with a gesture of

+desperation slammed the door with all her might.

+

+This action was so unlike her usual composure and the fear depicted on

+Prince Vasíli’s face so out of keeping with his dignity that Pierre

+stopped and glanced inquiringly over his spectacles at his guide. Anna

+Mikháylovna evinced no surprise, she only smiled faintly and sighed, as

+if to say that this was no more than she had expected.

+

+“Be a man, my friend. I will look after your interests,” said she in

+reply to his look, and went still faster along the passage.

+

+Pierre could not make out what it was all about, and still less what

+“watching over his interests” meant, but he decided that all these

+things had to be. From the passage they went into a large, dimly

+lit room adjoining the count’s reception room. It was one of those

+sumptuous but cold apartments known to Pierre only from the front

+approach, but even in this room there now stood an empty bath, and water

+had been spilled on the carpet. They were met by a deacon with a censer

+and by a servant who passed out on tiptoe without heeding them. They

+went into the reception room familiar to Pierre, with two Italian

+windows opening into the conservatory, with its large bust and full

+length portrait of Catherine the Great. The same people were still

+sitting here in almost the same positions as before, whispering to one

+another. All became silent and turned to look at the pale tear-worn Anna

+Mikháylovna as she entered, and at the big stout figure of Pierre who,

+hanging his head, meekly followed her.

+

+Anna Mikháylovna’s face expressed a consciousness that the decisive

+moment had arrived. With the air of a practical Petersburg lady she now,

+keeping Pierre close beside her, entered the room even more boldly than

+that afternoon. She felt that as she brought with her the person the

+dying man wished to see, her own admission was assured. Casting a rapid

+glance at all those in the room and noticing the count’s confessor

+there, she glided up to him with a sort of amble, not exactly bowing yet

+seeming to grow suddenly smaller, and respectfully received the blessing

+first of one and then of another priest.

+

+“God be thanked that you are in time,” said she to one of the

+priests; “all we relatives have been in such anxiety. This young

+man is the count’s son,” she added more softly. “What a terrible

+moment!”

+

+Having said this she went up to the doctor.

+

+“Dear doctor,” said she, “this young man is the count’s son. Is

+there any hope?”

+

+The doctor cast a rapid glance upwards and silently shrugged his

+shoulders. Anna Mikháylovna with just the same movement raised her

+shoulders and eyes, almost closing the latter, sighed, and moved away

+from the doctor to Pierre. To him, in a particularly respectful and

+tenderly sad voice, she said:

+

+“Trust in His mercy!” and pointing out a small sofa for him to sit

+and wait for her, she went silently toward the door that everyone was

+watching and it creaked very slightly as she disappeared behind it.

+

+Pierre, having made up his mind to obey his monitress implicitly, moved

+toward the sofa she had indicated. As soon as Anna Mikháylovna had

+disappeared he noticed that the eyes of all in the room turned to him

+with something more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that they

+whispered to one another, casting significant looks at him with a kind

+of awe and even servility. A deference such as he had never before

+received was shown him. A strange lady, the one who had been talking to

+the priests, rose and offered him her seat; an aide-de-camp picked up

+and returned a glove Pierre had dropped; the doctors became respectfully

+silent as he passed by, and moved to make way for him. At first Pierre

+wished to take another seat so as not to trouble the lady, and also to

+pick up the glove himself and to pass round the doctors who were not

+even in his way; but all at once he felt that this would not do, and

+that tonight he was a person obliged to perform some sort of awful

+rite which everyone expected of him, and that he was therefore bound

+to accept their services. He took the glove in silence from the

+aide-de-camp, and sat down in the lady’s chair, placing his huge hands

+symmetrically on his knees in the naïve attitude of an Egyptian statue,

+and decided in his own mind that all was as it should be, and that in

+order not to lose his head and do foolish things he must not act on his

+own ideas tonight, but must yield himself up entirely to the will of

+those who were guiding him.

+

+Not two minutes had passed before Prince Vasíli with head erect

+majestically entered the room. He was wearing his long coat with three

+stars on his breast. He seemed to have grown thinner since the morning;

+his eyes seemed larger than usual when he glanced round and noticed

+Pierre. He went up to him, took his hand (a thing he never used to do),

+and drew it downwards as if wishing to ascertain whether it was firmly

+fixed on.

+

+“Courage, courage, my friend! He has asked to see you. That is

+well!” and he turned to go.

+

+But Pierre thought it necessary to ask: “How is...” and hesitated,

+not knowing whether it would be proper to call the dying man “the

+count,” yet ashamed to call him “father.”

+

+“He had another stroke about half an hour ago. Courage, my

+friend...”

+

+Pierre’s mind was in such a confused state that the word “stroke”

+suggested to him a blow from something. He looked at Prince Vasíli

+in perplexity, and only later grasped that a stroke was an attack of

+illness. Prince Vasíli said something to Lorrain in passing and went

+through the door on tiptoe. He could not walk well on tiptoe and his

+whole body jerked at each step. The eldest princess followed him, and

+the priests and deacons and some servants also went in at the door.

+Through that door was heard a noise of things being moved about, and

+at last Anna Mikháylovna, still with the same expression, pale but

+resolute in the discharge of duty, ran out and touching Pierre lightly

+on the arm said:

+

+“The divine mercy is inexhaustible! Unction is about to be

+administered. Come.”

+

+Pierre went in at the door, stepping on the soft carpet, and noticed

+that the strange lady, the aide-de-camp, and some of the servants, all

+followed him in, as if there were now no further need for permission to

+enter that room.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIII

+

+Pierre well knew this large room divided by columns and an arch, its

+walls hung round with Persian carpets. The part of the room behind the

+columns, with a high silk-curtained mahogany bedstead on one side and

+on the other an immense case containing icons, was brightly illuminated

+with red light like a Russian church during evening service. Under

+the gleaming icons stood a long invalid chair, and in that chair

+on snowy-white smooth pillows, evidently freshly changed, Pierre

+saw—covered to the waist by a bright green quilt—the familiar,

+majestic figure of his father, Count Bezúkhov, with that gray mane of

+hair above his broad forehead which reminded one of a lion, and the deep

+characteristically noble wrinkles of his handsome, ruddy face. He lay

+just under the icons; his large thick hands outside the quilt. Into the

+right hand, which was lying palm downwards, a wax taper had been thrust

+between forefinger and thumb, and an old servant, bending over from

+behind the chair, held it in position. By the chair stood the priests,

+their long hair falling over their magnificent glittering vestments,

+with lighted tapers in their hands, slowly and solemnly conducting the

+service. A little behind them stood the two younger princesses holding

+handkerchiefs to their eyes, and just in front of them their eldest

+sister, Catiche, with a vicious and determined look steadily fixed on

+the icons, as though declaring to all that she could not answer for

+herself should she glance round. Anna Mikháylovna, with a meek,

+sorrowful, and all-forgiving expression on her face, stood by the door

+near the strange lady. Prince Vasíli in front of the door, near the

+invalid chair, a wax taper in his left hand, was leaning his left arm on

+the carved back of a velvet chair he had turned round for the purpose,

+and was crossing himself with his right hand, turning his eyes upward

+each time he touched his forehead. His face wore a calm look of piety

+and resignation to the will of God. “If you do not understand these

+sentiments,” he seemed to be saying, “so much the worse for you!”

+

+Behind him stood the aide-de-camp, the doctors, and the menservants;

+the men and women had separated as in church. All were silently crossing

+themselves, and the reading of the church service, the subdued chanting

+of deep bass voices, and in the intervals sighs and the shuffling of

+feet were the only sounds that could be heard. Anna Mikháylovna, with

+an air of importance that showed that she felt she quite knew what she

+was about, went across the room to where Pierre was standing and gave

+him a taper. He lit it and, distracted by observing those around him,

+began crossing himself with the hand that held the taper.

+

+Sophie, the rosy, laughter-loving, youngest princess with the mole,

+watched him. She smiled, hid her face in her handkerchief, and remained

+with it hidden for awhile; then looking up and seeing Pierre she

+again began to laugh. She evidently felt unable to look at him

+without laughing, but could not resist looking at him: so to be out of

+temptation she slipped quietly behind one of the columns. In the midst

+of the service the voices of the priests suddenly ceased, they whispered

+to one another, and the old servant who was holding the count’s hand

+got up and said something to the ladies. Anna Mikháylovna stepped

+forward and, stooping over the dying man, beckoned to Lorrain from

+behind her back. The French doctor held no taper; he was leaning

+against one of the columns in a respectful attitude implying that he,

+a foreigner, in spite of all differences of faith, understood the full

+importance of the rite now being performed and even approved of it. He

+now approached the sick man with the noiseless step of one in full vigor

+of life, with his delicate white fingers raised from the green quilt the

+hand that was free, and turning sideways felt the pulse and reflected

+a moment. The sick man was given something to drink, there was a

+stir around him, then the people resumed their places and the service

+continued. During this interval Pierre noticed that Prince Vasíli

+left the chair on which he had been leaning, and—with an air

+which intimated that he knew what he was about and if others did not

+understand him it was so much the worse for them—did not go up to the

+dying man, but passed by him, joined the eldest princess, and moved

+with her to the side of the room where stood the high bedstead with its

+silken hangings. On leaving the bed both Prince Vasíli and the princess

+passed out by a back door, but returned to their places one after the

+other before the service was concluded. Pierre paid no more attention

+to this occurrence than to the rest of what went on, having made up his

+mind once for all that what he saw happening around him that evening was

+in some way essential.

+

+The chanting of the service ceased, and the voice of the priest was

+heard respectfully congratulating the dying man on having received the

+sacrament. The dying man lay as lifeless and immovable as before. Around

+him everyone began to stir: steps were audible and whispers, among which

+Anna Mikháylovna’s was the most distinct.

+

+Pierre heard her say:

+

+“Certainly he must be moved onto the bed; here it will be

+impossible...”

+

+The sick man was so surrounded by doctors, princesses, and servants

+that Pierre could no longer see the reddish-yellow face with its gray

+mane—which, though he saw other faces as well, he had not lost sight

+of for a single moment during the whole service. He judged by the

+cautious movements of those who crowded round the invalid chair that

+they had lifted the dying man and were moving him.

+

+“Catch hold of my arm or you’ll drop him!” he heard one of the

+servants say in a frightened whisper. “Catch hold from underneath.

+Here!” exclaimed different voices; and the heavy breathing of the

+bearers and the shuffling of their feet grew more hurried, as if the

+weight they were carrying were too much for them.

+

+As the bearers, among whom was Anna Mikháylovna, passed the young man

+he caught a momentary glimpse between their heads and backs of the dying

+man’s high, stout, uncovered chest and powerful shoulders, raised by

+those who were holding him under the armpits, and of his gray, curly,

+leonine head. This head, with its remarkably broad brow and cheekbones,

+its handsome, sensual mouth, and its cold, majestic expression, was

+not disfigured by the approach of death. It was the same as Pierre

+remembered it three months before, when the count had sent him to

+Petersburg. But now this head was swaying helplessly with the uneven

+movements of the bearers, and the cold listless gaze fixed itself upon

+nothing.

+

+After a few minutes’ bustle beside the high bedstead, those who had

+carried the sick man dispersed. Anna Mikháylovna touched Pierre’s

+hand and said, “Come.” Pierre went with her to the bed on which the

+sick man had been laid in a stately pose in keeping with the ceremony

+just completed. He lay with his head propped high on the pillows. His

+hands were symmetrically placed on the green silk quilt, the palms

+downward. When Pierre came up the count was gazing straight at him, but

+with a look the significance of which could not be understood by mortal

+man. Either this look meant nothing but that as long as one has eyes

+they must look somewhere, or it meant too much. Pierre hesitated,

+not knowing what to do, and glanced inquiringly at his guide. Anna

+Mikháylovna made a hurried sign with her eyes, glancing at the sick

+man’s hand and moving her lips as if to send it a kiss. Pierre,

+carefully stretching his neck so as not to touch the quilt, followed her

+suggestion and pressed his lips to the large boned, fleshy hand. Neither

+the hand nor a single muscle of the count’s face stirred. Once more

+Pierre looked questioningly at Anna Mikháylovna to see what he was to

+do next. Anna Mikháylovna with her eyes indicated a chair that stood

+beside the bed. Pierre obediently sat down, his eyes asking if he were

+doing right. Anna Mikháylovna nodded approvingly. Again Pierre fell

+into the naïvely symmetrical pose of an Egyptian statue, evidently

+distressed that his stout and clumsy body took up so much room and doing

+his utmost to look as small as possible. He looked at the count, who

+still gazed at the spot where Pierre’s face had been before he sat

+down. Anna Mikháylovna indicated by her attitude her consciousness of

+the pathetic importance of these last moments of meeting between the

+father and son. This lasted about two minutes, which to Pierre seemed an

+hour. Suddenly the broad muscles and lines of the count’s face began

+to twitch. The twitching increased, the handsome mouth was drawn to one

+side (only now did Pierre realize how near death his father was), and

+from that distorted mouth issued an indistinct, hoarse sound. Anna

+Mikháylovna looked attentively at the sick man’s eyes, trying to

+guess what he wanted; she pointed first to Pierre, then to some drink,

+then named Prince Vasíli in an inquiring whisper, then pointed to the

+quilt. The eyes and face of the sick man showed impatience. He made an

+effort to look at the servant who stood constantly at the head of the

+bed.

+

+“Wants to turn on the other side,” whispered the servant, and got up

+to turn the count’s heavy body toward the wall.

+

+Pierre rose to help him.

+

+While the count was being turned over, one of his arms fell back

+helplessly and he made a fruitless effort to pull it forward. Whether he

+noticed the look of terror with which Pierre regarded that lifeless arm,

+or whether some other thought flitted across his dying brain, at any

+rate he glanced at the refractory arm, at Pierre’s terror-stricken

+face, and again at the arm, and on his face a feeble, piteous smile

+appeared, quite out of keeping with his features, that seemed to deride

+his own helplessness. At sight of this smile Pierre felt an unexpected

+quivering in his breast and a tickling in his nose, and tears dimmed his

+eyes. The sick man was turned on to his side with his face to the wall.

+He sighed.

+

+“He is dozing,” said Anna Mikháylovna, observing that one of the

+princesses was coming to take her turn at watching. “Let us go.”

+

+Pierre went out.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIV

+

+There was now no one in the reception room except Prince Vasíli and the

+eldest princess, who were sitting under the portrait of Catherine the

+Great and talking eagerly. As soon as they saw Pierre and his companion

+they became silent, and Pierre thought he saw the princess hide

+something as she whispered:

+

+“I can’t bear the sight of that woman.”

+

+“Catiche has had tea served in the small drawing room,” said Prince

+Vasíli to Anna Mikháylovna. “Go and take something, my poor Anna

+Mikháylovna, or you will not hold out.”

+

+To Pierre he said nothing, merely giving his arm a sympathetic squeeze

+below the shoulder. Pierre went with Anna Mikháylovna into the small

+drawing room.

+

+“There is nothing so refreshing after a sleepless night as a cup

+of this delicious Russian tea,” Lorrain was saying with an air of

+restrained animation as he stood sipping tea from a delicate Chinese

+handleless cup before a table on which tea and a cold supper were laid

+in the small circular room. Around the table all who were at Count

+Bezúkhov’s house that night had gathered to fortify themselves.

+Pierre well remembered this small circular drawing room with its mirrors

+and little tables. During balls given at the house Pierre, who did not

+know how to dance, had liked sitting in this room to watch the ladies

+who, as they passed through in their ball dresses with diamonds and

+pearls on their bare shoulders, looked at themselves in the brilliantly

+lighted mirrors which repeated their reflections several times. Now

+this same room was dimly lighted by two candles. On one small table tea

+things and supper dishes stood in disorder, and in the middle of the

+night a motley throng of people sat there, not merrymaking, but somberly

+whispering, and betraying by every word and movement that they none

+of them forgot what was happening and what was about to happen in the

+bedroom. Pierre did not eat anything though he would very much have

+liked to. He looked inquiringly at his monitress and saw that she was

+again going on tiptoe to the reception room where they had left Prince

+Vasíli and the eldest princess. Pierre concluded that this also was

+essential, and after a short interval followed her. Anna Mikháylovna

+was standing beside the princess, and they were both speaking in excited

+whispers.

+

+“Permit me, Princess, to know what is necessary and what is not

+necessary,” said the younger of the two speakers, evidently in the

+same state of excitement as when she had slammed the door of her room.

+

+“But, my dear princess,” answered Anna Mikháylovna blandly but

+impressively, blocking the way to the bedroom and preventing the other

+from passing, “won’t this be too much for poor Uncle at a moment

+when he needs repose? Worldly conversation at a moment when his soul is

+already prepared...”

+

+Prince Vasíli was seated in an easy chair in his familiar attitude,

+with one leg crossed high above the other. His cheeks, which were so

+flabby that they looked heavier below, were twitching violently; but

+he wore the air of a man little concerned in what the two ladies were

+saying.

+

+“Come, my dear Anna Mikháylovna, let Catiche do as she pleases. You

+know how fond the count is of her.”

+

+“I don’t even know what is in this paper,” said the younger of

+the two ladies, addressing Prince Vasíli and pointing to an inlaid

+portfolio she held in her hand. “All I know is that his real will is

+in his writing table, and this is a paper he has forgotten....”

+

+She tried to pass Anna Mikháylovna, but the latter sprang so as to bar

+her path.

+

+“I know, my dear, kind princess,” said Anna Mikháylovna, seizing

+the portfolio so firmly that it was plain she would not let go easily.

+“Dear princess, I beg and implore you, have some pity on him! Je vous

+en conjure...”

+

+The princess did not reply. Their efforts in the struggle for the

+portfolio were the only sounds audible, but it was evident that if

+the princess did speak, her words would not be flattering to Anna

+Mikháylovna. Though the latter held on tenaciously, her voice lost none

+of its honeyed firmness and softness.

+

+“Pierre, my dear, come here. I think he will not be out of place in a

+family consultation; is it not so, Prince?”

+

+“Why don’t you speak, cousin?” suddenly shrieked the princess so

+loud that those in the drawing room heard her and were startled. “Why

+do you remain silent when heaven knows who permits herself to

+interfere, making a scene on the very threshold of a dying man’s room?

+Intriguer!” she hissed viciously, and tugged with all her might at the

+portfolio.

+

+But Anna Mikháylovna went forward a step or two to keep her hold on the

+portfolio, and changed her grip.

+

+Prince Vasíli rose. “Oh!” said he with reproach and surprise,

+“this is absurd! Come, let go I tell you.”

+

+The princess let go.

+

+“And you too!”

+

+But Anna Mikháylovna did not obey him.

+

+“Let go, I tell you! I will take the responsibility. I myself will go

+and ask him, I!... does that satisfy you?”

+

+“But, Prince,” said Anna Mikháylovna, “after such a solemn

+sacrament, allow him a moment’s peace! Here, Pierre, tell them your

+opinion,” said she, turning to the young man who, having come quite

+close, was gazing with astonishment at the angry face of the princess

+which had lost all dignity, and at the twitching cheeks of Prince

+Vasíli.

+

+“Remember that you will answer for the consequences,” said Prince

+Vasíli severely. “You don’t know what you are doing.”

+

+“Vile woman!” shouted the princess, darting unexpectedly at Anna

+Mikháylovna and snatching the portfolio from her.

+

+Prince Vasíli bent his head and spread out his hands.

+

+At this moment that terrible door, which Pierre had watched so long

+and which had always opened so quietly, burst noisily open and banged

+against the wall, and the second of the three sisters rushed out

+wringing her hands.

+

+“What are you doing!” she cried vehemently. “He is dying and you

+leave me alone with him!”

+

+Her sister dropped the portfolio. Anna Mikháylovna, stooping, quickly

+caught up the object of contention and ran into the bedroom. The eldest

+princess and Prince Vasíli, recovering themselves, followed her. A few

+minutes later the eldest sister came out with a pale hard face, again

+biting her underlip. At sight of Pierre her expression showed an

+irrepressible hatred.

+

+“Yes, now you may be glad!” said she; “this is what you have

+been waiting for.” And bursting into tears she hid her face in her

+handkerchief and rushed from the room.

+

+Prince Vasíli came next. He staggered to the sofa on which Pierre was

+sitting and dropped onto it, covering his face with his hand. Pierre

+noticed that he was pale and that his jaw quivered and shook as if in an

+ague.

+

+“Ah, my friend!” said he, taking Pierre by the elbow; and there was

+in his voice a sincerity and weakness Pierre had never observed in it

+before. “How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? I am

+near sixty, dear friend... I too... All will end in death, all! Death is

+awful...” and he burst into tears.

+

+Anna Mikháylovna came out last. She approached Pierre with slow, quiet

+steps.

+

+“Pierre!” she said.

+

+Pierre gave her an inquiring look. She kissed the young man on his

+forehead, wetting him with her tears. Then after a pause she said:

+

+“He is no more....”

+

+Pierre looked at her over his spectacles.

+

+“Come, I will go with you. Try to weep, nothing gives such relief as

+tears.”

+

+She led him into the dark drawing room and Pierre was glad no one could

+see his face. Anna Mikháylovna left him, and when she returned he was

+fast asleep with his head on his arm.

+

+In the morning Anna Mikháylovna said to Pierre:

+

+“Yes, my dear, this is a great loss for us all, not to speak of you.

+But God will support you: you are young, and are now, I hope, in command

+of an immense fortune. The will has not yet been opened. I know you

+well enough to be sure that this will not turn your head, but it imposes

+duties on you, and you must be a man.”

+

+Pierre was silent.

+

+“Perhaps later on I may tell you, my dear boy, that if I had not been

+there, God only knows what would have happened! You know, Uncle promised

+me only the day before yesterday not to forget Borís. But he had

+no time. I hope, my dear friend, you will carry out your father’s

+wish?”

+

+Pierre understood nothing of all this and coloring shyly looked in

+silence at Princess Anna Mikháylovna. After her talk with Pierre, Anna

+Mikháylovna returned to the Rostóvs’ and went to bed. On waking in

+the morning she told the Rostóvs and all her acquaintances the details

+of Count Bezúkhov’s death. She said the count had died as she would

+herself wish to die, that his end was not only touching but edifying. As

+to the last meeting between father and son, it was so touching that she

+could not think of it without tears, and did not know which had behaved

+better during those awful moments—the father who so remembered

+everything and everybody at last and had spoken such pathetic words to

+the son, or Pierre, whom it had been pitiful to see, so stricken was he

+with grief, though he tried hard to hide it in order not to sadden his

+dying father. “It is painful, but it does one good. It uplifts the

+soul to see such men as the old count and his worthy son,” said she.

+Of the behavior of the eldest princess and Prince Vasíli she spoke

+disapprovingly, but in whispers and as a great secret.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXV

+

+At Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Andréevich Bolkónski’s estate, the

+arrival of young Prince Andrew and his wife was daily expected, but

+this expectation did not upset the regular routine of life in the old

+prince’s household. General in Chief Prince Nicholas Andréevich

+(nicknamed in society, “the King of Prussia”) ever since the Emperor

+Paul had exiled him to his country estate had lived there continuously

+with his daughter, Princess Mary, and her companion, Mademoiselle

+Bourienne. Though in the new reign he was free to return to the

+capitals, he still continued to live in the country, remarking that

+anyone who wanted to see him could come the hundred miles from Moscow to

+Bald Hills, while he himself needed no one and nothing. He used to

+say that there are only two sources of human vice—idleness and

+superstition, and only two virtues—activity and intelligence. He

+himself undertook his daughter’s education, and to develop these two

+cardinal virtues in her gave her lessons in algebra and geometry

+till she was twenty, and arranged her life so that her whole time was

+occupied. He was himself always occupied: writing his memoirs, solving

+problems in higher mathematics, turning snuffboxes on a lathe, working

+in the garden, or superintending the building that was always going on

+at his estate. As regularity is a prime condition facilitating activity,

+regularity in his household was carried to the highest point of

+exactitude. He always came to table under precisely the same conditions,

+and not only at the same hour but at the same minute. With those about

+him, from his daughter to his serfs, the prince was sharp and invariably

+exacting, so that without being a hardhearted man he inspired such fear

+and respect as few hardhearted men would have aroused. Although he was

+in retirement and had now no influence in political affairs, every high

+official appointed to the province in which the prince’s estate lay

+considered it his duty to visit him and waited in the lofty antechamber

+just as the architect, gardener, or Princess Mary did, till the prince

+appeared punctually to the appointed hour. Everyone sitting in this

+antechamber experienced the same feeling of respect and even fear when

+the enormously high study door opened and showed the figure of a rather

+small old man, with powdered wig, small withered hands, and bushy gray

+eyebrows which, when he frowned, sometimes hid the gleam of his shrewd,

+youthfully glittering eyes.

+

+On the morning of the day that the young couple were to arrive, Princess

+Mary entered the antechamber as usual at the time appointed for the

+morning greeting, crossing herself with trepidation and repeating a

+silent prayer. Every morning she came in like that, and every morning

+prayed that the daily interview might pass off well.

+

+An old powdered manservant who was sitting in the antechamber rose

+quietly and said in a whisper: “Please walk in.”

+

+Through the door came the regular hum of a lathe. The princess timidly

+opened the door which moved noiselessly and easily. She paused at the

+entrance. The prince was working at the lathe and after glancing round

+continued his work.

+

+The enormous study was full of things evidently in constant use.

+The large table covered with books and plans, the tall glass-fronted

+bookcases with keys in the locks, the high desk for writing while

+standing up, on which lay an open exercise book, and the lathe with

+tools laid ready to hand and shavings scattered around—all indicated

+continuous, varied, and orderly activity. The motion of the small foot

+shod in a Tartar boot embroidered with silver, and the firm pressure

+of the lean sinewy hand, showed that the prince still possessed the

+tenacious endurance and vigor of hardy old age. After a few more turns

+of the lathe he removed his foot from the pedal, wiped his chisel,

+dropped it into a leather pouch attached to the lathe, and, approaching

+the table, summoned his daughter. He never gave his children a blessing,

+so he simply held out his bristly cheek (as yet unshaven) and, regarding

+her tenderly and attentively, said severely:

+

+“Quite well? All right then, sit down.” He took the exercise book

+containing lessons in geometry written by himself and drew up a chair

+with his foot.

+

+“For tomorrow!” said he, quickly finding the page and making a

+scratch from one paragraph to another with his hard nail.

+

+The princess bent over the exercise book on the table.

+

+“Wait a bit, here’s a letter for you,” said the old man suddenly,

+taking a letter addressed in a woman’s hand from a bag hanging above

+the table, onto which he threw it.

+

+At the sight of the letter red patches showed themselves on the

+princess’ face. She took it quickly and bent her head over it.

+

+“From Héloïse?” asked the prince with a cold smile that showed his

+still sound, yellowish teeth.

+

+“Yes, it’s from Julie,” replied the princess with a timid glance

+and a timid smile.

+

+“I’ll let two more letters pass, but the third I’ll read,” said

+the prince sternly; “I’m afraid you write much nonsense. I’ll read

+the third!”

+

+“Read this if you like, Father,” said the princess, blushing still

+more and holding out the letter.

+

+“The third, I said the third!” cried the prince abruptly, pushing

+the letter away, and leaning his elbows on the table he drew toward him

+the exercise book containing geometrical figures.

+

+“Well, madam,” he began, stooping over the book close to his

+daughter and placing an arm on the back of the chair on which she sat,

+so that she felt herself surrounded on all sides by the acrid scent of

+old age and tobacco, which she had known so long. “Now, madam, these

+triangles are equal; please note that the angle ABC...”

+

+The princess looked in a scared way at her father’s eyes glittering

+close to her; the red patches on her face came and went, and it was

+plain that she understood nothing and was so frightened that her

+fear would prevent her understanding any of her father’s further

+explanations, however clear they might be. Whether it was the

+teacher’s fault or the pupil’s, this same thing happened every day:

+the princess’ eyes grew dim, she could not see and could not hear

+anything, but was only conscious of her stern father’s withered face

+close to her, of his breath and the smell of him, and could think only

+of how to get away quickly to her own room to make out the problem in

+peace. The old man was beside himself: moved the chair on which he was

+sitting noisily backward and forward, made efforts to control himself

+and not become vehement, but almost always did become vehement, scolded,

+and sometimes flung the exercise book away.

+

+The princess gave a wrong answer.

+

+“Well now, isn’t she a fool!” shouted the prince, pushing the book

+aside and turning sharply away; but rising immediately, he paced up and

+down, lightly touched his daughter’s hair and sat down again.

+

+He drew up his chair, and continued to explain.

+

+“This won’t do, Princess; it won’t do,” said he, when Princess

+Mary, having taken and closed the exercise book with the next day’s

+lesson, was about to leave: “Mathematics are most important, madam!

+I don’t want to have you like our silly ladies. Get used to it and

+you’ll like it,” and he patted her cheek. “It will drive all the

+nonsense out of your head.”

+

+She turned to go, but he stopped her with a gesture and took an uncut

+book from the high desk.

+

+“Here is some sort of Key to the Mysteries that your Héloïse has

+sent you. Religious! I don’t interfere with anyone’s belief... I

+have looked at it. Take it. Well, now go. Go.”

+

+He patted her on the shoulder and himself closed the door after her.

+

+Princess Mary went back to her room with the sad, scared expression that

+rarely left her and which made her plain, sickly face yet plainer. She

+sat down at her writing table, on which stood miniature portraits and

+which was littered with books and papers. The princess was as untidy as

+her father was tidy. She put down the geometry book and eagerly broke

+the seal of her letter. It was from her most intimate friend from

+childhood; that same Julie Karágina who had been at the Rostóvs’

+name-day party.

+

+Julie wrote in French:

+

+Dear and precious Friend, How terrible and frightful a thing is

+separation! Though I tell myself that half my life and half my happiness

+are wrapped up in you, and that in spite of the distance separating us

+our hearts are united by indissoluble bonds, my heart rebels against

+fate and in spite of the pleasures and distractions around me I cannot

+overcome a certain secret sorrow that has been in my heart ever since

+we parted. Why are we not together as we were last summer, in your big

+study, on the blue sofa, the confidential sofa? Why cannot I now, as

+three months ago, draw fresh moral strength from your look, so gentle,

+calm, and penetrating, a look I loved so well and seem to see before me

+as I write?

+

+Having read thus far, Princess Mary sighed and glanced into the mirror

+which stood on her right. It reflected a weak, ungraceful figure and

+thin face. Her eyes, always sad, now looked with particular hopelessness

+at her reflection in the glass. “She flatters me,” thought the

+princess, turning away and continuing to read. But Julie did not flatter

+her friend, the princess’ eyes—large, deep and luminous (it seemed

+as if at times there radiated from them shafts of warm light)—were

+so beautiful that very often in spite of the plainness of her face

+they gave her an attraction more powerful than that of beauty. But the

+princess never saw the beautiful expression of her own eyes—the look

+they had when she was not thinking of herself. As with everyone, her

+face assumed a forced unnatural expression as soon as she looked in a

+glass. She went on reading:

+

+All Moscow talks of nothing but war. One of my two brothers is already

+abroad, the other is with the Guards, who are starting on their march

+to the frontier. Our dear Emperor has left Petersburg and it is thought

+intends to expose his precious person to the chances of war. God grant

+that the Corsican monster who is destroying the peace of Europe may

+be overthrown by the angel whom it has pleased the Almighty, in His

+goodness, to give us as sovereign! To say nothing of my brothers, this

+war has deprived me of one of the associations nearest my heart. I mean

+young Nicholas Rostóv, who with his enthusiasm could not bear to remain

+inactive and has left the university to join the army. I will confess to

+you, dear Mary, that in spite of his extreme youth his departure for

+the army was a great grief to me. This young man, of whom I spoke to you

+last summer, is so noble-minded and full of that real youthfulness which

+one seldom finds nowadays among our old men of twenty and, particularly,

+he is so frank and has so much heart. He is so pure and poetic that

+my relations with him, transient as they were, have been one of the

+sweetest comforts to my poor heart, which has already suffered so much.

+Someday I will tell you about our parting and all that was said then.

+That is still too fresh. Ah, dear friend, you are happy not to know

+these poignant joys and sorrows. You are fortunate, for the latter are

+generally the stronger! I know very well that Count Nicholas is too

+young ever to be more to me than a friend, but this sweet friendship,

+this poetic and pure intimacy, were what my heart needed. But enough of

+this! The chief news, about which all Moscow gossips, is the death of

+old Count Bezúkhov, and his inheritance. Fancy! The three princesses

+have received very little, Prince Vasíli nothing, and it is Monsieur

+Pierre who has inherited all the property and has besides been

+recognized as legitimate; so that he is now Count Bezúkhov and

+possessor of the finest fortune in Russia. It is rumored that Prince

+Vasíli played a very despicable part in this affair and that he

+returned to Petersburg quite crestfallen.

+

+I confess I understand very little about all these matters of wills and

+inheritance; but I do know that since this young man, whom we all used

+to know as plain Monsieur Pierre, has become Count Bezúkhov and the

+owner of one of the largest fortunes in Russia, I am much amused to

+watch the change in the tone and manners of the mammas burdened by

+marriageable daughters, and of the young ladies themselves, toward

+him, though, between you and me, he always seemed to me a poor sort

+of fellow. As for the past two years people have amused themselves

+by finding husbands for me (most of whom I don’t even know), the

+matchmaking chronicles of Moscow now speak of me as the future Countess

+Bezúkhova. But you will understand that I have no desire for the post.

+À propos of marriages: do you know that a while ago that universal

+auntie Anna Mikháylovna told me, under the seal of strict secrecy, of

+a plan of marriage for you. It is neither more nor less than with Prince

+Vasíli’s son Anatole, whom they wish to reform by marrying him to

+someone rich and distinguée, and it is on you that his relations’

+choice has fallen. I don’t know what you will think of it, but

+I consider it my duty to let you know of it. He is said to be very

+handsome and a terrible scapegrace. That is all I have been able to find

+out about him.

+

+But enough of gossip. I am at the end of my second sheet of paper, and

+Mamma has sent for me to go and dine at the Apráksins’. Read the

+mystical book I am sending you; it has an enormous success here. Though

+there are things in it difficult for the feeble human mind to grasp, it

+is an admirable book which calms and elevates the soul. Adieu! Give

+my respects to monsieur your father and my compliments to Mademoiselle

+Bourienne. I embrace you as I love you.

+

+JULIE

+

+P.S. Let me have news of your brother and his charming little wife.

+

+The princess pondered awhile with a thoughtful smile and her luminous

+eyes lit up so that her face was entirely transformed. Then she suddenly

+rose and with her heavy tread went up to the table. She took a sheet of

+paper and her hand moved rapidly over it. This is the reply she wrote,

+also in French:

+

+Dear and precious Friend, Your letter of the 13th has given me great

+delight. So you still love me, my romantic Julie? Separation, of which

+you say so much that is bad, does not seem to have had its usual effect

+on you. You complain of our separation. What then should I say, if I

+dared complain, I who am deprived of all who are dear to me? Ah, if

+we had not religion to console us life would be very sad. Why do you

+suppose that I should look severely on your affection for that young

+man? On such matters I am only severe with myself. I understand such

+feelings in others, and if never having felt them I cannot approve of

+them, neither do I condemn them. Only it seems to me that Christian

+love, love of one’s neighbor, love of one’s enemy, is worthier,

+sweeter, and better than the feelings which the beautiful eyes of a

+young man can inspire in a romantic and loving young girl like yourself.

+

+The news of Count Bezúkhov’s death reached us before your letter

+and my father was much affected by it. He says the count was the last

+representative but one of the great century, and that it is his own

+turn now, but that he will do all he can to let his turn come as late as

+possible. God preserve us from that terrible misfortune!

+

+I cannot agree with you about Pierre, whom I knew as a child. He always

+seemed to me to have an excellent heart, and that is the quality I value

+most in people. As to his inheritance and the part played by Prince

+Vasíli, it is very sad for both. Ah, my dear friend, our divine

+Saviour’s words, that it is easier for a camel to go through the

+eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, are

+terribly true. I pity Prince Vasíli but am still more sorry for Pierre.

+So young, and burdened with such riches—to what temptations he will be

+exposed! If I were asked what I desire most on earth, it would be to be

+poorer than the poorest beggar. A thousand thanks, dear friend, for the

+volume you have sent me and which has such success in Moscow. Yet since

+you tell me that among some good things it contains others which our

+weak human understanding cannot grasp, it seems to me rather useless to

+spend time in reading what is unintelligible and can therefore bear

+no fruit. I never could understand the fondness some people have for

+confusing their minds by dwelling on mystical books that merely awaken

+their doubts and excite their imagination, giving them a bent for

+exaggeration quite contrary to Christian simplicity. Let us rather read

+the Epistles and Gospels. Let us not seek to penetrate what mysteries

+they contain; for how can we, miserable sinners that we are, know the

+terrible and holy secrets of Providence while we remain in this flesh

+which forms an impenetrable veil between us and the Eternal? Let us

+rather confine ourselves to studying those sublime rules which our

+divine Saviour has left for our guidance here below. Let us try to

+conform to them and follow them, and let us be persuaded that the less

+we let our feeble human minds roam, the better we shall please God, who

+rejects all knowledge that does not come from Him; and the less we seek

+to fathom what He has been pleased to conceal from us, the sooner will

+He vouchsafe its revelation to us through His divine Spirit.

+

+My father has not spoken to me of a suitor, but has only told me that he

+has received a letter and is expecting a visit from Prince Vasíli. In

+regard to this project of marriage for me, I will tell you, dear sweet

+friend, that I look on marriage as a divine institution to which we must

+conform. However painful it may be to me, should the Almighty lay

+the duties of wife and mother upon me I shall try to perform them as

+faithfully as I can, without disquieting myself by examining my feelings

+toward him whom He may give me for husband.

+

+I have had a letter from my brother, who announces his speedy arrival

+at Bald Hills with his wife. This pleasure will be but a brief one,

+however, for he will leave us again to take part in this unhappy war

+into which we have been drawn, God knows how or why. Not only where you

+are—at the heart of affairs and of the world—is the talk all of

+war, even here amid fieldwork and the calm of nature—which townsfolk

+consider characteristic of the country—rumors of war are heard

+and painfully felt. My father talks of nothing but marches and

+countermarches, things of which I understand nothing; and the day

+before yesterday during my daily walk through the village I witnessed a

+heartrending scene.... It was a convoy of conscripts enrolled from our

+people and starting to join the army. You should have seen the state of

+the mothers, wives, and children of the men who were going and should

+have heard the sobs. It seems as though mankind has forgotten the

+laws of its divine Saviour, Who preached love and forgiveness of

+injuries—and that men attribute the greatest merit to skill in killing

+one another.

+

+Adieu, dear and kind friend; may our divine Saviour and His most Holy

+Mother keep you in their holy and all-powerful care!

+

+MARY

+

+“Ah, you are sending off a letter, Princess? I have already dispatched

+mine. I have written to my poor mother,” said the smiling Mademoiselle

+Bourienne rapidly, in her pleasant mellow tones and with guttural r’s.

+She brought into Princess Mary’s strenuous, mournful, and gloomy

+world a quite different atmosphere, careless, lighthearted, and

+self-satisfied.

+

+“Princess, I must warn you,” she added, lowering her voice and

+evidently listening to herself with pleasure, and speaking with

+exaggerated grasseyement, “the prince has been scolding Michael

+Ivánovich. He is in a very bad humor, very morose. Be prepared.”

+

+“Ah, dear friend,” replied Princess Mary, “I have asked you never

+to warn me of the humor my father is in. I do not allow myself to judge

+him and would not have others do so.”

+

+The princess glanced at her watch and, seeing that she was five minutes

+late in starting her practice on the clavichord, went into the sitting

+room with a look of alarm. Between twelve and two o’clock, as the

+day was mapped out, the prince rested and the princess played the

+clavichord.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVI

+

+The gray-haired valet was sitting drowsily listening to the snoring of

+the prince, who was in his large study. From the far side of the house

+through the closed doors came the sound of difficult passages—twenty

+times repeated—of a sonata by Dussek.

+

+Just then a closed carriage and another with a hood drove up to the

+porch. Prince Andrew got out of the carriage, helped his little wife to

+alight, and let her pass into the house before him. Old Tíkhon, wearing

+a wig, put his head out of the door of the antechamber, reported in

+a whisper that the prince was sleeping, and hastily closed the door.

+Tíkhon knew that neither the son’s arrival nor any other unusual

+event must be allowed to disturb the appointed order of the day. Prince

+Andrew apparently knew this as well as Tíkhon; he looked at his watch

+as if to ascertain whether his father’s habits had changed since he

+was at home last, and, having assured himself that they had not, he

+turned to his wife.

+

+“He will get up in twenty minutes. Let us go across to Mary’s

+room,” he said.

+

+The little princess had grown stouter during this time, but her eyes

+and her short, downy, smiling lip lifted when she began to speak just as

+merrily and prettily as ever.

+

+“Why, this is a palace!” she said to her husband, looking around

+with the expression with which people compliment their host at a ball.

+“Let’s come, quick, quick!” And with a glance round, she smiled at

+Tíkhon, at her husband, and at the footman who accompanied them.

+

+“Is that Mary practicing? Let’s go quietly and take her by

+surprise.”

+

+Prince Andrew followed her with a courteous but sad expression.

+

+“You’ve grown older, Tíkhon,” he said in passing to the old man,

+who kissed his hand.

+

+Before they reached the room from which the sounds of the clavichord

+came, the pretty, fair-haired Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Bourienne,

+rushed out apparently beside herself with delight.

+

+“Ah! what joy for the princess!” exclaimed she: “At last! I must

+let her know.”

+

+“No, no, please not... You are Mademoiselle Bourienne,” said

+the little princess, kissing her. “I know you already through my

+sister-in-law’s friendship for you. She was not expecting us?”

+

+They went up to the door of the sitting room from which came the sound

+of the oft-repeated passage of the sonata. Prince Andrew stopped and

+made a grimace, as if expecting something unpleasant.

+

+The little princess entered the room. The passage broke off in the

+middle, a cry was heard, then Princess Mary’s heavy tread and the

+sound of kissing. When Prince Andrew went in the two princesses, who

+had only met once before for a short time at his wedding, were in

+each other’s arms warmly pressing their lips to whatever place they

+happened to touch. Mademoiselle Bourienne stood near them pressing her

+hand to her heart, with a beatific smile and obviously equally ready to

+cry or to laugh. Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders and frowned, as

+lovers of music do when they hear a false note. The two women let go

+of one another, and then, as if afraid of being too late, seized each

+other’s hands, kissing them and pulling them away, and again began

+kissing each other on the face, and then to Prince Andrew’s surprise

+both began to cry and kissed again. Mademoiselle Bourienne also began to

+cry. Prince Andrew evidently felt ill at ease, but to the two women

+it seemed quite natural that they should cry, and apparently it never

+entered their heads that it could have been otherwise at this meeting.

+

+“Ah! my dear!... Ah! Mary!...” they suddenly exclaimed, and then

+laughed. “I dreamed last night...”—“You were not expecting

+us?...” “Ah! Mary, you have got thinner?...” “And you have grown

+stouter!...”

+

+“I knew the princess at once,” put in Mademoiselle Bourienne.

+

+“And I had no idea!...” exclaimed Princess Mary. “Ah, Andrew, I

+did not see you.”

+

+Prince Andrew and his sister, hand in hand, kissed one another, and

+he told her she was still the same crybaby as ever. Princess Mary had

+turned toward her brother, and through her tears the loving, warm,

+gentle look of her large luminous eyes, very beautiful at that moment,

+rested on Prince Andrew’s face.

+

+The little princess talked incessantly, her short, downy upper lip

+continually and rapidly touching her rosy nether lip when necessary

+and drawing up again next moment when her face broke into a smile of

+glittering teeth and sparkling eyes. She told of an accident they had

+had on the Spásski Hill which might have been serious for her in her

+condition, and immediately after that informed them that she had left

+all her clothes in Petersburg and that heaven knew what she would have

+to dress in here; and that Andrew had quite changed, and that Kitty

+Odýntsova had married an old man, and that there was a suitor for Mary,

+a real one, but that they would talk of that later. Princess Mary was

+still looking silently at her brother and her beautiful eyes were full

+of love and sadness. It was plain that she was following a train of

+thought independent of her sister-in-law’s words. In the midst of a

+description of the last Petersburg fete she addressed her brother:

+

+“So you are really going to the war, Andrew?” she said sighing.

+

+Lise sighed too.

+

+“Yes, and even tomorrow,” replied her brother.

+

+“He is leaving me here, God knows why, when he might have had

+promotion...”

+

+Princess Mary did not listen to the end, but continuing her train of

+thought turned to her sister-in-law with a tender glance at her figure.

+

+“Is it certain?” she said.

+

+The face of the little princess changed. She sighed and said: “Yes,

+quite certain. Ah! it is very dreadful...”

+

+Her lip descended. She brought her face close to her sister-in-law’s

+and unexpectedly again began to cry.

+

+“She needs rest,” said Prince Andrew with a frown. “Don’t you,

+Lise? Take her to your room and I’ll go to Father. How is he? Just the

+same?”

+

+“Yes, just the same. Though I don’t know what your opinion will

+be,” answered the princess joyfully.

+

+“And are the hours the same? And the walks in the avenues? And the

+lathe?” asked Prince Andrew with a scarcely perceptible smile which

+showed that, in spite of all his love and respect for his father, he was

+aware of his weaknesses.

+

+“The hours are the same, and the lathe, and also the mathematics and

+my geometry lessons,” said Princess Mary gleefully, as if her lessons

+in geometry were among the greatest delights of her life.

+

+When the twenty minutes had elapsed and the time had come for the old

+prince to get up, Tíkhon came to call the young prince to his father.

+The old man made a departure from his usual routine in honor of his

+son’s arrival: he gave orders to admit him to his apartments while

+he dressed for dinner. The old prince always dressed in old-fashioned

+style, wearing an antique coat and powdered hair; and when Prince Andrew

+entered his father’s dressing room (not with the contemptuous look and

+manner he wore in drawing rooms, but with the animated face with which

+he talked to Pierre), the old man was sitting on a large leather-covered

+chair, wrapped in a powdering mantle, entrusting his head to Tíkhon.

+

+“Ah! here’s the warrior! Wants to vanquish Buonaparte?” said the

+old man, shaking his powdered head as much as the tail, which Tíkhon

+was holding fast to plait, would allow.

+

+“You at least must tackle him properly, or else if he goes on like

+this he’ll soon have us, too, for his subjects! How are you?” And he

+held out his cheek.

+

+The old man was in a good temper after his nap before dinner. (He

+used to say that a nap “after dinner was silver—before dinner,

+golden.”) He cast happy, sidelong glances at his son from under his

+thick, bushy eyebrows. Prince Andrew went up and kissed his father on

+the spot indicated to him. He made no reply on his father’s favorite

+topic—making fun of the military men of the day, and more particularly

+of Bonaparte.

+

+“Yes, Father, I have come to you and brought my wife who is

+pregnant,” said Prince Andrew, following every movement of his

+father’s face with an eager and respectful look. “How is your

+health?”

+

+“Only fools and rakes fall ill, my boy. You know me: I am busy from

+morning till night and abstemious, so of course I am well.”

+

+“Thank God,” said his son smiling.

+

+“God has nothing to do with it! Well, go on,” he continued,

+returning to his hobby; “tell me how the Germans have taught you to

+fight Bonaparte by this new science you call ‘strategy.’”

+

+Prince Andrew smiled.

+

+“Give me time to collect my wits, Father,” said he, with a smile

+that showed that his father’s foibles did not prevent his son from

+loving and honoring him. “Why, I have not yet had time to settle

+down!”

+

+“Nonsense, nonsense!” cried the old man, shaking his pigtail to

+see whether it was firmly plaited, and grasping his by the hand. “The

+house for your wife is ready. Princess Mary will take her there and

+show her over, and they’ll talk nineteen to the dozen. That’s

+their woman’s way! I am glad to have her. Sit down and talk. About

+Mikhelson’s army I understand—Tolstóy ‘s too... a simultaneous

+expedition.... But what’s the southern army to do? Prussia is

+neutral... I know that. What about Austria?” said he, rising from his

+chair and pacing up and down the room followed by Tíkhon, who ran after

+him, handing him different articles of clothing. “What of Sweden? How

+will they cross Pomerania?”

+

+Prince Andrew, seeing that his father insisted, began—at first

+reluctantly, but gradually with more and more animation, and from habit

+changing unconsciously from Russian to French as he went on—to explain

+the plan of operation for the coming campaign. He explained how an army,

+ninety thousand strong, was to threaten Prussia so as to bring her out

+of her neutrality and draw her into the war; how part of that army was

+to join some Swedish forces at Stralsund; how two hundred and twenty

+thousand Austrians, with a hundred thousand Russians, were to operate in

+Italy and on the Rhine; how fifty thousand Russians and as many English

+were to land at Naples, and how a total force of five hundred thousand

+men was to attack the French from different sides. The old prince did

+not evince the least interest during this explanation, but as if he were

+not listening to it continued to dress while walking about, and three

+times unexpectedly interrupted. Once he stopped it by shouting: “The

+white one, the white one!”

+

+This meant that Tíkhon was not handing him the waistcoat he wanted.

+Another time he interrupted, saying:

+

+“And will she soon be confined?” and shaking his head reproachfully

+said: “That’s bad! Go on, go on.”

+

+The third interruption came when Prince Andrew was finishing his

+description. The old man began to sing, in the cracked voice of old age:

+“Malbrook s’en va-t-en guerre. Dieu sait quand reviendra.” *

+

+     * “Marlborough is going to the wars; God knows when he’ll

+     return.”

+

+

+His son only smiled.

+

+“I don’t say it’s a plan I approve of,” said the son; “I am

+only telling you what it is. Napoleon has also formed his plan by now,

+not worse than this one.”

+

+“Well, you’ve told me nothing new,” and the old man repeated,

+meditatively and rapidly:

+

+“Dieu sait quand reviendra. Go to the dining room.”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVII

+

+At the appointed hour the prince, powdered and shaven, entered the

+dining room where his daughter-in-law, Princess Mary, and Mademoiselle

+Bourienne were already awaiting him together with his architect, who by

+a strange caprice of his employer’s was admitted to table though the

+position of that insignificant individual was such as could certainly

+not have caused him to expect that honor. The prince, who generally kept

+very strictly to social distinctions and rarely admitted even important

+government officials to his table, had unexpectedly selected Michael

+Ivánovich (who always went into a corner to blow his nose on his

+checked handkerchief) to illustrate the theory that all men are equals,

+and had more than once impressed on his daughter that Michael Ivánovich

+was “not a whit worse than you or I.” At dinner the prince usually

+spoke to the taciturn Michael Ivánovich more often than to anyone else.

+

+In the dining room, which like all the rooms in the house was

+exceedingly lofty, the members of the household and the footmen—one

+behind each chair—stood waiting for the prince to enter. The head

+butler, napkin on arm, was scanning the setting of the table, making

+signs to the footmen, and anxiously glancing from the clock to the door

+by which the prince was to enter. Prince Andrew was looking at a large

+gilt frame, new to him, containing the genealogical tree of the Princes

+Bolkónski, opposite which hung another such frame with a badly painted

+portrait (evidently by the hand of the artist belonging to the estate)

+of a ruling prince, in a crown—an alleged descendant of Rúrik and

+ancestor of the Bolkónskis. Prince Andrew, looking again at that

+genealogical tree, shook his head, laughing as a man laughs who looks at

+a portrait so characteristic of the original as to be amusing.

+

+“How thoroughly like him that is!” he said to Princess Mary, who had

+come up to him.

+

+Princess Mary looked at her brother in surprise. She did not understand

+what he was laughing at. Everything her father did inspired her with

+reverence and was beyond question.

+

+“Everyone has his Achilles’ heel,” continued Prince Andrew.

+“Fancy, with his powerful mind, indulging in such nonsense!”

+

+Princess Mary could not understand the boldness of her brother’s

+criticism and was about to reply, when the expected footsteps were heard

+coming from the study. The prince walked in quickly and jauntily as was

+his wont, as if intentionally contrasting the briskness of his manners

+with the strict formality of his house. At that moment the great clock

+struck two and another with a shrill tone joined in from the drawing

+room. The prince stood still; his lively glittering eyes from under

+their thick, bushy eyebrows sternly scanned all present and rested on

+the little princess. She felt, as courtiers do when the Tsar enters, the

+sensation of fear and respect which the old man inspired in all around

+him. He stroked her hair and then patted her awkwardly on the back of

+her neck.

+

+“I’m glad, glad, to see you,” he said, looking attentively into

+her eyes, and then quickly went to his place and sat down. “Sit down,

+sit down! Sit down, Michael Ivánovich!”

+

+He indicated a place beside him to his daughter-in-law. A footman moved

+the chair for her.

+

+“Ho, ho!” said the old man, casting his eyes on her rounded figure.

+“You’ve been in a hurry. That’s bad!”

+

+He laughed in his usual dry, cold, unpleasant way, with his lips only

+and not with his eyes.

+

+“You must walk, walk as much as possible, as much as possible,” he

+said.

+

+The little princess did not, or did not wish to, hear his words. She was

+silent and seemed confused. The prince asked her about her father, and

+she began to smile and talk. He asked about mutual acquaintances, and

+she became still more animated and chattered away giving him greetings

+from various people and retelling the town gossip.

+

+“Countess Apráksina, poor thing, has lost her husband and she has

+cried her eyes out,” she said, growing more and more lively.

+

+As she became animated the prince looked at her more and more sternly,

+and suddenly, as if he had studied her sufficiently and had formed a

+definite idea of her, he turned away and addressed Michael Ivánovich.

+

+“Well, Michael Ivánovich, our Bonaparte will be having a bad time

+of it. Prince Andrew” (he always spoke thus of his son) “has been

+telling me what forces are being collected against him! While you and I

+never thought much of him.”

+

+Michael Ivánovich did not at all know when “you and I” had said

+such things about Bonaparte, but understanding that he was wanted as

+a peg on which to hang the prince’s favorite topic, he looked

+inquiringly at the young prince, wondering what would follow.

+

+“He is a great tactician!” said the prince to his son, pointing to

+the architect.

+

+And the conversation again turned on the war, on Bonaparte, and the

+generals and statesmen of the day. The old prince seemed convinced not

+only that all the men of the day were mere babies who did not know the

+A B C of war or of politics, and that Bonaparte was an insignificant

+little Frenchy, successful only because there were no longer any

+Potëmkins or Suvórovs left to oppose him; but he was also convinced

+that there were no political difficulties in Europe and no real war,

+but only a sort of puppet show at which the men of the day were playing,

+pretending to do something real. Prince Andrew gaily bore with his

+father’s ridicule of the new men, and drew him on and listened to him

+with evident pleasure.

+

+“The past always seems good,” said he, “but did not Suvórov

+himself fall into a trap Moreau set him, and from which he did not know

+how to escape?”

+

+“Who told you that? Who?” cried the prince. “Suvórov!” And he

+jerked away his plate, which Tíkhon briskly caught. “Suvórov!...

+Consider, Prince Andrew. Two... Frederick and Suvórov; Moreau!...

+Moreau would have been a prisoner if Suvórov had had a free hand; but

+he had the Hofs-kriegs-wurst-schnapps-Rath on his hands. It would have

+puzzled the devil himself! When you get there you’ll find out what

+those Hofs-kriegs-wurst-Raths are! Suvórov couldn’t manage them so

+what chance has Michael Kutúzov? No, my dear boy,” he continued,

+“you and your generals won’t get on against Buonaparte; you’ll

+have to call in the French, so that birds of a feather may fight

+together. The German, Pahlen, has been sent to New York in America, to

+fetch the Frenchman, Moreau,” he said, alluding to the invitation made

+that year to Moreau to enter the Russian service.... “Wonderful!...

+Were the Potëmkins, Suvórovs, and Orlóvs Germans? No, lad, either you

+fellows have all lost your wits, or I have outlived mine. May God help

+you, but we’ll see what will happen. Buonaparte has become a great

+commander among them! Hm!...”

+

+“I don’t at all say that all the plans are good,” said Prince

+Andrew, “I am only surprised at your opinion of Bonaparte. You

+may laugh as much as you like, but all the same Bonaparte is a great

+general!”

+

+“Michael Ivánovich!” cried the old prince to the architect who,

+busy with his roast meat, hoped he had been forgotten: “Didn’t

+I tell you Buonaparte was a great tactician? Here, he says the same

+thing.”

+

+“To be sure, your excellency,” replied the architect.

+

+The prince again laughed his frigid laugh.

+

+“Buonaparte was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has got

+splendid soldiers. Besides he began by attacking Germans. And only

+idlers have failed to beat the Germans. Since the world began everybody

+has beaten the Germans. They beat no one—except one another. He made

+his reputation fighting them.”

+

+And the prince began explaining all the blunders which, according to

+him, Bonaparte had made in his campaigns and even in politics. His

+son made no rejoinder, but it was evident that whatever arguments were

+presented he was as little able as his father to change his opinion. He

+listened, refraining from a reply, and involuntarily wondered how this

+old man, living alone in the country for so many years, could know and

+discuss so minutely and acutely all the recent European military and

+political events.

+

+“You think I’m an old man and don’t understand the present state

+of affairs?” concluded his father. “But it troubles me. I don’t

+sleep at night. Come now, where has this great commander of yours shown

+his skill?” he concluded.

+

+“That would take too long to tell,” answered the son.

+

+“Well, then go off to your Buonaparte! Mademoiselle Bourienne,

+here’s another admirer of that powder-monkey emperor of yours,” he

+exclaimed in excellent French.

+

+“You know, Prince, I am not a Bonapartist!”

+

+“Dieu sait quand reviendra.” hummed the prince out of tune and, with

+a laugh still more so, he quitted the table.

+

+The little princess during the whole discussion and the rest of

+the dinner sat silent, glancing with a frightened look now at her

+father-in-law and now at Princess Mary. When they left the table she

+took her sister-in-law’s arm and drew her into another room.

+

+“What a clever man your father is,” said she; “perhaps that is why

+I am afraid of him.”

+

+“Oh, he is so kind!” answered Princess Mary.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVIII

+

+Prince Andrew was to leave next evening. The old prince, not altering

+his routine, retired as usual after dinner. The little princess was in

+her sister-in-law’s room. Prince Andrew in a traveling coat without

+epaulettes had been packing with his valet in the rooms assigned to him.

+After inspecting the carriage himself and seeing the trunks put in, he

+ordered the horses to be harnessed. Only those things he always kept

+with him remained in his room; a small box, a large canteen fitted

+with silver plate, two Turkish pistols and a saber—a present from

+his father who had brought it from the siege of Ochákov. All these

+traveling effects of Prince Andrew’s were in very good order: new,

+clean, and in cloth covers carefully tied with tapes.

+

+When starting on a journey or changing their mode of life, men capable

+of reflection are generally in a serious frame of mind. At such moments

+one reviews the past and plans for the future. Prince Andrew’s face

+looked very thoughtful and tender. With his hands behind him he paced

+briskly from corner to corner of the room, looking straight before him

+and thoughtfully shaking his head. Did he fear going to the war, or was

+he sad at leaving his wife?—perhaps both, but evidently he did not

+wish to be seen in that mood, for hearing footsteps in the passage he

+hurriedly unclasped his hands, stopped at a table as if tying the

+cover of the small box, and assumed his usual tranquil and impenetrable

+expression. It was the heavy tread of Princess Mary that he heard.

+

+“I hear you have given orders to harness,” she cried, panting (she

+had apparently been running), “and I did so wish to have another talk

+with you alone! God knows how long we may again be parted. You are not

+angry with me for coming? You have changed so, Andrúsha,” she added,

+as if to explain such a question.

+

+She smiled as she uttered his pet name, “Andrúsha.” It was

+obviously strange to her to think that this stern handsome man should be

+Andrúsha—the slender mischievous boy who had been her playfellow in

+childhood.

+

+“And where is Lise?” he asked, answering her question only by a

+smile.

+

+“She was so tired that she has fallen asleep on the sofa in my room.

+Oh, Andrew! What a treasure of a wife you have,” said she, sitting

+down on the sofa, facing her brother. “She is quite a child: such a

+dear, merry child. I have grown so fond of her.”

+

+Prince Andrew was silent, but the princess noticed the ironical and

+contemptuous look that showed itself on his face.

+

+“One must be indulgent to little weaknesses; who is free from them,

+Andrew? Don’t forget that she has grown up and been educated in

+society, and so her position now is not a rosy one. We should enter into

+everyone’s situation. Tout comprendre, c’est tout pardonner. * Think

+what it must be for her, poor thing, after what she has been used to,

+to be parted from her husband and be left alone in the country, in her

+condition! It’s very hard.”

+

+     * To understand all is to forgive all.

+

+Prince Andrew smiled as he looked at his sister, as we smile at those we

+think we thoroughly understand.

+

+“You live in the country and don’t think the life terrible,” he

+replied.

+

+“I... that’s different. Why speak of me? I don’t want any other

+life, and can’t, for I know no other. But think, Andrew: for a young

+society woman to be buried in the country during the best years of her

+life, all alone—for Papa is always busy, and I... well, you know what

+poor resources I have for entertaining a woman used to the best society.

+There is only Mademoiselle Bourienne....”

+

+“I don’t like your Mademoiselle Bourienne at all,” said Prince

+Andrew.

+

+“No? She is very nice and kind and, above all, she’s much to be

+pitied. She has no one, no one. To tell the truth, I don’t need her,

+and she’s even in my way. You know I always was a savage, and now am

+even more so. I like being alone.... Father likes her very much. She and

+Michael Ivánovich are the two people to whom he is always gentle and

+kind, because he has been a benefactor to them both. As Sterne says:

+‘We don’t love people so much for the good they have done us, as

+for the good we have done them.’ Father took her when she was homeless

+after losing her own father. She is very good-natured, and my father

+likes her way of reading. She reads to him in the evenings and reads

+splendidly.”

+

+“To be quite frank, Mary, I expect Father’s character sometimes

+makes things trying for you, doesn’t it?” Prince Andrew asked

+suddenly.

+

+Princess Mary was first surprised and then aghast at this question.

+

+“For me? For me?... Trying for me!...” said she.

+

+“He always was rather harsh; and now I should think he’s getting

+very trying,” said Prince Andrew, apparently speaking lightly of their

+father in order to puzzle or test his sister.

+

+“You are good in every way, Andrew, but you have a kind of

+intellectual pride,” said the princess, following the train of her own

+thoughts rather than the trend of the conversation—“and that’s a

+great sin. How can one judge Father? But even if one might, what feeling

+except veneration could such a man as my father evoke? And I am so

+contented and happy with him. I only wish you were all as happy as I

+am.”

+

+Her brother shook his head incredulously.

+

+“The only thing that is hard for me... I will tell you the truth,

+Andrew... is Father’s way of treating religious subjects. I don’t

+understand how a man of his immense intellect can fail to see what is

+as clear as day, and can go so far astray. That is the only thing

+that makes me unhappy. But even in this I can see lately a shade of

+improvement. His satire has been less bitter of late, and there was a

+monk he received and had a long talk with.”

+

+“Ah! my dear, I am afraid you and your monk are wasting your

+powder,” said Prince Andrew banteringly yet tenderly.

+

+“Ah! mon ami, I only pray, and hope that God will hear me.

+Andrew...” she said timidly after a moment’s silence, “I have a

+great favor to ask of you.”

+

+“What is it, dear?”

+

+“No—promise that you will not refuse! It will give you no trouble

+and is nothing unworthy of you, but it will comfort me. Promise,

+Andrúsha!...” said she, putting her hand in her reticule but not yet

+taking out what she was holding inside it, as if what she held were

+the subject of her request and must not be shown before the request was

+granted.

+

+She looked timidly at her brother.

+

+“Even if it were a great deal of trouble...” answered Prince Andrew,

+as if guessing what it was about.

+

+“Think what you please! I know you are just like Father. Think as

+you please, but do this for my sake! Please do! Father’s father, our

+grandfather, wore it in all his wars.” (She still did not take out

+what she was holding in her reticule.) “So you promise?”

+

+“Of course. What is it?”

+

+“Andrew, I bless you with this icon and you must promise me you will

+never take it off. Do you promise?”

+

+“If it does not weigh a hundredweight and won’t break my neck...

+To please you...” said Prince Andrew. But immediately, noticing

+the pained expression his joke had brought to his sister’s face, he

+repented and added: “I am glad; really, dear, I am very glad.”

+

+“Against your will He will save and have mercy on you and bring you

+to Himself, for in Him alone is truth and peace,” said she in a voice

+trembling with emotion, solemnly holding up in both hands before her

+brother a small, oval, antique, dark-faced icon of the Saviour in a gold

+setting, on a finely wrought silver chain.

+

+She crossed herself, kissed the icon, and handed it to Andrew.

+

+“Please, Andrew, for my sake!...”

+

+Rays of gentle light shone from her large, timid eyes. Those eyes lit

+up the whole of her thin, sickly face and made it beautiful. Her brother

+would have taken the icon, but she stopped him. Andrew understood,

+crossed himself and kissed the icon. There was a look of tenderness, for

+he was touched, but also a gleam of irony on his face.

+

+“Thank you, my dear.” She kissed him on the forehead and sat down

+again on the sofa. They were silent for a while.

+

+“As I was saying to you, Andrew, be kind and generous as you always

+used to be. Don’t judge Lise harshly,” she began. “She is so

+sweet, so good-natured, and her position now is a very hard one.”

+

+“I do not think I have complained of my wife to you, Másha, or blamed

+her. Why do you say all this to me?”

+

+Red patches appeared on Princess Mary’s face and she was silent as if

+she felt guilty.

+

+“I have said nothing to you, but you have already been talked to. And

+I am sorry for that,” he went on.

+

+The patches grew deeper on her forehead, neck, and cheeks. She tried to

+say something but could not. Her brother had guessed right: the little

+princess had been crying after dinner and had spoken of her forebodings

+about her confinement, and how she dreaded it, and had complained of her

+fate, her father-in-law, and her husband. After crying she had fallen

+asleep. Prince Andrew felt sorry for his sister.

+

+“Know this, Másha: I can’t reproach, have not reproached, and never

+shall reproach my wife with anything, and I cannot reproach myself

+with anything in regard to her; and that always will be so in whatever

+circumstances I may be placed. But if you want to know the truth... if

+you want to know whether I am happy? No! Is she happy? No! But why this

+is so I don’t know...”

+

+As he said this he rose, went to his sister, and, stooping, kissed

+her forehead. His fine eyes lit up with a thoughtful, kindly, and

+unaccustomed brightness, but he was looking not at his sister but over

+her head toward the darkness of the open doorway.

+

+“Let us go to her, I must say good-by. Or—go and wake and I’ll

+come in a moment. Petrúshka!” he called to his valet: “Come here,

+take these away. Put this on the seat and this to the right.”

+

+Princess Mary rose and moved to the door, then stopped and said:

+“Andrew, if you had faith you would have turned to God and asked Him

+to give you the love you do not feel, and your prayer would have been

+answered.”

+

+“Well, maybe!” said Prince Andrew. “Go, Másha; I’ll come

+immediately.”

+

+On the way to his sister’s room, in the passage which connected one

+wing with the other, Prince Andrew met Mademoiselle Bourienne smiling

+sweetly. It was the third time that day that, with an ecstatic and

+artless smile, she had met him in secluded passages.

+

+“Oh! I thought you were in your room,” she said, for some reason

+blushing and dropping her eyes.

+

+Prince Andrew looked sternly at her and an expression of anger suddenly

+came over his face. He said nothing to her but looked at her forehead

+and hair, without looking at her eyes, with such contempt that the

+Frenchwoman blushed and went away without a word. When he reached his

+sister’s room his wife was already awake and her merry voice, hurrying

+one word after another, came through the open door. She was speaking as

+usual in French, and as if after long self-restraint she wished to make

+up for lost time.

+

+“No, but imagine the old Countess Zúbova, with false curls and her

+mouth full of false teeth, as if she were trying to cheat old age....

+Ha, ha, ha! Mary!”

+

+This very sentence about Countess Zúbova and this same laugh Prince

+Andrew had already heard from his wife in the presence of others some

+five times. He entered the room softly. The little princess, plump and

+rosy, was sitting in an easy chair with her work in her hands, talking

+incessantly, repeating Petersburg reminiscences and even phrases. Prince

+Andrew came up, stroked her hair, and asked if she felt rested after

+their journey. She answered him and continued her chatter.

+

+The coach with six horses was waiting at the porch. It was an autumn

+night, so dark that the coachman could not see the carriage pole.

+Servants with lanterns were bustling about in the porch. The immense

+house was brilliant with lights shining through its lofty windows. The

+domestic serfs were crowding in the hall, waiting to bid good-by to

+the young prince. The members of the household were all gathered in the

+reception hall: Michael Ivánovich, Mademoiselle Bourienne, Princess

+Mary, and the little princess. Prince Andrew had been called to his

+father’s study as the latter wished to say good-by to him alone. All

+were waiting for them to come out.

+

+When Prince Andrew entered the study the old man in his old-age

+spectacles and white dressing gown, in which he received no one but his

+son, sat at the table writing. He glanced round.

+

+“Going?” And he went on writing.

+

+“I’ve come to say good-by.”

+

+“Kiss me here,” and he touched his cheek: “Thanks, thanks!”

+

+“What do you thank me for?”

+

+“For not dilly-dallying and not hanging to a woman’s apron strings.

+The Service before everything. Thanks, thanks!” And he went on

+writing, so that his quill spluttered and squeaked. “If you have

+anything to say, say it. These two things can be done together,” he

+added.

+

+“About my wife... I am ashamed as it is to leave her on your

+hands....”

+

+“Why talk nonsense? Say what you want.”

+

+“When her confinement is due, send to Moscow for an accoucheur.... Let

+him be here....”

+

+The old prince stopped writing and, as if not understanding, fixed his

+stern eyes on his son.

+

+“I know that no one can help if nature does not do her work,” said

+Prince Andrew, evidently confused. “I know that out of a million

+cases only one goes wrong, but it is her fancy and mine. They have been

+telling her things. She has had a dream and is frightened.”

+

+“Hm... Hm...” muttered the old prince to himself, finishing what he

+was writing. “I’ll do it.”

+

+He signed with a flourish and suddenly turning to his son began to

+laugh.

+

+“It’s a bad business, eh?”

+

+“What is bad, Father?”

+

+“The wife!” said the old prince, briefly and significantly.

+

+“I don’t understand!” said Prince Andrew.

+

+“No, it can’t be helped, lad,” said the prince. “They’re

+all like that; one can’t unmarry. Don’t be afraid; I won’t tell

+anyone, but you know it yourself.”

+

+He seized his son by the hand with small bony fingers, shook it, looked

+straight into his son’s face with keen eyes which seemed to see

+through him, and again laughed his frigid laugh.

+

+The son sighed, thus admitting that his father had understood him. The

+old man continued to fold and seal his letter, snatching up and throwing

+down the wax, the seal, and the paper, with his accustomed rapidity.

+

+“What’s to be done? She’s pretty! I will do everything. Make your

+mind easy,” said he in abrupt sentences while sealing his letter.

+

+Andrew did not speak; he was both pleased and displeased that his father

+understood him. The old man got up and gave the letter to his son.

+

+“Listen!” said he; “don’t worry about your wife: what can be

+done shall be. Now listen! Give this letter to Michael Ilariónovich. *

+I have written that he should make use of you in proper places and not

+keep you long as an adjutant: a bad position! Tell him I remember

+and like him. Write and tell me how he receives you. If he is all

+right—serve him. Nicholas Bolkónski’s son need not serve under

+anyone if he is in disfavor. Now come here.”

+

+     *Kutúzov.

+

+He spoke so rapidly that he did not finish half his words, but his son

+was accustomed to understand him. He led him to the desk, raised the

+lid, drew out a drawer, and took out an exercise book filled with his

+bold, tall, close handwriting.

+

+“I shall probably die before you. So remember, these are my memoirs;

+hand them to the Emperor after my death. Now here is a Lombard bond

+and a letter; it is a premium for the man who writes a history of

+Suvórov’s wars. Send it to the Academy. Here are some jottings for

+you to read when I am gone. You will find them useful.”

+

+Andrew did not tell his father that he would no doubt live a long time

+yet. He felt that he must not say it.

+

+“I will do it all, Father,” he said.

+

+“Well, now, good-by!” He gave his son his hand to kiss, and embraced

+him. “Remember this, Prince Andrew, if they kill you it will hurt me,

+your old father...” he paused unexpectedly, and then in a querulous

+voice suddenly shrieked: “but if I hear that you have not behaved like

+a son of Nicholas Bolkónski, I shall be ashamed!”

+

+“You need not have said that to me, Father,” said the son with a

+smile.

+

+The old man was silent.

+

+“I also wanted to ask you,” continued Prince Andrew, “if I’m

+killed and if I have a son, do not let him be taken away from you—as I

+said yesterday... let him grow up with you.... Please.”

+

+“Not let the wife have him?” said the old man, and laughed.

+

+They stood silent, facing one another. The old man’s sharp eyes were

+fixed straight on his son’s. Something twitched in the lower part of

+the old prince’s face.

+

+“We’ve said good-by. Go!” he suddenly shouted in a loud, angry

+voice, opening his door.

+

+“What is it? What?” asked both princesses when they saw for a moment

+at the door Prince Andrew and the figure of the old man in a white

+dressing gown, spectacled and wigless, shouting in an angry voice.

+

+Prince Andrew sighed and made no reply.

+

+“Well!” he said, turning to his wife.

+

+And this “Well!” sounded coldly ironic, as if he were saying: “Now

+go through your performance.”

+

+“Andrew, already!” said the little princess, turning pale and

+looking with dismay at her husband.

+

+He embraced her. She screamed and fell unconscious on his shoulder.

+

+He cautiously released the shoulder she leaned on, looked into her face,

+and carefully placed her in an easy chair.

+

+“Adieu, Mary,” said he gently to his sister, taking her by the hand

+and kissing her, and then he left the room with rapid steps.

+

+The little princess lay in the armchair, Mademoiselle Bourienne chafing

+her temples. Princess Mary, supporting her sister-in-law, still looked

+with her beautiful eyes full of tears at the door through which Prince

+Andrew had gone and made the sign of the cross in his direction. From

+the study, like pistol shots, came the frequent sound of the old man

+angrily blowing his nose. Hardly had Prince Andrew gone when the study

+door opened quickly and the stern figure of the old man in the white

+dressing gown looked out.

+

+“Gone? That’s all right!” said he; and looking angrily at the

+unconscious little princess, he shook his head reprovingly and slammed

+the door.

+

+

+

+

+

+BOOK TWO: 1805

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+In October, 1805, a Russian army was occupying the villages and towns of

+the Archduchy of Austria, and yet other regiments freshly arriving from

+Russia were settling near the fortress of Braunau and burdening the

+inhabitants on whom they were quartered. Braunau was the headquarters of

+the commander in chief, Kutúzov.

+

+On October 11, 1805, one of the infantry regiments that had just reached

+Braunau had halted half a mile from the town, waiting to be inspected

+by the commander in chief. Despite the un-Russian appearance of the

+locality and surroundings—fruit gardens, stone fences, tiled roofs,

+and hills in the distance—and despite the fact that the inhabitants

+(who gazed with curiosity at the soldiers) were not Russians, the

+regiment had just the appearance of any Russian regiment preparing for

+an inspection anywhere in the heart of Russia.

+

+On the evening of the last day’s march an order had been received that

+the commander in chief would inspect the regiment on the march. Though

+the words of the order were not clear to the regimental commander, and

+the question arose whether the troops were to be in marching order or

+not, it was decided at a consultation between the battalion commanders

+to present the regiment in parade order, on the principle that it is

+always better to “bow too low than not bow low enough.” So the

+soldiers, after a twenty-mile march, were kept mending and cleaning all

+night long without closing their eyes, while the adjutants and

+company commanders calculated and reckoned, and by morning the

+regiment—instead of the straggling, disorderly crowd it had been on

+its last march the day before—presented a well-ordered array of two

+thousand men each of whom knew his place and his duty, had every button

+and every strap in place, and shone with cleanliness. And not only

+externally was all in order, but had it pleased the commander in chief

+to look under the uniforms he would have found on every man a clean

+shirt, and in every knapsack the appointed number of articles, “awl,

+soap, and all,” as the soldiers say. There was only one circumstance

+concerning which no one could be at ease. It was the state of the

+soldiers’ boots. More than half the men’s boots were in holes. But

+this defect was not due to any fault of the regimental commander, for

+in spite of repeated demands boots had not been issued by the Austrian

+commissariat, and the regiment had marched some seven hundred miles.

+

+The commander of the regiment was an elderly, choleric, stout, and

+thick-set general with grizzled eyebrows and whiskers, and wider from

+chest to back than across the shoulders. He had on a brand-new uniform

+showing the creases where it had been folded and thick gold epaulettes

+which seemed to stand rather than lie down on his massive shoulders. He

+had the air of a man happily performing one of the most solemn duties of

+his life. He walked about in front of the line and at every step pulled

+himself up, slightly arching his back. It was plain that the commander

+admired his regiment, rejoiced in it, and that his whole mind was

+engrossed by it, yet his strut seemed to indicate that, besides military

+matters, social interests and the fair sex occupied no small part of his

+thoughts.

+

+“Well, Michael Mítrich, sir?” he said, addressing one of the

+battalion commanders who smilingly pressed forward (it was plain that

+they both felt happy). “We had our hands full last night. However, I

+think the regiment is not a bad one, eh?”

+

+The battalion commander perceived the jovial irony and laughed.

+

+“It would not be turned off the field even on the Tsarítsin

+Meadow.”

+

+“What?” asked the commander.

+

+At that moment, on the road from the town on which signalers had been

+posted, two men appeared on horse back. They were an aide-de-camp

+followed by a Cossack.

+

+The aide-de-camp was sent to confirm the order which had not been

+clearly worded the day before, namely, that the commander in chief

+wished to see the regiment just in the state in which it had been on

+the march: in their greatcoats, and packs, and without any preparation

+whatever.

+

+A member of the Hofkriegsrath from Vienna had come to Kutúzov the day

+before with proposals and demands for him to join up with the army of

+the Archduke Ferdinand and Mack, and Kutúzov, not considering this

+junction advisable, meant, among other arguments in support of his view,

+to show the Austrian general the wretched state in which the troops

+arrived from Russia. With this object he intended to meet the regiment;

+so the worse the condition it was in, the better pleased the commander

+in chief would be. Though the aide-de-camp did not know these

+circumstances, he nevertheless delivered the definite order that the

+men should be in their greatcoats and in marching order, and that the

+commander in chief would otherwise be dissatisfied. On hearing this the

+regimental commander hung his head, silently shrugged his shoulders, and

+spread out his arms with a choleric gesture.

+

+“A fine mess we’ve made of it!” he remarked.

+

+“There now! Didn’t I tell you, Michael Mítrich, that if it was said

+‘on the march’ it meant in greatcoats?” said he reproachfully to

+the battalion commander. “Oh, my God!” he added, stepping resolutely

+forward. “Company commanders!” he shouted in a voice accustomed to

+command. “Sergeants major!... How soon will he be here?” he asked

+the aide-de-camp with a respectful politeness evidently relating to the

+personage he was referring to.

+

+“In an hour’s time, I should say.”

+

+“Shall we have time to change clothes?”

+

+“I don’t know, General....”

+

+The regimental commander, going up to the line himself, ordered the

+soldiers to change into their greatcoats. The company commanders ran off

+to their companies, the sergeants major began bustling (the greatcoats

+were not in very good condition), and instantly the squares that had up

+to then been in regular order and silent began to sway and stretch and

+hum with voices. On all sides soldiers were running to and fro, throwing

+up their knapsacks with a jerk of their shoulders and pulling the straps

+over their heads, unstrapping their overcoats and drawing the sleeves on

+with upraised arms.

+

+In half an hour all was again in order, only the squares had become gray

+instead of black. The regimental commander walked with his jerky steps

+to the front of the regiment and examined it from a distance.

+

+“Whatever is this? This!” he shouted and stood still. “Commander

+of the third company!”

+

+“Commander of the third company wanted by the general!... commander to

+the general... third company to the commander.” The words passed along

+the lines and an adjutant ran to look for the missing officer.

+

+When the eager but misrepeated words had reached their destination in

+a cry of: “The general to the third company,” the missing officer

+appeared from behind his company and, though he was a middle-aged man

+and not in the habit of running, trotted awkwardly stumbling on his

+toes toward the general. The captain’s face showed the uneasiness of

+a schoolboy who is told to repeat a lesson he has not learned. Spots

+appeared on his nose, the redness of which was evidently due to

+intemperance, and his mouth twitched nervously. The general looked the

+captain up and down as he came up panting, slackening his pace as he

+approached.

+

+“You will soon be dressing your men in petticoats! What is this?”

+shouted the regimental commander, thrusting forward his jaw and pointing

+at a soldier in the ranks of the third company in a greatcoat of bluish

+cloth, which contrasted with the others. “What have you been after?

+The commander in chief is expected and you leave your place? Eh? I’ll

+teach you to dress the men in fancy coats for a parade.... Eh...?”

+

+The commander of the company, with his eyes fixed on his superior,

+pressed two fingers more and more rigidly to his cap, as if in this

+pressure lay his only hope of salvation.

+

+“Well, why don’t you speak? Whom have you got there dressed up as a

+Hungarian?” said the commander with an austere gibe.

+

+“Your excellency...”

+

+“Well, your excellency, what? Your excellency! But what about your

+excellency?... nobody knows.”

+

+“Your excellency, it’s the officer Dólokhov, who has been reduced

+to the ranks,” said the captain softly.

+

+“Well? Has he been degraded into a field marshal, or into a soldier?

+If a soldier, he should be dressed in regulation uniform like the

+others.”

+

+“Your excellency, you gave him leave yourself, on the march.”

+

+“Gave him leave? Leave? That’s just like you young men,” said the

+regimental commander cooling down a little. “Leave indeed.... One says

+a word to you and you... What?” he added with renewed irritation, “I

+beg you to dress your men decently.”

+

+And the commander, turning to look at the adjutant, directed his jerky

+steps down the line. He was evidently pleased at his own display of

+anger and walking up to the regiment wished to find a further excuse for

+wrath. Having snapped at an officer for an unpolished badge, at another

+because his line was not straight, he reached the third company.

+

+“H-o-o-w are you standing? Where’s your leg? Your leg?” shouted

+the commander with a tone of suffering in his voice, while there were

+still five men between him and Dólokhov with his bluish-gray uniform.

+

+Dólokhov slowly straightened his bent knee, looking straight with his

+clear, insolent eyes in the general’s face.

+

+“Why a blue coat? Off with it... Sergeant major! Change his coat...

+the ras...” he did not finish.

+

+“General, I must obey orders, but I am not bound to endure...”

+Dólokhov hurriedly interrupted.

+

+“No talking in the ranks!... No talking, no talking!”

+

+“Not bound to endure insults,” Dólokhov concluded in loud, ringing

+tones.

+

+The eyes of the general and the soldier met. The general became silent,

+angrily pulling down his tight scarf.

+

+“I request you to have the goodness to change your coat,” he said as

+he turned away.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+“He’s coming!” shouted the signaler at that moment.

+

+The regimental commander, flushing, ran to his horse, seized the stirrup

+with trembling hands, threw his body across the saddle, righted himself,

+drew his saber, and with a happy and resolute countenance, opening

+his mouth awry, prepared to shout. The regiment fluttered like a bird

+preening its plumage and became motionless.

+

+“Att-ention!” shouted the regimental commander in a soul-shaking

+voice which expressed joy for himself, severity for the regiment, and

+welcome for the approaching chief.

+

+Along the broad country road, edged on both sides by trees, came a high,

+light blue Viennese calèche, slightly creaking on its springs and drawn

+by six horses at a smart trot. Behind the calèche galloped the suite

+and a convoy of Croats. Beside Kutúzov sat an Austrian general, in

+a white uniform that looked strange among the Russian black ones. The

+calèche stopped in front of the regiment. Kutúzov and the Austrian

+general were talking in low voices and Kutúzov smiled slightly as

+treading heavily he stepped down from the carriage just as if those two

+thousand men breathlessly gazing at him and the regimental commander did

+not exist.

+

+The word of command rang out, and again the regiment quivered, as with a

+jingling sound it presented arms. Then amidst a dead silence the

+feeble voice of the commander in chief was heard. The regiment roared,

+“Health to your ex... len... len... lency!” and again all became

+silent. At first Kutúzov stood still while the regiment moved; then he

+and the general in white, accompanied by the suite, walked between the

+ranks.

+

+From the way the regimental commander saluted the commander in chief and

+devoured him with his eyes, drawing himself up obsequiously, and from

+the way he walked through the ranks behind the generals, bending forward

+and hardly able to restrain his jerky movements, and from the way he

+darted forward at every word or gesture of the commander in chief,

+it was evident that he performed his duty as a subordinate with even

+greater zeal than his duty as a commander. Thanks to the strictness and

+assiduity of its commander the regiment, in comparison with others that

+had reached Braunau at the same time, was in splendid condition. There

+were only 217 sick and stragglers. Everything was in good order except

+the boots.

+

+Kutúzov walked through the ranks, sometimes stopping to say a few

+friendly words to officers he had known in the Turkish war, sometimes

+also to the soldiers. Looking at their boots he several times shook his

+head sadly, pointing them out to the Austrian general with an expression

+which seemed to say that he was not blaming anyone, but could not help

+noticing what a bad state of things it was. The regimental commander

+ran forward on each such occasion, fearing to miss a single word of the

+commander in chief’s regarding the regiment. Behind Kutúzov, at a

+distance that allowed every softly spoken word to be heard, followed

+some twenty men of his suite. These gentlemen talked among themselves

+and sometimes laughed. Nearest of all to the commander in chief walked

+a handsome adjutant. This was Prince Bolkónski. Beside him was his

+comrade Nesvítski, a tall staff officer, extremely stout, with a

+kindly, smiling, handsome face and moist eyes. Nesvítski could hardly

+keep from laughter provoked by a swarthy hussar officer who walked

+beside him. This hussar, with a grave face and without a smile or a

+change in the expression of his fixed eyes, watched the regimental

+commander’s back and mimicked his every movement. Each time the

+commander started and bent forward, the hussar started and bent forward

+in exactly the same manner. Nesvítski laughed and nudged the others to

+make them look at the wag.

+

+Kutúzov walked slowly and languidly past thousands of eyes which were

+starting from their sockets to watch their chief. On reaching the

+third company he suddenly stopped. His suite, not having expected this,

+involuntarily came closer to him.

+

+“Ah, Timókhin!” said he, recognizing the red-nosed captain who had

+been reprimanded on account of the blue greatcoat.

+

+One would have thought it impossible for a man to stretch himself

+more than Timókhin had done when he was reprimanded by the regimental

+commander, but now that the commander in chief addressed him he drew

+himself up to such an extent that it seemed he could not have sustained

+it had the commander in chief continued to look at him, and so Kutúzov,

+who evidently understood his case and wished him nothing but good,

+quickly turned away, a scarcely perceptible smile flitting over his

+scarred and puffy face.

+

+“Another Ismail comrade,” said he. “A brave officer! Are you

+satisfied with him?” he asked the regimental commander.

+

+And the latter—unconscious that he was being reflected in the hussar

+officer as in a looking glass—started, moved forward, and answered:

+“Highly satisfied, your excellency!”

+

+“We all have our weaknesses,” said Kutúzov smiling and walking away

+from him. “He used to have a predilection for Bacchus.”

+

+The regimental commander was afraid he might be blamed for this and did

+not answer. The hussar at that moment noticed the face of the red-nosed

+captain and his drawn-in stomach, and mimicked his expression and pose

+with such exactitude that Nesvítski could not help laughing. Kutúzov

+turned round. The officer evidently had complete control of his face,

+and while Kutúzov was turning managed to make a grimace and then assume

+a most serious, deferential, and innocent expression.

+

+The third company was the last, and Kutúzov pondered, apparently trying

+to recollect something. Prince Andrew stepped forward from among the

+suite and said in French:

+

+“You told me to remind you of the officer Dólokhov, reduced to the

+ranks in this regiment.”

+

+“Where is Dólokhov?” asked Kutúzov.

+

+Dólokhov, who had already changed into a soldier’s gray greatcoat,

+did not wait to be called. The shapely figure of the fair-haired

+soldier, with his clear blue eyes, stepped forward from the ranks, went

+up to the commander in chief, and presented arms.

+

+“Have you a complaint to make?” Kutúzov asked with a slight frown.

+

+“This is Dólokhov,” said Prince Andrew.

+

+“Ah!” said Kutúzov. “I hope this will be a lesson to you. Do your

+duty. The Emperor is gracious, and I shan’t forget you if you deserve

+well.”

+

+The clear blue eyes looked at the commander in chief just as boldly as

+they had looked at the regimental commander, seeming by their expression

+to tear open the veil of convention that separates a commander in chief

+so widely from a private.

+

+“One thing I ask of your excellency,” Dólokhov said in his firm,

+ringing, deliberate voice. “I ask an opportunity to atone for my fault

+and prove my devotion to His Majesty the Emperor and to Russia!”

+

+Kutúzov turned away. The same smile of the eyes with which he had

+turned from Captain Timókhin again flitted over his face. He turned

+away with a grimace as if to say that everything Dólokhov had said to

+him and everything he could say had long been known to him, that he was

+weary of it and it was not at all what he wanted. He turned away and

+went to the carriage.

+

+The regiment broke up into companies, which went to their appointed

+quarters near Braunau, where they hoped to receive boots and clothes and

+to rest after their hard marches.

+

+“You won’t bear me a grudge, Prokhór Ignátych?” said the

+regimental commander, overtaking the third company on its way to its

+quarters and riding up to Captain Timókhin who was walking in front.

+(The regimental commander’s face now that the inspection was happily

+over beamed with irrepressible delight.) “It’s in the Emperor’s

+service... it can’t be helped... one is sometimes a bit hasty on

+parade... I am the first to apologize, you know me!... He was very

+pleased!” And he held out his hand to the captain.

+

+“Don’t mention it, General, as if I’d be so bold!” replied the

+captain, his nose growing redder as he gave a smile which showed where

+two front teeth were missing that had been knocked out by the butt end

+of a gun at Ismail.

+

+“And tell Mr. Dólokhov that I won’t forget him—he may be quite

+easy. And tell me, please—I’ve been meaning to ask—how is he

+behaving himself, and in general...”

+

+“As far as the service goes he is quite punctilious, your excellency;

+but his character...” said Timókhin.

+

+“And what about his character?” asked the regimental commander.

+

+“It’s different on different days,” answered the captain. “One

+day he is sensible, well educated, and good-natured, and the next he’s

+a wild beast.... In Poland, if you please, he nearly killed a Jew.”

+

+“Oh, well, well!” remarked the regimental commander. “Still, one

+must have pity on a young man in misfortune. You know he has important

+connections... Well, then, you just...”

+

+“I will, your excellency,” said Timókhin, showing by his smile that

+he understood his commander’s wish.

+

+“Well, of course, of course!”

+

+The regimental commander sought out Dólokhov in the ranks and, reining

+in his horse, said to him:

+

+“After the next affair... epaulettes.”

+

+Dólokhov looked round but did not say anything, nor did the mocking

+smile on his lips change.

+

+“Well, that’s all right,” continued the regimental commander. “A

+cup of vodka for the men from me,” he added so that the soldiers

+could hear. “I thank you all! God be praised!” and he rode past that

+company and overtook the next one.

+

+“Well, he’s really a good fellow, one can serve under him,” said

+Timókhin to the subaltern beside him.

+

+“In a word, a hearty one...” said the subaltern, laughing (the

+regimental commander was nicknamed King of Hearts).

+

+The cheerful mood of their officers after the inspection infected the

+soldiers. The company marched on gaily. The soldiers’ voices could be

+heard on every side.

+

+“And they said Kutúzov was blind of one eye?”

+

+“And so he is! Quite blind!”

+

+“No, friend, he is sharper-eyed than you are. Boots and leg bands...

+he noticed everything...”

+

+“When he looked at my feet, friend... well, thinks I...”

+

+“And that other one with him, the Austrian, looked as if he were

+smeared with chalk—as white as flour! I suppose they polish him up as

+they do the guns.”

+

+“I say, Fédeshon!... Did he say when the battles are to begin? You

+were near him. Everybody said that Buonaparte himself was at Braunau.”

+

+“Buonaparte himself!... Just listen to the fool, what he doesn’t

+know! The Prussians are up in arms now. The Austrians, you see, are

+putting them down. When they’ve been put down, the war with Buonaparte

+will begin. And he says Buonaparte is in Braunau! Shows you’re a fool.

+You’d better listen more carefully!”

+

+“What devils these quartermasters are! See, the fifth company is

+turning into the village already... they will have their buckwheat

+cooked before we reach our quarters.”

+

+“Give me a biscuit, you devil!”

+

+“And did you give me tobacco yesterday? That’s just it, friend! Ah,

+well, never mind, here you are.”

+

+“They might call a halt here or we’ll have to do another four miles

+without eating.”

+

+“Wasn’t it fine when those Germans gave us lifts! You just sit still

+and are drawn along.”

+

+“And here, friend, the people are quite beggarly. There they all

+seemed to be Poles—all under the Russian crown—but here they’re

+all regular Germans.”

+

+“Singers to the front” came the captain’s order.

+

+And from the different ranks some twenty men ran to the front. A

+drummer, their leader, turned round facing the singers, and flourishing

+his arm, began a long-drawn-out soldiers’ song, commencing with the

+words: “Morning dawned, the sun was rising,” and concluding: “On

+then, brothers, on to glory, led by Father Kámenski.” This song had

+been composed in the Turkish campaign and now being sung in Austria, the

+only change being that the words “Father Kámenski” were replaced by

+“Father Kutúzov.”

+

+Having jerked out these last words as soldiers do and waved his arms

+as if flinging something to the ground, the drummer—a lean, handsome

+soldier of forty—looked sternly at the singers and screwed up his

+eyes. Then having satisfied himself that all eyes were fixed on him,

+he raised both arms as if carefully lifting some invisible but precious

+object above his head and, holding it there for some seconds, suddenly

+flung it down and began:

+

+“Oh, my bower, oh, my bower...!”

+

+“Oh, my bower new...!” chimed in twenty voices, and the castanet

+player, in spite of the burden of his equipment, rushed out to the front

+and, walking backwards before the company, jerked his shoulders and

+flourished his castanets as if threatening someone. The soldiers,

+swinging their arms and keeping time spontaneously, marched with long

+steps. Behind the company the sound of wheels, the creaking of springs,

+and the tramp of horses’ hoofs were heard. Kutúzov and his suite were

+returning to the town. The commander in chief made a sign that the

+men should continue to march at ease, and he and all his suite showed

+pleasure at the sound of the singing and the sight of the dancing

+soldier and the gay and smartly marching men. In the second file

+from the right flank, beside which the carriage passed the company,

+a blue-eyed soldier involuntarily attracted notice. It was Dólokhov

+marching with particular grace and boldness in time to the song and

+looking at those driving past as if he pitied all who were not at that

+moment marching with the company. The hussar cornet of Kutúzov’s

+suite who had mimicked the regimental commander, fell back from the

+carriage and rode up to Dólokhov.

+

+Hussar cornet Zherkóv had at one time, in Petersburg, belonged to

+the wild set led by Dólokhov. Zherkóv had met Dólokhov abroad as a

+private and had not seen fit to recognize him. But now that Kutúzov had

+spoken to the gentleman ranker, he addressed him with the cordiality of

+an old friend.

+

+“My dear fellow, how are you?” said he through the singing, making

+his horse keep pace with the company.

+

+“How am I?” Dólokhov answered coldly. “I am as you see.”

+

+The lively song gave a special flavor to the tone of free and easy

+gaiety with which Zherkóv spoke, and to the intentional coldness of

+Dólokhov’s reply.

+

+“And how do you get on with the officers?” inquired Zherkóv.

+

+“All right. They are good fellows. And how have you wriggled onto the

+staff?”

+

+“I was attached; I’m on duty.”

+

+Both were silent.

+

+“She let the hawk fly upward from her wide right sleeve,” went the

+song, arousing an involuntary sensation of courage and cheerfulness.

+Their conversation would probably have been different but for the effect

+of that song.

+

+“Is it true that Austrians have been beaten?” asked Dólokhov.

+

+“The devil only knows! They say so.”

+

+“I’m glad,” answered Dólokhov briefly and clearly, as the song

+demanded.

+

+“I say, come round some evening and we’ll have a game of faro!”

+said Zherkóv.

+

+“Why, have you too much money?”

+

+“Do come.”

+

+“I can’t. I’ve sworn not to. I won’t drink and won’t play till

+I get reinstated.”

+

+“Well, that’s only till the first engagement.”

+

+“We shall see.”

+

+They were again silent.

+

+“Come if you need anything. One can at least be of use on the

+staff...”

+

+Dólokhov smiled. “Don’t trouble. If I want anything, I won’t

+beg—I’ll take it!”

+

+“Well, never mind; I only...”

+

+“And I only...”

+

+“Good-by.”

+

+“Good health...”

+

+        “It’s a long, long way.

+        To my native land...”

+

+

+Zherkóv touched his horse with the spurs; it pranced excitedly from

+foot to foot uncertain with which to start, then settled down, galloped

+past the company, and overtook the carriage, still keeping time to the

+song.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+On returning from the review, Kutúzov took the Austrian general into

+his private room and, calling his adjutant, asked for some papers

+relating to the condition of the troops on their arrival, and the

+letters that had come from the Archduke Ferdinand, who was in command of

+the advanced army. Prince Andrew Bolkónski came into the room with the

+required papers. Kutúzov and the Austrian member of the Hofkriegsrath

+were sitting at the table on which a plan was spread out.

+

+“Ah!...” said Kutúzov glancing at Bolkónski as if by this

+exclamation he was asking the adjutant to wait, and he went on with the

+conversation in French.

+

+“All I can say, General,” said he with a pleasant elegance

+of expression and intonation that obliged one to listen to each

+deliberately spoken word. It was evident that Kutúzov himself listened

+with pleasure to his own voice. “All I can say, General, is that if

+the matter depended on my personal wishes, the will of His Majesty the

+Emperor Francis would have been fulfilled long ago. I should long

+ago have joined the archduke. And believe me on my honour that to me

+personally it would be a pleasure to hand over the supreme command

+of the army into the hands of a better informed and more skillful

+general—of whom Austria has so many—and to lay down all this heavy

+responsibility. But circumstances are sometimes too strong for us,

+General.”

+

+And Kutúzov smiled in a way that seemed to say, “You are quite at

+liberty not to believe me and I don’t even care whether you do or

+not, but you have no grounds for telling me so. And that is the whole

+point.”

+

+The Austrian general looked dissatisfied, but had no option but to reply

+in the same tone.

+

+“On the contrary,” he said, in a querulous and angry tone that

+contrasted with his flattering words, “on the contrary, your

+excellency’s participation in the common action is highly valued by

+His Majesty; but we think the present delay is depriving the splendid

+Russian troops and their commander of the laurels they have been

+accustomed to win in their battles,” he concluded his evidently

+prearranged sentence.

+

+Kutúzov bowed with the same smile.

+

+“But that is my conviction, and judging by the last letter with which

+His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand has honored me, I imagine that the

+Austrian troops, under the direction of so skillful a leader as General

+Mack, have by now already gained a decisive victory and no longer need

+our aid,” said Kutúzov.

+

+The general frowned. Though there was no definite news of an Austrian

+defeat, there were many circumstances confirming the unfavorable rumors

+that were afloat, and so Kutúzov’s suggestion of an Austrian victory

+sounded much like irony. But Kutúzov went on blandly smiling with the

+same expression, which seemed to say that he had a right to suppose

+so. And, in fact, the last letter he had received from Mack’s army

+informed him of a victory and stated strategically the position of the

+army was very favorable.

+

+“Give me that letter,” said Kutúzov turning to Prince Andrew.

+“Please have a look at it”—and Kutúzov with an ironical smile

+about the corners of his mouth read to the Austrian general the

+following passage, in German, from the Archduke Ferdinand’s letter:

+

+We have fully concentrated forces of nearly seventy thousand men with

+which to attack and defeat the enemy should he cross the Lech. Also,

+as we are masters of Ulm, we cannot be deprived of the advantage of

+commanding both sides of the Danube, so that should the enemy not

+cross the Lech, we can cross the Danube, throw ourselves on his line

+of communications, recross the river lower down, and frustrate his

+intention should he try to direct his whole force against our faithful

+ally. We shall therefore confidently await the moment when the Imperial

+Russian army will be fully equipped, and shall then, in conjunction with

+it, easily find a way to prepare for the enemy the fate he deserves.

+

+Kutúzov sighed deeply on finishing this paragraph and looked at the

+member of the Hofkriegsrath mildly and attentively.

+

+“But you know the wise maxim your excellency, advising one to expect

+the worst,” said the Austrian general, evidently wishing to have done

+with jests and to come to business. He involuntarily looked round at the

+aide-de-camp.

+

+“Excuse me, General,” interrupted Kutúzov, also turning to Prince

+Andrew. “Look here, my dear fellow, get from Kozlóvski all the

+reports from our scouts. Here are two letters from Count Nostitz and

+here is one from His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand and here are

+these,” he said, handing him several papers, “make a neat memorandum

+in French out of all this, showing all the news we have had of the

+movements of the Austrian army, and then give it to his excellency.”

+

+Prince Andrew bowed his head in token of having understood from the

+first not only what had been said but also what Kutúzov would have

+liked to tell him. He gathered up the papers and with a bow to both,

+stepped softly over the carpet and went out into the waiting room.

+

+Though not much time had passed since Prince Andrew had left Russia, he

+had changed greatly during that period. In the expression of his face,

+in his movements, in his walk, scarcely a trace was left of his former

+affected languor and indolence. He now looked like a man who has time

+to think of the impression he makes on others, but is occupied with

+agreeable and interesting work. His face expressed more satisfaction

+with himself and those around him, his smile and glance were brighter

+and more attractive.

+

+Kutúzov, whom he had overtaken in Poland, had received him very kindly,

+promised not to forget him, distinguished him above the other adjutants,

+and had taken him to Vienna and given him the more serious commissions.

+From Vienna Kutúzov wrote to his old comrade, Prince Andrew’s father.

+

+Your son bids fair to become an officer distinguished by his industry,

+firmness, and expedition. I consider myself fortunate to have such a

+subordinate by me.

+

+On Kutúzov’s staff, among his fellow officers and in the army

+generally, Prince Andrew had, as he had had in Petersburg society, two

+quite opposite reputations. Some, a minority, acknowledged him to be

+different from themselves and from everyone else, expected great things

+of him, listened to him, admired, and imitated him, and with them Prince

+Andrew was natural and pleasant. Others, the majority, disliked him and

+considered him conceited, cold, and disagreeable. But among these people

+Prince Andrew knew how to take his stand so that they respected and even

+feared him.

+

+Coming out of Kutúzov’s room into the waiting room with the papers in

+his hand Prince Andrew came up to his comrade, the aide-de-camp on duty,

+Kozlóvski, who was sitting at the window with a book.

+

+“Well, Prince?” asked Kozlóvski.

+

+“I am ordered to write a memorandum explaining why we are not

+advancing.”

+

+“And why is it?”

+

+Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders.

+

+“Any news from Mack?”

+

+“No.”

+

+“If it were true that he has been beaten, news would have come.”

+

+“Probably,” said Prince Andrew moving toward the outer door.

+

+But at that instant a tall Austrian general in a greatcoat, with the

+order of Maria Theresa on his neck and a black bandage round his head,

+who had evidently just arrived, entered quickly, slamming the door.

+Prince Andrew stopped short.

+

+“Commander in Chief Kutúzov?” said the newly arrived general

+speaking quickly with a harsh German accent, looking to both sides and

+advancing straight toward the inner door.

+

+“The commander in chief is engaged,” said Kozlóvski, going

+hurriedly up to the unknown general and blocking his way to the door.

+“Whom shall I announce?”

+

+The unknown general looked disdainfully down at Kozlóvski, who was

+rather short, as if surprised that anyone should not know him.

+

+“The commander in chief is engaged,” repeated Kozlóvski calmly.

+

+The general’s face clouded, his lips quivered and trembled. He took

+out a notebook, hurriedly scribbled something in pencil, tore out the

+leaf, gave it to Kozlóvski, stepped quickly to the window, and threw

+himself into a chair, gazing at those in the room as if asking, “Why

+do they look at me?” Then he lifted his head, stretched his neck as

+if he intended to say something, but immediately, with affected

+indifference, began to hum to himself, producing a queer sound which

+immediately broke off. The door of the private room opened and Kutúzov

+appeared in the doorway. The general with the bandaged head bent forward

+as though running away from some danger, and, making long, quick strides

+with his thin legs, went up to Kutúzov.

+

+“Vous voyez le malheureux Mack,” he uttered in a broken voice.

+

+Kutúzov’s face as he stood in the open doorway remained perfectly

+immobile for a few moments. Then wrinkles ran over his face like a wave

+and his forehead became smooth again, he bowed his head respectfully,

+closed his eyes, silently let Mack enter his room before him, and closed

+the door himself behind him.

+

+The report which had been circulated that the Austrians had been beaten

+and that the whole army had surrendered at Ulm proved to be correct.

+Within half an hour adjutants had been sent in various directions with

+orders which showed that the Russian troops, who had hitherto been

+inactive, would also soon have to meet the enemy.

+

+Prince Andrew was one of those rare staff officers whose chief interest

+lay in the general progress of the war. When he saw Mack and heard the

+details of his disaster he understood that half the campaign was lost,

+understood all the difficulties of the Russian army’s position, and

+vividly imagined what awaited it and the part he would have to

+play. Involuntarily he felt a joyful agitation at the thought of the

+humiliation of arrogant Austria and that in a week’s time he might,

+perhaps, see and take part in the first Russian encounter with the

+French since Suvórov met them. He feared that Bonaparte’s genius

+might outweigh all the courage of the Russian troops, and at the same

+time could not admit the idea of his hero being disgraced.

+

+Excited and irritated by these thoughts Prince Andrew went toward his

+room to write to his father, to whom he wrote every day. In the corridor

+he met Nesvítski, with whom he shared a room, and the wag Zherkóv;

+they were as usual laughing.

+

+“Why are you so glum?” asked Nesvítski noticing Prince Andrew’s

+pale face and glittering eyes.

+

+“There’s nothing to be gay about,” answered Bolkónski.

+

+Just as Prince Andrew met Nesvítski and Zherkóv, there came toward

+them from the other end of the corridor, Strauch, an Austrian general

+who on Kutúzov’s staff in charge of the provisioning of the Russian

+army, and the member of the Hofkriegsrath who had arrived the previous

+evening. There was room enough in the wide corridor for the generals to

+pass the three officers quite easily, but Zherkóv, pushing Nesvítski

+aside with his arm, said in a breathless voice,

+

+“They’re coming!... they’re coming!... Stand aside, make way,

+please make way!”

+

+The generals were passing by, looking as if they wished to avoid

+embarrassing attentions. On the face of the wag Zherkóv there suddenly

+appeared a stupid smile of glee which he seemed unable to suppress.

+

+“Your excellency,” said he in German, stepping forward and

+addressing the Austrian general, “I have the honor to congratulate

+you.”

+

+He bowed his head and scraped first with one foot and then with the

+other, awkwardly, like a child at a dancing lesson.

+

+The member of the Hofkriegsrath looked at him severely but, seeing the

+seriousness of his stupid smile, could not but give him a moment’s

+attention. He screwed up his eyes showing that he was listening.

+

+“I have the honor to congratulate you. General Mack has arrived, quite

+well, only a little bruised just here,” he added, pointing with a

+beaming smile to his head.

+

+The general frowned, turned away, and went on.

+

+“Gott, wie naiv!” * said he angrily, after he had gone a few steps.

+

+     * “Good God, what simplicity!”

+

+

+Nesvítski with a laugh threw his arms round Prince Andrew, but

+Bolkónski, turning still paler, pushed him away with an angry look and

+turned to Zherkóv. The nervous irritation aroused by the appearance

+of Mack, the news of his defeat, and the thought of what lay before the

+Russian army found vent in anger at Zherkóv’s untimely jest.

+

+“If you, sir, choose to make a buffoon of yourself,” he said

+sharply, with a slight trembling of the lower jaw, “I can’t prevent

+your doing so; but I warn you that if you dare to play the fool in my

+presence, I will teach you to behave yourself.”

+

+Nesvítski and Zherkóv were so surprised by this outburst that they

+gazed at Bolkónski silently with wide-open eyes.

+

+“What’s the matter? I only congratulated them,” said Zherkóv.

+

+“I am not jesting with you; please be silent!” cried Bolkónski,

+and taking Nesvítski’s arm he left Zherkóv, who did not know what to

+say.

+

+“Come, what’s the matter, old fellow?” said Nesvítski trying to

+soothe him.

+

+“What’s the matter?” exclaimed Prince Andrew standing still in

+his excitement. “Don’t you understand that either we are officers

+serving our Tsar and our country, rejoicing in the successes and

+grieving at the misfortunes of our common cause, or we are merely

+lackeys who care nothing for their master’s business. Quarante mille

+hommes massacrés et l’armée de nos alliés détruite, et vous

+trouvez là le mot pour rire,” * he said, as if strengthening his

+views by this French sentence. “C’est bien pour un garçon de rien

+comme cet individu dont vous avez fait un ami, mais pas pour vous, pas

+pour vous. *(2) Only a hobbledehoy could amuse himself in this

+way,” he added in Russian—but pronouncing the word with a French

+accent—having noticed that Zherkóv could still hear him.

+

+     * “Forty thousand men massacred and the army of our allies

+     destroyed, and you find that a cause for jesting!”

+

+     * (2) “It is all very well for that good-for-nothing fellow

+     of whom you have made a friend, but not for you, not for

+     you.”

+

+

+He waited a moment to see whether the cornet would answer, but he turned

+and went out of the corridor.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+The Pávlograd Hussars were stationed two miles from Braunau. The

+squadron in which Nicholas Rostóv served as a cadet was quartered in

+the German village of Salzeneck. The best quarters in the village were

+assigned to cavalry-captain Denísov, the squadron commander, known

+throughout the whole cavalry division as Váska Denísov. Cadet Rostóv,

+ever since he had overtaken the regiment in Poland, had lived with the

+squadron commander.

+

+On October 11, the day when all was astir at headquarters over the news

+of Mack’s defeat, the camp life of the officers of this squadron was

+proceeding as usual. Denísov, who had been losing at cards all night,

+had not yet come home when Rostóv rode back early in the morning from

+a foraging expedition. Rostóv in his cadet uniform, with a jerk to his

+horse, rode up to the porch, swung his leg over the saddle with a supple

+youthful movement, stood for a moment in the stirrup as if loathe to

+part from his horse, and at last sprang down and called to his orderly.

+

+“Ah, Bondarénko, dear friend!” said he to the hussar who rushed up

+headlong to the horse. “Walk him up and down, my dear fellow,” he

+continued, with that gay brotherly cordiality which goodhearted young

+people show to everyone when they are happy.

+

+“Yes, your excellency,” answered the Ukrainian gaily, tossing his

+head.

+

+“Mind, walk him up and down well!”

+

+Another hussar also rushed toward the horse, but Bondarénko had already

+thrown the reins of the snaffle bridle over the horse’s head. It was

+evident that the cadet was liberal with his tips and that it paid to

+serve him. Rostóv patted the horse’s neck and then his flank, and

+lingered for a moment.

+

+“Splendid! What a horse he will be!” he thought with a smile, and

+holding up his saber, his spurs jingling, he ran up the steps of the

+porch. His landlord, who in a waistcoat and a pointed cap, pitchfork in

+hand, was clearing manure from the cowhouse, looked out, and his face

+immediately brightened on seeing Rostóv. “Schön gut Morgen! Schön

+gut Morgen!” * he said winking with a merry smile, evidently pleased

+to greet the young man.

+

+    * “A very good morning! A very good morning!”

+

+

+“Schon fleissig?” * said Rostóv with the same gay brotherly smile

+which did not leave his eager face. “Hoch Oestreicher! Hoch Russen!

+Kaiser Alexander hoch!” *(2) said he, quoting words often repeated by

+the German landlord.

+

+    * “Busy already?”

+

+    * (2) “Hurrah for the Austrians! Hurrah for the Russians!

+     Hurrah for Emperor Alexander!”

+

+

+The German laughed, came out of the cowshed, pulled off his cap, and

+waving it above his head cried:

+

+“Und die ganze Welt hoch!” *

+

+    * “And hurrah for the whole world!”

+

+

+Rostóv waved his cap above his head like the German and cried laughing,

+“Und vivat die ganze Welt!” Though neither the German cleaning his

+cowshed nor Rostóv back with his platoon from foraging for hay had any

+reason for rejoicing, they looked at each other with joyful delight and

+brotherly love, wagged their heads in token of their mutual affection,

+and parted smiling, the German returning to his cowshed and Rostóv

+going to the cottage he occupied with Denísov.

+

+“What about your master?” he asked Lavrúshka, Denísov’s orderly,

+whom all the regiment knew for a rogue.

+

+“Hasn’t been in since the evening. Must have been losing,”

+answered Lavrúshka. “I know by now, if he wins he comes back early to

+brag about it, but if he stays out till morning it means he’s lost and

+will come back in a rage. Will you have coffee?”

+

+“Yes, bring some.”

+

+Ten minutes later Lavrúshka brought the coffee. “He’s coming!”

+said he. “Now for trouble!” Rostóv looked out of the window and

+saw Denísov coming home. Denísov was a small man with a red face,

+sparkling black eyes, and black tousled mustache and hair. He wore an

+unfastened cloak, wide breeches hanging down in creases, and a crumpled

+shako on the back of his head. He came up to the porch gloomily, hanging

+his head.

+

+“Lavwúska!” he shouted loudly and angrily, “take it off,

+blockhead!”

+

+“Well, I am taking it off,” replied Lavrúshka’s voice.

+

+“Ah, you’re up already,” said Denísov, entering the room.

+

+“Long ago,” answered Rostóv, “I have already been for the hay,

+and have seen Fräulein Mathilde.”

+

+“Weally! And I’ve been losing, bwother. I lost yesterday like a

+damned fool!” cried Denísov, not pronouncing his r’s. “Such ill

+luck! Such ill luck. As soon as you left, it began and went on. Hullo

+there! Tea!”

+

+Puckering up his face though smiling, and showing his short strong

+teeth, he began with stubby fingers of both hands to ruffle up his thick

+tangled black hair.

+

+“And what devil made me go to that wat?” (an officer nicknamed

+“the rat”) he said, rubbing his forehead and whole face with both

+hands. “Just fancy, he didn’t let me win a single cahd, not one

+cahd.”

+

+He took the lighted pipe that was offered to him, gripped it in his

+fist, and tapped it on the floor, making the sparks fly, while he

+continued to shout.

+

+“He lets one win the singles and collahs it as soon as one doubles it;

+gives the singles and snatches the doubles!”

+

+He scattered the burning tobacco, smashed the pipe, and threw it away.

+Then he remained silent for a while, and all at once looked cheerfully

+with his glittering, black eyes at Rostóv.

+

+“If at least we had some women here; but there’s nothing foh one

+to do but dwink. If we could only get to fighting soon. Hullo, who’s

+there?” he said, turning to the door as he heard a tread of heavy

+boots and the clinking of spurs that came to a stop, and a respectful

+cough.

+

+“The squadron quartermaster!” said Lavrúshka.

+

+Denísov’s face puckered still more.

+

+“Wetched!” he muttered, throwing down a purse with some gold in it.

+“Wostóv, deah fellow, just see how much there is left and shove the

+purse undah the pillow,” he said, and went out to the quartermaster.

+

+Rostóv took the money and, mechanically arranging the old and new coins

+in separate piles, began counting them.

+

+“Ah! Telyánin! How d’ye do? They plucked me last night,” came

+Denísov’s voice from the next room.

+

+“Where? At Bykov’s, at the rat’s... I knew it,” replied a piping

+voice, and Lieutenant Telyánin, a small officer of the same squadron,

+entered the room.

+

+Rostóv thrust the purse under the pillow and shook the damp little hand

+which was offered him. Telyánin for some reason had been transferred

+from the Guards just before this campaign. He behaved very well in the

+regiment but was not liked; Rostóv especially detested him and was

+unable to overcome or conceal his groundless antipathy to the man.

+

+“Well, young cavalryman, how is my Rook behaving?” he asked. (Rook

+was a young horse Telyánin had sold to Rostóv.)

+

+The lieutenant never looked the man he was speaking to straight in the

+face; his eyes continually wandered from one object to another.

+

+“I saw you riding this morning...” he added.

+

+“Oh, he’s all right, a good horse,” answered Rostóv, though the

+horse for which he had paid seven hundred rubbles was not worth half

+that sum. “He’s begun to go a little lame on the left foreleg,” he

+added.

+

+“The hoof’s cracked! That’s nothing. I’ll teach you what to do

+and show you what kind of rivet to use.”

+

+“Yes, please do,” said Rostóv.

+

+“I’ll show you, I’ll show you! It’s not a secret. And it’s a

+horse you’ll thank me for.”

+

+“Then I’ll have it brought round,” said Rostóv wishing to avoid

+Telyánin, and he went out to give the order.

+

+In the passage Denísov, with a pipe, was squatting on the threshold

+facing the quartermaster who was reporting to him. On seeing Rostóv,

+Denísov screwed up his face and pointing over his shoulder with his

+thumb to the room where Telyánin was sitting, he frowned and gave a

+shudder of disgust.

+

+“Ugh! I don’t like that fellow,” he said, regardless of the

+quartermaster’s presence.

+

+Rostóv shrugged his shoulders as much as to say: “Nor do I, but

+what’s one to do?” and, having given his order, he returned to

+Telyánin.

+

+Telyánin was sitting in the same indolent pose in which Rostóv had

+left him, rubbing his small white hands.

+

+“Well there certainly are disgusting people,” thought Rostóv as he

+entered.

+

+“Have you told them to bring the horse?” asked Telyánin, getting up

+and looking carelessly about him.

+

+“I have.”

+

+“Let us go ourselves. I only came round to ask Denísov about

+yesterday’s order. Have you got it, Denísov?”

+

+“Not yet. But where are you off to?”

+

+“I want to teach this young man how to shoe a horse,” said

+Telyánin.

+

+They went through the porch and into the stable. The lieutenant

+explained how to rivet the hoof and went away to his own quarters.

+

+When Rostóv went back there was a bottle of vodka and a sausage on the

+table. Denísov was sitting there scratching with his pen on a sheet of

+paper. He looked gloomily in Rostóv’s face and said: “I am witing

+to her.”

+

+He leaned his elbows on the table with his pen in his hand and,

+evidently glad of a chance to say quicker in words what he wanted to

+write, told Rostóv the contents of his letter.

+

+“You see, my fwiend,” he said, “we sleep when we don’t love. We

+are childwen of the dust... but one falls in love and one is a God, one

+is pua’ as on the fihst day of cweation... Who’s that now? Send him

+to the devil, I’m busy!” he shouted to Lavrúshka, who went up to

+him not in the least abashed.

+

+“Who should it be? You yourself told him to come. It’s the

+quartermaster for the money.”

+

+Denísov frowned and was about to shout some reply but stopped.

+

+“Wetched business,” he muttered to himself. “How much is left in

+the puhse?” he asked, turning to Rostóv.

+

+“Seven new and three old imperials.”

+

+“Oh, it’s wetched! Well, what are you standing there for, you

+sca’cwow? Call the quahtehmasteh,” he shouted to Lavrúshka.

+

+“Please, Denísov, let me lend you some: I have some, you know,”

+said Rostóv, blushing.

+

+“Don’t like bowwowing from my own fellows, I don’t,” growled

+Denísov.

+

+“But if you won’t accept money from me like a comrade, you will

+offend me. Really I have some,” Rostóv repeated.

+

+“No, I tell you.”

+

+And Denísov went to the bed to get the purse from under the pillow.

+

+“Where have you put it, Wostóv?”

+

+“Under the lower pillow.”

+

+“It’s not there.”

+

+Denísov threw both pillows on the floor. The purse was not there.

+

+“That’s a miwacle.”

+

+“Wait, haven’t you dropped it?” said Rostóv, picking up the

+pillows one at a time and shaking them.

+

+He pulled off the quilt and shook it. The purse was not there.

+

+“Dear me, can I have forgotten? No, I remember thinking that you kept

+it under your head like a treasure,” said Rostóv. “I put it just

+here. Where is it?” he asked, turning to Lavrúshka.

+

+“I haven’t been in the room. It must be where you put it.”

+

+“But it isn’t?...”

+

+“You’re always like that; you thwow a thing down anywhere and forget

+it. Feel in your pockets.”

+

+“No, if I hadn’t thought of it being a treasure,” said Rostóv,

+“but I remember putting it there.”

+

+Lavrúshka turned all the bedding over, looked under the bed and under

+the table, searched everywhere, and stood still in the middle of the

+room. Denísov silently watched Lavrúshka’s movements, and when the

+latter threw up his arms in surprise saying it was nowhere to be found

+Denísov glanced at Rostóv.

+

+“Wostóv, you’ve not been playing schoolboy twicks...”

+

+Rostóv felt Denísov’s gaze fixed on him, raised his eyes, and

+instantly dropped them again. All the blood which had seemed congested

+somewhere below his throat rushed to his face and eyes. He could not

+draw breath.

+

+“And there hasn’t been anyone in the room except the lieutenant and

+yourselves. It must be here somewhere,” said Lavrúshka.

+

+“Now then, you devil’s puppet, look alive and hunt for it!”

+shouted Denísov, suddenly, turning purple and rushing at the man with

+a threatening gesture. “If the purse isn’t found I’ll flog you,

+I’ll flog you all.”

+

+Rostóv, his eyes avoiding Denísov, began buttoning his coat, buckled

+on his saber, and put on his cap.

+

+“I must have that purse, I tell you,” shouted Denísov, shaking his

+orderly by the shoulders and knocking him against the wall.

+

+“Denísov, let him alone, I know who has taken it,” said Rostóv,

+going toward the door without raising his eyes. Denísov paused, thought

+a moment, and, evidently understanding what Rostóv hinted at, seized

+his arm.

+

+“Nonsense!” he cried, and the veins on his forehead and neck stood

+out like cords. “You are mad, I tell you. I won’t allow it.

+The purse is here! I’ll flay this scoundwel alive, and it will be

+found.”

+

+“I know who has taken it,” repeated Rostóv in an unsteady voice,

+and went to the door.

+

+“And I tell you, don’t you dahe to do it!” shouted Denísov,

+rushing at the cadet to restrain him.

+

+But Rostóv pulled away his arm and, with as much anger as though

+Denísov were his worst enemy, firmly fixed his eyes directly on his

+face.

+

+“Do you understand what you’re saying?” he said in a trembling

+voice. “There was no one else in the room except myself. So that if it

+is not so, then...”

+

+He could not finish, and ran out of the room.

+

+“Ah, may the devil take you and evewybody,” were the last words

+Rostóv heard.

+

+Rostóv went to Telyánin’s quarters.

+

+“The master is not in, he’s gone to headquarters,” said

+Telyánin’s orderly. “Has something happened?” he added, surprised

+at the cadet’s troubled face.

+

+“No, nothing.”

+

+“You’ve only just missed him,” said the orderly.

+

+The headquarters were situated two miles away from Salzeneck, and

+Rostóv, without returning home, took a horse and rode there. There was

+an inn in the village which the officers frequented. Rostóv rode up to

+it and saw Telyánin’s horse at the porch.

+

+In the second room of the inn the lieutenant was sitting over a dish of

+sausages and a bottle of wine.

+

+“Ah, you’ve come here too, young man!” he said, smiling and

+raising his eyebrows.

+

+“Yes,” said Rostóv as if it cost him a great deal to utter the

+word; and he sat down at the nearest table.

+

+Both were silent. There were two Germans and a Russian officer in the

+room. No one spoke and the only sounds heard were the clatter of knives

+and the munching of the lieutenant.

+

+When Telyánin had finished his lunch he took out of his pocket a double

+purse and, drawing its rings aside with his small, white, turned-up

+fingers, drew out a gold imperial, and lifting his eyebrows gave it to

+the waiter.

+

+“Please be quick,” he said.

+

+The coin was a new one. Rostóv rose and went up to Telyánin.

+

+“Allow me to look at your purse,” he said in a low, almost

+inaudible, voice.

+

+With shifting eyes but eyebrows still raised, Telyánin handed him the

+purse.

+

+“Yes, it’s a nice purse. Yes, yes,” he said, growing suddenly

+pale, and added, “Look at it, young man.”

+

+Rostóv took the purse in his hand, examined it and the money in it, and

+looked at Telyánin. The lieutenant was looking about in his usual way

+and suddenly seemed to grow very merry.

+

+“If we get to Vienna I’ll get rid of it there but in these wretched

+little towns there’s nowhere to spend it,” said he. “Well, let me

+have it, young man, I’m going.”

+

+Rostóv did not speak.

+

+“And you? Are you going to have lunch too? They feed you quite

+decently here,” continued Telyánin. “Now then, let me have it.”

+

+He stretched out his hand to take hold of the purse. Rostóv let go of

+it. Telyánin took the purse and began carelessly slipping it into the

+pocket of his riding breeches, with his eyebrows lifted and his mouth

+slightly open, as if to say, “Yes, yes, I am putting my purse in my

+pocket and that’s quite simple and is no one else’s business.”

+

+“Well, young man?” he said with a sigh, and from under his lifted

+brows he glanced into Rostóv’s eyes.

+

+Some flash as of an electric spark shot from Telyánin’s eyes to

+Rostóv’s and back, and back again and again in an instant.

+

+“Come here,” said Rostóv, catching hold of Telyánin’s arm and

+almost dragging him to the window. “That money is Denísov’s; you

+took it...” he whispered just above Telyánin’s ear.

+

+“What? What? How dare you? What?” said Telyánin.

+

+But these words came like a piteous, despairing cry and an entreaty for

+pardon. As soon as Rostóv heard them, an enormous load of doubt

+fell from him. He was glad, and at the same instant began to pity the

+miserable man who stood before him, but the task he had begun had to be

+completed.

+

+“Heaven only knows what the people here may imagine,” muttered

+Telyánin, taking up his cap and moving toward a small empty room. “We

+must have an explanation...”

+

+“I know it and shall prove it,” said Rostóv.

+

+“I...”

+

+Every muscle of Telyánin’s pale, terrified face began to quiver, his

+eyes still shifted from side to side but with a downward look not rising

+to Rostóv’s face, and his sobs were audible.

+

+“Count!... Don’t ruin a young fellow... here is this wretched money,

+take it...” He threw it on the table. “I have an old father and

+mother!...”

+

+Rostóv took the money, avoiding Telyánin’s eyes, and went out of the

+room without a word. But at the door he stopped and then retraced his

+steps. “O God,” he said with tears in his eyes, “how could you do

+it?”

+

+“Count...” said Telyánin drawing nearer to him.

+

+“Don’t touch me,” said Rostóv, drawing back. “If you need it,

+take the money,” and he threw the purse to him and ran out of the inn.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+That same evening there was an animated discussion among the

+squadron’s officers in Denísov’s quarters.

+

+“And I tell you, Rostóv, that you must apologize to the colonel!”

+said a tall, grizzly-haired staff captain, with enormous mustaches and

+many wrinkles on his large features, to Rostóv who was crimson with

+excitement.

+

+The staff captain, Kírsten, had twice been reduced to the ranks for

+affairs of honor and had twice regained his commission.

+

+“I will allow no one to call me a liar!” cried Rostóv. “He told

+me I lied, and I told him he lied. And there it rests. He may keep me

+on duty every day, or may place me under arrest, but no one can make

+me apologize, because if he, as commander of this regiment, thinks it

+beneath his dignity to give me satisfaction, then...”

+

+“You just wait a moment, my dear fellow, and listen,” interrupted

+the staff captain in his deep bass, calmly stroking his long mustache.

+“You tell the colonel in the presence of other officers that an

+officer has stolen...”

+

+“I’m not to blame that the conversation began in the presence of

+other officers. Perhaps I ought not to have spoken before them, but I am

+not a diplomatist. That’s why I joined the hussars, thinking that here

+one would not need finesse; and he tells me that I am lying—so let him

+give me satisfaction...”

+

+“That’s all right. No one thinks you a coward, but that’s not the

+point. Ask Denísov whether it is not out of the question for a cadet to

+demand satisfaction of his regimental commander?”

+

+Denísov sat gloomily biting his mustache and listening to the

+conversation, evidently with no wish to take part in it. He answered the

+staff captain’s question by a disapproving shake of his head.

+

+“You speak to the colonel about this nasty business before other

+officers,” continued the staff captain, “and Bogdánich” (the

+colonel was called Bogdánich) “shuts you up.”

+

+“He did not shut me up, he said I was telling an untruth.”

+

+“Well, have it so, and you talked a lot of nonsense to him and must

+apologize.”

+

+“Not on any account!” exclaimed Rostóv.

+

+“I did not expect this of you,” said the staff captain seriously and

+severely. “You don’t wish to apologize, but, man, it’s not only to

+him but to the whole regiment—all of us—you’re to blame all round.

+The case is this: you ought to have thought the matter over and

+taken advice; but no, you go and blurt it all straight out before the

+officers. Now what was the colonel to do? Have the officer tried and

+disgrace the whole regiment? Disgrace the whole regiment because of one

+scoundrel? Is that how you look at it? We don’t see it like that. And

+Bogdánich was a brick: he told you you were saying what was not true.

+It’s not pleasant, but what’s to be done, my dear fellow? You landed

+yourself in it. And now, when one wants to smooth the thing over, some

+conceit prevents your apologizing, and you wish to make the whole

+affair public. You are offended at being put on duty a bit, but why not

+apologize to an old and honorable officer? Whatever Bogdánich may

+be, anyway he is an honorable and brave old colonel! You’re quick at

+taking offense, but you don’t mind disgracing the whole regiment!”

+The staff captain’s voice began to tremble. “You have been in the

+regiment next to no time, my lad, you’re here today and tomorrow

+you’ll be appointed adjutant somewhere and can snap your fingers when

+it is said ‘There are thieves among the Pávlograd officers!’ But

+it’s not all the same to us! Am I not right, Denísov? It’s not the

+same!”

+

+Denísov remained silent and did not move, but occasionally looked with

+his glittering black eyes at Rostóv.

+

+“You value your own pride and don’t wish to apologize,” continued

+the staff captain, “but we old fellows, who have grown up in and, God

+willing, are going to die in the regiment, we prize the honor of the

+regiment, and Bogdánich knows it. Oh, we do prize it, old fellow! And

+all this is not right, it’s not right! You may take offense or not but

+I always stick to mother truth. It’s not right!”

+

+And the staff captain rose and turned away from Rostóv.

+

+“That’s twue, devil take it!” shouted Denísov, jumping up. “Now

+then, Wostóv, now then!”

+

+Rostóv, growing red and pale alternately, looked first at one officer

+and then at the other.

+

+“No, gentlemen, no... you mustn’t think... I quite understand.

+You’re wrong to think that of me... I... for me... for the honor of

+the regiment I’d... Ah well, I’ll show that in action, and for me

+the honor of the flag... Well, never mind, it’s true I’m to blame,

+to blame all round. Well, what else do you want?...”

+

+“Come, that’s right, Count!” cried the staff captain, turning

+round and clapping Rostóv on the shoulder with his big hand.

+

+“I tell you,” shouted Denísov, “he’s a fine fellow.”

+

+“That’s better, Count,” said the staff captain, beginning to

+address Rostóv by his title, as if in recognition of his confession.

+“Go and apologize, your excellency. Yes, go!”

+

+“Gentlemen, I’ll do anything. No one shall hear a word from me,”

+said Rostóv in an imploring voice, “but I can’t apologize, by God I

+can’t, do what you will! How can I go and apologize like a little boy

+asking forgiveness?”

+

+Denísov began to laugh.

+

+“It’ll be worse for you. Bogdánich is vindictive and you’ll pay

+for your obstinacy,” said Kírsten.

+

+“No, on my word it’s not obstinacy! I can’t describe the feeling.

+I can’t...”

+

+“Well, it’s as you like,” said the staff captain. “And what has

+become of that scoundrel?” he asked Denísov.

+

+“He has weported himself sick, he’s to be stwuck off the list

+tomowwow,” muttered Denísov.

+

+“It is an illness, there’s no other way of explaining it,” said

+the staff captain.

+

+“Illness or not, he’d better not cwoss my path. I’d kill him!”

+shouted Denísov in a bloodthirsty tone.

+

+Just then Zherkóv entered the room.

+

+“What brings you here?” cried the officers turning to the newcomer.

+

+“We’re to go into action, gentlemen! Mack has surrendered with his

+whole army.”

+

+“It’s not true!”

+

+“I’ve seen him myself!”

+

+“What? Saw the real Mack? With hands and feet?”

+

+“Into action! Into action! Bring him a bottle for such news! But how

+did you come here?”

+

+“I’ve been sent back to the regiment all on account of that devil,

+Mack. An Austrian general complained of me. I congratulated him on

+Mack’s arrival... What’s the matter, Rostóv? You look as if you’d

+just come out of a hot bath.”

+

+“Oh, my dear fellow, we’re in such a stew here these last two

+days.”

+

+The regimental adjutant came in and confirmed the news brought by

+Zherkóv. They were under orders to advance next day.

+

+“We’re going into action, gentlemen!”

+

+“Well, thank God! We’ve been sitting here too long!”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+Kutúzov fell back toward Vienna, destroying behind him the bridges over

+the rivers Inn (at Braunau) and Traun (near Linz). On October 23 the

+Russian troops were crossing the river Enns. At midday the Russian

+baggage train, the artillery, and columns of troops were defiling

+through the town of Enns on both sides of the bridge.

+

+It was a warm, rainy, autumnal day. The wide expanse that opened out

+before the heights on which the Russian batteries stood guarding the

+bridge was at times veiled by a diaphanous curtain of slanting rain, and

+then, suddenly spread out in the sunlight, far-distant objects could

+be clearly seen glittering as though freshly varnished. Down below,

+the little town could be seen with its white, red-roofed houses, its

+cathedral, and its bridge, on both sides of which streamed jostling

+masses of Russian troops. At the bend of the Danube, vessels, an island,

+and a castle with a park surrounded by the waters of the confluence of

+the Enns and the Danube became visible, and the rocky left bank of the

+Danube covered with pine forests, with a mystic background of green

+treetops and bluish gorges. The turrets of a convent stood out beyond a

+wild virgin pine forest, and far away on the other side of the Enns the

+enemy’s horse patrols could be discerned.

+

+Among the field guns on the brow of the hill the general in command of

+the rearguard stood with a staff officer, scanning the country through

+his fieldglass. A little behind them Nesvítski, who had been sent to

+the rearguard by the commander in chief, was sitting on the trail of a

+gun carriage. A Cossack who accompanied him had handed him a knapsack

+and a flask, and Nesvítski was treating some officers to pies and real

+doppelkümmel. The officers gladly gathered round him, some on their

+knees, some squatting Turkish fashion on the wet grass.

+

+“Yes, the Austrian prince who built that castle was no fool. It’s

+a fine place! Why are you not eating anything, gentlemen?” Nesvítski

+was saying.

+

+“Thank you very much, Prince,” answered one of the officers, pleased

+to be talking to a staff officer of such importance. “It’s a lovely

+place! We passed close to the park and saw two deer... and what a

+splendid house!”

+

+“Look, Prince,” said another, who would have dearly liked to take

+another pie but felt shy, and therefore pretended to be examining the

+countryside—“See, our infantrymen have already got there. Look there

+in the meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging something.

+They’ll ransack that castle,” he remarked with evident approval.

+

+“So they will,” said Nesvítski. “No, but what I should like,”

+added he, munching a pie in his moist-lipped handsome mouth, “would be

+to slip in over there.”

+

+He pointed with a smile to a turreted nunnery, and his eyes narrowed and

+gleamed.

+

+“That would be fine, gentlemen!”

+

+The officers laughed.

+

+“Just to flutter the nuns a bit. They say there are Italian girls

+among them. On my word I’d give five years of my life for it!”

+

+“They must be feeling dull, too,” said one of the bolder officers,

+laughing.

+

+Meanwhile the staff officer standing in front pointed out something to

+the general, who looked through his field glass.

+

+“Yes, so it is, so it is,” said the general angrily, lowering the

+field glass and shrugging his shoulders, “so it is! They’ll be fired

+on at the crossing. And why are they dawdling there?”

+

+On the opposite side the enemy could be seen by the naked eye, and from

+their battery a milk-white cloud arose. Then came the distant report of

+a shot, and our troops could be seen hurrying to the crossing.

+

+Nesvítski rose, puffing, and went up to the general, smiling.

+

+“Would not your excellency like a little refreshment?” he said.

+

+“It’s a bad business,” said the general without answering him,

+“our men have been wasting time.”

+

+“Hadn’t I better ride over, your excellency?” asked Nesvítski.

+

+“Yes, please do,” answered the general, and he repeated the order

+that had already once been given in detail: “and tell the hussars

+that they are to cross last and to fire the bridge as I ordered; and the

+inflammable material on the bridge must be reinspected.”

+

+“Very good,” answered Nesvítski.

+

+He called the Cossack with his horse, told him to put away the knapsack

+and flask, and swung his heavy person easily into the saddle.

+

+“I’ll really call in on the nuns,” he said to the officers who

+watched him smilingly, and he rode off by the winding path down the

+hill.

+

+“Now then, let’s see how far it will carry, Captain. Just try!”

+said the general, turning to an artillery officer. “Have a little fun

+to pass the time.”

+

+“Crew, to your guns!” commanded the officer.

+

+In a moment the men came running gaily from their campfires and began

+loading.

+

+“One!” came the command.

+

+Number one jumped briskly aside. The gun rang out with a deafening

+metallic roar, and a whistling grenade flew above the heads of our

+troops below the hill and fell far short of the enemy, a little smoke

+showing the spot where it burst.

+

+The faces of officers and men brightened up at the sound. Everyone got

+up and began watching the movements of our troops below, as plainly

+visible as if but a stone’s throw away, and the movements of the

+approaching enemy farther off. At the same instant the sun came fully

+out from behind the clouds, and the clear sound of the solitary shot

+and the brilliance of the bright sunshine merged in a single joyous and

+spirited impression.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+Two of the enemy’s shots had already flown across the bridge, where

+there was a crush. Halfway across stood Prince Nesvítski, who had

+alighted from his horse and whose big body was jammed against the

+railings. He looked back laughing to the Cossack who stood a few

+steps behind him holding two horses by their bridles. Each time Prince

+Nesvítski tried to move on, soldiers and carts pushed him back again

+and pressed him against the railings, and all he could do was to smile.

+

+“What a fine fellow you are, friend!” said the Cossack to a convoy

+soldier with a wagon, who was pressing onto the infantrymen who were

+crowded together close to his wheels and his horses. “What a fellow!

+You can’t wait a moment! Don’t you see the general wants to pass?”

+

+But the convoyman took no notice of the word “general” and shouted

+at the soldiers who were blocking his way. “Hi there, boys! Keep to

+the left! Wait a bit.” But the soldiers, crowded together shoulder to

+shoulder, their bayonets interlocking, moved over the bridge in a dense

+mass. Looking down over the rails Prince Nesvítski saw the rapid, noisy

+little waves of the Enns, which rippling and eddying round the piles of

+the bridge chased each other along. Looking on the bridge he saw equally

+uniform living waves of soldiers, shoulder straps, covered shakos,

+knapsacks, bayonets, long muskets, and, under the shakos, faces with

+broad cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and listless tired expressions, and

+feet that moved through the sticky mud that covered the planks of the

+bridge. Sometimes through the monotonous waves of men, like a fleck of

+white foam on the waves of the Enns, an officer, in a cloak and with

+a type of face different from that of the men, squeezed his way along;

+sometimes like a chip of wood whirling in the river, an hussar on foot,

+an orderly, or a townsman was carried through the waves of infantry;

+and sometimes like a log floating down the river, an officers’ or

+company’s baggage wagon, piled high, leather covered, and hemmed in on

+all sides, moved across the bridge.

+

+“It’s as if a dam had burst,” said the Cossack hopelessly. “Are

+there many more of you to come?”

+

+“A million all but one!” replied a waggish soldier in a torn coat,

+with a wink, and passed on followed by another, an old man.

+

+“If he” (he meant the enemy) “begins popping at the bridge now,”

+said the old soldier dismally to a comrade, “you’ll forget to

+scratch yourself.”

+

+That soldier passed on, and after him came another sitting on a cart.

+

+“Where the devil have the leg bands been shoved to?” said an

+orderly, running behind the cart and fumbling in the back of it.

+

+And he also passed on with the wagon. Then came some merry soldiers who

+had evidently been drinking.

+

+“And then, old fellow, he gives him one in the teeth with the butt

+end of his gun...” a soldier whose greatcoat was well tucked up said

+gaily, with a wide swing of his arm.

+

+“Yes, the ham was just delicious...” answered another with a loud

+laugh. And they, too, passed on, so that Nesvítski did not learn who

+had been struck on the teeth, or what the ham had to do with it.

+

+“Bah! How they scurry. He just sends a ball and they think they’ll

+all be killed,” a sergeant was saying angrily and reproachfully.

+

+“As it flies past me, Daddy, the ball I mean,” said a young soldier

+with an enormous mouth, hardly refraining from laughing, “I felt like

+dying of fright. I did, ‘pon my word, I got that frightened!” said

+he, as if bragging of having been frightened.

+

+That one also passed. Then followed a cart unlike any that had gone

+before. It was a German cart with a pair of horses led by a German, and

+seemed loaded with a whole houseful of effects. A fine brindled cow with

+a large udder was attached to the cart behind. A woman with an unweaned

+baby, an old woman, and a healthy German girl with bright red cheeks

+were sitting on some feather beds. Evidently these fugitives were

+allowed to pass by special permission. The eyes of all the soldiers

+turned toward the women, and while the vehicle was passing at foot pace

+all the soldiers’ remarks related to the two young ones. Every face

+bore almost the same smile, expressing unseemly thoughts about the

+women.

+

+“Just see, the German sausage is making tracks, too!”

+

+“Sell me the missis,” said another soldier, addressing the German,

+who, angry and frightened, strode energetically along with downcast

+eyes.

+

+“See how smart she’s made herself! Oh, the devils!”

+

+“There, Fedótov, you should be quartered on them!”

+

+“I have seen as much before now, mate!”

+

+“Where are you going?” asked an infantry officer who was eating an

+apple, also half smiling as he looked at the handsome girl.

+

+The German closed his eyes, signifying that he did not understand.

+

+“Take it if you like,” said the officer, giving the girl an apple.

+

+The girl smiled and took it. Nesvítski like the rest of the men on the

+bridge did not take his eyes off the women till they had passed. When

+they had gone by, the same stream of soldiers followed, with the same

+kind of talk, and at last all stopped. As often happens, the horses of

+a convoy wagon became restive at the end of the bridge, and the whole

+crowd had to wait.

+

+“And why are they stopping? There’s no proper order!” said the

+soldiers. “Where are you shoving to? Devil take you! Can’t you wait?

+It’ll be worse if he fires the bridge. See, here’s an officer jammed

+in too”—different voices were saying in the crowd, as the men looked

+at one another, and all pressed toward the exit from the bridge.

+

+Looking down at the waters of the Enns under the bridge, Nesvítski

+suddenly heard a sound new to him, of something swiftly approaching...

+something big, that splashed into the water.

+

+“Just see where it carries to!” a soldier near by said sternly,

+looking round at the sound.

+

+“Encouraging us to get along quicker,” said another uneasily.

+

+The crowd moved on again. Nesvítski realized that it was a cannon ball.

+

+“Hey, Cossack, my horse!” he said. “Now, then, you there! get out

+of the way! Make way!”

+

+With great difficulty he managed to get to his horse, and shouting

+continually he moved on. The soldiers squeezed themselves to make way

+for him, but again pressed on him so that they jammed his leg, and those

+nearest him were not to blame for they were themselves pressed still

+harder from behind.

+

+“Nesvítski, Nesvítski! you numskull!” came a hoarse voice from

+behind him.

+

+Nesvítski looked round and saw, some fifteen paces away but separated

+by the living mass of moving infantry, Váska Denísov, red and shaggy,

+with his cap on the back of his black head and a cloak hanging jauntily

+over his shoulder.

+

+“Tell these devils, these fiends, to let me pass!” shouted Denísov

+evidently in a fit of rage, his coal-black eyes with their bloodshot

+whites glittering and rolling as he waved his sheathed saber in a small

+bare hand as red as his face.

+

+“Ah, Váska!” joyfully replied Nesvítski. “What’s up with

+you?”

+

+“The squadwon can’t pass,” shouted Váska Denísov, showing his

+white teeth fiercely and spurring his black thoroughbred Arab, which

+twitched its ears as the bayonets touched it, and snorted, spurting

+white foam from his bit, tramping the planks of the bridge with his

+hoofs, and apparently ready to jump over the railings had his rider let

+him. “What is this? They’re like sheep! Just like sheep! Out of the

+way!... Let us pass!... Stop there, you devil with the cart! I’ll hack

+you with my saber!” he shouted, actually drawing his saber from its

+scabbard and flourishing it.

+

+The soldiers crowded against one another with terrified faces, and

+Denísov joined Nesvítski.

+

+“How’s it you’re not drunk today?” said Nesvítski when the

+other had ridden up to him.

+

+“They don’t even give one time to dwink!” answered Váska

+Denísov. “They keep dwagging the wegiment to and fwo all day. If they

+mean to fight, let’s fight. But the devil knows what this is.”

+

+“What a dandy you are today!” said Nesvítski, looking at

+Denísov’s new cloak and saddlecloth.

+

+Denísov smiled, took out of his sabretache a handkerchief that diffused

+a smell of perfume, and put it to Nesvítski’s nose.

+

+“Of course. I’m going into action! I’ve shaved, bwushed my teeth,

+and scented myself.”

+

+The imposing figure of Nesvítski followed by his Cossack, and

+the determination of Denísov who flourished his sword and shouted

+frantically, had such an effect that they managed to squeeze through

+to the farther side of the bridge and stopped the infantry. Beside the

+bridge Nesvítski found the colonel to whom he had to deliver the order,

+and having done this he rode back.

+

+Having cleared the way Denísov stopped at the end of the bridge.

+Carelessly holding in his stallion that was neighing and pawing the

+ground, eager to rejoin its fellows, he watched his squadron draw

+nearer. Then the clang of hoofs, as of several horses galloping,

+resounded on the planks of the bridge, and the squadron, officers in

+front and men four abreast, spread across the bridge and began to emerge

+on his side of it.

+

+The infantry who had been stopped crowded near the bridge in the

+trampled mud and gazed with that particular feeling of ill-will,

+estrangement, and ridicule with which troops of different arms usually

+encounter one another at the clean, smart hussars who moved past them in

+regular order.

+

+“Smart lads! Only fit for a fair!” said one.

+

+“What good are they? They’re led about just for show!” remarked

+another.

+

+“Don’t kick up the dust, you infantry!” jested an hussar whose

+prancing horse had splashed mud over some foot soldiers.

+

+“I’d like to put you on a two days’ march with a knapsack! Your

+fine cords would soon get a bit rubbed,” said an infantryman, wiping

+the mud off his face with his sleeve. “Perched up there, you’re more

+like a bird than a man.”

+

+“There now, Zíkin, they ought to put you on a horse. You’d look

+fine,” said a corporal, chaffing a thin little soldier who bent under

+the weight of his knapsack.

+

+“Take a stick between your legs, that’ll suit you for a horse!”

+the hussar shouted back.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+The last of the infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge, squeezing

+together as they approached it as if passing through a funnel. At last

+the baggage wagons had all crossed, the crush was less, and the last

+battalion came onto the bridge. Only Denísov’s squadron of hussars

+remained on the farther side of the bridge facing the enemy, who could

+be seen from the hill on the opposite bank but was not yet visible from

+the bridge, for the horizon as seen from the valley through which the

+river flowed was formed by the rising ground only half a mile away.

+At the foot of the hill lay wasteland over which a few groups of our

+Cossack scouts were moving. Suddenly on the road at the top of the high

+ground, artillery and troops in blue uniform were seen. These were the

+French. A group of Cossack scouts retired down the hill at a trot. All

+the officers and men of Denísov’s squadron, though they tried to talk

+of other things and to look in other directions, thought only of what

+was there on the hilltop, and kept constantly looking at the patches

+appearing on the skyline, which they knew to be the enemy’s troops.

+The weather had cleared again since noon and the sun was descending

+brightly upon the Danube and the dark hills around it. It was calm, and

+at intervals the bugle calls and the shouts of the enemy could be heard

+from the hill. There was no one now between the squadron and the enemy

+except a few scattered skirmishers. An empty space of some seven hundred

+yards was all that separated them. The enemy ceased firing, and that

+stern, threatening, inaccessible, and intangible line which separates

+two hostile armies was all the more clearly felt.

+

+“One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line dividing

+the living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, and death. And

+what is there? Who is there?—there beyond that field, that tree, that

+roof lit up by the sun? No one knows, but one wants to know. You fear

+and yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must

+be crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will

+inevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death. But you are

+strong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and are surrounded by other such

+excitedly animated and healthy men.” So thinks, or at any rate

+feels, anyone who comes in sight of the enemy, and that feeling gives

+a particular glamour and glad keenness of impression to everything that

+takes place at such moments.

+

+On the high ground where the enemy was, the smoke of a cannon rose,

+and a ball flew whistling over the heads of the hussar squadron. The

+officers who had been standing together rode off to their places. The

+hussars began carefully aligning their horses. Silence fell on the whole

+squadron. All were looking at the enemy in front and at the squadron

+commander, awaiting the word of command. A second and a third cannon

+ball flew past. Evidently they were firing at the hussars, but the balls

+with rapid rhythmic whistle flew over the heads of the horsemen and fell

+somewhere beyond them. The hussars did not look round, but at the sound

+of each shot, as at the word of command, the whole squadron with its

+rows of faces so alike yet so different, holding its breath while the

+ball flew past, rose in the stirrups and sank back again. The soldiers

+without turning their heads glanced at one another, curious to see their

+comrades’ impression. Every face, from Denísov’s to that of the

+bugler, showed one common expression of conflict, irritation, and

+excitement, around chin and mouth. The quartermaster frowned, looking

+at the soldiers as if threatening to punish them. Cadet Mirónov ducked

+every time a ball flew past. Rostóv on the left flank, mounted on his

+Rook—a handsome horse despite its game leg—had the happy air of a

+schoolboy called up before a large audience for an examination in which

+he feels sure he will distinguish himself. He was glancing at everyone

+with a clear, bright expression, as if asking them to notice how calmly

+he sat under fire. But despite himself, on his face too that same

+indication of something new and stern showed round the mouth.

+

+“Who’s that curtseying there? Cadet Miwónov! That’s not wight!

+Look at me,” cried Denísov who, unable to keep still on one spot,

+kept turning his horse in front of the squadron.

+

+The black, hairy, snub-nosed face of Váska Denísov, and his whole

+short sturdy figure with the sinewy hairy hand and stumpy fingers in

+which he held the hilt of his naked saber, looked just as it usually

+did, especially toward evening when he had emptied his second bottle; he

+was only redder than usual. With his shaggy head thrown back like birds

+when they drink, pressing his spurs mercilessly into the sides of his

+good horse, Bedouin, and sitting as though falling backwards in the

+saddle, he galloped to the other flank of the squadron and shouted in

+a hoarse voice to the men to look to their pistols. He rode up to

+Kírsten. The staff captain on his broad-backed, steady mare came at a

+walk to meet him. His face with its long mustache was serious as always,

+only his eyes were brighter than usual.

+

+“Well, what about it?” said he to Denísov. “It won’t come to a

+fight. You’ll see—we shall retire.”

+

+“The devil only knows what they’re about!” muttered Denísov.

+“Ah, Wostóv,” he cried noticing the cadet’s bright face,

+“you’ve got it at last.”

+

+And he smiled approvingly, evidently pleased with the cadet. Rostóv

+felt perfectly happy. Just then the commander appeared on the bridge.

+Denísov galloped up to him.

+

+“Your excellency! Let us attack them! I’ll dwive them off.”

+

+“Attack indeed!” said the colonel in a bored voice, puckering up his

+face as if driving off a troublesome fly. “And why are you stopping

+here? Don’t you see the skirmishers are retreating? Lead the squadron

+back.”

+

+The squadron crossed the bridge and drew out of range of fire without

+having lost a single man. The second squadron that had been in the front

+line followed them across and the last Cossacks quitted the farther side

+of the river.

+

+The two Pávlograd squadrons, having crossed the bridge, retired up the

+hill one after the other. Their colonel, Karl Bogdánich Schubert, came

+up to Denísov’s squadron and rode at a footpace not far from Rostóv,

+without taking any notice of him although they were now meeting for the

+first time since their encounter concerning Telyánin. Rostóv, feeling

+that he was at the front and in the power of a man toward whom he now

+admitted that he had been to blame, did not lift his eyes from the

+colonel’s athletic back, his nape covered with light hair, and his red

+neck. It seemed to Rostóv that Bogdánich was only pretending not

+to notice him, and that his whole aim now was to test the cadet’s

+courage, so he drew himself up and looked around him merrily; then it

+seemed to him that Bogdánich rode so near in order to show him his

+courage. Next he thought that his enemy would send the squadron on a

+desperate attack just to punish him—Rostóv. Then he imagined how,

+after the attack, Bogdánich would come up to him as he lay wounded and

+would magnanimously extend the hand of reconciliation.

+

+The high-shouldered figure of Zherkóv, familiar to the Pávlograds as

+he had but recently left their regiment, rode up to the colonel.

+After his dismissal from headquarters Zherkóv had not remained in the

+regiment, saying he was not such a fool as to slave at the front when he

+could get more rewards by doing nothing on the staff, and had succeeded

+in attaching himself as an orderly officer to Prince Bagratión. He now

+came to his former chief with an order from the commander of the rear

+guard.

+

+“Colonel,” he said, addressing Rostóv’s enemy with an air of

+gloomy gravity and glancing round at his comrades, “there is an order

+to stop and fire the bridge.”

+

+“An order to who?” asked the colonel morosely.

+

+“I don’t myself know ‘to who,’” replied the cornet in a

+serious tone, “but the prince told me to ‘go and tell the colonel

+that the hussars must return quickly and fire the bridge.’”

+

+Zherkóv was followed by an officer of the suite who rode up to the

+colonel of hussars with the same order. After him the stout Nesvítski

+came galloping up on a Cossack horse that could scarcely carry his

+weight.

+

+“How’s this, Colonel?” he shouted as he approached. “I told you

+to fire the bridge, and now someone has gone and blundered; they are all

+beside themselves over there and one can’t make anything out.”

+

+The colonel deliberately stopped the regiment and turned to Nesvítski.

+

+“You spoke to me of inflammable material,” said he, “but you said

+nothing about firing it.”

+

+“But, my dear sir,” said Nesvítski as he drew up, taking off his

+cap and smoothing his hair wet with perspiration with his plump hand,

+“wasn’t I telling you to fire the bridge, when inflammable material

+had been put in position?”

+

+“I am not your ‘dear sir,’ Mr. Staff Officer, and you did not tell

+me to burn the bridge! I know the service, and it is my habit orders

+strictly to obey. You said the bridge would be burned, but who would it

+burn, I could not know by the holy spirit!”

+

+“Ah, that’s always the way!” said Nesvítski with a wave of the

+hand. “How did you get here?” said he, turning to Zherkóv.

+

+“On the same business. But you are damp! Let me wring you out!”

+

+“You were saying, Mr. Staff Officer...” continued the colonel in an

+offended tone.

+

+“Colonel,” interrupted the officer of the suite, “You must be

+quick or the enemy will bring up his guns to use grapeshot.”

+

+The colonel looked silently at the officer of the suite, at the stout

+staff officer, and at Zherkóv, and he frowned.

+

+“I will the bridge fire,” he said in a solemn tone as if to announce

+that in spite of all the unpleasantness he had to endure he would still

+do the right thing.

+

+Striking his horse with his long muscular legs as if it were to blame

+for everything, the colonel moved forward and ordered the second

+squadron, that in which Rostóv was serving under Denísov, to return to

+the bridge.

+

+“There, it’s just as I thought,” said Rostóv to himself. “He

+wishes to test me!” His heart contracted and the blood rushed to his

+face. “Let him see whether I am a coward!” he thought.

+

+Again on all the bright faces of the squadron the serious expression

+appeared that they had worn when under fire. Rostóv watched his enemy,

+the colonel, closely—to find in his face confirmation of his own

+conjecture, but the colonel did not once glance at Rostóv, and looked

+as he always did when at the front, solemn and stern. Then came the word

+of command.

+

+“Look sharp! Look sharp!” several voices repeated around him.

+

+Their sabers catching in the bridles and their spurs jingling, the

+hussars hastily dismounted, not knowing what they were to do. The men

+were crossing themselves. Rostóv no longer looked at the colonel, he

+had no time. He was afraid of falling behind the hussars, so much afraid

+that his heart stood still. His hand trembled as he gave his horse into

+an orderly’s charge, and he felt the blood rush to his heart with

+a thud. Denísov rode past him, leaning back and shouting something.

+Rostóv saw nothing but the hussars running all around him, their spurs

+catching and their sabers clattering.

+

+“Stretchers!” shouted someone behind him.

+

+Rostóv did not think what this call for stretchers meant; he ran on,

+trying only to be ahead of the others; but just at the bridge, not

+looking at the ground, he came on some sticky, trodden mud, stumbled,

+and fell on his hands. The others outstripped him.

+

+“At boss zides, Captain,” he heard the voice of the colonel, who,

+having ridden ahead, had pulled up his horse near the bridge, with a

+triumphant, cheerful face.

+

+Rostóv wiping his muddy hands on his breeches looked at his enemy and

+was about to run on, thinking that the farther he went to the front

+the better. But Bogdánich, without looking at or recognizing Rostóv,

+shouted to him:

+

+“Who’s that running on the middle of the bridge? To the right! Come

+back, Cadet!” he cried angrily; and turning to Denísov, who, showing

+off his courage, had ridden on to the planks of the bridge:

+

+“Why run risks, Captain? You should dismount,” he said.

+

+“Oh, every bullet has its billet,” answered Váska Denísov, turning

+in his saddle.

+

+

+Meanwhile Nesvítski, Zherkóv, and the officer of the suite were

+standing together out of range of the shots, watching, now the small

+group of men with yellow shakos, dark-green jackets braided with cord,

+and blue riding breeches, who were swarming near the bridge, and then at

+what was approaching in the distance from the opposite side—the blue

+uniforms and groups with horses, easily recognizable as artillery.

+

+“Will they burn the bridge or not? Who’ll get there first? Will they

+get there and fire the bridge or will the French get within grapeshot

+range and wipe them out?” These were the questions each man of the

+troops on the high ground above the bridge involuntarily asked himself

+with a sinking heart—watching the bridge and the hussars in the bright

+evening light and the blue tunics advancing from the other side with

+their bayonets and guns.

+

+“Ugh. The hussars will get it hot!” said Nesvítski; “they are

+within grapeshot range now.”

+

+“He shouldn’t have taken so many men,” said the officer of the

+suite.

+

+“True enough,” answered Nesvítski; “two smart fellows could have

+done the job just as well.”

+

+“Ah, your excellency,” put in Zherkóv, his eyes fixed on the

+hussars, but still with that naïve air that made it impossible to know

+whether he was speaking in jest or in earnest. “Ah, your excellency!

+How you look at things! Send two men? And who then would give us the

+Vladímir medal and ribbon? But now, even if they do get peppered, the

+squadron may be recommended for honors and he may get a ribbon. Our

+Bogdánich knows how things are done.”

+

+“There now!” said the officer of the suite, “that’s

+grapeshot.”

+

+He pointed to the French guns, the limbers of which were being detached

+and hurriedly removed.

+

+On the French side, amid the groups with cannon, a cloud of smoke

+appeared, then a second and a third almost simultaneously, and at the

+moment when the first report was heard a fourth was seen. Then two

+reports one after another, and a third.

+

+“Oh! Oh!” groaned Nesvítski as if in fierce pain, seizing the

+officer of the suite by the arm. “Look! A man has fallen! Fallen,

+fallen!”

+

+“Two, I think.”

+

+“If I were Tsar I would never go to war,” said Nesvítski, turning

+away.

+

+The French guns were hastily reloaded. The infantry in their blue

+uniforms advanced toward the bridge at a run. Smoke appeared again

+but at irregular intervals, and grapeshot cracked and rattled onto the

+bridge. But this time Nesvítski could not see what was happening there,

+as a dense cloud of smoke arose from it. The hussars had succeeded in

+setting it on fire and the French batteries were now firing at them, no

+longer to hinder them but because the guns were trained and there was

+someone to fire at.

+

+The French had time to fire three rounds of grapeshot before the hussars

+got back to their horses. Two were misdirected and the shot went too

+high, but the last round fell in the midst of a group of hussars and

+knocked three of them over.

+

+Rostóv, absorbed by his relations with Bogdánich, had paused on the

+bridge not knowing what to do. There was no one to hew down (as he

+had always imagined battles to himself), nor could he help to fire the

+bridge because he had not brought any burning straw with him like the

+other soldiers. He stood looking about him, when suddenly he heard a

+rattle on the bridge as if nuts were being spilt, and the hussar nearest

+to him fell against the rails with a groan. Rostóv ran up to him with

+the others. Again someone shouted, “Stretchers!” Four men seized the

+hussar and began lifting him.

+

+“Oooh! For Christ’s sake let me alone!” cried the wounded man, but

+still he was lifted and laid on the stretcher.

+

+Nicholas Rostóv turned away and, as if searching for something, gazed

+into the distance, at the waters of the Danube, at the sky, and at the

+sun. How beautiful the sky looked; how blue, how calm, and how deep!

+How bright and glorious was the setting sun! With what soft glitter the

+waters of the distant Danube shone. And fairer still were the faraway

+blue mountains beyond the river, the nunnery, the mysterious gorges, and

+the pine forests veiled in the mist of their summits... There was peace

+and happiness... “I should wish for nothing else, nothing, if only I

+were there,” thought Rostóv. “In myself alone and in that sunshine

+there is so much happiness; but here... groans, suffering, fear, and

+this uncertainty and hurry... There—they are shouting again, and

+again are all running back somewhere, and I shall run with them, and it,

+death, is here above me and around... Another instant and I shall never

+again see the sun, this water, that gorge!...”

+

+At that instant the sun began to hide behind the clouds, and other

+stretchers came into view before Rostóv. And the fear of death and of

+the stretchers, and love of the sun and of life, all merged into one

+feeling of sickening agitation.

+

+“O Lord God! Thou who art in that heaven, save, forgive, and protect

+me!” Rostóv whispered.

+

+The hussars ran back to the men who held their horses; their voices

+sounded louder and calmer, the stretchers disappeared from sight.

+

+“Well, fwiend? So you’ve smelt powdah!” shouted Váska Denísov

+just above his ear.

+

+“It’s all over; but I am a coward—yes, a coward!” thought

+Rostóv, and sighing deeply he took Rook, his horse, which stood resting

+one foot, from the orderly and began to mount.

+

+“Was that grapeshot?” he asked Denísov.

+

+“Yes and no mistake!” cried Denísov. “You worked like wegular

+bwicks and it’s nasty work! An attack’s pleasant work! Hacking

+away at the dogs! But this sort of thing is the very devil, with them

+shooting at you like a target.”

+

+And Denísov rode up to a group that had stopped near Rostóv, composed

+of the colonel, Nesvítski, Zherkóv, and the officer from the suite.

+

+“Well, it seems that no one has noticed,” thought Rostóv. And this

+was true. No one had taken any notice, for everyone knew the sensation

+which the cadet under fire for the first time had experienced.

+

+“Here’s something for you to report,” said Zherkóv. “See if I

+don’t get promoted to a sublieutenancy.”

+

+“Inform the prince that I the bridge fired!” said the colonel

+triumphantly and gaily.

+

+“And if he asks about the losses?”

+

+“A trifle,” said the colonel in his bass voice: “two hussars

+wounded, and one knocked out,” he added, unable to restrain a happy

+smile, and pronouncing the phrase “knocked out” with ringing

+distinctness.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+Pursued by the French army of a hundred thousand men under the command

+of Bonaparte, encountering a population that was unfriendly to it,

+losing confidence in its allies, suffering from shortness of supplies,

+and compelled to act under conditions of war unlike anything that had

+been foreseen, the Russian army of thirty-five thousand men commanded

+by Kutúzov was hurriedly retreating along the Danube, stopping where

+overtaken by the enemy and fighting rearguard actions only as far as

+necessary to enable it to retreat without losing its heavy equipment.

+There had been actions at Lambach, Amstetten, and Melk; but despite the

+courage and endurance—acknowledged even by the enemy—with which the

+Russians fought, the only consequence of these actions was a yet more

+rapid retreat. Austrian troops that had escaped capture at Ulm and had

+joined Kutúzov at Braunau now separated from the Russian army, and

+Kutúzov was left with only his own weak and exhausted forces. The

+defense of Vienna was no longer to be thought of. Instead of an

+offensive, the plan of which, carefully prepared in accord with the

+modern science of strategics, had been handed to Kutúzov when he was in

+Vienna by the Austrian Hofkriegsrath, the sole and almost unattainable

+aim remaining for him was to effect a junction with the forces that were

+advancing from Russia, without losing his army as Mack had done at Ulm.

+

+On the twenty-eighth of October Kutúzov with his army crossed to the

+left bank of the Danube and took up a position for the first time

+with the river between himself and the main body of the French. On the

+thirtieth he attacked Mortier’s division, which was on the left bank,

+and broke it up. In this action for the first time trophies were taken:

+banners, cannon, and two enemy generals. For the first time, after a

+fortnight’s retreat, the Russian troops had halted and after a fight

+had not only held the field but had repulsed the French. Though the

+troops were ill-clad, exhausted, and had lost a third of their number

+in killed, wounded, sick, and stragglers; though a number of sick and

+wounded had been abandoned on the other side of the Danube with a letter

+in which Kutúzov entrusted them to the humanity of the enemy; and

+though the big hospitals and the houses in Krems converted into military

+hospitals could no longer accommodate all the sick and wounded, yet the

+stand made at Krems and the victory over Mortier raised the spirits of

+the army considerably. Throughout the whole army and at headquarters

+most joyful though erroneous rumors were rife of the imaginary approach

+of columns from Russia, of some victory gained by the Austrians, and of

+the retreat of the frightened Bonaparte.

+

+Prince Andrew during the battle had been in attendance on the Austrian

+General Schmidt, who was killed in the action. His horse had been

+wounded under him and his own arm slightly grazed by a bullet. As a mark

+of the commander in chief’s special favor he was sent with the news of

+this victory to the Austrian court, now no longer at Vienna (which was

+threatened by the French) but at Brünn. Despite his apparently delicate

+build Prince Andrew could endure physical fatigue far better than many

+very muscular men, and on the night of the battle, having arrived

+at Krems excited but not weary, with dispatches from Dokhtúrov to

+Kutúzov, he was sent immediately with a special dispatch to Brünn.

+To be so sent meant not only a reward but an important step toward

+promotion.

+

+The night was dark but starry, the road showed black in the snow that

+had fallen the previous day—the day of the battle. Reviewing his

+impressions of the recent battle, picturing pleasantly to himself the

+impression his news of a victory would create, or recalling the send-off

+given him by the commander in chief and his fellow officers, Prince

+Andrew was galloping along in a post chaise enjoying the feelings of a

+man who has at length begun to attain a long-desired happiness. As soon

+as he closed his eyes his ears seemed filled with the rattle of the

+wheels and the sensation of victory. Then he began to imagine that

+the Russians were running away and that he himself was killed, but he

+quickly roused himself with a feeling of joy, as if learning afresh that

+this was not so but that on the contrary the French had run away. He

+again recalled all the details of the victory and his own calm courage

+during the battle, and feeling reassured he dozed off.... The dark

+starry night was followed by a bright cheerful morning. The snow was

+thawing in the sunshine, the horses galloped quickly, and on both sides

+of the road were forests of different kinds, fields, and villages.

+

+At one of the post stations he overtook a convoy of Russian wounded.

+The Russian officer in charge of the transport lolled back in the front

+cart, shouting and scolding a soldier with coarse abuse. In each of

+the long German carts six or more pale, dirty, bandaged men were being

+jolted over the stony road. Some of them were talking (he heard Russian

+words), others were eating bread; the more severely wounded looked

+silently, with the languid interest of sick children, at the envoy

+hurrying past them.

+

+Prince Andrew told his driver to stop, and asked a soldier in what

+action they had been wounded. “Day before yesterday, on the Danube,”

+answered the soldier. Prince Andrew took out his purse and gave the

+soldier three gold pieces.

+

+“That’s for them all,” he said to the officer who came up.

+

+“Get well soon, lads!” he continued, turning to the soldiers.

+“There’s plenty to do still.”

+

+“What news, sir?” asked the officer, evidently anxious to start a

+conversation.

+

+“Good news!... Go on!” he shouted to the driver, and they galloped

+on.

+

+It was already quite dark when Prince Andrew rattled over the paved

+streets of Brünn and found himself surrounded by high buildings, the

+lights of shops, houses, and street lamps, fine carriages, and all that

+atmosphere of a large and active town which is always so attractive to a

+soldier after camp life. Despite his rapid journey and sleepless night,

+Prince Andrew when he drove up to the palace felt even more vigorous and

+alert than he had done the day before. Only his eyes gleamed feverishly

+and his thoughts followed one another with extraordinary clearness and

+rapidity. He again vividly recalled the details of the battle, no longer

+dim, but definite and in the concise form in which he imagined himself

+stating them to the Emperor Francis. He vividly imagined the casual

+questions that might be put to him and the answers he would give. He

+expected to be at once presented to the Emperor. At the chief entrance

+to the palace, however, an official came running out to meet him, and

+learning that he was a special messenger led him to another entrance.

+

+“To the right from the corridor, Euer Hochgeboren! There you will find

+the adjutant on duty,” said the official. “He will conduct you to

+the Minister of War.”

+

+The adjutant on duty, meeting Prince Andrew, asked him to wait, and went

+in to the Minister of War. Five minutes later he returned and bowing

+with particular courtesy ushered Prince Andrew before him along a

+corridor to the cabinet where the Minister of War was at work. The

+adjutant by his elaborate courtesy appeared to wish to ward off any

+attempt at familiarity on the part of the Russian messenger.

+

+Prince Andrew’s joyous feeling was considerably weakened as he

+approached the door of the minister’s room. He felt offended, and

+without his noticing it the feeling of offense immediately turned into

+one of disdain which was quite uncalled for. His fertile mind instantly

+suggested to him a point of view which gave him a right to despise

+the adjutant and the minister. “Away from the smell of powder, they

+probably think it easy to gain victories!” he thought. His eyes

+narrowed disdainfully, he entered the room of the Minister of War with

+peculiarly deliberate steps. This feeling of disdain was heightened

+when he saw the minister seated at a large table reading some papers

+and making pencil notes on them, and for the first two or three minutes

+taking no notice of his arrival. A wax candle stood at each side of the

+minister’s bent bald head with its gray temples. He went on reading

+to the end, without raising his eyes at the opening of the door and the

+sound of footsteps.

+

+“Take this and deliver it,” said he to his adjutant, handing him the

+papers and still taking no notice of the special messenger.

+

+Prince Andrew felt that either the actions of Kutúzov’s army

+interested the Minister of War less than any of the other matters he was

+concerned with, or he wanted to give the Russian special messenger that

+impression. “But that is a matter of perfect indifference to me,” he

+thought. The minister drew the remaining papers together, arranged them

+evenly, and then raised his head. He had an intellectual and distinctive

+head, but the instant he turned to Prince Andrew the firm, intelligent

+expression on his face changed in a way evidently deliberate and

+habitual to him. His face took on the stupid artificial smile (which

+does not even attempt to hide its artificiality) of a man who is

+continually receiving many petitioners one after another.

+

+“From General Field Marshal Kutúzov?” he asked. “I hope it is

+good news? There has been an encounter with Mortier? A victory? It was

+high time!”

+

+He took the dispatch which was addressed to him and began to read it

+with a mournful expression.

+

+“Oh, my God! My God! Schmidt!” he exclaimed in German. “What a

+calamity! What a calamity!”

+

+Having glanced through the dispatch he laid it on the table and looked

+at Prince Andrew, evidently considering something.

+

+“Ah what a calamity! You say the affair was decisive? But Mortier is

+not captured.” Again he pondered. “I am very glad you have brought

+good news, though Schmidt’s death is a heavy price to pay for the

+victory. His Majesty will no doubt wish to see you, but not today. I

+thank you! You must have a rest. Be at the levee tomorrow after the

+parade. However, I will let you know.”

+

+The stupid smile, which had left his face while he was speaking,

+reappeared.

+

+“Au revoir! Thank you very much. His Majesty will probably desire to

+see you,” he added, bowing his head.

+

+When Prince Andrew left the palace he felt that all the interest

+and happiness the victory had afforded him had been now left in the

+indifferent hands of the Minister of War and the polite adjutant. The

+whole tenor of his thoughts instantaneously changed; the battle seemed

+the memory of a remote event long past.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+Prince Andrew stayed at Brünn with Bilíbin, a Russian acquaintance of

+his in the diplomatic service.

+

+“Ah, my dear prince! I could not have a more welcome visitor,”

+said Bilíbin as he came out to meet Prince Andrew. “Franz, put the

+prince’s things in my bedroom,” said he to the servant who was

+ushering Bolkónski in. “So you’re a messenger of victory, eh?

+Splendid! And I am sitting here ill, as you see.”

+

+After washing and dressing, Prince Andrew came into the diplomat’s

+luxurious study and sat down to the dinner prepared for him. Bilíbin

+settled down comfortably beside the fire.

+

+After his journey and the campaign during which he had been deprived of

+all the comforts of cleanliness and all the refinements of life, Prince

+Andrew felt a pleasant sense of repose among luxurious surroundings such

+as he had been accustomed to from childhood. Besides it was pleasant,

+after his reception by the Austrians, to speak if not in Russian

+(for they were speaking French) at least with a Russian who would, he

+supposed, share the general Russian antipathy to the Austrians which was

+then particularly strong.

+

+Bilíbin was a man of thirty-five, a bachelor, and of the same circle as

+Prince Andrew. They had known each other previously in Petersburg, but

+had become more intimate when Prince Andrew was in Vienna with Kutúzov.

+Just as Prince Andrew was a young man who gave promise of rising high

+in the military profession, so to an even greater extent Bilíbin gave

+promise of rising in his diplomatic career. He still a young man but

+no longer a young diplomat, as he had entered the service at the age

+of sixteen, had been in Paris and Copenhagen, and now held a rather

+important post in Vienna. Both the foreign minister and our ambassador

+in Vienna knew him and valued him. He was not one of those many

+diplomats who are esteemed because they have certain negative qualities,

+avoid doing certain things, and speak French. He was one of those,

+who, liking work, knew how to do it, and despite his indolence would

+sometimes spend a whole night at his writing table. He worked well

+whatever the import of his work. It was not the question “What for?”

+but the question “How?” that interested him. What the diplomatic

+matter might be he did not care, but it gave him great pleasure to

+prepare a circular, memorandum, or report, skillfully, pointedly, and

+elegantly. Bilíbin’s services were valued not only for what he wrote,

+but also for his skill in dealing and conversing with those in the

+highest spheres.

+

+Bilíbin liked conversation as he liked work, only when it could be

+made elegantly witty. In society he always awaited an opportunity to say

+something striking and took part in a conversation only when that was

+possible. His conversation was always sprinkled with wittily original,

+finished phrases of general interest. These sayings were prepared in the

+inner laboratory of his mind in a portable form as if intentionally, so

+that insignificant society people might carry them from drawing room to

+drawing room. And, in fact, Bilíbin’s witticisms were hawked about

+in the Viennese drawing rooms and often had an influence on matters

+considered important.

+

+His thin, worn, sallow face was covered with deep wrinkles, which always

+looked as clean and well washed as the tips of one’s fingers after a

+Russian bath. The movement of these wrinkles formed the principal play

+of expression on his face. Now his forehead would pucker into deep folds

+and his eyebrows were lifted, then his eyebrows would descend and

+deep wrinkles would crease his cheeks. His small, deep-set eyes always

+twinkled and looked out straight.

+

+“Well, now tell me about your exploits,” said he.

+

+Bolkónski, very modestly without once mentioning himself, described the

+engagement and his reception by the Minister of War.

+

+“They received me and my news as one receives a dog in a game of

+skittles,” said he in conclusion.

+

+Bilíbin smiled and the wrinkles on his face disappeared.

+

+“Cependant, mon cher,” he remarked, examining his nails from a

+distance and puckering the skin above his left eye, “malgré la haute

+estime que je professe pour the Orthodox Russian army, j’avoue que

+votre victoire n’est pas des plus victorieuses.” *

+

+     * “But my dear fellow, with all my respect for the Orthodox

+     Russian army, I must say that your victory was not

+     particularly victorious.”

+

+

+He went on talking in this way in French, uttering only those words in

+Russian on which he wished to put a contemptuous emphasis.

+

+“Come now! You with all your forces fall on the unfortunate Mortier

+and his one division, and even then Mortier slips through your fingers!

+Where’s the victory?”

+

+“But seriously,” said Prince Andrew, “we can at any rate say

+without boasting that it was a little better than at Ulm...”

+

+“Why didn’t you capture one, just one, marshal for us?”

+

+“Because not everything happens as one expects or with the smoothness

+of a parade. We had expected, as I told you, to get at their rear by

+seven in the morning but had not reached it by five in the afternoon.”

+

+“And why didn’t you do it at seven in the morning? You ought to have

+been there at seven in the morning,” returned Bilíbin with a smile.

+“You ought to have been there at seven in the morning.”

+

+“Why did you not succeed in impressing on Bonaparte by diplomatic

+methods that he had better leave Genoa alone?” retorted Prince Andrew

+in the same tone.

+

+“I know,” interrupted Bilíbin, “you’re thinking it’s very

+easy to take marshals, sitting on a sofa by the fire! That is true, but

+still why didn’t you capture him? So don’t be surprised if not only

+the Minister of War but also his Most August Majesty the Emperor and

+King Francis is not much delighted by your victory. Even I, a poor

+secretary of the Russian Embassy, do not feel any need in token of my

+joy to give my Franz a thaler, or let him go with his Liebchen to the

+Prater... True, we have no Prater here...”

+

+He looked straight at Prince Andrew and suddenly unwrinkled his

+forehead.

+

+“It is now my turn to ask you ‘why?’ mon cher,” said Bolkónski.

+“I confess I do not understand: perhaps there are diplomatic

+subtleties here beyond my feeble intelligence, but I can’t make it

+out. Mack loses a whole army, the Archduke Ferdinand and the Archduke

+Karl give no signs of life and make blunder after blunder. Kutúzov

+alone at last gains a real victory, destroying the spell of the

+invincibility of the French, and the Minister of War does not even care

+to hear the details.”

+

+“That’s just it, my dear fellow. You see it’s hurrah for the Tsar,

+for Russia, for the Orthodox Greek faith! All that is beautiful, but

+what do we, I mean the Austrian court, care for your victories? Bring

+us nice news of a victory by the Archduke Karl or Ferdinand (one

+archduke’s as good as another, as you know) and even if it is only

+over a fire brigade of Bonaparte’s, that will be another story and

+we’ll fire off some cannon! But this sort of thing seems done

+on purpose to vex us. The Archduke Karl does nothing, the Archduke

+Ferdinand disgraces himself. You abandon Vienna, give up its

+defense—as much as to say: ‘Heaven is with us, but heaven help you

+and your capital!’ The one general whom we all loved, Schmidt, you

+expose to a bullet, and then you congratulate us on the victory! Admit

+that more irritating news than yours could not have been conceived.

+It’s as if it had been done on purpose, on purpose. Besides, suppose

+you did gain a brilliant victory, if even the Archduke Karl gained a

+victory, what effect would that have on the general course of events?

+It’s too late now when Vienna is occupied by the French army!”

+

+“What? Occupied? Vienna occupied?”

+

+“Not only occupied, but Bonaparte is at Schönbrunn, and the count,

+our dear Count Vrbna, goes to him for orders.”

+

+After the fatigues and impressions of the journey, his reception, and

+especially after having dined, Bolkónski felt that he could not take in

+the full significance of the words he heard.

+

+“Count Lichtenfels was here this morning,” Bilíbin continued,

+“and showed me a letter in which the parade of the French in Vienna

+was fully described: Prince Murat et tout le tremblement... You see that

+your victory is not a matter for great rejoicing and that you can’t be

+received as a savior.”

+

+“Really I don’t care about that, I don’t care at all,” said

+Prince Andrew, beginning to understand that his news of the battle

+before Krems was really of small importance in view of such events as

+the fall of Austria’s capital. “How is it Vienna was taken? What of

+the bridge and its celebrated bridgehead and Prince Auersperg? We heard

+reports that Prince Auersperg was defending Vienna?” he said.

+

+“Prince Auersperg is on this, on our side of the river, and is

+defending us—doing it very badly, I think, but still he is defending

+us. But Vienna is on the other side. No, the bridge has not yet been

+taken and I hope it will not be, for it is mined and orders have been

+given to blow it up. Otherwise we should long ago have been in the

+mountains of Bohemia, and you and your army would have spent a bad

+quarter of an hour between two fires.”

+

+“But still this does not mean that the campaign is over,” said

+Prince Andrew.

+

+“Well, I think it is. The bigwigs here think so too, but they

+daren’t say so. It will be as I said at the beginning of the campaign,

+it won’t be your skirmishing at Dürrenstein, or gunpowder at all,

+that will decide the matter, but those who devised it,” said Bilíbin

+quoting one of his own mots, releasing the wrinkles on his forehead, and

+pausing. “The only question is what will come of the meeting between

+the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia in Berlin? If Prussia

+joins the Allies, Austria’s hand will be forced and there will be war.

+If not it is merely a question of settling where the preliminaries of

+the new Campo Formio are to be drawn up.”

+

+“What an extraordinary genius!” Prince Andrew suddenly exclaimed,

+clenching his small hand and striking the table with it, “and what

+luck the man has!”

+

+“Buonaparte?” said Bilíbin inquiringly, puckering up his forehead

+to indicate that he was about to say something witty. “Buonaparte?”

+he repeated, accentuating the u: “I think, however, now that he lays

+down laws for Austria at Schönbrunn, il faut lui faire grâce de

+l’u! * I shall certainly adopt an innovation and call him simply

+Bonaparte!”

+

+    * “We must let him off the u!”

+

+

+“But joking apart,” said Prince Andrew, “do you really think the

+campaign is over?”

+

+“This is what I think. Austria has been made a fool of, and she is

+not used to it. She will retaliate. And she has been fooled in the

+first place because her provinces have been pillaged—they say the Holy

+Russian army loots terribly—her army is destroyed, her capital

+taken, and all this for the beaux yeux * of His Sardinian Majesty. And

+therefore—this is between ourselves—I instinctively feel that we

+are being deceived, my instinct tells me of negotiations with France and

+projects for peace, a secret peace concluded separately.”

+

+    * Fine eyes.

+

+“Impossible!” cried Prince Andrew. “That would be too base.”

+

+“If we live we shall see,” replied Bilíbin, his face again becoming

+smooth as a sign that the conversation was at an end.

+

+When Prince Andrew reached the room prepared for him and lay down in a

+clean shirt on the feather bed with its warmed and fragrant pillows, he

+felt that the battle of which he had brought tidings was far, far

+away from him. The alliance with Prussia, Austria’s treachery,

+Bonaparte’s new triumph, tomorrow’s levee and parade, and the

+audience with the Emperor Francis occupied his thoughts.

+

+He closed his eyes, and immediately a sound of cannonading, of musketry

+and the rattling of carriage wheels seemed to fill his ears, and now

+again drawn out in a thin line the musketeers were descending the hill,

+the French were firing, and he felt his heart palpitating as he rode

+forward beside Schmidt with the bullets merrily whistling all around,

+and he experienced tenfold the joy of living, as he had not done since

+childhood.

+

+He woke up...

+

+“Yes, that all happened!” he said, and, smiling happily to himself

+like a child, he fell into a deep, youthful slumber.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+Next day he woke late. Recalling his recent impressions, the first

+thought that came into his mind was that today he had to be presented

+to the Emperor Francis; he remembered the Minister of War, the polite

+Austrian adjutant, Bilíbin, and last night’s conversation. Having

+dressed for his attendance at court in full parade uniform, which he

+had not worn for a long time, he went into Bilíbin’s study fresh,

+animated, and handsome, with his hand bandaged. In the study were four

+gentlemen of the diplomatic corps. With Prince Hippolyte Kurágin,

+who was a secretary to the embassy, Bolkónski was already acquainted.

+Bilíbin introduced him to the others.

+

+The gentlemen assembled at Bilíbin’s were young, wealthy, gay society

+men, who here, as in Vienna, formed a special set which Bilíbin, their

+leader, called les nôtres. * This set, consisting almost exclusively of

+diplomats, evidently had its own interests which had nothing to do with

+war or politics but related to high society, to certain women, and to

+the official side of the service. These gentlemen received Prince

+Andrew as one of themselves, an honor they did not extend to many. From

+politeness and to start conversation, they asked him a few questions

+about the army and the battle, and then the talk went off into merry

+jests and gossip.

+

+    * Ours.

+

+“But the best of it was,” said one, telling of the misfortune of

+a fellow diplomat, “that the Chancellor told him flatly that his

+appointment to London was a promotion and that he was so to regard it.

+Can you fancy the figure he cut?...”

+

+“But the worst of it, gentlemen—I am giving Kurágin away to

+you—is that that man suffers, and this Don Juan, wicked fellow, is

+taking advantage of it!”

+

+Prince Hippolyte was lolling in a lounge chair with his legs over its

+arm. He began to laugh.

+

+“Tell me about that!” he said.

+

+“Oh, you Don Juan! You serpent!” cried several voices.

+

+“You, Bolkónski, don’t know,” said Bilíbin turning to Prince

+Andrew, “that all the atrocities of the French army (I nearly said of

+the Russian army) are nothing compared to what this man has been doing

+among the women!”

+

+“La femme est la compagne de l’homme,” * announced Prince

+Hippolyte, and began looking through a lorgnette at his elevated legs.

+

+    * “Woman is man’s companion.”

+

+

+Bilíbin and the rest of “ours” burst out laughing in Hippolyte’s

+face, and Prince Andrew saw that Hippolyte, of whom—he had to

+admit—he had almost been jealous on his wife’s account, was the butt

+of this set.

+

+“Oh, I must give you a treat,” Bilíbin whispered to Bolkónski.

+“Kurágin is exquisite when he discusses politics—you should see his

+gravity!”

+

+He sat down beside Hippolyte and wrinkling his forehead began talking

+to him about politics. Prince Andrew and the others gathered round these

+two.

+

+“The Berlin cabinet cannot express a feeling of alliance,” began

+Hippolyte gazing round with importance at the others, “without

+expressing... as in its last note... you understand... Besides, unless

+His Majesty the Emperor derogates from the principle of our alliance...

+

+“Wait, I have not finished...” he said to Prince Andrew, seizing

+him by the arm, “I believe that intervention will be stronger than

+nonintervention. And...” he paused. “Finally one cannot impute the

+nonreceipt of our dispatch of November 18. That is how it will end.”

+And he released Bolkónski’s arm to indicate that he had now quite

+finished.

+

+“Demosthenes, I know thee by the pebble thou secretest in thy golden

+mouth!” said Bilíbin, and the mop of hair on his head moved with

+satisfaction.

+

+Everybody laughed, and Hippolyte louder than anyone. He was evidently

+distressed, and breathed painfully, but could not restrain the wild

+laughter that convulsed his usually impassive features.

+

+“Well now, gentlemen,” said Bilíbin, “Bolkónski is my guest in

+this house and in Brünn itself. I want to entertain him as far as I

+can, with all the pleasures of life here. If we were in Vienna it would

+be easy, but here, in this wretched Moravian hole, it is more difficult,

+and I beg you all to help me. Brünn’s attractions must be shown him.

+You can undertake the theater, I society, and you, Hippolyte, of course

+the women.”

+

+“We must let him see Amelie, she’s exquisite!” said one of

+“ours,” kissing his finger tips.

+

+“In general we must turn this bloodthirsty soldier to more humane

+interests,” said Bilíbin.

+

+“I shall scarcely be able to avail myself of your hospitality,

+gentlemen, it is already time for me to go,” replied Prince Andrew

+looking at his watch.

+

+“Where to?”

+

+“To the Emperor.”

+

+“Oh! Oh! Oh!”

+

+“Well, au revoir, Bolkónski! Au revoir, Prince! Come back early to

+dinner,” cried several voices. “We’ll take you in hand.”

+

+“When speaking to the Emperor, try as far as you can to praise the way

+that provisions are supplied and the routes indicated,” said Bilíbin,

+accompanying him to the hall.

+

+“I should like to speak well of them, but as far as I know the facts,

+I can’t,” replied Bolkónski, smiling.

+

+“Well, talk as much as you can, anyway. He has a passion for giving

+audiences, but he does not like talking himself and can’t do it, as

+you will see.”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+At the levee Prince Andrew stood among the Austrian officers as he had

+been told to, and the Emperor Francis merely looked fixedly into his

+face and just nodded to him with his long head. But after it was

+over, the adjutant he had seen the previous day ceremoniously informed

+Bolkónski that the Emperor desired to give him an audience. The Emperor

+Francis received him standing in the middle of the room. Before the

+conversation began Prince Andrew was struck by the fact that the Emperor

+seemed confused and blushed as if not knowing what to say.

+

+“Tell me, when did the battle begin?” he asked hurriedly.

+

+Prince Andrew replied. Then followed other questions just as simple:

+“Was Kutúzov well? When had he left Krems?” and so on. The Emperor

+spoke as if his sole aim were to put a given number of questions—the

+answers to these questions, as was only too evident, did not interest

+him.

+

+“At what o’clock did the battle begin?” asked the Emperor.

+

+“I cannot inform Your Majesty at what o’clock the battle began at

+the front, but at Dürrenstein, where I was, our attack began after

+five in the afternoon,” replied Bolkónski growing more animated and

+expecting that he would have a chance to give a reliable account, which

+he had ready in his mind, of all he knew and had seen. But the Emperor

+smiled and interrupted him.

+

+“How many miles?”

+

+“From where to where, Your Majesty?”

+

+“From Dürrenstein to Krems.”

+

+“Three and a half miles, Your Majesty.”

+

+“The French have abandoned the left bank?”

+

+“According to the scouts the last of them crossed on rafts during the

+night.”

+

+“Is there sufficient forage in Krems?”

+

+“Forage has not been supplied to the extent...”

+

+The Emperor interrupted him.

+

+“At what o’clock was General Schmidt killed?”

+

+“At seven o’clock, I believe.”

+

+“At seven o’clock? It’s very sad, very sad!”

+

+The Emperor thanked Prince Andrew and bowed. Prince Andrew withdrew and

+was immediately surrounded by courtiers on all sides. Everywhere he

+saw friendly looks and heard friendly words. Yesterday’s adjutant

+reproached him for not having stayed at the palace, and offered him

+his own house. The Minister of War came up and congratulated him on the

+Maria Theresa Order of the third grade, which the Emperor was conferring

+on him. The Empress’ chamberlain invited him to see Her Majesty. The

+archduchess also wished to see him. He did not know whom to answer, and

+for a few seconds collected his thoughts. Then the Russian ambassador

+took him by the shoulder, led him to the window, and began to talk to

+him.

+

+Contrary to Bilíbin’s forecast the news he had brought was joyfully

+received. A thanksgiving service was arranged, Kutúzov was awarded

+the Grand Cross of Maria Theresa, and the whole army received rewards.

+Bolkónski was invited everywhere, and had to spend the whole morning

+calling on the principal Austrian dignitaries. Between four and five

+in the afternoon, having made all his calls, he was returning to

+Bilíbin’s house thinking out a letter to his father about the battle

+and his visit to Brünn. At the door he found a vehicle half full of

+luggage. Franz, Bilíbin’s man, was dragging a portmanteau with some

+difficulty out of the front door.

+

+Before returning to Bilíbin’s Prince Andrew had gone to a bookshop

+to provide himself with some books for the campaign, and had spent some

+time in the shop.

+

+“What is it?” he asked.

+

+“Oh, your excellency!” said Franz, with difficulty rolling the

+portmanteau into the vehicle, “we are to move on still farther. The

+scoundrel is again at our heels!”

+

+“Eh? What?” asked Prince Andrew.

+

+Bilíbin came out to meet him. His usually calm face showed excitement.

+

+“There now! Confess that this is delightful,” said he. “This

+affair of the Thabor Bridge, at Vienna.... They have crossed without

+striking a blow!”

+

+Prince Andrew could not understand.

+

+“But where do you come from not to know what every coachman in the

+town knows?”

+

+“I come from the archduchess’. I heard nothing there.”

+

+“And you didn’t see that everybody is packing up?”

+

+“I did not... What is it all about?” inquired Prince Andrew

+impatiently.

+

+“What’s it all about? Why, the French have crossed the bridge that

+Auersperg was defending, and the bridge was not blown up: so Murat

+is now rushing along the road to Brünn and will be here in a day or

+two.”

+

+“What? Here? But why did they not blow up the bridge, if it was

+mined?”

+

+“That is what I ask you. No one, not even Bonaparte, knows why.”

+

+Bolkónski shrugged his shoulders.

+

+“But if the bridge is crossed it means that the army too is lost? It

+will be cut off,” said he.

+

+“That’s just it,” answered Bilíbin. “Listen! The French entered

+Vienna as I told you. Very well. Next day, which was yesterday, those

+gentlemen, messieurs les maréchaux, * Murat, Lannes, and Belliard,

+mount and ride to the bridge. (Observe that all three are Gascons.)

+‘Gentlemen,’ says one of them, ‘you know the Thabor Bridge is

+mined and doubly mined and that there are menacing fortifications at its

+head and an army of fifteen thousand men has been ordered to blow up

+the bridge and not let us cross? But it will please our sovereign the

+Emperor Napoleon if we take this bridge, so let us three go and take

+it!’ ‘Yes, let’s!’ say the others. And off they go and take the

+bridge, cross it, and now with their whole army are on this side of the

+Danube, marching on us, you, and your lines of communication.”

+

+    * The marshalls.

+

+“Stop jesting,” said Prince Andrew sadly and seriously. This news

+grieved him and yet he was pleased.

+

+As soon as he learned that the Russian army was in such a hopeless

+situation it occurred to him that it was he who was destined to lead it

+out of this position; that here was the Toulon that would lift him from

+the ranks of obscure officers and offer him the first step to fame!

+Listening to Bilíbin he was already imagining how on reaching the army

+he would give an opinion at the war council which would be the only one

+that could save the army, and how he alone would be entrusted with the

+executing of the plan.

+

+“Stop this jesting,” he said.

+

+“I am not jesting,” Bilíbin went on. “Nothing is truer or sadder.

+These gentlemen ride onto the bridge alone and wave white handkerchiefs;

+they assure the officer on duty that they, the marshals, are on

+their way to negotiate with Prince Auersperg. He lets them enter the

+tête-de-pont. * They spin him a thousand gasconades, saying that

+the war is over, that the Emperor Francis is arranging a meeting with

+Bonaparte, that they desire to see Prince Auersperg, and so on. The

+officer sends for Auersperg; these gentlemen embrace the officers, crack

+jokes, sit on the cannon, and meanwhile a French battalion gets to

+the bridge unobserved, flings the bags of incendiary material into

+the water, and approaches the tête-de-pont. At length appears the

+lieutenant general, our dear Prince Auersperg von Mautern himself.

+‘Dearest foe! Flower of the Austrian army, hero of the Turkish wars!

+Hostilities are ended, we can shake one another’s hand.... The

+Emperor Napoleon burns with impatience to make Prince Auersperg’s

+acquaintance.’ In a word, those gentlemen, Gascons indeed, so

+bewildered him with fine words, and he is so flattered by his rapidly

+established intimacy with the French marshals, and so dazzled by the

+sight of Murat’s mantle and ostrich plumes, qu’il n’y voit que du

+feu, et oublie celui qu’il devait faire faire sur l’ennemi!” *(2)

+In spite of the animation of his speech, Bilíbin did not forget to

+pause after this mot to give time for its due appreciation. “The

+French battalion rushes to the bridgehead, spikes the guns, and the

+bridge is taken! But what is best of all,” he went on, his excitement

+subsiding under the delightful interest of his own story, “is that the

+sergeant in charge of the cannon which was to give the signal to fire

+the mines and blow up the bridge, this sergeant, seeing that the French

+troops were running onto the bridge, was about to fire, but Lannes

+stayed his hand. The sergeant, who was evidently wiser than his general,

+goes up to Auersperg and says: ‘Prince, you are being deceived, here

+are the French!’ Murat, seeing that all is lost if the sergeant is

+allowed to speak, turns to Auersperg with feigned astonishment (he is a

+true Gascon) and says: ‘I don’t recognize the world-famous Austrian

+discipline, if you allow a subordinate to address you like that!’ It

+was a stroke of genius. Prince Auersperg feels his dignity at stake and

+orders the sergeant to be arrested. Come, you must own that this affair

+of the Thabor Bridge is delightful! It is not exactly stupidity, nor

+rascality....”

+

+     * Bridgehead.

+

+     * (2) That their fire gets into his eyes and he forgets that

+     he ought to be firing at the enemy.

+

+“It may be treachery,” said Prince Andrew, vividly imagining the

+gray overcoats, wounds, the smoke of gunpowder, the sounds of firing,

+and the glory that awaited him.

+

+“Not that either. That puts the court in too bad a light,” replied

+Bilíbin. “It’s not treachery nor rascality nor stupidity: it is

+just as at Ulm... it is...”—he seemed to be trying to find the right

+expression. “C’est... c’est du Mack. Nous sommes mackés (It is...

+it is a bit of Mack. We are Macked),” he concluded, feeling that he

+had produced a good epigram, a fresh one that would be repeated. His

+hitherto puckered brow became smooth as a sign of pleasure, and with a

+slight smile he began to examine his nails.

+

+“Where are you off to?” he said suddenly to Prince Andrew who had

+risen and was going toward his room.

+

+“I am going away.”

+

+“Where to?”

+

+“To the army.”

+

+“But you meant to stay another two days?”

+

+“But now I am off at once.”

+

+And Prince Andrew after giving directions about his departure went to

+his room.

+

+“Do you know, mon cher,” said Bilíbin following him, “I have been

+thinking about you. Why are you going?”

+

+And in proof of the conclusiveness of his opinion all the wrinkles

+vanished from his face.

+

+Prince Andrew looked inquiringly at him and gave no reply.

+

+“Why are you going? I know you think it your duty to gallop back to

+the army now that it is in danger. I understand that. Mon cher, it is

+heroism!”

+

+“Not at all,” said Prince Andrew.

+

+“But as you are a philosopher, be a consistent one, look at the other

+side of the question and you will see that your duty, on the contrary,

+is to take care of yourself. Leave it to those who are no longer fit for

+anything else.... You have not been ordered to return and have not been

+dismissed from here; therefore, you can stay and go with us wherever our

+ill luck takes us. They say we are going to Olmütz, and Olmütz is a

+very decent town. You and I will travel comfortably in my calèche.”

+

+“Do stop joking, Bilíbin,” cried Bolkónski.

+

+“I am speaking sincerely as a friend! Consider! Where and why are

+you going, when you might remain here? You are faced by one of two

+things,” and the skin over his left temple puckered, “either you

+will not reach your regiment before peace is concluded, or you will

+share defeat and disgrace with Kutúzov’s whole army.”

+

+And Bilíbin unwrinkled his temple, feeling that the dilemma was

+insoluble.

+

+“I cannot argue about it,” replied Prince Andrew coldly, but he

+thought: “I am going to save the army.”

+

+“My dear fellow, you are a hero!” said Bilíbin.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+That same night, having taken leave of the Minister of War, Bolkónski

+set off to rejoin the army, not knowing where he would find it and

+fearing to be captured by the French on the way to Krems.

+

+In Brünn everybody attached to the court was packing up, and the heavy

+baggage was already being dispatched to Olmütz. Near Hetzelsdorf Prince

+Andrew struck the high road along which the Russian army was moving with

+great haste and in the greatest disorder. The road was so obstructed

+with carts that it was impossible to get by in a carriage. Prince Andrew

+took a horse and a Cossack from a Cossack commander, and hungry and

+weary, making his way past the baggage wagons, rode in search of the

+commander in chief and of his own luggage. Very sinister reports of the

+position of the army reached him as he went along, and the appearance of

+the troops in their disorderly flight confirmed these rumors.

+

+“Cette armée russe que l’or de l’Angleterre a transportée des

+extrémités de l’univers, nous allons lui faire éprouver le même

+sort—(le sort de l’armée d’Ulm).” * He remembered these words

+in Bonaparte’s address to his army at the beginning of the campaign,

+and they awoke in him astonishment at the genius of his hero, a feeling

+of wounded pride, and a hope of glory. “And should there be nothing

+left but to die?” he thought. “Well, if need be, I shall do it no

+worse than others.”

+

+     * “That Russian army which has been brought from the ends of

+     the earth by English gold, we shall cause to share the same

+     fate—(the fate of the army at Ulm).”

+

+

+He looked with disdain at the endless confused mass of detachments,

+carts, guns, artillery, and again baggage wagons and vehicles of all

+kinds overtaking one another and blocking the muddy road, three and

+sometimes four abreast. From all sides, behind and before, as far as ear

+could reach, there were the rattle of wheels, the creaking of carts

+and gun carriages, the tramp of horses, the crack of whips, shouts, the

+urging of horses, and the swearing of soldiers, orderlies, and officers.

+All along the sides of the road fallen horses were to be seen, some

+flayed, some not, and broken-down carts beside which solitary soldiers

+sat waiting for something, and again soldiers straggling from their

+companies, crowds of whom set off to the neighboring villages, or

+returned from them dragging sheep, fowls, hay, and bulging sacks. At

+each ascent or descent of the road the crowds were yet denser and the

+din of shouting more incessant. Soldiers floundering knee-deep in mud

+pushed the guns and wagons themselves. Whips cracked, hoofs slipped,

+traces broke, and lungs were strained with shouting. The officers

+directing the march rode backward and forward between the carts. Their

+voices were but feebly heard amid the uproar and one saw by their faces

+that they despaired of the possibility of checking this disorder.

+

+“Here is our dear Orthodox Russian army,” thought Bolkónski,

+recalling Bilíbin’s words.

+

+Wishing to find out where the commander in chief was, he rode up to

+a convoy. Directly opposite to him came a strange one-horse vehicle,

+evidently rigged up by soldiers out of any available materials and

+looking like something between a cart, a cabriolet, and a calèche.

+A soldier was driving, and a woman enveloped in shawls sat behind the

+apron under the leather hood of the vehicle. Prince Andrew rode up

+and was just putting his question to a soldier when his attention

+was diverted by the desperate shrieks of the woman in the vehicle. An

+officer in charge of transport was beating the soldier who was driving

+the woman’s vehicle for trying to get ahead of others, and the strokes

+of his whip fell on the apron of the equipage. The woman screamed

+piercingly. Seeing Prince Andrew she leaned out from behind the apron

+and, waving her thin arms from under the woolen shawl, cried:

+

+“Mr. Aide-de-camp! Mr. Aide-de-camp!... For heaven’s sake... Protect

+me! What will become of us? I am the wife of the doctor of the Seventh

+Chasseurs.... They won’t let us pass, we are left behind and have lost

+our people...”

+

+“I’ll flatten you into a pancake!” shouted the angry officer to

+the soldier. “Turn back with your slut!”

+

+“Mr. Aide-de-camp! Help me!... What does it all mean?” screamed the

+doctor’s wife.

+

+“Kindly let this cart pass. Don’t you see it’s a woman?” said

+Prince Andrew riding up to the officer.

+

+The officer glanced at him, and without replying turned again to the

+soldier. “I’ll teach you to push on!... Back!”

+

+“Let them pass, I tell you!” repeated Prince Andrew, compressing his

+lips.

+

+“And who are you?” cried the officer, turning on him with tipsy

+rage, “who are you? Are you in command here? Eh? I am commander here,

+not you! Go back or I’ll flatten you into a pancake,” repeated he.

+This expression evidently pleased him.

+

+“That was a nice snub for the little aide-de-camp,” came a voice

+from behind.

+

+Prince Andrew saw that the officer was in that state of senseless,

+tipsy rage when a man does not know what he is saying. He saw that his

+championship of the doctor’s wife in her queer trap might expose him

+to what he dreaded more than anything in the world—to ridicule; but

+his instinct urged him on. Before the officer finished his sentence

+Prince Andrew, his face distorted with fury, rode up to him and raised

+his riding whip.

+

+“Kind...ly let—them—pass!”

+

+The officer flourished his arm and hastily rode away.

+

+“It’s all the fault of these fellows on the staff that there’s

+this disorder,” he muttered. “Do as you like.”

+

+Prince Andrew without lifting his eyes rode hastily away from the

+doctor’s wife, who was calling him her deliverer, and recalling with

+a sense of disgust the minutest details of this humiliating scene he

+galloped on to the village where he was told that the commander in chief

+was.

+

+On reaching the village he dismounted and went to the nearest house,

+intending to rest if but for a moment, eat something, and try to sort

+out the stinging and tormenting thoughts that confused his mind. “This

+is a mob of scoundrels and not an army,” he was thinking as he went

+up to the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by

+name.

+

+He turned round. Nesvítski’s handsome face looked out of the little

+window. Nesvítski, moving his moist lips as he chewed something, and

+flourishing his arm, called him to enter.

+

+“Bolkónski! Bolkónski!... Don’t you hear? Eh? Come quick...” he

+shouted.

+

+Entering the house, Prince Andrew saw Nesvítski and another adjutant

+having something to eat. They hastily turned round to him asking if he

+had any news. On their familiar faces he read agitation and alarm.

+This was particularly noticeable on Nesvítski’s usually laughing

+countenance.

+

+“Where is the commander in chief?” asked Bolkónski.

+

+“Here, in that house,” answered the adjutant.

+

+“Well, is it true that it’s peace and capitulation?” asked

+Nesvítski.

+

+“I was going to ask you. I know nothing except that it was all I could

+do to get here.”

+

+“And we, my dear boy! It’s terrible! I was wrong to laugh at Mack,

+we’re getting it still worse,” said Nesvítski. “But sit down and

+have something to eat.”

+

+“You won’t be able to find either your baggage or anything else now,

+Prince. And God only knows where your man Peter is,” said the other

+adjutant.

+

+“Where are headquarters?”

+

+“We are to spend the night in Znaim.”

+

+“Well, I have got all I need into packs for two horses,” said

+Nesvítski. “They’ve made up splendid packs for me—fit to cross

+the Bohemian mountains with. It’s a bad lookout, old fellow! But

+what’s the matter with you? You must be ill to shiver like that,” he

+added, noticing that Prince Andrew winced as at an electric shock.

+

+“It’s nothing,” replied Prince Andrew.

+

+He had just remembered his recent encounter with the doctor’s wife and

+the convoy officer.

+

+“What is the commander in chief doing here?” he asked.

+

+“I can’t make out at all,” said Nesvítski.

+

+“Well, all I can make out is that everything is abominable,

+abominable, quite abominable!” said Prince Andrew, and he went off to

+the house where the commander in chief was.

+

+Passing by Kutúzov’s carriage and the exhausted saddle horses of

+his suite, with their Cossacks who were talking loudly together, Prince

+Andrew entered the passage. Kutúzov himself, he was told, was in the

+house with Prince Bagratión and Weyrother. Weyrother was the Austrian

+general who had succeeded Schmidt. In the passage little Kozlóvski was

+squatting on his heels in front of a clerk. The clerk, with cuffs turned

+up, was hastily writing at a tub turned bottom upwards. Kozlóvski’s

+face looked worn—he too had evidently not slept all night. He glanced

+at Prince Andrew and did not even nod to him.

+

+“Second line... have you written it?” he continued dictating to the

+clerk. “The Kiev Grenadiers, Podolian...”

+

+“One can’t write so fast, your honor,” said the clerk, glancing

+angrily and disrespectfully at Kozlóvski.

+

+Through the door came the sounds of Kutúzov’s voice, excited and

+dissatisfied, interrupted by another, an unfamiliar voice. From the

+sound of these voices, the inattentive way Kozlóvski looked at him, the

+disrespectful manner of the exhausted clerk, the fact that the clerk and

+Kozlóvski were squatting on the floor by a tub so near to the commander

+in chief, and from the noisy laughter of the Cossacks holding the

+horses near the window, Prince Andrew felt that something important and

+disastrous was about to happen.

+

+He turned to Kozlóvski with urgent questions.

+

+“Immediately, Prince,” said Kozlóvski. “Dispositions for

+Bagratión.”

+

+“What about capitulation?”

+

+“Nothing of the sort. Orders are issued for a battle.”

+

+Prince Andrew moved toward the door from whence voices were heard.

+Just as he was going to open it the sounds ceased, the door opened, and

+Kutúzov with his eagle nose and puffy face appeared in the doorway.

+Prince Andrew stood right in front of Kutúzov but the expression of

+the commander in chief’s one sound eye showed him to be so preoccupied

+with thoughts and anxieties as to be oblivious of his presence. He

+looked straight at his adjutant’s face without recognizing him.

+

+“Well, have you finished?” said he to Kozlóvski.

+

+“One moment, your excellency.”

+

+Bagratión, a gaunt middle-aged man of medium height with a firm,

+impassive face of Oriental type, came out after the commander in chief.

+

+“I have the honor to present myself,” repeated Prince Andrew rather

+loudly, handing Kutúzov an envelope.

+

+“Ah, from Vienna? Very good. Later, later!”

+

+Kutúzov went out into the porch with Bagratión.

+

+“Well, good-by, Prince,” said he to Bagratión. “My blessing, and

+may Christ be with you in your great endeavor!”

+

+His face suddenly softened and tears came into his eyes. With his left

+hand he drew Bagratión toward him, and with his right, on which he wore

+a ring, he made the sign of the cross over him with a gesture evidently

+habitual, offering his puffy cheek, but Bagratión kissed him on the

+neck instead.

+

+“Christ be with you!” Kutúzov repeated and went toward his

+carriage. “Get in with me,” said he to Bolkónski.

+

+“Your excellency, I should like to be of use here. Allow me to remain

+with Prince Bagratión’s detachment.”

+

+“Get in,” said Kutúzov, and noticing that Bolkónski still delayed,

+he added: “I need good officers myself, need them myself!”

+

+They got into the carriage and drove for a few minutes in silence.

+

+“There is still much, much before us,” he said, as if with an old

+man’s penetration he understood all that was passing in Bolkónski’s

+mind. “If a tenth part of his detachment returns I shall thank God,”

+he added as if speaking to himself.

+

+Prince Andrew glanced at Kutúzov’s face only a foot distant from him

+and involuntarily noticed the carefully washed seams of the scar near

+his temple, where an Ismail bullet had pierced his skull, and the empty

+eye socket. “Yes, he has a right to speak so calmly of those men’s

+death,” thought Bolkónski.

+

+“That is why I beg to be sent to that detachment,” he said.

+

+Kutúzov did not reply. He seemed to have forgotten what he had been

+saying, and sat plunged in thought. Five minutes later, gently swaying

+on the soft springs of the carriage, he turned to Prince Andrew.

+There was not a trace of agitation on his face. With delicate irony he

+questioned Prince Andrew about the details of his interview with the

+Emperor, about the remarks he had heard at court concerning the Krems

+affair, and about some ladies they both knew.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV

+

+On November 1 Kutúzov had received, through a spy, news that the army

+he commanded was in an almost hopeless position. The spy reported that

+the French, after crossing the bridge at Vienna, were advancing in

+immense force upon Kutúzov’s line of communication with the troops

+that were arriving from Russia. If Kutúzov decided to remain at Krems,

+Napoleon’s army of one hundred and fifty thousand men would cut him

+off completely and surround his exhausted army of forty thousand, and he

+would find himself in the position of Mack at Ulm. If Kutúzov decided

+to abandon the road connecting him with the troops arriving from Russia,

+he would have to march with no road into unknown parts of the Bohemian

+mountains, defending himself against superior forces of the enemy and

+abandoning all hope of a junction with Buxhöwden. If Kutúzov decided

+to retreat along the road from Krems to Olmütz, to unite with the

+troops arriving from Russia, he risked being forestalled on that road

+by the French who had crossed the Vienna bridge, and encumbered by his

+baggage and transport, having to accept battle on the march against an

+enemy three times as strong, who would hem him in from two sides.

+

+Kutúzov chose this latter course.

+

+The French, the spy reported, having crossed the Vienna bridge, were

+advancing by forced marches toward Znaim, which lay sixty-six miles

+off on the line of Kutúzov’s retreat. If he reached Znaim before the

+French, there would be great hope of saving the army; to let the

+French forestall him at Znaim meant the exposure of his whole army to a

+disgrace such as that of Ulm, or to utter destruction. But to forestall

+the French with his whole army was impossible. The road for the French

+from Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the road for the

+Russians from Krems to Znaim.

+

+The night he received the news, Kutúzov sent Bagratión’s vanguard,

+four thousand strong, to the right across the hills from the Krems-Znaim

+to the Vienna-Znaim road. Bagratión was to make this march without

+resting, and to halt facing Vienna with Znaim to his rear, and if he

+succeeded in forestalling the French he was to delay them as long as

+possible. Kutúzov himself with all his transport took the road to

+Znaim.

+

+Marching thirty miles that stormy night across roadless hills, with his

+hungry, ill-shod soldiers, and losing a third of his men as stragglers

+by the way, Bagratión came out on the Vienna-Znaim road at Hollabrünn

+a few hours ahead of the French who were approaching Hollabrünn from

+Vienna. Kutúzov with his transport had still to march for some days

+before he could reach Znaim. Hence Bagratión with his four thousand

+hungry, exhausted men would have to detain for days the whole enemy army

+that came upon him at Hollabrünn, which was clearly impossible. But

+a freak of fate made the impossible possible. The success of the trick

+that had placed the Vienna bridge in the hands of the French without

+a fight led Murat to try to deceive Kutúzov in a similar way. Meeting

+Bagratión’s weak detachment on the Znaim road he supposed it to be

+Kutúzov’s whole army. To be able to crush it absolutely he awaited

+the arrival of the rest of the troops who were on their way from Vienna,

+and with this object offered a three days’ truce on condition that

+both armies should remain in position without moving. Murat declared

+that negotiations for peace were already proceeding, and that he

+therefore offered this truce to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Count

+Nostitz, the Austrian general occupying the advanced posts, believed

+Murat’s emissary and retired, leaving Bagratión’s division

+exposed. Another emissary rode to the Russian line to announce the peace

+negotiations and to offer the Russian army the three days’ truce.

+Bagratión replied that he was not authorized either to accept or refuse

+a truce and sent his adjutant to Kutúzov to report the offer he had

+received.

+

+A truce was Kutúzov’s sole chance of gaining time, giving

+Bagratión’s exhausted troops some rest, and letting the transport and

+heavy convoys (whose movements were concealed from the French) advance

+if but one stage nearer Znaim. The offer of a truce gave the only, and

+a quite unexpected, chance of saving the army. On receiving the news

+he immediately dispatched Adjutant General Wintzingerode, who was in

+attendance on him, to the enemy camp. Wintzingerode was not merely

+to agree to the truce but also to offer terms of capitulation, and

+meanwhile Kutúzov sent his adjutants back to hasten to the utmost the

+movements of the baggage trains of the entire army along the Krems-Znaim

+road. Bagratión’s exhausted and hungry detachment, which alone

+covered this movement of the transport and of the whole army, had to

+remain stationary in face of an enemy eight times as strong as itself.

+

+Kutúzov’s expectations that the proposals of capitulation (which were

+in no way binding) might give time for part of the transport to pass,

+and also that Murat’s mistake would very soon be discovered, proved

+correct. As soon as Bonaparte (who was at Schönbrunn, sixteen miles

+from Hollabrünn) received Murat’s dispatch with the proposal of a

+truce and a capitulation, he detected a ruse and wrote the following

+letter to Murat:

+

+Schönbrunn, 25th Brumaire, 1805,

+

+at eight o’clock in the morning

+

+To PRINCE MURAT,

+

+I cannot find words to express to you my displeasure. You command only

+my advance guard, and have no right to arrange an armistice without my

+order. You are causing me to lose the fruits of a campaign. Break

+the armistice immediately and march on the enemy. Inform him that the

+general who signed that capitulation had no right to do so, and that no

+one but the Emperor of Russia has that right.

+

+If, however, the Emperor of Russia ratifies that convention, I will

+ratify it; but it is only a trick. March on, destroy the Russian

+army.... You are in a position to seize its baggage and artillery.

+

+The Russian Emperor’s aide-de-camp is an impostor. Officers are

+nothing when they have no powers; this one had none.... The Austrians

+let themselves be tricked at the crossing of the Vienna bridge, you are

+letting yourself be tricked by an aide-de-camp of the Emperor.

+

+NAPOLEON

+

+Bonaparte’s adjutant rode full gallop with this menacing letter to

+Murat. Bonaparte himself, not trusting to his generals, moved with all

+the Guards to the field of battle, afraid of letting a ready victim

+escape, and Bagratión’s four thousand men merrily lighted campfires,

+dried and warmed themselves, cooked their porridge for the first time

+for three days, and not one of them knew or imagined what was in store

+for him.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV

+

+Between three and four o’clock in the afternoon Prince Andrew, who

+had persisted in his request to Kutúzov, arrived at Grunth and reported

+himself to Bagratión. Bonaparte’s adjutant had not yet reached

+Murat’s detachment and the battle had not yet begun. In Bagratión’s

+detachment no one knew anything of the general position of affairs. They

+talked of peace but did not believe in its possibility; others talked

+of a battle but also disbelieved in the nearness of an engagement.

+Bagratión, knowing Bolkónski to be a favorite and trusted adjutant,

+received him with distinction and special marks of favor, explaining to

+him that there would probably be an engagement that day or the next, and

+giving him full liberty to remain with him during the battle or to join

+the rearguard and have an eye on the order of retreat, “which is also

+very important.”

+

+“However, there will hardly be an engagement today,” said Bagratión

+as if to reassure Prince Andrew.

+

+“If he is one of the ordinary little staff dandies sent to earn a

+medal he can get his reward just as well in the rearguard, but if he

+wishes to stay with me, let him... he’ll be of use here if he’s a

+brave officer,” thought Bagratión. Prince Andrew, without replying,

+asked the prince’s permission to ride round the position to see the

+disposition of the forces, so as to know his bearings should he be sent

+to execute an order. The officer on duty, a handsome, elegantly dressed

+man with a diamond ring on his forefinger, who was fond of speaking

+French though he spoke it badly, offered to conduct Prince Andrew.

+

+On all sides they saw rain-soaked officers with dejected faces who

+seemed to be seeking something, and soldiers dragging doors, benches,

+and fencing from the village.

+

+“There now, Prince! We can’t stop those fellows,” said the staff

+officer pointing to the soldiers. “The officers don’t keep them in

+hand. And there,” he pointed to a sutler’s tent, “they crowd in

+and sit. This morning I turned them all out and now look, it’s full

+again. I must go there, Prince, and scare them a bit. It won’t take a

+moment.”

+

+“Yes, let’s go in and I will get myself a roll and some cheese,”

+said Prince Andrew who had not yet had time to eat anything.

+

+“Why didn’t you mention it, Prince? I would have offered you

+something.”

+

+They dismounted and entered the tent. Several officers, with flushed and

+weary faces, were sitting at the table eating and drinking.

+

+“Now what does this mean, gentlemen?” said the staff officer, in

+the reproachful tone of a man who has repeated the same thing more

+than once. “You know it won’t do to leave your posts like this.

+The prince gave orders that no one should leave his post. Now you,

+Captain,” and he turned to a thin, dirty little artillery officer who

+without his boots (he had given them to the canteen keeper to dry),

+in only his stockings, rose when they entered, smiling not altogether

+comfortably.

+

+“Well, aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Captain Túshin?” he

+continued. “One would think that as an artillery officer you would set

+a good example, yet here you are without your boots! The alarm will be

+sounded and you’ll be in a pretty position without your boots!” (The

+staff officer smiled.) “Kindly return to your posts, gentlemen, all of

+you, all!” he added in a tone of command.

+

+Prince Andrew smiled involuntarily as he looked at the artillery officer

+Túshin, who silent and smiling, shifting from one stockinged foot to

+the other, glanced inquiringly with his large, intelligent, kindly eyes

+from Prince Andrew to the staff officer.

+

+“The soldiers say it feels easier without boots,” said Captain

+Túshin smiling shyly in his uncomfortable position, evidently wishing

+to adopt a jocular tone. But before he had finished he felt that his

+jest was unacceptable and had not come off. He grew confused.

+

+“Kindly return to your posts,” said the staff officer trying to

+preserve his gravity.

+

+Prince Andrew glanced again at the artillery officer’s small figure.

+There was something peculiar about it, quite unsoldierly, rather comic,

+but extremely attractive.

+

+The staff officer and Prince Andrew mounted their horses and rode on.

+

+Having ridden beyond the village, continually meeting and overtaking

+soldiers and officers of various regiments, they saw on their left some

+entrenchments being thrown up, the freshly dug clay of which showed up

+red. Several battalions of soldiers, in their shirt sleeves despite

+the cold wind, swarmed in these earthworks like a host of white ants;

+spadefuls of red clay were continually being thrown up from behind the

+bank by unseen hands. Prince Andrew and the officer rode up, looked at

+the entrenchment, and went on again. Just behind it they came upon some

+dozens of soldiers, continually replaced by others, who ran from the

+entrenchment. They had to hold their noses and put their horses to a

+trot to escape from the poisoned atmosphere of these latrines.

+

+“Voilà l’agrément des camps, monsieur le prince,” * said the

+staff officer.

+

+    * “This is a pleasure one gets in camp, Prince.”

+

+

+They rode up the opposite hill. From there the French could already be

+seen. Prince Andrew stopped and began examining the position.

+

+“That’s our battery,” said the staff officer indicating the

+highest point. “It’s in charge of the queer fellow we saw without

+his boots. You can see everything from there; let’s go there,

+Prince.”

+

+“Thank you very much, I will go on alone,” said Prince Andrew,

+wishing to rid himself of this staff officer’s company, “please

+don’t trouble yourself further.”

+

+The staff officer remained behind and Prince Andrew rode on alone.

+

+The farther forward and nearer the enemy he went, the more orderly and

+cheerful were the troops. The greatest disorder and depression had been

+in the baggage train he had passed that morning on the Znaim road seven

+miles away from the French. At Grunth also some apprehension and alarm

+could be felt, but the nearer Prince Andrew came to the French lines the

+more confident was the appearance of our troops. The soldiers in

+their greatcoats were ranged in lines, the sergeants major and company

+officers were counting the men, poking the last man in each section in

+the ribs and telling him to hold his hand up. Soldiers scattered over

+the whole place were dragging logs and brushwood and were building

+shelters with merry chatter and laughter; around the fires sat others,

+dressed and undressed, drying their shirts and leg bands or mending

+boots or overcoats and crowding round the boilers and porridge cookers.

+In one company dinner was ready, and the soldiers were gazing eagerly

+at the steaming boiler, waiting till the sample, which a quartermaster

+sergeant was carrying in a wooden bowl to an officer who sat on a log

+before his shelter, had been tasted.

+

+Another company, a lucky one for not all the companies had vodka,

+crowded round a pockmarked, broad-shouldered sergeant major who, tilting

+a keg, filled one after another the canteen lids held out to him. The

+soldiers lifted the canteen lids to their lips with reverential faces,

+emptied them, rolling the vodka in their mouths, and walked away from

+the sergeant major with brightened expressions, licking their lips and

+wiping them on the sleeves of their greatcoats. All their faces were

+as serene as if all this were happening at home awaiting peaceful

+encampment, and not within sight of the enemy before an action in

+which at least half of them would be left on the field. After passing a

+chasseur regiment and in the lines of the Kiev grenadiers—fine fellows

+busy with similar peaceful affairs—near the shelter of the regimental

+commander, higher than and different from the others, Prince Andrew came

+out in front of a platoon of grenadiers before whom lay a naked man. Two

+soldiers held him while two others were flourishing their switches and

+striking him regularly on his bare back. The man shrieked unnaturally.

+A stout major was pacing up and down the line, and regardless of the

+screams kept repeating:

+

+“It’s a shame for a soldier to steal; a soldier must be honest,

+honorable, and brave, but if he robs his fellows there is no honor in

+him, he’s a scoundrel. Go on! Go on!”

+

+So the swishing sound of the strokes, and the desperate but unnatural

+screams, continued.

+

+“Go on, go on!” said the major.

+

+A young officer with a bewildered and pained expression on his face

+stepped away from the man and looked round inquiringly at the adjutant

+as he rode by.

+

+Prince Andrew, having reached the front line, rode along it. Our front

+line and that of the enemy were far apart on the right and left flanks,

+but in the center where the men with a flag of truce had passed that

+morning, the lines were so near together that the men could see one

+another’s faces and speak to one another. Besides the soldiers who

+formed the picket line on either side, there were many curious onlookers

+who, jesting and laughing, stared at their strange foreign enemies.

+

+Since early morning—despite an injunction not to approach the picket

+line—the officers had been unable to keep sight-seers away. The

+soldiers forming the picket line, like showmen exhibiting a curiosity,

+no longer looked at the French but paid attention to the sight-seers and

+grew weary waiting to be relieved. Prince Andrew halted to have a look

+at the French.

+

+“Look! Look there!” one soldier was saying to another, pointing to a

+Russian musketeer who had gone up to the picket line with an officer and

+was rapidly and excitedly talking to a French grenadier. “Hark to him

+jabbering! Fine, isn’t it? It’s all the Frenchy can do to keep up

+with him. There now, Sídorov!”

+

+“Wait a bit and listen. It’s fine!” answered Sídorov, who was

+considered an adept at French.

+

+The soldier to whom the laughers referred was Dólokhov. Prince Andrew

+recognized him and stopped to listen to what he was saying. Dólokhov

+had come from the left flank where their regiment was stationed, with

+his captain.

+

+“Now then, go on, go on!” incited the officer, bending forward and

+trying not to lose a word of the speech which was incomprehensible to

+him. “More, please: more! What’s he saying?”

+

+Dólokhov did not answer the captain; he had been drawn into a hot

+dispute with the French grenadier. They were naturally talking about the

+campaign. The Frenchman, confusing the Austrians with the Russians, was

+trying to prove that the Russians had surrendered and had fled all

+the way from Ulm, while Dólokhov maintained that the Russians had not

+surrendered but had beaten the French.

+

+“We have orders to drive you off here, and we shall drive you off,”

+said Dólokhov.

+

+“Only take care you and your Cossacks are not all captured!” said

+the French grenadier.

+

+The French onlookers and listeners laughed.

+

+“We’ll make you dance as we did under Suvórov...,” * said

+Dólokhov.

+

+    * “On vous fera danser.”

+

+

+“Qu’ est-ce qu’il chante?” * asked a Frenchman.

+

+    * “What’s he singing about?”

+

+

+“It’s ancient history,” said another, guessing that it referred to

+a former war. “The Emperor will teach your Suvara as he has taught the

+others...”

+

+“Bonaparte...” began Dólokhov, but the Frenchman interrupted him.

+

+“Not Bonaparte. He is the Emperor! Sacré nom...!” cried he angrily.

+

+“The devil skin your Emperor.”

+

+And Dólokhov swore at him in coarse soldier’s Russian and shouldering

+his musket walked away.

+

+“Let us go, Iván Lukích,” he said to the captain.

+

+“Ah, that’s the way to talk French,” said the picket soldiers.

+“Now, Sídorov, you have a try!”

+

+Sídorov, turning to the French, winked, and began to jabber meaningless

+sounds very fast: “Kari, mala, tafa, safi, muter, Kaská,” he said,

+trying to give an expressive intonation to his voice.

+

+“Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ouh! ouh!” came peals of such healthy

+and good-humored laughter from the soldiers that it infected the French

+involuntarily, so much so that the only thing left to do seemed to be

+to unload the muskets, explode the ammunition, and all return home as

+quickly as possible.

+

+But the guns remained loaded, the loopholes in blockhouses and

+entrenchments looked out just as menacingly, and the unlimbered cannon

+confronted one another as before.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI

+

+Having ridden round the whole line from right flank to left, Prince

+Andrew made his way up to the battery from which the staff officer had

+told him the whole field could be seen. Here he dismounted, and stopped

+beside the farthest of the four unlimbered cannon. Before the guns an

+artillery sentry was pacing up and down; he stood at attention when the

+officer arrived, but at a sign resumed his measured, monotonous pacing.

+Behind the guns were their limbers and still farther back picket ropes

+and artillerymen’s bonfires. To the left, not far from the farthest

+cannon, was a small, newly constructed wattle shed from which came the

+sound of officers’ voices in eager conversation.

+

+It was true that a view over nearly the whole Russian position and the

+greater part of the enemy’s opened out from this battery. Just facing

+it, on the crest of the opposite hill, the village of Schön Grabern

+could be seen, and in three places to left and right the French troops

+amid the smoke of their campfires, the greater part of whom were

+evidently in the village itself and behind the hill. To the left from

+that village, amid the smoke, was something resembling a battery, but it

+was impossible to see it clearly with the naked eye. Our right flank was

+posted on a rather steep incline which dominated the French position.

+Our infantry were stationed there, and at the farthest point the

+dragoons. In the center, where Túshin’s battery stood and from which

+Prince Andrew was surveying the position, was the easiest and most

+direct descent and ascent to the brook separating us from Schön

+Grabern. On the left our troops were close to a copse, in which smoked

+the bonfires of our infantry who were felling wood. The French line was

+wider than ours, and it was plain that they could easily outflank us

+on both sides. Behind our position was a steep and deep dip, making it

+difficult for artillery and cavalry to retire. Prince Andrew took

+out his notebook and, leaning on the cannon, sketched a plan of the

+position. He made some notes on two points, intending to mention them to

+Bagratión. His idea was, first, to concentrate all the artillery in the

+center, and secondly, to withdraw the cavalry to the other side of the

+dip. Prince Andrew, being always near the commander in chief, closely

+following the mass movements and general orders, and constantly studying

+historical accounts of battles, involuntarily pictured to himself the

+course of events in the forthcoming action in broad outline. He

+imagined only important possibilities: “If the enemy attacks the right

+flank,” he said to himself, “the Kiev grenadiers and the Podólsk

+chasseurs must hold their position till reserves from the center

+come up. In that case the dragoons could successfully make a flank

+counterattack. If they attack our center we, having the center battery

+on this high ground, shall withdraw the left flank under its cover, and

+retreat to the dip by echelons.” So he reasoned.... All the time

+he had been beside the gun, he had heard the voices of the officers

+distinctly, but as often happens had not understood a word of what they

+were saying. Suddenly, however, he was struck by a voice coming from the

+shed, and its tone was so sincere that he could not but listen.

+

+“No, friend,” said a pleasant and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, a

+familiar voice, “what I say is that if it were possible to know

+what is beyond death, none of us would be afraid of it. That’s so,

+friend.”

+

+Another, a younger voice, interrupted him: “Afraid or not, you can’t

+escape it anyhow.”

+

+“All the same, one is afraid! Oh, you clever people,” said a third

+manly voice interrupting them both. “Of course you artillery men are

+very wise, because you can take everything along with you—vodka and

+snacks.”

+

+And the owner of the manly voice, evidently an infantry officer,

+laughed.

+

+“Yes, one is afraid,” continued the first speaker, he of the

+familiar voice. “One is afraid of the unknown, that’s what it is.

+Whatever we may say about the soul going to the sky... we know there is

+no sky but only an atmosphere.”

+

+The manly voice again interrupted the artillery officer.

+

+“Well, stand us some of your herb vodka, Túshin,” it said.

+

+“Why,” thought Prince Andrew, “that’s the captain who stood up

+in the sutler’s hut without his boots.” He recognized the agreeable,

+philosophizing voice with pleasure.

+

+“Some herb vodka? Certainly!” said Túshin. “But still, to

+conceive a future life...”

+

+He did not finish. Just then there was a whistle in the air; nearer and

+nearer, faster and louder, louder and faster, a cannon ball, as if it

+had not finished saying what was necessary, thudded into the ground near

+the shed with super human force, throwing up a mass of earth. The ground

+seemed to groan at the terrible impact.

+

+And immediately Túshin, with a short pipe in the corner of his mouth

+and his kind, intelligent face rather pale, rushed out of the shed

+followed by the owner of the manly voice, a dashing infantry officer who

+hurried off to his company, buttoning up his coat as he ran.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVII

+

+Mounting his horse again Prince Andrew lingered with the battery,

+looking at the puff from the gun that had sent the ball. His eyes

+ran rapidly over the wide space, but he only saw that the hitherto

+motionless masses of the French now swayed and that there really was

+a battery to their left. The smoke above it had not yet dispersed. Two

+mounted Frenchmen, probably adjutants, were galloping up the hill. A

+small but distinctly visible enemy column was moving down the hill,

+probably to strengthen the front line. The smoke of the first shot had

+not yet dispersed before another puff appeared, followed by a report.

+The battle had begun! Prince Andrew turned his horse and galloped back

+to Grunth to find Prince Bagratión. He heard the cannonade behind him

+growing louder and more frequent. Evidently our guns had begun to reply.

+From the bottom of the slope, where the parleys had taken place, came

+the report of musketry.

+

+Lemarrois had just arrived at a gallop with Bonaparte’s stern letter,

+and Murat, humiliated and anxious to expiate his fault, had at once

+moved his forces to attack the center and outflank both the Russian

+wings, hoping before evening and before the arrival of the Emperor to

+crush the contemptible detachment that stood before him.

+

+“It has begun. Here it is!” thought Prince Andrew, feeling the

+blood rush to his heart. “But where and how will my Toulon present

+itself?”

+

+Passing between the companies that had been eating porridge and drinking

+vodka a quarter of an hour before, he saw everywhere the same rapid

+movement of soldiers forming ranks and getting their muskets ready,

+and on all their faces he recognized the same eagerness that filled his

+heart. “It has begun! Here it is, dreadful but enjoyable!” was what

+the face of each soldier and each officer seemed to say.

+

+Before he had reached the embankments that were being thrown up, he saw,

+in the light of the dull autumn evening, mounted men coming toward him.

+The foremost, wearing a Cossack cloak and lambskin cap and riding a

+white horse, was Prince Bagratión. Prince Andrew stopped, waiting for

+him to come up; Prince Bagratión reined in his horse and recognizing

+Prince Andrew nodded to him. He still looked ahead while Prince Andrew

+told him what he had seen.

+

+The feeling, “It has begun! Here it is!” was seen even on Prince

+Bagratión’s hard brown face with its half-closed, dull, sleepy eyes.

+Prince Andrew gazed with anxious curiosity at that impassive face

+and wished he could tell what, if anything, this man was thinking

+and feeling at that moment. “Is there anything at all behind that

+impassive face?” Prince Andrew asked himself as he looked. Prince

+Bagratión bent his head in sign of agreement with what Prince Andrew

+told him, and said, “Very good!” in a tone that seemed to imply that

+everything that took place and was reported to him was exactly what he

+had foreseen. Prince Andrew, out of breath with his rapid ride, spoke

+quickly. Prince Bagratión, uttering his words with an Oriental accent,

+spoke particularly slowly, as if to impress the fact that there was no

+need to hurry. However, he put his horse to a trot in the direction

+of Túshin’s battery. Prince Andrew followed with the suite. Behind

+Prince Bagratión rode an officer of the suite, the prince’s personal

+adjutant, Zherkóv, an orderly officer, the staff officer on duty,

+riding a fine bobtailed horse, and a civilian—an accountant who had

+asked permission to be present at the battle out of curiosity. The

+accountant, a stout, full-faced man, looked around him with a naïve

+smile of satisfaction and presented a strange appearance among the

+hussars, Cossacks, and adjutants, in his camlet coat, as he jolted on

+his horse with a convoy officer’s saddle.

+

+“He wants to see a battle,” said Zherkóv to Bolkónski, pointing

+to the accountant, “but he feels a pain in the pit of his stomach

+already.”

+

+“Oh, leave off!” said the accountant with a beaming but rather

+cunning smile, as if flattered at being made the subject of Zherkóv’s

+joke, and purposely trying to appear stupider than he really was.

+

+“It is very strange, mon Monsieur Prince,” said the staff officer.

+(He remembered that in French there is some peculiar way of addressing a

+prince, but could not get it quite right.)

+

+By this time they were all approaching Túshin’s battery, and a ball

+struck the ground in front of them.

+

+“What’s that that has fallen?” asked the accountant with a naïve

+smile.

+

+“A French pancake,” answered Zherkóv.

+

+“So that’s what they hit with?” asked the accountant. “How

+awful!”

+

+He seemed to swell with satisfaction. He had hardly finished speaking

+when they again heard an unexpectedly violent whistling which suddenly

+ended with a thud into something soft... f-f-flop! and a Cossack, riding

+a little to their right and behind the accountant, crashed to earth with

+his horse. Zherkóv and the staff officer bent over their saddles and

+turned their horses away. The accountant stopped, facing the Cossack,

+and examined him with attentive curiosity. The Cossack was dead, but the

+horse still struggled.

+

+Prince Bagratión screwed up his eyes, looked round, and, seeing the

+cause of the confusion, turned away with indifference, as if to say,

+“Is it worth while noticing trifles?” He reined in his horse with

+the care of a skillful rider and, slightly bending over, disengaged his

+saber which had caught in his cloak. It was an old-fashioned saber of

+a kind no longer in general use. Prince Andrew remembered the story of

+Suvórov giving his saber to Bagratión in Italy, and the recollection

+was particularly pleasant at that moment. They had reached the battery

+at which Prince Andrew had been when he examined the battlefield.

+

+“Whose company?” asked Prince Bagratión of an artilleryman standing

+by the ammunition wagon.

+

+He asked, “Whose company?” but he really meant, “Are you

+frightened here?” and the artilleryman understood him.

+

+“Captain Túshin’s, your excellency!” shouted the red-haired,

+freckled gunner in a merry voice, standing to attention.

+

+“Yes, yes,” muttered Bagratión as if considering something, and he

+rode past the limbers to the farthest cannon.

+

+As he approached, a ringing shot issued from it deafening him and his

+suite, and in the smoke that suddenly surrounded the gun they could see

+the gunners who had seized it straining to roll it quickly back to its

+former position. A huge, broad-shouldered gunner, Number One, holding

+a mop, his legs far apart, sprang to the wheel; while Number Two with

+a trembling hand placed a charge in the cannon’s mouth. The short,

+round-shouldered Captain Túshin, stumbling over the tail of the gun

+carriage, moved forward and, not noticing the general, looked out

+shading his eyes with his small hand.

+

+“Lift it two lines more and it will be just right,” cried he in a

+feeble voice to which he tried to impart a dashing note, ill-suited to

+his weak figure. “Number Two!” he squeaked. “Fire, Medvédev!”

+

+Bagratión called to him, and Túshin, raising three fingers to his cap

+with a bashful and awkward gesture not at all like a military salute

+but like a priest’s benediction, approached the general. Though

+Túshin’s guns had been intended to cannonade the valley, he was

+firing incendiary balls at the village of Schön Grabern visible just

+opposite, in front of which large masses of French were advancing.

+

+No one had given Túshin orders where and at what to fire, but after

+consulting his sergeant major, Zakharchénko, for whom he had great

+respect, he had decided that it would be a good thing to set fire to the

+village. “Very good!” said Bagratión in reply to the officer’s

+report, and began deliberately to examine the whole battlefield extended

+before him. The French had advanced nearest on our right. Below the

+height on which the Kiev regiment was stationed, in the hollow where the

+rivulet flowed, the soul-stirring rolling and crackling of musketry was

+heard, and much farther to the right beyond the dragoons, the officer of

+the suite pointed out to Bagratión a French column that was outflanking

+us. To the left the horizon bounded by the adjacent wood. Prince

+Bagratión ordered two battalions from the center to be sent to

+reinforce the right flank. The officer of the suite ventured to remark

+to the prince that if these battalions went away, the guns would remain

+without support. Prince Bagratión turned to the officer and with his

+dull eyes looked at him in silence. It seemed to Prince Andrew that the

+officer’s remark was just and that really no answer could be made to

+it. But at that moment an adjutant galloped up with a message from the

+commander of the regiment in the hollow and news that immense masses

+of the French were coming down upon them and that his regiment was in

+disorder and was retreating upon the Kiev grenadiers. Prince Bagratión

+bowed his head in sign of assent and approval. He rode off at a walk to

+the right and sent an adjutant to the dragoons with orders to attack the

+French. But this adjutant returned half an hour later with the news that

+the commander of the dragoons had already retreated beyond the dip in

+the ground, as a heavy fire had been opened on him and he was losing

+men uselessly, and so had hastened to throw some sharpshooters into the

+wood.

+

+“Very good!” said Bagratión.

+

+As he was leaving the battery, firing was heard on the left also, and

+as it was too far to the left flank for him to have time to go there

+himself, Prince Bagratión sent Zherkóv to tell the general in command

+(the one who had paraded his regiment before Kutúzov at Braunau) that

+he must retreat as quickly as possible behind the hollow in the rear,

+as the right flank would probably not be able to withstand the enemy’s

+attack very long. About Túshin and the battalion that had been in

+support of his battery all was forgotten. Prince Andrew listened

+attentively to Bagratión’s colloquies with the commanding officers

+and the orders he gave them and, to his surprise, found that no orders

+were really given, but that Prince Bagratión tried to make it appear

+that everything done by necessity, by accident, or by the will of

+subordinate commanders was done, if not by his direct command, at least

+in accord with his intentions. Prince Andrew noticed, however, that

+though what happened was due to chance and was independent of the

+commander’s will, owing to the tact Bagratión showed, his presence

+was very valuable. Officers who approached him with disturbed

+countenances became calm; soldiers and officers greeted him gaily, grew

+more cheerful in his presence, and were evidently anxious to display

+their courage before him.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVIII

+

+Prince Bagratión, having reached the highest point of our right flank,

+began riding downhill to where the roll of musketry was heard but where

+on account of the smoke nothing could be seen. The nearer they got to

+the hollow the less they could see but the more they felt the nearness

+of the actual battlefield. They began to meet wounded men. One with a

+bleeding head and no cap was being dragged along by two soldiers who

+supported him under the arms. There was a gurgle in his throat and he

+was spitting blood. A bullet had evidently hit him in the throat or

+mouth. Another was walking sturdily by himself but without his musket,

+groaning aloud and swinging his arm which had just been hurt, while

+blood from it was streaming over his greatcoat as from a bottle. He had

+that moment been wounded and his face showed fear rather than suffering.

+Crossing a road they descended a steep incline and saw several men

+lying on the ground; they also met a crowd of soldiers some of whom were

+unwounded. The soldiers were ascending the hill breathing heavily, and

+despite the general’s presence were talking loudly and gesticulating.

+In front of them rows of gray cloaks were already visible through the

+smoke, and an officer catching sight of Bagratión rushed shouting after

+the crowd of retreating soldiers, ordering them back. Bagratión rode up

+to the ranks along which shots crackled now here and now there, drowning

+the sound of voices and the shouts of command. The whole air reeked with

+smoke. The excited faces of the soldiers were blackened with it. Some

+were using their ramrods, others putting powder on the touchpans or

+taking charges from their pouches, while others were firing, though who

+they were firing at could not be seen for the smoke which there was no

+wind to carry away. A pleasant humming and whistling of bullets were

+often heard. “What is this?” thought Prince Andrew approaching the

+crowd of soldiers. “It can’t be an attack, for they are not moving;

+it can’t be a square—for they are not drawn up for that.”

+

+The commander of the regiment, a thin, feeble-looking old man with a

+pleasant smile—his eyelids drooping more than half over his old eyes,

+giving him a mild expression, rode up to Bagratión and welcomed him as

+a host welcomes an honored guest. He reported that his regiment had

+been attacked by French cavalry and that, though the attack had been

+repulsed, he had lost more than half his men. He said the attack

+had been repulsed, employing this military term to describe what had

+occurred to his regiment, but in reality he did not himself know what

+had happened during that half-hour to the troops entrusted to him, and

+could not say with certainty whether the attack had been repulsed or his

+regiment had been broken up. All he knew was that at the commencement

+of the action balls and shells began flying all over his regiment and

+hitting men and that afterwards someone had shouted “Cavalry!” and

+our men had begun firing. They were still firing, not at the cavalry

+which had disappeared, but at French infantry who had come into the

+hollow and were firing at our men. Prince Bagratión bowed his head as a

+sign that this was exactly what he had desired and expected. Turning

+to his adjutant he ordered him to bring down the two battalions of the

+Sixth Chasseurs whom they had just passed. Prince Andrew was struck by

+the changed expression on Prince Bagratión’s face at this moment. It

+expressed the concentrated and happy resolution you see on the face of

+a man who on a hot day takes a final run before plunging into the water.

+The dull, sleepy expression was no longer there, nor the affectation

+of profound thought. The round, steady, hawk’s eyes looked before him

+eagerly and rather disdainfully, not resting on anything although his

+movements were still slow and measured.

+

+The commander of the regiment turned to Prince Bagratión, entreating

+him to go back as it was too dangerous to remain where they were.

+“Please, your excellency, for God’s sake!” he kept saying,

+glancing for support at an officer of the suite who turned away

+from him. “There, you see!” and he drew attention to the bullets

+whistling, singing, and hissing continually around them. He spoke in the

+tone of entreaty and reproach that a carpenter uses to a gentleman who

+has picked up an ax: “We are used to it, but you, sir, will blister

+your hands.” He spoke as if those bullets could not kill him, and his

+half-closed eyes gave still more persuasiveness to his words. The staff

+officer joined in the colonel’s appeals, but Bagratión did not reply;

+he only gave an order to cease firing and re-form, so as to give room

+for the two approaching battalions. While he was speaking, the curtain

+of smoke that had concealed the hollow, driven by a rising wind, began

+to move from right to left as if drawn by an invisible hand, and the

+hill opposite, with the French moving about on it, opened out before

+them. All eyes fastened involuntarily on this French column advancing

+against them and winding down over the uneven ground. One could already

+see the soldiers’ shaggy caps, distinguish the officers from the men,

+and see the standard flapping against its staff.

+

+“They march splendidly,” remarked someone in Bagratión’s suite.

+

+The head of the column had already descended into the hollow. The clash

+would take place on this side of it...

+

+The remains of our regiment which had been in action rapidly formed up

+and moved to the right; from behind it, dispersing the laggards, came

+two battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs in fine order. Before they had

+reached Bagratión, the weighty tread of the mass of men marching in

+step could be heard. On their left flank, nearest to Bagratión, marched

+a company commander, a fine round-faced man, with a stupid and happy

+expression—the same man who had rushed out of the wattle shed. At that

+moment he was clearly thinking of nothing but how dashing a fellow he

+would appear as he passed the commander.

+

+With the self-satisfaction of a man on parade, he stepped lightly with

+his muscular legs as if sailing along, stretching himself to his full

+height without the smallest effort, his ease contrasting with the heavy

+tread of the soldiers who were keeping step with him. He carried close

+to his leg a narrow unsheathed sword (small, curved, and not like a real

+weapon) and looked now at the superior officers and now back at the men

+without losing step, his whole powerful body turning flexibly. It was as

+if all the powers of his soul were concentrated on passing the commander

+in the best possible manner, and feeling that he was doing it well he

+was happy. “Left... left... left...” he seemed to repeat to himself

+at each alternate step; and in time to this, with stern but varied

+faces, the wall of soldiers burdened with knapsacks and muskets marched

+in step, and each one of these hundreds of soldiers seemed to be

+repeating to himself at each alternate step, “Left... left...

+left...” A fat major skirted a bush, puffing and falling out of

+step; a soldier who had fallen behind, his face showing alarm at his

+defection, ran at a trot, panting to catch up with his company. A cannon

+ball, cleaving the air, flew over the heads of Bagratión and his suite,

+and fell into the column to the measure of “Left... left!” “Close

+up!” came the company commander’s voice in jaunty tones. The

+soldiers passed in a semicircle round something where the ball had

+fallen, and an old trooper on the flank, a noncommissioned officer who

+had stopped beside the dead men, ran to catch up his line and, falling

+into step with a hop, looked back angrily, and through the ominous

+silence and the regular tramp of feet beating the ground in unison, one

+seemed to hear left... left... left.

+

+“Well done, lads!” said Prince Bagratión.

+

+“Glad to do our best, your ex’len-lency!” came a confused shout

+from the ranks. A morose soldier marching on the left turned his eyes on

+Bagratión as he shouted, with an expression that seemed to say: “We

+know that ourselves!” Another, without looking round, as though

+fearing to relax, shouted with his mouth wide open and passed on.

+

+The order was given to halt and down knapsacks.

+

+Bagratión rode round the ranks that had marched past him and

+dismounted. He gave the reins to a Cossack, took off and handed over his

+felt coat, stretched his legs, and set his cap straight. The head of the

+French column, with its officers leading, appeared from below the hill.

+

+“Forward, with God!” said Bagratión, in a resolute, sonorous voice,

+turning for a moment to the front line, and slightly swinging his arms,

+he went forward uneasily over the rough field with the awkward gait of

+a cavalryman. Prince Andrew felt that an invisible power was leading him

+forward, and experienced great happiness.

+

+The French were already near. Prince Andrew, walking beside Bagratión,

+could clearly distinguish their bandoliers, red epaulets, and even their

+faces. (He distinctly saw an old French officer who, with gaitered

+legs and turned-out toes, climbed the hill with difficulty.) Prince

+Bagratión gave no further orders and silently continued to walk on in

+front of the ranks. Suddenly one shot after another rang out from the

+French, smoke appeared all along their uneven ranks, and musket shots

+sounded. Several of our men fell, among them the round-faced officer

+who had marched so gaily and complacently. But at the moment the first

+report was heard, Bagratión looked round and shouted, “Hurrah!”

+

+“Hurrah—ah!—ah!” rang a long-drawn shout from our ranks, and

+passing Bagratión and racing one another they rushed in an irregular

+but joyous and eager crowd down the hill at their disordered foe.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIX

+

+The attack of the Sixth Chasseurs secured the retreat of our right

+flank. In the center Túshin’s forgotten battery, which had managed to

+set fire to the Schön Grabern village, delayed the French advance. The

+French were putting out the fire which the wind was spreading, and thus

+gave us time to retreat. The retirement of the center to the other side

+of the dip in the ground at the rear was hurried and noisy, but the

+different companies did not get mixed. But our left—which consisted

+of the Azóv and Podólsk infantry and the Pávlograd hussars—was

+simultaneously attacked and outflanked by superior French forces under

+Lannes and was thrown into confusion. Bagratión had sent Zherkóv

+to the general commanding that left flank with orders to retreat

+immediately.

+

+Zherkóv, not removing his hand from his cap, turned his horse about

+and galloped off. But no sooner had he left Bagratión than his courage

+failed him. He was seized by panic and could not go where it was

+dangerous.

+

+Having reached the left flank, instead of going to the front where the

+firing was, he began to look for the general and his staff where they

+could not possibly be, and so did not deliver the order.

+

+The command of the left flank belonged by seniority to the commander of

+the regiment Kutúzov had reviewed at Braunau and in which Dólokhov was

+serving as a private. But the command of the extreme left flank had been

+assigned to the commander of the Pávlograd regiment in which Rostóv

+was serving, and a misunderstanding arose. The two commanders were much

+exasperated with one another and, long after the action had begun on

+the right flank and the French were already advancing, were engaged

+in discussion with the sole object of offending one another. But the

+regiments, both cavalry and infantry, were by no means ready for the

+impending action. From privates to general they were not expecting a

+battle and were engaged in peaceful occupations, the cavalry feeding the

+horses and the infantry collecting wood.

+

+“He higher iss dan I in rank,” said the German colonel of the

+hussars, flushing and addressing an adjutant who had ridden up, “so

+let him do what he vill, but I cannot sacrifice my hussars... Bugler,

+sount ze retreat!”

+

+But haste was becoming imperative. Cannon and musketry, mingling

+together, thundered on the right and in the center, while the capotes

+of Lannes’ sharpshooters were already seen crossing the milldam and

+forming up within twice the range of a musket shot. The general in

+command of the infantry went toward his horse with jerky steps, and

+having mounted drew himself up very straight and tall and rode to the

+Pávlograd commander. The commanders met with polite bows but with

+secret malevolence in their hearts.

+

+“Once again, Colonel,” said the general, “I can’t leave half

+my men in the wood. I beg of you, I beg of you,” he repeated, “to

+occupy the position and prepare for an attack.”

+

+“I peg of you yourself not to mix in vot is not your business!”

+suddenly replied the irate colonel. “If you vere in the cavalry...”

+

+“I am not in the cavalry, Colonel, but I am a Russian general and if

+you are not aware of the fact...”

+

+“Quite avare, your excellency,” suddenly shouted the colonel,

+touching his horse and turning purple in the face. “Vill you be so

+goot to come to ze front and see dat zis position iss no goot? I don’t

+vish to destroy my men for your pleasure!”

+

+“You forget yourself, Colonel. I am not considering my own pleasure

+and I won’t allow it to be said!”

+

+Taking the colonel’s outburst as a challenge to his courage, the

+general expanded his chest and rode, frowning, beside him to the

+front line, as if their differences would be settled there amongst the

+bullets. They reached the front, several bullets sped over them, and

+they halted in silence. There was nothing fresh to be seen from the

+line, for from where they had been before it had been evident that it

+was impossible for cavalry to act among the bushes and broken ground,

+as well as that the French were outflanking our left. The general

+and colonel looked sternly and significantly at one another like two

+fighting cocks preparing for battle, each vainly trying to detect signs

+of cowardice in the other. Both passed the examination successfully. As

+there was nothing to be said, and neither wished to give occasion for

+it to be alleged that he had been the first to leave the range of fire,

+they would have remained there for a long time testing each other’s

+courage had it not been that just then they heard the rattle of musketry

+and a muffled shout almost behind them in the wood. The French had

+attacked the men collecting wood in the copse. It was no longer possible

+for the hussars to retreat with the infantry. They were cut off from

+the line of retreat on the left by the French. However inconvenient the

+position, it was now necessary to attack in order to cut a way through

+for themselves.

+

+The squadron in which Rostóv was serving had scarcely time to mount

+before it was halted facing the enemy. Again, as at the Enns bridge,

+there was nothing between the squadron and the enemy, and again that

+terrible dividing line of uncertainty and fear—resembling the line

+separating the living from the dead—lay between them. All were

+conscious of this unseen line, and the question whether they would cross

+it or not, and how they would cross it, agitated them all.

+

+The colonel rode to the front, angrily gave some reply to questions put

+to him by the officers, and, like a man desperately insisting on having

+his own way, gave an order. No one said anything definite, but the rumor

+of an attack spread through the squadron. The command to form up rang

+out and the sabers whizzed as they were drawn from their scabbards.

+Still no one moved. The troops of the left flank, infantry and hussars

+alike, felt that the commander did not himself know what to do, and this

+irresolution communicated itself to the men.

+

+“If only they would be quick!” thought Rostóv, feeling that at last

+the time had come to experience the joy of an attack of which he had so

+often heard from his fellow hussars.

+

+“Fo’ward, with God, lads!” rang out Denísov’s voice. “At a

+twot fo’ward!”

+

+The horses’ croups began to sway in the front line. Rook pulled at the

+reins and started of his own accord.

+

+Before him, on the right, Rostóv saw the front lines of his hussars and

+still farther ahead a dark line which he could not see distinctly but

+took to be the enemy. Shots could be heard, but some way off.

+

+“Faster!” came the word of command, and Rostóv felt Rook’s flanks

+drooping as he broke into a gallop.

+

+Rostóv anticipated his horse’s movements and became more and more

+elated. He had noticed a solitary tree ahead of him. This tree had been

+in the middle of the line that had seemed so terrible—and now he

+had crossed that line and not only was there nothing terrible, but

+everything was becoming more and more happy and animated. “Oh, how I

+will slash at him!” thought Rostóv, gripping the hilt of his saber.

+

+“Hur-a-a-a-ah!” came a roar of voices. “Let anyone come my way

+now,” thought Rostóv driving his spurs into Rook and letting him go

+at a full gallop so that he outstripped the others. Ahead, the enemy was

+already visible. Suddenly something like a birch broom seemed to sweep

+over the squadron. Rostóv raised his saber, ready to strike, but at

+that instant the trooper Nikítenko, who was galloping ahead, shot away

+from him, and Rostóv felt as in a dream that he continued to be carried

+forward with unnatural speed but yet stayed on the same spot. From

+behind him Bondarchúk, an hussar he knew, jolted against him and looked

+angrily at him. Bondarchúk’s horse swerved and galloped past.

+

+“How is it I am not moving? I have fallen, I am killed!” Rostóv

+asked and answered at the same instant. He was alone in the middle of a

+field. Instead of the moving horses and hussars’ backs, he saw nothing

+before him but the motionless earth and the stubble around him. There

+was warm blood under his arm. “No, I am wounded and the horse is

+killed.” Rook tried to rise on his forelegs but fell back, pinning his

+rider’s leg. Blood was flowing from his head; he struggled but could

+not rise. Rostóv also tried to rise but fell back, his sabretache

+having become entangled in the saddle. Where our men were, and where the

+French, he did not know. There was no one near.

+

+Having disentangled his leg, he rose. “Where, on which side, was now

+the line that had so sharply divided the two armies?” he asked himself

+and could not answer. “Can something bad have happened to me?”

+he wondered as he got up: and at that moment he felt that something

+superfluous was hanging on his benumbed left arm. The wrist felt as if

+it were not his. He examined his hand carefully, vainly trying to find

+blood on it. “Ah, here are people coming,” he thought joyfully,

+seeing some men running toward him. “They will help me!” In front

+came a man wearing a strange shako and a blue cloak, swarthy, sunburned,

+and with a hooked nose. Then came two more, and many more running

+behind. One of them said something strange, not in Russian. In among the

+hindmost of these men wearing similar shakos was a Russian hussar. He

+was being held by the arms and his horse was being led behind him.

+

+“It must be one of ours, a prisoner. Yes. Can it be that they will

+take me too? Who are these men?” thought Rostóv, scarcely believing

+his eyes. “Can they be French?” He looked at the approaching

+Frenchmen, and though but a moment before he had been galloping to get

+at them and hack them to pieces, their proximity now seemed so awful

+that he could not believe his eyes. “Who are they? Why are they

+running? Can they be coming at me? And why? To kill me? Me whom everyone

+is so fond of?” He remembered his mother’s love for him, and his

+family’s, and his friends’, and the enemy’s intention to kill him

+seemed impossible. “But perhaps they may do it!” For more than ten

+seconds he stood not moving from the spot or realizing the situation.

+The foremost Frenchman, the one with the hooked nose, was already so

+close that the expression of his face could be seen. And the excited,

+alien face of that man, his bayonet hanging down, holding his breath,

+and running so lightly, frightened Rostóv. He seized his pistol and,

+instead of firing it, flung it at the Frenchman and ran with all his

+might toward the bushes. He did not now run with the feeling of doubt

+and conflict with which he had trodden the Enns bridge, but with the

+feeling of a hare fleeing from the hounds. One single sentiment, that

+of fear for his young and happy life, possessed his whole being. Rapidly

+leaping the furrows, he fled across the field with the impetuosity he

+used to show at catchplay, now and then turning his good-natured, pale,

+young face to look back. A shudder of terror went through him: “No,

+better not look,” he thought, but having reached the bushes he glanced

+round once more. The French had fallen behind, and just as he looked

+round the first man changed his run to a walk and, turning, shouted

+something loudly to a comrade farther back. Rostóv paused. “No,

+there’s some mistake,” thought he. “They can’t have wanted to

+kill me.” But at the same time, his left arm felt as heavy as if

+a seventy-pound weight were tied to it. He could run no more. The

+Frenchman also stopped and took aim. Rostóv closed his eyes and stooped

+down. One bullet and then another whistled past him. He mustered his

+last remaining strength, took hold of his left hand with his right, and

+reached the bushes. Behind these were some Russian sharpshooters.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XX

+

+The infantry regiments that had been caught unawares in the outskirts

+of the wood ran out of it, the different companies getting mixed, and

+retreated as a disorderly crowd. One soldier, in his fear, uttered the

+senseless cry, “Cut off!” that is so terrible in battle, and that

+word infected the whole crowd with a feeling of panic.

+

+“Surrounded! Cut off? We’re lost!” shouted the fugitives.

+

+The moment he heard the firing and the cry from behind, the general

+realized that something dreadful had happened to his regiment, and the

+thought that he, an exemplary officer of many years’ service who

+had never been to blame, might be held responsible at headquarters

+for negligence or inefficiency so staggered him that, forgetting the

+recalcitrant cavalry colonel, his own dignity as a general, and above

+all quite forgetting the danger and all regard for self-preservation, he

+clutched the crupper of his saddle and, spurring his horse, galloped to

+the regiment under a hail of bullets which fell around, but fortunately

+missed him. His one desire was to know what was happening and at any

+cost correct, or remedy, the mistake if he had made one, so that he,

+an exemplary officer of twenty-two years’ service, who had never been

+censured, should not be held to blame.

+

+Having galloped safely through the French, he reached a field behind

+the copse across which our men, regardless of orders, were running and

+descending the valley. That moment of moral hesitation which decides

+the fate of battles had arrived. Would this disorderly crowd of soldiers

+attend to the voice of their commander, or would they, disregarding him,

+continue their flight? Despite his desperate shouts that used to seem

+so terrible to the soldiers, despite his furious purple countenance

+distorted out of all likeness to his former self, and the flourishing of

+his saber, the soldiers all continued to run, talking, firing into the

+air, and disobeying orders. The moral hesitation which decided the fate

+of battles was evidently culminating in a panic.

+

+The general had a fit of coughing as a result of shouting and of the

+powder smoke and stopped in despair. Everything seemed lost. But at that

+moment the French who were attacking, suddenly and without any apparent

+reason, ran back and disappeared from the outskirts, and Russian

+sharpshooters showed themselves in the copse. It was Timókhin’s

+company, which alone had maintained its order in the wood and, having

+lain in ambush in a ditch, now attacked the French unexpectedly.

+Timókhin, armed only with a sword, had rushed at the enemy with such

+a desperate cry and such mad, drunken determination that, taken by

+surprise, the French had thrown down their muskets and run. Dólokhov,

+running beside Timókhin, killed a Frenchman at close quarters and was

+the first to seize the surrendering French officer by his collar. Our

+fugitives returned, the battalions re-formed, and the French who had

+nearly cut our left flank in half were for the moment repulsed. Our

+reserve units were able to join up, and the fight was at an end. The

+regimental commander and Major Ekonómov had stopped beside a bridge,

+letting the retreating companies pass by them, when a soldier came up

+and took hold of the commander’s stirrup, almost leaning against him.

+The man was wearing a bluish coat of broadcloth, he had no knapsack

+or cap, his head was bandaged, and over his shoulder a French munition

+pouch was slung. He had an officer’s sword in his hand. The soldier

+was pale, his blue eyes looked impudently into the commander’s face,

+and his lips were smiling. Though the commander was occupied in giving

+instructions to Major Ekonómov, he could not help taking notice of the

+soldier.

+

+“Your excellency, here are two trophies,” said Dólokhov, pointing

+to the French sword and pouch. “I have taken an officer prisoner. I

+stopped the company.” Dólokhov breathed heavily from weariness and

+spoke in abrupt sentences. “The whole company can bear witness. I beg

+you will remember this, your excellency!”

+

+“All right, all right,” replied the commander, and turned to Major

+Ekonómov.

+

+But Dólokhov did not go away; he untied the handkerchief around his

+head, pulled it off, and showed the blood congealed on his hair.

+

+“A bayonet wound. I remained at the front. Remember, your

+excellency!”

+

+

+Túshin’s battery had been forgotten and only at the very end of the

+action did Prince Bagratión, still hearing the cannonade in the center,

+send his orderly staff officer, and later Prince Andrew also, to order

+the battery to retire as quickly as possible. When the supports attached

+to Túshin’s battery had been moved away in the middle of the action

+by someone’s order, the battery had continued firing and was only not

+captured by the French because the enemy could not surmise that anyone

+could have the effrontery to continue firing from four quite undefended

+guns. On the contrary, the energetic action of that battery led the

+French to suppose that here—in the center—the main Russian forces

+were concentrated. Twice they had attempted to attack this point, but on

+each occasion had been driven back by grapeshot from the four isolated

+guns on the hillock.

+

+Soon after Prince Bagratión had left him, Túshin had succeeded in

+setting fire to Schön Grabern.

+

+“Look at them scurrying! It’s burning! Just see the smoke! Fine!

+Grand! Look at the smoke, the smoke!” exclaimed the artillerymen,

+brightening up.

+

+All the guns, without waiting for orders, were being fired in the

+direction of the conflagration. As if urging each other on, the soldiers

+cried at each shot: “Fine! That’s good! Look at it... Grand!” The

+fire, fanned by the breeze, was rapidly spreading. The French columns

+that had advanced beyond the village went back; but as though in revenge

+for this failure, the enemy placed ten guns to the right of the village

+and began firing them at Túshin’s battery.

+

+In their childlike glee, aroused by the fire and their luck in

+successfully cannonading the French, our artillerymen only noticed this

+battery when two balls, and then four more, fell among our guns, one

+knocking over two horses and another tearing off a munition-wagon

+driver’s leg. Their spirits once roused were, however, not diminished,

+but only changed character. The horses were replaced by others from a

+reserve gun carriage, the wounded were carried away, and the four guns

+were turned against the ten-gun battery. Túshin’s companion officer

+had been killed at the beginning of the engagement and within an hour

+seventeen of the forty men of the guns’ crews had been disabled, but

+the artillerymen were still as merry and lively as ever. Twice they

+noticed the French appearing below them, and then they fired grapeshot

+at them.

+

+Little Túshin, moving feebly and awkwardly, kept telling his orderly to

+“refill my pipe for that one!” and then, scattering sparks from it,

+ran forward shading his eyes with his small hand to look at the French.

+

+“Smack at ‘em, lads!” he kept saying, seizing the guns by the

+wheels and working the screws himself.

+

+Amid the smoke, deafened by the incessant reports which always made him

+jump, Túshin not taking his pipe from his mouth ran from gun to gun,

+now aiming, now counting the charges, now giving orders about replacing

+dead or wounded horses and harnessing fresh ones, and shouting in his

+feeble voice, so high pitched and irresolute. His face grew more and

+more animated. Only when a man was killed or wounded did he frown and

+turn away from the sight, shouting angrily at the men who, as is always

+the case, hesitated about lifting the injured or dead. The soldiers,

+for the most part handsome fellows and, as is always the case in an

+artillery company, a head and shoulders taller and twice as broad

+as their officer—all looked at their commander like children in an

+embarrassing situation, and the expression on his face was invariably

+reflected on theirs.

+

+Owing to the terrible uproar and the necessity for concentration and

+activity, Túshin did not experience the slightest unpleasant sense of

+fear, and the thought that he might be killed or badly wounded never

+occurred to him. On the contrary, he became more and more elated. It

+seemed to him that it was a very long time ago, almost a day, since he

+had first seen the enemy and fired the first shot, and that the corner

+of the field he stood on was well-known and familiar ground. Though he

+thought of everything, considered everything, and did everything the

+best of officers could do in his position, he was in a state akin to

+feverish delirium or drunkenness.

+

+From the deafening sounds of his own guns around him, the whistle and

+thud of the enemy’s cannon balls, from the flushed and perspiring

+faces of the crew bustling round the guns, from the sight of the blood

+of men and horses, from the little puffs of smoke on the enemy’s side

+(always followed by a ball flying past and striking the earth, a man, a

+gun, a horse), from the sight of all these things a fantastic world of

+his own had taken possession of his brain and at that moment afforded

+him pleasure. The enemy’s guns were in his fancy not guns but pipes

+from which occasional puffs were blown by an invisible smoker.

+

+“There... he’s puffing again,” muttered Túshin to himself, as a

+small cloud rose from the hill and was borne in a streak to the left by

+the wind.

+

+“Now look out for the ball... we’ll throw it back.”

+

+“What do you want, your honor?” asked an artilleryman, standing

+close by, who heard him muttering.

+

+“Nothing... only a shell...” he answered.

+

+“Come along, our Matvévna!” he said to himself. “Matvévna” *

+was the name his fancy gave to the farthest gun of the battery, which

+was large and of an old pattern. The French swarming round their guns

+seemed to him like ants. In that world, the handsome drunkard Number One

+of the second gun’s crew was “uncle”; Túshin looked at him more

+often than at anyone else and took delight in his every movement.

+The sound of musketry at the foot of the hill, now diminishing, now

+increasing, seemed like someone’s breathing. He listened intently to

+the ebb and flow of these sounds.

+

+    * Daughter of Matthew.

+

+“Ah! Breathing again, breathing!” he muttered to himself.

+

+He imagined himself as an enormously tall, powerful man who was throwing

+cannon balls at the French with both hands.

+

+“Now then, Matvévna, dear old lady, don’t let me down!” he was

+saying as he moved from the gun, when a strange, unfamiliar voice called

+above his head: “Captain Túshin! Captain!”

+

+Túshin turned round in dismay. It was the staff officer who had turned

+him out of the booth at Grunth. He was shouting in a gasping voice:

+

+“Are you mad? You have twice been ordered to retreat, and you...”

+

+“Why are they down on me?” thought Túshin, looking in alarm at his

+superior.

+

+“I... don’t...” he muttered, holding up two fingers to his cap.

+“I...”

+

+But the staff officer did not finish what he wanted to say. A cannon

+ball, flying close to him, caused him to duck and bend over his horse.

+He paused, and just as he was about to say something more, another ball

+stopped him. He turned his horse and galloped off.

+

+“Retire! All to retire!” he shouted from a distance.

+

+The soldiers laughed. A moment later, an adjutant arrived with the same

+order.

+

+It was Prince Andrew. The first thing he saw on riding up to the space

+where Túshin’s guns were stationed was an unharnessed horse with a

+broken leg, that lay screaming piteously beside the harnessed horses.

+Blood was gushing from its leg as from a spring. Among the limbers lay

+several dead men. One ball after another passed over as he approached

+and he felt a nervous shudder run down his spine. But the mere thought

+of being afraid roused him again. “I cannot be afraid,” thought he,

+and dismounted slowly among the guns. He delivered the order and did

+not leave the battery. He decided to have the guns removed from their

+positions and withdrawn in his presence. Together with Túshin, stepping

+across the bodies and under a terrible fire from the French, he attended

+to the removal of the guns.

+

+“A staff officer was here a minute ago, but skipped off,” said an

+artilleryman to Prince Andrew. “Not like your honor!”

+

+Prince Andrew said nothing to Túshin. They were both so busy as to seem

+not to notice one another. When having limbered up the only two cannon

+that remained uninjured out of the four, they began moving down the hill

+(one shattered gun and one unicorn were left behind), Prince Andrew rode

+up to Túshin.

+

+“Well, till we meet again...” he said, holding out his hand to

+Túshin.

+

+“Good-by, my dear fellow,” said Túshin. “Dear soul! Good-by, my

+dear fellow!” and for some unknown reason tears suddenly filled his

+eyes.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXI

+

+The wind had fallen and black clouds, merging with the powder smoke,

+hung low over the field of battle on the horizon. It was growing

+dark and the glow of two conflagrations was the more conspicuous. The

+cannonade was dying down, but the rattle of musketry behind and on the

+right sounded oftener and nearer. As soon as Túshin with his guns,

+continually driving round or coming upon wounded men, was out of range

+of fire and had descended into the dip, he was met by some of the staff,

+among them the staff officer and Zherkóv, who had been twice sent to

+Túshin’s battery but had never reached it. Interrupting one

+another, they all gave, and transmitted, orders as to how to proceed,

+reprimanding and reproaching him. Túshin gave no orders, and,

+silently—fearing to speak because at every word he felt ready to

+weep without knowing why—rode behind on his artillery nag. Though

+the orders were to abandon the wounded, many of them dragged themselves

+after troops and begged for seats on the gun carriages. The jaunty

+infantry officer who just before the battle had rushed out of

+Túshin’s wattle shed was laid, with a bullet in his stomach, on

+“Matvévna’s” carriage. At the foot of the hill, a pale hussar

+cadet, supporting one hand with the other, came up to Túshin and asked

+for a seat.

+

+“Captain, for God’s sake! I’ve hurt my arm,” he said timidly.

+“For God’s sake... I can’t walk. For God’s sake!”

+

+It was plain that this cadet had already repeatedly asked for a lift and

+been refused. He asked in a hesitating, piteous voice.

+

+“Tell them to give me a seat, for God’s sake!”

+

+“Give him a seat,” said Túshin. “Lay a cloak for him to sit on,

+lad,” he said, addressing his favorite soldier. “And where is the

+wounded officer?”

+

+“He has been set down. He died,” replied someone.

+

+“Help him up. Sit down, dear fellow, sit down! Spread out the cloak,

+Antónov.”

+

+The cadet was Rostóv. With one hand he supported the other; he was

+pale and his jaw trembled, shivering feverishly. He was placed on

+“Matvévna,” the gun from which they had removed the dead officer.

+The cloak they spread under him was wet with blood which stained his

+breeches and arm.

+

+“What, are you wounded, my lad?” said Túshin, approaching the gun

+on which Rostóv sat.

+

+“No, it’s a sprain.”

+

+“Then what is this blood on the gun carriage?” inquired Túshin.

+

+“It was the officer, your honor, stained it,” answered the

+artilleryman, wiping away the blood with his coat sleeve, as if

+apologizing for the state of his gun.

+

+It was all that they could do to get the guns up the rise aided by the

+infantry, and having reached the village of Gruntersdorf they halted. It

+had grown so dark that one could not distinguish the uniforms ten paces

+off, and the firing had begun to subside. Suddenly, near by on the

+right, shouting and firing were again heard. Flashes of shot gleamed in

+the darkness. This was the last French attack and was met by soldiers

+who had sheltered in the village houses. They all rushed out of

+the village again, but Túshin’s guns could not move, and the

+artillerymen, Túshin, and the cadet exchanged silent glances as they

+awaited their fate. The firing died down and soldiers, talking eagerly,

+streamed out of a side street.

+

+“Not hurt, Petróv?” asked one.

+

+“We’ve given it ‘em hot, mate! They won’t make another push

+now,” said another.

+

+“You couldn’t see a thing. How they shot at their own fellows!

+Nothing could be seen. Pitch-dark, brother! Isn’t there something to

+drink?”

+

+The French had been repulsed for the last time. And again and again in

+the complete darkness Túshin’s guns moved forward, surrounded by the

+humming infantry as by a frame.

+

+In the darkness, it seemed as though a gloomy unseen river was flowing

+always in one direction, humming with whispers and talk and the sound of

+hoofs and wheels. Amid the general rumble, the groans and voices of the

+wounded were more distinctly heard than any other sound in the darkness

+of the night. The gloom that enveloped the army was filled with their

+groans, which seemed to melt into one with the darkness of the night.

+After a while the moving mass became agitated, someone rode past on

+a white horse followed by his suite, and said something in passing:

+“What did he say? Where to, now? Halt, is it? Did he thank us?” came

+eager questions from all sides. The whole moving mass began pressing

+closer together and a report spread that they were ordered to halt:

+evidently those in front had halted. All remained where they were in the

+middle of the muddy road.

+

+Fires were lighted and the talk became more audible. Captain Túshin,

+having given orders to his company, sent a soldier to find a dressing

+station or a doctor for the cadet, and sat down by a bonfire the

+soldiers had kindled on the road. Rostóv, too, dragged himself to the

+fire. From pain, cold, and damp, a feverish shivering shook his whole

+body. Drowsiness was irresistibly mastering him, but he kept awake by

+an excruciating pain in his arm, for which he could find no satisfactory

+position. He kept closing his eyes and then again looking at the fire,

+which seemed to him dazzlingly red, and at the feeble, round-shouldered

+figure of Túshin who was sitting cross-legged like a Turk beside him.

+Túshin’s large, kind, intelligent eyes were fixed with sympathy and

+commiseration on Rostóv, who saw that Túshin with his whole heart

+wished to help him but could not.

+

+From all sides were heard the footsteps and talk of the infantry, who

+were walking, driving past, and settling down all around. The sound

+of voices, the tramping feet, the horses’ hoofs moving in mud, the

+crackling of wood fires near and afar, merged into one tremulous rumble.

+

+It was no longer, as before, a dark, unseen river flowing through the

+gloom, but a dark sea swelling and gradually subsiding after a storm.

+Rostóv looked at and listened listlessly to what passed before and

+around him. An infantryman came to the fire, squatted on his heels, held

+his hands to the blaze, and turned away his face.

+

+“You don’t mind your honor?” he asked Túshin. “I’ve lost my

+company, your honor. I don’t know where... such bad luck!”

+

+With the soldier, an infantry officer with a bandaged cheek came up to

+the bonfire, and addressing Túshin asked him to have the guns moved a

+trifle to let a wagon go past. After he had gone, two soldiers rushed to

+the campfire. They were quarreling and fighting desperately, each trying

+to snatch from the other a boot they were both holding on to.

+

+“You picked it up?... I dare say! You’re very smart!” one of them

+shouted hoarsely.

+

+Then a thin, pale soldier, his neck bandaged with a bloodstained leg

+band, came up and in angry tones asked the artillerymen for water.

+

+“Must one die like a dog?” said he.

+

+Túshin told them to give the man some water. Then a cheerful soldier

+ran up, begging a little fire for the infantry.

+

+“A nice little hot torch for the infantry! Good luck to you, fellow

+countrymen. Thanks for the fire—we’ll return it with interest,”

+said he, carrying away into the darkness a glowing stick.

+

+Next came four soldiers, carrying something heavy on a cloak, and passed

+by the fire. One of them stumbled.

+

+“Who the devil has put the logs on the road?” snarled he.

+

+“He’s dead—why carry him?” said another.

+

+“Shut up!”

+

+And they disappeared into the darkness with their load.

+

+“Still aching?” Túshin asked Rostóv in a whisper.

+

+“Yes.”

+

+“Your honor, you’re wanted by the general. He is in the hut here,”

+said a gunner, coming up to Túshin.

+

+“Coming, friend.”

+

+Túshin rose and, buttoning his greatcoat and pulling it straight,

+walked away from the fire.

+

+Not far from the artillery campfire, in a hut that had been prepared

+for him, Prince Bagratión sat at dinner, talking with some commanding

+officers who had gathered at his quarters. The little old man with

+the half-closed eyes was there greedily gnawing a mutton bone, and the

+general who had served blamelessly for twenty-two years, flushed by a

+glass of vodka and the dinner; and the staff officer with the signet

+ring, and Zherkóv, uneasily glancing at them all, and Prince Andrew,

+pale, with compressed lips and feverishly glittering eyes.

+

+In a corner of the hut stood a standard captured from the French, and

+the accountant with the naïve face was feeling its texture, shaking his

+head in perplexity—perhaps because the banner really interested him,

+perhaps because it was hard for him, hungry as he was, to look on at

+a dinner where there was no place for him. In the next hut there was a

+French colonel who had been taken prisoner by our dragoons. Our officers

+were flocking in to look at him. Prince Bagratión was thanking the

+individual commanders and inquiring into details of the action and our

+losses. The general whose regiment had been inspected at Braunau was

+informing the prince that as soon as the action began he had withdrawn

+from the wood, mustered the men who were woodcutting, and, allowing the

+French to pass him, had made a bayonet charge with two battalions and

+had broken up the French troops.

+

+“When I saw, your excellency, that their first battalion was

+disorganized, I stopped in the road and thought: ‘I’ll let them

+come on and will meet them with the fire of the whole battalion’—and

+that’s what I did.”

+

+The general had so wished to do this and was so sorry he had not managed

+to do it that it seemed to him as if it had really happened. Perhaps

+it might really have been so? Could one possibly make out amid all that

+confusion what did or did not happen?

+

+“By the way, your excellency, I should inform you,” he

+continued—remembering Dólokhov’s conversation with Kutúzov and his

+last interview with the gentleman-ranker—“that Private Dólokhov,

+who was reduced to the ranks, took a French officer prisoner in my

+presence and particularly distinguished himself.”

+

+“I saw the Pávlograd hussars attack there, your excellency,” chimed

+in Zherkóv, looking uneasily around. He had not seen the hussars all

+that day, but had heard about them from an infantry officer. “They

+broke up two squares, your excellency.”

+

+Several of those present smiled at Zherkóv’s words, expecting one of

+his usual jokes, but noticing that what he was saying redounded to

+the glory of our arms and of the day’s work, they assumed a serious

+expression, though many of them knew that what he was saying was a lie

+devoid of any foundation. Prince Bagratión turned to the old colonel:

+

+“Gentlemen, I thank you all; all arms have behaved heroically:

+infantry, cavalry, and artillery. How was it that two guns were

+abandoned in the center?” he inquired, searching with his eyes for

+someone. (Prince Bagratión did not ask about the guns on the left

+flank; he knew that all the guns there had been abandoned at the very

+beginning of the action.) “I think I sent you?” he added, turning to

+the staff officer on duty.

+

+“One was damaged,” answered the staff officer, “and the other I

+can’t understand. I was there all the time giving orders and had only

+just left.... It is true that it was hot there,” he added, modestly.

+

+Someone mentioned that Captain Túshin was bivouacking close to the

+village and had already been sent for.

+

+“Oh, but you were there?” said Prince Bagratión, addressing Prince

+Andrew.

+

+“Of course, we only just missed one another,” said the staff

+officer, with a smile to Bolkónski.

+

+“I had not the pleasure of seeing you,” said Prince Andrew, coldly

+and abruptly.

+

+All were silent. Túshin appeared at the threshold and made his way

+timidly from behind the backs of the generals. As he stepped past the

+generals in the crowded hut, feeling embarrassed as he always was by the

+sight of his superiors, he did not notice the staff of the banner and

+stumbled over it. Several of those present laughed.

+

+“How was it a gun was abandoned?” asked Bagratión, frowning, not so

+much at the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom Zherkóv

+laughed loudest.

+

+Only now, when he was confronted by the stern authorities, did his guilt

+and the disgrace of having lost two guns and yet remaining alive present

+themselves to Túshin in all their horror. He had been so excited that

+he had not thought about it until that moment. The officers’ laughter

+confused him still more. He stood before Bagratión with his lower

+jaw trembling and was hardly able to mutter: “I don’t know... your

+excellency... I had no men... your excellency.”

+

+“You might have taken some from the covering troops.”

+

+Túshin did not say that there were no covering troops, though that

+was perfectly true. He was afraid of getting some other officer into

+trouble, and silently fixed his eyes on Bagratión as a schoolboy who

+has blundered looks at an examiner.

+

+The silence lasted some time. Prince Bagratión, apparently not wishing

+to be severe, found nothing to say; the others did not venture to

+intervene. Prince Andrew looked at Túshin from under his brows and his

+fingers twitched nervously.

+

+“Your excellency!” Prince Andrew broke the silence with his abrupt

+voice, “you were pleased to send me to Captain Túshin’s battery. I

+went there and found two thirds of the men and horses knocked out, two

+guns smashed, and no supports at all.”

+

+Prince Bagratión and Túshin looked with equal intentness at

+Bolkónski, who spoke with suppressed agitation.

+

+“And, if your excellency will allow me to express my opinion,” he

+continued, “we owe today’s success chiefly to the action of that

+battery and the heroic endurance of Captain Túshin and his company,”

+and without awaiting a reply, Prince Andrew rose and left the table.

+

+Prince Bagratión looked at Túshin, evidently reluctant to show

+distrust in Bolkónski’s emphatic opinion yet not feeling able fully

+to credit it, bent his head, and told Túshin that he could go. Prince

+Andrew went out with him.

+

+“Thank you; you saved me, my dear fellow!” said Túshin.

+

+Prince Andrew gave him a look, but said nothing and went away. He felt

+sad and depressed. It was all so strange, so unlike what he had hoped.

+

+

+“Who are they? Why are they here? What do they want? And when will

+all this end?” thought Rostóv, looking at the changing shadows before

+him. The pain in his arm became more and more intense. Irresistible

+drowsiness overpowered him, red rings danced before his eyes, and the

+impression of those voices and faces and a sense of loneliness merged

+with the physical pain. It was they, these soldiers—wounded and

+unwounded—it was they who were crushing, weighing down, and twisting

+the sinews and scorching the flesh of his sprained arm and shoulder. To

+rid himself of them he closed his eyes.

+

+For a moment he dozed, but in that short interval innumerable things

+appeared to him in a dream: his mother and her large white hand,

+Sónya’s thin little shoulders, Natásha’s eyes and laughter,

+Denísov with his voice and mustache, and Telyánin and all that affair

+with Telyánin and Bogdánich. That affair was the same thing as this

+soldier with the harsh voice, and it was that affair and this soldier

+that were so agonizingly, incessantly pulling and pressing his arm and

+always dragging it in one direction. He tried to get away from them, but

+they would not for an instant let his shoulder move a hair’s breadth.

+It would not ache—it would be well—if only they did not pull it, but

+it was impossible to get rid of them.

+

+He opened his eyes and looked up. The black canopy of night hung less

+than a yard above the glow of the charcoal. Flakes of falling snow were

+fluttering in that light. Túshin had not returned, the doctor had not

+come. He was alone now, except for a soldier who was sitting naked at

+the other side of the fire, warming his thin yellow body.

+

+“Nobody wants me!” thought Rostóv. “There is no one to help me or

+pity me. Yet I was once at home, strong, happy, and loved.” He sighed

+and, doing so, groaned involuntarily.

+

+“Eh, is anything hurting you?” asked the soldier, shaking his shirt

+out over the fire, and not waiting for an answer he gave a grunt and

+added: “What a lot of men have been crippled today—frightful!”

+

+Rostóv did not listen to the soldier. He looked at the snowflakes

+fluttering above the fire and remembered a Russian winter at his warm,

+bright home, his fluffy fur coat, his quickly gliding sleigh, his

+healthy body, and all the affection and care of his family. “And why

+did I come here?” he wondered.

+

+Next day the French army did not renew their attack, and the remnant of

+Bagratión’s detachment was reunited to Kutúzov’s army.

+

+

+

+

+

+BOOK THREE: 1805

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+Prince Vasíli was not a man who deliberately thought out his plans.

+Still less did he think of injuring anyone for his own advantage. He

+was merely a man of the world who had got on and to whom getting on had

+become a habit. Schemes and devices for which he never rightly accounted

+to himself, but which formed the whole interest of his life,

+were constantly shaping themselves in his mind, arising from the

+circumstances and persons he met. Of these plans he had not merely one

+or two in his head but dozens, some only beginning to form themselves,

+some approaching achievement, and some in course of disintegration. He

+did not, for instance, say to himself: “This man now has influence, I

+must gain his confidence and friendship and through him obtain a special

+grant.” Nor did he say to himself: “Pierre is a rich man, I must

+entice him to marry my daughter and lend me the forty thousand rubles

+I need.” But when he came across a man of position his instinct

+immediately told him that this man could be useful, and without any

+premeditation Prince Vasíli took the first opportunity to gain his

+confidence, flatter him, become intimate with him, and finally make his

+request.

+

+He had Pierre at hand in Moscow and procured for him an appointment as

+Gentleman of the Bedchamber, which at that time conferred the status of

+Councilor of State, and insisted on the young man accompanying him to

+Petersburg and staying at his house. With apparent absent-mindedness,

+yet with unhesitating assurance that he was doing the right thing,

+Prince Vasíli did everything to get Pierre to marry his daughter. Had

+he thought out his plans beforehand he could not have been so natural

+and shown such unaffected familiarity in intercourse with everybody both

+above and below him in social standing. Something always drew him toward

+those richer and more powerful than himself and he had rare skill in

+seizing the most opportune moment for making use of people.

+

+Pierre, on unexpectedly becoming Count Bezúkhov and a rich man, felt

+himself after his recent loneliness and freedom from cares so beset and

+preoccupied that only in bed was he able to be by himself. He had to

+sign papers, to present himself at government offices, the purpose of

+which was not clear to him, to question his chief steward, to visit his

+estate near Moscow, and to receive many people who formerly did not

+even wish to know of his existence but would now have been offended

+and grieved had he chosen not to see them. These different

+people—businessmen, relations, and acquaintances alike—were all

+disposed to treat the young heir in the most friendly and flattering

+manner: they were all evidently firmly convinced of Pierre’s noble

+qualities. He was always hearing such words as: “With your remarkable

+kindness,” or, “With your excellent heart,” “You are yourself so

+honorable, Count,” or, “Were he as clever as you,” and so on,

+till he began sincerely to believe in his own exceptional kindness and

+extraordinary intelligence, the more so as in the depth of his heart it

+had always seemed to him that he really was very kind and intelligent.

+Even people who had formerly been spiteful toward him and evidently

+unfriendly now became gentle and affectionate. The angry eldest

+princess, with the long waist and hair plastered down like a doll’s,

+had come into Pierre’s room after the funeral. With drooping eyes

+and frequent blushes she told him she was very sorry about their past

+misunderstandings and did not now feel she had a right to ask him for

+anything, except only for permission, after the blow she had received,

+to remain for a few weeks longer in the house she so loved and where

+she had sacrificed so much. She could not refrain from weeping at these

+words. Touched that this statuesque princess could so change, Pierre

+took her hand and begged her forgiveness, without knowing what for.

+From that day the eldest princess quite changed toward Pierre and began

+knitting a striped scarf for him.

+

+“Do this for my sake, mon cher; after all, she had to put up with a

+great deal from the deceased,” said Prince Vasíli to him, handing him

+a deed to sign for the princess’ benefit.

+

+Prince Vasíli had come to the conclusion that it was necessary to throw

+this bone—a bill for thirty thousand rubles—to the poor princess

+that it might not occur to her to speak of his share in the affair of

+the inlaid portfolio. Pierre signed the deed and after that the princess

+grew still kinder. The younger sisters also became affectionate to him,

+especially the youngest, the pretty one with the mole, who often made

+him feel confused by her smiles and her own confusion when meeting him.

+

+It seemed so natural to Pierre that everyone should like him, and it

+would have seemed so unnatural had anyone disliked him, that he could

+not but believe in the sincerity of those around him. Besides, he had

+no time to ask himself whether these people were sincere or not. He

+was always busy and always felt in a state of mild and cheerful

+intoxication. He felt as though he were the center of some important and

+general movement; that something was constantly expected of him, that if

+he did not do it he would grieve and disappoint many people, but if he

+did this and that, all would be well; and he did what was demanded of

+him, but still that happy result always remained in the future.

+

+More than anyone else, Prince Vasíli took possession of Pierre’s

+affairs and of Pierre himself in those early days. From the death of

+Count Bezúkhov he did not let go his hold of the lad. He had the air of

+a man oppressed by business, weary and suffering, who yet would not, for

+pity’s sake, leave this helpless youth who, after all, was the son of

+his old friend and the possessor of such enormous wealth, to the caprice

+of fate and the designs of rogues. During the few days he spent in

+Moscow after the death of Count Bezúkhov, he would call Pierre, or

+go to him himself, and tell him what ought to be done in a tone of

+weariness and assurance, as if he were adding every time: “You know

+I am overwhelmed with business and it is purely out of charity that

+I trouble myself about you, and you also know quite well that what I

+propose is the only thing possible.”

+

+“Well, my dear fellow, tomorrow we are off at last,” said Prince

+Vasíli one day, closing his eyes and fingering Pierre’s elbow,

+speaking as if he were saying something which had long since been agreed

+upon and could not now be altered. “We start tomorrow and I’m giving

+you a place in my carriage. I am very glad. All our important business

+here is now settled, and I ought to have been off long ago. Here is

+something I have received from the chancellor. I asked him for you, and

+you have been entered in the diplomatic corps and made a Gentleman of

+the Bedchamber. The diplomatic career now lies open before you.”

+

+Notwithstanding the tone of wearied assurance with which these words

+were pronounced, Pierre, who had so long been considering his career,

+wished to make some suggestion. But Prince Vasíli interrupted him in

+the special deep cooing tone, precluding the possibility of interrupting

+his speech, which he used in extreme cases when special persuasion was

+needed.

+

+“Mais, mon cher, I did this for my own sake, to satisfy my conscience,

+and there is nothing to thank me for. No one has ever complained yet of

+being too much loved; and besides, you are free, you could throw it

+up tomorrow. But you will see everything for yourself when you get to

+Petersburg. It is high time for you to get away from these terrible

+recollections.” Prince Vasíli sighed. “Yes, yes, my boy. And my

+valet can go in your carriage. Ah! I was nearly forgetting,” he added.

+“You know, mon cher, your father and I had some accounts to settle, so

+I have received what was due from the Ryazán estate and will keep it;

+you won’t require it. We’ll go into the accounts later.”

+

+By “what was due from the Ryazán estate” Prince Vasíli meant

+several thousand rubles quitrent received from Pierre’s peasants,

+which the prince had retained for himself.

+

+In Petersburg, as in Moscow, Pierre found the same atmosphere of

+gentleness and affection. He could not refuse the post, or rather the

+rank (for he did nothing), that Prince Vasíli had procured for him,

+and acquaintances, invitations, and social occupations were so numerous

+that, even more than in Moscow, he felt a sense of bewilderment, bustle,

+and continual expectation of some good, always in front of him but never

+attained.

+

+Of his former bachelor acquaintances many were no longer in Petersburg.

+The Guards had gone to the front; Dólokhov had been reduced to the

+ranks; Anatole was in the army somewhere in the provinces; Prince Andrew

+was abroad; so Pierre had not the opportunity to spend his nights as he

+used to like to spend them, or to open his mind by intimate talks with

+a friend older than himself and whom he respected. His whole time

+was taken up with dinners and balls and was spent chiefly at Prince

+Vasíli’s house in the company of the stout princess, his wife, and

+his beautiful daughter Hélène.

+

+Like the others, Anna Pávlovna Schérer showed Pierre the change of

+attitude toward him that had taken place in society.

+

+Formerly in Anna Pávlovna’s presence, Pierre had always felt that

+what he was saying was out of place, tactless and unsuitable, that

+remarks which seemed to him clever while they formed in his mind became

+foolish as soon as he uttered them, while on the contrary Hippolyte’s

+stupidest remarks came out clever and apt. Now everything Pierre said

+was charmant. Even if Anna Pávlovna did not say so, he could see that

+she wished to and only refrained out of regard for his modesty.

+

+In the beginning of the winter of 1805-6 Pierre received one of Anna

+Pávlovna’s usual pink notes with an invitation to which was added:

+“You will find the beautiful Hélène here, whom it is always

+delightful to see.”

+

+When he read that sentence, Pierre felt for the first time that some

+link which other people recognized had grown up between himself and

+Hélène, and that thought both alarmed him, as if some obligation were

+being imposed on him which he could not fulfill, and pleased him as an

+entertaining supposition.

+

+Anna Pávlovna’s “At Home” was like the former one, only the

+novelty she offered her guests this time was not Mortemart, but a

+diplomatist fresh from Berlin with the very latest details of the

+Emperor Alexander’s visit to Potsdam, and of how the two august

+friends had pledged themselves in an indissoluble alliance to uphold

+the cause of justice against the enemy of the human race. Anna Pávlovna

+received Pierre with a shade of melancholy, evidently relating to the

+young man’s recent loss by the death of Count Bezúkhov (everyone

+constantly considered it a duty to assure Pierre that he was greatly

+afflicted by the death of the father he had hardly known), and her

+melancholy was just like the august melancholy she showed at the mention

+of her most august Majesty the Empress Márya Fëdorovna. Pierre felt

+flattered by this. Anna Pávlovna arranged the different groups in her

+drawing room with her habitual skill. The large group, in which were

+Prince Vasíli and the generals, had the benefit of the diplomat.

+Another group was at the tea table. Pierre wished to join the former,

+but Anna Pávlovna—who was in the excited condition of a commander on

+a battlefield to whom thousands of new and brilliant ideas occur which

+there is hardly time to put in action—seeing Pierre, touched his

+sleeve with her finger, saying:

+

+“Wait a bit, I have something in view for you this evening.”

+(She glanced at Hélène and smiled at her.) “My dear Hélène, be

+charitable to my poor aunt who adores you. Go and keep her company for

+ten minutes. And that it will not be too dull, here is the dear count

+who will not refuse to accompany you.”

+

+The beauty went to the aunt, but Anna Pávlovna detained Pierre, looking

+as if she had to give some final necessary instructions.

+

+“Isn’t she exquisite?” she said to Pierre, pointing to the stately

+beauty as she glided away. “And how she carries herself! For so young

+a girl, such tact, such masterly perfection of manner! It comes from

+her heart. Happy the man who wins her! With her the least worldly of men

+would occupy a most brilliant position in society. Don’t you think so?

+I only wanted to know your opinion,” and Anna Pávlovna let Pierre go.

+

+Pierre, in reply, sincerely agreed with her as to Hélène’s

+perfection of manner. If he ever thought of Hélène, it was just of

+her beauty and her remarkable skill in appearing silently dignified in

+society.

+

+The old aunt received the two young people in her corner, but seemed

+desirous of hiding her adoration for Hélène and inclined rather

+to show her fear of Anna Pávlovna. She looked at her niece, as if

+inquiring what she was to do with these people. On leaving them, Anna

+Pávlovna again touched Pierre’s sleeve, saying: “I hope you won’t

+say that it is dull in my house again,” and she glanced at Hélène.

+

+Hélène smiled, with a look implying that she did not admit the

+possibility of anyone seeing her without being enchanted. The aunt

+coughed, swallowed, and said in French that she was very pleased to see

+Hélène, then she turned to Pierre with the same words of welcome

+and the same look. In the middle of a dull and halting conversation,

+Hélène turned to Pierre with the beautiful bright smile that she gave

+to everyone. Pierre was so used to that smile, and it had so little

+meaning for him, that he paid no attention to it. The aunt was just

+speaking of a collection of snuffboxes that had belonged to Pierre’s

+father, Count Bezúkhov, and showed them her own box. Princess Hélène

+asked to see the portrait of the aunt’s husband on the box lid.

+

+“That is probably the work of Vinesse,” said Pierre, mentioning

+a celebrated miniaturist, and he leaned over the table to take the

+snuffbox while trying to hear what was being said at the other table.

+

+He half rose, meaning to go round, but the aunt handed him the snuffbox,

+passing it across Hélène’s back. Hélène stooped forward to make

+room, and looked round with a smile. She was, as always at evening

+parties, wearing a dress such as was then fashionable, cut very low at

+front and back. Her bust, which had always seemed like marble to Pierre,

+was so close to him that his shortsighted eyes could not but perceive

+the living charm of her neck and shoulders, so near to his lips that

+he need only have bent his head a little to have touched them. He was

+conscious of the warmth of her body, the scent of perfume, and the

+creaking of her corset as she moved. He did not see her marble beauty

+forming a complete whole with her dress, but all the charm of her body

+only covered by her garments. And having once seen this he could not

+help being aware of it, just as we cannot renew an illusion we have once

+seen through.

+

+“So you have never noticed before how beautiful I am?” Hélène

+seemed to say. “You had not noticed that I am a woman? Yes, I am a

+woman who may belong to anyone—to you too,” said her glance. And at

+that moment Pierre felt that Hélène not only could, but must, be his

+wife, and that it could not be otherwise.

+

+He knew this at that moment as surely as if he had been standing at the

+altar with her. How and when this would be he did not know, he did not

+even know if it would be a good thing (he even felt, he knew not why,

+that it would be a bad thing), but he knew it would happen.

+

+Pierre dropped his eyes, lifted them again, and wished once more to see

+her as a distant beauty far removed from him, as he had seen her every

+day until then, but he could no longer do it. He could not, any more

+than a man who has been looking at a tuft of steppe grass through the

+mist and taking it for a tree can again take it for a tree after he has

+once recognized it to be a tuft of grass. She was terribly close to him.

+She already had power over him, and between them there was no longer any

+barrier except the barrier of his own will.

+

+“Well, I will leave you in your little corner,” came Anna

+Pávlovna’s voice, “I see you are all right there.”

+

+And Pierre, anxiously trying to remember whether he had done anything

+reprehensible, looked round with a blush. It seemed to him that everyone

+knew what had happened to him as he knew it himself.

+

+A little later when he went up to the large circle, Anna Pávlovna said

+to him: “I hear you are refitting your Petersburg house?”

+

+This was true. The architect had told him that it was necessary, and

+Pierre, without knowing why, was having his enormous Petersburg house

+done up.

+

+“That’s a good thing, but don’t move from Prince Vasíli’s. It

+is good to have a friend like the prince,” she said, smiling at Prince

+Vasíli. “I know something about that. Don’t I? And you are still so

+young. You need advice. Don’t be angry with me for exercising an old

+woman’s privilege.”

+

+She paused, as women always do, expecting something after they have

+mentioned their age. “If you marry it will be a different thing,”

+she continued, uniting them both in one glance. Pierre did not look at

+Hélène nor she at him. But she was just as terribly close to him. He

+muttered something and colored.

+

+When he got home he could not sleep for a long time for thinking of what

+had happened. What had happened? Nothing. He had merely understood that

+the woman he had known as a child, of whom when her beauty was mentioned

+he had said absent-mindedly: “Yes, she’s good looking,” he had

+understood that this woman might belong to him.

+

+“But she’s stupid. I have myself said she is stupid,” he thought.

+“There is something nasty, something wrong, in the feeling she excites

+in me. I have been told that her brother Anatole was in love with her

+and she with him, that there was quite a scandal and that that’s why

+he was sent away. Hippolyte is her brother... Prince Vasíli is her

+father... It’s bad....” he reflected, but while he was thinking this

+(the reflection was still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and was

+conscious that another line of thought had sprung up, and while thinking

+of her worthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be his

+wife, how she would love him become quite different, and how all he had

+thought and heard of her might be false. And he again saw her not as the

+daughter of Prince Vasíli, but visualized her whole body only veiled

+by its gray dress. “But no! Why did this thought never occur to me

+before?” and again he told himself that it was impossible, that there

+would be something unnatural, and as it seemed to him dishonorable, in

+this marriage. He recalled her former words and looks and the words

+and looks of those who had seen them together. He recalled Anna

+Pávlovna’s words and looks when she spoke to him about his house,

+recalled thousands of such hints from Prince Vasíli and others, and was

+seized by terror lest he had already, in some way, bound himself to do

+something that was evidently wrong and that he ought not to do. But at

+the very time he was expressing this conviction to himself, in another

+part of his mind her image rose in all its womanly beauty.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+In November, 1805, Prince Vasíli had to go on a tour of inspection

+in four different provinces. He had arranged this for himself so as to

+visit his neglected estates at the same time and pick up his son Anatole

+where his regiment was stationed, and take him to visit Prince Nicholas

+Bolkónski in order to arrange a match for him with the daughter of that

+rich old man. But before leaving home and undertaking these new affairs,

+Prince Vasíli had to settle matters with Pierre, who, it is true, had

+latterly spent whole days at home, that is, in Prince Vasíli’s house

+where he was staying, and had been absurd, excited, and foolish in

+Hélène’s presence (as a lover should be), but had not yet proposed

+to her.

+

+“This is all very fine, but things must be settled,” said Prince

+Vasíli to himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that

+Pierre who was under such obligations to him (“But never mind that”)

+was not behaving very well in this matter. “Youth, frivolity... well,

+God be with him,” thought he, relishing his own goodness of heart,

+“but it must be brought to a head. The day after tomorrow will be

+Lëlya’s name day. I will invite two or three people, and if he does

+not understand what he ought to do then it will be my affair—yes, my

+affair. I am her father.”

+

+Six weeks after Anna Pávlovna’s “At Home” and after the sleepless

+night when he had decided that to marry Hélène would be a calamity and

+that he ought to avoid her and go away, Pierre, despite that decision,

+had not left Prince Vasíli’s and felt with terror that in people’s

+eyes he was every day more and more connected with her, that it was

+impossible for him to return to his former conception of her, that he

+could not break away from her, and that though it would be a terrible

+thing he would have to unite his fate with hers. He might perhaps have

+been able to free himself but that Prince Vasíli (who had rarely before

+given receptions) now hardly let a day go by without having an evening

+party at which Pierre had to be present unless he wished to spoil

+the general pleasure and disappoint everyone’s expectation. Prince

+Vasíli, in the rare moments when he was at home, would take Pierre’s

+hand in passing and draw it downwards, or absent-mindedly hold out his

+wrinkled, clean-shaven cheek for Pierre to kiss and would say: “Till

+tomorrow,” or, “Be in to dinner or I shall not see you,” or, “I

+am staying in for your sake,” and so on. And though Prince Vasíli,

+when he stayed in (as he said) for Pierre’s sake, hardly exchanged a

+couple of words with him, Pierre felt unable to disappoint him.

+Every day he said to himself one and the same thing: “It is time I

+understood her and made up my mind what she really is. Was I mistaken

+before, or am I mistaken now? No, she is not stupid, she is an excellent

+girl,” he sometimes said to himself “she never makes a mistake,

+never says anything stupid. She says little, but what she does say is

+always clear and simple, so she is not stupid. She never was abashed and

+is not abashed now, so she cannot be a bad woman!” He had often begun

+to make reflections or think aloud in her company, and she had always

+answered him either by a brief but appropriate remark—showing that it

+did not interest her—or by a silent look and smile which more palpably

+than anything else showed Pierre her superiority. She was right in

+regarding all arguments as nonsense in comparison with that smile.

+

+She always addressed him with a radiantly confiding smile meant for him

+alone, in which there was something more significant than in the general

+smile that usually brightened her face. Pierre knew that everyone was

+waiting for him to say a word and cross a certain line, and he knew that

+sooner or later he would step across it, but an incomprehensible terror

+seized him at the thought of that dreadful step. A thousand times during

+that month and a half while he felt himself drawn nearer and nearer to

+that dreadful abyss, Pierre said to himself: “What am I doing? I need

+resolution. Can it be that I have none?”

+

+He wished to take a decision, but felt with dismay that in this matter

+he lacked that strength of will which he had known in himself and really

+possessed. Pierre was one of those who are only strong when they feel

+themselves quite innocent, and since that day when he was overpowered

+by a feeling of desire while stooping over the snuffbox at Anna

+Pávlovna’s, an unacknowledged sense of the guilt of that desire

+paralyzed his will.

+

+On Hélène’s name day, a small party of just their own people—as

+his wife said—met for supper at Prince Vasíli’s. All these friends

+and relations had been given to understand that the fate of the young

+girl would be decided that evening. The visitors were seated at supper.

+Princess Kurágina, a portly imposing woman who had once been handsome,

+was sitting at the head of the table. On either side of her sat the

+more important guests—an old general and his wife, and Anna Pávlovna

+Schérer. At the other end sat the younger and less important guests,

+and there too sat the members of the family, and Pierre and Hélène,

+side by side. Prince Vasíli was not having any supper: he went round

+the table in a merry mood, sitting down now by one, now by another, of

+the guests. To each of them he made some careless and agreeable remark

+except to Pierre and Hélène, whose presence he seemed not to notice.

+He enlivened the whole party. The wax candles burned brightly, the

+silver and crystal gleamed, so did the ladies’ toilets and the gold

+and silver of the men’s epaulets; servants in scarlet liveries moved

+round the table, the clatter of plates, knives, and glasses mingled with

+the animated hum of several conversations. At one end of the table, the

+old chamberlain was heard assuring an old baroness that he loved her

+passionately, at which she laughed; at the other could be heard the

+story of the misfortunes of some Mary Víktorovna or other. At the

+center of the table, Prince Vasíli attracted everybody’s attention.

+With a facetious smile on his face, he was telling the ladies about last

+Wednesday’s meeting of the Imperial Council, at which Sergéy Kuzmích

+Vyazmítinov, the new military governor general of Petersburg, had

+received and read the then famous rescript of the Emperor Alexander

+from the army to Sergéy Kuzmích, in which the Emperor said that he was

+receiving from all sides declarations of the people’s loyalty, that

+the declaration from Petersburg gave him particular pleasure, and that

+he was proud to be at the head of such a nation and would endeavor to be

+worthy of it. This rescript began with the words: “Sergéy Kuzmích,

+From all sides reports reach me,” etc.

+

+“Well, and so he never got farther than: ‘Sergéy Kuzmích’?”

+asked one of the ladies.

+

+“Exactly, not a hair’s breadth farther,” answered Prince Vasíli,

+laughing, “‘Sergéy Kuzmích... From all sides... From all sides...

+Sergéy Kuzmích...’ Poor Vyazmítinov could not get any farther!

+He began the rescript again and again, but as soon as he uttered

+‘Sergéy’ he sobbed, ‘Kuz-mí-ch,’ tears, and ‘From all

+sides’ was smothered in sobs and he could get no farther. And again

+his handkerchief, and again: ‘Sergéy Kuzmích, From all sides,’...

+and tears, till at last somebody else was asked to read it.”

+

+“Kuzmích... From all sides... and then tears,” someone repeated

+laughing.

+

+“Don’t be unkind,” cried Anna Pávlovna from her end of the table

+holding up a threatening finger. “He is such a worthy and excellent

+man, our dear Vyazmítinov....”

+

+Everybody laughed a great deal. At the head of the table, where the

+honored guests sat, everyone seemed to be in high spirits and under the

+influence of a variety of exciting sensations. Only Pierre and

+Hélène sat silently side by side almost at the bottom of the table, a

+suppressed smile brightening both their faces, a smile that had nothing

+to do with Sergéy Kuzmích—a smile of bashfulness at their own

+feelings. But much as all the rest laughed, talked, and joked, much

+as they enjoyed their Rhine wine, sauté, and ices, and however they

+avoided looking at the young couple, and heedless and unobservant as

+they seemed of them, one could feel by the occasional glances they gave

+that the story about Sergéy Kuzmích, the laughter, and the food

+were all a pretense, and that the whole attention of that company was

+directed to—Pierre and Hélène. Prince Vasíli mimicked the sobbing

+of Sergéy Kuzmích and at the same time his eyes glanced toward his

+daughter, and while he laughed the expression on his face clearly said:

+“Yes... it’s getting on, it will all be settled today.” Anna

+Pávlovna threatened him on behalf of “our dear Vyazmítinov,” and

+in her eyes, which, for an instant, glanced at Pierre, Prince Vasíli

+read a congratulation on his future son-in-law and on his daughter’s

+happiness. The old princess sighed sadly as she offered some wine to the

+old lady next to her and glanced angrily at her daughter, and her sigh

+seemed to say: “Yes, there’s nothing left for you and me but to sip

+sweet wine, my dear, now that the time has come for these young ones to

+be thus boldly, provocatively happy.” “And what nonsense all this is

+that I am saying!” thought a diplomatist, glancing at the happy faces

+of the lovers. “That’s happiness!”

+

+Into the insignificant, trifling, and artificial interests uniting that

+society had entered the simple feeling of the attraction of a healthy

+and handsome young man and woman for one another. And this human feeling

+dominated everything else and soared above all their affected chatter.

+Jests fell flat, news was not interesting, and the animation was

+evidently forced. Not only the guests but even the footmen waiting at

+table seemed to feel this, and they forgot their duties as they looked

+at the beautiful Hélène with her radiant face and at the red, broad,

+and happy though uneasy face of Pierre. It seemed as if the very light

+of the candles was focused on those two happy faces alone.

+

+Pierre felt that he was the center of it all, and this both pleased and

+embarrassed him. He was like a man entirely absorbed in some occupation.

+He did not see, hear, or understand anything clearly. Only now and

+then detached ideas and impressions from the world of reality shot

+unexpectedly through his mind.

+

+“So it is all finished!” he thought. “And how has it all happened?

+How quickly! Now I know that not because of her alone, nor of myself

+alone, but because of everyone, it must inevitably come about. They are

+all expecting it, they are so sure that it will happen that I cannot, I

+cannot, disappoint them. But how will it be? I do not know, but it

+will certainly happen!” thought Pierre, glancing at those dazzling

+shoulders close to his eyes.

+

+Or he would suddenly feel ashamed of he knew not what. He felt it

+awkward to attract everyone’s attention and to be considered a

+lucky man and, with his plain face, to be looked on as a sort of Paris

+possessed of a Helen. “But no doubt it always is and must be so!”

+he consoled himself. “And besides, what have I done to bring it about?

+How did it begin? I traveled from Moscow with Prince Vasíli. Then there

+was nothing. So why should I not stay at his house? Then I played cards

+with her and picked up her reticule and drove out with her. How did it

+begin, when did it all come about?” And here he was sitting by her

+side as her betrothed, seeing, hearing, feeling her nearness, her

+breathing, her movements, her beauty. Then it would suddenly seem to him

+that it was not she but he was so unusually beautiful, and that that was

+why they all looked so at him, and flattered by this general admiration

+he would expand his chest, raise his head, and rejoice at his good

+fortune. Suddenly he heard a familiar voice repeating something to him a

+second time. But Pierre was so absorbed that he did not understand what

+was said.

+

+“I am asking you when you last heard from Bolkónski,” repeated

+Prince Vasíli a third time. “How absent-minded you are, my dear

+fellow.”

+

+Prince Vasíli smiled, and Pierre noticed that everyone was smiling at

+him and Hélène. “Well, what of it, if you all know it?” thought

+Pierre. “What of it? It’s the truth!” and he himself smiled his

+gentle childlike smile, and Hélène smiled too.

+

+“When did you get the letter? Was it from Olmütz?” repeated

+Prince Vasíli, who pretended to want to know this in order to settle a

+dispute.

+

+“How can one talk or think of such trifles?” thought Pierre.

+

+“Yes, from Olmütz,” he answered, with a sigh.

+

+After supper Pierre with his partner followed the others into the

+drawing room. The guests began to disperse, some without taking leave

+of Hélène. Some, as if unwilling to distract her from an important

+occupation, came up to her for a moment and made haste to go away,

+refusing to let her see them off. The diplomatist preserved a mournful

+silence as he left the drawing room. He pictured the vanity of his

+diplomatic career in comparison with Pierre’s happiness. The old

+general grumbled at his wife when she asked how his leg was. “Oh, the

+old fool,” he thought. “That Princess Hélène will be beautiful

+still when she’s fifty.”

+

+“I think I may congratulate you,” whispered Anna Pávlovna to the

+old princess, kissing her soundly. “If I hadn’t this headache I’d

+have stayed longer.”

+

+The old princess did not reply, she was tormented by jealousy of her

+daughter’s happiness.

+

+While the guests were taking their leave Pierre remained for a long time

+alone with Hélène in the little drawing room where they were sitting.

+He had often before, during the last six weeks, remained alone with her,

+but had never spoken to her of love. Now he felt that it was inevitable,

+but he could not make up his mind to take the final step. He felt

+ashamed; he felt that he was occupying someone else’s place here

+beside Hélène. “This happiness is not for you,” some inner voice

+whispered to him. “This happiness is for those who have not in them

+what there is in you.”

+

+But, as he had to say something, he began by asking her whether she was

+satisfied with the party. She replied in her usual simple manner that

+this name day of hers had been one of the pleasantest she had ever had.

+

+Some of the nearest relatives had not yet left. They were sitting in

+the large drawing room. Prince Vasíli came up to Pierre with languid

+footsteps. Pierre rose and said it was getting late. Prince Vasíli gave

+him a look of stern inquiry, as though what Pierre had just said was

+so strange that one could not take it in. But then the expression of

+severity changed, and he drew Pierre’s hand downwards, made him sit

+down, and smiled affectionately.

+

+“Well, Lëlya?” he asked, turning instantly to his daughter and

+addressing her with the careless tone of habitual tenderness natural to

+parents who have petted their children from babyhood, but which Prince

+Vasíli had only acquired by imitating other parents.

+

+And he again turned to Pierre.

+

+“Sergéy Kuzmích—From all sides—” he said, unbuttoning the top

+button of his waistcoat.

+

+Pierre smiled, but his smile showed that he knew it was not the story

+about Sergéy Kuzmích that interested Prince Vasíli just then, and

+Prince Vasíli saw that Pierre knew this. He suddenly muttered

+something and went away. It seemed to Pierre that even the prince was

+disconcerted. The sight of the discomposure of that old man of the world

+touched Pierre: he looked at Hélène and she too seemed disconcerted,

+and her look seemed to say: “Well, it is your own fault.”

+

+“The step must be taken but I cannot, I cannot!” thought Pierre,

+and he again began speaking about indifferent matters, about Sergéy

+Kuzmích, asking what the point of the story was as he had not heard it

+properly. Hélène answered with a smile that she too had missed it.

+

+When Prince Vasíli returned to the drawing room, the princess, his

+wife, was talking in low tones to the elderly lady about Pierre.

+

+“Of course, it is a very brilliant match, but happiness, my dear...”

+

+“Marriages are made in heaven,” replied the elderly lady.

+

+Prince Vasíli passed by, seeming not to hear the ladies, and sat down

+on a sofa in a far corner of the room. He closed his eyes and seemed to

+be dozing. His head sank forward and then he roused himself.

+

+“Aline,” he said to his wife, “go and see what they are about.”

+

+The princess went up to the door, passed by it with a dignified and

+indifferent air, and glanced into the little drawing room. Pierre and

+Hélène still sat talking just as before.

+

+“Still the same,” she said to her husband.

+

+Prince Vasíli frowned, twisting his mouth, his cheeks quivered and his

+face assumed the coarse, unpleasant expression peculiar to him. Shaking

+himself, he rose, threw back his head, and with resolute steps went

+past the ladies into the little drawing room. With quick steps he went

+joyfully up to Pierre. His face was so unusually triumphant that Pierre

+rose in alarm on seeing it.

+

+“Thank God!” said Prince Vasíli. “My wife has told me

+everything!” (He put one arm around Pierre and the other around his

+daughter.)—“My dear boy... Lëlya... I am very pleased.” (His

+voice trembled.) “I loved your father... and she will make you a good

+wife... God bless you!...”

+

+He embraced his daughter, and then again Pierre, and kissed him with his

+malodorous mouth. Tears actually moistened his cheeks.

+

+“Princess, come here!” he shouted.

+

+The old princess came in and also wept. The elderly lady was using

+her handkerchief too. Pierre was kissed, and he kissed the beautiful

+Hélène’s hand several times. After a while they were left alone

+again.

+

+“All this had to be and could not be otherwise,” thought Pierre,

+“so it is useless to ask whether it is good or bad. It is good because

+it’s definite and one is rid of the old tormenting doubt.” Pierre

+held the hand of his betrothed in silence, looking at her beautiful

+bosom as it rose and fell.

+

+“Hélène!” he said aloud and paused.

+

+“Something special is always said in such cases,” he thought, but

+could not remember what it was that people say. He looked at her face.

+She drew nearer to him. Her face flushed.

+

+“Oh, take those off... those...” she said, pointing to his

+spectacles.

+

+Pierre took them off, and his eyes, besides the strange look eyes have

+from which spectacles have just been removed, had also a frightened and

+inquiring look. He was about to stoop over her hand and kiss it, but

+with a rapid, almost brutal movement of her head, she intercepted his

+lips and met them with her own. Her face struck Pierre, by its altered,

+unpleasantly excited expression.

+

+“It is too late now, it’s done; besides I love her,” thought

+Pierre.

+

+“Je vous aime!” * he said, remembering what has to be said at such

+moments: but his words sounded so weak that he felt ashamed of himself.

+

+    * “I love you.”

+

+

+Six weeks later he was married, and settled in Count Bezúkhov’s

+large, newly furnished Petersburg house, the happy possessor, as people

+said, of a wife who was a celebrated beauty and of millions of money.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+Old Prince Nicholas Bolkónski received a letter from Prince Vasíli

+in November, 1805, announcing that he and his son would be paying him

+a visit. “I am starting on a journey of inspection, and of course I

+shall think nothing of an extra seventy miles to come and see you at

+the same time, my honored benefactor,” wrote Prince Vasíli. “My son

+Anatole is accompanying me on his way to the army, so I hope you will

+allow him personally to express the deep respect that, emulating his

+father, he feels for you.”

+

+“It seems that there will be no need to bring Mary out, suitors are

+coming to us of their own accord,” incautiously remarked the little

+princess on hearing the news.

+

+Prince Nicholas frowned, but said nothing.

+

+A fortnight after the letter Prince Vasíli’s servants came one

+evening in advance of him, and he and his son arrived next day.

+

+Old Bolkónski had always had a poor opinion of Prince Vasíli’s

+character, but more so recently, since in the new reigns of Paul and

+Alexander Prince Vasíli had risen to high position and honors. And now,

+from the hints contained in his letter and given by the little princess,

+he saw which way the wind was blowing, and his low opinion changed into

+a feeling of contemptuous ill will. He snorted whenever he mentioned

+him. On the day of Prince Vasíli’s arrival, Prince Bolkónski was

+particularly discontented and out of temper. Whether he was in a bad

+temper because Prince Vasíli was coming, or whether his being in a bad

+temper made him specially annoyed at Prince Vasíli’s visit, he was

+in a bad temper, and in the morning Tíkhon had already advised the

+architect not to go to the prince with his report.

+

+“Do you hear how he’s walking?” said Tíkhon, drawing the

+architect’s attention to the sound of the prince’s footsteps.

+“Stepping flat on his heels—we know what that means....”

+

+However, at nine o’clock the prince, in his velvet coat with a sable

+collar and cap, went out for his usual walk. It had snowed the day

+before and the path to the hothouse, along which the prince was in the

+habit of walking, had been swept: the marks of the broom were still

+visible in the snow and a shovel had been left sticking in one of the

+soft snowbanks that bordered both sides of the path. The prince went

+through the conservatories, the serfs’ quarters, and the outbuildings,

+frowning and silent.

+

+“Can a sleigh pass?” he asked his overseer, a venerable man,

+resembling his master in manners and looks, who was accompanying him

+back to the house.

+

+“The snow is deep. I am having the avenue swept, your honor.”

+

+The prince bowed his head and went up to the porch. “God be

+thanked,” thought the overseer, “the storm has blown over!”

+

+“It would have been hard to drive up, your honor,” he added. “I

+heard, your honor, that a minister is coming to visit your honor.”

+

+The prince turned round to the overseer and fixed his eyes on him,

+frowning.

+

+“What? A minister? What minister? Who gave orders?” he said in

+his shrill, harsh voice. “The road is not swept for the princess my

+daughter, but for a minister! For me, there are no ministers!”

+

+“Your honor, I thought...”

+

+“You thought!” shouted the prince, his words coming more and more

+rapidly and indistinctly. “You thought!... Rascals! Blackguards!...

+I’ll teach you to think!” and lifting his stick he swung it and

+would have hit Alpátych, the overseer, had not the latter instinctively

+avoided the blow. “Thought... Blackguards...” shouted the prince

+rapidly.

+

+But although Alpátych, frightened at his own temerity in avoiding the

+stroke, came up to the prince, bowing his bald head resignedly before

+him, or perhaps for that very reason, the prince, though he continued

+to shout: “Blackguards!... Throw the snow back on the road!” did not

+lift his stick again but hurried into the house.

+

+Before dinner, Princess Mary and Mademoiselle Bourienne, who knew

+that the prince was in a bad humor, stood awaiting him; Mademoiselle

+Bourienne with a radiant face that said: “I know nothing, I am the

+same as usual,” and Princess Mary pale, frightened, and with downcast

+eyes. What she found hardest to bear was to know that on such occasions

+she ought to behave like Mademoiselle Bourienne, but could not.

+She thought: “If I seem not to notice he will think that I do not

+sympathize with him; if I seem sad and out of spirits myself, he will

+say (as he has done before) that I’m in the dumps.”

+

+The prince looked at his daughter’s frightened face and snorted.

+

+“Fool... or dummy!” he muttered.

+

+“And the other one is not here. They’ve been telling tales,” he

+thought—referring to the little princess who was not in the dining

+room.

+

+“Where is the princess?” he asked. “Hiding?”

+

+“She is not very well,” answered Mademoiselle Bourienne with

+a bright smile, “so she won’t come down. It is natural in her

+state.”

+

+“Hm! Hm!” muttered the prince, sitting down.

+

+His plate seemed to him not quite clean, and pointing to a spot he

+flung it away. Tíkhon caught it and handed it to a footman. The little

+princess was not unwell, but had such an overpowering fear of the prince

+that, hearing he was in a bad humor, she had decided not to appear.

+

+“I am afraid for the baby,” she said to Mademoiselle Bourienne:

+“Heaven knows what a fright might do.”

+

+In general at Bald Hills the little princess lived in constant fear, and

+with a sense of antipathy to the old prince which she did not

+realize because the fear was so much the stronger feeling. The prince

+reciprocated this antipathy, but it was overpowered by his contempt

+for her. When the little princess had grown accustomed to life at Bald

+Hills, she took a special fancy to Mademoiselle Bourienne, spent whole

+days with her, asked her to sleep in her room, and often talked with her

+about the old prince and criticized him.

+

+“So we are to have visitors, mon prince?” remarked Mademoiselle

+Bourienne, unfolding her white napkin with her rosy fingers. “His

+Excellency Prince Vasíli Kurágin and his son, I understand?” she

+said inquiringly.

+

+“Hm!—his excellency is a puppy.... I got him his appointment in the

+service,” said the prince disdainfully. “Why his son is coming I

+don’t understand. Perhaps Princess Elizabeth and Princess Mary know.

+I don’t want him.” (He looked at his blushing daughter.) “Are you

+unwell today? Eh? Afraid of the ‘minister’ as that idiot Alpátych

+called him this morning?”

+

+“No, mon père.”

+

+Though Mademoiselle Bourienne had been so unsuccessful in her choice

+of a subject, she did not stop talking, but chattered about the

+conservatories and the beauty of a flower that had just opened, and

+after the soup the prince became more genial.

+

+After dinner, he went to see his daughter-in-law. The little princess

+was sitting at a small table, chattering with Másha, her maid. She grew

+pale on seeing her father-in-law.

+

+She was much altered. She was now plain rather than pretty. Her cheeks

+had sunk, her lip was drawn up, and her eyes drawn down.

+

+“Yes, I feel a kind of oppression,” she said in reply to the

+prince’s question as to how she felt.

+

+“Do you want anything?”

+

+“No, merci, mon père.”

+

+“Well, all right, all right.”

+

+He left the room and went to the waiting room where Alpátych stood with

+bowed head.

+

+“Has the snow been shoveled back?”

+

+“Yes, your excellency. Forgive me for heaven’s sake... It was only

+my stupidity.”

+

+“All right, all right,” interrupted the prince, and laughing his

+unnatural way, he stretched out his hand for Alpátych to kiss, and then

+proceeded to his study.

+

+Prince Vasíli arrived that evening. He was met in the avenue by

+coachmen and footmen, who, with loud shouts, dragged his sleighs up to

+one of the lodges over the road purposely laden with snow.

+

+Prince Vasíli and Anatole had separate rooms assigned to them.

+

+Anatole, having taken off his overcoat, sat with arms akimbo before a

+table on a corner of which he smilingly and absent-mindedly fixed his

+large and handsome eyes. He regarded his whole life as a continual round

+of amusement which someone for some reason had to provide for him.

+And he looked on this visit to a churlish old man and a rich and ugly

+heiress in the same way. All this might, he thought, turn out very well

+and amusingly. “And why not marry her if she really has so much money?

+That never does any harm,” thought Anatole.

+

+He shaved and scented himself with the care and elegance which had

+become habitual to him and, his handsome head held high, entered his

+father’s room with the good-humored and victorious air natural to

+him. Prince Vasíli’s two valets were busy dressing him, and he looked

+round with much animation and cheerfully nodded to his son as the latter

+entered, as if to say: “Yes, that’s how I want you to look.”

+

+“I say, Father, joking apart, is she very hideous?” Anatole asked,

+as if continuing a conversation the subject of which had often been

+mentioned during the journey.

+

+“Enough! What nonsense! Above all, try to be respectful and cautious

+with the old prince.”

+

+“If he starts a row I’ll go away,” said Prince Anatole. “I

+can’t bear those old men! Eh?”

+

+“Remember, for you everything depends on this.”

+

+In the meantime, not only was it known in the maidservants’ rooms that

+the minister and his son had arrived, but the appearance of both had

+been minutely described. Princess Mary was sitting alone in her room,

+vainly trying to master her agitation.

+

+“Why did they write, why did Lise tell me about it? It can never

+happen!” she said, looking at herself in the glass. “How shall I

+enter the drawing room? Even if I like him I can’t now be myself with

+him.” The mere thought of her father’s look filled her with terror.

+The little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne had already received

+from Másha, the lady’s maid, the necessary report of how handsome the

+minister’s son was, with his rosy cheeks and dark eyebrows, and with

+what difficulty the father had dragged his legs upstairs while the son

+had followed him like an eagle, three steps at a time. Having received

+this information, the little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne, whose

+chattering voices had reached her from the corridor, went into Princess

+Mary’s room.

+

+“You know they’ve come, Marie?” said the little princess, waddling

+in, and sinking heavily into an armchair.

+

+She was no longer in the loose gown she generally wore in the morning,

+but had on one of her best dresses. Her hair was carefully done and her

+face was animated, which, however, did not conceal its sunken and faded

+outlines. Dressed as she used to be in Petersburg society, it was still

+more noticeable how much plainer she had become. Some unobtrusive touch

+had been added to Mademoiselle Bourienne’s toilet which rendered her

+fresh and pretty face yet more attractive.

+

+“What! Are you going to remain as you are, dear princess?” she

+began. “They’ll be announcing that the gentlemen are in the drawing

+room and we shall have to go down, and you have not smartened yourself

+up at all!”

+

+The little princess got up, rang for the maid, and hurriedly and merrily

+began to devise and carry out a plan of how Princess Mary should be

+dressed. Princess Mary’s self-esteem was wounded by the fact that

+the arrival of a suitor agitated her, and still more so by both

+her companions’ not having the least conception that it could be

+otherwise. To tell them that she felt ashamed for herself and for them

+would be to betray her agitation, while to decline their offers to

+dress her would prolong their banter and insistence. She flushed, her

+beautiful eyes grew dim, red blotches came on her face, and it took

+on the unattractive martyrlike expression it so often wore, as she

+submitted herself to Mademoiselle Bourienne and Lise. Both these women

+quite sincerely tried to make her look pretty. She was so plain that

+neither of them could think of her as a rival, so they began dressing

+her with perfect sincerity, and with the naïve and firm conviction

+women have that dress can make a face pretty.

+

+“No really, my dear, this dress is not pretty,” said Lise, looking

+sideways at Princess Mary from a little distance. “You have a maroon

+dress, have it fetched. Really! You know the fate of your whole life may

+be at stake. But this one is too light, it’s not becoming!”

+

+It was not the dress, but the face and whole figure of Princess Mary

+that was not pretty, but neither Mademoiselle Bourienne nor the little

+princess felt this; they still thought that if a blue ribbon were placed

+in the hair, the hair combed up, and the blue scarf arranged lower on

+the best maroon dress, and so on, all would be well. They forgot that

+the frightened face and the figure could not be altered, and that

+however they might change the setting and adornment of that face, it

+would still remain piteous and plain. After two or three changes to

+which Princess Mary meekly submitted, just as her hair had been arranged

+on the top of her head (a style that quite altered and spoiled her

+looks) and she had put on a maroon dress with a pale-blue scarf, the

+little princess walked twice round her, now adjusting a fold of the

+dress with her little hand, now arranging the scarf and looking at her

+with her head bent first on one side and then on the other.

+

+“No, it will not do,” she said decidedly, clasping her hands. “No,

+Mary, really this dress does not suit you. I prefer you in your little

+gray everyday dress. Now please, do it for my sake. Katie,” she said

+to the maid, “bring the princess her gray dress, and you’ll see,

+Mademoiselle Bourienne, how I shall arrange it,” she added, smiling

+with a foretaste of artistic pleasure.

+

+But when Katie brought the required dress, Princess Mary remained

+sitting motionless before the glass, looking at her face, and saw in the

+mirror her eyes full of tears and her mouth quivering, ready to burst

+into sobs.

+

+“Come, dear princess,” said Mademoiselle Bourienne, “just one more

+little effort.”

+

+The little princess, taking the dress from the maid, came up to Princess

+Mary.

+

+“Well, now we’ll arrange something quite simple and becoming,” she

+said.

+

+The three voices, hers, Mademoiselle Bourienne’s, and Katie’s, who

+was laughing at something, mingled in a merry sound, like the chirping

+of birds.

+

+“No, leave me alone,” said Princess Mary.

+

+Her voice sounded so serious and so sad that the chirping of the birds

+was silenced at once. They looked at the beautiful, large, thoughtful

+eyes full of tears and of thoughts, gazing shiningly and imploringly at

+them, and understood that it was useless and even cruel to insist.

+

+“At least, change your coiffure,” said the little princess.

+“Didn’t I tell you,” she went on, turning reproachfully to

+Mademoiselle Bourienne, “Mary’s is a face which such a coiffure does

+not suit in the least. Not in the least! Please change it.”

+

+“Leave me alone, please leave me alone! It is all quite the same to

+me,” answered a voice struggling with tears.

+

+Mademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess had to own to themselves

+that Princess Mary in this guise looked very plain, worse than usual,

+but it was too late. She was looking at them with an expression they

+both knew, an expression thoughtful and sad. This expression in Princess

+Mary did not frighten them (she never inspired fear in anyone), but they

+knew that when it appeared on her face, she became mute and was not to

+be shaken in her determination.

+

+“You will change it, won’t you?” said Lise. And as Princess Mary

+gave no answer, she left the room.

+

+Princess Mary was left alone. She did not comply with Lise’s request,

+she not only left her hair as it was, but did not even look in her

+glass. Letting her arms fall helplessly, she sat with downcast eyes and

+pondered. A husband, a man, a strong dominant and strangely attractive

+being rose in her imagination, and carried her into a totally different

+happy world of his own. She fancied a child, her own—such as she had

+seen the day before in the arms of her nurse’s daughter—at her

+own breast, the husband standing by and gazing tenderly at her and the

+child. “But no, it is impossible, I am too ugly,” she thought.

+

+“Please come to tea. The prince will be out in a moment,” came the

+maid’s voice at the door.

+

+She roused herself, and felt appalled at what she had been thinking, and

+before going down she went into the room where the icons hung and, her

+eyes fixed on the dark face of a large icon of the Saviour lit by a

+lamp, she stood before it with folded hands for a few moments. A painful

+doubt filled her soul. Could the joy of love, of earthly love for a

+man, be for her? In her thoughts of marriage Princess Mary dreamed of

+happiness and of children, but her strongest, most deeply hidden longing

+was for earthly love. The more she tried to hide this feeling from

+others and even from herself, the stronger it grew. “O God,” she

+said, “how am I to stifle in my heart these temptations of the devil?

+How am I to renounce forever these vile fancies, so as peacefully to

+fulfill Thy will?” And scarcely had she put that question than God

+gave her the answer in her own heart. “Desire nothing for thyself,

+seek nothing, be not anxious or envious. Man’s future and thy own fate

+must remain hidden from thee, but live so that thou mayest be ready for

+anything. If it be God’s will to prove thee in the duties of marriage,

+be ready to fulfill His will.” With this consoling thought (but

+yet with a hope for the fulfillment of her forbidden earthly longing)

+Princess Mary sighed, and having crossed herself went down, thinking

+neither of her gown and coiffure nor of how she would go in nor of what

+she would say. What could all that matter in comparison with the will of

+God, without Whose care not a hair of man’s head can fall?

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+When Princess Mary came down, Prince Vasíli and his son were already

+in the drawing room, talking to the little princess and Mademoiselle

+Bourienne. When she entered with her heavy step, treading on her heels,

+the gentlemen and Mademoiselle Bourienne rose and the little princess,

+indicating her to the gentlemen, said: “Voilà Marie!” Princess Mary

+saw them all and saw them in detail. She saw Prince Vasíli’s face,

+serious for an instant at the sight of her, but immediately smiling

+again, and the little princess curiously noting the impression

+“Marie” produced on the visitors. And she saw Mademoiselle

+Bourienne, with her ribbon and pretty face, and her unusually animated

+look which was fixed on him, but him she could not see, she only saw

+something large, brilliant, and handsome moving toward her as she

+entered the room. Prince Vasíli approached first, and she kissed the

+bold forehead that bent over her hand and answered his question by

+saying that, on the contrary, she remembered him quite well. Then

+Anatole came up to her. She still could not see him. She only felt a

+soft hand taking hers firmly, and she touched with her lips a white

+forehead, over which was beautiful light-brown hair smelling of pomade.

+When she looked up at him she was struck by his beauty. Anatole stood

+with his right thumb under a button of his uniform, his chest expanded

+and his back drawn in, slightly swinging one foot, and, with his head a

+little bent, looked with beaming face at the princess without

+speaking and evidently not thinking about her at all. Anatole was not

+quick-witted, nor ready or eloquent in conversation, but he had the

+faculty, so invaluable in society, of composure and imperturbable

+self-possession. If a man lacking in self-confidence remains dumb on

+a first introduction and betrays a consciousness of the impropriety of

+such silence and an anxiety to find something to say, the effect is

+bad. But Anatole was dumb, swung his foot, and smilingly examined the

+princess’ hair. It was evident that he could be silent in this way for

+a very long time. “If anyone finds this silence inconvenient, let him

+talk, but I don’t want to,” he seemed to say. Besides this, in his

+behavior to women Anatole had a manner which particularly inspires in

+them curiosity, awe, and even love—a supercilious consciousness of

+his own superiority. It was as if he said to them: “I know you, I know

+you, but why should I bother about you? You’d be only too glad, of

+course.” Perhaps he did not really think this when he met women—even

+probably he did not, for in general he thought very little—but his

+looks and manner gave that impression. The princess felt this, and as if

+wishing to show him that she did not even dare expect to interest him,

+she turned to his father. The conversation was general and animated,

+thanks to Princess Lise’s voice and little downy lip that lifted over

+her white teeth. She met Prince Vasíli with that playful manner often

+employed by lively chatty people, and consisting in the assumption

+that between the person they so address and themselves there are some

+semi-private, long-established jokes and amusing reminiscences, though

+no such reminiscences really exist—just as none existed in this case.

+Prince Vasíli readily adopted her tone and the little princess also

+drew Anatole, whom she hardly knew, into these amusing recollections of

+things that had never occurred. Mademoiselle Bourienne also shared them

+and even Princess Mary felt herself pleasantly made to share in these

+merry reminiscences.

+

+“Here at least we shall have the benefit of your company all to

+ourselves, dear prince,” said the little princess (of course, in

+French) to Prince Vasíli. “It’s not as at Annette’s * receptions

+where you always ran away; you remember cette chère Annette!”

+

+    * Anna Pávlovna.

+

+“Ah, but you won’t talk politics to me like Annette!”

+

+“And our little tea table?”

+

+“Oh, yes!”

+

+“Why is it you were never at Annette’s?” the little princess asked

+Anatole. “Ah, I know, I know,” she said with a sly glance, “your

+brother Hippolyte told me about your goings on. Oh!” and she shook her

+finger at him, “I have even heard of your doings in Paris!”

+

+“And didn’t Hippolyte tell you?” asked Prince Vasíli, turning to

+his son and seizing the little princess’ arm as if she would have run

+away and he had just managed to catch her, “didn’t he tell you how

+he himself was pining for the dear princess, and how she showed him the

+door? Oh, she is a pearl among women, Princess,” he added, turning to

+Princess Mary.

+

+When Paris was mentioned, Mademoiselle Bourienne for her part seized the

+opportunity of joining in the general current of recollections.

+

+She took the liberty of inquiring whether it was long since Anatole

+had left Paris and how he had liked that city. Anatole answered the

+Frenchwoman very readily and, looking at her with a smile, talked to her

+about her native land. When he saw the pretty little Bourienne, Anatole

+came to the conclusion that he would not find Bald Hills dull either.

+“Not at all bad!” he thought, examining her, “not at all bad, that

+little companion! I hope she will bring her along with her when we’re

+married, la petite est gentille.” *

+

+    * The little one is charming.

+

+The old prince dressed leisurely in his study, frowning and considering

+what he was to do. The coming of these visitors annoyed him. “What are

+Prince Vasíli and that son of his to me? Prince Vasíli is a shallow

+braggart and his son, no doubt, is a fine specimen,” he grumbled to

+himself. What angered him was that the coming of these visitors revived

+in his mind an unsettled question he always tried to stifle, one about

+which he always deceived himself. The question was whether he could ever

+bring himself to part from his daughter and give her to a husband. The

+prince never directly asked himself that question, knowing beforehand

+that he would have to answer it justly, and justice clashed not only

+with his feelings but with the very possibility of life. Life without

+Princess Mary, little as he seemed to value her, was unthinkable to

+him. “And why should she marry?” he thought. “To be unhappy for

+certain. There’s Lise, married to Andrew—a better husband one would

+think could hardly be found nowadays—but is she contented with her

+lot? And who would marry Marie for love? Plain and awkward! They’ll

+take her for her connections and wealth. Are there no women living

+unmarried, and even the happier for it?” So thought Prince Bolkónski

+while dressing, and yet the question he was always putting off demanded

+an immediate answer. Prince Vasíli had brought his son with the evident

+intention of proposing, and today or tomorrow he would probably ask

+for an answer. His birth and position in society were not bad. “Well,

+I’ve nothing against it,” the prince said to himself, “but he must

+be worthy of her. And that is what we shall see.”

+

+“That is what we shall see! That is what we shall see!” he added

+aloud.

+

+He entered the drawing room with his usual alert step, glancing rapidly

+round the company. He noticed the change in the little princess’

+dress, Mademoiselle Bourienne’s ribbon, Princess Mary’s unbecoming

+coiffure, Mademoiselle Bourienne’s and Anatole’s smiles, and the

+loneliness of his daughter amid the general conversation. “Got herself

+up like a fool!” he thought, looking irritably at her. “She is

+shameless, and he ignores her!”

+

+He went straight up to Prince Vasíli.

+

+“Well! How d’ye do? How d’ye do? Glad to see you!”

+

+“Friendship laughs at distance,” began Prince Vasíli in his usual

+rapid, self-confident, familiar tone. “Here is my second son; please

+love and befriend him.”

+

+Prince Bolkónski surveyed Anatole.

+

+“Fine young fellow! Fine young fellow!” he said. “Well, come and

+kiss me,” and he offered his cheek.

+

+Anatole kissed the old man, and looked at him with curiosity and perfect

+composure, waiting for a display of the eccentricities his father had

+told him to expect.

+

+Prince Bolkónski sat down in his usual place in the corner of the sofa

+and, drawing up an armchair for Prince Vasíli, pointed to it and began

+questioning him about political affairs and news. He seemed to listen

+attentively to what Prince Vasíli said, but kept glancing at Princess

+Mary.

+

+“And so they are writing from Potsdam already?” he said, repeating

+Prince Vasíli’s last words. Then rising, he suddenly went up to his

+daughter.

+

+“Is it for visitors you’ve got yourself up like that, eh?” said

+he. “Fine, very fine! You have done up your hair in this new way for

+the visitors, and before the visitors I tell you that in future you are

+never to dare to change your way of dress without my consent.”

+

+“It was my fault, mon père,” interceded the little princess, with a

+blush.

+

+“You must do as you please,” said Prince Bolkónski, bowing to his

+daughter-in-law, “but she need not make a fool of herself, she’s

+plain enough as it is.”

+

+And he sat down again, paying no more attention to his daughter, who was

+reduced to tears.

+

+“On the contrary, that coiffure suits the princess very well,” said

+Prince Vasíli.

+

+“Now you, young prince, what’s your name?” said Prince Bolkónski,

+turning to Anatole, “come here, let us talk and get acquainted.”

+

+“Now the fun begins,” thought Anatole, sitting down with a smile

+beside the old prince.

+

+“Well, my dear boy, I hear you’ve been educated abroad, not taught

+to read and write by the deacon, like your father and me. Now tell me,

+my dear boy, are you serving in the Horse Guards?” asked the old man,

+scrutinizing Anatole closely and intently.

+

+“No, I have been transferred to the line,” said Anatole, hardly able

+to restrain his laughter.

+

+“Ah! That’s a good thing. So, my dear boy, you wish to serve the

+Tsar and the country? It is wartime. Such a fine fellow must serve.

+Well, are you off to the front?”

+

+“No, Prince, our regiment has gone to the front, but I am attached...

+what is it I am attached to, Papa?” said Anatole, turning to his

+father with a laugh.

+

+“A splendid soldier, splendid! ‘What am I attached to!’ Ha, ha,

+ha!” laughed Prince Bolkónski, and Anatole laughed still louder.

+Suddenly Prince Bolkónski frowned.

+

+“You may go,” he said to Anatole.

+

+Anatole returned smiling to the ladies.

+

+“And so you’ve had him educated abroad, Prince Vasíli, haven’t

+you?” said the old prince to Prince Vasíli.

+

+“I have done my best for him, and I can assure you the education there

+is much better than ours.”

+

+“Yes, everything is different nowadays, everything is changed. The

+lad’s a fine fellow, a fine fellow! Well, come with me now.” He took

+Prince Vasíli’s arm and led him to his study. As soon as they were

+alone together, Prince Vasíli announced his hopes and wishes to the old

+prince.

+

+“Well, do you think I shall prevent her, that I can’t part from

+her?” said the old prince angrily. “What an idea! I’m ready for it

+tomorrow! Only let me tell you, I want to know my son-in-law better. You

+know my principles—everything aboveboard! I will ask her tomorrow in

+your presence; if she is willing, then he can stay on. He can stay and

+I’ll see.” The old prince snorted. “Let her marry, it’s all the

+same to me!” he screamed in the same piercing tone as when parting

+from his son.

+

+“I will tell you frankly,” said Prince Vasíli in the tone of

+a crafty man convinced of the futility of being cunning with so

+keen-sighted a companion. “You know, you see right through people.

+Anatole is no genius, but he is an honest, goodhearted lad; an excellent

+son or kinsman.”

+

+“All right, all right, we’ll see!”

+

+As always happens when women lead lonely lives for any length of time

+without male society, on Anatole’s appearance all the three women of

+Prince Bolkónski’s household felt that their life had not been real

+till then. Their powers of reasoning, feeling, and observing immediately

+increased tenfold, and their life, which seemed to have been passed in

+darkness, was suddenly lit up by a new brightness, full of significance.

+

+Princess Mary grew quite unconscious of her face and coiffure. The

+handsome open face of the man who might perhaps be her husband absorbed

+all her attention. He seemed to her kind, brave, determined, manly, and

+magnanimous. She felt convinced of that. Thousands of dreams of a future

+family life continually rose in her imagination. She drove them away and

+tried to conceal them.

+

+“But am I not too cold with him?” thought the princess. “I try

+to be reserved because in the depth of my soul I feel too near to him

+already, but then he cannot know what I think of him and may imagine

+that I do not like him.”

+

+And Princess Mary tried, but could not manage, to be cordial to her new

+guest. “Poor girl, she’s devilish ugly!” thought Anatole.

+

+Mademoiselle Bourienne, also roused to great excitement by Anatole’s

+arrival, thought in another way. Of course, she, a handsome young woman

+without any definite position, without relations or even a country, did

+not intend to devote her life to serving Prince Bolkónski, to reading

+aloud to him and being friends with Princess Mary. Mademoiselle

+Bourienne had long been waiting for a Russian prince who, able to

+appreciate at a glance her superiority to the plain, badly dressed,

+ungainly Russian princesses, would fall in love with her and carry her

+off; and here at last was a Russian prince. Mademoiselle Bourienne knew

+a story, heard from her aunt but finished in her own way, which she

+liked to repeat to herself. It was the story of a girl who had been

+seduced, and to whom her poor mother (sa pauvre mère) appeared, and

+reproached her for yielding to a man without being married. Mademoiselle

+Bourienne was often touched to tears as in imagination she told this

+story to him, her seducer. And now he, a real Russian prince, had

+appeared. He would carry her away and then sa pauvre mère would appear

+and he would marry her. So her future shaped itself in Mademoiselle

+Bourienne’s head at the very time she was talking to Anatole about

+Paris. It was not calculation that guided her (she did not even for a

+moment consider what she should do), but all this had long been familiar

+to her, and now that Anatole had appeared it just grouped itself around

+him and she wished and tried to please him as much as possible.

+

+The little princess, like an old war horse that hears the trumpet,

+unconsciously and quite forgetting her condition, prepared for the

+familiar gallop of coquetry, without any ulterior motive or any

+struggle, but with naïve and lighthearted gaiety.

+

+Although in female society Anatole usually assumed the role of a man

+tired of being run after by women, his vanity was flattered by the

+spectacle of his power over these three women. Besides that, he was

+beginning to feel for the pretty and provocative Mademoiselle Bourienne

+that passionate animal feeling which was apt to master him with great

+suddenness and prompt him to the coarsest and most reckless actions.

+

+After tea, the company went into the sitting room and Princess Mary was

+asked to play on the clavichord. Anatole, laughing and in high spirits,

+came and leaned on his elbows, facing her and beside Mademoiselle

+Bourienne. Princess Mary felt his look with a painfully joyous emotion.

+Her favorite sonata bore her into a most intimately poetic world and

+the look she felt upon her made that world still more poetic. But

+Anatole’s expression, though his eyes were fixed on her, referred not

+to her but to the movements of Mademoiselle Bourienne’s little

+foot, which he was then touching with his own under the clavichord.

+Mademoiselle Bourienne was also looking at Princess Mary, and in her

+lovely eyes there was a look of fearful joy and hope that was also new

+to the princess.

+

+“How she loves me!” thought Princess Mary. “How happy I am now,

+and how happy I may be with such a friend and such a husband! Husband?

+Can it be possible?” she thought, not daring to look at his face, but

+still feeling his eyes gazing at her.

+

+In the evening, after supper, when all were about to retire, Anatole

+kissed Princess Mary’s hand. She did not know how she found the

+courage, but she looked straight into his handsome face as it came near

+to her shortsighted eyes. Turning from Princess Mary he went up and

+kissed Mademoiselle Bourienne’s hand. (This was not etiquette, but

+then he did everything so simply and with such assurance!) Mademoiselle

+Bourienne flushed, and gave the princess a frightened look.

+

+“What delicacy!” thought the princess. “Is it possible that

+Amélie” (Mademoiselle Bourienne) “thinks I could be jealous of her,

+and not value her pure affection and devotion to me?” She went up

+to her and kissed her warmly. Anatole went up to kiss the little

+princess’ hand.

+

+“No! No! No! When your father writes to tell me that you are behaving

+well I will give you my hand to kiss. Not till then!” she said. And

+smilingly raising a finger at him, she left the room.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+They all separated, but, except Anatole who fell asleep as soon as he

+got into bed, all kept awake a long time that night.

+

+“Is he really to be my husband, this stranger who is so kind—yes,

+kind, that is the chief thing,” thought Princess Mary; and fear, which

+she had seldom experienced, came upon her. She feared to look round, it

+seemed to her that someone was there standing behind the screen in the

+dark corner. And this someone was he—the devil—and he was also this

+man with the white forehead, black eyebrows, and red lips.

+

+She rang for her maid and asked her to sleep in her room.

+

+Mademoiselle Bourienne walked up and down the conservatory for a long

+time that evening, vainly expecting someone, now smiling at someone, now

+working herself up to tears with the imaginary words of her pauvre mère

+rebuking her for her fall.

+

+The little princess grumbled to her maid that her bed was badly made.

+She could not lie either on her face or on her side. Every position was

+awkward and uncomfortable, and her burden oppressed her now more than

+ever because Anatole’s presence had vividly recalled to her the time

+when she was not like that and when everything was light and gay. She

+sat in an armchair in her dressing jacket and nightcap and Katie, sleepy

+and disheveled, beat and turned the heavy feather bed for the third

+time, muttering to herself.

+

+“I told you it was all lumps and holes!” the little princess

+repeated. “I should be glad enough to fall asleep, so it’s not my

+fault!” and her voice quivered like that of a child about to cry.

+

+The old prince did not sleep either. Tíkhon, half asleep, heard him

+pacing angrily about and snorting. The old prince felt as though he

+had been insulted through his daughter. The insult was the more pointed

+because it concerned not himself but another, his daughter, whom he

+loved more than himself. He kept telling himself that he would consider

+the whole matter and decide what was right and how he should act, but

+instead of that he only excited himself more and more.

+

+“The first man that turns up—she forgets her father and everything

+else, runs upstairs and does up her hair and wags her tail and is unlike

+herself! Glad to throw her father over! And she knew I should notice

+it. Fr... fr... fr! And don’t I see that that idiot had eyes only for

+Bourienne—I shall have to get rid of her. And how is it she has not

+pride enough to see it? If she has no pride for herself she might at

+least have some for my sake! She must be shown that the blockhead thinks

+nothing of her and looks only at Bourienne. No, she has no pride... but

+I’ll let her see....”

+

+The old prince knew that if he told his daughter she was making a

+mistake and that Anatole meant to flirt with Mademoiselle Bourienne,

+Princess Mary’s self-esteem would be wounded and his point (not to

+be parted from her) would be gained, so pacifying himself with this

+thought, he called Tíkhon and began to undress.

+

+“What devil brought them here?” thought he, while Tíkhon was

+putting the nightshirt over his dried-up old body and gray-haired chest.

+“I never invited them. They came to disturb my life—and there is not

+much of it left.”

+

+“Devil take ‘em!” he muttered, while his head was still covered by

+the shirt.

+

+Tíkhon knew his master’s habit of sometimes thinking aloud, and

+therefore met with unaltered looks the angrily inquisitive expression of

+the face that emerged from the shirt.

+

+“Gone to bed?” asked the prince.

+

+Tíkhon, like all good valets, instinctively knew the direction of his

+master’s thoughts. He guessed that the question referred to Prince

+Vasíli and his son.

+

+“They have gone to bed and put out their lights, your excellency.”

+

+“No good... no good...” said the prince rapidly, and thrusting his

+feet into his slippers and his arms into the sleeves of his dressing

+gown, he went to the couch on which he slept.

+

+Though no words had passed between Anatole and Mademoiselle Bourienne,

+they quite understood one another as to the first part of their romance,

+up to the appearance of the pauvre mère; they understood that they had

+much to say to one another in private and so they had been seeking an

+opportunity since morning to meet one another alone. When Princess Mary

+went to her father’s room at the usual hour, Mademoiselle Bourienne

+and Anatole met in the conservatory.

+

+Princess Mary went to the door of the study with special trepidation.

+It seemed to her that not only did everybody know that her fate would be

+decided that day, but that they also knew what she thought about it. She

+read this in Tíkhon’s face and in that of Prince Vasíli’s valet,

+who made her a low bow when she met him in the corridor carrying hot

+water.

+

+The old prince was very affectionate and careful in his treatment of

+his daughter that morning. Princess Mary well knew this painstaking

+expression of her father’s. His face wore that expression when his

+dry hands clenched with vexation at her not understanding a sum in

+arithmetic, when rising from his chair he would walk away from her,

+repeating in a low voice the same words several times over.

+

+He came to the point at once, treating her ceremoniously.

+

+“I have had a proposition made me concerning you,” he said with an

+unnatural smile. “I expect you have guessed that Prince Vasíli has

+not come and brought his pupil with him” (for some reason Prince

+Bolkónski referred to Anatole as a “pupil”) “for the sake of my

+beautiful eyes. Last night a proposition was made me on your account

+and, as you know my principles, I refer it to you.”

+

+“How am I to understand you, mon père?” said the princess, growing

+pale and then blushing.

+

+“How understand me!” cried her father angrily. “Prince Vasíli

+finds you to his taste as a daughter-in-law and makes a proposal to you

+on his pupil’s behalf. That’s how it’s to be understood! ‘How

+understand it’!... And I ask you!”

+

+“I do not know what you think, Father,” whispered the princess.

+

+“I? I? What of me? Leave me out of the question. I’m not going to

+get married. What about you? That’s what I want to know.”

+

+The princess saw that her father regarded the matter with disapproval,

+but at that moment the thought occurred to her that her fate would be

+decided now or never. She lowered her eyes so as not to see the gaze

+under which she felt that she could not think, but would only be able to

+submit from habit, and she said: “I wish only to do your will, but if

+I had to express my own desire...” She had no time to finish. The old

+prince interrupted her.

+

+“That’s admirable!” he shouted. “He will take you with your

+dowry and take Mademoiselle Bourienne into the bargain. She’ll be the

+wife, while you...”

+

+The prince stopped. He saw the effect these words had produced on his

+daughter. She lowered her head and was ready to burst into tears.

+

+“Now then, now then, I’m only joking!” he said. “Remember this,

+Princess, I hold to the principle that a maiden has a full right to

+choose. I give you freedom. Only remember that your life’s happiness

+depends on your decision. Never mind me!”

+

+“But I do not know, Father!”

+

+“There’s no need to talk! He receives his orders and will marry you

+or anybody; but you are free to choose.... Go to your room, think it

+over, and come back in an hour and tell me in his presence: yes or no.

+I know you will pray over it. Well, pray if you like, but you had better

+think it over. Go! Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no!” he still shouted

+when the princess, as if lost in a fog, had already staggered out of the

+study.

+

+Her fate was decided and happily decided. But what her father had said

+about Mademoiselle Bourienne was dreadful. It was untrue to be sure, but

+still it was terrible, and she could not help thinking of it. She was

+going straight on through the conservatory, neither seeing nor hearing

+anything, when suddenly the well-known whispering of Mademoiselle

+Bourienne aroused her. She raised her eyes, and two steps away saw

+Anatole embracing the Frenchwoman and whispering something to her. With

+a horrified expression on his handsome face, Anatole looked at Princess

+Mary, but did not at once take his arm from the waist of Mademoiselle

+Bourienne who had not yet seen her.

+

+“Who’s that? Why? Wait a moment!” Anatole’s face seemed to say.

+Princess Mary looked at them in silence. She could not understand it. At

+last Mademoiselle Bourienne gave a scream and ran away. Anatole bowed to

+Princess Mary with a gay smile, as if inviting her to join in a laugh at

+this strange incident, and then shrugging his shoulders went to the door

+that led to his own apartments.

+

+An hour later, Tíkhon came to call Princess Mary to the old prince;

+he added that Prince Vasíli was also there. When Tíkhon came to her

+Princess Mary was sitting on the sofa in her room, holding the weeping

+Mademoiselle Bourienne in her arms and gently stroking her hair. The

+princess’ beautiful eyes with all their former calm radiance were

+looking with tender affection and pity at Mademoiselle Bourienne’s

+pretty face.

+

+“No, Princess, I have lost your affection forever!” said

+Mademoiselle Bourienne.

+

+“Why? I love you more than ever,” said Princess Mary, “and I will

+try to do all I can for your happiness.”

+

+“But you despise me. You who are so pure can never understand being so

+carried away by passion. Oh, only my poor mother...”

+

+“I quite understand,” answered Princess Mary, with a sad smile.

+“Calm yourself, my dear. I will go to my father,” she said, and went

+out.

+

+Prince Vasíli, with one leg thrown high over the other and a snuffbox

+in his hand, was sitting there with a smile of deep emotion on his face,

+as if stirred to his heart’s core and himself regretting and laughing

+at his own sensibility, when Princess Mary entered. He hurriedly took a

+pinch of snuff.

+

+“Ah, my dear, my dear!” he began, rising and taking her by both

+hands. Then, sighing, he added: “My son’s fate is in your hands.

+Decide, my dear, good, gentle Marie, whom I have always loved as a

+daughter!”

+

+He drew back and a real tear appeared in his eye.

+

+“Fr... fr...” snorted Prince Bolkónski. “The prince is making a

+proposition to you in his pupil’s—I mean, his son’s—name. Do you

+wish or not to be Prince Anatole Kurágin’s wife? Reply: yes or no,”

+he shouted, “and then I shall reserve the right to state my opinion

+also. Yes, my opinion, and only my opinion,” added Prince Bolkónski,

+turning to Prince Vasíli and answering his imploring look. “Yes, or

+no?”

+

+“My desire is never to leave you, Father, never to separate my

+life from yours. I don’t wish to marry,” she answered positively,

+glancing at Prince Vasíli and at her father with her beautiful eyes.

+

+“Humbug! Nonsense! Humbug, humbug, humbug!” cried Prince Bolkónski,

+frowning and taking his daughter’s hand; he did not kiss her, but only

+bending his forehead to hers just touched it, and pressed her hand so

+that she winced and uttered a cry.

+

+Prince Vasíli rose.

+

+“My dear, I must tell you that this is a moment I shall never, never

+forget. But, my dear, will you not give us a little hope of touching

+this heart, so kind and generous? Say ‘perhaps’... The future is so

+long. Say ‘perhaps.’”

+

+“Prince, what I have said is all there is in my heart. I thank you for

+the honor, but I shall never be your son’s wife.”

+

+“Well, so that’s finished, my dear fellow! I am very glad to have

+seen you. Very glad! Go back to your rooms, Princess. Go!” said

+the old prince. “Very, very glad to have seen you,” repeated he,

+embracing Prince Vasíli.

+

+“My vocation is a different one,” thought Princess Mary. “My

+vocation is to be happy with another kind of happiness, the happiness

+of love and self-sacrifice. And cost what it may, I will arrange

+poor Amélie’s happiness, she loves him so passionately, and so

+passionately repents. I will do all I can to arrange the match between

+them. If he is not rich I will give her the means; I will ask my

+father and Andrew. I shall be so happy when she is his wife. She is so

+unfortunate, a stranger, alone, helpless! And, oh God, how passionately

+she must love him if she could so far forget herself! Perhaps I might

+have done the same!...” thought Princess Mary.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+It was long since the Rostóvs had news of Nicholas. Not till midwinter

+was the count at last handed a letter addressed in his son’s

+handwriting. On receiving it, he ran on tiptoe to his study in alarm and

+haste, trying to escape notice, closed the door, and began to read the

+letter.

+

+Anna Mikháylovna, who always knew everything that passed in the house,

+on hearing of the arrival of the letter went softly into the room and

+found the count with it in his hand, sobbing and laughing at the same

+time.

+

+Anna Mikháylovna, though her circumstances had improved, was still

+living with the Rostóvs.

+

+“My dear friend?” said she, in a tone of pathetic inquiry, prepared

+to sympathize in any way.

+

+The count sobbed yet more.

+

+“Nikólenka... a letter... wa... a... s... wounded... my darling

+boy... the countess... promoted to be an officer... thank God... How

+tell the little countess!”

+

+Anna Mikháylovna sat down beside him, with her own handkerchief wiped

+the tears from his eyes and from the letter, then having dried her

+own eyes she comforted the count, and decided that at dinner and till

+teatime she would prepare the countess, and after tea, with God’s

+help, would inform her.

+

+At dinner Anna Mikháylovna talked the whole time about the war news

+and about Nikólenka, twice asked when the last letter had been received

+from him, though she knew that already, and remarked that they might

+very likely be getting a letter from him that day. Each time that these

+hints began to make the countess anxious and she glanced uneasily at

+the count and at Anna Mikháylovna, the latter very adroitly turned

+the conversation to insignificant matters. Natásha, who, of the whole

+family, was the most gifted with a capacity to feel any shades of

+intonation, look, and expression, pricked up her ears from the beginning

+of the meal and was certain that there was some secret between her

+father and Anna Mikháylovna, that it had something to do with her

+brother, and that Anna Mikháylovna was preparing them for it. Bold as

+she was, Natásha, who knew how sensitive her mother was to anything

+relating to Nikólenka, did not venture to ask any questions at dinner,

+but she was too excited to eat anything and kept wriggling about on her

+chair regardless of her governess’ remarks. After dinner, she rushed

+headlong after Anna Mikháylovna and, dashing at her, flung herself on

+her neck as soon as she overtook her in the sitting room.

+

+“Auntie, darling, do tell me what it is!”

+

+“Nothing, my dear.”

+

+“No, dearest, sweet one, honey, I won’t give up—I know you know

+something.”

+

+Anna Mikháylovna shook her head.

+

+“You are a little slyboots,” she said.

+

+“A letter from Nikólenka! I’m sure of it!” exclaimed Natásha,

+reading confirmation in Anna Mikháylovna’s face.

+

+“But for God’s sake, be careful, you know how it may affect your

+mamma.”

+

+“I will, I will, only tell me! You won’t? Then I will go and tell at

+once.”

+

+Anna Mikháylovna, in a few words, told her the contents of the letter,

+on condition that she should tell no one.

+

+“No, on my true word of honor,” said Natásha, crossing herself,

+“I won’t tell anyone!” and she ran off at once to Sónya.

+

+“Nikólenka... wounded... a letter,” she announced in gleeful

+triumph.

+

+“Nicholas!” was all Sónya said, instantly turning white.

+

+Natásha, seeing the impression the news of her brother’s wound

+produced on Sónya, felt for the first time the sorrowful side of the

+news.

+

+She rushed to Sónya, hugged her, and began to cry.

+

+“A little wound, but he has been made an officer; he is well now, he

+wrote himself,” said she through her tears.

+

+“There now! It’s true that all you women are crybabies,” remarked

+Pétya, pacing the room with large, resolute strides. “Now I’m very

+glad, very glad indeed, that my brother has distinguished himself so.

+You are all blubberers and understand nothing.”

+

+Natásha smiled through her tears.

+

+“You haven’t read the letter?” asked Sónya.

+

+“No, but she said that it was all over and that he’s now an

+officer.”

+

+“Thank God!” said Sónya, crossing herself. “But perhaps she

+deceived you. Let us go to Mamma.”

+

+Pétya paced the room in silence for a time.

+

+“If I’d been in Nikólenka’s place I would have killed even more

+of those Frenchmen,” he said. “What nasty brutes they are! I’d

+have killed so many that there’d have been a heap of them.”

+

+“Hold your tongue, Pétya, what a goose you are!”

+

+“I’m not a goose, but they are who cry about trifles,” said

+Pétya.

+

+“Do you remember him?” Natásha suddenly asked, after a moment’s

+silence.

+

+Sónya smiled.

+

+“Do I remember Nicholas?”

+

+“No, Sónya, but do you remember so that you remember him perfectly,

+remember everything?” said Natásha, with an expressive gesture,

+evidently wishing to give her words a very definite meaning. “I

+remember Nikólenka too, I remember him well,” she said. “But I

+don’t remember Borís. I don’t remember him a bit.”

+

+“What! You don’t remember Borís?” asked Sónya in surprise.

+

+“It’s not that I don’t remember—I know what he is like, but not

+as I remember Nikólenka. Him—I just shut my eyes and remember,

+but Borís... No!” (She shut her eyes.) “No! there’s nothing at

+all.”

+

+“Oh, Natásha!” said Sónya, looking ecstatically and earnestly at

+her friend as if she did not consider her worthy to hear what she meant

+to say and as if she were saying it to someone else, with whom joking

+was out of the question, “I am in love with your brother once for all

+and, whatever may happen to him or to me, shall never cease to love him

+as long as I live.”

+

+Natásha looked at Sónya with wondering and inquisitive eyes, and said

+nothing. She felt that Sónya was speaking the truth, that there was

+such love as Sónya was speaking of. But Natásha had not yet felt

+anything like it. She believed it could be, but did not understand it.

+

+“Shall you write to him?” she asked.

+

+Sónya became thoughtful. The question of how to write to Nicholas, and

+whether she ought to write, tormented her. Now that he was already an

+officer and a wounded hero, would it be right to remind him of herself

+and, as it might seem, of the obligations to her he had taken on

+himself?

+

+“I don’t know. I think if he writes, I will write too,” she said,

+blushing.

+

+“And you won’t feel ashamed to write to him?”

+

+Sónya smiled.

+

+“No.”

+

+“And I should be ashamed to write to Borís. I’m not going to.”

+

+“Why should you be ashamed?”

+

+“Well, I don’t know. It’s awkward and would make me ashamed.”

+

+“And I know why she’d be ashamed,” said Pétya, offended by

+Natásha’s previous remark. “It’s because she was in love with

+that fat one in spectacles” (that was how Pétya described his

+namesake, the new Count Bezúkhov) “and now she’s in love with that

+singer” (he meant Natásha’s Italian singing master), “that’s

+why she’s ashamed!”

+

+“Pétya, you’re a stupid!” said Natásha.

+

+“Not more stupid than you, madam,” said the nine-year-old Pétya,

+with the air of an old brigadier.

+

+The countess had been prepared by Anna Mikháylovna’s hints at dinner.

+On retiring to her own room, she sat in an armchair, her eyes fixed on a

+miniature portrait of her son on the lid of a snuffbox, while the tears

+kept coming into her eyes. Anna Mikháylovna, with the letter, came on

+tiptoe to the countess’ door and paused.

+

+“Don’t come in,” she said to the old count who was following her.

+“Come later.” And she went in, closing the door behind her.

+

+The count put his ear to the keyhole and listened.

+

+At first he heard the sound of indifferent voices, then Anna

+Mikháylovna’s voice alone in a long speech, then a cry, then silence,

+then both voices together with glad intonations, and then footsteps.

+Anna Mikháylovna opened the door. Her face wore the proud expression

+of a surgeon who has just performed a difficult operation and admits the

+public to appreciate his skill.

+

+“It is done!” she said to the count, pointing triumphantly to the

+countess, who sat holding in one hand the snuffbox with its portrait and

+in the other the letter, and pressing them alternately to her lips.

+

+When she saw the count, she stretched out her arms to him, embraced his

+bald head, over which she again looked at the letter and the portrait,

+and in order to press them again to her lips, she slightly pushed away

+the bald head. Véra, Natásha, Sónya, and Pétya now entered the room,

+and the reading of the letter began. After a brief description of

+the campaign and the two battles in which he had taken part, and his

+promotion, Nicholas said that he kissed his father’s and mother’s

+hands asking for their blessing, and that he kissed Véra, Natásha, and

+Pétya. Besides that, he sent greetings to Monsieur Schelling, Madame

+Schoss, and his old nurse, and asked them to kiss for him “dear

+Sónya, whom he loved and thought of just the same as ever.” When she

+heard this Sónya blushed so that tears came into her eyes and, unable

+to bear the looks turned upon her, ran away into the dancing hall,

+whirled round it at full speed with her dress puffed out like a balloon,

+and, flushed and smiling, plumped down on the floor. The countess was

+crying.

+

+“Why are you crying, Mamma?” asked Véra. “From all he says one

+should be glad and not cry.”

+

+This was quite true, but the count, the countess, and Natásha looked

+at her reproachfully. “And who is it she takes after?” thought the

+countess.

+

+Nicholas’ letter was read over hundreds of times, and those who were

+considered worthy to hear it had to come to the countess, for she

+did not let it out of her hands. The tutors came, and the nurses, and

+Dmítri, and several acquaintances, and the countess reread the letter

+each time with fresh pleasure and each time discovered in it fresh

+proofs of Nikólenka’s virtues. How strange, how extraordinary, how

+joyful it seemed, that her son, the scarcely perceptible motion of whose

+tiny limbs she had felt twenty years ago within her, that son about whom

+she used to have quarrels with the too indulgent count, that son who

+had first learned to say “pear” and then “granny,” that this son

+should now be away in a foreign land amid strange surroundings, a manly

+warrior doing some kind of man’s work of his own, without help or

+guidance. The universal experience of ages, showing that children do

+grow imperceptibly from the cradle to manhood, did not exist for the

+countess. Her son’s growth toward manhood, at each of its stages,

+had seemed as extraordinary to her as if there had never existed the

+millions of human beings who grew up in the same way. As twenty

+years before, it seemed impossible that the little creature who lived

+somewhere under her heart would ever cry, suck her breast, and begin to

+speak, so now she could not believe that that little creature could be

+this strong, brave man, this model son and officer that, judging by this

+letter, he now was.

+

+“What a style! How charmingly he describes!” said she, reading the

+descriptive part of the letter. “And what a soul! Not a word about

+himself.... Not a word! About some Denísov or other, though he himself,

+I dare say, is braver than any of them. He says nothing about his

+sufferings. What a heart! How like him it is! And how he has remembered

+everybody! Not forgetting anyone. I always said when he was only so

+high—I always said....”

+

+For more than a week preparations were being made, rough drafts of

+letters to Nicholas from all the household were written and copied out,

+while under the supervision of the countess and the solicitude of the

+count, money and all things necessary for the uniform and equipment

+of the newly commissioned officer were collected. Anna Mikháylovna,

+practical woman that she was, had even managed by favor with army

+authorities to secure advantageous means of communication for herself

+and her son. She had opportunities of sending her letters to the Grand

+Duke Constantine Pávlovich, who commanded the Guards. The Rostóvs

+supposed that The Russian Guards, Abroad, was quite a definite address,

+and that if a letter reached the Grand Duke in command of the Guards

+there was no reason why it should not reach the Pávlograd regiment,

+which was presumably somewhere in the same neighborhood. And so it was

+decided to send the letters and money by the Grand Duke’s courier to

+Borís and Borís was to forward them to Nicholas. The letters were from

+the old count, the countess, Pétya, Véra, Natásha, and Sónya, and

+finally there were six thousand rubles for his outfit and various other

+things the old count sent to his son.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+On the twelfth of November, Kutúzov’s active army, in camp before

+Olmütz, was preparing to be reviewed next day by the two Emperors—the

+Russian and the Austrian. The Guards, just arrived from Russia, spent

+the night ten miles from Olmütz and next morning were to come straight

+to the review, reaching the field at Olmütz by ten o’clock.

+

+That day Nicholas Rostóv received a letter from Borís, telling him

+that the Ismáylov regiment was quartered for the night ten miles from

+Olmütz and that he wanted to see him as he had a letter and money for

+him. Rostóv was particularly in need of money now that the troops,

+after their active service, were stationed near Olmütz and the camp

+swarmed with well-provisioned sutlers and Austrian Jews offering

+all sorts of tempting wares. The Pávlograds held feast after feast,

+celebrating awards they had received for the campaign, and made

+expeditions to Olmütz to visit a certain Caroline the Hungarian,

+who had recently opened a restaurant there with girls as waitresses.

+Rostóv, who had just celebrated his promotion to a cornetcy and bought

+Denísov’s horse, Bedouin, was in debt all round, to his comrades and

+the sutlers. On receiving Borís’ letter he rode with a fellow officer

+to Olmütz, dined there, drank a bottle of wine, and then set off alone

+to the Guards’ camp to find his old playmate. Rostóv had not yet had

+time to get his uniform. He had on a shabby cadet jacket, decorated with

+a soldier’s cross, equally shabby cadet’s riding breeches lined with

+worn leather, and an officer’s saber with a sword knot. The Don horse

+he was riding was one he had bought from a Cossack during the campaign,

+and he wore a crumpled hussar cap stuck jauntily back on one side of his

+head. As he rode up to the camp he thought how he would impress Borís

+and all his comrades of the Guards by his appearance—that of a

+fighting hussar who had been under fire.

+

+The Guards had made their whole march as if on a pleasure trip, parading

+their cleanliness and discipline. They had come by easy stages, their

+knapsacks conveyed on carts, and the Austrian authorities had provided

+excellent dinners for the officers at every halting place. The regiments

+had entered and left the town with their bands playing, and by the Grand

+Duke’s orders the men had marched all the way in step (a practice on

+which the Guards prided themselves), the officers on foot and at their

+proper posts. Borís had been quartered, and had marched all the

+way, with Berg who was already in command of a company. Berg, who had

+obtained his captaincy during the campaign, had gained the confidence of

+his superiors by his promptitude and accuracy and had arranged his money

+matters very satisfactorily. Borís, during the campaign, had made the

+acquaintance of many persons who might prove useful to him, and by

+a letter of recommendation he had brought from Pierre had become

+acquainted with Prince Andrew Bolkónski, through whom he hoped to

+obtain a post on the commander in chief’s staff. Berg and Borís,

+having rested after yesterday’s march, were sitting, clean and neatly

+dressed, at a round table in the clean quarters allotted to them,

+playing chess. Berg held a smoking pipe between his knees. Borís, in

+the accurate way characteristic of him, was building a little pyramid of

+chessmen with his delicate white fingers while awaiting Berg’s move,

+and watched his opponent’s face, evidently thinking about the game as

+he always thought only of whatever he was engaged on.

+

+“Well, how are you going to get out of that?” he remarked.

+

+“We’ll try to,” replied Berg, touching a pawn and then removing

+his hand.

+

+At that moment the door opened.

+

+“Here he is at last!” shouted Rostóv. “And Berg too! Oh, you

+petisenfans, allay cushay dormir!” he exclaimed, imitating his Russian

+nurse’s French, at which he and Borís used to laugh long ago.

+

+“Dear me, how you have changed!”

+

+Borís rose to meet Rostóv, but in doing so did not omit to steady and

+replace some chessmen that were falling. He was about to embrace his

+friend, but Nicholas avoided him. With that peculiar feeling of youth,

+that dread of beaten tracks, and wish to express itself in a manner

+different from that of its elders which is often insincere, Nicholas

+wished to do something special on meeting his friend. He wanted to pinch

+him, push him, do anything but kiss him—a thing everybody did. But

+notwithstanding this, Borís embraced him in a quiet, friendly way and

+kissed him three times.

+

+They had not met for nearly half a year and, being at the age when young

+men take their first steps on life’s road, each saw immense changes in

+the other, quite a new reflection of the society in which they had taken

+those first steps. Both had changed greatly since they last met and both

+were in a hurry to show the changes that had taken place in them.

+

+“Oh, you damned dandies! Clean and fresh as if you’d been to a fete,

+not like us sinners of the line,” cried Rostóv, with martial swagger

+and with baritone notes in his voice, new to Borís, pointing to his own

+mud-bespattered breeches. The German landlady, hearing Rostóv’s loud

+voice, popped her head in at the door.

+

+“Eh, is she pretty?” he asked with a wink.

+

+“Why do you shout so? You’ll frighten them!” said Borís. “I did

+not expect you today,” he added. “I only sent you the note yesterday

+by Bolkónski—an adjutant of Kutúzov’s, who’s a friend of mine.

+I did not think he would get it to you so quickly.... Well, how are you?

+Been under fire already?” asked Borís.

+

+Without answering, Rostóv shook the soldier’s Cross of St. George

+fastened to the cording of his uniform and, indicating a bandaged arm,

+glanced at Berg with a smile.

+

+“As you see,” he said.

+

+“Indeed? Yes, yes!” said Borís, with a smile. “And we too have

+had a splendid march. You know, of course, that His Imperial Highness

+rode with our regiment all the time, so that we had every comfort and

+every advantage. What receptions we had in Poland! What dinners and

+balls! I can’t tell you. And the Tsarévich was very gracious to all

+our officers.”

+

+And the two friends told each other of their doings, the one of his

+hussar revels and life in the fighting line, the other of the pleasures

+and advantages of service under members of the Imperial family.

+

+“Oh, you Guards!” said Rostóv. “I say, send for some wine.”

+

+Borís made a grimace.

+

+“If you really want it,” said he.

+

+He went to his bed, drew a purse from under the clean pillow, and sent

+for wine.

+

+“Yes, and I have some money and a letter to give you,” he added.

+

+Rostóv took the letter and, throwing the money on the sofa, put both

+arms on the table and began to read. After reading a few lines, he

+glanced angrily at Berg, then, meeting his eyes, hid his face behind the

+letter.

+

+“Well, they’ve sent you a tidy sum,” said Berg, eying the heavy

+purse that sank into the sofa. “As for us, Count, we get along on our

+pay. I can tell you for myself...”

+

+“I say, Berg, my dear fellow,” said Rostóv, “when you get a

+letter from home and meet one of your own people whom you want to talk

+everything over with, and I happen to be there, I’ll go at once, to

+be out of your way! Do go somewhere, anywhere... to the devil!” he

+exclaimed, and immediately seizing him by the shoulder and looking

+amiably into his face, evidently wishing to soften the rudeness of his

+words, he added, “Don’t be hurt, my dear fellow; you know I speak

+from my heart as to an old acquaintance.”

+

+“Oh, don’t mention it, Count! I quite understand,” said Berg,

+getting up and speaking in a muffled and guttural voice.

+

+“Go across to our hosts: they invited you,” added Borís.

+

+Berg put on the cleanest of coats, without a spot or speck of dust,

+stood before a looking glass and brushed the hair on his temples

+upwards, in the way affected by the Emperor Alexander, and, having

+assured himself from the way Rostóv looked at it that his coat had been

+noticed, left the room with a pleasant smile.

+

+“Oh dear, what a beast I am!” muttered Rostóv, as he read the

+letter.

+

+“Why?”

+

+“Oh, what a pig I am, not to have written and to have given them

+such a fright! Oh, what a pig I am!” he repeated, flushing suddenly.

+“Well, have you sent Gabriel for some wine? All right let’s have

+some!”

+

+In the letter from his parents was enclosed a letter of recommendation

+to Bagratión which the old countess at Anna Mikháylovna’s advice had

+obtained through an acquaintance and sent to her son, asking him to take

+it to its destination and make use of it.

+

+“What nonsense! Much I need it!” said Rostóv, throwing the letter

+under the table.

+

+“Why have you thrown that away?” asked Borís.

+

+“It is some letter of recommendation... what the devil do I want it

+for!”

+

+“Why ‘What the devil’?” said Borís, picking it up and reading

+the address. “This letter would be of great use to you.”

+

+“I want nothing, and I won’t be anyone’s adjutant.”

+

+“Why not?” inquired Borís.

+

+“It’s a lackey’s job!”

+

+“You are still the same dreamer, I see,” remarked Borís, shaking

+his head.

+

+“And you’re still the same diplomatist! But that’s not the

+point... Come, how are you?” asked Rostóv.

+

+“Well, as you see. So far everything’s all right, but I confess I

+should much like to be an adjutant and not remain at the front.”

+

+“Why?”

+

+“Because when once a man starts on military service, he should try to

+make as successful a career of it as possible.”

+

+“Oh, that’s it!” said Rostóv, evidently thinking of something

+else.

+

+He looked intently and inquiringly into his friend’s eyes, evidently

+trying in vain to find the answer to some question.

+

+Old Gabriel brought in the wine.

+

+“Shouldn’t we now send for Berg?” asked Borís. “He would drink

+with you. I can’t.”

+

+“Well, send for him... and how do you get on with that German?”

+asked Rostóv, with a contemptuous smile.

+

+“He is a very, very nice, honest, and pleasant fellow,” answered

+Borís.

+

+Again Rostóv looked intently into Borís’ eyes and sighed. Berg

+returned, and over the bottle of wine conversation between the three

+officers became animated. The Guardsmen told Rostóv of their march and

+how they had been made much of in Russia, Poland, and abroad. They spoke

+of the sayings and doings of their commander, the Grand Duke, and told

+stories of his kindness and irascibility. Berg, as usual, kept silent

+when the subject did not relate to himself, but in connection with the

+stories of the Grand Duke’s quick temper he related with gusto how in

+Galicia he had managed to deal with the Grand Duke when the latter

+made a tour of the regiments and was annoyed at the irregularity of

+a movement. With a pleasant smile Berg related how the Grand Duke

+had ridden up to him in a violent passion, shouting: “Arnauts!”

+(“Arnauts” was the Tsarévich’s favorite expression when he was in

+a rage) and called for the company commander.

+

+“Would you believe it, Count, I was not at all alarmed, because I knew

+I was right. Without boasting, you know, I may say that I know the Army

+Orders by heart and know the Regulations as well as I do the Lord’s

+Prayer. So, Count, there never is any negligence in my company, and

+so my conscience was at ease. I came forward....” (Berg stood up and

+showed how he presented himself, with his hand to his cap, and really

+it would have been difficult for a face to express greater respect and

+self-complacency than his did.) “Well, he stormed at me, as the saying

+is, stormed and stormed and stormed! It was not a matter of life but

+rather of death, as the saying is. ‘Albanians!’ and ‘devils!’

+and ‘To Siberia!’” said Berg with a sagacious smile. “I knew I

+was in the right so I kept silent; was not that best, Count?... ‘Hey,

+are you dumb?’ he shouted. Still I remained silent. And what do you

+think, Count? The next day it was not even mentioned in the Orders of

+the Day. That’s what keeping one’s head means. That’s the way,

+Count,” said Berg, lighting his pipe and emitting rings of smoke.

+

+“Yes, that was fine,” said Rostóv, smiling.

+

+But Borís noticed that he was preparing to make fun of Berg, and

+skillfully changed the subject. He asked him to tell them how and where

+he got his wound. This pleased Rostóv and he began talking about it,

+and as he went on became more and more animated. He told them of his

+Schön Grabern affair, just as those who have taken part in a battle

+generally do describe it, that is, as they would like it to have been,

+as they have heard it described by others, and as sounds well, but not

+at all as it really was. Rostóv was a truthful young man and would on

+no account have told a deliberate lie. He began his story meaning to

+tell everything just as it happened, but imperceptibly, involuntarily,

+and inevitably he lapsed into falsehood. 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 Rostóv 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. His hearers expected a story

+of how beside himself and all aflame with excitement, he had flown like

+a storm at the square, cut his way in, slashed right and left, how his

+saber had tasted flesh and he had fallen exhausted, and so on. And so he

+told them all that.

+

+In the middle of his story, just as he was saying: “You cannot imagine

+what a strange frenzy one experiences during an attack,” Prince

+Andrew, whom Borís was expecting, entered the room. Prince Andrew, who

+liked to help young men, was flattered by being asked for his assistance

+and being well disposed toward Borís, who had managed to please him the

+day before, he wished to do what the young man wanted. Having been sent

+with papers from Kutúzov to the Tsarévich, he looked in on Borís,

+hoping to find him alone. When he came in and saw an hussar of the line

+recounting his military exploits (Prince Andrew could not endure

+that sort of man), he gave Borís a pleasant smile, frowned as with

+half-closed eyes he looked at Rostóv, bowed slightly and wearily, and

+sat down languidly on the sofa: he felt it unpleasant to have dropped

+in on bad company. Rostóv flushed up on noticing this, but he did not

+care, this was a mere stranger. Glancing, however, at Borís, he saw

+that he too seemed ashamed of the hussar of the line.

+

+In spite of Prince Andrew’s disagreeable, ironical tone, in spite of

+the contempt with which Rostóv, from his fighting army point of view,

+regarded all these little adjutants on the staff of whom the newcomer

+was evidently one, Rostóv felt confused, blushed, and became silent.

+Borís inquired what news there might be on the staff, and what, without

+indiscretion, one might ask about our plans.

+

+“We shall probably advance,” replied Bolkónski, evidently reluctant

+to say more in the presence of a stranger.

+

+Berg took the opportunity to ask, with great politeness, whether, as was

+rumored, the allowance of forage money to captains of companies would be

+doubled. To this Prince Andrew answered with a smile that he could

+give no opinion on such an important government order, and Berg laughed

+gaily.

+

+“As to your business,” Prince Andrew continued, addressing Borís,

+“we will talk of it later” (and he looked round at Rostóv). “Come

+to me after the review and we will do what is possible.”

+

+And, having glanced round the room, Prince Andrew turned to Rostóv,

+whose state of unconquerable childish embarrassment now changing to

+anger he did not condescend to notice, and said: “I think you were

+talking of the Schön Grabern affair? Were you there?”

+

+“I was there,” said Rostóv angrily, as if intending to insult the

+aide-de-camp.

+

+Bolkónski noticed the hussar’s state of mind, and it amused him. With

+a slightly contemptuous smile, he said: “Yes, there are many stories

+now told about that affair!”

+

+“Yes, stories!” repeated Rostóv loudly, looking with eyes suddenly

+grown furious, now at Borís, now at Bolkónski. “Yes, many stories!

+But our stories are the stories of men who have been under the enemy’s

+fire! Our stories have some weight, not like the stories of those

+fellows on the staff who get rewards without doing anything!”

+

+“Of whom you imagine me to be one?” said Prince Andrew, with a quiet

+and particularly amiable smile.

+

+A strange feeling of exasperation and yet of respect for this man’s

+self-possession mingled at that moment in Rostóv’s soul.

+

+“I am not talking about you,” he said, “I don’t know you and,

+frankly, I don’t want to. I am speaking of the staff in general.”

+

+“And I will tell you this,” Prince Andrew interrupted in a tone of

+quiet authority, “you wish to insult me, and I am ready to agree with

+you that it would be very easy to do so if you haven’t sufficient

+self-respect, but admit that the time and place are very badly chosen.

+In a day or two we shall all have to take part in a greater and more

+serious duel, and besides, Drubetskóy, who says he is an old friend

+of yours, is not at all to blame that my face has the misfortune to

+displease you. However,” he added rising, “you know my name and

+where to find me, but don’t forget that I do not regard either myself

+or you as having been at all insulted, and as a man older than you, my

+advice is to let the matter drop. Well then, on Friday after the review

+I shall expect you, Drubetskóy. Au revoir!” exclaimed Prince Andrew,

+and with a bow to them both he went out.

+

+Only when Prince Andrew was gone did Rostóv think of what he ought to

+have said. And he was still more angry at having omitted to say it. He

+ordered his horse at once and, coldly taking leave of Borís, rode

+home. Should he go to headquarters next day and challenge that affected

+adjutant, or really let the matter drop, was the question that worried

+him all the way. He thought angrily of the pleasure he would have at

+seeing the fright of that small and frail but proud man when covered by

+his pistol, and then he felt with surprise that of all the men he knew

+there was none he would so much like to have for a friend as that very

+adjutant whom he so hated.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+The day after Rostóv had been to see Borís, a review was held of the

+Austrian and Russian troops, both those freshly arrived from Russia and

+those who had been campaigning under Kutúzov. The two Emperors,

+the Russian with his heir the Tsarévich, and the Austrian with the

+Archduke, inspected the allied army of eighty thousand men.

+

+From early morning the smart clean troops were on the move, forming up

+on the field before the fortress. Now thousands of feet and bayonets

+moved and halted at the officers’ command, turned with banners flying,

+formed up at intervals, and wheeled round other similar masses of

+infantry in different uniforms; now was heard the rhythmic beat of

+hoofs and the jingling of showy cavalry in blue, red, and green braided

+uniforms, with smartly dressed bandsmen in front mounted on black, roan,

+or gray horses; then again, spreading out with the brazen clatter of the

+polished shining cannon that quivered on the gun carriages and with

+the smell of linstocks, came the artillery which crawled between the

+infantry and cavalry and took up its appointed position. Not only the

+generals in full parade uniforms, with their thin or thick waists drawn

+in to the utmost, their red necks squeezed into their stiff collars, and

+wearing scarves and all their decorations, not only the elegant, pomaded

+officers, but every soldier with his freshly washed and shaven face and

+his weapons clean and polished to the utmost, and every horse groomed

+till its coat shone like satin and every hair of its wetted mane lay

+smooth—felt that no small matter was happening, but an important and

+solemn affair. Every general and every soldier was conscious of his own

+insignificance, aware of being but a drop in that ocean of men, and

+yet at the same time was conscious of his strength as a part of that

+enormous whole.

+

+From early morning strenuous activities and efforts had begun and by ten

+o’clock all had been brought into due order. The ranks were drawn

+up on the vast field. The whole army was extended in three lines: the

+cavalry in front, behind it the artillery, and behind that again the

+infantry.

+

+A space like a street was left between each two lines of troops. The

+three parts of that army were sharply distinguished: Kutúzov’s

+fighting army (with the Pávlograds on the right flank of the front);

+those recently arrived from Russia, both Guards and regiments of the

+line; and the Austrian troops. But they all stood in the same lines,

+under one command, and in a like order.

+

+Like wind over leaves ran an excited whisper: “They’re coming!

+They’re coming!” Alarmed voices were heard, and a stir of final

+preparation swept over all the troops.

+

+From the direction of Olmütz in front of them, a group was seen

+approaching. And at that moment, though the day was still, a light gust

+of wind blowing over the army slightly stirred the streamers on the

+lances and the unfolded standards fluttered against their staffs. It

+looked as if by that slight motion the army itself was expressing its

+joy at the approach of the Emperors. One voice was heard shouting:

+“Eyes front!” Then, like the crowing of cocks at sunrise, this was

+repeated by others from various sides and all became silent.

+

+In the deathlike stillness only the tramp of horses was heard. This

+was the Emperors’ suites. The Emperors rode up to the flank, and the

+trumpets of the first cavalry regiment played the general march. It

+seemed as though not the trumpeters were playing, but as if the army

+itself, rejoicing at the Emperors’ approach, had naturally burst into

+music. Amid these sounds, only the youthful kindly voice of the Emperor

+Alexander was clearly heard. He gave the words of greeting, and the

+first regiment roared “Hurrah!” so deafeningly, continuously, and

+joyfully that the men themselves were awed by their multitude and the

+immensity of the power they constituted.

+

+Rostóv, standing in the front lines of Kutúzov’s army which the Tsar

+approached first, experienced the same feeling as every other man in

+that army: a feeling of self-forgetfulness, a proud consciousness of

+might, and a passionate attraction to him who was the cause of this

+triumph.

+

+He felt that at a single word from that man all this vast mass (and he

+himself an insignificant atom in it) would go through fire and water,

+commit crime, die, or perform deeds of highest heroism, and so he could

+not but tremble and his heart stand still at the imminence of that word.

+

+“Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” thundered from all sides, one regiment

+after another greeting the Tsar with the strains of the march, and then

+“Hurrah!”... Then the general march, and again “Hurrah! Hurrah!”

+growing ever stronger and fuller and merging into a deafening roar.

+

+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. Through the terrible and deafening roar of those voices,

+amid the square masses of troops standing motionless as if turned to

+stone, hundreds of riders composing the suites moved carelessly but

+symmetrically and above all freely, and in front of them two men—the

+Emperors. Upon them the undivided, tensely passionate attention of that

+whole mass of men was concentrated.

+

+The handsome young Emperor Alexander, in the uniform of the Horse

+Guards, wearing a cocked hat with its peaks front and back, with his

+pleasant face and resonant though not loud voice, attracted everyone’s

+attention.

+

+Rostóv was not far from the trumpeters, and with his keen sight had

+recognized the Tsar and watched his approach. When he was within twenty

+paces, and Nicholas could clearly distinguish every detail of his

+handsome, happy young face, he experienced a feeling of tenderness

+and ecstasy such as he had never before known. Every trait and every

+movement of the Tsar’s seemed to him enchanting.

+

+Stopping in front of the Pávlograds, the Tsar said something in French

+to the Austrian Emperor and smiled.

+

+Seeing that smile, Rostóv involuntarily smiled himself and felt a still

+stronger flow of love for his sovereign. He longed to show that love in

+some way and knowing that this was impossible was ready to cry. The Tsar

+called the colonel of the regiment and said a few words to him.

+

+“Oh God, what would happen to me if the Emperor spoke to me?”

+thought Rostóv. “I should die of happiness!”

+

+The Tsar addressed the officers also: “I thank you all, gentlemen, I

+thank you with my whole heart.” To Rostóv every word sounded like a

+voice from heaven. How gladly would he have died at once for his Tsar!

+

+“You have earned the St. George’s standards and will be worthy of

+them.”

+

+“Oh, to die, to die for him,” thought Rostóv.

+

+The Tsar said something more which Rostóv did not hear, and the

+soldiers, straining their lungs, shouted “Hurrah!”

+

+Rostóv too, bending over his saddle, shouted “Hurrah!” with all his

+might, feeling that he would like to injure himself by that shout, if

+only to express his rapture fully.

+

+The Tsar stopped a few minutes in front of the hussars as if undecided.

+

+“How can the Emperor be undecided?” thought Rostóv, but then even

+this indecision appeared to him majestic and enchanting, like everything

+else the Tsar did.

+

+That hesitation lasted only an instant. 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.

+Farther and farther he rode away, stopping at other regiments, till at

+last only his white plumes were visible to Rostóv from amid the suites

+that surrounded the Emperors.

+

+Among the gentlemen of the suite, Rostóv noticed Bolkónski, sitting

+his horse indolently and carelessly. Rostóv recalled their quarrel of

+yesterday and the question presented itself whether he ought or ought

+not to challenge Bolkónski. “Of course not!” he now thought. “Is

+it worth thinking or speaking of it at such a moment? At a time of such

+love, such rapture, and such self-sacrifice, what do any of our quarrels

+and affronts matter? I love and forgive everybody now.”

+

+When the Emperor had passed nearly all the regiments, the troops began

+a ceremonial march past him, and Rostóv on Bedouin, recently purchased

+from Denísov, rode past too, at the rear of his squadron—that is,

+alone and in full view of the Emperor.

+

+Before he reached him, Rostóv, who was a splendid horseman, spurred

+Bedouin twice and successfully put him to the showy trot in which the

+animal went when excited. Bending his foaming muzzle to his chest, his

+tail extended, Bedouin, as if also conscious of the Emperor’s eye

+upon him, passed splendidly, lifting his feet with a high and graceful

+action, as if flying through the air without touching the ground.

+

+Rostóv himself, his legs well back and his stomach drawn in and feeling

+himself one with his horse, rode past the Emperor with a frowning but

+blissful face “like a vewy devil,” as Denísov expressed it.

+

+“Fine fellows, the Pávlograds!” remarked the Emperor.

+

+“My God, how happy I should be if he ordered me to leap into the fire

+this instant!” thought Rostóv.

+

+When the review was over, the newly arrived officers, and also

+Kutúzov’s, collected in groups and began to talk about the awards,

+about the Austrians and their uniforms, about their lines, about

+Bonaparte, and how badly the latter would fare now, especially if the

+Essen corps arrived and Prussia took our side.

+

+But the talk in every group was chiefly about the Emperor Alexander. His

+every word and movement was described with ecstasy.

+

+They all had but one wish: to advance as soon as possible against the

+enemy under the Emperor’s command. Commanded by the Emperor himself

+they could not fail to vanquish anyone, be it whom it might: so thought

+Rostóv and most of the officers after the review.

+

+All were then more confident of victory than the winning of two battles

+would have made them.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+The day after the review, Borís, in his best uniform and with his

+comrade Berg’s best wishes for success, rode to Olmütz to see

+Bolkónski, wishing to profit by his friendliness and obtain for himself

+the best post he could—preferably that of adjutant to some important

+personage, a position in the army which seemed to him most attractive.

+“It is all very well for Rostóv, whose father sends him ten thousand

+rubles at a time, to talk about not wishing to cringe to anybody and not

+be anyone’s lackey, but I who have nothing but my brains have to

+make a career and must not miss opportunities, but must avail myself of

+them!” he reflected.

+

+He did not find Prince Andrew in Olmütz that day, but the appearance of

+the town where the headquarters and the diplomatic corps were stationed

+and the two Emperors were living with their suites, households, and

+courts only strengthened his desire to belong to that higher world.

+

+He knew no one, and despite his smart Guardsman’s uniform, all these

+exalted personages passing in the streets in their elegant carriages

+with their plumes, ribbons, and medals, both courtiers and military

+men, seemed so immeasurably above him, an insignificant officer of the

+Guards, that they not only did not wish to, but simply could not, be

+aware of his existence. At the quarters of the commander in chief,

+Kutúzov, where he inquired for Bolkónski, all the adjutants and even

+the orderlies looked at him as if they wished to impress on him that a

+great many officers like him were always coming there and that everybody

+was heartily sick of them. In spite of this, or rather because of

+it, next day, November 15, after dinner he again went to Olmütz and,

+entering the house occupied by Kutúzov, asked for Bolkónski. Prince

+Andrew was in and Borís was shown into a large hall probably formerly

+used for dancing, but in which five beds now stood, and furniture of

+various kinds: a table, chairs, and a clavichord. One adjutant, nearest

+the door, was sitting at the table in a Persian dressing gown, writing.

+Another, the red, stout Nesvítski, lay on a bed with his arms under his

+head, laughing with an officer who had sat down beside him. A third was

+playing a Viennese waltz on the clavichord, while a fourth, lying on

+the clavichord, sang the tune. Bolkónski was not there. None of these

+gentlemen changed his position on seeing Borís. The one who was writing

+and whom Borís addressed turned round crossly and told him Bolkónski

+was on duty and that he should go through the door on the left into the

+reception room if he wished to see him. Borís thanked him and went to

+the reception room, where he found some ten officers and generals.

+

+When he entered, Prince Andrew, his eyes drooping contemptuously (with

+that peculiar expression of polite weariness which plainly says, “If

+it were not my duty I would not talk to you for a moment”), was

+listening to an old Russian general with decorations, who stood very

+erect, almost on tiptoe, with a soldier’s obsequious expression on his

+purple face, reporting something.

+

+“Very well, then, be so good as to wait,” said Prince Andrew to the

+general, in Russian, speaking with the French intonation he affected

+when he wished to speak contemptuously, and noticing Borís, Prince

+Andrew, paying no more heed to the general who ran after him imploring

+him to hear something more, nodded and turned to him with a cheerful

+smile.

+

+At that moment Borís clearly realized what he had before surmised, that

+in the army, besides the subordination and discipline prescribed in the

+military code, which he and the others knew in the regiment, there was

+another, more important, subordination, which made this tight-laced,

+purple-faced general wait respectfully while Captain Prince Andrew, for

+his own pleasure, chose to chat with Lieutenant Drubetskóy. More than

+ever was Borís resolved to serve in future not according to the written

+code, but under this unwritten law. He felt now that merely by having

+been recommended to Prince Andrew he had already risen above the general

+who at the front had the power to annihilate him, a lieutenant of the

+Guards. Prince Andrew came up to him and took his hand.

+

+“I am very sorry you did not find me in yesterday. I was fussing about

+with Germans all day. We went with Weyrother to survey the dispositions.

+When Germans start being accurate, there’s no end to it!”

+

+Borís smiled, as if he understood what Prince Andrew was alluding to

+as something generally known. But it was the first time he had heard

+Weyrother’s name, or even the term “dispositions.”

+

+“Well, my dear fellow, so you still want to be an adjutant? I have

+been thinking about you.”

+

+“Yes, I was thinking”—for some reason Borís could not help

+blushing—“of asking the commander in chief. He has had a letter from

+Prince Kurágin about me. I only wanted to ask because I fear the Guards

+won’t be in action,” he added as if in apology.

+

+“All right, all right. We’ll talk it over,” replied Prince Andrew.

+“Only let me report this gentleman’s business, and I shall be at

+your disposal.”

+

+While Prince Andrew went to report about the purple-faced general, that

+gentleman—evidently not sharing Borís’ conception of the advantages

+of the unwritten code of subordination—looked so fixedly at the

+presumptuous lieutenant who had prevented his finishing what he had to

+say to the adjutant that Borís felt uncomfortable. He turned away and

+waited impatiently for Prince Andrew’s return from the commander in

+chief’s room.

+

+“You see, my dear fellow, I have been thinking about you,”

+said Prince Andrew when they had gone into the large room where the

+clavichord was. “It’s no use your going to the commander in chief.

+He would say a lot of pleasant things, ask you to dinner” (“That

+would not be bad as regards the unwritten code,” thought Borís),

+“but nothing more would come of it. There will soon be a battalion of

+us aides-de-camp and adjutants! But this is what we’ll do: I have

+a good friend, an adjutant general and an excellent fellow, Prince

+Dolgorúkov; and though you may not know it, the fact is that now

+Kutúzov with his staff and all of us count for nothing. Everything is

+now centered round the Emperor. So we will go to Dolgorúkov; I have to

+go there anyhow and I have already spoken to him about you. We shall

+see whether he cannot attach you to himself or find a place for you

+somewhere nearer the sun.”

+

+Prince Andrew always became specially keen when he had to guide a young

+man and help him to worldly success. Under cover of obtaining help

+of this kind for another, which from pride he would never accept for

+himself, he kept in touch with the circle which confers success and

+which attracted him. He very readily took up Borís’ cause and went

+with him to Dolgorúkov.

+

+It was late in the evening when they entered the palace at Olmütz

+occupied by the Emperors and their retinues.

+

+That same day a council of war had been held in which all the members of

+the Hofkriegsrath and both Emperors took part. At that council, contrary

+to the views of the old generals Kutúzov and Prince Schwartzenberg, it

+had been decided to advance immediately and give battle to Bonaparte.

+The council of war was just over when Prince Andrew accompanied

+by Borís arrived at the palace to find Dolgorúkov. Everyone at

+headquarters was still under the spell of the day’s council, at which

+the party of the young had triumphed. The voices of those who counseled

+delay and advised waiting for something else before advancing had been

+so completely silenced and their arguments confuted by such conclusive

+evidence of the advantages of attacking that what had been discussed

+at the council—the coming battle and the victory that would certainly

+result from it—no longer seemed to be in the future but in the past.

+All the advantages were on our side. Our enormous forces, undoubtedly

+superior to Napoleon’s, were concentrated in one place, the troops

+inspired by the Emperors’ presence were eager for action. The

+strategic position where the operations would take place was familiar in

+all its details to the Austrian General Weyrother: a lucky accident had

+ordained that the Austrian army should maneuver the previous year on the

+very fields where the French had now to be fought; the adjacent

+locality was known and shown in every detail on the maps, and Bonaparte,

+evidently weakened, was undertaking nothing.

+

+Dolgorúkov, one of the warmest advocates of an attack, had just

+returned from the council, tired and exhausted but eager and proud

+of the victory that had been gained. Prince Andrew introduced his

+protégé, but Prince Dolgorúkov politely and firmly pressing his hand

+said nothing to Borís and, evidently unable to suppress the thoughts

+which were uppermost in his mind at that moment, addressed Prince Andrew

+in French.

+

+“Ah, my dear fellow, what a battle we have gained! God grant that

+the one that will result from it will be as victorious! However, dear

+fellow,” he said abruptly and eagerly, “I must confess to having

+been unjust to the Austrians and especially to Weyrother. What

+exactitude, what minuteness, what knowledge of the locality, what

+foresight for every eventuality, every possibility even to the smallest

+detail! No, my dear fellow, no conditions better than our present ones

+could have been devised. This combination of Austrian precision with

+Russian valor—what more could be wished for?”

+

+“So the attack is definitely resolved on?” asked Bolkónski.

+

+“And do you know, my dear fellow, it seems to me that Bonaparte has

+decidedly lost bearings, you know that a letter was received from him

+today for the Emperor.” Dolgorúkov smiled significantly.

+

+“Is that so? And what did he say?” inquired Bolkónski.

+

+“What can he say? Tra-di-ri-di-ra and so on... merely to gain time.

+I tell you he is in our hands, that’s certain! But what was most

+amusing,” he continued, with a sudden, good-natured laugh, “was that

+we could not think how to address the reply! If not as ‘Consul’

+and of course not as ‘Emperor,’ it seemed to me it should be to

+‘General Bonaparte.’”

+

+“But between not recognizing him as Emperor and calling him General

+Bonaparte, there is a difference,” remarked Bolkónski.

+

+“That’s just it,” interrupted Dolgorúkov quickly, laughing.

+“You know Bilíbin—he’s a very clever fellow. He suggested

+addressing him as ‘Usurper and Enemy of Mankind.’”

+

+Dolgorúkov laughed merrily.

+

+“Only that?” said Bolkónski.

+

+“All the same, it was Bilíbin who found a suitable form for the

+address. He is a wise and clever fellow.”

+

+“What was it?”

+

+“To the Head of the French Government... Au chef du gouvernement

+français,” said Dolgorúkov, with grave satisfaction. “Good,

+wasn’t it?”

+

+“Yes, but he will dislike it extremely,” said Bolkónski.

+

+“Oh yes, very much! My brother knows him, he’s dined with him—the

+present Emperor—more than once in Paris, and tells me he never met a

+more cunning or subtle diplomatist—you know, a combination of French

+adroitness and Italian play-acting! Do you know the tale about him and

+Count Markóv? Count Markóv was the only man who knew how to handle

+him. You know the story of the handkerchief? It is delightful!”

+

+And the talkative Dolgorúkov, turning now to Borís, now to Prince

+Andrew, told how Bonaparte wishing to test Markóv, our ambassador,

+purposely dropped a handkerchief in front of him and stood looking

+at Markóv, probably expecting Markóv to pick it up for him, and how

+Markóv immediately dropped his own beside it and picked it up without

+touching Bonaparte’s.

+

+“Delightful!” said Bolkónski. “But I have come to you, Prince,

+as a petitioner on behalf of this young man. You see...” but

+before Prince Andrew could finish, an aide-de-camp came in to summon

+Dolgorúkov to the Emperor.

+

+“Oh, what a nuisance,” said Dolgorúkov, getting up hurriedly and

+pressing the hands of Prince Andrew and Borís. “You know I should

+be very glad to do all in my power both for you and for this dear young

+man.” Again he pressed the hand of the latter with an expression of

+good-natured, sincere, and animated levity. “But you see... another

+time!”

+

+Borís was excited by the thought of being so close to the higher powers

+as he felt himself to be at that moment. He was conscious that here

+he was in contact with the springs that set in motion the enormous

+movements of the mass of which in his regiment he felt himself a tiny,

+obedient, and insignificant atom. They followed Prince Dolgorúkov out

+into the corridor and met—coming out of the door of the Emperor’s

+room by which Dolgorúkov had entered—a short man in civilian clothes

+with a clever face and sharply projecting jaw which, without spoiling

+his face, gave him a peculiar vivacity and shiftiness of expression.

+This short man nodded to Dolgorúkov as to an intimate friend and stared

+at Prince Andrew with cool intensity, walking straight toward him and

+evidently expecting him to bow or to step out of his way. Prince Andrew

+did neither: a look of animosity appeared on his face and the other

+turned away and went down the side of the corridor.

+

+“Who was that?” asked Borís.

+

+“He is one of the most remarkable, but to me most unpleasant of

+men—the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Adam Czartorýski.... It

+is such men as he who decide the fate of nations,” added Bolkónski

+with a sigh he could not suppress, as they passed out of the palace.

+

+Next day, the army began its campaign, and up to the very battle of

+Austerlitz, Borís was unable to see either Prince Andrew or Dolgorúkov

+again and remained for a while with the Ismáylov regiment.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+At dawn on the sixteenth of November, Denísov’s squadron, in

+which Nicholas Rostóv served and which was in Prince Bagratión’s

+detachment, moved from the place where it had spent the night, advancing

+into action as arranged, and after going behind other columns for

+about two thirds of a mile was stopped on the highroad. Rostóv saw the

+Cossacks and then the first and second squadrons of hussars and infantry

+battalions and artillery pass by and go forward and then Generals

+Bagratión and Dolgorúkov ride past with their adjutants. All the fear

+before action which he had experienced as previously, all the inner

+struggle to conquer that fear, all his dreams of distinguishing himself

+as a true hussar in this battle, had been wasted. Their squadron

+remained in reserve and Nicholas Rostóv spent that day in a dull and

+wretched mood. At nine in the morning, he heard firing in front and

+shouts of hurrah, and saw wounded being brought back (there were not

+many of them), and at last he saw how a whole detachment of French

+cavalry was brought in, convoyed by a sótnya of Cossacks. Evidently the

+affair was over and, though not big, had been a successful engagement.

+The men and officers returning spoke of a brilliant victory, of the

+occupation of the town of Wischau and the capture of a whole French

+squadron. The day was bright and sunny after a sharp night frost, and

+the cheerful glitter of that autumn day was in keeping with the news of

+victory which was conveyed, not only by the tales of those who had taken

+part in it, but also by the joyful expression on the faces of soldiers,

+officers, generals, and adjutants, as they passed Rostóv going or

+coming. And Nicholas, who had vainly suffered all the dread that

+precedes a battle and had spent that happy day in inactivity, was all

+the more depressed.

+

+“Come here, Wostóv. Let’s dwink to dwown our gwief!” shouted

+Denísov, who had settled down by the roadside with a flask and some

+food.

+

+The officers gathered round Denísov’s canteen, eating and talking.

+

+“There! They are bringing another!” cried one of the officers,

+indicating a captive French dragoon who was being brought in on foot by

+two Cossacks.

+

+One of them was leading by the bridle a fine large French horse he had

+taken from the prisoner.

+

+“Sell us that horse!” Denísov called out to the Cossacks.

+

+“If you like, your honor!”

+

+The officers got up and stood round the Cossacks and their prisoner.

+The French dragoon was a young Alsatian who spoke French with a German

+accent. He was breathless with agitation, his face was red, and when

+he heard some French spoken he at once began speaking to the officers,

+addressing first one, then another. He said he would not have been

+taken, it was not his fault but the corporal’s who had sent him to

+seize some horsecloths, though he had told him the Russians were there.

+And at every word he added: “But don’t hurt my little horse!” and

+stroked the animal. It was plain that he did not quite grasp where he

+was. Now he excused himself for having been taken prisoner and now,

+imagining himself before his own officers, insisted on his soldierly

+discipline and zeal in the service. He brought with him into our

+rearguard all the freshness of atmosphere of the French army, which was

+so alien to us.

+

+The Cossacks sold the horse for two gold pieces, and Rostóv, being the

+richest of the officers now that he had received his money, bought it.

+

+“But don’t hurt my little horse!” said the Alsatian good-naturedly

+to Rostóv when the animal was handed over to the hussar.

+

+Rostóv smilingly reassured the dragoon and gave him money.

+

+“Alley! Alley!” said the Cossack, touching the prisoner’s arm to

+make him go on.

+

+“The Emperor! The Emperor!” was suddenly heard among the hussars.

+

+All began to run and bustle, and Rostóv saw coming up the road behind

+him several riders with white plumes in their hats. In a moment everyone

+was in his place, waiting.

+

+Rostóv did not know or remember how he ran to his place and mounted.

+Instantly his regret at not having been in action and his dejected mood

+amid people of whom he was weary had gone, instantly every thought of

+himself had vanished. He was filled with happiness at his nearness to

+the Emperor. He felt that this nearness by itself made up to him for the

+day he had lost. He was happy as a lover when the longed-for moment of

+meeting arrives. Not daring to look round and without looking round, he

+was ecstatically conscious of his approach. He felt it not only from the

+sound of the hoofs of the approaching cavalcade, but because as he drew

+near everything grew brighter, more joyful, more significant, and more

+festive around him. Nearer and nearer to Rostóv came that sun shedding

+beams of mild and majestic light around, and already he felt himself

+enveloped in those beams, he heard his voice, that kindly, calm,

+and majestic voice that was yet so simple! And as if in accord with

+Rostóv’s feeling, there was a deathly stillness amid which was heard

+the Emperor’s voice.

+

+“The Pávlograd hussars?” he inquired.

+

+“The reserves, sire!” replied a voice, a very human one compared to

+that which had said: “The Pávlograd hussars?”

+

+The Emperor drew level with Rostóv and halted. Alexander’s face was

+even more beautiful than it had been three days before at the review. It

+shone with such gaiety and youth, such innocent youth, that it suggested

+the liveliness of a fourteen-year-old boy, and yet it was the face

+of the majestic Emperor. Casually, while surveying the squadron, the

+Emperor’s eyes met Rostóv’s and rested on them for not more than

+two seconds. Whether or no the Emperor understood what was going on in

+Rostóv’s soul (it seemed to Rostóv that he understood everything),

+at any rate his light-blue eyes gazed for about two seconds into

+Rostóv’s face. A gentle, mild light poured from them. Then all at

+once he raised his eyebrows, abruptly touched his horse with his left

+foot, and galloped on.

+

+The younger Emperor could not restrain his wish to be present at the

+battle and, in spite of the remonstrances of his courtiers, at twelve

+o’clock left the third column with which he had been and galloped

+toward the vanguard. Before he came up with the hussars, several

+adjutants met him with news of the successful result of the action.

+

+This battle, which consisted in the capture of a French squadron, was

+represented as a brilliant victory over the French, and so the

+Emperor and the whole army, especially while the smoke hung over

+the battlefield, believed that the French had been defeated and were

+retreating against their will. A few minutes after the Emperor had

+passed, the Pávlograd division was ordered to advance. In Wischau

+itself, a petty German town, Rostóv saw the Emperor again. In the

+market place, where there had been some rather heavy firing before the

+Emperor’s arrival, lay several killed and wounded soldiers whom there

+had not been time to move. The Emperor, surrounded by his suite

+of officers and courtiers, was riding a bobtailed chestnut mare, a

+different one from that which he had ridden at the review, and bending

+to one side he gracefully held a gold lorgnette to his eyes and looked

+at a soldier who lay prone, with blood on his uncovered head. The

+wounded soldier was so dirty, coarse, and revolting that his proximity

+to the Emperor shocked Rostóv. Rostóv saw how the Emperor’s rather

+round shoulders shuddered as if a cold shiver had run down them, how his

+left foot began convulsively tapping the horse’s side with the spur,

+and how the well-trained horse looked round unconcerned and did not

+stir. An adjutant, dismounting, lifted the soldier under the arms to

+place him on a stretcher that had been brought. The soldier groaned.

+

+“Gently, gently! Can’t you do it more gently?” said the Emperor

+apparently suffering more than the dying soldier, and he rode away.

+

+Rostóv saw tears filling the Emperor’s eyes and heard him, as he was

+riding away, say to Czartorýski: “What a terrible thing war is: what

+a terrible thing! Quelle terrible chose que la guerre!”

+

+The troops of the vanguard were stationed before Wischau, within sight

+of the enemy’s lines, which all day long had yielded ground to us

+at the least firing. The Emperor’s gratitude was announced to the

+vanguard, rewards were promised, and the men received a double ration of

+vodka. The campfires crackled and the soldiers’ songs resounded

+even more merrily than on the previous night. Denísov celebrated his

+promotion to the rank of major, and Rostóv, who had already drunk

+enough, at the end of the feast proposed the Emperor’s health. “Not

+‘our Sovereign, the Emperor,’ as they say at official dinners,”

+said he, “but the health of our Sovereign, that good, enchanting, and

+great man! Let us drink to his health and to the certain defeat of the

+French!”

+

+“If we fought before,” he said, “not letting the French pass, as

+at Schön Grabern, what shall we not do now when he is at the front? We

+will all die for him gladly! Is it not so, gentlemen? Perhaps I am not

+saying it right, I have drunk a good deal—but that is how I feel, and

+so do you too! To the health of Alexander the First! Hurrah!”

+

+“Hurrah!” rang the enthusiastic voices of the officers.

+

+And the old cavalry captain, Kírsten, shouted enthusiastically and no

+less sincerely than the twenty-year-old Rostóv.

+

+When the officers had emptied and smashed their glasses, Kírsten filled

+others and, in shirt sleeves and breeches, went glass in hand to the

+soldiers’ bonfires and with his long gray mustache, his white chest

+showing under his open shirt, he stood in a majestic pose in the light

+of the campfire, waving his uplifted arm.

+

+“Lads! here’s to our Sovereign, the Emperor, and victory over

+our enemies! Hurrah!” he exclaimed in his dashing, old, hussar’s

+baritone.

+

+The hussars crowded round and responded heartily with loud shouts.

+

+Late that night, when all had separated, Denísov with his short hand

+patted his favorite, Rostóv, on the shoulder.

+

+“As there’s no one to fall in love with on campaign, he’s fallen

+in love with the Tsar,” he said.

+

+“Denísov, don’t make fun of it!” cried Rostóv. “It is such a

+lofty, beautiful feeling, such a...”

+

+“I believe it, I believe it, fwiend, and I share and appwove...”

+

+“No, you don’t understand!”

+

+And Rostóv got up and went wandering among the campfires, dreaming of

+what happiness it would be to die—not in saving the Emperor’s life

+(he did not even dare to dream of that), but simply to die before his

+eyes. He really was in love with the Tsar and the glory of the Russian

+arms and the hope of future triumph. And he was not the only man to

+experience that feeling during those memorable days preceding the battle

+of Austerlitz: nine tenths of the men in the Russian army were then in

+love, though less ecstatically, with their Tsar and the glory of the

+Russian arms.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+The next day the Emperor stopped at Wischau, and Villier, his physician,

+was repeatedly summoned to see him. At headquarters and among the troops

+near by the news spread that the Emperor was unwell. He ate nothing and

+had slept badly that night, those around him reported. The cause of this

+indisposition was the strong impression made on his sensitive mind by

+the sight of the killed and wounded.

+

+At daybreak on the seventeenth, a French officer who had come with

+a flag of truce, demanding an audience with the Russian Emperor, was

+brought into Wischau from our outposts. This officer was Savary. The

+Emperor had only just fallen asleep and so Savary had to wait. At midday

+he was admitted to the Emperor, and an hour later he rode off with

+Prince Dolgorúkov to the advanced post of the French army.

+

+It was rumored that Savary had been sent to propose to Alexander

+a meeting with Napoleon. To the joy and pride of the whole army, a

+personal interview was refused, and instead of the Sovereign, Prince

+Dolgorúkov, the victor at Wischau, was sent with Savary to negotiate

+with Napoleon if, contrary to expectations, these negotiations were

+actuated by a real desire for peace.

+

+Toward evening Dolgorúkov came back, went straight to the Tsar, and

+remained alone with him for a long time.

+

+On the eighteenth and nineteenth of November, the army advanced two

+days’ march and the enemy’s outposts after a brief interchange

+of shots retreated. In the highest army circles from midday on the

+nineteenth, a great, excitedly bustling activity began which lasted till

+the morning of the twentieth, when the memorable battle of Austerlitz

+was fought.

+

+Till midday on the nineteenth, the activity—the eager talk, running to

+and fro, and dispatching of adjutants—was confined to the Emperor’s

+headquarters. But on the afternoon of that day, this activity reached

+Kutúzov’s headquarters and the staffs of the commanders of columns.

+By evening, the adjutants had spread it to all ends and parts of the

+army, and in the night from the nineteenth to the twentieth, the whole

+eighty thousand allied troops rose from their bivouacs to the hum of

+voices, and the army swayed and started in one enormous mass six miles

+long.

+

+The concentrated activity which had begun at the Emperor’s

+headquarters in the morning and had started the whole movement that

+followed was like the first movement of the main wheel of a large tower

+clock. One wheel slowly moved, another was set in motion, and a third,

+and wheels began to revolve faster and faster, levers and cogwheels to

+work, chimes to play, figures to pop out, and the hands to advance with

+regular motion as a result of all that activity.

+

+Just as in the mechanism of a clock, so in the mechanism of the military

+machine, an impulse once given leads to the final result; and just as

+indifferently quiescent till the moment when motion is transmitted

+to them are the parts of the mechanism which the impulse has not yet

+reached. Wheels creak on their axles as the cogs engage one another and

+the revolving pulleys whirr with the rapidity of their movement, but a

+neighboring wheel is as quiet and motionless as though it were prepared

+to remain so for a hundred years; but the moment comes when the lever

+catches it and obeying the impulse that wheel begins to creak and joins

+in the common motion the result and aim of which are beyond its ken.

+

+Just as in a clock, the result of the complicated motion of innumerable

+wheels and pulleys is merely a slow and regular movement of the

+hands which show the time, so the result of all the complicated human

+activities of 160,000 Russians and French—all their passions, desires,

+remorse, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride, fear, and

+enthusiasm—was only the loss of the battle of Austerlitz, the

+so-called battle of the three Emperors—that is to say, a slow movement

+of the hand on the dial of human history.

+

+Prince Andrew was on duty that day and in constant attendance on the

+commander in chief.

+

+At six in the evening, Kutúzov went to the Emperor’s headquarters

+and after staying but a short time with the Tsar went to see the grand

+marshal of the court, Count Tolstóy.

+

+Bolkónski took the opportunity to go in to get some details of the

+coming action from Dolgorúkov. He felt that Kutúzov was upset

+and dissatisfied about something and that at headquarters they were

+dissatisfied with him, and also that at the Emperor’s headquarters

+everyone adopted toward him the tone of men who know something others do

+not know: he therefore wished to speak to Dolgorúkov.

+

+“Well, how d’you do, my dear fellow?” said Dolgorúkov, who was

+sitting at tea with Bilíbin. “The fete is for tomorrow. How is your

+old fellow? Out of sorts?”

+

+“I won’t say he is out of sorts, but I fancy he would like to be

+heard.”

+

+“But they heard him at the council of war and will hear him when he

+talks sense, but to temporize and wait for something now when Bonaparte

+fears nothing so much as a general battle is impossible.”

+

+“Yes, you have seen him?” said Prince Andrew. “Well, what is

+Bonaparte like? How did he impress you?”

+

+“Yes, I saw him, and am convinced that he fears nothing so much as

+a general engagement,” repeated Dolgorúkov, evidently prizing this

+general conclusion which he had arrived at from his interview with

+Napoleon. “If he weren’t afraid of a battle why did he ask for that

+interview? Why negotiate, and above all why retreat, when to retreat is

+so contrary to his method of conducting war? Believe me, he is afraid,

+afraid of a general battle. His hour has come! Mark my words!”

+

+“But tell me, what is he like, eh?” said Prince Andrew again.

+

+“He is a man in a gray overcoat, very anxious that I should call

+him ‘Your Majesty,’ but who, to his chagrin, got no title from

+me! That’s the sort of man he is, and nothing more,” replied

+Dolgorúkov, looking round at Bilíbin with a smile.

+

+“Despite my great respect for old Kutúzov,” he continued, “we

+should be a nice set of fellows if we were to wait about and so give him

+a chance to escape, or to trick us, now that we certainly have him in

+our hands! No, we mustn’t forget Suvórov and his rule—not to put

+yourself in a position to be attacked, but yourself to attack. Believe

+me in war the energy of young men often shows the way better than all

+the experience of old Cunctators.”

+

+“But in what position are we going to attack him? I have been at the

+outposts today and it is impossible to say where his chief forces are

+situated,” said Prince Andrew.

+

+He wished to explain to Dolgorúkov a plan of attack he had himself

+formed.

+

+“Oh, that is all the same,” Dolgorúkov said quickly, and getting up

+he spread a map on the table. “All eventualities have been foreseen.

+If he is standing before Brünn...”

+

+And Prince Dolgorúkov rapidly but indistinctly explained Weyrother’s

+plan of a flanking movement.

+

+Prince Andrew began to reply and to state his own plan, which might

+have been as good as Weyrother’s, but for the disadvantage that

+Weyrother’s had already been approved. As soon as Prince Andrew began

+to demonstrate the defects of the latter and the merits of his own plan,

+Prince Dolgorúkov ceased to listen to him and gazed absent-mindedly not

+at the map, but at Prince Andrew’s face.

+

+“There will be a council of war at Kutúzov’s tonight, though; you

+can say all this there,” remarked Dolgorúkov.

+

+“I will do so,” said Prince Andrew, moving away from the map.

+

+“Whatever are you bothering about, gentlemen?” said Bilíbin, who,

+till then, had listened with an amused smile to their conversation and

+now was evidently ready with a joke. “Whether tomorrow brings

+victory or defeat, the glory of our Russian arms is secure. Except your

+Kutúzov, there is not a single Russian in command of a column! The

+commanders are: Herr General Wimpfen, le Comte de Langeron, le Prince de

+Lichtenstein, le Prince, de Hohenlohe, and finally Prishprish, and so on

+like all those Polish names.”

+

+“Be quiet, backbiter!” said Dolgorúkov. “It is not true; there

+are now two Russians, Milorádovich, and Dokhtúrov, and there would be

+a third, Count Arakchéev, if his nerves were not too weak.”

+

+“However, I think General Kutúzov has come out,” said Prince

+Andrew. “I wish you good luck and success, gentlemen!” he added and

+went out after shaking hands with Dolgorúkov and Bilíbin.

+

+On the way home, Prince Andrew could not refrain from asking Kutúzov,

+who was sitting silently beside him, what he thought of tomorrow’s

+battle.

+

+Kutúzov looked sternly at his adjutant and, after a pause, replied:

+“I think the battle will be lost, and so I told Count Tolstóy and

+asked him to tell the Emperor. What do you think he replied? ‘But, my

+dear general, I am engaged with rice and cutlets, look after military

+matters yourself!’ Yes... That was the answer I got!”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+Shortly after nine o’clock that evening, Weyrother drove with his

+plans to Kutúzov’s quarters where the council of war was to be

+held. All the commanders of columns were summoned to the commander in

+chief’s and with the exception of Prince Bagratión, who declined to

+come, were all there at the appointed time.

+

+Weyrother, who was in full control of the proposed battle, by his

+eagerness and briskness presented a marked contrast to the dissatisfied

+and drowsy Kutúzov, who reluctantly played the part of chairman and

+president of the council of war. Weyrother evidently felt himself to be

+at the head of a movement that had already become unrestrainable. He was

+like a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether he was

+pulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at

+headlong speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead

+to. Weyrother had been twice that evening to the enemy’s picket

+line to reconnoiter personally, and twice to the Emperors, Russian and

+Austrian, to report and explain, and to his headquarters where he had

+dictated the dispositions in German, and now, much exhausted, he arrived

+at Kutúzov’s.

+

+He was evidently so busy that he even forgot to be polite to the

+commander in chief. He interrupted him, talked rapidly and indistinctly,

+without looking at the man he was addressing, and did not reply to

+questions put to him. He was bespattered with mud and had a pitiful,

+weary, and distracted air, though at the same time he was haughty and

+self-confident.

+

+Kutúzov was occupying a nobleman’s castle of modest dimensions near

+Ostralitz. In the large drawing room which had become the commander

+in chief’s office were gathered Kutúzov himself, Weyrother, and the

+members of the council of war. They were drinking tea, and only awaited

+Prince Bagratión to begin the council. At last Bagratión’s orderly

+came with the news that the prince could not attend. Prince Andrew came

+in to inform the commander in chief of this and, availing himself

+of permission previously given him by Kutúzov to be present at the

+council, he remained in the room.

+

+“Since Prince Bagratión is not coming, we may begin,” said

+Weyrother, hurriedly rising from his seat and going up to the table on

+which an enormous map of the environs of Brünn was spread out.

+

+Kutúzov, with his uniform unbuttoned so that his fat neck bulged over

+his collar as if escaping, was sitting almost asleep in a low chair,

+with his podgy old hands resting symmetrically on its arms. At the sound

+of Weyrother’s voice, he opened his one eye with an effort.

+

+“Yes, yes, if you please! It is already late,” said he, and nodding

+his head he let it droop and again closed his eye.

+

+If at first the members of the council thought that Kutúzov was

+pretending to sleep, the sounds his nose emitted during the reading that

+followed proved that the commander in chief at that moment was absorbed

+by a far more serious matter than a desire to show his contempt for

+the dispositions or anything else—he was engaged in satisfying the

+irresistible human need for sleep. He really was asleep. Weyrother, with

+the gesture of a man too busy to lose a moment, glanced at Kutúzov and,

+having convinced himself that he was asleep, took up a paper and in

+a loud, monotonous voice began to read out the dispositions for the

+impending battle, under a heading which he also read out:

+

+“Dispositions for an attack on the enemy position behind Kobelnitz and

+Sokolnitz, November 30, 1805.”

+

+The dispositions were very complicated and difficult. They began as

+follows:

+

+“As the enemy’s left wing rests on wooded hills and his right

+extends along Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz behind the ponds that are there,

+while we, on the other hand, with our left wing by far outflank his

+right, it is advantageous to attack the enemy’s latter wing especially

+if we occupy the villages of Sokolnitz and Kobelnitz, whereby we

+can both fall on his flank and pursue him over the plain between

+Schlappanitz and the Thuerassa forest, avoiding the defiles of

+Schlappanitz and Bellowitz which cover the enemy’s front. For this

+object it is necessary that... The first column marches... The second

+column marches... The third column marches...” and so on, read

+Weyrother.

+

+The generals seemed to listen reluctantly to the difficult dispositions.

+The tall, fair-haired General Buxhöwden stood, leaning his back against

+the wall, his eyes fixed on a burning candle, and seemed not to listen

+or even to wish to be thought to listen. Exactly opposite Weyrother,

+with his glistening wide-open eyes fixed upon him and his mustache

+twisted upwards, sat the ruddy Milorádovich in a military pose, his

+elbows turned outwards, his hands on his knees, and his shoulders

+raised. He remained stubbornly silent, gazing at Weyrother’s face,

+and only turned away his eyes when the Austrian chief of staff finished

+reading. Then Milorádovich looked round significantly at the other

+generals. But one could not tell from that significant look whether he

+agreed or disagreed and was satisfied or not with the arrangements. Next

+to Weyrother sat Count Langeron who, with a subtle smile that never left

+his typically southern French face during the whole time of the reading,

+gazed at his delicate fingers which rapidly twirled by its corners

+a gold snuffbox on which was a portrait. In the middle of one of the

+longest sentences, he stopped the rotary motion of the snuffbox, raised

+his head, and with inimical politeness lurking in the corners of his

+thin lips interrupted Weyrother, wishing to say something. But the

+Austrian general, continuing to read, frowned angrily and jerked his

+elbows, as if to say: “You can tell me your views later, but now be so

+good as to look at the map and listen.” Langeron lifted his eyes with

+an expression of perplexity, turned round to Milorádovich as if seeking

+an explanation, but meeting the latter’s impressive but meaningless

+gaze drooped his eyes sadly and again took to twirling his snuffbox.

+

+“A geography lesson!” he muttered as if to himself, but loud enough

+to be heard.

+

+Przebyszéwski, with respectful but dignified politeness, held his

+hand to his ear toward Weyrother, with the air of a man absorbed in

+attention. Dohktúrov, a little man, sat opposite Weyrother, with

+an assiduous and modest mien, and stooping over the outspread map

+conscientiously studied the dispositions and the unfamiliar locality. He

+asked Weyrother several times to repeat words he had not clearly heard

+and the difficult names of villages. Weyrother complied and Dohktúrov

+noted them down.

+

+When the reading which lasted more than an hour was over, Langeron again

+brought his snuffbox to rest and, without looking at Weyrother or at

+anyone in particular, began to say how difficult it was to carry out

+such a plan in which the enemy’s position was assumed to be known,

+whereas it was perhaps not known, since the enemy was in movement.

+Langeron’s objections were valid but it was obvious that their chief

+aim was to show General Weyrother—who had read his dispositions with

+as much self-confidence as if he were addressing school children—that

+he had to do, not with fools, but with men who could teach him something

+in military matters.

+

+When the monotonous sound of Weyrother’s voice ceased, Kutúzov opened

+his eye as a miller wakes up when the soporific drone of the mill wheel

+is interrupted. He listened to what Langeron said, as if remarking,

+“So you are still at that silly business!” quickly closed his eye

+again, and let his head sink still lower.

+

+Langeron, trying as virulently as possible to sting Weyrother’s vanity

+as author of the military plan, argued that Bonaparte might easily

+attack instead of being attacked, and so render the whole of this

+plan perfectly worthless. Weyrother met all objections with a firm and

+contemptuous smile, evidently prepared beforehand to meet all objections

+be they what they might.

+

+“If he could attack us, he would have done so today,” said he.

+

+“So you think he is powerless?” said Langeron.

+

+“He has forty thousand men at most,” replied Weyrother, with the

+smile of a doctor to whom an old wife wishes to explain the treatment of

+a case.

+

+“In that case he is inviting his doom by awaiting our attack,” said

+Langeron, with a subtly ironical smile, again glancing round for support

+to Milorádovich who was near him.

+

+But Milorádovich was at that moment evidently thinking of anything

+rather than of what the generals were disputing about.

+

+“Ma foi!” said he, “tomorrow we shall see all that on the

+battlefield.”

+

+Weyrother again gave that smile which seemed to say that to him it was

+strange and ridiculous to meet objections from Russian generals and to

+have to prove to them what he had not merely convinced himself of, but

+had also convinced the sovereign Emperors of.

+

+“The enemy has quenched his fires and a continual noise is heard from

+his camp,” said he. “What does that mean? Either he is retreating,

+which is the only thing we need fear, or he is changing his position.”

+(He smiled ironically.) “But even if he also took up a position in

+the Thuerassa, he merely saves us a great deal of trouble and all our

+arrangements to the minutest detail remain the same.”

+

+“How is that?...” began Prince Andrew, who had for long been waiting

+an opportunity to express his doubts.

+

+Kutúzov here woke up, coughed heavily, and looked round at the

+generals.

+

+“Gentlemen, the dispositions for tomorrow—or rather for today, for

+it is past midnight—cannot now be altered,” said he. “You have

+heard them, and we shall all do our duty. But before a battle, there is

+nothing more important...” he paused, “than to have a good sleep.”

+

+He moved as if to rise. The generals bowed and retired. It was past

+midnight. Prince Andrew went out.

+

+The council of war, at which Prince Andrew had not been able to

+express his opinion as he had hoped to, left on him a vague and uneasy

+impression. Whether Dolgorúkov and Weyrother, or Kutúzov, Langeron,

+and the others who did not approve of the plan of attack, were

+right—he did not know. “But was it really not possible for Kutúzov

+to state his views plainly to the Emperor? Is it possible that on

+account of court and personal considerations tens of thousands of lives,

+and my life, my life,” he thought, “must be risked?”

+

+“Yes, it is very likely that I shall be killed tomorrow,” he

+thought. And suddenly, at this thought of death, a whole series of most

+distant, most intimate, memories rose in his imagination: he remembered

+his last parting from his father and his wife; he remembered the days

+when he first loved her. He thought of her pregnancy and felt sorry for

+her and for himself, and in a nervously emotional and softened mood he

+went out of the hut in which he was billeted with Nesvítski and began

+to walk up and down before it.

+

+The night was foggy and through the fog the moonlight gleamed

+mysteriously. “Yes, tomorrow, tomorrow!” he thought. “Tomorrow

+everything may be over for me! All these memories will be no more, none

+of them will have any meaning for me. Tomorrow perhaps, even certainly,

+I have a presentiment that for the first time I shall have to show all

+I can do.” And his fancy pictured the battle, its loss, the

+concentration of fighting at one point, and the hesitation of all the

+commanders. And then that happy moment, that Toulon for which he had

+so long waited, presents itself to him at last. He firmly and clearly

+expresses his opinion to Kutúzov, to Weyrother, and to the Emperors.

+All are struck by the justness of his views, but no one undertakes to

+carry them out, so he takes a regiment, a division—stipulates that no

+one is to interfere with his arrangements—leads his division to

+the decisive point, and gains the victory alone. “But death and

+suffering?” suggested another voice. Prince Andrew, however, did not

+answer that voice and went on dreaming of his triumphs. The dispositions

+for the next battle are planned by him alone. Nominally he is only an

+adjutant on Kutúzov’s staff, but he does everything alone. The next

+battle is won by him alone. Kutúzov is removed and he is appointed...

+“Well and then?” asked the other voice. “If before that you are

+not ten times wounded, killed, or betrayed, well... what then?...”

+“Well then,” Prince Andrew answered himself, “I don’t know

+what will happen and don’t want to know, and can’t, but if I want

+this—want glory, want to be known to men, want to be loved by them, it

+is not my fault that I want it and want nothing but that and live only

+for that. Yes, for that alone! I shall never tell anyone, but, oh God!

+what am I to do if I love nothing but fame and men’s esteem? Death,

+wounds, the loss of family—I fear nothing. And precious and dear

+as many persons are to me—father, sister, wife—those dearest to

+me—yet dreadful and unnatural as it seems, I would give them all at

+once for a moment of glory, of triumph over men, of love from men I

+don’t know and never shall know, for the love of these men here,” he

+thought, as he listened to voices in Kutúzov’s courtyard. The voices

+were those of the orderlies who were packing up; one voice, probably a

+coachman’s, was teasing Kutúzov’s old cook whom Prince Andrew knew,

+and who was called Tit. He was saying, “Tit, I say, Tit!”

+

+“Well?” returned the old man.

+

+“Go, Tit, thresh a bit!” said the wag.

+

+“Oh, go to the devil!” called out a voice, drowned by the laughter

+of the orderlies and servants.

+

+“All the same, I love and value nothing but triumph over them all, I

+value this mystic power and glory that is floating here above me in this

+mist!”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+That same night, Rostóv was with a platoon on skirmishing duty in front

+of Bagratión’s detachment. His hussars were placed along the line

+in couples and he himself rode along the line trying to master the

+sleepiness that kept coming over him. An enormous space, with our

+army’s campfires dimly glowing in the fog, could be seen behind him;

+in front of him was misty darkness. Rostóv could see nothing, peer as

+he would into that foggy distance: now something gleamed gray, now there

+was something black, now little lights seemed to glimmer where the enemy

+ought to be, now he fancied it was only something in his own eyes. His

+eyes kept closing, and in his fancy appeared—now the Emperor, now

+Denísov, and now Moscow memories—and he again hurriedly opened his

+eyes and saw close before him the head and ears of the horse he was

+riding, and sometimes, when he came within six paces of them, the

+black figures of hussars, but in the distance was still the same misty

+darkness. “Why not?... It might easily happen,” thought Rostóv,

+“that the Emperor will meet me and give me an order as he would to any

+other officer; he’ll say: ‘Go and find out what’s there.’ There

+are many stories of his getting to know an officer in just such a chance

+way and attaching him to himself! What if he gave me a place near him?

+Oh, how I would guard him, how I would tell him the truth, how I would

+unmask his deceivers!” And in order to realize vividly his love

+devotion to the sovereign, Rostóv pictured to himself an enemy or a

+deceitful German, whom he would not only kill with pleasure but whom

+he would slap in the face before the Emperor. Suddenly a distant shout

+aroused him. He started and opened his eyes.

+

+“Where am I? Oh yes, in the skirmishing line... pass and

+watchword—shaft, Olmütz. What a nuisance that our squadron will be in

+reserve tomorrow,” he thought. “I’ll ask leave to go to the front,

+this may be my only chance of seeing the Emperor. It won’t be long

+now before I am off duty. I’ll take another turn and when I get back

+I’ll go to the general and ask him.” He readjusted himself in the

+saddle and touched up his horse to ride once more round his hussars. It

+seemed to him that it was getting lighter. To the left he saw a sloping

+descent lit up, and facing it a black knoll that seemed as steep as a

+wall. On this knoll there was a white patch that Rostóv could not at

+all make out: was it a glade in the wood lit up by the moon, or some

+unmelted snow, or some white houses? He even thought something moved on

+that white spot. “I expect it’s snow... that spot... a spot—une

+tache,” he thought. “There now... it’s not a tache... Natásha...

+sister, black eyes... Na... tasha... (Won’t she be surprised when

+I tell her how I’ve seen the Emperor?) Natásha... take my

+sabretache...”—“Keep to the right, your honor, there are bushes

+here,” came the voice of an hussar, past whom Rostóv was riding in

+the act of falling asleep. Rostóv lifted his head that had sunk almost

+to his horse’s mane and pulled up beside the hussar. He was succumbing

+to irresistible, youthful, childish drowsiness. “But what was I

+thinking? I mustn’t forget. How shall I speak to the Emperor? No,

+that’s not it—that’s tomorrow. Oh yes! Natásha... sabretache...

+saber them... Whom? The hussars... Ah, the hussars with mustaches. Along

+the Tverskáya Street rode the hussar with mustaches... I thought about

+him too, just opposite Gúryev’s house... Old Gúryev.... Oh, but

+Denísov’s a fine fellow. But that’s all nonsense. The chief thing

+is that the Emperor is here. How he looked at me and wished to say

+something, but dared not.... No, it was I who dared not. But that’s

+nonsense, the chief thing is not to forget the important thing I

+was thinking of. Yes, Na-tásha, sabretache, oh, yes, yes! That’s

+right!” And his head once more sank to his horse’s neck. All at once

+it seemed to him that he was being fired at. “What? What? What?... Cut

+them down! What?...” said Rostóv, waking up. At the moment he opened

+his eyes he heard in front of him, where the enemy was, the long-drawn

+shouts of thousands of voices. His horse and the horse of the hussar

+near him pricked their ears at these shouts. Over there, where the

+shouting came from, a fire flared up and went out again, then another,

+and all along the French line on the hill fires flared up and the

+shouting grew louder and louder. Rostóv could hear the sound of French

+words but could not distinguish them. The din of many voices was too

+great; all he could hear was: “ahahah!” and “rrrr!”

+

+“What’s that? What do you make of it?” said Rostóv to the hussar

+beside him. “That must be the enemy’s camp!”

+

+The hussar did not reply.

+

+“Why, don’t you hear it?” Rostóv asked again, after waiting for a

+reply.

+

+“Who can tell, your honor?” replied the hussar reluctantly.

+

+“From the direction, it must be the enemy,” repeated Rostóv.

+

+“It may be he or it may be nothing,” muttered the hussar. “It’s

+dark... Steady!” he cried to his fidgeting horse.

+

+Rostóv’s horse was also getting restive: it pawed the frozen ground,

+pricking its ears at the noise and looking at the lights. The shouting

+grew still louder and merged into a general roar that only an army

+of several thousand men could produce. The lights spread farther and

+farther, probably along the line of the French camp. Rostóv no longer

+wanted to sleep. The gay triumphant shouting of the enemy army had a

+stimulating effect on him. “Vive l’Empereur! l’Empereur!” he now

+heard distinctly.

+

+“They can’t be far off, probably just beyond the stream,” he said

+to the hussar beside him.

+

+The hussar only sighed without replying and coughed angrily. The sound

+of horse’s hoofs approaching at a trot along the line of hussars was

+heard, and out of the foggy darkness the figure of a sergeant of hussars

+suddenly appeared, looming huge as an elephant.

+

+“Your honor, the generals!” said the sergeant, riding up to Rostóv.

+

+Rostóv, still looking round toward the fires and the shouts, rode with

+the sergeant to meet some mounted men who were riding along the line.

+One was on a white horse. Prince Bagratión and Prince Dolgorúkov with

+their adjutants had come to witness the curious phenomenon of the

+lights and shouts in the enemy’s camp. Rostóv rode up to Bagratión,

+reported to him, and then joined the adjutants listening to what the

+generals were saying.

+

+“Believe me,” said Prince Dolgorúkov, addressing Bagratión, “it

+is nothing but a trick! He has retreated and ordered the rearguard to

+kindle fires and make a noise to deceive us.”

+

+“Hardly,” said Bagratión. “I saw them this evening on that

+knoll; if they had retreated they would have withdrawn from that too....

+Officer!” said Bagratión to Rostóv, “are the enemy’s skirmishers

+still there?”

+

+“They were there this evening, but now I don’t know, your

+excellency. Shall I go with some of my hussars to see?” replied

+Rostóv.

+

+Bagratión stopped and, before replying, tried to see Rostóv’s face

+in the mist.

+

+“Well, go and see,” he said, after a pause.

+

+“Yes, sir.”

+

+Rostóv spurred his horse, called to Sergeant Fédchenko and two other

+hussars, told them to follow him, and trotted downhill in the direction

+from which the shouting came. He felt both frightened and pleased to be

+riding alone with three hussars into that mysterious and dangerous misty

+distance where no one had been before him. Bagratión called to him from

+the hill not to go beyond the stream, but Rostóv pretended not to hear

+him and did not stop but rode on and on, continually mistaking bushes

+for trees and gullies for men and continually discovering his mistakes.

+Having descended the hill at a trot, he no longer saw either our own or

+the enemy’s fires, but heard the shouting of the French more loudly

+and distinctly. In the valley he saw before him something like a river,

+but when he reached it he found it was a road. Having come out onto

+the road he reined in his horse, hesitating whether to ride along it or

+cross it and ride over the black field up the hillside. To keep to the

+road which gleamed white in the mist would have been safer because it

+would be easier to see people coming along it. “Follow me!” said he,

+crossed the road, and began riding up the hill at a gallop toward the

+point where the French pickets had been standing that evening.

+

+“Your honor, there he is!” cried one of the hussars behind him. And

+before Rostóv had time to make out what the black thing was that had

+suddenly appeared in the fog, there was a flash, followed by a report,

+and a bullet whizzing high up in the mist with a plaintive sound passed

+out of hearing. Another musket missed fire but flashed in the pan.

+Rostóv turned his horse and galloped back. Four more reports followed

+at intervals, and the bullets passed somewhere in the fog singing in

+different tones. Rostóv reined in his horse, whose spirits had risen,

+like his own, at the firing, and went back at a footpace. “Well, some

+more! Some more!” a merry voice was saying in his soul. But no more

+shots came.

+

+Only when approaching Bagratión did Rostóv let his horse gallop again,

+and with his hand at the salute rode up to the general.

+

+Dolgorúkov was still insisting that the French had retreated and had

+only lit fires to deceive us.

+

+“What does that prove?” he was saying as Rostóv rode up. “They

+might retreat and leave the pickets.”

+

+“It’s plain that they have not all gone yet, Prince,” said

+Bagratión. “Wait till tomorrow morning, we’ll find out everything

+tomorrow.”

+

+“The picket is still on the hill, your excellency, just where it was

+in the evening,” reported Rostóv, stooping forward with his hand at

+the salute and unable to repress the smile of delight induced by his

+ride and especially by the sound of the bullets.

+

+“Very good, very good,” said Bagratión. “Thank you, officer.”

+

+“Your excellency,” said Rostóv, “may I ask a favor?”

+

+“What is it?”

+

+“Tomorrow our squadron is to be in reserve. May I ask to be attached

+to the first squadron?”

+

+“What’s your name?”

+

+“Count Rostóv.”

+

+“Oh, very well, you may stay in attendance on me.”

+

+“Count Ilyá Rostóv’s son?” asked Dolgorúkov.

+

+But Rostóv did not reply.

+

+“Then I may reckon on it, your excellency?”

+

+“I will give the order.”

+

+“Tomorrow very likely I may be sent with some message to the

+Emperor,” thought Rostóv.

+

+“Thank God!”

+

+The fires and shouting in the enemy’s army were occasioned by the fact

+that while Napoleon’s proclamation was being read to the troops the

+Emperor himself rode round his bivouacs. The soldiers, on seeing him,

+lit wisps of straw and ran after him, shouting, “Vive l’Empereur!”

+Napoleon’s proclamation was as follows:

+

+Soldiers! The Russian army is advancing against you to avenge the

+Austrian army of Ulm. They are the same battalions you broke at

+Hollabrünn and have pursued ever since to this place. The position we

+occupy is a strong one, and while they are marching to go round me on

+the right they will expose a flank to me. Soldiers! I will myself direct

+your battalions. I will keep out of fire if you with your habitual

+valor carry disorder and confusion into the enemy’s ranks, but should

+victory be in doubt, even for a moment, you will see your Emperor

+exposing himself to the first blows of the enemy, for there must be no

+doubt of victory, especially on this day when what is at stake is the

+honor of the French infantry, so necessary to the honor of our nation.

+

+Do not break your ranks on the plea of removing the wounded! Let every

+man be fully imbued with the thought that we must defeat these hirelings

+of England, inspired by such hatred of our nation! This victory will

+conclude our campaign and we can return to winter quarters, where fresh

+French troops who are being raised in France will join us, and the peace

+I shall conclude will be worthy of my people, of you, and of myself.

+

+NAPOLEON

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV

+

+At five in the morning it was still quite dark. The troops of the

+center, the reserves, and Bagratión’s right flank had not yet moved,

+but on the left flank the columns of infantry, cavalry, and artillery,

+which were to be the first to descend the heights to attack the French

+right flank and drive it into the Bohemian mountains according to plan,

+were already up and astir. The smoke of the campfires, into which they

+were throwing everything superfluous, made the eyes smart. It was cold

+and dark. The officers were hurriedly drinking tea and breakfasting, the

+soldiers, munching biscuit and beating a tattoo with their feet to

+warm themselves, gathering round the fires throwing into the flames the

+remains of sheds, chairs, tables, wheels, tubs, and everything that they

+did not want or could not carry away with them. Austrian column guides

+were moving in and out among the Russian troops and served as heralds

+of the advance. As soon as an Austrian officer showed himself near

+a commanding officer’s quarters, the regiment began to move: the

+soldiers ran from the fires, thrust their pipes into their boots, their

+bags into the carts, got their muskets ready, and formed rank. The

+officers buttoned up their coats, buckled on their swords and pouches,

+and moved along the ranks shouting. The train drivers and orderlies

+harnessed and packed the wagons and tied on the loads. The adjutants and

+battalion and regimental commanders mounted, crossed themselves, gave

+final instructions, orders, and commissions to the baggage men

+who remained behind, and the monotonous tramp of thousands of feet

+resounded. The column moved forward without knowing where and unable,

+from the masses around them, the smoke and the increasing fog, to see

+either the place they were leaving or that to which they were going.

+

+A soldier on the march is hemmed in and borne along by his regiment as

+much as a sailor is by his ship. However far he has walked, whatever

+strange, unknown, and dangerous places he reaches, just as a sailor is

+always surrounded by the same decks, masts, and rigging of his ship, so

+the soldier always has around him the same comrades, the same ranks, the

+same sergeant major Iván Mítrich, the same company dog Jack, and the

+same commanders. The sailor rarely cares to know the latitude in which

+his ship is sailing, but on the day of battle—heaven knows how and

+whence—a stern note of which all are conscious sounds in the moral

+atmosphere of an army, announcing the approach of something decisive

+and solemn, and awakening in the men an unusual curiosity. On the day of

+battle the soldiers excitedly try to get beyond the interests of their

+regiment, they listen intently, look about, and eagerly ask concerning

+what is going on around them.

+

+The fog had grown so dense that though it was growing light they could

+not see ten paces ahead. Bushes looked like gigantic trees and level

+ground like cliffs and slopes. Anywhere, on any side, one might

+encounter an enemy invisible ten paces off. But the columns advanced

+for a long time, always in the same fog, descending and ascending hills,

+avoiding gardens and enclosures, going over new and unknown ground, and

+nowhere encountering the enemy. On the contrary, the soldiers became

+aware that in front, behind, and on all sides, other Russian columns

+were moving in the same direction. Every soldier felt glad to know that

+to the unknown place where he was going, many more of our men were going

+too.

+

+“There now, the Kúrskies have also gone past,” was being said in

+the ranks.

+

+“It’s wonderful what a lot of our troops have gathered, lads! Last

+night I looked at the campfires and there was no end of them. A regular

+Moscow!”

+

+Though none of the column commanders rode up to the ranks or talked to

+the men (the commanders, as we saw at the council of war, were out of

+humor and dissatisfied with the affair, and so did not exert themselves

+to cheer the men but merely carried out the orders), yet the troops

+marched gaily, as they always do when going into action, especially to

+an attack. But when they had marched for about an hour in the dense fog,

+the greater part of the men had to halt and an unpleasant consciousness

+of some dislocation and blunder spread through the ranks. How such

+a consciousness is communicated is very difficult to define, but it

+certainly is communicated very surely, and flows rapidly, imperceptibly,

+and irrepressibly, as water does in a creek. Had the Russian army been

+alone without any allies, it might perhaps have been a long time before

+this consciousness of mismanagement became a general conviction, but as

+it was, the disorder was readily and naturally attributed to the stupid

+Germans, and everyone was convinced that a dangerous muddle had been

+occasioned by the sausage eaters.

+

+“Why have we stopped? Is the way blocked? Or have we already come up

+against the French?”

+

+“No, one can’t hear them. They’d be firing if we had.”

+

+“They were in a hurry enough to start us, and now here we stand in

+the middle of a field without rhyme or reason. It’s all those damned

+Germans’ muddling! What stupid devils!”

+

+“Yes, I’d send them on in front, but no fear, they’re crowding up

+behind. And now here we stand hungry.”

+

+“I say, shall we soon be clear? They say the cavalry are blocking the

+way,” said an officer.

+

+“Ah, those damned Germans! They don’t know their own country!”

+said another.

+

+“What division are you?” shouted an adjutant, riding up.

+

+“The Eighteenth.”

+

+“Then why are you here? You should have gone on long ago, now you

+won’t get there till evening.”

+

+“What stupid orders! They don’t themselves know what they are

+doing!” said the officer and rode off.

+

+Then a general rode past shouting something angrily, not in Russian.

+

+“Tafa-lafa! But what he’s jabbering no one can make out,” said a

+soldier, mimicking the general who had ridden away. “I’d shoot them,

+the scoundrels!”

+

+“We were ordered to be at the place before nine, but we haven’t got

+halfway. Fine orders!” was being repeated on different sides.

+

+And the feeling of energy with which the troops had started began to

+turn into vexation and anger at the stupid arrangements and at the

+Germans.

+

+The cause of the confusion was that while the Austrian cavalry was

+moving toward our left flank, the higher command found that our center

+was too far separated from our right flank and the cavalry were all

+ordered to turn back to the right. Several thousand cavalry crossed in

+front of the infantry, who had to wait.

+

+At the front an altercation occurred between an Austrian guide and a

+Russian general. The general shouted a demand that the cavalry should be

+halted, the Austrian argued that not he, but the higher command, was to

+blame. The troops meanwhile stood growing listless and dispirited. After

+an hour’s delay they at last moved on, descending the hill. The fog

+that was dispersing on the hill lay still more densely below, where they

+were descending. In front in the fog a shot was heard and then another,

+at first irregularly at varying intervals—trata...tat—and then more

+and more regularly and rapidly, and the action at the Goldbach Stream

+began.

+

+Not expecting to come on the enemy down by the stream, and having

+stumbled on him in the fog, hearing no encouraging word from their

+commanders, and with a consciousness of being too late spreading through

+the ranks, and above all being unable to see anything in front or around

+them in the thick fog, the Russians exchanged shots with the enemy

+lazily and advanced and again halted, receiving no timely orders from

+the officers or adjutants who wandered about in the fog in those unknown

+surroundings unable to find their own regiments. In this way the action

+began for the first, second, and third columns, which had gone down into

+the valley. The fourth column, with which Kutúzov was, stood on the

+Pratzen Heights.

+

+Below, where the fight was beginning, there was still thick fog; on the

+higher ground it was clearing, but nothing could be seen of what was

+going on in front. Whether all the enemy forces were, as we supposed,

+six miles away, or whether they were near by in that sea of mist, no one

+knew till after eight o’clock.

+

+It was nine o’clock in the morning. The fog lay unbroken like a sea

+down below, but higher up at the village of Schlappanitz where Napoleon

+stood with his marshals around him, it was quite light. Above him was

+a clear blue sky, and the sun’s vast orb quivered like a huge hollow,

+crimson float on the surface of that milky sea of mist. The whole French

+army, and even Napoleon himself with his staff, were not on the far side

+of the streams and hollows of Sokolnitz and Schlappanitz beyond which we

+intended to take up our position and begin the action, but were on this

+side, so close to our own forces that Napoleon with the naked eye could

+distinguish a mounted man from one on foot. Napoleon, in the blue cloak

+which he had worn on his Italian campaign, sat on his small gray Arab

+horse a little in front of his marshals. He gazed silently at the hills

+which seemed to rise out of the sea of mist and on which the Russian

+troops were moving in the distance, and he listened to the sounds of

+firing in the valley. Not a single muscle of his face—which in those

+days was still thin—moved. His gleaming eyes were fixed intently on

+one spot. His predictions were being justified. Part of the Russian

+force had already descended into the valley toward the ponds and lakes

+and part were leaving these Pratzen Heights which he intended to attack

+and regarded as the key to the position. He saw over the mist that in

+a hollow between two hills near the village of Pratzen, the Russian

+columns, their bayonets glittering, were moving continuously in one

+direction toward the valley and disappearing one after another into

+the mist. From information he had received the evening before, from the

+sound of wheels and footsteps heard by the outposts during the night,

+by the disorderly movement of the Russian columns, and from all

+indications, he saw clearly that the allies believed him to be far away

+in front of them, and that the columns moving near Pratzen constituted

+the center of the Russian army, and that that center was already

+sufficiently weakened to be successfully attacked. But still he did not

+begin the engagement.

+

+Today was a great day for him—the anniversary of his coronation.

+Before dawn he had slept for a few hours, and refreshed, vigorous, and

+in good spirits, he mounted his horse and rode out into the field

+in that happy mood in which everything seems possible and everything

+succeeds. He sat motionless, looking at the heights visible above

+the mist, and his cold face wore that special look of confident,

+self-complacent happiness that one sees on the face of a boy happily

+in love. The marshals stood behind him not venturing to distract his

+attention. He looked now at the Pratzen Heights, now at the sun floating

+up out of the mist.

+

+When the sun had entirely emerged from the fog, and fields and mist were

+aglow with dazzling light—as if he had only awaited this to begin the

+action—he drew the glove from his shapely white hand, made a sign

+with it to the marshals, and ordered the action to begin. The marshals,

+accompanied by adjutants, galloped off in different directions, and

+a few minutes later the chief forces of the French army moved rapidly

+toward those Pratzen Heights which were being more and more denuded by

+Russian troops moving down the valley to their left.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV

+

+At eight o’clock Kutúzov rode to Pratzen at the head of the fourth

+column, Milorádovich’s, the one that was to take the place of

+Przebyszéwski’s and Langeron’s columns which had already gone down

+into the valley. He greeted the men of the foremost regiment and gave

+them the order to march, thereby indicating that he intended to lead

+that column himself. When he had reached the village of Pratzen he

+halted. Prince Andrew was behind, among the immense number forming the

+commander in chief’s suite. He was in a state of suppressed excitement

+and irritation, though controlledly calm as a man is at the approach of

+a long-awaited moment. He was firmly convinced that this was the day of

+his Toulon, or his bridge of Arcola. How it would come about he did not

+know, but he felt sure it would do so. The locality and the position of

+our troops were known to him as far as they could be known to anyone

+in our army. His own strategic plan, which obviously could not now

+be carried out, was forgotten. Now, entering into Weyrother’s plan,

+Prince Andrew considered possible contingencies and formed new projects

+such as might call for his rapidity of perception and decision.

+

+To the left down below in the mist, the musketry fire of unseen forces

+could be heard. It was there Prince Andrew thought the fight would

+concentrate. “There we shall encounter difficulties, and there,”

+thought he, “I shall be sent with a brigade or division, and there,

+standard in hand, I shall go forward and break whatever is in front of

+me.”

+

+He could not look calmly at the standards of the passing battalions.

+Seeing them he kept thinking, “That may be the very standard with

+which I shall lead the army.”

+

+In the morning all that was left of the night mist on the heights was

+a hoar frost now turning to dew, but in the valleys it still lay like a

+milk-white sea. Nothing was visible in the valley to the left into which

+our troops had descended and from whence came the sounds of firing.

+Above the heights was the dark clear sky, and to the right the vast orb

+of the sun. In front, far off on the farther shore of that sea of mist,

+some wooded hills were discernible, and it was there the enemy probably

+was, for something could be descried. On the right the Guards were

+entering the misty region with a sound of hoofs and wheels and now and

+then a gleam of bayonets; to the left beyond the village similar masses

+of cavalry came up and disappeared in the sea of mist. In front and

+behind moved infantry. The commander in chief was standing at the end of

+the village letting the troops pass by him. That morning Kutúzov seemed

+worn and irritable. The infantry passing before him came to a halt

+without any command being given, apparently obstructed by something in

+front.

+

+“Do order them to form into battalion columns and go round the

+village!” he said angrily to a general who had ridden up. “Don’t

+you understand, your excellency, my dear sir, that you must not

+defile through narrow village streets when we are marching against the

+enemy?”

+

+“I intended to re-form them beyond the village, your excellency,”

+answered the general.

+

+Kutúzov laughed bitterly.

+

+“You’ll make a fine thing of it, deploying in sight of the enemy!

+Very fine!”

+

+“The enemy is still far away, your excellency. According to the

+dispositions...”

+

+“The dispositions!” exclaimed Kutúzov bitterly. “Who told you

+that?... Kindly do as you are ordered.”

+

+“Yes, sir.”

+

+“My dear fellow,” Nesvítski whispered to Prince Andrew, “the old

+man is as surly as a dog.”

+

+An Austrian officer in a white uniform with green plumes in his hat

+galloped up to Kutúzov and asked in the Emperor’s name had the fourth

+column advanced into action.

+

+Kutúzov turned round without answering and his eye happened to fall

+upon Prince Andrew, who was beside him. Seeing him, Kutúzov’s

+malevolent and caustic expression softened, as if admitting that what

+was being done was not his adjutant’s fault, and still not answering

+the Austrian adjutant, he addressed Bolkónski.

+

+“Go, my dear fellow, and see whether the third division has passed the

+village. Tell it to stop and await my orders.”

+

+Hardly had Prince Andrew started than he stopped him.

+

+“And ask whether sharpshooters have been posted,” he added. “What

+are they doing? What are they doing?” he murmured to himself, still

+not replying to the Austrian.

+

+Prince Andrew galloped off to execute the order.

+

+Overtaking the battalions that continued to advance, he stopped

+the third division and convinced himself that there really were no

+sharpshooters in front of our columns. The colonel at the head of the

+regiment was much surprised at the commander in chief’s order to throw

+out skirmishers. He had felt perfectly sure that there were other troops

+in front of him and that the enemy must be at least six miles away.

+There was really nothing to be seen in front except a barren descent

+hidden by dense mist. Having given orders in the commander in chief’s

+name to rectify this omission, Prince Andrew galloped back. Kutúzov

+still in the same place, his stout body resting heavily in the saddle

+with the lassitude of age, sat yawning wearily with closed eyes. The

+troops were no longer moving, but stood with the butts of their muskets

+on the ground.

+

+“All right, all right!” he said to Prince Andrew, and turned to a

+general who, watch in hand, was saying it was time they started as all

+the left-flank columns had already descended.

+

+“Plenty of time, your excellency,” muttered Kutúzov in the midst of

+a yawn. “Plenty of time,” he repeated.

+

+Just then at a distance behind Kutúzov was heard the sound of regiments

+saluting, and this sound rapidly came nearer along the whole extended

+line of the advancing Russian columns. Evidently the person they were

+greeting was riding quickly. When the soldiers of the regiment in front

+of which Kutúzov was standing began to shout, he rode a little to one

+side and looked round with a frown. Along the road from Pratzen galloped

+what looked like a squadron of horsemen in various uniforms. Two of them

+rode side by side in front, at full gallop. One in a black uniform with

+white plumes in his hat rode a bobtailed chestnut horse, the other who

+was in a white uniform rode a black one. These were the two Emperors

+followed by their suites. Kutúzov, affecting the manners of an old

+soldier at the front, gave the command “Attention!” and rode up

+to the Emperors with a salute. His whole appearance and manner were

+suddenly transformed. He put on the air of a subordinate who obeys

+without reasoning. With an affectation of respect which evidently struck

+Alexander unpleasantly, he rode up and saluted.

+

+This unpleasant impression merely flitted over the young and happy face

+of the Emperor like a cloud of haze across a clear sky and vanished.

+After his illness he looked rather thinner that day than on the field

+of Olmütz where Bolkónski had seen him for the first time abroad, but

+there was still the same bewitching combination of majesty and mildness

+in his fine gray eyes, and on his delicate lips the same capacity for

+varying expression and the same prevalent appearance of goodhearted

+innocent youth.

+

+At the Olmütz review he had seemed more majestic; here he seemed

+brighter and more energetic. He was slightly flushed after galloping two

+miles, and reining in his horse he sighed restfully and looked round

+at the faces of his suite, young and animated as his own. Czartorýski,

+Novosíltsev, Prince Volkónsky, Strógonov, and the others, all richly

+dressed gay young men on splendid, well-groomed, fresh, only slightly

+heated horses, exchanging remarks and smiling, had stopped behind the

+Emperor. The Emperor Francis, a rosy, long faced young man, sat very

+erect on his handsome black horse, looking about him in a leisurely and

+preoccupied manner. He beckoned to one of his white adjutants and asked

+some question—“Most likely he is asking at what o’clock they

+started,” thought Prince Andrew, watching his old acquaintance with

+a smile he could not repress as he recalled his reception at Brünn.

+In the Emperors’ suite were the picked young orderly officers of the

+Guard and line regiments, Russian and Austrian. Among them were grooms

+leading the Tsar’s beautiful relay horses covered with embroidered

+cloths.

+

+As when a window is opened a whiff of fresh air from the fields enters

+a stuffy room, so a whiff of youthfulness, energy, and confidence of

+success reached Kutúzov’s cheerless staff with the galloping advent

+of all these brilliant young men.

+

+“Why aren’t you beginning, Michael Ilariónovich?” said the

+Emperor Alexander hurriedly to Kutúzov, glancing courteously at the

+same time at the Emperor Francis.

+

+“I am waiting, Your Majesty,” answered Kutúzov, bending forward

+respectfully.

+

+The Emperor, frowning slightly, bent his ear forward as if he had not

+quite heard.

+

+“Waiting, Your Majesty,” repeated Kutúzov. (Prince Andrew noted

+that Kutúzov’s upper lip twitched unnaturally as he said the

+word “waiting.”) “Not all the columns have formed up yet, Your

+Majesty.”

+

+The Tsar heard but obviously did not like the reply; he shrugged his

+rather round shoulders and glanced at Novosíltsev who was near him, as

+if complaining of Kutúzov.

+

+“You know, Michael Ilariónovich, we are not on the Empress’ Field

+where a parade does not begin till all the troops are assembled,” said

+the Tsar with another glance at the Emperor Francis, as if inviting

+him if not to join in at least to listen to what he was saying. But the

+Emperor Francis continued to look about him and did not listen.

+

+“That is just why I do not begin, sire,” said Kutúzov in a

+resounding voice, apparently to preclude the possibility of not being

+heard, and again something in his face twitched—“That is just why

+I do not begin, sire, because we are not on parade and not on the

+Empress’ Field,” said he clearly and distinctly.

+

+In the Emperor’s suite all exchanged rapid looks that expressed

+dissatisfaction and reproach. “Old though he may be, he should not, he

+certainly should not, speak like that,” their glances seemed to say.

+

+The Tsar looked intently and observantly into Kutúzov’s eye

+waiting to hear whether he would say anything more. But Kutúzov, with

+respectfully bowed head, seemed also to be waiting. The silence lasted

+for about a minute.

+

+“However, if you command it, Your Majesty,” said Kutúzov, lifting

+his head and again assuming his former tone of a dull, unreasoning, but

+submissive general.

+

+He touched his horse and having called Milorádovich, the commander of

+the column, gave him the order to advance.

+

+The troops again began to move, and two battalions of the Nóvgorod and

+one of the Ápsheron regiment went forward past the Emperor.

+

+As this Ápsheron battalion marched by, the red-faced Milorádovich,

+without his greatcoat, with his Orders on his breast and an enormous

+tuft of plumes in his cocked hat worn on one side with its corners front

+and back, galloped strenuously forward, and with a dashing salute reined

+in his horse before the Emperor.

+

+“God be with you, general!” said the Emperor.

+

+“Ma foi, sire, nous ferons ce qui sera dans notre possibilité,

+sire,” * he answered gaily, raising nevertheless ironic smiles among

+the gentlemen of the Tsar’s suite by his poor French.

+

+     * “Indeed, Sire, we shall do everything it is possible to

+     do, Sire.”

+

+

+Milorádovich wheeled his horse sharply and stationed himself a little

+behind the Emperor. The Ápsheron men, excited by the Tsar’s presence,

+passed in step before the Emperors and their suites at a bold, brisk

+pace.

+

+“Lads!” shouted Milorádovich in a loud, self-confident, and cheery

+voice, obviously so elated by the sound of firing, by the prospect of

+battle, and by the sight of the gallant Ápsherons, his comrades in

+Suvórov’s time, now passing so gallantly before the Emperors, that he

+forgot the sovereigns’ presence. “Lads, it’s not the first village

+you’ve had to take,” cried he.

+

+“Glad to do our best!” shouted the soldiers.

+

+The Emperor’s horse started at the sudden cry. This horse that had

+carried the sovereign at reviews in Russia bore him also here on the

+field of Austerlitz, enduring the heedless blows of his left foot and

+pricking its ears at the sound of shots just as it had done on the

+Empress’ Field, not understanding the significance of the firing, nor

+of the nearness of the Emperor Francis’ black cob, nor of all that was

+being said, thought, and felt that day by its rider.

+

+The Emperor turned with a smile to one of his followers and made a

+remark to him, pointing to the gallant Ápsherons.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI

+

+Kutúzov accompanied by his adjutants rode at a walking pace behind the

+carabineers.

+

+When he had gone less than half a mile in the rear of the column he

+stopped at a solitary, deserted house that had probably once been an

+inn, where two roads parted. Both of them led downhill and troops were

+marching along both.

+

+The fog had begun to clear and enemy troops were already dimly visible

+about a mile and a half off on the opposite heights. Down below, on

+the left, the firing became more distinct. Kutúzov had stopped and was

+speaking to an Austrian general. Prince Andrew, who was a little behind

+looking at them, turned to an adjutant to ask him for a field glass.

+

+“Look, look!” said this adjutant, looking not at the troops in the

+distance, but down the hill before him. “It’s the French!”

+

+The two generals and the adjutant took hold of the field glass, trying

+to snatch it from one another. The expression on all their faces

+suddenly changed to one of horror. The French were supposed to be a

+mile and a half away, but had suddenly and unexpectedly appeared just in

+front of us.

+

+“It’s the enemy?... No!... Yes, see it is!... for certain.... But

+how is that?” said different voices.

+

+With the naked eye Prince Andrew saw below them to the right, not more

+than five hundred paces from where Kutúzov was standing, a dense French

+column coming up to meet the Ápsherons.

+

+“Here it is! The decisive moment has arrived. My turn has come,”

+thought Prince Andrew, and striking his horse he rode up to Kutúzov.

+

+“The Ápsherons must be stopped, your excellency,” cried he. But at

+that very instant a cloud of smoke spread all round, firing was heard

+quite close at hand, and a voice of naïve terror barely two steps from

+Prince Andrew shouted, “Brothers! All’s lost!” And at this as if

+at a command, everyone began to run.

+

+Confused and ever-increasing crowds were running back to where five

+minutes before the troops had passed the Emperors. Not only would it

+have been difficult to stop that crowd, it was even impossible not to

+be carried back with it oneself. Bolkónski only tried not to lose

+touch with it, and looked around bewildered and unable to grasp what was

+happening in front of him. Nesvítski with an angry face, red and unlike

+himself, was shouting to Kutúzov that if he did not ride away at once

+he would certainly be taken prisoner. Kutúzov remained in the same

+place and without answering drew out a handkerchief. Blood was flowing

+from his cheek. Prince Andrew forced his way to him.

+

+“You are wounded?” he asked, hardly able to master the trembling of

+his lower jaw.

+

+“The wound is not here, it is there!” said Kutúzov, pressing the

+handkerchief to his wounded cheek and pointing to the fleeing soldiers.

+“Stop them!” he shouted, and at the same moment, probably realizing

+that it was impossible to stop them, spurred his horse and rode to the

+right.

+

+A fresh wave of the flying mob caught him and bore him back with it.

+

+The troops were running in such a dense mass that once surrounded by

+them it was difficult to get out again. One was shouting, “Get on!

+Why are you hindering us?” Another in the same place turned round and

+fired in the air; a third was striking the horse Kutúzov himself rode.

+Having by a great effort got away to the left from that flood of men,

+Kutúzov, with his suite diminished by more than half, rode toward a

+sound of artillery fire near by. Having forced his way out of the crowd

+of fugitives, Prince Andrew, trying to keep near Kutúzov, saw on the

+slope of the hill amid the smoke a Russian battery that was still firing

+and Frenchmen running toward it. Higher up stood some Russian infantry,

+neither moving forward to protect the battery nor backward with the

+fleeing crowd. A mounted general separated himself from the infantry and

+approached Kutúzov. Of Kutúzov’s suite only four remained. They were

+all pale and exchanged looks in silence.

+

+“Stop those wretches!” gasped Kutúzov to the regimental commander,

+pointing to the flying soldiers; but at that instant, as if to punish

+him for those words, bullets flew hissing across the regiment and across

+Kutúzov’s suite like a flock of little birds.

+

+The French had attacked the battery and, seeing Kutúzov, were firing

+at him. After this volley the regimental commander clutched at his leg;

+several soldiers fell, and a second lieutenant who was holding the

+flag let it fall from his hands. It swayed and fell, but caught on the

+muskets of the nearest soldiers. The soldiers started firing without

+orders.

+

+“Oh! Oh! Oh!” groaned Kutúzov despairingly and looked around....

+“Bolkónski!” he whispered, his voice trembling from a consciousness

+of the feebleness of age, “Bolkónski!” he whispered, pointing to

+the disordered battalion and at the enemy, “what’s that?”

+

+But before he had finished speaking, Prince Andrew, feeling tears of

+shame and anger choking him, had already leapt from his horse and run to

+the standard.

+

+“Forward, lads!” he shouted in a voice piercing as a child’s.

+

+“Here it is!” thought he, seizing the staff of the standard and

+hearing with pleasure the whistle of bullets evidently aimed at him.

+Several soldiers fell.

+

+“Hurrah!” shouted Prince Andrew, and, scarcely able to hold up

+the heavy standard, he ran forward with full confidence that the whole

+battalion would follow him.

+

+And really he only ran a few steps alone. One soldier moved and then

+another and soon the whole battalion ran forward shouting “Hurrah!”

+and overtook him. A sergeant of the battalion ran up and took the flag

+that was swaying from its weight in Prince Andrew’s hands, but he

+was immediately killed. Prince Andrew again seized the standard and,

+dragging it by the staff, ran on with the battalion. In front he saw our

+artillerymen, some of whom were fighting, while others, having abandoned

+their guns, were running toward him. He also saw French infantry

+soldiers who were seizing the artillery horses and turning the guns

+round. Prince Andrew and the battalion were already within twenty paces

+of the cannon. He heard the whistle of bullets above him unceasingly and

+to right and left of him soldiers continually groaned and dropped. But

+he did not look at them: he looked only at what was going on in front

+of him—at the battery. He now saw clearly the figure of a red-haired

+gunner with his shako knocked awry, pulling one end of a mop while

+a French soldier tugged at the other. He could distinctly see the

+distraught yet angry expression on the faces of these two men, who

+evidently did not realize what they were doing.

+

+“What are they about?” thought Prince Andrew as he gazed at them.

+“Why doesn’t the red-haired gunner run away as he is unarmed?

+Why doesn’t the Frenchman stab him? He will not get away before the

+Frenchman remembers his bayonet and stabs him....”

+

+And really another French soldier, trailing his musket, ran up to

+the struggling men, and the fate of the red-haired gunner, who had

+triumphantly secured the mop and still did not realize what awaited him,

+was about to be decided. But Prince Andrew did not see how it ended. It

+seemed to him as though one of the soldiers near him hit him on the head

+with the full swing of a bludgeon. It hurt a little, but the worst of

+it was that the pain distracted him and prevented his seeing what he had

+been looking at.

+

+“What’s this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way,” thought he,

+and fell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle

+of the Frenchmen with the gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner

+had been killed or not and whether the cannon had been captured or

+saved. But he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the

+sky—the lofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray

+clouds gliding slowly across it. “How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not

+at all as I ran,” thought Prince Andrew—“not as we ran, shouting

+and fighting, not at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened

+and angry faces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds

+glide across that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that

+lofty sky before? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All

+is vanity, all falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing,

+nothing, but that. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but

+quiet and peace. Thank God!...”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVII

+

+On our right flank commanded by Bagratión, at nine o’clock the battle

+had not yet begun. Not wishing to agree to Dolgorúkov’s demand to

+commence the action, and wishing to avert responsibility from himself,

+Prince Bagratión proposed to Dolgorúkov to send to inquire of the

+commander in chief. Bagratión knew that as the distance between the two

+flanks was more than six miles, even if the messenger were not killed

+(which he very likely would be), and found the commander in chief

+(which would be very difficult), he would not be able to get back before

+evening.

+

+Bagratión cast his large, expressionless, sleepy eyes round his suite,

+and the boyish face Rostóv, breathless with excitement and hope, was

+the first to catch his eye. He sent him.

+

+“And if I should meet His Majesty before I meet the commander in

+chief, your excellency?” said Rostóv, with his hand to his cap.

+

+“You can give the message to His Majesty,” said Dolgorúkov,

+hurriedly interrupting Bagratión.

+

+On being relieved from picket duty Rostóv had managed to get a few

+hours’ sleep before morning and felt cheerful, bold, and resolute,

+with elasticity of movement, faith in his good fortune, and generally in

+that state of mind which makes everything seem possible, pleasant, and

+easy.

+

+All his wishes were being fulfilled that morning: there was to be a

+general engagement in which he was taking part, more than that, he was

+orderly to the bravest general, and still more, he was going with a

+message to Kutúzov, perhaps even to the sovereign himself. The morning

+was bright, he had a good horse under him, and his heart was full of

+joy and happiness. On receiving the order he gave his horse the rein

+and galloped along the line. At first he rode along the line of

+Bagratión’s troops, which had not yet advanced into action but were

+standing motionless; then he came to the region occupied by Uvárov’s

+cavalry and here he noticed a stir and signs of preparation for battle;

+having passed Uvárov’s cavalry he clearly heard the sound of cannon

+and musketry ahead of him. The firing grew louder and louder.

+

+In the fresh morning air were now heard, not two or three musket shots

+at irregular intervals as before, followed by one or two cannon shots,

+but a roll of volleys of musketry from the slopes of the hill before

+Pratzen, interrupted by such frequent reports of cannon that sometimes

+several of them were not separated from one another but merged into a

+general roar.

+

+He could see puffs of musketry smoke that seemed to chase one another

+down the hillsides, and clouds of cannon smoke rolling, spreading,

+and mingling with one another. He could also, by the gleam of bayonets

+visible through the smoke, make out moving masses of infantry and narrow

+lines of artillery with green caissons.

+

+Rostóv stopped his horse for a moment on a hillock to see what was

+going on, but strain his attention as he would he could not understand

+or make out anything of what was happening: there in the smoke men of

+some sort were moving about, in front and behind moved lines of troops;

+but why, whither, and who they were, it was impossible to make out.

+These sights and sounds had no depressing or intimidating effect on him;

+on the contrary, they stimulated his energy and determination.

+

+“Go on! Go on! Give it them!” he mentally exclaimed at these sounds,

+and again proceeded to gallop along the line, penetrating farther and

+farther into the region where the army was already in action.

+

+“How it will be there I don’t know, but all will be well!” thought

+Rostóv.

+

+After passing some Austrian troops he noticed that the next part of the

+line (the Guards) was already in action.

+

+“So much the better! I shall see it close,” he thought.

+

+He was riding almost along the front line. A handful of men came

+galloping toward him. They were our Uhlans who with disordered

+ranks were returning from the attack. Rostóv got out of their way,

+involuntarily noticed that one of them was bleeding, and galloped on.

+

+“That is no business of mine,” he thought. He had not ridden many

+hundred yards after that before he saw to his left, across the whole

+width of the field, an enormous mass of cavalry in brilliant white

+uniforms, mounted on black horses, trotting straight toward him and

+across his path. Rostóv put his horse to full gallop to get out of the

+way of these men, and he would have got clear had they continued at the

+same speed, but they kept increasing their pace, so that some of the

+horses were already galloping. Rostóv heard the thud of their hoofs

+and the jingle of their weapons and saw their horses, their figures, and

+even their faces, more and more distinctly. They were our Horse Guards,

+advancing to attack the French cavalry that was coming to meet them.

+

+The Horse Guards were galloping, but still holding in their horses.

+Rostóv could already see their faces and heard the command:

+“Charge!” shouted by an officer who was urging his thoroughbred to

+full speed. Rostóv, fearing to be crushed or swept into the attack on

+the French, galloped along the front as hard as his horse could go, but

+still was not in time to avoid them.

+

+The last of the Horse Guards, a huge pockmarked fellow, frowned angrily

+on seeing Rostóv before him, with whom he would inevitably collide.

+This Guardsman would certainly have bowled Rostóv and his Bedouin over

+(Rostóv felt himself quite tiny and weak compared to these gigantic men

+and horses) had it not occurred to Rostóv to flourish his whip before

+the eyes of the Guardsman’s horse. The heavy black horse, sixteen

+hands high, shied, throwing back its ears; but the pockmarked Guardsman

+drove his huge spurs in violently, and the horse, flourishing its tail

+and extending its neck, galloped on yet faster. Hardly had the Horse

+Guards passed Rostóv before he heard them shout, “Hurrah!” and

+looking back saw that their foremost ranks were mixed up with some

+foreign cavalry with red epaulets, probably French. He could see nothing

+more, for immediately afterwards cannon began firing from somewhere and

+smoke enveloped everything.

+

+At that moment, as the Horse Guards, having passed him, disappeared in

+the smoke, Rostóv hesitated whether to gallop after them or to go where

+he was sent. This was the brilliant charge of the Horse Guards that

+amazed the French themselves. Rostóv was horrified to hear later that

+of all that mass of huge and handsome men, of all those brilliant,

+rich youths, officers and cadets, who had galloped past him on their

+thousand-ruble horses, only eighteen were left after the charge.

+

+“Why should I envy them? My chance is not lost, and maybe I shall see

+the Emperor immediately!” thought Rostóv and galloped on.

+

+When he came level with the Foot Guards he noticed that about them and

+around them cannon balls were flying, of which he was aware not so

+much because he heard their sound as because he saw uneasiness on

+the soldiers’ faces and unnatural warlike solemnity on those of the

+officers.

+

+Passing behind one of the lines of a regiment of Foot Guards he heard a

+voice calling him by name.

+

+“Rostóv!”

+

+“What?” he answered, not recognizing Borís.

+

+“I say, we’ve been in the front line! Our regiment attacked!” said

+Borís with the happy smile seen on the faces of young men who have been

+under fire for the first time.

+

+Rostóv stopped.

+

+“Have you?” he said. “Well, how did it go?”

+

+“We drove them back!” said Borís with animation, growing talkative.

+“Can you imagine it?” and he began describing how the Guards, having

+taken up their position and seeing troops before them, thought they were

+Austrians, and all at once discovered from the cannon balls discharged

+by those troops that they were themselves in the front line and had

+unexpectedly to go into action. Rostóv without hearing Borís to the

+end spurred his horse.

+

+“Where are you off to?” asked Borís.

+

+“With a message to His Majesty.”

+

+“There he is!” said Borís, thinking Rostóv had said “His

+Highness,” and pointing to the Grand Duke who with his high shoulders

+and frowning brows stood a hundred paces away from them in his helmet

+and Horse Guards’ jacket, shouting something to a pale, white

+uniformed Austrian officer.

+

+“But that’s the Grand Duke, and I want the commander in chief or the

+Emperor,” said Rostóv, and was about to spur his horse.

+

+“Count! Count!” shouted Berg who ran up from the other side as eager

+as Borís. “Count! I am wounded in my right hand” (and he showed his

+bleeding hand with a handkerchief tied round it) “and I remained at

+the front. I held my sword in my left hand, Count. All our family—the

+von Bergs—have been knights!”

+

+He said something more, but Rostóv did not wait to hear it and rode

+away.

+

+Having passed the Guards and traversed an empty space, Rostóv, to avoid

+again getting in front of the first line as he had done when the Horse

+Guards charged, followed the line of reserves, going far round the place

+where the hottest musket fire and cannonade were heard. Suddenly he

+heard musket fire quite close in front of him and behind our troops,

+where he could never have expected the enemy to be.

+

+“What can it be?” he thought. “The enemy in the rear of our army?

+Impossible!” And suddenly he was seized by a panic of fear for himself

+and for the issue of the whole battle. “But be that what it may,”

+he reflected, “there is no riding round it now. I must look for the

+commander in chief here, and if all is lost it is for me to perish with

+the rest.”

+

+The foreboding of evil that had suddenly come over Rostóv was more and

+more confirmed the farther he rode into the region behind the village of

+Pratzen, which was full of troops of all kinds.

+

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

+firing?” Rostóv 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.

+Rostóv 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!”

+

+The idea of defeat and flight could not enter Rostóv’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

+

+Rostóv had been ordered to look for Kutúzov 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 calèches, 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.

+

+“Where is the Emperor? Where is Kutúzov?” Rostóv kept asking

+everyone he could stop, but got no answer from anyone.

+

+At last seizing a soldier by his collar he forced him to answer.

+

+“Eh, brother! They’ve all bolted long ago!” said the soldier,

+laughing for some reason and shaking himself free.

+

+Having left that soldier who was evidently drunk, Rostóv stopped the

+horse of a batman or groom of some important personage and began to

+question him. The man announced that the Tsar had been driven in a

+carriage at full speed about an hour before along that very road and

+that he was dangerously wounded.

+

+“It can’t be!” said Rostóv. “It must have been someone else.”

+

+“I saw him myself,” replied the man with a self-confident smile of

+derision. “I ought to know the Emperor by now, after the times I’ve

+seen him in Petersburg. I saw him just as I see you.... There he sat in

+the carriage as pale as anything. How they made the four black horses

+fly! Gracious me, they did rattle past! It’s time I knew the Imperial

+horses and Ilyá Iványch. I don’t think Ilyá drives anyone except

+the Tsar!”

+

+Rostóv let go of the horse and was about to ride on, when a wounded

+officer passing by addressed him:

+

+“Who is it you want?” he asked. “The commander in chief? He was

+killed by a cannon ball—struck in the breast before our regiment.”

+

+“Not killed—wounded!” another officer corrected him.

+

+“Who? Kutúzov?” asked Rostóv.

+

+“Not Kutúzov, but what’s his name—well, never mind... there are

+not many left alive. Go that way, to that village, all the commanders

+are there,” said the officer, pointing to the village of Hosjeradek,

+and he walked on.

+

+Rostóv rode on at a footpace not knowing why or to whom he was now

+going. The Emperor was wounded, the battle lost. It was impossible to

+doubt it now. Rostóv rode in the direction pointed out to him, in which

+he saw turrets and a church. What need to hurry? What was he now to say

+to the Tsar or to Kutúzov, even if they were alive and unwounded?

+

+“Take this road, your honor, that way you will be killed at once!” a

+soldier shouted to him. “They’d kill you there!”

+

+“Oh, what are you talking about?” said another. “Where is he to

+go? That way is nearer.”

+

+Rostóv considered, and then went in the direction where they said he

+would be killed.

+

+“It’s all the same now. If the Emperor is wounded, am I to try to

+save myself?” he thought. He rode on to the region where the greatest

+number of men had perished in fleeing from Pratzen. The French had not

+yet occupied that region, and the Russians—the uninjured and slightly

+wounded—had left it long ago. All about the field, like heaps of

+manure on well-kept plowland, lay from ten to fifteen dead and wounded

+to each couple of acres. The wounded crept together in twos and threes

+and one could hear their distressing screams and groans, sometimes

+feigned—or so it seemed to Rostóv. He put his horse to a trot to

+avoid seeing all these suffering men, and he felt afraid—afraid not

+for his life, but for the courage he needed and which he knew would not

+stand the sight of these unfortunates.

+

+The French, who had ceased firing at this field strewn with dead and

+wounded where there was no one left to fire at, on seeing an adjutant

+riding over it trained a gun on him and fired several shots. The

+sensation of those terrible whistling sounds and of the corpses around

+him merged in Rostóv’s mind into a single feeling of terror and pity

+for himself. He remembered his mother’s last letter. “What would she

+feel,” thought he, “if she saw me here now on this field with the

+cannon aimed at me?”

+

+In the village of Hosjeradek there were Russian troops retiring from

+the field of battle, who though still in some confusion were less

+disordered. The French cannon did not reach there and the musketry fire

+sounded far away. Here everyone clearly saw and said that the battle

+was lost. No one whom Rostóv asked could tell him where the Emperor

+or Kutúzov was. Some said the report that the Emperor was wounded was

+correct, others that it was not, and explained the false rumor that had

+spread by the fact that the Emperor’s carriage had really galloped

+from the field of battle with the pale and terrified Ober-Hofmarschal

+Count Tolstóy, who had ridden out to the battlefield with others in

+the Emperor’s suite. One officer told Rostóv that he had seen someone

+from headquarters behind the village to the left, and thither Rostóv

+rode, not hoping to find anyone but merely to ease his conscience. When

+he had ridden about two miles and had passed the last of the Russian

+troops, he saw, near a kitchen garden with a ditch round it, two men

+on horseback facing the ditch. One with a white plume in his hat seemed

+familiar to Rostóv; the other on a beautiful chestnut horse (which

+Rostóv fancied he had seen before) rode up to the ditch, struck his

+horse with his spurs, and giving it the rein leaped lightly over. Only

+a little earth crumbled from the bank under the horse’s hind hoofs.

+Turning the horse sharply, he again jumped the ditch, and deferentially

+addressed the horseman with the white plumes, evidently suggesting

+that he should do the same. The rider, whose figure seemed familiar

+to Rostóv and involuntarily riveted his attention, made a gesture of

+refusal with his head and hand and by that gesture Rostóv instantly

+recognized his lamented and adored monarch.

+

+“But it can’t be he, alone in the midst of this empty field!”

+thought Rostóv. At that moment Alexander turned his head and Rostóv

+saw the beloved features that were so deeply engraved on his memory. The

+Emperor was pale, his cheeks sunken and his eyes hollow, but the charm,

+the mildness of his features, was all the greater. Rostóv was happy

+in the assurance that the rumors about the Emperor being wounded were

+false. He was happy to be seeing him. He knew that he might and even

+ought to go straight to him and give the message Dolgorúkov had ordered

+him to deliver.

+

+But as a youth in love trembles, is unnerved, and dares not utter the

+thoughts he has dreamed of for nights, but looks around for help or a

+chance of delay and flight when the longed-for moment comes and he is

+alone with her, so Rostóv, now that he had attained what he had longed

+for more than anything else in the world, did not know how to approach

+the Emperor, and a thousand reasons occurred to him why it would be

+inconvenient, unseemly, and impossible to do so.

+

+“What! It is as if I were glad of a chance to take advantage of

+his being alone and despondent! A strange face may seem unpleasant or

+painful to him at this moment of sorrow; besides, what can I say to him

+now, when my heart fails me and my mouth feels dry at the mere sight

+of him?” Not one of the innumerable speeches addressed to the Emperor

+that he had composed in his imagination could he now recall. Those

+speeches were intended for quite other conditions, they were for the

+most part to be spoken at a moment of victory and triumph, generally

+when he was dying of wounds and the sovereign had thanked him for heroic

+deeds, and while dying he expressed the love his actions had proved.

+

+“Besides how can I ask the Emperor for his instructions for the right

+flank now that it is nearly four o’clock and the battle is lost?

+No, certainly I must not approach him, I must not intrude on his

+reflections. Better die a thousand times than risk receiving an unkind

+look or bad opinion from him,” Rostóv decided; and sorrowfully and

+with a heart full despair he rode away, continually looking back at the

+Tsar, who still remained in the same attitude of indecision.

+

+While Rostóv was thus arguing with himself and riding sadly away,

+Captain von Toll chanced to ride to the same spot, and seeing the

+Emperor at once rode up to him, offered his services, and assisted him

+to cross the ditch on foot. The Emperor, wishing to rest and feeling

+unwell, sat down under an apple tree and von Toll remained beside him.

+Rostóv from a distance saw with envy and remorse how von Toll spoke

+long and warmly to the Emperor and how the Emperor, evidently weeping,

+covered his eyes with his hand and pressed von Toll’s hand.

+

+“And I might have been in his place!” thought Rostóv, and hardly

+restraining his tears of pity for the Emperor, he rode on in utter

+despair, not knowing where to or why he was now riding.

+

+His despair was all the greater from feeling that his own weakness was

+the cause of his grief.

+

+He might... not only might but should, have gone up to the sovereign. It

+was a unique chance to show his devotion to the Emperor and he had not

+made use of it.... “What have I done?” thought he. And he turned

+round and galloped back to the place where he had seen the Emperor, but

+there was no one beyond the ditch now. Only some carts and carriages

+were passing by. From one of the drivers he learned that Kutúzov’s

+staff were not far off, in the village the vehicles were going to.

+Rostóv followed them. In front of him walked Kutúzov’s groom leading

+horses in horsecloths. Then came a cart, and behind that walked an old,

+bandy-legged domestic serf in a peaked cap and sheepskin coat.

+

+“Tit! I say, Tit!” said the groom.

+

+“What?” answered the old man absent-mindedly.

+

+“Go, Tit! Thresh a bit!”

+

+“Oh, you fool!” said the old man, spitting angrily. Some time passed

+in silence, and then the same joke was repeated.

+

+

+Before five in the evening the battle had been lost at all points. More

+than a hundred cannon were already in the hands of the French.

+

+Przebyszéwski and his corps had laid down their arms. Other columns

+after losing half their men were retreating in disorderly confused

+masses.

+

+The remains of Langeron’s and Dokhtúrov’s mingled forces were

+crowding around the dams and banks of the ponds near the village of

+Augesd.

+

+After five o’clock it was only at the Augesd Dam that a hot cannonade

+(delivered by the French alone) was still to be heard from numerous

+batteries ranged on the slopes of the Pratzen Heights, directed at our

+retreating forces.

+

+In the rearguard, Dokhtúrov and others rallying some battalions kept up

+a musketry fire at the French cavalry that was pursuing our troops. It

+was growing dusk. On the narrow Augesd Dam where for so many years the

+old miller had been accustomed to sit in his tasseled cap peacefully

+angling, while his grandson, with shirt sleeves rolled up, handled the

+floundering silvery fish in the watering can, on that dam over which for

+so many years Moravians in shaggy caps and blue jackets had peacefully

+driven their two-horse carts loaded with wheat and had returned dusty

+with flour whitening their carts—on that narrow dam amid the wagons

+and the cannon, under the horses’ hoofs and between the wagon wheels,

+men disfigured by fear of death now crowded together, crushing one

+another, dying, stepping over the dying and killing one another, only to

+move on a few steps and be killed themselves in the same way.

+

+Every ten seconds a cannon ball flew compressing the air around, or

+a shell burst in the midst of that dense throng, killing some and

+splashing with blood those near them.

+

+Dólokhov—now an officer—wounded in the arm, and on foot, with

+the regimental commander on horseback and some ten men of his company,

+represented all that was left of that whole regiment. Impelled by the

+crowd, they had got wedged in at the approach to the dam and, jammed in

+on all sides, had stopped because a horse in front had fallen under a

+cannon and the crowd were dragging it out. A cannon ball killed someone

+behind them, another fell in front and splashed Dólokhov with blood.

+The crowd, pushing forward desperately, squeezed together, moved a few

+steps, and again stopped.

+

+“Move on a hundred yards and we are certainly saved, remain here

+another two minutes and it is certain death,” thought each one.

+

+Dólokhov who was in the midst of the crowd forced his way to the edge

+of the dam, throwing two soldiers off their feet, and ran onto the

+slippery ice that covered the millpool.

+

+“Turn this way!” he shouted, jumping over the ice which creaked

+under him; “turn this way!” he shouted to those with the gun. “It

+bears!...”

+

+The ice bore him but it swayed and creaked, and it was plain that it

+would give way not only under a cannon or a crowd, but very soon even

+under his weight alone. The men looked at him and pressed to the

+bank, hesitating to step onto the ice. The general on horseback at the

+entrance to the dam raised his hand and opened his mouth to address

+Dólokhov. Suddenly a cannon ball hissed so low above the crowd that

+everyone ducked. It flopped into something moist, and the general fell

+from his horse in a pool of blood. Nobody gave him a look or thought of

+raising him.

+

+“Get onto the ice, over the ice! Go on! Turn! Don’t you hear? Go

+on!” innumerable voices suddenly shouted after the ball had struck

+the general, the men themselves not knowing what, or why, they were

+shouting.

+

+One of the hindmost guns that was going onto the dam turned off onto the

+ice. Crowds of soldiers from the dam began running onto the frozen pond.

+The ice gave way under one of the foremost soldiers, and one leg slipped

+into the water. He tried to right himself but fell in up to his waist.

+The nearest soldiers shrank back, the gun driver stopped his horse, but

+from behind still came the shouts: “Onto the ice, why do you stop? Go

+on! Go on!” And cries of horror were heard in the crowd. The soldiers

+near the gun waved their arms and beat the horses to make them turn and

+move on. The horses moved off the bank. The ice, that had held under

+those on foot, collapsed in a great mass, and some forty men who were on

+it dashed, some forward and some back, drowning one another.

+

+Still the cannon balls continued regularly to whistle and flop onto the

+ice and into the water and oftenest of all among the crowd that covered

+the dam, the pond, and the bank.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIX

+

+On the Pratzen Heights, where he had fallen with the flagstaff in his

+hand, lay Prince Andrew Bolkónski bleeding profusely and unconsciously

+uttering a gentle, piteous, and childlike moan.

+

+Toward evening he ceased moaning and became quite still. He did not know

+how long his unconsciousness lasted. Suddenly he again felt that he was

+alive and suffering from a burning, lacerating pain in his head.

+

+“Where is it, that lofty sky that I did not know till now, but saw

+today?” was his first thought. “And I did not know this suffering

+either,” he thought. “Yes, I did not know anything, anything at all

+till now. But where am I?”

+

+He listened and heard the sound of approaching horses, and voices

+speaking French. He opened his eyes. Above him again was the same lofty

+sky with clouds that had risen and were floating still higher, and

+between them gleamed blue infinity. He did not turn his head and did not

+see those who, judging by the sound of hoofs and voices, had ridden up

+and stopped near him.

+

+It was Napoleon accompanied by two aides-de-camp. Bonaparte riding

+over the battlefield had given final orders to strengthen the batteries

+firing at the Augesd Dam and was looking at the killed and wounded left

+on the field.

+

+“Fine men!” remarked Napoleon, looking at a dead Russian grenadier,

+who, with his face buried in the ground and a blackened nape, lay on his

+stomach with an already stiffened arm flung wide.

+

+“The ammunition for the guns in position is exhausted, Your

+Majesty,” said an adjutant who had come from the batteries that were

+firing at Augesd.

+

+“Have some brought from the reserve,” said Napoleon, and having gone

+on a few steps he stopped before Prince Andrew, who lay on his back with

+the flagstaff that had been dropped beside him. (The flag had already

+been taken by the French as a trophy.)

+

+“That’s a fine death!” said Napoleon as he gazed at Bolkónski.

+

+Prince Andrew understood that this was said of him and that it was

+Napoleon who said it. He heard the speaker addressed as Sire. But he

+heard the words as he might have heard the buzzing of a fly. Not only

+did they not interest him, but he took no notice of them and at once

+forgot them. His head was burning, he felt himself bleeding to death,

+and he saw above him the remote, lofty, and everlasting sky. He knew it

+was Napoleon—his hero—but at that moment Napoleon seemed to him

+such a small, insignificant creature compared with what was passing now

+between himself and that lofty infinite sky with the clouds flying over

+it. At that moment it meant nothing to him who might be standing over

+him, or what was said of him; he was only glad that people were standing

+near him and only wished that they would help him and bring him back to

+life, which seemed to him so beautiful now that he had today learned to

+understand it so differently. He collected all his strength, to stir and

+utter a sound. He feebly moved his leg and uttered a weak, sickly groan

+which aroused his own pity.

+

+“Ah! He is alive,” said Napoleon. “Lift this young man up and

+carry him to the dressing station.”

+

+Having said this, Napoleon rode on to meet Marshal Lannes, who, hat in

+hand, rode up smiling to the Emperor to congratulate him on the victory.

+

+Prince Andrew remembered nothing more: he lost consciousness from the

+terrible pain of being lifted onto the stretcher, the jolting while

+being moved, and the probing of his wound at the dressing station.

+He did not regain consciousness till late in the day, when with other

+wounded and captured Russian officers he was carried to the hospital.

+During this transfer he felt a little stronger and was able to look

+about him and even speak.

+

+The first words he heard on coming to his senses were those of a French

+convoy officer, who said rapidly: “We must halt here: the Emperor

+will pass here immediately; it will please him to see these gentlemen

+prisoners.”

+

+“There are so many prisoners today, nearly the whole Russian army,

+that he is probably tired of them,” said another officer.

+

+“All the same! They say this one is the commander of all the Emperor

+Alexander’s Guards,” said the first one, indicating a Russian

+officer in the white uniform of the Horse Guards.

+

+Bolkónski recognized Prince Repnín whom he had met in Petersburg

+society. Beside him stood a lad of nineteen, also a wounded officer of

+the Horse Guards.

+

+Bonaparte, having come up at a gallop, stopped his horse.

+

+“Which is the senior?” he asked, on seeing the prisoners.

+

+They named the colonel, Prince Repnín.

+

+“You are the commander of the Emperor Alexander’s regiment of Horse

+Guards?” asked Napoleon.

+

+“I commanded a squadron,” replied Repnín.

+

+“Your regiment fulfilled its duty honorably,” said Napoleon.

+

+“The praise of a great commander is a soldier’s highest reward,”

+said Repnín.

+

+“I bestow it with pleasure,” said Napoleon. “And who is that young

+man beside you?”

+

+Prince Repnín named Lieutenant Sukhtélen.

+

+After looking at him Napoleon smiled.

+

+“He’s very young to come to meddle with us.”

+

+“Youth is no hindrance to courage,” muttered Sukhtélen in a failing

+voice.

+

+“A splendid reply!” said Napoleon. “Young man, you will go far!”

+

+Prince Andrew, who had also been brought forward before the Emperor’s

+eyes to complete the show of prisoners, could not fail to attract his

+attention. Napoleon apparently remembered seeing him on the battlefield

+and, addressing him, again used the epithet “young man” that was

+connected in his memory with Prince Andrew.

+

+“Well, and you, young man,” said he. “How do you feel, mon

+brave?”

+

+Though five minutes before, Prince Andrew had been able to say a few

+words to the soldiers who were carrying him, now with his eyes fixed

+straight on Napoleon, he was silent.... So insignificant at that moment

+seemed to him all the interests that engrossed Napoleon, so mean did his

+hero himself with his paltry vanity and joy in victory appear,

+compared to the lofty, equitable, and kindly sky which he had seen and

+understood, that he could not answer him.

+

+Everything seemed so futile and insignificant in comparison with the

+stern and solemn train of thought that weakness from loss of blood,

+suffering, and the nearness of death aroused in him. Looking into

+Napoleon’s eyes Prince Andrew thought of the insignificance of

+greatness, the unimportance of life which no one could understand, and

+the still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no one

+alive could understand or explain.

+

+The Emperor without waiting for an answer turned away and said to one of

+the officers as he went: “Have these gentlemen attended to and taken

+to my bivouac; let my doctor, Larrey, examine their wounds. Au revoir,

+Prince Repnín!” and he spurred his horse and galloped away.

+

+His face shone with self-satisfaction and pleasure.

+

+The soldiers who had carried Prince Andrew had noticed and taken the

+little gold icon Princess Mary had hung round her brother’s neck, but

+seeing the favor the Emperor showed the prisoners, they now hastened to

+return the holy image.

+

+Prince Andrew did not see how and by whom it was replaced, but the

+little icon with its thin gold chain suddenly appeared upon his chest

+outside his uniform.

+

+“It would be good,” thought Prince Andrew, glancing at the icon his

+sister had hung round his neck with such emotion and reverence, “it

+would be good if everything were as clear and simple as it seems to

+Mary. How good it would be to know where to seek for help in this life,

+and what to expect after it beyond the grave! How happy and calm I

+should be if I could now say: ‘Lord, have mercy on me!’... But to

+whom should I say that? Either to a Power indefinable, incomprehensible,

+which I not only cannot address but which I cannot even express in

+words—the Great All or Nothing-” said he to himself, “or to

+that God who has been sewn into this amulet by Mary! There is nothing

+certain, nothing at all except the unimportance of everything I

+understand, and the greatness of something incomprehensible but

+all-important.”

+

+The stretchers moved on. At every jolt he again felt unendurable pain;

+his feverishness increased and he grew delirious. Visions of his father,

+wife, sister, and future son, and the tenderness he had felt the night

+before the battle, the figure of the insignificant little Napoleon, and

+above all this the lofty sky, formed the chief subjects of his delirious

+fancies.

+

+The quiet home life and peaceful happiness of Bald Hills presented

+itself to him. He was already enjoying that happiness when that

+little Napoleon had suddenly appeared with his unsympathizing look of

+shortsighted delight at the misery of others, and doubts and torments

+had followed, and only the heavens promised peace. Toward morning

+all these dreams melted and merged into the chaos and darkness of

+unconciousness and oblivion which in the opinion of Napoleon’s doctor,

+Larrey, was much more likely to end in death than in convalescence.

+

+“He is a nervous, bilious subject,” said Larrey, “and will not

+recover.”

+

+And Prince Andrew, with others fatally wounded, was left to the care of

+the inhabitants of the district.

+

+

+

+

+

+BOOK FOUR: 1806

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+Early in the year 1806 Nicholas Rostóv returned home on leave. Denísov

+was going home to Vorónezh and Rostóv persuaded him to travel with him

+as far as Moscow and to stay with him there. Meeting a comrade at

+the last post station but one before Moscow, Denísov had drunk three

+bottles of wine with him and, despite the jolting ruts across the

+snow-covered road, did not once wake up on the way to Moscow, but lay

+at the bottom of the sleigh beside Rostóv, who grew more and more

+impatient the nearer they got to Moscow.

+

+“How much longer? How much longer? Oh, these insufferable streets,

+shops, bakers’ signboards, street lamps, and sleighs!” thought

+Rostóv, when their leave permits had been passed at the town gate and

+they had entered Moscow.

+

+“Denísov! We’re here! He’s asleep,” he added, leaning forward

+with his whole body as if in that position he hoped to hasten the speed

+of the sleigh.

+

+Denísov gave no answer.

+

+“There’s the corner at the crossroads, where the cabman, Zakhár,

+has his stand, and there’s Zakhár himself and still the same horse!

+And here’s the little shop where we used to buy gingerbread! Can’t

+you hurry up? Now then!”

+

+“Which house is it?” asked the driver.

+

+“Why, that one, right at the end, the big one. Don’t you see?

+That’s our house,” said Rostóv. “Of course, it’s our house!

+Denísov, Denísov! We’re almost there!”

+

+Denísov raised his head, coughed, and made no answer.

+

+“Dmítri,” said Rostóv to his valet on the box, “those lights are

+in our house, aren’t they?”

+

+“Yes, sir, and there’s a light in your father’s study.”

+

+“Then they’ve not gone to bed yet? What do you think? Mind now,

+don’t forget to put out my new coat,” added Rostóv, fingering his

+new mustache. “Now then, get on,” he shouted to the driver. “Do

+wake up, Váska!” he went on, turning to Denísov, whose head

+was again nodding. “Come, get on! You shall have three rubles for

+vodka—get on!” Rostóv shouted, when the sleigh was only three

+houses from his door. It seemed to him the horses were not moving at

+all. At last the sleigh bore to the right, drew up at an entrance, and

+Rostóv saw overhead the old familiar cornice with a bit of plaster

+broken off, the porch, and the post by the side of the pavement. He

+sprang out before the sleigh stopped, and ran into the hall. The house

+stood cold and silent, as if quite regardless of who had come to it.

+There was no one in the hall. “Oh God! Is everyone all right?”

+he thought, stopping for a moment with a sinking heart, and then

+immediately starting to run along the hall and up the warped steps of

+the familiar staircase. The well-known old door handle, which always

+angered the countess when it was not properly cleaned, turned as loosely

+as ever. A solitary tallow candle burned in the anteroom.

+

+Old Michael was asleep on the chest. Prokófy, the footman, who was

+so strong that he could lift the back of the carriage from behind, sat

+plaiting slippers out of cloth selvedges. He looked up at the opening

+door and his expression of sleepy indifference suddenly changed to one

+of delighted amazement.

+

+“Gracious heavens! The young count!” he cried, recognizing his

+young master. “Can it be? My treasure!” and Prokófy, trembling with

+excitement, rushed toward the drawing room door, probably in order to

+announce him, but, changing his mind, came back and stooped to kiss the

+young man’s shoulder.

+

+“All well?” asked Rostóv, drawing away his arm.

+

+“Yes, God be thanked! Yes! They’ve just finished supper. Let me have

+a look at you, your excellency.”

+

+“Is everything quite all right?”

+

+“The Lord be thanked, yes!”

+

+Rostóv, who had completely forgotten Denísov, not wishing anyone to

+forestall him, threw off his fur coat and ran on tiptoe through the

+large dark ballroom. All was the same: there were the same old card

+tables and the same chandelier with a cover over it; but someone had

+already seen the young master, and, before he had reached the drawing

+room, something flew out from a side door like a tornado and began

+hugging and kissing him. Another and yet another creature of the same

+kind sprang from a second door and a third; more hugging, more kissing,

+more outcries, and tears of joy. He could not distinguish which was

+Papa, which Natásha, and which Pétya. Everyone shouted, talked, and

+kissed him at the same time. Only his mother was not there, he noticed

+that.

+

+“And I did not know... Nicholas... My darling!...”

+

+“Here he is... our own... Kólya, * dear fellow... How he has

+changed!... Where are the candles?... Tea!...”

+

+    * Nicholas.

+

+“And me, kiss me!”

+

+“Dearest... and me!”

+

+Sónya, Natásha, Pétya, Anna Mikháylovna, Véra, and the old count

+were all hugging him, and the serfs, men and maids, flocked into the

+room, exclaiming and oh-ing and ah-ing.

+

+Pétya, clinging to his legs, kept shouting, “And me too!”

+

+Natásha, after she had pulled him down toward her and covered his face

+with kisses, holding him tight by the skirt of his coat, sprang away and

+pranced up and down in one place like a goat and shrieked piercingly.

+

+All around were loving eyes glistening with tears of joy, and all around

+were lips seeking a kiss.

+

+Sónya too, all rosy red, clung to his arm and, radiant with bliss,

+looked eagerly toward his eyes, waiting for the look for which she

+longed. Sónya now was sixteen and she was very pretty, especially at

+this moment of happy, rapturous excitement. She gazed at him, not taking

+her eyes off him, and smiling and holding her breath. He gave her a

+grateful look, but was still expectant and looking for someone. The old

+countess had not yet come. But now steps were heard at the door, steps

+so rapid that they could hardly be his mother’s.

+

+Yet it was she, dressed in a new gown which he did not know, made since

+he had left. All the others let him go, and he ran to her. When they

+met, she fell on his breast, sobbing. She could not lift her face, but

+only pressed it to the cold braiding of his hussar’s jacket. Denísov,

+who had come into the room unnoticed by anyone, stood there and wiped

+his eyes at the sight.

+

+“Vasíli Denísov, your son’s friend,” he said, introducing

+himself to the count, who was looking inquiringly at him.

+

+“You are most welcome! I know, I know,” said the count, kissing and

+embracing Denísov. “Nicholas wrote us... Natásha, Véra, look! Here

+is Denísov!”

+

+The same happy, rapturous faces turned to the shaggy figure of Denísov.

+

+“Darling Denísov!” screamed Natásha, beside herself with rapture,

+springing to him, putting her arms round him, and kissing him. This

+escapade made everybody feel confused. Denísov blushed too, but smiled

+and, taking Natásha’s hand, kissed it.

+

+Denísov was shown to the room prepared for him, and the Rostóvs all

+gathered round Nicholas in the sitting room.

+

+The old countess, not letting go of his hand and kissing it every

+moment, sat beside him: the rest, crowding round him, watched every

+movement, word, or look of his, never taking their blissfully adoring

+eyes off him. His brother and sisters struggled for the places nearest

+to him and disputed with one another who should bring him his tea,

+handkerchief, and pipe.

+

+Rostóv was very happy in the love they showed him; but the first

+moment of meeting had been so beatific that his present joy seemed

+insufficient, and he kept expecting something more, more and yet more.

+

+Next morning, after the fatigues of their journey, the travelers slept

+till ten o’clock.

+

+In the room next their bedroom there was a confusion of sabers,

+satchels, sabretaches, open portmanteaus, and dirty boots. Two freshly

+cleaned pairs with spurs had just been placed by the wall. The servants

+were bringing in jugs and basins, hot water for shaving, and their

+well-brushed clothes. There was a masculine odor and a smell of tobacco.

+

+“Hallo, Gwíska—my pipe!” came Vasíli Denísov’s husky voice.

+“Wostóv, get up!”

+

+Rostóv, rubbing his eyes that seemed glued together, raised his

+disheveled head from the hot pillow.

+

+“Why, is it late?”

+

+“Late! It’s nearly ten o’clock,” answered Natásha’s voice.

+A rustle of starched petticoats and the whispering and laughter of

+girls’ voices came from the adjoining room. The door was opened a

+crack and there was a glimpse of something blue, of ribbons, black hair,

+and merry faces. It was Natásha, Sónya, and Pétya, who had come to

+see whether they were getting up.

+

+“Nicholas! Get up!” Natásha’s voice was again heard at the door.

+

+“Directly!”

+

+Meanwhile, Pétya, having found and seized the sabers in the outer room,

+with the delight boys feel at the sight of a military elder brother, and

+forgetting that it was unbecoming for the girls to see men undressed,

+opened the bedroom door.

+

+“Is this your saber?” he shouted.

+

+The girls sprang aside. Denísov hid his hairy legs under the blanket,

+looking with a scared face at his comrade for help. The door, having let

+Pétya in, closed again. A sound of laughter came from behind it.

+

+“Nicholas! Come out in your dressing gown!” said Natásha’s voice.

+

+“Is this your saber?” asked Pétya. “Or is it yours?” he said,

+addressing the black-mustached Denísov with servile deference.

+

+Rostóv hurriedly put something on his feet, drew on his dressing gown,

+and went out. Natásha had put on one spurred boot and was just getting

+her foot into the other. Sónya, when he came in, was twirling round and

+was about to expand her dresses into a balloon and sit down. They were

+dressed alike, in new pale-blue frocks, and were both fresh, rosy, and

+bright. Sónya ran away, but Natásha, taking her brother’s arm, led

+him into the sitting room, where they began talking. They hardly gave

+one another time to ask questions and give replies concerning a thousand

+little matters which could not interest anyone but themselves. Natásha

+laughed at every word he said or that she said herself, not because what

+they were saying was amusing, but because she felt happy and was unable

+to control her joy which expressed itself by laughter.

+

+“Oh, how nice, how splendid!” she said to everything.

+

+Rostóv felt that, under the influence of the warm rays of love, that

+childlike smile which had not once appeared on his face since he left

+home now for the first time after eighteen months again brightened his

+soul and his face.

+

+“No, but listen,” she said, “now you are quite a man, aren’t

+you? I’m awfully glad you’re my brother.” She touched his

+mustache. “I want to know what you men are like. Are you the same as

+we? No?”

+

+“Why did Sónya run away?” asked Rostóv.

+

+“Ah, yes! That’s a whole long story! How are you going to speak to

+her—thou or you?”

+

+“As may happen,” said Rostóv.

+

+“No, call her you, please! I’ll tell you all about it some other

+time. No, I’ll tell you now. You know Sónya’s my dearest friend.

+Such a friend that I burned my arm for her sake. Look here!”

+

+She pulled up her muslin sleeve and showed him a red scar on her long,

+slender, delicate arm, high above the elbow on that part that is covered

+even by a ball dress.

+

+“I burned this to prove my love for her. I just heated a ruler in the

+fire and pressed it there!”

+

+Sitting on the sofa with the little cushions on its arms, in what used

+to be his old schoolroom, and looking into Natásha’s wildly bright

+eyes, Rostóv re-entered that world of home and childhood which had no

+meaning for anyone else, but gave him some of the best joys of his life;

+and the burning of an arm with a ruler as a proof of love did not seem

+to him senseless, he understood and was not surprised at it.

+

+“Well, and is that all?” he asked.

+

+“We are such friends, such friends! All that ruler business was just

+nonsense, but we are friends forever. She, if she loves anyone, does it

+for life, but I don’t understand that, I forget quickly.”

+

+“Well, what then?”

+

+“Well, she loves me and you like that.”

+

+Natásha suddenly flushed.

+

+“Why, you remember before you went away?... Well, she says you are to

+forget all that.... She says: ‘I shall love him always, but let him be

+free.’ Isn’t that lovely and noble! Yes, very noble? Isn’t it?”

+asked Natásha, so seriously and excitedly that it was evident that what

+she was now saying she had talked of before, with tears.

+

+Rostóv became thoughtful.

+

+“I never go back on my word,” he said. “Besides, Sónya is so

+charming that only a fool would renounce such happiness.”

+

+“No, no!” cried Natásha, “she and I have already talked it over.

+We knew you’d say so. But it won’t do, because you see, if you say

+that—if you consider yourself bound by your promise—it will seem as

+if she had not meant it seriously. It makes it as if you were marrying

+her because you must, and that wouldn’t do at all.”

+

+Rostóv saw that it had been well considered by them. Sónya had already

+struck him by her beauty on the preceding day. Today, when he had caught

+a glimpse of her, she seemed still more lovely. She was a charming girl

+of sixteen, evidently passionately in love with him (he did not doubt

+that for an instant). Why should he not love her now, and even marry

+her, Rostóv thought, but just now there were so many other pleasures

+and interests before him! “Yes, they have taken a wise decision,” he

+thought, “I must remain free.”

+

+“Well then, that’s excellent,” said he. “We’ll talk it over

+later on. Oh, how glad I am to have you!”

+

+“Well, and are you still true to Borís?” he continued.

+

+“Oh, what nonsense!” cried Natásha, laughing. “I don’t think

+about him or anyone else, and I don’t want anything of the kind.”

+

+“Dear me! Then what are you up to now?”

+

+“Now?” repeated Natásha, and a happy smile lit up her face. “Have

+you seen Duport?”

+

+“No.”

+

+“Not seen Duport—the famous dancer? Well then, you won’t

+understand. That’s what I’m up to.”

+

+Curving her arms, Natásha held out her skirts as dancers do, ran back

+a few steps, turned, cut a caper, brought her little feet sharply

+together, and made some steps on the very tips of her toes.

+

+“See, I’m standing! See!” she said, but could not maintain herself

+on her toes any longer. “So that’s what I’m up to! I’ll never

+marry anyone, but will be a dancer. Only don’t tell anyone.”

+

+Rostóv laughed so loud and merrily that Denísov, in his bedroom, felt

+envious and Natásha could not help joining in.

+

+“No, but don’t you think it’s nice?” she kept repeating.

+

+“Nice! And so you no longer wish to marry Borís?”

+

+Natásha flared up. “I don’t want to marry anyone. And I’ll tell

+him so when I see him!”

+

+“Dear me!” said Rostóv.

+

+“But that’s all rubbish,” Natásha chattered on. “And is

+Denísov nice?” she asked.

+

+“Yes, indeed!”

+

+“Oh, well then, good-by: go and dress. Is he very terrible,

+Denísov?”

+

+“Why terrible?” asked Nicholas. “No, Váska is a splendid

+fellow.”

+

+“You call him Váska? That’s funny! And is he very nice?”

+

+“Very.”

+

+“Well then, be quick. We’ll all have breakfast together.”

+

+And Natásha rose and went out of the room on tiptoe, like a ballet

+dancer, but smiling as only happy girls of fifteen can smile. When

+Rostóv met Sónya in the drawing room, he reddened. He did not know

+how to behave with her. The evening before, in the first happy moment of

+meeting, they had kissed each other, but today they felt it could not

+be done; he felt that everybody, including his mother and sisters, was

+looking inquiringly at him and watching to see how he would behave

+with her. He kissed her hand and addressed her not as thou but as

+you—Sónya. But their eyes met and said thou, and exchanged tender

+kisses. Her looks asked him to forgive her for having dared, by

+Natásha’s intermediacy, to remind him of his promise, and then

+thanked him for his love. His looks thanked her for offering him his

+freedom and told her that one way or another he would never cease to

+love her, for that would be impossible.

+

+“How strange it is,” said Véra, selecting a moment when all were

+silent, “that Sónya and Nicholas now say you to one another and meet

+like strangers.”

+

+Véra’s remark was correct, as her remarks always were, but, like

+most of her observations, it made everyone feel uncomfortable, not

+only Sónya, Nicholas, and Natásha, but even the old countess,

+who—dreading this love affair which might hinder Nicholas from making

+a brilliant match—blushed like a girl.

+

+Denísov, to Rostóv’s surprise, appeared in the drawing room with

+pomaded hair, perfumed, and in a new uniform, looking just as smart as

+he made himself when going into battle, and he was more amiable to the

+ladies and gentlemen than Rostóv had ever expected to see him.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+On his return to Moscow from the army, Nicholas Rostóv was welcomed

+by his home circle as the best of sons, a hero, and their darling

+Nikólenka; by his relations as a charming, attractive, and polite young

+man; by his acquaintances as a handsome lieutenant of hussars, a good

+dancer, and one of the best matches in the city.

+

+The Rostóvs knew everybody in Moscow. The old count had money enough

+that year, as all his estates had been remortgaged, and so Nicholas,

+acquiring a trotter of his own, very stylish riding breeches of the

+latest cut, such as no one else yet had in Moscow, and boots of the

+latest fashion, with extremely pointed toes and small silver spurs,

+passed his time very gaily. After a short period of adapting himself

+to the old conditions of life, Nicholas found it very pleasant to be

+at home again. He felt that he had grown up and matured very much. His

+despair at failing in a Scripture examination, his borrowing money from

+Gavríl to pay a sleigh driver, his kissing Sónya on the sly—he now

+recalled all this as childishness he had left immeasurably behind.

+Now he was a lieutenant of hussars, in a jacket laced with silver, and

+wearing the Cross of St. George, awarded to soldiers for bravery in

+action, and in the company of well-known, elderly, and respected racing

+men was training a trotter of his own for a race. He knew a lady on one

+of the boulevards whom he visited of an evening. He led the mazurka

+at the Arkhárovs’ ball, talked about the war with Field Marshal

+Kámenski, visited the English Club, and was on intimate terms with a

+colonel of forty to whom Denísov had introduced him.

+

+His passion for the Emperor had cooled somewhat in Moscow. But still, as

+he did not see him and had no opportunity of seeing him, he often spoke

+about him and about his love for him, letting it be understood that he

+had not told all and that there was something in his feelings for the

+Emperor not everyone could understand, and with his whole soul he shared

+the adoration then common in Moscow for the Emperor, who was spoken of

+as the “angel incarnate.”

+

+During Rostóv’s short stay in Moscow, before rejoining the army, he

+did not draw closer to Sónya, but rather drifted away from her. She was

+very pretty and sweet, and evidently deeply in love with him, but he was

+at the period of youth when there seems so much to do that there is no

+time for that sort of thing and a young man fears to bind himself and

+prizes his freedom which he needs for so many other things. When he

+thought of Sónya, during this stay in Moscow, he said to himself,

+“Ah, there will be, and there are, many more such girls somewhere whom

+I do not yet know. There will be time enough to think about love when I

+want to, but now I have no time.” Besides, it seemed to him that the

+society of women was rather derogatory to his manhood. He went to balls

+and into ladies’ society with an affectation of doing so against his

+will. The races, the English Club, sprees with Denísov, and visits to

+a certain house—that was another matter and quite the thing for a

+dashing young hussar!

+

+At the beginning of March, old Count Ilyá Rostóv was very busy

+arranging a dinner in honor of Prince Bagratión at the English Club.

+

+The count walked up and down the hall in his dressing gown, giving

+orders to the club steward and to the famous Feoktíst, the club’s

+head cook, about asparagus, fresh cucumbers, strawberries, veal, and

+fish for this dinner. The count had been a member and on the committee

+of the club from the day it was founded. To him the club entrusted the

+arrangement of the festival in honor of Bagratión, for few men knew

+so well how to arrange a feast on an open-handed, hospitable scale,

+and still fewer men would be so well able and willing to make up out of

+their own resources what might be needed for the success of the fete.

+The club cook and the steward listened to the count’s orders with

+pleased faces, for they knew that under no other management could they

+so easily extract a good profit for themselves from a dinner costing

+several thousand rubles.

+

+“Well then, mind and have cocks’ comb in the turtle soup, you

+know!”

+

+“Shall we have three cold dishes then?” asked the cook.

+

+The count considered.

+

+“We can’t have less—yes, three... the mayonnaise, that’s one,”

+said he, bending down a finger.

+

+“Then am I to order those large sterlets?” asked the steward.

+

+“Yes, it can’t be helped if they won’t take less. Ah, dear me! I

+was forgetting. We must have another entrée. Ah, goodness gracious!”

+he clutched at his head. “Who is going to get me the flowers? Dmítri!

+Eh, Dmítri! Gallop off to our Moscow estate,” he said to the factotum

+who appeared at his call. “Hurry off and tell Maksím, the gardener,

+to set the serfs to work. Say that everything out of the hothouses must

+be brought here well wrapped up in felt. I must have two hundred pots

+here on Friday.”

+

+Having given several more orders, he was about to go to his “little

+countess” to have a rest, but remembering something else of

+importance, he returned again, called back the cook and the club

+steward, and again began giving orders. A light footstep and the

+clinking of spurs were heard at the door, and the young count, handsome,

+rosy, with a dark little mustache, evidently rested and made sleeker by

+his easy life in Moscow, entered the room.

+

+“Ah, my boy, my head’s in a whirl!” said the old man with a smile,

+as if he felt a little confused before his son. “Now, if you would

+only help a bit! I must have singers too. I shall have my own orchestra,

+but shouldn’t we get the gypsy singers as well? You military men like

+that sort of thing.”

+

+“Really, Papa, I believe Prince Bagratión worried himself less before

+the battle of Schön Grabern than you do now,” said his son with a

+smile.

+

+The old count pretended to be angry.

+

+“Yes, you talk, but try it yourself!”

+

+And the count turned to the cook, who, with a shrewd and respectful

+expression, looked observantly and sympathetically at the father and

+son.

+

+“What have the young people come to nowadays, eh, Feoktíst?” said

+he. “Laughing at us old fellows!”

+

+“That’s so, your excellency, all they have to do is to eat a good

+dinner, but providing it and serving it all up, that’s not their

+business!”

+

+“That’s it, that’s it!” exclaimed the count, and gaily seizing

+his son by both hands, he cried, “Now I’ve got you, so take the

+sleigh and pair at once, and go to Bezúkhov’s, and tell him ‘Count

+Ilyá has sent you to ask for strawberries and fresh pineapples.’ We

+can’t get them from anyone else. He’s not there himself, so you’ll

+have to go in and ask the princesses; and from there go on to the

+Rasgulyáy—the coachman Ipátka knows—and look up the gypsy

+Ilyúshka, the one who danced at Count Orlóv’s, you remember, in a

+white Cossack coat, and bring him along to me.”

+

+“And am I to bring the gypsy girls along with him?” asked Nicholas,

+laughing. “Dear, dear!...”

+

+At that moment, with noiseless footsteps and with the businesslike,

+preoccupied, yet meekly Christian look which never left her face, Anna

+Mikháylovna entered the hall. Though she came upon the count in his

+dressing gown every day, he invariably became confused and begged her to

+excuse his costume.

+

+“No matter at all, my dear count,” she said, meekly closing her

+eyes. “But I’ll go to Bezúkhov’s myself. Pierre has arrived, and

+now we shall get anything we want from his hothouses. I have to see him

+in any case. He has forwarded me a letter from Borís. Thank God, Borís

+is now on the staff.”

+

+The count was delighted at Anna Mikháylovna’s taking upon herself one

+of his commissions and ordered the small closed carriage for her.

+

+“Tell Bezúkhov to come. I’ll put his name down. Is his wife with

+him?” he asked.

+

+Anna Mikháylovna turned up her eyes, and profound sadness was depicted

+on her face.

+

+“Ah, my dear friend, he is very unfortunate,” she said. “If what

+we hear is true, it is dreadful. How little we dreamed of such a thing

+when we were rejoicing at his happiness! And such a lofty angelic soul

+as young Bezúkhov! Yes, I pity him from my heart, and shall try to give

+him what consolation I can.”

+

+“Wh-what is the matter?” asked both the young and old Rostóv.

+

+Anna Mikháylovna sighed deeply.

+

+“Dólokhov, Mary Ivánovna’s son,” she said in a mysterious

+whisper, “has compromised her completely, they say. Pierre took him

+up, invited him to his house in Petersburg, and now... she has come here

+and that daredevil after her!” said Anna Mikháylovna, wishing to show

+her sympathy for Pierre, but by involuntary intonations and a half smile

+betraying her sympathy for the “daredevil,” as she called Dólokhov.

+“They say Pierre is quite broken by his misfortune.”

+

+“Dear, dear! But still tell him to come to the club—it will all blow

+over. It will be a tremendous banquet.”

+

+Next day, the third of March, soon after one o’clock, two hundred and

+fifty members of the English Club and fifty guests were awaiting the

+guest of honor and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagratión, to

+dinner.

+

+On the first arrival of the news of the battle of Austerlitz, Moscow had

+been bewildered. At that time, the Russians were so used to victories

+that on receiving news of the defeat some would simply not believe it,

+while others sought some extraordinary explanation of so strange an

+event. In the English Club, where all who were distinguished, important,

+and well informed foregathered when the news began to arrive in

+December, nothing was said about the war and the last battle, as

+though all were in a conspiracy of silence. The men who set the tone

+in conversation—Count Rostopchín, Prince Yúri Dolgorúkov, Valúev,

+Count Markóv, and Prince Vyázemski—did not show themselves at the

+club, but met in private houses in intimate circles, and the

+Moscovites who took their opinions from others—Ilyá Rostóv among

+them—remained for a while without any definite opinion on the subject

+of the war and without leaders. The Moscovites felt that something was

+wrong and that to discuss the bad news was difficult, and so it was best

+to be silent. But after a while, just as a jury comes out of its room,

+the bigwigs who guided the club’s opinion reappeared, and everybody

+began speaking clearly and definitely. Reasons were found for the

+incredible, unheard-of, and impossible event of a Russian defeat,

+everything became clear, and in all corners of Moscow the same things

+began to be said. These reasons were the treachery of the Austrians, a

+defective commissariat, the treachery of the Pole Przebyszéwski and of

+the Frenchman Langeron, Kutúzov’s incapacity, and (it was whispered)

+the youth and inexperience of the sovereign, who had trusted worthless

+and insignificant people. But the army, the Russian army, everyone

+declared, was extraordinary and had achieved miracles of valor. The

+soldiers, officers, and generals were heroes. But the hero of heroes was

+Prince Bagratión, distinguished by his Schön Grabern affair and by

+the retreat from Austerlitz, where he alone had withdrawn his column

+unbroken and had all day beaten back an enemy force twice as numerous

+as his own. What also conduced to Bagratión’s being selected as

+Moscow’s hero was the fact that he had no connections in the city

+and was a stranger there. In his person, honor was shown to a simple

+fighting Russian soldier without connections and intrigues, and to one

+who was associated by memories of the Italian campaign with the name of

+Suvórov. Moreover, paying such honor to Bagratión was the best way of

+expressing disapproval and dislike of Kutúzov.

+

+“Had there been no Bagratión, it would have been necessary to

+invent him,” said the wit Shinshín, parodying the words of Voltaire.

+Kutúzov no one spoke of, except some who abused him in whispers,

+calling him a court weathercock and an old satyr.

+

+All Moscow repeated Prince Dolgorúkov’s saying: “If you go on

+modeling and modeling you must get smeared with clay,” suggesting

+consolation for our defeat by the memory of former victories; and the

+words of Rostopchín, that French soldiers have to be incited to battle

+by highfalutin words, and Germans by logical arguments to show them

+that it is more dangerous to run away than to advance, but that Russian

+soldiers only need to be restrained and held back! On all sides, new and

+fresh anecdotes were heard of individual examples of heroism shown by

+our officers and men at Austerlitz. One had saved a standard, another

+had killed five Frenchmen, a third had loaded five cannon singlehanded.

+Berg was mentioned, by those who did not know him, as having, when

+wounded in the right hand, taken his sword in the left, and gone

+forward. Of Bolkónski, nothing was said, and only those who knew him

+intimately regretted that he had died so young, leaving a pregnant wife

+with his eccentric father.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+On that third of March, all the rooms in the English Club were filled

+with a hum of conversation, like the hum of bees swarming in springtime.

+The members and guests of the club wandered hither and thither, sat,

+stood, met, and separated, some in uniform and some in evening dress,

+and a few here and there with powdered hair and in Russian kaftáns.

+Powdered footmen, in livery with buckled shoes and smart stockings,

+stood at every door anxiously noting visitors’ every movement in order

+to offer their services. Most of those present were elderly, respected

+men with broad, self-confident faces, fat fingers, and resolute gestures

+and voices. This class of guests and members sat in certain habitual

+places and met in certain habitual groups. A minority of those present

+were casual guests—chiefly young men, among whom were Denísov,

+Rostóv, and Dólokhov—who was now again an officer in the Semënov

+regiment. The faces of these young people, especially those who were

+military men, bore that expression of condescending respect for their

+elders which seems to say to the older generation, “We are prepared to

+respect and honor you, but all the same remember that the future belongs

+to us.”

+

+Nesvítski was there as an old member of the club. Pierre, who at his

+wife’s command had let his hair grow and abandoned his spectacles,

+went about the rooms fashionably dressed but looking sad and dull. Here,

+as elsewhere, he was surrounded by an atmosphere of subservience to

+his wealth, and being in the habit of lording it over these people, he

+treated them with absent-minded contempt.

+

+By his age he should have belonged to the younger men, but by his wealth

+and connections he belonged to the groups of old and honored guests, and

+so he went from one group to another. Some of the most important old men

+were the center of groups which even strangers approached respectfully

+to hear the voices of well-known men. The largest circles formed round

+Count Rostopchín, Valúev, and Narýshkin. Rostopchín was describing

+how the Russians had been overwhelmed by flying Austrians and had had to

+force their way through them with bayonets.

+

+Valúev was confidentially telling that Uvárov had been sent from

+Petersburg to ascertain what Moscow was thinking about Austerlitz.

+

+In the third circle, Narýshkin was speaking of the meeting of the

+Austrian Council of War at which Suvórov crowed like a cock in reply to

+the nonsense talked by the Austrian generals. Shinshín, standing close

+by, tried to make a joke, saying that Kutúzov had evidently failed to

+learn from Suvórov even so simple a thing as the art of crowing like a

+cock, but the elder members glanced severely at the wit, making him

+feel that in that place and on that day, it was improper to speak so of

+Kutúzov.

+

+Count Ilyá Rostóv, hurried and preoccupied, went about in his soft

+boots between the dining and drawing rooms, hastily greeting the

+important and unimportant, all of whom he knew, as if they were all

+equals, while his eyes occasionally sought out his fine well-set-up

+young son, resting on him and winking joyfully at him. Young Rostóv

+stood at a window with Dólokhov, whose acquaintance he had lately

+made and highly valued. The old count came up to them and pressed

+Dólokhov’s hand.

+

+“Please come and visit us... you know my brave boy... been together

+out there... both playing the hero... Ah, Vasíli Ignátovich...

+How d’ye do, old fellow?” he said, turning to an old man who was

+passing, but before he had finished his greeting there was a general

+stir, and a footman who had run in announced, with a frightened face:

+“He’s arrived!”

+

+Bells rang, the stewards rushed forward, and—like rye shaken together

+in a shovel—the guests who had been scattered about in different rooms

+came together and crowded in the large drawing room by the door of the

+ballroom.

+

+Bagratión appeared in the doorway of the anteroom without hat or sword,

+which, in accord with the club custom, he had given up to the hall

+porter. He had no lambskin cap on his head, nor had he a loaded whip

+over his shoulder, as when Rostóv had seen him on the eve of the battle

+of Austerlitz, but wore a tight new uniform with Russian and foreign

+Orders, and the Star of St. George on his left breast. Evidently just

+before coming to the dinner he had had his hair and whiskers trimmed,

+which changed his appearance for the worse. There was something naïvely

+festive in his air, which, in conjunction with his firm and virile

+features, gave him a rather comical expression. Bekleshëv and Theodore

+Uvárov, who had arrived with him, paused at the doorway to allow him,

+as the guest of honor, to enter first. Bagratión was embarrassed, not

+wishing to avail himself of their courtesy, and this caused some delay

+at the doors, but after all he did at last enter first. He walked shyly

+and awkwardly over the parquet floor of the reception room, not knowing

+what to do with his hands; he was more accustomed to walk over a plowed

+field under fire, as he had done at the head of the Kursk regiment at

+Schön Grabern—and he would have found that easier. The committeemen

+met him at the first door and, expressing their delight at seeing such a

+highly honored guest, took possession of him as it were, without waiting

+for his reply, surrounded him, and led him to the drawing room. It was

+at first impossible to enter the drawing room door for the crowd of

+members and guests jostling one another and trying to get a good look

+at Bagratión over each other’s shoulders, as if he were some rare

+animal. Count Ilyá Rostóv, laughing and repeating the words, “Make

+way, dear boy! Make way, make way!” pushed through the crowd more

+energetically than anyone, led the guests into the drawing room, and

+seated them on the center sofa. The bigwigs, the most respected members

+of the club, beset the new arrivals. Count Ilyá, again thrusting his

+way through the crowd, went out of the drawing room and reappeared a

+minute later with another committeeman, carrying a large silver salver

+which he presented to Prince Bagratión. On the salver lay some verses

+composed and printed in the hero’s honor. Bagratión, on seeing the

+salver, glanced around in dismay, as though seeking help. But all eyes

+demanded that he should submit. Feeling himself in their power, he

+resolutely took the salver with both hands and looked sternly and

+reproachfully at the count who had presented it to him. Someone

+obligingly took the dish from Bagratión (or he would, it seemed, have

+held it till evening and have gone in to dinner with it) and drew his

+attention to the verses.

+

+“Well, I will read them, then!” Bagratión seemed to say, and,

+fixing his weary eyes on the paper, began to read them with a fixed and

+serious expression. But the author himself took the verses and began

+reading them aloud. Bagratión bowed his head and listened:

+

+   Bring glory then to Alexander’s reign

+   And on the throne our Titus shield.

+   A dreaded foe be thou, kindhearted as a man,

+   A Rhipheus at home, a Caesar in the field!

+   E’en fortunate Napoleon

+   Knows by experience, now, Bagratión,

+   And dare not Herculean Russians trouble...

+

+But before he had finished reading, a stentorian major-domo announced

+that dinner was ready! The door opened, and from the dining room came

+the resounding strains of the polonaise:

+

+   Conquest’s joyful thunder waken,

+   Triumph, valiant Russians, now!...

+

+and Count Rostóv, glancing angrily at the author who went on reading

+his verses, bowed to Bagratión. Everyone rose, feeling that dinner

+was more important than verses, and Bagratión, again preceding all the

+rest, went in to dinner. He was seated in the place of honor between

+two Alexanders—Bekleshëv and Narýshkin—which was a significant

+allusion to the name of the sovereign. Three hundred persons took their

+seats in the dining room, according to their rank and importance: the

+more important nearer to the honored guest, as naturally as water flows

+deepest where the land lies lowest.

+

+Just before dinner, Count Ilyá Rostóv presented his son to Bagratión,

+who recognized him and said a few words to him, disjointed and awkward,

+as were all the words he spoke that day, and Count Ilyá looked joyfully

+and proudly around while Bagratión spoke to his son.

+

+Nicholas Rostóv, with Denísov and his new acquaintance, Dólokhov, sat

+almost at the middle of the table. Facing them sat Pierre, beside Prince

+Nesvítski. Count Ilyá Rostóv with the other members of the committee

+sat facing Bagratión and, as the very personification of Moscow

+hospitality, did the honors to the prince.

+

+His efforts had not been in vain. The dinner, both the Lenten and the

+other fare, was splendid, yet he could not feel quite at ease till the

+end of the meal. He winked at the butler, whispered directions to the

+footmen, and awaited each expected dish with some anxiety. Everything

+was excellent. With the second course, a gigantic sterlet (at sight of

+which Ilyá Rostóv blushed with self-conscious pleasure), the footmen

+began popping corks and filling the champagne glasses. After the fish,

+which made a certain sensation, the count exchanged glances with

+the other committeemen. “There will be many toasts, it’s time to

+begin,” he whispered, and taking up his glass, he rose. All were

+silent, waiting for what he would say.

+

+“To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!” he cried, and at the

+same moment his kindly eyes grew moist with tears of joy and enthusiasm.

+The band immediately struck up “Conquest’s joyful thunder

+waken...” All rose and cried “Hurrah!” Bagratión also rose and

+shouted “Hurrah!” in exactly the same voice in which he had shouted

+it on the field at Schön Grabern. Young Rostóv’s ecstatic voice

+could be heard above the three hundred others. He nearly wept. “To the

+health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!” he roared, “Hurrah!” and

+emptying his glass at one gulp he dashed it to the floor. Many followed

+his example, and the loud shouting continued for a long time. When the

+voices subsided, the footmen cleared away the broken glass and everybody

+sat down again, smiling at the noise they had made and exchanging

+remarks. The old count rose once more, glanced at a note lying beside

+his plate, and proposed a toast, “To the health of the hero of our

+last campaign, Prince Peter Ivánovich Bagratión!” and again his blue

+eyes grew moist. “Hurrah!” cried the three hundred voices again,

+but instead of the band a choir began singing a cantata composed by Paul

+Ivánovich Kutúzov:

+

+   Russians! O’er all barriers on!

+   Courage conquest guarantees;

+   Have we not Bagratión?

+   He brings foemen to their knees,... etc.

+

+As soon as the singing was over, another and another toast was proposed

+and Count Ilyá Rostóv became more and more moved, more glass was

+smashed, and the shouting grew louder. They drank to Bekleshëv,

+Narýshkin, Uvárov, Dolgorúkov, Apráksin, Valúev, to the committee,

+to all the club members and to all the club guests, and finally to

+Count Ilyá Rostóv separately, as the organizer of the banquet. At that

+toast, the count took out his handkerchief and, covering his face, wept

+outright.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+Pierre sat opposite Dólokhov and Nicholas Rostóv. As usual, he ate and

+drank much, and eagerly. But those who knew him intimately noticed that

+some great change had come over him that day. He was silent all through

+dinner and looked about, blinking and scowling, or, with fixed eyes and

+a look of complete absent-mindedness, kept rubbing the bridge of his

+nose. His face was depressed and gloomy. He seemed to see and hear

+nothing of what was going on around him and to be absorbed by some

+depressing and unsolved problem.

+

+The unsolved problem that tormented him was caused by hints given by the

+princess, his cousin, at Moscow, concerning Dólokhov’s intimacy with

+his wife, and by an anonymous letter he had received that morning, which

+in the mean jocular way common to anonymous letters said that he saw

+badly through his spectacles, but that his wife’s connection with

+Dólokhov was a secret to no one but himself. Pierre absolutely

+disbelieved both the princess’ hints and the letter, but he feared

+now to look at Dólokhov, who was sitting opposite him. Every time

+he chanced to meet Dólokhov’s handsome insolent eyes, Pierre felt

+something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul and turned quickly

+away. Involuntarily recalling his wife’s past and her relations with

+Dólokhov, Pierre saw clearly that what was said in the letter might be

+true, or might at least seem to be true had it not referred to his wife.

+He involuntarily remembered how Dólokhov, who had fully recovered his

+former position after the campaign, had returned to Petersburg and come

+to him. Availing himself of his friendly relations with Pierre as a boon

+companion, Dólokhov had come straight to his house, and Pierre had put

+him up and lent him money. Pierre recalled how Hélène had smilingly

+expressed disapproval of Dólokhov’s living at their house, and how

+cynically Dólokhov had praised his wife’s beauty to him and from that

+time till they came to Moscow had not left them for a day.

+

+“Yes, he is very handsome,” thought Pierre, “and I know him. It

+would be particularly pleasant to him to dishonor my name and ridicule

+me, just because I have exerted myself on his behalf, befriended him,

+and helped him. I know and understand what a spice that would add to the

+pleasure of deceiving me, if it really were true. Yes, if it were true,

+but I do not believe it. I have no right to, and can’t, believe it.”

+He remembered the expression Dólokhov’s face assumed in his moments

+of cruelty, as when tying the policeman to the bear and dropping them

+into the water, or when he challenged a man to a duel without any

+reason, or shot a post-boy’s horse with a pistol. That expression

+was often on Dólokhov’s face when looking at him. “Yes, he is a

+bully,” thought Pierre, “to kill a man means nothing to him. It must

+seem to him that everyone is afraid of him, and that must please him.

+He must think that I, too, am afraid of him—and in fact I am afraid of

+him,” he thought, and again he felt something terrible and monstrous

+rising in his soul. Dólokhov, Denísov, and Rostóv were now sitting

+opposite Pierre and seemed very gay. Rostóv was talking merrily to his

+two friends, one of whom was a dashing hussar and the other a notorious

+duelist and rake, and every now and then he glanced ironically at

+Pierre, whose preoccupied, absent-minded, and massive figure was a very

+noticeable one at the dinner. Rostóv looked inimically at Pierre,

+first because Pierre appeared to his hussar eyes as a rich civilian, the

+husband of a beauty, and in a word—an old woman; and secondly because

+Pierre in his preoccupation and absent-mindedness had not recognized

+Rostóv and had not responded to his greeting. When the Emperor’s

+health was drunk, Pierre, lost in thought, did not rise or lift his

+glass.

+

+“What are you about?” shouted Rostóv, looking at him in an ecstasy

+of exasperation. “Don’t you hear it’s His Majesty the Emperor’s

+health?”

+

+Pierre sighed, rose submissively, emptied his glass, and, waiting till

+all were seated again, turned with his kindly smile to Rostóv.

+

+“Why, I didn’t recognize you!” he said. But Rostóv was otherwise

+engaged; he was shouting “Hurrah!”

+

+“Why don’t you renew the acquaintance?” said Dólokhov to Rostóv.

+

+“Confound him, he’s a fool!” said Rostóv.

+

+“One should make up to the husbands of pretty women,” said Denísov.

+

+Pierre did not catch what they were saying, but knew they were talking

+about him. He reddened and turned away.

+

+“Well, now to the health of handsome women!” said Dólokhov, and

+with a serious expression, but with a smile lurking at the corners of

+his mouth, he turned with his glass to Pierre.

+

+“Here’s to the health of lovely women, Peterkin—and their

+lovers!” he added.

+

+Pierre, with downcast eyes, drank out of his glass without looking at

+Dólokhov or answering him. The footman, who was distributing leaflets

+with Kutúzov’s cantata, laid one before Pierre as one of the

+principal guests. He was just going to take it when Dólokhov, leaning

+across, snatched it from his hand and began reading it. Pierre looked

+at Dólokhov and his eyes dropped, the something terrible and monstrous

+that had tormented him all dinnertime rose and took possession of him.

+He leaned his whole massive body across the table.

+

+“How dare you take it?” he shouted.

+

+Hearing that cry and seeing to whom it was addressed, Nesvítski and the

+neighbor on his right quickly turned in alarm to Bezúkhov.

+

+“Don’t! Don’t! What are you about?” whispered their frightened

+voices.

+

+Dólokhov looked at Pierre with clear, mirthful, cruel eyes, and that

+smile of his which seemed to say, “Ah! This is what I like!”

+

+“You shan’t have it!” he said distinctly.

+

+Pale, with quivering lips, Pierre snatched the copy.

+

+“You...! you... scoundrel! I challenge you!” he ejaculated, and,

+pushing back his chair, he rose from the table.

+

+At the very instant he did this and uttered those words, Pierre felt

+that the question of his wife’s guilt which had been tormenting him

+the whole day was finally and indubitably answered in the affirmative.

+He hated her and was forever sundered from her. Despite Denísov’s

+request that he would take no part in the matter, Rostóv agreed to be

+Dólokhov’s second, and after dinner he discussed the arrangements for

+the duel with Nesvítski, Bezúkhov’s second. Pierre went home, but

+Rostóv with Dólokhov and Denísov stayed on at the club till late,

+listening to the gypsies and other singers.

+

+“Well then, till tomorrow at Sokólniki,” said Dólokhov, as he took

+leave of Rostóv in the club porch.

+

+“And do you feel quite calm?” Rostóv asked.

+

+Dólokhov paused.

+

+“Well, you see, I’ll tell you the whole secret of dueling in two

+words. If you are going to fight a duel, and you make a will and write

+affectionate letters to your parents, and if you think you may be

+killed, you are a fool and are lost for certain. But go with the firm

+intention of killing your man as quickly and surely as possible, and

+then all will be right, as our bear huntsman at Kostromá used to tell

+me. ‘Everyone fears a bear,’ he says, ‘but when you see one your

+fear’s all gone, and your only thought is not to let him get away!’

+And that’s how it is with me. À demain, mon cher.” *

+

+    * Till tomorrow, my dear fellow.

+

+Next day, at eight in the morning, Pierre and Nesvítski drove to the

+Sokólniki forest and found Dólokhov, Denísov, and Rostóv already

+there. Pierre had the air of a man preoccupied with considerations which

+had no connection with the matter in hand. His haggard face was yellow.

+He had evidently not slept that night. He looked about distractedly and

+screwed up his eyes as if dazzled by the sun. He was entirely absorbed

+by two considerations: his wife’s guilt, of which after his sleepless

+night he had not the slightest doubt, and the guiltlessness of

+Dólokhov, who had no reason to preserve the honor of a man who was

+nothing to him.... “I should perhaps have done the same thing in his

+place,” thought Pierre. “It’s even certain that I should have done

+the same, then why this duel, this murder? Either I shall kill him, or

+he will hit me in the head, or elbow, or knee. Can’t I go away from

+here, run away, bury myself somewhere?” passed through his mind. But

+just at moments when such thoughts occurred to him, he would ask in a

+particularly calm and absent-minded way, which inspired the respect of

+the onlookers, “Will it be long? Are things ready?”

+

+When all was ready, the sabers stuck in the snow to mark the barriers,

+and the pistols loaded, Nesvítski went up to Pierre.

+

+“I should not be doing my duty, Count,” he said in timid tones,

+“and should not justify your confidence and the honor you have done

+me in choosing me for your second, if at this grave, this very

+grave, moment I did not tell you the whole truth. I think there is no

+sufficient ground for this affair, or for blood to be shed over it....

+You were not right, not quite in the right, you were impetuous...”

+

+“Oh yes, it is horribly stupid,” said Pierre.

+

+“Then allow me to express your regrets, and I am sure your opponent

+will accept them,” said Nesvítski (who like the others concerned in

+the affair, and like everyone in similar cases, did not yet believe that

+the affair had come to an actual duel). “You know, Count, it is much

+more honorable to admit one’s mistake than to let matters become

+irreparable. There was no insult on either side. Allow me to

+convey....”

+

+“No! What is there to talk about?” said Pierre. “It’s all the

+same.... Is everything ready?” he added. “Only tell me where to go

+and where to shoot,” he said with an unnaturally gentle smile.

+

+He took the pistol in his hand and began asking about the working of the

+trigger, as he had not before held a pistol in his hand—a fact that he

+did not wish to confess.

+

+“Oh yes, like that, I know, I only forgot,” said he.

+

+“No apologies, none whatever,” said Dólokhov to Denísov (who on

+his side had been attempting a reconciliation), and he also went up to

+the appointed place.

+

+The spot chosen for the duel was some eighty paces from the road,

+where the sleighs had been left, in a small clearing in the pine forest

+covered with melting snow, the frost having begun to break up during the

+last few days. The antagonists stood forty paces apart at the farther

+edge of the clearing. The seconds, measuring the paces, left tracks in

+the deep wet snow between the place where they had been standing and

+Nesvítski’s and Dólokhov’s sabers, which were stuck into the

+ground ten paces apart to mark the barrier. It was thawing and misty; at

+forty paces’ distance nothing could be seen. For three minutes all had

+been ready, but they still delayed and all were silent.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+“Well begin!” said Dólokhov.

+

+“All right,” said Pierre, still smiling in the same way. A feeling

+of dread was in the air. It was evident that the affair so lightly begun

+could no longer be averted but was taking its course independently of

+men’s will.

+

+Denísov first went to the barrier and announced: “As the

+adve’sawies have wefused a weconciliation, please pwoceed. Take your

+pistols, and at the word thwee begin to advance.

+

+“O-ne! T-wo! Thwee!” he shouted angrily and stepped aside.

+

+The combatants advanced along the trodden tracks, nearer and nearer to

+one another, beginning to see one another through the mist. They had the

+right to fire when they liked as they approached the barrier. Dólokhov

+walked slowly without raising his pistol, looking intently with his

+bright, sparkling blue eyes into his antagonist’s face. His mouth wore

+its usual semblance of a smile.

+

+“So I can fire when I like!” said Pierre, and at the word

+“three,” he went quickly forward, missing the trodden path and

+stepping into the deep snow. He held the pistol in his right hand at

+arm’s length, apparently afraid of shooting himself with it. His left

+hand he held carefully back, because he wished to support his right

+hand with it and knew he must not do so. Having advanced six paces and

+strayed off the track into the snow, Pierre looked down at his feet,

+then quickly glanced at Dólokhov and, bending his finger as he had been

+shown, fired. Not at all expecting so loud a report, Pierre shuddered

+at the sound and then, smiling at his own sensations, stood still. The

+smoke, rendered denser by the mist, prevented him from seeing anything

+for an instant, but there was no second report as he had expected. He

+only heard Dólokhov’s hurried steps, and his figure came in view

+through the smoke. He was pressing one hand to his left side, while

+the other clutched his drooping pistol. His face was pale. Rostóv ran

+toward him and said something.

+

+“No-o-o!” muttered Dólokhov through his teeth, “no, it’s not

+over.” And after stumbling a few staggering steps right up to the

+saber, he sank on the snow beside it. His left hand was bloody; he wiped

+it on his coat and supported himself with it. His frowning face was

+pallid and quivered.

+

+“Plea...” began Dólokhov, but could not at first pronounce the

+word.

+

+“Please,” he uttered with an effort.

+

+Pierre, hardly restraining his sobs, began running toward Dólokhov and

+was about to cross the space between the barriers, when Dólokhov cried:

+

+“To your barrier!” and Pierre, grasping what was meant, stopped by

+his saber. Only ten paces divided them. Dólokhov lowered his head to

+the snow, greedily bit at it, again raised his head, adjusted himself,

+drew in his legs and sat up, seeking a firm center of gravity. He sucked

+and swallowed the cold snow, his lips quivered but his eyes, still

+smiling, glittered with effort and exasperation as he mustered his

+remaining strength. He raised his pistol and aimed.

+

+“Sideways! Cover yourself with your pistol!” ejaculated Nesvítski.

+

+“Cover yourself!” even Denísov cried to his adversary.

+

+Pierre, with a gentle smile of pity and remorse, his arms and legs

+helplessly spread out, stood with his broad chest directly facing

+Dólokhov and looked sorrowfully at him. Denísov, Rostóv, and

+Nesvítski closed their eyes. At the same instant they heard a report

+and Dólokhov’s angry cry.

+

+“Missed!” shouted Dólokhov, and he lay helplessly, face downwards

+on the snow.

+

+Pierre clutched his temples, and turning round went into the forest,

+trampling through the deep snow, and muttering incoherent words:

+

+“Folly... folly! Death... lies...” he repeated, puckering his face.

+

+Nesvítski stopped him and took him home.

+

+Rostóv and Denísov drove away with the wounded Dólokhov.

+

+The latter lay silent in the sleigh with closed eyes and did not answer

+a word to the questions addressed to him. But on entering Moscow he

+suddenly came to and, lifting his head with an effort, took Rostóv, who

+was sitting beside him, by the hand. Rostóv was struck by the

+totally altered and unexpectedly rapturous and tender expression on

+Dólokhov’s face.

+

+“Well? How do you feel?” he asked.

+

+“Bad! But it’s not that, my friend—” said Dólokhov with a

+gasping voice. “Where are we? In Moscow, I know. I don’t matter,

+but I have killed her, killed... She won’t get over it! She won’t

+survive....”

+

+“Who?” asked Rostóv.

+

+“My mother! My mother, my angel, my adored angel mother,” and

+Dólokhov pressed Rostóv’s hand and burst into tears.

+

+When he had become a little quieter, he explained to Rostóv that he was

+living with his mother, who, if she saw him dying, would not survive it.

+He implored Rostóv to go on and prepare her.

+

+Rostóv went on ahead to do what was asked, and to his great surprise

+learned that Dólokhov the brawler, Dólokhov the bully, lived in Moscow

+with an old mother and a hunchback sister, and was the most affectionate

+of sons and brothers.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+Pierre had of late rarely seen his wife alone. Both in Petersburg and in

+Moscow their house was always full of visitors. The night after the

+duel he did not go to his bedroom but, as he often did, remained in his

+father’s room, that huge room in which Count Bezúkhov had died.

+

+He lay down on the sofa meaning to fall asleep and forget all that

+had happened to him, but could not do so. Such a storm of feelings,

+thoughts, and memories suddenly arose within him that he could not fall

+asleep, nor even remain in one place, but had to jump up and pace the

+room with rapid steps. Now he seemed to see her in the early days of

+their marriage, with bare shoulders and a languid, passionate look on

+her face, and then immediately he saw beside her Dólokhov’s handsome,

+insolent, hard, and mocking face as he had seen it at the banquet, and

+then that same face pale, quivering, and suffering, as it had been when

+he reeled and sank on the snow.

+

+“What has happened?” he asked himself. “I have killed her lover,

+yes, killed my wife’s lover. Yes, that was it! And why? How did I come

+to do it?”—“Because you married her,” answered an inner voice.

+

+“But in what was I to blame?” he asked. “In marrying her without

+loving her; in deceiving yourself and her.” And he vividly recalled

+that moment after supper at Prince Vasíli’s, when he spoke those

+words he had found so difficult to utter: “I love you.” “It all

+comes from that! Even then I felt it,” he thought. “I felt then that

+it was not so, that I had no right to do it. And so it turns out.”

+

+He remembered his honeymoon and blushed at the recollection.

+Particularly vivid, humiliating, and shameful was the recollection of

+how one day soon after his marriage he came out of the bedroom into his

+study a little before noon in his silk dressing gown and found his head

+steward there, who, bowing respectfully, looked into his face and at

+his dressing gown and smiled slightly, as if expressing respectful

+understanding of his employer’s happiness.

+

+“But how often I have felt proud of her, proud of her majestic beauty

+and social tact,” thought he; “been proud of my house, in which she

+received all Petersburg, proud of her unapproachability and beauty. So

+this is what I was proud of! I then thought that I did not understand

+her. How often when considering her character I have told myself that

+I was to blame for not understanding her, for not understanding that

+constant composure and complacency and lack of all interests or desires,

+and the whole secret lies in the terrible truth that she is a depraved

+woman. Now I have spoken that terrible word to myself all has become

+clear.

+

+“Anatole used to come to borrow money from her and used to kiss her

+naked shoulders. She did not give him the money, but let herself be

+kissed. Her father in jest tried to rouse her jealousy, and she replied

+with a calm smile that she was not so stupid as to be jealous: ‘Let

+him do what he pleases,’ she used to say of me. One day I asked her if

+she felt any symptoms of pregnancy. She laughed contemptuously and said

+she was not a fool to want to have children, and that she was not going

+to have any children by me.”

+

+Then he recalled the coarseness and bluntness of her thoughts and the

+vulgarity of the expressions that were natural to her, though she had

+been brought up in the most aristocratic circles.

+

+“I’m not such a fool.... Just you try it on.... Allez-vous

+promener,” * she used to say. Often seeing the success she had with

+young and old men and women Pierre could not understand why he did not

+love her.

+

+    * “You clear out of this.”

+

+

+“Yes, I never loved her,” said he to himself; “I knew she was a

+depraved woman,” he repeated, “but dared not admit it to myself.

+And now there’s Dólokhov sitting in the snow with a forced smile and

+perhaps dying, while meeting my remorse with some forced bravado!”

+

+Pierre was one of those people who, in spite of an appearance of what

+is called weak character, do not seek a confidant in their troubles. He

+digested his sufferings alone.

+

+“It is all, all her fault,” he said to himself; “but what of that?

+Why did I bind myself to her? Why did I say ‘Je vous aime’ * to her,

+which was a lie, and worse than a lie? I am guilty and must endure...

+what? A slur on my name? A misfortune for life? Oh, that’s

+nonsense,” he thought. “The slur on my name and honor—that’s all

+apart from myself.”

+

+    * I love you.

+

+“Louis XVI was executed because they said he was dishonorable and a

+criminal,” came into Pierre’s head, “and from their point of

+view they were right, as were those too who canonized him and died a

+martyr’s death for his sake. Then Robespierre was beheaded for being

+a despot. Who is right and who is wrong? No one! But if you are

+alive—live: tomorrow you’ll die as I might have died an hour ago.

+And is it worth tormenting oneself, when one has only a moment of life

+in comparison with eternity?”

+

+But at the moment when he imagined himself calmed by such reflections,

+she suddenly came into his mind as she was at the moments when he had

+most strongly expressed his insincere love for her, and he felt the

+blood rush to his heart and had again to get up and move about and break

+and tear whatever came to his hand. “Why did I tell her that ‘Je

+vous aime’?” he kept repeating to himself. And when he had said it

+for the tenth time, Molière’s words: “Mais que diable allait-il

+faire dans cette galère?” * occurred to him, and he began to laugh at

+himself.

+

+      * “But what the devil was he doing in that galley?”

+

+

+In the night he called his valet and told him to pack up to go to

+Petersburg. He could not imagine how he could speak to her now. He

+resolved to go away next day and leave a letter informing her of his

+intention to part from her forever.

+

+Next morning when the valet came into the room with his coffee, Pierre

+was lying asleep on the ottoman with an open book in his hand.

+

+He woke up and looked round for a while with a startled expression,

+unable to realize where he was.

+

+“The countess told me to inquire whether your excellency was at

+home,” said the valet.

+

+But before Pierre could decide what answer he would send, the countess

+herself in a white satin dressing gown embroidered with silver and with

+simply dressed hair (two immense plaits twice round her lovely head like

+a coronet) entered the room, calm and majestic, except that there was

+a wrathful wrinkle on her rather prominent marble brow. With her

+imperturbable calm she did not begin to speak in front of the valet.

+She knew of the duel and had come to speak about it. She waited till the

+valet had set down the coffee things and left the room. Pierre looked

+at her timidly over his spectacles, and like a hare surrounded by hounds

+who lays back her ears and continues to crouch motionless before her

+enemies, he tried to continue reading. But feeling this to be senseless

+and impossible, he again glanced timidly at her. She did not sit down

+but looked at him with a contemptuous smile, waiting for the valet to

+go.

+

+“Well, what’s this now? What have you been up to now, I should like

+to know?” she asked sternly.

+

+“I? What have I...?” stammered Pierre.

+

+“So it seems you’re a hero, eh? Come now, what was this duel about?

+What is it meant to prove? What? I ask you.”

+

+Pierre turned over heavily on the ottoman and opened his mouth, but

+could not reply.

+

+“If you won’t answer, I’ll tell you...” Hélène went on. “You

+believe everything you’re told. You were told...” Hélène laughed,

+“that Dólokhov was my lover,” she said in French with her coarse

+plainness of speech, uttering the word amant as casually as any other

+word, “and you believed it! Well, what have you proved? What does this

+duel prove? That you’re a fool, que vous êtes un sot, but everybody

+knew that. What will be the result? That I shall be the laughingstock of

+all Moscow, that everyone will say that you, drunk and not knowing what

+you were about, challenged a man you are jealous of without cause.”

+Hélène raised her voice and became more and more excited, “A man

+who’s a better man than you in every way...”

+

+“Hm... Hm...!” growled Pierre, frowning without looking at her, and

+not moving a muscle.

+

+“And how could you believe he was my lover? Why? Because I like

+his company? If you were cleverer and more agreeable, I should prefer

+yours.”

+

+“Don’t speak to me... I beg you,” muttered Pierre hoarsely.

+

+“Why shouldn’t I speak? I can speak as I like, and I tell you

+plainly that there are not many wives with husbands such as you who

+would not have taken lovers (des amants), but I have not done so,”

+said she.

+

+Pierre wished to say something, looked at her with eyes whose strange

+expression she did not understand, and lay down again. He was suffering

+physically at that moment, there was a weight on his chest and he could

+not breathe. He knew that he must do something to put an end to this

+suffering, but what he wanted to do was too terrible.

+

+“We had better separate,” he muttered in a broken voice.

+

+“Separate? Very well, but only if you give me a fortune,” said

+Hélène. “Separate! That’s a thing to frighten me with!”

+

+Pierre leaped up from the sofa and rushed staggering toward her.

+

+“I’ll kill you!” he shouted, and seizing the marble top of a table

+with a strength he had never before felt, he made a step toward her

+brandishing the slab.

+

+Hélène’s face became terrible, she shrieked and sprang aside. His

+father’s nature showed itself in Pierre. He felt the fascination and

+delight of frenzy. He flung down the slab, broke it, and swooping

+down on her with outstretched hands shouted, “Get out!” in such a

+terrible voice that the whole house heard it with horror. God knows what

+he would have done at that moment had Hélène not fled from the room.

+

+

+A week later Pierre gave his wife full power to control all his estates

+in Great Russia, which formed the larger part of his property, and left

+for Petersburg alone.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+Two months had elapsed since the news of the battle of Austerlitz and

+the loss of Prince Andrew had reached Bald Hills, and in spite of the

+letters sent through the embassy and all the searches made, his body had

+not been found nor was he on the list of prisoners. What was worst of

+all for his relations was the fact that there was still a possibility of

+his having been picked up on the battlefield by the people of the

+place and that he might now be lying, recovering or dying, alone among

+strangers and unable to send news of himself. The gazettes from which

+the old prince first heard of the defeat at Austerlitz stated, as usual

+very briefly and vaguely, that after brilliant engagements the Russians

+had had to retreat and had made their withdrawal in perfect order. The

+old prince understood from this official report that our army had been

+defeated. A week after the gazette report of the battle of Austerlitz

+came a letter from Kutúzov informing the prince of the fate that had

+befallen his son.

+

+“Your son,” wrote Kutúzov, “fell before my eyes, a standard in

+his hand and at the head of a regiment—he fell as a hero, worthy of

+his father and his fatherland. To the great regret of myself and of the

+whole army it is still uncertain whether he is alive or not. I comfort

+myself and you with the hope that your son is alive, for otherwise

+he would have been mentioned among the officers found on the field of

+battle, a list of whom has been sent me under flag of truce.”

+

+After receiving this news late in the evening, when he was alone in his

+study, the old prince went for his walk as usual next morning, but he

+was silent with his steward, the gardener, and the architect, and though

+he looked very grim he said nothing to anyone.

+

+When Princess Mary went to him at the usual hour he was working at his

+lathe and, as usual, did not look round at her.

+

+“Ah, Princess Mary!” he said suddenly in an unnatural voice,

+throwing down his chisel. (The wheel continued to revolve by its own

+impetus, and Princess Mary long remembered the dying creak of that

+wheel, which merged in her memory with what followed.)

+

+She approached him, saw his face, and something gave way within her. Her

+eyes grew dim. By the expression of her father’s face, not sad, not

+crushed, but angry and working unnaturally, she saw that hanging over

+her and about to crush her was some terrible misfortune, the worst

+in life, one she had not yet experienced, irreparable and

+incomprehensible—the death of one she loved.

+

+“Father! Andrew!”—said the ungraceful, awkward princess with such

+an indescribable charm of sorrow and self-forgetfulness that her father

+could not bear her look but turned away with a sob.

+

+“Bad news! He’s not among the prisoners nor among the killed!

+Kutúzov writes...” and he screamed as piercingly as if he wished to

+drive the princess away by that scream... “Killed!”

+

+The princess did not fall down or faint. She was already pale, but on

+hearing these words her face changed and something brightened in her

+beautiful, radiant eyes. It was as if joy—a supreme joy apart from the

+joys and sorrows of this world—overflowed the great grief within her.

+She forgot all fear of her father, went up to him, took his hand, and

+drawing him down put her arm round his thin, scraggy neck.

+

+“Father,” she said, “do not turn away from me, let us weep

+together.”

+

+“Scoundrels! Blackguards!” shrieked the old man, turning his face

+away from her. “Destroying the army, destroying the men! And why? Go,

+go and tell Lise.”

+

+The princess sank helplessly into an armchair beside her father and

+wept. She saw her brother now as he had been at the moment when he took

+leave of her and of Lise, his look tender yet proud. She saw him tender

+and amused as he was when he put on the little icon. “Did he believe?

+Had he repented of his unbelief? Was he now there? There in the realms

+of eternal peace and blessedness?” she thought.

+

+“Father, tell me how it happened,” she asked through her tears.

+

+“Go! Go! Killed in battle, where the best of Russian men and

+Russia’s glory were led to destruction. Go, Princess Mary. Go and tell

+Lise. I will follow.”

+

+When Princess Mary returned from her father, the little princess sat

+working and looked up with that curious expression of inner, happy calm

+peculiar to pregnant women. It was evident that her eyes did not see

+Princess Mary but were looking within... into herself... at something

+joyful and mysterious taking place within her.

+

+“Mary,” she said, moving away from the embroidery frame and lying

+back, “give me your hand.” She took her sister-in-law’s hand and

+held it below her waist.

+

+Her eyes were smiling expectantly, her downy lip rose and remained

+lifted in childlike happiness.

+

+Princess Mary knelt down before her and hid her face in the folds of her

+sister-in-law’s dress.

+

+“There, there! Do you feel it? I feel so strange. And do you know,

+Mary, I am going to love him very much,” said Lise, looking with

+bright and happy eyes at her sister-in-law.

+

+Princess Mary could not lift her head, she was weeping.

+

+“What is the matter, Mary?”

+

+“Nothing... only I feel sad... sad about Andrew,” she said, wiping

+away her tears on her sister-in-law’s knee.

+

+Several times in the course of the morning Princess Mary began trying to

+prepare her sister-in-law, and every time began to cry. Unobservant as

+was the little princess, these tears, the cause of which she did not

+understand, agitated her. She said nothing but looked about uneasily as

+if in search of something. Before dinner the old prince, of whom she was

+always afraid, came into her room with a peculiarly restless and malign

+expression and went out again without saying a word. She looked at

+Princess Mary, then sat thinking for a while with that expression of

+attention to something within her that is only seen in pregnant women,

+and suddenly began to cry.

+

+“Has anything come from Andrew?” she asked.

+

+“No, you know it’s too soon for news. But my father is anxious and I

+feel afraid.”

+

+“So there’s nothing?”

+

+“Nothing,” answered Princess Mary, looking firmly with her radiant

+eyes at her sister-in-law.

+

+She had determined not to tell her and persuaded her father to hide the

+terrible news from her till after her confinement, which was expected

+within a few days. Princess Mary and the old prince each bore and hid

+their grief in their own way. The old prince would not cherish any hope:

+he made up his mind that Prince Andrew had been killed, and though he

+sent an official to Austria to seek for traces of his son, he ordered a

+monument from Moscow which he intended to erect in his own garden to his

+memory, and he told everybody that his son had been killed. He tried not

+to change his former way of life, but his strength failed him. He walked

+less, ate less, slept less, and became weaker every day. Princess Mary

+hoped. She prayed for her brother as living and was always awaiting news

+of his return.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+“Dearest,” said the little princess after breakfast on the morning

+of the nineteenth March, and her downy little lip rose from old habit,

+but as sorrow was manifest in every smile, the sound of every word, and

+even every footstep in that house since the terrible news had come, so

+now the smile of the little princess—influenced by the general mood

+though without knowing its cause—was such as to remind one still more

+of the general sorrow.

+

+“Dearest, I’m afraid this morning’s fruschtique *—as Fóka the

+cook calls it—has disagreed with me.”

+

+    * Frühstück: breakfast.

+

+“What is the matter with you, my darling? You look pale. Oh, you

+are very pale!” said Princess Mary in alarm, running with her soft,

+ponderous steps up to her sister-in-law.

+

+“Your excellency, should not Mary Bogdánovna be sent for?” said one

+of the maids who was present. (Mary Bogdánovna was a midwife from the

+neighboring town, who had been at Bald Hills for the last fortnight.)

+

+“Oh yes,” assented Princess Mary, “perhaps that’s it. I’ll go.

+Courage, my angel.” She kissed Lise and was about to leave the room.

+

+“Oh, no, no!” And besides the pallor and the physical suffering

+on the little princess’ face, an expression of childish fear of

+inevitable pain showed itself.

+

+“No, it’s only indigestion?... Say it’s only indigestion, say so,

+Mary! Say...” And the little princess began to cry capriciously like

+a suffering child and to wring her little hands even with some

+affectation. Princess Mary ran out of the room to fetch Mary

+Bogdánovna.

+

+“Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Oh!” she heard as she left the room.

+

+The midwife was already on her way to meet her, rubbing her small, plump

+white hands with an air of calm importance.

+

+“Mary Bogdánovna, I think it’s beginning!” said Princess Mary

+looking at the midwife with wide-open eyes of alarm.

+

+“Well, the Lord be thanked, Princess,” said Mary Bogdánovna, not

+hastening her steps. “You young ladies should not know anything about

+it.”

+

+“But how is it the doctor from Moscow is not here yet?” said the

+princess. (In accordance with Lise’s and Prince Andrew’s wishes they

+had sent in good time to Moscow for a doctor and were expecting him at

+any moment.)

+

+“No matter, Princess, don’t be alarmed,” said Mary Bogdánovna.

+“We’ll manage very well without a doctor.”

+

+Five minutes later Princess Mary from her room heard something heavy

+being carried by. She looked out. The men servants were carrying the

+large leather sofa from Prince Andrew’s study into the bedroom. On

+their faces was a quiet and solemn look.

+

+Princess Mary sat alone in her room listening to the sounds in the

+house, now and then opening her door when someone passed and watching

+what was going on in the passage. Some women passing with quiet steps in

+and out of the bedroom glanced at the princess and turned away. She did

+not venture to ask any questions, and shut the door again, now sitting

+down in her easy chair, now taking her prayer book, now kneeling before

+the icon stand. To her surprise and distress she found that her prayers

+did not calm her excitement. Suddenly her door opened softly and her old

+nurse, Praskóvya Sávishna, who hardly ever came to that room as the

+old prince had forbidden it, appeared on the threshold with a shawl

+round her head.

+

+“I’ve come to sit with you a bit, Másha,” said the nurse, “and

+here I’ve brought the prince’s wedding candles to light before his

+saint, my angel,” she said with a sigh.

+

+“Oh, nurse, I’m so glad!”

+

+“God is merciful, birdie.”

+

+The nurse lit the gilt candles before the icons and sat down by the door

+with her knitting. Princess Mary took a book and began reading. Only

+when footsteps or voices were heard did they look at one another, the

+princess anxious and inquiring, the nurse encouraging. Everyone in the

+house was dominated by the same feeling that Princess Mary experienced

+as she sat in her room. But owing to the superstition that the fewer

+the people who know of it the less a woman in travail suffers, everyone

+tried to pretend not to know; no one spoke of it, but apart from the

+ordinary staid and respectful good manners habitual in the prince’s

+household, a common anxiety, a softening of the heart, and a

+consciousness that something great and mysterious was being accomplished

+at that moment made itself felt.

+

+There was no laughter in the maids’ large hall. In the men servants’

+hall all sat waiting, silently and alert. In the outlying serfs’

+quarters torches and candles were burning and no one slept. The old

+prince, stepping on his heels, paced up and down his study and sent

+Tíkhon to ask Mary Bogdánovna what news.—“Say only that ‘the

+prince told me to ask,’ and come and tell me her answer.”

+

+“Inform the prince that labor has begun,” said Mary Bogdánovna,

+giving the messenger a significant look.

+

+Tíkhon went and told the prince.

+

+“Very good!” said the prince closing the door behind him, and

+Tíkhon did not hear the slightest sound from the study after that.

+

+After a while he re-entered it as if to snuff the candles, and, seeing

+the prince was lying on the sofa, looked at him, noticed his perturbed

+face, shook his head, and going up to him silently kissed him on the

+shoulder and left the room without snuffing the candles or saying why he

+had entered. The most solemn mystery in the world continued its course.

+Evening passed, night came, and the feeling of suspense and softening of

+heart in the presence of the unfathomable did not lessen but increased.

+No one slept.

+

+It was one of those March nights when winter seems to wish to resume its

+sway and scatters its last snows and storms with desperate fury. A relay

+of horses had been sent up the highroad to meet the German doctor from

+Moscow who was expected every moment, and men on horseback with lanterns

+were sent to the crossroads to guide him over the country road with its

+hollows and snow-covered pools of water.

+

+Princess Mary had long since put aside her book: she sat silent, her

+luminous eyes fixed on her nurse’s wrinkled face (every line of which

+she knew so well), on the lock of gray hair that escaped from under the

+kerchief, and the loose skin that hung under her chin.

+

+Nurse Sávishna, knitting in hand, was telling in low tones, scarcely

+hearing or understanding her own words, what she had told hundreds of

+times before: how the late princess had given birth to Princess Mary

+in Kishenëv with only a Moldavian peasant woman to help instead of a

+midwife.

+

+“God is merciful, doctors are never needed,” she said.

+

+Suddenly a gust of wind beat violently against the casement of the

+window, from which the double frame had been removed (by order of the

+prince, one window frame was removed in each room as soon as the larks

+returned), and, forcing open a loosely closed latch, set the damask

+curtain flapping and blew out the candle with its chill, snowy draft.

+Princess Mary shuddered; her nurse, putting down the stocking she was

+knitting, went to the window and leaning out tried to catch the open

+casement. The cold wind flapped the ends of her kerchief and her loose

+locks of gray hair.

+

+“Princess, my dear, there’s someone driving up the avenue!” she

+said, holding the casement and not closing it. “With lanterns. Most

+likely the doctor.”

+

+“Oh, my God! thank God!” said Princess Mary. “I must go and meet

+him, he does not know Russian.”

+

+Princess Mary threw a shawl over her head and ran to meet the newcomer.

+As she was crossing the anteroom she saw through the window a carriage

+with lanterns, standing at the entrance. She went out on the stairs. On

+a banister post stood a tallow candle which guttered in the draft. On

+the landing below, Philip, the footman, stood looking scared and holding

+another candle. Still lower, beyond the turn of the staircase, one

+could hear the footstep of someone in thick felt boots, and a voice that

+seemed familiar to Princess Mary was saying something.

+

+“Thank God!” said the voice. “And Father?”

+

+“Gone to bed,” replied the voice of Demyán the house steward, who

+was downstairs.

+

+Then the voice said something more, Demyán replied, and the steps in

+the felt boots approached the unseen bend of the staircase more rapidly.

+

+“It’s Andrew!” thought Princess Mary. “No it can’t be, that

+would be too extraordinary,” and at the very moment she thought this,

+the face and figure of Prince Andrew, in a fur cloak the deep collar of

+which covered with snow, appeared on the landing where the footman

+stood with the candle. Yes, it was he, pale, thin, with a changed and

+strangely softened but agitated expression on his face. He came up the

+stairs and embraced his sister.

+

+“You did not get my letter?” he asked, and not waiting for a

+reply—which he would not have received, for the princess was unable to

+speak—he turned back, rapidly mounted the stairs again with the

+doctor who had entered the hall after him (they had met at the last post

+station), and again embraced his sister.

+

+“What a strange fate, Másha darling!” And having taken off his

+cloak and felt boots, he went to the little princess’ apartment.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+The little princess lay supported by pillows, with a white cap on her

+head (the pains had just left her). Strands of her black hair lay round

+her inflamed and perspiring cheeks, her charming rosy mouth with its

+downy lip was open and she was smiling joyfully. Prince Andrew entered

+and paused facing her at the foot of the sofa on which she was lying.

+Her glittering eyes, filled with childlike fear and excitement, rested

+on him without changing their expression. “I love you all and have

+done no harm to anyone; why must I suffer so? Help me!” her look

+seemed to say. She saw her husband, but did not realize the significance

+of his appearance before her now. Prince Andrew went round the sofa and

+kissed her forehead.

+

+“My darling!” he said—a word he had never used to her before.

+“God is merciful....”

+

+She looked at him inquiringly and with childlike reproach.

+

+“I expected help from you and I get none, none from you either!”

+said her eyes. She was not surprised at his having come; she did

+not realize that he had come. His coming had nothing to do with

+her sufferings or with their relief. The pangs began again and Mary

+Bogdánovna advised Prince Andrew to leave the room.

+

+The doctor entered. Prince Andrew went out and, meeting Princess Mary,

+again joined her. They began talking in whispers, but their talk broke

+off at every moment. They waited and listened.

+

+“Go, dear,” said Princess Mary.

+

+Prince Andrew went again to his wife and sat waiting in the room next

+to hers. A woman came from the bedroom with a frightened face and became

+confused when she saw Prince Andrew. He covered his face with his hands

+and remained so for some minutes. Piteous, helpless, animal moans came

+through the door. Prince Andrew got up, went to the door, and tried to

+open it. Someone was holding it shut.

+

+“You can’t come in! You can’t!” said a terrified voice from

+within.

+

+He began pacing the room. The screaming ceased, and a few more seconds

+went by. Then suddenly a terrible shriek—it could not be hers, she

+could not scream like that—came from the bedroom. Prince Andrew ran to

+the door; the scream ceased and he heard the wail of an infant.

+

+“What have they taken a baby in there for?” thought Prince Andrew in

+the first second. “A baby? What baby...? Why is there a baby there? Or

+is the baby born?”

+

+Then suddenly he realized the joyful significance of that wail; tears

+choked him, and leaning his elbows on the window sill he began to cry,

+sobbing like a child. The door opened. The doctor with his shirt sleeves

+tucked up, without a coat, pale and with a trembling jaw, came out

+of the room. Prince Andrew turned to him, but the doctor gave him a

+bewildered look and passed by without a word. A woman rushed out and

+seeing Prince Andrew stopped, hesitating on the threshold. He went into

+his wife’s room. She was lying dead, in the same position he had seen

+her in five minutes before and, despite the fixed eyes and the pallor of

+the cheeks, the same expression was on her charming childlike face with

+its upper lip covered with tiny black hair.

+

+“I love you all, and have done no harm to anyone; and what have you

+done to me?”—said her charming, pathetic, dead face.

+

+In a corner of the room something red and tiny gave a grunt and squealed

+in Mary Bogdánovna’s trembling white hands.

+

+

+Two hours later Prince Andrew, stepping softly, went into his father’s

+room. The old man already knew everything. He was standing close to

+the door and as soon as it opened his rough old arms closed like a vise

+round his son’s neck, and without a word he began to sob like a child.

+

+

+Three days later the little princess was buried, and Prince Andrew went

+up the steps to where the coffin stood, to give her the farewell kiss.

+And there in the coffin was the same face, though with closed eyes.

+“Ah, what have you done to me?” it still seemed to say, and Prince

+Andrew felt that something gave way in his soul and that he was guilty

+of a sin he could neither remedy nor forget. He could not weep. The

+old man too came up and kissed the waxen little hands that lay quietly

+crossed one on the other on her breast, and to him, too, her face seemed

+to say: “Ah, what have you done to me, and why?” And at the sight

+the old man turned angrily away.

+

+

+Another five days passed, and then the young Prince Nicholas Andréevich

+was baptized. The wet nurse supported the coverlet with her chin, while

+the priest with a goose feather anointed the boy’s little red and

+wrinkled soles and palms.

+

+His grandfather, who was his godfather, trembling and afraid of dropping

+him, carried the infant round the battered tin font and handed him over

+to the godmother, Princess Mary. Prince Andrew sat in another room,

+faint with fear lest the baby should be drowned in the font, and awaited

+the termination of the ceremony. He looked up joyfully at the baby when

+the nurse brought it to him and nodded approval when she told him that

+the wax with the baby’s hair had not sunk in the font but had floated.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+Rostóv’s share in Dólokhov’s duel with Bezúkhov was hushed up by

+the efforts of the old count, and instead of being degraded to the ranks

+as he expected he was appointed an adjutant to the governor general of

+Moscow. As a result he could not go to the country with the rest of the

+family, but was kept all summer in Moscow by his new duties. Dólokhov

+recovered, and Rostóv became very friendly with him during his

+convalescence. Dólokhov lay ill at his mother’s who loved him

+passionately and tenderly, and old Mary Ivánovna, who had grown fond of

+Rostóv for his friendship to her Fédya, often talked to him about her

+son.

+

+“Yes, Count,” she would say, “he is too noble and pure-souled for

+our present, depraved world. No one now loves virtue; it seems like

+a reproach to everyone. Now tell me, Count, was it right, was it

+honorable, of Bezúkhov? And Fédya, with his noble spirit, loved him

+and even now never says a word against him. Those pranks in Petersburg

+when they played some tricks on a policeman, didn’t they do it

+together? And there! Bezúkhov got off scotfree, while Fédya had to

+bear the whole burden on his shoulders. Fancy what he had to go through!

+It’s true he has been reinstated, but how could they fail to do that?

+I think there were not many such gallant sons of the fatherland out

+there as he. And now—this duel! Have these people no feeling, or

+honor? Knowing him to be an only son, to challenge him and shoot so

+straight! It’s well God had mercy on us. And what was it for? Who

+doesn’t have intrigues nowadays? Why, if he was so jealous, as I see

+things he should have shown it sooner, but he lets it go on for months.

+And then to call him out, reckoning on Fédya not fighting because he

+owed him money! What baseness! What meanness! I know you understand

+Fédya, my dear count; that, believe me, is why I am so fond of you. Few

+people do understand him. He is such a lofty, heavenly soul!”

+

+Dólokhov himself during his convalescence spoke to Rostóv in a way no

+one would have expected of him.

+

+“I know people consider me a bad man!” he said. “Let them! I

+don’t care a straw about anyone but those I love; but those I love,

+I love so that I would give my life for them, and the others I’d

+throttle if they stood in my way. I have an adored, a priceless mother,

+and two or three friends—you among them—and as for the rest I only

+care about them in so far as they are harmful or useful. And most of

+them are harmful, especially the women. Yes, dear boy,” he continued,

+“I have met loving, noble, high-minded men, but I have not yet met

+any women—countesses or cooks—who were not venal. I have not yet met

+that divine purity and devotion I look for in women. If I found such a

+one I’d give my life for her! But those!...” and he made a gesture

+of contempt. “And believe me, if I still value my life it is

+only because I still hope to meet such a divine creature, who will

+regenerate, purify, and elevate me. But you don’t understand it.”

+

+“Oh, yes, I quite understand,” answered Rostóv, who was under his

+new friend’s influence.

+

+In the autumn the Rostóvs returned to Moscow. Early in the winter

+Denísov also came back and stayed with them. The first half of the

+winter of 1806, which Nicholas Rostóv spent in Moscow, was one of the

+happiest, merriest times for him and the whole family. Nicholas brought

+many young men to his parents’ house. Véra was a handsome girl

+of twenty; Sónya a girl of sixteen with all the charm of an opening

+flower; Natásha, half grown up and half child, was now childishly

+amusing, now girlishly enchanting.

+

+At that time in the Rostóvs’ house there prevailed an amorous

+atmosphere characteristic of homes where there are very young and very

+charming girls. Every young man who came to the house—seeing those

+impressionable, smiling young faces (smiling probably at their own

+happiness), feeling the eager bustle around him, and hearing the fitful

+bursts of song and music and the inconsequent but friendly prattle of

+young girls ready for anything and full of hope—experienced the same

+feeling; sharing with the young folk of the Rostóvs’ household a

+readiness to fall in love and an expectation of happiness.

+

+Among the young men introduced by Rostóv one of the first was

+Dólokhov, whom everyone in the house liked except Natásha. She almost

+quarreled with her brother about him. She insisted that he was a bad

+man, and that in the duel with Bezúkhov, Pierre was right and Dólokhov

+wrong, and further that he was disagreeable and unnatural.

+

+“There’s nothing for me to understand,” she cried out with

+resolute self-will, “he is wicked and heartless. There now, I like

+your Denísov though he is a rake and all that, still I like him; so

+you see I do understand. I don’t know how to put it... with this one

+everything is calculated, and I don’t like that. But Denísov...”

+

+“Oh, Denísov is quite different,” replied Nicholas, implying that

+even Denísov was nothing compared to Dólokhov—“you must understand

+what a soul there is in Dólokhov, you should see him with his mother.

+What a heart!”

+

+“Well, I don’t know about that, but I am uncomfortable with him. And

+do you know he has fallen in love with Sónya?”

+

+“What nonsense...”

+

+“I’m certain of it; you’ll see.”

+

+Natásha’s prediction proved true. Dólokhov, who did not usually care

+for the society of ladies, began to come often to the house, and the

+question for whose sake he came (though no one spoke of it) was soon

+settled. He came because of Sónya. And Sónya, though she would never

+have dared to say so, knew it and blushed scarlet every time Dólokhov

+appeared.

+

+Dólokhov often dined at the Rostóvs’, never missed a performance at

+which they were present, and went to Iogel’s balls for young people

+which the Rostóvs always attended. He was pointedly attentive to Sónya

+and looked at her in such a way that not only could she not bear his

+glances without coloring, but even the old countess and Natásha blushed

+when they saw his looks.

+

+It was evident that this strange, strong man was under the irresistible

+influence of the dark, graceful girl who loved another.

+

+Rostóv noticed something new in Dólokhov’s relations with Sónya,

+but he did not explain to himself what these new relations were.

+“They’re always in love with someone,” he thought of Sónya and

+Natásha. But he was not as much at ease with Sónya and Dólokhov as

+before and was less frequently at home.

+

+In the autumn of 1806 everybody had again begun talking of the war with

+Napoleon with even greater warmth than the year before. Orders were

+given to raise recruits, ten men in every thousand for the regular army,

+and besides this, nine men in every thousand for the militia. Everywhere

+Bonaparte was anathematized and in Moscow nothing but the coming war

+was talked of. For the Rostóv family the whole interest of these

+preparations for war lay in the fact that Nicholas would not hear of

+remaining in Moscow, and only awaited the termination of Denísov’s

+furlough after Christmas to return with him to their regiment. His

+approaching departure did not prevent his amusing himself, but rather

+gave zest to his pleasures. He spent the greater part of his time away

+from home, at dinners, parties, and balls.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+On the third day after Christmas Nicholas dined at home, a thing he had

+rarely done of late. It was a grand farewell dinner, as he and Denísov

+were leaving to join their regiment after Epiphany. About twenty people

+were present, including Dólokhov and Denísov.

+

+Never had love been so much in the air, and never had the amorous

+atmosphere made itself so strongly felt in the Rostóvs’ house as at

+this holiday time. “Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved!

+That is the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one

+thing we are interested in here,” said the spirit of the place.

+

+Nicholas, having as usual exhausted two pairs of horses, without

+visiting all the places he meant to go to and where he had been invited,

+returned home just before dinner. As soon as he entered he noticed and

+felt the tension of the amorous air in the house, and also noticed a

+curious embarrassment among some of those present. Sónya, Dólokhov,

+and the old countess were especially disturbed, and to a lesser degree

+Natásha. Nicholas understood that something must have happened between

+Sónya and Dólokhov before dinner, and with the kindly sensitiveness

+natural to him was very gentle and wary with them both at dinner. On

+that same evening there was to be one of the balls that Iogel (the

+dancing master) gave for his pupils during the holidays.

+

+“Nicholas, will you come to Iogel’s? Please do!” said Natásha.

+“He asked you, and Vasíli Dmítrich * is also going.”

+

+    * Denísov.

+

+“Where would I not go at the countess’ command!” said Denísov,

+who at the Rostóvs’ had jocularly assumed the role of Natásha’s

+knight. “I’m even weady to dance the pas de châle.”

+

+“If I have time,” answered Nicholas. “But I promised the

+Arkhárovs; they have a party.”

+

+“And you?” he asked Dólokhov, but as soon as he had asked the

+question he noticed that it should not have been put.

+

+“Perhaps,” coldly and angrily replied Dólokhov, glancing at Sónya,

+and, scowling, he gave Nicholas just such a look as he had given Pierre

+at the club dinner.

+

+“There is something up,” thought Nicholas, and he was further

+confirmed in this conclusion by the fact that Dólokhov left immediately

+after dinner. He called Natásha and asked her what was the matter.

+

+“And I was looking for you,” said Natásha running out to him. “I

+told you, but you would not believe it,” she said triumphantly. “He

+has proposed to Sónya!”

+

+Little as Nicholas had occupied himself with Sónya of late, something

+seemed to give way within him at this news. Dólokhov was a suitable and

+in some respects a brilliant match for the dowerless, orphan girl. From

+the point of view of the old countess and of society it was out of the

+question for her to refuse him. And therefore Nicholas’ first feeling

+on hearing the news was one of anger with Sónya.... He tried to say,

+“That’s capital; of course she’ll forget her childish promises

+and accept the offer,” but before he had time to say it Natásha began

+again.

+

+“And fancy! she refused him quite definitely!” adding, after a

+pause, “she told him she loved another.”

+

+“Yes, my Sónya could not have done otherwise!” thought Nicholas.

+

+“Much as Mamma pressed her, she refused, and I know she won’t change

+once she has said...”

+

+“And Mamma pressed her!” said Nicholas reproachfully.

+

+“Yes,” said Natásha. “Do you know, Nicholas—don’t be

+angry—but I know you will not marry her. I know, heaven knows how, but

+I know for certain that you won’t marry her.”

+

+“Now you don’t know that at all!” said Nicholas. “But I must

+talk to her. What a darling Sónya is!” he added with a smile.

+

+“Ah, she is indeed a darling! I’ll send her to you.”

+

+And Natásha kissed her brother and ran away.

+

+A minute later Sónya came in with a frightened, guilty, and scared

+look. Nicholas went up to her and kissed her hand. This was the first

+time since his return that they had talked alone and about their love.

+

+“Sophie,” he began, timidly at first and then more and more

+boldly, “if you wish to refuse one who is not only a brilliant and

+advantageous match but a splendid, noble fellow... he is my friend...”

+

+Sónya interrupted him.

+

+“I have already refused,” she said hurriedly.

+

+“If you are refusing for my sake, I am afraid that I...”

+

+Sónya again interrupted. She gave him an imploring, frightened look.

+

+“Nicholas, don’t tell me that!” she said.

+

+“No, but I must. It may be arrogant of me, but still it is best to say

+it. If you refuse him on my account, I must tell you the whole truth. I

+love you, and I think I love you more than anyone else....”

+

+“That is enough for me,” said Sónya, blushing.

+

+“No, but I have been in love a thousand times and shall fall in

+love again, though for no one have I such a feeling of friendship,

+confidence, and love as I have for you. Then I am young. Mamma does

+not wish it. In a word, I make no promise. And I beg you to consider

+Dólokhov’s offer,” he said, articulating his friend’s name with

+difficulty.

+

+“Don’t say that to me! I want nothing. I love you as a brother and

+always shall, and I want nothing more.”

+

+“You are an angel: I am not worthy of you, but I am afraid of

+misleading you.”

+

+And Nicholas again kissed her hand.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+Iogel’s were the most enjoyable balls in Moscow. So said the mothers

+as they watched their young people executing their newly learned steps,

+and so said the youths and maidens themselves as they danced till they

+were ready to drop, and so said the grown-up young men and women who

+came to these balls with an air of condescension and found them most

+enjoyable. That year two marriages had come of these balls. The two

+pretty young Princesses Gorchakóv met suitors there and were married

+and so further increased the fame of these dances. What distinguished

+them from others was the absence of host or hostess and the presence of

+the good-natured Iogel, flying about like a feather and bowing according

+to the rules of his art, as he collected the tickets from all his

+visitors. There was the fact that only those came who wished to dance

+and amuse themselves as girls of thirteen and fourteen do who are

+wearing long dresses for the first time. With scarcely any exceptions

+they all were, or seemed to be, pretty—so rapturous were their smiles

+and so sparkling their eyes. Sometimes the best of the pupils, of whom

+Natásha, who was exceptionally graceful, was first, even danced the pas

+de châle, but at this last ball only the écossaise, the anglaise, and

+the mazurka, which was just coming into fashion, were danced. Iogel had

+taken a ballroom in Bezúkhov’s house, and the ball, as everyone said,

+was a great success. There were many pretty girls and the Rostóv girls

+were among the prettiest. They were both particularly happy and gay.

+That evening, proud of Dólokhov’s proposal, her refusal, and her

+explanation with Nicholas, Sónya twirled about before she left home

+so that the maid could hardly get her hair plaited, and she was

+transparently radiant with impulsive joy.

+

+Natásha no less proud of her first long dress and of being at a real

+ball was even happier. They were both dressed in white muslin with pink

+ribbons.

+

+Natásha fell in love the very moment she entered the ballroom. She

+was not in love with anyone in particular, but with everyone. Whatever

+person she happened to look at she was in love with for that moment.

+

+“Oh, how delightful it is!” she kept saying, running up to Sónya.

+

+Nicholas and Denísov were walking up and down, looking with kindly

+patronage at the dancers.

+

+“How sweet she is—she will be a weal beauty!” said Denísov.

+

+“Who?”

+

+“Countess Natásha,” answered Denísov.

+

+“And how she dances! What gwace!” he said again after a pause.

+

+“Who are you talking about?”

+

+“About your sister,” ejaculated Denísov testily.

+

+Rostóv smiled.

+

+“My dear count, you were one of my best pupils—you must dance,”

+said little Iogel coming up to Nicholas. “Look how many charming young

+ladies—” He turned with the same request to Denísov who was also a

+former pupil of his.

+

+“No, my dear fellow, I’ll be a wallflower,” said Denísov.

+“Don’t you wecollect what bad use I made of your lessons?”

+

+“Oh no!” said Iogel, hastening to reassure him. “You were only

+inattentive, but you had talent—oh yes, you had talent!”

+

+The band struck up the newly introduced mazurka. Nicholas could not

+refuse Iogel and asked Sónya to dance. Denísov sat down by the old

+ladies and, leaning on his saber and beating time with his foot, told

+them something funny and kept them amused, while he watched the young

+people dancing, Iogel with Natásha, his pride and his best pupil, were

+the first couple. Noiselessly, skillfully stepping with his little

+feet in low shoes, Iogel flew first across the hall with Natásha, who,

+though shy, went on carefully executing her steps. Denísov did not

+take his eyes off her and beat time with his saber in a way that clearly

+indicated that if he was not dancing it was because he would not and not

+because he could not. In the middle of a figure he beckoned to Rostóv

+who was passing:

+

+“This is not at all the thing,” he said. “What sort of Polish

+mazuwka is this? But she does dance splendidly.”

+

+Knowing that Denísov had a reputation even in Poland for the masterly

+way in which he danced the mazurka, Nicholas ran up to Natásha:

+

+“Go and choose Denísov. He is a real dancer, a wonder!” he said.

+

+When it came to Natásha’s turn to choose a partner, she rose and,

+tripping rapidly across in her little shoes trimmed with bows, ran

+timidly to the corner where Denísov sat. She saw that everybody was

+looking at her and waiting. Nicholas saw that Denísov was refusing

+though he smiled delightedly. He ran up to them.

+

+“Please, Vasíli Dmítrich,” Natásha was saying, “do come!”

+

+“Oh no, let me off, Countess,” Denísov replied.

+

+“Now then, Váska,” said Nicholas.

+

+“They coax me as if I were Váska the cat!” said Denísov jokingly.

+

+“I’ll sing for you a whole evening,” said Natásha.

+

+“Oh, the faiwy! She can do anything with me!” said Denísov, and

+he unhooked his saber. He came out from behind the chairs, clasped his

+partner’s hand firmly, threw back his head, and advanced his foot,

+waiting for the beat. Only on horse back and in the mazurka was

+Denísov’s short stature not noticeable and he looked the fine fellow

+he felt himself to be. At the right beat of the music he looked sideways

+at his partner with a merry and triumphant air, suddenly stamped with

+one foot, bounded from the floor like a ball, and flew round the room

+taking his partner with him. He glided silently on one foot half across

+the room, and seeming not to notice the chairs was dashing straight at

+them, when suddenly, clinking his spurs and spreading out his legs,

+he stopped short on his heels, stood so a second, stamped on the spot

+clanking his spurs, whirled rapidly round, and, striking his left heel

+against his right, flew round again in a circle. Natásha guessed what

+he meant to do, and abandoning herself to him followed his lead hardly

+knowing how. First he spun her round, holding her now with his left, now

+with his right hand, then falling on one knee he twirled her round him,

+and again jumping up, dashed so impetuously forward that it seemed as if

+he would rush through the whole suite of rooms without drawing breath,

+and then he suddenly stopped and performed some new and unexpected

+steps. When at last, smartly whirling his partner round in front of her

+chair, he drew up with a click of his spurs and bowed to her, Natásha

+did not even make him a curtsy. She fixed her eyes on him in amazement,

+smiling as if she did not recognize him.

+

+“What does this mean?” she brought out.

+

+Although Iogel did not acknowledge this to be the real mazurka, everyone

+was delighted with Denísov’s skill, he was asked again and again as

+a partner, and the old men began smilingly to talk about Poland and the

+good old days. Denísov, flushed after the mazurka and mopping himself

+with his handkerchief, sat down by Natásha and did not leave her for

+the rest of the evening.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+For two days after that Rostóv did not see Dólokhov at his own or at

+Dólokhov’s home: on the third day he received a note from him:

+

+As I do not intend to be at your house again for reasons you know

+of, and am going to rejoin my regiment, I am giving a farewell supper

+tonight to my friends—come to the English Hotel.

+

+About ten o’clock Rostóv went to the English Hotel straight from the

+theater, where he had been with his family and Denísov. He was at once

+shown to the best room, which Dólokhov had taken for that evening. Some

+twenty men were gathered round a table at which Dólokhov sat between

+two candles. On the table was a pile of gold and paper money, and he

+was keeping the bank. Rostóv had not seen him since his proposal and

+Sónya’s refusal and felt uncomfortable at the thought of how they

+would meet.

+

+Dólokhov’s clear, cold glance met Rostóv as soon as he entered the

+door, as though he had long expected him.

+

+“It’s a long time since we met,” he said. “Thanks for coming.

+I’ll just finish dealing, and then Ilyúshka will come with his

+chorus.”

+

+“I called once or twice at your house,” said Rostóv, reddening.

+

+Dólokhov made no reply.

+

+“You may punt,” he said.

+

+Rostóv recalled at that moment a strange conversation he had once had

+with Dólokhov. “None but fools trust to luck in play,” Dólokhov

+had then said.

+

+“Or are you afraid to play with me?” Dólokhov now asked as if

+guessing Rostóv’s thought.

+

+Beneath his smile Rostóv saw in him the mood he had shown at the club

+dinner and at other times, when as if tired of everyday life he had felt

+a need to escape from it by some strange, and usually cruel, action.

+

+Rostóv felt ill at ease. He tried, but failed, to find some joke with

+which to reply to Dólokhov’s words. But before he had thought of

+anything, Dólokhov, looking straight in his face, said slowly and

+deliberately so that everyone could hear:

+

+“Do you remember we had a talk about cards... ‘He’s a fool who

+trusts to luck, one should make certain,’ and I want to try.”

+

+“To try his luck or the certainty?” Rostóv asked himself.

+

+“Well, you’d better not play,” Dólokhov added, and springing a

+new pack of cards said: “Bank, gentlemen!”

+

+Moving the money forward he prepared to deal. Rostóv sat down by his

+side and at first did not play. Dólokhov kept glancing at him.

+

+“Why don’t you play?” he asked.

+

+And strange to say Nicholas felt that he could not help taking up a

+card, putting a small stake on it, and beginning to play.

+

+“I have no money with me,” he said.

+

+“I’ll trust you.”

+

+Rostóv staked five rubles on a card and lost, staked again, and again

+lost. Dólokhov “killed,” that is, beat, ten cards of Rostóv’s

+running.

+

+“Gentlemen,” said Dólokhov after he had dealt for some time.

+“Please place your money on the cards or I may get muddled in the

+reckoning.”

+

+One of the players said he hoped he might be trusted.

+

+“Yes, you might, but I am afraid of getting the accounts mixed. So I

+ask you to put the money on your cards,” replied Dólokhov. “Don’t

+stint yourself, we’ll settle afterwards,” he added, turning to

+Rostóv.

+

+The game continued; a waiter kept handing round champagne.

+

+All Rostóv’s cards were beaten and he had eight hundred rubles scored

+up against him. He wrote “800 rubles” on a card, but while the

+waiter filled his glass he changed his mind and altered it to his usual

+stake of twenty rubles.

+

+“Leave it,” said Dólokhov, though he did not seem to be even

+looking at Rostóv, “you’ll win it back all the sooner. I lose to

+the others but win from you. Or are you afraid of me?” he asked again.

+

+Rostóv submitted. He let the eight hundred remain and laid down a seven

+of hearts with a torn corner, which he had picked up from the floor. He

+well remembered that seven afterwards. He laid down the seven of hearts,

+on which with a broken bit of chalk he had written “800 rubles” in

+clear upright figures; he emptied the glass of warm champagne that was

+handed him, smiled at Dólokhov’s words, and with a sinking heart,

+waiting for a seven to turn up, gazed at Dólokhov’s hands which held

+the pack. Much depended on Rostóv’s winning or losing on that seven

+of hearts. On the previous Sunday the old count had given his son

+two thousand rubles, and though he always disliked speaking of money

+difficulties had told Nicholas that this was all he could let him have

+till May, and asked him to be more economical this time. Nicholas had

+replied that it would be more than enough for him and that he gave his

+word of honor not to take anything more till the spring. Now only twelve

+hundred rubles was left of that money, so that this seven of hearts

+meant for him not only the loss of sixteen hundred rubles, but the

+necessity of going back on his word. With a sinking heart he watched

+Dólokhov’s hands and thought, “Now then, make haste and let me have

+this card and I’ll take my cap and drive home to supper with Denísov,

+Natásha, and Sónya, and will certainly never touch a card again.” At

+that moment his home life, jokes with Pétya, talks with Sónya, duets

+with Natásha, piquet with his father, and even his comfortable bed

+in the house on the Povarskáya rose before him with such vividness,

+clearness, and charm that it seemed as if it were all a lost and

+unappreciated bliss, long past. He could not conceive that a stupid

+chance, letting the seven be dealt to the right rather than to the left,

+might deprive him of all this happiness, newly appreciated and newly

+illumined, and plunge him into the depths of unknown and undefined

+misery. That could not be, yet he awaited with a sinking heart the

+movement of Dólokhov’s hands. Those broad, reddish hands, with hairy

+wrists visible from under the shirt cuffs, laid down the pack and took

+up a glass and a pipe that were handed him.

+

+“So you are not afraid to play with me?” repeated Dólokhov, and as

+if about to tell a good story he put down the cards, leaned back in his

+chair, and began deliberately with a smile:

+

+“Yes, gentlemen, I’ve been told there’s a rumor going about Moscow

+that I’m a sharper, so I advise you to be careful.”

+

+“Come now, deal!” exclaimed Rostóv.

+

+“Oh, those Moscow gossips!” said Dólokhov, and he took up the cards

+with a smile.

+

+“Aah!” Rostóv almost screamed lifting both hands to his head. The

+seven he needed was lying uppermost, the first card in the pack. He had

+lost more than he could pay.

+

+“Still, don’t ruin yourself!” said Dólokhov with a side glance at

+Rostóv as he continued to deal.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV

+

+An hour and a half later most of the players were but little interested

+in their own play.

+

+The whole interest was concentrated on Rostóv. Instead of sixteen

+hundred rubles he had a long column of figures scored against him,

+which he had reckoned up to ten thousand, but that now, as he vaguely

+supposed, must have risen to fifteen thousand. In reality it already

+exceeded twenty thousand rubles. Dólokhov was no longer listening to

+stories or telling them, but followed every movement of Rostóv’s

+hands and occasionally ran his eyes over the score against him. He had

+decided to play until that score reached forty-three thousand. He

+had fixed on that number because forty-three was the sum of his and

+Sónya’s joint ages. Rostóv, leaning his head on both hands, sat at

+the table which was scrawled over with figures, wet with spilled wine,

+and littered with cards. One tormenting impression did not leave him:

+that those broad-boned reddish hands with hairy wrists visible from

+under the shirt sleeves, those hands which he loved and hated, held him

+in their power.

+

+“Six hundred rubles, ace, a corner, a nine... winning it back’s

+impossible... Oh, how pleasant it was at home!... The knave, double or

+quits... it can’t be!... And why is he doing this to me?” Rostóv

+pondered. Sometimes he staked a large sum, but Dólokhov refused to

+accept it and fixed the stake himself. Nicholas submitted to him, and at

+one moment prayed to God as he had done on the battlefield at the bridge

+over the Enns, and then guessed that the card that came first to hand

+from the crumpled heap under the table would save him, now counted the

+cords on his coat and took a card with that number and tried staking the

+total of his losses on it, then he looked round for aid from the other

+players, or peered at the now cold face of Dólokhov and tried to read

+what was passing in his mind.

+

+“He knows of course what this loss means to me. He can’t want my

+ruin. Wasn’t he my friend? Wasn’t I fond of him? But it’s not his

+fault. What’s he to do if he has such luck?... And it’s not my fault

+either,” he thought to himself, “I have done nothing wrong. Have I

+killed anyone, or insulted or wished harm to anyone? Why such a terrible

+misfortune? And when did it begin? Such a little while ago I came to

+this table with the thought of winning a hundred rubles to buy that

+casket for Mamma’s name day and then going home. I was so happy, so

+free, so lighthearted! And I did not realize how happy I was! When did

+that end and when did this new, terrible state of things begin? What

+marked the change? I sat all the time in this same place at this table,

+chose and placed cards, and watched those broad-boned agile hands in the

+same way. When did it happen and what has happened? I am well and strong

+and still the same and in the same place. No, it can’t be! Surely it

+will all end in nothing!”

+

+He was flushed and bathed in perspiration, though the room was not hot.

+His face was terrible and piteous to see, especially from its helpless

+efforts to seem calm.

+

+The score against him reached the fateful sum of forty-three thousand.

+Rostóv had just prepared a card, by bending the corner of which he

+meant to double the three thousand just put down to his score, when

+Dólokhov, slamming down the pack of cards, put it aside and began

+rapidly adding up the total of Rostóv’s debt, breaking the chalk as

+he marked the figures in his clear, bold hand.

+

+“Supper, it’s time for supper! And here are the gypsies!”

+

+Some swarthy men and women were really entering from the cold outside

+and saying something in their gypsy accents. Nicholas understood that it

+was all over; but he said in an indifferent tone:

+

+“Well, won’t you go on? I had a splendid card all ready,” as if it

+were the fun of the game which interested him most.

+

+“It’s all up! I’m lost!” thought he. “Now a bullet through my

+brain—that’s all that’s left me!” And at the same time he said

+in a cheerful voice:

+

+“Come now, just this one more little card!”

+

+“All right!” said Dólokhov, having finished the addition. “All

+right! Twenty-one rubles,” he said, pointing to the figure twenty-one

+by which the total exceeded the round sum of forty-three thousand; and

+taking up a pack he prepared to deal. Rostóv submissively unbent the

+corner of his card and, instead of the six thousand he had intended,

+carefully wrote twenty-one.

+

+“It’s all the same to me,” he said. “I only want to see whether

+you will let me win this ten, or beat it.”

+

+Dólokhov began to deal seriously. Oh, how Rostóv detested at that

+moment those hands with their short reddish fingers and hairy wrists,

+which held him in their power.... The ten fell to him.

+

+“You owe forty-three thousand, Count,” said Dólokhov, and

+stretching himself he rose from the table. “One does get tired sitting

+so long,” he added.

+

+“Yes, I’m tired too,” said Rostóv.

+

+Dólokhov cut him short, as if to remind him that it was not for him to

+jest.

+

+“When am I to receive the money, Count?”

+

+Rostóv, flushing, drew Dólokhov into the next room.

+

+“I cannot pay it all immediately. Will you take an I.O.U.?” he said.

+

+“I say, Rostóv,” said Dólokhov clearly, smiling and looking

+Nicholas straight in the eyes, “you know the saying, ‘Lucky in love,

+unlucky at cards.’ Your cousin is in love with you, I know.”

+

+“Oh, it’s terrible to feel oneself so in this man’s power,”

+thought Rostóv. He knew what a shock he would inflict on his father and

+mother by the news of this loss, he knew what a relief it would be to

+escape it all, and felt that Dólokhov knew that he could save him from

+all this shame and sorrow, but wanted now to play with him as a cat does

+with a mouse.

+

+“Your cousin...” Dólokhov started to say, but Nicholas interrupted

+him.

+

+“My cousin has nothing to do with this and it’s not necessary to

+mention her!” he exclaimed fiercely.

+

+“Then when am I to have it?”

+

+“Tomorrow,” replied Rostóv and left the room.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV

+

+To say “tomorrow” and keep up a dignified tone was not difficult,

+but to go home alone, see his sisters, brother, mother, and father,

+confess and ask for money he had no right to after giving his word of

+honor, was terrible.

+

+At home, they had not yet gone to bed. The young people, after returning

+from the theater, had had supper and were grouped round the clavichord.

+As soon as Nicholas entered, he was enfolded in that poetic atmosphere

+of love which pervaded the Rostóv household that winter and, now after

+Dólokhov’s proposal and Iogel’s ball, seemed to have grown thicker

+round Sónya and Natásha as the air does before a thunderstorm. Sónya

+and Natásha, in the light-blue dresses they had worn at the theater,

+looking pretty and conscious of it, were standing by the clavichord,

+happy and smiling. Véra was playing chess with Shinshín in the drawing

+room. The old countess, waiting for the return of her husband and son,

+sat playing patience with the old gentlewoman who lived in their house.

+Denísov, with sparkling eyes and ruffled hair, sat at the clavichord

+striking chords with his short fingers, his legs thrown back and his

+eyes rolling as he sang, with his small, husky, but true voice, some

+verses called “Enchantress,” which he had composed, and to which he

+was trying to fit music:

+

+   Enchantress, say, to my forsaken lyre

+   What magic power is this recalls me still?

+   What spark has set my inmost soul on fire,

+   What is this bliss that makes my fingers thrill?

+

+He was singing in passionate tones, gazing with his sparkling

+black-agate eyes at the frightened and happy Natásha.

+

+“Splendid! Excellent!” exclaimed Natásha. “Another verse,” she

+said, without noticing Nicholas.

+

+“Everything’s still the same with them,” thought Nicholas,

+glancing into the drawing room, where he saw Véra and his mother with

+the old lady.

+

+“Ah, and here’s Nicholas!” cried Natásha, running up to him.

+

+“Is Papa at home?” he asked.

+

+“I am so glad you’ve come!” said Natásha, without answering him.

+“We are enjoying ourselves! Vasíli Dmítrich is staying a day longer

+for my sake! Did you know?”

+

+“No, Papa is not back yet,” said Sónya.

+

+“Nicholas, have you come? Come here, dear!” called the old countess

+from the drawing room.

+

+Nicholas went to her, kissed her hand, and sitting down silently at her

+table began to watch her hands arranging the cards. From the dancing

+room, they still heard the laughter and merry voices trying to persuade

+Natásha to sing.

+

+“All wight! All wight!” shouted Denísov. “It’s no good making

+excuses now! It’s your turn to sing the ba’cawolla—I entweat

+you!”

+

+The countess glanced at her silent son.

+

+“What is the matter?” she asked.

+

+“Oh, nothing,” said he, as if weary of being continually asked the

+same question. “Will Papa be back soon?”

+

+“I expect so.”

+

+“Everything’s the same with them. They know nothing about it! Where

+am I to go?” thought Nicholas, and went again into the dancing room

+where the clavichord stood.

+

+Sónya was sitting at the clavichord, playing the prelude to

+Denísov’s favorite barcarolle. Natásha was preparing to sing.

+Denísov was looking at her with enraptured eyes.

+

+Nicholas began pacing up and down the room.

+

+“Why do they want to make her sing? How can she sing? There’s

+nothing to be happy about!” thought he.

+

+Sónya struck the first chord of the prelude.

+

+“My God, I’m a ruined and dishonored man! A bullet through my brain

+is the only thing left me—not singing!” his thoughts ran on. “Go

+away? But where to? It’s one—let them sing!”

+

+He continued to pace the room, looking gloomily at Denísov and the

+girls and avoiding their eyes.

+

+“Nikólenka, what is the matter?” Sónya’s eyes fixed on him

+seemed to ask. She noticed at once that something had happened to him.

+

+Nicholas turned away from her. Natásha too, with her quick instinct,

+had instantly noticed her brother’s condition. But, though she noticed

+it, she was herself in such high spirits at that moment, so far from

+sorrow, sadness, or self-reproach, that she purposely deceived herself

+as young people often do. “No, I am too happy now to spoil my

+enjoyment by sympathy with anyone’s sorrow,” she felt, and she said

+to herself: “No, I must be mistaken, he must be feeling happy, just as

+I am.”

+

+“Now, Sónya!” she said, going to the very middle of the room, where

+she considered the resonance was best.

+

+Having lifted her head and let her arms droop lifelessly, as ballet

+dancers do, Natásha, rising energetically from her heels to her toes,

+stepped to the middle of the room and stood still.

+

+“Yes, that’s me!” she seemed to say, answering the rapt gaze with

+which Denísov followed her.

+

+“And what is she so pleased about?” thought Nicholas, looking at his

+sister. “Why isn’t she dull and ashamed?”

+

+Natásha took the first note, her throat swelled, her chest rose,

+her eyes became serious. At that moment she was oblivious of her

+surroundings, and from her smiling lips flowed sounds which anyone may

+produce at the same intervals and hold for the same time, but which

+leave you cold a thousand times and the thousand and first time thrill

+you and make you weep.

+

+Natásha, that winter, had for the first time begun to sing seriously,

+mainly because Denísov so delighted in her singing. She no longer sang

+as a child, there was no longer in her singing that comical, childish,

+painstaking effect that had been in it before; but she did not yet sing

+well, as all the connoisseurs who heard her said: “It is not trained,

+but it is a beautiful voice that must be trained.” Only they generally

+said this some time after she had finished singing. While that untrained

+voice, with its incorrect breathing and labored transitions, was

+sounding, even the connoisseurs said nothing, but only delighted in

+it and wished to hear it again. In her voice there was a virginal

+freshness, an unconsciousness of her own powers, and an as yet untrained

+velvety softness, which so mingled with her lack of art in singing that

+it seemed as if nothing in that voice could be altered without spoiling

+it.

+

+“What is this?” thought Nicholas, listening to her with widely

+opened eyes. “What has happened to her? How she is singing today!”

+And suddenly the whole world centered for him on anticipation of the

+next note, the next phrase, and everything in the world was divided into

+three beats: “Oh mio crudele affetto.”... One, two, three... one,

+two, three... One... “Oh mio crudele affetto.”... One, two, three...

+One. “Oh, this senseless life of ours!” thought Nicholas. “All

+this misery, and money, and Dólokhov, and anger, and honor—it’s all

+nonsense... but this is real.... Now then, Natásha, now then, dearest!

+Now then, darling! How will she take that si? She’s taken it! Thank

+God!” And without noticing that he was singing, to strengthen the si

+he sung a second, a third below the high note. “Ah, God! How fine! Did

+I really take it? How fortunate!” he thought.

+

+Oh, how that chord vibrated, and how moved was something that was finest

+in Rostóv’s soul! And this something was apart from everything else

+in the world and above everything in the world. “What were losses, and

+Dólokhov, and words of honor?... All nonsense! One might kill and rob

+and yet be happy....”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI

+

+It was long since Rostóv had felt such enjoyment from music as he

+did that day. But no sooner had Natásha finished her barcarolle than

+reality again presented itself. He got up without saying a word and went

+downstairs to his own room. A quarter of an hour later the old count

+came in from his club, cheerful and contented. Nicholas, hearing him

+drive up, went to meet him.

+

+“Well—had a good time?” said the old count, smiling gaily and

+proudly at his son.

+

+Nicholas tried to say “Yes,” but could not: and he nearly burst into

+sobs. The count was lighting his pipe and did not notice his son’s

+condition.

+

+“Ah, it can’t be avoided!” thought Nicholas, for the first and

+last time. And suddenly, in the most casual tone, which made him feel

+ashamed of himself, he said, as if merely asking his father to let him

+have the carriage to drive to town:

+

+“Papa, I have come on a matter of business. I was nearly forgetting. I

+need some money.”

+

+“Dear me!” said his father, who was in a specially good humor. “I

+told you it would not be enough. How much?”

+

+“Very much,” said Nicholas flushing, and with a stupid careless

+smile, for which he was long unable to forgive himself, “I have lost a

+little, I mean a good deal, a great deal—forty three thousand.”

+

+“What! To whom?... Nonsense!” cried the count, suddenly reddening

+with an apoplectic flush over neck and nape as old people do.

+

+“I promised to pay tomorrow,” said Nicholas.

+

+“Well!...” said the old count, spreading out his arms and sinking

+helplessly on the sofa.

+

+“It can’t be helped! It happens to everyone!” said the son, with

+a bold, free, and easy tone, while in his soul he regarded himself as a

+worthless scoundrel whose whole life could not atone for his crime. He

+longed to kiss his father’s hands and kneel to beg his forgiveness,

+but said, in a careless and even rude voice, that it happens to

+everyone!

+

+The old count cast down his eyes on hearing his son’s words and began

+bustlingly searching for something.

+

+“Yes, yes,” he muttered, “it will be difficult, I fear, difficult

+to raise... happens to everybody! Yes, who has not done it?”

+

+And with a furtive glance at his son’s face, the count went out of the

+room.... Nicholas had been prepared for resistance, but had not at all

+expected this.

+

+“Papa! Pa-pa!” he called after him, sobbing, “forgive me!” And

+seizing his father’s hand, he pressed it to his lips and burst into

+tears.

+

+While father and son were having their explanation, the mother and

+daughter were having one not less important. Natásha came running to

+her mother, quite excited.

+

+“Mamma!... Mamma!... He has made me...”

+

+“Made what?”

+

+“Made, made me an offer, Mamma! Mamma!” she exclaimed.

+

+The countess did not believe her ears. Denísov had proposed. To whom?

+To this chit of a girl, Natásha, who not so long ago was playing with

+dolls and who was still having lessons.

+

+“Don’t, Natásha! What nonsense!” she said, hoping it was a joke.

+

+“Nonsense, indeed! I am telling you the fact,” said Natásha

+indignantly. “I come to ask you what to do, and you call it

+‘nonsense!’”

+

+The countess shrugged her shoulders.

+

+“If it is true that Monsieur Denísov has made you a proposal, tell

+him he is a fool, that’s all!”

+

+“No, he’s not a fool!” replied Natásha indignantly and seriously.

+

+“Well then, what do you want? You’re all in love nowadays. Well,

+if you are in love, marry him!” said the countess, with a laugh of

+annoyance. “Good luck to you!”

+

+“No, Mamma, I’m not in love with him, I suppose I’m not in love

+with him.”

+

+“Well then, tell him so.”

+

+“Mamma, are you cross? Don’t be cross, dear! Is it my fault?”

+

+“No, but what is it, my dear? Do you want me to go and tell him?”

+said the countess smiling.

+

+“No, I will do it myself, only tell me what to say. It’s all very

+well for you,” said Natásha, with a responsive smile. “You should

+have seen how he said it! I know he did not mean to say it, but it came

+out accidently.”

+

+“Well, all the same, you must refuse him.”

+

+“No, I mustn’t. I am so sorry for him! He’s so nice.”

+

+“Well then, accept his offer. It’s high time for you to be

+married,” answered the countess sharply and sarcastically.

+

+“No, Mamma, but I’m so sorry for him. I don’t know how I’m to

+say it.”

+

+“And there’s nothing for you to say. I shall speak to him myself,”

+said the countess, indignant that they should have dared to treat this

+little Natásha as grown up.

+

+“No, not on any account! I will tell him myself, and you’ll listen

+at the door,” and Natásha ran across the drawing room to the dancing

+hall, where Denísov was sitting on the same chair by the clavichord

+with his face in his hands.

+

+He jumped up at the sound of her light step.

+

+“Nataly,” he said, moving with rapid steps toward her, “decide my

+fate. It is in your hands.”

+

+“Vasíli Dmítrich, I’m so sorry for you!... No, but you are so

+nice... but it won’t do...not that... but as a friend, I shall always

+love you.”

+

+Denísov bent over her hand and she heard strange sounds she did not

+understand. She kissed his rough curly black head. At this instant, they

+heard the quick rustle of the countess’ dress. She came up to them.

+

+“Vasíli Dmítrich, I thank you for the honor,” she said, with an

+embarrassed voice, though it sounded severe to Denísov—“but my

+daughter is so young, and I thought that, as my son’s friend, you

+would have addressed yourself first to me. In that case you would not

+have obliged me to give this refusal.”

+

+“Countess...” said Denísov, with downcast eyes and a guilty face.

+He tried to say more, but faltered.

+

+Natásha could not remain calm, seeing him in such a plight. She began

+to sob aloud.

+

+“Countess, I have done w’ong,” Denísov went on in an unsteady

+voice, “but believe me, I so adore your daughter and all your family

+that I would give my life twice over...” He looked at the countess,

+and seeing her severe face said: “Well, good-by, Countess,” and

+kissing her hand, he left the room with quick resolute strides, without

+looking at Natásha.

+

+

+Next day Rostóv saw Denísov off. He did not wish to stay another

+day in Moscow. All Denísov’s Moscow friends gave him a farewell

+entertainment at the gypsies’, with the result that he had no

+recollection of how he was put in the sleigh or of the first three

+stages of his journey.

+

+After Denísov’s departure, Rostóv spent another fortnight in Moscow,

+without going out of the house, waiting for the money his father could

+not at once raise, and he spent most of his time in the girls’ room.

+

+Sónya was more tender and devoted to him than ever. It was as if she

+wanted to show him that his losses were an achievement that made her

+love him all the more, but Nicholas now considered himself unworthy of

+her.

+

+He filled the girls’ albums with verses and music, and having at last

+sent Dólokhov the whole forty-three thousand rubles and received his

+receipt, he left at the end of November, without taking leave of any of

+his acquaintances, to overtake his regiment which was already in Poland.

+

+

+

+

+

+BOOK FIVE: 1806 - 07

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+After his interview with his wife Pierre left for Petersburg. At the

+Torzhók post station, either there were no horses or the postmaster

+would not supply them. Pierre was obliged to wait. Without undressing,

+he lay down on the leather sofa in front of a round table, put his big

+feet in their overboots on the table, and began to reflect.

+

+“Will you have the portmanteaus brought in? And a bed got ready, and

+tea?” asked his valet.

+

+Pierre gave no answer, for he neither heard nor saw anything. He had

+begun to think of the last station and was still pondering on the same

+question—one so important that he took no notice of what went

+on around him. Not only was he indifferent as to whether he got to

+Petersburg earlier or later, or whether he secured accommodation at this

+station, but compared to the thoughts that now occupied him it was a

+matter of indifference whether he remained there for a few hours or for

+the rest of his life.

+

+The postmaster, his wife, the valet, and a peasant woman selling

+Torzhók embroidery came into the room offering their services.

+Without changing his careless attitude, Pierre looked at them over his

+spectacles unable to understand what they wanted or how they could go on

+living without having solved the problems that so absorbed him. He had

+been engrossed by the same thoughts ever since the day he returned from

+Sokólniki after the duel and had spent that first agonizing, sleepless

+night. But now, in the solitude of the journey, they seized him with

+special force. No matter what he thought about, he always returned to

+these same questions which he could not solve and yet could not cease to

+ask himself. It was as if the thread of the chief screw which held his

+life together were stripped, so that the screw could not get in or out,

+but went on turning uselessly in the same place.

+

+The postmaster came in and began obsequiously to beg his excellency to

+wait only two hours, when, come what might, he would let his excellency

+have the courier horses. It was plain that he was lying and only wanted

+to get more money from the traveler.

+

+“Is this good or bad?” Pierre asked himself. “It is good for me,

+bad for another traveler, and for himself it’s unavoidable, because

+he needs money for food; the man said an officer had once given him a

+thrashing for letting a private traveler have the courier horses.

+But the officer thrashed him because he had to get on as quickly as

+possible. And I,” continued Pierre, “shot Dólokhov because I

+considered myself injured, and Louis XVI was executed because they

+considered him a criminal, and a year later they executed those who

+executed him—also for some reason. What is bad? What is good? What

+should one love and what hate? What does one live for? And what am I?

+What is life, and what is death? What power governs all?”

+

+There was no answer to any of these questions, except one, and that

+not a logical answer and not at all a reply to them. The answer was:

+“You’ll die and all will end. You’ll die and know all, or cease

+asking.” But dying was also dreadful.

+

+The Torzhók peddler woman, in a whining voice, went on offering her

+wares, especially a pair of goatskin slippers. “I have hundreds of

+rubles I don’t know what to do with, and she stands in her tattered

+cloak looking timidly at me,” he thought. “And what does she

+want the money for? As if that money could add a hair’s breadth to

+happiness or peace of mind. Can anything in the world make her or me

+less a prey to evil and death?—death which ends all and must come

+today or tomorrow—at any rate, in an instant as compared with

+eternity.” And again he twisted the screw with the stripped thread,

+and again it turned uselessly in the same place.

+

+His servant handed him a half-cut novel, in the form of letters, by

+Madame de Souza. He began reading about the sufferings and virtuous

+struggles of a certain Emilie de Mansfeld. “And why did she resist

+her seducer when she loved him?” he thought. “God could not have put

+into her heart an impulse that was against His will. My wife—as she

+once was—did not struggle, and perhaps she was right. Nothing has been

+found out, nothing discovered,” Pierre again said to himself. “All

+we can know is that we know nothing. And that’s the height of human

+wisdom.”

+

+Everything within and around him seemed confused, senseless, and

+repellent. Yet in this very repugnance to all his circumstances Pierre

+found a kind of tantalizing satisfaction.

+

+“I make bold to ask your excellency to move a little for this

+gentleman,” said the postmaster, entering the room followed by another

+traveler, also detained for lack of horses.

+

+The newcomer was a short, large-boned, yellow-faced, wrinkled old

+man, with gray bushy eyebrows overhanging bright eyes of an indefinite

+grayish color.

+

+Pierre took his feet off the table, stood up, and lay down on a bed that

+had been got ready for him, glancing now and then at the newcomer, who,

+with a gloomy and tired face, was wearily taking off his wraps with the

+aid of his servant, and not looking at Pierre. With a pair of felt boots

+on his thin bony legs, and keeping on a worn, nankeen-covered, sheepskin

+coat, the traveler sat down on the sofa, leaned back his big head with

+its broad temples and close-cropped hair, and looked at Bezúkhov. The

+stern, shrewd, and penetrating expression of that look struck Pierre. He

+felt a wish to speak to the stranger, but by the time he had made up his

+mind to ask him a question about the roads, the traveler had closed his

+eyes. His shriveled old hands were folded and on the finger of one of

+them Pierre noticed a large cast iron ring with a seal representing a

+death’s head. The stranger sat without stirring, either resting or, as

+it seemed to Pierre, sunk in profound and calm meditation. His servant

+was also a yellow, wrinkled old man, without beard or mustache,

+evidently not because he was shaven but because they had never grown.

+This active old servant was unpacking the traveler’s canteen and

+preparing tea. He brought in a boiling samovar. When everything was

+ready, the stranger opened his eyes, moved to the table, filled a

+tumbler with tea for himself and one for the beardless old man to whom

+he passed it. Pierre began to feel a sense of uneasiness, and the

+need, even the inevitability, of entering into conversation with this

+stranger.

+

+The servant brought back his tumbler turned upside down, * with an

+unfinished bit of nibbled sugar, and asked if anything more would be

+wanted.

+

+    * To indicate he did not want more tea.

+

+“No. Give me the book,” said the stranger.

+

+The servant handed him a book which Pierre took to be a devotional work,

+and the traveler became absorbed in it. Pierre looked at him. All at

+once the stranger closed the book, putting in a marker, and again,

+leaning with his arms on the back of the sofa, sat in his former

+position with his eyes shut. Pierre looked at him and had not time

+to turn away when the old man, opening his eyes, fixed his steady and

+severe gaze straight on Pierre’s face.

+

+Pierre felt confused and wished to avoid that look, but the bright old

+eyes attracted him irresistibly.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+“I have the pleasure of addressing Count Bezúkhov, if I am not

+mistaken,” said the stranger in a deliberate and loud voice.

+

+Pierre looked silently and inquiringly at him over his spectacles.

+

+“I have heard of you, my dear sir,” continued the stranger, “and

+of your misfortune.” He seemed to emphasize the last word, as if to

+say—“Yes, misfortune! Call it what you please, I know that what

+happened to you in Moscow was a misfortune.”—“I regret it very

+much, my dear sir.”

+

+Pierre flushed and, hurriedly putting his legs down from the bed, bent

+forward toward the old man with a forced and timid smile.

+

+“I have not referred to this out of curiosity, my dear sir, but for

+greater reasons.”

+

+He paused, his gaze still on Pierre, and moved aside on the sofa by way

+of inviting the other to take a seat beside him. Pierre felt reluctant

+to enter into conversation with this old man, but, submitting to him

+involuntarily, came up and sat down beside him.

+

+“You are unhappy, my dear sir,” the stranger continued. “You

+are young and I am old. I should like to help you as far as lies in my

+power.”

+

+“Oh, yes!” said Pierre, with a forced smile. “I am very grateful

+to you. Where are you traveling from?”

+

+The stranger’s face was not genial, it was even cold and severe, but

+in spite of this, both the face and words of his new acquaintance were

+irresistibly attractive to Pierre.

+

+“But if for any reason you don’t feel inclined to talk to me,”

+said the old man, “say so, my dear sir.” And he suddenly smiled, in

+an unexpected and tenderly paternal way.

+

+“Oh no, not at all! On the contrary, I am very glad to make your

+acquaintance,” said Pierre. And again, glancing at the stranger’s

+hands, he looked more closely at the ring, with its skull—a Masonic

+sign.

+

+“Allow me to ask,” he said, “are you a Mason?”

+

+“Yes, I belong to the Brotherhood of the Freemasons,” said the

+stranger, looking deeper and deeper into Pierre’s eyes. “And in

+their name and my own I hold out a brotherly hand to you.”

+

+“I am afraid,” said Pierre, smiling, and wavering between the

+confidence the personality of the Freemason inspired in him and his own

+habit of ridiculing the Masonic beliefs—“I am afraid I am very far

+from understanding—how am I to put it?—I am afraid my way of looking

+at the world is so opposed to yours that we shall not understand one

+another.”

+

+“I know your outlook,” said the Mason, “and the view of life you

+mention, and which you think is the result of your own mental efforts,

+is the one held by the majority of people, and is the invariable fruit

+of pride, indolence, and ignorance. Forgive me, my dear sir, but if I

+had not known it I should not have addressed you. Your view of life is a

+regrettable delusion.”

+

+“Just as I may suppose you to be deluded,” said Pierre, with a faint

+smile.

+

+“I should never dare to say that I know the truth,” said the Mason,

+whose words struck Pierre more and more by their precision and firmness.

+“No one can attain to truth by himself. Only by laying stone on stone

+with the cooperation of all, by the millions of generations from our

+forefather Adam to our own times, is that temple reared which is to be

+a worthy dwelling place of the Great God,” he added, and closed his

+eyes.

+

+“I ought to tell you that I do not believe... do not believe in

+God,” said Pierre, regretfully and with an effort, feeling it

+essential to speak the whole truth.

+

+The Mason looked intently at Pierre and smiled as a rich man with

+millions in hand might smile at a poor fellow who told him that he, poor

+man, had not the five rubles that would make him happy.

+

+“Yes, you do not know Him, my dear sir,” said the Mason. “You

+cannot know Him. You do not know Him and that is why you are unhappy.”

+

+“Yes, yes, I am unhappy,” assented Pierre. “But what am I to

+do?”

+

+“You know Him not, my dear sir, and so you are very unhappy. You do

+not know Him, but He is here, He is in me, He is in my words, He is in

+thee, and even in those blasphemous words thou hast just uttered!”

+pronounced the Mason in a stern and tremulous voice.

+

+He paused and sighed, evidently trying to calm himself.

+

+“If He were not,” he said quietly, “you and I would not be

+speaking of Him, my dear sir. Of what, of whom, are we speaking? Whom

+hast thou denied?” he suddenly asked with exulting austerity and

+authority in his voice. “Who invented Him, if He did not exist? Whence

+came thy conception of the existence of such an incomprehensible Being?

+didst thou, and why did the whole world, conceive the idea of the

+existence of such an incomprehensible Being, a Being all-powerful,

+eternal, and infinite in all His attributes?...”

+

+He stopped and remained silent for a long time.

+

+Pierre could not and did not wish to break this silence.

+

+“He exists, but to understand Him is hard,” the Mason began again,

+looking not at Pierre but straight before him, and turning the leaves

+of his book with his old hands which from excitement he could not keep

+still. “If it were a man whose existence thou didst doubt I could

+bring him to thee, could take him by the hand and show him to thee. But

+how can I, an insignificant mortal, show His omnipotence, His infinity,

+and all His mercy to one who is blind, or who shuts his eyes that he may

+not see or understand Him and may not see or understand his own vileness

+and sinfulness?” He paused again. “Who art thou? Thou dreamest that

+thou art wise because thou couldst utter those blasphemous words,” he

+went on, with a somber and scornful smile. “And thou art more foolish

+and unreasonable than a little child, who, playing with the parts of a

+skillfully made watch, dares to say that, as he does not understand

+its use, he does not believe in the master who made it. To know Him is

+hard.... For ages, from our forefather Adam to our own day, we labor to

+attain that knowledge and are still infinitely far from our aim; but

+in our lack of understanding we see only our weakness and His

+greatness....”

+

+Pierre listened with swelling heart, gazing into the Mason’s face with

+shining eyes, not interrupting or questioning him, but believing with

+his whole soul what the stranger said. Whether he accepted the wise

+reasoning contained in the Mason’s words, or believed as a child

+believes, in the speaker’s tone of conviction and earnestness, or

+the tremor of the speaker’s voice—which sometimes almost broke—or

+those brilliant aged eyes grown old in this conviction, or the calm

+firmness and certainty of his vocation, which radiated from his whole

+being (and which struck Pierre especially by contrast with his own

+dejection and hopelessness)—at any rate, Pierre longed with his whole

+soul to believe and he did believe, and felt a joyful sense of comfort,

+regeneration, and return to life.

+

+“He is not to be apprehended by reason, but by life,” said the

+Mason.

+

+“I do not understand,” said Pierre, feeling with dismay doubts

+reawakening. He was afraid of any want of clearness, any weakness, in

+the Mason’s arguments; he dreaded not to be able to believe in him.

+“I don’t understand,” he said, “how it is that the mind of man

+cannot attain the knowledge of which you speak.”

+

+The Mason smiled with his gentle fatherly smile.

+

+“The highest wisdom and truth are like the purest liquid we may wish

+to imbibe,” he said. “Can I receive that pure liquid into an impure

+vessel and judge of its purity? Only by the inner purification of myself

+can I retain in some degree of purity the liquid I receive.”

+

+“Yes, yes, that is so,” said Pierre joyfully.

+

+“The highest wisdom is not founded on reason alone, not on those

+worldly sciences of physics, history, chemistry, and the like, into

+which intellectual knowledge is divided. The highest wisdom is one.

+The highest wisdom has but one science—the science of the whole—the

+science explaining the whole creation and man’s place in it. To

+receive that science it is necessary to purify and renew one’s inner

+self, and so before one can know, it is necessary to believe and to

+perfect one’s self. And to attain this end, we have the light called

+conscience that God has implanted in our souls.”

+

+“Yes, yes,” assented Pierre.

+

+“Look then at thy inner self with the eyes of the spirit, and ask

+thyself whether thou art content with thyself. What hast thou attained

+relying on reason only? What art thou? You are young, you are rich, you

+are clever, you are well educated. And what have you done with all these

+good gifts? Are you content with yourself and with your life?”

+

+“No, I hate my life,” Pierre muttered, wincing.

+

+“Thou hatest it. Then change it, purify thyself; and as thou art

+purified, thou wilt gain wisdom. Look at your life, my dear sir.

+How have you spent it? In riotous orgies and debauchery, receiving

+everything from society and giving nothing in return. You have become

+the possessor of wealth. How have you used it? What have you done

+for your neighbor? Have you ever thought of your tens of thousands

+of slaves? Have you helped them physically and morally? No! You have

+profited by their toil to lead a profligate life. That is what you have

+done. Have you chosen a post in which you might be of service to your

+neighbor? No! You have spent your life in idleness. Then you married, my

+dear sir—took on yourself responsibility for the guidance of a young

+woman; and what have you done? You have not helped her to find the way

+of truth, my dear sir, but have thrust her into an abyss of deceit and

+misery. A man offended you and you shot him, and you say you do not

+know God and hate your life. There is nothing strange in that, my dear

+sir!”

+

+After these words, the Mason, as if tired by his long discourse, again

+leaned his arms on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. Pierre

+looked at that aged, stern, motionless, almost lifeless face and moved

+his lips without uttering a sound. He wished to say, “Yes, a vile,

+idle, vicious life!” but dared not break the silence.

+

+The Mason cleared his throat huskily, as old men do, and called his

+servant.

+

+“How about the horses?” he asked, without looking at Pierre.

+

+“The exchange horses have just come,” answered the servant. “Will

+you not rest here?”

+

+“No, tell them to harness.”

+

+“Can he really be going away leaving me alone without having told me

+all, and without promising to help me?” thought Pierre, rising with

+downcast head; and he began to pace the room, glancing occasionally at

+the Mason. “Yes, I never thought of it, but I have led a contemptible

+and profligate life, though I did not like it and did not want to,”

+thought Pierre. “But this man knows the truth and, if he wished to,

+could disclose it to me.”

+

+Pierre wished to say this to the Mason, but did not dare to. The

+traveler, having packed his things with his practiced hands, began

+fastening his coat. When he had finished, he turned to Bezúkhov, and

+said in a tone of indifferent politeness:

+

+“Where are you going to now, my dear sir?”

+

+“I?... I’m going to Petersburg,” answered Pierre, in a childlike,

+hesitating voice. “I thank you. I agree with all you have said. But

+do not suppose me to be so bad. With my whole soul I wish to be what you

+would have me be, but I have never had help from anyone.... But it is

+I, above all, who am to blame for everything. Help me, teach me, and

+perhaps I may...”

+

+Pierre could not go on. He gulped and turned away.

+

+The Mason remained silent for a long time, evidently considering.

+

+“Help comes from God alone,” he said, “but such measure of help as

+our Order can bestow it will render you, my dear sir. You are going to

+Petersburg. Hand this to Count Willarski” (he took out his notebook

+and wrote a few words on a large sheet of paper folded in four).

+“Allow me to give you a piece of advice. When you reach the capital,

+first of all devote some time to solitude and self-examination and do

+not resume your former way of life. And now I wish you a good journey,

+my dear sir,” he added, seeing that his servant had entered... “and

+success.”

+

+The traveler was Joseph Alexéevich Bazdéev, as Pierre saw from the

+postmaster’s book. Bazdéev had been one of the best-known Freemasons

+and Martinists, even in Novíkov’s time. For a long while after he had

+gone, Pierre did not go to bed or order horses but paced up and down

+the room, pondering over his vicious past, and with a rapturous sense

+of beginning anew pictured to himself the blissful, irreproachable,

+virtuous future that seemed to him so easy. It seemed to him that he had

+been vicious only because he had somehow forgotten how good it is to

+be virtuous. Not a trace of his former doubts remained in his soul. He

+firmly believed in the possibility of the brotherhood of men united in

+the aim of supporting one another in the path of virtue, and that is how

+Freemasonry presented itself to him.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+On reaching Petersburg Pierre did not let anyone know of his arrival,

+he went nowhere and spent whole days in reading Thomas à Kempis, whose

+book had been sent him by someone unknown. One thing he continually

+realized as he read that book: the joy, hitherto unknown to him,

+of believing in the possibility of attaining perfection, and in the

+possibility of active brotherly love among men, which Joseph Alexéevich

+had revealed to him. A week after his arrival, the young Polish count,

+Willarski, whom Pierre had known slightly in Petersburg society, came

+into his room one evening in the official and ceremonious manner in

+which Dólokhov’s second had called on him, and, having closed the

+door behind him and satisfied himself that there was nobody else in the

+room, addressed Pierre.

+

+“I have come to you with a message and an offer, Count,” he

+said without sitting down. “A person of very high standing in our

+Brotherhood has made application for you to be received into our Order

+before the usual term and has proposed to me to be your sponsor. I

+consider it a sacred duty to fulfill that person’s wishes. Do you wish

+to enter the Brotherhood of Freemasons under my sponsorship?”

+

+The cold, austere tone of this man, whom he had almost always before met

+at balls, amiably smiling in the society of the most brilliant women,

+surprised Pierre.

+

+“Yes, I do wish it,” said he.

+

+Willarski bowed his head.

+

+“One more question, Count,” he said, “which I beg you to answer

+in all sincerity—not as a future Mason but as an honest man: have you

+renounced your former convictions—do you believe in God?”

+

+Pierre considered.

+

+“Yes... yes, I believe in God,” he said.

+

+“In that case...” began Willarski, but Pierre interrupted him.

+

+“Yes, I do believe in God,” he repeated.

+

+“In that case we can go,” said Willarski. “My carriage is at your

+service.”

+

+Willarski was silent throughout the drive. To Pierre’s inquiries as

+to what he must do and how he should answer, Willarski only replied that

+brothers more worthy than he would test him and that Pierre had only to

+tell the truth.

+

+Having entered the courtyard of a large house where the Lodge had its

+headquarters, and having ascended a dark staircase, they entered a small

+well-lit anteroom where they took off their cloaks without the aid of

+a servant. From there they passed into another room. A man in strange

+attire appeared at the door. Willarski, stepping toward him, said

+something to him in French in an undertone and then went up to a small

+wardrobe in which Pierre noticed garments such as he had never seen

+before. Having taken a kerchief from the cupboard, Willarski bound

+Pierre’s eyes with it and tied it in a knot behind, catching some

+hairs painfully in the knot. Then he drew his face down, kissed him, and

+taking him by the hand led him forward. The hairs tied in the knot hurt

+Pierre and there were lines of pain on his face and a shamefaced smile.

+His huge figure, with arms hanging down and with a puckered, though

+smiling face, moved after Willarski with uncertain, timid steps.

+

+Having led him about ten paces, Willarski stopped.

+

+“Whatever happens to you,” he said, “you must bear it all manfully

+if you have firmly resolved to join our Brotherhood.” (Pierre nodded

+affirmatively.) “When you hear a knock at the door, you will uncover

+your eyes,” added Willarski. “I wish you courage and success,”

+and, pressing Pierre’s hand, he went out.

+

+Left alone, Pierre went on smiling in the same way. Once or twice

+he shrugged his shoulders and raised his hand to the kerchief, as if

+wishing to take it off, but let it drop again. The five minutes spent

+with his eyes bandaged seemed to him an hour. His arms felt numb,

+his legs almost gave way, it seemed to him that he was tired out. He

+experienced a variety of most complex sensations. He felt afraid of what

+would happen to him and still more afraid of showing his fear. He felt

+curious to know what was going to happen and what would be revealed to

+him; but most of all, he felt joyful that the moment had come when he

+would at last start on that path of regeneration and on the actively

+virtuous life of which he had been dreaming since he met Joseph

+Alexéevich. Loud knocks were heard at the door. Pierre took the bandage

+off his eyes and glanced around him. The room was in black darkness,

+only a small lamp was burning inside something white. Pierre went nearer

+and saw that the lamp stood on a black table on which lay an open book.

+The book was the Gospel, and the white thing with the lamp inside was a

+human skull with its cavities and teeth. After reading the first words

+of the Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with

+God,” Pierre went round the table and saw a large open box filled

+with something. It was a coffin with bones inside. He was not at all

+surprised by what he saw. Hoping to enter on an entirely new life quite

+unlike the old one, he expected everything to be unusual, even more

+unusual than what he was seeing. A skull, a coffin, the Gospel—it

+seemed to him that he had expected all this and even more. Trying

+to stimulate his emotions he looked around. “God, death, love, the

+brotherhood of man,” he kept saying to himself, associating these

+words with vague yet joyful ideas. The door opened and someone came in.

+

+By the dim light, to which Pierre had already become accustomed, he

+saw a rather short man. Having evidently come from the light into the

+darkness, the man paused, then moved with cautious steps toward the

+table and placed on it his small leather-gloved hands.

+

+This short man had on a white leather apron which covered his chest and

+part of his legs; he had on a kind of necklace above which rose a high

+white ruffle, outlining his rather long face which was lit up from

+below.

+

+“For what have you come hither?” asked the newcomer, turning in

+Pierre’s direction at a slight rustle made by the latter. “Why have

+you, who do not believe in the truth of the light and who have not

+seen the light, come here? What do you seek from us? Wisdom, virtue,

+enlightenment?”

+

+At the moment the door opened and the stranger came in, Pierre felt a

+sense of awe and veneration such as he had experienced in his boyhood at

+confession; he felt himself in the presence of one socially a complete

+stranger, yet nearer to him through the brotherhood of man. With bated

+breath and beating heart he moved toward the Rhetor (by which name the

+brother who prepared a seeker for entrance into the Brotherhood was

+known). Drawing nearer, he recognized in the Rhetor a man he knew,

+Smolyanínov, and it mortified him to think that the newcomer was an

+acquaintance—he wished him simply a brother and a virtuous instructor.

+For a long time he could not utter a word, so that the Rhetor had to

+repeat his question.

+

+“Yes... I... I... desire regeneration,” Pierre uttered with

+difficulty.

+

+“Very well,” said Smolyanínov, and went on at once: “Have you any

+idea of the means by which our holy Order will help you to reach your

+aim?” said he quietly and quickly.

+

+“I... hope... for guidance... help... in regeneration,” said Pierre,

+with a trembling voice and some difficulty in utterance due to his

+excitement and to being unaccustomed to speak of abstract matters in

+Russian.

+

+“What is your conception of Freemasonry?”

+

+“I imagine that Freemasonry is the fraternity and equality of men who

+have virtuous aims,” said Pierre, feeling ashamed of the inadequacy

+of his words for the solemnity of the moment, as he spoke. “I

+imagine...”

+

+“Good!” said the Rhetor quickly, apparently satisfied with

+this answer. “Have you sought for means of attaining your aim in

+religion?”

+

+“No, I considered it erroneous and did not follow it,” said Pierre,

+so softly that the Rhetor did not hear him and asked him what he was

+saying. “I have been an atheist,” answered Pierre.

+

+“You are seeking for truth in order to follow its laws in your life,

+therefore you seek wisdom and virtue. Is that not so?” said the

+Rhetor, after a moment’s pause.

+

+“Yes, yes,” assented Pierre.

+

+The Rhetor cleared his throat, crossed his gloved hands on his breast,

+and began to speak.

+

+“Now I must disclose to you the chief aim of our Order,” he said,

+“and if this aim coincides with yours, you may enter our Brotherhood

+with profit. The first and chief object of our Order, the foundation on

+which it rests and which no human power can destroy, is the preservation

+and handing on to posterity of a certain important mystery... which

+has come down to us from the remotest ages, even from the first man—a

+mystery on which perhaps the fate of mankind depends. But since this

+mystery is of such a nature that nobody can know or use it unless he be

+prepared by long and diligent self-purification, not everyone can hope

+to attain it quickly. Hence we have a secondary aim, that of preparing

+our members as much as possible to reform their hearts, to purify and

+enlighten their minds, by means handed on to us by tradition from those

+who have striven to attain this mystery, and thereby to render them

+capable of receiving it.

+

+“By purifying and regenerating our members we try, thirdly, to improve

+the whole human race, offering it in our members an example of piety

+and virtue, and thereby try with all our might to combat the evil which

+sways the world. Think this over and I will come to you again.”

+

+“To combat the evil which sways the world...” Pierre repeated, and a

+mental image of his future activity in this direction rose in his mind.

+He imagined men such as he had himself been a fortnight ago, and he

+addressed an edifying exhortation to them. He imagined to himself

+vicious and unfortunate people whom he would assist by word and deed,

+imagined oppressors whose victims he would rescue. Of the three

+objects mentioned by the Rhetor, this last, that of improving mankind,

+especially appealed to Pierre. The important mystery mentioned by the

+Rhetor, though it aroused his curiosity, did not seem to him essential,

+and the second aim, that of purifying and regenerating himself, did not

+much interest him because at that moment he felt with delight that he

+was already perfectly cured of his former faults and was ready for all

+that was good.

+

+Half an hour later, the Rhetor returned to inform the seeker of the

+seven virtues, corresponding to the seven steps of Solomon’s temple,

+which every Freemason should cultivate in himself. These virtues were:

+1. Discretion, the keeping of the secrets of the Order. 2. Obedience to

+those of higher ranks in the Order. 3. Morality. 4. Love of mankind. 5.

+Courage. 6. Generosity. 7. The love of death.

+

+“In the seventh place, try, by the frequent thought of death,” the

+Rhetor said, “to bring yourself to regard it not as a dreaded foe, but

+as a friend that frees the soul grown weary in the labors of virtue

+from this distressful life, and leads it to its place of recompense and

+peace.”

+

+“Yes, that must be so,” thought Pierre, when after these words the

+Rhetor went away, leaving him to solitary meditation. “It must be so,

+but I am still so weak that I love my life, the meaning of which is only

+now gradually opening before me.” But five of the other virtues which

+Pierre recalled, counting them on his fingers, he felt already in his

+soul: courage, generosity, morality, love of mankind, and especially

+obedience—which did not even seem to him a virtue, but a joy. (He now

+felt so glad to be free from his own lawlessness and to submit his will

+to those who knew the indubitable truth.) He forgot what the seventh

+virtue was and could not recall it.

+

+The third time the Rhetor came back more quickly and asked Pierre

+whether he was still firm in his intention and determined to submit to

+all that would be required of him.

+

+“I am ready for everything,” said Pierre.

+

+“I must also inform you,” said the Rhetor, “that our Order

+delivers its teaching not in words only but also by other means, which

+may perhaps have a stronger effect on the sincere seeker after wisdom

+and virtue than mere words. This chamber with what you see therein

+should already have suggested to your heart, if it is sincere, more than

+words could do. You will perhaps also see in your further initiation a

+like method of enlightenment. Our Order imitates the ancient societies

+that explained their teaching by hieroglyphics. A hieroglyph,” said

+the Rhetor, “is an emblem of something not cognizable by the senses

+but which possesses qualities resembling those of the symbol.”

+

+Pierre knew very well what a hieroglyph was, but dared not speak. He

+listened to the Rhetor in silence, feeling from all he said that his

+ordeal was about to begin.

+

+“If you are resolved, I must begin your initiation,” said the Rhetor

+coming closer to Pierre. “In token of generosity I ask you to give me

+all your valuables.”

+

+“But I have nothing here,” replied Pierre, supposing that he was

+asked to give up all he possessed.

+

+“What you have with you: watch, money, rings....”

+

+Pierre quickly took out his purse and watch, but could not manage for

+some time to get the wedding ring off his fat finger. When that had been

+done, the Rhetor said:

+

+“In token of obedience, I ask you to undress.”

+

+Pierre took off his coat, waistcoat, and left boot according to the

+Rhetor’s instructions. The Mason drew the shirt back from Pierre’s

+left breast, and stooping down pulled up the left leg of his trousers

+to above the knee. Pierre hurriedly began taking off his right boot also

+and was going to tuck up the other trouser leg to save this stranger the

+trouble, but the Mason told him that was not necessary and gave him

+a slipper for his left foot. With a childlike smile of embarrassment,

+doubt, and self-derision, which appeared on his face against his will,

+Pierre stood with his arms hanging down and legs apart, before his

+brother Rhetor, and awaited his further commands.

+

+“And now, in token of candor, I ask you to reveal to me your chief

+passion,” said the latter.

+

+“My passion! I have had so many,” replied Pierre.

+

+“That passion which more than all others caused you to waver on the

+path of virtue,” said the Mason.

+

+Pierre paused, seeking a reply.

+

+“Wine? Gluttony? Idleness? Laziness? Irritability? Anger? Women?”

+He went over his vices in his mind, not knowing to which of them to give

+the pre-eminence.

+

+“Women,” he said in a low, scarcely audible voice.

+

+The Mason did not move and for a long time said nothing after this

+answer. At last he moved up to Pierre and, taking the kerchief that lay

+on the table, again bound his eyes.

+

+“For the last time I say to you—turn all your attention upon

+yourself, put a bridle on your senses, and seek blessedness, not in

+passion but in your own heart. The source of blessedness is not without

+us but within....”

+

+Pierre had already long been feeling in himself that refreshing source

+of blessedness which now flooded his heart with glad emotion.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+Soon after this there came into the dark chamber to fetch Pierre, not

+the Rhetor but Pierre’s sponsor, Willarski, whom he recognized by his

+voice. To fresh questions as to the firmness of his resolution Pierre

+replied: “Yes, yes, I agree,” and with a beaming, childlike smile,

+his fat chest uncovered, stepping unevenly and timidly in one slippered

+and one booted foot, he advanced, while Willarski held a sword to his

+bare chest. He was conducted from that room along passages that turned

+backwards and forwards and was at last brought to the doors of the

+Lodge. Willarski coughed, he was answered by the Masonic knock with

+mallets, the doors opened before them. A bass voice (Pierre was still

+blindfolded) questioned him as to who he was, when and where he was

+born, and so on. Then he was again led somewhere still blindfolded,

+and as they went along he was told allegories of the toils of his

+pilgrimage, of holy friendship, of the Eternal Architect of the

+universe, and of the courage with which he should endure toils and

+dangers. During these wanderings, Pierre noticed that he was spoken

+of now as the “Seeker,” now as the “Sufferer,” and now as the

+“Postulant,” to the accompaniment of various knockings with

+mallets and swords. As he was being led up to some object he noticed a

+hesitation and uncertainty among his conductors. He heard those around

+him disputing in whispers and one of them insisting that he should be

+led along a certain carpet. After that they took his right hand, placed

+it on something, and told him to hold a pair of compasses to his left

+breast with the other hand and to repeat after someone who read aloud

+an oath of fidelity to the laws of the Order. The candles were then

+extinguished and some spirit lighted, as Pierre knew by the smell, and

+he was told that he would now see the lesser light. The bandage was

+taken off his eyes and, by the faint light of the burning spirit,

+Pierre, as in a dream, saw several men standing before him, wearing

+aprons like the Rhetor’s and holding swords in their hands pointed at

+his breast. Among them stood a man whose white shirt was stained with

+blood. On seeing this, Pierre moved forward with his breast toward the

+swords, meaning them to pierce it. But the swords were drawn back from

+him and he was at once blindfolded again.

+

+“Now thou hast seen the lesser light,” uttered a voice. Then the

+candles were relit and he was told that he would see the full light; the

+bandage was again removed and more than ten voices said together: “Sic

+transit gloria mundi.”

+

+Pierre gradually began to recover himself and looked about at the room

+and at the people in it. Round a long table covered with black sat some

+twelve men in garments like those he had already seen. Some of them

+Pierre had met in Petersburg society. In the President’s chair sat a

+young man he did not know, with a peculiar cross hanging from his

+neck. On his right sat the Italian abbé whom Pierre had met at

+Anna Pávlovna’s two years before. There were also present a very

+distinguished dignitary and a Swiss who had formerly been tutor at the

+Kurágins’. All maintained a solemn silence, listening to the words

+of the President, who held a mallet in his hand. Let into the wall was

+a star-shaped light. At one side of the table was a small carpet with

+various figures worked upon it, at the other was something resembling an

+altar on which lay a Testament and a skull. Round it stood seven large

+candlesticks like those used in churches. Two of the brothers led Pierre

+up to the altar, placed his feet at right angles, and bade him lie down,

+saying that he must prostrate himself at the Gates of the Temple.

+

+“He must first receive the trowel,” whispered one of the brothers.

+

+“Oh, hush, please!” said another.

+

+Pierre, perplexed, looked round with his shortsighted eyes without

+obeying, and suddenly doubts arose in his mind. “Where am I? What am

+I doing? Aren’t they laughing at me? Shan’t I be ashamed to remember

+this?” But these doubts only lasted a moment. Pierre glanced at

+the serious faces of those around, remembered all he had already gone

+through, and realized that he could not stop halfway. He was aghast

+at his hesitation and, trying to arouse his former devotional feeling,

+prostrated himself before the Gates of the Temple. And really, the

+feeling of devotion returned to him even more strongly than before. When

+he had lain there some time, he was told to get up, and a white leather

+apron, such as the others wore, was put on him: he was given a trowel

+and three pairs of gloves, and then the Grand Master addressed him. He

+told him that he should try to do nothing to stain the whiteness of that

+apron, which symbolized strength and purity; then of the unexplained

+trowel, he told him to toil with it to cleanse his own heart from vice,

+and indulgently to smooth with it the heart of his neighbor. As to the

+first pair of gloves, a man’s, he said that Pierre could not know

+their meaning but must keep them. The second pair of man’s gloves

+he was to wear at the meetings, and finally of the third, a pair of

+women’s gloves, he said: “Dear brother, these woman’s gloves are

+intended for you too. Give them to the woman whom you shall honor most

+of all. This gift will be a pledge of your purity of heart to her whom

+you select to be your worthy helpmeet in Masonry.” And after a pause,

+he added: “But beware, dear brother, that these gloves do not deck

+hands that are unclean.” While the Grand Master said these last words

+it seemed to Pierre that he grew embarrassed. Pierre himself grew still

+more confused, blushed like a child till tears came to his eyes, began

+looking about him uneasily, and an awkward pause followed.

+

+This silence was broken by one of the brethren, who led Pierre up to the

+rug and began reading to him from a manuscript book an explanation of

+all the figures on it: the sun, the moon, a hammer, a plumb line, a

+trowel, a rough stone and a squared stone, a pillar, three windows, and

+so on. Then a place was assigned to Pierre, he was shown the signs of

+the Lodge, told the password, and at last was permitted to sit down.

+The Grand Master began reading the statutes. They were very long, and

+Pierre, from joy, agitation, and embarrassment, was not in a state to

+understand what was being read. He managed to follow only the last words

+of the statutes and these remained in his mind.

+

+“In our temples we recognize no other distinctions,” read the Grand

+Master, “but those between virtue and vice. Beware of making any

+distinctions which may infringe equality. Fly to a brother’s aid

+whoever he may be, exhort him who goeth astray, raise him that falleth,

+never bear malice or enmity toward thy brother. Be kindly and courteous.

+Kindle in all hearts the flame of virtue. Share thy happiness with thy

+neighbor, and may envy never dim the purity of that bliss. Forgive thy

+enemy, do not avenge thyself except by doing him good. Thus fulfilling

+the highest law thou shalt regain traces of the ancient dignity which

+thou hast lost.”

+

+He finished and, getting up, embraced and kissed Pierre, who, with tears

+of joy in his eyes, looked round him, not knowing how to answer the

+congratulations and greetings from acquaintances that met him on all

+sides. He acknowledged no acquaintances but saw in all these men only

+brothers, and burned with impatience to set to work with them.

+

+The Grand Master rapped with his mallet. All the Masons sat down in

+their places, and one of them read an exhortation on the necessity of

+humility.

+

+The Grand Master proposed that the last duty should be performed,

+and the distinguished dignitary who bore the title of “Collector

+of Alms” went round to all the brothers. Pierre would have liked

+to subscribe all he had, but fearing that it might look like pride

+subscribed the same amount as the others.

+

+The meeting was at an end, and on reaching home Pierre felt as if he had

+returned from a long journey on which he had spent dozens of years, had

+become completely changed, and had quite left behind his former habits

+and way of life.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+The day after he had been received into the Lodge, Pierre was sitting at

+home reading a book and trying to fathom the significance of the Square,

+one side of which symbolized God, another moral things, a third

+physical things, and the fourth a combination of these. Now and then

+his attention wandered from the book and the Square and he formed in

+imagination a new plan of life. On the previous evening at the Lodge, he

+had heard that a rumor of his duel had reached the Emperor and that it

+would be wiser for him to leave Petersburg. Pierre proposed going to his

+estates in the south and there attending to the welfare of his serfs.

+He was joyfully planning this new life, when Prince Vasíli suddenly

+entered the room.

+

+“My dear fellow, what have you been up to in Moscow? Why have you

+quarreled with Hélène, mon cher? You are under a delusion,” said

+Prince Vasíli, as he entered. “I know all about it, and I can tell

+you positively that Hélène is as innocent before you as Christ was

+before the Jews.”

+

+Pierre was about to reply, but Prince Vasíli interrupted him.

+

+“And why didn’t you simply come straight to me as to a friend? I

+know all about it and understand it all,” he said. “You behaved as

+becomes a man who values his honor, perhaps too hastily, but we won’t

+go into that. But consider the position in which you are placing her and

+me in the eyes of society, and even of the court,” he added, lowering

+his voice. “She is living in Moscow and you are here. Remember,

+dear boy,” and he drew Pierre’s arm downwards, “it is simply a

+misunderstanding. I expect you feel it so yourself. Let us write her

+a letter at once, and she’ll come here and all will be explained, or

+else, my dear boy, let me tell you it’s quite likely you’ll have to

+suffer for it.”

+

+Prince Vasíli gave Pierre a significant look.

+

+“I know from reliable sources that the Dowager Empress is taking a

+keen interest in the whole affair. You know she is very gracious to

+Hélène.”

+

+Pierre tried several times to speak, but, on one hand, Prince Vasíli

+did not let him and, on the other, Pierre himself feared to begin to

+speak in the tone of decided refusal and disagreement in which he had

+firmly resolved to answer his father-in-law. Moreover, the words of the

+Masonic statutes, “be kindly and courteous,” recurred to him. He

+blinked, went red, got up and sat down again, struggling with himself

+to do what was for him the most difficult thing in life—to say an

+unpleasant thing to a man’s face, to say what the other, whoever

+he might be, did not expect. He was so used to submitting to Prince

+Vasíli’s tone of careless self-assurance that he felt he would be

+unable to withstand it now, but he also felt that on what he said now

+his future depended—whether he would follow the same old road, or that

+new path so attractively shown him by the Masons, on which he firmly

+believed he would be reborn to a new life.

+

+“Now, dear boy,” said Prince Vasíli playfully, “say ‘yes,’

+and I’ll write to her myself, and we will kill the fatted calf.”

+

+But before Prince Vasíli had finished his playful speech, Pierre,

+without looking at him, and with a kind of fury that made him like his

+father, muttered in a whisper:

+

+“Prince, I did not ask you here. Go, please go!” And he jumped up

+and opened the door for him.

+

+“Go!” he repeated, amazed at himself and glad to see the look of

+confusion and fear that showed itself on Prince Vasíli’s face.

+

+“What’s the matter with you? Are you ill?”

+

+“Go!” the quivering voice repeated. And Prince Vasíli had to go

+without receiving any explanation.

+

+A week later, Pierre, having taken leave of his new friends, the Masons,

+and leaving large sums of money with them for alms, went away to his

+estates. His new brethren gave him letters to the Kiev and Odessa Masons

+and promised to write to him and guide him in his new activity.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+The duel between Pierre and Dólokhov was hushed up and, in spite of

+the Emperor’s severity regarding duels at that time, neither the

+principals nor their seconds suffered for it. But the story of the duel,

+confirmed by Pierre’s rupture with his wife, was the talk of society.

+Pierre who had been regarded with patronizing condescension when he was

+an illegitimate son, and petted and extolled when he was the best

+match in Russia, had sunk greatly in the esteem of society after his

+marriage—when the marriageable daughters and their mothers had nothing

+to hope from him—especially as he did not know how, and did not

+wish, to court society’s favor. Now he alone was blamed for what had

+happened, he was said to be insanely jealous and subject like his

+father to fits of bloodthirsty rage. And when after Pierre’s

+departure Hélène returned to Petersburg, she was received by all her

+acquaintances not only cordially, but even with a shade of deference

+due to her misfortune. When conversation turned on her husband Hélène

+assumed a dignified expression, which with characteristic tact she had

+acquired though she did not understand its significance. This expression

+suggested that she had resolved to endure her troubles uncomplainingly

+and that her husband was a cross laid upon her by God. Prince Vasíli

+expressed his opinion more openly. He shrugged his shoulders when Pierre

+was mentioned and, pointing to his forehead, remarked:

+

+“A bit touched—I always said so.”

+

+“I said from the first,” declared Anna Pávlovna referring to

+Pierre, “I said at the time and before anyone else” (she insisted

+on her priority) “that that senseless young man was spoiled by the

+depraved ideas of these days. I said so even at the time when everybody

+was in raptures about him, when he had just returned from abroad, and

+when, if you remember, he posed as a sort of Marat at one of my soirees.

+And how has it ended? I was against this marriage even then and foretold

+all that has happened.”

+

+Anna Pávlovna continued to give on free evenings the same kind of

+soirees as before—such as she alone had the gift of arranging—at

+which was to be found “the cream of really good society, the bloom

+of the intellectual essence of Petersburg,” as she herself put it.

+Besides this refined selection of society Anna Pávlovna’s receptions

+were also distinguished by the fact that she always presented some new

+and interesting person to the visitors and that nowhere else was the

+state of the political thermometer of legitimate Petersburg court

+society so dearly and distinctly indicated.

+

+Toward the end of 1806, when all the sad details of Napoleon’s

+destruction of the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstädt and the

+surrender of most of the Prussian fortresses had been received, when our

+troops had already entered Prussia and our second war with Napoleon

+was beginning, Anna Pávlovna gave one of her soirees. The “cream of

+really good society” consisted of the fascinating Hélène, forsaken

+by her husband, Mortemart, the delightful Prince Hippolyte who had

+just returned from Vienna, two diplomatists, the old aunt, a young man

+referred to in that drawing room as “a man of great merit” (un homme

+de beaucoup de mérite), a newly appointed maid of honor and her mother,

+and several other less noteworthy persons.

+

+The novelty Anna Pávlovna was setting before her guests that evening

+was Borís Drubetskóy, who had just arrived as a special messenger from

+the Prussian army and was aide-de-camp to a very important personage.

+

+The temperature shown by the political thermometer to the company that

+evening was this:

+

+“Whatever the European sovereigns and commanders may do to

+countenance Bonaparte, and to cause me, and us in general, annoyance and

+mortification, our opinion of Bonaparte cannot alter. We shall not cease

+to express our sincere views on that subject, and can only say to the

+King of Prussia and others: ‘So much the worse for you. Tu l’as

+voulu, George Dandin,’ that’s all we have to say about it!”

+

+When Borís, who was to be served up to the guests, entered the drawing

+room, almost all the company had assembled, and the conversation, guided

+by Anna Pávlovna, was about our diplomatic relations with Austria and

+the hope of an alliance with her.

+

+Borís, grown more manly and looking fresh, rosy and self-possessed,

+entered the drawing room elegantly dressed in the uniform of an

+aide-de-camp and was duly conducted to pay his respects to the aunt and

+then brought back to the general circle.

+

+Anna Pávlovna gave him her shriveled hand to kiss and introduced him to

+several persons whom he did not know, giving him a whispered description

+of each.

+

+“Prince Hippolyte Kurágin—charming young fellow; M.

+Kronq,—chargé d’affaires from Copenhagen—a profound intellect,”

+and simply, “Mr. Shítov—a man of great merit”—this of the man

+usually so described.

+

+Thanks to Anna Mikháylovna’s efforts, his own tastes, and the

+peculiarities of his reserved nature, Borís had managed during his

+service to place himself very advantageously. He was aide-de-camp to a

+very important personage, had been sent on a very important mission to

+Prussia, and had just returned from there as a special messenger. He had

+become thoroughly conversant with that unwritten code with which he had

+been so pleased at Olmütz and according to which an ensign might rank

+incomparably higher than a general, and according to which what was

+needed for success in the service was not effort or work, or courage, or

+perseverance, but only the knowledge of how to get on with those who can

+grant rewards, and he was himself often surprised at the rapidity of his

+success and at the inability of others to understand these things.

+In consequence of this discovery his whole manner of life, all

+his relations with old friends, all his plans for his future, were

+completely altered. He was not rich, but would spend his last groat to

+be better dressed than others, and would rather deprive himself of many

+pleasures than allow himself to be seen in a shabby equipage or appear

+in the streets of Petersburg in an old uniform. He made friends with

+and sought the acquaintance of only those above him in position and

+who could therefore be of use to him. He liked Petersburg and despised

+Moscow. The remembrance of the Rostóvs’ house and of his childish

+love for Natásha was unpleasant to him and he had not once been to see

+the Rostóvs since the day of his departure for the army. To be in Anna

+Pávlovna’s drawing room he considered an important step up in the

+service, and he at once understood his role, letting his hostess make

+use of whatever interest he had to offer. He himself carefully scanned

+each face, appraising the possibilities of establishing intimacy with

+each of those present, and the advantages that might accrue. He took

+the seat indicated to him beside the fair Hélène and listened to the

+general conversation.

+

+“Vienna considers the bases of the proposed treaty so unattainable

+that not even a continuity of most brilliant successes would secure

+them, and she doubts the means we have of gaining them. That is the

+actual phrase used by the Vienna cabinet,” said the Danish chargé

+d’affaires.

+

+“The doubt is flattering,” said “the man of profound intellect,”

+with a subtle smile.

+

+“We must distinguish between the Vienna cabinet and the Emperor of

+Austria,” said Mortemart. “The Emperor of Austria can never have

+thought of such a thing, it is only the cabinet that says it.”

+

+“Ah, my dear vicomte,” put in Anna Pávlovna, “L’Urope” (for

+some reason she called it Urope as if that were a specially refined

+French pronunciation which she could allow herself when conversing with

+a Frenchman), “L’Urope ne sera jamais notre alliée sincère.” *

+

+    * “Europe will never be our sincere ally.”

+

+

+After that Anna Pávlovna led up to the courage and firmness of the King

+of Prussia, in order to draw Borís into the conversation.

+

+Borís listened attentively to each of the speakers, awaiting his turn,

+but managed meanwhile to look round repeatedly at his neighbor, the

+beautiful Hélène, whose eyes several times met those of the handsome

+young aide-de-camp with a smile.

+

+Speaking of the position of Prussia, Anna Pávlovna very naturally asked

+Borís to tell them about his journey to Glogau and in what state he

+found the Prussian army. Borís, speaking with deliberation, told them

+in pure, correct French many interesting details about the armies and

+the court, carefully abstaining from expressing an opinion of his

+own about the facts he was recounting. For some time he engrossed the

+general attention, and Anna Pávlovna felt that the novelty she had

+served up was received with pleasure by all her visitors. The greatest

+attention of all to Borís’ narrative was shown by Hélène. She asked

+him several questions about his journey and seemed greatly interested in

+the state of the Prussian army. As soon as he had finished she turned to

+him with her usual smile.

+

+“You absolutely must come and see me,” she said in a tone that

+implied that, for certain considerations he could not know of, this was

+absolutely necessary.

+

+“On Tuesday between eight and nine. It will give me great pleasure.”

+

+Borís promised to fulfill her wish and was about to begin a

+conversation with her, when Anna Pávlovna called him away on the

+pretext that her aunt wished to hear him.

+

+“You know her husband, of course?” said Anna Pávlovna, closing her

+eyes and indicating Hélène with a sorrowful gesture. “Ah, she is

+such an unfortunate and charming woman! Don’t mention him before

+her—please don’t! It is too painful for her!”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+When Borís and Anna Pávlovna returned to the others Prince Hippolyte

+had the ear of the company.

+

+Bending forward in his armchair he said: “Le Roi de Prusse!” and

+having said this laughed. Everyone turned toward him.

+

+“Le Roi de Prusse?” Hippolyte said interrogatively, again laughing,

+and then calmly and seriously sat back in his chair. Anna Pávlovna

+waited for him to go on, but as he seemed quite decided to say no more

+she began to tell of how at Potsdam the impious Bonaparte had stolen the

+sword of Frederick the Great.

+

+“It is the sword of Frederick the Great which I...” she began, but

+Hippolyte interrupted her with the words: “Le Roi de Prusse...” and

+again, as soon as all turned toward him, excused himself and said no

+more.

+

+Anna Pávlovna frowned. Mortemart, Hippolyte’s friend, addressed him

+firmly.

+

+“Come now, what about your Roi de Prusse?”

+

+Hippolyte laughed as if ashamed of laughing.

+

+“Oh, it’s nothing. I only wished to say...” (he wanted to repeat

+a joke he had heard in Vienna and which he had been trying all that

+evening to get in) “I only wished to say that we are wrong to fight

+pour le Roi de Prusse!”

+

+Borís smiled circumspectly, so that it might be taken as ironical

+or appreciative according to the way the joke was received. Everybody

+laughed.

+

+“Your joke is too bad, it’s witty but unjust,” said Anna

+Pávlovna, shaking her little shriveled finger at him.

+

+“We are not fighting pour le Roi de Prusse, but for right principles.

+Oh, that wicked Prince Hippolyte!” she said.

+

+The conversation did not flag all evening and turned chiefly on the

+political news. It became particularly animated toward the end of the

+evening when the rewards bestowed by the Emperor were mentioned.

+

+“You know N— N— received a snuffbox with the portrait last

+year?” said “the man of profound intellect.” “Why shouldn’t

+S— S— get the same distinction?”

+

+“Pardon me! A snuffbox with the Emperor’s portrait is a reward but

+not a distinction,” said the diplomatist—“a gift, rather.”

+

+“There are precedents, I may mention Schwarzenberg.”

+

+“It’s impossible,” replied another.

+

+“Will you bet? The ribbon of the order is a different matter....”

+

+When everybody rose to go, Hélène who had spoken very little all

+the evening again turned to Borís, asking him in a tone of caressing

+significant command to come to her on Tuesday.

+

+“It is of great importance to me,” she said, turning with a smile

+toward Anna Pávlovna, and Anna Pávlovna, with the same sad smile with

+which she spoke of her exalted patroness, supported Hélène’s wish.

+

+It seemed as if from some words Borís had spoken that evening about the

+Prussian army, Hélène had suddenly found it necessary to see him.

+She seemed to promise to explain that necessity to him when he came on

+Tuesday.

+

+But on Tuesday evening, having come to Hélène’s splendid salon,

+Borís received no clear explanation of why it had been necessary for

+him to come. There were other guests and the countess talked little to

+him, and only as he kissed her hand on taking leave said unexpectedly

+and in a whisper, with a strangely unsmiling face: “Come to dinner

+tomorrow... in the evening. You must come.... Come!”

+

+During that stay in Petersburg, Borís became an intimate in the

+countess’ house.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+The war was flaming up and nearing the Russian frontier. Everywhere one

+heard curses on Bonaparte, “the enemy of mankind.” Militiamen and

+recruits were being enrolled in the villages, and from the seat of

+war came contradictory news, false as usual and therefore variously

+interpreted. The life of old Prince Bolkónski, Prince Andrew, and

+Princess Mary had greatly changed since 1805.

+

+In 1806 the old prince was made one of the eight commanders in chief

+then appointed to supervise the enrollment decreed throughout Russia.

+Despite the weakness of age, which had become particularly noticeable

+since the time when he thought his son had been killed, he did not think

+it right to refuse a duty to which he had been appointed by the Emperor

+himself, and this fresh opportunity for action gave him new energy

+and strength. He was continually traveling through the three provinces

+entrusted to him, was pedantic in the fulfillment of his duties, severe

+to cruel with his subordinates, and went into everything down to the

+minutest details himself. Princess Mary had ceased taking lessons in

+mathematics from her father, and when the old prince was at home went

+to his study with the wet nurse and little Prince Nicholas (as his

+grandfather called him). The baby Prince Nicholas lived with his wet

+nurse and nurse Sávishna in the late princess’ rooms and Princess

+Mary spent most of the day in the nursery, taking a mother’s place to

+her little nephew as best she could. Mademoiselle Bourienne, too, seemed

+passionately fond of the boy, and Princess Mary often deprived herself

+to give her friend the pleasure of dandling the little angel—as she

+called her nephew—and playing with him.

+

+Near the altar of the church at Bald Hills there was a chapel over the

+tomb of the little princess, and in this chapel was a marble monument

+brought from Italy, representing an angel with outspread wings ready to

+fly upwards. The angel’s upper lip was slightly raised as though

+about to smile, and once on coming out of the chapel Prince Andrew and

+Princess Mary admitted to one another that the angel’s face reminded

+them strangely of the little princess. But what was still stranger,

+though of this Prince Andrew said nothing to his sister, was that in the

+expression the sculptor had happened to give the angel’s face, Prince

+Andrew read the same mild reproach he had read on the face of his dead

+wife: “Ah, why have you done this to me?”

+

+Soon after Prince Andrew’s return the old prince made over to him a

+large estate, Boguchárovo, about twenty-five miles from Bald Hills.

+Partly because of the depressing memories associated with Bald Hills,

+partly because Prince Andrew did not always feel equal to bearing with

+his father’s peculiarities, and partly because he needed solitude,

+Prince Andrew made use of Boguchárovo, began building and spent most of

+his time there.

+

+After the Austerlitz campaign Prince Andrew had firmly resolved not

+to continue his military service, and when the war recommenced

+and everybody had to serve, he took a post under his father in the

+recruitment so as to avoid active service. The old prince and his son

+seemed to have changed roles since the campaign of 1805. The old man,

+roused by activity, expected the best results from the new campaign,

+while Prince Andrew on the contrary, taking no part in the war and

+secretly regretting this, saw only the dark side.

+

+On February 26, 1807, the old prince set off on one of his circuits.

+Prince Andrew remained at Bald Hills as usual during his father’s

+absence. Little Nicholas had been unwell for four days. The coachman who

+had driven the old prince to town returned bringing papers and letters

+for Prince Andrew.

+

+Not finding the young prince in his study the valet went with the

+letters to Princess Mary’s apartments, but did not find him there. He

+was told that the prince had gone to the nursery.

+

+“If you please, your excellency, Pétrusha has brought some papers,”

+said one of the nursemaids to Prince Andrew who was sitting on a

+child’s little chair while, frowning and with trembling hands, he

+poured drops from a medicine bottle into a wineglass half full of water.

+

+“What is it?” he said crossly, and, his hand shaking

+unintentionally, he poured too many drops into the glass. He threw the

+mixture onto the floor and asked for some more water. The maid brought

+it.

+

+There were in the room a child’s cot, two boxes, two armchairs, a

+table, a child’s table, and the little chair on which Prince Andrew

+was sitting. The curtains were drawn, and a single candle was burning on

+the table, screened by a bound music book so that the light did not fall

+on the cot.

+

+“My dear,” said Princess Mary, addressing her brother from beside

+the cot where she was standing, “better wait a bit... later...”

+

+“Oh, leave off, you always talk nonsense and keep putting things

+off—and this is what comes of it!” said Prince Andrew in an

+exasperated whisper, evidently meaning to wound his sister.

+

+“My dear, really... it’s better not to wake him... he’s asleep,”

+said the princess in a tone of entreaty.

+

+Prince Andrew got up and went on tiptoe up to the little bed, wineglass

+in hand.

+

+“Perhaps we’d really better not wake him,” he said hesitating.

+

+“As you please... really... I think so... but as you please,” said

+Princess Mary, evidently intimidated and confused that her opinion

+had prevailed. She drew her brother’s attention to the maid who was

+calling him in a whisper.

+

+It was the second night that neither of them had slept, watching the boy

+who was in a high fever. These last days, mistrusting their household

+doctor and expecting another for whom they had sent to town, they had

+been trying first one remedy and then another. Worn out by sleeplessness

+and anxiety they threw their burden of sorrow on one another and

+reproached and disputed with each other.

+

+“Pétrusha has come with papers from your father,” whispered the

+maid.

+

+Prince Andrew went out.

+

+“Devil take them!” he muttered, and after listening to the verbal

+instructions his father had sent and taking the correspondence and his

+father’s letter, he returned to the nursery.

+

+“Well?” he asked.

+

+“Still the same. Wait, for heaven’s sake. Karl Ivánich always says

+that sleep is more important than anything,” whispered Princess Mary

+with a sigh.

+

+Prince Andrew went up to the child and felt him. He was burning hot.

+

+“Confound you and your Karl Ivánich!” He took the glass with the

+drops and again went up to the cot.

+

+“Andrew, don’t!” said Princess Mary.

+

+But he scowled at her angrily though also with suffering in his eyes,

+and stooped glass in hand over the infant.

+

+“But I wish it,” he said. “I beg you—give it him!”

+

+Princess Mary shrugged her shoulders but took the glass submissively

+and calling the nurse began giving the medicine. The child screamed

+hoarsely. Prince Andrew winced and, clutching his head, went out and sat

+down on a sofa in the next room.

+

+He still had all the letters in his hand. Opening them mechanically he

+began reading. The old prince, now and then using abbreviations, wrote

+in his large elongated hand on blue paper as follows:

+

+Have just this moment received by special messenger very joyful

+news—if it’s not false. Bennigsen seems to have obtained a complete

+victory over Buonaparte at Eylau. In Petersburg everyone is rejoicing,

+and the rewards sent to the army are innumerable. Though he is a

+German—I congratulate him! I can’t make out what the commander at

+Kórchevo—a certain Khandrikóv—is up to; till now the additional

+men and provisions have not arrived. Gallop off to him at once and

+say I’ll have his head off if everything is not here in a week.

+Have received another letter about the Preussisch-Eylau battle

+from Pétenka—he took part in it—and it’s all true. When

+mischief-makers don’t meddle even a German beats Buonaparte. He is

+said to be fleeing in great disorder. Mind you gallop off to Kórchevo

+without delay and carry out instructions!

+

+Prince Andrew sighed and broke the seal of another envelope. It was

+a closely written letter of two sheets from Bilíbin. He folded it up

+without reading it and reread his father’s letter, ending with the

+words: “Gallop off to Kórchevo and carry out instructions!”

+

+“No, pardon me, I won’t go now till the child is better,” thought

+he, going to the door and looking into the nursery.

+

+Princess Mary was still standing by the cot, gently rocking the baby.

+

+“Ah yes, and what else did he say that’s unpleasant?” thought

+Prince Andrew, recalling his father’s letter. “Yes, we have gained

+a victory over Bonaparte, just when I’m not serving. Yes, yes, he’s

+always poking fun at me.... Ah, well! Let him!” And he began reading

+Bilíbin’s letter which was written in French. He read without

+understanding half of it, read only to forget, if but for a moment, what

+he had too long been thinking of so painfully to the exclusion of all

+else.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+Bilíbin was now at army headquarters in a diplomatic capacity, and

+though he wrote in French and used French jests and French idioms,

+he described the whole campaign with a fearless self-censure and

+self-derision genuinely Russian. Bilíbin wrote that the obligation of

+diplomatic discretion tormented him, and he was happy to have in Prince

+Andrew a reliable correspondent to whom he could pour out the bile he

+had accumulated at the sight of all that was being done in the army.

+The letter was old, having been written before the battle at

+Preussisch-Eylau.

+

+“Since the day of our brilliant success at Austerlitz,” wrote

+Bilíbin, “as you know, my dear prince, I never leave headquarters. I

+have certainly acquired a taste for war, and it is just as well for me;

+what I have seen during these last three months is incredible.

+

+“I begin ab ovo. ‘The enemy of the human race,’ as you know,

+attacks the Prussians. The Prussians are our faithful allies who have

+only betrayed us three times in three years. We take up their cause, but

+it turns out that ‘the enemy of the human race’ pays no heed to

+our fine speeches and in his rude and savage way throws himself on the

+Prussians without giving them time to finish the parade they had begun,

+and in two twists of the hand he breaks them to smithereens and installs

+himself in the palace at Potsdam.

+

+“‘I most ardently desire,’ writes the King of Prussia to

+Bonaparte, ‘that Your Majesty should be received and treated in my

+palace in a manner agreeable to yourself, and in so far as circumstances

+allowed, I have hastened to take all steps to that end. May I have

+succeeded!’ The Prussian generals pride themselves on being polite to

+the French and lay down their arms at the first demand.

+

+“The head of the garrison at Glogau, with ten thousand men, asks the

+King of Prussia what he is to do if he is summoned to surrender.... All

+this is absolutely true.

+

+“In short, hoping to settle matters by taking up a warlike attitude,

+it turns out that we have landed ourselves in war, and what is more,

+in war on our own frontiers, with and for the King of Prussia. We have

+everything in perfect order, only one little thing is lacking, namely,

+a commander in chief. As it was considered that the Austerlitz success

+might have been more decisive had the commander in chief not been so

+young, all our octogenarians were reviewed, and of Prozoróvski

+and Kámenski the latter was preferred. The general comes to us,

+Suvórov-like, in a kibítka, and is received with acclamations of joy

+and triumph.

+

+“On the 4th, the first courier arrives from Petersburg. The mails

+are taken to the field marshal’s room, for he likes to do everything

+himself. I am called in to help sort the letters and take those meant

+for us. The field marshal looks on and waits for letters addressed

+to him. We search, but none are to be found. The field marshal grows

+impatient and sets to work himself and finds letters from the Emperor

+to Count T., Prince V., and others. Then he bursts into one of his wild

+furies and rages at everyone and everything, seizes the letters, opens

+them, and reads those from the Emperor addressed to others. ‘Ah! So

+that’s the way they treat me! No confidence in me! Ah, ordered to keep

+an eye on me! Very well then! Get along with you!’ So he writes the

+famous order of the day to General Bennigsen:

+

+“‘I am wounded and cannot ride and consequently cannot command the

+army. You have brought your army corps to Pultúsk, routed: here it is

+exposed, and without fuel or forage, so something must be done, and, as

+you yourself reported to Count Buxhöwden yesterday, you must think of

+retreating to our frontier—which do today.’

+

+“‘From all my riding,’ he writes to the Emperor, ‘I have got a

+saddle sore which, coming after all my previous journeys, quite prevents

+my riding and commanding so vast an army, so I have passed on the

+command to the general next in seniority, Count Buxhöwden, having sent

+him my whole staff and all that belongs to it, advising him if there is

+a lack of bread, to move farther into the interior of Prussia, for only

+one day’s ration of bread remains, and in some regiments none at all,

+as reported by the division commanders, Ostermann and Sedmorétzki, and

+all that the peasants had has been eaten up. I myself will remain in

+hospital at Ostrolenka till I recover. In regard to which I humbly

+submit my report, with the information that if the army remains in its

+present bivouac another fortnight there will not be a healthy man left

+in it by spring.

+

+“‘Grant leave to retire to his country seat to an old man who is

+already in any case dishonored by being unable to fulfill the great and

+glorious task for which he was chosen. I shall await your most gracious

+permission here in hospital, that I may not have to play the part of a

+secretary rather than commander in the army. My removal from the army

+does not produce the slightest stir—a blind man has left it. There are

+thousands such as I in Russia.’

+

+“The field marshal is angry with the Emperor and he punishes us all,

+isn’t it logical?

+

+“This is the first act. Those that follow are naturally increasingly

+interesting and entertaining. After the field marshal’s departure

+it appears that we are within sight of the enemy and must give battle.

+Buxhöwden is commander in chief by seniority, but General Bennigsen

+does not quite see it; more particularly as it is he and his corps who

+are within sight of the enemy and he wishes to profit by the opportunity

+to fight a battle ‘on his own hand’ as the Germans say. He does so.

+This is the battle of Pultúsk, which is considered a great victory but

+in my opinion was nothing of the kind. We civilians, as you know, have

+a very bad way of deciding whether a battle was won or lost. Those who

+retreat after a battle have lost it is what we say; and according to

+that it is we who lost the battle of Pultúsk. In short, we retreat

+after the battle but send a courier to Petersburg with news of a

+victory, and General Bennigsen, hoping to receive from Petersburg the

+post of commander in chief as a reward for his victory, does not give up

+the command of the army to General Buxhöwden. During this interregnum

+we begin a very original and interesting series of maneuvers. Our aim is

+no longer, as it should be, to avoid or attack the enemy, but solely to

+avoid General Buxhöwden who by right of seniority should be our chief.

+So energetically do we pursue this aim that after crossing an unfordable

+river we burn the bridges to separate ourselves from our enemy, who at

+the moment is not Bonaparte but Buxhöwden. General Buxhöwden was all

+but attacked and captured by a superior enemy force as a result of one

+of these maneuvers that enabled us to escape him. Buxhöwden pursues

+us—we scuttle. He hardly crosses the river to our side before we

+recross to the other. At last our enemy, Buxhöwden, catches us and

+attacks. Both generals are angry, and the result is a challenge on

+Buxhöwden’s part and an epileptic fit on Bennigsen’s. But at the

+critical moment the courier who carried the news of our victory at

+Pultúsk to Petersburg returns bringing our appointment as commander in

+chief, and our first foe, Buxhöwden, is vanquished; we can now turn

+our thoughts to the second, Bonaparte. But as it turns out, just at

+that moment a third enemy rises before us—namely the Orthodox Russian

+soldiers, loudly demanding bread, meat, biscuits, fodder, and whatnot!

+The stores are empty, the roads impassable. The Orthodox begin looting,

+and in a way of which our last campaign can give you no idea. Half the

+regiments form bands and scour the countryside and put everything

+to fire and sword. The inhabitants are totally ruined, the hospitals

+overflow with sick, and famine is everywhere. Twice the marauders even

+attack our headquarters, and the commander in chief has to ask for a

+battalion to disperse them. During one of these attacks they carried off

+my empty portmanteau and my dressing gown. The Emperor proposes to give

+all commanders of divisions the right to shoot marauders, but I much

+fear this will oblige one half the army to shoot the other.”

+

+At first Prince Andrew read with his eyes only, but after a while,

+in spite of himself (although he knew how far it was safe to trust

+Bilíbin), what he had read began to interest him more and more. When he

+had read thus far, he crumpled the letter up and threw it away. It was

+not what he had read that vexed him, but the fact that the life out

+there in which he had now no part could perturb him. He shut his eyes,

+rubbed his forehead as if to rid himself of all interest in what he

+had read, and listened to what was passing in the nursery. Suddenly he

+thought he heard a strange noise through the door. He was seized with

+alarm lest something should have happened to the child while he was

+reading the letter. He went on tiptoe to the nursery door and opened it.

+

+Just as he went in he saw that the nurse was hiding something from him

+with a scared look and that Princess Mary was no longer by the cot.

+

+“My dear,” he heard what seemed to him her despairing whisper behind

+him.

+

+As often happens after long sleeplessness and long anxiety, he was

+seized by an unreasoning panic—it occurred to him that the child was

+dead. All that he saw and heard seemed to confirm this terror.

+

+“All is over,” he thought, and a cold sweat broke out on his

+forehead. He went to the cot in confusion, sure that he would find it

+empty and that the nurse had been hiding the dead baby. He drew the

+curtain aside and for some time his frightened, restless eyes could not

+find the baby. At last he saw him: the rosy boy had tossed about till he

+lay across the bed with his head lower than the pillow, and was smacking

+his lips in his sleep and breathing evenly.

+

+Prince Andrew was as glad to find the boy like that, as if he had

+already lost him. He bent over him and, as his sister had taught him,

+tried with his lips whether the child was still feverish. The soft

+forehead was moist. Prince Andrew touched the head with his hand; even

+the hair was wet, so profusely had the child perspired. He was not dead,

+but evidently the crisis was over and he was convalescent. Prince Andrew

+longed to snatch up, to squeeze, to hold to his heart, this helpless

+little creature, but dared not do so. He stood over him, gazing at his

+head and at the little arms and legs which showed under the blanket. He

+heard a rustle behind him and a shadow appeared under the curtain of

+the cot. He did not look round, but still gazing at the infant’s face

+listened to his regular breathing. The dark shadow was Princess Mary,

+who had come up to the cot with noiseless steps, lifted the curtain,

+and dropped it again behind her. Prince Andrew recognized her without

+looking and held out his hand to her. She pressed it.

+

+“He has perspired,” said Prince Andrew.

+

+“I was coming to tell you so.”

+

+The child moved slightly in his sleep, smiled, and rubbed his forehead

+against the pillow.

+

+Prince Andrew looked at his sister. In the dim shadow of the curtain her

+luminous eyes shone more brightly than usual from the tears of joy that

+were in them. She leaned over to her brother and kissed him, slightly

+catching the curtain of the cot. Each made the other a warning gesture

+and stood still in the dim light beneath the curtain as if not wishing

+to leave that seclusion where they three were shut off from all the

+world. Prince Andrew was the first to move away, ruffling his hair

+against the muslin of the curtain.

+

+“Yes, this is the one thing left me now,” he said with a sigh.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+Soon after his admission to the Masonic Brotherhood, Pierre went to the

+Kiev province, where he had the greatest number of serfs, taking with

+him full directions which he had written down for his own guidance as to

+what he should do on his estates.

+

+When he reached Kiev he sent for all his stewards to the head office

+and explained to them his intentions and wishes. He told them that steps

+would be taken immediately to free his serfs—and that till then they

+were not to be overburdened with labor, women while nursing their babies

+were not to be sent to work, assistance was to be given to the serfs,

+punishments were to be admonitory and not corporal, and hospitals,

+asylums, and schools were to be established on all the estates. Some of

+the stewards (there were semiliterate foremen among them) listened with

+alarm, supposing these words to mean that the young count was displeased

+with their management and embezzlement of money, some after their first

+fright were amused by Pierre’s lisp and the new words they had not

+heard before, others simply enjoyed hearing how the master talked, while

+the cleverest among them, including the chief steward, understood from

+this speech how they could best handle the master for their own ends.

+

+The chief steward expressed great sympathy with Pierre’s intentions,

+but remarked that besides these changes it would be necessary to go into

+the general state of affairs which was far from satisfactory.

+

+Despite Count Bezúkhov’s enormous wealth, since he had come into an

+income which was said to amount to five hundred thousand rubles a year,

+Pierre felt himself far poorer than when his father had made him

+an allowance of ten thousand rubles. He had a dim perception of the

+following budget:

+

+About 80,000 went in payments on all the estates to the Land Bank, about

+30,000 went for the upkeep of the estate near Moscow, the town house,

+and the allowance to the three princesses; about 15,000 was given in

+pensions and the same amount for asylums; 150,000 alimony was sent to

+the countess; about 70,000 went for interest on debts. The building of a

+new church, previously begun, had cost about 10,000 in each of the last

+two years, and he did not know how the rest, about 100,000 rubles, was

+spent, and almost every year he was obliged to borrow. Besides this the

+chief steward wrote every year telling him of fires and bad harvests,

+or of the necessity of rebuilding factories and workshops. So the first

+task Pierre had to face was one for which he had very little aptitude or

+inclination—practical business.

+

+He discussed estate affairs every day with his chief steward. But

+he felt that this did not forward matters at all. He felt that these

+consultations were detached from real affairs and did not link up with

+them or make them move. On the one hand, the chief steward put the state

+of things to him in the very worst light, pointing out the necessity of

+paying off the debts and undertaking new activities with serf labor,

+to which Pierre did not agree. On the other hand, Pierre demanded that

+steps should be taken to liberate the serfs, which the steward met by

+showing the necessity of first paying off the loans from the Land Bank,

+and the consequent impossibility of a speedy emancipation.

+

+The steward did not say it was quite impossible, but suggested selling

+the forests in the province of Kostromá, the land lower down the river,

+and the Crimean estate, in order to make it possible: all of which

+operations according to him were connected with such complicated

+measures—the removal of injunctions, petitions, permits, and so

+on—that Pierre became quite bewildered and only replied:

+

+“Yes, yes, do so.”

+

+Pierre had none of the practical persistence that would have enabled him

+to attend to the business himself and so he disliked it and only tried

+to pretend to the steward that he was attending to it. The steward

+for his part tried to pretend to the count that he considered these

+consultations very valuable for the proprietor and troublesome to

+himself.

+

+In Kiev Pierre found some people he knew, and strangers hastened to make

+his acquaintance and joyfully welcomed the rich newcomer, the

+largest landowner of the province. Temptations to Pierre’s greatest

+weakness—the one to which he had confessed when admitted to the

+Lodge—were so strong that he could not resist them. Again whole days,

+weeks, and months of his life passed in as great a rush and were as much

+occupied with evening parties, dinners, lunches, and balls, giving him

+no time for reflection, as in Petersburg. Instead of the new life he had

+hoped to lead he still lived the old life, only in new surroundings.

+

+Of the three precepts of Freemasonry Pierre realized that he did not

+fulfill the one which enjoined every Mason to set an example of moral

+life, and that of the seven virtues he lacked two—morality and the

+love of death. He consoled himself with the thought that he fulfilled

+another of the precepts—that of reforming the human race—and had

+other virtues—love of his neighbor, and especially generosity.

+

+In the spring of 1807 he decided to return to Petersburg. On the way he

+intended to visit all his estates and see for himself how far his orders

+had been carried out and in what state were the serfs whom God had

+entrusted to his care and whom he intended to benefit.

+

+The chief steward, who considered the young count’s attempts almost

+insane—unprofitable to himself, to the count, and to the serfs—made

+some concessions. Continuing to represent the liberation of the serfs

+as impracticable, he arranged for the erection of large

+buildings—schools, hospitals, and asylums—on all the estates

+before the master arrived. Everywhere preparations were made not for

+ceremonious welcomes (which he knew Pierre would not like), but for just

+such gratefully religious ones, with offerings of icons and the bread

+and salt of hospitality, as, according to his understanding of his

+master, would touch and delude him.

+

+The southern spring, the comfortable rapid traveling in a Vienna

+carriage, and the solitude of the road, all had a gladdening effect on

+Pierre. The estates he had not before visited were each more picturesque

+than the other; the serfs everywhere seemed thriving and touchingly

+grateful for the benefits conferred on them. Everywhere were receptions,

+which though they embarrassed Pierre awakened a joyful feeling in the

+depth of his heart. In one place the peasants presented him with bread

+and salt and an icon of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, asking permission,

+as a mark of their gratitude for the benefits he had conferred on them,

+to build a new chantry to the church at their own expense in honor

+of Peter and Paul, his patron saints. In another place the women with

+infants in arms met him to thank him for releasing them from hard

+work. On a third estate the priest, bearing a cross, came to meet

+him surrounded by children whom, by the count’s generosity, he was

+instructing in reading, writing, and religion. On all his estates Pierre

+saw with his own eyes brick buildings erected or in course of erection,

+all on one plan, for hospitals, schools, and almshouses, which were soon

+to be opened. Everywhere he saw the stewards’ accounts, according to

+which the serfs’ manorial labor had been diminished, and heard the

+touching thanks of deputations of serfs in their full-skirted blue

+coats.

+

+What Pierre did not know was that the place where they presented him

+with bread and salt and wished to build a chantry in honor of Peter and

+Paul was a market village where a fair was held on St. Peter’s day,

+and that the richest peasants (who formed the deputation) had begun

+the chantry long before, but that nine tenths of the peasants in that

+villages were in a state of the greatest poverty. He did not know that

+since the nursing mothers were no longer sent to work on his land, they

+did still harder work on their own land. He did not know that the priest

+who met him with the cross oppressed the peasants by his exactions, and

+that the pupils’ parents wept at having to let him take their children

+and secured their release by heavy payments. He did not know that the

+brick buildings, built to plan, were being built by serfs whose manorial

+labor was thus increased, though lessened on paper. He did not know

+that where the steward had shown him in the accounts that the serfs’

+payments had been diminished by a third, their obligatory manorial work

+had been increased by a half. And so Pierre was delighted with his visit

+to his estates and quite recovered the philanthropic mood in which

+he had left Petersburg, and wrote enthusiastic letters to his

+“brother-instructor” as he called the Grand Master.

+

+“How easy it is, how little effort it needs, to do so much good,”

+thought Pierre, “and how little attention we pay to it!”

+

+He was pleased at the gratitude he received, but felt abashed at

+receiving it. This gratitude reminded him of how much more he might do

+for these simple, kindly people.

+

+The chief steward, a very stupid but cunning man who saw perfectly

+through the naïve and intelligent count and played with him as with

+a toy, seeing the effect these prearranged receptions had on Pierre,

+pressed him still harder with proofs of the impossibility and above all

+the uselessness of freeing the serfs, who were quite happy as it was.

+

+Pierre in his secret soul agreed with the steward that it would be

+difficult to imagine happier people, and that God only knew what would

+happen to them when they were free, but he insisted, though reluctantly,

+on what he thought right. The steward promised to do all in his power to

+carry out the count’s wishes, seeing clearly that not only would the

+count never be able to find out whether all measures had been taken for

+the sale of the land and forests and to release them from the Land Bank,

+but would probably never even inquire and would never know that the

+newly erected buildings were standing empty and that the serfs continued

+to give in money and work all that other people’s serfs gave—that is

+to say, all that could be got out of them.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+Returning from his journey through South Russia in the happiest state

+of mind, Pierre carried out an intention he had long had of visiting his

+friend Bolkónski, whom he had not seen for two years.

+

+Boguchárovo lay in a flat uninteresting part of the country among

+fields and forests of fir and birch, which were partly cut down. The

+house lay behind a newly dug pond filled with water to the brink and

+with banks still bare of grass. It was at the end of a village that

+stretched along the highroad in the midst of a young copse in which were

+a few fir trees.

+

+The homestead consisted of a threshing floor, outhouses, stables, a

+bathhouse, a lodge, and a large brick house with semicircular façade

+still in course of construction. Round the house was a garden newly laid

+out. The fences and gates were new and solid; two fire pumps and a

+water cart, painted green, stood in a shed; the paths were straight,

+the bridges were strong and had handrails. Everything bore an impress of

+tidiness and good management. Some domestic serfs Pierre met, in reply

+to inquiries as to where the prince lived, pointed out a small newly

+built lodge close to the pond. Antón, a man who had looked after Prince

+Andrew in his boyhood, helped Pierre out of his carriage, said that the

+prince was at home, and showed him into a clean little anteroom.

+

+Pierre was struck by the modesty of the small though clean house after

+the brilliant surroundings in which he had last met his friend in

+Petersburg.

+

+He quickly entered the small reception room with its still-unplastered

+wooden walls redolent of pine, and would have gone farther, but Antón

+ran ahead on tiptoe and knocked at a door.

+

+“Well, what is it?” came a sharp, unpleasant voice.

+

+“A visitor,” answered Antón.

+

+“Ask him to wait,” and the sound was heard of a chair being pushed

+back.

+

+Pierre went with rapid steps to the door and suddenly came face to

+face with Prince Andrew, who came out frowning and looking old. Pierre

+embraced him and lifting his spectacles kissed his friend on the cheek

+and looked at him closely.

+

+“Well, I did not expect you, I am very glad,” said Prince Andrew.

+

+Pierre said nothing; he looked fixedly at his friend with surprise. He

+was struck by the change in him. His words were kindly and there was a

+smile on his lips and face, but his eyes were dull and lifeless and in

+spite of his evident wish to do so he could not give them a joyous

+and glad sparkle. Prince Andrew had grown thinner, paler, and more

+manly-looking, but what amazed and estranged Pierre till he got used

+to it were his inertia and a wrinkle on his brow indicating prolonged

+concentration on some one thought.

+

+As is usually the case with people meeting after a prolonged separation,

+it was long before their conversation could settle on anything. They

+put questions and gave brief replies about things they knew ought to

+be talked over at length. At last the conversation gradually settled on

+some of the topics at first lightly touched on: their past life, plans

+for the future, Pierre’s journeys and occupations, the war, and so

+on. The preoccupation and despondency which Pierre had noticed in his

+friend’s look was now still more clearly expressed in the smile

+with which he listened to Pierre, especially when he spoke with joyful

+animation of the past or the future. It was as if Prince Andrew would

+have liked to sympathize with what Pierre was saying, but could not.

+The latter began to feel that it was in bad taste to speak of his

+enthusiasms, dreams, and hopes of happiness or goodness, in Prince

+Andrew’s presence. He was ashamed to express his new Masonic views,

+which had been particularly revived and strengthened by his late tour.

+He checked himself, fearing to seem naïve, yet he felt an irresistible

+desire to show his friend as soon as possible that he was now a quite

+different, and better, Pierre than he had been in Petersburg.

+

+“I can’t tell you how much I have lived through since then. I hardly

+know myself again.”

+

+“Yes, we have altered much, very much, since then,” said Prince

+Andrew.

+

+“Well, and you? What are your plans?”

+

+“Plans!” repeated Prince Andrew ironically. “My plans?” he said,

+as if astonished at the word. “Well, you see, I’m building. I mean

+to settle here altogether next year....”

+

+Pierre looked silently and searchingly into Prince Andrew’s face,

+which had grown much older.

+

+“No, I meant to ask...” Pierre began, but Prince Andrew interrupted

+him.

+

+“But why talk of me?... Talk to me, yes, tell me about your travels

+and all you have been doing on your estates.”

+

+Pierre began describing what he had done on his estates, trying as far

+as possible to conceal his own part in the improvements that had been

+made. Prince Andrew several times prompted Pierre’s story of what he

+had been doing, as though it were all an old-time story, and he listened

+not only without interest but even as if ashamed of what Pierre was

+telling him.

+

+Pierre felt uncomfortable and even depressed in his friend’s company

+and at last became silent.

+

+“I’ll tell you what, my dear fellow,” said Prince Andrew, who

+evidently also felt depressed and constrained with his visitor, “I am

+only bivouacking here and have just come to look round. I am going back

+to my sister today. I will introduce you to her. But of course you know

+her already,” he said, evidently trying to entertain a visitor with

+whom he now found nothing in common. “We will go after dinner. And

+would you now like to look round my place?”

+

+They went out and walked about till dinnertime, talking of the political

+news and common acquaintances like people who do not know each other

+intimately. Prince Andrew spoke with some animation and interest only of

+the new homestead he was constructing and its buildings, but even here,

+while on the scaffolding, in the midst of a talk explaining the future

+arrangements of the house, he interrupted himself:

+

+“However, this is not at all interesting. Let us have dinner, and then

+we’ll set off.”

+

+At dinner, conversation turned on Pierre’s marriage.

+

+“I was very much surprised when I heard of it,” said Prince Andrew.

+

+Pierre blushed, as he always did when it was mentioned, and said

+hurriedly: “I will tell you some time how it all happened. But you

+know it is all over, and forever.”

+

+“Forever?” said Prince Andrew. “Nothing’s forever.”

+

+“But you know how it all ended, don’t you? You heard of the duel?”

+

+“And so you had to go through that too!”

+

+“One thing I thank God for is that I did not kill that man,” said

+Pierre.

+

+“Why so?” asked Prince Andrew. “To kill a vicious dog is a very

+good thing really.”

+

+“No, to kill a man is bad—wrong.”

+

+“Why is it wrong?” urged Prince Andrew. “It is not given to man

+to know what is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will

+err, and in nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.”

+

+“What does harm to another is wrong,” said Pierre, feeling with

+pleasure that for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrew was

+roused, had begun to talk, and wanted to express what had brought him to

+his present state.

+

+“And who has told you what is bad for another man?” he asked.

+

+“Bad! Bad!” exclaimed Pierre. “We all know what is bad for

+ourselves.”

+

+“Yes, we know that, but the harm I am conscious of in myself is

+something I cannot inflict on others,” said Prince Andrew, growing

+more and more animated and evidently wishing to express his new outlook

+to Pierre. He spoke in French. “I only know two very real evils in

+life: remorse and illness. The only good is the absence of those evils.

+To live for myself avoiding those two evils is my whole philosophy

+now.”

+

+“And love of one’s neighbor, and self-sacrifice?” began Pierre.

+“No, I can’t agree with you! To live only so as not to do evil and

+not to have to repent is not enough. I lived like that, I lived for

+myself and ruined my life. And only now when I am living, or at least

+trying” (Pierre’s modesty made him correct himself) “to live for

+others, only now have I understood all the happiness of life. No, I

+shall not agree with you, and you do not really believe what you are

+saying.” Prince Andrew looked silently at Pierre with an ironic smile.

+

+“When you see my sister, Princess Mary, you’ll get on with her,”

+he said. “Perhaps you are right for yourself,” he added after

+a short pause, “but everyone lives in his own way. You lived for

+yourself and say you nearly ruined your life and only found happiness

+when you began living for others. I experienced just the reverse. I

+lived for glory.—And after all what is glory? The same love of others,

+a desire to do something for them, a desire for their approval.—So I

+lived for others, and not almost, but quite, ruined my life. And I have

+become calmer since I began to live only for myself.”

+

+“But what do you mean by living only for yourself?” asked Pierre,

+growing excited. “What about your son, your sister, and your

+father?”

+

+“But that’s just the same as myself—they are not others,”

+explained Prince Andrew. “The others, one’s neighbors, le prochain,

+as you and Princess Mary call it, are the chief source of all error and

+evil. Le prochain—your Kiev peasants to whom you want to do good.”

+

+And he looked at Pierre with a mocking, challenging expression. He

+evidently wished to draw him on.

+

+“You are joking,” replied Pierre, growing more and more excited.

+“What error or evil can there be in my wishing to do good, and even

+doing a little—though I did very little and did it very badly? What

+evil can there be in it if unfortunate people, our serfs, people like

+ourselves, were growing up and dying with no idea of God and truth

+beyond ceremonies and meaningless prayers and are now instructed in

+a comforting belief in future life, retribution, recompense, and

+consolation? What evil and error are there in it, if people were dying

+of disease without help while material assistance could so easily be

+rendered, and I supplied them with a doctor, a hospital, and an asylum

+for the aged? And is it not a palpable, unquestionable good if a

+peasant, or a woman with a baby, has no rest day or night and I give

+them rest and leisure?” said Pierre, hurrying and lisping. “And

+I have done that though badly and to a small extent; but I have done

+something toward it and you cannot persuade me that it was not a good

+action, and more than that, you can’t make me believe that you do not

+think so yourself. And the main thing is,” he continued, “that I

+know, and know for certain, that the enjoyment of doing this good is the

+only sure happiness in life.”

+

+“Yes, if you put it like that it’s quite a different matter,” said

+Prince Andrew. “I build a house and lay out a garden, and you build

+hospitals. The one and the other may serve as a pastime. But what’s

+right and what’s good must be judged by one who knows all, but not by

+us. Well, you want an argument,” he added, “come on then.”

+

+They rose from the table and sat down in the entrance porch which served

+as a veranda.

+

+“Come, let’s argue then,” said Prince Andrew, “You talk of

+schools,” he went on, crooking a finger, “education and so forth;

+that is, you want to raise him” (pointing to a peasant who passed by

+them taking off his cap) “from his animal condition and awaken in him

+spiritual needs, while it seems to me that animal happiness is the only

+happiness possible, and that is just what you want to deprive him of.

+I envy him, but you want to make him what I am, without giving him my

+means. Then you say, ‘lighten his toil.’ But as I see it, physical

+labor is as essential to him, as much a condition of his existence, as

+mental activity is to you or me. You can’t help thinking. I go to bed

+after two in the morning, thoughts come and I can’t sleep but toss

+about till dawn, because I think and can’t help thinking, just as

+he can’t help plowing and mowing; if he didn’t, he would go to the

+drink shop or fall ill. Just as I could not stand his terrible physical

+labor but should die of it in a week, so he could not stand my physical

+idleness, but would grow fat and die. The third thing—what else was

+it you talked about?” and Prince Andrew crooked a third finger. “Ah,

+yes, hospitals, medicine. He has a fit, he is dying, and you come and

+bleed him and patch him up. He will drag about as a cripple, a burden to

+everybody, for another ten years. It would be far easier and simpler for

+him to die. Others are being born and there are plenty of them as it is.

+It would be different if you grudged losing a laborer—that’s how I

+regard him—but you want to cure him from love of him. And he does not

+want that. And besides, what a notion that medicine ever cured anyone!

+Killed them, yes!” said he, frowning angrily and turning away from

+Pierre.

+

+Prince Andrew expressed his ideas so clearly and distinctly that it was

+evident he had reflected on this subject more than once, and he spoke

+readily and rapidly like a man who has not talked for a long time. His

+glance became more animated as his conclusions became more hopeless.

+

+“Oh, that is dreadful, dreadful!” said Pierre. “I don’t

+understand how one can live with such ideas. I had such moments

+myself not long ago, in Moscow and when traveling, but at such times I

+collapsed so that I don’t live at all—everything seems hateful to

+me... myself most of all. Then I don’t eat, don’t wash... and how is

+it with you?...”

+

+“Why not wash? That is not cleanly,” said Prince Andrew; “on the

+contrary one must try to make one’s life as pleasant as possible.

+I’m alive, that is not my fault, so I must live out my life as best I

+can without hurting others.”

+

+“But with such ideas what motive have you for living? One would sit

+without moving, undertaking nothing....”

+

+“Life as it is leaves one no peace. I should be thankful to do

+nothing, but here on the one hand the local nobility have done me the

+honor to choose me to be their marshal; it was all I could do to get

+out of it. They could not understand that I have not the necessary

+qualifications for it—the kind of good-natured, fussy shallowness

+necessary for the position. Then there’s this house, which must be

+built in order to have a nook of one’s own in which to be quiet. And

+now there’s this recruiting.”

+

+“Why aren’t you serving in the army?”

+

+“After Austerlitz!” said Prince Andrew gloomily. “No, thank you

+very much! I have promised myself not to serve again in the active

+Russian army. And I won’t—not even if Bonaparte were here at

+Smolénsk threatening Bald Hills—even then I wouldn’t serve in the

+Russian army! Well, as I was saying,” he continued, recovering his

+composure, “now there’s this recruiting. My father is chief in

+command of the Third District, and my only way of avoiding active

+service is to serve under him.”

+

+“Then you are serving?”

+

+“I am.”

+

+He paused a little while.

+

+“And why do you serve?”

+

+“Why, for this reason! My father is one of the most remarkable men of

+his time. But he is growing old, and though not exactly cruel he has too

+energetic a character. He is so accustomed to unlimited power that he is

+terrible, and now he has this authority of a commander in chief of

+the recruiting, granted by the Emperor. If I had been two hours late

+a fortnight ago he would have had a paymaster’s clerk at Yúkhnovna

+hanged,” said Prince Andrew with a smile. “So I am serving because

+I alone have any influence with my father, and now and then can save him

+from actions which would torment him afterwards.”

+

+“Well, there you see!”

+

+“Yes, but it is not as you imagine,” Prince Andrew continued. “I

+did not, and do not, in the least care about that scoundrel of a clerk

+who had stolen some boots from the recruits; I should even have been

+very glad to see him hanged, but I was sorry for my father—that again

+is for myself.”

+

+Prince Andrew grew more and more animated. His eyes glittered feverishly

+while he tried to prove to Pierre that in his actions there was no

+desire to do good to his neighbor.

+

+“There now, you wish to liberate your serfs,” he continued; “that

+is a very good thing, but not for you—I don’t suppose you ever had

+anyone flogged or sent to Siberia—and still less for your serfs. If

+they are beaten, flogged, or sent to Siberia, I don’t suppose they are

+any the worse off. In Siberia they lead the same animal life, and the

+stripes on their bodies heal, and they are happy as before. But it is

+a good thing for proprietors who perish morally, bring remorse upon

+themselves, stifle this remorse and grow callous, as a result of being

+able to inflict punishments justly and unjustly. It is those people I

+pity, and for their sake I should like to liberate the serfs. You

+may not have seen, but I have seen, how good men brought up in those

+traditions of unlimited power, in time when they grow more irritable,

+become cruel and harsh, are conscious of it, but cannot restrain

+themselves and grow more and more miserable.”

+

+Prince Andrew spoke so earnestly that Pierre could not help thinking

+that these thoughts had been suggested to Prince Andrew by his

+father’s case.

+

+He did not reply.

+

+“So that’s what I’m sorry for—human dignity, peace of mind,

+purity, and not the serfs’ backs and foreheads, which, beat and shave

+as you may, always remain the same backs and foreheads.”

+

+“No, no! A thousand times no! I shall never agree with you,” said

+Pierre.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+In the evening Andrew and Pierre got into the open carriage and drove to

+Bald Hills. Prince Andrew, glancing at Pierre, broke the silence now and

+then with remarks which showed that he was in a good temper.

+

+Pointing to the fields, he spoke of the improvements he was making in

+his husbandry.

+

+Pierre remained gloomily silent, answering in monosyllables and

+apparently immersed in his own thoughts.

+

+He was thinking that Prince Andrew was unhappy, had gone astray, did not

+see the true light, and that he, Pierre, ought to aid, enlighten, and

+raise him. But as soon as he thought of what he should say, he felt that

+Prince Andrew with one word, one argument, would upset all his teaching,

+and he shrank from beginning, afraid of exposing to possible ridicule

+what to him was precious and sacred.

+

+“No, but why do you think so?” Pierre suddenly began, lowering his

+head and looking like a bull about to charge, “why do you think so?

+You should not think so.”

+

+“Think? What about?” asked Prince Andrew with surprise.

+

+“About life, about man’s destiny. It can’t be so. I myself thought

+like that, and do you know what saved me? Freemasonry! No, don’t

+smile. Freemasonry is not a religious ceremonial sect, as I thought

+it was: Freemasonry is the best expression of the best, the eternal,

+aspects of humanity.”

+

+And he began to explain Freemasonry as he understood it to Prince

+Andrew. He said that Freemasonry is the teaching of Christianity freed

+from the bonds of State and Church, a teaching of equality, brotherhood,

+and love.

+

+“Only our holy brotherhood has the real meaning of life, all the rest

+is a dream,” said Pierre. “Understand, my dear fellow, that outside

+this union all is filled with deceit and falsehood and I agree with you

+that nothing is left for an intelligent and good man but to live out

+his life, like you, merely trying not to harm others. But make our

+fundamental convictions your own, join our brotherhood, give yourself up

+to us, let yourself be guided, and you will at once feel yourself, as I

+have felt myself, a part of that vast invisible chain the beginning of

+which is hidden in heaven,” said Pierre.

+

+Prince Andrew, looking straight in front of him, listened in silence to

+Pierre’s words. More than once, when the noise of the wheels prevented

+his catching what Pierre said, he asked him to repeat it, and by the

+peculiar glow that came into Prince Andrew’s eyes and by his silence,

+Pierre saw that his words were not in vain and that Prince Andrew would

+not interrupt him or laugh at what he said.

+

+They reached a river that had overflowed its banks and which they had to

+cross by ferry. While the carriage and horses were being placed on it,

+they also stepped on the raft.

+

+Prince Andrew, leaning his arms on the raft railing, gazed silently at

+the flooding waters glittering in the setting sun.

+

+“Well, what do you think about it?” Pierre asked. “Why are you

+silent?”

+

+“What do I think about it? I am listening to you. It’s all very

+well.... You say: join our brotherhood and we will show you the aim of

+life, the destiny of man, and the laws which govern the world. But who

+are we? Men. How is it you know everything? Why do I alone not see what

+you see? You see a reign of goodness and truth on earth, but I don’t

+see it.”

+

+Pierre interrupted him.

+

+“Do you believe in a future life?” he asked.

+

+“A future life?” Prince Andrew repeated, but Pierre, giving him no

+time to reply, took the repetition for a denial, the more readily as he

+knew Prince Andrew’s former atheistic convictions.

+

+“You say you can’t see a reign of goodness and truth on earth. Nor

+could I, and it cannot be seen if one looks on our life here as the end

+of everything. On earth, here on this earth” (Pierre pointed to

+the fields), “there is no truth, all is false and evil; but in the

+universe, in the whole universe there is a kingdom of truth, and we who

+are now the children of earth are—eternally—children of the

+whole universe. Don’t I feel in my soul that I am part of this vast

+harmonious whole? Don’t I feel that I form one link, one step, between

+the lower and higher beings, in this vast harmonious multitude of

+beings in whom the Deity—the Supreme Power if you prefer the term—is

+manifest? If I see, clearly see, that ladder leading from plant to man,

+why should I suppose it breaks off at me and does not go farther and

+farther? I feel that I cannot vanish, since nothing vanishes in this

+world, but that I shall always exist and always have existed. I feel

+that beyond me and above me there are spirits, and that in this world

+there is truth.”

+

+“Yes, that is Herder’s theory,” said Prince Andrew, “but it is

+not that which can convince me, dear friend—life and death are what

+convince. What convinces is when one sees a being dear to one, bound

+up with one’s own life, before whom one was to blame and had hoped to

+make it right” (Prince Andrew’s voice trembled and he turned away),

+“and suddenly that being is seized with pain, suffers, and ceases to

+exist.... Why? It cannot be that there is no answer. And I believe there

+is.... That’s what convinces, that is what has convinced me,” said

+Prince Andrew.

+

+“Yes, yes, of course,” said Pierre, “isn’t that what I’m

+saying?”

+

+“No. All I say is that it is not argument that convinces me of the

+necessity of a future life, but this: when you go hand in hand with

+someone and all at once that person vanishes there, into nowhere, and

+you yourself are left facing that abyss, and look in. And I have looked

+in....”

+

+“Well, that’s it then! You know that there is a there and there is a

+Someone? There is the future life. The Someone is—God.”

+

+Prince Andrew did not reply. The carriage and horses had long since been

+taken off, onto the farther bank, and reharnessed. The sun had sunk half

+below the horizon and an evening frost was starring the puddles near

+the ferry, but Pierre and Andrew, to the astonishment of the footmen,

+coachmen, and ferrymen, still stood on the raft and talked.

+

+“If there is a God and future life, there is truth and good, and

+man’s highest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must

+live, we must love, and we must believe that we live not only today on

+this scrap of earth, but have lived and shall live forever, there, in

+the Whole,” said Pierre, and he pointed to the sky.

+

+Prince Andrew stood leaning on the railing of the raft listening to

+Pierre, and he gazed with his eyes fixed on the red reflection of the

+sun gleaming on the blue waters. There was perfect stillness. Pierre

+became silent. The raft had long since stopped and only the waves of the

+current beat softly against it below. Prince Andrew felt as if the sound

+of the waves kept up a refrain to Pierre’s words, whispering:

+

+“It is true, believe it.”

+

+He sighed, and glanced with a radiant, childlike, tender look at

+Pierre’s face, flushed and rapturous, but yet shy before his superior

+friend.

+

+“Yes, if it only were so!” said Prince Andrew. “However, it is

+time to get on,” he added, and, stepping off the raft, he looked up

+at the sky to which Pierre had pointed, and for the first time since

+Austerlitz saw that high, everlasting sky he had seen while lying on

+that battlefield; and something that had long been slumbering, something

+that was best within him, suddenly awoke, joyful and youthful, in his

+soul. It vanished as soon as he returned to the customary conditions

+of his life, but he knew that this feeling which he did not know how to

+develop existed within him. His meeting with Pierre formed an epoch in

+Prince Andrew’s life. Though outwardly he continued to live in the

+same old way, inwardly he began a new life.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+It was getting dusk when Prince Andrew and Pierre drove up to the front

+entrance of the house at Bald Hills. As they approached the house,

+Prince Andrew with a smile drew Pierre’s attention to a commotion

+going on at the back porch. A woman, bent with age, with a wallet on her

+back, and a short, long-haired, young man in a black garment had rushed

+back to the gate on seeing the carriage driving up. Two women ran out

+after them, and all four, looking round at the carriage, ran in dismay

+up the steps of the back porch.

+

+“Those are Mary’s ‘God’s folk,’” said Prince Andrew. “They

+have mistaken us for my father. This is the one matter in which she

+disobeys him. He orders these pilgrims to be driven away, but she

+receives them.”

+

+“But what are ‘God’s folk’?” asked Pierre.

+

+Prince Andrew had no time to answer. The servants came out to meet them,

+and he asked where the old prince was and whether he was expected back

+soon.

+

+The old prince had gone to the town and was expected back any minute.

+

+Prince Andrew led Pierre to his own apartments, which were always kept

+in perfect order and readiness for him in his father’s house; he

+himself went to the nursery.

+

+“Let us go and see my sister,” he said to Pierre when he returned.

+“I have not found her yet, she is hiding now, sitting with her

+‘God’s folk.’ It will serve her right, she will be confused, but

+you will see her ‘God’s folk.’ It’s really very curious.”

+

+“What are ‘God’s folk’?” asked Pierre.

+

+“Come, and you’ll see for yourself.”

+

+Princess Mary really was disconcerted and red patches came on her face

+when they went in. In her snug room, with lamps burning before the icon

+stand, a young lad with a long nose and long hair, wearing a monk’s

+cassock, sat on the sofa beside her, behind a samovar. Near them, in an

+armchair, sat a thin, shriveled, old woman, with a meek expression on

+her childlike face.

+

+“Andrew, why didn’t you warn me?” said the princess, with mild

+reproach, as she stood before her pilgrims like a hen before her

+chickens.

+

+“Charmée de vous voir. Je suis très contente de vous voir,” * she

+said to Pierre as he kissed her hand. She had known him as a child, and

+now his friendship with Andrew, his misfortune with his wife, and above

+all his kindly, simple face disposed her favorably toward him. She

+looked at him with her beautiful radiant eyes and seemed to say, “I

+like you very much, but please don’t laugh at my people.” After

+exchanging the first greetings, they sat down.

+

+    * “Delighted to see you. I am very glad to see you.”

+

+

+“Ah, and Ivánushka is here too!” said Prince Andrew, glancing with

+a smile at the young pilgrim.

+

+“Andrew!” said Princess Mary, imploringly. “Il faut que vous

+sachiez que c’est une femme,” * said Prince Andrew to Pierre.

+

+“Andrew, au nom de Dieu!” *(2) Princess Mary repeated.

+

+     * “You must know that this is a woman.”

+

+     * (2) “For heaven’s sake.”

+

+

+It was evident that Prince Andrew’s ironical tone toward the pilgrims

+and Princess Mary’s helpless attempts to protect them were their

+customary long-established relations on the matter.

+

+“Mais, ma bonne amie,” said Prince Andrew, “vous devriez au

+contraire m’être reconnaissante de ce que j’explique à Pierre

+votre intimité avec ce jeune homme.” *

+

+     * “But, my dear, you ought on the contrary to be grateful to

+     me for explaining to Pierre your intimacy with this young

+     man.”

+

+

+“Really?” said Pierre, gazing over his spectacles with curiosity and

+seriousness (for which Princess Mary was specially grateful to him) into

+Ivánushka’s face, who, seeing that she was being spoken about, looked

+round at them all with crafty eyes.

+

+Princess Mary’s embarrassment on her people’s account was quite

+unnecessary. They were not in the least abashed. The old woman, lowering

+her eyes but casting side glances at the newcomers, had turned her cup

+upside down and placed a nibbled bit of sugar beside it, and sat

+quietly in her armchair, though hoping to be offered another cup of tea.

+Ivánushka, sipping out of her saucer, looked with sly womanish eyes

+from under her brows at the young men.

+

+“Where have you been? To Kiev?” Prince Andrew asked the old woman.

+

+“I have, good sir,” she answered garrulously. “Just at

+Christmastime I was deemed worthy to partake of the holy and heavenly

+sacrament at the shrine of the saint. And now I’m from Kolyázin,

+master, where a great and wonderful blessing has been revealed.”

+

+“And was Ivánushka with you?”

+

+“I go by myself, benefactor,” said Ivánushka, trying to speak in a

+bass voice. “I only came across Pelagéya in Yúkhnovo....”

+

+Pelagéya interrupted her companion; she evidently wished to tell what

+she had seen.

+

+“In Kolyázin, master, a wonderful blessing has been revealed.”

+

+“What is it? Some new relics?” asked Prince Andrew.

+

+“Andrew, do leave off,” said Princess Mary. “Don’t tell him,

+Pelagéya.”

+

+“No... why not, my dear, why shouldn’t I? I like him. He is kind,

+he is one of God’s chosen, he’s a benefactor, he once gave me ten

+rubles, I remember. When I was in Kiev, Crazy Cyril says to me (he’s

+one of God’s own and goes barefoot summer and winter), he says,

+‘Why are you not going to the right place? Go to Kolyázin where a

+wonder-working icon of the Holy Mother of God has been revealed.’ On

+hearing those words I said good-by to the holy folk and went.”

+

+All were silent, only the pilgrim woman went on in measured tones,

+drawing in her breath.

+

+“So I come, master, and the people say to me: ‘A great blessing has

+been revealed, holy oil trickles from the cheeks of our blessed Mother,

+the Holy Virgin Mother of God.’...”

+

+“All right, all right, you can tell us afterwards,” said Princess

+Mary, flushing.

+

+“Let me ask her,” said Pierre. “Did you see it yourselves?” he

+inquired.

+

+“Oh, yes, master, I was found worthy. Such a brightness on the face

+like the light of heaven, and from the blessed Mother’s cheek it drops

+and drops....”

+

+“But, dear me, that must be a fraud!” said Pierre, naïvely, who had

+listened attentively to the pilgrim.

+

+“Oh, master, what are you saying?” exclaimed the horrified

+Pelagéya, turning to Princess Mary for support.

+

+“They impose on the people,” he repeated.

+

+“Lord Jesus Christ!” exclaimed the pilgrim woman, crossing herself.

+“Oh, don’t speak so, master! There was a general who did not

+believe, and said, ‘The monks cheat,’ and as soon as he’d said it

+he went blind. And he dreamed that the Holy Virgin Mother of the Kiev

+catacombs came to him and said, ‘Believe in me and I will make you

+whole.’ So he begged: ‘Take me to her, take me to her.’ It’s the

+real truth I’m telling you, I saw it myself. So he was brought, quite

+blind, straight to her, and he goes up to her and falls down and says,

+‘Make me whole,’ says he, ‘and I’ll give thee what the Tsar

+bestowed on me.’ I saw it myself, master, the star is fixed into the

+icon. Well, and what do you think? He received his sight! It’s a sin

+to speak so. God will punish you,” she said admonishingly, turning to

+Pierre.

+

+“How did the star get into the icon?” Pierre asked.

+

+“And was the Holy Mother promoted to the rank of general?” said

+Prince Andrew, with a smile.

+

+Pelagéya suddenly grew quite pale and clasped her hands.

+

+“Oh, master, master, what a sin! And you who have a son!” she began,

+her pallor suddenly turning to a vivid red. “Master, what have you

+said? God forgive you!” And she crossed herself. “Lord forgive him!

+My dear, what does it mean?...” she asked, turning to Princess

+Mary. She got up and, almost crying, began to arrange her wallet. She

+evidently felt frightened and ashamed to have accepted charity in a

+house where such things could be said, and was at the same time sorry to

+have now to forgo the charity of this house.

+

+“Now, why need you do it?” said Princess Mary. “Why did you come

+to me?...”

+

+“Come, Pelagéya, I was joking,” said Pierre. “Princesse, ma

+parole, je n’ai pas voulu l’offenser. * I did not mean anything,

+I was only joking,” he said, smiling shyly and trying to efface his

+offense. “It was all my fault, and Andrew was only joking.”

+

+    * “Princess, on my word, I did not wish to offend her.”

+

+

+Pelagéya stopped doubtfully, but in Pierre’s face there was such a

+look of sincere penitence, and Prince Andrew glanced so meekly now at

+her and now at Pierre, that she was gradually reassured.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV

+

+The pilgrim woman was appeased and, being encouraged to talk, gave a

+long account of Father Amphilochus, who led so holy a life that his

+hands smelled of incense, and how on her last visit to Kiev some monks

+she knew let her have the keys of the catacombs, and how she, taking

+some dried bread with her, had spent two days in the catacombs with

+the saints. “I’d pray awhile to one, ponder awhile, then go on to

+another. I’d sleep a bit and then again go and kiss the relics, and

+there was such peace all around, such blessedness, that one don’t want

+to come out, even into the light of heaven again.”

+

+Pierre listened to her attentively and seriously. Prince Andrew went out

+of the room, and then, leaving “God’s folk” to finish their tea,

+Princess Mary took Pierre into the drawing room.

+

+“You are very kind,” she said to him.

+

+“Oh, I really did not mean to hurt her feelings. I understand them so

+well and have the greatest respect for them.”

+

+Princess Mary looked at him silently and smiled affectionately.

+

+“I have known you a long time, you see, and am as fond of you as of a

+brother,” she said. “How do you find Andrew?” she added hurriedly,

+not giving him time to reply to her affectionate words. “I am very

+anxious about him. His health was better in the winter, but last spring

+his wound reopened and the doctor said he ought to go away for a

+cure. And I am also very much afraid for him spiritually. He has not a

+character like us women who, when we suffer, can weep away our sorrows.

+He keeps it all within him. Today he is cheerful and in good spirits,

+but that is the effect of your visit—he is not often like that. If

+you could persuade him to go abroad. He needs activity, and this quiet

+regular life is very bad for him. Others don’t notice it, but I see

+it.”

+

+Toward ten o’clock the men servants rushed to the front door, hearing

+the bells of the old prince’s carriage approaching. Prince Andrew and

+Pierre also went out into the porch.

+

+“Who’s that?” asked the old prince, noticing Pierre as he got out

+of the carriage.

+

+“Ah! Very glad! Kiss me,” he said, having learned who the young

+stranger was.

+

+The old prince was in a good temper and very gracious to Pierre.

+

+Before supper, Prince Andrew, coming back to his father’s study, found

+him disputing hotly with his visitor. Pierre was maintaining that a time

+would come when there would be no more wars. The old prince disputed it

+chaffingly, but without getting angry.

+

+“Drain the blood from men’s veins and put in water instead, then

+there will be no more war! Old women’s nonsense—old women’s

+nonsense!” he repeated, but still he patted Pierre affectionately

+on the shoulder, and then went up to the table where Prince Andrew,

+evidently not wishing to join in the conversation, was looking over the

+papers his father had brought from town. The old prince went up to him

+and began to talk business.

+

+“The marshal, a Count Rostóv, hasn’t sent half his contingent. He

+came to town and wanted to invite me to dinner—I gave him a pretty

+dinner!... And there, look at this.... Well, my boy,” the old prince

+went on, addressing his son and patting Pierre on the shoulder. “A

+fine fellow—your friend—I like him! He stirs me up. Another says

+clever things and one doesn’t care to listen, but this one talks

+rubbish yet stirs an old fellow up. Well, go! Get along! Perhaps I’ll

+come and sit with you at supper. We’ll have another dispute. Make

+friends with my little fool, Princess Mary,” he shouted after Pierre,

+through the door.

+

+Only now, on his visit to Bald Hills, did Pierre fully realize the

+strength and charm of his friendship with Prince Andrew. That charm was

+not expressed so much in his relations with him as with all his family

+and with the household. With the stern old prince and the gentle, timid

+Princess Mary, though he had scarcely known them, Pierre at once felt

+like an old friend. They were all fond of him already. Not only Princess

+Mary, who had been won by his gentleness with the pilgrims, gave him her

+most radiant looks, but even the one-year-old “Prince Nicholas” (as

+his grandfather called him) smiled at Pierre and let himself be taken

+in his arms, and Michael Ivánovich and Mademoiselle Bourienne looked at

+him with pleasant smiles when he talked to the old prince.

+

+The old prince came in to supper; this was evidently on Pierre’s

+account. And during the two days of the young man’s visit he was

+extremely kind to him and told him to visit them again.

+

+When Pierre had gone and the members of the household met together, they

+began to express their opinions of him as people always do after a new

+acquaintance has left, but as seldom happens, no one said anything but

+what was good of him.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV

+

+When returning from his leave, Rostóv felt, for the first time, how

+close was the bond that united him to Denísov and the whole regiment.

+

+On approaching it, Rostóv felt as he had done when approaching his home

+in Moscow. When he saw the first hussar with the unbuttoned uniform

+of his regiment, when he recognized red-haired Deméntyev and saw the

+picket ropes of the roan horses, when Lavrúshka gleefully shouted to

+his master, “The count has come!” and Denísov, who had been asleep

+on his bed, ran all disheveled out of the mud hut to embrace him,

+and the officers collected round to greet the new arrival, Rostóv

+experienced the same feeling as when his mother, his father, and his

+sister had embraced him, and tears of joy choked him so that he could

+not speak. The regiment was also a home, and as unalterably dear and

+precious as his parents’ house.

+

+When he had reported himself to the commander of the regiment and had

+been reassigned to his former squadron, had been on duty and had gone

+out foraging, when he had again entered into all the little interests

+of the regiment and felt himself deprived of liberty and bound in one

+narrow, unchanging frame, he experienced the same sense of peace, of

+moral support, and the same sense of being at home here in his own

+place, as he had felt under the parental roof. But here was none of

+all that turmoil of the world at large, where he did not know his right

+place and took mistaken decisions; here was no Sónya with whom he

+ought, or ought not, to have an explanation; here was no possibility of

+going there or not going there; here there were not twenty-four hours

+in the day which could be spent in such a variety of ways; there was not

+that innumerable crowd of people of whom not one was nearer to him or

+farther from him than another; there were none of those uncertain and

+undefined money relations with his father, and nothing to recall that

+terrible loss to Dólokhov. Here, in the regiment, all was clear and

+simple. The whole world was divided into two unequal parts: one, our

+Pávlograd regiment; the other, all the rest. And the rest was no

+concern of his. In the regiment, everything was definite: who was

+lieutenant, who captain, who was a good fellow, who a bad one, and most

+of all, who was a comrade. The canteenkeeper gave one credit, one’s

+pay came every four months, there was nothing to think out or decide,

+you had only to do nothing that was considered bad in the Pávlograd

+regiment and, when given an order, to do what was clearly, distinctly,

+and definitely ordered—and all would be well.

+

+Having once more entered into the definite conditions of this regimental

+life, Rostóv felt the joy and relief a tired man feels on lying down to

+rest. Life in the regiment, during this campaign, was all the pleasanter

+for him, because, after his loss to Dólokhov (for which, in spite

+of all his family’s efforts to console him, he could not forgive

+himself), he had made up his mind to atone for his fault by serving,

+not as he had done before, but really well, and by being a perfectly

+first-rate comrade and officer—in a word, a splendid man altogether, a

+thing which seemed so difficult out in the world, but so possible in the

+regiment.

+

+After his losses, he had determined to pay back his debt to his parents

+in five years. He received ten thousand rubles a year, but now resolved

+to take only two thousand and leave the rest to repay the debt to his

+parents.

+

+Our army, after repeated retreats and advances and battles at Pultúsk

+and Preussisch-Eylau, was concentrated near Bartenstein. It was awaiting

+the Emperor’s arrival and the beginning of a new campaign.

+

+The Pávlograd regiment, belonging to that part of the army which had

+served in the 1805 campaign, had been recruiting up to strength in

+Russia, and arrived too late to take part in the first actions of the

+campaign. It had been neither at Pultúsk nor at Preussisch-Eylau and,

+when it joined the army in the field in the second half of the campaign,

+was attached to Plátov’s division.

+

+Plátov’s division was acting independently of the main army. Several

+times parts of the Pávlograd regiment had exchanged shots with

+the enemy, had taken prisoners, and once had even captured Marshal

+Oudinot’s carriages. In April the Pávlograds were stationed immovably

+for some weeks near a totally ruined and deserted German village.

+

+A thaw had set in, it was muddy and cold, the ice on the river broke,

+and the roads became impassable. For days neither provisions for the

+men nor fodder for the horses had been issued. As no transports could

+arrive, the men dispersed about the abandoned and deserted villages,

+searching for potatoes, but found few even of these.

+

+Everything had been eaten up and the inhabitants had all fled—if any

+remained, they were worse than beggars and nothing more could be taken

+from them; even the soldiers, usually pitiless enough, instead of taking

+anything from them, often gave them the last of their rations.

+

+The Pávlograd regiment had had only two men wounded in action, but had

+lost nearly half its men from hunger and sickness. In the hospitals,

+death was so certain that soldiers suffering from fever, or the swelling

+that came from bad food, preferred to remain on duty, and hardly able

+to drag their legs went to the front rather than to the hospitals.

+When spring came on, the soldiers found a plant just showing out of the

+ground that looked like asparagus, which, for some reason, they called

+“Máshka’s sweet root.” It was very bitter, but they wandered

+about the fields seeking it and dug it out with their sabers and ate it,

+though they were ordered not to do so, as it was a noxious plant. That

+spring a new disease broke out among the soldiers, a swelling of the

+arms, legs, and face, which the doctors attributed to eating this root.

+But in spite of all this, the soldiers of Denísov’s squadron fed

+chiefly on “Máshka’s sweet root,” because it was the second week

+that the last of the biscuits were being doled out at the rate of half a

+pound a man and the last potatoes received had sprouted and frozen.

+

+The horses also had been fed for a fortnight on straw from the thatched

+roofs and had become terribly thin, though still covered with tufts of

+felty winter hair.

+

+Despite this destitution, the soldiers and officers went on living just

+as usual. Despite their pale swollen faces and tattered uniforms, the

+hussars formed line for roll call, kept things in order, groomed their

+horses, polished their arms, brought in straw from the thatched roofs in

+place of fodder, and sat down to dine round the caldrons from which

+they rose up hungry, joking about their nasty food and their hunger. As

+usual, in their spare time, they lit bonfires, steamed themselves before

+them naked; smoked, picked out and baked sprouting rotten potatoes, told

+and listened to stories of Potëmkin’s and Suvórov’s campaigns, or

+to legends of Alësha the Sly, or the priest’s laborer Mikólka.

+

+The officers, as usual, lived in twos and threes in the roofless,

+half-ruined houses. The seniors tried to collect straw and potatoes and,

+in general, food for the men. The younger ones occupied themselves as

+before, some playing cards (there was plenty of money, though there was

+no food), some with more innocent games, such as quoits and skittles.

+The general trend of the campaign was rarely spoken of, partly because

+nothing certain was known about it, partly because there was a vague

+feeling that in the main it was going badly.

+

+Rostóv lived, as before, with Denísov, and since their furlough they

+had become more friendly than ever. Denísov never spoke of Rostóv’s

+family, but by the tender friendship his commander showed him, Rostóv

+felt that the elder hussar’s luckless love for Natásha played a part

+in strengthening their friendship. Denísov evidently tried to expose

+Rostóv to danger as seldom as possible, and after an action greeted his

+safe return with evident joy. On one of his foraging expeditions, in

+a deserted and ruined village to which he had come in search of

+provisions, Rostóv found a family consisting of an old Pole and his

+daughter with an infant in arms. They were half clad, hungry, too weak

+to get away on foot and had no means of obtaining a conveyance. Rostóv

+brought them to his quarters, placed them in his own lodging, and

+kept them for some weeks while the old man was recovering. One of his

+comrades, talking of women, began chaffing Rostóv, saying that he was

+more wily than any of them and that it would not be a bad thing if he

+introduced to them the pretty Polish girl he had saved. Rostóv took

+the joke as an insult, flared up, and said such unpleasant things to the

+officer that it was all Denísov could do to prevent a duel. When

+the officer had gone away, Denísov, who did not himself know what

+Rostóv’s relations with the Polish girl might be, began to upbraid

+him for his quickness of temper, and Rostóv replied:

+

+“Say what you like.... She is like a sister to me, and I can’t tell

+you how it offended me... because... well, for that reason....”

+

+Denísov patted him on the shoulder and began rapidly pacing the room

+without looking at Rostóv, as was his way at moments of deep feeling.

+

+“Ah, what a mad bweed you Wostóvs are!” he muttered, and Rostóv

+noticed tears in his eyes.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI

+

+In April the troops were enlivened by news of the Emperor’s arrival,

+but Rostóv had no chance of being present at the review he held at

+Bartenstein, as the Pávlograds were at the outposts far beyond that

+place.

+

+They were bivouacking. Denísov and Rostóv were living in an earth hut,

+dug out for them by the soldiers and roofed with branches and turf. The

+hut was made in the following manner, which had then come into vogue. A

+trench was dug three and a half feet wide, four feet eight inches deep,

+and eight feet long. At one end of the trench, steps were cut out and

+these formed the entrance and vestibule. The trench itself was the room,

+in which the lucky ones, such as the squadron commander, had a board,

+lying on piles at the end opposite the entrance, to serve as a table. On

+each side of the trench, the earth was cut out to a breadth of about two

+and a half feet, and this did duty for bedsteads and couches. The roof

+was so constructed that one could stand up in the middle of the trench

+and could even sit up on the beds if one drew close to the table.

+Denísov, who was living luxuriously because the soldiers of his

+squadron liked him, had also a board in the roof at the farther end,

+with a piece of (broken but mended) glass in it for a window. When it

+was very cold, embers from the soldiers’ campfire were placed on

+a bent sheet of iron on the steps in the “reception room”—as

+Denísov called that part of the hut—and it was then so warm that the

+officers, of whom there were always some with Denísov and Rostóv, sat

+in their shirt sleeves.

+

+In April, Rostóv was on orderly duty. One morning, between seven and

+eight, returning after a sleepless night, he sent for embers, changed

+his rain-soaked underclothes, said his prayers, drank tea, got warm,

+then tidied up the things on the table and in his own corner, and,

+his face glowing from exposure to the wind and with nothing on but his

+shirt, lay down on his back, putting his arms under his head. He was

+pleasantly considering the probability of being promoted in a few days

+for his last reconnoitering expedition, and was awaiting Denísov, who

+had gone out somewhere and with whom he wanted a talk.

+

+Suddenly he heard Denísov shouting in a vibrating voice behind the hut,

+evidently much excited. Rostóv moved to the window to see whom he was

+speaking to, and saw the quartermaster, Topchéenko.

+

+“I ordered you not to let them eat that Máshka woot stuff!”

+Denísov was shouting. “And I saw with my own eyes how Lazarchúk

+bwought some fwom the fields.”

+

+“I have given the order again and again, your honor, but they don’t

+obey,” answered the quartermaster.

+

+Rostóv lay down again on his bed and thought complacently: “Let

+him fuss and bustle now, my job’s done and I’m lying

+down—capitally!” He could hear that Lavrúshka—that sly, bold

+orderly of Denísov’s—was talking, as well as the quartermaster.

+Lavrúshka was saying something about loaded wagons, biscuits, and oxen

+he had seen when he had gone out for provisions.

+

+Then Denísov’s voice was heard shouting farther and farther away.

+“Saddle! Second platoon!”

+

+“Where are they off to now?” thought Rostóv.

+

+Five minutes later, Denísov came into the hut, climbed with muddy boots

+on the bed, lit his pipe, furiously scattered his things about, took

+his leaded whip, buckled on his saber, and went out again. In answer to

+Rostóv’s inquiry where he was going, he answered vaguely and crossly

+that he had some business.

+

+“Let God and our gweat monarch judge me afterwards!” said Denísov

+going out, and Rostóv heard the hoofs of several horses splashing

+through the mud. He did not even trouble to find out where Denísov had

+gone. Having got warm in his corner, he fell asleep and did not leave

+the hut till toward evening. Denísov had not yet returned. The weather

+had cleared up, and near the next hut two officers and a cadet were

+playing sváyka, laughing as they threw their missiles which buried

+themselves in the soft mud. Rostóv joined them. In the middle of the

+game, the officers saw some wagons approaching with fifteen hussars on

+their skinny horses behind them. The wagons escorted by the hussars drew

+up to the picket ropes and a crowd of hussars surrounded them.

+

+“There now, Denísov has been worrying,” said Rostóv, “and here

+are the provisions.”

+

+“So they are!” said the officers. “Won’t the soldiers be

+glad!”

+

+A little behind the hussars came Denísov, accompanied by two infantry

+officers with whom he was talking.

+

+Rostóv went to meet them.

+

+“I warn you, Captain,” one of the officers, a short thin man,

+evidently very angry, was saying.

+

+“Haven’t I told you I won’t give them up?” replied Denísov.

+

+“You will answer for it, Captain. It is mutiny—seizing the transport

+of one’s own army. Our men have had nothing to eat for two days.”

+

+“And mine have had nothing for two weeks,” said Denísov.

+

+“It is robbery! You’ll answer for it, sir!” said the infantry

+officer, raising his voice.

+

+“Now, what are you pestewing me for?” cried Denísov, suddenly

+losing his temper. “I shall answer for it and not you, and you’d

+better not buzz about here till you get hurt. Be off! Go!” he shouted

+at the officers.

+

+“Very well, then!” shouted the little officer, undaunted and not

+riding away. “If you are determined to rob, I’ll...”

+

+“Go to the devil! quick ma’ch, while you’re safe and sound!” and

+Denísov turned his horse on the officer.

+

+“Very well, very well!” muttered the officer, threateningly, and

+turning his horse he trotted away, jolting in his saddle.

+

+“A dog astwide a fence! A weal dog astwide a fence!” shouted

+Denísov after him (the most insulting expression a cavalryman can

+address to a mounted infantryman) and riding up to Rostóv, he burst out

+laughing.

+

+“I’ve taken twansports from the infantwy by force!” he said.

+“After all, can’t let our men starve.”

+

+The wagons that had reached the hussars had been consigned to an

+infantry regiment, but learning from Lavrúshka that the transport

+was unescorted, Denísov with his hussars had seized it by force. The

+soldiers had biscuits dealt out to them freely, and they even shared

+them with the other squadrons.

+

+The next day the regimental commander sent for Denísov, and holding his

+fingers spread out before his eyes said:

+

+“This is how I look at this affair: I know nothing about it and

+won’t begin proceedings, but I advise you to ride over to the staff

+and settle the business there in the commissariat department and if

+possible sign a receipt for such and such stores received. If not, as

+the demand was booked against an infantry regiment, there will be a row

+and the affair may end badly.”

+

+From the regimental commander’s, Denísov rode straight to the staff

+with a sincere desire to act on this advice. In the evening he came

+back to his dugout in a state such as Rostóv had never yet seen him in.

+Denísov could not speak and gasped for breath. When Rostóv asked what

+was the matter, he only uttered some incoherent oaths and threats in a

+hoarse, feeble voice.

+

+Alarmed at Denísov’s condition, Rostóv suggested that he should

+undress, drink some water, and send for the doctor.

+

+“Twy me for wobbewy... oh! Some more water... Let them twy me, but

+I’ll always thwash scoundwels... and I’ll tell the Empewo’...

+Ice...” he muttered.

+

+The regimental doctor, when he came, said it was absolutely necessary

+to bleed Denísov. A deep saucer of black blood was taken from his hairy

+arm and only then was he able to relate what had happened to him.

+

+“I get there,” began Denísov. “‘Now then, where’s your

+chief’s quarters?’ They were pointed out. ‘Please to wait.’

+‘I’ve widden twenty miles and have duties to attend to and no time

+to wait. Announce me.’ Vewy well, so out comes their head

+chief—also took it into his head to lecture me: ‘It’s

+wobbewy!’—‘Wobbewy,’ I say, ‘is not done by man who seizes

+pwovisions to feed his soldiers, but by him who takes them to fill his

+own pockets!’ ‘Will you please be silent?’ ‘Vewy good!’ Then

+he says: ‘Go and give a weceipt to the commissioner, but your affair

+will be passed on to headquarters.’ I go to the commissioner. I enter,

+and at the table... who do you think? No, but wait a bit!... Who is it

+that’s starving us?” shouted Denísov, hitting the table with the

+fist of his newly bled arm so violently that the table nearly broke down

+and the tumblers on it jumped about. “Telyánin! ‘What? So it’s

+you who’s starving us to death! Is it? Take this and this!’ and I

+hit him so pat, stwaight on his snout... ‘Ah, what a... what a...!’

+and I sta’ted fwashing him... Well, I’ve had a bit of fun I can tell

+you!” cried Denísov, gleeful and yet angry, his white teeth showing

+under his black mustache. “I’d have killed him if they hadn’t

+taken him away!”

+

+“But what are you shouting for? Calm yourself,” said Rostóv.

+“You’ve set your arm bleeding afresh. Wait, we must tie it up

+again.”

+

+Denísov was bandaged up again and put to bed. Next day he woke calm and

+cheerful.

+

+But at noon the adjutant of the regiment came into Rostóv’s and

+Denísov’s dugout with a grave and serious face and regretfully showed

+them a paper addressed to Major Denísov from the regimental commander

+in which inquiries were made about yesterday’s occurrence. The

+adjutant told them that the affair was likely to take a very bad

+turn: that a court-martial had been appointed, and that in view of the

+severity with which marauding and insubordination were now regarded,

+degradation to the ranks would be the best that could be hoped for.

+

+The case, as represented by the offended parties, was that, after

+seizing the transports, Major Denísov, being drunk, went to the chief

+quartermaster and without any provocation called him a thief, threatened

+to strike him, and on being led out had rushed into the office and given

+two officials a thrashing, and dislocated the arm of one of them.

+

+In answer to Rostóv’s renewed questions, Denísov said, laughing,

+that he thought he remembered that some other fellow had got mixed up

+in it, but that it was all nonsense and rubbish, and he did not in the

+least fear any kind of trial, and that if those scoundrels dared attack

+him he would give them an answer that they would not easily forget.

+

+Denísov spoke contemptuously of the whole matter, but Rostóv knew him

+too well not to detect that (while hiding it from others) at heart

+he feared a court-martial and was worried over the affair, which was

+evidently taking a bad turn. Every day, letters of inquiry and notices

+from the court arrived, and on the first of May, Denísov was ordered

+to hand the squadron over to the next in seniority and appear before

+the staff of his division to explain his violence at the commissariat

+office. On the previous day Plátov reconnoitered with two Cossack

+regiments and two squadrons of hussars. Denísov, as was his wont, rode

+out in front of the outposts, parading his courage. A bullet fired by

+a French sharpshooter hit him in the fleshy part of his leg. Perhaps at

+another time Denísov would not have left the regiment for so slight a

+wound, but now he took advantage of it to excuse himself from appearing

+at the staff and went into hospital.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVII

+

+In June the battle of Friedland was fought, in which the Pávlograds did

+not take part, and after that an armistice was proclaimed. Rostóv, who

+felt his friend’s absence very much, having no news of him since he

+left and feeling very anxious about his wound and the progress of his

+affairs, took advantage of the armistice to get leave to visit Denísov

+in hospital.

+

+The hospital was in a small Prussian town that had been twice devastated

+by Russian and French troops. Because it was summer, when it is so

+beautiful out in the fields, the little town presented a particularly

+dismal appearance with its broken roofs and fences, its foul streets,

+tattered inhabitants, and the sick and drunken soldiers wandering about.

+

+The hospital was in a brick building with some of the window frames and

+panes broken and a courtyard surrounded by the remains of a wooden fence

+that had been pulled to pieces. Several bandaged soldiers, with pale

+swollen faces, were sitting or walking about in the sunshine in the

+yard.

+

+Directly Rostóv entered the door he was enveloped by a smell of

+putrefaction and hospital air. On the stairs he met a Russian army

+doctor smoking a cigar. The doctor was followed by a Russian assistant.

+

+“I can’t tear myself to pieces,” the doctor was saying. “Come to

+Makár Alexéevich in the evening. I shall be there.”

+

+The assistant asked some further questions.

+

+“Oh, do the best you can! Isn’t it all the same?” The doctor

+noticed Rostóv coming upstairs.

+

+“What do you want, sir?” said the doctor. “What do you want?

+The bullets having spared you, do you want to try typhus? This is a

+pesthouse, sir.”

+

+“How so?” asked Rostóv.

+

+“Typhus, sir. It’s death to go in. Only we two, Makéev and I” (he

+pointed to the assistant), “keep on here. Some five of us doctors have

+died in this place.... When a new one comes he is done for in a week,”

+said the doctor with evident satisfaction. “Prussian doctors have been

+invited here, but our allies don’t like it at all.”

+

+Rostóv explained that he wanted to see Major Denísov of the hussars,

+who was wounded.

+

+“I don’t know. I can’t tell you, sir. Only think! I am alone in

+charge of three hospitals with more than four hundred patients! It’s

+well that the charitable Prussian ladies send us two pounds of coffee

+and some lint each month or we should be lost!” he laughed. “Four

+hundred, sir, and they’re always sending me fresh ones. There are four

+hundred? Eh?” he asked, turning to the assistant.

+

+The assistant looked fagged out. He was evidently vexed and impatient

+for the talkative doctor to go.

+

+“Major Denísov,” Rostóv said again. “He was wounded at

+Molliten.”

+

+“Dead, I fancy. Eh, Makéev?” queried the doctor, in a tone of

+indifference.

+

+The assistant, however, did not confirm the doctor’s words.

+

+“Is he tall and with reddish hair?” asked the doctor.

+

+Rostóv described Denísov’s appearance.

+

+“There was one like that,” said the doctor, as if pleased. “That

+one is dead, I fancy. However, I’ll look up our list. We had a list.

+Have you got it, Makéev?”

+

+“Makár Alexéevich has the list,” answered the assistant. “But if

+you’ll step into the officers’ wards you’ll see for yourself,”

+he added, turning to Rostóv.

+

+“Ah, you’d better not go, sir,” said the doctor, “or you may

+have to stay here yourself.”

+

+But Rostóv bowed himself away from the doctor and asked the assistant

+to show him the way.

+

+“Only don’t blame me!” the doctor shouted up after him.

+

+Rostóv and the assistant went into the dark corridor. The smell was so

+strong there that Rostóv held his nose and had to pause and collect

+his strength before he could go on. A door opened to the right, and an

+emaciated sallow man on crutches, barefoot and in underclothing, limped

+out and, leaning against the doorpost, looked with glittering envious

+eyes at those who were passing. Glancing in at the door, Rostóv

+saw that the sick and wounded were lying on the floor on straw and

+overcoats.

+

+“May I go in and look?”

+

+“What is there to see?” said the assistant.

+

+But, just because the assistant evidently did not want him to go in,

+Rostóv entered the soldiers’ ward. The foul air, to which he had

+already begun to get used in the corridor, was still stronger here. It

+was a little different, more pungent, and one felt that this was where

+it originated.

+

+In the long room, brightly lit up by the sun through the large windows,

+the sick and wounded lay in two rows with their heads to the walls, and

+leaving a passage in the middle. Most of them were unconscious and

+paid no attention to the newcomers. Those who were conscious raised

+themselves or lifted their thin yellow faces, and all looked intently at

+Rostóv with the same expression of hope, of relief, reproach, and

+envy of another’s health. Rostóv went to the middle of the room and

+looking through the open doors into the two adjoining rooms saw the same

+thing there. He stood still, looking silently around. He had not at all

+expected such a sight. Just before him, almost across the middle of the

+passage on the bare floor, lay a sick man, probably a Cossack to judge

+by the cut of his hair. The man lay on his back, his huge arms and legs

+outstretched. His face was purple, his eyes were rolled back so that

+only the whites were seen, and on his bare legs and arms which were

+still red, the veins stood out like cords. He was knocking the back of

+his head against the floor, hoarsely uttering some word which he kept

+repeating. Rostóv listened and made out the word. It was “drink,

+drink, a drink!” Rostóv glanced round, looking for someone who would

+put this man back in his place and bring him water.

+

+“Who looks after the sick here?” he asked the assistant.

+

+Just then a commissariat soldier, a hospital orderly, came in from the

+next room, marching stiffly, and drew up in front of Rostóv.

+

+“Good day, your honor!” he shouted, rolling his eyes at Rostóv and

+evidently mistaking him for one of the hospital authorities.

+

+“Get him to his place and give him some water,” said Rostóv,

+pointing to the Cossack.

+

+“Yes, your honor,” the soldier replied complacently, and rolling

+his eyes more than ever he drew himself up still straighter, but did not

+move.

+

+“No, it’s impossible to do anything here,” thought Rostóv,

+lowering his eyes, and he was going out, but became aware of an intense

+look fixed on him on his right, and he turned. Close to the corner, on

+an overcoat, sat an old, unshaven, gray-bearded soldier as thin as a

+skeleton, with a stern sallow face and eyes intently fixed on Rostóv.

+The man’s neighbor on one side whispered something to him, pointing

+at Rostóv, who noticed that the old man wanted to speak to him. He drew

+nearer and saw that the old man had only one leg bent under him, the

+other had been amputated above the knee. His neighbor on the other side,

+who lay motionless some distance from him with his head thrown back, was

+a young soldier with a snub nose. His pale waxen face was still freckled

+and his eyes were rolled back. Rostóv looked at the young soldier and a

+cold chill ran down his back.

+

+“Why, this one seems...” he began, turning to the assistant.

+

+“And how we’ve been begging, your honor,” said the old soldier,

+his jaw quivering. “He’s been dead since morning. After all we’re

+men, not dogs.”

+

+“I’ll send someone at once. He shall be taken away—taken away at

+once,” said the assistant hurriedly. “Let us go, your honor.”

+

+“Yes, yes, let us go,” said Rostóv hastily, and lowering his

+eyes and shrinking, he tried to pass unnoticed between the rows of

+reproachful envious eyes that were fixed upon him, and went out of the

+room.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVIII

+

+Going along the corridor, the assistant led Rostóv to the officers’

+wards, consisting of three rooms, the doors of which stood open. There

+were beds in these rooms and the sick and wounded officers were lying or

+sitting on them. Some were walking about the rooms in hospital dressing

+gowns. The first person Rostóv met in the officers’ ward was a thin

+little man with one arm, who was walking about the first room in a

+nightcap and hospital dressing gown, with a pipe between his teeth.

+Rostóv looked at him, trying to remember where he had seen him before.

+

+“See where we’ve met again!” said the little man. “Túshin,

+Túshin, don’t you remember, who gave you a lift at Schön Grabern?

+And I’ve had a bit cut off, you see...” he went on with a smile,

+pointing to the empty sleeve of his dressing gown. “Looking for

+Vasíli Dmítrich Denísov? My neighbor,” he added, when he heard

+who Rostóv wanted. “Here, here,” and Túshin led him into the next

+room, from whence came sounds of several laughing voices.

+

+“How can they laugh, or even live at all here?” thought Rostóv,

+still aware of that smell of decomposing flesh that had been so strong

+in the soldiers’ ward, and still seeming to see fixed on him those

+envious looks which had followed him out from both sides, and the face

+of that young soldier with eyes rolled back.

+

+Denísov lay asleep on his bed with his head under the blanket, though

+it was nearly noon.

+

+“Ah, Wostóv? How are you, how are you?” he called out, still in the

+same voice as in the regiment, but Rostóv noticed sadly that under this

+habitual ease and animation some new, sinister, hidden feeling showed

+itself in the expression of Denísov’s face and the intonations of his

+voice.

+

+His wound, though a slight one, had not yet healed even now, six weeks

+after he had been hit. His face had the same swollen pallor as the faces

+of the other hospital patients, but it was not this that struck Rostóv.

+What struck him was that Denísov did not seem glad to see him, and

+smiled at him unnaturally. He did not ask about the regiment, nor about

+the general state of affairs, and when Rostóv spoke of these matters

+did not listen.

+

+Rostóv even noticed that Denísov did not like to be reminded of the

+regiment, or in general of that other free life which was going on

+outside the hospital. He seemed to try to forget that old life and

+was only interested in the affair with the commissariat officers. On

+Rostóv’s inquiry as to how the matter stood, he at once produced from

+under his pillow a paper he had received from the commission and the

+rough draft of his answer to it. He became animated when he began

+reading his paper and specially drew Rostóv’s attention to the

+stinging rejoinders he made to his enemies. His hospital companions,

+who had gathered round Rostóv—a fresh arrival from the world

+outside—gradually began to disperse as soon as Denísov began reading

+his answer. Rostóv noticed by their faces that all those gentlemen had

+already heard that story more than once and were tired of it. Only the

+man who had the next bed, a stout Uhlan, continued to sit on his bed,

+gloomily frowning and smoking a pipe, and little one-armed Túshin still

+listened, shaking his head disapprovingly. In the middle of the reading,

+the Uhlan interrupted Denísov.

+

+“But what I say is,” he said, turning to Rostóv, “it would be

+best simply to petition the Emperor for pardon. They say great rewards

+will now be distributed, and surely a pardon would be granted....”

+

+“Me petition the Empewo’!” exclaimed Denísov, in a voice to which

+he tried hard to give the old energy and fire, but which sounded like

+an expression of irritable impotence. “What for? If I were a wobber I

+would ask mercy, but I’m being court-martialed for bwinging wobbers

+to book. Let them twy me, I’m not afwaid of anyone. I’ve served

+the Tsar and my countwy honowably and have not stolen! And am I to be

+degwaded?... Listen, I’m w’iting to them stwaight. This is what I

+say: ‘If I had wobbed the Tweasuwy...’”

+

+“It’s certainly well written,” said Túshin, “but that’s not

+the point, Vasíli Dmítrich,” and he also turned to Rostóv. “One

+has to submit, and Vasíli Dmítrich doesn’t want to. You know the

+auditor told you it was a bad business.”

+

+“Well, let it be bad,” said Denísov.

+

+“The auditor wrote out a petition for you,” continued Túshin,

+“and you ought to sign it and ask this gentleman to take it. No doubt

+he” (indicating Rostóv) “has connections on the staff. You won’t

+find a better opportunity.”

+

+“Haven’t I said I’m not going to gwovel?” Denísov interrupted

+him, went on reading his paper.

+

+Rostóv had not the courage to persuade Denísov, though he

+instinctively felt that the way advised by Túshin and the other

+officers was the safest, and though he would have been glad to be of

+service to Denísov. He knew his stubborn will and straightforward hasty

+temper.

+

+When the reading of Denísov’s virulent reply, which took more than an

+hour, was over, Rostóv said nothing, and he spent the rest of the day

+in a most dejected state of mind amid Denísov’s hospital comrades,

+who had gathered round him, telling them what he knew and listening to

+their stories. Denísov was moodily silent all the evening.

+

+Late in the evening, when Rostóv was about to leave, he asked Denísov

+whether he had no commission for him.

+

+“Yes, wait a bit,” said Denísov, glancing round at the officers,

+and taking his papers from under his pillow he went to the window, where

+he had an inkpot, and sat down to write.

+

+“It seems it’s no use knocking one’s head against a wall!” he

+said, coming from the window and giving Rostóv a large envelope. In

+it was the petition to the Emperor drawn up by the auditor, in

+which Denísov, without alluding to the offenses of the commissariat

+officials, simply asked for pardon.

+

+“Hand it in. It seems...”

+

+He did not finish, but gave a painfully unnatural smile.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIX

+

+Having returned to the regiment and told the commander the state of

+Denísov’s affairs, Rostóv rode to Tilsit with the letter to the

+Emperor.

+

+On the thirteenth of June the French and Russian Emperors arrived in

+Tilsit. Borís Drubetskóy had asked the important personage on whom he

+was in attendance, to include him in the suite appointed for the stay at

+Tilsit.

+

+“I should like to see the great man,” he said, alluding to Napoleon,

+whom hitherto he, like everyone else, had always called Buonaparte.

+

+“You are speaking of Buonaparte?” asked the general, smiling.

+

+Borís looked at his general inquiringly and immediately saw that he was

+being tested.

+

+“I am speaking, Prince, of the Emperor Napoleon,” he replied. The

+general patted him on the shoulder, with a smile.

+

+“You will go far,” he said, and took him to Tilsit with him.

+

+Borís was among the few present at the Niemen on the day the two

+Emperors met. He saw the raft, decorated with monograms, saw Napoleon

+pass before the French Guards on the farther bank of the river, saw the

+pensive face of the Emperor Alexander as he sat in silence in a tavern

+on the bank of the Niemen awaiting Napoleon’s arrival, saw both

+Emperors get into boats, and saw how Napoleon—reaching the raft

+first—stepped quickly forward to meet Alexander and held out his hand

+to him, and how they both retired into the pavilion. Since he had begun

+to move in the highest circles Borís had made it his habit to watch

+attentively all that went on around him and to note it down. At the time

+of the meeting at Tilsit he asked the names of those who had come with

+Napoleon and about the uniforms they wore, and listened attentively to

+words spoken by important personages. At the moment the Emperors went

+into the pavilion he looked at his watch, and did not forget to look at

+it again when Alexander came out. The interview had lasted an hour and

+fifty-three minutes. He noted this down that same evening, among other

+facts he felt to be of historic importance. As the Emperor’s suite

+was a very small one, it was a matter of great importance, for a man who

+valued his success in the service, to be at Tilsit on the occasion of

+this interview between the two Emperors, and having succeeded in this,

+Borís felt that henceforth his position was fully assured. He had not

+only become known, but people had grown accustomed to him and accepted

+him. Twice he had executed commissions to the Emperor himself, so

+that the latter knew his face, and all those at court, far from

+cold-shouldering him as at first when they considered him a newcomer,

+would now have been surprised had he been absent.

+

+Borís lodged with another adjutant, the Polish Count Zhilínski.

+Zhilínski, a Pole brought up in Paris, was rich, and passionately

+fond of the French, and almost every day of the stay at Tilsit, French

+officers of the Guard and from French headquarters were dining and

+lunching with him and Borís.

+

+On the evening of the twenty-fourth of June, Count Zhilínski arranged a

+supper for his French friends. The guest of honor was an aide-de-camp of

+Napoleon’s, there were also several French officers of the Guard,

+and a page of Napoleon’s, a young lad of an old aristocratic French

+family. That same day, Rostóv, profiting by the darkness to avoid being

+recognized in civilian dress, came to Tilsit and went to the lodging

+occupied by Borís and Zhilínski.

+

+Rostóv, in common with the whole army from which he came, was far

+from having experienced the change of feeling toward Napoleon and the

+French—who from being foes had suddenly become friends—that had

+taken place at headquarters and in Borís. In the army, Bonaparte and

+the French were still regarded with mingled feelings of anger, contempt,

+and fear. Only recently, talking with one of Plátov’s Cossack

+officers, Rostóv had argued that if Napoleon were taken prisoner he

+would be treated not as a sovereign, but as a criminal. Quite lately,

+happening to meet a wounded French colonel on the road, Rostóv had

+maintained with heat that peace was impossible between a legitimate

+sovereign and the criminal Bonaparte. Rostóv was therefore unpleasantly

+struck by the presence of French officers in Borís’ lodging, dressed

+in uniforms he had been accustomed to see from quite a different point

+of view from the outposts of the flank. As soon as he noticed a French

+officer, who thrust his head out of the door, that warlike feeling of

+hostility which he always experienced at the sight of the enemy suddenly

+seized him. He stopped at the threshold and asked in Russian whether

+Drubetskóy lived there. Borís, hearing a strange voice in the

+anteroom, came out to meet him. An expression of annoyance showed itself

+for a moment on his face on first recognizing Rostóv.

+

+“Ah, it’s you? Very glad, very glad to see you,” he said, however,

+coming toward him with a smile. But Rostóv had noticed his first

+impulse.

+

+“I’ve come at a bad time I think. I should not have come, but I have

+business,” he said coldly.

+

+“No, I only wonder how you managed to get away from your regiment.

+Dans un moment je suis à vous,” * he said, answering someone who

+called him.

+

+    * “In a minute I shall be at your disposal.”

+

+

+“I see I’m intruding,” Rostóv repeated.

+

+The look of annoyance had already disappeared from Borís’ face:

+having evidently reflected and decided how to act, he very quietly took

+both Rostóv’s hands and led him into the next room. His eyes, looking

+serenely and steadily at Rostóv, seemed to be veiled by something,

+as if screened by blue spectacles of conventionality. So it seemed to

+Rostóv.

+

+“Oh, come now! As if you could come at a wrong time!” said Borís,

+and he led him into the room where the supper table was laid and

+introduced him to his guests, explaining that he was not a civilian, but

+an hussar officer, and an old friend of his.

+

+“Count Zhilínski—le Comte N. N.—le Capitaine S. S.,” said he,

+naming his guests. Rostóv looked frowningly at the Frenchmen, bowed

+reluctantly, and remained silent.

+

+Zhilínski evidently did not receive this new Russian person very

+willingly into his circle and did not speak to Rostóv. Borís did not

+appear to notice the constraint the newcomer produced and, with the same

+pleasant composure and the same veiled look in his eyes with which

+he had met Rostóv, tried to enliven the conversation. One of the

+Frenchmen, with the politeness characteristic of his countrymen,

+addressed the obstinately taciturn Rostóv, saying that the latter had

+probably come to Tilsit to see the Emperor.

+

+“No, I came on business,” replied Rostóv, briefly.

+

+Rostóv had been out of humor from the moment he noticed the look of

+dissatisfaction on Borís’ face, and as always happens to those in a

+bad humor, it seemed to him that everyone regarded him with aversion

+and that he was in everybody’s way. He really was in their way, for he

+alone took no part in the conversation which again became general. The

+looks the visitors cast on him seemed to say: “And what is he sitting

+here for?” He rose and went up to Borís.

+

+“Anyhow, I’m in your way,” he said in a low tone. “Come and talk

+over my business and I’ll go away.”

+

+“Oh, no, not at all,” said Borís. “But if you are tired, come and

+lie down in my room and have a rest.”

+

+“Yes, really...”

+

+They went into the little room where Borís slept. Rostóv, without

+sitting down, began at once, irritably (as if Borís were to blame in

+some way) telling him about Denísov’s affair, asking him whether,

+through his general, he could and would intercede with the Emperor on

+Denísov’s behalf and get Denísov’s petition handed in. When he

+and Borís were alone, Rostóv felt for the first time that he could not

+look Borís in the face without a sense of awkwardness. Borís, with one

+leg crossed over the other and stroking his left hand with the slender

+fingers of his right, listened to Rostóv as a general listens to the

+report of a subordinate, now looking aside and now gazing straight into

+Rostóv’s eyes with the same veiled look. Each time this happened

+Rostóv felt uncomfortable and cast down his eyes.

+

+“I have heard of such cases and know that His Majesty is very severe

+in such affairs. I think it would be best not to bring it before the

+Emperor, but to apply to the commander of the corps.... But in general,

+I think...”

+

+“So you don’t want to do anything? Well then, say so!” Rostóv

+almost shouted, not looking Borís in the face.

+

+Borís smiled.

+

+“On the contrary, I will do what I can. Only I thought...”

+

+At that moment Zhilínski’s voice was heard calling Borís.

+

+“Well then, go, go, go...” said Rostóv, and refusing supper and

+remaining alone in the little room, he walked up and down for a long

+time, hearing the lighthearted French conversation from the next room.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XX

+

+Rostóv had come to Tilsit the day least suitable for a petition

+on Denísov’s behalf. He could not himself go to the general in

+attendance as he was in mufti and had come to Tilsit without permission

+to do so, and Borís, even had he wished to, could not have done so on

+the following day. On that day, June 27, the preliminaries of peace were

+signed. The Emperors exchanged decorations: Alexander received the Cross

+of the Legion of Honor and Napoleon the Order of St. Andrew of the

+First Degree, and a dinner had been arranged for the evening, given by

+a battalion of the French Guards to the Preobrazhénsk battalion. The

+Emperors were to be present at that banquet.

+

+Rostóv felt so ill at ease and uncomfortable with Borís that, when the

+latter looked in after supper, he pretended to be asleep, and early next

+morning went away, avoiding Borís. In his civilian clothes and a

+round hat, he wandered about the town, staring at the French and their

+uniforms and at the streets and houses where the Russian and French

+Emperors were staying. In a square he saw tables being set up and

+preparations made for the dinner; he saw the Russian and French colors

+draped from side to side of the streets, with huge monograms A and N. In

+the windows of the houses also flags and bunting were displayed.

+

+“Borís doesn’t want to help me and I don’t want to ask him.

+That’s settled,” thought Nicholas. “All is over between us, but

+I won’t leave here without having done all I can for Denísov and

+certainly not without getting his letter to the Emperor. The Emperor!...

+He is here!” thought Rostóv, who had unconsciously returned to the

+house where Alexander lodged.

+

+Saddled horses were standing before the house and the suite were

+assembling, evidently preparing for the Emperor to come out.

+

+“I may see him at any moment,” thought Rostóv. “If only I were

+to hand the letter direct to him and tell him all... could they really

+arrest me for my civilian clothes? Surely not! He would understand on

+whose side justice lies. He understands everything, knows everything.

+Who can be more just, more magnanimous than he? And even if they did

+arrest me for being here, what would it matter?” thought he, looking

+at an officer who was entering the house the Emperor occupied. “After

+all, people do go in.... It’s all nonsense! I’ll go in and hand

+the letter to the Emperor myself so much the worse for Drubetskóy who

+drives me to it!” And suddenly with a determination he himself did not

+expect, Rostóv felt for the letter in his pocket and went straight to

+the house.

+

+“No, I won’t miss my opportunity now, as I did after Austerlitz,”

+he thought, expecting every moment to meet the monarch, and conscious of

+the blood that rushed to his heart at the thought. “I will fall at

+his feet and beseech him. He will lift me up, will listen, and will even

+thank me. ‘I am happy when I can do good, but to remedy injustice is

+the greatest happiness,’” Rostóv fancied the sovereign saying. And

+passing people who looked after him with curiosity, he entered the porch

+of the Emperor’s house.

+

+A broad staircase led straight up from the entry, and to the right he

+saw a closed door. Below, under the staircase, was a door leading to the

+lower floor.

+

+“Whom do you want?” someone inquired.

+

+“To hand in a letter, a petition, to His Majesty,” said Nicholas,

+with a tremor in his voice.

+

+“A petition? This way, to the officer on duty” (he was shown the

+door leading downstairs), “only it won’t be accepted.”

+

+On hearing this indifferent voice, Rostóv grew frightened at what

+he was doing; the thought of meeting the Emperor at any moment was so

+fascinating and consequently so alarming that he was ready to run away,

+but the official who had questioned him opened the door, and Rostóv

+entered.

+

+A short stout man of about thirty, in white breeches and high boots and

+a batiste shirt that he had evidently only just put on, standing in that

+room, and his valet was buttoning on to the back of his breeches a

+new pair of handsome silk-embroidered braces that, for some reason,

+attracted Rostóv’s attention. This man was speaking to someone in the

+adjoining room.

+

+“A good figure and in her first bloom,” he was saying, but on seeing

+Rostóv, he stopped short and frowned.

+

+“What is it? A petition?”

+

+“What is it?” asked the person in the other room.

+

+“Another petitioner,” answered the man with the braces.

+

+“Tell him to come later. He’ll be coming out directly, we must

+go.”

+

+“Later... later! Tomorrow. It’s too late...”

+

+Rostóv turned and was about to go, but the man in the braces stopped

+him.

+

+“Whom have you come from? Who are you?”

+

+“I come from Major Denísov,” answered Rostóv.

+

+“Are you an officer?”

+

+“Lieutenant Count Rostóv.”

+

+“What audacity! Hand it in through your commander. And go along with

+you... go,” and he continued to put on the uniform the valet handed

+him.

+

+Rostóv went back into the hall and noticed that in the porch there were

+many officers and generals in full parade uniform, whom he had to pass.

+

+Cursing his temerity, his heart sinking at the thought of finding

+himself at any moment face to face with the Emperor and being put to

+shame and arrested in his presence, fully alive now to the impropriety

+of his conduct and repenting of it, Rostóv, with downcast eyes, was

+making his way out of the house through the brilliant suite when a

+familiar voice called him and a hand detained him.

+

+“What are you doing here, sir, in civilian dress?” asked a deep

+voice.

+

+It was a cavalry general who had obtained the Emperor’s special favor

+during this campaign, and who had formerly commanded the division in

+which Rostóv was serving.

+

+Rostóv, in dismay, began justifying himself, but seeing the kindly,

+jocular face of the general, he took him aside and in an excited voice

+told him the whole affair, asking him to intercede for Denísov, whom

+the general knew. Having heard Rostóv to the end, the general shook his

+head gravely.

+

+“I’m sorry, sorry for that fine fellow. Give me the letter.”

+

+Hardly had Rostóv handed him the letter and finished explaining

+Denísov’s case, when hasty steps and the jingling of spurs were heard

+on the stairs, and the general, leaving him, went to the porch. The

+gentlemen of the Emperor’s suite ran down the stairs and went to their

+horses. Hayne, the same groom who had been at Austerlitz, led up the

+Emperor’s horse, and the faint creak of a footstep Rostóv knew at

+once was heard on the stairs. Forgetting the danger of being recognized,

+Rostóv went close to the porch, together with some inquisitive

+civilians, and again, after two years, saw those features he adored:

+that same face and same look and step, and the same union of majesty and

+mildness.... And the feeling of enthusiasm and love for his sovereign

+rose again in Rostóv’s soul in all its old force. In the uniform of

+the Preobrazhénsk regiment—white chamois-leather breeches and high

+boots—and wearing a star Rostóv did not know (it was that of the

+Légion d’honneur), the monarch came out into the porch, putting on

+his gloves and carrying his hat under his arm. He stopped and looked

+about him, brightening everything around by his glance. He spoke a few

+words to some of the generals, and, recognizing the former commander of

+Rostóv’s division, smiled and beckoned to him.

+

+All the suite drew back and Rostóv saw the general talking for some

+time to the Emperor.

+

+The Emperor said a few words to him and took a step toward his horse.

+Again the crowd of members of the suite and street gazers (among whom

+was Rostóv) moved nearer to the Emperor. Stopping beside his horse,

+with his hand on the saddle, the Emperor turned to the cavalry general

+and said in a loud voice, evidently wishing to be heard by all:

+

+“I cannot do it, General. I cannot, because the law is stronger than

+I,” and he raised his foot to the stirrup.

+

+The general bowed his head respectfully, and the monarch mounted and

+rode down the street at a gallop. Beside himself with enthusiasm,

+Rostóv ran after him with the crowd.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXI

+

+The Emperor rode to the square where, facing one another, a battalion

+of the Preobrazhénsk regiment stood on the right and a battalion of the

+French Guards in their bearskin caps on the left.

+

+As the Tsar rode up to one flank of the battalions, which presented

+arms, another group of horsemen galloped up to the opposite flank, and

+at the head of them Rostóv recognized Napoleon. It could be no one

+else. He came at a gallop, wearing a small hat, a blue uniform open over

+a white vest, and the St. Andrew ribbon over his shoulder. He was riding

+a very fine thoroughbred gray Arab horse with a crimson gold-embroidered

+saddlecloth. On approaching Alexander he raised his hat, and as he did

+so, Rostóv, with his cavalryman’s eye, could not help noticing

+that Napoleon did not sit well or firmly in the saddle. The battalions

+shouted “Hurrah!” and “Vive l’Empereur!” Napoleon said

+something to Alexander, and both Emperors dismounted and took each

+other’s hands. Napoleon’s face wore an unpleasant and artificial

+smile. Alexander was saying something affable to him.

+

+In spite of the trampling of the French gendarmes’ horses, which

+were pushing back the crowd, Rostóv kept his eyes on every movement

+of Alexander and Bonaparte. It struck him as a surprise that Alexander

+treated Bonaparte as an equal and that the latter was quite at ease with

+the Tsar, as if such relations with an Emperor were an everyday matter

+to him.

+

+Alexander and Napoleon, with the long train of their suites, approached

+the right flank of the Preobrazhénsk battalion and came straight up to

+the crowd standing there. The crowd unexpectedly found itself so close

+to the Emperors that Rostóv, standing in the front row, was afraid he

+might be recognized.

+

+“Sire, I ask your permission to present the Legion of Honor to the

+bravest of your soldiers,” said a sharp, precise voice, articulating

+every letter.

+

+This was said by the undersized Napoleon, looking up straight into

+Alexander’s eyes. Alexander listened attentively to what was said to

+him and, bending his head, smiled pleasantly.

+

+“To him who has borne himself most bravely in this last war,” added

+Napoleon, accentuating each syllable, as with a composure and assurance

+exasperating to Rostóv, he ran his eyes over the Russian ranks drawn

+up before him, who all presented arms with their eyes fixed on their

+Emperor.

+

+“Will Your Majesty allow me to consult the colonel?” said Alexander

+and took a few hasty steps toward Prince Kozlóvski, the commander of

+the battalion.

+

+Bonaparte meanwhile began taking the glove off his small white hand,

+tore it in doing so, and threw it away. An aide-de-camp behind him

+rushed forward and picked it up.

+

+“To whom shall it be given?” the Emperor Alexander asked Kozlóvski,

+in Russian in a low voice.

+

+“To whomever Your Majesty commands.”

+

+The Emperor knit his brows with dissatisfaction and, glancing back,

+remarked:

+

+“But we must give him an answer.”

+

+Kozlóvski scanned the ranks resolutely and included Rostóv in his

+scrutiny.

+

+“Can it be me?” thought Rostóv.

+

+“Lázarev!” the colonel called, with a frown, and Lázarev, the

+first soldier in the rank, stepped briskly forward.

+

+“Where are you off to? Stop here!” voices whispered to Lázarev who

+did not know where to go. Lázarev stopped, casting a sidelong look at

+his colonel in alarm. His face twitched, as often happens to soldiers

+called before the ranks.

+

+Napoleon slightly turned his head, and put his plump little hand out

+behind him as if to take something. The members of his suite, guessing

+at once what he wanted, moved about and whispered as they passed

+something from one to another, and a page—the same one Rostóv

+had seen the previous evening at Borís’—ran forward and, bowing

+respectfully over the outstretched hand and not keeping it waiting a

+moment, laid in it an Order on a red ribbon. Napoleon, without looking,

+pressed two fingers together and the badge was between them. Then he

+approached Lázarev (who rolled his eyes and persistently gazed at his

+own monarch), looked round at the Emperor Alexander to imply that what

+he was now doing was done for the sake of his ally, and the small white

+hand holding the Order touched one of Lázarev’s buttons. It was as if

+Napoleon knew that it was only necessary for his hand to deign to touch

+that soldier’s breast for the soldier to be forever happy, rewarded,

+and distinguished from everyone else in the world. Napoleon merely laid

+the cross on Lázarev’s breast and, dropping his hand, turned toward

+Alexander as though sure that the cross would adhere there. And it

+really did.

+

+Officious hands, Russian and French, immediately seized the cross and

+fastened it to the uniform. Lázarev glanced morosely at the little

+man with white hands who was doing something to him and, still standing

+motionless presenting arms, looked again straight into Alexander’s

+eyes, as if asking whether he should stand there, or go away, or do

+something else. But receiving no orders, he remained for some time in

+that rigid position.

+

+The Emperors remounted and rode away. The Preobrazhénsk battalion,

+breaking rank, mingled with the French Guards and sat down at the tables

+prepared for them.

+

+Lázarev sat in the place of honor. Russian and French officers embraced

+him, congratulated him, and pressed his hands. Crowds of officers and

+civilians drew near merely to see him. A rumble of Russian and French

+voices and laughter filled the air round the tables in the square.

+Two officers with flushed faces, looking cheerful and happy, passed by

+Rostóv.

+

+“What d’you think of the treat? All on silver plate,” one of them

+was saying. “Have you seen Lázarev?”

+

+“I have.”

+

+“Tomorrow, I hear, the Preobrazhénskis will give them a dinner.”

+

+“Yes, but what luck for Lázarev! Twelve hundred francs’ pension for

+life.”

+

+“Here’s a cap, lads!” shouted a Preobrazhénsk soldier, donning a

+shaggy French cap.

+

+“It’s a fine thing! First-rate!”

+

+“Have you heard the password?” asked one Guards’ officer of

+another. “The day before yesterday it was ‘Napoléon, France,

+bravoure’; yesterday, ‘Alexandre, Russie, grandeur.’ One day our

+Emperor gives it and next day Napoleon. Tomorrow our Emperor will send

+a St. George’s Cross to the bravest of the French Guards. It has to be

+done. He must respond in kind.”

+

+Borís, too, with his friend Zhilínski, came to see the Preobrazhénsk

+banquet. On his way back, he noticed Rostóv standing by the corner of a

+house.

+

+“Rostóv! How d’you do? We missed one another,” he said, and could

+not refrain from asking what was the matter, so strangely dismal and

+troubled was Rostóv’s face.

+

+“Nothing, nothing,” replied Rostóv.

+

+“You’ll call round?”

+

+“Yes, I will.”

+

+Rostóv stood at that corner for a long time, watching the feast from a

+distance. In his mind, a painful process was going on which he could

+not bring to a conclusion. Terrible doubts rose in his soul. Now he

+remembered Denísov with his changed expression, his submission, and the

+whole hospital, with arms and legs torn off and its dirt and disease. So

+vividly did he recall that hospital stench of dead flesh that he

+looked round to see where the smell came from. Next he thought of that

+self-satisfied Bonaparte, with his small white hand, who was now an

+Emperor, liked and respected by Alexander. Then why those severed

+arms and legs and those dead men?... Then again he thought of Lázarev

+rewarded and Denísov punished and unpardoned. He caught himself

+harboring such strange thoughts that he was frightened.

+

+The smell of the food the Preobrazhénskis were eating and a sense of

+hunger recalled him from these reflections; he had to get something to

+eat before going away. He went to a hotel he had noticed that morning.

+There he found so many people, among them officers who, like himself,

+had come in civilian clothes, that he had difficulty in getting a

+dinner. Two officers of his own division joined him. The conversation

+naturally turned on the peace. The officers, his comrades, like most of

+the army, were dissatisfied with the peace concluded after the battle of

+Friedland. They said that had we held out a little longer Napoleon would

+have been done for, as his troops had neither provisions nor ammunition.

+Nicholas ate and drank (chiefly the latter) in silence. He finished a

+couple of bottles of wine by himself. The process in his mind went on

+tormenting him without reaching a conclusion. He feared to give way to

+his thoughts, yet could not get rid of them. Suddenly, on one of the

+officers’ saying that it was humiliating to look at the French,

+Rostóv began shouting with uncalled-for wrath, and therefore much to

+the surprise of the officers:

+

+“How can you judge what’s best?” he cried, the blood suddenly

+rushing to his face. “How can you judge the Emperor’s actions? What

+right have we to argue? We cannot comprehend either the Emperor’s aims

+or his actions!”

+

+“But I never said a word about the Emperor!” said the officer,

+justifying himself, and unable to understand Rostóv’s outburst,

+except on the supposition that he was drunk.

+

+But Rostóv did not listen to him.

+

+“We are not diplomatic officials, we are soldiers and nothing more,”

+he went on. “If we are ordered to die, we must die. If we’re

+punished, it means that we have deserved it, it’s not for us to judge.

+If the Emperor pleases to recognize Bonaparte as Emperor and to conclude

+an alliance with him, it means that that is the right thing to do. If

+once we begin judging and arguing about everything, nothing sacred

+will be left! That way we shall be saying there is no God—nothing!”

+shouted Nicholas, banging the table—very little to the point as it

+seemed to his listeners, but quite relevantly to the course of his own

+thoughts.

+

+“Our business is to do our duty, to fight and not to think! That’s

+all....” said he.

+

+“And to drink,” said one of the officers, not wishing to quarrel.

+

+“Yes, and to drink,” assented Nicholas. “Hullo there! Another

+bottle!” he shouted.

+

+In 1808 the Emperor Alexander went to Erfurt for a fresh interview with

+the Emperor Napoleon, and in the upper circles of Petersburg there was

+much talk of the grandeur of this important meeting.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXII

+

+In 1809 the intimacy between “the world’s two arbiters,” as

+Napoleon and Alexander were called, was such that when Napoleon declared

+war on Austria a Russian corps crossed the frontier to co-operate with

+our old enemy Bonaparte against our old ally the Emperor of Austria, and

+in court circles the possibility of marriage between Napoleon and one

+of Alexander’s sisters was spoken of. But besides considerations of

+foreign policy, the attention of Russian society was at that time keenly

+directed on the internal changes that were being undertaken in all the

+departments of government.

+

+Life meanwhile—real life, with its essential interests of health and

+sickness, toil and rest, and its intellectual interests in thought,

+science, poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred, and passions—went on

+as usual, independently of and apart from political friendship or enmity

+with Napoleon Bonaparte and from all the schemes of reconstruction.

+

+

+

+

+

+BOOK SIX: 1808 - 10

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+Prince Andrew had spent two years continuously in the country.

+

+All the plans Pierre had attempted on his estates—and constantly

+changing from one thing to another had never accomplished—were carried

+out by Prince Andrew without display and without perceptible difficulty.

+

+He had in the highest degree a practical tenacity which Pierre lacked,

+and without fuss or strain on his part this set things going.

+

+On one of his estates the three hundred serfs were liberated and became

+free agricultural laborers—this being one of the first examples of

+the kind in Russia. On other estates the serfs’ compulsory labor was

+commuted for a quitrent. A trained midwife was engaged for Boguchárovo

+at his expense, and a priest was paid to teach reading and writing to

+the children of the peasants and household serfs.

+

+Prince Andrew spent half his time at Bald Hills with his father and his

+son, who was still in the care of nurses. The other half he spent in

+“Boguchárovo Cloister,” as his father called Prince Andrew’s

+estate. Despite the indifference to the affairs of the world he had

+expressed to Pierre, he diligently followed all that went on, received

+many books, and to his surprise noticed that when he or his father had

+visitors from Petersburg, the very vortex of life, these people lagged

+behind himself—who never left the country—in knowledge of what was

+happening in home and foreign affairs.

+

+Besides being occupied with his estates and reading a great variety of

+books, Prince Andrew was at this time busy with a critical survey of

+our last two unfortunate campaigns, and with drawing up a proposal for a

+reform of the army rules and regulations.

+

+In the spring of 1809 he went to visit the Ryazán estates which had

+been inherited by his son, whose guardian he was.

+

+Warmed by the spring sunshine he sat in the calèche looking at the new

+grass, the first leaves on the birches, and the first puffs of white

+spring clouds floating across the clear blue sky. He was not thinking of

+anything, but looked absent-mindedly and cheerfully from side to side.

+

+They crossed the ferry where he had talked with Pierre the year before.

+They went through the muddy village, past threshing floors and green

+fields of winter rye, downhill where snow still lodged near the bridge,

+uphill where the clay had been liquefied by the rain, past strips of

+stubble land and bushes touched with green here and there, and into a

+birch forest growing on both sides of the road. In the forest it was

+almost hot, no wind could be felt. The birches with their sticky green

+leaves were motionless, and lilac-colored flowers and the first blades

+of green grass were pushing up and lifting last year’s leaves. The

+coarse evergreen color of the small fir trees scattered here and there

+among the birches was an unpleasant reminder of winter. On entering the

+forest the horses began to snort and sweated visibly.

+

+Peter the footman made some remark to the coachman; the latter assented.

+But apparently the coachman’s sympathy was not enough for Peter, and

+he turned on the box toward his master.

+

+“How pleasant it is, your excellency!” he said with a respectful

+smile.

+

+“What?”

+

+“It’s pleasant, your excellency!”

+

+“What is he talking about?” thought Prince Andrew. “Oh, the

+spring, I suppose,” he thought as he turned round. “Yes, really

+everything is green already.... How early! The birches and cherry and

+alders too are coming out.... But the oaks show no sign yet. Ah, here is

+one oak!”

+

+At the edge of the road stood an oak. Probably ten times the age of the

+birches that formed the forest, it was ten times as thick and twice as

+tall as they. It was an enormous tree, its girth twice as great as a

+man could embrace, and evidently long ago some of its branches had been

+broken off and its bark scarred. With its huge ungainly limbs sprawling

+unsymmetrically, and its gnarled hands and fingers, it stood an aged,

+stern, and scornful monster among the smiling birch trees. Only the

+dead-looking evergreen firs dotted about in the forest, and this oak,

+refused to yield to the charm of spring or notice either the spring or

+the sunshine.

+

+“Spring, love, happiness!” this oak seemed to say. “Are you not

+weary of that stupid, meaningless, constantly repeated fraud? Always the

+same and always a fraud? There is no spring, no sun, no happiness! Look

+at those cramped dead firs, ever the same, and at me too, sticking out

+my broken and barked fingers just where they have grown, whether from my

+back or my sides: as they have grown so I stand, and I do not believe in

+your hopes and your lies.”

+

+As he passed through the forest Prince Andrew turned several times to

+look at that oak, as if expecting something from it. Under the oak,

+too, were flowers and grass, but it stood among them scowling, rigid,

+misshapen, and grim as ever.

+

+“Yes, the oak is right, a thousand times right,” thought Prince

+Andrew. “Let others—the young—yield afresh to that fraud, but we

+know life, our life is finished!”

+

+A whole sequence of new thoughts, hopeless but mournfully pleasant, rose

+in his soul in connection with that tree. During this journey he, as

+it were, considered his life afresh and arrived at his old conclusion,

+restful in its hopelessness: that it was not for him to begin anything

+anew—but that he must live out his life, content to do no harm, and

+not disturbing himself or desiring anything.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+Prince Andrew had to see the Marshal of the Nobility for the district

+in connection with the affairs of the Ryazán estate of which he was

+trustee. This Marshal was Count Ilyá Rostóv, and in the middle of May

+Prince Andrew went to visit him.

+

+It was now hot spring weather. The whole forest was already clothed in

+green. It was dusty and so hot that on passing near water one longed to

+bathe.

+

+Prince Andrew, depressed and preoccupied with the business about which

+he had to speak to the Marshal, was driving up the avenue in the grounds

+of the Rostóvs’ house at Otrádnoe. He heard merry girlish cries

+behind some trees on the right and saw a group of girls running to cross

+the path of his calèche. Ahead of the rest and nearer to him ran a

+dark-haired, remarkably slim, pretty girl in a yellow chintz dress, with

+a white handkerchief on her head from under which loose locks of hair

+escaped. The girl was shouting something but, seeing that he was a

+stranger, ran back laughing without looking at him.

+

+Suddenly, he did not know why, he felt a pang. The day was so beautiful,

+the sun so bright, everything around so gay, but that slim pretty girl

+did not know, or wish to know, of his existence and was contented and

+cheerful in her own separate—probably foolish—but bright and happy

+life. “What is she so glad about? What is she thinking of? Not of

+the military regulations or of the arrangement of the Ryazán serfs’

+quitrents. Of what is she thinking? Why is she so happy?” Prince

+Andrew asked himself with instinctive curiosity.

+

+In 1809 Count Ilyá Rostóv was living at Otrádnoe just as he had done

+in former years, that is, entertaining almost the whole province with

+hunts, theatricals, dinners, and music. He was glad to see Prince

+Andrew, as he was to see any new visitor, and insisted on his staying

+the night.

+

+During the dull day, in the course of which he was entertained by

+his elderly hosts and by the more important of the visitors (the old

+count’s house was crowded on account of an approaching name day),

+Prince Andrew repeatedly glanced at Natásha, gay and laughing among the

+younger members of the company, and asked himself each time, “What is

+she thinking about? Why is she so glad?”

+

+That night, alone in new surroundings, he was long unable to sleep. He

+read awhile and then put out his candle, but relit it. It was hot in the

+room, the inside shutters of which were closed. He was cross with the

+stupid old man (as he called Rostóv), who had made him stay by assuring

+him that some necessary documents had not yet arrived from town, and he

+was vexed with himself for having stayed.

+

+He got up and went to the window to open it. As soon as he opened the

+shutters the moonlight, as if it had long been watching for this, burst

+into the room. He opened the casement. The night was fresh, bright, and

+very still. Just before the window was a row of pollard trees, looking

+black on one side and with a silvery light on the other. Beneath the

+trees grew some kind of lush, wet, bushy vegetation with silver-lit

+leaves and stems here and there. Farther back beyond the dark trees a

+roof glittered with dew, to the right was a leafy tree with brilliantly

+white trunk and branches, and above it shone the moon, nearly at its

+full, in a pale, almost starless, spring sky. Prince Andrew leaned his

+elbows on the window ledge and his eyes rested on that sky.

+

+His room was on the first floor. Those in the rooms above were also

+awake. He heard female voices overhead.

+

+“Just once more,” said a girlish voice above him which Prince Andrew

+recognized at once.

+

+“But when are you coming to bed?” replied another voice.

+

+“I won’t, I can’t sleep, what’s the use? Come now for the last

+time.”

+

+Two girlish voices sang a musical passage—the end of some song.

+

+“Oh, how lovely! Now go to sleep, and there’s an end of it.”

+

+“You go to sleep, but I can’t,” said the first voice, coming

+nearer to the window. She was evidently leaning right out, for the

+rustle of her dress and even her breathing could be heard. Everything

+was stone-still, like the moon and its light and the shadows. Prince

+Andrew, too, dared not stir, for fear of betraying his unintentional

+presence.

+

+“Sónya! Sónya!” he again heard the first speaker. “Oh, how can

+you sleep? Only look how glorious it is! Ah, how glorious! Do wake up,

+Sónya!” she said almost with tears in her voice. “There never,

+never was such a lovely night before!”

+

+Sónya made some reluctant reply.

+

+“Do just come and see what a moon!... Oh, how lovely! Come here....

+Darling, sweetheart, come here! There, you see? I feel like sitting down

+on my heels, putting my arms round my knees like this, straining tight,

+as tight as possible, and flying away! Like this....”

+

+“Take care, you’ll fall out.”

+

+He heard the sound of a scuffle and Sónya’s disapproving voice:

+“It’s past one o’clock.”

+

+“Oh, you only spoil things for me. All right, go, go!”

+

+Again all was silent, but Prince Andrew knew she was still sitting

+there. From time to time he heard a soft rustle and at times a sigh.

+

+“O God, O God! What does it mean?” she suddenly exclaimed. “To bed

+then, if it must be!” and she slammed the casement.

+

+“For her I might as well not exist!” thought Prince Andrew while he

+listened to her voice, for some reason expecting yet fearing that she

+might say something about him. “There she is again! As if it were on

+purpose,” thought he.

+

+In his soul there suddenly arose such an unexpected turmoil of youthful

+thoughts and hopes, contrary to the whole tenor of his life, that unable

+to explain his condition to himself he lay down and fell asleep at once.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+Next morning, having taken leave of no one but the count, and not

+waiting for the ladies to appear, Prince Andrew set off for home.

+

+It was already the beginning of June when on his return journey he drove

+into the birch forest where the gnarled old oak had made so strange and

+memorable an impression on him. In the forest the harness bells sounded

+yet more muffled than they had done six weeks before, for now all was

+thick, shady, and dense, and the young firs dotted about in the forest

+did not jar on the general beauty but, lending themselves to the mood

+around, were delicately green with fluffy young shoots.

+

+The whole day had been hot. Somewhere a storm was gathering, but only

+a small cloud had scattered some raindrops lightly, sprinkling the road

+and the sappy leaves. The left side of the forest was dark in the shade,

+the right side glittered in the sunlight, wet and shiny and scarcely

+swayed by the breeze. Everything was in blossom, the nightingales

+trilled, and their voices reverberated now near, now far away.

+

+“Yes, here in this forest was that oak with which I agreed,” thought

+Prince Andrew. “But where is it?” he again wondered, gazing at

+the left side of the road, and without recognizing it he looked with

+admiration at the very oak he sought. The old oak, quite transfigured,

+spreading out a canopy of sappy dark-green foliage, stood rapt and

+slightly trembling in the rays of the evening sun. Neither gnarled

+fingers nor old scars nor old doubts and sorrows were any of them in

+evidence now. Through the hard century-old bark, even where there were

+no twigs, leaves had sprouted such as one could hardly believe the old

+veteran could have produced.

+

+“Yes, it is the same oak,” thought Prince Andrew, and all at once he

+was seized by an unreasoning springtime feeling of joy and renewal. All

+the best moments of his life suddenly rose to his memory. Austerlitz

+with the lofty heavens, his wife’s dead reproachful face, Pierre at

+the ferry, that girl thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that night

+itself and the moon, and... all this rushed suddenly to his mind.

+

+“No, life is not over at thirty-one!” Prince Andrew suddenly decided

+finally and decisively. “It is not enough for me to know what I have

+in me—everyone must know it: Pierre, and that young girl who wanted to

+fly away into the sky, everyone must know me, so that my life may not be

+lived for myself alone while others live so apart from it, but so that

+it may be reflected in them all, and they and I may live in harmony!”

+

+

+On reaching home Prince Andrew decided to go to Petersburg that autumn

+and found all sorts of reasons for this decision. A whole series of

+sensible and logical considerations showing it to be essential for him

+to go to Petersburg, and even to re-enter the service, kept springing

+up in his mind. He could not now understand how he could ever even have

+doubted the necessity of taking an active share in life, just as a month

+before he had not understood how the idea of leaving the quiet country

+could ever enter his head. It now seemed clear to him that all his

+experience of life must be senselessly wasted unless he applied it to

+some kind of work and again played an active part in life. He did not

+even remember how formerly, on the strength of similar wretched logical

+arguments, it had seemed obvious that he would be degrading himself if

+he now, after the lessons he had had in life, allowed himself to believe

+in the possibility of being useful and in the possibility of happiness

+or love. Now reason suggested quite the opposite. After that journey

+to Ryazán he found the country dull; his former pursuits no longer

+interested him, and often when sitting alone in his study he got up,

+went to the mirror, and gazed a long time at his own face. Then he would

+turn away to the portrait of his dead Lise, who with hair curled à la

+grecque looked tenderly and gaily at him out of the gilt frame. She

+did not now say those former terrible words to him, but looked simply,

+merrily, and inquisitively at him. And Prince Andrew, crossing his

+arms behind him, long paced the room, now frowning, now smiling, as

+he reflected on those irrational, inexpressible thoughts, secret as a

+crime, which altered his whole life and were connected with Pierre, with

+fame, with the girl at the window, the oak, and woman’s beauty

+and love. And if anyone came into his room at such moments he was

+particularly cold, stern, and above all unpleasantly logical.

+

+“My dear,” Princess Mary entering at such a moment would say,

+“little Nicholas can’t go out today, it’s very cold.”

+

+“If it were hot,” Prince Andrew would reply at such times very dryly

+to his sister, “he could go out in his smock, but as it is cold he

+must wear warm clothes, which were designed for that purpose. That is

+what follows from the fact that it is cold; and not that a child who

+needs fresh air should remain at home,” he would add with extreme

+logic, as if punishing someone for those secret illogical emotions that

+stirred within him.

+

+At such moments Princess Mary would think how intellectual work dries

+men up.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+Prince Andrew arrived in Petersburg in August, 1809. It was the time

+when the youthful Speránski was at the zenith of his fame and his

+reforms were being pushed forward with the greatest energy. That same

+August the Emperor was thrown from his calèche, injured his leg, and

+remained three weeks at Peterhof, receiving Speránski every day and no

+one else. At that time the two famous decrees were being prepared

+that so agitated society—abolishing court ranks and introducing

+examinations to qualify for the grades of Collegiate Assessor and

+State Councilor—and not merely these but a whole state constitution,

+intended to change the existing order of government in Russia: legal,

+administrative, and financial, from the Council of State down to the

+district tribunals. Now those vague liberal dreams with which the

+Emperor Alexander had ascended the throne, and which he had tried to put

+into effect with the aid of his associates, Czartorýski, Novosíltsev,

+Kochubéy, and Strógonov—whom he himself in jest had called his

+Comité de salut public—were taking shape and being realized.

+

+Now all these men were replaced by Speránski on the civil side, and

+Arakchéev on the military. Soon after his arrival Prince Andrew, as a

+gentleman of the chamber, presented himself at court and at a levee. The

+Emperor, though he met him twice, did not favor him with a single word.

+It had always seemed to Prince Andrew before that he was antipathetic

+to the Emperor and that the latter disliked his face and personality

+generally, and in the cold, repellent glance the Emperor gave him, he

+now found further confirmation of this surmise. The courtiers explained

+the Emperor’s neglect of him by His Majesty’s displeasure at

+Bolkónski’s not having served since 1805.

+

+“I know myself that one cannot help one’s sympathies and

+antipathies,” thought Prince Andrew, “so it will not do to present

+my proposal for the reform of the army regulations to the Emperor

+personally, but the project will speak for itself.”

+

+He mentioned what he had written to an old field marshal, a friend

+of his father’s. The field marshal made an appointment to see him,

+received him graciously, and promised to inform the Emperor. A few

+days later Prince Andrew received notice that he was to go to see the

+Minister of War, Count Arakchéev.

+

+

+On the appointed day Prince Andrew entered Count Arakchéev’s waiting

+room at nine in the morning.

+

+He did not know Arakchéev personally, had never seen him, and all he

+had heard of him inspired him with but little respect for the man.

+

+“He is Minister of War, a man trusted by the Emperor, and I need not

+concern myself about his personal qualities: he has been commissioned to

+consider my project, so he alone can get it adopted,” thought Prince

+Andrew as he waited among a number of important and unimportant people

+in Count Arakchéev’s waiting room.

+

+During his service, chiefly as an adjutant, Prince Andrew had seen the

+anterooms of many important men, and the different types of such rooms

+were well known to him. Count Arakchéev’s anteroom had quite a

+special character. The faces of the unimportant people awaiting their

+turn for an audience showed embarrassment and servility; the faces of

+those of higher rank expressed a common feeling of awkwardness, covered

+by a mask of unconcern and ridicule of themselves, their situation, and

+the person for whom they were waiting. Some walked thoughtfully up and

+down, others whispered and laughed. Prince Andrew heard the nickname

+“Síla Andréevich” and the words, “Uncle will give it to us

+hot,” in reference to Count Arakchéev. One general (an important

+personage), evidently feeling offended at having to wait so long, sat

+crossing and uncrossing his legs and smiling contemptuously to himself.

+

+But the moment the door opened one feeling alone appeared on all

+faces—that of fear. Prince Andrew for the second time asked the

+adjutant on duty to take in his name, but received an ironical look and

+was told that his turn would come in due course. After some others had

+been shown in and out of the minister’s room by the adjutant on duty,

+an officer who struck Prince Andrew by his humiliated and frightened air

+was admitted at that terrible door. This officer’s audience lasted a

+long time. Then suddenly the grating sound of a harsh voice was heard

+from the other side of the door, and the officer—with pale face and

+trembling lips—came out and passed through the waiting room, clutching

+his head.

+

+After this Prince Andrew was conducted to the door and the officer on

+duty said in a whisper, “To the right, at the window.”

+

+Prince Andrew entered a plain tidy room and saw at the table a man of

+forty with a long waist, a long closely cropped head, deep wrinkles,

+scowling brows above dull greenish-hazel eyes and an overhanging red

+nose. Arakchéev turned his head toward him without looking at him.

+

+“What is your petition?” asked Arakchéev.

+

+“I am not petitioning, your excellency,” returned Prince Andrew

+quietly.

+

+Arakchéev’s eyes turned toward him.

+

+“Sit down,” said he. “Prince Bolkónski?”

+

+“I am not petitioning about anything. His Majesty the Emperor has

+deigned to send your excellency a project submitted by me...”

+

+“You see, my dear sir, I have read your project,” interrupted

+Arakchéev, uttering only the first words amiably and then—again

+without looking at Prince Andrew—relapsing gradually into a tone of

+grumbling contempt. “You are proposing new military laws? There are

+many laws but no one to carry out the old ones. Nowadays everybody

+designs laws, it is easier writing than doing.”

+

+“I came at His Majesty the Emperor’s wish to learn from your

+excellency how you propose to deal with the memorandum I have

+presented,” said Prince Andrew politely.

+

+“I have endorsed a resolution on your memorandum and sent it to the

+committee. I do not approve of it,” said Arakchéev, rising and taking

+a paper from his writing table. “Here!” and he handed it to Prince

+Andrew.

+

+Across the paper was scrawled in pencil, without capital letters,

+misspelled, and without punctuation: “Unsoundly constructed because

+resembles an imitation of the French military code and from the Articles

+of War needlessly deviating.”

+

+“To what committee has the memorandum been referred?” inquired

+Prince Andrew.

+

+“To the Committee on Army Regulations, and I have recommended that

+your honor should be appointed a member, but without a salary.”

+

+Prince Andrew smiled.

+

+“I don’t want one.”

+

+“A member without salary,” repeated Arakchéev. “I have the

+honor... Eh! Call the next one! Who else is there?” he shouted, bowing

+to Prince Andrew.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+While waiting for the announcement of his appointment to the committee

+Prince Andrew looked up his former acquaintances, particularly those he

+knew to be in power and whose aid he might need. In Petersburg he now

+experienced the same feeling he had had on the eve of a battle, when

+troubled by anxious curiosity and irresistibly attracted to the ruling

+circles where the future, on which the fate of millions depended, was

+being shaped. From the irritation of the older men, the curiosity of the

+uninitiated, the reserve of the initiated, the hurry and preoccupation

+of everyone, and the innumerable committees and commissions of whose

+existence he learned every day, he felt that now, in 1809, here in

+Petersburg a vast civil conflict was in preparation, the commander in

+chief of which was a mysterious person he did not know, but who was

+supposed to be a man of genius—Speránski. And this movement of

+reconstruction of which Prince Andrew had a vague idea, and Speránski

+its chief promoter, began to interest him so keenly that the question

+of the army regulations quickly receded to a secondary place in his

+consciousness.

+

+Prince Andrew was most favorably placed to secure good reception in the

+highest and most diverse Petersburg circles of the day. The reforming

+party cordially welcomed and courted him, in the first place because

+he was reputed to be clever and very well read, and secondly because by

+liberating his serfs he had obtained the reputation of being a liberal.

+The party of the old and dissatisfied, who censured the innovations,

+turned to him expecting his sympathy in their disapproval of the

+reforms, simply because he was the son of his father. The feminine

+society world welcomed him gladly, because he was rich, distinguished, a

+good match, and almost a newcomer, with a halo of romance on account

+of his supposed death and the tragic loss of his wife. Besides this

+the general opinion of all who had known him previously was that he had

+greatly improved during these last five years, having softened and grown

+more manly, lost his former affectation, pride, and contemptuous irony,

+and acquired the serenity that comes with years. People talked about

+him, were interested in him, and wanted to meet him.

+

+The day after his interview with Count Arakchéev, Prince Andrew spent

+the evening at Count Kochubéy’s. He told the count of his interview

+with Síla Andréevich (Kochubéy spoke of Arakchéev by that nickname

+with the same vague irony Prince Andrew had noticed in the Minister of

+War’s anteroom).

+

+“Mon cher, even in this case you can’t do without Michael

+Mikháylovich Speránski. He manages everything. I’ll speak to him. He

+has promised to come this evening.”

+

+“What has Speránski to do with the army regulations?” asked Prince

+Andrew.

+

+Kochubéy shook his head smilingly, as if surprised at Bolkónski’s

+simplicity.

+

+“We were talking to him about you a few days ago,” Kochubéy

+continued, “and about your freed plowmen.”

+

+“Oh, is it you, Prince, who have freed your serfs?” said an old man

+of Catherine’s day, turning contemptuously toward Bolkónski.

+

+“It was a small estate that brought in no profit,” replied Prince

+Andrew, trying to extenuate his action so as not to irritate the old man

+uselessly.

+

+“Afraid of being late...” said the old man, looking at Kochubéy.

+

+“There’s one thing I don’t understand,” he continued. “Who

+will plow the land if they are set free? It is easy to write laws, but

+difficult to rule.... Just the same as now—I ask you, Count—who will

+be heads of the departments when everybody has to pass examinations?”

+

+“Those who pass the examinations, I suppose,” replied Kochubéy,

+crossing his legs and glancing round.

+

+“Well, I have Pryánichnikov serving under me, a splendid man, a

+priceless man, but he’s sixty. Is he to go up for examination?”

+

+“Yes, that’s a difficulty, as education is not at all general,

+but...”

+

+Count Kochubéy did not finish. He rose, took Prince Andrew by the arm,

+and went to meet a tall, bald, fair man of about forty with a large open

+forehead and a long face of unusual and peculiar whiteness, who was

+just entering. The newcomer wore a blue swallow-tail coat with a

+cross suspended from his neck and a star on his left breast. It was

+Speránski. Prince Andrew recognized him at once, and felt a throb

+within him, as happens at critical moments of life. Whether it was from

+respect, envy, or anticipation, he did not know. Speránski’s whole

+figure was of a peculiar type that made him easily recognizable. In

+the society in which Prince Andrew lived he had never seen anyone who

+together with awkward and clumsy gestures possessed such calmness and

+self-assurance; he had never seen so resolute yet gentle an expression

+as that in those half-closed, rather humid eyes, or so firm a smile that

+expressed nothing; nor had he heard such a refined, smooth, soft

+voice; above all he had never seen such delicate whiteness of face or

+hands—hands which were broad, but very plump, soft, and white. Such

+whiteness and softness Prince Andrew had only seen on the faces of

+soldiers who had been long in hospital. This was Speránski, Secretary

+of State, reporter to the Emperor and his companion at Erfurt, where he

+had more than once met and talked with Napoleon.

+

+Speránski did not shift his eyes from one face to another as people

+involuntarily do on entering a large company and was in no hurry to

+speak. He spoke slowly, with assurance that he would be listened to, and

+he looked only at the person with whom he was conversing.

+

+Prince Andrew followed Speránski’s every word and movement with

+particular attention. As happens to some people, especially to men

+who judge those near to them severely, he always on meeting

+anyone new—especially anyone whom, like Speránski, he knew by

+reputation—expected to discover in him the perfection of human

+qualities.

+

+Speránski told Kochubéy he was sorry he had been unable to come sooner

+as he had been detained at the palace. He did not say that the Emperor

+had kept him, and Prince Andrew noticed this affectation of modesty.

+When Kochubéy introduced Prince Andrew, Speránski slowly turned

+his eyes to Bolkónski with his customary smile and looked at him in

+silence.

+

+“I am very glad to make your acquaintance. I had heard of you, as

+everyone has,” he said after a pause.

+

+Kochubéy said a few words about the reception Arakchéev had given

+Bolkónski. Speránski smiled more markedly.

+

+“The chairman of the Committee on Army Regulations is my good friend

+Monsieur Magnítski,” he said, fully articulating every word and

+syllable, “and if you like I can put you in touch with him.” He

+paused at the full stop. “I hope you will find him sympathetic and

+ready to co-operate in promoting all that is reasonable.”

+

+A circle soon formed round Speránski, and the old man who had talked

+about his subordinate Pryánichnikov addressed a question to him.

+

+Prince Andrew without joining in the conversation watched every movement

+of Speránski’s: this man, not long since an insignificant divinity

+student, who now, Bolkónski thought, held in his hands—those plump

+white hands—the fate of Russia. Prince Andrew was struck by the

+extraordinarily disdainful composure with which Speránski answered

+the old man. He appeared to address condescending words to him from

+an immeasurable height. When the old man began to speak too loud,

+Speránski smiled and said he could not judge of the advantage or

+disadvantage of what pleased the sovereign.

+

+Having talked for a little while in the general circle, Speránski rose

+and coming up to Prince Andrew took him along to the other end of the

+room. It was clear that he thought it necessary to interest himself in

+Bolkónski.

+

+“I had no chance to talk with you, Prince, during the animated

+conversation in which that venerable gentleman involved me,” he said

+with a mildly contemptuous smile, as if intimating by that smile that he

+and Prince Andrew understood the insignificance of the people with whom

+he had just been talking. This flattered Prince Andrew. “I have known

+of you for a long time: first from your action with regard to your

+serfs, a first example, of which it is very desirable that there should

+be more imitators; and secondly because you are one of those gentlemen

+of the chamber who have not considered themselves offended by the new

+decree concerning the ranks allotted to courtiers, which is causing so

+much gossip and tittle-tattle.”

+

+“No,” said Prince Andrew, “my father did not wish me to take

+advantage of the privilege. I began the service from the lower grade.”

+

+“Your father, a man of the last century, evidently stands above our

+contemporaries who so condemn this measure which merely re-establishes

+natural justice.”

+

+“I think, however, that these condemnations have some ground,”

+returned Prince Andrew, trying to resist Speránski’s influence, of

+which he began to be conscious. He did not like to agree with him in

+everything and felt a wish to contradict. Though he usually spoke easily

+and well, he felt a difficulty in expressing himself now while talking

+with Speránski. He was too much absorbed in observing the famous

+man’s personality.

+

+“Grounds of personal ambition maybe,” Speránski put in quietly.

+

+“And of state interest to some extent,” said Prince Andrew.

+

+“What do you mean?” asked Speránski quietly, lowering his eyes.

+

+“I am an admirer of Montesquieu,” replied Prince Andrew, “and

+his idea that le principe des monarchies est l’honneur me paraît

+incontestable. Certains droits et privilèges de la noblesse me

+paraissent être des moyens de soutenir ce sentiment.” *

+

+     * “The principle of monarchies is honor seems to me

+     incontestable. Certain rights and privileges for the

+     aristocracy appear to me a means of maintaining that

+     sentiment.”

+

+

+The smile vanished from Speránski’s white face, which was much

+improved by the change. Probably Prince Andrew’s thought interested

+him.

+

+“Si vous envisagez la question sous ce point de vue,” * he began,

+pronouncing French with evident difficulty, and speaking even slower

+than in Russian but quite calmly.

+

+    * “If you regard the question from that point of view.”

+

+

+Speránski went on to say that honor, l’honneur, cannot be upheld by

+privileges harmful to the service; that honor, l’honneur, is either a

+negative concept of not doing what is blameworthy or it is a source of

+emulation in pursuit of commendation and rewards, which recognize it.

+His arguments were concise, simple, and clear.

+

+“An institution upholding honor, the source of emulation, is one

+similar to the Légion d’honneur of the great Emperor Napoleon, not

+harmful but helpful to the success of the service, but not a class or

+court privilege.”

+

+“I do not dispute that, but it cannot be denied that court privileges

+have attained the same end,” returned Prince Andrew. “Every courtier

+considers himself bound to maintain his position worthily.”

+

+“Yet you do not care to avail yourself of the privilege, Prince,”

+said Speránski, indicating by a smile that he wished to finish amiably

+an argument which was embarrassing for his companion. “If you will

+do me the honor of calling on me on Wednesday,” he added, “I will,

+after talking with Magnítski, let you know what may interest you, and

+shall also have the pleasure of a more detailed chat with you.”

+

+Closing his eyes, he bowed à la française, without taking leave, and

+trying to attract as little attention as possible, he left the room.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+During the first weeks of his stay in Petersburg Prince Andrew felt the

+whole trend of thought he had formed during his life of seclusion quite

+overshadowed by the trifling cares that engrossed him in that city.

+

+On returning home in the evening he would jot down in his notebook four

+or five necessary calls or appointments for certain hours. The mechanism

+of life, the arrangement of the day so as to be in time everywhere,

+absorbed the greater part of his vital energy. He did nothing, did

+not even think or find time to think, but only talked, and talked

+successfully, of what he had thought while in the country.

+

+He sometimes noticed with dissatisfaction that he repeated the same

+remark on the same day in different circles. But he was so busy for

+whole days together that he had no time to notice that he was thinking

+of nothing.

+

+As he had done on their first meeting at Kochubéy’s, Speránski

+produced a strong impression on Prince Andrew on the Wednesday, when he

+received him tête-à-tête at his own house and talked to him long and

+confidentially.

+

+To Bolkónski so many people appeared contemptible and insignificant

+creatures, and he so longed to find in someone the living ideal of that

+perfection toward which he strove, that he readily believed that in

+Speránski he had found this ideal of a perfectly rational and virtuous

+man. Had Speránski sprung from the same class as himself and possessed

+the same breeding and traditions, Bolkónski would soon have discovered

+his weak, human, unheroic sides; but as it was, Speránski’s strange

+and logical turn of mind inspired him with respect all the more because

+he did not quite understand him. Moreover, Speránski, either because he

+appreciated the other’s capacity or because he considered it necessary

+to win him to his side, showed off his dispassionate calm reasonableness

+before Prince Andrew and flattered him with that subtle flattery which

+goes hand in hand with self-assurance and consists in a tacit assumption

+that one’s companion is the only man besides oneself capable of

+understanding the folly of the rest of mankind and the reasonableness

+and profundity of one’s own ideas.

+

+During their long conversation on Wednesday evening, Speránski more

+than once remarked: “We regard everything that is above the common

+level of rooted custom...” or, with a smile: “But we want the wolves

+to be fed and the sheep to be safe...” or: “They cannot understand

+this...” and all in a way that seemed to say: “We, you and I,

+understand what they are and who we are.”

+

+This first long conversation with Speránski only strengthened in Prince

+Andrew the feeling he had experienced toward him at their first meeting.

+He saw in him a remarkable, clear-thinking man of vast intellect who by

+his energy and persistence had attained power, which he was using solely

+for the welfare of Russia. In Prince Andrew’s eyes Speránski was the

+man he would himself have wished to be—one who explained all the facts

+of life reasonably, considered important only what was rational, and

+was capable of applying the standard of reason to everything. Everything

+seemed so simple and clear in Speránski’s exposition that Prince

+Andrew involuntarily agreed with him about everything. If he replied and

+argued, it was only because he wished to maintain his independence and

+not submit to Speránski’s opinions entirely. Everything was right

+and everything was as it should be: only one thing disconcerted Prince

+Andrew. This was Speránski’s cold, mirrorlike look, which did not

+allow one to penetrate to his soul, and his delicate white hands, which

+Prince Andrew involuntarily watched as one does watch the hands of

+those who possess power. This mirrorlike gaze and those delicate hands

+irritated Prince Andrew, he knew not why. He was unpleasantly

+struck, too, by the excessive contempt for others that he observed in

+Speránski, and by the diversity of lines of argument he used to

+support his opinions. He made use of every kind of mental device, except

+analogy, and passed too boldly, it seemed to Prince Andrew, from one

+to another. Now he would take up the position of a practical man and

+condemn dreamers; now that of a satirist, and laugh ironically at his

+opponents; now grow severely logical, or suddenly rise to the realm of

+metaphysics. (This last resource was one he very frequently employed.)

+He would transfer a question to metaphysical heights, pass on to

+definitions of space, time, and thought, and, having deduced the

+refutation he needed, would again descend to the level of the original

+discussion.

+

+In general the trait of Speránski’s mentality which struck Prince

+Andrew most was his absolute and unshakable belief in the power and

+authority of reason. It was evident that the thought could never occur

+to him which to Prince Andrew seemed so natural, namely, that it is

+after all impossible to express all one thinks; and that he had never

+felt the doubt, “Is not all I think and believe nonsense?” And

+it was just this peculiarity of Speránski’s mind that particularly

+attracted Prince Andrew.

+

+During the first period of their acquaintance Bolkónski felt a

+passionate admiration for him similar to that which he had once felt for

+Bonaparte. The fact that Speránski was the son of a village priest,

+and that stupid people might meanly despise him on account of his

+humble origin (as in fact many did), caused Prince Andrew to cherish his

+sentiment for him the more, and unconsciously to strengthen it.

+

+On that first evening Bolkónski spent with him, having mentioned the

+Commission for the Revision of the Code of Laws, Speránski told him

+sarcastically that the Commission had existed for a hundred and fifty

+years, had cost millions, and had done nothing except that Rosenkampf

+had stuck labels on the corresponding paragraphs of the different codes.

+

+“And that is all the state has for the millions it has spent,” said

+he. “We want to give the Senate new juridical powers, but we have no

+laws. That is why it is a sin for men like you, Prince, not to serve in

+these times!”

+

+Prince Andrew said that for that work an education in jurisprudence was

+needed which he did not possess.

+

+“But nobody possesses it, so what would you have? It is a vicious

+circle from which we must break a way out.”

+

+A week later Prince Andrew was a member of the Committee on Army

+Regulations and—what he had not at all expected—was chairman of a

+section of the committee for the revision of the laws. At Speránski’s

+request he took the first part of the Civil Code that was being drawn up

+and, with the aid of the Code Napoléon and the Institutes of Justinian,

+he worked at formulating the section on Personal Rights.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+Nearly two years before this, in 1808, Pierre on returning to Petersburg

+after visiting his estates had involuntarily found himself in a leading

+position among the Petersburg Freemasons. He arranged dining and funeral

+lodge meetings, enrolled new members, and busied himself uniting various

+lodges and acquiring authentic charters. He gave money for the erection

+of temples and supplemented as far as he could the collection of alms,

+in regard to which the majority of members were stingy and irregular.

+He supported almost singlehanded a poorhouse the order had founded in

+Petersburg.

+

+His life meanwhile continued as before, with the same infatuations and

+dissipations. He liked to dine and drink well, and though he considered

+it immoral and humiliating could not resist the temptations of the

+bachelor circles in which he moved.

+

+Amid the turmoil of his activities and distractions, however, Pierre at

+the end of a year began to feel that the more firmly he tried to rest

+upon it, the more Masonic ground on which he stood gave way under him.

+At the same time he felt that the deeper the ground sank under him the

+closer bound he involuntarily became to the order. When he had joined

+the Freemasons he had experienced the feeling of one who confidently

+steps onto the smooth surface of a bog. When he put his foot down it

+sank in. To make quite sure of the firmness of the ground, he put

+his other foot down and sank deeper still, became stuck in it, and

+involuntarily waded knee-deep in the bog.

+

+Joseph Alexéevich was not in Petersburg—he had of late stood aside

+from the affairs of the Petersburg lodges, and lived almost entirely in

+Moscow. All the members of the lodges were men Pierre knew in ordinary

+life, and it was difficult for him to regard them merely as Brothers in

+Freemasonry and not as Prince B. or Iván Vasílevich D., whom he knew

+in society mostly as weak and insignificant men. Under the Masonic

+aprons and insignia he saw the uniforms and decorations at which they

+aimed in ordinary life. Often after collecting alms, and reckoning up

+twenty to thirty rubles received for the most part in promises from a

+dozen members, of whom half were as well able to pay as himself, Pierre

+remembered the Masonic vow in which each Brother promised to devote

+all his belongings to his neighbor, and doubts on which he tried not to

+dwell arose in his soul.

+

+He divided the Brothers he knew into four categories. In the first he

+put those who did not take an active part in the affairs of the lodges

+or in human affairs, but were exclusively occupied with the mystical

+science of the order: with questions of the threefold designation of

+God, the three primordial elements—sulphur, mercury, and salt—or

+the meaning of the square and all the various figures of the temple of

+Solomon. Pierre respected this class of Brothers to which the elder ones

+chiefly belonged, including, Pierre thought, Joseph Alexéevich himself,

+but he did not share their interests. His heart was not in the mystical

+aspect of Freemasonry.

+

+In the second category Pierre reckoned himself and others like him,

+seeking and vacillating, who had not yet found in Freemasonry a straight

+and comprehensible path, but hoped to do so.

+

+In the third category he included those Brothers (the majority) who saw

+nothing in Freemasonry but the external forms and ceremonies, and prized

+the strict performance of these forms without troubling about their

+purport or significance. Such were Willarski and even the Grand Master

+of the principal lodge.

+

+Finally, to the fourth category also a great many Brothers belonged,

+particularly those who had lately joined. These according to Pierre’s

+observations were men who had no belief in anything, nor desire for

+anything, but joined the Freemasons merely to associate with the wealthy

+young Brothers who were influential through their connections or rank,

+and of whom there were very many in the lodge.

+

+Pierre began to feel dissatisfied with what he was doing. Freemasonry,

+at any rate as he saw it here, sometimes seemed to him based merely

+on externals. He did not think of doubting Freemasonry itself, but

+suspected that Russian Masonry had taken a wrong path and deviated

+from its original principles. And so toward the end of the year he went

+abroad to be initiated into the higher secrets of the order.

+

+In the summer of 1809 Pierre returned to Petersburg. Our Freemasons knew

+from correspondence with those abroad that Bezúkhov had obtained the

+confidence of many highly placed persons, had been initiated into many

+mysteries, had been raised to a higher grade, and was bringing back with

+him much that might conduce to the advantage of the Masonic cause

+in Russia. The Petersburg Freemasons all came to see him, tried to

+ingratiate themselves with him, and it seemed to them all that he was

+preparing something for them and concealing it.

+

+A solemn meeting of the lodge of the second degree was convened, at

+which Pierre promised to communicate to the Petersburg Brothers what

+he had to deliver to them from the highest leaders of their order. The

+meeting was a full one. After the usual ceremonies Pierre rose and began

+his address.

+

+“Dear Brothers,” he began, blushing and stammering, with a written

+speech in his hand, “it is not sufficient to observe our mysteries in

+the seclusion of our lodge—we must act—act! We are drowsing, but we

+must act.” Pierre raised his notebook and began to read.

+

+“For the dissemination of pure truth and to secure the triumph of

+virtue,” he read, “we must cleanse men from prejudice, diffuse

+principles in harmony with the spirit of the times, undertake the

+education of the young, unite ourselves in indissoluble bonds with the

+wisest men, boldly yet prudently overcome superstitions, infidelity, and

+folly, and form of those devoted to us a body linked together by unity

+of purpose and possessed of authority and power.

+

+“To attain this end we must secure a preponderance of virtue over vice

+and must endeavor to secure that the honest man may, even in this world,

+receive a lasting reward for his virtue. But in these great endeavors we

+are gravely hampered by the political institutions of today. What is

+to be done in these circumstances? To favor revolutions, overthrow

+everything, repel force by force?... No! We are very far from that.

+Every violent reform deserves censure, for it quite fails to remedy

+evil while men remain what they are, and also because wisdom needs no

+violence.

+

+“The whole plan of our order should be based on the idea of

+preparing men of firmness and virtue bound together by unity of

+conviction—aiming at the punishment of vice and folly, and patronizing

+talent and virtue: raising worthy men from the dust and attaching

+them to our Brotherhood. Only then will our order have the power

+unobtrusively to bind the hands of the protectors of disorder and to

+control them without their being aware of it. In a word, we must found a

+form of government holding universal sway, which should be diffused over

+the whole world without destroying the bonds of citizenship, and beside

+which all other governments can continue in their customary course and

+do everything except what impedes the great aim of our order, which

+is to obtain for virtue the victory over vice. This aim was that of

+Christianity itself. It taught men to be wise and good and for their

+own benefit to follow the example and instruction of the best and wisest

+men.

+

+“At that time, when everything was plunged in darkness, preaching

+alone was of course sufficient. The novelty of Truth endowed her with

+special strength, but now we need much more powerful methods. It is

+now necessary that man, governed by his senses, should find in virtue

+a charm palpable to those senses. It is impossible to eradicate the

+passions; but we must strive to direct them to a noble aim, and it is

+therefore necessary that everyone should be able to satisfy his passions

+within the limits of virtue. Our order should provide means to that end.

+

+“As soon as we have a certain number of worthy men in every state,

+each of them again training two others and all being closely united,

+everything will be possible for our order, which has already in secret

+accomplished much for the welfare of mankind.”

+

+This speech not only made a strong impression, but created excitement in

+the lodge. The majority of the Brothers, seeing in it dangerous designs

+of Illuminism, * met it with a coldness that surprised Pierre. The Grand

+Master began answering him, and Pierre began developing his views with

+more and more warmth. It was long since there had been so stormy a

+meeting. Parties were formed, some accusing Pierre of Illuminism, others

+supporting him. At that meeting he was struck for the first time by

+the endless variety of men’s minds, which prevents a truth from ever

+presenting itself identically to two persons. Even those members

+who seemed to be on his side understood him in their own way with

+limitations and alterations he could not agree to, as what he always

+wanted most was to convey his thought to others just as he himself

+understood it.

+

+     * The Illuminati sought to substitute republican for

+     monarchical institutions.

+

+At the end of the meeting the Grand Master with irony and ill-will

+reproved Bezúkhov for his vehemence and said it was not love of virtue

+alone, but also a love of strife that had moved him in the dispute.

+Pierre did not answer him and asked briefly whether his proposal would

+be accepted. He was told that it would not, and without waiting for the

+usual formalities he left the lodge and went home.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+Again Pierre was overtaken by the depression he so dreaded. For three

+days after the delivery of his speech at the lodge he lay on a sofa at

+home receiving no one and going nowhere.

+

+It was just then that he received a letter from his wife, who implored

+him to see her, telling him how grieved she was about him and how she

+wished to devote her whole life to him.

+

+At the end of the letter she informed him that in a few days she would

+return to Petersburg from abroad.

+

+Following this letter one of the Masonic Brothers whom Pierre respected

+less than the others forced his way in to see him and, turning the

+conversation upon Pierre’s matrimonial affairs, by way of fraternal

+advice expressed the opinion that his severity to his wife was wrong

+and that he was neglecting one of the first rules of Freemasonry by not

+forgiving the penitent.

+

+At the same time his mother-in-law, Prince Vasíli’s wife, sent to

+him imploring him to come if only for a few minutes to discuss a most

+important matter. Pierre saw that there was a conspiracy against him and

+that they wanted to reunite him with his wife, and in the mood he then

+was, this was not even unpleasant to him. Nothing mattered to him.

+Nothing in life seemed to him of much importance, and under the

+influence of the depression that possessed him he valued neither his

+liberty nor his resolution to punish his wife.

+

+“No one is right and no one is to blame; so she too is not to

+blame,” he thought.

+

+If he did not at once give his consent to a reunion with his wife, it

+was only because in his state of depression he did not feel able to take

+any step. Had his wife come to him, he would not have turned her away.

+Compared to what preoccupied him, was it not a matter of indifference

+whether he lived with his wife or not?

+

+Without replying either to his wife or his mother-in-law, Pierre late

+one night prepared for a journey and started for Moscow to see Joseph

+Alexéevich. This is what he noted in his diary:

+

+Moscow, 17th November

+

+I have just returned from my benefactor, and hasten to write down what I

+have experienced. Joseph Alexéevich is living poorly and has for three

+years been suffering from a painful disease of the bladder. No one has

+ever heard him utter a groan or a word of complaint. From morning till

+late at night, except when he eats his very plain food, he is working

+at science. He received me graciously and made me sit down on the bed

+on which he lay. I made the sign of the Knights of the East and of

+Jerusalem, and he responded in the same manner, asking me with a mild

+smile what I had learned and gained in the Prussian and Scottish lodges.

+I told him everything as best I could, and told him what I had proposed

+to our Petersburg lodge, of the bad reception I had encountered, and of

+my rupture with the Brothers. Joseph Alexéevich, having remained silent

+and thoughtful for a good while, told me his view of the matter, which

+at once lit up for me my whole past and the future path I should follow.

+He surprised me by asking whether I remembered the threefold aim of

+the order: (1) The preservation and study of the mystery. (2) The

+purification and reformation of oneself for its reception, and (3) The

+improvement of the human race by striving for such purification. Which

+is the principal aim of these three? Certainly self-reformation and

+self-purification. Only to this aim can we always strive independently

+of circumstances. But at the same time just this aim demands the

+greatest efforts of us; and so, led astray by pride, losing sight of

+this aim, we occupy ourselves either with the mystery which in our

+impurity we are unworthy to receive, or seek the reformation of

+the human race while ourselves setting an example of baseness and

+profligacy. Illuminism is not a pure doctrine, just because it is

+attracted by social activity and puffed up by pride. On this ground

+Joseph Alexéevich condemned my speech and my whole activity, and in the

+depth of my soul I agreed with him. Talking of my family affairs he said

+to me, “the chief duty of a true Mason, as I have told you, lies in

+perfecting himself. We often think that by removing all the difficulties

+of our life we shall more quickly reach our aim, but on the contrary,

+my dear sir, it is only in the midst of worldly cares that we can attain

+our three chief aims: (1) Self-knowledge—for man can only know himself

+by comparison, (2) Self-perfecting, which can only be attained by

+conflict, and (3) The attainment of the chief virtue—love of death.

+Only the vicissitudes of life can show us its vanity and develop our

+innate love of death or of rebirth to a new life.” These words are all

+the more remarkable because, in spite of his great physical sufferings,

+Joseph Alexéevich is never weary of life though he loves death, for

+which—in spite of the purity and loftiness of his inner man—he does

+not yet feel himself sufficiently prepared. My benefactor then explained

+to me fully the meaning of the Great Square of creation and pointed out

+to me that the numbers three and seven are the basis of everything. He

+advised me not to avoid intercourse with the Petersburg Brothers, but

+to take up only second-grade posts in the lodge, to try, while

+diverting the Brothers from pride, to turn them toward the true path

+self-knowledge and self-perfecting. Besides this he advised me for

+myself personally above all to keep a watch over myself, and to that end

+he gave me a notebook, the one I am now writing in and in which I will

+in future note down all my actions.

+

+Petersburg, 23rd November

+

+I am again living with my wife. My mother-in-law came to me in tears and

+said that Hélène was here and that she implored me to hear her; that

+she was innocent and unhappy at my desertion, and much more. I knew

+that if I once let myself see her I should not have strength to go on

+refusing what she wanted. In my perplexity I did not know whose aid and

+advice to seek. Had my benefactor been here he would have told me what

+to do. I went to my room and reread Joseph Alexéevich’s letters and

+recalled my conversations with him, and deduced from it all that I

+ought not to refuse a supplicant, and ought to reach a helping hand to

+everyone—especially to one so closely bound to me—and that I must

+bear my cross. But if I forgive her for the sake of doing right, then

+let union with her have only a spiritual aim. That is what I decided,

+and what I wrote to Joseph Alexéevich. I told my wife that I begged her

+to forget the past, to forgive me whatever wrong I may have done her,

+and that I had nothing to forgive. It gave me joy to tell her this. She

+need not know how hard it was for me to see her again. I have settled on

+the upper floor of this big house and am experiencing a happy feeling of

+regeneration.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+At that time, as always happens, the highest society that met at court

+and at the grand balls was divided into several circles, each with its

+own particular tone. The largest of these was the French circle of the

+Napoleonic alliance, the circle of Count Rumyántsev and Caulaincourt.

+In this group Hélène, as soon as she had settled in Petersburg with

+her husband, took a very prominent place. She was visited by the members

+of the French embassy and by many belonging to that circle and noted for

+their intellect and polished manners.

+

+Hélène had been at Erfurt during the famous meeting of the Emperors

+and had brought from there these connections with the Napoleonic

+notabilities. At Erfurt her success had been brilliant. Napoleon himself

+had noticed her in the theater and said of her: “C’est un superbe

+animal.” * Her success as a beautiful and elegant woman did not

+surprise Pierre, for she had become even handsomer than before. What did

+surprise him was that during these last two years his wife had succeeded

+in gaining the reputation “d’ une femme charmante, aussi spirituelle

+que belle.” *(2) The distinguished Prince de Ligne wrote her

+eight-page letters. Bilíbin saved up his epigrams to produce them

+in Countess Bezúkhova’s presence. To be received in the Countess

+Bezúkhova’s salon was regarded as a diploma of intellect. Young men

+read books before attending Hélène’s evenings, to have something to

+say in her salon, and secretaries of the embassy, and even ambassadors,

+confided diplomatic secrets to her, so that in a way Hélène was a

+power. Pierre, who knew she was very stupid, sometimes attended, with a

+strange feeling of perplexity and fear, her evenings and dinner parties,

+where politics, poetry, and philosophy were discussed. At these parties

+his feelings were like those of a conjuror who always expects his trick

+to be found out at any moment. But whether because stupidity was just

+what was needed to run such a salon, or because those who were deceived

+found pleasure in the deception, at any rate it remained unexposed and

+Hélène Bezúkhova’s reputation as a lovely and clever woman became

+so firmly established that she could say the emptiest and stupidest

+things and everybody would go into raptures over every word of hers

+and look for a profound meaning in it of which she herself had no

+conception.

+

+     * “That’s a superb animal.”

+

+     * (2) “Of a charming woman, as witty as she is lovely.”

+

+

+Pierre was just the husband needed for a brilliant society woman. He was

+that absent-minded crank, a grand seigneur husband who was in no one’s

+way, and far from spoiling the high tone and general impression of the

+drawing room, he served, by the contrast he presented to her, as an

+advantageous background to his elegant and tactful wife. Pierre during

+the last two years, as a result of his continual absorption in abstract

+interests and his sincere contempt for all else, had acquired in his

+wife’s circle, which did not interest him, that air of unconcern,

+indifference, and benevolence toward all, which cannot be acquired

+artificially and therefore inspires involuntary respect. He entered

+his wife’s drawing room as one enters a theater, was acquainted with

+everybody, equally pleased to see everyone, and equally indifferent to

+them all. Sometimes he joined in a conversation which interested him

+and, regardless of whether any “gentlemen of the embassy” were

+present or not, lispingly expressed his views, which were sometimes not

+at all in accord with the accepted tone of the moment. But the general

+opinion concerning the queer husband of “the most distinguished woman

+in Petersburg” was so well established that no one took his freaks

+seriously.

+

+Among the many young men who frequented her house every day, Borís

+Drubetskóy, who had already achieved great success in the service, was

+the most intimate friend of the Bezúkhov household since Hélène’s

+return from Erfurt. Hélène spoke of him as “mon page” and treated

+him like a child. Her smile for him was the same as for everybody,

+but sometimes that smile made Pierre uncomfortable. Toward him Borís

+behaved with a particularly dignified and sad deference. This shade

+of deference also disturbed Pierre. He had suffered so painfully three

+years before from the mortification to which his wife had subjected him

+that he now protected himself from the danger of its repetition, first

+by not being a husband to his wife, and secondly by not allowing himself

+to suspect.

+

+“No, now that she has become a bluestocking she has finally renounced

+her former infatuations,” he told himself. “There has never been

+an instance of a bluestocking being carried away by affairs of the

+heart”—a statement which, though gathered from an unknown source,

+he believed implicitly. Yet strange to say Borís’ presence in his

+wife’s drawing room (and he was almost always there) had a physical

+effect upon Pierre; it constricted his limbs and destroyed the

+unconsciousness and freedom of his movements.

+

+“What a strange antipathy,” thought Pierre, “yet I used to like

+him very much.”

+

+In the eyes of the world Pierre was a great gentleman, the rather blind

+and absurd husband of a distinguished wife, a clever crank who did

+nothing but harmed nobody and was a first-rate, good-natured fellow. But

+a complex and difficult process of internal development was taking place

+all this time in Pierre’s soul, revealing much to him and causing him

+many spiritual doubts and joys.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+Pierre went on with his diary, and this is what he wrote in it during

+that time:

+

+

+24th November

+

+Got up at eight, read the Scriptures, then went to my duties. (By Joseph

+Alexéevich’s advice Pierre had entered the service of the state and

+served on one of the committees.) Returned home for dinner and dined

+alone—the countess had many visitors I do not like. I ate and drank

+moderately and after dinner copied out some passages for the Brothers.

+In the evening I went down to the countess and told a funny story about

+B., and only remembered that I ought not to have done so when everybody

+laughed loudly at it.

+

+I am going to bed with a happy and tranquil mind. Great God, help me to

+walk in Thy paths, (1) to conquer anger by calmness and deliberation,

+(2) to vanquish lust by self-restraint and repulsion, (3) to withdraw

+from worldliness, but not avoid (a) the service of the state, (b) family

+duties, (c) relations with my friends, and the management of my affairs.

+

+

+27th November

+

+I got up late. On waking I lay long in bed yielding to sloth. O God,

+help and strengthen me that I may walk in Thy ways! Read the Scriptures,

+but without proper feeling. Brother Urúsov came and we talked about

+worldly vanities. He told me of the Emperor’s new projects. I began

+to criticize them, but remembered my rules and my benefactor’s

+words—that a true Freemason should be a zealous worker for the state

+when his aid is required and a quiet onlooker when not called on to

+assist. My tongue is my enemy. Brothers G. V. and O. visited me and we

+had a preliminary talk about the reception of a new Brother. They laid

+on me the duty of Rhetor. I feel myself weak and unworthy. Then our

+talk turned to the interpretation of the seven pillars and steps of the

+Temple, the seven sciences, the seven virtues, the seven vices, and the

+seven gifts of the Holy Spirit. Brother O. was very eloquent. In the

+evening the admission took place. The new decoration of the Premises

+contributed much to the magnificence of the spectacle. It was Borís

+Drubetskóy who was admitted. I nominated him and was the Rhetor. A

+strange feeling agitated me all the time I was alone with him in the

+dark chamber. I caught myself harboring a feeling of hatred toward him

+which I vainly tried to overcome. That is why I should really like

+to save him from evil and lead him into the path of truth, but evil

+thoughts of him did not leave me. It seemed to me that his object in

+entering the Brotherhood was merely to be intimate and in favor with

+members of our lodge. Apart from the fact that he had asked me several

+times whether N. and S. were members of our lodge (a question to which I

+could not reply) and that according to my observation he is incapable of

+feeling respect for our holy order and is too preoccupied and satisfied

+with the outer man to desire spiritual improvement, I had no cause to

+doubt him, but he seemed to me insincere, and all the time I stood

+alone with him in the dark temple it seemed to me that he was smiling

+contemptuously at my words, and I wished really to stab his bare breast

+with the sword I held to it. I could not be eloquent, nor could I

+frankly mention my doubts to the Brothers and to the Grand Master. Great

+Architect of Nature, help me to find the true path out of the labyrinth

+of lies!

+

+

+After this, three pages were left blank in the diary, and then the

+following was written:

+

+

+I have had a long and instructive talk alone with Brother V., who

+advised me to hold fast by Brother A. Though I am unworthy, much was

+revealed to me. Adonai is the name of the creator of the world. Elohim

+is the name of the ruler of all. The third name is the name unutterable

+which means the All. Talks with Brother V. strengthen, refresh, and

+support me in the path of virtue. In his presence doubt has no place.

+The distinction between the poor teachings of mundane science and our

+sacred all-embracing teaching is clear to me. Human sciences dissect

+everything to comprehend it, and kill everything to examine it. In the

+holy science of our order all is one, all is known in its entirety and

+life. The Trinity—the three elements of matter—are sulphur, mercury,

+and salt. Sulphur is of an oily and fiery nature; in combination with

+salt by its fiery nature it arouses a desire in the latter by means

+of which it attracts mercury, seizes it, holds it, and in combination

+produces other bodies. Mercury is a fluid, volatile, spiritual essence.

+Christ, the Holy Spirit, Him!...

+

+

+3rd December

+

+Awoke late, read the Scriptures but was apathetic. Afterwards went and

+paced up and down the large hall. I wished to meditate, but instead my

+imagination pictured an occurrence of four years ago, when Dólokhov,

+meeting me in Moscow after our duel, said he hoped I was enjoying

+perfect peace of mind in spite of my wife’s absence. At the time I

+gave him no answer. Now I recalled every detail of that meeting and in

+my mind gave him the most malevolent and bitter replies. I recollected

+myself and drove away that thought only when I found myself glowing with

+anger, but I did not sufficiently repent. Afterwards Borís Drubetskóy

+came and began relating various adventures. His coming vexed me from the

+first, and I said something disagreeable to him. He replied. I flared

+up and said much that was unpleasant and even rude to him. He became

+silent, and I recollected myself only when it was too late. My God, I

+cannot get on with him at all. The cause of this is my egotism. I set

+myself above him and so become much worse than he, for he is lenient

+to my rudeness while I on the contrary nourish contempt for him. O God,

+grant that in his presence I may rather see my own vileness, and behave

+so that he too may benefit. After dinner I fell asleep and as I was

+drowsing off I clearly heard a voice saying in my left ear, “Thy

+day!”

+

+I dreamed that I was walking in the dark and was suddenly surrounded by

+dogs, but I went on undismayed. Suddenly a smallish dog seized my left

+thigh with its teeth and would not let go. I began to throttle it with

+my hands. Scarcely had I torn it off before another, a bigger one, began

+biting me. I lifted it up, but the higher I lifted it the bigger and

+heavier it grew. And suddenly Brother A. came and, taking my arm, led

+me to a building to enter which we had to pass along a narrow plank.

+I stepped on it, but it bent and gave way and I began to clamber up a

+fence which I could scarcely reach with my hands. After much effort I

+dragged myself up, so that my leg hung down on one side and my body on

+the other. I looked round and saw Brother A. standing on the fence and

+pointing me to a broad avenue and garden, and in the garden was a large

+and beautiful building. I woke up. O Lord, great Architect of Nature,

+help me to tear from myself these dogs—my passions especially the

+last, which unites in itself the strength of all the former ones, and

+aid me to enter that temple of virtue to a vision of which I attained in

+my dream.

+

+

+7th December

+

+I dreamed that Joseph Alexéevich was sitting in my house, and that I

+was very glad and wished to entertain him. It seemed as if I chattered

+incessantly with other people and suddenly remembered that this could

+not please him, and I wished to come close to him and embrace him. But

+as soon as I drew near I saw that his face had changed and grown young,

+and he was quietly telling me something about the teaching of our order,

+but so softly that I could not hear it. Then it seemed that we all left

+the room and something strange happened. We were sitting or lying on

+the floor. He was telling me something, and I wished to show him my

+sensibility, and not listening to what he was saying I began picturing

+to myself the condition of my inner man and the grace of God sanctifying

+me. And tears came into my eyes, and I was glad he noticed this. But he

+looked at me with vexation and jumped up, breaking off his remarks. I

+felt abashed and asked whether what he had been saying did not concern

+me; but he did not reply, gave me a kind look, and then we suddenly

+found ourselves in my bedroom where there is a double bed. He lay down

+on the edge of it and I burned with longing to caress him and lie down

+too. And he said, “Tell me frankly what is your chief temptation? Do

+you know it? I think you know it already.” Abashed by this question,

+I replied that sloth was my chief temptation. He shook his head

+incredulously; and even more abashed, I said that though I was living

+with my wife as he advised, I was not living with her as her husband. To

+this he replied that one should not deprive a wife of one’s embraces

+and gave me to understand that that was my duty. But I replied that

+I should be ashamed to do it, and suddenly everything vanished. And I

+awoke and found in my mind the text from the Gospel: “The life was

+the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness

+comprehended it not.” Joseph Alexéevich’s face had looked young

+and bright. That day I received a letter from my benefactor in which he

+wrote about “conjugal duties.”

+

+

+9th December

+

+I had a dream from which I awoke with a throbbing heart. I saw that

+I was in Moscow in my house, in the big sitting room, and Joseph

+Alexéevich came in from the drawing room. I seemed to know at once that

+the process of regeneration had already taken place in him, and I rushed

+to meet him. I embraced him and kissed his hands, and he said, “Hast

+thou noticed that my face is different?” I looked at him, still

+holding him in my arms, and saw that his face was young, but that he

+had no hair on his head and his features were quite changed. And I said,

+“I should have known you had I met you by chance,” and I thought to

+myself, “Am I telling the truth?” And suddenly I saw him lying like

+a dead body; then he gradually recovered and went with me into my study

+carrying a large book of sheets of drawing paper; I said, “I drew

+that,” and he answered by bowing his head. I opened the book, and on

+all the pages there were excellent drawings. And in my dream I knew

+that these drawings represented the love adventures of the soul with its

+beloved. And on its pages I saw a beautiful representation of a maiden

+in transparent garments and with a transparent body, flying up to the

+clouds. And I seemed to know that this maiden was nothing else than a

+representation of the Song of Songs. And looking at those drawings I

+dreamed I felt that I was doing wrong, but could not tear myself away

+from them. Lord, help me! My God, if Thy forsaking me is Thy doing, Thy

+will be done; but if I am myself the cause, teach me what I should do! I

+shall perish of my debauchery if Thou utterly desertest me!

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+The Rostóvs’ monetary affairs had not improved during the two years

+they had spent in the country.

+

+Though Nicholas Rostóv had kept firmly to his resolution and was still

+serving modestly in an obscure regiment, spending comparatively little,

+the way of life at Otrádnoe—Mítenka’s management of affairs, in

+particular—was such that the debts inevitably increased every year.

+The only resource obviously presenting itself to the old count was to

+apply for an official post, so he had come to Petersburg to look for one

+and also, as he said, to let the lassies enjoy themselves for the last

+time.

+

+Soon after their arrival in Petersburg Berg proposed to Véra and was

+accepted.

+

+Though in Moscow the Rostóvs belonged to the best society without

+themselves giving it a thought, yet in Petersburg their circle of

+acquaintances was a mixed and indefinite one. In Petersburg they were

+provincials, and the very people they had entertained in Moscow without

+inquiring to what set they belonged, here looked down on them.

+

+The Rostóvs lived in the same hospitable way in Petersburg as in

+Moscow, and the most diverse people met at their suppers. Country

+neighbors from Otrádnoe, impoverished old squires and their daughters,

+Perónskaya a maid of honor, Pierre Bezúkhov, and the son of their

+district postmaster who had obtained a post in Petersburg. Among the

+men who very soon became frequent visitors at the Rostóvs’ house in

+Petersburg were Borís, Pierre whom the count had met in the street and

+dragged home with him, and Berg who spent whole days at the Rostóvs’

+and paid the eldest daughter, Countess Véra, the attentions a young man

+pays when he intends to propose.

+

+Not in vain had Berg shown everybody his right hand wounded at

+Austerlitz and held a perfectly unnecessary sword in his left. He

+narrated that episode so persistently and with so important an air that

+everyone believed in the merit and usefulness of his deed, and he had

+obtained two decorations for Austerlitz.

+

+In the Finnish war he also managed to distinguish himself. He had picked

+up the scrap of a grenade that had killed an aide-de-camp standing near

+the commander in chief and had taken it to his commander. Just as he had

+done after Austerlitz, he related this occurrence at such length and

+so insistently that everyone again believed it had been necessary to do

+this, and he received two decorations for the Finnish war also. In

+1809 he was a captain in the Guards, wore medals, and held some special

+lucrative posts in Petersburg.

+

+Though some skeptics smiled when told of Berg’s merits, it could not

+be denied that he was a painstaking and brave officer, on excellent

+terms with his superiors, and a moral young man with a brilliant career

+before him and an assured position in society.

+

+Four years before, meeting a German comrade in the stalls of a Moscow

+theater, Berg had pointed out Véra Rostóva to him and had said in

+German, “das soll mein Weib werden,” * and from that moment had

+made up his mind to marry her. Now in Petersburg, having considered the

+Rostóvs’ position and his own, he decided that the time had come to

+propose.

+

+    * “That girl shall be my wife.”

+

+

+Berg’s proposal was at first received with a perplexity that was not

+flattering to him. At first it seemed strange that the son of an obscure

+Livonian gentleman should propose marriage to a Countess Rostóva; but

+Berg’s chief characteristic was such a naïve and good natured egotism

+that the Rostóvs involuntarily came to think it would be a good thing,

+since he himself was so firmly convinced that it was good, indeed

+excellent. Moreover, the Rostóvs’ affairs were seriously embarrassed,

+as the suitor could not but know; and above all, Véra was twenty-four,

+had been taken out everywhere, and though she was certainly good-looking

+and sensible, no one up to now had proposed to her. So they gave their

+consent.

+

+“You see,” said Berg to his comrade, whom he called “friend”

+only because he knew that everyone has friends, “you see, I have

+considered it all, and should not marry if I had not thought it all out

+or if it were in any way unsuitable. But on the contrary, my papa and

+mamma are now provided for—I have arranged that rent for them in the

+Baltic Provinces—and I can live in Petersburg on my pay, and with

+her fortune and my good management we can get along nicely. I am not

+marrying for money—I consider that dishonorable—but a wife should

+bring her share and a husband his. I have my position in the service,

+she has connections and some means. In our times that is worth

+something, isn’t it? But above all, she is a handsome, estimable girl,

+and she loves me....”

+

+Berg blushed and smiled.

+

+“And I love her, because her character is sensible and very good.

+Now the other sister, though they are the same family, is quite

+different—an unpleasant character and has not the same intelligence.

+She is so... you know?... Unpleasant... But my fiancée!... Well, you

+will be coming,” he was going to say, “to dine,” but changed his

+mind and said “to take tea with us,” and quickly doubling up his

+tongue he blew a small round ring of tobacco smoke, perfectly embodying

+his dream of happiness.

+

+After the first feeling of perplexity aroused in the parents by Berg’s

+proposal, the holiday tone of joyousness usual at such times took

+possession of the family, but the rejoicing was external and insincere.

+In the family’s feeling toward this wedding a certain awkwardness

+and constraint was evident, as if they were ashamed of not having loved

+Véra sufficiently and of being so ready to get her off their hands. The

+old count felt this most. He would probably have been unable to state

+the cause of his embarrassment, but it resulted from the state of his

+affairs. He did not know at all how much he had, what his debts amounted

+to, or what dowry he could give Véra. When his daughters were born

+he had assigned to each of them, for her dowry, an estate with three

+hundred serfs; but one of these estates had already been sold, and the

+other was mortgaged and the interest so much in arrears that it would

+have to be sold, so that it was impossible to give it to Véra. Nor had

+he any money.

+

+Berg had already been engaged a month, and only a week remained before

+the wedding, but the count had not yet decided in his own mind the

+question of the dowry, nor spoken to his wife about it. At one time the

+count thought of giving her the Ryazán estate or of selling a forest,

+at another time of borrowing money on a note of hand. A few days before

+the wedding Berg entered the count’s study early one morning and, with

+a pleasant smile, respectfully asked his future father-in-law to let

+him know what Véra’s dowry would be. The count was so disconcerted by

+this long-foreseen inquiry that without consideration he gave the first

+reply that came into his head. “I like your being businesslike about

+it.... I like it. You shall be satisfied....”

+

+And patting Berg on the shoulder he got up, wishing to end the

+conversation. But Berg, smiling pleasantly, explained that if he did not

+know for certain how much Véra would have and did not receive at least

+part of the dowry in advance, he would have to break matters off.

+

+“Because, consider, Count—if I allowed myself to marry now

+without having definite means to maintain my wife, I should be acting

+badly....”

+

+The conversation ended by the count, who wished to be generous and to

+avoid further importunity, saying that he would give a note of hand

+for eighty thousand rubles. Berg smiled meekly, kissed the count on the

+shoulder, and said that he was very grateful, but that it was impossible

+for him to arrange his new life without receiving thirty thousand in

+ready money. “Or at least twenty thousand, Count,” he added, “and

+then a note of hand for only sixty thousand.”

+

+“Yes, yes, all right!” said the count hurriedly. “Only excuse me,

+my dear fellow, I’ll give you twenty thousand and a note of hand for

+eighty thousand as well. Yes, yes! Kiss me.”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+Natásha was sixteen and it was the year 1809, the very year to which

+she had counted on her fingers with Borís after they had kissed four

+years ago. Since then she had not seen him. Before Sónya and her

+mother, if Borís happened to be mentioned, she spoke quite freely of

+that episode as of some childish, long-forgotten matter that was not

+worth mentioning. But in the secret depths of her soul the question

+whether her engagement to Borís was a jest or an important, binding

+promise tormented her.

+

+Since Borís left Moscow in 1805 to join the army he had not seen the

+Rostóvs. He had been in Moscow several times, and had passed near

+Otrádnoe, but had never been to see them.

+

+Sometimes it occurred to Natásha that he did not wish to see her, and

+this conjecture was confirmed by the sad tone in which her elders spoke

+of him.

+

+“Nowadays old friends are not remembered,” the countess would say

+when Borís was mentioned.

+

+Anna Mikháylovna also had of late visited them less frequently, seemed

+to hold herself with particular dignity, and always spoke rapturously

+and gratefully of the merits of her son and the brilliant career on

+which he had entered. When the Rostóvs came to Petersburg Borís called

+on them.

+

+He drove to their house in some agitation. The memory of Natásha was

+his most poetic recollection. But he went with the firm intention of

+letting her and her parents feel that the childish relations between

+himself and Natásha could not be binding either on her or on him. He

+had a brilliant position in society thanks to his intimacy with Countess

+Bezúkhova, a brilliant position in the service thanks to the patronage

+of an important personage whose complete confidence he enjoyed, and he

+was beginning to make plans for marrying one of the richest heiresses in

+Petersburg, plans which might very easily be realized. When he entered

+the Rostóvs’ drawing room Natásha was in her own room. When she

+heard of his arrival she almost ran into the drawing room, flushed and

+beaming with a more than cordial smile.

+

+Borís remembered Natásha in a short dress, with dark eyes shining from

+under her curls and boisterous, childish laughter, as he had known her

+four years before; and so he was taken aback when quite a different

+Natásha entered, and his face expressed rapturous astonishment. This

+expression on his face pleased Natásha.

+

+“Well, do you recognize your little madcap playmate?” asked the

+countess.

+

+Borís kissed Natásha’s hand and said that he was astonished at the

+change in her.

+

+“How handsome you have grown!”

+

+“I should think so!” replied Natásha’s laughing eyes.

+

+“And is Papa older?” she asked.

+

+Natásha sat down and, without joining in Borís’ conversation with

+the countess, silently and minutely studied her childhood’s suitor. He

+felt the weight of that resolute and affectionate scrutiny and glanced

+at her occasionally.

+

+Borís’ uniform, spurs, tie, and the way his hair was brushed were all

+comme il faut and in the latest fashion. This Natásha noticed at once.

+He sat rather sideways in the armchair next to the countess, arranging

+with his right hand the cleanest of gloves that fitted his left hand

+like a skin, and he spoke with a particularly refined compression of his

+lips about the amusements of the highest Petersburg society, recalling

+with mild irony old times in Moscow and Moscow acquaintances. It was

+not accidentally, Natásha felt, that he alluded, when speaking of the

+highest aristocracy, to an ambassador’s ball he had attended, and to

+invitations he had received from N.N. and S.S.

+

+All this time Natásha sat silent, glancing up at him from under her

+brows. This gaze disturbed and confused Borís more and more. He looked

+round more frequently toward her, and broke off in what he was saying.

+He did not stay more than ten minutes, then rose and took his leave. The

+same inquisitive, challenging, and rather mocking eyes still looked

+at him. After his first visit Borís said to himself that Natásha

+attracted him just as much as ever, but that he must not yield to that

+feeling, because to marry her, a girl almost without fortune, would

+mean ruin to his career, while to renew their former relations without

+intending to marry her would be dishonorable. Borís made up his mind

+to avoid meeting Natásha, but despite that resolution he called again

+a few days later and began calling often and spending whole days at the

+Rostóvs’. It seemed to him that he ought to have an explanation with

+Natásha and tell her that the old times must be forgotten, that in

+spite of everything... she could not be his wife, that he had no means,

+and they would never let her marry him. But he failed to do so and felt

+awkward about entering on such an explanation. From day to day he

+became more and more entangled. It seemed to her mother and Sónya that

+Natásha was in love with Borís as of old. She sang him his favorite

+songs, showed him her album, making him write in it, did not allow him

+to allude to the past, letting it be understood how delightful was the

+present; and every day he went away in a fog, without having said what

+he meant to, and not knowing what he was doing or why he came, or how

+it would all end. He left off visiting Hélène and received reproachful

+notes from her every day, and yet he continued to spend whole days with

+the Rostóvs.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+One night when the old countess, in nightcap and dressing jacket,

+without her false curls, and with her poor little knob of hair showing

+under her white cotton cap, knelt sighing and groaning on a rug and

+bowing to the ground in prayer, her door creaked and Natásha, also in

+a dressing jacket with slippers on her bare feet and her hair in

+curlpapers, ran in. The countess—her prayerful mood dispelled—looked

+round and frowned. She was finishing her last prayer: “Can it be that

+this couch will be my grave?” Natásha, flushed and eager, seeing

+her mother in prayer, suddenly checked her rush, half sat down, and

+unconsciously put out her tongue as if chiding herself. Seeing that

+her mother was still praying she ran on tiptoe to the bed and, rapidly

+slipping one little foot against the other, pushed off her slippers and

+jumped onto the bed the countess had feared might become her grave. This

+couch was high, with a feather bed and five pillows each smaller than

+the one below. Natásha jumped on it, sank into the feather bed, rolled

+over to the wall, and began snuggling up the bedclothes as she settled

+down, raising her knees to her chin, kicking out and laughing almost

+inaudibly, now covering herself up head and all, and now peeping at her

+mother. The countess finished her prayers and came to the bed with a

+stern face, but seeing, that Natásha’s head was covered, she smiled

+in her kind, weak way.

+

+“Now then, now then!” said she.

+

+“Mamma, can we have a talk? Yes?” said Natásha. “Now, just one on

+your throat and another... that’ll do!” And seizing her mother round

+the neck, she kissed her on the throat. In her behavior to her mother

+Natásha seemed rough, but she was so sensitive and tactful that however

+she clasped her mother she always managed to do it without hurting her

+or making her feel uncomfortable or displeased.

+

+“Well, what is it tonight?” said the mother, having arranged her

+pillows and waited until Natásha, after turning over a couple of times,

+had settled down beside her under the quilt, spread out her arms, and

+assumed a serious expression.

+

+These visits of Natásha’s at night before the count returned from his

+club were one of the greatest pleasures of both mother, and daughter.

+

+“What is it tonight?—But I have to tell you...”

+

+Natásha put her hand on her mother’s mouth.

+

+“About Borís... I know,” she said seriously; “that’s what I

+have come about. Don’t say it—I know. No, do tell me!” and she

+removed her hand. “Tell me, Mamma! He’s nice?”

+

+“Natásha, you are sixteen. At your age I was married. You say Borís

+is nice. He is very nice, and I love him like a son. But what then?...

+What are you thinking about? You have quite turned his head, I can see

+that....”

+

+As she said this the countess looked round at her daughter. Natásha

+was lying looking steadily straight before her at one of the mahogany

+sphinxes carved on the corners of the bedstead, so that the countess

+only saw her daughter’s face in profile. That face struck her by its

+peculiarly serious and concentrated expression.

+

+Natásha was listening and considering.

+

+“Well, what then?” said she.

+

+“You have quite turned his head, and why? What do you want of him? You

+know you can’t marry him.”

+

+“Why not?” said Natásha, without changing her position.

+

+“Because he is young, because he is poor, because he is a relation...

+and because you yourself don’t love him.”

+

+“How do you know?”

+

+“I know. It is not right, darling!”

+

+“But if I want to...” said Natásha.

+

+“Leave off talking nonsense,” said the countess.

+

+“But if I want to...”

+

+“Natásha, I am in earnest...”

+

+Natásha did not let her finish. She drew the countess’ large hand to

+her, kissed it on the back and then on the palm, then again turned it

+over and began kissing first one knuckle, then the space between the

+knuckles, then the next knuckle, whispering, “January, February,

+March, April, May. Speak, Mamma, why don’t you say anything? Speak!”

+said she, turning to her mother, who was tenderly gazing at her daughter

+and in that contemplation seemed to have forgotten all she had wished to

+say.

+

+“It won’t do, my love! Not everyone will understand this friendship

+dating from your childish days, and to see him so intimate with you may

+injure you in the eyes of other young men who visit us, and above all

+it torments him for nothing. He may already have found a suitable and

+wealthy match, and now he’s half crazy.”

+

+“Crazy?” repeated Natásha.

+

+“I’ll tell you some things about myself. I had a cousin...”

+

+“I know! Cyril Matvéich... but he is old.”

+

+“He was not always old. But this is what I’ll do, Natásha, I’ll

+have a talk with Borís. He need not come so often....”

+

+“Why not, if he likes to?”

+

+“Because I know it will end in nothing....”

+

+“How can you know? No, Mamma, don’t speak to him! What nonsense!”

+said Natásha in the tone of one being deprived of her property.

+“Well, I won’t marry, but let him come if he enjoys it and I enjoy

+it.” Natásha smiled and looked at her mother. “Not to marry, but

+just so,” she added.

+

+“How so, my pet?”

+

+“Just so. There’s no need for me to marry him. But... just so.”

+

+“Just so, just so,” repeated the countess, and shaking all over, she

+went off into a good humored, unexpected, elderly laugh.

+

+“Don’t laugh, stop!” cried Natásha. “You’re shaking the whole

+bed! You’re awfully like me, just such another giggler.... Wait...”

+and she seized the countess’ hands and kissed a knuckle of the little

+finger, saying, “June,” and continued, kissing, “July, August,”

+on the other hand. “But, Mamma, is he very much in love? What do you

+think? Was anybody ever so much in love with you? And he’s very nice,

+very, very nice. Only not quite my taste—he is so narrow, like the

+dining-room clock.... Don’t you understand? Narrow, you know—gray,

+light gray...”

+

+“What rubbish you’re talking!” said the countess.

+

+Natásha continued: “Don’t you really understand? Nicholas would

+understand.... Bezúkhov, now, is blue, dark-blue and red, and he is

+square.”

+

+“You flirt with him too,” said the countess, laughing.

+

+“No, he is a Freemason, I have found out. He is fine, dark-blue and

+red.... How can I explain it to you?”

+

+“Little countess!” the count’s voice called from behind the door.

+“You’re not asleep?” Natásha jumped up, snatched up her slippers,

+and ran barefoot to her own room.

+

+It was a long time before she could sleep. She kept thinking that no one

+could understand all that she understood and all there was in her.

+

+“Sónya?” she thought, glancing at that curled-up, sleeping little

+kitten with her enormous plait of hair. “No, how could she? She’s

+virtuous. She fell in love with Nicholas and does not wish to know

+anything more. Even Mamma does not understand. It is wonderful how

+clever I am and how... charming she is,” she went on, speaking

+of herself in the third person, and imagining it was some very wise

+man—the wisest and best of men—who was saying it of her. “There

+is everything, everything in her,” continued this man. “She is

+unusually intelligent, charming... and then she is pretty, uncommonly

+pretty, and agile—she swims and rides splendidly... and her voice! One

+can really say it’s a wonderful voice!”

+

+She hummed a scrap from her favorite opera by Cherubini, threw herself

+on her bed, laughed at the pleasant thought that she would immediately

+fall asleep, called Dunyásha the maid to put out the candle, and before

+Dunyásha had left the room had already passed into yet another happier

+world of dreams, where everything was as light and beautiful as in

+reality, and even more so because it was different.

+

+Next day the countess called Borís aside and had a talk with him, after

+which he ceased coming to the Rostóvs’.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV

+

+On the thirty-first of December, New Year’s Eve, 1809 - 10 an old

+grandee of Catherine’s day was giving a ball and midnight supper. The

+diplomatic corps and the Emperor himself were to be present.

+

+The grandee’s well-known mansion on the English Quay glittered with

+innumerable lights. Police were stationed at the brightly lit entrance

+which was carpeted with red baize, and not only gendarmes but dozens of

+police officers and even the police master himself stood at the porch.

+Carriages kept driving away and fresh ones arriving, with red-liveried

+footmen and footmen in plumed hats. From the carriages emerged men

+wearing uniforms, stars, and ribbons, while ladies in satin and ermine

+cautiously descended the carriage steps which were let down for them

+with a clatter, and then walked hurriedly and noiselessly over the baize

+at the entrance.

+

+Almost every time a new carriage drove up a whisper ran through the

+crowd and caps were doffed.

+

+“The Emperor?... No, a minister... prince... ambassador. Don’t you

+see the plumes?...” was whispered among the crowd.

+

+One person, better dressed than the rest, seemed to know everyone and

+mentioned by name the greatest dignitaries of the day.

+

+A third of the visitors had already arrived, but the Rostóvs, who were

+to be present, were still hurrying to get dressed.

+

+There had been many discussions and preparations for this ball in the

+Rostóv family, many fears that the invitation would not arrive, that

+the dresses would not be ready, or that something would not be arranged

+as it should be.

+

+Márya Ignátevna Perónskaya, a thin and shallow maid of honor at

+the court of the Dowager Empress, who was a friend and relation of the

+countess and piloted the provincial Rostóvs in Petersburg high society,

+was to accompany them to the ball.

+

+They were to call for her at her house in the Taurida Gardens at ten

+o’clock, but it was already five minutes to ten, and the girls were

+not yet dressed.

+

+Natásha was going to her first grand ball. She had got up at eight that

+morning and had been in a fever of excitement and activity all day. All

+her powers since morning had been concentrated on ensuring that they

+all—she herself, Mamma, and Sónya—should be as well dressed as

+possible. Sónya and her mother put themselves entirely in her hands.

+The countess was to wear a claret-colored velvet dress, and the two

+girls white gauze over pink silk slips, with roses on their bodices and

+their hair dressed à la grecque.

+

+Everything essential had already been done; feet, hands, necks, and

+ears washed, perfumed, and powdered, as befits a ball; the openwork

+silk stockings and white satin shoes with ribbons were already on; the

+hairdressing was almost done. Sónya was finishing dressing and so was

+the countess, but Natásha, who had bustled about helping them all, was

+behindhand. She was still sitting before a looking-glass with a dressing

+jacket thrown over her slender shoulders. Sónya stood ready dressed in

+the middle of the room and, pressing the head of a pin till it hurt her

+dainty finger, was fixing on a last ribbon that squeaked as the pin went

+through it.

+

+“That’s not the way, that’s not the way, Sónya!” cried Natásha

+turning her head and clutching with both hands at her hair which the

+maid who was dressing it had not time to release. “That bow is not

+right. Come here!”

+

+Sónya sat down and Natásha pinned the ribbon on differently.

+

+“Allow me, Miss! I can’t do it like that,” said the maid who was

+holding Natásha’s hair.

+

+“Oh, dear! Well then, wait. That’s right, Sónya.”

+

+“Aren’t you ready? It is nearly ten,” came the countess’ voice.

+

+“Directly! Directly! And you, Mamma?”

+

+“I have only my cap to pin on.”

+

+“Don’t do it without me!” called Natásha. “You won’t do it

+right.”

+

+“But it’s already ten.”

+

+They had decided to be at the ball by half-past ten, and Natásha had

+still to get dressed and they had to call at the Taurida Gardens.

+

+When her hair was done, Natásha, in her short petticoat from under

+which her dancing shoes showed, and in her mother’s dressing jacket,

+ran up to Sónya, scrutinized her, and then ran to her mother. Turning

+her mother’s head this way and that, she fastened on the cap and,

+hurriedly kissing her gray hair, ran back to the maids who were turning

+up the hem of her skirt.

+

+The cause of the delay was Natásha’s skirt, which was too long.

+Two maids were turning up the hem and hurriedly biting off the ends of

+thread. A third with pins in her mouth was running about between the

+countess and Sónya, and a fourth held the whole of the gossamer garment

+up high on one uplifted hand.

+

+“Mávra, quicker, darling!”

+

+“Give me my thimble, Miss, from there...”

+

+“Whenever will you be ready?” asked the count coming to the door.

+“Here is some scent. Perónskaya must be tired of waiting.”

+

+“It’s ready, Miss,” said the maid, holding up the shortened gauze

+dress with two fingers, and blowing and shaking something off it, as if

+by this to express a consciousness of the airiness and purity of what

+she held.

+

+Natásha began putting on the dress.

+

+“In a minute! In a minute! Don’t come in, Papa!” she cried to her

+father as he opened the door—speaking from under the filmy skirt which

+still covered her whole face.

+

+Sónya slammed the door to. A minute later they let the count in. He was

+wearing a blue swallow-tail coat, shoes and stockings, and was perfumed

+and his hair pomaded.

+

+“Oh, Papa! how nice you look! Charming!” cried Natásha, as she

+stood in the middle of the room smoothing out the folds of the gauze.

+

+“If you please, Miss! allow me,” said the maid, who on her knees was

+pulling the skirt straight and shifting the pins from one side of her

+mouth to the other with her tongue.

+

+“Say what you like,” exclaimed Sónya, in a despairing voice as she

+looked at Natásha, “say what you like, it’s still too long.”

+

+Natásha stepped back to look at herself in the pier glass. The dress

+was too long.

+

+“Really, madam, it is not at all too long,” said Mávra, crawling on

+her knees after her young lady.

+

+“Well, if it’s too long we’ll tack it up... we’ll tack it up

+in one minute,” said the resolute Dunyásha taking a needle that was

+stuck on the front of her little shawl and, still kneeling on the floor,

+set to work once more.

+

+At that moment, with soft steps, the countess came in shyly, in her cap

+and velvet gown.

+

+“Oo-oo, my beauty!” exclaimed the count, “she looks better than

+any of you!”

+

+He would have embraced her but, blushing, she stepped aside fearing to

+be rumpled.

+

+“Mamma, your cap, more to this side,” said Natásha. “I’ll

+arrange it,” and she rushed forward so that the maids who were tacking

+up her skirt could not move fast enough and a piece of gauze was torn

+off.

+

+“Oh goodness! What has happened? Really it was not my fault!”

+

+“Never mind, I’ll run it up, it won’t show,” said Dunyásha.

+

+“What a beauty—a very queen!” said the nurse as she came to the

+door. “And Sónya! They are lovely!”

+

+At a quarter past ten they at last got into their carriages and started.

+But they had still to call at the Taurida Gardens.

+

+Perónskaya was quite ready. In spite of her age and plainness she

+had gone through the same process as the Rostóvs, but with less

+flurry—for to her it was a matter of routine. Her ugly old body was

+washed, perfumed, and powdered in just the same way. She had washed

+behind her ears just as carefully, and when she entered her drawing

+room in her yellow dress, wearing her badge as maid of honor, her old

+lady’s maid was as full of rapturous admiration as the Rostóvs’

+servants had been.

+

+She praised the Rostóvs’ toilets. They praised her taste and toilet,

+and at eleven o’clock, careful of their coiffures and dresses, they

+settled themselves in their carriages and drove off.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV

+

+Natásha had not had a moment free since early morning and had not once

+had time to think of what lay before her.

+

+In the damp chill air and crowded closeness of the swaying carriage, she

+for the first time vividly imagined what was in store for her there at

+the ball, in those brightly lighted rooms—with music, flowers, dances,

+the Emperor, and all the brilliant young people of Petersburg. The

+prospect was so splendid that she hardly believed it would come true,

+so out of keeping was it with the chill darkness and closeness of the

+carriage. She understood all that awaited her only when, after stepping

+over the red baize at the entrance, she entered the hall, took off her

+fur cloak, and, beside Sónya and in front of her mother, mounted the

+brightly illuminated stairs between the flowers. Only then did she

+remember how she must behave at a ball, and tried to assume the majestic

+air she considered indispensable for a girl on such an occasion. But,

+fortunately for her, she felt her eyes growing misty, she saw nothing

+clearly, her pulse beat a hundred to the minute, and the blood throbbed

+at her heart. She could not assume that pose, which would have made her

+ridiculous, and she moved on almost fainting from excitement and trying

+with all her might to conceal it. And this was the very attitude that

+became her best. Before and behind them other visitors were entering,

+also talking in low tones and wearing ball dresses. The mirrors on the

+landing reflected ladies in white, pale-blue, and pink dresses, with

+diamonds and pearls on their bare necks and arms.

+

+Natásha looked in the mirrors and could not distinguish her reflection

+from the others. All was blended into one brilliant procession.

+On entering the ballroom the regular hum of voices, footsteps, and

+greetings deafened Natásha, and the light and glitter dazzled her still

+more. The host and hostess, who had already been standing at the door

+for half an hour repeating the same words to the various arrivals,

+“Charmé de vous voir,” * greeted the Rostóvs and Perónskaya in

+the same manner.

+

+    * “Delighted to see you.”

+

+

+The two girls in their white dresses, each with a rose in her

+black hair, both curtsied in the same way, but the hostess’ eye

+involuntarily rested longer on the slim Natásha. She looked at her

+and gave her alone a special smile in addition to her usual smile as

+hostess. Looking at her she may have recalled the golden, irrecoverable

+days of her own girlhood and her own first ball. The host also followed

+Natásha with his eyes and asked the count which was his daughter.

+

+“Charming!” said he, kissing the tips of his fingers.

+

+In the ballroom guests stood crowding at the entrance doors awaiting

+the Emperor. The countess took up a position in one of the front rows

+of that crowd. Natásha heard and felt that several people were asking

+about her and looking at her. She realized that those noticing her liked

+her, and this observation helped to calm her.

+

+“There are some like ourselves and some worse,” she thought.

+

+Perónskaya was pointing out to the countess the most important people

+at the ball.

+

+“That is the Dutch ambassador, do you see? That gray-haired man,”

+she said, indicating an old man with a profusion of silver-gray curly

+hair, who was surrounded by ladies laughing at something he said.

+

+“Ah, here she is, the Queen of Petersburg, Countess Bezúkhova,”

+said Perónskaya, indicating Hélène who had just entered. “How

+lovely! She is quite equal to Márya Antónovna. See how the men, young

+and old, pay court to her. Beautiful and clever... they say Prince

+—— is quite mad about her. But see, those two, though not

+good-looking, are even more run after.”

+

+She pointed to a lady who was crossing the room followed by a very plain

+daughter.

+

+“She is a splendid match, a millionairess,” said Perónskaya. “And

+look, here come her suitors.”

+

+“That is Bezúkhova’s brother, Anatole Kurágin,” she said,

+indicating a handsome officer of the Horse Guards who passed by them

+with head erect, looking at something over the heads of the ladies.

+“He’s handsome, isn’t he? I hear they will marry him to that rich

+girl. But your cousin, Drubetskóy, is also very attentive to her. They

+say she has millions. Oh yes, that’s the French ambassador himself!”

+she replied to the countess’ inquiry about Caulaincourt. “Looks as

+if he were a king! All the same, the French are charming, very charming.

+No one more charming in society. Ah, here she is! Yes, she is still the

+most beautiful of them all, our Márya Antónovna! And how simply she

+is dressed! Lovely! And that stout one in spectacles is the universal

+Freemason,” she went on, indicating Pierre. “Put him beside his wife

+and he looks a regular buffoon!”

+

+Pierre, swaying his stout body, advanced, making way through the crowd

+and nodding to right and left as casually and good-naturedly as if he

+were passing through a crowd at a fair. He pushed through, evidently

+looking for someone.

+

+Natásha looked joyfully at the familiar face of Pierre, “the

+buffoon,” as Perónskaya had called him, and knew he was looking for

+them, and for her in particular. He had promised to be at the ball and

+introduce partners to her.

+

+But before he reached them Pierre stopped beside a very handsome, dark

+man of middle height, and in a white uniform, who stood by a window

+talking to a tall man wearing stars and a ribbon. Natásha at once

+recognized the shorter and younger man in the white uniform: it was

+Bolkónski, who seemed to her to have grown much younger, happier, and

+better-looking.

+

+“There’s someone else we know—Bolkónski, do you see, Mamma?”

+said Natásha, pointing out Prince Andrew. “You remember, he stayed a

+night with us at Otrádnoe.”

+

+“Oh, you know him?” said Perónskaya. “I can’t bear him. Il fait

+à présent la pluie et le beau temps. * He’s too proud for anything.

+Takes after his father. And he’s hand in glove with Speránski,

+writing some project or other. Just look how he treats the ladies!

+There’s one talking to him and he has turned away,” she said,

+pointing at him. “I’d give it to him if he treated me as he does

+those ladies.”

+

+    * “He is all the rage just now.”

+

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI

+

+Suddenly everybody stirred, began talking, and pressed forward and then

+back, and between the two rows, which separated, the Emperor entered to

+the sounds of music that had immediately struck up. Behind him walked

+his host and hostess. He walked in rapidly, bowing to right and left

+as if anxious to get the first moments of the reception over. The band

+played the polonaise in vogue at that time on account of the words that

+had been set to it, beginning: “Alexander, Elisaveta, all our hearts

+you ravish quite...” The Emperor passed on to the drawing room, the

+crowd made a rush for the doors, and several persons with excited faces

+hurried there and back again. Then the crowd hastily retired from

+the drawing room door, at which the Emperor reappeared talking to the

+hostess. A young man, looking distraught, pounced down on the ladies,

+asking them to move aside. Some ladies, with faces betraying complete

+forgetfulness of all the rules of decorum, pushed forward to the

+detriment of their toilets. The men began to choose partners and take

+their places for the polonaise.

+

+Everyone moved back, and the Emperor came smiling out of the drawing

+room leading his hostess by the hand but not keeping time to the

+music. The host followed with Márya Antónovna Narýshkina; then

+came ambassadors, ministers, and various generals, whom Perónskaya

+diligently named. More than half the ladies already had partners

+and were taking up, or preparing to take up, their positions for the

+polonaise. Natásha felt that she would be left with her mother and

+Sónya among a minority of women who crowded near the wall, not having

+been invited to dance. She stood with her slender arms hanging down,

+her scarcely defined bosom rising and falling regularly, and with

+bated breath and glittering, frightened eyes gazed straight before

+her, evidently prepared for the height of joy or misery. She was

+not concerned about the Emperor or any of those great people whom

+Perónskaya was pointing out—she had but one thought: “Is it

+possible no one will ask me, that I shall not be among the first to

+dance? Is it possible that not one of all these men will notice me?

+They do not even seem to see me, or if they do they look as if they

+were saying, ‘Ah, she’s not the one I’m after, so it’s not worth

+looking at her!’ No, it’s impossible,” she thought. “They must

+know how I long to dance, how splendidly I dance, and how they would

+enjoy dancing with me.”

+

+The strains of the polonaise, which had continued for a considerable

+time, had begun to sound like a sad reminiscence to Natásha’s ears.

+She wanted to cry. Perónskaya had left them. The count was at the

+other end of the room. She and the countess and Sónya were standing by

+themselves as in the depths of a forest amid that crowd of strangers,

+with no one interested in them and not wanted by anyone. Prince Andrew

+with a lady passed by, evidently not recognizing them. The handsome

+Anatole was smilingly talking to a partner on his arm and looked at

+Natásha as one looks at a wall. Borís passed them twice and each time

+turned away. Berg and his wife, who were not dancing, came up to them.

+

+This family gathering seemed humiliating to Natásha—as if there were

+nowhere else for the family to talk but here at the ball. She did not

+listen to or look at Véra, who was telling her something about her own

+green dress.

+

+At last the Emperor stopped beside his last partner (he had danced

+with three) and the music ceased. A worried aide-de-camp ran up to the

+Rostóvs requesting them to stand farther back, though as it was they

+were already close to the wall, and from the gallery resounded the

+distinct, precise, enticingly rhythmical strains of a waltz. The Emperor

+looked smilingly down the room. A minute passed but no one had yet begun

+dancing. An aide-de-camp, the Master of Ceremonies, went up to Countess

+Bezúkhova and asked her to dance. She smilingly raised her hand and

+laid it on his shoulder without looking at him. The aide-de-camp, an

+adept in his art, grasping his partner firmly round her waist, with

+confident deliberation started smoothly, gliding first round the edge of

+the circle, then at the corner of the room he caught Hélène’s

+left hand and turned her, the only sound audible, apart from the

+ever-quickening music, being the rhythmic click of the spurs on his

+rapid, agile feet, while at every third beat his partner’s velvet

+dress spread out and seemed to flash as she whirled round. Natásha

+gazed at them and was ready to cry because it was not she who was

+dancing that first turn of the waltz.

+

+Prince Andrew, in the white uniform of a cavalry colonel, wearing

+stockings and dancing shoes, stood looking animated and bright in the

+front row of the circle not far from the Rostóvs. Baron Firhoff was

+talking to him about the first sitting of the Council of State to be

+held next day. Prince Andrew, as one closely connected with Speránski

+and participating in the work of the legislative commission, could give

+reliable information about that sitting, concerning which various rumors

+were current. But not listening to what Firhoff was saying, he was

+gazing now at the sovereign and now at the men intending to dance who

+had not yet gathered courage to enter the circle.

+

+Prince Andrew was watching these men abashed by the Emperor’s

+presence, and the women who were breathlessly longing to be asked to

+dance.

+

+Pierre came up to him and caught him by the arm.

+

+“You always dance. I have a protégée, the young Rostóva, here. Ask

+her,” he said.

+

+“Where is she?” asked Bolkónski. “Excuse me!” he added, turning

+to the baron, “we will finish this conversation elsewhere—at a ball

+one must dance.” He stepped forward in the direction Pierre indicated.

+The despairing, dejected expression of Natásha’s face caught his eye.

+He recognized her, guessed her feelings, saw that it was her début,

+remembered her conversation at the window, and with an expression of

+pleasure on his face approached Countess Rostóva.

+

+“Allow me to introduce you to my daughter,” said the countess, with

+heightened color.

+

+“I have the pleasure of being already acquainted, if the countess

+remembers me,” said Prince Andrew with a low and courteous bow quite

+belying Perónskaya’s remarks about his rudeness, and approaching

+Natásha he held out his arm to grasp her waist before he had completed

+his invitation. He asked her to waltz. That tremulous expression on

+Natásha’s face, prepared either for despair or rapture, suddenly

+brightened into a happy, grateful, childlike smile.

+

+“I have long been waiting for you,” that frightened happy little

+girl seemed to say by the smile that replaced the threatened tears, as

+she raised her hand to Prince Andrew’s shoulder. They were the second

+couple to enter the circle. Prince Andrew was one of the best dancers of

+his day and Natásha danced exquisitely. Her little feet in their white

+satin dancing shoes did their work swiftly, lightly, and independently

+of herself, while her face beamed with ecstatic happiness. Her slender

+bare arms and neck were not beautiful—compared to Hélène’s her

+shoulders looked thin and her bosom undeveloped. But Hélène seemed, as

+it were, hardened by a varnish left by the thousands of looks that had

+scanned her person, while Natásha was like a girl exposed for the first

+time, who would have felt very much ashamed had she not been assured

+that this was absolutely necessary.

+

+Prince Andrew liked dancing, and wishing to escape as quickly as

+possible from the political and clever talk which everyone addressed

+to him, wishing also to break up the circle of restraint he disliked,

+caused by the Emperor’s presence, he danced, and had chosen Natásha

+because Pierre pointed her out to him and because she was the first

+pretty girl who caught his eye; but scarcely had he embraced that

+slender supple figure and felt her stirring so close to him and smiling

+so near him than the wine of her charm rose to his head, and he

+felt himself revived and rejuvenated when after leaving her he stood

+breathing deeply and watching the other dancers.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVII

+

+After Prince Andrew, Borís came up to ask Natásha for a dance, and

+then the aide-de-camp who had opened the ball, and several other young

+men, so that, flushed and happy, and passing on her superfluous partners

+to Sónya, she did not cease dancing all the evening. She noticed and

+saw nothing of what occupied everyone else. Not only did she fail to

+notice that the Emperor talked a long time with the French ambassador,

+and how particularly gracious he was to a certain lady, or that Prince

+So-and-so and So-and-so did and said this and that, and that Hélène

+had great success and was honored by the special attention of So-and-so,

+but she did not even see the Emperor, and only noticed that he had gone

+because the ball became livelier after his departure. For one of the

+merry cotillions before supper Prince Andrew was again her partner. He

+reminded her of their first encounter in the Otrádnoe avenue, and how

+she had been unable to sleep that moonlight night, and told her how he

+had involuntarily overheard her. Natásha blushed at that recollection

+and tried to excuse herself, as if there had been something to be

+ashamed of in what Prince Andrew had overheard.

+

+Like all men who have grown up in society, Prince Andrew liked meeting

+someone there not of the conventional society stamp. And such was

+Natásha, with her surprise, her delight, her shyness, and even her

+mistakes in speaking French. With her he behaved with special care and

+tenderness, sitting beside her and talking of the simplest and most

+unimportant matters; he admired her shy grace. In the middle of the

+cotillion, having completed one of the figures, Natásha, still out of

+breath, was returning to her seat when another dancer chose her. She was

+tired and panting and evidently thought of declining, but immediately

+put her hand gaily on the man’s shoulder, smiling at Prince Andrew.

+

+“I’d be glad to sit beside you and rest: I’m tired; but you see

+how they keep asking me, and I’m glad of it, I’m happy and I love

+everybody, and you and I understand it all,” and much, much more was

+said in her smile. When her partner left her Natásha ran across the

+room to choose two ladies for the figure.

+

+“If she goes to her cousin first and then to another lady, she will be

+my wife,” said Prince Andrew to himself quite to his own surprise, as

+he watched her. She did go first to her cousin.

+

+“What rubbish sometimes enters one’s head!” thought Prince Andrew,

+“but what is certain is that that girl is so charming, so original,

+that she won’t be dancing here a month before she will be married....

+Such as she are rare here,” he thought, as Natásha, readjusting a

+rose that was slipping on her bodice, settled herself beside him.

+

+When the cotillion was over the old count in his blue coat came up to

+the dancers. He invited Prince Andrew to come and see them, and asked

+his daughter whether she was enjoying herself. Natásha did not answer

+at once but only looked up with a smile that said reproachfully: “How

+can you ask such a question?”

+

+“I have never enjoyed myself so much before!” she said, and Prince

+Andrew noticed how her thin arms rose quickly as if to embrace her

+father and instantly dropped again. Natásha was happier than she had

+ever been in her life. She was at that height of bliss when one becomes

+completely kind and good and does not believe in the possibility of

+evil, unhappiness, or sorrow.

+

+At that ball Pierre for the first time felt humiliated by the position

+his wife occupied in court circles. He was gloomy and absent-minded. A

+deep furrow ran across his forehead, and standing by a window he stared

+over his spectacles seeing no one.

+

+On her way to supper Natásha passed him.

+

+Pierre’s gloomy, unhappy look struck her. She stopped in front of him.

+She wished to help him, to bestow on him the superabundance of her own

+happiness.

+

+“How delightful it is, Count!” said she. “Isn’t it?”

+

+Pierre smiled absent-mindedly, evidently not grasping what she said.

+

+“Yes, I am very glad,” he said.

+

+“How can people be dissatisfied with anything?” thought Natásha.

+“Especially such a capital fellow as Bezúkhov!” In Natásha’s

+eyes all the people at the ball alike were good, kind, and splendid

+people, loving one another; none of them capable of injuring

+another—and so they ought all to be happy.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVIII

+

+Next day Prince Andrew thought of the ball, but his mind did not dwell

+on it long. “Yes, it was a very brilliant ball,” and then... “Yes,

+that little Rostóva is very charming. There’s something fresh,

+original, un-Petersburg-like about her that distinguishes her.” That

+was all he thought about yesterday’s ball, and after his morning tea

+he set to work.

+

+But either from fatigue or want of sleep he was ill-disposed for work

+and could get nothing done. He kept criticizing his own work, as he

+often did, and was glad when he heard someone coming.

+

+The visitor was Bítski, who served on various committees, frequented

+all the societies in Petersburg, and a passionate devotee of the new

+ideas and of Speránski, and a diligent Petersburg newsmonger—one of

+those men who choose their opinions like their clothes according to

+the fashion, but who for that very reason appear to be the warmest

+partisans. Hardly had he got rid of his hat before he ran into Prince

+Andrew’s room with a preoccupied air and at once began talking. He

+had just heard particulars of that morning’s sitting of the Council

+of State opened by the Emperor, and he spoke of it enthusiastically. The

+Emperor’s speech had been extraordinary. It had been a speech such as

+only constitutional monarchs deliver. “The Sovereign plainly said

+that the Council and Senate are estates of the realm, he said that the

+government must rest not on authority but on secure bases. The Emperor

+said that the fiscal system must be reorganized and the accounts

+published,” recounted Bítski, emphasizing certain words and opening

+his eyes significantly.

+

+“Ah, yes! Today’s events mark an epoch, the greatest epoch in our

+history,” he concluded.

+

+Prince Andrew listened to the account of the opening of the Council of

+State, which he had so impatiently awaited and to which he had attached

+such importance, and was surprised that this event, now that it had

+taken place, did not affect him, and even seemed quite insignificant. He

+listened with quiet irony to Bítski’s enthusiastic account of it. A

+very simple thought occurred to him: “What does it matter to me or to

+Bítski what the Emperor was pleased to say at the Council? Can all that

+make me any happier or better?”

+

+And this simple reflection suddenly destroyed all the interest Prince

+Andrew had felt in the impending reforms. He was going to dine that

+evening at Speránski’s, “with only a few friends,” as the host

+had said when inviting him. The prospect of that dinner in the intimate

+home circle of the man he so admired had greatly interested Prince

+Andrew, especially as he had not yet seen Speránski in his domestic

+surroundings, but now he felt disinclined to go to it.

+

+At the appointed hour, however, he entered the modest house Speránski

+owned in the Taurida Gardens. In the parqueted dining room this small

+house, remarkable for its extreme cleanliness (suggesting that of a

+monastery), Prince Andrew, who was rather late, found the friendly

+gathering of Speránski’s intimate acquaintances already assembled

+at five o’clock. There were no ladies present except Speránski’s

+little daughter (long-faced like her father) and her governess. The

+other guests were Gervais, Magnítski, and Stolýpin. While still in

+the anteroom Prince Andrew heard loud voices and a ringing staccato

+laugh—a laugh such as one hears on the stage. Someone—it sounded

+like Speránski—was distinctly ejaculating ha-ha-ha. Prince Andrew

+had never before heard Speránski’s famous laugh, and this ringing,

+high-pitched laughter from a statesman made a strange impression on him.

+

+He entered the dining room. The whole company were standing between two

+windows at a small table laid with hors-d’oeuvres. Speránski, wearing

+a gray swallow-tail coat with a star on the breast, and evidently still

+the same waistcoat and high white stock he had worn at the meeting of

+the Council of State, stood at the table with a beaming countenance. His

+guests surrounded him. Magnítski, addressing himself to Speránski,

+was relating an anecdote, and Speránski was laughing in advance at

+what Magnítski was going to say. When Prince Andrew entered the room

+Magnítski’s words were again crowned by laughter. Stolýpin gave

+a deep bass guffaw as he munched a piece of bread and cheese. Gervais

+laughed softly with a hissing chuckle, and Speránski in a high-pitched

+staccato manner.

+

+Still laughing, Speránski held out his soft white hand to Prince

+Andrew.

+

+“Very pleased to see you, Prince,” he said. “One moment...” he

+went on, turning to Magnítski and interrupting his story. “We have

+agreed that this is a dinner for recreation, with not a word about

+business!” and turning again to the narrator he began to laugh afresh.

+

+Prince Andrew looked at the laughing Speránski with astonishment,

+regret, and disillusionment. It seemed to him that this was not

+Speránski but someone else. Everything that had formerly appeared

+mysterious and fascinating in Speránski suddenly became plain and

+unattractive.

+

+At dinner the conversation did not cease for a moment and seemed to

+consist of the contents of a book of funny anecdotes. Before Magnítski

+had finished his story someone else was anxious to relate something

+still funnier. Most of the anecdotes, if not relating to the state

+service, related to people in the service. It seemed that in this

+company the insignificance of those people was so definitely accepted

+that the only possible attitude toward them was one of good humored

+ridicule. Speránski related how at the Council that morning a deaf

+dignitary, when asked his opinion, replied that he thought so too.

+Gervais gave a long account of an official revision, remarkable for the

+stupidity of everybody concerned. Stolýpin, stuttering, broke into

+the conversation and began excitedly talking of the abuses that existed

+under the former order of things—threatening to give a serious turn

+to the conversation. Magnítski starting quizzing Stolýpin about his

+vehemence. Gervais intervened with a joke, and the talk reverted to its

+former lively tone.

+

+Evidently Speránski liked to rest after his labors and find amusement

+in a circle of friends, and his guests, understanding his wish, tried

+to enliven him and amuse themselves. But their gaiety seemed to Prince

+Andrew mirthless and tiresome. Speránski’s high-pitched voice struck

+him unpleasantly, and the incessant laughter grated on him like a false

+note. Prince Andrew did not laugh and feared that he would be a damper

+on the spirits of the company, but no one took any notice of his being

+out of harmony with the general mood. They all seemed very gay.

+

+He tried several times to join in the conversation, but his remarks were

+tossed aside each time like a cork thrown out of the water, and he could

+not jest with them.

+

+There was nothing wrong or unseemly in what they said, it was witty and

+might have been funny, but it lacked just that something which is the

+salt of mirth, and they were not even aware that such a thing existed.

+

+After dinner Speránski’s daughter and her governess rose. He patted

+the little girl with his white hand and kissed her. And that gesture,

+too, seemed unnatural to Prince Andrew.

+

+The men remained at table over their port—English fashion. In the

+midst of a conversation that was started about Napoleon’s Spanish

+affairs, which they all agreed in approving, Prince Andrew began to

+express a contrary opinion. Speránski smiled and, with an evident wish

+to prevent the conversation from taking an unpleasant course, told a

+story that had no connection with the previous conversation. For a few

+moments all were silent.

+

+Having sat some time at table, Speránski corked a bottle of wine and,

+remarking, “Nowadays good wine rides in a carriage and pair,” passed

+it to the servant and got up. All rose and continuing to talk loudly

+went into the drawing room. Two letters brought by a courier were handed

+to Speránski and he took them to his study. As soon as he had left

+the room the general merriment stopped and the guests began to converse

+sensibly and quietly with one another.

+

+“Now for the recitation!” said Speránski on returning from

+his study. “A wonderful talent!” he said to Prince Andrew, and

+Magnítski immediately assumed a pose and began reciting some humorous

+verses in French which he had composed about various well-known

+Petersburg people. He was interrupted several times by applause. When

+the verses were finished Prince Andrew went up to Speránski and took

+his leave.

+

+“Where are you off to so early?” asked Speránski.

+

+“I promised to go to a reception.”

+

+They said no more. Prince Andrew looked closely into those mirrorlike,

+impenetrable eyes, and felt that it had been ridiculous of him to have

+expected anything from Speránski and from any of his own activities

+connected with him, or ever to have attributed importance to what

+Speránski was doing. That precise, mirthless laughter rang in Prince

+Andrew’s ears long after he had left the house.

+

+When he reached home Prince Andrew began thinking of his life in

+Petersburg during those last four months as if it were something new. He

+recalled his exertions and solicitations, and the history of his project

+of army reform, which had been accepted for consideration and which they

+were trying to pass over in silence simply because another, a very poor

+one, had already been prepared and submitted to the Emperor. He thought

+of the meetings of a committee of which Berg was a member. He remembered

+how carefully and at what length everything relating to form and

+procedure was discussed at those meetings, and how sedulously and

+promptly all that related to the gist of the business was evaded. He

+recalled his labors on the Legal Code, and how painstakingly he had

+translated the articles of the Roman and French codes into Russian,

+and he felt ashamed of himself. Then he vividly pictured to himself

+Boguchárovo, his occupations in the country, his journey to Ryazán;

+he remembered the peasants and Dron the village elder, and mentally

+applying to them the Personal Rights he had divided into paragraphs, he

+felt astonished that he could have spent so much time on such useless

+work.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIX

+

+Next day Prince Andrew called at a few houses he had not visited before,

+and among them at the Rostóvs’ with whom he had renewed acquaintance

+at the ball. Apart from considerations of politeness which demanded the

+call, he wanted to see that original, eager girl who had left such a

+pleasant impression on his mind, in her own home.

+

+Natásha was one of the first to meet him. She was wearing a dark-blue

+house dress in which Prince Andrew thought her even prettier than in

+her ball dress. She and all the Rostóv family welcomed him as an old

+friend, simply and cordially. The whole family, whom he had formerly

+judged severely, now seemed to him to consist of excellent, simple,

+and kindly people. The old count’s hospitality and good nature, which

+struck one especially in Petersburg as a pleasant surprise, were such

+that Prince Andrew could not refuse to stay to dinner. “Yes,”

+he thought, “they are capital people, who of course have not the

+slightest idea what a treasure they possess in Natásha; but they are

+kindly folk and form the best possible setting for this strikingly

+poetic, charming girl, overflowing with life!”

+

+In Natásha Prince Andrew was conscious of a strange world completely

+alien to him and brimful of joys unknown to him, a different world,

+that in the Otrádnoe avenue and at the window that moonlight night

+had already begun to disconcert him. Now this world disconcerted him no

+longer and was no longer alien to him, but he himself having entered it

+found in it a new enjoyment.

+

+After dinner Natásha, at Prince Andrew’s request, went to the

+clavichord and began singing. Prince Andrew stood by a window talking

+to the ladies and listened to her. In the midst of a phrase he ceased

+speaking and suddenly felt tears choking him, a thing he had thought

+impossible for him. He looked at Natásha as she sang, and something new

+and joyful stirred in his soul. He felt happy and at the same time sad.

+He had absolutely nothing to weep about yet he was ready to weep. What

+about? His former love? The little princess? His disillusionments?...

+His hopes for the future?... Yes and no. The chief reason was a sudden,

+vivid sense of the terrible contrast between something infinitely great

+and illimitable within him and that limited and material something that

+he, and even she, was. This contrast weighed on and yet cheered him

+while she sang.

+

+As soon as Natásha had finished she went up to him and asked how he

+liked her voice. She asked this and then became confused, feeling that

+she ought not to have asked it. He smiled, looking at her, and said he

+liked her singing as he liked everything she did.

+

+Prince Andrew left the Rostóvs’ late in the evening. He went to bed

+from habit, but soon realized that he could not sleep. Having lit his

+candle he sat up in bed, then got up, then lay down again not at all

+troubled by his sleeplessness: his soul was as fresh and joyful as if he

+had stepped out of a stuffy room into God’s own fresh air. It did not

+enter his head that he was in love with Natásha; he was not thinking

+about her, but only picturing her to himself, and in consequence all

+life appeared in a new light. “Why do I strive, why do I toil in this

+narrow, confined frame, when life, all life with all its joys, is open

+to me?” said he to himself. And for the first time for a very long

+while he began making happy plans for the future. He decided that he

+must attend to his son’s education by finding a tutor and putting

+the boy in his charge, then he ought to retire from the service and go

+abroad, and see England, Switzerland and Italy. “I must use my freedom

+while I feel so much strength and youth in me,” he said to himself.

+“Pierre was right when he said one must believe in the possibility of

+happiness in order to be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead

+bury their dead, but while one has life one must live and be happy!”

+thought he.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XX

+

+One morning Colonel Berg, whom Pierre knew as he knew everybody in

+Moscow and Petersburg, came to see him. Berg arrived in an immaculate

+brand-new uniform, with his hair pomaded and brushed forward over his

+temples as the Emperor Alexander wore his hair.

+

+“I have just been to see the countess, your wife. Unfortunately she

+could not grant my request, but I hope, Count, I shall be more fortunate

+with you,” he said with a smile.

+

+“What is it you wish, Colonel? I am at your service.”

+

+“I have now quite settled in my new rooms, Count” (Berg said

+this with perfect conviction that this information could not but be

+agreeable), “and so I wish to arrange just a small party for my own

+and my wife’s friends.” (He smiled still more pleasantly.) “I

+wished to ask the countess and you to do me the honor of coming to tea

+and to supper.”

+

+Only Countess Hélène, considering the society of such people as the

+Bergs beneath her, could be cruel enough to refuse such an invitation.

+Berg explained so clearly why he wanted to collect at his house a small

+but select company, and why this would give him pleasure, and why though

+he grudged spending money on cards or anything harmful, he was prepared

+to run into some expense for the sake of good society—that Pierre

+could not refuse, and promised to come.

+

+“But don’t be late, Count, if I may venture to ask; about ten

+minutes to eight, please. We shall make up a rubber. Our general is

+coming. He is very good to me. We shall have supper, Count. So you will

+do me the favor.”

+

+Contrary to his habit of being late, Pierre on that day arrived at the

+Bergs’ house, not at ten but at fifteen minutes to eight.

+

+Having prepared everything necessary for the party, the Bergs were ready

+for their guests’ arrival.

+

+In their new, clean, and light study with its small busts and pictures

+and new furniture sat Berg and his wife. Berg, closely buttoned up in

+his new uniform, sat beside his wife explaining to her that one always

+could and should be acquainted with people above one, because only then

+does one get satisfaction from acquaintances.

+

+“You can get to know something, you can ask for something. See how I

+managed from my first promotion.” (Berg measured his life not by years

+but by promotions.) “My comrades are still nobodies, while I am only

+waiting for a vacancy to command a regiment, and have the happiness to

+be your husband.” (He rose and kissed Véra’s hand, and on the way

+to her straightened out a turned-up corner of the carpet.) “And

+how have I obtained all this? Chiefly by knowing how to choose my

+aquaintances. It goes without saying that one must be conscientious and

+methodical.”

+

+Berg smiled with a sense of his superiority over a weak woman, and

+paused, reflecting that this dear wife of his was after all but a weak

+woman who could not understand all that constitutes a man’s dignity,

+what it was ein Mann zu sein. * Véra at the same time smiling with a

+sense of superiority over her good, conscientious husband, who all the

+same understood life wrongly, as according to Véra all men did. Berg,

+judging by his wife, thought all women weak and foolish. Véra, judging

+only by her husband and generalizing from that observation, supposed

+that all men, though they understand nothing and are conceited and

+selfish, ascribe common sense to themselves alone.

+

+    * To be a man.

+

+Berg rose and embraced his wife carefully, so as not to crush her lace

+fichu for which he had paid a good price, kissing her straight on the

+lips.

+

+“The only thing is, we mustn’t have children too soon,” he

+continued, following an unconscious sequence of ideas.

+

+“Yes,” answered Véra, “I don’t at all want that. We must live

+for society.”

+

+“Princess Yusúpova wore one exactly like this,” said Berg, pointing

+to the fichu with a happy and kindly smile.

+

+Just then Count Bezúkhov was announced. Husband and wife glanced at one

+another, both smiling with self-satisfaction, and each mentally claiming

+the honor of this visit.

+

+“This is what comes of knowing how to make acquaintances,” thought

+Berg. “This is what comes of knowing how to conduct oneself.”

+

+“But please don’t interrupt me when I am entertaining the guests,”

+said Véra, “because I know what interests each of them and what to

+say to different people.”

+

+Berg smiled again.

+

+“It can’t be helped: men must sometimes have masculine

+conversation,” said he.

+

+They received Pierre in their small, new drawing room, where it was

+impossible to sit down anywhere without disturbing its symmetry,

+neatness, and order; so it was quite comprehensible and not strange that

+Berg, having generously offered to disturb the symmetry of an armchair

+or of the sofa for his dear guest, but being apparently painfully

+undecided on the matter himself, eventually left the visitor to settle

+the question of selection. Pierre disturbed the symmetry by moving a

+chair for himself, and Berg and Véra immediately began their evening

+party, interrupting each other in their efforts to entertain their

+guest.

+

+Véra, having decided in her own mind that Pierre ought to be

+entertained with conversation about the French embassy, at once began

+accordingly. Berg, having decided that masculine conversation was

+required, interrupted his wife’s remarks and touched on the question

+of the war with Austria, and unconsciously jumped from the general

+subject to personal considerations as to the proposals made him to take

+part in the Austrian campaign and the reasons why he had declined them.

+Though the conversation was very incoherent and Véra was angry at the

+intrusion of the masculine element, both husband and wife felt with

+satisfaction that, even if only one guest was present, their evening had

+begun very well and was as like as two peas to every other evening party

+with its talk, tea, and lighted candles.

+

+Before long Borís, Berg’s old comrade, arrived. There was a shade of

+condescension and patronage in his treatment of Berg and Véra. After

+Borís came a lady with the colonel, then the general himself, then the

+Rostóvs, and the party became unquestionably exactly like all other

+evening parties. Berg and Véra could not repress their smiles of

+satisfaction at the sight of all this movement in their drawing room,

+at the sound of the disconnected talk, the rustling of dresses, and the

+bowing and scraping. Everything was just as everybody always has it,

+especially so the general, who admired the apartment, patted Berg on the

+shoulder, and with parental authority superintended the setting out of

+the table for boston. The general sat down by Count Ilyá Rostóv, who

+was next to himself the most important guest. The old people sat with

+the old, the young with the young, and the hostess at the tea table, on

+which stood exactly the same kind of cakes in a silver cake basket as

+the Panins had at their party. Everything was just as it was everywhere

+else.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXI

+

+Pierre, as one of the principal guests, had to sit down to boston

+with Count Rostóv, the general, and the colonel. At the card table he

+happened to be directly facing Natásha, and was struck by a curious

+change that had come over her since the ball. She was silent, and not

+only less pretty than at the ball, but only redeemed from plainness by

+her look of gentle indifference to everything around.

+

+“What’s the matter with her?” thought Pierre, glancing at her.

+She was sitting by her sister at the tea table, and reluctantly, without

+looking at him, made some reply to Borís who sat down beside her. After

+playing out a whole suit and to his partner’s delight taking five

+tricks, Pierre, hearing greetings and the steps of someone who had

+entered the room while he was picking up his tricks, glanced again at

+Natásha.

+

+“What has happened to her?” he asked himself with still greater

+surprise.

+

+Prince Andrew was standing before her, saying something to her with a

+look of tender solicitude. She, having raised her head, was looking up

+at him, flushed and evidently trying to master her rapid breathing. And

+the bright glow of some inner fire that had been suppressed was again

+alight in her. She was completely transformed and from a plain girl had

+again become what she had been at the ball.

+

+Prince Andrew went up to Pierre, and the latter noticed a new and

+youthful expression in his friend’s face.

+

+Pierre changed places several times during the game, sitting now with

+his back to Natásha and now facing her, but during the whole of the six

+rubbers he watched her and his friend.

+

+“Something very important is happening between them,” thought

+Pierre, and a feeling that was both joyful and painful agitated him and

+made him neglect the game.

+

+After six rubbers the general got up, saying that it was no use playing

+like that, and Pierre was released. Natásha on one side was talking

+with Sónya and Borís, and Véra with a subtle smile was saying

+something to Prince Andrew. Pierre went up to his friend and, asking

+whether they were talking secrets, sat down beside them. Véra, having

+noticed Prince Andrew’s attentions to Natásha, decided that at a

+party, a real evening party, subtle allusions to the tender passion were

+absolutely necessary and, seizing a moment when Prince Andrew was alone,

+began a conversation with him about feelings in general and about her

+sister. With so intellectual a guest as she considered Prince Andrew to

+be, she felt that she had to employ her diplomatic tact.

+

+When Pierre went up to them he noticed that Véra was being carried away

+by her self-satisfied talk, but that Prince Andrew seemed embarrassed, a

+thing that rarely happened with him.

+

+“What do you think?” Véra was saying with an arch smile. “You are

+so discerning, Prince, and understand people’s characters so well at

+a glance. What do you think of Natalie? Could she be constant in her

+attachments? Could she, like other women” (Véra meant herself),

+“love a man once for all and remain true to him forever? That is what

+I consider true love. What do you think, Prince?”

+

+“I know your sister too little,” replied Prince Andrew, with a

+sarcastic smile under which he wished to hide his embarrassment, “to

+be able to solve so delicate a question, and then I have noticed that

+the less attractive a woman is the more constant she is likely to be,”

+he added, and looked up at Pierre who was just approaching them.

+

+“Yes, that is true, Prince. In our days,” continued

+Véra—mentioning “our days” as people of limited intelligence are

+fond of doing, imagining that they have discovered and appraised the

+peculiarities of “our days” and that human characteristics change

+with the times—“in our days a girl has so much freedom that the

+pleasure of being courted often stifles real feeling in her. And it must

+be confessed that Natalie is very susceptible.” This return to

+the subject of Natalie caused Prince Andrew to knit his brows with

+discomfort: he was about to rise, but Véra continued with a still more

+subtle smile:

+

+“I think no one has been more courted than she,” she went on, “but

+till quite lately she never cared seriously for anyone. Now you know,

+Count,” she said to Pierre, “even our dear cousin Borís, who,

+between ourselves, was very far gone in the land of tenderness...”

+(alluding to a map of love much in vogue at that time).

+

+Prince Andrew frowned and remained silent.

+

+“You are friendly with Borís, aren’t you?” asked Véra.

+

+“Yes, I know him....”

+

+“I expect he has told you of his childish love for Natásha?”

+

+“Oh, there was childish love?” suddenly asked Prince Andrew,

+blushing unexpectedly.

+

+“Yes, you know between cousins intimacy often leads to love. Le

+cousinage est un dangereux voisinage. * Don’t you think so?”

+

+    * “Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood.”

+

+

+“Oh, undoubtedly!” said Prince Andrew, and with sudden and unnatural

+liveliness he began chaffing Pierre about the need to be very careful

+with his fifty-year-old Moscow cousins, and in the midst of these

+jesting remarks he rose, taking Pierre by the arm, and drew him aside.

+

+“Well?” asked Pierre, seeing his friend’s strange animation with

+surprise, and noticing the glance he turned on Natásha as he rose.

+

+“I must... I must have a talk with you,” said Prince Andrew. “You

+know that pair of women’s gloves?” (He referred to the Masonic

+gloves given to a newly initiated Brother to present to the woman he

+loved.) “I... but no, I will talk to you later on,” and with a

+strange light in his eyes and restlessness in his movements, Prince

+Andrew approached Natásha and sat down beside her. Pierre saw how

+Prince Andrew asked her something and how she flushed as she replied.

+

+But at that moment Berg came to Pierre and began insisting that he

+should take part in an argument between the general and the colonel on

+the affairs in Spain.

+

+Berg was satisfied and happy. The smile of pleasure never left his face.

+The party was very successful and quite like other parties he had

+seen. Everything was similar: the ladies’ subtle talk, the cards, the

+general raising his voice at the card table, and the samovar and the tea

+cakes; only one thing was lacking that he had always seen at the evening

+parties he wished to imitate. They had not yet had a loud conversation

+among the men and a dispute about something important and clever. Now

+the general had begun such a discussion and so Berg drew Pierre to it.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXII

+

+Next day, having been invited by the count, Prince Andrew dined with the

+Rostóvs and spent the rest of the day there.

+

+Everyone in the house realized for whose sake Prince Andrew came, and

+without concealing it he tried to be with Natásha all day. Not only in

+the soul of the frightened yet happy and enraptured Natásha, but in the

+whole house, there was a feeling of awe at something important that was

+bound to happen. The countess looked with sad and sternly serious eyes

+at Prince Andrew when he talked to Natásha and timidly started some

+artificial conversation about trifles as soon as he looked her way.

+Sónya was afraid to leave Natásha and afraid of being in the way when

+she was with them. Natásha grew pale, in a panic of expectation, when

+she remained alone with him for a moment. Prince Andrew surprised her by

+his timidity. She felt that he wanted to say something to her but could

+not bring himself to do so.

+

+In the evening, when Prince Andrew had left, the countess went up to

+Natásha and whispered: “Well, what?”

+

+“Mamma! For heaven’s sake don’t ask me anything now! One can’t

+talk about that,” said Natásha.

+

+But all the same that night Natásha, now agitated and now frightened,

+lay a long time in her mother’s bed gazing straight before her. She

+told her how he had complimented her, how he told her he was going

+abroad, asked her where they were going to spend the summer, and then

+how he had asked her about Borís.

+

+“But such a... such a... never happened to me before!” she said.

+“Only I feel afraid in his presence. I am always afraid when I’m

+with him. What does that mean? Does it mean that it’s the real thing?

+Yes? Mamma, are you asleep?”

+

+“No, my love; I am frightened myself,” answered her mother. “Now

+go!”

+

+“All the same I shan’t sleep. What silliness, to sleep! Mummy!

+Mummy! such a thing never happened to me before,” she said, surprised

+and alarmed at the feeling she was aware of in herself. “And could we

+ever have thought!...”

+

+It seemed to Natásha that even at the time she first saw Prince Andrew

+at Otrádnoe she had fallen in love with him. It was as if she feared

+this strange, unexpected happiness of meeting again the very man she had

+then chosen (she was firmly convinced she had done so) and of finding

+him, as it seemed, not indifferent to her.

+

+“And it had to happen that he should come specially to Petersburg

+while we are here. And it had to happen that we should meet at that

+ball. It is fate. Clearly it is fate that everything led up to this!

+Already then, directly I saw him I felt something peculiar.”

+

+“What else did he say to you? What are those verses? Read them...”

+said her mother, thoughtfully, referring to some verses Prince Andrew

+had written in Natásha’s album.

+

+“Mamma, one need not be ashamed of his being a widower?”

+

+“Don’t, Natásha! Pray to God. ‘Marriages are made in

+heaven,’” said her mother.

+

+“Darling Mummy, how I love you! How happy I am!” cried Natásha,

+shedding tears of joy and excitement and embracing her mother.

+

+At that very time Prince Andrew was sitting with Pierre and telling him

+of his love for Natásha and his firm resolve to make her his wife.

+

+That day Countess Hélène had a reception at her house. The French

+ambassador was there, and a foreign prince of the blood who had of

+late become a frequent visitor of hers, and many brilliant ladies and

+gentlemen. Pierre, who had come downstairs, walked through the rooms and

+struck everyone by his preoccupied, absent-minded, and morose air.

+

+Since the ball he had felt the approach of a fit of nervous depression

+and had made desperate efforts to combat it. Since the intimacy of

+his wife with the royal prince, Pierre had unexpectedly been made a

+gentleman of the bedchamber, and from that time he had begun to feel

+oppressed and ashamed in court society, and dark thoughts of the vanity

+of all things human came to him oftener than before. At the same time

+the feeling he had noticed between his protégée Natásha and Prince

+Andrew accentuated his gloom by the contrast between his own position

+and his friend’s. He tried equally to avoid thinking about his wife,

+and about Natásha and Prince Andrew; and again everything seemed to him

+insignificant in comparison with eternity; again the question: for what?

+presented itself; and he forced himself to work day and night at Masonic

+labors, hoping to drive away the evil spirit that threatened him. Toward

+midnight, after he had left the countess’ apartments, he was sitting

+upstairs in a shabby dressing gown, copying out the original transaction

+of the Scottish lodge of Freemasons at a table in his low room cloudy

+with tobacco smoke, when someone came in. It was Prince Andrew.

+

+“Ah, it’s you!” said Pierre with a preoccupied, dissatisfied air.

+“And I, you see, am hard at it.” He pointed to his manuscript book

+with that air of escaping from the ills of life with which unhappy

+people look at their work.

+

+Prince Andrew, with a beaming, ecstatic expression of renewed life on

+his face, paused in front of Pierre and, not noticing his sad look,

+smiled at him with the egotism of joy.

+

+“Well, dear heart,” said he, “I wanted to tell you about it

+yesterday and I have come to do so today. I never experienced anything

+like it before. I am in love, my friend!”

+

+Suddenly Pierre heaved a deep sigh and dumped his heavy person down on

+the sofa beside Prince Andrew.

+

+“With Natásha Rostóva, yes?” said he.

+

+“Yes, yes! Who else should it be? I should never have believed it,

+but the feeling is stronger than I. Yesterday I tormented myself and

+suffered, but I would not exchange even that torment for anything in

+the world, I have not lived till now. At last I live, but I can’t

+live without her! But can she love me?... I am too old for her.... Why

+don’t you speak?”

+

+“I? I? What did I tell you?” said Pierre suddenly, rising and

+beginning to pace up and down the room. “I always thought it.... That

+girl is such a treasure... she is a rare girl.... My dear friend,

+I entreat you, don’t philosophize, don’t doubt, marry, marry,

+marry.... And I am sure there will not be a happier man than you.”

+

+“But what of her?”

+

+“She loves you.”

+

+“Don’t talk rubbish...” said Prince Andrew, smiling and looking

+into Pierre’s eyes.

+

+“She does, I know,” Pierre cried fiercely.

+

+“But do listen,” returned Prince Andrew, holding him by the

+arm. “Do you know the condition I am in? I must talk about it to

+someone.”

+

+“Well, go on, go on. I am very glad,” said Pierre, and his face

+really changed, his brow became smooth, and he listened gladly to Prince

+Andrew. Prince Andrew seemed, and really was, quite a different, quite

+a new man. Where was his spleen, his contempt for life, his

+disillusionment? Pierre was the only person to whom he made up his mind

+to speak openly; and to him he told all that was in his soul. Now he

+boldly and lightly made plans for an extended future, said he could not

+sacrifice his own happiness to his father’s caprice, and spoke of how

+he would either make his father consent to this marriage and love her,

+or would do without his consent; then he marveled at the feeling that

+had mastered him as at something strange, apart from and independent of

+himself.

+

+“I should not have believed anyone who told me that I was capable of

+such love,” said Prince Andrew. “It is not at all the same feeling

+that I knew in the past. The whole world is now for me divided into two

+halves: one half is she, and there all is joy, hope, light: the

+other half is everything where she is not, and there is all gloom and

+darkness....”

+

+“Darkness and gloom,” reiterated Pierre: “yes, yes, I understand

+that.”

+

+“I cannot help loving the light, it is not my fault. And I am very

+happy! You understand me? I know you are glad for my sake.”

+

+“Yes, yes,” Pierre assented, looking at his friend with a touched

+and sad expression in his eyes. The brighter Prince Andrew’s lot

+appeared to him, the gloomier seemed his own.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIII

+

+Prince Andrew needed his father’s consent to his marriage, and to

+obtain this he started for the country next day.

+

+His father received his son’s communication with external composure,

+but inward wrath. He could not comprehend how anyone could wish to

+alter his life or introduce anything new into it, when his own life

+was already ending. “If only they would let me end my days as I want

+to,” thought the old man, “then they might do as they please.”

+With his son, however, he employed the diplomacy he reserved for

+important occasions and, adopting a quiet tone, discussed the whole

+matter.

+

+In the first place the marriage was not a brilliant one as regards

+birth, wealth, or rank. Secondly, Prince Andrew was no longer as young

+as he had been and his health was poor (the old man laid special stress

+on this), while she was very young. Thirdly, he had a son whom it would

+be a pity to entrust to a chit of a girl. “Fourthly and finally,”

+the father said, looking ironically at his son, “I beg you to put it

+off for a year: go abroad, take a cure, look out as you wanted to for

+a German tutor for Prince Nicholas. Then if your love or passion or

+obstinacy—as you please—is still as great, marry! And that’s my

+last word on it. Mind, the last...” concluded the prince, in a tone

+which showed that nothing would make him alter his decision.

+

+Prince Andrew saw clearly that the old man hoped that his feelings, or

+his fiancée’s, would not stand a year’s test, or that he (the old

+prince himself) would die before then, and he decided to conform to his

+father’s wish—to propose, and postpone the wedding for a year.

+

+Three weeks after the last evening he had spent with the Rostóvs,

+Prince Andrew returned to Petersburg.

+

+

+Next day after her talk with her mother Natásha expected Bolkónski all

+day, but he did not come. On the second and third day it was the same.

+Pierre did not come either and Natásha, not knowing that Prince Andrew

+had gone to see his father, could not explain his absence to herself.

+

+Three weeks passed in this way. Natásha had no desire to go out

+anywhere and wandered from room to room like a shadow, idle and

+listless; she wept secretly at night and did not go to her mother in the

+evenings. She blushed continually and was irritable. It seemed to her

+that everybody knew about her disappointment and was laughing at her and

+pitying her. Strong as was her inward grief, this wound to her vanity

+intensified her misery.

+

+Once she came to her mother, tried to say something, and suddenly began

+to cry. Her tears were those of an offended child who does not know why

+it is being punished.

+

+The countess began to soothe Natásha, who after first listening to her

+mother’s words, suddenly interrupted her:

+

+“Leave off, Mamma! I don’t think, and don’t want to think about

+it! He just came and then left off, left off....”

+

+Her voice trembled, and she again nearly cried, but recovered and went

+on quietly:

+

+“And I don’t at all want to get married. And I am afraid of him; I

+have now become quite calm, quite calm.”

+

+The day after this conversation Natásha put on the old dress which

+she knew had the peculiar property of conducing to cheerfulness in the

+mornings, and that day she returned to the old way of life which she had

+abandoned since the ball. Having finished her morning tea she went to

+the ballroom, which she particularly liked for its loud resonance, and

+began singing her solfeggio. When she had finished her first exercise

+she stood still in the middle of the room and sang a musical phrase that

+particularly pleased her. She listened joyfully (as though she had not

+expected it) to the charm of the notes reverberating, filling the

+whole empty ballroom, and slowly dying away; and all at once she felt

+cheerful. “What’s the good of making so much of it? Things are nice

+as it is,” she said to herself, and she began walking up and down the

+room, not stepping simply on the resounding parquet but treading with

+each step from the heel to the toe (she had on a new and favorite pair

+of shoes) and listening to the regular tap of the heel and creak of

+the toe as gladly as she had to the sounds of her own voice. Passing a

+mirror she glanced into it. “There, that’s me!” the expression of

+her face seemed to say as she caught sight of herself. “Well, and very

+nice too! I need nobody.”

+

+A footman wanted to come in to clear away something in the room but she

+would not let him, and having closed the door behind him continued her

+walk. That morning she had returned to her favorite mood—love of,

+and delight in, herself. “How charming that Natásha is!” she said

+again, speaking as some third, collective, male person. “Pretty,

+a good voice, young, and in nobody’s way if only they leave her in

+peace.” But however much they left her in peace she could not now be

+at peace, and immediately felt this.

+

+In the hall the porch door opened, and someone asked, “At home?” and

+then footsteps were heard. Natásha was looking at the mirror, but did

+not see herself. She listened to the sounds in the hall. When she saw

+herself, her face was pale. It was he. She knew this for certain, though

+she hardly heard his voice through the closed doors.

+

+Pale and agitated, Natásha ran into the drawing room.

+

+“Mamma! Bolkónski has come!” she said. “Mamma, it is awful, it is

+unbearable! I don’t want... to be tormented? What am I to do?...”

+

+Before the countess could answer, Prince Andrew entered the room with

+an agitated and serious face. As soon as he saw Natásha his face

+brightened. He kissed the countess’ hand and Natásha’s, and sat

+down beside the sofa.

+

+“It is long since we had the pleasure...” began the countess,

+but Prince Andrew interrupted her by answering her intended question,

+obviously in haste to say what he had to.

+

+“I have not been to see you all this time because I have been at my

+father’s. I had to talk over a very important matter with him. I only

+got back last night,” he said glancing at Natásha; “I want to have

+a talk with you, Countess,” he added after a moment’s pause.

+

+The countess lowered her eyes, sighing deeply.

+

+“I am at your disposal,” she murmured.

+

+Natásha knew that she ought to go away, but was unable to do so:

+something gripped her throat, and regardless of manners she stared

+straight at Prince Andrew with wide-open eyes.

+

+“At once? This instant!... No, it can’t be!” she thought.

+

+Again he glanced at her, and that glance convinced her that she was not

+mistaken. Yes, at once, that very instant, her fate would be decided.

+

+“Go, Natásha! I will call you,” said the countess in a whisper.

+

+Natásha glanced with frightened imploring eyes at Prince Andrew and at

+her mother and went out.

+

+“I have come, Countess, to ask for your daughter’s hand,” said

+Prince Andrew.

+

+The countess’ face flushed hotly, but she said nothing.

+

+“Your offer...” she began at last sedately. He remained silent,

+looking into her eyes. “Your offer...” (she grew confused) “is

+agreeable to us, and I accept your offer. I am glad. And my husband... I

+hope... but it will depend on her....”

+

+“I will speak to her when I have your consent.... Do you give it to

+me?” said Prince Andrew.

+

+“Yes,” replied the countess. She held out her hand to him, and with

+a mixed feeling of estrangement and tenderness pressed her lips to his

+forehead as he stooped to kiss her hand. She wished to love him as a

+son, but felt that to her he was a stranger and a terrifying man. “I

+am sure my husband will consent,” said the countess, “but your

+father...”

+

+“My father, to whom I have told my plans, has made it an express

+condition of his consent that the wedding is not to take place for a

+year. And I wished to tell you of that,” said Prince Andrew.

+

+“It is true that Natásha is still young, but—so long as that?...”

+

+“It is unavoidable,” said Prince Andrew with a sigh.

+

+“I will send her to you,” said the countess, and left the room.

+

+“Lord have mercy upon us!” she repeated while seeking her daughter.

+

+Sónya said that Natásha was in her bedroom. Natásha was sitting on

+the bed, pale and dry-eyed, and was gazing at the icons and whispering

+something as she rapidly crossed herself. Seeing her mother she jumped

+up and flew to her.

+

+“Well, Mamma?... Well?...”

+

+“Go, go to him. He is asking for your hand,” said the countess,

+coldly it seemed to Natásha. “Go... go,” said the mother, sadly and

+reproachfully, with a deep sigh, as her daughter ran away.

+

+Natásha never remembered how she entered the drawing room. When she

+came in and saw him she paused. “Is it possible that this stranger

+has now become everything to me?” she asked herself, and immediately

+answered, “Yes, everything! He alone is now dearer to me than

+everything in the world.” Prince Andrew came up to her with downcast

+eyes.

+

+“I have loved you from the very first moment I saw you. May I hope?”

+

+He looked at her and was struck by the serious impassioned expression of

+her face. Her face said: “Why ask? Why doubt what you cannot but know?

+Why speak, when words cannot express what one feels?”

+

+She drew near to him and stopped. He took her hand and kissed it.

+

+“Do you love me?”

+

+“Yes, yes!” Natásha murmured as if in vexation. Then she sighed

+loudly and, catching her breath more and more quickly, began to sob.

+

+“What is it? What’s the matter?”

+

+“Oh, I am so happy!” she replied, smiled through her tears, bent

+over closer to him, paused for an instant as if asking herself whether

+she might, and then kissed him.

+

+Prince Andrew held her hands, looked into her eyes, and did not find

+in his heart his former love for her. Something in him had suddenly

+changed; there was no longer the former poetic and mystic charm of

+desire, but there was pity for her feminine and childish weakness, fear

+at her devotion and trustfulness, and an oppressive yet joyful sense of

+the duty that now bound him to her forever. The present feeling, though

+not so bright and poetic as the former, was stronger and more serious.

+

+“Did your mother tell you that it cannot be for a year?” asked

+Prince Andrew, still looking into her eyes.

+

+“Is it possible that I—the ‘chit of a girl,’ as everybody called

+me,” thought Natásha—“is it possible that I am now to be the

+wife and the equal of this strange, dear, clever man whom even my father

+looks up to? Can it be true? Can it be true that there can be no

+more playing with life, that now I am grown up, that on me now lies

+a responsibility for my every word and deed? Yes, but what did he ask

+me?”

+

+“No,” she replied, but she had not understood his question.

+

+“Forgive me!” he said. “But you are so young, and I have already

+been through so much in life. I am afraid for you, you do not yet know

+yourself.”

+

+Natásha listened with concentrated attention, trying but failing to

+take in the meaning of his words.

+

+“Hard as this year which delays my happiness will be,” continued

+Prince Andrew, “it will give you time to be sure of yourself. I ask

+you to make me happy in a year, but you are free: our engagement shall

+remain a secret, and should you find that you do not love me, or should

+you come to love...” said Prince Andrew with an unnatural smile.

+

+“Why do you say that?” Natásha interrupted him. “You know that

+from the very day you first came to Otrádnoe I have loved you,” she

+cried, quite convinced that she spoke the truth.

+

+“In a year you will learn to know yourself....”

+

+“A whole year!” Natásha repeated suddenly, only now realizing that

+the marriage was to be postponed for a year. “But why a year? Why a

+year?...”

+

+Prince Andrew began to explain to her the reasons for this delay.

+Natásha did not hear him.

+

+“And can’t it be helped?” she asked. Prince Andrew did not reply,

+but his face expressed the impossibility of altering that decision.

+

+“It’s awful! Oh, it’s awful! awful!” Natásha suddenly cried,

+and again burst into sobs. “I shall die, waiting a year: it’s

+impossible, it’s awful!” She looked into her lover’s face and saw

+in it a look of commiseration and perplexity.

+

+“No, no! I’ll do anything!” she said, suddenly checking her tears.

+“I am so happy.”

+

+The father and mother came into the room and gave the betrothed couple

+their blessing.

+

+From that day Prince Andrew began to frequent the Rostóvs’ as

+Natásha’s affianced lover.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIV

+

+No betrothal ceremony took place and Natásha’s engagement to

+Bolkónski was not announced; Prince Andrew insisted on that. He said

+that as he was responsible for the delay he ought to bear the whole

+burden of it; that he had given his word and bound himself forever, but

+that he did not wish to bind Natásha and gave her perfect freedom. If

+after six months she felt that she did not love him she would have full

+right to reject him. Naturally neither Natásha nor her parents wished

+to hear of this, but Prince Andrew was firm. He came every day to the

+Rostóvs’, but did not behave to Natásha as an affianced lover: he

+did not use the familiar thou, but said you to her, and kissed only her

+hand. After their engagement, quite different, intimate, and natural

+relations sprang up between them. It was as if they had not known each

+other till now. Both liked to recall how they had regarded each other

+when as yet they were nothing to one another; they felt themselves

+now quite different beings: then they were artificial, now natural and

+sincere. At first the family felt some constraint in intercourse with

+Prince Andrew; he seemed a man from another world, and for a long time

+Natásha trained the family to get used to him, proudly assuring them

+all that he only appeared to be different, but was really just like all

+of them, and that she was not afraid of him and no one else ought to be.

+After a few days they grew accustomed to him, and without restraint in

+his presence pursued their usual way of life, in which he took his part.

+He could talk about rural economy with the count, fashions with the

+countess and Natásha, and about albums and fancywork with Sónya.

+Sometimes the household both among themselves and in his presence

+expressed their wonder at how it had all happened, and at the evident

+omens there had been of it: Prince Andrew’s coming to Otrádnoe and

+their coming to Petersburg, and the likeness between Natásha and Prince

+Andrew which her nurse had noticed on his first visit, and Andrew’s

+encounter with Nicholas in 1805, and many other incidents betokening

+that it had to be.

+

+In the house that poetic dullness and quiet reigned which always

+accompanies the presence of a betrothed couple. Often when all sitting

+together everyone kept silent. Sometimes the others would get up and

+go away and the couple, left alone, still remained silent. They rarely

+spoke of their future life. Prince Andrew was afraid and ashamed to

+speak of it. Natásha shared this as she did all his feelings, which she

+constantly divined. Once she began questioning him about his son. Prince

+Andrew blushed, as he often did now—Natásha particularly liked it in

+him—and said that his son would not live with them.

+

+“Why not?” asked Natásha in a frightened tone.

+

+“I cannot take him away from his grandfather, and besides...”

+

+“How I should have loved him!” said Natásha, immediately guessing

+his thought; “but I know you wish to avoid any pretext for finding

+fault with us.”

+

+Sometimes the old count would come up, kiss Prince Andrew, and ask

+his advice about Pétya’s education or Nicholas’ service. The

+old countess sighed as she looked at them; Sónya was always getting

+frightened lest she should be in the way and tried to find excuses for

+leaving them alone, even when they did not wish it. When Prince Andrew

+spoke (he could tell a story very well), Natásha listened to him

+with pride; when she spoke she noticed with fear and joy that he gazed

+attentively and scrutinizingly at her. She asked herself in perplexity:

+“What does he look for in me? He is trying to discover something by

+looking at me! What if what he seeks in me is not there?” Sometimes

+she fell into one of the mad, merry moods characteristic of her, and

+then she particularly loved to hear and see how Prince Andrew laughed.

+He seldom laughed, but when he did he abandoned himself entirely to his

+laughter, and after such a laugh she always felt nearer to him. Natásha

+would have been completely happy if the thought of the separation

+awaiting her and drawing near had not terrified her, just as the mere

+thought of it made him turn pale and cold.

+

+On the eve of his departure from Petersburg Prince Andrew brought with

+him Pierre, who had not been to the Rostóvs’ once since the ball.

+Pierre seemed disconcerted and embarrassed. He was talking to the

+countess, and Natásha sat down beside a little chess table with Sónya,

+thereby inviting Prince Andrew to come too. He did so.

+

+“You have known Bezúkhov a long time?” he asked. “Do you like

+him?”

+

+“Yes, he’s a dear, but very absurd.”

+

+And as usual when speaking of Pierre, she began to tell anecdotes of his

+absent-mindedness, some of which had even been invented about him.

+

+“Do you know I have entrusted him with our secret? I have known him

+from childhood. He has a heart of gold. I beg you, Natalie,” Prince

+Andrew said with sudden seriousness—“I am going away and heaven

+knows what may happen. You may cease to... all right, I know I am not

+to say that. Only this, then: whatever may happen to you when I am not

+here...”

+

+“What can happen?”

+

+“Whatever trouble may come,” Prince Andrew continued, “I beg

+you, Mademoiselle Sophie, whatever may happen, to turn to him alone for

+advice and help! He is a most absent-minded and absurd fellow, but he

+has a heart of gold.”

+

+Neither her father, nor her mother, nor Sónya, nor Prince Andrew

+himself could have foreseen how the separation from her lover would act

+on Natásha. Flushed and agitated she went about the house all that day,

+dry-eyed, occupied with most trivial matters as if not understanding

+what awaited her. She did not even cry when, on taking leave, he kissed

+her hand for the last time. “Don’t go!” she said in a tone

+that made him wonder whether he really ought not to stay and which he

+remembered long afterwards. Nor did she cry when he was gone; but

+for several days she sat in her room dry-eyed, taking no interest in

+anything and only saying now and then, “Oh, why did he go away?”

+

+But a fortnight after his departure, to the surprise of those around

+her, she recovered from her mental sickness just as suddenly and became

+her old self again, but with a change in her moral physiognomy, as a

+child gets up after a long illness with a changed expression of face.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXV

+

+During that year after his son’s departure, Prince Nicholas

+Bolkónski’s health and temper became much worse. He grew still more

+irritable, and it was Princess Mary who generally bore the brunt of his

+frequent fits of unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out

+her tender spots so as to torture her mentally as harshly as possible.

+Princess Mary had two passions and consequently two joys—her nephew,

+little Nicholas, and religion—and these were the favorite subjects

+of the prince’s attacks and ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he would

+bring round to the superstitiousness of old maids, or the petting

+and spoiling of children. “You want to make him”—little

+Nicholas—“into an old maid like yourself! A pity! Prince Andrew

+wants a son and not an old maid,” he would say. Or, turning to

+Mademoiselle Bourienne, he would ask her in Princess Mary’s presence

+how she liked our village priests and icons and would joke about them.

+

+He continually hurt Princess Mary’s feelings and tormented her, but it

+cost her no effort to forgive him. Could he be to blame toward her, or

+could her father, whom she knew loved her in spite of it all, be unjust?

+And what is justice? The princess never thought of that proud word

+“justice.” All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear

+and simple law—the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who

+lovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had she to

+do with the justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and

+love, and that she did.

+

+During the winter Prince Andrew had come to Bald Hills and had been gay,

+gentle, and more affectionate than Princess Mary had known him for a

+long time past. She felt that something had happened to him, but he said

+nothing to her about his love. Before he left he had a long talk with

+his father about something, and Princess Mary noticed that before his

+departure they were dissatisfied with one another.

+

+Soon after Prince Andrew had gone, Princess Mary wrote to her friend

+Julie Karágina in Petersburg, whom she had dreamed (as all girls dream)

+of marrying to her brother, and who was at that time in mourning for her

+own brother, killed in Turkey.

+

+Sorrow, it seems, is our common lot, my dear, tender friend Julie.

+

+Your loss is so terrible that I can only explain it to myself as a

+special providence of God who, loving you, wishes to try you and your

+excellent mother. Oh, my friend! Religion, and religion alone, can—I

+will not say comfort us—but save us from despair. Religion alone can

+explain to us what without its help man cannot comprehend: why, for what

+cause, kind and noble beings able to find happiness in life—not merely

+harming no one but necessary to the happiness of others—are called

+away to God, while cruel, useless, harmful persons, or such as are a

+burden to themselves and to others, are left living. The first death I

+saw, and one I shall never forget—that of my dear sister-in-law—left

+that impression on me. Just as you ask destiny why your splendid brother

+had to die, so I asked why that angel Lise, who not only never wronged

+anyone, but in whose soul there were never any unkind thoughts, had to

+die. And what do you think, dear friend? Five years have passed since

+then, and already I, with my petty understanding, begin to see clearly

+why she had to die, and in what way that death was but an expression

+of the infinite goodness of the Creator, whose every action, though

+generally incomprehensible to us, is but a manifestation of His infinite

+love for His creatures. Perhaps, I often think, she was too angelically

+innocent to have the strength to perform all a mother’s duties. As a

+young wife she was irreproachable; perhaps she could not have been so

+as a mother. As it is, not only has she left us, and particularly Prince

+Andrew, with the purest regrets and memories, but probably she will

+there receive a place I dare not hope for myself. But not to speak of

+her alone, that early and terrible death has had the most beneficent

+influence on me and on my brother in spite of all our grief. Then, at

+the moment of our loss, these thoughts could not occur to me; I should

+then have dismissed them with horror, but now they are very clear and

+certain. I write all this to you, dear friend, only to convince you

+of the Gospel truth which has become for me a principle of life: not

+a single hair of our heads will fall without His will. And His will is

+governed only by infinite love for us, and so whatever befalls us is for

+our good.

+

+You ask whether we shall spend next winter in Moscow. In spite of my

+wish to see you, I do not think so and do not want to do so. You will

+be surprised to hear that the reason for this is Buonaparte! The case is

+this: my father’s health is growing noticeably worse, he cannot stand

+any contradiction and is becoming irritable. This irritability is, as

+you know, chiefly directed to political questions. He cannot endure

+the notion that Buonaparte is negotiating on equal terms with all the

+sovereigns of Europe and particularly with our own, the grandson of the

+Great Catherine! As you know, I am quite indifferent to politics, but

+from my father’s remarks and his talks with Michael Ivánovich I know

+all that goes on in the world and especially about the honors conferred

+on Buonaparte, who only at Bald Hills in the whole world, it seems, is

+not accepted as a great man, still less as Emperor of France. And my

+father cannot stand this. It seems to me that it is chiefly because of

+his political views that my father is reluctant to speak of going to

+Moscow; for he foresees the encounters that would result from his way

+of expressing his views regardless of anybody. All the benefit he might

+derive from a course of treatment he would lose as a result of the

+disputes about Buonaparte which would be inevitable. In any case it will

+be decided very shortly.

+

+Our family life goes on in the old way except for my brother Andrew’s

+absence. He, as I wrote you before, has changed very much of late. After

+his sorrow he only this year quite recovered his spirits. He has again

+become as I used to know him when a child: kind, affectionate, with that

+heart of gold to which I know no equal. He has realized, it seems to me,

+that life is not over for him. But together with this mental change

+he has grown physically much weaker. He has become thinner and more

+nervous. I am anxious about him and glad he is taking this trip abroad

+which the doctors recommended long ago. I hope it will cure him. You

+write that in Petersburg he is spoken of as one of the most active,

+cultivated, and capable of the young men. Forgive my vanity as a

+relation, but I never doubted it. The good he has done to everybody

+here, from his peasants up to the gentry, is incalculable. On his

+arrival in Petersburg he received only his due. I always wonder at the

+way rumors fly from Petersburg to Moscow, especially such false ones as

+that you write about—I mean the report of my brother’s betrothal to

+the little Rostóva. I do not think my brother will ever marry again,

+and certainly not her; and this is why: first, I know that though he

+rarely speaks about the wife he has lost, the grief of that loss

+has gone too deep in his heart for him ever to decide to give her a

+successor and our little angel a stepmother. Secondly because, as far

+as I know, that girl is not the kind of girl who could please Prince

+Andrew. I do not think he would choose her for a wife, and frankly I do

+not wish it. But I am running on too long and am at the end of my second

+sheet. Good-by, my dear friend. May God keep you in His holy and mighty

+care. My dear friend, Mademoiselle Bourienne, sends you kisses.

+

+MARY

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVI

+

+In the middle of the summer Princess Mary received an unexpected letter

+from Prince Andrew in Switzerland in which he gave her strange and

+surprising news. He informed her of his engagement to Natásha Rostóva.

+The whole letter breathed loving rapture for his betrothed and tender

+and confiding affection for his sister. He wrote that he had never loved

+as he did now and that only now did he understand and know what life

+was. He asked his sister to forgive him for not having told her of his

+resolve when he had last visited Bald Hills, though he had spoken of it

+to his father. He had not done so for fear Princess Mary should ask her

+father to give his consent, irritating him and having to bear the brunt

+of his displeasure without attaining her object. “Besides,” he

+wrote, “the matter was not then so definitely settled as it is now.

+My father then insisted on a delay of a year and now already six months,

+half of that period, have passed, and my resolution is firmer than ever.

+If the doctors did not keep me here at the spas I should be back in

+Russia, but as it is I have to postpone my return for three months. You

+know me and my relations with Father. I want nothing from him. I have

+been and always shall be independent; but to go against his will and

+arouse his anger, now that he may perhaps remain with us such a short

+time, would destroy half my happiness. I am now writing to him about

+the same question, and beg you to choose a good moment to hand him the

+letter and to let me know how he looks at the whole matter and whether

+there is hope that he may consent to reduce the term by four months.”

+

+After long hesitations, doubts, and prayers, Princess Mary gave the

+letter to her father. The next day the old prince said to her quietly:

+

+“Write and tell your brother to wait till I am dead.... It won’t be

+long—I shall soon set him free.”

+

+The princess was about to reply, but her father would not let her speak

+and, raising his voice more and more, cried:

+

+“Marry, marry, my boy!... A good family!... Clever people, eh? Rich,

+eh? Yes, a nice stepmother little Nicholas will have! Write and tell him

+that he may marry tomorrow if he likes. She will be little Nicholas’

+stepmother and I’ll marry Bourienne!... Ha, ha, ha! He mustn’t be

+without a stepmother either! Only one thing, no more women are wanted

+in my house—let him marry and live by himself. Perhaps you will go

+and live with him too?” he added, turning to Princess Mary. “Go in

+heaven’s name! Go out into the frost... the frost... the frost!”

+

+After this outburst the prince did not speak any more about the matter.

+But repressed vexation at his son’s poor-spirited behavior found

+expression in his treatment of his daughter. To his former pretexts

+for irony a fresh one was now added—allusions to stepmothers and

+amiabilities to Mademoiselle Bourienne.

+

+“Why shouldn’t I marry her?” he asked his daughter. “She’ll

+make a splendid princess!”

+

+And latterly, to her surprise and bewilderment, Princess Mary

+noticed that her father was really associating more and more with the

+Frenchwoman. She wrote to Prince Andrew about the reception of his

+letter, but comforted him with hopes of reconciling their father to the

+idea.

+

+Little Nicholas and his education, her brother Andrew, and religion

+were Princess Mary’s joys and consolations; but besides that, since

+everyone must have personal hopes, Princess Mary in the profoundest

+depths of her heart had a hidden dream and hope that supplied the chief

+consolation of her life. This comforting dream and hope were given her

+by God’s folk—the half-witted and other pilgrims who visited

+her without the prince’s knowledge. The longer she lived, the more

+experience and observation she had of life, the greater was her wonder

+at the short-sightedness of men who seek enjoyment and happiness here

+on earth: toiling, suffering, struggling, and harming one another, to

+obtain that impossible, visionary, sinful happiness. Prince Andrew had

+loved his wife, she died, but that was not enough: he wanted to bind

+his happiness to another woman. Her father objected to this because he

+wanted a more distinguished and wealthier match for Andrew. And they

+all struggled and suffered and tormented one another and injured their

+souls, their eternal souls, for the attainment of benefits which endure

+but for an instant. Not only do we know this ourselves, but Christ, the

+Son of God, came down to earth and told us that this life is but for

+a moment and is a probation; yet we cling to it and think to find

+happiness in it. “How is it that no one realizes this?” thought

+Princess Mary. “No one except these despised God’s folk who, wallet

+on back, come to me by the back door, afraid of being seen by the

+prince, not for fear of ill-usage by him but for fear of causing him

+to sin. To leave family, home, and all the cares of worldly welfare, in

+order without clinging to anything to wander in hempen rags from place

+to place under an assumed name, doing no one any harm but praying for

+all—for those who drive one away as well as for those who protect one:

+higher than that life and truth there is no life or truth!”

+

+There was one pilgrim, a quiet pockmarked little woman of fifty called

+Theodosia, who for over thirty years had gone about barefoot and worn

+heavy chains. Princess Mary was particularly fond of her. Once, when in

+a room with a lamp dimly lit before the icon Theodosia was talking of

+her life, the thought that Theodosia alone had found the true path of

+life suddenly came to Princess Mary with such force that she resolved to

+become a pilgrim herself. When Theodosia had gone to sleep Princess Mary

+thought about this for a long time, and at last made up her mind that,

+strange as it might seem, she must go on a pilgrimage. She disclosed

+this thought to no one but to her confessor, Father Akínfi, the monk,

+and he approved of her intention. Under guise of a present for the

+pilgrims, Princess Mary prepared a pilgrim’s complete costume for

+herself: a coarse smock, bast shoes, a rough coat, and a black kerchief.

+Often, approaching the chest of drawers containing this secret treasure,

+Princess Mary paused, uncertain whether the time had not already come to

+put her project into execution.

+

+Often, listening to the pilgrims’ tales, she was so stimulated by

+their simple speech, mechanical to them but to her so full of deep

+meaning, that several times she was on the point of abandoning

+everything and running away from home. In imagination she already

+pictured herself by Theodosia’s side, dressed in coarse rags, walking

+with a staff, a wallet on her back, along the dusty road, directing her

+wanderings from one saint’s shrine to another, free from envy, earthly

+love, or desire, and reaching at last the place where there is no more

+sorrow or sighing, but eternal joy and bliss.

+

+“I shall come to a place and pray there, and before having time to get

+used to it or getting to love it, I shall go farther. I will go on till

+my legs fail, and I’ll lie down and die somewhere, and shall at last

+reach that eternal, quiet haven, where there is neither sorrow nor

+sighing...” thought Princess Mary.

+

+But afterwards, when she saw her father and especially little Koko

+(Nicholas), her resolve weakened. She wept quietly, and felt that she

+was a sinner who loved her father and little nephew more than God.

+

+

+

+

+

+BOOK SEVEN: 1810 - 11

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+The Bible legend tells us that the absence of labor—idleness—was a

+condition of the first man’s blessedness before the Fall. Fallen man

+has retained a love of idleness, but the curse weighs on the race not

+only because we have to seek our bread in the sweat of our brows, but

+because our moral nature is such that we cannot be both idle and at

+ease. An inner voice tells us we are in the wrong if we are idle. If man

+could find a state in which he felt that though idle he was fulfilling

+his duty, he would have found one of the conditions of man’s primitive

+blessedness. And such a state of obligatory and irreproachable idleness

+is the lot of a whole class—the military. The chief attraction of

+military service has consisted and will consist in this compulsory and

+irreproachable idleness.

+

+Nicholas Rostóv experienced this blissful condition to the full when,

+after 1807, he continued to serve in the Pávlograd regiment, in which

+he already commanded the squadron he had taken over from Denísov.

+

+Rostóv had become a bluff, good-natured fellow, whom his Moscow

+acquaintances would have considered rather bad form, but who was liked

+and respected by his comrades, subordinates, and superiors, and was well

+contented with his life. Of late, in 1809, he found in letters from home

+more frequent complaints from his mother that their affairs were falling

+into greater and greater disorder, and that it was time for him to come

+back to gladden and comfort his old parents.

+

+Reading these letters, Nicholas felt a dread of their wanting to

+take him away from surroundings in which, protected from all the

+entanglements of life, he was living so calmly and quietly. He felt that

+sooner or later he would have to re-enter that whirlpool of life, with

+its embarrassments and affairs to be straightened out, its accounts

+with stewards, quarrels, and intrigues, its ties, society, and with

+Sónya’s love and his promise to her. It was all dreadfully difficult

+and complicated; and he replied to his mother in cold, formal letters

+in French, beginning: “My dear Mamma,” and ending: “Your obedient

+son,” which said nothing of when he would return. In 1810 he received

+letters from his parents, in which they told him of Natásha’s

+engagement to Bolkónski, and that the wedding would be in a year’s

+time because the old prince made difficulties. This letter grieved and

+mortified Nicholas. In the first place he was sorry that Natásha, for

+whom he cared more than for anyone else in the family, should be lost to

+the home; and secondly, from his hussar point of view, he regretted not

+to have been there to show that fellow Bolkónski that connection with

+him was no such great honor after all, and that if he loved Natásha he

+might dispense with permission from his dotard father. For a moment he

+hesitated whether he should not apply for leave in order to see Natásha

+before she was married, but then came the maneuvers, and considerations

+about Sónya and about the confusion of their affairs, and Nicholas

+again put it off. But in the spring of that year, he received a letter

+from his mother, written without his father’s knowledge, and that

+letter persuaded him to return. She wrote that if he did not come and

+take matters in hand, their whole property would be sold by auction and

+they would all have to go begging. The count was so weak, and trusted

+Mítenka so much, and was so good-natured, that everybody took advantage

+of him and things were going from bad to worse. “For God’s sake, I

+implore you, come at once if you do not wish to make me and the whole

+family wretched,” wrote the countess.

+

+This letter touched Nicholas. He had that common sense of a

+matter-of-fact man which showed him what he ought to do.

+

+The right thing now was, if not to retire from the service, at any rate

+to go home on leave. Why he had to go he did not know; but after his

+after-dinner nap he gave orders to saddle Mars, an extremely vicious

+gray stallion that had not been ridden for a long time, and when

+he returned with the horse all in a lather, he informed Lavrúshka

+(Denísov’s servant who had remained with him) and his comrades who

+turned up in the evening that he was applying for leave and was going

+home. Difficult and strange as it was for him to reflect that he would

+go away without having heard from the staff—and this interested him

+extremely—whether he was promoted to a captaincy or would receive the

+Order of St. Anne for the last maneuvers; strange as it was to think

+that he would go away without having sold his three roans to the Polish

+Count Golukhovski, who was bargaining for the horses Rostóv had betted

+he would sell for two thousand rubles; incomprehensible as it

+seemed that the ball the hussars were giving in honor of the Polish

+Mademoiselle Przazdziecka (out of rivalry to the Uhlans who had given

+one in honor of their Polish Mademoiselle Borzozowska) would take place

+without him—he knew he must go away from this good, bright world to

+somewhere where everything was stupid and confused. A week later he

+obtained his leave. His hussar comrades—not only those of his own

+regiment, but the whole brigade—gave Rostóv a dinner to which the

+subscription was fifteen rubles a head, and at which there were two

+bands and two choirs of singers. Rostóv danced the Trepák with Major

+Básov; the tipsy officers tossed, embraced, and dropped Rostóv; the

+soldiers of the third squadron tossed him too, and shouted “hurrah!”

+and then they put him in his sleigh and escorted him as far as the first

+post station.

+

+During the first half of the journey—from Kremenchúg to Kiev—all

+Rostóv’s thoughts, as is usual in such cases, were behind him, with

+the squadron; but when he had gone more than halfway he began to forget

+his three roans and Dozhoyvéyko, his quartermaster, and to wonder

+anxiously how things would be at Otrádnoe and what he would find

+there. Thoughts of home grew stronger the nearer he approached it—far

+stronger, as though this feeling of his was subject to the law by which

+the force of attraction is in inverse proportion to the square of the

+distance. At the last post station before Otrádnoe he gave the driver a

+three-ruble tip, and on arriving he ran breathlessly, like a boy, up the

+steps of his home.

+

+After the rapture of meeting, and after that odd feeling of unsatisfied

+expectation—the feeling that “everything is just the same, so why

+did I hurry?”—Nicholas began to settle down in his old home world.

+His father and mother were much the same, only a little older. What was

+new in them was a certain uneasiness and occasional discord, which there

+used not to be, and which, as Nicholas soon found out, was due to the

+bad state of their affairs. Sónya was nearly twenty; she had stopped

+growing prettier and promised nothing more than she was already, but

+that was enough. She exhaled happiness and love from the time Nicholas

+returned, and the faithful, unalterable love of this girl had a

+gladdening effect on him. Pétya and Natásha surprised Nicholas

+most. Pétya was a big handsome boy of thirteen, merry, witty, and

+mischievous, with a voice that was already breaking. As for Natásha,

+for a long while Nicholas wondered and laughed whenever he looked at

+her.

+

+“You’re not the same at all,” he said.

+

+“How? Am I uglier?”

+

+“On the contrary, but what dignity? A princess!” he whispered to

+her.

+

+“Yes, yes, yes!” cried Natásha, joyfully.

+

+She told him about her romance with Prince Andrew and of his visit to

+Otrádnoe and showed him his last letter.

+

+“Well, are you glad?” Natásha asked. “I am so tranquil and happy

+now.”

+

+“Very glad,” answered Nicholas. “He is an excellent fellow.... And

+are you very much in love?”

+

+“How shall I put it?” replied Natásha. “I was in love with

+Borís, with my teacher, and with Denísov, but this is quite different.

+I feel at peace and settled. I know that no better man than he exists,

+and I am calm and contented now. Not at all as before.”

+

+Nicholas expressed his disapproval of the postponement of the marriage

+for a year; but Natásha attacked her brother with exasperation, proving

+to him that it could not be otherwise, and that it would be a bad thing

+to enter a family against the father’s will, and that she herself

+wished it so.

+

+“You don’t at all understand,” she said.

+

+Nicholas was silent and agreed with her.

+

+Her brother often wondered as he looked at her. She did not seem at

+all like a girl in love and parted from her affianced husband. She was

+even-tempered and calm and quite as cheerful as of old. This amazed

+Nicholas and even made him regard Bolkónski’s courtship skeptically.

+He could not believe that her fate was sealed, especially as he had

+not seen her with Prince Andrew. It always seemed to him that there was

+something not quite right about this intended marriage.

+

+“Why this delay? Why no betrothal?” he thought. Once, when he had

+touched on this topic with his mother, he discovered, to his surprise

+and somewhat to his satisfaction, that in the depth of her soul she too

+had doubts about this marriage.

+

+“You see he writes,” said she, showing her son a letter of Prince

+Andrew’s, with that latent grudge a mother always has in regard to a

+daughter’s future married happiness, “he writes that he won’t come

+before December. What can be keeping him? Illness, probably! His health

+is very delicate. Don’t tell Natásha. And don’t attach importance

+to her being so bright: that’s because she’s living through the last

+days of her girlhood, but I know what she is like every time we receive

+a letter from him! However, God grant that everything turns out well!”

+(She always ended with these words.) “He is an excellent man!”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+After reaching home Nicholas was at first serious and even dull. He was

+worried by the impending necessity of interfering in the stupid business

+matters for which his mother had called him home. To throw off this

+burden as quickly as possible, on the third day after his arrival he

+went, angry and scowling and without answering questions as to where he

+was going, to Mítenka’s lodge and demanded an account of everything.

+But what an account of everything might be Nicholas knew even less

+than the frightened and bewildered Mítenka. The conversation and the

+examination of the accounts with Mítenka did not last long. The village

+elder, a peasant delegate, and the village clerk, who were waiting in

+the passage, heard with fear and delight first the young count’s voice

+roaring and snapping and rising louder and louder, and then words of

+abuse, dreadful words, ejaculated one after the other.

+

+“Robber!... Ungrateful wretch!... I’ll hack the dog to pieces! I’m

+not my father!... Robbing us!...” and so on.

+

+Then with no less fear and delight they saw how the young count, red in

+the face and with bloodshot eyes, dragged Mítenka out by the scruff of

+the neck and applied his foot and knee to his behind with great agility

+at convenient moments between the words, shouting, “Be off! Never let

+me see your face here again, you villain!”

+

+Mítenka flew headlong down the six steps and ran away into the

+shrubbery. (This shrubbery was a well-known haven of refuge for culprits

+at Otrádnoe. Mítenka himself, returning tipsy from the town, used

+to hide there, and many of the residents at Otrádnoe, hiding from

+Mítenka, knew of its protective qualities.)

+

+Mítenka’s wife and sisters-in-law thrust their heads and frightened

+faces out of the door of a room where a bright samovar was boiling and

+where the steward’s high bedstead stood with its patchwork quilt.

+

+The young count paid no heed to them, but, breathing hard, passed by

+with resolute strides and went into the house.

+

+The countess, who heard at once from the maids what had happened at the

+lodge, was calmed by the thought that now their affairs would certainly

+improve, but on the other hand felt anxious as to the effect this

+excitement might have on her son. She went several times to his door on

+tiptoe and listened, as he lighted one pipe after another.

+

+Next day the old count called his son aside and, with an embarrassed

+smile, said to him:

+

+“But you know, my dear boy, it’s a pity you got excited! Mítenka

+has told me all about it.”

+

+“I knew,” thought Nicholas, “that I should never understand

+anything in this crazy world.”

+

+“You were angry that he had not entered those 700 rubles. But they

+were carried forward—and you did not look at the other page.”

+

+“Papa, he is a blackguard and a thief! I know he is! And what I have

+done, I have done; but, if you like, I won’t speak to him again.”

+

+“No, my dear boy” (the count, too, felt embarrassed. He knew he had

+mismanaged his wife’s property and was to blame toward his children,

+but he did not know how to remedy it). “No, I beg you to attend to the

+business. I am old. I...”

+

+“No, Papa. Forgive me if I have caused you unpleasantness. I

+understand it all less than you do.”

+

+“Devil take all these peasants, and money matters, and carryings

+forward from page to page,” he thought. “I used to understand what

+a ‘corner’ and the stakes at cards meant, but carrying forward to

+another page I don’t understand at all,” said he to himself, and

+after that he did not meddle in business affairs. But once the countess

+called her son and informed him that she had a promissory note from Anna

+Mikháylovna for two thousand rubles, and asked him what he thought of

+doing with it.

+

+“This,” answered Nicholas. “You say it rests with me. Well, I

+don’t like Anna Mikháylovna and I don’t like Borís, but they were

+our friends and poor. Well then, this!” and he tore up the note, and

+by so doing caused the old countess to weep tears of joy. After that,

+young Rostóv took no further part in any business affairs, but

+devoted himself with passionate enthusiasm to what was to him a new

+pursuit—the chase—for which his father kept a large establishment.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+The weather was already growing wintry and morning frosts congealed

+an earth saturated by autumn rains. The verdure had thickened and its

+bright green stood out sharply against the brownish strips of winter rye

+trodden down by the cattle, and against the pale-yellow stubble of the

+spring buckwheat. The wooded ravines and the copses, which at the end of

+August had still been green islands amid black fields and stubble, had

+become golden and bright-red islands amid the green winter rye. The

+hares had already half changed their summer coats, the fox cubs were

+beginning to scatter, and the young wolves were bigger than dogs. It was

+the best time of the year for the chase. The hounds of that ardent young

+sportsman Rostóv had not merely reached hard winter condition, but were

+so jaded that at a meeting of the huntsmen it was decided to give them

+a three days’ rest and then, on the sixteenth of September, to go on

+a distant expedition, starting from the oak grove where there was an

+undisturbed litter of wolf cubs.

+

+All that day the hounds remained at home. It was frosty and the air was

+sharp, but toward evening the sky became overcast and it began to thaw.

+On the fifteenth, when young Rostóv, in his dressing gown, looked out

+of the window, he saw it was an unsurpassable morning for hunting: it

+was as if the sky were melting and sinking to the earth without any

+wind. The only motion in the air was that of the dripping, microscopic

+particles of drizzling mist. The bare twigs in the garden were hung with

+transparent drops which fell on the freshly fallen leaves. The earth in

+the kitchen garden looked wet and black and glistened like poppy seed

+and at a short distance merged into the dull, moist veil of mist.

+Nicholas went out into the wet and muddy porch. There was a smell of

+decaying leaves and of dog. Mílka, a black-spotted, broad-haunched

+bitch with prominent black eyes, got up on seeing her master, stretched

+her hind legs, lay down like a hare, and then suddenly jumped up and

+licked him right on his nose and mustache. Another borzoi, a dog,

+catching sight of his master from the garden path, arched his back

+and, rushing headlong toward the porch with lifted tail, began rubbing

+himself against his legs.

+

+“O-hoy!” came at that moment, that inimitable huntsman’s call

+which unites the deepest bass with the shrillest tenor, and round

+the corner came Daniel the head huntsman and head kennelman, a gray,

+wrinkled old man with hair cut straight over his forehead, Ukrainian

+fashion, a long bent whip in his hand, and that look of independence

+and scorn of everything that is only seen in huntsmen. He doffed his

+Circassian cap to his master and looked at him scornfully. This scorn

+was not offensive to his master. Nicholas knew that this Daniel,

+disdainful of everybody and who considered himself above them, was all

+the same his serf and huntsman.

+

+“Daniel!” Nicholas said timidly, conscious at the sight of the

+weather, the hounds, and the huntsman that he was being carried away

+by that irresistible passion for sport which makes a man forget all

+his previous resolutions, as a lover forgets in the presence of his

+mistress.

+

+“What orders, your excellency?” said the huntsman in his deep bass,

+deep as a proto-deacon’s and hoarse with hallooing—and two flashing

+black eyes gazed from under his brows at his master, who was silent.

+“Can you resist it?” those eyes seemed to be asking.

+

+“It’s a good day, eh? For a hunt and a gallop, eh?” asked

+Nicholas, scratching Mílka behind the ears.

+

+Daniel did not answer, but winked instead.

+

+“I sent Uvárka at dawn to listen,” his bass boomed out after a

+minute’s pause. “He says she’s moved them into the Otrádnoe

+enclosure. They were howling there.” (This meant that the she-wolf,

+about whom they both knew, had moved with her cubs to the Otrádnoe

+copse, a small place a mile and a half from the house.)

+

+“We ought to go, don’t you think so?” said Nicholas. “Come to me

+with Uvárka.”

+

+“As you please.”

+

+“Then put off feeding them.”

+

+“Yes, sir.”

+

+Five minutes later Daniel and Uvárka were standing in Nicholas’ big

+study. Though Daniel was not a big man, to see him in a room was

+like seeing a horse or a bear on the floor among the furniture and

+surroundings of human life. Daniel himself felt this, and as usual stood

+just inside the door, trying to speak softly and not move, for fear of

+breaking something in the master’s apartment, and he hastened to say

+all that was necessary so as to get from under that ceiling, out into

+the open under the sky once more.

+

+Having finished his inquiries and extorted from Daniel an opinion that

+the hounds were fit (Daniel himself wished to go hunting), Nicholas

+ordered the horses to be saddled. But just as Daniel was about to

+go Natásha came in with rapid steps, not having done up her hair or

+finished dressing and with her old nurse’s big shawl wrapped round

+her. Pétya ran in at the same time.

+

+“You are going?” asked Natásha. “I knew you would! Sónya said

+you wouldn’t go, but I knew that today is the sort of day when you

+couldn’t help going.”

+

+“Yes, we are going,” replied Nicholas reluctantly, for today, as he

+intended to hunt seriously, he did not want to take Natásha and Pétya.

+“We are going, but only wolf hunting: it would be dull for you.”

+

+“You know it is my greatest pleasure,” said Natásha. “It’s not

+fair; you are going by yourself, are having the horses saddled and said

+nothing to us about it.”

+

+“‘No barrier bars a Russian’s path’—we’ll go!” shouted

+Pétya.

+

+“But you can’t. Mamma said you mustn’t,” said Nicholas to

+Natásha.

+

+“Yes, I’ll go. I shall certainly go,” said Natásha decisively.

+“Daniel, tell them to saddle for us, and Michael must come with my

+dogs,” she added to the huntsman.

+

+It seemed to Daniel irksome and improper to be in a room at all, but to

+have anything to do with a young lady seemed to him impossible. He

+cast down his eyes and hurried out as if it were none of his business,

+careful as he went not to inflict any accidental injury on the young

+lady.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+The old count, who had always kept up an enormous hunting establishment

+but had now handed it all completely over to his son’s care, being

+in very good spirits on this fifteenth of September, prepared to go out

+with the others.

+

+In an hour’s time the whole hunting party was at the porch. Nicholas,

+with a stern and serious air which showed that now was no time for

+attending to trifles, went past Natásha and Pétya who were trying to

+tell him something. He had a look at all the details of the hunt, sent

+a pack of hounds and huntsmen on ahead to find the quarry, mounted his

+chestnut Donéts, and whistling to his own leash of borzois, set off

+across the threshing ground to a field leading to the Otrádnoe wood.

+The old count’s horse, a sorrel gelding called Viflyánka, was led by

+the groom in attendance on him, while the count himself was to drive in

+a small trap straight to a spot reserved for him.

+

+They were taking fifty-four hounds, with six hunt attendants and

+whippers-in. Besides the family, there were eight borzoi kennelmen

+and more than forty borzois, so that, with the borzois on the leash

+belonging to members of the family, there were about a hundred and

+thirty dogs and twenty horsemen.

+

+Each dog knew its master and its call. Each man in the hunt knew his

+business, his place, what he had to do. As soon as they had passed the

+fence they all spread out evenly and quietly, without noise or talk,

+along the road and field leading to the Otrádnoe covert.

+

+The horses stepped over the field as over a thick carpet, now and then

+splashing into puddles as they crossed a road. The misty sky still

+seemed to descend evenly and imperceptibly toward the earth, the air

+was still, warm, and silent. Occasionally the whistle of a huntsman,

+the snort of a horse, the crack of a whip, or the whine of a straggling

+hound could be heard.

+

+When they had gone a little less than a mile, five more riders with

+dogs appeared out of the mist, approaching the Rostóvs. In front rode a

+fresh-looking, handsome old man with a large gray mustache.

+

+“Good morning, Uncle!” said Nicholas, when the old man drew near.

+

+“That’s it. Come on!... I was sure of it,” began “Uncle.” (He

+was a distant relative of the Rostóvs’, a man of small means, and

+their neighbor.) “I knew you wouldn’t be able to resist it and

+it’s a good thing you’re going. That’s it! Come on!” (This was

+“Uncle’s” favorite expression.) “Take the covert at once, for my

+Gírchik says the Ilágins are at Kornikí with their hounds. That’s

+it. Come on!... They’ll take the cubs from under your very nose.”

+

+“That’s where I’m going. Shall we join up our packs?” asked

+Nicholas.

+

+The hounds were joined into one pack, and “Uncle” and Nicholas rode

+on side by side. Natásha, muffled up in shawls which did not hide her

+eager face and shining eyes, galloped up to them. She was followed by

+Pétya who always kept close to her, by Michael, a huntsman, and by a

+groom appointed to look after her. Pétya, who was laughing, whipped and

+pulled at his horse. Natásha sat easily and confidently on her black

+Arábchik and reined him in without effort with a firm hand.

+

+“Uncle” looked round disapprovingly at Pétya and Natásha. He did

+not like to combine frivolity with the serious business of hunting.

+

+“Good morning, Uncle! We are going too!” shouted Pétya.

+

+“Good morning, good morning! But don’t go overriding the hounds,”

+said “Uncle” sternly.

+

+“Nicholas, what a fine dog Truníla is! He knew me,” said Natásha,

+referring to her favorite hound.

+

+“In the first place, Truníla is not a ‘dog,’ but a harrier,”

+thought Nicholas, and looked sternly at his sister, trying to make her

+feel the distance that ought to separate them at that moment. Natásha

+understood it.

+

+“You mustn’t think we’ll be in anyone’s way, Uncle,” she said.

+“We’ll go to our places and won’t budge.”

+

+“A good thing too, little countess,” said “Uncle,” “only mind

+you don’t fall off your horse,” he added, “because—that’s it,

+come on!—you’ve nothing to hold on to.”

+

+The oasis of the Otrádnoe covert came in sight a few hundred yards off,

+the huntsmen were already nearing it. Rostóv, having finally settled

+with “Uncle” where they should set on the hounds, and having shown

+Natásha where she was to stand—a spot where nothing could possibly

+run out—went round above the ravine.

+

+“Well, nephew, you’re going for a big wolf,” said “Uncle.”

+“Mind and don’t let her slip!”

+

+“That’s as may happen,” answered Rostóv. “Karáy, here!” he

+shouted, answering “Uncle’s” remark by this call to his borzoi.

+Karáy was a shaggy old dog with a hanging jowl, famous for having

+tackled a big wolf unaided. They all took up their places.

+

+The old count, knowing his son’s ardor in the hunt, hurried so as not

+to be late, and the huntsmen had not yet reached their places when Count

+Ilyá Rostóv, cheerful, flushed, and with quivering cheeks, drove up

+with his black horses over the winter rye to the place reserved for him,

+where a wolf might come out. Having straightened his coat and fastened

+on his hunting knives and horn, he mounted his good, sleek, well-fed,

+and comfortable horse, Viflyánka, which was turning gray, like himself.

+His horses and trap were sent home. Count Ilyá Rostóv, though not at

+heart a keen sportsman, knew the rules of the hunt well, and rode to

+the bushy edge of the road where he was to stand, arranged his reins,

+settled himself in the saddle, and, feeling that he was ready, looked

+about with a smile.

+

+Beside him was Simon Chekmár, his personal attendant, an old horseman

+now somewhat stiff in the saddle. Chekmár held in leash three

+formidable wolfhounds, who had, however, grown fat like their master

+and his horse. Two wise old dogs lay down unleashed. Some hundred paces

+farther along the edge of the wood stood Mítka, the count’s other

+groom, a daring horseman and keen rider to hounds. Before the hunt, by

+old custom, the count had drunk a silver cupful of mulled brandy, taken

+a snack, and washed it down with half a bottle of his favorite Bordeaux.

+

+He was somewhat flushed with the wine and the drive. His eyes were

+rather moist and glittered more than usual, and as he sat in his saddle,

+wrapped up in his fur coat, he looked like a child taken out for an

+outing.

+

+The thin, hollow-cheeked Chekmár, having got everything ready, kept

+glancing at his master with whom he had lived on the best of terms for

+thirty years, and understanding the mood he was in expected a pleasant

+chat. A third person rode up circumspectly through the wood (it was

+plain that he had had a lesson) and stopped behind the count. This

+person was a gray-bearded old man in a woman’s cloak, with a tall

+peaked cap on his head. He was the buffoon, who went by a woman’s

+name, Nastásya Ivánovna.

+

+“Well, Nastásya Ivánovna!” whispered the count, winking at him.

+“If you scare away the beast, Daniel’ll give it you!”

+

+“I know a thing or two myself!” said Nastásya Ivánovna.

+

+“Hush!” whispered the count and turned to Simon. “Have you seen

+the young countess?” he asked. “Where is she?”

+

+“With young Count Peter, by the Zhárov rank grass,” answered Simon,

+smiling. “Though she’s a lady, she’s very fond of hunting.”

+

+“And you’re surprised at the way she rides, Simon, eh?” said the

+count. “She’s as good as many a man!”

+

+“Of course! It’s marvelous. So bold, so easy!”

+

+“And Nicholas? Where is he? By the Lyádov upland, isn’t he?”

+

+“Yes, sir. He knows where to stand. He understands the matter so well

+that Daniel and I are often quite astounded,” said Simon, well knowing

+what would please his master.

+

+“Rides well, eh? And how well he looks on his horse, eh?”

+

+“A perfect picture! How he chased a fox out of the rank grass by the

+Zavárzinsk thicket the other day! Leaped a fearful place; what a sight

+when they rushed from the covert... the horse worth a thousand rubles

+and the rider beyond all price! Yes, one would have to search far to

+find another as smart.”

+

+“To search far...” repeated the count, evidently sorry Simon had not

+said more. “To search far,” he said, turning back the skirt of his

+coat to get at his snuffbox.

+

+“The other day when he came out from Mass in full uniform, Michael

+Sidórych...” Simon did not finish, for on the still air he had

+distinctly caught the music of the hunt with only two or three hounds

+giving tongue. He bent down his head and listened, shaking a warning

+finger at his master. “They are on the scent of the cubs...” he

+whispered, “straight to the Lyádov uplands.”

+

+The count, forgetting to smooth out the smile on his face, looked into

+the distance straight before him, down the narrow open space, holding

+the snuffbox in his hand but not taking any. After the cry of the hounds

+came the deep tones of the wolf call from Daniel’s hunting horn; the

+pack joined the first three hounds and they could be heard in full cry,

+with that peculiar lift in the note that indicates that they are after

+a wolf. The whippers-in no longer set on the hounds, but changed to the

+cry of ulyulyu, and above the others rose Daniel’s voice, now a deep

+bass, now piercingly shrill. His voice seemed to fill the whole wood and

+carried far beyond out into the open field.

+

+After listening a few moments in silence, the count and his attendant

+convinced themselves that the hounds had separated into two packs: the

+sound of the larger pack, eagerly giving tongue, began to die away in

+the distance, the other pack rushed by the wood past the count, and

+it was with this that Daniel’s voice was heard calling ulyulyu.

+The sounds of both packs mingled and broke apart again, but both were

+becoming more distant.

+

+Simon sighed and stooped to straighten the leash a young borzoi had

+entangled; the count too sighed and, noticing the snuffbox in his hand,

+opened it and took a pinch. “Back!” cried Simon to a borzoi that

+was pushing forward out of the wood. The count started and dropped the

+snuffbox. Nastásya Ivánovna dismounted to pick it up. The count and

+Simon were looking at him.

+

+Then, unexpectedly, as often happens, the sound of the hunt suddenly

+approached, as if the hounds in full cry and Daniel ulyulyuing were just

+in front of them.

+

+The count turned and saw on his right Mítka staring at him with eyes

+starting out of his head, raising his cap and pointing before him to the

+other side.

+

+“Look out!” he shouted, in a voice plainly showing that he had long

+fretted to utter that word, and letting the borzois slip he galloped

+toward the count.

+

+The count and Simon galloped out of the wood and saw on their left a

+wolf which, softly swaying from side to side, was coming at a quiet

+lope farther to the left to the very place where they were standing.

+The angry borzois whined and getting free of the leash rushed past the

+horses’ feet at the wolf.

+

+The wolf paused, turned its heavy forehead toward the dogs awkwardly,

+like a man suffering from the quinsy, and, still slightly swaying

+from side to side, gave a couple of leaps and with a swish of its tail

+disappeared into the skirt of the wood. At the same instant, with a cry

+like a wail, first one hound, then another, and then another, sprang

+helter-skelter from the wood opposite and the whole pack rushed across

+the field toward the very spot where the wolf had disappeared. The hazel

+bushes parted behind the hounds and Daniel’s chestnut horse appeared,

+dark with sweat. On its long back sat Daniel, hunched forward, capless,

+his disheveled gray hair hanging over his flushed, perspiring face.

+

+“Ulyulyulyu! ulyulyu!...” he cried. When he caught sight of the

+count his eyes flashed lightning.

+

+“Blast you!” he shouted, holding up his whip threateningly at the

+count.

+

+“You’ve let the wolf go!... What sportsmen!” and as if scorning to

+say more to the frightened and shamefaced count, he lashed the heaving

+flanks of his sweating chestnut gelding with all the anger the count

+had aroused and flew off after the hounds. The count, like a punished

+schoolboy, looked round, trying by a smile to win Simon’s sympathy for

+his plight. But Simon was no longer there. He was galloping round by the

+bushes while the field was coming up on both sides, all trying to head

+the wolf, but it vanished into the wood before they could do so.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+Nicholas Rostóv meanwhile remained at his post, waiting for the wolf.

+By the way the hunt approached and receded, by the cries of the dogs

+whose notes were familiar to him, by the way the voices of the huntsmen

+approached, receded, and rose, he realized what was happening at the

+copse. He knew that young and old wolves were there, that the hounds had

+separated into two packs, that somewhere a wolf was being chased, and

+that something had gone wrong. He expected the wolf to come his way any

+moment. He made thousands of different conjectures as to where and

+from what side the beast would come and how he would set upon it. Hope

+alternated with despair. Several times he addressed a prayer to God

+that the wolf should come his way. He prayed with that passionate and

+shamefaced feeling with which men pray at moments of great excitement

+arising from trivial causes. “What would it be to Thee to do this for

+me?” he said to God. “I know Thou art great, and that it is a sin to

+ask this of Thee, but for God’s sake do let the old wolf come my way

+and let Karáy spring at it—in sight of ‘Uncle’ who is watching

+from over there—and seize it by the throat in a death grip!” A

+thousand times during that half-hour Rostóv cast eager and restless

+glances over the edge of the wood, with the two scraggy oaks rising

+above the aspen undergrowth and the gully with its water-worn side and

+“Uncle’s” cap just visible above the bush on his right.

+

+“No, I shan’t have such luck,” thought Rostóv, “yet what

+wouldn’t it be worth! It is not to be! Everywhere, at cards and in

+war, I am always unlucky.” Memories of Austerlitz and of Dólokhov

+flashed rapidly and clearly through his mind. “Only once in my life

+to get an old wolf, I want only that!” thought he, straining eyes and

+ears and looking to the left and then to the right and listening to the

+slightest variation of note in the cries of the dogs.

+

+Again he looked to the right and saw something running toward him across

+the deserted field. “No, it can’t be!” thought Rostóv, taking a

+deep breath, as a man does at the coming of something long hoped for.

+The height of happiness was reached—and so simply, without warning, or

+noise, or display, that Rostóv could not believe his eyes and remained

+in doubt for over a second. The wolf ran forward and jumped heavily over

+a gully that lay in her path. She was an old animal with a gray back and

+big reddish belly. She ran without hurry, evidently feeling sure that no

+one saw her. Rostóv, holding his breath, looked round at the borzois.

+They stood or lay not seeing the wolf or understanding the situation.

+Old Karáy had turned his head and was angrily searching for fleas,

+baring his yellow teeth and snapping at his hind legs.

+

+“Ulyulyulyu!” whispered Rostóv, pouting his lips. The borzois

+jumped up, jerking the rings of the leashes and pricking their ears.

+Karáy finished scratching his hindquarters and, cocking his ears, got

+up with quivering tail from which tufts of matted hair hung down.

+

+“Shall I loose them or not?” Nicholas asked himself as the wolf

+approached him coming from the copse. Suddenly the wolf’s whole

+physiognomy changed: she shuddered, seeing what she had probably never

+seen before—human eyes fixed upon her—and turning her head a little

+toward Rostóv, she paused.

+

+“Back or forward? Eh, no matter, forward...” the wolf seemed to say

+to herself, and she moved forward without again looking round and with a

+quiet, long, easy yet resolute lope.

+

+“Ulyulyu!” cried Nicholas, in a voice not his own, and of its own

+accord his good horse darted headlong downhill, leaping over gullies

+to head off the wolf, and the borzois passed it, running faster still.

+Nicholas did not hear his own cry nor feel that he was galloping, nor

+see the borzois, nor the ground over which he went: he saw only the

+wolf, who, increasing her speed, bounded on in the same direction along

+the hollow. The first to come into view was Mílka, with her black

+markings and powerful quarters, gaining upon the wolf. Nearer and

+nearer... now she was ahead of it; but the wolf turned its head to face

+her, and instead of putting on speed as she usually did Mílka suddenly

+raised her tail and stiffened her forelegs.

+

+“Ulyulyulyulyu!” shouted Nicholas.

+

+The reddish Lyubím rushed forward from behind Mílka, sprang

+impetuously at the wolf, and seized it by its hindquarters, but

+immediately jumped aside in terror. The wolf crouched, gnashed her

+teeth, and again rose and bounded forward, followed at the distance of a

+couple of feet by all the borzois, who did not get any closer to her.

+

+“She’ll get away! No, it’s impossible!” thought Nicholas, still

+shouting with a hoarse voice.

+

+“Karáy, ulyulyu!...” he shouted, looking round for the old borzoi

+who was now his only hope. Karáy, with all the strength age had left

+him, stretched himself to the utmost and, watching the wolf, galloped

+heavily aside to intercept it. But the quickness of the wolf’s

+lope and the borzoi’s slower pace made it plain that Karáy had

+miscalculated. Nicholas could already see not far in front of him the

+wood where the wolf would certainly escape should she reach it. But,

+coming toward him, he saw hounds and a huntsman galloping almost

+straight at the wolf. There was still hope. A long, yellowish

+young borzoi, one Nicholas did not know, from another leash, rushed

+impetuously at the wolf from in front and almost knocked her over. But

+the wolf jumped up more quickly than anyone could have expected and,

+gnashing her teeth, flew at the yellowish borzoi, which, with a piercing

+yelp, fell with its head on the ground, bleeding from a gash in its

+side.

+

+“Karáy? Old fellow!...” wailed Nicholas.

+

+Thanks to the delay caused by this crossing of the wolf’s path, the

+old dog with its felted hair hanging from its thigh was within five

+paces of it. As if aware of her danger, the wolf turned her eyes on

+Karáy, tucked her tail yet further between her legs, and increased

+her speed. But here Nicholas only saw that something happened to

+Karáy—the borzoi was suddenly on the wolf, and they rolled together

+down into a gully just in front of them.

+

+That instant, when Nicholas saw the wolf struggling in the gully

+with the dogs, while from under them could be seen her gray hair and

+outstretched hind leg and her frightened choking head, with her ears

+laid back (Karáy was pinning her by the throat), was the happiest

+moment of his life. With his hand on his saddlebow, he was ready to

+dismount and stab the wolf, when she suddenly thrust her head up from

+among that mass of dogs, and then her forepaws were on the edge of the

+gully. She clicked her teeth (Karáy no longer had her by the throat),

+leaped with a movement of her hind legs out of the gully, and having

+disengaged herself from the dogs, with tail tucked in again, went

+forward. Karáy, his hair bristling, and probably bruised or wounded,

+climbed with difficulty out of the gully.

+

+“Oh my God! Why?” Nicholas cried in despair.

+

+“Uncle’s” huntsman was galloping from the other side across the

+wolf’s path and his borzois once more stopped the animal’s advance.

+She was again hemmed in.

+

+Nicholas and his attendant, with “Uncle” and his huntsman, were all

+riding round the wolf, crying “ulyulyu!” shouting and preparing to

+dismount each moment that the wolf crouched back, and starting forward

+again every time she shook herself and moved toward the wood where she

+would be safe.

+

+Already, at the beginning of this chase, Daniel, hearing the ulyulyuing,

+had rushed out from the wood. He saw Karáy seize the wolf, and checked

+his horse, supposing the affair to be over. But when he saw that the

+horsemen did not dismount and that the wolf shook herself and ran for

+safety, Daniel set his chestnut galloping, not at the wolf but straight

+toward the wood, just as Karáy had run to cut the animal off. As

+a result of this, he galloped up to the wolf just when she had been

+stopped a second time by “Uncle’s” borzois.

+

+Daniel galloped up silently, holding a naked dagger in his left hand and

+thrashing the laboring sides of his chestnut horse with his whip as if

+it were a flail.

+

+Nicholas neither saw nor heard Daniel until the chestnut, breathing

+heavily, panted past him, and he heard the fall of a body and saw Daniel

+lying on the wolf’s back among the dogs, trying to seize her by the

+ears. It was evident to the dogs, the hunters, and to the wolf herself

+that all was now over. The terrified wolf pressed back her ears and

+tried to rise, but the borzois stuck to her. Daniel rose a little, took

+a step, and with his whole weight, as if lying down to rest, fell on

+the wolf, seizing her by the ears. Nicholas was about to stab her, but

+Daniel whispered, “Don’t! We’ll gag her!” and, changing his

+position, set his foot on the wolf’s neck. A stick was thrust between

+her jaws and she was fastened with a leash, as if bridled, her legs were

+bound together, and Daniel rolled her over once or twice from side to

+side.

+

+With happy, exhausted faces, they laid the old wolf, alive, on a shying

+and snorting horse and, accompanied by the dogs yelping at her, took her

+to the place where they were all to meet. The hounds had killed two of

+the cubs and the borzois three. The huntsmen assembled with their booty

+and their stories, and all came to look at the wolf, which, with her

+broad-browed head hanging down and the bitten stick between her jaws,

+gazed with great glassy eyes at this crowd of dogs and men surrounding

+her. When she was touched, she jerked her bound legs and looked wildly

+yet simply at everybody. Old Count Rostóv also rode up and touched the

+wolf.

+

+“Oh, what a formidable one!” said he. “A formidable one, eh?” he

+asked Daniel, who was standing near.

+

+“Yes, your excellency,” answered Daniel, quickly doffing his cap.

+

+The count remembered the wolf he had let slip and his encounter with

+Daniel.

+

+“Ah, but you are a crusty fellow, friend!” said the count.

+

+For sole reply Daniel gave him a shy, childlike, meek, and amiable

+smile.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+The old count went home, and Natásha and Pétya promised to return very

+soon, but as it was still early the hunt went farther. At midday

+they put the hounds into a ravine thickly overgrown with young trees.

+Nicholas standing in a fallow field could see all his whips.

+

+Facing him lay a field of winter rye, there his own huntsman stood alone

+in a hollow behind a hazel bush. The hounds had scarcely been loosed

+before Nicholas heard one he knew, Voltórn, giving tongue at intervals;

+other hounds joined in, now pausing and now again giving tongue. A

+moment later he heard a cry from the wooded ravine that a fox had been

+found, and the whole pack, joining together, rushed along the ravine

+toward the ryefield and away from Nicholas.

+

+He saw the whips in their red caps galloping along the edge of the

+ravine, he even saw the hounds, and was expecting a fox to show itself

+at any moment on the ryefield opposite.

+

+The huntsman standing in the hollow moved and loosed his borzois, and

+Nicholas saw a queer, short-legged red fox with a fine brush going hard

+across the field. The borzois bore down on it.... Now they drew close

+to the fox which began to dodge between the field in sharper and sharper

+curves, trailing its brush, when suddenly a strange white borzoi dashed

+in followed by a black one, and everything was in confusion; the borzois

+formed a star-shaped figure, scarcely swaying their bodies and with

+tails turned away from the center of the group. Two huntsmen galloped up

+to the dogs; one in a red cap, the other, a stranger, in a green coat.

+

+“What’s this?” thought Nicholas. “Where’s that huntsman from?

+He is not ‘Uncle’s’ man.”

+

+The huntsmen got the fox, but stayed there a long time without strapping

+it to the saddle. Their horses, bridled and with high saddles, stood

+near them and there too the dogs were lying. The huntsmen waved their

+arms and did something to the fox. Then from that spot came the sound of

+a horn, with the signal agreed on in case of a fight.

+

+“That’s Ilágin’s huntsman having a row with our Iván,” said

+Nicholas’ groom.

+

+Nicholas sent the man to call Natásha and Pétya to him, and rode at a

+footpace to the place where the whips were getting the hounds together.

+Several of the field galloped to the spot where the fight was going on.

+

+Nicholas dismounted, and with Natásha and Pétya, who had ridden up,

+stopped near the hounds, waiting to see how the matter would end. Out of

+the bushes came the huntsman who had been fighting and rode toward

+his young master, with the fox tied to his crupper. While still at a

+distance he took off his cap and tried to speak respectfully, but he was

+pale and breathless and his face was angry. One of his eyes was black,

+but he probably was not even aware of it.

+

+“What has happened?” asked Nicholas.

+

+“A likely thing, killing a fox our dogs had hunted! And it was my gray

+bitch that caught it! Go to law, indeed!... He snatches at the fox! I

+gave him one with the fox. Here it is on my saddle! Do you want a taste

+of this?...” said the huntsman, pointing to his dagger and probably

+imagining himself still speaking to his foe.

+

+Nicholas, not stopping to talk to the man, asked his sister and Pétya

+to wait for him and rode to the spot where the enemy’s, Ilágin’s,

+hunting party was.

+

+The victorious huntsman rode off to join the field, and there,

+surrounded by inquiring sympathizers, recounted his exploits.

+

+The facts were that Ilágin, with whom the Rostóvs had a quarrel and

+were at law, hunted over places that belonged by custom to the Rostóvs,

+and had now, as if purposely, sent his men to the very woods the

+Rostóvs were hunting and let his man snatch a fox their dogs had

+chased.

+

+Nicholas, though he had never seen Ilágin, with his usual absence

+of moderation in judgment, hated him cordially from reports of his

+arbitrariness and violence, and regarded him as his bitterest foe. He

+rode in angry agitation toward him, firmly grasping his whip and fully

+prepared to take the most resolute and desperate steps to punish his

+enemy.

+

+Hardly had he passed an angle of the wood before a stout gentleman in

+a beaver cap came riding toward him on a handsome raven-black horse,

+accompanied by two hunt servants.

+

+Instead of an enemy, Nicholas found in Ilágin a stately and courteous

+gentleman who was particularly anxious to make the young count’s

+acquaintance. Having ridden up to Nicholas, Ilágin raised his beaver

+cap and said he much regretted what had occurred and would have the

+man punished who had allowed himself to seize a fox hunted by someone

+else’s borzois. He hoped to become better acquainted with the count

+and invited him to draw his covert.

+

+Natásha, afraid that her brother would do something dreadful, had

+followed him in some excitement. Seeing the enemies exchanging friendly

+greetings, she rode up to them. Ilágin lifted his beaver cap still

+higher to Natásha and said, with a pleasant smile, that the young

+countess resembled Diana in her passion for the chase as well as in her

+beauty, of which he had heard much.

+

+To expiate his huntsman’s offense, Ilágin pressed the Rostóvs to

+come to an upland of his about a mile away which he usually kept for

+himself and which, he said, swarmed with hares. Nicholas agreed, and the

+hunt, now doubled, moved on.

+

+The way to Iligin’s upland was across the fields. The hunt servants

+fell into line. The masters rode together. “Uncle,” Rostóv, and

+Ilágin kept stealthily glancing at one another’s dogs, trying not

+to be observed by their companions and searching uneasily for rivals to

+their own borzois.

+

+Rostóv was particularly struck by the beauty of a small, pure-bred,

+red-spotted bitch on Ilágin’s leash, slender but with muscles like

+steel, a delicate muzzle, and prominent black eyes. He had heard of

+the swiftness of Ilágin’s borzois, and in that beautiful bitch saw a

+rival to his own Mílka.

+

+In the middle of a sober conversation begun by Ilágin about the

+year’s harvest, Nicholas pointed to the red-spotted bitch.

+

+“A fine little bitch, that!” said he in a careless tone. “Is she

+swift?”

+

+“That one? Yes, she’s a good dog, gets what she’s after,”

+answered Ilágin indifferently, of the red-spotted bitch Erzá, for

+which, a year before, he had given a neighbor three families of house

+serfs. “So in your parts, too, the harvest is nothing to boast of,

+Count?” he went on, continuing the conversation they had begun. And

+considering it polite to return the young count’s compliment, Ilágin

+looked at his borzois and picked out Mílka who attracted his attention

+by her breadth. “That black-spotted one of yours is fine—well

+shaped!” said he.

+

+“Yes, she’s fast enough,” replied Nicholas, and thought: “If

+only a full-grown hare would cross the field now I’d show you what

+sort of borzoi she is,” and turning to his groom, he said he would

+give a ruble to anyone who found a hare.

+

+“I don’t understand,” continued Ilágin, “how some sportsmen can

+be so jealous about game and dogs. For myself, I can tell you, Count,

+I enjoy riding in company such as this... what could be better?” (he

+again raised his cap to Natásha) “but as for counting skins and what

+one takes, I don’t care about that.”

+

+“Of course not!”

+

+“Or being upset because someone else’s borzoi and not mine catches

+something. All I care about is to enjoy seeing the chase, is it not so,

+Count? For I consider that...”

+

+“A-tu!” came the long-drawn cry of one of the borzoi whippers-in,

+who had halted. He stood on a knoll in the stubble, holding his whip

+aloft, and again repeated his long-drawn cry, “A-tu!” (This call and

+the uplifted whip meant that he saw a sitting hare.)

+

+“Ah, he has found one, I think,” said Ilágin carelessly. “Yes, we

+must ride up.... Shall we both course it?” answered Nicholas, seeing

+in Erzá and “Uncle’s” red Rugáy two rivals he had never yet had

+a chance of pitting against his own borzois. “And suppose they outdo

+my Mílka at once!” he thought as he rode with “Uncle” and Ilágin

+toward the hare.

+

+“A full-grown one?” asked Ilágin as he approached the whip who

+had sighted the hare—and not without agitation he looked round and

+whistled to Erzá.

+

+“And you, Michael Nikanórovich?” he said, addressing “Uncle.”

+

+The latter was riding with a sullen expression on his face.

+

+“How can I join in? Why, you’ve given a village for each of your

+borzois! That’s it, come on! Yours are worth thousands. Try yours

+against one another, you two, and I’ll look on!”

+

+“Rugáy, hey, hey!” he shouted. “Rugáyushka!” he added,

+involuntarily by this diminutive expressing his affection and the hopes

+he placed on this red borzoi. Natásha saw and felt the agitation the

+two elderly men and her brother were trying to conceal, and was herself

+excited by it.

+

+The huntsman stood halfway up the knoll holding up his whip and the

+gentlefolk rode up to him at a footpace; the hounds that were far off

+on the horizon turned away from the hare, and the whips, but not the

+gentlefolk, also moved away. All were moving slowly and sedately.

+

+“How is it pointing?” asked Nicholas, riding a hundred paces toward

+the whip who had sighted the hare.

+

+But before the whip could reply, the hare, scenting the frost coming

+next morning, was unable to rest and leaped up. The pack on leash rushed

+downhill in full cry after the hare, and from all sides the borzois that

+were not on leash darted after the hounds and the hare. All the hunt,

+who had been moving slowly, shouted, “Stop!” calling in the hounds,

+while the borzoi whips, with a cry of “A-tu!” galloped across the

+field setting the borzois on the hare. The tranquil Ilágin, Nicholas,

+Natásha, and “Uncle” flew, reckless of where and how they went,

+seeing only the borzois and the hare and fearing only to lose sight even

+for an instant of the chase. The hare they had started was a strong and

+swift one. When he jumped up he did not run at once, but pricked his

+ears listening to the shouting and trampling that resounded from all

+sides at once. He took a dozen bounds, not very quickly, letting the

+borzois gain on him, and, finally having chosen his direction and

+realized his danger, laid back his ears and rushed off headlong. He had

+been lying in the stubble, but in front of him was the autumn sowing

+where the ground was soft. The two borzois of the huntsman who had

+sighted him, having been the nearest, were the first to see and pursue

+him, but they had not gone far before Ilágin’s red-spotted Erzá

+passed them, got within a length, flew at the hare with terrible

+swiftness aiming at his scut, and, thinking she had seized him, rolled

+over like a ball. The hare arched his back and bounded off yet more

+swiftly. From behind Erzá rushed the broad-haunched, black-spotted

+Mílka and began rapidly gaining on the hare.

+

+“Miláshka, dear!” rose Nicholas’ triumphant cry. It looked as if

+Mílka would immediately pounce on the hare, but she overtook him and

+flew past. The hare had squatted. Again the beautiful Erzá reached him,

+but when close to the hare’s scut paused as if measuring the distance,

+so as not to make a mistake this time but seize his hind leg.

+

+“Erzá, darling!” Ilágin wailed in a voice unlike his own. Erzá

+did not hearken to his appeal. At the very moment when she would have

+seized her prey, the hare moved and darted along the balk between the

+winter rye and the stubble. Again Erzá and Mílka were abreast, running

+like a pair of carriage horses, and began to overtake the hare, but

+it was easier for the hare to run on the balk and the borzois did not

+overtake him so quickly.

+

+“Rugáy, Rugáyushka! That’s it, come on!” came a third voice just

+then, and “Uncle’s” red borzoi, straining and curving its back,

+caught up with the two foremost borzois, pushed ahead of them regardless

+of the terrible strain, put on speed close to the hare, knocked it off

+the balk onto the ryefield, again put on speed still more viciously,

+sinking to his knees in the muddy field, and all one could see was

+how, muddying his back, he rolled over with the hare. A ring of borzois

+surrounded him. A moment later everyone had drawn up round the crowd

+of dogs. Only the delighted “Uncle” dismounted, and cut off a pad,

+shaking the hare for the blood to drip off, and anxiously glancing round

+with restless eyes while his arms and legs twitched. He spoke without

+himself knowing whom to or what about. “That’s it, come on! That’s

+a dog!... There, it has beaten them all, the thousand-ruble as well as

+the one-ruble borzois. That’s it, come on!” said he, panting and

+looking wrathfully around as if he were abusing someone, as if they

+were all his enemies and had insulted him, and only now had he at

+last succeeded in justifying himself. “There are your thousand-ruble

+ones.... That’s it, come on!...”

+

+“Rugáy, here’s a pad for you!” he said, throwing down the

+hare’s muddy pad. “You’ve deserved it, that’s it, come on!”

+

+“She’d tired herself out, she’d run it down three times by

+herself,” said Nicholas, also not listening to anyone and regardless

+of whether he were heard or not.

+

+“But what is there in running across it like that?” said Ilágin’s

+groom.

+

+“Once she had missed it and turned it away, any mongrel could take

+it,” Ilágin was saying at the same time, breathless from his gallop

+and his excitement. At the same moment Natásha, without drawing

+breath, screamed joyously, ecstatically, and so piercingly that it set

+everyone’s ear tingling. By that shriek she expressed what the others

+expressed by all talking at once, and it was so strange that she must

+herself have been ashamed of so wild a cry and everyone else would have

+been amazed at it at any other time. “Uncle” himself twisted up the

+hare, threw it neatly and smartly across his horse’s back as if by

+that gesture he meant to rebuke everybody, and, with an air of not

+wishing to speak to anyone, mounted his bay and rode off. The others all

+followed, dispirited and shamefaced, and only much later were they able

+to regain their former affectation of indifference. For a long time they

+continued to look at red Rugáy who, his arched back spattered with

+mud and clanking the ring of his leash, walked along just behind

+“Uncle’s” horse with the serene air of a conqueror.

+

+“Well, I am like any other dog as long as it’s not a question of

+coursing. But when it is, then look out!” his appearance seemed to

+Nicholas to be saying.

+

+When, much later, “Uncle” rode up to Nicholas and began talking

+to him, he felt flattered that, after what had happened, “Uncle”

+deigned to speak to him.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+Toward evening Ilágin took leave of Nicholas, who found that they were

+so far from home that he accepted “Uncle’s” offer that the hunting

+party should spend the night in his little village of Mikháylovna.

+

+“And if you put up at my house that will be better still. That’s it,

+come on!” said “Uncle.” “You see it’s damp weather, and you

+could rest, and the little countess could be driven home in a trap.”

+

+“Uncle’s” offer was accepted. A huntsman was sent to Otrádnoe for

+a trap, while Nicholas rode with Natásha and Pétya to “Uncle’s”

+house.

+

+Some five male domestic serfs, big and little, rushed out to the front

+porch to meet their master. A score of women serfs, old and young, as

+well as children, popped out from the back entrance to have a look at

+the hunters who were arriving. The presence of Natásha—a woman, a

+lady, and on horseback—raised the curiosity of the serfs to such a

+degree that many of them came up to her, stared her in the face, and

+unabashed by her presence made remarks about her as though she were some

+prodigy on show and not a human being able to hear or understand what

+was said about her.

+

+“Arínka! Look, she sits sideways! There she sits and her skirt

+dangles.... See, she’s got a little hunting horn!”

+

+“Goodness gracious! See her knife?...”

+

+“Isn’t she a Tartar!”

+

+“How is it you didn’t go head over heels?” asked the boldest of

+all, addressing Natásha directly.

+

+“Uncle” dismounted at the porch of his little wooden house which

+stood in the midst of an overgrown garden and, after a glance at his

+retainers, shouted authoritatively that the superfluous ones should take

+themselves off and that all necessary preparations should be made to

+receive the guests and the visitors.

+

+The serfs all dispersed. “Uncle” lifted Natásha off her horse and

+taking her hand led her up the rickety wooden steps of the porch. The

+house, with its bare, unplastered log walls, was not overclean—it

+did not seem that those living in it aimed at keeping it spotless—but

+neither was it noticeably neglected. In the entry there was a smell of

+fresh apples, and wolf and fox skins hung about.

+

+“Uncle” led the visitors through the anteroom into a small hall with

+a folding table and red chairs, then into the drawing room with a round

+birchwood table and a sofa, and finally into his private room where

+there was a tattered sofa, a worn carpet, and portraits of Suvórov, of

+the host’s father and mother, and of himself in military uniform. The

+study smelt strongly of tobacco and dogs. “Uncle” asked his visitors

+to sit down and make themselves at home, and then went out of the room.

+Rugáy, his back still muddy, came into the room and lay down on the

+sofa, cleaning himself with his tongue and teeth. Leading from the study

+was a passage in which a partition with ragged curtains could be

+seen. From behind this came women’s laughter and whispers. Natásha,

+Nicholas, and Pétya took off their wraps and sat down on the sofa.

+Pétya, leaning on his elbow, fell asleep at once. Natásha and Nicholas

+were silent. Their faces glowed, they were hungry and very cheerful.

+They looked at one another (now that the hunt was over and they were in

+the house, Nicholas no longer considered it necessary to show his manly

+superiority over his sister), Natásha gave him a wink, and neither

+refrained long from bursting into a peal of ringing laughter even before

+they had a pretext ready to account for it.

+

+After a while “Uncle” came in, in a Cossack coat, blue trousers, and

+small top boots. And Natásha felt that this costume, the very one she

+had regarded with surprise and amusement at Otrádnoe, was just the

+right thing and not at all worse than a swallow-tail or frock coat.

+“Uncle” too was in high spirits and far from being offended by the

+brother’s and sister’s laughter (it could never enter his head that

+they might be laughing at his way of life) he himself joined in the

+merriment.

+

+“That’s right, young countess, that’s it, come on! I never saw

+anyone like her!” said he, offering Nicholas a pipe with a long stem

+and, with a practiced motion of three fingers, taking down another that

+had been cut short. “She’s ridden all day like a man, and is as

+fresh as ever!”

+

+Soon after “Uncle’s” reappearance the door was opened, evidently

+from the sound by a barefooted girl, and a stout, rosy, good-looking

+woman of about forty, with a double chin and full red lips, entered

+carrying a large loaded tray. With hospitable dignity and cordiality in

+her glance and in every motion, she looked at the visitors and, with

+a pleasant smile, bowed respectfully. In spite of her exceptional

+stoutness, which caused her to protrude her chest and stomach and throw

+back her head, this woman (who was “Uncle’s” housekeeper) trod

+very lightly. She went to the table, set down the tray, and with her

+plump white hands deftly took from it the bottles and various hors

+d’oeuvres and dishes and arranged them on the table. When she had

+finished, she stepped aside and stopped at the door with a smile on her

+face. “Here I am. I am she! Now do you understand ‘Uncle’?” her

+expression said to Rostóv. How could one help understanding? Not only

+Nicholas, but even Natásha understood the meaning of his puckered brow

+and the happy complacent smile that slightly puckered his lips when

+Anísya Fëdorovna entered. On the tray was a bottle of herb wine,

+different kinds of vodka, pickled mushrooms, rye cakes made with

+buttermilk, honey in the comb, still mead and sparkling mead, apples,

+nuts (raw and roasted), and nut-and-honey sweets. Afterwards she brought

+a freshly roasted chicken, ham, preserves made with honey, and preserves

+made with sugar.

+

+All this was the fruit of Anísya Fëdorovna’s housekeeping, gathered

+and prepared by her. The smell and taste of it all had a smack

+of Anísya Fëdorovna herself: a savor of juiciness, cleanliness,

+whiteness, and pleasant smiles.

+

+“Take this, little Lady-Countess!” she kept saying, as she offered

+Natásha first one thing and then another.

+

+Natásha ate of everything and thought she had never seen or eaten such

+buttermilk cakes, such aromatic jam, such honey-and-nut sweets, or such

+a chicken anywhere. Anísya Fëdorovna left the room.

+

+After supper, over their cherry brandy, Rostóv and “Uncle” talked

+of past and future hunts, of Rugáy and Ilágin’s dogs, while Natásha

+sat upright on the sofa and listened with sparkling eyes. She tried

+several times to wake Pétya that he might eat something, but he

+only muttered incoherent words without waking up. Natásha felt so

+lighthearted and happy in these novel surroundings that she only feared

+the trap would come for her too soon. After a casual pause, such as

+often occurs when receiving friends for the first time in one’s own

+house, “Uncle,” answering a thought that was in his visitors’

+minds, said:

+

+“This, you see, is how I am finishing my days... Death will come.

+That’s it, come on! Nothing will remain. Then why harm anyone?”

+

+“Uncle’s” face was very significant and even handsome as he said

+this. Involuntarily Rostóv recalled all the good he had heard about

+him from his father and the neighbors. Throughout the whole province

+“Uncle” had the reputation of being the most honorable and

+disinterested of cranks. They called him in to decide family disputes,

+chose him as executor, confided secrets to him, elected him to be a

+justice and to other posts; but he always persistently refused public

+appointments, passing the autumn and spring in the fields on his bay

+gelding, sitting at home in winter, and lying in his overgrown garden in

+summer.

+

+“Why don’t you enter the service, Uncle?”

+

+“I did once, but gave it up. I am not fit for it. That’s it, come

+on! I can’t make head or tail of it. That’s for you—I haven’t

+brains enough. Now, hunting is another matter—that’s it, come on!

+Open the door, there!” he shouted. “Why have you shut it?”

+

+The door at the end of the passage led to the huntsmen’s room, as they

+called the room for the hunt servants.

+

+There was a rapid patter of bare feet, and an unseen hand opened the

+door into the huntsmen’s room, from which came the clear sounds of a

+balaláyka on which someone, who was evidently a master of the art, was

+playing. Natásha had been listening to those strains for some time and

+now went out into the passage to hear better.

+

+“That’s Mítka, my coachman.... I have got him a good balaláyka.

+I’m fond of it,” said “Uncle.”

+

+It was the custom for Mítka to play the balaláyka in the huntsmen’s

+room when “Uncle” returned from the chase. “Uncle” was fond of

+such music.

+

+“How good! Really very good!” said Nicholas with some unintentional

+superciliousness, as if ashamed to confess that the sounds pleased him

+very much.

+

+“Very good?” said Natásha reproachfully, noticing her brother’s

+tone. “Not ‘very good’ it’s simply delicious!”

+

+Just as “Uncle’s” pickled mushrooms, honey, and cherry brandy had

+seemed to her the best in the world, so also that song, at that moment,

+seemed to her the acme of musical delight.

+

+“More, please, more!” cried Natásha at the door as soon as the

+balaláyka ceased. Mítka tuned up afresh, and recommenced thrumming

+the balaláyka to the air of My Lady, with trills and variations.

+“Uncle” sat listening, slightly smiling, with his head on one side.

+The air was repeated a hundred times. The balaláyka was retuned several

+times and the same notes were thrummed again, but the listeners did

+not grow weary of it and wished to hear it again and again. Anísya

+Fëdorovna came in and leaned her portly person against the doorpost.

+

+“You like listening?” she said to Natásha, with a smile extremely

+like “Uncle’s.” “That’s a good player of ours,” she added.

+

+“He doesn’t play that part right!” said “Uncle” suddenly, with

+an energetic gesture. “Here he ought to burst out—that’s it, come

+on!—ought to burst out.”

+

+“Do you play then?” asked Natásha.

+

+“Uncle” did not answer, but smiled.

+

+“Anísya, go and see if the strings of my guitar are all right. I

+haven’t touched it for a long time. That’s it—come on! I’ve

+given it up.”

+

+Anísya Fëdorovna, with her light step, willingly went to fulfill her

+errand and brought back the guitar.

+

+Without looking at anyone, “Uncle” blew the dust off it and, tapping

+the case with his bony fingers, tuned the guitar and settled himself in

+his armchair. He took the guitar a little above the fingerboard, arching

+his left elbow with a somewhat theatrical gesture, and, with a wink at

+Anísya Fëdorovna, struck a single chord, pure and sonorous, and then

+quietly, smoothly, and confidently began playing in very slow time, not

+My Lady, but the well-known song: Came a maiden down the street. The

+tune, played with precision and in exact time, began to thrill in the

+hearts of Nicholas and Natásha, arousing in them the same kind of

+sober mirth as radiated from Anísya Fëdorovna’s whole being. Anísya

+Fëdorovna flushed, and drawing her kerchief over her face went laughing

+out of the room. “Uncle” continued to play correctly, carefully,

+with energetic firmness, looking with a changed and inspired expression

+at the spot where Anísya Fëdorovna had just stood. Something seemed to

+be laughing a little on one side of his face under his gray mustaches,

+especially as the song grew brisker and the time quicker and when, here

+and there, as he ran his fingers over the strings, something seemed to

+snap.

+

+“Lovely, lovely! Go on, Uncle, go on!” shouted Natásha as soon as

+he had finished. She jumped up and hugged and kissed him. “Nicholas,

+Nicholas!” she said, turning to her brother, as if asking him: “What

+is it moves me so?”

+

+Nicholas too was greatly pleased by “Uncle’s” playing, and

+“Uncle” played the piece over again. Anísya Fëdorovna’s smiling

+face reappeared in the doorway and behind hers other faces...

+

+    Fetching water clear and sweet,

+    Stop, dear maiden, I entreat—

+

+played “Uncle” once more, running his fingers skillfully over the

+strings, and then he stopped short and jerked his shoulders.

+

+“Go on, Uncle dear,” Natásha wailed in an imploring tone as if her

+life depended on it.

+

+“Uncle” rose, and it was as if there were two men in him: one of

+them smiled seriously at the merry fellow, while the merry fellow struck

+a naïve and precise attitude preparatory to a folk dance.

+

+“Now then, niece!” he exclaimed, waving to Natásha the hand that

+had just struck a chord.

+

+Natásha threw off the shawl from her shoulders, ran forward to face

+“Uncle,” and setting her arms akimbo also made a motion with her

+shoulders and struck an attitude.

+

+Where, how, and when had this young countess, educated by an émigrée

+French governess, imbibed from the Russian air she breathed that spirit

+and obtained that manner which the pas de châle * would, one would have

+supposed, long ago have effaced? But the spirit and the movements were

+those inimitable and unteachable Russian ones that “Uncle” had

+expected of her. As soon as she had struck her pose, and smiled

+triumphantly, proudly, and with sly merriment, the fear that had at

+first seized Nicholas and the others that she might not do the right

+thing was at an end, and they were already admiring her.

+

+    * The French shawl dance.

+

+She did the right thing with such precision, such complete precision,

+that Anísya Fëdorovna, who had at once handed her the handkerchief she

+needed for the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she laughed as she

+watched this slim, graceful countess, reared in silks and velvets and so

+different from herself, who yet was able to understand all that was

+in Anísya and in Anísya’s father and mother and aunt, and in every

+Russian man and woman.

+

+“Well, little countess; that’s it—come on!” cried “Uncle,”

+with a joyous laugh, having finished the dance. “Well done, niece! Now

+a fine young fellow must be found as husband for you. That’s it—come

+on!”

+

+“He’s chosen already,” said Nicholas smiling.

+

+“Oh?” said “Uncle” in surprise, looking inquiringly at Natásha,

+who nodded her head with a happy smile.

+

+“And such a one!” she said. But as soon as she had said it a new

+train of thoughts and feelings arose in her. “What did Nicholas’

+smile mean when he said ‘chosen already’? Is he glad of it or not?

+It is as if he thought my Bolkónski would not approve of or understand

+our gaiety. But he would understand it all. Where is he now?” she

+thought, and her face suddenly became serious. But this lasted only a

+second. “Don’t dare to think about it,” she said to herself,

+and sat down again smilingly beside “Uncle,” begging him to play

+something more.

+

+“Uncle” played another song and a valse; then after a pause he

+cleared his throat and sang his favorite hunting song:

+

+    As ‘twas growing dark last night

+    Fell the snow so soft and light...

+

+“Uncle” sang as peasants sing, with full and naïve conviction that

+the whole meaning of a song lies in the words and that the tune comes

+of itself, and that apart from the words there is no tune, which exists

+only to give measure to the words. As a result of this the unconsidered

+tune, like the song of a bird, was extraordinarily good. Natásha was in

+ecstasies over “Uncle’s” singing. She resolved to give up learning

+the harp and to play only the guitar. She asked “Uncle” for his

+guitar and at once found the chords of the song.

+

+After nine o’clock two traps and three mounted men, who had been sent

+to look for them, arrived to fetch Natásha and Pétya. The count and

+countess did not know where they were and were very anxious, said one of

+the men.

+

+Pétya was carried out like a log and laid in the larger of the two

+traps. Natásha and Nicholas got into the other. “Uncle” wrapped

+Natásha up warmly and took leave of her with quite a new tenderness. He

+accompanied them on foot as far as the bridge that could not be crossed,

+so that they had to go round by the ford, and he sent huntsmen to ride

+in front with lanterns.

+

+“Good-by, dear niece,” his voice called out of the darkness—not

+the voice Natásha had known previously, but the one that had sung As

+‘twas growing dark last night.

+

+In the village through which they passed there were red lights and a

+cheerful smell of smoke.

+

+“What a darling Uncle is!” said Natásha, when they had come out

+onto the highroad.

+

+“Yes,” returned Nicholas. “You’re not cold?”

+

+“No. I’m quite, quite all right. I feel so comfortable!” answered

+Natásha, almost perplexed by her feelings. They remained silent a long

+while. The night was dark and damp. They could not see the horses, but

+only heard them splashing through the unseen mud.

+

+What was passing in that receptive childlike soul that so eagerly caught

+and assimilated all the diverse impressions of life? How did they all

+find place in her? But she was very happy. As they were nearing home she

+suddenly struck up the air of As ‘twas growing dark last night—the

+tune of which she had all the way been trying to get and had at last

+caught.

+

+“Got it?” said Nicholas.

+

+“What were you thinking about just now, Nicholas?” inquired

+Natásha.

+

+They were fond of asking one another that question.

+

+“I?” said Nicholas, trying to remember. “Well, you see, first I

+thought that Rugáy, the red hound, was like Uncle, and that if he were

+a man he would always keep Uncle near him, if not for his riding, then

+for his manner. What a good fellow Uncle is! Don’t you think so?...

+Well, and you?”

+

+“I? Wait a bit, wait.... Yes, first I thought that we are driving

+along and imagining that we are going home, but that heaven knows

+where we are really going in the darkness, and that we shall arrive and

+suddenly find that we are not in Otrádnoe, but in Fairyland. And then I

+thought... No, nothing else.”

+

+“I know, I expect you thought of him,” said Nicholas, smiling as

+Natásha knew by the sound of his voice.

+

+“No,” said Natásha, though she had in reality been thinking about

+Prince Andrew at the same time as of the rest, and of how he would

+have liked “Uncle.” “And then I was saying to myself all the way,

+‘How well Anísya carried herself, how well!’” And Nicholas heard

+her spontaneous, happy, ringing laughter. “And do you know,” she

+suddenly said, “I know that I shall never again be as happy and

+tranquil as I am now.”

+

+“Rubbish, nonsense, humbug!” exclaimed Nicholas, and he thought:

+“How charming this Natásha of mine is! I have no other friend like

+her and never shall have. Why should she marry? We might always drive

+about together!”

+

+“What a darling this Nicholas of mine is!” thought Natásha.

+

+“Ah, there are still lights in the drawing room!” she said, pointing

+to the windows of the house that gleamed invitingly in the moist velvety

+darkness of the night.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+Count Ilyá Rostóv had resigned the position of Marshal of the Nobility

+because it involved him in too much expense, but still his affairs

+did not improve. Natásha and Nicholas often noticed their parents

+conferring together anxiously and privately and heard suggestions of

+selling the fine ancestral Rostóv house and estate near Moscow. It was

+not necessary to entertain so freely as when the count had been Marshal,

+and life at Otrádnoe was quieter than in former years, but still the

+enormous house and its lodges were full of people and more than twenty

+sat down to table every day. These were all their own people who had

+settled down in the house almost as members of the family, or persons

+who were, it seemed, obliged to live in the count’s house. Such were

+Dimmler the musician and his wife, Vogel the dancing master and his

+family, Belóva, an old maiden lady, an inmate of the house, and many

+others such as Pétya’s tutors, the girls’ former governess, and

+other people who simply found it preferable and more advantageous to

+live in the count’s house than at home. They had not as many visitors

+as before, but the old habits of life without which the count and

+countess could not conceive of existence remained unchanged. There was

+still the hunting establishment which Nicholas had even enlarged, the

+same fifty horses and fifteen grooms in the stables, the same expensive

+presents and dinner parties to the whole district on name days; there

+were still the count’s games of whist and boston, at which—spreading

+out his cards so that everybody could see them—he let himself be

+plundered of hundreds of rubles every day by his neighbors, who looked

+upon an opportunity to play a rubber with Count Rostóv as a most

+profitable source of income.

+

+The count moved in his affairs as in a huge net, trying not to believe

+that he was entangled but becoming more and more so at every step, and

+feeling too feeble to break the meshes or to set to work carefully and

+patiently to disentangle them. The countess, with her loving heart, felt

+that her children were being ruined, that it was not the count’s fault

+for he could not help being what he was—that (though he tried to

+hide it) he himself suffered from the consciousness of his own and

+his children’s ruin, and she tried to find means of remedying the

+position. From her feminine point of view she could see only one

+solution, namely, for Nicholas to marry a rich heiress. She felt this to

+be their last hope and that if Nicholas refused the match she had found

+for him, she would have to abandon the hope of ever getting matters

+right. This match was with Julie Karágina, the daughter of excellent

+and virtuous parents, a girl the Rostóvs had known from childhood, and

+who had now become a wealthy heiress through the death of the last of

+her brothers.

+

+The countess had written direct to Julie’s mother in Moscow suggesting

+a marriage between their children and had received a favorable answer

+from her. Karágina had replied that for her part she was agreeable, and

+everything depend on her daughter’s inclination. She invited Nicholas

+to come to Moscow.

+

+Several times the countess, with tears in her eyes, told her son that

+now both her daughters were settled, her only wish was to see him

+married. She said she could lie down in her grave peacefully if that

+were accomplished. Then she told him that she knew of a splendid girl

+and tried to discover what he thought about marriage.

+

+At other times she praised Julie to him and advised him to go to

+Moscow during the holidays to amuse himself. Nicholas guessed what his

+mother’s remarks were leading to and during one of these conversations

+induced her to speak quite frankly. She told him that her only hope

+of getting their affairs disentangled now lay in his marrying Julie

+Karágina.

+

+“But, Mamma, suppose I loved a girl who has no fortune, would

+you expect me to sacrifice my feelings and my honor for the sake of

+money?” he asked his mother, not realizing the cruelty of his question

+and only wishing to show his noble-mindedness.

+

+“No, you have not understood me,” said his mother, not knowing how

+to justify herself. “You have not understood me, Nikólenka. It is

+your happiness I wish for,” she added, feeling that she was telling an

+untruth and was becoming entangled. She began to cry.

+

+“Mamma, don’t cry! Only tell me that you wish it, and you know I

+will give my life, anything, to put you at ease,” said Nicholas. “I

+would sacrifice anything for you—even my feelings.”

+

+But the countess did not want the question put like that: she did not

+want a sacrifice from her son, she herself wished to make a sacrifice

+for him.

+

+“No, you have not understood me, don’t let us talk about it,” she

+replied, wiping away her tears.

+

+“Maybe I do love a poor girl,” said Nicholas to himself. “Am I to

+sacrifice my feelings and my honor for money? I wonder how Mamma could

+speak so to me. Because Sónya is poor I must not love her,” he

+thought, “must not respond to her faithful, devoted love? Yet I should

+certainly be happier with her than with some doll-like Julie. I can

+always sacrifice my feelings for my family’s welfare,” he said to

+himself, “but I can’t coerce my feelings. If I love Sónya, that

+feeling is for me stronger and higher than all else.”

+

+Nicholas did not go to Moscow, and the countess did not renew the

+conversation with him about marriage. She saw with sorrow, and sometimes

+with exasperation, symptoms of a growing attachment between her son and

+the portionless Sónya. Though she blamed herself for it, she could

+not refrain from grumbling at and worrying Sónya, often pulling her up

+without reason, addressing her stiffly as “my dear,” and using the

+formal “you” instead of the intimate “thou” in speaking to her.

+The kindhearted countess was the more vexed with Sónya because that

+poor, dark-eyed niece of hers was so meek, so kind, so devotedly

+grateful to her benefactors, and so faithfully, unchangingly, and

+unselfishly in love with Nicholas, that there were no grounds for

+finding fault with her.

+

+Nicholas was spending the last of his leave at home. A fourth letter had

+come from Prince Andrew, from Rome, in which he wrote that he would have

+been on his way back to Russia long ago had not his wound unexpectedly

+reopened in the warm climate, which obliged him to defer his return till

+the beginning of the new year. Natásha was still as much in love with

+her betrothed, found the same comfort in that love, and was still as

+ready to throw herself into all the pleasures of life as before; but at

+the end of the fourth month of their separation she began to have fits

+of depression which she could not master. She felt sorry for herself:

+sorry that she was being wasted all this time and of no use to

+anyone—while she felt herself so capable of loving and being loved.

+

+Things were not cheerful in the Rostóvs’ home.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+Christmas came and except for the ceremonial Mass, the solemn and

+wearisome Christmas congratulations from neighbors and servants, and the

+new dresses everyone put on, there were no special festivities, though

+the calm frost of twenty degrees Réaumur, the dazzling sunshine by day,

+and the starlight of the winter nights seemed to call for some special

+celebration of the season.

+

+On the third day of Christmas week, after the midday dinner, all the

+inmates of the house dispersed to various rooms. It was the dullest time

+of the day. Nicholas, who had been visiting some neighbors that morning,

+was asleep on the sitting-room sofa. The old count was resting in his

+study. Sónya sat in the drawing room at the round table, copying a

+design for embroidery. The countess was playing patience. Nastásya

+Ivánovna the buffoon sat with a sad face at the window with two old

+ladies. Natásha came into the room, went up to Sónya, glanced at

+what she was doing, and then went up to her mother and stood without

+speaking.

+

+“Why are you wandering about like an outcast?” asked her mother.

+“What do you want?”

+

+“Him... I want him... now, this minute! I want him!” said Natásha,

+with glittering eyes and no sign of a smile.

+

+The countess lifted her head and looked attentively at her daughter.

+

+“Don’t look at me, Mamma! Don’t look; I shall cry directly.”

+

+“Sit down with me a little,” said the countess.

+

+“Mamma, I want him. Why should I be wasted like this, Mamma?”

+

+Her voice broke, tears gushed from her eyes, and she turned quickly to

+hide them and left the room.

+

+She passed into the sitting room, stood there thinking awhile, and then

+went into the maids’ room. There an old maidservant was grumbling at

+a young girl who stood panting, having just run in through the cold from

+the serfs’ quarters.

+

+“Stop playing—there’s a time for everything,” said the old

+woman.

+

+“Let her alone, Kondrátevna,” said Natásha. “Go, Mavrúshka,

+go.”

+

+Having released Mavrúshka, Natásha crossed the dancing hall and went

+to the vestibule. There an old footman and two young ones were playing

+cards. They broke off and rose as she entered.

+

+“What can I do with them?” thought Natásha.

+

+“Oh, Nikíta, please go... where can I send him?... Yes, go to the

+yard and fetch a fowl, please, a cock, and you, Misha, bring me some

+oats.”

+

+“Just a few oats?” said Misha, cheerfully and readily.

+

+“Go, go quickly,” the old man urged him.

+

+“And you, Theodore, get me a piece of chalk.”

+

+On her way past the butler’s pantry she told them to set a samovar,

+though it was not at all the time for tea.

+

+Fóka, the butler, was the most ill-tempered person in the house.

+Natásha liked to test her power over him. He distrusted the order and

+asked whether the samovar was really wanted.

+

+“Oh dear, what a young lady!” said Fóka, pretending to frown at

+Natásha.

+

+No one in the house sent people about or gave them as much trouble as

+Natásha did. She could not see people unconcernedly, but had to send

+them on some errand. She seemed to be trying whether any of them would

+get angry or sulky with her; but the serfs fulfilled no one’s orders

+so readily as they did hers. “What can I do, where can I go?”

+thought she, as she went slowly along the passage.

+

+“Nastásya Ivánovna, what sort of children shall I have?” she asked

+the buffoon, who was coming toward her in a woman’s jacket.

+

+“Why, fleas, crickets, grasshoppers,” answered the buffoon.

+

+“O Lord, O Lord, it’s always the same! Oh, where am I to go? What

+am I to do with myself?” And tapping with her heels, she ran quickly

+upstairs to see Vogel and his wife who lived on the upper story.

+

+Two governesses were sitting with the Vogels at a table, on which were

+plates of raisins, walnuts, and almonds. The governesses were discussing

+whether it was cheaper to live in Moscow or Odessa. Natásha sat down,

+listened to their talk with a serious and thoughtful air, and then got

+up again.

+

+“The island of Madagascar,” she said, “Ma-da-gas-car,” she

+repeated, articulating each syllable distinctly, and, not replying to

+Madame Schoss who asked her what she was saying, she went out of the

+room.

+

+Her brother Pétya was upstairs too; with the man in attendance on him

+he was preparing fireworks to let off that night.

+

+“Pétya! Pétya!” she called to him. “Carry me downstairs.”

+

+Pétya ran up and offered her his back. She jumped on it, putting her

+arms round his neck, and he pranced along with her.

+

+“No, don’t... the island of Madagascar!” she said, and jumping off

+his back she went downstairs.

+

+Having as it were reviewed her kingdom, tested her power, and made

+sure that everyone was submissive, but that all the same it was dull,

+Natásha betook herself to the ballroom, picked up her guitar, sat down

+in a dark corner behind a bookcase, and began to run her fingers over

+the strings in the bass, picking out a passage she recalled from an

+opera she had heard in Petersburg with Prince Andrew. What she drew from

+the guitar would have had no meaning for other listeners, but in her

+imagination a whole series of reminiscences arose from those sounds.

+She sat behind the bookcase with her eyes fixed on a streak of light

+escaping from the pantry door and listened to herself and pondered. She

+was in a mood for brooding on the past.

+

+Sónya passed to the pantry with a glass in her hand. Natásha glanced

+at her and at the crack in the pantry door, and it seemed to her that

+she remembered the light falling through that crack once before and

+Sónya passing with a glass in her hand. “Yes it was exactly the

+same,” thought Natásha.

+

+“Sónya, what is this?” she cried, twanging a thick string.

+

+“Oh, you are there!” said Sónya with a start, and came near and

+listened. “I don’t know. A storm?” she ventured timidly, afraid of

+being wrong.

+

+“There! That’s just how she started and just how she came up smiling

+timidly when all this happened before,” thought Natásha, “and in

+just the same way I thought there was something lacking in her.”

+

+“No, it’s the chorus from The Water-Carrier, listen!” and Natásha

+sang the air of the chorus so that Sónya should catch it. “Where were

+you going?” she asked.

+

+“To change the water in this glass. I am just finishing the design.”

+

+“You always find something to do, but I can’t,” said Natásha.

+“And where’s Nicholas?”

+

+“Asleep, I think.”

+

+“Sónya, go and wake him,” said Natásha. “Tell him I want him to

+come and sing.”

+

+She sat awhile, wondering what the meaning of it all having happened

+before could be, and without solving this problem, or at all regretting

+not having done so, she again passed in fancy to the time when she was

+with him and he was looking at her with a lover’s eyes.

+

+“Oh, if only he would come quicker! I am so afraid it will never be!

+And, worst of all, I am growing old—that’s the thing! There won’t

+then be in me what there is now. But perhaps he’ll come today, will

+come immediately. Perhaps he has come and is sitting in the drawing

+room. Perhaps he came yesterday and I have forgotten it.” She rose,

+put down the guitar, and went to the drawing room.

+

+All the domestic circle, tutors, governesses, and guests, were already

+at the tea table. The servants stood round the table—but Prince Andrew

+was not there and life was going on as before.

+

+“Ah, here she is!” said the old count, when he saw Natásha enter.

+“Well, sit down by me.” But Natásha stayed by her mother and

+glanced round as if looking for something.

+

+“Mamma!” she muttered, “give him to me, give him, Mamma, quickly,

+quickly!” and she again had difficulty in repressing her sobs.

+

+She sat down at the table and listened to the conversation between the

+elders and Nicholas, who had also come to the table. “My God, my God!

+The same faces, the same talk, Papa holding his cup and blowing in the

+same way!” thought Natásha, feeling with horror a sense of repulsion

+rising up in her for the whole household, because they were always the

+same.

+

+After tea, Nicholas, Sónya, and Natásha went to the sitting room, to

+their favorite corner where their most intimate talks always began.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+“Does it ever happen to you,” said Natásha to her brother, when

+they settled down in the sitting room, “does it ever happen to you to

+feel as if there were nothing more to come—nothing; that everything

+good is past? And to feel not exactly dull, but sad?”

+

+“I should think so!” he replied. “I have felt like that when

+everything was all right and everyone was cheerful. The thought has come

+into my mind that I was already tired of it all, and that we must all

+die. Once in the regiment I had not gone to some merrymaking where there

+was music... and suddenly I felt so depressed...”

+

+“Oh yes, I know, I know, I know!” Natásha interrupted him. “When

+I was quite little that used to be so with me. Do you remember when

+I was punished once about some plums? You were all dancing, and I sat

+sobbing in the schoolroom? I shall never forget it: I felt sad and sorry

+for everyone, for myself, and for everyone. And I was innocent—that

+was the chief thing,” said Natásha. “Do you remember?”

+

+“I remember,” answered Nicholas. “I remember that I came to you

+afterwards and wanted to comfort you, but do you know, I felt ashamed

+to. We were terribly absurd. I had a funny doll then and wanted to give

+it to you. Do you remember?”

+

+“And do you remember,” Natásha asked with a pensive smile, “how

+once, long, long ago, when we were quite little, Uncle called us into

+the study—that was in the old house—and it was dark—we went in and

+suddenly there stood...”

+

+“A Negro,” chimed in Nicholas with a smile of delight. “Of course

+I remember. Even now I don’t know whether there really was a Negro, or

+if we only dreamed it or were told about him.”

+

+“He was gray, you remember, and had white teeth, and stood and looked

+at us....”

+

+“Sónya, do you remember?” asked Nicholas.

+

+“Yes, yes, I do remember something too,” Sónya answered timidly.

+

+“You know I have asked Papa and Mamma about that Negro,” said

+Natásha, “and they say there was no Negro at all. But you see, you

+remember!”

+

+“Of course I do, I remember his teeth as if I had just seen them.”

+

+“How strange it is! It’s as if it were a dream! I like that.”

+

+“And do you remember how we rolled hard-boiled eggs in the ballroom,

+and suddenly two old women began spinning round on the carpet? Was that

+real or not? Do you remember what fun it was?”

+

+“Yes, and you remember how Papa in his blue overcoat fired a gun in

+the porch?”

+

+So they went through their memories, smiling with pleasure: not the sad

+memories of old age, but poetic, youthful ones—those impressions of

+one’s most distant past in which dreams and realities blend—and they

+laughed with quiet enjoyment.

+

+Sónya, as always, did not quite keep pace with them, though they shared

+the same reminiscences.

+

+Much that they remembered had slipped from her mind, and what she

+recalled did not arouse the same poetic feeling as they experienced. She

+simply enjoyed their pleasure and tried to fit in with it.

+

+She only really took part when they recalled Sónya’s first arrival.

+She told them how afraid she had been of Nicholas because he had on a

+corded jacket and her nurse had told her that she, too, would be sewn up

+with cords.

+

+“And I remember their telling me that you had been born under a

+cabbage,” said Natásha, “and I remember that I dared not disbelieve

+it then, but knew that it was not true, and I felt so uncomfortable.”

+

+While they were talking a maid thrust her head in at the other door of

+the sitting room.

+

+“They have brought the cock, Miss,” she said in a whisper.

+

+“It isn’t wanted, Pólya. Tell them to take it away,” replied

+Natásha.

+

+In the middle of their talk in the sitting room, Dimmler came in and

+went up to the harp that stood there in a corner. He took off its cloth

+covering, and the harp gave out a jarring sound.

+

+“Mr. Dimmler, please play my favorite nocturne by Field,” came the

+old countess’ voice from the drawing room.

+

+Dimmler struck a chord and, turning to Natásha, Nicholas, and Sónya,

+remarked: “How quiet you young people are!”

+

+“Yes, we’re philosophizing,” said Natásha, glancing round for a

+moment and then continuing the conversation. They were now discussing

+dreams.

+

+Dimmler began to play; Natásha went on tiptoe noiselessly to the table,

+took up a candle, carried it out, and returned, seating herself quietly

+in her former place. It was dark in the room especially where they were

+sitting on the sofa, but through the big windows the silvery light of

+the full moon fell on the floor. Dimmler had finished the piece but

+still sat softly running his fingers over the strings, evidently

+uncertain whether to stop or to play something else.

+

+“Do you know,” said Natásha in a whisper, moving closer to Nicholas

+and Sónya, “that when one goes on and on recalling memories, one at

+last begins to remember what happened before one was in the world....”

+

+“That is metempsychosis,” said Sónya, who had always learned well,

+and remembered everything. “The Egyptians believed that our souls have

+lived in animals, and will go back into animals again.”

+

+“No, I don’t believe we ever were in animals,” said Natásha,

+still in a whisper though the music had ceased. “But I am certain that

+we were angels somewhere there, and have been here, and that is why we

+remember....”

+

+“May I join you?” said Dimmler who had come up quietly, and he sat

+down by them.

+

+“If we have been angels, why have we fallen lower?” said Nicholas.

+“No, that can’t be!”

+

+“Not lower, who said we were lower?... How do I know what I

+was before?” Natásha rejoined with conviction. “The soul is

+immortal—well then, if I shall always live I must have lived before,

+lived for a whole eternity.”

+

+“Yes, but it is hard for us to imagine eternity,” remarked Dimmler,

+who had joined the young folk with a mildly condescending smile but now

+spoke as quietly and seriously as they.

+

+“Why is it hard to imagine eternity?” said Natásha. “It is now

+today, and it will be tomorrow, and always; and there was yesterday, and

+the day before....”

+

+“Natásha! Now it’s your turn. Sing me something,” they heard the

+countess say. “Why are you sitting there like conspirators?”

+

+“Mamma, I don’t at all want to,” replied Natásha, but all the

+same she rose.

+

+None of them, not even the middle-aged Dimmler, wanted to break off

+their conversation and quit that corner in the sitting room, but

+Natásha got up and Nicholas sat down at the clavichord. Standing

+as usual in the middle of the hall and choosing the place where the

+resonance was best, Natásha began to sing her mother’s favorite song.

+

+She had said she did not want to sing, but it was long since she had

+sung, and long before she again sang, as she did that evening. The

+count, from his study where he was talking to Mítenka, heard her and,

+like a schoolboy in a hurry to run out to play, blundered in his talk

+while giving orders to the steward, and at last stopped, while Mítenka

+stood in front of him also listening and smiling. Nicholas did not take

+his eyes off his sister and drew breath in time with her. Sónya, as she

+listened, thought of the immense difference there was between herself

+and her friend, and how impossible it was for her to be anything like as

+bewitching as her cousin. The old countess sat with a blissful yet sad

+smile and with tears in her eyes, occasionally shaking her head. She

+thought of Natásha and of her own youth, and of how there was something

+unnatural and dreadful in this impending marriage of Natásha and Prince

+Andrew.

+

+Dimmler, who had seated himself beside the countess, listened with

+closed eyes.

+

+“Ah, Countess,” he said at last, “that’s a European talent, she

+has nothing to learn—what softness, tenderness, and strength....”

+

+“Ah, how afraid I am for her, how afraid I am!” said the countess,

+not realizing to whom she was speaking. Her maternal instinct told her

+that Natásha had too much of something, and that because of this

+she would not be happy. Before Natásha had finished singing,

+fourteen-year-old Pétya rushed in delightedly, to say that some mummers

+had arrived.

+

+Natásha stopped abruptly.

+

+“Idiot!” she screamed at her brother and, running to a chair, threw

+herself on it, sobbing so violently that she could not stop for a long

+time.

+

+“It’s nothing, Mamma, really it’s nothing; only Pétya startled

+me,” she said, trying to smile, but her tears still flowed and sobs

+still choked her.

+

+The mummers (some of the house serfs) dressed up as bears, Turks,

+innkeepers, and ladies—frightening and funny—bringing in with

+them the cold from outside and a feeling of gaiety, crowded, at first

+timidly, into the anteroom, then hiding behind one another they pushed

+into the ballroom where, shyly at first and then more and more merrily

+and heartily, they started singing, dancing, and playing Christmas

+games. The countess, when she had identified them and laughed at their

+costumes, went into the drawing room. The count sat in the ballroom,

+smiling radiantly and applauding the players. The young people had

+disappeared.

+

+Half an hour later there appeared among the other mummers in the

+ballroom an old lady in a hooped skirt—this was Nicholas. A Turkish

+girl was Pétya. A clown was Dimmler. An hussar was Natásha, and a

+Circassian was Sónya with burnt-cork mustache and eyebrows.

+

+After the condescending surprise, nonrecognition, and praise, from those

+who were not themselves dressed up, the young people decided that their

+costumes were so good that they ought to be shown elsewhere.

+

+Nicholas, who, as the roads were in splendid condition, wanted to take

+them all for a drive in his troyka, proposed to take with them about a

+dozen of the serf mummers and drive to “Uncle’s.”

+

+“No, why disturb the old fellow?” said the countess. “Besides,

+you wouldn’t have room to turn round there. If you must go, go to the

+Melyukóvs’.”

+

+Melyukóva was a widow, who, with her family and their tutors and

+governesses, lived three miles from the Rostóvs.

+

+“That’s right, my dear,” chimed in the old count, thoroughly

+aroused. “I’ll dress up at once and go with them. I’ll make

+Pashette open her eyes.”

+

+But the countess would not agree to his going; he had had a bad leg all

+these last days. It was decided that the count must not go, but that if

+Louisa Ivánovna (Madame Schoss) would go with them, the young ladies

+might go to the Melyukóvs’, Sónya, generally so timid and shy, more

+urgently than anyone begging Louisa Ivánovna not to refuse.

+

+Sónya’s costume was the best of all. Her mustache and eyebrows were

+extraordinarily becoming. Everyone told her she looked very handsome,

+and she was in a spirited and energetic mood unusual with her. Some

+inner voice told her that now or never her fate would be decided, and

+in her male attire she seemed quite a different person. Louisa Ivánovna

+consented to go, and in half an hour four troyka sleighs with large and

+small bells, their runners squeaking and whistling over the frozen snow,

+drove up to the porch.

+

+Natásha was foremost in setting a merry holiday tone, which, passing

+from one to another, grew stronger and reached its climax when they all

+came out into the frost and got into the sleighs, talking, calling to

+one another, laughing, and shouting.

+

+Two of the troykas were the usual household sleighs, the third was the

+old count’s with a trotter from the Orlóv stud as shaft horse,

+the fourth was Nicholas’ own with a short shaggy black shaft horse.

+Nicholas, in his old lady’s dress over which he had belted his hussar

+overcoat, stood in the middle of the sleigh, reins in hand.

+

+It was so light that he could see the moonlight reflected from the metal

+harness disks and from the eyes of the horses, who looked round in alarm

+at the noisy party under the shadow of the porch roof.

+

+Natásha, Sónya, Madame Schoss, and two maids got into Nicholas’

+sleigh; Dimmler, his wife, and Pétya, into the old count’s, and the

+rest of the mummers seated themselves in the other two sleighs.

+

+“You go ahead, Zakhár!” shouted Nicholas to his father’s

+coachman, wishing for a chance to race past him.

+

+The old count’s troyka, with Dimmler and his party, started forward,

+squeaking on its runners as though freezing to the snow, its deep-toned

+bell clanging. The side horses, pressing against the shafts of the

+middle horse, sank in the snow, which was dry and glittered like sugar,

+and threw it up.

+

+Nicholas set off, following the first sleigh; behind him the others

+moved noisily, their runners squeaking. At first they drove at a steady

+trot along the narrow road. While they drove past the garden the shadows

+of the bare trees often fell across the road and hid the brilliant

+moonlight, but as soon as they were past the fence, the snowy plain

+bathed in moonlight and motionless spread out before them glittering

+like diamonds and dappled with bluish shadows. Bang, bang! went the

+first sleigh over a cradle hole in the snow of the road, and each of

+the other sleighs jolted in the same way, and rudely breaking the

+frost-bound stillness, the troykas began to speed along the road, one

+after the other.

+

+“A hare’s track, a lot of tracks!” rang out Natásha’s voice

+through the frost-bound air.

+

+“How light it is, Nicholas!” came Sónya’s voice.

+

+Nicholas glanced round at Sónya, and bent down to see her face closer.

+Quite a new, sweet face with black eyebrows and mustaches peeped up

+at him from her sable furs—so close and yet so distant—in the

+moonlight.

+

+“That used to be Sónya,” thought he, and looked at her closer and

+smiled.

+

+“What is it, Nicholas?”

+

+“Nothing,” said he and turned again to the horses.

+

+When they came out onto the beaten highroad—polished by sleigh runners

+and cut up by rough-shod hoofs, the marks of which were visible in the

+moonlight—the horses began to tug at the reins of their own accord and

+increased their pace. The near side horse, arching his head and breaking

+into a short canter, tugged at his traces. The shaft horse swayed from

+side to side, moving his ears as if asking: “Isn’t it time to begin

+now?” In front, already far ahead the deep bell of the sleigh ringing

+farther and farther off, the black horses driven by Zakhár could be

+clearly seen against the white snow. From that sleigh one could hear the

+shouts, laughter, and voices of the mummers.

+

+“Gee up, my darlings!” shouted Nicholas, pulling the reins to one

+side and flourishing the whip.

+

+It was only by the keener wind that met them and the jerks given by the

+side horses who pulled harder—ever increasing their gallop—that

+one noticed how fast the troyka was flying. Nicholas looked back. With

+screams squeals, and waving of whips that caused even the shaft horses

+to gallop—the other sleighs followed. The shaft horse swung steadily

+beneath the bow over its head, with no thought of slackening pace and

+ready to put on speed when required.

+

+Nicholas overtook the first sleigh. They were driving downhill and

+coming out upon a broad trodden track across a meadow, near a river.

+

+“Where are we?” thought he. “It’s the Kosóy meadow, I suppose.

+But no—this is something new I’ve never seen before. This isn’t

+the Kosóy meadow nor the Dëmkin hill, and heaven only knows what it

+is! It is something new and enchanted. Well, whatever it may be...”

+And shouting to his horses, he began to pass the first sleigh.

+

+Zakhár held back his horses and turned his face, which was already

+covered with hoarfrost to his eyebrows.

+

+Nicholas gave the horses the rein, and Zakhár, stretching out his arms,

+clucked his tongue and let his horses go.

+

+“Now, look out, master!” he cried.

+

+Faster still the two troykas flew side by side, and faster moved

+the feet of the galloping side horses. Nicholas began to draw ahead.

+Zakhár, while still keeping his arms extended, raised one hand with the

+reins.

+

+“No you won’t, master!” he shouted.

+

+Nicholas put all his horses to a gallop and passed Zakhár. The horses

+showered the fine dry snow on the faces of those in the sleigh—beside

+them sounded quick ringing bells and they caught confused glimpses of

+swiftly moving legs and the shadows of the troyka they were passing.

+The whistling sound of the runners on the snow and the voices of girls

+shrieking were heard from different sides.

+

+Again checking his horses, Nicholas looked around him. They were still

+surrounded by the magic plain bathed in moonlight and spangled with

+stars.

+

+“Zakhár is shouting that I should turn to the left, but why to the

+left?” thought Nicholas. “Are we getting to the Melyukóvs’? Is

+this Melyukóvka? Heaven only knows where we are going, and heaven knows

+what is happening to us—but it is very strange and pleasant whatever

+it is.” And he looked round in the sleigh.

+

+“Look, his mustache and eyelashes are all white!” said one of the

+strange, pretty, unfamiliar people—the one with fine eyebrows and

+mustache.

+

+“I think this used to be Natásha,” thought Nicholas, “and that

+was Madame Schoss, but perhaps it’s not, and this Circassian with the

+mustache I don’t know, but I love her.”

+

+“Aren’t you cold?” he asked.

+

+They did not answer but began to laugh. Dimmler from the sleigh behind

+shouted something—probably something funny—but they could not make

+out what he said.

+

+“Yes, yes!” some voices answered, laughing.

+

+“But here was a fairy forest with black moving shadows, and a glitter

+of diamonds and a flight of marble steps and the silver roofs of fairy

+buildings and the shrill yells of some animals. And if this is really

+Melyukóvka, it is still stranger that we drove heaven knows where and

+have come to Melyukóvka,” thought Nicholas.

+

+It really was Melyukóvka, and maids and footmen with merry faces came

+running, out to the porch carrying candles.

+

+“Who is it?” asked someone in the porch.

+

+“The mummers from the count’s. I know by the horses,” replied some

+voices.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+Pelagéya Danílovna Melyukóva, a broadly built, energetic woman

+wearing spectacles, sat in the drawing room in a loose dress, surrounded

+by her daughters whom she was trying to keep from feeling dull. They

+were quietly dropping melted wax into snow and looking at the shadows

+the wax figures would throw on the wall, when they heard the steps and

+voices of new arrivals in the vestibule.

+

+Hussars, ladies, witches, clowns, and bears, after clearing their

+throats and wiping the hoarfrost from their faces in the vestibule,

+came into the ballroom where candles were hurriedly lighted. The

+clown—Dimmler—and the lady—Nicholas—started a dance. Surrounded

+by the screaming children the mummers, covering their faces and

+disguising their voices, bowed to their hostess and arranged themselves

+about the room.

+

+“Dear me! there’s no recognizing them! And Natásha! See whom

+she looks like! She really reminds me of somebody. But Herr

+Dimmler—isn’t he good! I didn’t know him! And how he dances. Dear

+me, there’s a Circassian. Really, how becoming it is to dear Sónya.

+And who is that? Well, you have cheered us up! Nikíta and Vanya—clear

+away the tables! And we were sitting so quietly. Ha, ha, ha!... The

+hussar, the hussar! Just like a boy! And the legs!... I can’t look at

+him...” different voices were saying.

+

+Natásha, the young Melyukóvs’ favorite, disappeared with them into

+the back rooms where a cork and various dressing gowns and male garments

+were called for and received from the footman by bare girlish arms from

+behind the door. Ten minutes later, all the young Melyukóvs joined the

+mummers.

+

+Pelagéya Danílovna, having given orders to clear the rooms for the

+visitors and arranged about refreshments for the gentry and the serfs,

+went about among the mummers without removing her spectacles, peering

+into their faces with a suppressed smile and failing to recognize any

+of them. It was not merely Dimmler and the Rostóvs she failed to

+recognize, she did not even recognize her own daughters, or her late

+husband’s, dressing gowns and uniforms, which they had put on.

+

+“And who is this?” she asked her governess, peering into the face of

+her own daughter dressed up as a Kazán-Tartar. “I suppose it is one

+of the Rostóvs! Well, Mr. Hussar, and what regiment do you serve in?”

+she asked Natásha. “Here, hand some fruit jelly to the Turk!”

+she ordered the butler who was handing things round. “That’s not

+forbidden by his law.”

+

+Sometimes, as she looked at the strange but amusing capers cut by the

+dancers, who—having decided once for all that being disguised, no one

+would recognize them—were not at all shy, Pelagéya Danílovna hid

+her face in her handkerchief, and her whole stout body shook with

+irrepressible, kindly, elderly laughter.

+

+“My little Sásha! Look at Sásha!” she said.

+

+After Russian country dances and chorus dances, Pelagéya Danílovna

+made the serfs and gentry join in one large circle: a ring, a string,

+and a silver ruble were fetched and they all played games together.

+

+In an hour, all the costumes were crumpled and disordered. The corked

+eyebrows and mustaches were smeared over the perspiring, flushed,

+and merry faces. Pelagéya Danílovna began to recognize the mummers,

+admired their cleverly contrived costumes, and particularly how they

+suited the young ladies, and she thanked them all for having entertained

+her so well. The visitors were invited to supper in the drawing room,

+and the serfs had something served to them in the ballroom.

+

+“Now to tell one’s fortune in the empty bathhouse is frightening!”

+said an old maid who lived with the Melyukóvs, during supper.

+

+“Why?” said the eldest Melyukóv girl.

+

+“You wouldn’t go, it takes courage....”

+

+“I’ll go,” said Sónya.

+

+“Tell what happened to the young lady!” said the second Melyukóv

+girl.

+

+“Well,” began the old maid, “a young lady once went out, took a

+cock, laid the table for two, all properly, and sat down. After sitting

+a while, she suddenly hears someone coming... a sleigh drives up with

+harness bells; she hears him coming! He comes in, just in the shape of a

+man, like an officer—comes in and sits down to table with her.”

+

+“Ah! ah!” screamed Natásha, rolling her eyes with horror.

+

+“Yes? And how... did he speak?”

+

+“Yes, like a man. Everything quite all right, and he began persuading

+her; and she should have kept him talking till cockcrow, but she got

+frightened, just got frightened and hid her face in her hands. Then he

+caught her up. It was lucky the maids ran in just then....”

+

+“Now, why frighten them?” said Pelagéya Danílovna.

+

+“Mamma, you used to try your fate yourself...” said her daughter.

+

+“And how does one do it in a barn?” inquired Sónya.

+

+“Well, say you went to the barn now, and listened. It depends on what

+you hear; hammering and knocking—that’s bad; but a sound of shifting

+grain is good and one sometimes hears that, too.”

+

+“Mamma, tell us what happened to you in the barn.”

+

+Pelagéya Danílovna smiled.

+

+“Oh, I’ve forgotten...” she replied. “But none of you would

+go?”

+

+“Yes, I will; Pelagéya Danílovna, let me! I’ll go,” said Sónya.

+

+“Well, why not, if you’re not afraid?”

+

+“Louisa Ivánovna, may I?” asked Sónya.

+

+Whether they were playing the ring and string game or the ruble game or

+talking as now, Nicholas did not leave Sónya’s side, and gazed at her

+with quite new eyes. It seemed to him that it was only today, thanks

+to that burnt-cork mustache, that he had fully learned to know her. And

+really, that evening, Sónya was brighter, more animated, and prettier

+than Nicholas had ever seen her before.

+

+“So that’s what she is like; what a fool I have been!” he thought

+gazing at her sparkling eyes, and under the mustache a happy rapturous

+smile dimpled her cheeks, a smile he had never seen before.

+

+“I’m not afraid of anything,” said Sónya. “May I go at once?”

+She got up.

+

+They told her where the barn was and how she should stand and listen,

+and they handed her a fur cloak. She threw this over her head and

+shoulders and glanced at Nicholas.

+

+“What a darling that girl is!” thought he. “And what have I been

+thinking of till now?”

+

+Sónya went out into the passage to go to the barn. Nicholas went

+hastily to the front porch, saying he felt too hot. The crowd of people

+really had made the house stuffy.

+

+Outside, there was the same cold stillness and the same moon, but even

+brighter than before. The light was so strong and the snow sparkled with

+so many stars that one did not wish to look up at the sky and the real

+stars were unnoticed. The sky was black and dreary, while the earth was

+gay.

+

+“I am a fool, a fool! what have I been waiting for?” thought

+Nicholas, and running out from the porch he went round the corner of

+the house and along the path that led to the back porch. He knew Sónya

+would pass that way. Halfway lay some snow-covered piles of firewood and

+across and along them a network of shadows from the bare old lime trees

+fell on the snow and on the path. This path led to the barn. The log

+walls of the barn and its snow-covered roof, that looked as if hewn out

+of some precious stone, sparkled in the moonlight. A tree in the garden

+snapped with the frost, and then all was again perfectly silent. His

+bosom seemed to inhale not air but the strength of eternal youth and

+gladness.

+

+From the back porch came the sound of feet descending the steps, the

+bottom step upon which snow had fallen gave a ringing creak and he heard

+the voice of an old maidservant saying, “Straight, straight, along the

+path, Miss. Only, don’t look back.”

+

+“I am not afraid,” answered Sónya’s voice, and along the path

+toward Nicholas came the crunching, whistling sound of Sónya’s feet

+in her thin shoes.

+

+Sónya came along, wrapped in her cloak. She was only a couple of paces

+away when she saw him, and to her too he was not the Nicholas she had

+known and always slightly feared. He was in a woman’s dress, with

+tousled hair and a happy smile new to Sónya. She ran rapidly toward

+him.

+

+“Quite different and yet the same,” thought Nicholas, looking at her

+face all lit up by the moonlight. He slipped his arms under the cloak

+that covered her head, embraced her, pressed her to him, and kissed her

+on the lips that wore a mustache and had a smell of burnt cork. Sónya

+kissed him full on the lips, and disengaging her little hands pressed

+them to his cheeks.

+

+“Sónya!... Nicholas!”... was all they said. They ran to the barn

+and then back again, re-entering, he by the front and she by the back

+porch.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+When they all drove back from Pelagéya Danílovna’s, Natásha, who

+always saw and noticed everything, arranged that she and Madame Schoss

+should go back in the sleigh with Dimmler, and Sónya with Nicholas and

+the maids.

+

+On the way back Nicholas drove at a steady pace instead of racing and

+kept peering by that fantastic all-transforming light into Sónya’s

+face and searching beneath the eyebrows and mustache for his former and

+his present Sónya from whom he had resolved never to be parted again.

+He looked and recognizing in her both the old and the new Sónya, and

+being reminded by the smell of burnt cork of the sensation of her kiss,

+inhaled the frosty air with a full breast and, looking at the ground

+flying beneath him and at the sparkling sky, felt himself again in

+fairyland.

+

+“Sónya, is it well with thee?” he asked from time to time.

+

+“Yes!” she replied. “And with thee?”

+

+When halfway home Nicholas handed the reins to the coachman and ran for

+a moment to Natásha’s sleigh and stood on its wing.

+

+“Natásha!” he whispered in French, “do you know I have made up my

+mind about Sónya?”

+

+“Have you told her?” asked Natásha, suddenly beaming all over with

+joy.

+

+“Oh, how strange you are with that mustache and those eyebrows!...

+Natásha—are you glad?”

+

+“I am so glad, so glad! I was beginning to be vexed with you. I did

+not tell you, but you have been treating her badly. What a heart she

+has, Nicholas! I am horrid sometimes, but I was ashamed to be happy

+while Sónya was not,” continued Natásha. “Now I am so glad! Well,

+run back to her.”

+

+“No, wait a bit.... Oh, how funny you look!” cried Nicholas, peering

+into her face and finding in his sister too something new, unusual, and

+bewitchingly tender that he had not seen in her before. “Natásha,

+it’s magical, isn’t it?”

+

+“Yes,” she replied. “You have done splendidly.”

+

+“Had I seen her before as she is now,” thought Nicholas, “I should

+long ago have asked her what to do and have done whatever she told me,

+and all would have been well.”

+

+“So you are glad and I have done right?”

+

+“Oh, quite right! I had a quarrel with Mamma some time ago about it.

+Mamma said she was angling for you. How could she say such a thing! I

+nearly stormed at Mamma. I will never let anyone say anything bad of

+Sónya, for there is nothing but good in her.”

+

+“Then it’s all right?” said Nicholas, again scrutinizing the

+expression of his sister’s face to see if she was in earnest. Then he

+jumped down and, his boots scrunching the snow, ran back to his sleigh.

+The same happy, smiling Circassian, with mustache and beaming eyes

+looking up from under a sable hood, was still sitting there, and that

+Circassian was Sónya, and that Sónya was certainly his future happy

+and loving wife.

+

+When they reached home and had told their mother how they had spent the

+evening at the Melyukóvs’, the girls went to their bedroom. When they

+had undressed, but without washing off the cork mustaches, they sat a

+long time talking of their happiness. They talked of how they would live

+when they were married, how their husbands would be friends, and how

+happy they would be. On Natásha’s table stood two looking glasses

+which Dunyásha had prepared beforehand.

+

+“Only when will all that be? I am afraid never.... It would be too

+good!” said Natásha, rising and going to the looking glasses.

+

+“Sit down, Natásha; perhaps you’ll see him,” said Sónya.

+

+Natásha lit the candles, one on each side of one of the looking

+glasses, and sat down.

+

+“I see someone with a mustache,” said Natásha, seeing her own face.

+

+“You mustn’t laugh, Miss,” said Dunyásha.

+

+With Sónya’s help and the maid’s, Natásha got the glass she held

+into the right position opposite the other; her face assumed a serious

+expression and she sat silent. She sat a long time looking at the

+receding line of candles reflected in the glasses and expecting (from

+tales she had heard) to see a coffin, or him, Prince Andrew, in that

+last dim, indistinctly outlined square. But ready as she was to take the

+smallest speck for the image of a man or of a coffin, she saw nothing.

+She began blinking rapidly and moved away from the looking glasses.

+

+“Why is it others see things and I don’t?” she said. “You sit

+down now, Sónya. You absolutely must, tonight! Do it for me.... Today I

+feel so frightened!”

+

+Sónya sat down before the glasses, got the right position, and began

+looking.

+

+“Now, Miss Sónya is sure to see something,” whispered Dunyásha;

+“while you do nothing but laugh.”

+

+Sónya heard this and Natásha’s whisper:

+

+“I know she will. She saw something last year.”

+

+For about three minutes all were silent.

+

+“Of course she will!” whispered Natásha, but did not finish...

+suddenly Sónya pushed away the glass she was holding and covered her

+eyes with her hand.

+

+“Oh, Natásha!” she cried.

+

+“Did you see? Did you? What was it?” exclaimed Natásha, holding up

+the looking glass.

+

+Sónya had not seen anything, she was just wanting to blink and to get

+up when she heard Natásha say, “Of course she will!” She did not

+wish to disappoint either Dunyásha or Natásha, but it was hard to sit

+still. She did not herself know how or why the exclamation escaped her

+when she covered her eyes.

+

+“You saw him?” urged Natásha, seizing her hand.

+

+“Yes. Wait a bit... I... saw him,” Sónya could not help saying, not

+yet knowing whom Natásha meant by him, Nicholas or Prince Andrew.

+

+“But why shouldn’t I say I saw something? Others do see! Besides who

+can tell whether I saw anything or not?” flashed through Sónya’s

+mind.

+

+“Yes, I saw him,” she said.

+

+“How? Standing or lying?”

+

+“No, I saw... At first there was nothing, then I saw him lying

+down.”

+

+“Andrew lying? Is he ill?” asked Natásha, her frightened eyes fixed

+on her friend.

+

+“No, on the contrary, on the contrary! His face was cheerful, and he

+turned to me.” And when saying this she herself fancied she had really

+seen what she described.

+

+“Well, and then, Sónya?...”

+

+“After that, I could not make out what there was; something blue and

+red....”

+

+“Sónya! When will he come back? When shall I see him! O, God, how

+afraid I am for him and for myself and about everything!...” Natásha

+began, and without replying to Sónya’s words of comfort she got into

+bed, and long after her candle was out lay open-eyed and motionless,

+gazing at the moonlight through the frosty windowpanes.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+Soon after the Christmas holidays Nicholas told his mother of his love

+for Sónya and of his firm resolve to marry her. The countess, who

+had long noticed what was going on between them and was expecting this

+declaration, listened to him in silence and then told her son that he

+might marry whom he pleased, but that neither she nor his father would

+give their blessing to such a marriage. Nicholas, for the first time,

+felt that his mother was displeased with him and that, despite her love

+for him, she would not give way. Coldly, without looking at her son,

+she sent for her husband and, when he came, tried briefly and coldly to

+inform him of the facts, in her son’s presence, but unable to restrain

+herself she burst into tears of vexation and left the room. The old

+count began irresolutely to admonish Nicholas and beg him to abandon his

+purpose. Nicholas replied that he could not go back on his word, and his

+father, sighing and evidently disconcerted, very soon became silent and

+went in to the countess. In all his encounters with his son, the count

+was always conscious of his own guilt toward him for having wasted the

+family fortune, and so he could not be angry with him for refusing to

+marry an heiress and choosing the dowerless Sónya. On this occasion, he

+was only more vividly conscious of the fact that if his affairs had not

+been in disorder, no better wife for Nicholas than Sónya could have

+been wished for, and that no one but himself with his Mítenka and

+his uncomfortable habits was to blame for the condition of the family

+finances.

+

+The father and mother did not speak of the matter to their son again,

+but a few days later the countess sent for Sónya and, with a cruelty

+neither of them expected, reproached her niece for trying to catch

+Nicholas and for ingratitude. Sónya listened silently with downcast

+eyes to the countess’ cruel words, without understanding what

+was required of her. She was ready to sacrifice everything for her

+benefactors. Self-sacrifice was her most cherished idea but in this case

+she could not see what she ought to sacrifice, or for whom. She could

+not help loving the countess and the whole Rostóv family, but neither

+could she help loving Nicholas and knowing that his happiness depended

+on that love. She was silent and sad and did not reply. Nicholas felt

+the situation to be intolerable and went to have an explanation with his

+mother. He first implored her to forgive him and Sónya and consent to

+their marriage, then he threatened that if she molested Sónya he would

+at once marry her secretly.

+

+The countess, with a coldness her son had never seen in her before,

+replied that he was of age, that Prince Andrew was marrying without his

+father’s consent, and he could do the same, but that she would never

+receive that intriguer as her daughter.

+

+Exploding at the word intriguer, Nicholas, raising his voice, told

+his mother he had never expected her to try to force him to sell his

+feelings, but if that were so, he would say for the last time.... But he

+had no time to utter the decisive word which the expression of his face

+caused his mother to await with terror, and which would perhaps have

+forever remained a cruel memory to them both. He had not time to say it,

+for Natásha, with a pale and set face, entered the room from the door

+at which she had been listening.

+

+“Nicholas, you are talking nonsense! Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, I

+tell you!...” she almost screamed, so as to drown his voice.

+

+“Mamma darling, it’s not at all so... my poor, sweet darling,” she

+said to her mother, who conscious that they had been on the brink of

+a rupture gazed at her son with terror, but in the obstinacy and

+excitement of the conflict could not and would not give way.

+

+“Nicholas, I’ll explain to you. Go away! Listen, Mamma darling,”

+said Natásha.

+

+Her words were incoherent, but they attained the purpose at which she

+was aiming.

+

+The countess, sobbing heavily, hid her face on her daughter’s breast,

+while Nicholas rose, clutching his head, and left the room.

+

+Natásha set to work to effect a reconciliation, and so far succeeded

+that Nicholas received a promise from his mother that Sónya should not

+be troubled, while he on his side promised not to undertake anything

+without his parents’ knowledge.

+

+Firmly resolved, after putting his affairs in order in the regiment,

+to retire from the army and return and marry Sónya, Nicholas, serious,

+sorrowful, and at variance with his parents, but, as it seemed to him,

+passionately in love, left at the beginning of January to rejoin his

+regiment.

+

+After Nicholas had gone things in the Rostóv household were more

+depressing than ever, and the countess fell ill from mental agitation.

+

+Sónya was unhappy at the separation from Nicholas and still more so on

+account of the hostile tone the countess could not help adopting toward

+her. The count was more perturbed than ever by the condition of his

+affairs, which called for some decisive action. Their town house and

+estate near Moscow had inevitably to be sold, and for this they had to

+go to Moscow. But the countess’ health obliged them to delay their

+departure from day to day.

+

+Natásha, who had borne the first period of separation from her

+betrothed lightly and even cheerfully, now grew more agitated and

+impatient every day. The thought that her best days, which she would

+have employed in loving him, were being vainly wasted, with no advantage

+to anyone, tormented her incessantly. His letters for the most part

+irritated her. It hurt her to think that while she lived only in the

+thought of him, he was living a real life, seeing new places and new

+people that interested him. The more interesting his letters were

+the more vexed she felt. Her letters to him, far from giving her any

+comfort, seemed to her a wearisome and artificial obligation. She could

+not write, because she could not conceive the possibility of expressing

+sincerely in a letter even a thousandth part of what she expressed by

+voice, smile, and glance. She wrote to him formal, monotonous, and dry

+letters, to which she attached no importance herself, and in the rough

+copies of which the countess corrected her mistakes in spelling.

+

+There was still no improvement in the countess’ health, but it was

+impossible to defer the journey to Moscow any longer. Natásha’s

+trousseau had to be ordered and the house sold. Moreover, Prince Andrew

+was expected in Moscow, where old Prince Bolkónski was spending the

+winter, and Natásha felt sure he had already arrived.

+

+So the countess remained in the country, and the count, taking Sónya

+and Natásha with him, went to Moscow at the end of January.

+

+

+

+

+

+BOOK EIGHT: 1811 - 12

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+After Prince Andrew’s engagement to Natásha, Pierre without any

+apparent cause suddenly felt it impossible to go on living as before.

+Firmly convinced as he was of the truths revealed to him by his

+benefactor, and happy as he had been in perfecting his inner man, to

+which he had devoted himself with such ardor—all the zest of such a

+life vanished after the engagement of Andrew and Natásha and the death

+of Joseph Alexéevich, the news of which reached him almost at the same

+time. Only the skeleton of life remained: his house, a brilliant wife

+who now enjoyed the favors of a very important personage, acquaintance

+with all Petersburg, and his court service with its dull formalities.

+And this life suddenly seemed to Pierre unexpectedly loathsome. He

+ceased keeping a diary, avoided the company of the Brothers, began going

+to the club again, drank a great deal, and came once more in touch

+with the bachelor sets, leading such a life that the Countess Hélène

+thought it necessary to speak severely to him about it. Pierre felt that

+she was right, and to avoid compromising her went away to Moscow.

+

+In Moscow as soon as he entered his huge house in which the faded and

+fading princesses still lived, with its enormous retinue; as soon as,

+driving through the town, he saw the Iberian shrine with innumerable

+tapers burning before the golden covers of the icons, the Krémlin

+Square with its snow undisturbed by vehicles, the sleigh drivers and

+hovels of the Sívtsev Vrazhók, those old Moscovites who desired

+nothing, hurried nowhere, and were ending their days leisurely; when he

+saw those old Moscow ladies, the Moscow balls, and the English Club, he

+felt himself at home in a quiet haven. In Moscow he felt at peace, at

+home, warm and dirty as in an old dressing gown.

+

+Moscow society, from the old women down to the children, received Pierre

+like a long-expected guest whose place was always ready awaiting him.

+For Moscow society Pierre was the nicest, kindest, most intellectual,

+merriest, and most magnanimous of cranks, a heedless, genial nobleman of

+the old Russian type. His purse was always empty because it was open to

+everyone.

+

+Benefit performances, poor pictures, statues, benevolent societies,

+gypsy choirs, schools, subscription dinners, sprees, Freemasons,

+churches, and books—no one and nothing met with a refusal from him,

+and had it not been for two friends who had borrowed large sums from

+him and taken him under their protection, he would have given everything

+away. There was never a dinner or soiree at the club without him. As

+soon as he sank into his place on the sofa after two bottles of Margaux

+he was surrounded, and talking, disputing, and joking began. When there

+were quarrels, his kindly smile and well-timed jests reconciled the

+antagonists. The Masonic dinners were dull and dreary when he was not

+there.

+

+When after a bachelor supper he rose with his amiable and kindly smile,

+yielding to the entreaties of the festive company to drive off somewhere

+with them, shouts of delight and triumph arose among the young men.

+At balls he danced if a partner was needed. Young ladies, married and

+unmarried, liked him because without making love to any of them, he was

+equally amiable to all, especially after supper. “Il est charmant; il

+n’a pas de sexe,” * they said of him.

+

+    * “He is charming; he has no sex.”

+

+

+Pierre was one of those retired gentlemen-in-waiting of whom there were

+hundreds good-humoredly ending their days in Moscow.

+

+How horrified he would have been seven years before, when he first

+arrived from abroad, had he been told that there was no need for him

+to seek or plan anything, that his rut had long been shaped, eternally

+predetermined, and that wriggle as he might, he would be what all in

+his position were. He could not have believed it! Had he not at one

+time longed with all his heart to establish a republic in Russia;

+then himself to be a Napoleon; then to be a philosopher; and then

+a strategist and the conqueror of Napoleon? Had he not seen the

+possibility of, and passionately desired, the regeneration of the sinful

+human race, and his own progress to the highest degree of perfection?

+Had he not established schools and hospitals and liberated his serfs?

+

+But instead of all that—here he was, the wealthy husband of an

+unfaithful wife, a retired gentleman-in-waiting, fond of eating and

+drinking and, as he unbuttoned his waistcoat, of abusing the government

+a bit, a member of the Moscow English Club, and a universal favorite in

+Moscow society. For a long time he could not reconcile himself to the

+idea that he was one of those same retired Moscow gentlemen-in-waiting

+he had so despised seven years before.

+

+Sometimes he consoled himself with the thought that he was only living

+this life temporarily; but then he was shocked by the thought of how

+many, like himself, had entered that life and that club temporarily,

+with all their teeth and hair, and had only left it when not a single

+tooth or hair remained.

+

+In moments of pride, when he thought of his position it seemed to

+him that he was quite different and distinct from those other retired

+gentlemen-in-waiting he had formerly despised: they were empty, stupid,

+contented fellows, satisfied with their position, “while I am still

+discontented and want to do something for mankind. But perhaps all these

+comrades of mine struggled just like me and sought something new, a

+path in life of their own, and like me were brought by force of

+circumstances, society, and race—by that elemental force against which

+man is powerless—to the condition I am in,” said he to himself in

+moments of humility; and after living some time in Moscow he no longer

+despised, but began to grow fond of, to respect, and to pity his

+comrades in destiny, as he pitied himself.

+

+Pierre no longer suffered moments of despair, hypochondria, and disgust

+with life, but the malady that had formerly found expression in such

+acute attacks was driven inwards and never left him for a moment.

+“What for? Why? What is going on in the world?” he would ask himself

+in perplexity several times a day, involuntarily beginning to reflect

+anew on the meaning of the phenomena of life; but knowing by experience

+that there were no answers to these questions he made haste to turn away

+from them, and took up a book, or hurried off to the club or to Apollón

+Nikoláevich’s, to exchange the gossip of the town.

+

+“Hélène, who has never cared for anything but her own body and

+is one of the stupidest women in the world,” thought Pierre, “is

+regarded by people as the acme of intelligence and refinement, and they

+pay homage to her. Napoleon Bonaparte was despised by all as long as he

+was great, but now that he has become a wretched comedian the Emperor

+Francis wants to offer him his daughter in an illegal marriage. The

+Spaniards, through the Catholic clergy, offer praise to God for their

+victory over the French on the fourteenth of June, and the French,

+also through the Catholic clergy, offer praise because on that same

+fourteenth of June they defeated the Spaniards. My brother Masons swear

+by the blood that they are ready to sacrifice everything for their

+neighbor, but they do not give a ruble each to the collections for the

+poor, and they intrigue, the Astraea Lodge against the Manna Seekers,

+and fuss about an authentic Scotch carpet and a charter that nobody

+needs, and the meaning of which the very man who wrote it does not

+understand. We all profess the Christian law of forgiveness of injuries

+and love of our neighbors, the law in honor of which we have built in

+Moscow forty times forty churches—but yesterday a deserter was knouted

+to death and a minister of that same law of love and forgiveness, a

+priest, gave the soldier a cross to kiss before his execution.” So

+thought Pierre, and the whole of this general deception which everyone

+accepts, accustomed as he was to it, astonished him each time as if it

+were something new. “I understand the deception and confusion,” he

+thought, “but how am I to tell them all that I see? I have tried, and

+have always found that they too in the depths of their souls understand

+it as I do, and only try not to see it. So it appears that it must

+be so! But I—what is to become of me?” thought he. He had the

+unfortunate capacity many men, especially Russians, have of seeing and

+believing in the possibility of goodness and truth, but of seeing the

+evil and falsehood of life too clearly to be able to take a serious part

+in it. Every sphere of work was connected, in his eyes, with evil and

+deception. Whatever he tried to be, whatever he engaged in, the evil and

+falsehood of it repulsed him and blocked every path of activity. Yet he

+had to live and to find occupation. It was too dreadful to be under

+the burden of these insoluble problems, so he abandoned himself to

+any distraction in order to forget them. He frequented every kind of

+society, drank much, bought pictures, engaged in building, and above

+all—read.

+

+He read, and read everything that came to hand. On coming home, while

+his valets were still taking off his things, he picked up a book and

+began to read. From reading he passed to sleeping, from sleeping to

+gossip in drawing rooms of the club, from gossip to carousals and women;

+from carousals back to gossip, reading, and wine. Drinking became more

+and more a physical and also a moral necessity. Though the doctors

+warned him that with his corpulence wine was dangerous for him, he

+drank a great deal. He was only quite at ease when having poured several

+glasses of wine mechanically into his large mouth he felt a pleasant

+warmth in his body, an amiability toward all his fellows, and a

+readiness to respond superficially to every idea without probing it

+deeply. Only after emptying a bottle or two did he feel dimly that the

+terribly tangled skein of life which previously had terrified him was

+not as dreadful as he had thought. He was always conscious of some

+aspect of that skein, as with a buzzing in his head after dinner or

+supper he chatted or listened to conversation or read. But under the

+influence of wine he said to himself: “It doesn’t matter. I’ll

+get it unraveled. I have a solution ready, but have no time now—I’ll

+think it all out later on!” But the later on never came.

+

+In the morning, on an empty stomach, all the old questions appeared as

+insoluble and terrible as ever, and Pierre hastily picked up a book, and

+if anyone came to see him he was glad.

+

+Sometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war when

+entrenched under the enemy’s fire, if they have nothing to do, try

+hard to find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. To

+Pierre all men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life:

+some in ambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women,

+some in toys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some

+in wine, and some in governmental affairs. “Nothing is trivial, and

+nothing is important, it’s all the same—only to save oneself from it

+as best one can,” thought Pierre. “Only not to see it, that dreadful

+it!”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+At the beginning of winter Prince Nicholas Bolkónski and his daughter

+moved to Moscow. At that time enthusiasm for the Emperor Alexander’s

+regime had weakened and a patriotic and anti-French tendency prevailed

+there, and this, together with his past and his intellect and his

+originality, at once made Prince Nicholas Bolkónski an object of

+particular respect to the Moscovites and the center of the Moscow

+opposition to the government.

+

+The prince had aged very much that year. He showed marked signs of

+senility by a tendency to fall asleep, forgetfulness of quite recent

+events, remembrance of remote ones, and the childish vanity with which

+he accepted the role of head of the Moscow opposition. In spite of this

+the old man inspired in all his visitors alike a feeling of respectful

+veneration—especially of an evening when he came in to tea in his

+old-fashioned coat and powdered wig and, aroused by anyone, told his

+abrupt stories of the past, or uttered yet more abrupt and scathing

+criticisms of the present. For them all, that old-fashioned house with

+its gigantic mirrors, pre-Revolution furniture, powdered footmen, and

+the stern shrewd old man (himself a relic of the past century) with his

+gentle daughter and the pretty Frenchwoman who were reverently devoted

+to him presented a majestic and agreeable spectacle. But the visitors

+did not reflect that besides the couple of hours during which they saw

+their host, there were also twenty-two hours in the day during which the

+private and intimate life of the house continued.

+

+Latterly that private life had become very trying for Princess Mary.

+There in Moscow she was deprived of her greatest pleasures—talks with

+the pilgrims and the solitude which refreshed her at Bald Hills—and

+she had none of the advantages and pleasures of city life. She did not

+go out into society; everyone knew that her father would not let her

+go anywhere without him, and his failing health prevented his going out

+himself, so that she was not invited to dinners and evening parties. She

+had quite abandoned the hope of getting married. She saw the coldness

+and malevolence with which the old prince received and dismissed the

+young men, possible suitors, who sometimes appeared at their house. She

+had no friends: during this visit to Moscow she had been disappointed in

+the two who had been nearest to her. Mademoiselle Bourienne, with whom

+she had never been able to be quite frank, had now become unpleasant to

+her, and for various reasons Princess Mary avoided her. Julie, with whom

+she had corresponded for the last five years, was in Moscow, but proved

+to be quite alien to her when they met. Just then Julie, who by the

+death of her brothers had become one of the richest heiresses in Moscow,

+was in the full whirl of society pleasures. She was surrounded by young

+men who, she fancied, had suddenly learned to appreciate her worth.

+Julie was at that stage in the life of a society woman when she feels

+that her last chance of marrying has come and that her fate must be

+decided now or never. On Thursdays Princess Mary remembered with a

+mournful smile that she now had no one to write to, since Julie—whose

+presence gave her no pleasure was here and they met every week. Like the

+old émigré who declined to marry the lady with whom he had spent his

+evenings for years, she regretted Julie’s presence and having no one

+to write to. In Moscow Princess Mary had no one to talk to, no one to

+whom to confide her sorrow, and much sorrow fell to her lot just then.

+The time for Prince Andrew’s return and marriage was approaching, but

+his request to her to prepare his father for it had not been carried

+out; in fact, it seemed as if matters were quite hopeless, for at every

+mention of the young Countess Rostóva the old prince (who apart from

+that was usually in a bad temper) lost control of himself. Another

+lately added sorrow arose from the lessons she gave her six year-old

+nephew. To her consternation she detected in herself in relation to

+little Nicholas some symptoms of her father’s irritability. However

+often she told herself that she must not get irritable when teaching her

+nephew, almost every time that, pointer in hand, she sat down to show

+him the French alphabet, she so longed to pour her own knowledge quickly

+and easily into the child—who was already afraid that Auntie might at

+any moment get angry—that at his slightest inattention she trembled,

+became flustered and heated, raised her voice, and sometimes pulled him

+by the arm and put him in the corner. Having put him in the corner

+she would herself begin to cry over her cruel, evil nature, and little

+Nicholas, following her example, would sob, and without permission would

+leave his corner, come to her, pull her wet hands from her face, and

+comfort her. But what distressed the princess most of all was her

+father’s irritability, which was always directed against her and had

+of late amounted to cruelty. Had he forced her to prostrate herself to

+the ground all night, had he beaten her or made her fetch wood or water,

+it would never have entered her mind to think her position hard; but

+this loving despot—the more cruel because he loved her and for that

+reason tormented himself and her—knew how not merely to hurt and

+humiliate her deliberately, but to show her that she was always to blame

+for everything. Of late he had exhibited a new trait that tormented

+Princess Mary more than anything else; this was his ever-increasing

+intimacy with Mademoiselle Bourienne. The idea that at the first moment

+of receiving the news of his son’s intentions had occurred to him in

+jest—that if Andrew got married he himself would marry Bourienne—had

+evidently pleased him, and latterly he had persistently, and as it

+seemed to Princess Mary merely to offend her, shown special endearments

+to the companion and expressed his dissatisfaction with his daughter by

+demonstrations of love of Bourienne.

+

+One day in Moscow in Princess Mary’s presence (she thought her father

+did it purposely when she was there) the old prince kissed Mademoiselle

+Bourienne’s hand and, drawing her to him, embraced her affectionately.

+Princess Mary flushed and ran out of the room. A few minutes later

+Mademoiselle Bourienne came into Princess Mary’s room smiling and

+making cheerful remarks in her agreeable voice. Princess Mary hastily

+wiped away her tears, went resolutely up to Mademoiselle Bourienne,

+and evidently unconscious of what she was doing began shouting in angry

+haste at the Frenchwoman, her voice breaking: “It’s horrible, vile,

+inhuman, to take advantage of the weakness...” She did not finish.

+“Leave my room,” she exclaimed, and burst into sobs.

+

+Next day the prince did not say a word to his daughter, but she noticed

+that at dinner he gave orders that Mademoiselle Bourienne should be

+served first. After dinner, when the footman handed coffee and from

+habit began with the princess, the prince suddenly grew furious,

+threw his stick at Philip, and instantly gave instructions to have him

+conscripted for the army.

+

+“He doesn’t obey... I said it twice... and he doesn’t obey! She

+is the first person in this house; she’s my best friend,” cried

+the prince. “And if you allow yourself,” he screamed in a fury,

+addressing Princess Mary for the first time, “to forget yourself again

+before her as you dared to do yesterday, I will show you who is master

+in this house. Go! Don’t let me set eyes on you; beg her pardon!”

+

+Princess Mary asked Mademoiselle Bourienne’s pardon, and also her

+father’s pardon for herself and for Philip the footman, who had begged

+for her intervention.

+

+At such moments something like a pride of sacrifice gathered in her

+soul. And suddenly that father whom she had judged would look for his

+spectacles in her presence, fumbling near them and not seeing them, or

+would forget something that had just occurred, or take a false step with

+his failing legs and turn to see if anyone had noticed his feebleness,

+or, worst of all, at dinner when there were no visitors to excite him

+would suddenly fall asleep, letting his napkin drop and his shaking

+head sink over his plate. “He is old and feeble, and I dare to condemn

+him!” she thought at such moments, with a feeling of revulsion against

+herself.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+In 1811 there was living in Moscow a French doctor—Métivier—who had

+rapidly become the fashion. He was enormously tall, handsome, amiable

+as Frenchmen are, and was, as all Moscow said, an extraordinarily clever

+doctor. He was received in the best houses not merely as a doctor, but

+as an equal.

+

+Prince Nicholas had always ridiculed medicine, but latterly on

+Mademoiselle Bourienne’s advice had allowed this doctor to visit him

+and had grown accustomed to him. Métivier came to see the prince about

+twice a week.

+

+On December 6—St. Nicholas’ Day and the prince’s name day—all

+Moscow came to the prince’s front door but he gave orders to admit no

+one and to invite to dinner only a small number, a list of whom he gave

+to Princess Mary.

+

+Métivier, who came in the morning with his felicitations, considered

+it proper in his quality of doctor de forcer la consigne, * as he told

+Princess Mary, and went in to see the prince. It happened that on that

+morning of his name day the prince was in one of his worst moods. He had

+been going about the house all the morning finding fault with everyone

+and pretending not to understand what was said to him and not to be

+understood himself. Princess Mary well knew this mood of quiet absorbed

+querulousness, which generally culminated in a burst of rage, and she

+went about all that morning as though facing a cocked and loaded gun

+and awaited the inevitable explosion. Until the doctor’s arrival the

+morning had passed off safely. After admitting the doctor, Princess Mary

+sat down with a book in the drawing room near the door through which she

+could hear all that passed in the study.

+

+    * To force the guard.

+

+At first she heard only Métivier’s voice, then her father’s, then

+both voices began speaking at the same time, the door was flung open,

+and on the threshold appeared the handsome figure of the terrified

+Métivier with his shock of black hair, and the prince in his dressing

+gown and fez, his face distorted with fury and the pupils of his eyes

+rolled downwards.

+

+“You don’t understand?” shouted the prince, “but I do! French

+spy, slave of Buonaparte, spy, get out of my house! Be off, I tell

+you...” and he slammed the door.

+

+Métivier, shrugging his shoulders, went up to Mademoiselle Bourienne

+who at the sound of shouting had run in from an adjoining room.

+

+“The prince is not very well: bile and rush of blood to the head. Keep

+calm, I will call again tomorrow,” said Métivier; and putting his

+fingers to his lips he hastened away.

+

+Through the study door came the sound of slippered feet and the cry:

+“Spies, traitors, traitors everywhere! Not a moment’s peace in my

+own house!”

+

+After Métivier’s departure the old prince called his daughter in, and

+the whole weight of his wrath fell on her. She was to blame that a spy

+had been admitted. Had he not told her, yes, told her to make a list,

+and not to admit anyone who was not on that list? Then why was that

+scoundrel admitted? She was the cause of it all. With her, he said, he

+could not have a moment’s peace and could not die quietly.

+

+“No, ma’am! We must part, we must part! Understand that, understand

+it! I cannot endure any more,” he said, and left the room. Then, as if

+afraid she might find some means of consolation, he returned and trying

+to appear calm added: “And don’t imagine I have said this in a

+moment of anger. I am calm. I have thought it over, and it will be

+carried out—we must part; so find some place for yourself....” But

+he could not restrain himself and with the virulence of which only one

+who loves is capable, evidently suffering himself, he shook his fists at

+her and screamed:

+

+“If only some fool would marry her!” Then he slammed the door, sent

+for Mademoiselle Bourienne, and subsided into his study.

+

+At two o’clock the six chosen guests assembled for dinner.

+

+These guests—the famous Count Rostopchín, Prince Lopukhín with his

+nephew, General Chatróv an old war comrade of the prince’s, and

+of the younger generation Pierre and Borís Drubetskóy—awaited the

+prince in the drawing room.

+

+Borís, who had come to Moscow on leave a few days before, had been

+anxious to be presented to Prince Nicholas Bolkónski, and had contrived

+to ingratiate himself so well that the old prince in his case made an

+exception to the rule of not receiving bachelors in his house.

+

+The prince’s house did not belong to what is known as fashionable

+society, but his little circle—though not much talked about in

+town—was one it was more flattering to be received in than any other.

+Borís had realized this the week before when the commander in chief in

+his presence invited Rostopchín to dinner on St. Nicholas’ Day, and

+Rostopchín had replied that he could not come:

+

+“On that day I always go to pay my devotions to the relics of Prince

+Nicholas Bolkónski.”

+

+“Oh, yes, yes!” replied the commander in chief. “How is he?...”

+

+The small group that assembled before dinner in the lofty old-fashioned

+drawing room with its old furniture resembled the solemn gathering of

+a court of justice. All were silent or talked in low tones. Prince

+Nicholas came in serious and taciturn. Princess Mary seemed even quieter

+and more diffident than usual. The guests were reluctant to address

+her, feeling that she was in no mood for their conversation. Count

+Rostopchín alone kept the conversation going, now relating the latest

+town news, and now the latest political gossip.

+

+Lopukhín and the old general occasionally took part in the

+conversation. Prince Bolkónski listened as a presiding judge receives a

+report, only now and then, silently or by a brief word, showing that

+he took heed of what was being reported to him. The tone of the

+conversation was such as indicated that no one approved of what was

+being done in the political world. Incidents were related evidently

+confirming the opinion that everything was going from bad to worse, but

+whether telling a story or giving an opinion the speaker always stopped,

+or was stopped, at the point beyond which his criticism might touch the

+sovereign himself.

+

+At dinner the talk turned on the latest political news: Napoleon’s

+seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg’s territory, and the Russian Note,

+hostile to Napoleon, which had been sent to all the European courts.

+

+“Bonaparte treats Europe as a pirate does a captured vessel,” said

+Count Rostopchín, repeating a phrase he had uttered several times

+before. “One only wonders at the long-suffering or blindness of the

+crowned heads. Now the Pope’s turn has come and Bonaparte doesn’t

+scruple to depose the head of the Catholic Church—yet all keep silent!

+Our sovereign alone has protested against the seizure of the Duke

+of Oldenburg’s territory, and even...” Count Rostopchín paused,

+feeling that he had reached the limit beyond which censure was

+impossible.

+

+“Other territories have been offered in exchange for the Duchy of

+Oldenburg,” said Prince Bolkónski. “He shifts the Dukes about as

+I might move my serfs from Bald Hills to Boguchárovo or my Ryazán

+estates.”

+

+“The Duke of Oldenburg bears his misfortunes with admirable

+strength of character and resignation,” remarked Borís, joining in

+respectfully.

+

+He said this because on his journey from Petersburg he had had the honor

+of being presented to the Duke. Prince Bolkónski glanced at the

+young man as if about to say something in reply, but changed his mind,

+evidently considering him too young.

+

+“I have read our protests about the Oldenburg affair and was surprised

+how badly the Note was worded,” remarked Count Rostopchín in the

+casual tone of a man dealing with a subject quite familiar to him.

+

+Pierre looked at Rostopchín with naïve astonishment, not understanding

+why he should be disturbed by the bad composition of the Note.

+

+“Does it matter, Count, how the Note is worded,” he asked, “so

+long as its substance is forcible?”

+

+“My dear fellow, with our five hundred thousand troops it should be

+easy to have a good style,” returned Count Rostopchín.

+

+Pierre now understood the count’s dissatisfaction with the wording of

+the Note.

+

+“One would have thought quill drivers enough had sprung up,”

+remarked the old prince. “There in Petersburg they are always

+writing—not notes only but even new laws. My Andrew there has written

+a whole volume of laws for Russia. Nowadays they are always writing!”

+and he laughed unnaturally.

+

+There was a momentary pause in the conversation; the old general cleared

+his throat to draw attention.

+

+“Did you hear of the last event at the review in Petersburg? The

+figure cut by the new French ambassador.”

+

+“Eh? Yes, I heard something: he said something awkward in His

+Majesty’s presence.”

+

+“His Majesty drew attention to the Grenadier division and to the march

+past,” continued the general, “and it seems the ambassador took

+no notice and allowed himself to reply that: ‘We in France pay no

+attention to such trifles!’ The Emperor did not condescend to reply.

+At the next review, they say, the Emperor did not once deign to address

+him.”

+

+All were silent. On this fact relating to the Emperor personally, it was

+impossible to pass any judgment.

+

+“Impudent fellows!” said the prince. “You know Métivier? I turned

+him out of my house this morning. He was here; they admitted him in

+spite of my request that they should let no one in,” he went on,

+glancing angrily at his daughter.

+

+And he narrated his whole conversation with the French doctor and

+the reasons that convinced him that Métivier was a spy. Though these

+reasons were very insufficient and obscure, no one made any rejoinder.

+

+After the roast, champagne was served. The guests rose to congratulate

+the old prince. Princess Mary, too, went round to him.

+

+He gave her a cold, angry look and offered her his wrinkled,

+clean-shaven cheek to kiss. The whole expression of his face told

+her that he had not forgotten the morning’s talk, that his decision

+remained in force, and only the presence of visitors hindered his

+speaking of it to her now.

+

+When they went into the drawing room where coffee was served, the old

+men sat together.

+

+Prince Nicholas grew more animated and expressed his views on the

+impending war.

+

+He said that our wars with Bonaparte would be disastrous so long as we

+sought alliances with the Germans and thrust ourselves into European

+affairs, into which we had been drawn by the Peace of Tilsit. “We

+ought not to fight either for or against Austria. Our political

+interests are all in the East, and in regard to Bonaparte the only thing

+is to have an armed frontier and a firm policy, and he will never dare

+to cross the Russian frontier, as was the case in 1807!”

+

+“How can we fight the French, Prince?” said Count Rostopchín.

+“Can we arm ourselves against our teachers and divinities? Look at

+our youths, look at our ladies! The French are our Gods: Paris is our

+Kingdom of Heaven.”

+

+He began speaking louder, evidently to be heard by everyone.

+

+“French dresses, French ideas, French feelings! There now, you turned

+Métivier out by the scruff of his neck because he is a Frenchman and

+a scoundrel, but our ladies crawl after him on their knees. I went to

+a party last night, and there out of five ladies three were Roman

+Catholics and had the Pope’s indulgence for doing woolwork on Sundays.

+And they themselves sit there nearly naked, like the signboards at our

+Public Baths if I may say so. Ah, when one looks at our young people,

+Prince, one would like to take Peter the Great’s old cudgel out of the

+museum and belabor them in the Russian way till all the nonsense jumps

+out of them.”

+

+All were silent. The old prince looked at Rostopchín with a smile and

+wagged his head approvingly.

+

+“Well, good-by, your excellency, keep well!” said Rostopchín,

+getting up with characteristic briskness and holding out his hand to the

+prince.

+

+“Good-by, my dear fellow.... His words are music, I never tire of

+hearing him!” said the old prince, keeping hold of the hand and

+offering his cheek to be kissed.

+

+Following Rostopchín’s example the others also rose.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+Princess Mary as she sat listening to the old men’s talk and

+faultfinding, understood nothing of what she heard; she only wondered

+whether the guests had all observed her father’s hostile attitude

+toward her. She did not even notice the special attentions and

+amiabilities shown her during dinner by Borís Drubetskóy, who was

+visiting them for the third time already.

+

+Princess Mary turned with absent-minded questioning look to Pierre, who

+hat in hand and with a smile on his face was the last of the guests to

+approach her after the old prince had gone out and they were left alone

+in the drawing room.

+

+“May I stay a little longer?” he said, letting his stout body sink

+into an armchair beside her.

+

+“Oh yes,” she answered. “You noticed nothing?” her look asked.

+

+Pierre was in an agreeable after-dinner mood. He looked straight before

+him and smiled quietly.

+

+“Have you known that young man long, Princess?” he asked.

+

+“Who?”

+

+“Drubetskóy.”

+

+“No, not long....”

+

+“Do you like him?”

+

+“Yes, he is an agreeable young man.... Why do you ask me that?” said

+Princess Mary, still thinking of that morning’s conversation with her

+father.

+

+“Because I have noticed that when a young man comes on leave from

+Petersburg to Moscow it is usually with the object of marrying an

+heiress.”

+

+“You have observed that?” said Princess Mary.

+

+“Yes,” returned Pierre with a smile, “and this young man now

+manages matters so that where there is a wealthy heiress there he is

+too. I can read him like a book. At present he is hesitating whom to lay

+siege to—you or Mademoiselle Julie Karágina. He is very attentive to

+her.”

+

+“He visits them?”

+

+“Yes, very often. And do you know the new way of courting?” said

+Pierre with an amused smile, evidently in that cheerful mood of good

+humored raillery for which he so often reproached himself in his diary.

+

+“No,” replied Princess Mary.

+

+“To please Moscow girls nowadays one has to be melancholy. He is very

+melancholy with Mademoiselle Karágina,” said Pierre.

+

+“Really?” asked Princess Mary, looking into Pierre’s kindly

+face and still thinking of her own sorrow. “It would be a relief,”

+thought she, “if I ventured to confide what I am feeling to someone.

+I should like to tell everything to Pierre. He is kind and generous. It

+would be a relief. He would give me advice.”

+

+“Would you marry him?”

+

+“Oh, my God, Count, there are moments when I would marry anybody!”

+she cried suddenly to her own surprise and with tears in her voice.

+“Ah, how bitter it is to love someone near to you and to feel

+that...” she went on in a trembling voice, “that you can do nothing

+for him but grieve him, and to know that you cannot alter this. Then

+there is only one thing left—to go away, but where could I go?”

+

+“What is wrong? What is it, Princess?”

+

+But without finishing what she was saying, Princess Mary burst into

+tears.

+

+“I don’t know what is the matter with me today. Don’t take any

+notice—forget what I have said!”

+

+Pierre’s gaiety vanished completely. He anxiously questioned the

+princess, asked her to speak out fully and confide her grief to him; but

+she only repeated that she begged him to forget what she had said, that

+she did not remember what she had said, and that she had no trouble

+except the one he knew of—that Prince Andrew’s marriage threatened

+to cause a rupture between father and son.

+

+“Have you any news of the Rostóvs?” she asked, to change the

+subject. “I was told they are coming soon. I am also expecting Andrew

+any day. I should like them to meet here.”

+

+“And how does he now regard the matter?” asked Pierre, referring to

+the old prince.

+

+Princess Mary shook her head.

+

+“What is to be done? In a few months the year will be up. The thing

+is impossible. I only wish I could spare my brother the first moments.

+I wish they would come sooner. I hope to be friends with her. You have

+known them a long time,” said Princess Mary. “Tell me honestly

+the whole truth: what sort of girl is she, and what do you think of

+her?—The real truth, because you know Andrew is risking so much doing

+this against his father’s will that I should like to know....”

+

+An undefined instinct told Pierre that these explanations, and

+repeated requests to be told the whole truth, expressed ill-will on

+the princess’ part toward her future sister-in-law and a wish that

+he should disapprove of Andrew’s choice; but in reply he said what he

+felt rather than what he thought.

+

+“I don’t know how to answer your question,” he said, blushing

+without knowing why. “I really don’t know what sort of girl she is;

+I can’t analyze her at all. She is enchanting, but what makes her so I

+don’t know. That is all one can say about her.”

+

+Princess Mary sighed, and the expression on her face said: “Yes,

+that’s what I expected and feared.”

+

+“Is she clever?” she asked.

+

+Pierre considered.

+

+“I think not,” he said, “and yet—yes. She does not deign to be

+clever.... Oh no, she is simply enchanting, and that is all.”

+

+Princess Mary again shook her head disapprovingly.

+

+“Ah, I so long to like her! Tell her so if you see her before I do.”

+

+“I hear they are expected very soon,” said Pierre.

+

+Princess Mary told Pierre of her plan to become intimate with her future

+sister-in-law as soon as the Rostóvs arrived and to try to accustom the

+old prince to her.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+Borís had not succeeded in making a wealthy match in Petersburg, so

+with the same object in view he came to Moscow. There he wavered between

+the two richest heiresses, Julie and Princess Mary. Though Princess

+Mary despite her plainness seemed to him more attractive than Julie, he,

+without knowing why, felt awkward about paying court to her. When they

+had last met on the old prince’s name day, she had answered at random

+all his attempts to talk sentimentally, evidently not listening to what

+he was saying.

+

+Julie on the contrary accepted his attentions readily, though in a

+manner peculiar to herself.

+

+She was twenty-seven. After the death of her brothers she had become

+very wealthy. She was by now decidedly plain, but thought herself not

+merely as good-looking as before but even far more attractive. She

+was confirmed in this delusion by the fact that she had become a very

+wealthy heiress and also by the fact that the older she grew the less

+dangerous she became to men, and the more freely they could associate

+with her and avail themselves of her suppers, soirees, and the animated

+company that assembled at her house, without incurring any obligation.

+A man who would have been afraid ten years before of going every day

+to the house when there was a girl of seventeen there, for fear of

+compromising her and committing himself, would now go boldly every day

+and treat her not as a marriageable girl but as a sexless acquaintance.

+

+That winter the Karágins’ house was the most agreeable and hospitable

+in Moscow. In addition to the formal evening and dinner parties, a large

+company, chiefly of men, gathered there every day, supping at midnight

+and staying till three in the morning. Julie never missed a ball, a

+promenade, or a play. Her dresses were always of the latest fashion.

+But in spite of that she seemed to be disillusioned about everything and

+told everyone that she did not believe either in friendship or in love,

+or any of the joys of life, and expected peace only “yonder.” She

+adopted the tone of one who has suffered a great disappointment, like a

+girl who has either lost the man she loved or been cruelly deceived by

+him. Though nothing of the kind had happened to her she was regarded in

+that light, and had even herself come to believe that she had suffered

+much in life. This melancholy, which did not prevent her amusing

+herself, did not hinder the young people who came to her house from

+passing the time pleasantly. Every visitor who came to the house paid

+his tribute to the melancholy mood of the hostess, and then amused

+himself with society gossip, dancing, intellectual games, and bouts

+rimés, which were in vogue at the Karágins’. Only a few of these

+young men, among them Borís, entered more deeply into Julie’s

+melancholy, and with these she had prolonged conversations in private

+on the vanity of all worldly things, and to them she showed her albums

+filled with mournful sketches, maxims, and verses.

+

+To Borís, Julie was particularly gracious: she regretted his early

+disillusionment with life, offered him such consolation of friendship

+as she who had herself suffered so much could render, and showed him

+her album. Borís sketched two trees in the album and wrote: “Rustic

+trees, your dark branches shed gloom and melancholy upon me.”

+

+On another page he drew a tomb, and wrote:

+

+    La mort est secourable et la mort est tranquille.

+    Ah! contre les douleurs il n’y a pas d’autre asile. *

+

+    * Death gives relief and death is peaceful.

+

+Ah! from suffering there is no other refuge.

+

+Julie said this was charming

+

+“There is something so enchanting in the smile of melancholy,” she

+said to Borís, repeating word for word a passage she had copied from a

+book. “It is a ray of light in the darkness, a shade between sadness

+and despair, showing the possibility of consolation.”

+

+In reply Borís wrote these lines:

+

+    Aliment de poison d’une âme trop sensible,

+    Toi, sans qui le bonheur me serait impossible,

+    Tendre mélancholie, ah, viens me consoler,

+    Viens calmer les tourments de ma sombre retraite,

+    Et mêle une douceur secrète

+    A ces pleurs que je sens couler. *

+

+      *Poisonous nourishment of a too sensitive soul,

+     Thou, without whom happiness would for me be impossible,

+     Tender melancholy, ah, come to console me,

+     Come to calm the torments of my gloomy retreat,

+     And mingle a secret sweetness

+     With these tears that I feel to be flowing.

+

+For Borís, Julie played most doleful nocturnes on her harp. Borís

+read Poor Liza aloud to her, and more than once interrupted the reading

+because of the emotions that choked him. Meeting at large gatherings

+Julie and Borís looked on one another as the only souls who understood

+one another in a world of indifferent people.

+

+Anna Mikháylovna, who often visited the Karágins, while playing cards

+with the mother made careful inquiries as to Julie’s dowry (she was

+to have two estates in Pénza and the Nizhegórod forests). Anna

+Mikháylovna regarded the refined sadness that united her son to the

+wealthy Julie with emotion, and resignation to the Divine will.

+

+“You are always charming and melancholy, my dear Julie,” she said to

+the daughter. “Borís says his soul finds repose at your house. He has

+suffered so many disappointments and is so sensitive,” said she to

+the mother. “Ah, my dear, I can’t tell you how fond I have grown

+of Julie latterly,” she said to her son. “But who could help loving

+her? She is an angelic being! Ah, Borís, Borís!”—she paused.

+“And how I pity her mother,” she went on; “today she showed me her

+accounts and letters from Pénza (they have enormous estates there), and

+she, poor thing, has no one to help her, and they do cheat her so!”

+

+Borís smiled almost imperceptibly while listening to his mother. He

+laughed blandly at her naïve diplomacy but listened to what she had

+to say, and sometimes questioned her carefully about the Pénza and

+Nizhegórod estates.

+

+Julie had long been expecting a proposal from her melancholy adorer and

+was ready to accept it; but some secret feeling of repulsion for her,

+for her passionate desire to get married, for her artificiality, and

+a feeling of horror at renouncing the possibility of real love still

+restrained Borís. His leave was expiring. He spent every day and whole

+days at the Karágins’, and every day on thinking the matter over

+told himself that he would propose tomorrow. But in Julie’s presence,

+looking at her red face and chin (nearly always powdered), her moist

+eyes, and her expression of continual readiness to pass at once from

+melancholy to an unnatural rapture of married bliss, Borís could not

+utter the decisive words, though in imagination he had long regarded

+himself as the possessor of those Pénza and Nizhegórod estates and

+had apportioned the use of the income from them. Julie saw Borís’

+indecision, and sometimes the thought occurred to her that she was

+repulsive to him, but her feminine self-deception immediately supplied

+her with consolation, and she told herself that he was only shy from

+love. Her melancholy, however, began to turn to irritability, and not

+long before Borís’ departure she formed a definite plan of action.

+Just as Borís’ leave of absence was expiring, Anatole Kurágin made

+his appearance in Moscow, and of course in the Karágins’ drawing

+room, and Julie, suddenly abandoning her melancholy, became cheerful and

+very attentive to Kurágin.

+

+“My dear,” said Anna Mikháylovna to her son, “I know from a

+reliable source that Prince Vasíli has sent his son to Moscow to get

+him married to Julie. I am so fond of Julie that I should be sorry for

+her. What do you think of it, my dear?”

+

+The idea of being made a fool of and of having thrown away that whole

+month of arduous melancholy service to Julie, and of seeing all

+the revenue from the Pénza estates which he had already mentally

+apportioned and put to proper use fall into the hands of another, and

+especially into the hands of that idiot Anatole, pained Borís. He drove

+to the Karágins’ with the firm intention of proposing. Julie met

+him in a gay, careless manner, spoke casually of how she had enjoyed

+yesterday’s ball, and asked when he was leaving. Though Borís had

+come intentionally to speak of his love and therefore meant to be

+tender, he began speaking irritably of feminine inconstancy, of how

+easily women can turn from sadness to joy, and how their moods depend

+solely on who happens to be paying court to them. Julie was offended and

+replied that it was true that a woman needs variety, and the same thing

+over and over again would weary anyone.

+

+“Then I should advise you...” Borís began, wishing to sting her;

+but at that instant the galling thought occurred to him that he might

+have to leave Moscow without having accomplished his aim, and have

+vainly wasted his efforts—which was a thing he never allowed to

+happen.

+

+He checked himself in the middle of the sentence, lowered his eyes to

+avoid seeing her unpleasantly irritated and irresolute face, and said:

+

+“I did not come here at all to quarrel with you. On the contrary...”

+

+He glanced at her to make sure that he might go on. Her irritability had

+suddenly quite vanished, and her anxious, imploring eyes were fixed on

+him with greedy expectation. “I can always arrange so as not to see

+her often,” thought Borís. “The affair has been begun and must be

+finished!” He blushed hotly, raised his eyes to hers, and said:

+

+“You know my feelings for you!”

+

+There was no need to say more: Julie’s face shone with triumph and

+self-satisfaction; but she forced Borís to say all that is said on such

+occasions—that he loved her and had never loved any other woman more

+than her. She knew that for the Pénza estates and Nizhegórod forests

+she could demand this, and she received what she demanded.

+

+The affianced couple, no longer alluding to trees that shed gloom and

+melancholy upon them, planned the arrangements of a splendid house in

+Petersburg, paid calls, and prepared everything for a brilliant wedding.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+At the end of January old Count Rostóv went to Moscow with Natásha and

+Sónya. The countess was still unwell and unable to travel but it was

+impossible to wait for her recovery. Prince Andrew was expected in

+Moscow any day, the trousseau had to be ordered and the estate near

+Moscow had to be sold, besides which the opportunity of presenting his

+future daughter-in-law to old Prince Bolkónski while he was in Moscow

+could not be missed. The Rostóvs’ Moscow house had not been heated

+that winter and, as they had come only for a short time and the countess

+was not with them, the count decided to stay with Márya Dmítrievna

+Akhrosímova, who had long been pressing her hospitality on them.

+

+Late one evening the Rostóvs’ four sleighs drove into Márya

+Dmítrievna’s courtyard in the old Konyúsheny street. Márya

+Dmítrievna lived alone. She had already married off her daughter, and

+her sons were all in the service.

+

+She held herself as erect, told everyone her opinion as candidly,

+loudly, and bluntly as ever, and her whole bearing seemed a reproach

+to others for any weakness, passion, or temptation—the possibility of

+which she did not admit. From early in the morning, wearing a dressing

+jacket, she attended to her household affairs, and then she drove out:

+on holy days to church and after the service to jails and prisons on

+affairs of which she never spoke to anyone. On ordinary days, after

+dressing, she received petitioners of various classes, of whom there

+were always some. Then she had dinner, a substantial and appetizing meal

+at which there were always three or four guests; after dinner she played

+a game of boston, and at night she had the newspapers or a new book read

+to her while she knitted. She rarely made an exception and went out to

+pay visits, and then only to the most important persons in the town.

+

+She had not yet gone to bed when the Rostóvs arrived and the pulley of

+the hall door squeaked from the cold as it let in the Rostóvs and their

+servants. Márya Dmítrievna, with her spectacles hanging down on her

+nose and her head flung back, stood in the hall doorway looking with

+a stern, grim face at the new arrivals. One might have thought she was

+angry with the travelers and would immediately turn them out, had she

+not at the same time been giving careful instructions to the servants

+for the accommodation of the visitors and their belongings.

+

+“The count’s things? Bring them here,” she said, pointing to the

+portmanteaus and not greeting anyone. “The young ladies’? There

+to the left. Now what are you dawdling for?” she cried to the maids.

+“Get the samovar ready!... You’ve grown plumper and prettier,” she

+remarked, drawing Natásha (whose cheeks were glowing from the cold)

+to her by the hood. “Foo! You are cold! Now take off your things,

+quick!” she shouted to the count who was going to kiss her hand.

+“You’re half frozen, I’m sure! Bring some rum for tea!... Bonjour,

+Sónya dear!” she added, turning to Sónya and indicating by this

+French greeting her slightly contemptuous though affectionate attitude

+toward her.

+

+When they came in to tea, having taken off their outdoor things and

+tidied themselves up after their journey, Márya Dmítrievna kissed them

+all in due order.

+

+“I’m heartily glad you have come and are staying with me. It was

+high time,” she said, giving Natásha a significant look. “The old

+man is here and his son’s expected any day. You’ll have to make his

+acquaintance. But we’ll speak of that later on,” she added, glancing

+at Sónya with a look that showed she did not want to speak of it in her

+presence. “Now listen,” she said to the count. “What do you want

+tomorrow? Whom will you send for? Shinshín?” she crooked one of her

+fingers. “The sniveling Anna Mikháylovna? That’s two. She’s here

+with her son. The son is getting married! Then Bezúkhov, eh? He is here

+too, with his wife. He ran away from her and she came galloping after

+him. He dined with me on Wednesday. As for them”—and she pointed to

+the girls—“tomorrow I’ll take them first to the Iberian shrine

+of the Mother of God, and then we’ll drive to the Super-Rogue’s.

+I suppose you’ll have everything new. Don’t judge by me: sleeves

+nowadays are this size! The other day young Princess Irína Vasílevna

+came to see me; she was an awful sight—looked as if she had put two

+barrels on her arms. You know not a day passes now without some new

+fashion.... And what have you to do yourself?” she asked the count

+sternly.

+

+“One thing has come on top of another: her rags to buy, and now a

+purchaser has turned up for the Moscow estate and for the house. If you

+will be so kind, I’ll fix a time and go down to the estate just for a

+day, and leave my lassies with you.”

+

+“All right. All right. They’ll be safe with me, as safe as in

+Chancery! I’ll take them where they must go, scold them a bit, and

+pet them a bit,” said Márya Dmítrievna, touching her goddaughter and

+favorite, Natásha, on the cheek with her large hand.

+

+Next morning Márya Dmítrievna took the young ladies to the Iberian

+shrine of the Mother of God and to Madame Suppert-Roguet, who was so

+afraid of Márya Dmítrievna that she always let her have costumes at

+a loss merely to get rid of her. Márya Dmítrievna ordered almost the

+whole trousseau. When they got home she turned everybody out of the room

+except Natásha, and then called her pet to her armchair.

+

+“Well, now we’ll talk. I congratulate you on your betrothed.

+You’ve hooked a fine fellow! I am glad for your sake and I’ve known

+him since he was so high.” She held her hand a couple of feet from the

+ground. Natásha blushed happily. “I like him and all his family.

+Now listen! You know that old Prince Nicholas much dislikes his son’s

+marrying. The old fellow’s crotchety! Of course Prince Andrew is not

+a child and can shift without him, but it’s not nice to enter a family

+against a father’s will. One wants to do it peacefully and lovingly.

+You’re a clever girl and you’ll know how to manage. Be kind, and use

+your wits. Then all will be well.”

+

+Natásha remained silent, from shyness Márya Dmítrievna supposed, but

+really because she disliked anyone interfering in what touched her love

+of Prince Andrew, which seemed to her so apart from all human affairs

+that no one could understand it. She loved and knew Prince Andrew, he

+loved her only, and was to come one of these days and take her. She

+wanted nothing more.

+

+“You see I have known him a long time and am also fond of Mary, your

+future sister-in-law. ‘Husbands’ sisters bring up blisters,’

+but this one wouldn’t hurt a fly. She has asked me to bring you two

+together. Tomorrow you’ll go with your father to see her. Be very

+nice and affectionate to her: you’re younger than she. When he comes,

+he’ll find you already know his sister and father and are liked by

+them. Am I right or not? Won’t that be best?”

+

+“Yes, it will,” Natásha answered reluctantly.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+Next day, by Márya Dmítrievna’s advice, Count Rostóv took Natásha

+to call on Prince Nicholas Bolkónski. The count did not set out

+cheerfully on this visit, at heart he felt afraid. He well remembered

+the last interview he had had with the old prince at the time of the

+enrollment, when in reply to an invitation to dinner he had had to

+listen to an angry reprimand for not having provided his full quota of

+men. Natásha, on the other hand, having put on her best gown, was in

+the highest spirits. “They can’t help liking me,” she thought.

+“Everybody always has liked me, and I am so willing to do anything

+they wish, so ready to be fond of him—for being his father—and of

+her—for being his sister—that there is no reason for them not to

+like me....”

+

+They drove up to the gloomy old house on the Vozdvízhenka and entered

+the vestibule.

+

+“Well, the Lord have mercy on us!” said the count, half in jest,

+half in earnest; but Natásha noticed that her father was flurried on

+entering the anteroom and inquired timidly and softly whether the prince

+and princess were at home.

+

+When they had been announced a perturbation was noticeable among the

+servants. The footman who had gone to announce them was stopped by

+another in the large hall and they whispered to one another. Then a

+maidservant ran into the hall and hurriedly said something, mentioning

+the princess. At last an old, cross looking footman came and announced

+to the Rostóvs that the prince was not receiving, but that the princess

+begged them to walk up. The first person who came to meet the visitors

+was Mademoiselle Bourienne. She greeted the father and daughter

+with special politeness and showed them to the princess’ room. The

+princess, looking excited and nervous, her face flushed in patches, ran

+in to meet the visitors, treading heavily, and vainly trying to appear

+cordial and at ease. From the first glance Princess Mary did not like

+Natásha. She thought her too fashionably dressed, frivolously gay and

+vain. She did not at all realize that before having seen her future

+sister-in-law she was prejudiced against her by involuntary envy of her

+beauty, youth, and happiness, as well as by jealousy of her brother’s

+love for her. Apart from this insuperable antipathy to her, Princess

+Mary was agitated just then because on the Rostóvs’ being announced,

+the old prince had shouted that he did not wish to see them, that

+Princess Mary might do so if she chose, but they were not to be admitted

+to him. She had decided to receive them, but feared lest the prince

+might at any moment indulge in some freak, as he seemed much upset by

+the Rostóvs’ visit.

+

+“There, my dear princess, I’ve brought you my songstress,” said

+the count, bowing and looking round uneasily as if afraid the old prince

+might appear. “I am so glad you should get to know one another... very

+sorry the prince is still ailing,” and after a few more commonplace

+remarks he rose. “If you’ll allow me to leave my Natásha in your

+hands for a quarter of an hour, Princess, I’ll drive round to see Anna

+Semënovna, it’s quite near in the Dogs’ Square, and then I’ll

+come back for her.”

+

+The count had devised this diplomatic ruse (as he afterwards told his

+daughter) to give the future sisters-in-law an opportunity to talk

+to one another freely, but another motive was to avoid the danger of

+encountering the old prince, of whom he was afraid. He did not mention

+this to his daughter, but Natásha noticed her father’s nervousness

+and anxiety and felt mortified by it. She blushed for him, grew still

+angrier at having blushed, and looked at the princess with a bold and

+defiant expression which said that she was not afraid of anybody. The

+princess told the count that she would be delighted, and only begged him

+to stay longer at Anna Semënovna’s, and he departed.

+

+Despite the uneasy glances thrown at her by Princess Mary—who wished

+to have a tête-à-tête with Natásha—Mademoiselle Bourienne

+remained in the room and persistently talked about Moscow amusements and

+theaters. Natásha felt offended by the hesitation she had noticed in

+the anteroom, by her father’s nervousness, and by the unnatural manner

+of the princess who—she thought—was making a favor of receiving her,

+and so everything displeased her. She did not like Princess Mary, whom

+she thought very plain, affected, and dry. Natásha suddenly shrank

+into herself and involuntarily assumed an offhand air which alienated

+Princess Mary still more. After five minutes of irksome, constrained

+conversation, they heard the sound of slippered feet rapidly

+approaching. Princess Mary looked frightened.

+

+The door opened and the old prince, in a dressing gown and a white

+nightcap, came in.

+

+“Ah, madam!” he began. “Madam, Countess... Countess Rostóva, if

+I am not mistaken... I beg you to excuse me, to excuse me... I did not

+know, madam. God is my witness, I did not know you had honored us with

+a visit, and I came in such a costume only to see my daughter. I beg you

+to excuse me... God is my witness, I didn’t know—” he repeated,

+stressing the word “God” so unnaturally and so unpleasantly that

+Princess Mary stood with downcast eyes not daring to look either at her

+father or at Natásha.

+

+Nor did the latter, having risen and curtsied, know what to do.

+Mademoiselle Bourienne alone smiled agreeably.

+

+“I beg you to excuse me, excuse me! God is my witness, I did not

+know,” muttered the old man, and after looking Natásha over from head

+to foot he went out.

+

+Mademoiselle Bourienne was the first to recover herself after this

+apparition and began speaking about the prince’s indisposition.

+Natásha and Princess Mary looked at one another in silence, and the

+longer they did so without saying what they wanted to say, the greater

+grew their antipathy to one another.

+

+When the count returned, Natásha was impolitely pleased and hastened

+to get away: at that moment she hated the stiff, elderly princess, who

+could place her in such an embarrassing position and had spent half an

+hour with her without once mentioning Prince Andrew. “I couldn’t

+begin talking about him in the presence of that Frenchwoman,” thought

+Natásha. The same thought was meanwhile tormenting Princess Mary. She

+knew what she ought to have said to Natásha, but she had been unable

+to say it because Mademoiselle Bourienne was in the way, and because,

+without knowing why, she felt it very difficult to speak of the

+marriage. When the count was already leaving the room, Princess Mary

+went up hurriedly to Natásha, took her by the hand, and said with a

+deep sigh:

+

+“Wait, I must...”

+

+Natásha glanced at her ironically without knowing why.

+

+“Dear Natalie,” said Princess Mary, “I want you to know that I am

+glad my brother has found happiness....”

+

+She paused, feeling that she was not telling the truth. Natásha noticed

+this and guessed its reason.

+

+“I think, Princess, it is not convenient to speak of that now,”

+she said with external dignity and coldness, though she felt the tears

+choking her.

+

+“What have I said and what have I done?” thought she, as soon as she

+was out of the room.

+

+They waited a long time for Natásha to come to dinner that day. She sat

+in her room crying like a child, blowing her nose and sobbing. Sónya

+stood beside her, kissing her hair.

+

+“Natásha, what is it about?” she asked. “What do they matter to

+you? It will all pass, Natásha.”

+

+“But if you only knew how offensive it was... as if I...”

+

+“Don’t talk about it, Natásha. It wasn’t your fault so why should

+you mind? Kiss me,” said Sónya.

+

+Natásha raised her head and, kissing her friend on the lips, pressed

+her wet face against her.

+

+“I can’t tell you, I don’t know. No one’s to blame,” said

+Natásha—“It’s my fault. But it all hurts terribly. Oh, why

+doesn’t he come?...”

+

+She came in to dinner with red eyes. Márya Dmítrievna, who knew how

+the prince had received the Rostóvs, pretended not to notice how upset

+Natásha was and jested resolutely and loudly at table with the count

+and the other guests.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+That evening the Rostóvs went to the Opera, for which Márya

+Dmítrievna had taken a box.

+

+Natásha did not want to go, but could not refuse Márya Dmítrievna’s

+kind offer which was intended expressly for her. When she came ready

+dressed into the ballroom to await her father, and looking in the large

+mirror there saw that she was pretty, very pretty, she felt even more

+sad, but it was a sweet, tender sadness.

+

+“O God, if he were here now I would not behave as I did then, but

+differently. I would not be silly and afraid of things, I would simply

+embrace him, cling to him, and make him look at me with those searching

+inquiring eyes with which he has so often looked at me, and then I

+would make him laugh as he used to laugh. And his eyes—how I see those

+eyes!” thought Natásha. “And what do his father and sister matter

+to me? I love him alone, him, him, with that face and those eyes, with

+his smile, manly and yet childlike.... No, I had better not think of

+him; not think of him but forget him, quite forget him for the present.

+I can’t bear this waiting and I shall cry in a minute!” and she

+turned away from the glass, making an effort not to cry. “And how

+can Sónya love Nicholas so calmly and quietly and wait so long and so

+patiently?” thought she, looking at Sónya, who also came in quite

+ready, with a fan in her hand. “No, she’s altogether different. I

+can’t!”

+

+Natásha at that moment felt so softened and tender that it was not

+enough for her to love and know she was beloved, she wanted now, at

+once, to embrace the man she loved, to speak and hear from him words of

+love such as filled her heart. While she sat in the carriage beside her

+father, pensively watching the lights of the street lamps flickering on

+the frozen window, she felt still sadder and more in love, and forgot

+where she was going and with whom. Having fallen into the line of

+carriages, the Rostóvs’ carriage drove up to the theater, its wheels

+squeaking over the snow. Natásha and Sónya, holding up their dresses,

+jumped out quickly. The count got out helped by the footmen, and,

+passing among men and women who were entering and the program sellers,

+they all three went along the corridor to the first row of boxes.

+Through the closed doors the music was already audible.

+

+“Natásha, your hair!...” whispered Sónya.

+

+An attendant deferentially and quickly slipped before the ladies and

+opened the door of their box. The music sounded louder and through the

+door rows of brightly lit boxes in which ladies sat with bare arms and

+shoulders, and noisy stalls brilliant with uniforms, glittered before

+their eyes. A lady entering the next box shot a glance of feminine envy

+at Natásha. The curtain had not yet risen and the overture was being

+played. Natásha, smoothing her gown, went in with Sónya and sat down,

+scanning the brilliant tiers of boxes opposite. A sensation she had not

+experienced for a long time—that of hundreds of eyes looking at

+her bare arms and neck—suddenly affected her both agreeably and

+disagreeably and called up a whole crowd of memories, desires and

+emotions associated with that feeling.

+

+The two remarkably pretty girls, Natásha and Sónya, with Count Rostóv

+who had not been seen in Moscow for a long time, attracted general

+attention. Moreover, everybody knew vaguely of Natásha’s engagement

+to Prince Andrew, and knew that the Rostóvs had lived in the country

+ever since, and all looked with curiosity at a fiancée who was making

+one of the best matches in Russia.

+

+Natásha’s looks, as everyone told her, had improved in the country,

+and that evening thanks to her agitation she was particularly pretty.

+She struck those who saw her by her fullness of life and beauty,

+combined with her indifference to everything about her. Her black eyes

+looked at the crowd without seeking anyone, and her delicate arm, bare

+to above the elbow, lay on the velvet edge of the box, while, evidently

+unconsciously, she opened and closed her hand in time to the music,

+crumpling her program. “Look, there’s Alénina,” said Sónya,

+“with her mother, isn’t it?”

+

+“Dear me, Michael Kirílovich has grown still stouter!” remarked the

+count.

+

+“Look at our Anna Mikháylovna—what a headdress she has on!”

+

+“The Karágins, Julie—and Borís with them. One can see at once that

+they’re engaged....”

+

+“Drubetskóy has proposed?”

+

+“Oh yes, I heard it today,” said Shinshín, coming into the

+Rostóvs’ box.

+

+Natásha looked in the direction in which her father’s eyes were

+turned and saw Julie sitting beside her mother with a happy look on her

+face and a string of pearls round her thick red neck—which Natásha

+knew was covered with powder. Behind them, wearing a smile and leaning

+over with an ear to Julie’s mouth, was Borís’ handsome smoothly

+brushed head. He looked at the Rostóvs from under his brows and said

+something, smiling, to his betrothed.

+

+“They are talking about us, about me and him!” thought Natásha.

+“And he no doubt is calming her jealousy of me. They needn’t trouble

+themselves! If only they knew how little I am concerned about any of

+them.”

+

+Behind them sat Anna Mikháylovna wearing a green headdress and with a

+happy look of resignation to the will of God on her face. Their box was

+pervaded by that atmosphere of an affianced couple which Natásha knew

+so well and liked so much. She turned away and suddenly remembered all

+that had been so humiliating in her morning’s visit.

+

+“What right has he not to wish to receive me into his family? Oh,

+better not think of it—not till he comes back!” she told herself,

+and began looking at the faces, some strange and some familiar, in

+the stalls. In the front, in the very center, leaning back against

+the orchestra rail, stood Dólokhov in a Persian dress, his curly hair

+brushed up into a huge shock. He stood in full view of the audience,

+well aware that he was attracting everyone’s attention, yet as much at

+ease as though he were in his own room. Around him thronged Moscow’s

+most brilliant young men, whom he evidently dominated.

+

+The count, laughing, nudged the blushing Sónya and pointed to her

+former adorer.

+

+“Do you recognize him?” said he. “And where has he sprung from?”

+he asked, turning to Shinshín. “Didn’t he vanish somewhere?”

+

+“He did,” replied Shinshín. “He was in the Caucasus and ran

+away from there. They say he has been acting as minister to some ruling

+prince in Persia, where he killed the Shah’s brother. Now all the

+Moscow ladies are mad about him! It’s ‘Dólokhov the Persian’ that

+does it! We never hear a word but Dólokhov is mentioned. They swear

+by him, they offer him to you as they would a dish of choice sterlet.

+Dólokhov and Anatole Kurágin have turned all our ladies’ heads.”

+

+A tall, beautiful woman with a mass of plaited hair and much exposed

+plump white shoulders and neck, round which she wore a double string of

+large pearls, entered the adjoining box rustling her heavy silk dress

+and took a long time settling into her place.

+

+Natásha involuntarily gazed at that neck, those shoulders, and pearls

+and coiffure, and admired the beauty of the shoulders and the pearls.

+While Natásha was fixing her gaze on her for the second time the lady

+looked round and, meeting the count’s eyes, nodded to him and smiled.

+She was the Countess Bezúkhova, Pierre’s wife, and the count, who

+knew everyone in society, leaned over and spoke to her.

+

+“Have you been here long, Countess?” he inquired. “I’ll call,

+I’ll call to kiss your hand. I’m here on business and have brought

+my girls with me. They say Semënova acts marvelously. Count Pierre

+never used to forget us. Is he here?”

+

+“Yes, he meant to look in,” answered Hélène, and glanced

+attentively at Natásha.

+

+Count Rostóv resumed his seat.

+

+“Handsome, isn’t she?” he whispered to Natásha.

+

+“Wonderful!” answered Natásha. “She’s a woman one could easily

+fall in love with.”

+

+Just then the last chords of the overture were heard and the conductor

+tapped with his stick. Some latecomers took their seats in the stalls,

+and the curtain rose.

+

+As soon as it rose everyone in the boxes and stalls became silent, and

+all the men, old and young, in uniform and evening dress, and all the

+women with gems on their bare flesh, turned their whole attention with

+eager curiosity to the stage. Natásha too began to look at it.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+The floor of the stage consisted of smooth boards, at the sides was

+some painted cardboard representing trees, and at the back was a cloth

+stretched over boards. In the center of the stage sat some girls in red

+bodices and white skirts. One very fat girl in a white silk dress sat

+apart on a low bench, to the back of which a piece of green cardboard

+was glued. They all sang something. When they had finished their song

+the girl in white went up to the prompter’s box and a man with tight

+silk trousers over his stout legs, and holding a plume and a dagger,

+went up to her and began singing, waving his arms about.

+

+First the man in the tight trousers sang alone, then she sang, then they

+both paused while the orchestra played and the man fingered the hand

+of the girl in white, obviously awaiting the beat to start singing with

+her. They sang together and everyone in the theater began clapping

+and shouting, while the man and woman on the stage—who represented

+lovers—began smiling, spreading out their arms, and bowing.

+

+After her life in the country, and in her present serious mood, all this

+seemed grotesque and amazing to Natásha. She could not follow the opera

+nor even listen to the music; she saw only the painted cardboard and the

+queerly dressed men and women who moved, spoke, and sang so strangely in

+that brilliant light. She knew what it was all meant to represent, but

+it was so pretentiously false and unnatural that she first felt ashamed

+for the actors and then amused at them. She looked at the faces of the

+audience, seeking in them the same sense of ridicule and perplexity she

+herself experienced, but they all seemed attentive to what was happening

+on the stage, and expressed delight which to Natásha seemed feigned.

+“I suppose it has to be like this!” she thought. She kept looking

+round in turn at the rows of pomaded heads in the stalls and then at

+the seminude women in the boxes, especially at Hélène in the next box,

+who—apparently quite unclothed—sat with a quiet tranquil smile, not

+taking her eyes off the stage. And feeling the bright light that flooded

+the whole place and the warm air heated by the crowd, Natásha little

+by little began to pass into a state of intoxication she had not

+experienced for a long while. She did not realize who and where she

+was, nor what was going on before her. As she looked and thought, the

+strangest fancies unexpectedly and disconnectedly passed through her

+mind: the idea occurred to her of jumping onto the edge of the box and

+singing the air the actress was singing, then she wished to touch with

+her fan an old gentleman sitting not far from her, then to lean over to

+Hélène and tickle her.

+

+At a moment when all was quiet before the commencement of a song, a door

+leading to the stalls on the side nearest the Rostóvs’ box creaked,

+and the steps of a belated arrival were heard. “There’s Kurágin!”

+whispered Shinshín. Countess Bezúkhova turned smiling to the newcomer,

+and Natásha, following the direction of that look, saw an exceptionally

+handsome adjutant approaching their box with a self-assured yet

+courteous bearing. This was Anatole Kurágin whom she had seen

+and noticed long ago at the ball in Petersburg. He was now in an

+adjutant’s uniform with one epaulet and a shoulder knot. He moved with

+a restrained swagger which would have been ridiculous had he not been

+so good-looking and had his handsome face not worn such an expression

+of good-humored complacency and gaiety. Though the performance was

+proceeding, he walked deliberately down the carpeted gangway, his sword

+and spurs slightly jingling and his handsome perfumed head held high.

+Having looked at Natásha he approached his sister, laid his well gloved

+hand on the edge of her box, nodded to her, and leaning forward asked a

+question, with a motion toward Natásha.

+

+“Mais charmante!” said he, evidently referring to Natásha, who did

+not exactly hear his words but understood them from the movement of his

+lips. Then he took his place in the first row of the stalls and sat down

+beside Dólokhov, nudging with his elbow in a friendly and offhand way

+that Dólokhov whom others treated so fawningly. He winked at him gaily,

+smiled, and rested his foot against the orchestra screen.

+

+“How like the brother is to the sister,” remarked the count. “And

+how handsome they both are!”

+

+Shinshín, lowering his voice, began to tell the count of some intrigue

+of Kurágin’s in Moscow, and Natásha tried to overhear it just

+because he had said she was “charmante.”

+

+The first act was over. In the stalls everyone began moving about, going

+out and coming in.

+

+Borís came to the Rostóvs’ box, received their congratulations very

+simply, and raising his eyebrows with an absent-minded smile conveyed to

+Natásha and Sónya his fiancée’s invitation to her wedding, and

+went away. Natásha with a gay, coquettish smile talked to him, and

+congratulated on his approaching wedding that same Borís with whom

+she had formerly been in love. In the state of intoxication she was in,

+everything seemed simple and natural.

+

+The scantily clad Hélène smiled at everyone in the same way, and

+Natásha gave Borís a similar smile.

+

+Hélène’s box was filled and surrounded from the stalls by the most

+distinguished and intellectual men, who seemed to vie with one another

+in their wish to let everyone see that they knew her.

+

+During the whole of that entr’acte Kurágin stood with Dólokhov

+in front of the orchestra partition, looking at the Rostóvs’ box.

+Natásha knew he was talking about her and this afforded her pleasure.

+She even turned so that he should see her profile in what she thought

+was its most becoming aspect. Before the beginning of the second act

+Pierre appeared in the stalls. The Rostóvs had not seen him since

+their arrival. His face looked sad, and he had grown still stouter since

+Natásha last saw him. He passed up to the front rows, not noticing

+anyone. Anatole went up to him and began speaking to him, looking at and

+indicating the Rostóvs’ box. On seeing Natásha Pierre grew animated

+and, hastily passing between the rows, came toward their box. When he

+got there he leaned on his elbows and, smiling, talked to her for a long

+time. While conversing with Pierre, Natásha heard a man’s voice in

+Countess Bezúkhova’s box and something told her it was Kurágin. She

+turned and their eyes met. Almost smiling, he gazed straight into her

+eyes with such an enraptured caressing look that it seemed strange to be

+so near him, to look at him like that, to be so sure he admired her, and

+not to be acquainted with him.

+

+In the second act there was scenery representing tombstones, there was a

+round hole in the canvas to represent the moon, shades were raised over

+the footlights, and from horns and contrabass came deep notes while many

+people appeared from right and left wearing black cloaks and holding

+things like daggers in their hands. They began waving their arms. Then

+some other people ran in and began dragging away the maiden who had been

+in white and was now in light blue. They did not drag her away at once,

+but sang with her for a long time and then at last dragged her off, and

+behind the scenes something metallic was struck three times and

+everyone knelt down and sang a prayer. All these things were repeatedly

+interrupted by the enthusiastic shouts of the audience.

+

+During this act every time Natásha looked toward the stalls she saw

+Anatole Kurágin with an arm thrown across the back of his chair,

+staring at her. She was pleased to see that he was captivated by her and

+it did not occur to her that there was anything wrong in it.

+

+When the second act was over Countess Bezúkhova rose, turned to the

+Rostóvs’ box—her whole bosom completely exposed—beckoned the old

+count with a gloved finger, and paying no attention to those who had

+entered her box began talking to him with an amiable smile.

+

+“Do make me acquainted with your charming daughters,” said she.

+“The whole town is singing their praises and I don’t even know

+them!”

+

+Natásha rose and curtsied to the splendid countess. She was so pleased

+by praise from this brilliant beauty that she blushed with pleasure.

+

+“I want to become a Moscovite too, now,” said Hélène. “How is it

+you’re not ashamed to bury such pearls in the country?”

+

+Countess Bezúkhova quite deserved her reputation of being a fascinating

+woman. She could say what she did not think—especially what was

+flattering—quite simply and naturally.

+

+“Dear count, you must let me look after your daughters! Though I am

+not staying here long this time—nor are you—I will try to amuse

+them. I have already heard much of you in Petersburg and wanted to get

+to know you,” said she to Natásha with her stereotyped and lovely

+smile. “I had heard about you from my page, Drubetskóy. Have you

+heard he is getting married? And also from my husband’s friend

+Bolkónski, Prince Andrew Bolkónski,” she went on with special

+emphasis, implying that she knew of his relation to Natásha. To get

+better acquainted she asked that one of the young ladies should come

+into her box for the rest of the performance, and Natásha moved over to

+it.

+

+The scene of the third act represented a palace in which many candles

+were burning and pictures of knights with short beards hung on the

+walls. In the middle stood what were probably a king and a queen. The

+king waved his right arm and, evidently nervous, sang something badly

+and sat down on a crimson throne. The maiden who had been first in white

+and then in light blue, now wore only a smock, and stood beside the

+throne with her hair down. She sang something mournfully, addressing the

+queen, but the king waved his arm severely, and men and women with bare

+legs came in from both sides and began dancing all together. Then the

+violins played very shrilly and merrily and one of the women with thick

+bare legs and thin arms, separating from the others, went behind the

+wings, adjusted her bodice, returned to the middle of the stage, and

+began jumping and striking one foot rapidly against the other. In the

+stalls everyone clapped and shouted “bravo!” Then one of the men

+went into a corner of the stage. The cymbals and horns in the orchestra

+struck up more loudly, and this man with bare legs jumped very high and

+waved his feet about very rapidly. (He was Duport, who received sixty

+thousand rubles a year for this art.) Everybody in the stalls, boxes,

+and galleries began clapping and shouting with all their might, and the

+man stopped and began smiling and bowing to all sides. Then other men

+and women danced with bare legs. Then the king again shouted to the

+sound of music, and they all began singing. But suddenly a storm

+came on, chromatic scales and diminished sevenths were heard in the

+orchestra, everyone ran off, again dragging one of their number away,

+and the curtain dropped. Once more there was a terrible noise and

+clatter among the audience, and with rapturous faces everyone began

+shouting: “Duport! Duport! Duport!” Natásha no longer thought this

+strange. She looked about with pleasure, smiling joyfully.

+

+“Isn’t Duport delightful?” Hélène asked her.

+

+“Oh, yes,” replied Natásha.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+During the entr’acte a whiff of cold air came into Hélène’s box,

+the door opened, and Anatole entered, stooping and trying not to brush

+against anyone.

+

+“Let me introduce my brother to you,” said Hélène, her eyes

+shifting uneasily from Natásha to Anatole.

+

+Natásha turned her pretty little head toward the elegant young officer

+and smiled at him over her bare shoulder. Anatole, who was as handsome

+at close quarters as at a distance, sat down beside her and told her he

+had long wished to have this happiness—ever since the Narýshkins’

+ball in fact, at which he had had the well-remembered pleasure of seeing

+her. Kurágin was much more sensible and simple with women than among

+men. He talked boldly and naturally, and Natásha was strangely and

+agreeably struck by the fact that there was nothing formidable in this

+man about whom there was so much talk, but that on the contrary his

+smile was most naïve, cheerful, and good-natured.

+

+Kurágin asked her opinion of the performance and told her how at a

+previous performance Semënova had fallen down on the stage.

+

+“And do you know, Countess,” he said, suddenly addressing her as an

+old, familiar acquaintance, “we are getting up a costume tournament;

+you ought to take part in it! It will be great fun. We shall all meet at

+the Karágins’! Please come! No! Really, eh?” said he.

+

+While saying this he never removed his smiling eyes from her face,

+her neck, and her bare arms. Natásha knew for certain that he was

+enraptured by her. This pleased her, yet his presence made her feel

+constrained and oppressed. When she was not looking at him she felt that

+he was looking at her shoulders, and she involuntarily caught his eye

+so that he should look into hers rather than this. But looking into his

+eyes she was frightened, realizing that there was not that barrier of

+modesty she had always felt between herself and other men. She did not

+know how it was that within five minutes she had come to feel herself

+terribly near to this man. When she turned away she feared he might

+seize her from behind by her bare arm and kiss her on the neck. They

+spoke of most ordinary things, yet she felt that they were closer to

+one another than she had ever been to any man. Natásha kept turning to

+Hélène and to her father, as if asking what it all meant, but Hélène

+was engaged in conversation with a general and did not answer her

+look, and her father’s eyes said nothing but what they always said:

+“Having a good time? Well, I’m glad of it!”

+

+During one of these moments of awkward silence when Anatole’s

+prominent eyes were gazing calmly and fixedly at her, Natásha, to break

+the silence, asked him how he liked Moscow. She asked the question and

+blushed. She felt all the time that by talking to him she was doing

+something improper. Anatole smiled as though to encourage her.

+

+“At first I did not like it much, because what makes a town pleasant

+ce sont les jolies femmes, * isn’t that so? But now I like it very

+much indeed,” he said, looking at her significantly. “You’ll come

+to the costume tournament, Countess? Do come!” and putting out his

+hand to her bouquet and dropping his voice, he added, “You will be the

+prettiest there. Do come, dear countess, and give me this flower as a

+pledge!”

+

+    * Are the pretty women.

+

+Natásha did not understand what he was saying any more than he did

+himself, but she felt that his incomprehensible words had an improper

+intention. She did not know what to say and turned away as if she had

+not heard his remark. But as soon as she had turned away she felt that

+he was there, behind, so close behind her.

+

+“How is he now? Confused? Angry? Ought I to put it right?” she

+asked herself, and she could not refrain from turning round. She looked

+straight into his eyes, and his nearness, self-assurance, and the

+good-natured tenderness of his smile vanquished her. She smiled just

+as he was doing, gazing straight into his eyes. And again she felt with

+horror that no barrier lay between him and her.

+

+The curtain rose again. Anatole left the box, serene and gay. Natásha

+went back to her father in the other box, now quite submissive to the

+world she found herself in. All that was going on before her now seemed

+quite natural, but on the other hand all her previous thoughts of her

+betrothed, of Princess Mary, or of life in the country did not once

+recur to her mind and were as if belonging to a remote past.

+

+In the fourth act there was some sort of devil who sang waving his arm

+about, till the boards were withdrawn from under him and he disappeared

+down below. That was the only part of the fourth act that Natásha saw.

+She felt agitated and tormented, and the cause of this was Kurágin whom

+she could not help watching. As they were leaving the theater Anatole

+came up to them, called their carriage, and helped them in. As he was

+putting Natásha in he pressed her arm above the elbow. Agitated and

+flushed she turned round. He was looking at her with glittering eyes,

+smiling tenderly.

+

+

+Only after she had reached home was Natásha able clearly to think over

+what had happened to her, and suddenly remembering Prince Andrew she

+was horrified, and at tea to which all had sat down after the opera, she

+gave a loud exclamation, flushed, and ran out of the room.

+

+“O God! I am lost!” she said to herself. “How could I let him?”

+She sat for a long time hiding her flushed face in her hands trying to

+realize what had happened to her, but was unable either to understand

+what had happened or what she felt. Everything seemed dark, obscure,

+and terrible. There in that enormous, illuminated theater where the

+bare-legged Duport, in a tinsel-decorated jacket, jumped about to the

+music on wet boards, and young girls and old men, and the nearly

+naked Hélène with her proud, calm smile, rapturously cried

+“bravo!”—there in the presence of that Hélène it had all seemed

+clear and simple; but now, alone by herself, it was incomprehensible.

+“What is it? What was that terror I felt of him? What is this gnawing

+of conscience I am feeling now?” she thought.

+

+Only to the old countess at night in bed could Natásha have told all

+she was feeling. She knew that Sónya with her severe and simple views

+would either not understand it at all or would be horrified at such

+a confession. So Natásha tried to solve what was torturing her by

+herself.

+

+“Am I spoiled for Andrew’s love or not?” she asked herself, and

+with soothing irony replied: “What a fool I am to ask that! What did

+happen to me? Nothing! I have done nothing, I didn’t lead him on

+at all. Nobody will know and I shall never see him again,” she told

+herself. “So it is plain that nothing has happened and there is

+nothing to repent of, and Andrew can love me still. But why ‘still?’

+O God, why isn’t he here?” Natásha quieted herself for a moment,

+but again some instinct told her that though all this was true, and

+though nothing had happened, yet the former purity of her love for

+Prince Andrew had perished. And again in imagination she went over her

+whole conversation with Kurágin, and again saw the face, gestures, and

+tender smile of that bold handsome man when he pressed her arm.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+Anatole Kurágin was staying in Moscow because his father had sent him

+away from Petersburg, where he had been spending twenty thousand rubles

+a year in cash, besides running up debts for as much more, which his

+creditors demanded from his father.

+

+His father announced to him that he would now pay half his debts for the

+last time, but only on condition that he went to Moscow as adjutant to

+the commander in chief—a post his father had procured for him—and

+would at last try to make a good match there. He indicated to him

+Princess Mary and Julie Karágina.

+

+Anatole consented and went to Moscow, where he put up at Pierre’s

+house. Pierre received him unwillingly at first, but got used to him

+after a while, sometimes even accompanied him on his carousals, and gave

+him money under the guise of loans.

+

+As Shinshín had remarked, from the time of his arrival Anatole had

+turned the heads of the Moscow ladies, especially by the fact that

+he slighted them and plainly preferred the gypsy girls and French

+actresses—with the chief of whom, Mademoiselle George, he was said to

+be on intimate relations. He had never missed a carousal at Danílov’s

+or other Moscow revelers’, drank whole nights through, outvying

+everyone else, and was at all the balls and parties of the best society.

+There was talk of his intrigues with some of the ladies, and he flirted

+with a few of them at the balls. But he did not run after the unmarried

+girls, especially the rich heiresses who were most of them plain.

+There was a special reason for this, as he had got married two years

+before—a fact known only to his most intimate friends. At that time

+while with his regiment in Poland, a Polish landowner of small means had

+forced him to marry his daughter. Anatole had very soon abandoned his

+wife and, for a payment which he agreed to send to his father-in-law,

+had arranged to be free to pass himself off as a bachelor.

+

+Anatole was always content with his position, with himself, and with

+others. He was instinctively and thoroughly convinced that it was

+impossible for him to live otherwise than as he did and that he had

+never in his life done anything base. He was incapable of considering

+how his actions might affect others or what the consequences of this or

+that action of his might be. He was convinced that, as a duck is so made

+that it must live in water, so God had made him such that he must spend

+thirty thousand rubles a year and always occupy a prominent position in

+society. He believed this so firmly that others, looking at him, were

+persuaded of it too and did not refuse him either a leading place

+in society or money, which he borrowed from anyone and everyone and

+evidently would not repay.

+

+He was not a gambler, at any rate he did not care about winning. He was

+not vain. He did not mind what people thought of him. Still less could

+he be accused of ambition. More than once he had vexed his father by

+spoiling his own career, and he laughed at distinctions of all kinds. He

+was not mean, and did not refuse anyone who asked of him. All he cared

+about was gaiety and women, and as according to his ideas there

+was nothing dishonorable in these tastes, and he was incapable of

+considering what the gratification of his tastes entailed for others,

+he honestly considered himself irreproachable, sincerely despised rogues

+and bad people, and with a tranquil conscience carried his head high.

+

+Rakes, those male Magdalenes, have a secret feeling of innocence

+similar to that which female Magdalenes have, based on the same hope of

+forgiveness. “All will be forgiven her, for she loved much; and all

+will be forgiven him, for he enjoyed much.”

+

+Dólokhov, who had reappeared that year in Moscow after his exile and

+his Persian adventures, and was leading a life of luxury, gambling, and

+dissipation, associated with his old Petersburg comrade Kurágin and

+made use of him for his own ends.

+

+Anatole was sincerely fond of Dólokhov for his cleverness and

+audacity. Dólokhov, who needed Anatole Kurágin’s name, position, and

+connections as a bait to draw rich young men into his gambling set, made

+use of him and amused himself at his expense without letting the other

+feel it. Apart from the advantage he derived from Anatole, the very

+process of dominating another’s will was in itself a pleasure, a

+habit, and a necessity to Dólokhov.

+

+Natásha had made a strong impression on Kurágin. At supper after

+the opera he described to Dólokhov with the air of a connoisseur the

+attractions of her arms, shoulders, feet, and hair and expressed his

+intention of making love to her. Anatole had no notion and was incapable

+of considering what might come of such love-making, as he never had any

+notion of the outcome of any of his actions.

+

+“She’s first-rate, my dear fellow, but not for us,” replied

+Dólokhov.

+

+“I will tell my sister to ask her to dinner,” said Anatole.

+“Eh?”

+

+“You’d better wait till she’s married....”

+

+“You know, I adore little girls, they lose their heads at once,”

+pursued Anatole.

+

+“You have been caught once already by a ‘little girl,’” said

+Dólokhov who knew of Kurágin’s marriage. “Take care!”

+

+“Well, that can’t happen twice! Eh?” said Anatole, with a

+good-humored laugh.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+The day after the opera the Rostóvs went nowhere and nobody came to see

+them. Márya Dmítrievna talked to the count about something which they

+concealed from Natásha. Natásha guessed they were talking about the

+old prince and planning something, and this disquieted and offended her.

+She was expecting Prince Andrew any moment and twice that day sent a

+manservant to the Vozdvízhenka to ascertain whether he had come. He had

+not arrived. She suffered more now than during her first days in Moscow.

+To her impatience and pining for him were now added the unpleasant

+recollection of her interview with Princess Mary and the old prince,

+and a fear and anxiety of which she did not understand the cause. She

+continually fancied that either he would never come or that something

+would happen to her before he came. She could no longer think of him by

+herself calmly and continuously as she had done before. As soon as she

+began to think of him, the recollection of the old prince, of Princess

+Mary, of the theater, and of Kurágin mingled with her thoughts. The

+question again presented itself whether she was not guilty, whether she

+had not already broken faith with Prince Andrew, and again she found

+herself recalling to the minutest detail every word, every gesture, and

+every shade in the play of expression on the face of the man who had

+been able to arouse in her such an incomprehensible and terrifying

+feeling. To the family Natásha seemed livelier than usual, but she was

+far less tranquil and happy than before.

+

+On Sunday morning Márya Dmítrievna invited her visitors to Mass at her

+parish church—the Church of the Assumption built over the graves of

+victims of the plague.

+

+“I don’t like those fashionable churches,” she said, evidently

+priding herself on her independence of thought. “God is the same

+everywhere. We have an excellent priest, he conducts the service

+decently and with dignity, and the deacon is the same. What holiness is

+there in giving concerts in the choir? I don’t like it, it’s just

+self-indulgence!”

+

+Márya Dmítrievna liked Sundays and knew how to keep them. Her whole

+house was scrubbed and cleaned on Saturdays; neither she nor the

+servants worked, and they all wore holiday dress and went to church. At

+her table there were extra dishes at dinner, and the servants had vodka

+and roast goose or suckling pig. But in nothing in the house was the

+holiday so noticeable as in Márya Dmítrievna’s broad, stern face,

+which on that day wore an invariable look of solemn festivity.

+

+After Mass, when they had finished their coffee in the dining room

+where the loose covers had been removed from the furniture, a servant

+announced that the carriage was ready, and Márya Dmítrievna rose with

+a stern air. She wore her holiday shawl, in which she paid calls, and

+announced that she was going to see Prince Nicholas Bolkónski to have

+an explanation with him about Natásha.

+

+After she had gone, a dressmaker from Madame Suppert-Roguet waited on

+the Rostóvs, and Natásha, very glad of this diversion, having shut

+herself into a room adjoining the drawing room, occupied herself trying

+on the new dresses. Just as she had put on a bodice without sleeves and

+only tacked together, and was turning her head to see in the glass how

+the back fitted, she heard in the drawing room the animated sounds

+of her father’s voice and another’s—a woman’s—that made her

+flush. It was Hélène. Natásha had not time to take off the bodice

+before the door opened and Countess Bezúkhova, dressed in a purple

+velvet gown with a high collar, came into the room beaming with

+good-humored amiable smiles.

+

+“Oh, my enchantress!” she cried to the blushing Natásha.

+“Charming! No, this is really beyond anything, my dear count,” said

+she to Count Rostóv who had followed her in. “How can you live in

+Moscow and go nowhere? No, I won’t let you off! Mademoiselle George

+will recite at my house tonight and there’ll be some people, and if

+you don’t bring your lovely girls—who are prettier than Mademoiselle

+George—I won’t know you! My husband is away in Tver or I would send

+him to fetch you. You must come. You positively must! Between eight and

+nine.”

+

+She nodded to the dressmaker, whom she knew and who had curtsied

+respectfully to her, and seated herself in an armchair beside the

+looking glass, draping the folds of her velvet dress picturesquely. She

+did not cease chattering good-naturedly and gaily, continually praising

+Natásha’s beauty. She looked at Natásha’s dresses and praised

+them, as well as a new dress of her own made of “metallic gauze,”

+which she had received from Paris, and advised Natásha to have one like

+it.

+

+“But anything suits you, my charmer!” she remarked.

+

+A smile of pleasure never left Natásha’s face. She felt happy and as

+if she were blossoming under the praise of this dear Countess Bezúkhova

+who had formerly seemed to her so unapproachable and important and was

+now so kind to her. Natásha brightened up and felt almost in love with

+this woman, who was so beautiful and so kind. Hélène for her part was

+sincerely delighted with Natásha and wished to give her a good time.

+Anatole had asked her to bring him and Natásha together, and she was

+calling on the Rostóvs for that purpose. The idea of throwing her

+brother and Natásha together amused her.

+

+Though at one time, in Petersburg, she had been annoyed with Natásha

+for drawing Borís away, she did not think of that now, and in her own

+way heartily wished Natásha well. As she was leaving the Rostóvs she

+called her protégée aside.

+

+“My brother dined with me yesterday—we nearly died of laughter—he

+ate nothing and kept sighing for you, my charmer! He is madly, quite

+madly, in love with you, my dear.”

+

+Natásha blushed scarlet when she heard this.

+

+“How she blushes, how she blushes, my pretty!” said Hélène. “You

+must certainly come. If you love somebody, my charmer, that is not a

+reason to shut yourself up. Even if you are engaged, I am sure your

+fiancé would wish you to go into society rather than be bored to

+death.”

+

+“So she knows I am engaged, and she and her husband Pierre—that good

+Pierre—have talked and laughed about this. So it’s all right.” And

+again, under Hélène’s influence, what had seemed terrible now seemed

+simple and natural. “And she is such a grande dame, so kind, and

+evidently likes me so much. And why not enjoy myself?” thought

+Natásha, gazing at Hélène with wide-open, wondering eyes.

+

+Márya Dmítrievna came back to dinner taciturn and serious, having

+evidently suffered a defeat at the old prince’s. She was still too

+agitated by the encounter to be able to talk of the affair calmly. In

+answer to the count’s inquiries she replied that things were all

+right and that she would tell about it next day. On hearing of Countess

+Bezúkhova’s visit and the invitation for that evening, Márya

+Dmítrievna remarked:

+

+“I don’t care to have anything to do with Bezúkhova and don’t

+advise you to; however, if you’ve promised—go. It will divert your

+thoughts,” she added, addressing Natásha.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+Count Rostóv took the girls to Countess Bezúkhova’s. There were

+a good many people there, but nearly all strangers to Natásha. Count

+Rostóv was displeased to see that the company consisted almost entirely

+of men and women known for the freedom of their conduct. Mademoiselle

+George was standing in a corner of the drawing room surrounded by young

+men. There were several Frenchmen present, among them Métivier who from

+the time Hélène reached Moscow had been an intimate in her house. The

+count decided not to sit down to cards or let his girls out of his sight

+and to get away as soon as Mademoiselle George’s performance was over.

+

+Anatole was at the door, evidently on the lookout for the Rostóvs.

+Immediately after greeting the count he went up to Natásha and followed

+her. As soon as she saw him she was seized by the same feeling she had

+had at the opera—gratified vanity at his admiration of her and fear at

+the absence of a moral barrier between them.

+

+Hélène welcomed Natásha delightedly and was loud in admiration of her

+beauty and her dress. Soon after their arrival Mademoiselle George went

+out of the room to change her costume. In the drawing room people began

+arranging the chairs and taking their seats. Anatole moved a chair for

+Natásha and was about to sit down beside her, but the count, who never

+lost sight of her, took the seat himself. Anatole sat down behind her.

+

+Mademoiselle George, with her bare, fat, dimpled arms, and a red shawl

+draped over one shoulder, came into the space left vacant for her, and

+assumed an unnatural pose. Enthusiastic whispering was audible.

+

+Mademoiselle George looked sternly and gloomily at the audience and

+began reciting some French verses describing her guilty love for her

+son. In some places she raised her voice, in others she whispered,

+lifting her head triumphantly; sometimes she paused and uttered hoarse

+sounds, rolling her eyes.

+

+“Adorable! divine! delicious!” was heard from every side.

+

+Natásha looked at the fat actress, but neither saw nor heard nor

+understood anything of what went on before her. She only felt herself

+again completely borne away into this strange senseless world—so

+remote from her old world—a world in which it was impossible to know

+what was good or bad, reasonable or senseless. Behind her sat Anatole,

+and conscious of his proximity she experienced a frightened sense of

+expectancy.

+

+After the first monologue the whole company rose and surrounded

+Mademoiselle George, expressing their enthusiasm.

+

+“How beautiful she is!” Natásha remarked to her father who had also

+risen and was moving through the crowd toward the actress.

+

+“I don’t think so when I look at you!” said Anatole, following

+Natásha. He said this at a moment when she alone could hear him. “You

+are enchanting... from the moment I saw you I have never ceased...”

+

+“Come, come, Natásha!” said the count, as he turned back for his

+daughter. “How beautiful she is!” Natásha without saying anything

+stepped up to her father and looked at him with surprised inquiring

+eyes.

+

+After giving several recitations, Mademoiselle George left, and Countess

+Bezúkhova asked her visitors into the ballroom.

+

+The count wished to go home, but Hélène entreated him not to spoil her

+improvised ball, and the Rostóvs stayed on. Anatole asked Natásha for

+a valse and as they danced he pressed her waist and hand and told her

+she was bewitching and that he loved her. During the écossaise, which

+she also danced with him, Anatole said nothing when they happened to be

+by themselves, but merely gazed at her. Natásha lifted her frightened

+eyes to him, but there was such confident tenderness in his affectionate

+look and smile that she could not, whilst looking at him, say what she

+had to say. She lowered her eyes.

+

+“Don’t say such things to me. I am betrothed and love another,”

+she said rapidly.... She glanced at him.

+

+Anatole was not upset or pained by what she had said.

+

+“Don’t speak to me of that! What can I do?” said he. “I tell

+you I am madly, madly, in love with you! Is it my fault that you are

+enchanting?... It’s our turn to begin.”

+

+Natásha, animated and excited, looked about her with wide-open

+frightened eyes and seemed merrier than usual. She understood hardly

+anything that went on that evening. They danced the écossaise and the

+Grossvater. Her father asked her to come home, but she begged to remain.

+Wherever she went and whomever she was speaking to, she felt his eyes

+upon her. Later on she recalled how she had asked her father to let

+her go to the dressing room to rearrange her dress, that Hélène had

+followed her and spoken laughingly of her brother’s love, and that she

+again met Anatole in the little sitting room. Hélène had disappeared

+leaving them alone, and Anatole had taken her hand and said in a tender

+voice:

+

+“I cannot come to visit you but is it possible that I shall never see

+you? I love you madly. Can I never...?” and, blocking her path, he

+brought his face close to hers.

+

+His large, glittering, masculine eyes were so close to hers that she saw

+nothing but them.

+

+“Natalie?” he whispered inquiringly while she felt her hands being

+painfully pressed. “Natalie?”

+

+“I don’t understand. I have nothing to say,” her eyes replied.

+

+Burning lips were pressed to hers, and at the same instant she felt

+herself released, and Hélène’s footsteps and the rustle of her dress

+were heard in the room. Natásha looked round at her, and then, red

+and trembling, threw a frightened look of inquiry at Anatole and moved

+toward the door.

+

+“One word, just one, for God’s sake!” cried Anatole.

+

+She paused. She so wanted a word from him that would explain to her what

+had happened and to which she could find no answer.

+

+“Natalie, just a word, only one!” he kept repeating, evidently not

+knowing what to say and he repeated it till Hélène came up to them.

+

+Hélène returned with Natásha to the drawing room. The Rostóvs went

+away without staying for supper.

+

+After reaching home Natásha did not sleep all night. She was tormented

+by the insoluble question whether she loved Anatole or Prince Andrew.

+She loved Prince Andrew—she remembered distinctly how deeply she loved

+him. But she also loved Anatole, of that there was no doubt. “Else how

+could all this have happened?” thought she. “If, after that, I could

+return his smile when saying good-by, if I was able to let it come to

+that, it means that I loved him from the first. It means that he is

+kind, noble, and splendid, and I could not help loving him. What am I to

+do if I love him and the other one too?” she asked herself, unable to

+find an answer to these terrible questions.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV

+

+Morning came with its cares and bustle. Everyone got up and began

+to move about and talk, dressmakers came again. Márya Dmítrievna

+appeared, and they were called to breakfast. Natásha kept looking

+uneasily at everybody with wide-open eyes, as if wishing to intercept

+every glance directed toward her, and tried to appear the same as usual.

+

+After breakfast, which was her best time, Márya Dmítrievna sat down in

+her armchair and called Natásha and the count to her.

+

+“Well, friends, I have now thought the whole matter over and this is

+my advice,” she began. “Yesterday, as you know, I went to see Prince

+Bolkónski. Well, I had a talk with him.... He took it into his head to

+begin shouting, but I am not one to be shouted down. I said what I had

+to say!”

+

+“Well, and he?” asked the count.

+

+“He? He’s crazy... he did not want to listen. But what’s the use

+of talking? As it is we have worn the poor girl out,” said Márya

+Dmítrievna. “My advice to you is finish your business and go back

+home to Otrádnoe... and wait there.”

+

+“Oh, no!” exclaimed Natásha.

+

+“Yes, go back,” said Márya Dmítrievna, “and wait there. If your

+betrothed comes here now—there will be no avoiding a quarrel; but

+alone with the old man he will talk things over and then come on to

+you.”

+

+Count Rostóv approved of this suggestion, appreciating its

+reasonableness. If the old man came round it would be all the better to

+visit him in Moscow or at Bald Hills later on; and if not, the wedding,

+against his wishes, could only be arranged at Otrádnoe.

+

+“That is perfectly true. And I am sorry I went to see him and took

+her,” said the old count.

+

+“No, why be sorry? Being here, you had to pay your respects. But if he

+won’t—that’s his affair,” said Márya Dmítrievna, looking for

+something in her reticule. “Besides, the trousseau is ready, so there

+is nothing to wait for; and what is not ready I’ll send after you.

+Though I don’t like letting you go, it is the best way. So go, with

+God’s blessing!”

+

+Having found what she was looking for in the reticule she handed it to

+Natásha. It was a letter from Princess Mary.

+

+“She has written to you. How she torments herself, poor thing! She’s

+afraid you might think that she does not like you.”

+

+“But she doesn’t like me,” said Natásha.

+

+“Don’t talk nonsense!” cried Márya Dmítrievna.

+

+“I shan’t believe anyone, I know she doesn’t like me,” replied

+Natásha boldly as she took the letter, and her face expressed a cold

+and angry resolution that caused Márya Dmítrievna to look at her more

+intently and to frown.

+

+“Don’t answer like that, my good girl!” she said. “What I say is

+true! Write an answer!”

+

+Natásha did not reply and went to her own room to read Princess

+Mary’s letter.

+

+Princess Mary wrote that she was in despair at the misunderstanding that

+had occurred between them. Whatever her father’s feelings might be,

+she begged Natásha to believe that she could not help loving her as

+the one chosen by her brother, for whose happiness she was ready to

+sacrifice everything.

+

+“Do not think, however,” she wrote, “that my father is

+ill-disposed toward you. He is an invalid and an old man who must be

+forgiven; but he is good and magnanimous and will love her who makes his

+son happy.” Princess Mary went on to ask Natásha to fix a time when

+she could see her again.

+

+After reading the letter Natásha sat down at the writing table

+to answer it. “Dear Princess,” she wrote in French quickly and

+mechanically, and then paused. What more could she write after all that

+had happened the evening before? “Yes, yes! All that has happened, and

+now all is changed,” she thought as she sat with the letter she had

+begun before her. “Must I break off with him? Must I really? That’s

+awful...” and to escape from these dreadful thoughts she went to

+Sónya and began sorting patterns with her.

+

+After dinner Natásha went to her room and again took up Princess

+Mary’s letter. “Can it be that it is all over?” she thought.

+“Can it be that all this has happened so quickly and has destroyed all

+that went before?” She recalled her love for Prince Andrew in all its

+former strength, and at the same time felt that she loved Kurágin. She

+vividly pictured herself as Prince Andrew’s wife, and the scenes of

+happiness with him she had so often repeated in her imagination, and

+at the same time, aglow with excitement, recalled every detail of

+yesterday’s interview with Anatole.

+

+“Why could that not be as well?” she sometimes asked herself in

+complete bewilderment. “Only so could I be completely happy; but now I

+have to choose, and I can’t be happy without either of them. Only,”

+she thought, “to tell Prince Andrew what has happened or to hide

+it from him are both equally impossible. But with that one nothing is

+spoiled. But am I really to abandon forever the joy of Prince Andrew’s

+love, in which I have lived so long?”

+

+“Please, Miss!” whispered a maid entering the room with a mysterious

+air. “A man told me to give you this—” and she handed Natásha a

+letter.

+

+“Only, for Christ’s sake...” the girl went on, as Natásha,

+without thinking, mechanically broke the seal and read a love letter

+from Anatole, of which, without taking in a word, she understood only

+that it was a letter from him—from the man she loved. Yes, she loved

+him, or else how could that have happened which had happened? And how

+could she have a love letter from him in her hand?

+

+With trembling hands Natásha held that passionate love letter which

+Dólokhov had composed for Anatole, and as she read it she found in it

+an echo of all that she herself imagined she was feeling.

+

+“Since yesterday evening my fate has been sealed; to be loved by you

+or to die. There is no other way for me,” the letter began. Then he

+went on to say that he knew her parents would not give her to him—for

+this there were secret reasons he could reveal only to her—but that if

+she loved him she need only say the word yes, and no human power could

+hinder their bliss. Love would conquer all. He would steal her away and

+carry her off to the ends of the earth.

+

+“Yes, yes! I love him!” thought Natásha, reading the letter for the

+twentieth time and finding some peculiarly deep meaning in each word of

+it.

+

+That evening Márya Dmítrievna was going to the Akhárovs’ and

+proposed to take the girls with her. Natásha, pleading a headache,

+remained at home.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV

+

+On returning late in the evening Sónya went to Natásha’s room, and

+to her surprise found her still dressed and asleep on the sofa. Open on

+the table, beside her lay Anatole’s letter. Sónya picked it up and

+read it.

+

+As she read she glanced at the sleeping Natásha, trying to find in her

+face an explanation of what she was reading, but did not find it. Her

+face was calm, gentle, and happy. Clutching her breast to keep herself

+from choking, Sónya, pale and trembling with fear and agitation, sat

+down in an armchair and burst into tears.

+

+“How was it I noticed nothing? How could it go so far? Can she have

+left off loving Prince Andrew? And how could she let Kurágin go to

+such lengths? He is a deceiver and a villain, that’s plain! What will

+Nicholas, dear noble Nicholas, do when he hears of it? So this is

+the meaning of her excited, resolute, unnatural look the day before

+yesterday, yesterday, and today,” thought Sónya. “But it can’t be

+that she loves him! She probably opened the letter without knowing who

+it was from. Probably she is offended by it. She could not do such a

+thing!”

+

+Sónya wiped away her tears and went up to Natásha, again scanning her

+face.

+

+“Natásha!” she said, just audibly.

+

+Natásha awoke and saw Sónya.

+

+“Ah, you’re back?”

+

+And with the decision and tenderness that often come at the moment of

+awakening, she embraced her friend, but noticing Sónya’s look of

+embarrassment, her own face expressed confusion and suspicion.

+

+“Sónya, you’ve read that letter?” she demanded.

+

+“Yes,” answered Sónya softly.

+

+Natásha smiled rapturously.

+

+“No, Sónya, I can’t any longer!” she said. “I can’t hide it

+from you any longer. You know, we love one another! Sónya, darling, he

+writes... Sónya...”

+

+Sónya stared open-eyed at Natásha, unable to believe her ears.

+

+“And Bolkónski?” she asked.

+

+“Ah, Sónya, if you only knew how happy I am!” cried Natásha.

+“You don’t know what love is....”

+

+“But, Natásha, can that be all over?”

+

+Natásha looked at Sónya with wide-open eyes as if she could not grasp

+the question.

+

+“Well, then, are you refusing Prince Andrew?” said Sónya.

+

+“Oh, you don’t understand anything! Don’t talk nonsense, just

+listen!” said Natásha, with momentary vexation.

+

+“But I can’t believe it,” insisted Sónya. “I don’t

+understand. How is it you have loved a man for a whole year and

+suddenly... Why, you have only seen him three times! Natásha, I don’t

+believe you, you’re joking! In three days to forget everything and

+so...”

+

+“Three days?” said Natásha. “It seems to me I’ve loved him a

+hundred years. It seems to me that I have never loved anyone before. You

+can’t understand it.... Sónya, wait a bit, sit here,” and Natásha

+embraced and kissed her.

+

+“I had heard that it happens like this, and you must have heard it

+too, but it’s only now that I feel such love. It’s not the same as

+before. As soon as I saw him I felt he was my master and I his slave,

+and that I could not help loving him. Yes, his slave! Whatever he orders

+I shall do. You don’t understand that. What can I do? What can I do,

+Sónya?” cried Natásha with a happy yet frightened expression.

+

+“But think what you are doing,” cried Sónya. “I can’t leave

+it like this. This secret correspondence... How could you let him go so

+far?” she went on, with a horror and disgust she could hardly conceal.

+

+“I told you that I have no will,” Natásha replied. “Why can’t

+you understand? I love him!”

+

+“Then I won’t let it come to that... I shall tell!” cried Sónya,

+bursting into tears.

+

+“What do you mean? For God’s sake... If you tell, you are my

+enemy!” declared Natásha. “You want me to be miserable, you want us

+to be separated....”

+

+When she saw Natásha’s fright, Sónya shed tears of shame and pity

+for her friend.

+

+“But what has happened between you?” she asked. “What has he said

+to you? Why doesn’t he come to the house?”

+

+Natásha did not answer her questions.

+

+“For God’s sake, Sónya, don’t tell anyone, don’t torture

+me,” Natásha entreated. “Remember no one ought to interfere in such

+matters! I have confided in you....”

+

+“But why this secrecy? Why doesn’t he come to the house?” asked

+Sónya. “Why doesn’t he openly ask for your hand? You know Prince

+Andrew gave you complete freedom—if it is really so; but I don’t

+believe it! Natásha, have you considered what these secret reasons can

+be?”

+

+Natásha looked at Sónya with astonishment. Evidently this question

+presented itself to her mind for the first time and she did not know how

+to answer it.

+

+“I don’t know what the reasons are. But there must be reasons!”

+

+Sónya sighed and shook her head incredulously.

+

+“If there were reasons...” she began.

+

+But Natásha, guessing her doubts, interrupted her in alarm.

+

+“Sónya, one can’t doubt him! One can’t, one can’t! Don’t you

+understand?” she cried.

+

+“Does he love you?”

+

+“Does he love me?” Natásha repeated with a smile of pity at her

+friend’s lack of comprehension. “Why, you have read his letter and

+you have seen him.”

+

+“But if he is dishonorable?”

+

+“He! dishonorable? If you only knew!” exclaimed Natásha.

+

+“If he is an honorable man he should either declare his intentions or

+cease seeing you; and if you won’t do this, I will. I will write to

+him, and I will tell Papa!” said Sónya resolutely.

+

+“But I can’t live without him!” cried Natásha.

+

+“Natásha, I don’t understand you. And what are you saying! Think of

+your father and of Nicholas.”

+

+“I don’t want anyone, I don’t love anyone but him. How dare you

+say he is dishonorable? Don’t you know that I love him?” screamed

+Natásha. “Go away, Sónya! I don’t want to quarrel with you, but

+go, for God’s sake go! You see how I am suffering!” Natásha cried

+angrily, in a voice of despair and repressed irritation. Sónya burst

+into sobs and ran from the room.

+

+Natásha went to the table and without a moment’s reflection wrote

+that answer to Princess Mary which she had been unable to write all

+the morning. In this letter she said briefly that all their

+misunderstandings were at an end; that availing herself of the

+magnanimity of Prince Andrew who when he went abroad had given her her

+freedom, she begged Princess Mary to forget everything and forgive her

+if she had been to blame toward her, but that she could not be his

+wife. At that moment this all seemed quite easy, simple, and clear to

+Natásha.

+

+

+On Friday the Rostóvs were to return to the country, but on Wednesday

+the count went with the prospective purchaser to his estate near Moscow.

+

+On the day the count left, Sónya and Natásha were invited to a big

+dinner party at the Karágins’, and Márya Dmítrievna took them

+there. At that party Natásha again met Anatole, and Sónya noticed

+that she spoke to him, trying not to be overheard, and that all through

+dinner she was more agitated than ever. When they got home Natásha was

+the first to begin the explanation Sónya expected.

+

+“There, Sónya, you were talking all sorts of nonsense about him,”

+Natásha began in a mild voice such as children use when they wish to be

+praised. “We have had an explanation today.”

+

+“Well, what happened? What did he say? Natásha, how glad I am

+you’re not angry with me! Tell me everything—the whole truth. What

+did he say?”

+

+Natásha became thoughtful.

+

+“Oh, Sónya, if you knew him as I do! He said... He asked me what I

+had promised Bolkónski. He was glad I was free to refuse him.”

+

+Sónya sighed sorrowfully.

+

+“But you haven’t refused Bolkónski?” said she.

+

+“Perhaps I have. Perhaps all is over between me and Bolkónski. Why do

+you think so badly of me?”

+

+“I don’t think anything, only I don’t understand this...”

+

+“Wait a bit, Sónya, you’ll understand everything. You’ll see what

+a man he is! Now don’t think badly of me or of him. I don’t think

+badly of anyone: I love and pity everybody. But what am I to do?”

+

+Sónya did not succumb to the tender tone Natásha used toward her.

+The more emotional and ingratiating the expression of Natásha’s face

+became, the more serious and stern grew Sónya’s.

+

+“Natásha,” said she, “you asked me not to speak to you, and I

+haven’t spoken, but now you yourself have begun. I don’t trust him,

+Natásha. Why this secrecy?”

+

+“Again, again!” interrupted Natásha.

+

+“Natásha, I am afraid for you!”

+

+“Afraid of what?”

+

+“I am afraid you’re going to your ruin,” said Sónya resolutely,

+and was herself horrified at what she had said.

+

+Anger again showed in Natásha’s face.

+

+“And I’ll go to my ruin, I will, as soon as possible! It’s not

+your business! It won’t be you, but I, who’ll suffer. Leave me

+alone, leave me alone! I hate you!”

+

+“Natásha!” moaned Sónya, aghast.

+

+“I hate you, I hate you! You’re my enemy forever!” And Natásha

+ran out of the room.

+

+Natásha did not speak to Sónya again and avoided her. With the same

+expression of agitated surprise and guilt she went about the house,

+taking up now one occupation, now another, and at once abandoning them.

+

+Hard as it was for Sónya, she watched her friend and did not let her

+out of her sight.

+

+The day before the count was to return, Sónya noticed that Natásha sat

+by the drawing room window all the morning as if expecting something and

+that she made a sign to an officer who drove past, whom Sónya took to

+be Anatole.

+

+Sónya began watching her friend still more attentively and noticed that

+at dinner and all that evening Natásha was in a strange and unnatural

+state. She answered questions at random, began sentences she did not

+finish, and laughed at everything.

+

+After tea Sónya noticed a housemaid at Natásha’s door timidly

+waiting to let her pass. She let the girl go in, and then listening at

+the door learned that another letter had been delivered.

+

+Then suddenly it became clear to Sónya that Natásha had some dreadful

+plan for that evening. Sónya knocked at her door. Natásha did not let

+her in.

+

+“She will run away with him!” thought Sónya. “She is capable of

+anything. There was something particularly pathetic and resolute in

+her face today. She cried as she said good-by to Uncle,” Sónya

+remembered. “Yes, that’s it, she means to elope with him, but

+what am I to do?” thought she, recalling all the signs that clearly

+indicated that Natásha had some terrible intention. “The count is

+away. What am I to do? Write to Kurágin demanding an explanation? But

+what is there to oblige him to reply? Write to Pierre, as Prince Andrew

+asked me to in case of some misfortune?... But perhaps she really

+has already refused Bolkónski—she sent a letter to Princess Mary

+yesterday. And Uncle is away....” To tell Márya Dmítrievna who had

+such faith in Natásha seemed to Sónya terrible. “Well, anyway,”

+thought Sónya as she stood in the dark passage, “now or never I must

+prove that I remember the family’s goodness to me and that I love

+Nicholas. Yes! If I don’t sleep for three nights I’ll not leave this

+passage and will hold her back by force and will and not let the family

+be disgraced,” thought she.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI

+

+Anatole had lately moved to Dólokhov’s. The plan for Natalie

+Rostóva’s abduction had been arranged and the preparations made by

+Dólokhov a few days before, and on the day that Sónya, after listening

+at Natásha’s door, resolved to safeguard her, it was to have been

+put into execution. Natásha had promised to come out to Kurágin at the

+back porch at ten that evening. Kurágin was to put her into a troyka

+he would have ready and to drive her forty miles to the village of

+Kámenka, where an unfrocked priest was in readiness to perform a

+marriage ceremony over them. At Kámenka a relay of horses was to wait

+which would take them to the Warsaw highroad, and from there they would

+hasten abroad with post horses.

+

+Anatole had a passport, an order for post horses, ten thousand rubles

+he had taken from his sister and another ten thousand borrowed with

+Dólokhov’s help.

+

+Two witnesses for the mock marriage—Khvóstikov, a retired petty

+official whom Dólokhov made use of in his gambling transactions, and

+Makárin, a retired hussar, a kindly, weak fellow who had an unbounded

+affection for Kurágin—were sitting at tea in Dólokhov’s front

+room.

+

+In his large study, the walls of which were hung to the ceiling with

+Persian rugs, bearskins, and weapons, sat Dólokhov in a traveling cloak

+and high boots, at an open desk on which lay an abacus and some bundles

+of paper money. Anatole, with uniform unbuttoned, walked to and fro from

+the room where the witnesses were sitting, through the study to the room

+behind, where his French valet and others were packing the last of his

+things. Dólokhov was counting the money and noting something down.

+

+“Well,” he said, “Khvóstikov must have two thousand.”

+

+“Give it to him, then,” said Anatole.

+

+“Makárka” (their name for Makárin) “will go through fire and

+water for you for nothing. So here are our accounts all settled,” said

+Dólokhov, showing him the memorandum. “Is that right?”

+

+“Yes, of course,” returned Anatole, evidently not listening to

+Dólokhov and looking straight before him with a smile that did not

+leave his face.

+

+Dólokhov banged down the lid of his desk and turned to Anatole with an

+ironic smile:

+

+“Do you know? You’d really better drop it all. There’s still

+time!”

+

+“Fool,” retorted Anatole. “Don’t talk nonsense! If you only

+knew... it’s the devil knows what!”

+

+“No, really, give it up!” said Dólokhov. “I am speaking

+seriously. It’s no joke, this plot you’ve hatched.”

+

+“What, teasing again? Go to the devil! Eh?” said Anatole, making a

+grimace. “Really it’s no time for your stupid jokes,” and he left

+the room.

+

+Dólokhov smiled contemptuously and condescendingly when Anatole had

+gone out.

+

+“You wait a bit,” he called after him. “I’m not joking, I’m

+talking sense. Come here, come here!”

+

+Anatole returned and looked at Dólokhov, trying to give him his

+attention and evidently submitting to him involuntarily.

+

+“Now listen to me. I’m telling you this for the last time. Why

+should I joke about it? Did I hinder you? Who arranged everything for

+you? Who found the priest and got the passport? Who raised the money? I

+did it all.”

+

+“Well, thank you for it. Do you think I am not grateful?” And

+Anatole sighed and embraced Dólokhov.

+

+“I helped you, but all the same I must tell you the truth; it is a

+dangerous business, and if you think about it—a stupid business. Well,

+you’ll carry her off—all right! Will they let it stop at that? It

+will come out that you’re already married. Why, they’ll have you in

+the criminal court....”

+

+“Oh, nonsense, nonsense!” Anatole ejaculated and again made a

+grimace. “Didn’t I explain to you? What?” And Anatole, with the

+partiality dull-witted people have for any conclusion they have reached

+by their own reasoning, repeated the argument he had already put to

+Dólokhov a hundred times. “Didn’t I explain to you that I have come

+to this conclusion: if this marriage is invalid,” he went on, crooking

+one finger, “then I have nothing to answer for; but if it is valid, no

+matter! Abroad no one will know anything about it. Isn’t that so? And

+don’t talk to me, don’t, don’t.”

+

+“Seriously, you’d better drop it! You’ll only get yourself into a

+mess!”

+

+“Go to the devil!” cried Anatole and, clutching his hair, left the

+room, but returned at once and dropped into an armchair in front of

+Dólokhov with his feet turned under him. “It’s the very devil!

+What? Feel how it beats!” He took Dólokhov’s hand and put it on his

+heart. “What a foot, my dear fellow! What a glance! A goddess!” he

+added in French. “What?”

+

+Dólokhov with a cold smile and a gleam in his handsome insolent eyes

+looked at him—evidently wishing to get some more amusement out of him.

+

+“Well and when the money’s gone, what then?”

+

+“What then? Eh?” repeated Anatole, sincerely perplexed by a thought

+of the future. “What then?... Then, I don’t know.... But why talk

+nonsense!” He glanced at his watch. “It’s time!”

+

+Anatole went into the back room.

+

+“Now then! Nearly ready? You’re dawdling!” he shouted to the

+servants.

+

+Dólokhov put away the money, called a footman whom he ordered to bring

+something for them to eat and drink before the journey, and went into

+the room where Khvóstikov and Makárin were sitting.

+

+Anatole lay on the sofa in the study leaning on his elbow and smiling

+pensively, while his handsome lips muttered tenderly to himself.

+

+“Come and eat something. Have a drink!” Dólokhov shouted to him

+from the other room.

+

+“I don’t want to,” answered Anatole continuing to smile.

+

+“Come! Balagá is here.”

+

+Anatole rose and went into the dining room. Balagá was a famous troyka

+driver who had known Dólokhov and Anatole some six years and had given

+them good service with his troykas. More than once when Anatole’s

+regiment was stationed at Tver he had taken him from Tver in the

+evening, brought him to Moscow by daybreak, and driven him back again

+the next night. More than once he had enabled Dólokhov to escape when

+pursued. More than once he had driven them through the town with gypsies

+and “ladykins” as he called the cocottes. More than once in their

+service he had run over pedestrians and upset vehicles in the streets

+of Moscow and had always been protected from the consequences by “my

+gentlemen” as he called them. He had ruined more than one horse in

+their service. More than once they had beaten him, and more than once

+they had made him drunk on champagne and Madeira, which he loved; and

+he knew more than one thing about each of them which would long ago have

+sent an ordinary man to Siberia. They often called Balagá into their

+orgies and made him drink and dance at the gypsies’, and more than one

+thousand rubles of their money had passed through his hands. In their

+service he risked his skin and his life twenty times a year, and in

+their service had lost more horses than the money he had from them would

+buy. But he liked them; liked that mad driving at twelve miles an hour,

+liked upsetting a driver or running down a pedestrian, and flying at

+full gallop through the Moscow streets. He liked to hear those wild,

+tipsy shouts behind him: “Get on! Get on!” when it was impossible

+to go any faster. He liked giving a painful lash on the neck to some

+peasant who, more dead than alive, was already hurrying out of his way.

+“Real gentlemen!” he considered them.

+

+Anatole and Dólokhov liked Balagá too for his masterly driving and

+because he liked the things they liked. With others Balagá bargained,

+charging twenty-five rubles for a two hours’ drive, and rarely

+drove himself, generally letting his young men do so. But with “his

+gentlemen” he always drove himself and never demanded anything for

+his work. Only a couple of times a year—when he knew from their valets

+that they had money in hand—he would turn up of a morning quite sober

+and with a deep bow would ask them to help him. The gentlemen always

+made him sit down.

+

+“Do help me out, Theodore Iványch, sir,” or “your excellency,”

+he would say. “I am quite out of horses. Let me have what you can to

+go to the fair.”

+

+And Anatole and Dólokhov, when they had money, would give him a

+thousand or a couple of thousand rubles.

+

+Balagá was a fair-haired, short, and snub-nosed peasant of about

+twenty-seven; red-faced, with a particularly red thick neck, glittering

+little eyes, and a small beard. He wore a fine, dark-blue, silk-lined

+cloth coat over a sheepskin.

+

+On entering the room now he crossed himself, turning toward the front

+corner of the room, and went up to Dólokhov, holding out a small, black

+hand.

+

+“Theodore Iványch!” he said, bowing.

+

+“How d’you do, friend? Well, here he is!”

+

+“Good day, your excellency!” he said, again holding out his hand to

+Anatole who had just come in.

+

+“I say, Balagá,” said Anatole, putting his hands on the man’s

+shoulders, “do you care for me or not? Eh? Now, do me a service....

+What horses have you come with? Eh?”

+

+“As your messenger ordered, your special beasts,” replied Balagá.

+

+“Well, listen, Balagá! Drive all three to death but get me there in

+three hours. Eh?”

+

+“When they are dead, what shall I drive?” said Balagá with a wink.

+

+“Mind, I’ll smash your face in! Don’t make jokes!” cried

+Anatole, suddenly rolling his eyes.

+

+“Why joke?” said the driver, laughing. “As if I’d grudge my

+gentlemen anything! As fast as ever the horses can gallop, so fast

+we’ll go!”

+

+“Ah!” said Anatole. “Well, sit down.”

+

+“Yes, sit down!” said Dólokhov.

+

+“I’ll stand, Theodore Iványch.”

+

+“Sit down; nonsense! Have a drink!” said Anatole, and filled a large

+glass of Madeira for him.

+

+The driver’s eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. After refusing

+it for manners’ sake, he drank it and wiped his mouth with a red silk

+handkerchief he took out of his cap.

+

+“And when are we to start, your excellency?”

+

+“Well...” Anatole looked at his watch. “We’ll start at once.

+Mind, Balagá! You’ll get there in time? Eh?”

+

+“That depends on our luck in starting, else why shouldn’t we be

+there in time?” replied Balagá. “Didn’t we get you to Tver in

+seven hours? I think you remember that, your excellency?”

+

+“Do you know, one Christmas I drove from Tver,” said Anatole,

+smilingly at the recollection and turning to Makárin who gazed

+rapturously at him with wide-open eyes. “Will you believe it,

+Makárka, it took one’s breath away, the rate we flew. We came across

+a train of loaded sleighs and drove right over two of them. Eh?”

+

+“Those were horses!” Balagá continued the tale. “That time I’d

+harnessed two young side horses with the bay in the shafts,” he went

+on, turning to Dólokhov. “Will you believe it, Theodore Iványch,

+those animals flew forty miles? I couldn’t hold them in, my hands grew

+numb in the sharp frost so that I threw down the reins—‘Catch hold

+yourself, your excellency!’ says I, and I just tumbled on the bottom

+of the sleigh and sprawled there. It wasn’t a case of urging them on,

+there was no holding them in till we reached the place. The devils took

+us there in three hours! Only the near one died of it.”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVII

+

+Anatole went out of the room and returned a few minutes later wearing

+a fur coat girt with a silver belt, and a sable cap jauntily set on one

+side and very becoming to his handsome face. Having looked in a mirror,

+and standing before Dólokhov in the same pose he had assumed before it,

+he lifted a glass of wine.

+

+“Well, good-by, Theodore. Thank you for everything and farewell!” said

+Anatole. “Well, comrades and friends...” he considered for a moment “...

+of my youth, farewell!” he said, turning to Makárin and the others.

+

+Though they were all going with him, Anatole evidently wished to make

+something touching and solemn out of this address to his comrades. He

+spoke slowly in a loud voice and throwing out his chest slightly swayed

+one leg.

+

+“All take glasses; you too, Balagá. Well, comrades and friends of my

+youth, we’ve had our fling and lived and reveled. Eh? And now, when

+shall we meet again? I am going abroad. We have had a good time—now

+farewell, lads! To our health! Hurrah!...” he cried, and emptying his

+glass flung it on the floor.

+

+“To your health!” said Balagá who also emptied his glass, and wiped his

+mouth with his handkerchief.

+

+Makárin embraced Anatole with tears in his eyes.

+

+“Ah, Prince, how sorry I am to part from you!

+

+“Let’s go. Let’s go!” cried Anatole.

+

+Balagá was about to leave the room.

+

+“No, stop!” said Anatole. “Shut the door; we have first to sit down.

+That’s the way.”

+

+They shut the door and all sat down.

+

+“Now, quick march, lads!” said Anatole, rising.

+

+Joseph, his valet, handed him his sabretache and saber, and they all

+went out into the vestibule.

+

+“And where’s the fur cloak?” asked Dólokhov. “Hey, Ignátka! Go to

+Matrëna Matrévna and ask her for the sable cloak. I have heard what

+elopements are like,” continued Dólokhov with a wink. “Why, she’ll rush

+out more dead than alive just in the things she is wearing; if you delay

+at all there’ll be tears and ‘Papa’ and ‘Mamma,’ and she’s frozen in a

+minute and must go back—but you wrap the fur cloak round her first thing

+and carry her to the sleigh.”

+

+The valet brought a woman’s fox-lined cloak.

+

+“Fool, I told you the sable one! Hey, Matrëna, the sable!” he shouted so

+that his voice rang far through the rooms.

+

+A handsome, slim, and pale-faced gypsy girl with glittering black eyes

+and curly blue-black hair, wearing a red shawl, ran out with a sable

+mantle on her arm.

+

+“Here, I don’t grudge it—take it!” she said, evidently afraid of her

+master and yet regretful of her cloak.

+

+Dólokhov, without answering, took the cloak, threw it over Matrëna, and

+wrapped her up in it.

+

+“That’s the way,” said Dólokhov, “and then so!” and he turned the collar

+up round her head, leaving only a little of the face uncovered. “And

+then so, do you see?” and he pushed Anatole’s head forward to meet the

+gap left by the collar, through which Matrëna’s brilliant smile was

+seen.

+

+“Well, good-by, Matrëna,” said Anatole, kissing her. “Ah, my revels here

+are over. Remember me to Stëshka. There, good-by! Good-by, Matrëna, wish

+me luck!”

+

+“Well, Prince, may God give you great luck!” said Matrëna in her gypsy

+accent.

+

+Two troykas were standing before the porch and two young drivers were

+holding the horses. Balagá took his seat in the front one and holding

+his elbows high arranged the reins deliberately. Anatole and Dólokhov

+got in with him. Makárin, Khvóstikov, and a valet seated themselves in

+the other sleigh.

+

+“Well, are you ready?” asked Balagá.

+

+“Go!” he cried, twisting the reins round his hands, and the troyka tore

+down the Nikítski Boulevard.

+

+“Tproo! Get out of the way! Hi!... Tproo!...” The shouting of Balagá

+and of the sturdy young fellow seated on the box was all that could

+be heard. On the Arbát Square the troyka caught against a carriage;

+something cracked, shouts were heard, and the troyka flew along the

+Arbát Street.

+

+After taking a turn along the Podnovínski Boulevard, Balagá began to

+rein in, and turning back drew up at the crossing of the old Konyúsheny

+Street.

+

+The young fellow on the box jumped down to hold the horses and Anatole

+and Dólokhov went along the pavement. When they reached the gate

+Dólokhov whistled. The whistle was answered, and a maidservant ran out.

+

+“Come into the courtyard or you’ll be seen; she’ll come out directly,”

+said she.

+

+Dólokhov stayed by the gate. Anatole followed the maid into the

+courtyard, turned the corner, and ran up into the porch.

+

+He was met by Gabriel, Márya Dmítrievna’s gigantic footman.

+

+“Come to the mistress, please,” said the footman in his deep bass,

+intercepting any retreat.

+

+“To what Mistress? Who are you?” asked Anatole in a breathless whisper.

+

+“Kindly step in, my orders are to bring you in.”

+

+“Kurágin! Come back!” shouted Dólokhov. “Betrayed! Back!”

+

+Dólokhov, after Anatole entered, had remained at the wicket gate and was

+struggling with the yard porter who was trying to lock it. With a last

+desperate effort Dólokhov pushed the porter aside, and when Anatole ran

+back seized him by the arm, pulled him through the wicket, and ran back

+with him to the troyka.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVIII

+

+Márya Dmítrievna, having found Sónya weeping in the corridor, made her

+confess everything, and intercepting the note to Natásha she read it and

+went into Natásha’s room with it in her hand.

+

+“You shameless good-for-nothing!” said she. “I won’t hear a word.”

+

+Pushing back Natásha who looked at her with astonished but tearless

+eyes, she locked her in; and having given orders to the yard porter to

+admit the persons who would be coming that evening, but not to let them

+out again, and having told the footman to bring them up to her, she

+seated herself in the drawing room to await the abductors.

+

+When Gabriel came to inform her that the men who had come had run

+away again, she rose frowning, and clasping her hands behind her paced

+through the rooms a long time considering what she should do. Toward

+midnight she went to Natásha’s room fingering the key in her pocket.

+Sónya was sitting sobbing in the corridor. “Márya Dmítrievna, for God’s

+sake let me in to her!” she pleaded, but Márya Dmítrievna unlocked

+the door and went in without giving her an answer.... “Disgusting,

+abominable... In my house... horrid girl, hussy! I’m only sorry for her

+father!” thought she, trying to restrain her wrath. “Hard as it may

+be, I’ll tell them all to hold their tongues and will hide it from the

+count.” She entered the room with resolute steps. Natásha lying on the

+sofa, her head hidden in her hands, and she did not stir. She was in

+just the same position in which Márya Dmítrievna had left her.

+

+“A nice girl! Very nice!” said Márya Dmítrievna. “Arranging meetings

+with lovers in my house! It’s no use pretending: you listen when I speak

+to you!” And Márya Dmítrievna touched her arm. “Listen when I speak!

+You’ve disgraced yourself like the lowest of hussies. I’d treat you

+differently, but I’m sorry for your father, so I will conceal it.”

+

+Natásha did not change her position, but her whole body heaved with

+noiseless, convulsive sobs which choked her. Márya Dmítrievna glanced

+round at Sónya and seated herself on the sofa beside Natásha.

+

+“It’s lucky for him that he escaped me; but I’ll find him!” she said in

+her rough voice. “Do you hear what I am saying or not?” she added.

+

+She put her large hand under Natásha’s face and turned it toward her.

+Both Márya Dmítrievna and Sónya were amazed when they saw how Natásha

+looked. Her eyes were dry and glistening, her lips compressed, her

+cheeks sunken.

+

+“Let me be!... What is it to me?... I shall die!” she muttered,

+wrenching herself from Márya Dmítrievna’s hands with a vicious effort

+and sinking down again into her former position.

+

+“Natalie!” said Márya Dmítrievna. “I wish for your good. Lie still,

+stay like that then, I won’t touch you. But listen. I won’t tell you how

+guilty you are. You know that yourself. But when your father comes back

+tomorrow what am I to tell him? Eh?”

+

+Again Natásha’s body shook with sobs.

+

+“Suppose he finds out, and your brother, and your betrothed?”

+

+“I have no betrothed: I have refused him!” cried Natásha.

+

+“That’s all the same,” continued Márya Dmítrievna. “If they hear of

+this, will they let it pass? He, your father, I know him... if he

+challenges him to a duel will that be all right? Eh?”

+

+“Oh, let me be! Why have you interfered at all? Why? Why? Who asked

+you to?” shouted Natásha, raising herself on the sofa and looking

+malignantly at Márya Dmítrievna.

+

+“But what did you want?” cried Márya Dmítrievna, growing angry again.

+“Were you kept under lock and key? Who hindered his coming to the house?

+Why carry you off as if you were some gypsy singing girl?... Well, if he

+had carried you off... do you think they wouldn’t have found him?

+Your father, or brother, or your betrothed? And he’s a scoundrel, a

+wretch—that’s a fact!”

+

+“He is better than any of you!” exclaimed Natásha getting up. “If you

+hadn’t interfered... Oh, my God! What is it all? What is it? Sónya,

+why?... Go away!”

+

+And she burst into sobs with the despairing vehemence with which people

+bewail disasters they feel they have themselves occasioned. Márya

+Dmítrievna was to speak again but Natásha cried out:

+

+“Go away! Go away! You all hate and despise me!” and she threw herself

+back on the sofa.

+

+Márya Dmítrievna went on admonishing her for some time, enjoining on her

+that it must all be kept from her father and assuring her that nobody

+would know anything about it if only Natásha herself would undertake

+to forget it all and not let anyone see that something had happened.

+Natásha did not reply, nor did she sob any longer, but she grew cold

+and had a shivering fit. Márya Dmítrievna put a pillow under her head,

+covered her with two quilts, and herself brought her some lime-flower

+water, but Natásha did not respond to her.

+

+“Well, let her sleep,” said Márya Dmítrievna as she went out of the room

+supposing Natásha to be asleep.

+

+But Natásha was not asleep; with pale face and fixed wide-open eyes she

+looked straight before her. All that night she did not sleep or weep and

+did not speak to Sónya who got up and went to her several times.

+

+Next day Count Rostóv returned from his estate near Moscow in time for

+lunch as he had promised. He was in very good spirits; the affair with

+the purchaser was going on satisfactorily, and there was nothing to keep

+him any longer in Moscow, away from the countess whom he missed. Márya

+Dmítrievna met him and told him that Natásha had been very unwell the

+day before and that they had sent for the doctor, but that she was

+better now. Natásha had not left her room that morning. With compressed

+and parched lips and dry fixed eyes, she sat at the window, uneasily

+watching the people who drove past and hurriedly glancing round at

+anyone who entered the room. She was evidently expecting news of him and

+that he would come or would write to her.

+

+When the count came to see her she turned anxiously round at the sound

+of a man’s footstep, and then her face resumed its cold and malevolent

+expression. She did not even get up to greet him. “What is the matter

+with you, my angel? Are you ill?” asked the count.

+

+After a moment’s silence Natásha answered: “Yes, ill.”

+

+In reply to the count’s anxious inquiries as to why she was so dejected

+and whether anything had happened to her betrothed, she assured him

+that nothing had happened and asked him not to worry. Márya Dmítrievna

+confirmed Natásha’s assurances that nothing had happened. From

+the pretense of illness, from his daughter’s distress, and by the

+embarrassed faces of Sónya and Márya Dmítrievna, the count saw clearly

+that something had gone wrong during his absence, but it was so terrible

+for him to think that anything disgraceful had happened to his beloved

+daughter, and he so prized his own cheerful tranquillity, that he

+avoided inquiries and tried to assure himself that nothing particularly

+had happened; and he was only dissatisfied that her indisposition

+delayed their return to the country.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIX

+

+From the day his wife arrived in Moscow Pierre had been intending to go

+away somewhere, so as not to be near her. Soon after the Rostóvs came

+to Moscow the effect Natásha had on him made him hasten to carry out

+his intention. He went to Tver to see Joseph Alexéevich’s widow, who

+had long since promised to hand over to him some papers of her deceased

+husband’s.

+

+When he returned to Moscow Pierre was handed a letter from Márya

+Dmítrievna asking him to come and see her on a matter of great

+importance relating to Andrew Bolkónski and his betrothed. Pierre had

+been avoiding Natásha because it seemed to him that his feeling for her

+was stronger than a married man’s should be for his friend’s fiancée.

+Yet some fate constantly threw them together.

+

+“What can have happened? And what can they want with me?” thought he

+as he dressed to go to Márya Dmítrievna’s. “If only Prince Andrew would

+hurry up and come and marry her!” thought he on his way to the house.

+

+On the Tverskóy Boulevard a familiar voice called to him.

+

+“Pierre! Been back long?” someone shouted. Pierre raised his head. In

+a sleigh drawn by two gray trotting-horses that were bespattering the

+dashboard with snow, Anatole and his constant companion Makárin dashed

+past. Anatole was sitting upright in the classic pose of military

+dandies, the lower part of his face hidden by his beaver collar and his

+head slightly bent. His face was fresh and rosy, his white-plumed hat,

+tilted to one side, disclosed his curled and pomaded hair besprinkled

+with powdery snow.

+

+“Yes, indeed, that’s a true sage,” thought Pierre. “He sees nothing

+beyond the pleasure of the moment, nothing troubles him and so he is

+always cheerful, satisfied, and serene. What wouldn’t I give to be like

+him!” he thought enviously.

+

+In Márya Dmítrievna’s anteroom the footman who helped him off with his

+fur coat said that the mistress asked him to come to her bedroom.

+

+When he opened the ballroom door Pierre saw Natásha sitting at the

+window, with a thin, pale, and spiteful face. She glanced round at him,

+frowned, and left the room with an expression of cold dignity.

+

+“What has happened?” asked Pierre, entering Márya Dmítrievna’s room.

+

+“Fine doings!” answered Dmítrievna. “For fifty-eight years have I lived

+in this world and never known anything so disgraceful!”

+

+And having put him on his honor not to repeat anything she told him,

+Márya Dmítrievna informed him that Natásha had refused Prince Andrew

+without her parents’ knowledge and that the cause of this was Anatole

+Kurágin into whose society Pierre’s wife had thrown her and with whom

+Natásha had tried to elope during her father’s absence, in order to be

+married secretly.

+

+Pierre raised his shoulders and listened open-mouthed to what was told

+him, scarcely able to believe his own ears. That Prince Andrew’s

+deeply loved affianced wife—the same Natásha Rostóva who used to be so

+charming—should give up Bolkónski for that fool Anatole who was already

+secretly married (as Pierre knew), and should be so in love with him as

+to agree to run away with him, was something Pierre could not conceive

+and could not imagine.

+

+He could not reconcile the charming impression he had of Natásha, whom

+he had known from a child, with this new conception of her baseness,

+folly, and cruelty. He thought of his wife. “They are all alike!” he

+said to himself, reflecting that he was not the only man unfortunate

+enough to be tied to a bad woman. But still he pitied Prince Andrew to

+the point of tears and sympathized with his wounded pride, and the more

+he pitied his friend the more did he think with contempt and even with

+disgust of that Natásha who had just passed him in the ballroom with

+such a look of cold dignity. He did not know that Natásha’s soul was

+overflowing with despair, shame, and humiliation, and that it was not

+her fault that her face happened to assume an expression of calm dignity

+and severity.

+

+“But how get married?” said Pierre, in answer to Márya Dmítrievna. “He

+could not marry—he is married!”

+

+“Things get worse from hour to hour!” ejaculated Márya Dmítrievna. “A

+nice youth! What a scoundrel! And she’s expecting him—expecting him

+since yesterday. She must be told! Then at least she won’t go on

+expecting him.”

+

+After hearing the details of Anatole’s marriage from Pierre, and giving

+vent to her anger against Anatole in words of abuse, Márya Dmítrievna

+told Pierre why she had sent for him. She was afraid that the count or

+Bolkónski, who might arrive at any moment, if they knew of this affair

+(which she hoped to hide from them) might challenge Anatole to a duel,

+and she therefore asked Pierre to tell his brother-in-law in her name to

+leave Moscow and not dare to let her set eyes on him again. Pierre—only

+now realizing the danger to the old count, Nicholas, and Prince

+Andrew—promised to do as she wished. Having briefly and exactly

+explained her wishes to him, she let him go to the drawing room.

+

+“Mind, the count knows nothing. Behave as if you know nothing either,”

+she said. “And I will go and tell her it is no use expecting him! And

+stay to dinner if you care to!” she called after Pierre.

+

+Pierre met the old count, who seemed nervous and upset. That morning

+Natásha had told him that she had rejected Bolkónski.

+

+“Troubles, troubles, my dear fellow!” he said to Pierre. “What troubles

+one has with these girls without their mother! I do so regret having

+come here.... I will be frank with you. Have you heard she has broken

+off her engagement without consulting anybody? It’s true this engagement

+never was much to my liking. Of course he is an excellent man, but

+still, with his father’s disapproval they wouldn’t have been happy, and

+Natásha won’t lack suitors. Still, it has been going on so long, and

+to take such a step without father’s or mother’s consent! And now she’s

+ill, and God knows what! It’s hard, Count, hard to manage daughters in

+their mother’s absence....”

+

+Pierre saw that the count was much upset and tried to change the

+subject, but the count returned to his troubles.

+

+Sónya entered the room with an agitated face.

+

+“Natásha is not quite well; she’s in her room and would like to see you.

+Márya Dmítrievna is with her and she too asks you to come.”

+

+“Yes, you are a great friend of Bolkónski’s, no doubt she wants to send

+him a message,” said the count. “Oh dear! Oh dear! How happy it all

+was!”

+

+And clutching the spare gray locks on his temples the count left the

+room.

+

+When Márya Dmítrievna told Natásha that Anatole was married, Natásha

+did not wish to believe it and insisted on having it confirmed by Pierre

+himself. Sónya told Pierre this as she led him along the corridor to

+Natásha’s room.

+

+Natásha, pale and stern, was sitting beside Márya Dmítrievna, and her

+eyes, glittering feverishly, met Pierre with a questioning look the

+moment he entered. She did not smile or nod, but only gazed fixedly at

+him, and her look asked only one thing: was he a friend, or like the

+others an enemy in regard to Anatole? As for Pierre, he evidently did

+not exist for her.

+

+“He knows all about it,” said Márya Dmítrievna pointing to Pierre and

+addressing Natásha. “Let him tell you whether I have told the truth.”

+

+Natásha looked from one to the other as a hunted and wounded animal

+looks at the approaching dogs and sportsmen.

+

+“Natálya Ilyníchna,” Pierre began, dropping his eyes with a feeling of

+pity for her and loathing for the thing he had to do, “whether it is

+true or not should make no difference to you, because...”

+

+“Then it is not true that he’s married!”

+

+“Yes, it is true.”

+

+“Has he been married long?” she asked. “On your honor?...”

+

+Pierre gave his word of honor.

+

+“Is he still here?” she asked, quickly.

+

+“Yes, I have just seen him.”

+

+She was evidently unable to speak and made a sign with her hands that

+they should leave her alone.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XX

+

+Pierre did not stay for dinner, but left the room and went away at once.

+He drove through the town seeking Anatole Kurágin, at the thought of

+whom now the blood rushed to his heart and he felt a difficulty in

+breathing. He was not at the ice hills, nor at the gypsies’, nor at

+Komoneno’s. Pierre drove to the Club. In the Club all was going on as

+usual. The members who were assembling for dinner were sitting about

+in groups; they greeted Pierre and spoke of the town news. The footman

+having greeted him, knowing his habits and his acquaintances, told him

+there was a place left for him in the small dining room and that Prince

+Michael Zakhárych was in the library, but Paul Timoféevich had not yet

+arrived. One of Pierre’s acquaintances, while they were talking about

+the weather, asked if he had heard of Kurágin’s abduction of Rostóva

+which was talked of in the town, and was it true? Pierre laughed and

+said it was nonsense for he had just come from the Rostóvs’. He asked

+everyone about Anatole. One man told him he had not come yet, and

+another that he was coming to dinner. Pierre felt it strange to see this

+calm, indifferent crowd of people unaware of what was going on in his

+soul. He paced through the ballroom, waited till everyone had come, and

+as Anatole had not turned up did not stay for dinner but drove home.

+

+Anatole, for whom Pierre was looking, dined that day with Dólokhov,

+consulting him as to how to remedy this unfortunate affair. It seemed to

+him essential to see Natásha. In the evening he drove to his sister’s

+to discuss with her how to arrange a meeting. When Pierre returned home

+after vainly hunting all over Moscow, his valet informed him that Prince

+Anatole was with the countess. The countess’ drawing room was full of

+guests.

+

+Pierre without greeting his wife whom he had not seen since his

+return—at that moment she was more repulsive to him than ever—entered

+the drawing room and seeing Anatole went up to him.

+

+“Ah, Pierre,” said the countess going up to her husband. “You don’t know

+what a plight our Anatole...”

+

+She stopped, seeing in the forward thrust of her husband’s head, in his

+glowing eyes and his resolute gait, the terrible indications of that

+rage and strength which she knew and had herself experienced after his

+duel with Dólokhov.

+

+“Where you are, there is vice and evil!” said Pierre to his wife.

+“Anatole, come with me! I must speak to you,” he added in French.

+

+Anatole glanced round at his sister and rose submissively, ready to

+follow Pierre. Pierre, taking him by the arm, pulled him toward himself

+and was leading him from the room.

+

+“If you allow yourself in my drawing room...” whispered Hélène, but

+Pierre did not reply and went out of the room.

+

+Anatole followed him with his usual jaunty step but his face betrayed

+anxiety.

+

+Having entered his study Pierre closed the door and addressed Anatole

+without looking at him.

+

+“You promised Countess Rostóva to marry her and were about to elope with

+her, is that so?”

+

+“Mon cher,” answered Anatole (their whole conversation was in French),

+“I don’t consider myself bound to answer questions put to me in that

+tone.”

+

+Pierre’s face, already pale, became distorted by fury. He seized Anatole

+by the collar of his uniform with his big hand and shook him from side

+to side till Anatole’s face showed a sufficient degree of terror.

+

+“When I tell you that I must talk to you!...” repeated Pierre.

+

+“Come now, this is stupid. What?” said Anatole, fingering a button of

+his collar that had been wrenched loose with a bit of the cloth.

+

+“You’re a scoundrel and a blackguard, and I don’t know what deprives

+me from the pleasure of smashing your head with this!” said Pierre,

+expressing himself so artificially because he was talking French.

+

+He took a heavy paperweight and lifted it threateningly, but at once put

+it back in its place.

+

+“Did you promise to marry her?”

+

+“I... I didn’t think of it. I never promised, because...”

+

+Pierre interrupted him.

+

+“Have you any letters of hers? Any letters?” he said, moving toward

+Anatole.

+

+Anatole glanced at him and immediately thrust his hand into his pocket

+and drew out his pocketbook.

+

+Pierre took the letter Anatole handed him and, pushing aside a table

+that stood in his way, threw himself on the sofa.

+

+“I shan’t be violent, don’t be afraid!” said Pierre in answer to a

+frightened gesture of Anatole’s. “First, the letters,” said he, as if

+repeating a lesson to himself. “Secondly,” he continued after a short

+pause, again rising and again pacing the room, “tomorrow you must get

+out of Moscow.”

+

+“But how can I?...”

+

+“Thirdly,” Pierre continued without listening to him, “you must never

+breathe a word of what has passed between you and Countess Rostóva.

+I know I can’t prevent your doing so, but if you have a spark of

+conscience...” Pierre paced the room several times in silence.

+

+Anatole sat at a table frowning and biting his lips.

+

+“After all, you must understand that besides your pleasure there is such

+a thing as other people’s happiness and peace, and that you are ruining

+a whole life for the sake of amusing yourself! Amuse yourself with women

+like my wife—with them you are within your rights, for they know what

+you want of them. They are armed against you by the same experience

+of debauchery; but to promise a maid to marry her... to deceive, to

+kidnap.... Don’t you understand that it is as mean as beating an old man

+or a child?...”

+

+Pierre paused and looked at Anatole no longer with an angry but with a

+questioning look.

+

+“I don’t know about that, eh?” said Anatole, growing more confident as

+Pierre mastered his wrath. “I don’t know that and don’t want to,” he

+said, not looking at Pierre and with a slight tremor of his lower jaw,

+“but you have used such words to me—‘mean’ and so on—which as a man of

+honor I can’t allow anyone to use.”

+

+Pierre glanced at him with amazement, unable to understand what he

+wanted.

+

+“Though it was tête-à-tête,” Anatole continued, “still I can’t...”

+

+“Is it satisfaction you want?” said Pierre ironically.

+

+“You could at least take back your words. What? If you want me to do as

+you wish, eh?”

+

+“I take them back, I take them back!” said Pierre, “and I ask you to

+forgive me.” Pierre involuntarily glanced at the loose button. “And if

+you require money for your journey...”

+

+Anatole smiled. The expression of that base and cringing smile, which

+Pierre knew so well in his wife, revolted him.

+

+“Oh, vile and heartless brood!” he exclaimed, and left the room.

+

+Next day Anatole left for Petersburg.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXI

+

+Pierre drove to Márya Dmítrievna’s to tell her of the fulfillment of her

+wish that Kurágin should be banished from Moscow. The whole house was in

+a state of alarm and commotion. Natásha was very ill, having, as Márya

+Dmítrievna told him in secret, poisoned herself the night after she had

+been told that Anatole was married, with some arsenic she had stealthily

+procured. After swallowing a little she had been so frightened that she

+woke Sónya and told her what she had done. The necessary antidotes had

+been administered in time and she was now out of danger, though still so

+weak that it was out of the question to move her to the country, and

+so the countess had been sent for. Pierre saw the distracted count, and

+Sónya, who had a tear-stained face, but he could not see Natásha.

+

+Pierre dined at the club that day and heard on all sides gossip about

+the attempted abduction of Rostóva. He resolutely denied these

+rumors, assuring everyone that nothing had happened except that his

+brother-in-law had proposed to her and been refused. It seemed to

+Pierre that it was his duty to conceal the whole affair and re-establish

+Natásha’s reputation.

+

+He was awaiting Prince Andrew’s return with dread and went every day to

+the old prince’s for news of him.

+

+Old Prince Bolkónski heard all the rumors current in the town from

+Mademoiselle Bourienne and had read the note to Princess Mary in which

+Natásha had broken off her engagement. He seemed in better spirits than

+usual and awaited his son with great impatience.

+

+Some days after Anatole’s departure Pierre received a note from Prince

+Andrew, informing him of his arrival and asking him to come to see him.

+

+As soon as he reached Moscow, Prince Andrew had received from his

+father Natásha’s note to Princess Mary breaking off her engagement

+(Mademoiselle Bourienne had purloined it from Princess Mary and given

+it to the old prince), and he heard from him the story of Natásha’s

+elopement, with additions.

+

+Prince Andrew had arrived in the evening and Pierre came to see him next

+morning. Pierre expected to find Prince Andrew in almost the same state

+as Natásha and was therefore surprised on entering the drawing room

+to hear him in the study talking in a loud animated voice about some

+intrigue going on in Petersburg. The old prince’s voice and another now

+and then interrupted him. Princess Mary came out to meet Pierre. She

+sighed, looking toward the door of the room where Prince Andrew was,

+evidently intending to express her sympathy with his sorrow, but Pierre

+saw by her face that she was glad both at what had happened and at the

+way her brother had taken the news of Natásha’s faithlessness.

+

+“He says he expected it,” she remarked. “I know his pride will not let

+him express his feelings, but still he has taken it better, far better,

+than I expected. Evidently it had to be....”

+

+“But is it possible that all is really ended?” asked Pierre.

+

+Princess Mary looked at him with astonishment. She did not understand

+how he could ask such a question. Pierre went into the study. Prince

+Andrew, greatly changed and plainly in better health, but with a fresh

+horizontal wrinkle between his brows, stood in civilian dress facing

+his father and Prince Meshchérski, warmly disputing and vigorously

+gesticulating. The conversation was about Speránski—the news of whose

+sudden exile and alleged treachery had just reached Moscow.

+

+“Now he is censured and accused by all who were enthusiastic about him

+a month ago,” Prince Andrew was saying, “and by those who were unable to

+understand his aims. To judge a man who is in disfavor and to throw on

+him all the blame of other men’s mistakes is very easy, but I maintain

+that if anything good has been accomplished in this reign it was done by

+him, by him alone.”

+

+He paused at the sight of Pierre. His face quivered and immediately

+assumed a vindictive expression.

+

+“Posterity will do him justice,” he concluded, and at once turned to

+Pierre.

+

+“Well, how are you? Still getting stouter?” he said with animation, but

+the new wrinkle on his forehead deepened. “Yes, I am well,” he said in

+answer to Pierre’s question, and smiled.

+

+To Pierre that smile said plainly: “I am well, but my health is now of

+no use to anyone.”

+

+After a few words to Pierre about the awful roads from the Polish

+frontier, about people he had met in Switzerland who knew Pierre, and

+about M. Dessalles, whom he had brought from abroad to be his son’s

+tutor, Prince Andrew again joined warmly in the conversation about

+Speránski which was still going on between the two old men.

+

+“If there were treason, or proofs of secret relations with Napoleon,

+they would have been made public,” he said with warmth and haste. “I do

+not, and never did, like Speránski personally, but I like justice!”

+

+Pierre now recognized in his friend a need with which he was only too

+familiar, to get excited and to have arguments about extraneous matters

+in order to stifle thoughts that were too oppressive and too intimate.

+When Prince Meshchérski had left, Prince Andrew took Pierre’s arm and

+asked him into the room that had been assigned him. A bed had been made

+up there, and some open portmanteaus and trunks stood about. Prince

+Andrew went to one and took out a small casket, from which he drew a

+packet wrapped in paper. He did it all silently and very quickly. He

+stood up and coughed. His face was gloomy and his lips compressed.

+

+“Forgive me for troubling you....”

+

+Pierre saw that Prince Andrew was going to speak of Natásha, and his

+broad face expressed pity and sympathy. This expression irritated Prince

+Andrew, and in a determined, ringing, and unpleasant tone he continued:

+

+“I have received a refusal from Countess Rostóva and have heard reports

+of your brother-in-law having sought her hand, or something of that

+kind. Is that true?”

+

+“Both true and untrue,” Pierre began; but Prince Andrew interrupted him.

+

+“Here are her letters and her portrait,” said he.

+

+He took the packet from the table and handed it to Pierre.

+

+“Give this to the countess... if you see her.”

+

+“She is very ill,” said Pierre.

+

+“Then she is here still?” said Prince Andrew. “And Prince Kurágin?” he

+added quickly.

+

+“He left long ago. She has been at death’s door.”

+

+“I much regret her illness,” said Prince Andrew; and he smiled like his

+father, coldly, maliciously, and unpleasantly.

+

+“So Monsieur Kurágin has not honored Countess Rostóva with his hand?”

+said Prince Andrew, and he snorted several times.

+

+“He could not marry, for he was married already,” said Pierre.

+

+Prince Andrew laughed disagreeably, again reminding one of his father.

+

+“And where is your brother-in-law now, if I may ask?” he said.

+

+“He has gone to Peters... But I don’t know,” said Pierre.

+

+“Well, it doesn’t matter,” said Prince Andrew. “Tell Countess Rostóva

+that she was and is perfectly free and that I wish her all that is

+good.”

+

+Pierre took the packet. Prince Andrew, as if trying to remember whether

+he had something more to say, or waiting to see if Pierre would say

+anything, looked fixedly at him.

+

+“I say, do you remember our discussion in Petersburg?” asked Pierre,

+“about...”

+

+“Yes,” returned Prince Andrew hastily. “I said that a fallen woman

+should be forgiven, but I didn’t say I could forgive her. I can’t.”

+

+“But can this be compared...?” said Pierre.

+

+Prince Andrew interrupted him and cried sharply: “Yes, ask her hand

+again, be magnanimous, and so on?... Yes, that would be very noble, but

+I am unable to follow in that gentleman’s footsteps. If you wish to be

+my friend never speak to me of that... of all that! Well, good-by. So

+you’ll give her the packet?”

+

+Pierre left the room and went to the old prince and Princess Mary.

+

+The old man seemed livelier than usual. Princess Mary was the same as

+always, but beneath her sympathy for her brother, Pierre noticed her

+satisfaction that the engagement had been broken off. Looking at them

+Pierre realized what contempt and animosity they all felt for the

+Rostóvs, and that it was impossible in their presence even to mention

+the name of her who could give up Prince Andrew for anyone else.

+

+At dinner the talk turned on the war, the approach of which was becoming

+evident. Prince Andrew talked incessantly, arguing now with his father,

+now with the Swiss tutor Dessalles, and showing an unnatural animation,

+the cause of which Pierre so well understood.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXII

+

+That same evening Pierre went to the Rostóvs’ to fulfill the commission

+entrusted to him. Natásha was in bed, the count at the club, and Pierre,

+after giving the letters to Sónya, went to Márya Dmítrievna who was

+interested to know how Prince Andrew had taken the news. Ten minutes

+later Sónya came to Márya Dmítrievna.

+

+“Natásha insists on seeing Count Peter Kirílovich,” said she.

+

+“But how? Are we to take him up to her? The room there has not been

+tidied up.”

+

+“No, she has dressed and gone into the drawing room,” said Sónya.

+

+Márya Dmítrievna only shrugged her shoulders.

+

+“When will her mother come? She has worried me to death! Now mind, don’t

+tell her everything!” said she to Pierre. “One hasn’t the heart to scold

+her, she is so much to be pitied, so much to be pitied.”

+

+Natásha was standing in the middle of the drawing room, emaciated, with

+a pale set face, but not at all shamefaced as Pierre expected to find

+her. When he appeared at the door she grew flurried, evidently undecided

+whether to go to meet him or to wait till he came up.

+

+Pierre hastened to her. He thought she would give him her hand as

+usual; but she, stepping up to him, stopped, breathing heavily, her arms

+hanging lifelessly just in the pose she used to stand in when she

+went to the middle of the ballroom to sing, but with quite a different

+expression of face.

+

+“Peter Kirílovich,” she began rapidly, “Prince Bolkónski was your

+friend—is your friend,” she corrected herself. (It seemed to her that

+everything that had once been must now be different.) “He told me once

+to apply to you...”

+

+Pierre sniffed as he looked at her, but did not speak. Till then he had

+reproached her in his heart and tried to despise her, but he now felt so

+sorry for her that there was no room in his soul for reproach.

+

+“He is here now: tell him... to for... forgive me!” She stopped and

+breathed still more quickly, but did not shed tears.

+

+“Yes... I will tell him,” answered Pierre; “but...”

+

+He did not know what to say.

+

+Natásha was evidently dismayed at the thought of what he might think she

+had meant.

+

+“No, I know all is over,” she said hurriedly. “No, that can never be.

+I’m only tormented by the wrong I have done him. Tell him only that I

+beg him to forgive, forgive, forgive me for everything....”

+

+She trembled all over and sat down on a chair.

+

+A sense of pity he had never before known overflowed Pierre’s heart.

+

+“I will tell him, I will tell him everything once more,” said Pierre.

+“But... I should like to know one thing....”

+

+“Know what?” Natásha’s eyes asked.

+

+“I should like to know, did you love...” Pierre did not know how to

+refer to Anatole and flushed at the thought of him—“did you love that

+bad man?”

+

+“Don’t call him bad!” said Natásha. “But I don’t know, don’t know at

+all....”

+

+She began to cry and a still greater sense of pity, tenderness, and love

+welled up in Pierre. He felt the tears trickle under his spectacles and

+hoped they would not be noticed.

+

+“We won’t speak of it any more, my dear,” said Pierre, and his gentle,

+cordial tone suddenly seemed very strange to Natásha.

+

+“We won’t speak of it, my dear—I’ll tell him everything; but one thing

+I beg of you, consider me your friend and if you want help, advice,

+or simply to open your heart to someone—not now, but when your mind is

+clearer think of me!” He took her hand and kissed it. “I shall be happy

+if it’s in my power...”

+

+Pierre grew confused.

+

+“Don’t speak to me like that. I am not worth it!” exclaimed Natásha and

+turned to leave the room, but Pierre held her hand.

+

+He knew he had something more to say to her. But when he said it he was

+amazed at his own words.

+

+“Stop, stop! You have your whole life before you,” said he to her.

+

+“Before me? No! All is over for me,” she replied with shame and

+self-abasement.

+

+“All over?” he repeated. “If I were not myself, but the handsomest,

+cleverest, and best man in the world, and were free, I would this moment

+ask on my knees for your hand and your love!”

+

+For the first time for many days Natásha wept tears of gratitude and

+tenderness, and glancing at Pierre she went out of the room.

+

+Pierre too when she had gone almost ran into the anteroom, restraining

+tears of tenderness and joy that choked him, and without finding the

+sleeves of his fur cloak threw it on and got into his sleigh.

+

+“Where to now, your excellency?” asked the coachman.

+

+“Where to?” Pierre asked himself. “Where can I go now? Surely not to the

+Club or to pay calls?” All men seemed so pitiful, so poor, in comparison

+with this feeling of tenderness and love he experienced: in comparison

+with that softened, grateful, last look she had given him through her

+tears.

+

+“Home!” said Pierre, and despite twenty-two degrees of frost Fahrenheit

+he threw open the bearskin cloak from his broad chest and inhaled the

+air with joy.

+

+It was clear and frosty. Above the dirty, ill-lit streets, above the

+black roofs, stretched the dark starry sky. Only looking up at the sky

+did Pierre cease to feel how sordid and humiliating were all mundane

+things compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised.

+At the entrance to the Arbát Square an immense expanse of dark starry

+sky presented itself to his eyes. Almost in the center of it, above the

+Prechístenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all sides by stars

+but distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white

+light, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous and brilliant

+comet of 1812—the comet which was said to portend all kinds of woes

+and the end of the world. In Pierre, however, that comet with its long

+luminous tail aroused no feeling of fear. On the contrary he gazed

+joyfully, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright comet which, having

+traveled in its orbit with inconceivable velocity through immeasurable

+space, seemed suddenly—like an arrow piercing the earth—to remain

+fixed in a chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erect, shining and

+displaying its white light amid countless other scintillating stars. It

+seemed to Pierre that this comet fully responded to what was passing in

+his own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life.

+

+

+

+

+

+BOOK NINE: 1812

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+From the close of the year 1811 intensified arming and concentrating of

+the forces of Western Europe began, and in 1812 these forces—millions

+of men, reckoning those transporting and feeding the army—moved from the

+west eastwards to the Russian frontier, toward which since 1811 Russian

+forces had been similarly drawn. On the twelfth of June, 1812, the

+forces of Western Europe crossed the Russian frontier and war began,

+that is, an event took place opposed to human reason and to human

+nature. Millions of men perpetrated against one another such innumerable

+crimes, frauds, treacheries, thefts, forgeries, issues of false money,

+burglaries, incendiarisms, and murders as in whole centuries are not

+recorded in the annals of all the law courts of the world, but which

+those who committed them did not at the time regard as being crimes.

+

+What produced this extraordinary occurrence? What were its causes? The

+historians tell us with naïve assurance that its causes were the wrongs

+inflicted on the Duke of Oldenburg, the nonobservance of the Continental

+System, the ambition of Napoleon, the firmness of Alexander, the

+mistakes of the diplomatists, and so on.

+

+Consequently, it would only have been necessary for Metternich,

+Rumyántsev, or Talleyrand, between a levee and an evening party, to have

+taken proper pains and written a more adroit note, or for Napoleon to

+have written to Alexander: “My respected Brother, I consent to restore

+the duchy to the Duke of Oldenburg”—and there would have been no war.

+

+We can understand that the matter seemed like that to contemporaries.

+It naturally seemed to Napoleon that the war was caused by England’s

+intrigues (as in fact he said on the island of St. Helena). It naturally

+seemed to members of the English Parliament that the cause of the war

+was Napoleon’s ambition; to the Duke of Oldenburg, that the cause of the

+war was the violence done to him; to businessmen that the cause of the

+war was the Continental System which was ruining Europe; to the generals

+and old soldiers that the chief reason for the war was the necessity of

+giving them employment; to the legitimists of that day that it was the

+need of re-establishing les bons principes, and to the diplomatists of

+that time that it all resulted from the fact that the alliance between

+Russia and Austria in 1809 had not been sufficiently well concealed

+from Napoleon, and from the awkward wording of Memorandum No. 178. It

+is natural that these and a countless and infinite quantity of other

+reasons, the number depending on the endless diversity of points

+of view, presented themselves to the men of that day; but to us, to

+posterity who view the thing that happened in all its magnitude and

+perceive its plain and terrible meaning, these causes seem insufficient.

+To us it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and

+tortured each other either because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander

+was firm, or because England’s policy was astute or the Duke of

+Oldenburg wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances

+have with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the

+Duke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed

+and ruined the people of Smolénsk and Moscow and were killed by them.

+

+To us, their descendants, who are not historians and are not carried

+away by the process of research and can therefore regard the event

+with unclouded common sense, an incalculable number of causes present

+themselves. The deeper we delve in search of these causes the more of

+them we find; and each separate cause or whole series of causes appears

+to us equally valid in itself and equally false by its insignificance

+compared to the magnitude of the events, and by its impotence—apart

+from the cooperation of all the other coincident causes—to occasion the

+event. To us, the wish or objection of this or that French corporal to

+serve a second term appears as much a cause as Napoleon’s refusal to

+withdraw his troops beyond the Vistula and to restore the duchy of

+Oldenburg; for had he not wished to serve, and had a second, a third,

+and a thousandth corporal and private also refused, there would have

+been so many less men in Napoleon’s army and the war could not have

+occurred.

+

+Had Napoleon not taken offense at the demand that he should withdraw

+beyond the Vistula, and not ordered his troops to advance, there would

+have been no war; but had all his sergeants objected to serving a second

+term then also there could have been no war. Nor could there have been

+a war had there been no English intrigues and no Duke of Oldenburg, and

+had Alexander not felt insulted, and had there not been an autocratic

+government in Russia, or a Revolution in France and a subsequent

+dictatorship and Empire, or all the things that produced the French

+Revolution, and so on. Without each of these causes nothing could have

+happened. So all these causes—myriads of causes—coincided to bring it

+about. And so there was no one cause for that occurrence, but it had

+to occur because it had to. Millions of men, renouncing their human

+feelings and reason, had to go from west to east to slay their fellows,

+just as some centuries previously hordes of men had come from the east

+to the west, slaying their fellows.

+

+The actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose words the event seemed

+to hang, were as little voluntary as the actions of any soldier who was

+drawn into the campaign by lot or by conscription. This could not be

+otherwise, for in order that the will of Napoleon and Alexander (on whom

+the event seemed to depend) should be carried out, the concurrence of

+innumerable circumstances was needed without anyone of which the event

+could not have taken place. It was necessary that millions of men in

+whose hands lay the real power—the soldiers who fired, or transported

+provisions and guns—should consent to carry out the will of these weak

+individuals, and should have been induced to do so by an infinite number

+of diverse and complex causes.

+

+We are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational

+events (that is to say, events the reasonableness of which we do

+not understand). The more we try to explain such events in history

+reasonably, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible do they become to

+us.

+

+Each man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal

+aims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from

+doing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action

+performed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to

+history, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance.

+

+There are two sides to the life of every man, his individual life, which

+is the more free the more abstract its interests, and his elemental hive

+life in which he inevitably obeys laws laid down for him.

+

+Man lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in

+the attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity. A deed done

+is irrevocable, and its result coinciding in time with the actions of

+millions of other men assumes an historic significance. The higher a man

+stands on the social ladder, the more people he is connected with

+and the more power he has over others, the more evident is the

+predestination and inevitability of his every action.

+

+“The king’s heart is in the hands of the Lord.”

+

+A king is history’s slave.

+

+History, that is, the unconscious, general, hive life of mankind, uses

+every moment of the life of kings as a tool for its own purposes.

+

+Though Napoleon at that time, in 1812, was more convinced than ever that

+it depended on him, verser (ou ne pas verser) le sang de ses peuples

+*—as Alexander expressed it in the last letter he wrote him—he had never

+been so much in the grip of inevitable laws, which compelled him, while

+thinking that he was acting on his own volition, to perform for the hive

+life—that is to say, for history—whatever had to be performed.

+

+    * “To shed (or not to shed) the blood of his peoples.”

+

+

+The people of the west moved eastwards to slay their fellow men, and

+by the law of coincidence thousands of minute causes fitted in and

+co-ordinated to produce that movement and war: reproaches for the

+nonobservance of the Continental System, the Duke of Oldenburg’s

+wrongs, the movement of troops into Prussia—undertaken (as it seemed to

+Napoleon) only for the purpose of securing an armed peace, the

+French Emperor’s love and habit of war coinciding with his people’s

+inclinations, allurement by the grandeur of the preparations, and the

+expenditure on those preparations and the need of obtaining advantages

+to compensate for that expenditure, the intoxicating honors he received

+in Dresden, the diplomatic negotiations which, in the opinion of

+contemporaries, were carried on with a sincere desire to attain peace,

+but which only wounded the self-love of both sides, and millions of

+other causes that adapted themselves to the event that was happening or

+coincided with it.

+

+When an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its

+attraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried

+by the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or

+because the boy standing below wants to eat it?

+

+Nothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions in

+which all vital organic and elemental events occur. And the botanist

+who finds that the apple falls because the cellular tissue decays and so

+forth is equally right with the child who stands under the tree and says

+the apple fell because he wanted to eat it and prayed for it. Equally

+right or wrong is he who says that Napoleon went to Moscow because he

+wanted to, and perished because Alexander desired his destruction, and

+he who says that an undermined hill weighing a million tons fell because

+the last navvy struck it for the last time with his mattock. In historic

+events the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and

+like labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself.

+

+Every act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is

+in an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of

+history and predestined from eternity.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+On the twenty-ninth of May Napoleon left Dresden, where he had spent

+three weeks surrounded by a court that included princes, dukes, kings,

+and even an emperor. Before leaving, Napoleon showed favor to the

+emperor, kings, and princes who had deserved it, reprimanded the kings

+and princes with whom he was dissatisfied, presented pearls and diamonds

+of his own—that is, which he had taken from other kings—to the Empress

+of Austria, and having, as his historian tells us, tenderly embraced the

+Empress Marie Louise—who regarded him as her husband, though he had left

+another wife in Paris—left her grieved by the parting which she seemed

+hardly able to bear. Though the diplomatists still firmly believed in

+the possibility of peace and worked zealously to that end, and though

+the Emperor Napoleon himself wrote a letter to Alexander, calling him

+Monsieur mon frère, and sincerely assured him that he did not want war

+and would always love and honor him—yet he set off to join his army,

+and at every station gave fresh orders to accelerate the movement of his

+troops from west to east. He went in a traveling coach with six horses,

+surrounded by pages, aides-de-camp, and an escort, along the road to

+Posen, Thorn, Danzig, and Königsberg. At each of these towns thousands

+of people met him with excitement and enthusiasm.

+

+The army was moving from west to east, and relays of six horses carried

+him in the same direction. On the tenth of June, * coming up with the

+army, he spent the night in apartments prepared for him on the estate of

+a Polish count in the Vilkavisski forest.

+

+    * Old style.

+

+Next day, overtaking the army, he went in a carriage to the Niemen, and,

+changing into a Polish uniform, he drove to the riverbank in order to

+select a place for the crossing.

+

+Seeing, on the other side, some Cossacks (les Cosaques) and the

+wide-spreading steppes in the midst of which lay the holy city of Moscow

+(Moscou, la ville sainte), the capital of a realm such as the Scythia

+into which Alexander the Great had marched—Napoleon unexpectedly, and

+contrary alike to strategic and diplomatic considerations, ordered an

+advance, and the next day his army began to cross the Niemen.

+

+Early in the morning of the twelfth of June he came out of his tent,

+which was pitched that day on the steep left bank of the Niemen, and

+looked through a spyglass at the streams of his troops pouring out of

+the Vilkavisski forest and flowing over the three bridges thrown across

+the river. The troops, knowing of the Emperor’s presence, were on the

+lookout for him, and when they caught sight of a figure in an overcoat

+and a cocked hat standing apart from his suite in front of his tent on

+the hill, they threw up their caps and shouted: “Vive l’Empereur!” and

+one after another poured in a ceaseless stream out of the vast forest

+that had concealed them and, separating, flowed on and on by the three

+bridges to the other side.

+

+“Now we’ll go into action. Oh, when he takes it in hand himself, things

+get hot... by heaven!... There he is!... Vive l’Empereur! So these

+are the steppes of Asia! It’s a nasty country all the same. Au revoir,

+Beauché; I’ll keep the best palace in Moscow for you! Au revoir. Good

+luck!... Did you see the Emperor? Vive l’Empereur!... preur!—If

+they make me Governor of India, Gérard, I’ll make you Minister of

+Kashmir—that’s settled. Vive l’Empereur! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! The

+Cossacks—those rascals—see how they run! Vive l’Empereur! There he

+is, do you see him? I’ve seen him twice, as I see you now. The little

+corporal... I saw him give the cross to one of the veterans.... Vive

+l’Empereur!” came the voices of men, old and young, of most diverse

+characters and social positions. On the faces of all was one common

+expression of joy at the commencement of the long-expected campaign and

+of rapture and devotion to the man in the gray coat who was standing on

+the hill.

+

+On the thirteenth of June a rather small, thoroughbred Arab horse was

+brought to Napoleon. He mounted it and rode at a gallop to one of the

+bridges over the Niemen, deafened continually by incessant and rapturous

+acclamations which he evidently endured only because it was impossible

+to forbid the soldiers to express their love of him by such shouting,

+but the shouting which accompanied him everywhere disturbed him and

+distracted him from the military cares that had occupied him from the

+time he joined the army. He rode across one of the swaying pontoon

+bridges to the farther side, turned sharply to the left, and galloped in

+the direction of Kóvno, preceded by enraptured, mounted chasseurs of the

+Guard who, breathless with delight, galloped ahead to clear a path for

+him through the troops. On reaching the broad river Víliya, he stopped

+near a regiment of Polish Uhlans stationed by the river.

+

+“Vivat!” shouted the Poles, ecstatically, breaking their ranks and

+pressing against one another to see him.

+

+Napoleon looked up and down the river, dismounted, and sat down on a log

+that lay on the bank. At a mute sign from him, a telescope was handed

+him which he rested on the back of a happy page who had run up to him,

+and he gazed at the opposite bank. Then he became absorbed in a map laid

+out on the logs. Without lifting his head he said something, and two of

+his aides-de-camp galloped off to the Polish Uhlans.

+

+“What? What did he say?” was heard in the ranks of the Polish Uhlans

+when one of the aides-de-camp rode up to them.

+

+The order was to find a ford and to cross the river. The colonel of the

+Polish Uhlans, a handsome old man, flushed and, fumbling in his speech

+from excitement, asked the aide-de-camp whether he would be permitted

+to swim the river with his Uhlans instead of seeking a ford. In evident

+fear of refusal, like a boy asking for permission to get on a horse, he

+begged to be allowed to swim across the river before the Emperor’s

+eyes. The aide-de-camp replied that probably the Emperor would not be

+displeased at this excess of zeal.

+

+As soon as the aide-de-camp had said this, the old mustached officer,

+with happy face and sparkling eyes, raised his saber, shouted “Vivat!”

+and, commanding the Uhlans to follow him, spurred his horse and galloped

+into the river. He gave an angry thrust to his horse, which had grown

+restive under him, and plunged into the water, heading for the deepest

+part where the current was swift. Hundreds of Uhlans galloped in after

+him. It was cold and uncanny in the rapid current in the middle of the

+stream, and the Uhlans caught hold of one another as they fell off their

+horses. Some of the horses were drowned and some of the men; the others

+tried to swim on, some in the saddle and some clinging to their horses’

+manes. They tried to make their way forward to the opposite bank and,

+though there was a ford one third of a mile away, were proud that they

+were swimming and drowning in this river under the eyes of the man who

+sat on the log and was not even looking at what they were doing. When

+the aide-de-camp, having returned and choosing an opportune moment,

+ventured to draw the Emperor’s attention to the devotion of the Poles

+to his person, the little man in the gray overcoat got up and, having

+summoned Berthier, began pacing up and down the bank with him, giving

+him instructions and occasionally glancing disapprovingly at the

+drowning Uhlans who distracted his attention.

+

+For him it was no new conviction that his presence in any part of

+the world, from Africa to the steppes of Muscovy alike, was enough to

+dumfound people and impel them to insane self-oblivion. He called for

+his horse and rode to his quarters.

+

+Some forty Uhlans were drowned in the river, though boats were sent to

+their assistance. The majority struggled back to the bank from which

+they had started. The colonel and some of his men got across and with

+difficulty clambered out on the further bank. And as soon as they had

+got out, in their soaked and streaming clothes, they shouted “Vivat!”

+and looked ecstatically at the spot where Napoleon had been but where he

+no longer was and at that moment considered themselves happy.

+

+That evening, between issuing one order that the forged Russian paper

+money prepared for use in Russia should be delivered as quickly as

+possible and another that a Saxon should be shot, on whom a letter

+containing information about the orders to the French army had been

+found, Napoleon also gave instructions that the Polish colonel who

+had needlessly plunged into the river should be enrolled in the Légion

+d’honneur of which Napoleon was himself the head.

+

+Quos vult perdere dementat. *

+

+    * Those whom (God) wishes to destroy he drives mad.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+The Emperor of Russia had, meanwhile, been in Vílna for more than a

+month, reviewing troops and holding maneuvers. Nothing was ready for the

+war that everyone expected and to prepare for which the Emperor had come

+from Petersburg. There was no general plan of action. The vacillation

+between the various plans that were proposed had even increased after

+the Emperor had been at headquarters for a month. Each of the three

+armies had its own commander in chief, but there was no supreme

+commander of all the forces, and the Emperor did not assume that

+responsibility himself.

+

+The longer the Emperor remained in Vílna the less did everybody—tired of

+waiting—prepare for the war. All the efforts of those who surrounded the

+sovereign seemed directed merely to making him spend his time pleasantly

+and forget that war was impending.

+

+In June, after many balls and fetes given by the Polish magnates, by the

+courtiers, and by the Emperor himself, it occurred to one of the Polish

+aides-de-camp in attendance that a dinner and ball should be given for

+the Emperor by his aides-de-camp. This idea was eagerly received.

+The Emperor gave his consent. The aides-de-camp collected money by

+subscription. The lady who was thought to be most pleasing to the

+Emperor was invited to act as hostess. Count Bennigsen, being a

+landowner in the Vílna province, offered his country house for the fete,

+and the thirteenth of June was fixed for a ball, dinner, regatta, and

+fireworks at Zakret, Count Bennigsen’s country seat.

+

+The very day that Napoleon issued the order to cross the Niemen, and

+his vanguard, driving off the Cossacks, crossed the Russian frontier,

+Alexander spent the evening at the entertainment given by his

+aides-de-camp at Bennigsen’s country house.

+

+It was a gay and brilliant fete. Connoisseurs of such matters declared

+that rarely had so many beautiful women been assembled in one place.

+Countess Bezúkhova was present among other Russian ladies who had

+followed the sovereign from Petersburg to Vílna and eclipsed the refined

+Polish ladies by her massive, so-called Russian type of beauty. The

+Emperor noticed her and honored her with a dance.

+

+Borís Drubetskóy, having left his wife in Moscow and being for the

+present en garçon (as he phrased it), was also there and, though not an

+aide-de-camp, had subscribed a large sum toward the expenses. Borís

+was now a rich man who had risen to high honors and no longer sought

+patronage but stood on an equal footing with the highest of those of his

+own age. He was meeting Hélène in Vílna after not having seen her for

+a long time and did not recall the past, but as Hélène was enjoying

+the favors of a very important personage and Borís had only recently

+married, they met as good friends of long standing.

+

+At midnight dancing was still going on. Hélène, not having a suitable

+partner, herself offered to dance the mazurka with Borís. They were the

+third couple. Borís, coolly looking at Hélène’s dazzling bare shoulders

+which emerged from a dark, gold-embroidered, gauze gown, talked to her

+of old acquaintances and at the same time, unaware of it himself and

+unnoticed by others, never for an instant ceased to observe the Emperor

+who was in the same room. The Emperor was not dancing, he stood in the

+doorway, stopping now one pair and now another with gracious words which

+he alone knew how to utter.

+

+As the mazurka began, Borís saw that Adjutant General Balashëv, one of

+those in closest attendance on the Emperor, went up to him and contrary

+to court etiquette stood near him while he was talking to a Polish

+lady. Having finished speaking to her, the Emperor looked inquiringly

+at Balashëv and, evidently understanding that he only acted thus because

+there were important reasons for so doing, nodded slightly to the lady

+and turned to him. Hardly had Balashëv begun to speak before a look of

+amazement appeared on the Emperor’s face. He took Balashëv by the arm

+and crossed the room with him, unconsciously clearing a path seven

+yards wide as the people on both sides made way for him. Borís noticed

+Arakchéev’s excited face when the sovereign went out with Balashëv.

+Arakchéev looked at the Emperor from under his brow and, sniffing with

+his red nose, stepped forward from the crowd as if expecting the Emperor

+to address him. (Borís understood that Arakchéev envied Balashëv and

+was displeased that evidently important news had reached the Emperor

+otherwise than through himself.)

+

+But the Emperor and Balashëv passed out into the illuminated garden

+without noticing Arakchéev who, holding his sword and glancing

+wrathfully around, followed some twenty paces behind them.

+

+All the time Borís was going through the figures of the mazurka, he was

+worried by the question of what news Balashëv had brought and how he

+could find it out before others. In the figure in which he had to choose

+two ladies, he whispered to Hélène that he meant to choose Countess

+Potocka who, he thought, had gone out onto the veranda, and glided over

+the parquet to the door opening into the garden, where, seeing Balashëv

+and the Emperor returning to the veranda, he stood still. They were

+moving toward the door. Borís, fluttering as if he had not had time to

+withdraw, respectfully pressed close to the doorpost with bowed head.

+

+The Emperor, with the agitation of one who has been personally

+affronted, was finishing with these words:

+

+“To enter Russia without declaring war! I will not make peace as long as

+a single armed enemy remains in my country!” It seemed to Borís that it

+gave the Emperor pleasure to utter these words. He was satisfied with

+the form in which he had expressed his thoughts, but displeased that

+Borís had overheard it.

+

+“Let no one know of it!” the Emperor added with a frown.

+

+Borís understood that this was meant for him and, closing his eyes,

+slightly bowed his head. The Emperor re-entered the ballroom and

+remained there about another half-hour.

+

+Borís was thus the first to learn the news that the French army had

+crossed the Niemen and, thanks to this, was able to show certain

+important personages that much that was concealed from others was

+usually known to him, and by this means he rose higher in their

+estimation.

+

+

+The unexpected news of the French having crossed the Niemen was

+particularly startling after a month of unfulfilled expectations, and at

+a ball. On first receiving the news, under the influence of indignation

+and resentment the Emperor had found a phrase that pleased him, fully

+expressed his feelings, and has since become famous. On returning home

+at two o’clock that night he sent for his secretary, Shishkóv, and told

+him to write an order to the troops and a rescript to Field Marshal

+Prince Saltykóv, in which he insisted on the words being inserted that

+he would not make peace so long as a single armed Frenchman remained on

+Russian soil.

+

+Next day the following letter was sent to Napoleon:

+

+Monsieur mon frère,

+

+Yesterday I learned that, despite the loyalty with which I have kept

+my engagements with Your Majesty, your troops have crossed the Russian

+frontier, and I have this moment received from Petersburg a note, in

+which Count Lauriston informs me, as a reason for this aggression, that

+Your Majesty has considered yourself to be in a state of war with me

+from the time Prince Kurákin asked for his passports. The reasons on

+which the Duc de Bassano based his refusal to deliver them to him would

+never have led me to suppose that that could serve as a pretext for

+aggression. In fact, the ambassador, as he himself has declared, was

+never authorized to make that demand, and as soon as I was informed of

+it I let him know how much I disapproved of it and ordered him to remain

+at his post. If Your Majesty does not intend to shed the blood of our

+peoples for such a misunderstanding, and consents to withdraw your

+troops from Russian territory, I will regard what has passed as not

+having occurred and an understanding between us will be possible. In

+the contrary case, Your Majesty, I shall see myself forced to repel an

+attack that nothing on my part has provoked. It still depends on Your

+Majesty to preserve humanity from the calamity of another war.

+

+I am, etc.,

+

+(signed) Alexander

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+At two in the morning of the fourteenth of June, the Emperor, having

+sent for Balashëv and read him his letter to Napoleon, ordered him to

+take it and hand it personally to the French Emperor. When dispatching

+Balashëv, the Emperor repeated to him the words that he would not make

+peace so long as a single armed enemy remained on Russian soil and told

+him to transmit those words to Napoleon. Alexander did not insert them

+in his letter to Napoleon, because with his characteristic tact he felt

+it would be injudicious to use them at a moment when a last attempt at

+reconciliation was being made, but he definitely instructed Balashëv to

+repeat them personally to Napoleon.

+

+Having set off in the small hours of the fourteenth, accompanied by a

+bugler and two Cossacks, Balashëv reached the French outposts at the

+village of Rykónty, on the Russian side of the Niemen, by dawn. There he

+was stopped by French cavalry sentinels.

+

+A French noncommissioned officer of hussars, in crimson uniform and a

+shaggy cap, shouted to the approaching Balashëv to halt. Balashëv did

+not do so at once, but continued to advance along the road at a walking

+pace.

+

+The noncommissioned officer frowned and, muttering words of abuse,

+advanced his horse’s chest against Balashëv, put his hand to his saber,

+and shouted rudely at the Russian general, asking: was he deaf that

+he did not do as he was told? Balashëv mentioned who he was. The

+noncommissioned officer began talking with his comrades about regimental

+matters without looking at the Russian general.

+

+After living at the seat of the highest authority and power, after

+conversing with the Emperor less than three hours before, and in general

+being accustomed to the respect due to his rank in the service, Balashëv

+found it very strange here on Russian soil to encounter this hostile,

+and still more this disrespectful, application of brute force to

+himself.

+

+The sun was only just appearing from behind the clouds, the air was

+fresh and dewy. A herd of cattle was being driven along the road from

+the village, and over the fields the larks rose trilling, one after

+another, like bubbles rising in water.

+

+Balashëv looked around him, awaiting the arrival of an officer from the

+village. The Russian Cossacks and bugler and the French hussars looked

+silently at one another from time to time.

+

+A French colonel of hussars, who had evidently just left his bed, came

+riding from the village on a handsome sleek gray horse, accompanied

+by two hussars. The officer, the soldiers, and their horses all looked

+smart and well kept.

+

+It was that first period of a campaign when troops are still in full

+trim, almost like that of peacetime maneuvers, but with a shade of

+martial swagger in their clothes, and a touch of the gaiety and spirit

+of enterprise which always accompany the opening of a campaign.

+

+The French colonel with difficulty repressed a yawn, but was polite and

+evidently understood Balashëv’s importance. He led him past his soldiers

+and behind the outposts and told him that his wish to be presented to

+the Emperor would most likely be satisfied immediately, as the Emperor’s

+quarters were, he believed, not far off.

+

+They rode through the village of Rykónty, past tethered French hussar

+horses, past sentinels and men who saluted their colonel and stared with

+curiosity at a Russian uniform, and came out at the other end of the

+village. The colonel said that the commander of the division was a mile

+and a quarter away and would receive Balashëv and conduct him to his

+destination.

+

+The sun had by now risen and shone gaily on the bright verdure.

+

+They had hardly ridden up a hill, past a tavern, before they saw a group

+of horsemen coming toward them. In front of the group, on a black horse

+with trappings that glittered in the sun, rode a tall man with plumes

+in his hat and black hair curling down to his shoulders. He wore a red

+mantle, and stretched his long legs forward in French fashion. This man

+rode toward Balashëv at a gallop, his plumes flowing and his gems and

+gold lace glittering in the bright June sunshine.

+

+Balashëv was only two horses’ length from the equestrian with the

+bracelets, plumes, necklaces, and gold embroidery, who was galloping

+toward him with a theatrically solemn countenance, when Julner, the

+French colonel, whispered respectfully: “The King of Naples!” It was,

+in fact, Murat, now called “King of Naples.” Though it was quite

+incomprehensible why he should be King of Naples, he was called so,

+and was himself convinced that he was so, and therefore assumed a more

+solemn and important air than formerly. He was so sure that he really

+was the King of Naples that when, on the eve of his departure from that

+city, while walking through the streets with his wife, some Italians

+called out to him: “Viva il re!” * he turned to his wife with a pensive

+smile and said: “Poor fellows, they don’t know that I am leaving them

+tomorrow!”

+

+    * “Long live the king.”

+

+

+But though he firmly believed himself to be King of Naples and pitied

+the grief felt by the subjects he was abandoning, latterly, after he had

+been ordered to return to military service—and especially since his last

+interview with Napoleon in Danzig, when his august brother-in-law had

+told him: “I made you King that you should reign in my way, but not in

+yours!”—he had cheerfully taken up his familiar business, and—like a

+well-fed but not overfat horse that feels himself in harness and grows

+skittish between the shafts—he dressed up in clothes as variegated and

+expensive as possible, and gaily and contentedly galloped along the

+roads of Poland, without himself knowing why or whither.

+

+On seeing the Russian general he threw back his head, with its long hair

+curling to his shoulders, in a majestically royal manner, and looked

+inquiringly at the French colonel. The colonel respectfully informed His

+Majesty of Balashëv’s mission, whose name he could not pronounce.

+

+“De Bal-machève!” said the King (overcoming by his assurance the

+difficulty that had presented itself to the colonel). “Charmed to

+make your acquaintance, General!” he added, with a gesture of kingly

+condescension.

+

+As soon as the King began to speak loud and fast his royal dignity

+instantly forsook him, and without noticing it he passed into his

+natural tone of good-natured familiarity. He laid his hand on the

+withers of Balashëv’s horse and said:

+

+“Well, General, it all looks like war,” as if regretting a circumstance

+of which he was unable to judge.

+

+“Your Majesty,” replied Balashëv, “my master, the Emperor, does not

+desire war and as Your Majesty sees...” said Balashëv, using the words

+Your Majesty at every opportunity, with the affectation unavoidable in

+frequently addressing one to whom the title was still a novelty.

+

+Murat’s face beamed with stupid satisfaction as he listened to “Monsieur

+de Bal-machève.” But royauté oblige! * and he felt it incumbent on

+him, as a king and an ally, to confer on state affairs with Alexander’s

+envoy. He dismounted, took Balashëv’s arm, and moving a few steps away

+from his suite, which waited respectfully, began to pace up and down

+with him, trying to speak significantly. He referred to the fact that

+the Emperor Napoleon had resented the demand that he should withdraw his

+troops from Prussia, especially when that demand became generally known

+and the dignity of France was thereby offended.

+

+    * “Royalty has its obligations.”

+

+

+Balashëv replied that there was “nothing offensive in the demand,

+because...” but Murat interrupted him.

+

+“Then you don’t consider the Emperor Alexander the aggressor?” he asked

+unexpectedly, with a kindly and foolish smile.

+

+Balashëv told him why he considered Napoleon to be the originator of the

+war.

+

+“Oh, my dear general!” Murat again interrupted him, “with all my heart I

+wish the Emperors may arrange the affair between them, and that the war

+begun by no wish of mine may finish as quickly as possible!” said he,

+in the tone of a servant who wants to remain good friends with another

+despite a quarrel between their masters.

+

+And he went on to inquiries about the Grand Duke and the state of his

+health, and to reminiscences of the gay and amusing times he had spent

+with him in Naples. Then suddenly, as if remembering his royal dignity,

+Murat solemnly drew himself up, assumed the pose in which he had stood

+at his coronation, and, waving his right arm, said:

+

+“I won’t detain you longer, General. I wish success to your mission,”

+and with his embroidered red mantle, his flowing feathers, and his

+glittering ornaments, he rejoined his suite who were respectfully

+awaiting him.

+

+Balashëv rode on, supposing from Murat’s words that he would very soon

+be brought before Napoleon himself. But instead of that, at the next

+village the sentinels of Davout’s infantry corps detained him as

+the pickets of the vanguard had done, and an adjutant of the corps

+commander, who was fetched, conducted him into the village to Marshal

+Davout.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+Davout was to Napoleon what Arakchéev was to Alexander—though not a

+coward like Arakchéev, he was as precise, as cruel, and as unable to

+express his devotion to his monarch except by cruelty.

+

+In the organism of states such men are necessary, as wolves are

+necessary in the organism of nature, and they always exist, always

+appear and hold their own, however incongruous their presence and their

+proximity to the head of the government may be. This inevitability alone

+can explain how the cruel Arakchéev, who tore out a grenadier’s mustache

+with his own hands, whose weak nerves rendered him unable to face

+danger, and who was neither an educated man nor a courtier, was able to

+maintain his powerful position with Alexander, whose own character was

+chivalrous, noble, and gentle.

+

+Balashëv found Davout seated on a barrel in the shed of a peasant’s hut,

+writing—he was auditing accounts. Better quarters could have been

+found him, but Marshal Davout was one of those men who purposely put

+themselves in most depressing conditions to have a justification for

+being gloomy. For the same reason they are always hard at work and in a

+hurry. “How can I think of the bright side of life when, as you see, I

+am sitting on a barrel and working in a dirty shed?” the expression of

+his face seemed to say. The chief pleasure and necessity of such men,

+when they encounter anyone who shows animation, is to flaunt their own

+dreary, persistent activity. Davout allowed himself that pleasure when

+Balashëv was brought in. He became still more absorbed in his task when

+the Russian general entered, and after glancing over his spectacles at

+Balashëv’s face, which was animated by the beauty of the morning and

+by his talk with Murat, he did not rise or even stir, but scowled still

+more and sneered malevolently.

+

+When he noticed in Balashëv’s face the disagreeable impression this

+reception produced, Davout raised his head and coldly asked what he

+wanted.

+

+Thinking he could have been received in such a manner only because

+Davout did not know that he was adjutant general to the Emperor

+Alexander and even his envoy to Napoleon, Balashëv hastened to inform

+him of his rank and mission. Contrary to his expectation, Davout, after

+hearing him, became still surlier and ruder.

+

+“Where is your dispatch?” he inquired. “Give it to me. I will send it to

+the Emperor.”

+

+Balashëv replied that he had been ordered to hand it personally to the

+Emperor.

+

+“Your Emperor’s orders are obeyed in your army, but here,” said Davout,

+“you must do as you’re told.”

+

+And, as if to make the Russian general still more conscious of his

+dependence on brute force, Davout sent an adjutant to call the officer

+on duty.

+

+Balashëv took out the packet containing the Emperor’s letter and laid it

+on the table (made of a door with its hinges still hanging on it, laid

+across two barrels). Davout took the packet and read the inscription.

+

+“You are perfectly at liberty to treat me with respect or not,”

+protested Balashëv, “but permit me to observe that I have the honor to

+be adjutant general to His Majesty....”

+

+Davout glanced at him silently and plainly derived pleasure from the

+signs of agitation and confusion which appeared on Balashëv’s face.

+

+“You will be treated as is fitting,” said he and, putting the packet in

+his pocket, left the shed.

+

+A minute later the marshal’s adjutant, de Castrès, came in and conducted

+Balashëv to the quarters assigned him.

+

+That day he dined with the marshal, at the same board on the barrels.

+

+Next day Davout rode out early and, after asking Balashëv to come to

+him, peremptorily requested him to remain there, to move on with the

+baggage train should orders come for it to move, and to talk to no one

+except Monsieur de Castrès.

+

+After four days of solitude, ennui, and consciousness of his impotence

+and insignificance—particularly acute by contrast with the sphere of

+power in which he had so lately moved—and after several marches with

+the marshal’s baggage and the French army, which occupied the

+whole district, Balashëv was brought to Vílna—now occupied by the

+French—through the very gate by which he had left it four days

+previously.

+

+Next day the imperial gentleman-in-waiting, the Comte de Turenne, came

+to Balashëv and informed him of the Emperor Napoleon’s wish to honor him

+with an audience.

+

+Four days before, sentinels of the Preobrazhénsk regiment had stood in

+front of the house to which Balashëv was conducted, and now two French

+grenadiers stood there in blue uniforms unfastened in front and with

+shaggy caps on their heads, and an escort of hussars and Uhlans and a

+brilliant suite of aides-de-camp, pages, and generals, who were waiting

+for Napoleon to come out, were standing at the porch, round his saddle

+horse and his Mameluke, Rustan. Napoleon received Balashëv in the very

+house in Vílna from which Alexander had dispatched him on his mission.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+Though Balashëv was used to imperial pomp, he was amazed at the luxury

+and magnificence of Napoleon’s court.

+

+The Comte de Turenne showed him into a big reception room where many

+generals, gentlemen-in-waiting, and Polish magnates—several of whom

+Balashëv had seen at the court of the Emperor of Russia—were waiting.

+Duroc said that Napoleon would receive the Russian general before going

+for his ride.

+

+After some minutes, the gentleman-in-waiting who was on duty came into

+the great reception room and, bowing politely, asked Balashëv to follow

+him.

+

+Balashëv went into a small reception room, one door of which led into a

+study, the very one from which the Russian Emperor had dispatched him

+on his mission. He stood a minute or two, waiting. He heard hurried

+footsteps beyond the door, both halves of it were opened rapidly; all

+was silent and then from the study the sound was heard of other steps,

+firm and resolute—they were those of Napoleon. He had just finished

+dressing for his ride, and wore a blue uniform, opening in front over

+a white waistcoat so long that it covered his rotund stomach, white

+leather breeches tightly fitting the fat thighs of his short legs, and

+Hessian boots. His short hair had evidently just been brushed, but one

+lock hung down in the middle of his broad forehead. His plump white neck

+stood out sharply above the black collar of his uniform, and he smelled

+of Eau de Cologne. His full face, rather young-looking, with its

+prominent chin, wore a gracious and majestic expression of imperial

+welcome.

+

+He entered briskly, with a jerk at every step and his head slightly

+thrown back. His whole short corpulent figure with broad thick

+shoulders, and chest and stomach involuntarily protruding, had that

+imposing and stately appearance one sees in men of forty who live in

+comfort. It was evident, too, that he was in the best of spirits that

+day.

+

+He nodded in answer to Balashëv’s low and respectful bow, and coming up

+to him at once began speaking like a man who values every moment of his

+time and does not condescend to prepare what he has to say but is sure

+he will always say the right thing and say it well.

+

+“Good day, General!” said he. “I have received the letter you brought

+from the Emperor Alexander and am very glad to see you.” He glanced with

+his large eyes into Balashëv’s face and immediately looked past him.

+

+It was plain that Balashëv’s personality did not interest him at all.

+Evidently only what took place within his own mind interested him.

+Nothing outside himself had any significance for him, because everything

+in the world, it seemed to him, depended entirely on his will.

+

+“I do not, and did not, desire war,” he continued, “but it has been

+forced on me. Even now” (he emphasized the word) “I am ready to receive

+any explanations you can give me.”

+

+And he began clearly and concisely to explain his reasons for

+dissatisfaction with the Russian government. Judging by the calmly

+moderate and amicable tone in which the French Emperor spoke, Balashëv

+was firmly persuaded that he wished for peace and intended to enter into

+negotiations.

+

+When Napoleon, having finished speaking, looked inquiringly at the

+Russian envoy, Balashëv began a speech he had prepared long before:

+“Sire! The Emperor, my master...” but the sight of the Emperor’s eyes

+bent on him confused him. “You are flurried—compose yourself!” Napoleon

+seemed to say, as with a scarcely perceptible smile he looked at

+Balashëv’s uniform and sword.

+

+Balashëv recovered himself and began to speak. He said that the

+Emperor Alexander did not consider Kurákin’s demand for his passports a

+sufficient cause for war; that Kurákin had acted on his own initiative

+and without his sovereign’s assent, that the Emperor Alexander did not

+desire war, and had no relations with England.

+

+“Not yet!” interposed Napoleon, and, as if fearing to give vent to his

+feelings, he frowned and nodded slightly as a sign that Balashëv might

+proceed.

+

+After saying all he had been instructed to say, Balashëv added that

+the Emperor Alexander wished for peace, but would not enter into

+negotiations except on condition that... Here Balashëv hesitated:

+he remembered the words the Emperor Alexander had not written in his

+letter, but had specially inserted in the rescript to Saltykóv and had

+told Balashëv to repeat to Napoleon. Balashëv remembered these words,

+“So long as a single armed foe remains on Russian soil,” but some

+complex feeling restrained him. He could not utter them, though he

+wished to do so. He grew confused and said: “On condition that the

+French army retires beyond the Niemen.”

+

+Napoleon noticed Balashëv’s embarrassment when uttering these last

+words; his face twitched and the calf of his left leg began to quiver

+rhythmically. Without moving from where he stood he began speaking in

+a louder tone and more hurriedly than before. During the speech that

+followed, Balashëv, who more than once lowered his eyes, involuntarily

+noticed the quivering of Napoleon’s left leg which increased the more

+Napoleon raised his voice.

+

+“I desire peace, no less than the Emperor Alexander,” he began. “Have

+I not for eighteen months been doing everything to obtain it? I

+have waited eighteen months for explanations. But in order to begin

+negotiations, what is demanded of me?” he said, frowning and making an

+energetic gesture of inquiry with his small white plump hand.

+

+“The withdrawal of your army beyond the Niemen, sire,” replied Balashëv.

+

+“The Niemen?” repeated Napoleon. “So now you want me to retire beyond

+the Niemen—only the Niemen?” repeated Napoleon, looking straight at

+Balashëv.

+

+The latter bowed his head respectfully.

+

+Instead of the demand of four months earlier to withdraw from Pomerania,

+only a withdrawal beyond the Niemen was now demanded. Napoleon turned

+quickly and began to pace the room.

+

+“You say the demand now is that I am to withdraw beyond the Niemen

+before commencing negotiations, but in just the same way two months ago

+the demand was that I should withdraw beyond the Vistula and the Oder,

+and yet you are willing to negotiate.”

+

+He went in silence from one corner of the room to the other and again

+stopped in front of Balashëv. Balashëv noticed that his left leg was

+quivering faster than before and his face seemed petrified in its stern

+expression. This quivering of his left leg was a thing Napoleon was

+conscious of. “The vibration of my left calf is a great sign with me,”

+he remarked at a later date.

+

+“Such demands as to retreat beyond the Vistula and Oder may be made to a

+Prince of Baden, but not to me!” Napoleon almost screamed, quite to his

+own surprise. “If you gave me Petersburg and Moscow I could not accept

+such conditions. You say I have begun this war! But who first joined his

+army? The Emperor Alexander, not I! And you offer me negotiations when I

+have expended millions, when you are in alliance with England, and when

+your position is a bad one. You offer me negotiations! But what is the

+aim of your alliance with England? What has she given you?” he continued

+hurriedly, evidently no longer trying to show the advantages of peace

+and discuss its possibility, but only to prove his own rectitude and

+power and Alexander’s errors and duplicity.

+

+The commencement of his speech had obviously been made with the

+intention of demonstrating the advantages of his position and showing

+that he was nevertheless willing to negotiate. But he had begun talking,

+and the more he talked the less could he control his words.

+

+The whole purport of his remarks now was evidently to exalt himself and

+insult Alexander—just what he had least desired at the commencement of

+the interview.

+

+“I hear you have made peace with Turkey?”

+

+Balashëv bowed his head affirmatively.

+

+“Peace has been concluded...” he began.

+

+But Napoleon did not let him speak. He evidently wanted to do all the

+talking himself, and continued to talk with the sort of eloquence and

+unrestrained irritability to which spoiled people are so prone.

+

+“Yes, I know you have made peace with the Turks without obtaining

+Moldavia and Wallachia; I would have given your sovereign those

+provinces as I gave him Finland. Yes,” he went on, “I promised and would

+have given the Emperor Alexander Moldavia and Wallachia, and now he

+won’t have those splendid provinces. Yet he might have united them to

+his empire and in a single reign would have extended Russia from the

+Gulf of Bothnia to the mouths of the Danube. Catherine the Great could

+not have done more,” said Napoleon, growing more and more excited as he

+paced up and down the room, repeating to Balashëv almost the very words

+he had used to Alexander himself at Tilsit. “All that, he would have

+owed to my friendship. Oh, what a splendid reign!” he repeated several

+times, then paused, drew from his pocket a gold snuffbox, lifted it to

+his nose, and greedily sniffed at it.

+

+“What a splendid reign the Emperor Alexander’s might have been!”

+

+He looked compassionately at Balashëv, and as soon as the latter tried

+to make some rejoinder hastily interrupted him.

+

+“What could he wish or look for that he would not have obtained

+through my friendship?” demanded Napoleon, shrugging his shoulders

+in perplexity. “But no, he has preferred to surround himself with

+my enemies, and with whom? With Steins, Armfeldts, Bennigsens, and

+Wintzingerodes! Stein, a traitor expelled from his own country;

+Armfeldt, a rake and an intriguer; Wintzingerode, a fugitive French

+subject; Bennigsen, rather more of a soldier than the others, but all

+the same an incompetent who was unable to do anything in 1807 and who

+should awaken terrible memories in the Emperor Alexander’s mind....

+Granted that were they competent they might be made use of,” continued

+Napoleon—hardly able to keep pace in words with the rush of thoughts

+that incessantly sprang up, proving how right and strong he was (in his

+perception the two were one and the same)—“but they are not even that!

+They are neither fit for war nor peace! Barclay is said to be the

+most capable of them all, but I cannot say so, judging by his first

+movements. And what are they doing, all these courtiers? Pfuel proposes,

+Armfeldt disputes, Bennigsen considers, and Barclay, called on to act,

+does not know what to decide on, and time passes bringing no result.

+Bagratión alone is a military man. He’s stupid, but he has experience,

+a quick eye, and resolution.... And what role is your young monarch

+playing in that monstrous crowd? They compromise him and throw on him

+the responsibility for all that happens. A sovereign should not be with

+the army unless he is a general!” said Napoleon, evidently uttering

+these words as a direct challenge to the Emperor. He knew how Alexander

+desired to be a military commander.

+

+“The campaign began only a week ago, and you haven’t even been able to

+defend Vílna. You are cut in two and have been driven out of the Polish

+provinces. Your army is grumbling.”

+

+“On the contrary, Your Majesty,” said Balashëv, hardly able to remember

+what had been said to him and following these verbal fireworks with

+difficulty, “the troops are burning with eagerness...”

+

+“I know everything!” Napoleon interrupted him. “I know everything. I

+know the number of your battalions as exactly as I know my own. You have

+not two hundred thousand men, and I have three times that number. I give

+you my word of honor,” said Napoleon, forgetting that his word of honor

+could carry no weight—“I give you my word of honor that I have five

+hundred and thirty thousand men this side of the Vistula. The Turks will

+be of no use to you; they are worth nothing and have shown it by making

+peace with you. As for the Swedes—it is their fate to be governed by

+mad kings. Their king was insane and they changed him for

+another—Bernadotte, who promptly went mad—for no Swede would ally

+himself with Russia unless he were mad.”

+

+Napoleon grinned maliciously and again raised his snuffbox to his nose.

+

+Balashëv knew how to reply to each of Napoleon’s remarks, and would

+have done so; he continually made the gesture of a man wishing to say

+something, but Napoleon always interrupted him. To the alleged insanity

+of the Swedes, Balashëv wished to reply that when Russia is on her side

+Sweden is practically an island: but Napoleon gave an angry exclamation

+to drown his voice. Napoleon was in that state of irritability in which

+a man has to talk, talk, and talk, merely to convince himself that he is

+in the right. Balashëv began to feel uncomfortable: as envoy he feared

+to demean his dignity and felt the necessity of replying; but, as a man,

+he shrank before the transport of groundless wrath that had evidently

+seized Napoleon. He knew that none of the words now uttered by Napoleon

+had any significance, and that Napoleon himself would be ashamed of them

+when he came to his senses. Balashëv stood with downcast eyes, looking

+at the movements of Napoleon’s stout legs and trying to avoid meeting

+his eyes.

+

+“But what do I care about your allies?” said Napoleon. “I have

+allies—the Poles. There are eighty thousand of them and they fight like

+lions. And there will be two hundred thousand of them.”

+

+And probably still more perturbed by the fact that he had uttered this

+obvious falsehood, and that Balashëv still stood silently before him in

+the same attitude of submission to fate, Napoleon abruptly turned

+round, drew close to Balashëv’s face, and, gesticulating rapidly and

+energetically with his white hands, almost shouted:

+

+“Know that if you stir up Prussia against me, I’ll wipe it off the map

+of Europe!” he declared, his face pale and distorted by anger, and he

+struck one of his small hands energetically with the other. “Yes, I

+will throw you back beyond the Dvína and beyond the Dnieper, and will

+re-erect against you that barrier which it was criminal and blind of

+Europe to allow to be destroyed. Yes, that is what will happen to you.

+That is what you have gained by alienating me!” And he walked silently

+several times up and down the room, his fat shoulders twitching.

+

+He put his snuffbox into his waistcoat pocket, took it out again, lifted

+it several times to his nose, and stopped in front of Balashëv. He

+paused, looked ironically straight into Balashëv’s eyes, and said in a

+quiet voice:

+

+“And yet what a splendid reign your master might have had!”

+

+Balashëv, feeling it incumbent on him to reply, said that from the

+Russian side things did not appear in so gloomy a light. Napoleon was

+silent, still looking derisively at him and evidently not listening to

+him. Balashëv said that in Russia the best results were expected from

+the war. Napoleon nodded condescendingly, as if to say, “I know it’s

+your duty to say that, but you don’t believe it yourself. I have

+convinced you.”

+

+When Balashëv had ended, Napoleon again took out his snuffbox, sniffed

+at it, and stamped his foot twice on the floor as a signal. The door

+opened, a gentleman-in-waiting, bending respectfully, handed the Emperor

+his hat and gloves; another brought him a pocket handkerchief. Napoleon,

+without giving them a glance, turned to Balashëv:

+

+“Assure the Emperor Alexander from me,” said he, taking his hat, “that

+I am as devoted to him as before: I know him thoroughly and very highly

+esteem his lofty qualities. I will detain you no longer, General; you

+shall receive my letter to the Emperor.”

+

+And Napoleon went quickly to the door. Everyone in the reception room

+rushed forward and descended the staircase.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+After all that Napoleon had said to him—those bursts of anger and the

+last dryly spoken words: “I will detain you no longer, General; you

+shall receive my letter,” Balashëv felt convinced that Napoleon would

+not wish to see him, and would even avoid another meeting with him—an

+insulted envoy—especially as he had witnessed his unseemly anger. But,

+to his surprise, Balashëv received, through Duroc, an invitation to dine

+with the Emperor that day.

+

+Bessières, Caulaincourt, and Berthier were present at that dinner.

+

+Napoleon met Balashëv cheerfully and amiably. He not only showed no sign

+of constraint or self-reproach on account of his outburst that morning,

+but, on the contrary, tried to reassure Balashëv. It was evident that

+he had long been convinced that it was impossible for him to make a

+mistake, and that in his perception whatever he did was right, not

+because it harmonized with any idea of right and wrong, but because he

+did it.

+

+The Emperor was in very good spirits after his ride through Vílna, where

+crowds of people had rapturously greeted and followed him. From all

+the windows of the streets through which he rode, rugs, flags, and his

+monogram were displayed, and the Polish ladies, welcoming him, waved

+their handkerchiefs to him.

+

+At dinner, having placed Balashëv beside him, Napoleon not only treated

+him amiably but behaved as if Balashëv were one of his own courtiers,

+one of those who sympathized with his plans and ought to rejoice at

+his success. In the course of conversation he mentioned Moscow and

+questioned Balashëv about the Russian capital, not merely as an

+interested traveler asks about a new city he intends to visit, but as

+if convinced that Balashëv, as a Russian, must be flattered by his

+curiosity.

+

+“How many inhabitants are there in Moscow? How many houses? Is it true

+that Moscow is called ‘Holy Moscow’? How many churches are there in

+Moscow?” he asked.

+

+And receiving the reply that there were more than two hundred churches,

+he remarked:

+

+“Why such a quantity of churches?”

+

+“The Russians are very devout,” replied Balashëv.

+

+“But a large number of monasteries and churches is always a sign of the

+backwardness of a people,” said Napoleon, turning to Caulaincourt for

+appreciation of this remark.

+

+Balashëv respectfully ventured to disagree with the French Emperor.

+

+“Every country has its own character,” said he.

+

+“But nowhere in Europe is there anything like that,” said Napoleon.

+

+“I beg your Majesty’s pardon,” returned Balashëv, “besides Russia there

+is Spain, where there are also many churches and monasteries.”

+

+This reply of Balashëv’s, which hinted at the recent defeats of the

+French in Spain, was much appreciated when he related it at Alexander’s

+court, but it was not much appreciated at Napoleon’s dinner, where it

+passed unnoticed.

+

+The uninterested and perplexed faces of the marshals showed that they

+were puzzled as to what Balashëv’s tone suggested. “If there is a point

+we don’t see it, or it is not at all witty,” their expressions seemed

+to say. So little was his rejoinder appreciated that Napoleon did not

+notice it at all and naïvely asked Balashëv through what towns the

+direct road from there to Moscow passed. Balashëv, who was on the alert

+all through the dinner, replied that just as “all roads lead to Rome,”

+so all roads lead to Moscow: there were many roads, and “among them the

+road through Poltáva, which Charles XII chose.” Balashëv involuntarily

+flushed with pleasure at the aptitude of this reply, but hardly had

+he uttered the word Poltáva before Caulaincourt began speaking of the

+badness of the road from Petersburg to Moscow and of his Petersburg

+reminiscences.

+

+After dinner they went to drink coffee in Napoleon’s study, which four

+days previously had been that of the Emperor Alexander. Napoleon sat

+down, toying with his Sèvres coffee cup, and motioned Balashëv to a

+chair beside him.

+

+Napoleon was in that well-known after-dinner mood which, more than

+any reasoned cause, makes a man contented with himself and disposed to

+consider everyone his friend. It seemed to him that he was surrounded

+by men who adored him: and he felt convinced that, after his dinner,

+Balashëv too was his friend and worshiper. Napoleon turned to him with a

+pleasant, though slightly ironic, smile.

+

+“They tell me this is the room the Emperor Alexander occupied? Strange,

+isn’t it, General?” he said, evidently not doubting that this remark

+would be agreeable to his hearer since it went to prove his, Napoleon’s,

+superiority to Alexander.

+

+Balashëv made no reply and bowed his head in silence.

+

+“Yes. Four days ago in this room, Wintzingerode and Stein were

+deliberating,” continued Napoleon with the same derisive and

+self-confident smile. “What I can’t understand,” he went on, “is that

+the Emperor Alexander has surrounded himself with my personal enemies.

+That I do not... understand. Has he not thought that I may do the same?”

+and he turned inquiringly to Balashëv, and evidently this thought turned

+him back on to the track of his morning’s anger, which was still fresh

+in him.

+

+“And let him know that I will do so!” said Napoleon, rising and pushing

+his cup away with his hand. “I’ll drive all his Württemberg, Baden, and

+Weimar relations out of Germany.... Yes. I’ll drive them out. Let him

+prepare an asylum for them in Russia!”

+

+Balashëv bowed his head with an air indicating that he would like to

+make his bow and leave, and only listened because he could not help

+hearing what was said to him. Napoleon did not notice this expression;

+he treated Balashëv not as an envoy from his enemy, but as a man

+now fully devoted to him and who must rejoice at his former master’s

+humiliation.

+

+“And why has the Emperor Alexander taken command of the armies? What is

+the good of that? War is my profession, but his business is to reign

+and not to command armies! Why has he taken on himself such a

+responsibility?”

+

+Again Napoleon brought out his snuffbox, paced several times up and down

+the room in silence, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, went up to

+Balashëv and with a slight smile, as confidently, quickly, and simply

+as if he were doing something not merely important but pleasing to

+Balashëv, he raised his hand to the forty-year-old Russian general’s

+face and, taking him by the ear, pulled it gently, smiling with his lips

+only.

+

+To have one’s ear pulled by the Emperor was considered the greatest

+honor and mark of favor at the French court.

+

+“Well, adorer and courtier of the Emperor Alexander, why don’t you say

+anything?” said he, as if it was ridiculous, in his presence, to be the

+adorer and courtier of anyone but himself, Napoleon. “Are the horses

+ready for the general?” he added, with a slight inclination of his head

+in reply to Balashëv’s bow. “Let him have mine, he has a long way to

+go!”

+

+The letter taken by Balashëv was the last Napoleon sent to Alexander.

+Every detail of the interview was communicated to the Russian monarch,

+and the war began....

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+After his interview with Pierre in Moscow, Prince Andrew went to

+Petersburg, on business as he told his family, but really to meet

+Anatole Kurágin whom he felt it necessary to encounter. On reaching

+Petersburg he inquired for Kurágin but the latter had already left the

+city. Pierre had warned his brother-in-law that Prince Andrew was on

+his track. Anatole Kurágin promptly obtained an appointment from

+the Minister of War and went to join the army in Moldavia. While in

+Petersburg Prince Andrew met Kutúzov, his former commander who was

+always well disposed toward him, and Kutúzov suggested that he should

+accompany him to the army in Moldavia, to which the old general had

+been appointed commander in chief. So Prince Andrew, having received an

+appointment on the headquarters staff, left for Turkey.

+

+Prince Andrew did not think it proper to write and challenge Kurágin.

+He thought that if he challenged him without some fresh cause it might

+compromise the young Countess Rostóva and so he wanted to meet Kurágin

+personally in order to find a fresh pretext for a duel. But he again

+failed to meet Kurágin in Turkey, for soon after Prince Andrew arrived,

+the latter returned to Russia. In a new country, amid new conditions,

+Prince Andrew found life easier to bear. After his betrothed had broken

+faith with him—which he felt the more acutely the more he tried to

+conceal its effects—the surroundings in which he had been happy became

+trying to him, and the freedom and independence he had once prized

+so highly were still more so. Not only could he no longer think the

+thoughts that had first come to him as he lay gazing at the sky on the

+field of Austerlitz and had later enlarged upon with Pierre, and which

+had filled his solitude at Boguchárovo and then in Switzerland and Rome,

+but he even dreaded to recall them and the bright and boundless horizons

+they had revealed. He was now concerned only with the nearest practical

+matters unrelated to his past interests, and he seized on these the more

+eagerly the more those past interests were closed to him. It was as if

+that lofty, infinite canopy of heaven that had once towered above him

+had suddenly turned into a low, solid vault that weighed him down, in

+which all was clear, but nothing eternal or mysterious.

+

+Of the activities that presented themselves to him, army service was the

+simplest and most familiar. As a general on duty on Kutúzov’s staff,

+he applied himself to business with zeal and perseverance and surprised

+Kutúzov by his willingness and accuracy in work. Not having found

+Kurágin in Turkey, Prince Andrew did not think it necessary to rush back

+to Russia after him, but all the same he knew that however long it might

+be before he met Kurágin, despite his contempt for him and despite all

+the proofs he deduced to convince himself that it was not worth stooping

+to a conflict with him—he knew that when he did meet him he would not

+be able to resist calling him out, any more than a ravenous man can help

+snatching at food. And the consciousness that the insult was not yet

+avenged, that his rancor was still unspent, weighed on his heart and

+poisoned the artificial tranquillity which he managed to obtain in

+Turkey by means of restless, plodding, and rather vainglorious and

+ambitious activity.

+

+In the year 1812, when news of the war with Napoleon reached

+Bucharest—where Kutúzov had been living for two months, passing his

+days and nights with a Wallachian woman—Prince Andrew asked Kutúzov

+to transfer him to the Western Army. Kutúzov, who was already weary of

+Bolkónski’s activity which seemed to reproach his own idleness, very

+readily let him go and gave him a mission to Barclay de Tolly.

+

+Before joining the Western Army which was then, in May, encamped at

+Drissa, Prince Andrew visited Bald Hills which was directly on his way,

+being only two miles off the Smolénsk highroad. During the last three

+years there had been so many changes in his life, he had thought, felt,

+and seen so much (having traveled both in the east and the west), that

+on reaching Bald Hills it struck him as strange and unexpected to find

+the way of life there unchanged and still the same in every detail.

+He entered through the gates with their stone pillars and drove up

+the avenue leading to the house as if he were entering an enchanted,

+sleeping castle. The same old stateliness, the same cleanliness, the

+same stillness reigned there, and inside there was the same furniture,

+the same walls, sounds, and smell, and the same timid faces, only

+somewhat older. Princess Mary was still the same timid, plain maiden

+getting on in years, uselessly and joylessly passing the best years of

+her life in fear and constant suffering. Mademoiselle Bourienne was

+the same coquettish, self-satisfied girl, enjoying every moment of her

+existence and full of joyous hopes for the future. She had merely become

+more self-confident, Prince Andrew thought. Dessalles, the tutor he had

+brought from Switzerland, was wearing a coat of Russian cut and

+talking broken Russian to the servants, but was still the same narrowly

+intelligent, conscientious, and pedantic preceptor. The old prince

+had changed in appearance only by the loss of a tooth, which left a

+noticeable gap on one side of his mouth; in character he was the same as

+ever, only showing still more irritability and skepticism as to what was

+happening in the world. Little Nicholas alone had changed. He had grown,

+become rosier, had curly dark hair, and, when merry and laughing, quite

+unconsciously lifted the upper lip of his pretty little mouth just

+as the little princess used to do. He alone did not obey the law of

+immutability in the enchanted, sleeping castle. But though externally

+all remained as of old, the inner relations of all these people had

+changed since Prince Andrew had seen them last. The household was

+divided into two alien and hostile camps, who changed their habits for

+his sake and only met because he was there. To the one camp belonged

+the old prince, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and the architect; to the other

+Princess Mary, Dessalles, little Nicholas, and all the old nurses and

+maids.

+

+During his stay at Bald Hills all the family dined together, but they

+were ill at ease and Prince Andrew felt that he was a visitor for whose

+sake an exception was being made and that his presence made them all

+feel awkward. Involuntarily feeling this at dinner on the first day, he

+was taciturn, and the old prince noticing this also became morosely dumb

+and retired to his apartments directly after dinner. In the evening,

+when Prince Andrew went to him and, trying to rouse him, began to

+tell him of the young Count Kámensky’s campaign, the old prince

+began unexpectedly to talk about Princess Mary, blaming her for her

+superstitions and her dislike of Mademoiselle Bourienne, who, he said,

+was the only person really attached to him.

+

+The old prince said that if he was ill it was only because of Princess

+Mary: that she purposely worried and irritated him, and that by

+indulgence and silly talk she was spoiling little Prince Nicholas. The

+old prince knew very well that he tormented his daughter and that her

+life was very hard, but he also knew that he could not help tormenting

+her and that she deserved it. “Why does Prince Andrew, who sees this,

+say nothing to me about his sister? Does he think me a scoundrel, or an

+old fool who, without any reason, keeps his own daughter at a distance

+and attaches this Frenchwoman to himself? He doesn’t understand, so I

+must explain it, and he must hear me out,” thought the old prince.

+And he began explaining why he could not put up with his daughter’s

+unreasonable character.

+

+“If you ask me,” said Prince Andrew, without looking up (he was

+censuring his father for the first time in his life), “I did not wish to

+speak about it, but as you ask me I will give you my frank opinion. If

+there is any misunderstanding and discord between you and Mary, I can’t

+blame her for it at all. I know how she loves and respects you. Since

+you ask me,” continued Prince Andrew, becoming irritable—as he was

+always liable to do of late—“I can only say that if there are any

+misunderstandings they are caused by that worthless woman, who is not

+fit to be my sister’s companion.”

+

+The old man at first stared fixedly at his son, and an unnatural smile

+disclosed the fresh gap between his teeth to which Prince Andrew could

+not get accustomed.

+

+“What companion, my dear boy? Eh? You’ve already been talking it over!

+Eh?”

+

+“Father, I did not want to judge,” said Prince Andrew, in a hard and

+bitter tone, “but you challenged me, and I have said, and always shall

+say, that Mary is not to blame, but those to blame—the one to blame—is

+that Frenchwoman.”

+

+“Ah, he has passed judgment... passed judgement!” said the old man in a

+low voice and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, with some embarrassment,

+but then he suddenly jumped up and cried: “Be off, be off! Let not a

+trace of you remain here!...”

+

+

+Prince Andrew wished to leave at once, but Princess Mary persuaded him

+to stay another day. That day he did not see his father, who did not

+leave his room and admitted no one but Mademoiselle Bourienne and

+Tíkhon, but asked several times whether his son had gone. Next day,

+before leaving, Prince Andrew went to his son’s rooms. The boy,

+curly-headed like his mother and glowing with health, sat on his knee,

+and Prince Andrew began telling him the story of Bluebeard, but fell

+into a reverie without finishing the story. He thought not of this

+pretty child, his son whom he held on his knee, but of himself. He

+sought in himself either remorse for having angered his father or regret

+at leaving home for the first time in his life on bad terms with him,

+and was horrified to find neither. What meant still more to him was that

+he sought and did not find in himself the former tenderness for his son

+which he had hoped to reawaken by caressing the boy and taking him on

+his knee.

+

+“Well, go on!” said his son.

+

+Prince Andrew, without replying, put him down from his knee and went out

+of the room.

+

+As soon as Prince Andrew had given up his daily occupations, and

+especially on returning to the old conditions of life amid which he had

+been happy, weariness of life overcame him with its former intensity,

+and he hastened to escape from these memories and to find some work as

+soon as possible.

+

+“So you’ve decided to go, Andrew?” asked his sister.

+

+“Thank God that I can,” replied Prince Andrew. “I am very sorry you

+can’t.”

+

+“Why do you say that?” replied Princess Mary. “Why do you say that,

+when you are going to this terrible war, and he is so old? Mademoiselle

+Bourienne says he has been asking about you....”

+

+As soon as she began to speak of that, her lips trembled and her tears

+began to fall. Prince Andrew turned away and began pacing the room.

+

+“Ah, my God! my God! When one thinks who and what—what trash—can cause

+people misery!” he said with a malignity that alarmed Princess Mary.

+

+She understood that when speaking of “trash” he referred not only to

+Mademoiselle Bourienne, the cause of her misery, but also to the man who

+had ruined his own happiness.

+

+“Andrew! One thing I beg, I entreat of you!” she said, touching his

+elbow and looking at him with eyes that shone through her tears. “I

+understand you” (she looked down). “Don’t imagine that sorrow is the

+work of men. Men are His tools.” She looked a little above Prince

+Andrew’s head with the confident, accustomed look with which one looks

+at the place where a familiar portrait hangs. “Sorrow is sent by Him,

+not by men. Men are His instruments, they are not to blame. If you think

+someone has wronged you, forget it and forgive! We have no right to

+punish. And then you will know the happiness of forgiving.”

+

+“If I were a woman I would do so, Mary. That is a woman’s virtue. But

+a man should not and cannot forgive and forget,” he replied, and though

+till that moment he had not been thinking of Kurágin, all his unexpended

+anger suddenly swelled up in his heart.

+

+“If Mary is already persuading me to forgive, it means that I ought long

+ago to have punished him,” he thought. And giving her no further reply,

+he began thinking of the glad vindictive moment when he would meet

+Kurágin who he knew was now in the army.

+

+Princess Mary begged him to stay one day more, saying that she knew how

+unhappy her father would be if Andrew left without being reconciled to

+him, but Prince Andrew replied that he would probably soon be back again

+from the army and would certainly write to his father, but that the

+longer he stayed now the more embittered their differences would become.

+

+“Good-by, Andrew! Remember that misfortunes come from God, and men are

+never to blame,” were the last words he heard from his sister when he

+took leave of her.

+

+“Then it must be so!” thought Prince Andrew as he drove out of the

+avenue from the house at Bald Hills. “She, poor innocent creature, is

+left to be victimized by an old man who has outlived his wits. The old

+man feels he is guilty, but cannot change himself. My boy is growing up

+and rejoices in life, in which like everybody else he will deceive or be

+deceived. And I am off to the army. Why? I myself don’t know. I want

+to meet that man whom I despise, so as to give him a chance to kill and

+laugh at me!”

+

+These conditions of life had been the same before, but then they were

+all connected, while now they had all tumbled to pieces. Only senseless

+things, lacking coherence, presented themselves one after another to

+Prince Andrew’s mind.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+Prince Andrew reached the general headquarters of the army at the end of

+June. The first army, with which was the Emperor, occupied the fortified

+camp at Drissa; the second army was retreating, trying to effect a

+junction with the first one from which it was said to be cut off by

+large French forces. Everyone was dissatisfied with the general course

+of affairs in the Russian army, but no one anticipated any danger of

+invasion of the Russian provinces, and no one thought the war would

+extend farther than the western, the Polish, provinces.

+

+Prince Andrew found Barclay de Tolly, to whom he had been assigned, on

+the bank of the Drissa. As there was not a single town or large

+village in the vicinity of the camp, the immense number of generals and

+courtiers accompanying the army were living in the best houses of the

+villages on both sides of the river, over a radius of six miles. Barclay

+de Tolly was quartered nearly three miles from the Emperor. He received

+Bolkónski stiffly and coldly and told him in his foreign accent that he

+would mention him to the Emperor for a decision as to his employment,

+but asked him meanwhile to remain on his staff. Anatole Kurágin, whom

+Prince Andrew had hoped to find with the army, was not there. He had

+gone to Petersburg, but Prince Andrew was glad to hear this. His mind

+was occupied by the interests of the center that was conducting

+a gigantic war, and he was glad to be free for a while from the

+distraction caused by the thought of Kurágin. During the first four

+days, while no duties were required of him, Prince Andrew rode round the

+whole fortified camp and, by the aid of his own knowledge and by

+talks with experts, tried to form a definite opinion about it. But the

+question whether the camp was advantageous or disadvantageous remained

+for him undecided. Already from his military experience and what he had

+seen in the Austrian campaign, he had come to the conclusion that in

+war the most deeply considered plans have no significance and that all

+depends on the way unexpected movements of the enemy—that cannot be

+foreseen—are met, and on how and by whom the whole matter is handled.

+To clear up this last point for himself, Prince Andrew, utilizing his

+position and acquaintances, tried to fathom the character of the control

+of the army and of the men and parties engaged in it, and he deduced for

+himself the following of the state of affairs.

+

+While the Emperor had still been at Vílna, the forces had been divided

+into three armies. First, the army under Barclay de Tolly, secondly, the

+army under Bagratión, and thirdly, the one commanded by Tormásov. The

+Emperor was with the first army, but not as commander in chief. In the

+orders issued it was stated, not that the Emperor would take command,

+but only that he would be with the army. The Emperor, moreover, had

+with him not a commander in chief’s staff but the imperial headquarters

+staff. In attendance on him was the head of the imperial staff,

+Quartermaster General Prince Volkónski, as well as generals, imperial

+aides-de-camp, diplomatic officials, and a large number of foreigners,

+but not the army staff. Besides these, there were in attendance on the

+Emperor without any definite appointments: Arakchéev, the ex-Minister

+of War; Count Bennigsen, the senior general in rank; the Grand Duke

+Tsarévich Constantine Pávlovich; Count Rumyántsev, the Chancellor;

+Stein, a former Prussian minister; Armfeldt, a Swedish general; Pfuel,

+the chief author of the plan of campaign; Paulucci, an adjutant general

+and Sardinian émigré; Wolzogen—and many others. Though these men had no

+military appointment in the army, their position gave them influence,

+and often a corps commander, or even the commander in chief, did not

+know in what capacity he was questioned by Bennigsen, the Grand Duke,

+Arakchéev, or Prince Volkónski, or was given this or that advice and did

+not know whether a certain order received in the form of advice emanated

+from the man who gave it or from the Emperor and whether it had to be

+executed or not. But this was only the external condition; the essential

+significance of the presence of the Emperor and of all these people,

+from a courtier’s point of view (and in an Emperor’s vicinity all became

+courtiers), was clear to everyone. It was this: the Emperor did not

+assume the title of commander in chief, but disposed of all the armies;

+the men around him were his assistants. Arakchéev was a faithful

+custodian to enforce order and acted as the sovereign’s bodyguard.

+Bennigsen was a landlord in the Vílna province who appeared to be doing

+the honors of the district, but was in reality a good general, useful

+as an adviser and ready at hand to replace Barclay. The Grand Duke

+was there because it suited him to be. The ex-Minister Stein was there

+because his advice was useful and the Emperor Alexander held him in high

+esteem personally. Armfeldt virulently hated Napoleon and was a general

+full of self-confidence, a quality that always influenced Alexander.

+Paulucci was there because he was bold and decided in speech. The

+adjutants general were there because they always accompanied the

+Emperor, and lastly and chiefly Pfuel was there because he had drawn up

+the plan of campaign against Napoleon and, having induced Alexander to

+believe in the efficacy of that plan, was directing the whole business

+of the war. With Pfuel was Wolzogen, who expressed Pfuel’s thoughts in

+a more comprehensible way than Pfuel himself (who was a harsh, bookish

+theorist, self-confident to the point of despising everyone else) was

+able to do.

+

+Besides these Russians and foreigners who propounded new and unexpected

+ideas every day—especially the foreigners, who did so with a boldness

+characteristic of people employed in a country not their own—there were

+many secondary personages accompanying the army because their principals

+were there.

+

+Among the opinions and voices in this immense, restless, brilliant,

+and proud sphere, Prince Andrew noticed the following sharply defined

+subdivisions of tendencies and parties:

+

+The first party consisted of Pfuel and his adherents—military theorists

+who believed in a science of war with immutable laws—laws of oblique

+movements, outflankings, and so forth. Pfuel and his adherents demanded

+a retirement into the depths of the country in accordance with precise

+laws defined by a pseudo-theory of war, and they saw only barbarism,

+ignorance, or evil intention in every deviation from that theory. To

+this party belonged the foreign nobles, Wolzogen, Wintzingerode, and

+others, chiefly Germans.

+

+The second party was directly opposed to the first; one extreme, as

+always happens, was met by representatives of the other. The members of

+this party were those who had demanded an advance from Vílna into Poland

+and freedom from all prearranged plans. Besides being advocates of bold

+action, this section also represented nationalism, which made them still

+more one-sided in the dispute. They were Russians: Bagratión, Ermólov

+(who was beginning to come to the front), and others. At that time a

+famous joke of Ermólov’s was being circulated, that as a great favor he

+had petitioned the Emperor to make him a German. The men of that party,

+remembering Suvórov, said that what one had to do was not to reason,

+or stick pins into maps, but to fight, beat the enemy, keep him out of

+Russia, and not let the army get discouraged.

+

+To the third party—in which the Emperor had most confidence—belonged the

+courtiers who tried to arrange compromises between the other two. The

+members of this party, chiefly civilians and to whom Arakchéev belonged,

+thought and said what men who have no convictions but wish to seem to

+have some generally say. They said that undoubtedly war, particularly

+against such a genius as Bonaparte (they called him Bonaparte now),

+needs most deeply devised plans and profound scientific knowledge and

+in that respect Pfuel was a genius, but at the same time it had to be

+acknowledged that the theorists are often one-sided, and therefore one

+should not trust them absolutely, but should also listen to what Pfuel’s

+opponents and practical men of experience in warfare had to say, and

+then choose a middle course. They insisted on the retention of the camp

+at Drissa, according to Pfuel’s plan, but on changing the movements of

+the other armies. Though, by this course, neither one aim nor the other

+could be attained, yet it seemed best to the adherents of this third

+party.

+

+Of a fourth opinion the most conspicuous representative was the

+Tsarévich, who could not forget his disillusionment at Austerlitz, where

+he had ridden out at the head of the Guards, in his casque and cavalry

+uniform as to a review, expecting to crush the French gallantly; but

+unexpectedly finding himself in the front line had narrowly escaped amid

+the general confusion. The men of this party had both the quality

+and the defect of frankness in their opinions. They feared Napoleon,

+recognized his strength and their own weakness, and frankly said so.

+They said: “Nothing but sorrow, shame, and ruin will come of all this!

+We have abandoned Vílna and Vítebsk and shall abandon Drissa. The only

+reasonable thing left to do is to conclude peace as soon as possible,

+before we are turned out of Petersburg.”

+

+This view was very general in the upper army circles and found support

+also in Petersburg and from the chancellor, Rumyántsev, who, for other

+reasons of state, was in favor of peace.

+

+The fifth party consisted of those who were adherents of Barclay de

+Tolly, not so much as a man but as minister of war and commander in

+chief. “Be he what he may” (they always began like that), “he is an

+honest, practical man and we have nobody better. Give him real power,

+for war cannot be conducted successfully without unity of command, and

+he will show what he can do, as he did in Finland. If our army is well

+organized and strong and has withdrawn to Drissa without suffering

+any defeats, we owe this entirely to Barclay. If Barclay is now to

+be superseded by Bennigsen all will be lost, for Bennigsen showed his

+incapacity already in 1807.”

+

+The sixth party, the Bennigsenites, said, on the contrary, that at any

+rate there was no one more active and experienced than Bennigsen: “and

+twist about as you may, you will have to come to Bennigsen eventually.

+Let the others make mistakes now!” said they, arguing that our

+retirement to Drissa was a most shameful reverse and an unbroken series

+of blunders. “The more mistakes that are made the better. It will at any

+rate be understood all the sooner that things cannot go on like this.

+What is wanted is not some Barclay or other, but a man like Bennigsen,

+who made his mark in 1807, and to whom Napoleon himself did justice—a

+man whose authority would be willingly recognized, and Bennigsen is the

+only such man.”

+

+The seventh party consisted of the sort of people who are always to

+be found, especially around young sovereigns, and of whom there were

+particularly many round Alexander—generals and imperial aides-de-camp

+passionately devoted to the Emperor, not merely as a monarch but as a

+man, adoring him sincerely and disinterestedly, as Rostóv had done

+in 1805, and who saw in him not only all the virtues but all human

+capabilities as well. These men, though enchanted with the sovereign

+for refusing the command of the army, yet blamed him for such excessive

+modesty, and only desired and insisted that their adored sovereign

+should abandon his diffidence and openly announce that he would place

+himself at the head of the army, gather round him a commander in chief’s

+staff, and, consulting experienced theoreticians and practical men where

+necessary, would himself lead the troops, whose spirits would thereby be

+raised to the highest pitch.

+

+The eighth and largest group, which in its enormous numbers was to the

+others as ninety-nine to one, consisted of men who desired neither

+peace nor war, neither an advance nor a defensive camp at the Drissa

+or anywhere else, neither Barclay nor the Emperor, neither Pfuel nor

+Bennigsen, but only the one most essential thing—as much advantage

+and pleasure for themselves as possible. In the troubled waters of

+conflicting and intersecting intrigues that eddied about the Emperor’s

+headquarters, it was possible to succeed in many ways unthinkable at

+other times. A man who simply wished to retain his lucrative post would

+today agree with Pfuel, tomorrow with his opponent, and the day after,

+merely to avoid responsibility or to please the Emperor, would declare

+that he had no opinion at all on the matter. Another who wished to

+gain some advantage would attract the Emperor’s attention by loudly

+advocating the very thing the Emperor had hinted at the day before,

+and would dispute and shout at the council, beating his breast and

+challenging those who did not agree with him to duels, thereby proving

+that he was prepared to sacrifice himself for the common good. A third,

+in the absence of opponents, between two councils would simply solicit

+a special gratuity for his faithful services, well knowing that at that

+moment people would be too busy to refuse him. A fourth while seemingly

+overwhelmed with work would often come accidentally under the Emperor’s

+eye. A fifth, to achieve his long-cherished aim of dining with the

+Emperor, would stubbornly insist on the correctness or falsity of some

+newly emerging opinion and for this object would produce arguments more

+or less forcible and correct.

+

+All the men of this party were fishing for rubles, decorations, and

+promotions, and in this pursuit watched only the weathercock of imperial

+favor, and directly they noticed it turning in any direction, this whole

+drone population of the army began blowing hard that way, so that it

+was all the harder for the Emperor to turn it elsewhere. Amid the

+uncertainties of the position, with the menace of serious danger giving

+a peculiarly threatening character to everything, amid this vortex of

+intrigue, egotism, conflict of views and feelings, and the diversity

+of race among these people—this eighth and largest party of those

+preoccupied with personal interests imparted great confusion and

+obscurity to the common task. Whatever question arose, a swarm of these

+drones, without having finished their buzzing on a previous theme, flew

+over to the new one and by their hum drowned and obscured the voices of

+those who were disputing honestly.

+

+From among all these parties, just at the time Prince Andrew reached

+the army, another, a ninth party, was being formed and was beginning

+to raise its voice. This was the party of the elders, reasonable men

+experienced and capable in state affairs, who, without sharing any of

+those conflicting opinions, were able to take a detached view of what

+was going on at the staff at headquarters and to consider means of

+escape from this muddle, indecision, intricacy, and weakness.

+

+The men of this party said and thought that what was wrong resulted

+chiefly from the Emperor’s presence in the army with his military court

+and from the consequent presence there of an indefinite, conditional,

+and unsteady fluctuation of relations, which is in place at court but

+harmful in an army; that a sovereign should reign but not command the

+army, and that the only way out of the position would be for the Emperor

+and his court to leave the army; that the mere presence of the Emperor

+paralyzed the action of fifty thousand men required to secure his

+personal safety, and that the worst commander in chief, if independent,

+would be better than the very best one trammeled by the presence and

+authority of the monarch.

+

+Just at the time Prince Andrew was living unoccupied at Drissa,

+Shishkóv, the Secretary of State and one of the chief representatives of

+this party, wrote a letter to the Emperor which Arakchéev and Balashëv

+agreed to sign. In this letter, availing himself of permission given him

+by the Emperor to discuss the general course of affairs, he respectfully

+suggested—on the plea that it was necessary for the sovereign to arouse

+a warlike spirit in the people of the capital—that the Emperor should

+leave the army.

+

+That arousing of the people by their sovereign and his call to them to

+defend their country—the very incitement which was the chief cause of

+Russia’s triumph in so far as it was produced by the Tsar’s personal

+presence in Moscow—was suggested to the Emperor, and accepted by him, as

+a pretext for quitting the army.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+This letter had not yet been presented to the Emperor when Barclay, one

+day at dinner, informed Bolkónski that the sovereign wished to see him

+personally, to question him about Turkey, and that Prince Andrew was to

+present himself at Bennigsen’s quarters at six that evening.

+

+News was received at the Emperor’s quarters that very day of a fresh

+movement by Napoleon which might endanger the army—news subsequently

+found to be false. And that morning Colonel Michaud had ridden round the

+Drissa fortifications with the Emperor and had pointed out to him that

+this fortified camp constructed by Pfuel, and till then considered

+a chef-d’oeuvre of tactical science which would ensure Napoleon’s

+destruction, was an absurdity, threatening the destruction of the

+Russian army.

+

+Prince Andrew arrived at Bennigsen’s quarters—a country gentleman’s

+house of moderate size, situated on the very banks of the river. Neither

+Bennigsen nor the Emperor was there, but Chernýshev, the Emperor’s

+aide-de-camp, received Bolkónski and informed him that the Emperor,

+accompanied by General Bennigsen and Marquis Paulucci, had gone a second

+time that day to inspect the fortifications of the Drissa camp, of the

+suitability of which serious doubts were beginning to be felt.

+

+Chernýshev was sitting at a window in the first room with a French novel

+in his hand. This room had probably been a music room; there was still

+an organ in it on which some rugs were piled, and in one corner stood

+the folding bedstead of Bennigsen’s adjutant. This adjutant was also

+there and sat dozing on the rolled-up bedding, evidently exhausted by

+work or by feasting. Two doors led from the room, one straight on into

+what had been the drawing room, and another, on the right, to the study.

+Through the first door came the sound of voices conversing in German

+and occasionally in French. In that drawing room were gathered, by

+the Emperor’s wish, not a military council (the Emperor preferred

+indefiniteness), but certain persons whose opinions he wished to know in

+view of the impending difficulties. It was not a council of war, but,

+as it were, a council to elucidate certain questions for the Emperor

+personally. To this semicouncil had been invited the Swedish General

+Armfeldt, Adjutant General Wolzogen, Wintzingerode (whom Napoleon had

+referred to as a renegade French subject), Michaud, Toll, Count Stein

+who was not a military man at all, and Pfuel himself, who, as Prince

+Andrew had heard, was the mainspring of the whole affair. Prince Andrew

+had an opportunity of getting a good look at him, for Pfuel arrived soon

+after himself and, in passing through to the drawing room, stopped a

+minute to speak to Chernýshev.

+

+At first sight, Pfuel, in his ill-made uniform of a Russian general,

+which fitted him badly like a fancy costume, seemed familiar to Prince

+Andrew, though he saw him now for the first time. There was about

+him something of Weyrother, Mack, and Schmidt, and many other German

+theorist-generals whom Prince Andrew had seen in 1805, but he was more

+typical than any of them. Prince Andrew had never yet seen a German

+theorist in whom all the characteristics of those others were united to

+such an extent.

+

+Pfuel was short and very thin but broad-boned, of coarse, robust build,

+broad in the hips, and with prominent shoulder blades. His face was

+much wrinkled and his eyes deep set. His hair had evidently been hastily

+brushed smooth in front of the temples, but stuck up behind in quaint

+little tufts. He entered the room, looking restlessly and angrily

+around, as if afraid of everything in that large apartment. Awkwardly

+holding up his sword, he addressed Chernýshev and asked in German where

+the Emperor was. One could see that he wished to pass through the rooms

+as quickly as possible, finish with the bows and greetings, and sit down

+to business in front of a map, where he would feel at home. He nodded

+hurriedly in reply to Chernýshev, and smiled ironically on hearing that

+the sovereign was inspecting the fortifications that he, Pfuel, had

+planned in accord with his theory. He muttered something to himself

+abruptly and in a bass voice, as self-assured Germans do—it might

+have been “stupid fellow”... or “the whole affair will be ruined,” or

+“something absurd will come of it.”... Prince Andrew did not catch

+what he said and would have passed on, but Chernýshev introduced him to

+Pfuel, remarking that Prince Andrew was just back from Turkey where the

+war had terminated so fortunately. Pfuel barely glanced—not so much at

+Prince Andrew as past him—and said, with a laugh: “That must have been a

+fine tactical war”; and, laughing contemptuously, went on into the room

+from which the sound of voices was heard.

+

+Pfuel, always inclined to be irritably sarcastic, was particularly

+disturbed that day, evidently by the fact that they had dared to inspect

+and criticize his camp in his absence. From this short interview with

+Pfuel, Prince Andrew, thanks to his Austerlitz experiences, was able to

+form a clear conception of the man. Pfuel was one of those hopelessly

+and immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of

+martyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident

+on the basis of an abstract notion—science, that is, the supposed

+knowledge of absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured because he

+regards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly

+attractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a

+citizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an

+Englishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as

+an Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because

+he is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian

+is self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know

+anything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The

+German’s self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more

+repulsive than any other, because he imagines that he knows the

+truth—science—which he himself has invented but which is for him the

+absolute truth.

+

+Pfuel was evidently of that sort. He had a science—the theory of oblique

+movements deduced by him from the history of Frederick the Great’s wars,

+and all he came across in the history of more recent warfare seemed to

+him absurd and barbarous—monstrous collisions in which so many blunders

+were committed by both sides that these wars could not be called wars,

+they did not accord with the theory, and therefore could not serve as

+material for science.

+

+In 1806 Pfuel had been one of those responsible, for the plan of

+campaign that ended in Jena and Auerstädt, but he did not see the least

+proof of the fallibility of his theory in the disasters of that war. On

+the contrary, the deviations made from his theory were, in his opinion,

+the sole cause of the whole disaster, and with characteristically

+gleeful sarcasm he would remark, “There, I said the whole affair would

+go to the devil!” Pfuel was one of those theoreticians who so love

+their theory that they lose sight of the theory’s object—its practical

+application. His love of theory made him hate everything practical, and

+he would not listen to it. He was even pleased by failures, for failures

+resulting from deviations in practice from the theory only proved to him

+the accuracy of his theory.

+

+He said a few words to Prince Andrew and Chernýshev about the present

+war, with the air of a man who knows beforehand that all will go wrong,

+and who is not displeased that it should be so. The unbrushed tufts

+of hair sticking up behind and the hastily brushed hair on his temples

+expressed this most eloquently.

+

+He passed into the next room, and the deep, querulous sounds of his

+voice were at once heard from there.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+Prince Andrew’s eyes were still following Pfuel out of the room when

+Count Bennigsen entered hurriedly, and nodding to Bolkónski, but not

+pausing, went into the study, giving instructions to his adjutant as he

+went. The Emperor was following him, and Bennigsen had hastened on

+to make some preparations and to be ready to receive the sovereign.

+Chernýshev and Prince Andrew went out into the porch, where the Emperor,

+who looked fatigued, was dismounting. Marquis Paulucci was talking to

+him with particular warmth and the Emperor, with his head bent to the

+left, was listening with a dissatisfied air. The Emperor moved forward

+evidently wishing to end the conversation, but the flushed and excited

+Italian, oblivious of decorum, followed him and continued to speak.

+

+“And as for the man who advised forming this camp—the Drissa camp,” said

+Paulucci, as the Emperor mounted the steps and noticing Prince Andrew

+scanned his unfamiliar face, “as to that person, sire...” continued

+Paulucci, desperately, apparently unable to restrain himself, “the man

+who advised the Drissa camp—I see no alternative but the lunatic asylum

+or the gallows!”

+

+Without heeding the end of the Italian’s remarks, and as though

+not hearing them, the Emperor, recognizing Bolkónski, addressed him

+graciously.

+

+“I am very glad to see you! Go in there where they are meeting, and wait

+for me.”

+

+The Emperor went into the study. He was followed by Prince Peter

+Mikháylovich Volkónski and Baron Stein, and the door closed behind them.

+Prince Andrew, taking advantage of the Emperor’s permission, accompanied

+Paulucci, whom he had known in Turkey, into the drawing room where the

+council was assembled.

+

+Prince Peter Mikháylovich Volkónski occupied the position, as it were,

+of chief of the Emperor’s staff. He came out of the study into the

+drawing room with some maps which he spread on a table, and put

+questions on which he wished to hear the opinion of the gentlemen

+present. What had happened was that news (which afterwards proved to be

+false) had been received during the night of a movement by the French to

+outflank the Drissa camp.

+

+The first to speak was General Armfeldt who, to meet the difficulty that

+presented itself, unexpectedly proposed a perfectly new position

+away from the Petersburg and Moscow roads. The reason for this was

+inexplicable (unless he wished to show that he, too, could have an

+opinion), but he urged that at this point the army should unite and

+there await the enemy. It was plain that Armfeldt had thought out that

+plan long ago and now expounded it not so much to answer the questions

+put—which, in fact, his plan did not answer—as to avail himself of the

+opportunity to air it. It was one of the millions of proposals, one as

+good as another, that could be made as long as it was quite unknown

+what character the war would take. Some disputed his arguments, others

+defended them. Young Count Toll objected to the Swedish general’s views

+more warmly than anyone else, and in the course of the dispute drew from

+his side pocket a well-filled notebook, which he asked permission to

+read to them. In these voluminous notes Toll suggested another scheme,

+totally different from Armfeldt’s or Pfuel’s plan of campaign. In answer

+to Toll, Paulucci suggested an advance and an attack, which, he urged,

+could alone extricate us from the present uncertainty and from the trap

+(as he called the Drissa camp) in which we were situated.

+

+During all these discussions Pfuel and his interpreter, Wolzogen

+(his “bridge” in court relations), were silent. Pfuel only snorted

+contemptuously and turned away, to show that he would never demean

+himself by replying to such nonsense as he was now hearing. So when

+Prince Volkónski, who was in the chair, called on him to give his

+opinion, he merely said:

+

+“Why ask me? General Armfeldt has proposed a splendid position with an

+exposed rear, or why not this Italian gentleman’s attack—very fine, or

+a retreat, also good! Why ask me?” said he. “Why, you yourselves know

+everything better than I do.”

+

+But when Volkónski said, with a frown, that it was in the Emperor’s name

+that he asked his opinion, Pfuel rose and, suddenly growing animated,

+began to speak:

+

+“Everything has been spoiled, everything muddled, everybody thought they

+knew better than I did, and now you come to me! How mend matters? There

+is nothing to mend! The principles laid down by me must be strictly

+adhered to,” said he, drumming on the table with his bony fingers. “What

+is the difficulty? Nonsense, childishness!”

+

+He went up to the map and speaking rapidly began proving that no

+eventuality could alter the efficiency of the Drissa camp, that

+everything had been foreseen, and that if the enemy were really going to

+outflank it, the enemy would inevitably be destroyed.

+

+Paulucci, who did not know German, began questioning him in French.

+Wolzogen came to the assistance of his chief, who spoke French badly,

+and began translating for him, hardly able to keep pace with Pfuel, who

+was rapidly demonstrating that not only all that had happened, but all

+that could happen, had been foreseen in his scheme, and that if there

+were now any difficulties the whole fault lay in the fact that his plan

+had not been precisely executed. He kept laughing sarcastically, he

+demonstrated, and at last contemptuously ceased to demonstrate, like

+a mathematician who ceases to prove in various ways the accuracy of

+a problem that has already been proved. Wolzogen took his place and

+continued to explain his views in French, every now and then turning to

+Pfuel and saying, “Is it not so, your excellency?” But Pfuel, like a man

+heated in a fight who strikes those on his own side, shouted angrily at

+his own supporter, Wolzogen:

+

+“Well, of course, what more is there to explain?”

+

+Paulucci and Michaud both attacked Wolzogen simultaneously in French.

+Armfeldt addressed Pfuel in German. Toll explained to Volkónski in

+Russian. Prince Andrew listened and observed in silence.

+

+Of all these men Prince Andrew sympathized most with Pfuel, angry,

+determined, and absurdly self-confident as he was. Of all those present,

+evidently he alone was not seeking anything for himself, nursed no

+hatred against anyone, and only desired that the plan, formed on a

+theory arrived at by years of toil, should be carried out. He was

+ridiculous, and unpleasantly sarcastic, but yet he inspired involuntary

+respect by his boundless devotion to an idea. Besides this, the remarks

+of all except Pfuel had one common trait that had not been noticeable

+at the council of war in 1805: there was now a panic fear of Napoleon’s

+genius, which, though concealed, was noticeable in every rejoinder.

+Everything was assumed to be possible for Napoleon, they expected him

+from every side, and invoked his terrible name to shatter each other’s

+proposals. Pfuel alone seemed to consider Napoleon a barbarian like

+everyone else who opposed his theory. But besides this feeling of

+respect, Pfuel evoked pity in Prince Andrew. From the tone in which

+the courtiers addressed him and the way Paulucci had allowed himself to

+speak of him to the Emperor, but above all from a certain desperation

+in Pfuel’s own expressions, it was clear that the others knew, and Pfuel

+himself felt, that his fall was at hand. And despite his self-confidence

+and grumpy German sarcasm he was pitiable, with his hair smoothly

+brushed on the temples and sticking up in tufts behind. Though he

+concealed the fact under a show of irritation and contempt, he was

+evidently in despair that the sole remaining chance of verifying his

+theory by a huge experiment and proving its soundness to the whole world

+was slipping away from him.

+

+The discussions continued a long time, and the longer they lasted

+the more heated became the disputes, culminating in shouts and

+personalities, and the less was it possible to arrive at any general

+conclusion from all that had been said. Prince Andrew, listening to this

+polyglot talk and to these surmises, plans, refutations, and shouts,

+felt nothing but amazement at what they were saying. A thought that had

+long since and often occurred to him during his military activities—the

+idea that there is not and cannot be any science of war, and that

+therefore there can be no such thing as a military genius—now appeared

+to him an obvious truth. “What theory and science is possible about a

+matter the conditions and circumstances of which are unknown and cannot

+be defined, especially when the strength of the acting forces cannot be

+ascertained? No one was or is able to foresee in what condition our or

+the enemy’s armies will be in a day’s time, and no one can gauge the

+force of this or that detachment. Sometimes—when there is not a coward

+at the front to shout, ‘We are cut off!’ and start running, but a brave

+and jolly lad who shouts, ‘Hurrah!’—a detachment of five thousand

+is worth thirty thousand, as at Schön Grabern, while at times fifty

+thousand run from eight thousand, as at Austerlitz. What science can

+there be in a matter in which, as in all practical matters, nothing

+can be defined and everything depends on innumerable conditions, the

+significance of which is determined at a particular moment which arrives

+no one knows when? Armfeldt says our army is cut in half, and Paulucci

+says we have got the French army between two fires; Michaud says that

+the worthlessness of the Drissa camp lies in having the river behind it,

+and Pfuel says that is what constitutes its strength; Toll proposes

+one plan, Armfeldt another, and they are all good and all bad, and the

+advantages of any suggestions can be seen only at the moment of trial.

+And why do they all speak of a ‘military genius’? Is a man a genius who

+can order bread to be brought up at the right time and say who is to go

+to the right and who to the left? It is only because military men are

+invested with pomp and power and crowds of sychophants flatter power,

+attributing to it qualities of genius it does not possess. The best

+generals I have known were, on the contrary, stupid or absent-minded

+men. Bagratión was the best, Napoleon himself admitted that. And of

+Bonaparte himself! I remember his limited, self-satisfied face on the

+field of Austerlitz. Not only does a good army commander not need any

+special qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest

+and best human attributes—love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic

+inquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he

+is doing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient

+patience), and only then will he be a brave leader. God forbid that he

+should be humane, should love, or pity, or think of what is just

+and unjust. It is understandable that a theory of their ‘genius’ was

+invented for them long ago because they have power! The success of a

+military action depends not on them, but on the man in the ranks who

+shouts, ‘We are lost!’ or who shouts, ‘Hurrah!’ And only in the ranks

+can one serve with assurance of being useful.”

+

+So thought Prince Andrew as he listened to the talking, and he roused

+himself only when Paulucci called him and everyone was leaving.

+

+At the review next day the Emperor asked Prince Andrew where he would

+like to serve, and Prince Andrew lost his standing in court circles

+forever by not asking to remain attached to the sovereign’s person, but

+for permission to serve in the army.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+Before the beginning of the campaign, Rostóv had received a letter from

+his parents in which they told him briefly of Natásha’s illness and the

+breaking off of her engagement to Prince Andrew (which they explained by

+Natásha’s having rejected him) and again asked Nicholas to retire from

+the army and return home. On receiving this letter, Nicholas did not

+even make any attempt to get leave of absence or to retire from the

+army, but wrote to his parents that he was sorry Natásha was ill and her

+engagement broken off, and that he would do all he could to meet their

+wishes. To Sónya he wrote separately.

+

+“Adored friend of my soul!” he wrote. “Nothing but honor could keep

+me from returning to the country. But now, at the commencement of the

+campaign, I should feel dishonored, not only in my comrades’ eyes but

+in my own, if I preferred my own happiness to my love and duty to the

+Fatherland. But this shall be our last separation. Believe me, directly

+the war is over, if I am still alive and still loved by you, I will

+throw up everything and fly to you, to press you forever to my ardent

+breast.”

+

+It was, in fact, only the commencement of the campaign that prevented

+Rostóv from returning home as he had promised and marrying Sónya. The

+autumn in Otrádnoe with the hunting, and the winter with the Christmas

+holidays and Sónya’s love, had opened out to him a vista of tranquil

+rural joys and peace such as he had never known before, and which now

+allured him. “A splendid wife, children, a good pack of hounds, a

+dozen leashes of smart borzois, agriculture, neighbors, service by

+election...” thought he. But now the campaign was beginning, and he had

+to remain with his regiment. And since it had to be so, Nicholas Rostóv,

+as was natural to him, felt contented with the life he led in the

+regiment and was able to find pleasure in that life.

+

+On his return from his furlough Nicholas, having been joyfully welcomed

+by his comrades, was sent to obtain remounts and brought back from the

+Ukraine excellent horses which pleased him and earned him commendation

+from his commanders. During his absence he had been promoted captain,

+and when the regiment was put on war footing with an increase in

+numbers, he was again allotted his old squadron.

+

+The campaign began, the regiment was moved into Poland on double pay,

+new officers arrived, new men and horses, and above all everybody was

+infected with the merrily excited mood that goes with the commencement

+of a war, and Rostóv, conscious of his advantageous position in the

+regiment, devoted himself entirely to the pleasures and interests of

+military service, though he knew that sooner or later he would have to

+relinquish them.

+

+The troops retired from Vílna for various complicated reasons of state,

+political and strategic. Each step of the retreat was accompanied by

+a complicated interplay of interests, arguments, and passions at

+headquarters. For the Pávlograd hussars, however, the whole of this

+retreat during the finest period of summer and with sufficient supplies

+was a very simple and agreeable business.

+

+It was only at headquarters that there was depression, uneasiness, and

+intriguing; in the body of the army they did not ask themselves where

+they were going or why. If they regretted having to retreat, it was only

+because they had to leave billets they had grown accustomed to, or some

+pretty young Polish lady. If the thought that things looked bad chanced

+to enter anyone’s head, he tried to be as cheerful as befits a good

+soldier and not to think of the general trend of affairs, but only of

+the task nearest to hand. First they camped gaily before Vílna, making

+acquaintance with the Polish landowners, preparing for reviews and being

+reviewed by the Emperor and other high commanders. Then came an order

+to retreat to Sventsyáni and destroy any provisions they could not carry

+away with them. Sventsyáni was remembered by the hussars only as the

+drunken camp, a name the whole army gave to their encampment there,

+and because many complaints were made against the troops, who, taking

+advantage of the order to collect provisions, took also horses,

+carriages, and carpets from the Polish proprietors. Rostóv remembered

+Sventsyáni, because on the first day of their arrival at that small town

+he changed his sergeant major and was unable to manage all the drunken

+men of his squadron who, unknown to him, had appropriated five barrels

+of old beer. From Sventsyáni they retired farther and farther to Drissa,

+and thence again beyond Drissa, drawing near to the frontier of Russia

+proper.

+

+On the thirteenth of July the Pávlograds took part in a serious action

+for the first time.

+

+On the twelfth of July, on the eve of that action, there was a heavy

+storm of rain and hail. In general, the summer of 1812 was remarkable

+for its storms.

+

+The two Pávlograd squadrons were bivouacking on a field of rye, which

+was already in ear but had been completely trodden down by cattle and

+horses. The rain was descending in torrents, and Rostóv, with a young

+officer named Ilyín, his protégé, was sitting in a hastily constructed

+shelter. An officer of their regiment, with long mustaches extending

+onto his cheeks, who after riding to the staff had been overtaken by the

+rain, entered Rostóv’s shelter.

+

+“I have come from the staff, Count. Have you heard of Raévski’s

+exploit?”

+

+And the officer gave them details of the Saltánov battle, which he had

+heard at the staff.

+

+Rostóv, smoking his pipe and turning his head about as the water

+trickled down his neck, listened inattentively, with an occasional

+glance at Ilyín, who was pressing close to him. This officer, a lad

+of sixteen who had recently joined the regiment, was now in the same

+relation to Nicholas that Nicholas had been to Denísov seven years

+before. Ilyín tried to imitate Rostóv in everything and adored him as a

+girl might have done.

+

+Zdrzhinski, the officer with the long mustache, spoke grandiloquently of

+the Saltánov dam being “a Russian Thermopylae,” and of how a deed worthy

+of antiquity had been performed by General Raévski. He recounted how

+Raévski had led his two sons onto the dam under terrific fire and had

+charged with them beside him. Rostóv heard the story and not only said

+nothing to encourage Zdrzhinski’s enthusiasm but, on the contrary,

+looked like a man ashamed of what he was hearing, though with no

+intention of contradicting it. Since the campaigns of Austerlitz and

+of 1807 Rostóv knew by experience that men always lie when describing

+military exploits, as he himself had done when recounting them; besides

+that, he had experience enough to know that nothing happens in war at

+all as we can imagine or relate it. And so he did not like Zdrzhinski’s

+tale, nor did he like Zdrzhinski himself who, with his mustaches

+extending over his cheeks, bent low over the face of his hearer, as was

+his habit, and crowded Rostóv in the narrow shanty. Rostóv looked at him

+in silence. “In the first place, there must have been such a confusion

+and crowding on the dam that was being attacked that if Raévski did lead

+his sons there, it could have had no effect except perhaps on some dozen

+men nearest to him,” thought he, “the rest could not have seen how or

+with whom Raévski came onto the dam. And even those who did see it

+would not have been much stimulated by it, for what had they to do with

+Raévski’s tender paternal feelings when their own skins were in danger?

+And besides, the fate of the Fatherland did not depend on whether

+they took the Saltánov dam or not, as we are told was the case at

+Thermopylae. So why should he have made such a sacrifice? And why expose

+his own children in the battle? I would not have taken my brother Pétya

+there, or even Ilyín, who’s a stranger to me but a nice lad, but would

+have tried to put them somewhere under cover,” Nicholas continued

+to think, as he listened to Zdrzhinski. But he did not express his

+thoughts, for in such matters, too, he had gained experience. He knew

+that this tale redounded to the glory of our arms and so one had to

+pretend not to doubt it. And he acted accordingly.

+

+“I can’t stand this any more,” said Ilyín, noticing that Rostóv did not

+relish Zdrzhinski’s conversation. “My stockings and shirt... and the

+water is running on my seat! I’ll go and look for shelter. The rain

+seems less heavy.”

+

+Ilyín went out and Zdrzhinski rode away.

+

+Five minutes later Ilyín, splashing through the mud, came running back

+to the shanty.

+

+“Hurrah! Rostóv, come quick! I’ve found it! About two hundred yards away

+there’s a tavern where ours have already gathered. We can at least get

+dry there, and Mary Hendríkhovna’s there.”

+

+Mary Hendríkhovna was the wife of the regimental doctor, a pretty young

+German woman he had married in Poland. The doctor, whether from lack

+of means or because he did not like to part from his young wife in

+the early days of their marriage, took her about with him wherever the

+hussar regiment went and his jealousy had become a standing joke among

+the hussar officers.

+

+Rostóv threw his cloak over his shoulders, shouted to Lavrúshka to

+follow with the things, and—now slipping in the mud, now splashing right

+through it—set off with Ilyín in the lessening rain and the darkness

+that was occasionally rent by distant lightning.

+

+“Rostóv, where are you?”

+

+“Here. What lightning!” they called to one another.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+In the tavern, before which stood the doctor’s covered cart, there were

+already some five officers. Mary Hendríkhovna, a plump little blonde

+German, in a dressing jacket and nightcap, was sitting on a broad bench

+in the front corner. Her husband, the doctor, lay asleep behind her.

+Rostóv and Ilyín, on entering the room, were welcomed with merry shouts

+and laughter.

+

+“Dear me, how jolly we are!” said Rostóv laughing.

+

+“And why do you stand there gaping?”

+

+“What swells they are! Why, the water streams from them! Don’t make our

+drawing room so wet.”

+

+“Don’t mess Mary Hendríkhovna’s dress!” cried other voices.

+

+Rostóv and Ilyín hastened to find a corner where they could change into

+dry clothes without offending Mary Hendríkhovna’s modesty. They were

+going into a tiny recess behind a partition to change, but found it

+completely filled by three officers who sat playing cards by the light

+of a solitary candle on an empty box, and these officers would on no

+account yield their position. Mary Hendríkhovna obliged them with the

+loan of a petticoat to be used as a curtain, and behind that screen

+Rostóv and Ilyín, helped by Lavrúshka who had brought their kits,

+changed their wet things for dry ones.

+

+A fire was made up in the dilapidated brick stove. A board was found,

+fixed on two saddles and covered with a horsecloth, a small samovar was

+produced and a cellaret and half a bottle of rum, and having asked Mary

+Hendríkhovna to preside, they all crowded round her. One offered her a

+clean handkerchief to wipe her charming hands, another spread a jacket

+under her little feet to keep them from the damp, another hung his coat

+over the window to keep out the draft, and yet another waved the flies

+off her husband’s face, lest he should wake up.

+

+“Leave him alone,” said Mary Hendríkhovna, smiling timidly and happily.

+“He is sleeping well as it is, after a sleepless night.”

+

+“Oh, no, Mary Hendríkhovna,” replied the officer, “one must look after

+the doctor. Perhaps he’ll take pity on me someday, when it comes to

+cutting off a leg or an arm for me.”

+

+There were only three tumblers, the water was so muddy that one could

+not make out whether the tea was strong or weak, and the samovar held

+only six tumblers of water, but this made it all the pleasanter to

+take turns in order of seniority to receive one’s tumbler from Mary

+Hendríkhovna’s plump little hands with their short and not overclean

+nails. All the officers appeared to be, and really were, in love with

+her that evening. Even those playing cards behind the partition soon

+left their game and came over to the samovar, yielding to the general

+mood of courting Mary Hendríkhovna. She, seeing herself surrounded by

+such brilliant and polite young men, beamed with satisfaction, try as

+she might to hide it, and perturbed as she evidently was each time her

+husband moved in his sleep behind her.

+

+There was only one spoon, sugar was more plentiful than anything

+else, but it took too long to dissolve, so it was decided that Mary

+Hendríkhovna should stir the sugar for everyone in turn. Rostóv received

+his tumbler, and adding some rum to it asked Mary Hendríkhovna to stir

+it.

+

+“But you take it without sugar?” she said, smiling all the time, as if

+everything she said and everything the others said was very amusing and

+had a double meaning.

+

+“It is not the sugar I want, but only that your little hand should stir

+my tea.”

+

+Mary Hendríkhovna assented and began looking for the spoon which someone

+meanwhile had pounced on.

+

+“Use your finger, Mary Hendríkhovna, it will be still nicer,” said

+Rostóv.

+

+“Too hot!” she replied, blushing with pleasure.

+

+Ilyín put a few drops of rum into the bucket of water and brought it to

+Mary Hendríkhovna, asking her to stir it with her finger.

+

+“This is my cup,” said he. “Only dip your finger in it and I’ll drink it

+all up.”

+

+When they had emptied the samovar, Rostóv took a pack of cards and

+proposed that they should play “Kings” with Mary Hendríkhovna. They drew

+lots to settle who should make up her set. At Rostóv’s suggestion it

+was agreed that whoever became “King” should have the right to kiss Mary

+Hendríkhovna’s hand, and that the “Booby” should go to refill and reheat

+the samovar for the doctor when the latter awoke.

+

+“Well, but supposing Mary Hendríkhovna is ‘King’?” asked Ilyín.

+

+“As it is, she is Queen, and her word is law!”

+

+They had hardly begun to play before the doctor’s disheveled head

+suddenly appeared from behind Mary Hendríkhovna. He had been awake for

+some time, listening to what was being said, and evidently found nothing

+entertaining or amusing in what was going on. His face was sad and

+depressed. Without greeting the officers, he scratched himself and asked

+to be allowed to pass as they were blocking the way. As soon as he

+had left the room all the officers burst into loud laughter and Mary

+Hendríkhovna blushed till her eyes filled with tears and thereby became

+still more attractive to them. Returning from the yard, the doctor

+told his wife (who had ceased to smile so happily, and looked at him in

+alarm, awaiting her sentence) that the rain had ceased and they must go

+to sleep in their covered cart, or everything in it would be stolen.

+

+“But I’ll send an orderly.... Two of them!” said Rostóv. “What an idea,

+doctor!”

+

+“I’ll stand guard on it myself!” said Ilyín.

+

+“No, gentlemen, you have had your sleep, but I have not slept for two

+nights,” replied the doctor, and he sat down morosely beside his wife,

+waiting for the game to end.

+

+Seeing his gloomy face as he frowned at his wife, the officers grew

+still merrier, and some of them could not refrain from laughter, for

+which they hurriedly sought plausible pretexts. When he had gone, taking

+his wife with him, and had settled down with her in their covered cart,

+the officers lay down in the tavern, covering themselves with their

+wet cloaks, but they did not sleep for a long time; now they exchanged

+remarks, recalling the doctor’s uneasiness and his wife’s delight, now

+they ran out into the porch and reported what was taking place in the

+covered trap. Several times Rostóv, covering his head, tried to go

+to sleep, but some remark would arouse him and conversation would be

+resumed, to the accompaniment of unreasoning, merry, childlike laughter.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV

+

+It was nearly three o’clock but no one was yet asleep, when the

+quartermaster appeared with an order to move on to the little town

+of Ostróvna. Still laughing and talking, the officers began hurriedly

+getting ready and again boiled some muddy water in the samovar. But

+Rostóv went off to his squadron without waiting for tea. Day was

+breaking, the rain had ceased, and the clouds were dispersing. It felt

+damp and cold, especially in clothes that were still moist. As they left

+the tavern in the twilight of the dawn, Rostóv and Ilyín both glanced

+under the wet and glistening leather hood of the doctor’s cart, from

+under the apron of which his feet were sticking out, and in the middle

+of which his wife’s nightcap was visible and her sleepy breathing

+audible.

+

+“She really is a dear little thing,” said Rostóv to Ilyín, who was

+following him.

+

+“A charming woman!” said Ilyín, with all the gravity of a boy of

+sixteen.

+

+Half an hour later the squadron was lined up on the road. The command

+was heard to “mount” and the soldiers crossed themselves and mounted.

+Rostóv riding in front gave the order “Forward!” and the hussars, with

+clanking sabers and subdued talk, their horses’ hoofs splashing in the

+mud, defiled in fours and moved along the broad road planted with birch

+trees on each side, following the infantry and a battery that had gone

+on in front.

+

+Tattered, blue-purple clouds, reddening in the east, were scudding

+before the wind. It was growing lighter and lighter. That curly grass

+which always grows by country roadsides became clearly visible, still

+wet with the night’s rain; the drooping branches of the birches, also

+wet, swayed in the wind and flung down bright drops of water to one

+side. The soldiers’ faces were more and more clearly visible. Rostóv,

+always closely followed by Ilyín, rode along the side of the road

+between two rows of birch trees.

+

+When campaigning, Rostóv allowed himself the indulgence of riding not

+a regimental but a Cossack horse. A judge of horses and a sportsman,

+he had lately procured himself a large, fine, mettlesome, Donéts horse,

+dun-colored, with light mane and tail, and when he rode it no one could

+outgallop him. To ride this horse was a pleasure to him, and he thought

+of the horse, of the morning, of the doctor’s wife, but not once of the

+impending danger.

+

+Formerly, when going into action, Rostóv had felt afraid; now he had

+not the least feeling of fear. He was fearless, not because he had grown

+used to being under fire (one cannot grow used to danger), but because

+he had learned how to manage his thoughts when in danger. He had grown

+accustomed when going into action to think about anything but what would

+seem most likely to interest him—the impending danger. During the

+first period of his service, hard as he tried and much as he reproached

+himself with cowardice, he had not been able to do this, but with time

+it had come of itself. Now he rode beside Ilyín under the birch trees,

+occasionally plucking leaves from a branch that met his hand, sometimes

+touching his horse’s side with his foot, or, without turning round,

+handing a pipe he had finished to an hussar riding behind him, with as

+calm and careless an air as though he were merely out for a ride. He

+glanced with pity at the excited face of Ilyín, who talked much and in

+great agitation. He knew from experience the tormenting expectation of

+terror and death the cornet was suffering and knew that only time could

+help him.

+

+As soon as the sun appeared in a clear strip of sky beneath the clouds,

+the wind fell, as if it dared not spoil the beauty of the summer morning

+after the storm; drops still continued to fall, but vertically now, and

+all was still. The whole sun appeared on the horizon and disappeared

+behind a long narrow cloud that hung above it. A few minutes later it

+reappeared brighter still from behind the top of the cloud, tearing its

+edge. Everything grew bright and glittered. And with that light, and as

+if in reply to it, came the sound of guns ahead of them.

+

+Before Rostóv had had time to consider and determine the distance of

+that firing, Count Ostermann-Tolstóy’s adjutant came galloping from

+Vítebsk with orders to advance at a trot along the road.

+

+The squadron overtook and passed the infantry and the battery—which had

+also quickened their pace—rode down a hill, and passing through an empty

+and deserted village again ascended. The horses began to lather and the

+men to flush.

+

+“Halt! Dress your ranks!” the order of the regimental commander was

+heard ahead. “Forward by the left. Walk, march!” came the order from in

+front.

+

+And the hussars, passing along the line of troops on the left flank of

+our position, halted behind our Uhlans who were in the front line. To

+the right stood our infantry in a dense column: they were the reserve.

+Higher up the hill, on the very horizon, our guns were visible through

+the wonderfully clear air, brightly illuminated by slanting morning

+sunbeams. In front, beyond a hollow dale, could be seen the enemy’s

+columns and guns. Our advanced line, already in action, could be heard

+briskly exchanging shots with the enemy in the dale.

+

+At these sounds, long unheard, Rostóv’s spirits rose, as at the strains

+of the merriest music. Trap-ta-ta-tap! cracked the shots, now together,

+now several quickly one after another. Again all was silent and then

+again it sounded as if someone were walking on detonators and exploding

+them.

+

+The hussars remained in the same place for about an hour. A cannonade

+began. Count Ostermann with his suite rode up behind the squadron,

+halted, spoke to the commander of the regiment, and rode up the hill to

+the guns.

+

+After Ostermann had gone, a command rang out to the Uhlans.

+

+“Form column! Prepare to charge!”

+

+The infantry in front of them parted into platoons to allow the cavalry

+to pass. The Uhlans started, the streamers on their spears fluttering,

+and trotted downhill toward the French cavalry which was seen below to

+the left.

+

+As soon as the Uhlans descended the hill, the hussars were ordered up

+the hill to support the battery. As they took the places vacated by the

+Uhlans, bullets came from the front, whining and whistling, but fell

+spent without taking effect.

+

+The sounds, which he had not heard for so long, had an even more

+pleasurable and exhilarating effect on Rostóv than the previous sounds

+of firing. Drawing himself up, he viewed the field of battle opening out

+before him from the hill, and with his whole soul followed the movement

+of the Uhlans. They swooped down close to the French dragoons, something

+confused happened there amid the smoke, and five minutes later our

+Uhlans were galloping back, not to the place they had occupied but more

+to the left, and among the orange-colored Uhlans on chestnut horses and

+behind them, in a large group, blue French dragoons on gray horses could

+be seen.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV

+

+Rostóv, with his keen sportsman’s eye, was one of the first to catch

+sight of these blue French dragoons pursuing our Uhlans. Nearer and

+nearer in disorderly crowds came the Uhlans and the French dragoons

+pursuing them. He could already see how these men, who looked so small

+at the foot of the hill, jostled and overtook one another, waving their

+arms and their sabers in the air.

+

+Rostóv gazed at what was happening before him as at a hunt. He felt

+instinctively that if the hussars struck at the French dragoons now, the

+latter could not withstand them, but if a charge was to be made it must

+be done now, at that very moment, or it would be too late. He looked

+around. A captain, standing beside him, was gazing like himself with

+eyes fixed on the cavalry below them.

+

+“Andrew Sevastyánych!” said Rostóv. “You know, we could crush them....”

+

+“A fine thing too!” replied the captain, “and really...”

+

+Rostóv, without waiting to hear him out, touched his horse, galloped to

+the front of his squadron, and before he had time to finish giving the

+word of command, the whole squadron, sharing his feeling, was following

+him. Rostóv himself did not know how or why he did it. He acted as he

+did when hunting, without reflecting or considering. He saw the dragoons

+near and that they were galloping in disorder; he knew they could not

+withstand an attack—knew there was only that moment and that if he let

+it slip it would not return. The bullets were whining and whistling so

+stimulatingly around him and his horse was so eager to go that he could

+not restrain himself. He touched his horse, gave the word of command,

+and immediately, hearing behind him the tramp of the horses of his

+deployed squadron, rode at full trot downhill toward the dragoons.

+Hardly had they reached the bottom of the hill before their pace

+instinctively changed to a gallop, which grew faster and faster as they

+drew nearer to our Uhlans and the French dragoons who galloped after

+them. The dragoons were now close at hand. On seeing the hussars, the

+foremost began to turn, while those behind began to halt. With the same

+feeling with which he had galloped across the path of a wolf, Rostóv

+gave rein to his Donéts horse and galloped to intersect the path of the

+dragoons’ disordered lines. One Uhlan stopped, another who was on foot

+flung himself to the ground to avoid being knocked over, and a riderless

+horse fell in among the hussars. Nearly all the French dragoons were

+galloping back. Rostóv, picking out one on a gray horse, dashed after

+him. On the way he came upon a bush, his gallant horse cleared it, and

+almost before he had righted himself in his saddle he saw that he would

+immediately overtake the enemy he had selected. That Frenchman, by his

+uniform an officer, was going at a gallop, crouching on his gray horse

+and urging it on with his saber. In another moment Rostóv’s horse dashed

+its breast against the hindquarters of the officer’s horse, almost

+knocking it over, and at the same instant Rostóv, without knowing why,

+raised his saber and struck the Frenchman with it.

+

+The instant he had done this, all Rostóv’s animation vanished. The

+officer fell, not so much from the blow—which had but slightly cut his

+arm above the elbow—as from the shock to his horse and from fright.

+Rostóv reined in his horse, and his eyes sought his foe to see whom he

+had vanquished. The French dragoon officer was hopping with one foot on

+the ground, the other being caught in the stirrup. His eyes, screwed

+up with fear as if he every moment expected another blow, gazed up at

+Rostóv with shrinking terror. His pale and mud-stained face—fair and

+young, with a dimple in the chin and light-blue eyes—was not an enemy’s

+face at all suited to a battlefield, but a most ordinary, homelike face.

+Before Rostóv had decided what to do with him, the officer cried, “I

+surrender!” He hurriedly but vainly tried to get his foot out of the

+stirrup and did not remove his frightened blue eyes from Rostóv’s face.

+Some hussars who galloped up disengaged his foot and helped him into the

+saddle. On all sides, the hussars were busy with the dragoons; one was

+wounded, but though his face was bleeding, he would not give up his

+horse; another was perched up behind an hussar with his arms round him;

+a third was being helped by an hussar to mount his horse. In front, the

+French infantry were firing as they ran. The hussars galloped hastily

+back with their prisoners. Rostóv galloped back with the rest, aware of

+an unpleasant feeling of depression in his heart. Something vague and

+confused, which he could not at all account for, had come over him with

+the capture of that officer and the blow he had dealt him.

+

+Count Ostermann-Tolstóy met the returning hussars, sent for Rostóv,

+thanked him, and said he would report his gallant deed to the Emperor

+and would recommend him for a St. George’s Cross. When sent for by Count

+Ostermann, Rostóv, remembering that he had charged without orders,

+felt sure his commander was sending for him to punish him for breach of

+discipline. Ostermann’s flattering words and promise of a reward should

+therefore have struck him all the more pleasantly, but he still felt

+that same vaguely disagreeable feeling of moral nausea. “But what

+on earth is worrying me?” he asked himself as he rode back from the

+general. “Ilyín? No, he’s safe. Have I disgraced myself in any way? No,

+that’s not it.” Something else, resembling remorse, tormented him. “Yes,

+oh yes, that French officer with the dimple. And I remember how my arm

+paused when I raised it.”

+

+Rostóv saw the prisoners being led away and galloped after them to have

+a look at his Frenchman with the dimple on his chin. He was sitting in

+his foreign uniform on an hussar packhorse and looked anxiously about

+him. The sword cut on his arm could scarcely be called a wound. He

+glanced at Rostóv with a feigned smile and waved his hand in greeting.

+Rostóv still had the same indefinite feeling, as of shame.

+

+All that day and the next his friends and comrades noticed that Rostóv,

+without being dull or angry, was silent, thoughtful, and preoccupied.

+He drank reluctantly, tried to remain alone, and kept turning something

+over in his mind.

+

+Rostóv was always thinking about that brilliant exploit of his, which to

+his amazement had gained him the St. George’s Cross and even given him

+a reputation for bravery, and there was something he could not at all

+understand. “So others are even more afraid than I am!” he thought. “So

+that’s all there is in what is called heroism! And did I do it for my

+country’s sake? And how was he to blame, with his dimple and blue eyes?

+And how frightened he was! He thought that I should kill him. Why should

+I kill him? My hand trembled. And they have given me a St. George’s

+Cross.... I can’t make it out at all.”

+

+But while Nicholas was considering these questions and still could reach

+no clear solution of what puzzled him so, the wheel of fortune in the

+service, as often happens, turned in his favor. After the affair at

+Ostróvna he was brought into notice, received command of an hussar

+battalion, and when a brave officer was needed he was chosen.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI

+

+On receiving news of Natásha’s illness, the countess, though not quite

+well yet and still weak, went to Moscow with Pétya and the rest of the

+household, and the whole family moved from Márya Dmítrievna’s house to

+their own and settled down in town.

+

+Natásha’s illness was so serious that, fortunately for her and for

+her parents, the consideration of all that had caused the illness,

+her conduct and the breaking off of her engagement, receded into the

+background. She was so ill that it was impossible for them to consider

+in how far she was to blame for what had happened. She could not eat

+or sleep, grew visibly thinner, coughed, and, as the doctors made them

+feel, was in danger. They could not think of anything but how to help

+her. Doctors came to see her singly and in consultation, talked much in

+French, German, and Latin, blamed one another, and prescribed a great

+variety of medicines for all the diseases known to them, but the simple

+idea never occurred to any of them that they could not know the disease

+Natásha was suffering from, as no disease suffered by a live man can be

+known, for every living person has his own peculiarities and always

+has his own peculiar, personal, novel, complicated disease, unknown to

+medicine—not a disease of the lungs, liver, skin, heart, nerves, and so

+on mentioned in medical books, but a disease consisting of one of the

+innumerable combinations of the maladies of those organs. This simple

+thought could not occur to the doctors (as it cannot occur to a wizard

+that he is unable to work his charms) because the business of their

+lives was to cure, and they received money for it and had spent the best

+years of their lives on that business. But, above all, that thought

+was kept out of their minds by the fact that they saw they were

+really useful, as in fact they were to the whole Rostóv family. Their

+usefulness did not depend on making the patient swallow substances for

+the most part harmful (the harm was scarcely perceptible, as they

+were given in small doses), but they were useful, necessary, and

+indispensable because they satisfied a mental need of the invalid and

+of those who loved her—and that is why there are, and always will be,

+pseudo-healers, wise women, homeopaths, and allopaths. They satisfied

+that eternal human need for hope of relief, for sympathy, and that

+something should be done, which is felt by those who are suffering. They

+satisfied the need seen in its most elementary form in a child, when it

+wants to have a place rubbed that has been hurt. A child knocks itself

+and runs at once to the arms of its mother or nurse to have the aching

+spot rubbed or kissed, and it feels better when this is done. The child

+cannot believe that the strongest and wisest of its people have no

+remedy for its pain, and the hope of relief and the expression of its

+mother’s sympathy while she rubs the bump comforts it. The doctors were

+of use to Natásha because they kissed and rubbed her bump, assuring her

+that it would soon pass if only the coachman went to the chemist’s in

+the Arbát and got a powder and some pills in a pretty box for a ruble

+and seventy kopeks, and if she took those powders in boiled water at

+intervals of precisely two hours, neither more nor less.

+

+What would Sónya and the count and countess have done, how would they

+have looked, if nothing had been done, if there had not been those pills

+to give by the clock, the warm drinks, the chicken cutlets, and all the

+other details of life ordered by the doctors, the carrying out of which

+supplied an occupation and consolation to the family circle? How would

+the count have borne his dearly loved daughter’s illness had he not

+known that it was costing him a thousand rubles, and that he would not

+grudge thousands more to benefit her, or had he not known that if her

+illness continued he would not grudge yet other thousands and would take

+her abroad for consultations there, and had he not been able to explain

+the details of how Métivier and Feller had not understood the symptoms,

+but Frise had, and Múdrov had diagnosed them even better? What would the

+countess have done had she not been able sometimes to scold the invalid

+for not strictly obeying the doctor’s orders?

+

+“You’ll never get well like that,” she would say, forgetting her grief

+in her vexation, “if you won’t obey the doctor and take your medicine at

+the right time! You mustn’t trifle with it, you know, or it may turn to

+pneumonia,” she would go on, deriving much comfort from the utterance of

+that foreign word, incomprehensible to others as well as to herself.

+

+What would Sónya have done without the glad consciousness that she had

+not undressed during the first three nights, in order to be ready to

+carry out all the doctor’s injunctions with precision, and that she

+still kept awake at night so as not to miss the proper time when the

+slightly harmful pills in the little gilt box had to be administered?

+Even to Natásha herself it was pleasant to see that so many sacrifices

+were being made for her sake, and to know that she had to take medicine

+at certain hours, though she declared that no medicine would cure her

+and that it was all nonsense. And it was even pleasant to be able to

+show, by disregarding the orders, that she did not believe in medical

+treatment and did not value her life.

+

+The doctor came every day, felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, and

+regardless of her grief-stricken face joked with her. But when he had

+gone into another room, to which the countess hurriedly followed him, he

+assumed a grave air and thoughtfully shaking his head said that though

+there was danger, he had hopes of the effect of this last medicine and

+one must wait and see, that the malady was chiefly mental, but... And

+the countess, trying to conceal the action from herself and from him,

+slipped a gold coin into his hand and always returned to the patient

+with a more tranquil mind.

+

+The symptoms of Natásha’s illness were that she ate little, slept

+little, coughed, and was always low-spirited. The doctors said that

+she could not get on without medical treatment, so they kept her in the

+stifling atmosphere of the town, and the Rostóvs did not move to the

+country that summer of 1812.

+

+In spite of the many pills she swallowed and the drops and powders out

+of the little bottles and boxes of which Madame Schoss who was fond of

+such things made a large collection, and in spite of being deprived of

+the country life to which she was accustomed, youth prevailed. Natásha’s

+grief began to be overlaid by the impressions of daily life, it ceased

+to press so painfully on her heart, it gradually faded into the past,

+and she began to recover physically.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVII

+

+Natásha was calmer but no happier. She not merely avoided all external

+forms of pleasure—balls, promenades, concerts, and theaters—but she

+never laughed without a sound of tears in her laughter. She could not

+sing. As soon as she began to laugh, or tried to sing by herself, tears

+choked her: tears of remorse, tears at the recollection of those pure

+times which could never return, tears of vexation that she should so

+uselessly have ruined her young life which might have been so happy.

+Laughter and singing in particular seemed to her like a blasphemy,

+in face of her sorrow. Without any need of self-restraint, no wish to

+coquet ever entered her head. She said and felt at that time that no

+man was more to her than Nastásya Ivánovna, the buffoon. Something stood

+sentinel within her and forbade her every joy. Besides, she had lost all

+the old interests of her carefree girlish life that had been so full

+of hope. The previous autumn, the hunting, “Uncle,” and the Christmas

+holidays spent with Nicholas at Otrádnoe were what she recalled oftenest

+and most painfully. What would she not have given to bring back even a

+single day of that time! But it was gone forever. Her presentiment at

+the time had not deceived her—that that state of freedom and readiness

+for any enjoyment would not return again. Yet it was necessary to live

+on.

+

+It comforted her to reflect that she was not better as she had formerly

+imagined, but worse, much worse, than anybody else in the world. But

+this was not enough. She knew that, and asked herself, “What next?”

+But there was nothing to come. There was no joy in life, yet life was

+passing. Natásha apparently tried not to be a burden or a hindrance to

+anyone, but wanted nothing for herself. She kept away from everyone in

+the house and felt at ease only with her brother Pétya. She liked to

+be with him better than with the others, and when alone with him she

+sometimes laughed. She hardly ever left the house and of those who came

+to see them was glad to see only one person, Pierre. It would have been

+impossible to treat her with more delicacy, greater care, and at the

+same time more seriously than did Count Bezúkhov. Natásha unconsciously

+felt this delicacy and so found great pleasure in his society. But

+she was not even grateful to him for it; nothing good on Pierre’s part

+seemed to her to be an effort, it seemed so natural for him to be kind

+to everyone that there was no merit in his kindness. Sometimes Natásha

+noticed embarrassment and awkwardness on his part in her presence,

+especially when he wanted to do something to please her, or feared that

+something they spoke of would awaken memories distressing to her. She

+noticed this and attributed it to his general kindness and shyness,

+which she imagined must be the same toward everyone as it was to her.

+After those involuntary words—that if he were free he would have asked

+on his knees for her hand and her love—uttered at a moment when she was

+so strongly agitated, Pierre never spoke to Natásha of his feelings;

+and it seemed plain to her that those words, which had then so comforted

+her, were spoken as all sorts of meaningless words are spoken to comfort

+a crying child. It was not because Pierre was a married man, but because

+Natásha felt very strongly with him that moral barrier the absence of

+which she had experienced with Kurágin that it never entered her head

+that the relations between him and herself could lead to love on her

+part, still less on his, or even to the kind of tender, self-conscious,

+romantic friendship between a man and a woman of which she had known

+several instances.

+

+Before the end of the fast of St. Peter, Agraféna Ivánovna Belóva, a

+country neighbor of the Rostóvs, came to Moscow to pay her devotions at

+the shrines of the Moscow saints. She suggested that Natásha should fast

+and prepare for Holy Communion, and Natásha gladly welcomed the idea.

+Despite the doctor’s orders that she should not go out early in the

+morning, Natásha insisted on fasting and preparing for the sacrament,

+not as they generally prepared for it in the Rostóv family by attending

+three services in their own house, but as Agraféna Ivánovna did, by

+going to church every day for a week and not once missing Vespers,

+Matins, or Mass.

+

+The countess was pleased with Natásha’s zeal; after the poor results of

+the medical treatment, in the depths of her heart she hoped that prayer

+might help her daughter more than medicines and, though not without

+fear and concealing it from the doctor, she agreed to Natásha’s wish and

+entrusted her to Belóva. Agraféna Ivánovna used to come to wake Natásha

+at three in the morning, but generally found her already awake. She was

+afraid of being late for Matins. Hastily washing, and meekly putting on

+her shabbiest dress and an old mantilla, Natásha, shivering in the fresh

+air, went out into the deserted streets lit by the clear light of dawn.

+By Agraféna Ivánovna’s advice Natásha prepared herself not in their

+own parish, but at a church where, according to the devout Agraféna

+Ivánovna, the priest was a man of very severe and lofty life. There were

+never many people in the church; Natásha always stood beside Belóva in

+the customary place before an icon of the Blessed Virgin, let into the

+screen before the choir on the left side, and a feeling, new to her, of

+humility before something great and incomprehensible, seized her when

+at that unusual morning hour, gazing at the dark face of the Virgin

+illuminated by the candles burning before it and by the morning light

+falling from the window, she listened to the words of the service which

+she tried to follow with understanding. When she understood them her

+personal feeling became interwoven in the prayers with shades of its

+own. When she did not understand, it was sweeter still to think that

+the wish to understand everything is pride, that it is impossible to

+understand all, that it is only necessary to believe and to commit

+oneself to God, whom she felt guiding her soul at those moments. She

+crossed herself, bowed low, and when she did not understand, in horror

+at her own vileness, simply asked God to forgive her everything,

+everything, to have mercy upon her. The prayers to which she surrendered

+herself most of all were those of repentance. On her way home at an

+early hour when she met no one but bricklayers going to work or men

+sweeping the street, and everybody within the houses was still asleep,

+Natásha experienced a feeling new to her, a sense of the possibility

+of correcting her faults, the possibility of a new, clean life, and of

+happiness.

+

+During the whole week she spent in this way, that feeling grew every

+day. And the happiness of taking communion, or “communing” as Agraféna

+Ivánovna, joyously playing with the word, called it, seemed to Natásha

+so great that she felt she should never live till that blessed Sunday.

+

+But the happy day came, and on that memorable Sunday, when, dressed in

+white muslin, she returned home after communion, for the first time for

+many months she felt calm and not oppressed by the thought of the life

+that lay before her.

+

+The doctor who came to see her that day ordered her to continue the

+powders he had prescribed a fortnight previously.

+

+“She must certainly go on taking them morning and evening,” said

+he, evidently sincerely satisfied with his success. “Only, please be

+particular about it.

+

+“Be quite easy,” he continued playfully, as he adroitly took the gold

+coin in his palm. “She will soon be singing and frolicking about. The

+last medicine has done her a very great deal of good. She has freshened

+up very much.”

+

+The countess, with a cheerful expression on her face, looked down at her

+nails and spat a little for luck as she returned to the drawing room.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVIII

+

+At the beginning of July more and more disquieting reports about the war

+began to spread in Moscow; people spoke of an appeal by the Emperor to

+the people, and of his coming himself from the army to Moscow. And as

+up to the eleventh of July no manifesto or appeal had been received,

+exaggerated reports became current about them and about the position of

+Russia. It was said that the Emperor was leaving the army because it was

+in danger, it was said that Smolénsk had surrendered, that Napoleon had

+an army of a million and only a miracle could save Russia.

+

+On the eleventh of July, which was Saturday, the manifesto was received

+but was not yet in print, and Pierre, who was at the Rostóvs’, promised

+to come to dinner next day, Sunday, and bring a copy of the manifesto

+and appeal, which he would obtain from Count Rostopchín.

+

+That Sunday, the Rostóvs went to Mass at the Razumóvskis’ private chapel

+as usual. It was a hot July day. Even at ten o’clock, when the Rostóvs

+got out of their carriage at the chapel, the sultry air, the shouts of

+hawkers, the light and gay summer clothes of the crowd, the dusty leaves

+of the trees on the boulevard, the sounds of the band and the white

+trousers of a battalion marching to parade, the rattling of wheels on

+the cobblestones, and the brilliant, hot sunshine were all full of that

+summer languor, that content and discontent with the present, which

+is most strongly felt on a bright, hot day in town. All the Moscow

+notabilities, all the Rostóvs’ acquaintances, were at the Razumóvskis’

+chapel, for, as if expecting something to happen, many wealthy families

+who usually left town for their country estates had not gone away that

+summer. As Natásha, at her mother’s side, passed through the crowd

+behind a liveried footman who cleared the way for them, she heard a

+young man speaking about her in too loud a whisper.

+

+“That’s Rostóva, the one who...”

+

+“She’s much thinner, but all the same she’s pretty!”

+

+She heard, or thought she heard, the names of Kurágin and Bolkónski. But

+she was always imagining that. It always seemed to her that everyone

+who looked at her was thinking only of what had happened to her. With a

+sinking heart, wretched as she always was now when she found herself

+in a crowd, Natásha in her lilac silk dress trimmed with black lace

+walked—as women can walk—with the more repose and stateliness the

+greater the pain and shame in her soul. She knew for certain that she

+was pretty, but this no longer gave her satisfaction as it used to.

+On the contrary it tormented her more than anything else of late, and

+particularly so on this bright, hot summer day in town. “It’s Sunday

+again—another week past,” she thought, recalling that she had been here

+the Sunday before, “and always the same life that is no life, and the

+same surroundings in which it used to be so easy to live. I’m pretty,

+I’m young, and I know that now I am good. I used to be bad, but now I

+know I am good,” she thought, “but yet my best years are slipping by

+and are no good to anyone.” She stood by her mother’s side and exchanged

+nods with acquaintances near her. From habit she scrutinized the ladies’

+dresses, condemned the bearing of a lady standing close by who was not

+crossing herself properly but in a cramped manner, and again she thought

+with vexation that she was herself being judged and was judging others,

+and suddenly, at the sound of the service, she felt horrified at her own

+vileness, horrified that the former purity of her soul was again lost to

+her.

+

+A comely, fresh-looking old man was conducting the service with that

+mild solemnity which has so elevating and soothing an effect on the

+souls of the worshipers. The gates of the sanctuary screen were closed,

+the curtain was slowly drawn, and from behind it a soft mysterious voice

+pronounced some words. Tears, the cause of which she herself did not

+understand, made Natásha’s breast heave, and a joyous but oppressive

+feeling agitated her.

+

+“Teach me what I should do, how to live my life, how I may grow good

+forever, forever!” she pleaded.

+

+The deacon came out onto the raised space before the altar screen and,

+holding his thumb extended, drew his long hair from under his dalmatic

+and, making the sign of the cross on his breast, began in a loud and

+solemn voice to recite the words of the prayer....

+

+“In peace let us pray unto the Lord.”

+

+“As one community, without distinction of class, without enmity, united

+by brotherly love—let us pray!” thought Natásha.

+

+“For the peace that is from above, and for the salvation of our souls.”

+

+“For the world of angels and all the spirits who dwell above us,” prayed

+Natásha.

+

+When they prayed for the warriors, she thought of her brother and

+Denísov. When they prayed for all traveling by land and sea, she

+remembered Prince Andrew, prayed for him, and asked God to forgive her

+all the wrongs she had done him. When they prayed for those who love us,

+she prayed for the members of her own family, her father and mother and

+Sónya, realizing for the first time how wrongly she had acted toward

+them, and feeling all the strength of her love for them. When they

+prayed for those who hate us, she tried to think of her enemies and

+people who hated her, in order to pray for them. She included among her

+enemies the creditors and all who had business dealings with her

+father, and always at the thought of enemies and those who hated her she

+remembered Anatole who had done her so much harm—and though he did not

+hate her she gladly prayed for him as for an enemy. Only at prayer did

+she feel able to think clearly and calmly of Prince Andrew and Anatole,

+as men for whom her feelings were as nothing compared with her awe and

+devotion to God. When they prayed for the Imperial family and the Synod,

+she bowed very low and made the sign of the cross, saying to herself

+that even if she did not understand, still she could not doubt, and at

+any rate loved the governing Synod and prayed for it.

+

+When he had finished the Litany the deacon crossed the stole over his

+breast and said, “Let us commit ourselves and our whole lives to Christ

+the Lord!”

+

+“Commit ourselves to God,” Natásha inwardly repeated. “Lord God, I

+submit myself to Thy will!” she thought. “I want nothing, wish for

+nothing; teach me what to do and how to use my will! Take me, take

+me!” prayed Natásha, with impatient emotion in her heart, not crossing

+herself but letting her slender arms hang down as if expecting some

+invisible power at any moment to take her and deliver her from herself,

+from her regrets, desires, remorse, hopes, and sins.

+

+The countess looked round several times at her daughter’s softened face

+and shining eyes and prayed God to help her.

+

+Unexpectedly, in the middle of the service, and not in the usual order

+Natásha knew so well, the deacon brought out a small stool, the one he

+knelt on when praying on Trinity Sunday, and placed it before the doors

+of the sanctuary screen. The priest came out with his purple velvet

+biretta on his head, adjusted his hair, and knelt down with an effort.

+Everybody followed his example and they looked at one another in

+surprise. Then came the prayer just received from the Synod—a prayer for

+the deliverance of Russia from hostile invasion.

+

+“Lord God of might, God of our salvation!” began the priest in that

+voice, clear, not grandiloquent but mild, in which only the Slav clergy

+read and which acts so irresistibly on a Russian heart.

+

+“Lord God of might, God of our salvation! Look this day in mercy and

+blessing on Thy humble people, and graciously hear us, spare us, and

+have mercy upon us! This foe confounding Thy land, desiring to lay

+waste the whole world, rises against us; these lawless men are gathered

+together to overthrow Thy kingdom, to destroy Thy dear Jerusalem, Thy

+beloved Russia; to defile Thy temples, to overthrow Thine altars, and to

+desecrate our holy shrines. How long, O Lord, how long shall the wicked

+triumph? How long shall they wield unlawful power?

+

+“Lord God! Hear us when we pray to Thee; strengthen with Thy might

+our most gracious sovereign lord, the Emperor Alexander Pávlovich; be

+mindful of his uprightness and meekness, reward him according to his

+righteousness, and let it preserve us, Thy chosen Israel! Bless his

+counsels, his undertakings, and his work; strengthen his kingdom by

+Thine almighty hand, and give him victory over his enemy, even as Thou

+gavest Moses the victory over Amalek, Gideon over Midian, and David over

+Goliath. Preserve his army, put a bow of brass in the hands of those who

+have armed themselves in Thy Name, and gird their loins with strength

+for the fight. Take up the spear and shield and arise to help us;

+confound and put to shame those who have devised evil against us, may

+they be before the faces of Thy faithful warriors as dust before the

+wind, and may Thy mighty Angel confound them and put them to flight; may

+they be ensnared when they know it not, and may the plots they have laid

+in secret be turned against them; let them fall before Thy servants’

+feet and be laid low by our hosts! Lord, Thou art able to save both

+great and small; Thou art God, and man cannot prevail against Thee!

+

+“God of our fathers! Remember Thy bounteous mercy and loving-kindness

+which are from of old; turn not Thy face from us, but be gracious to our

+unworthiness, and in Thy great goodness and Thy many mercies regard not

+our transgressions and iniquities! Create in us a clean heart and renew

+a right spirit within us, strengthen us all in Thy faith, fortify our

+hope, inspire us with true love one for another, arm us with unity of

+spirit in the righteous defense of the heritage Thou gavest to us and

+to our fathers, and let not the scepter of the wicked be exalted against

+the destiny of those Thou hast sanctified.

+

+“O Lord our God, in whom we believe and in whom we put our trust, let us

+not be confounded in our hope of Thy mercy, and give us a token of Thy

+blessing, that those who hate us and our Orthodox faith may see it and

+be put to shame and perish, and may all the nations know that Thou art

+the Lord and we are Thy people. Show Thy mercy upon us this day, O Lord,

+and grant us Thy salvation; make the hearts of Thy servants to rejoice

+in Thy mercy; smite down our enemies and destroy them swiftly beneath

+the feet of Thy faithful servants! For Thou art the defense, the succor,

+and the victory of them that put their trust in Thee, and to Thee be all

+glory, to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, now and forever, world without

+end. Amen.”

+

+In Natásha’s receptive condition of soul this prayer affected her

+strongly. She listened to every word about the victory of Moses over

+Amalek, of Gideon over Midian, and of David over Goliath, and about

+the destruction of “Thy Jerusalem,” and she prayed to God with the

+tenderness and emotion with which her heart was overflowing, but without

+fully understanding what she was asking of God in that prayer. She

+shared with all her heart in the prayer for the spirit of righteousness,

+for the strengthening of the heart by faith and hope, and its animation

+by love. But she could not pray that her enemies might be trampled under

+foot when but a few minutes before she had been wishing she had more

+of them that she might pray for them. But neither could she doubt the

+righteousness of the prayer that was being read on bended knees. She

+felt in her heart a devout and tremulous awe at the thought of the

+punishment that overtakes men for their sins, and especially of her own

+sins, and she prayed to God to forgive them all, and her too, and to

+give them all, and her too, peace and happiness. And it seemed to her

+that God heard her prayer.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIX

+

+From the day when Pierre, after leaving the Rostóvs’ with Natásha’s

+grateful look fresh in his mind, had gazed at the comet that seemed to

+be fixed in the sky and felt that something new was appearing on his own

+horizon—from that day the problem of the vanity and uselessness of all

+earthly things, that had incessantly tormented him, no longer presented

+itself. That terrible question “Why?” “Wherefore?” which had come to him

+amid every occupation, was now replaced, not by another question or by a

+reply to the former question, but by her image. When he listened to, or

+himself took part in, trivial conversations, when he read or heard of

+human baseness or folly, he was not horrified as formerly, and did

+not ask himself why men struggled so about these things when all is so

+transient and incomprehensible—but he remembered her as he had last

+seen her, and all his doubts vanished—not because she had answered

+the questions that had haunted him, but because his conception of her

+transferred him instantly to another, a brighter, realm of spiritual

+activity in which no one could be justified or guilty—a realm of beauty

+and love which it was worth living for. Whatever worldly baseness

+presented itself to him, he said to himself:

+

+“Well, supposing N. N. has swindled the country and the Tsar, and the

+country and the Tsar confer honors upon him, what does that matter? She

+smiled at me yesterday and asked me to come again, and I love her, and

+no one will ever know it.” And his soul felt calm and peaceful.

+

+Pierre still went into society, drank as much and led the same idle

+and dissipated life, because besides the hours he spent at the Rostóvs’

+there were other hours he had to spend somehow, and the habits and

+acquaintances he had made in Moscow formed a current that bore him along

+irresistibly. But latterly, when more and more disquieting reports came

+from the seat of war and Natásha’s health began to improve and she

+no longer aroused in him the former feeling of careful pity, an

+ever-increasing restlessness, which he could not explain, took

+possession of him. He felt that the condition he was in could not

+continue long, that a catastrophe was coming which would change his

+whole life, and he impatiently sought everywhere for signs of that

+approaching catastrophe. One of his brother Masons had revealed to

+Pierre the following prophecy concerning Napoleon, drawn from the

+Revelation of St. John.

+

+In chapter 13, verse 18, of the Apocalypse, it is said:

+

+Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of

+the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred

+threescore and six.

+

+And in the fifth verse of the same chapter:

+

+And there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and

+blasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two

+months.

+

+

+The French alphabet, written out with the same numerical values as the

+Hebrew, in which the first nine letters denote units and the others

+tens, will have the following significance:

+

+      a   b   c   d   e   f   g   h   i   k

+      1   2   3   4   5   6   7   8   9   10

+       l    m    n    o    p    q    r    s

+      20   30   40   50   60   70   80   90

+             t    u    v    w    x    y

+            100  110  120  130  140  150

+                        z

+                       160

+

+Writing the words L’Empereur Napoléon in numbers, it appears that the

+sum of them is 666, and that Napoleon was therefore the beast foretold

+in the Apocalypse. Moreover, by applying the same system to the words

+quarante-deux, * which was the term allowed to the beast that “spoke

+great things and blasphemies,” the same number 666 was obtained; from

+which it followed that the limit fixed for Napoleon’s power had come

+in the year 1812 when the French emperor was forty-two. This prophecy

+pleased Pierre very much and he often asked himself what would put an

+end to the power of the beast, that is, of Napoleon, and tried by the

+same system of using letters as numbers and adding them up, to find an

+answer to the question that engrossed him. He wrote the words L’Empereur

+Alexandre, La nation russe and added up their numbers, but the sums

+were either more or less than 666. Once when making such calculations he

+wrote down his own name in French, Comte Pierre Besouhoff, but the

+sum of the numbers did not come right. Then he changed the spelling,

+substituting a z for the s and adding de and the article le, still

+without obtaining the desired result. Then it occurred to him: if the

+answer to the question were contained in his name, his nationality would

+also be given in the answer. So he wrote Le russe Besuhof and adding

+up the numbers got 671. This was only five too much, and five was

+represented by e, the very letter elided from the article le before the

+word Empereur. By omitting the e, though incorrectly, Pierre got the

+answer he sought. L’russe Besuhof made 666. This discovery excited him.

+How, or by what means, he was connected with the great event foretold in

+the Apocalypse he did not know, but he did not doubt that connection for

+a moment. His love for Natásha, Antichrist, Napoleon, the invasion, the

+comet, 666, L’Empereur Napoléon, and L’russe Besuhof—all this had to

+mature and culminate, to lift him out of that spellbound, petty sphere

+of Moscow habits in which he felt himself held captive and lead him to a

+great achievement and great happiness.

+

+    * Forty-two.

+

+

+On the eve of the Sunday when the special prayer was read, Pierre had

+promised the Rostóvs to bring them, from Count Rostopchín whom he knew

+well, both the appeal to the people and the news from the army. In the

+morning, when he went to call at Rostopchín’s he met there a courier

+fresh from the army, an acquaintance of his own, who often danced at

+Moscow balls.

+

+“Do, please, for heaven’s sake, relieve me of something!” said the

+courier. “I have a sackful of letters to parents.”

+

+Among these letters was one from Nicholas Rostóv to his father. Pierre

+took that letter, and Rostopchín also gave him the Emperor’s appeal to

+Moscow, which had just been printed, the last army orders, and his own

+most recent bulletin. Glancing through the army orders, Pierre found in

+one of them, in the lists of killed, wounded, and rewarded, the name of

+Nicholas Rostóv, awarded a St. George’s Cross of the Fourth Class for

+courage shown in the Ostróvna affair, and in the same order the name

+of Prince Andrew Bolkónski, appointed to the command of a regiment of

+Chasseurs. Though he did not want to remind the Rostóvs of Bolkónski,

+Pierre could not refrain from making them happy by the news of their

+son’s having received a decoration, so he sent that printed army order

+and Nicholas’ letter to the Rostóvs, keeping the appeal, the bulletin,

+and the other orders to take with him when he went to dinner.

+

+His conversation with Count Rostopchín and the latter’s tone of anxious

+hurry, the meeting with the courier who talked casually of how badly

+things were going in the army, the rumors of the discovery of spies in

+Moscow and of a leaflet in circulation stating that Napoleon promised

+to be in both the Russian capitals by the autumn, and the talk of the

+Emperor’s being expected to arrive next day—all aroused with fresh force

+that feeling of agitation and expectation in Pierre which he had been

+conscious of ever since the appearance of the comet, and especially

+since the beginning of the war.

+

+He had long been thinking of entering the army and would have done so

+had he not been hindered, first, by his membership of the Society of

+Freemasons to which he was bound by oath and which preached perpetual

+peace and the abolition of war, and secondly, by the fact that when he

+saw the great mass of Muscovites who had donned uniform and were talking

+patriotism, he somehow felt ashamed to take the step. But the chief

+reason for not carrying out his intention to enter the army lay in the

+vague idea that he was L’russe Besuhof who had the number of the beast,

+666; that his part in the great affair of setting a limit to the

+power of the beast that spoke great and blasphemous things had been

+predestined from eternity, and that therefore he ought not to undertake

+anything, but wait for what was bound to come to pass.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XX

+

+A few intimate friends were dining with the Rostóvs that day, as usual

+on Sundays.

+

+Pierre came early so as to find them alone.

+

+He had grown so stout this year that he would have been abnormal had he

+not been so tall, so broad of limb, and so strong that he carried his

+bulk with evident ease.

+

+He went up the stairs, puffing and muttering something. His coachman did

+not even ask whether he was to wait. He knew that when his master was

+at the Rostóvs’ he stayed till midnight. The Rostóvs’ footman rushed

+eagerly forward to help him off with his cloak and take his hat and

+stick. Pierre, from club habit, always left both hat and stick in the

+anteroom.

+

+The first person he saw in the house was Natásha. Even before he saw

+her, while taking off his cloak, he heard her. She was practicing solfa

+exercises in the music room. He knew that she had not sung since her

+illness, and so the sound of her voice surprised and delighted him. He

+opened the door softly and saw her, in the lilac dress she had worn at

+church, walking about the room singing. She had her back to him when he

+opened the door, but when, turning quickly, she saw his broad, surprised

+face, she blushed and came rapidly up to him.

+

+“I want to try to sing again,” she said, adding as if by way of excuse,

+“it is, at least, something to do.”

+

+“That’s capital!”

+

+“How glad I am you’ve come! I am so happy today,” she said, with the old

+animation Pierre had not seen in her for a long time. “You know Nicholas

+has received a St. George’s Cross? I am so proud of him.”

+

+“Oh yes, I sent that announcement. But I don’t want to interrupt you,”

+he added, and was about to go to the drawing room.

+

+Natásha stopped him.

+

+“Count, is it wrong of me to sing?” she said blushing, and fixing her

+eyes inquiringly on him.

+

+“No... Why should it be? On the contrary... But why do you ask me?”

+

+“I don’t know myself,” Natásha answered quickly, “but I should not like

+to do anything you disapproved of. I believe in you completely. You

+don’t know how important you are to me, how much you’ve done for me....”

+She spoke rapidly and did not notice how Pierre flushed at her words. “I

+saw in that same army order that he, Bolkónski” (she whispered the name

+hastily), “is in Russia, and in the army again. What do you think?”—she

+was speaking hurriedly, evidently afraid her strength might fail

+her—“Will he ever forgive me? Will he not always have a bitter feeling

+toward me? What do you think? What do you think?”

+

+“I think...” Pierre replied, “that he has nothing to forgive.... If I

+were in his place...”

+

+By association of ideas, Pierre was at once carried back to the day

+when, trying to comfort her, he had said that if he were not himself but

+the best man in the world and free, he would ask on his knees for her

+hand; and the same feeling of pity, tenderness, and love took possession

+of him and the same words rose to his lips. But she did not give him

+time to say them.

+

+“Yes, you... you...” she said, uttering the word you rapturously—“that’s

+a different thing. I know no one kinder, more generous, or better than

+you; nobody could be! Had you not been there then, and now too, I don’t

+know what would have become of me, because...”

+

+Tears suddenly rose in her eyes, she turned away, lifted her music

+before her eyes, began singing again, and again began walking up and

+down the room.

+

+Just then Pétya came running in from the drawing room.

+

+Pétya was now a handsome rosy lad of fifteen with full red lips and

+resembled Natásha. He was preparing to enter the university, but he and

+his friend Obolénski had lately, in secret, agreed to join the hussars.

+

+Pétya had come rushing out to talk to his namesake about this affair.

+He had asked Pierre to find out whether he would be accepted in the

+hussars.

+

+Pierre walked up and down the drawing room, not listening to what Pétya

+was saying.

+

+Pétya pulled him by the arm to attract his attention.

+

+“Well, what about my plan? Peter Kirílych, for heaven’s sake! You are my

+only hope,” said Pétya.

+

+“Oh yes, your plan. To join the hussars? I’ll mention it, I’ll bring it

+all up today.”

+

+“Well, mon cher, have you got the manifesto?” asked the old count. “The

+countess has been to Mass at the Razumóvskis’ and heard the new prayer.

+She says it’s very fine.”

+

+“Yes, I’ve got it,” said Pierre. “The Emperor is to be here tomorrow...

+there’s to be an Extraordinary Meeting of the nobility, and they are

+talking of a levy of ten men per thousand. Oh yes, let me congratulate

+you!”

+

+“Yes, yes, thank God! Well, and what news from the army?”

+

+“We are again retreating. They say we’re already near Smolénsk,” replied

+Pierre.

+

+“O Lord, O Lord!” exclaimed the count. “Where is the manifesto?”

+

+“The Emperor’s appeal? Oh yes!”

+

+Pierre began feeling in his pockets for the papers, but could not find

+them. Still slapping his pockets, he kissed the hand of the countess

+who entered the room and glanced uneasily around, evidently expecting

+Natásha, who had left off singing but had not yet come into the drawing

+room.

+

+“On my word, I don’t know what I’ve done with it,” he said.

+

+“There he is, always losing everything!” remarked the countess.

+

+Natásha entered with a softened and agitated expression of face and

+sat down looking silently at Pierre. As soon as she entered, Pierre’s

+features, which had been gloomy, suddenly lighted up, and while still

+searching for the papers he glanced at her several times.

+

+“No, really! I’ll drive home, I must have left them there. I’ll

+certainly...”

+

+“But you’ll be late for dinner.”

+

+“Oh! And my coachman has gone.”

+

+But Sónya, who had gone to look for the papers in the anteroom, had

+found them in Pierre’s hat, where he had carefully tucked them under the

+lining. Pierre was about to begin reading.

+

+“No, after dinner,” said the old count, evidently expecting much

+enjoyment from that reading.

+

+At dinner, at which champagne was drunk to the health of the new

+chevalier of St. George, Shinshín told them the town news, of the

+illness of the old Georgian princess, of Métivier’s disappearance from

+Moscow, and of how some German fellow had been brought to Rostopchín

+and accused of being a French “spyer” (so Count Rostopchín had told the

+story), and how Rostopchín let him go and assured the people that he was

+“not a spire at all, but only an old German ruin.”

+

+“People are being arrested...” said the count. “I’ve told the countess

+she should not speak French so much. It’s not the time for it now.”

+

+“And have you heard?” Shinshín asked. “Prince Golítsyn has engaged a

+master to teach him Russian. It is becoming dangerous to speak French in

+the streets.”

+

+“And how about you, Count Peter Kirílych? If they call up the militia,

+you too will have to mount a horse,” remarked the old count, addressing

+Pierre.

+

+Pierre had been silent and preoccupied all through dinner, seeming not

+to grasp what was said. He looked at the count.

+

+“Oh yes, the war,” he said. “No! What sort of warrior should I make? And

+yet everything is so strange, so strange! I can’t make it out. I don’t

+know, I am very far from having military tastes, but in these times no

+one can answer for himself.”

+

+After dinner the count settled himself comfortably in an easy chair and

+with a serious face asked Sónya, who was considered an excellent reader,

+to read the appeal.

+

+“To Moscow, our ancient Capital!

+

+“The enemy has entered the borders of Russia with immense forces. He

+comes to despoil our beloved country.”

+

+Sónya read painstakingly in her high-pitched voice. The count listened

+with closed eyes, heaving abrupt sighs at certain passages.

+

+Natásha sat erect, gazing with a searching look now at her father and

+now at Pierre.

+

+Pierre felt her eyes on him and tried not to look round. The countess

+shook her head disapprovingly and angrily at every solemn expression

+in the manifesto. In all these words she saw only that the danger

+threatening her son would not soon be over. Shinshín, with a sarcastic

+smile on his lips, was evidently preparing to make fun of anything that

+gave him the opportunity: Sónya’s reading, any remark of the count’s, or

+even the manifesto itself should no better pretext present itself.

+

+After reading about the dangers that threatened Russia, the hopes the

+Emperor placed on Moscow and especially on its illustrious nobility,

+Sónya, with a quiver in her voice due chiefly to the attention that was

+being paid to her, read the last words:

+

+“We ourselves will not delay to appear among our people in that Capital

+and in other parts of our realm for consultation, and for the direction

+of all our levies, both those now barring the enemy’s path and those

+freshly formed to defeat him wherever he may appear. May the ruin he

+hopes to bring upon us recoil on his own head, and may Europe delivered

+from bondage glorify the name of Russia!”

+

+

+“Yes, that’s it!” cried the count, opening his moist eyes and sniffing

+repeatedly, as if a strong vinaigrette had been held to his nose; and he

+added, “Let the Emperor but say the word and we’ll sacrifice everything

+and begrudge nothing.”

+

+Before Shinshín had time to utter the joke he was ready to make on the

+count’s patriotism, Natásha jumped up from her place and ran to her

+father.

+

+“What a darling our Papa is!” she cried, kissing him, and she again

+looked at Pierre with the unconscious coquetry that had returned to her

+with her better spirits.

+

+“There! Here’s a patriot for you!” said Shinshín.

+

+“Not a patriot at all, but simply...” Natásha replied in an injured

+tone. “Everything seems funny to you, but this isn’t at all a joke....”

+

+“A joke indeed!” put in the count. “Let him but say the word and we’ll

+all go.... We’re not Germans!”

+

+“But did you notice, it says, ‘for consultation’?” said Pierre.

+

+“Never mind what it’s for....”

+

+At this moment, Pétya, to whom nobody was paying any attention, came up

+to his father with a very flushed face and said in his breaking voice

+that was now deep and now shrill:

+

+“Well, Papa, I tell you definitely, and Mamma too, it’s as you please,

+but I say definitely that you must let me enter the army, because I

+can’t... that’s all....”

+

+The countess, in dismay, looked up to heaven, clasped her hands, and

+turned angrily to her husband.

+

+“That comes of your talking!” said she.

+

+But the count had already recovered from his excitement.

+

+“Come, come!” said he. “Here’s a fine warrior! No! Nonsense! You must

+study.”

+

+“It’s not nonsense, Papa. Fédya Obolénski is younger than I, and he’s

+going too. Besides, all the same I can’t study now when...” Pétya

+stopped short, flushed till he perspired, but still got out the words,

+“when our Fatherland is in danger.”

+

+“That’ll do, that’ll do—nonsense....”

+

+“But you said yourself that we would sacrifice everything.”

+

+“Pétya! Be quiet, I tell you!” cried the count, with a glance at his

+wife, who had turned pale and was staring fixedly at her son.

+

+“And I tell you—Peter Kirílych here will also tell you...”

+

+“Nonsense, I tell you. Your mother’s milk has hardly dried on your lips

+and you want to go into the army! There, there, I tell you,” and the

+count moved to go out of the room, taking the papers, probably to reread

+them in his study before having a nap.

+

+“Well, Peter Kirílych, let’s go and have a smoke,” he said.

+

+Pierre was agitated and undecided. Natásha’s unwontedly brilliant eyes,

+continually glancing at him with a more than cordial look, had reduced

+him to this condition.

+

+“No, I think I’ll go home.”

+

+“Home? Why, you meant to spend the evening with us.... You don’t

+often come nowadays as it is, and this girl of mine,” said the count

+good-naturedly, pointing to Natásha, “only brightens up when you’re

+here.”

+

+“Yes, I had forgotten... I really must go home... business...” said

+Pierre hurriedly.

+

+“Well, then, au revoir!” said the count, and went out of the room.

+

+“Why are you going? Why are you upset?” asked Natásha, and she looked

+challengingly into Pierre’s eyes.

+

+“Because I love you!” was what he wanted to say, but he did not say it,

+and only blushed till the tears came, and lowered his eyes.

+

+“Because it is better for me to come less often... because... No, simply

+I have business....”

+

+“Why? No, tell me!” Natásha began resolutely and suddenly stopped.

+

+They looked at each other with dismayed and embarrassed faces. He tried

+to smile but could not: his smile expressed suffering, and he silently

+kissed her hand and went out.

+

+Pierre made up his mind not to go to the Rostóvs’ any more.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXI

+

+After the definite refusal he had received, Pétya went to his room

+and there locked himself in and wept bitterly. When he came in to tea,

+silent, morose, and with tear-stained face, everybody pretended not to

+notice anything.

+

+Next day the Emperor arrived in Moscow, and several of the Rostóvs’

+domestic serfs begged permission to go to have a look at him. That

+morning Pétya was a long time dressing and arranging his hair and

+collar to look like a grown-up man. He frowned before his looking glass,

+gesticulated, shrugged his shoulders, and finally, without saying a word

+to anyone, took his cap and left the house by the back door, trying to

+avoid notice. Pétya decided to go straight to where the Emperor was and

+to explain frankly to some gentleman-in-waiting (he imagined the Emperor

+to be always surrounded by gentlemen-in-waiting) that he, Count Rostóv,

+in spite of his youth wished to serve his country; that youth could be

+no hindrance to loyalty, and that he was ready to... While

+dressing, Pétya had prepared many fine things he meant to say to the

+gentleman-in-waiting.

+

+It was on the very fact of being so young that Pétya counted for success

+in reaching the Emperor—he even thought how surprised everyone would be

+at his youthfulness—and yet in the arrangement of his collar and hair

+and by his sedate deliberate walk he wished to appear a grown-up man.

+But the farther he went and the more his attention was diverted by the

+ever-increasing crowds moving toward the Krémlin, the less he remembered

+to walk with the sedateness and deliberation of a man. As he approached

+the Krémlin he even began to avoid being crushed and resolutely stuck

+out his elbows in a menacing way. But within the Trinity Gateway he

+was so pressed to the wall by people who probably were unaware of the

+patriotic intentions with which he had come that in spite of all his

+determination he had to give in, and stop while carriages passed in,

+rumbling beneath the archway. Beside Pétya stood a peasant woman, a

+footman, two tradesmen, and a discharged soldier. After standing some

+time in the gateway, Pétya tried to move forward in front of the others

+without waiting for all the carriages to pass, and he began resolutely

+working his way with his elbows, but the woman just in front of him, who

+was the first against whom he directed his efforts, angrily shouted at

+him:

+

+“What are you shoving for, young lordling? Don’t you see we’re all

+standing still? Then why push?”

+

+“Anybody can shove,” said the footman, and also began working his elbows

+to such effect that he pushed Pétya into a very filthy corner of the

+gateway.

+

+Pétya wiped his perspiring face with his hands and pulled up the damp

+collar which he had arranged so well at home to seem like a man’s.

+

+He felt that he no longer looked presentable, and feared that if he were

+now to approach the gentlemen-in-waiting in that plight he would not be

+admitted to the Emperor. But it was impossible to smarten oneself up

+or move to another place, because of the crowd. One of the generals who

+drove past was an acquaintance of the Rostóvs’, and Pétya thought of

+asking his help, but came to the conclusion that that would not be a

+manly thing to do. When the carriages had all passed in, the crowd,

+carrying Pétya with it, streamed forward into the Krémlin Square which

+was already full of people. There were people not only in the square,

+but everywhere—on the slopes and on the roofs. As soon as Pétya found

+himself in the square he clearly heard the sound of bells and the joyous

+voices of the crowd that filled the whole Krémlin.

+

+For a while the crowd was less dense, but suddenly all heads were bared,

+and everyone rushed forward in one direction. Pétya was being pressed so

+that he could scarcely breathe, and everybody shouted, “Hurrah! hurrah!

+hurrah!” Pétya stood on tiptoe and pushed and pinched, but could see

+nothing except the people about him.

+

+All the faces bore the same expression of excitement and enthusiasm. A

+tradesman’s wife standing beside Pétya sobbed, and the tears ran down

+her cheeks.

+

+“Father! Angel! Dear one!” she kept repeating, wiping away her tears

+with her fingers.

+

+“Hurrah!” was heard on all sides.

+

+For a moment the crowd stood still, but then it made another rush

+forward.

+

+Quite beside himself, Pétya, clinching his teeth and rolling his eyes

+ferociously, pushed forward, elbowing his way and shouting “hurrah!” as

+if he were prepared that instant to kill himself and everyone else, but

+on both sides of him other people with similarly ferocious faces pushed

+forward and everybody shouted “hurrah!”

+

+“So this is what the Emperor is!” thought Pétya. “No, I can’t petition

+him myself—that would be too bold.” But in spite of this he continued

+to struggle desperately forward, and from between the backs of those

+in front he caught glimpses of an open space with a strip of red cloth

+spread out on it; but just then the crowd swayed back—the police

+in front were pushing back those who had pressed too close to the

+procession: the Emperor was passing from the palace to the Cathedral of

+the Assumption—and Pétya unexpectedly received such a blow on his side

+and ribs and was squeezed so hard that suddenly everything grew dim

+before his eyes and he lost consciousness. When he came to himself, a

+man of clerical appearance with a tuft of gray hair at the back of

+his head and wearing a shabby blue cassock—probably a church clerk and

+chanter—was holding him under the arm with one hand while warding off

+the pressure of the crowd with the other.

+

+“You’ve crushed the young gentleman!” said the clerk. “What are you up

+to? Gently!... They’ve crushed him, crushed him!”

+

+The Emperor entered the Cathedral of the Assumption. The crowd spread

+out again more evenly, and the clerk led Pétya—pale and breathless—to

+the Tsar-cannon. Several people were sorry for Pétya, and suddenly a

+crowd turned toward him and pressed round him. Those who stood nearest

+him attended to him, unbuttoned his coat, seated him on the raised

+platform of the cannon, and reproached those others (whoever they might

+be) who had crushed him.

+

+“One might easily get killed that way! What do they mean by it? Killing

+people! Poor dear, he’s as white as a sheet!”—various voices were heard

+saying.

+

+Pétya soon came to himself, the color returned to his face, the pain had

+passed, and at the cost of that temporary unpleasantness he had obtained

+a place by the cannon from where he hoped to see the Emperor who

+would be returning that way. Pétya no longer thought of presenting his

+petition. If he could only see the Emperor he would be happy!

+

+While the service was proceeding in the Cathedral of the Assumption—it

+was a combined service of prayer on the occasion of the Emperor’s

+arrival and of thanksgiving for the conclusion of peace with the

+Turks—the crowd outside spread out and hawkers appeared, selling kvas,

+gingerbread, and poppyseed sweets (of which Pétya was particularly

+fond), and ordinary conversation could again be heard. A tradesman’s

+wife was showing a rent in her shawl and telling how much the shawl had

+cost; another was saying that all silk goods had now got dear. The clerk

+who had rescued Pétya was talking to a functionary about the priests who

+were officiating that day with the bishop. The clerk several times used

+the word “plenary” (of the service), a word Pétya did not understand.

+Two young citizens were joking with some serf girls who were cracking

+nuts. All these conversations, especially the joking with the girls,

+were such as might have had a particular charm for Pétya at his age, but

+they did not interest him now. He sat on his elevation—the pedestal of

+the cannon—still agitated as before by the thought of the Emperor and by

+his love for him. The feeling of pain and fear he had experienced when

+he was being crushed, together with that of rapture, still further

+intensified his sense of the importance of the occasion.

+

+Suddenly the sound of a firing of cannon was heard from the embankment,

+to celebrate the signing of peace with the Turks, and the crowd rushed

+impetuously toward the embankment to watch the firing. Pétya too would

+have run there, but the clerk who had taken the young gentleman under

+his protection stopped him. The firing was still proceeding when

+officers, generals, and gentlemen-in-waiting came running out of the

+cathedral, and after them others in a more leisurely manner: caps were

+again raised, and those who had run to look at the cannon ran back

+again. At last four men in uniforms and sashes emerged from the

+cathedral doors. “Hurrah! hurrah!” shouted the crowd again.

+

+“Which is he? Which?” asked Pétya in a tearful voice, of those around

+him, but no one answered him, everybody was too excited; and Pétya,

+fixing on one of those four men, whom he could not clearly see for the

+tears of joy that filled his eyes, concentrated all his enthusiasm

+on him—though it happened not to be the Emperor—frantically shouted

+“Hurrah!” and resolved that tomorrow, come what might, he would join the

+army.

+

+The crowd ran after the Emperor, followed him to the palace, and began

+to disperse. It was already late, and Pétya had not eaten anything and

+was drenched with perspiration, yet he did not go home but stood with

+that diminishing, but still considerable, crowd before the palace while

+the Emperor dined—looking in at the palace windows, expecting he knew

+not what, and envying alike the notables he saw arriving at the entrance

+to dine with the Emperor and the court footmen who served at table,

+glimpses of whom could be seen through the windows.

+

+While the Emperor was dining, Valúev, looking out of the window, said:

+

+“The people are still hoping to see Your Majesty again.”

+

+The dinner was nearly over, and the Emperor, munching a biscuit, rose

+and went out onto the balcony. The people, with Pétya among them, rushed

+toward the balcony.

+

+“Angel! Dear one! Hurrah! Father!...” cried the crowd, and Pétya with

+it, and again the women and men of weaker mold, Pétya among them, wept

+with joy.

+

+A largish piece of the biscuit the Emperor was holding in his hand broke

+off, fell on the balcony parapet, and then to the ground. A coachman in

+a jerkin, who stood nearest, sprang forward and snatched it up. Several

+people in the crowd rushed at the coachman. Seeing this the Emperor had

+a plateful of biscuits brought him and began throwing them down from

+the balcony. Pétya’s eyes grew bloodshot, and still more excited by the

+danger of being crushed, he rushed at the biscuits. He did not know why,

+but he had to have a biscuit from the Tsar’s hand and he felt that he

+must not give way. He sprang forward and upset an old woman who was

+catching at a biscuit; the old woman did not consider herself defeated

+though she was lying on the ground—she grabbed at some biscuits but

+her hand did not reach them. Pétya pushed her hand away with his knee,

+seized a biscuit, and as if fearing to be too late, again shouted

+“Hurrah!” with a voice already hoarse.

+

+The Emperor went in, and after that the greater part of the crowd began

+to disperse.

+

+“There! I said if only we waited—and so it was!” was being joyfully said

+by various people.

+

+Happy as Pétya was, he felt sad at having to go home knowing that all

+the enjoyment of that day was over. He did not go straight home from

+the Krémlin, but called on his friend Obolénski, who was fifteen and was

+also entering the regiment. On returning home Pétya announced resolutely

+and firmly that if he was not allowed to enter the service he would

+run away. And next day, Count Ilyá Rostóv—though he had not yet quite

+yielded—went to inquire how he could arrange for Pétya to serve where

+there would be least danger.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXII

+

+Two days later, on the fifteenth of July, an immense number of carriages

+were standing outside the Slobóda Palace.

+

+The great halls were full. In the first were the nobility and gentry in

+their uniforms, in the second bearded merchants in full-skirted coats

+of blue cloth and wearing medals. In the noblemen’s hall there was

+an incessant movement and buzz of voices. The chief magnates sat on

+high-backed chairs at a large table under the portrait of the Emperor,

+but most of the gentry were strolling about the room.

+

+All these nobles, whom Pierre met every day at the Club or in their own

+houses, were in uniform—some in that of Catherine’s day, others in that

+of Emperor Paul, others again in the new uniforms of Alexander’s time or

+the ordinary uniform of the nobility, and the general characteristic

+of being in uniform imparted something strange and fantastic to these

+diverse and familiar personalities, both old and young. The old men,

+dim-eyed, toothless, bald, sallow, and bloated, or gaunt and wrinkled,

+were especially striking. For the most part they sat quietly in their

+places and were silent, or, if they walked about and talked, attached

+themselves to someone younger. On all these faces, as on the faces

+of the crowd Pétya had seen in the Square, there was a striking

+contradiction: the general expectation of a solemn event, and at the

+same time the everyday interests in a boston card party, Peter the cook,

+Zinaída Dmítrievna’s health, and so on.

+

+Pierre was there too, buttoned up since early morning in a nobleman’s

+uniform that had become too tight for him. He was agitated;

+this extraordinary gathering not only of nobles but also of the

+merchant-class—les états généraux (States-General)—evoked in him a whole

+series of ideas he had long laid aside but which were deeply graven in

+his soul: thoughts of the Contrat Social and the French Revolution. The

+words that had struck him in the Emperor’s appeal—that the sovereign was

+coming to the capital for consultation with his people—strengthened this

+idea. And imagining that in this direction something important which

+he had long awaited was drawing near, he strolled about watching and

+listening to conversations, but nowhere finding any confirmation of the

+ideas that occupied him.

+

+The Emperor’s manifesto was read, evoking enthusiasm, and then all moved

+about discussing it. Besides the ordinary topics of conversation, Pierre

+heard questions of where the marshals of the nobility were to stand when

+the Emperor entered, when a ball should be given in the Emperor’s

+honor, whether they should group themselves by districts or by whole

+provinces... and so on; but as soon as the war was touched on, or

+what the nobility had been convened for, the talk became undecided and

+indefinite. Then all preferred listening to speaking.

+

+A middle-aged man, handsome and virile, in the uniform of a retired

+naval officer, was speaking in one of the rooms, and a small crowd was

+pressing round him. Pierre went up to the circle that had formed round

+the speaker and listened. Count Ilyá Rostóv, in a military uniform of

+Catherine’s time, was sauntering with a pleasant smile among the crowd,

+with all of whom he was acquainted. He too approached that group and

+listened with a kindly smile and nods of approval, as he always did,

+to what the speaker was saying. The retired naval man was speaking very

+boldly, as was evident from the expression on the faces of the listeners

+and from the fact that some people Pierre knew as the meekest and

+quietest of men walked away disapprovingly or expressed disagreement

+with him. Pierre pushed his way into the middle of the group, listened,

+and convinced himself that the man was indeed a liberal, but of views

+quite different from his own. The naval officer spoke in a particularly

+sonorous, musical, and aristocratic baritone voice, pleasantly

+swallowing his r’s and generally slurring his consonants: the voice of

+a man calling out to his servant, “Heah! Bwing me my pipe!” It was

+indicative of dissipation and the exercise of authority.

+

+“What if the Smolénsk people have offahd to waise militia for the

+Empewah? Ah we to take Smolénsk as our patte’n? If the noble awistocwacy

+of the pwovince of Moscow thinks fit, it can show its loyalty to our

+sov’weign the Empewah in other ways. Have we fo’gotten the waising of

+the militia in the yeah ‘seven? All that did was to enwich the pwiests’

+sons and thieves and wobbahs....”

+

+Count Ilyá Rostóv smiled blandly and nodded approval.

+

+“And was our militia of any use to the Empia? Not at all! It only wuined

+our farming! Bettah have another conscwiption... o’ ou’ men will wetu’n

+neithah soldiers no’ peasants, and we’ll get only depwavity fwom them.

+The nobility don’t gwudge theah lives—evewy one of us will go and bwing

+in more wecwuits, and the sov’weign” (that was the way he referred to

+the Emperor) “need only say the word and we’ll all die fo’ him!” added

+the orator with animation.

+

+Count Rostóv’s mouth watered with pleasure and he nudged Pierre, but

+Pierre wanted to speak himself. He pushed forward, feeling stirred,

+but not yet sure what stirred him or what he would say. Scarcely had he

+opened his mouth when one of the senators, a man without a tooth in his

+head, with a shrewd though angry expression, standing near the first

+speaker, interrupted him. Evidently accustomed to managing debates and

+to maintaining an argument, he began in low but distinct tones:

+

+“I imagine, sir,” said he, mumbling with his toothless mouth, “that we

+have been summoned here not to discuss whether it’s best for the empire

+at the present moment to adopt conscription or to call out the militia.

+We have been summoned to reply to the appeal with which our sovereign

+the Emperor has honored us. But to judge what is best—conscription or

+the militia—we can leave to the supreme authority....”

+

+Pierre suddenly saw an outlet for his excitement. He hardened his heart

+against the senator who was introducing this set and narrow attitude

+into the deliberations of the nobility. Pierre stepped forward and

+interrupted him. He himself did not yet know what he would say, but he

+began to speak eagerly, occasionally lapsing into French or expressing

+himself in bookish Russian.

+

+“Excuse me, your excellency,” he began. (He was well acquainted with

+the senator, but thought it necessary on this occasion to address him

+formally.) “Though I don’t agree with the gentleman...” (he hesitated:

+he wished to say, “Mon très honorable préopinant”—“My very honorable

+opponent”) “with the gentleman... whom I have not the honor of knowing,

+I suppose that the nobility have been summoned not merely to express

+their sympathy and enthusiasm but also to consider the means by which

+we can assist our Fatherland! I imagine,” he went on, warming to his

+subject, “that the Emperor himself would not be satisfied to find in us

+merely owners of serfs whom we are willing to devote to his service, and

+chair à canon * we are ready to make of ourselves—and not to obtain from

+us any co-co-counsel.”

+

+    * “Food for cannon.”

+

+

+Many persons withdrew from the circle, noticing the senator’s sarcastic

+smile and the freedom of Pierre’s remarks. Only Count Rostóv was pleased

+with them as he had been pleased with those of the naval officer, the

+senator, and in general with whatever speech he had last heard.

+

+“I think that before discussing these questions,” Pierre continued, “we

+should ask the Emperor—most respectfully ask His Majesty—to let us know

+the number of our troops and the position in which our army and our

+forces now are, and then...”

+

+But scarcely had Pierre uttered these words before he was attacked from

+three sides. The most vigorous attack came from an old acquaintance,

+a boston player who had always been well disposed toward him, Stepán

+Stepánovich Adráksin. Adráksin was in uniform, and whether as a result

+of the uniform or from some other cause Pierre saw before him quite a

+different man. With a sudden expression of malevolence on his aged face,

+Adráksin shouted at Pierre:

+

+“In the first place, I tell you we have no right to question the Emperor

+about that, and secondly, if the Russian nobility had that right, the

+Emperor could not answer such a question. The troops are moved

+according to the enemy’s movements and the number of men increases and

+decreases....”

+

+Another voice, that of a nobleman of medium height and about forty years

+of age, whom Pierre had formerly met at the gypsies’ and knew as a bad

+cardplayer, and who, also transformed by his uniform, came up to Pierre,

+interrupted Adráksin.

+

+“Yes, and this is not a time for discussing,” he continued, “but for

+acting: there is war in Russia! The enemy is advancing to destroy

+Russia, to desecrate the tombs of our fathers, to carry off our wives

+and children.” The nobleman smote his breast. “We will all arise,

+everyone of us will go, for our father the Tsar!” he shouted, rolling

+his bloodshot eyes. Several approving voices were heard in the crowd.

+“We are Russians and will not grudge our blood in defense of our faith,

+the throne, and the Fatherland! We must cease raving if we are sons of

+our Fatherland! We will show Europe how Russia rises to the defense of

+Russia!”

+

+Pierre wished to reply, but could not get in a word. He felt that his

+words, apart from what meaning they conveyed, were less audible than the

+sound of his opponent’s voice.

+

+Count Rostóv at the back of the crowd was expressing approval; several

+persons, briskly turning a shoulder to the orator at the end of a

+phrase, said:

+

+“That’s right, quite right! Just so!”

+

+Pierre wished to say that he was ready to sacrifice his money, his

+serfs, or himself, only one ought to know the state of affairs in

+order to be able to improve it, but he was unable to speak. Many voices

+shouted and talked at the same time, so that Count Rostóv had not time

+to signify his approval of them all, and the group increased, dispersed,

+re-formed, and then moved with a hum of talk into the largest hall and

+to the big table. Not only was Pierre’s attempt to speak unsuccessful,

+but he was rudely interrupted, pushed aside, and people turned away

+from him as from a common enemy. This happened not because they were

+displeased by the substance of his speech, which had even been forgotten

+after the many subsequent speeches, but to animate it the crowd needed a

+tangible object to love and a tangible object to hate. Pierre became the

+latter. Many other orators spoke after the excited nobleman, and all in

+the same tone. Many spoke eloquently and with originality.

+

+Glínka, the editor of the Russian Messenger, who was recognized (cries

+of “author! author!” were heard in the crowd), said that “hell must be

+repulsed by hell,” and that he had seen a child smiling at lightning

+flashes and thunderclaps, but “we will not be that child.”

+

+“Yes, yes, at thunderclaps!” was repeated approvingly in the back rows

+of the crowd.

+

+The crowd drew up to the large table, at which sat gray-haired or bald

+seventy-year-old magnates, uniformed and besashed almost all of whom

+Pierre had seen in their own homes with their buffoons, or playing

+boston at the clubs. With an incessant hum of voices the crowd advanced

+to the table. Pressed by the throng against the high backs of the

+chairs, the orators spoke one after another and sometimes two together.

+Those standing behind noticed what a speaker omitted to say and hastened

+to supply it. Others in that heat and crush racked their brains to find

+some thought and hastened to utter it. The old magnates, whom Pierre

+knew, sat and turned to look first at one and then at another, and their

+faces for the most part only expressed the fact that they found it very

+hot. Pierre, however, felt excited, and the general desire to show that

+they were ready to go to all lengths—which found expression in the tones

+and looks more than in the substance of the speeches—infected him too.

+He did not renounce his opinions, but felt himself in some way to blame

+and wished to justify himself.

+

+“I only said that it would be more to the purpose to make sacrifices

+when we know what is needed!” said he, trying to be heard above the

+other voices.

+

+One of the old men nearest to him looked round, but his attention was

+immediately diverted by an exclamation at the other side of the table.

+

+“Yes, Moscow will be surrendered! She will be our expiation!” shouted

+one man.

+

+“He is the enemy of mankind!” cried another. “Allow me to speak....”

+“Gentlemen, you are crushing me!...”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIII

+

+At that moment Count Rostopchín with his protruding chin and alert eyes,

+wearing the uniform of a general with sash over his shoulder, entered

+the room, stepping briskly to the front of the crowd of gentry.

+

+“Our sovereign the Emperor will be here in a moment,” said Rostopchín.

+“I am straight from the palace. Seeing the position we are in, I think

+there is little need for discussion. The Emperor has deigned to summon

+us and the merchants. Millions will pour forth from there”—he pointed

+to the merchants’ hall—“but our business is to supply men and not spare

+ourselves.... That is the least we can do!”

+

+A conference took place confined to the magnates sitting at the table.

+The whole consultation passed more than quietly. After all the preceding

+noise the sound of their old voices saying one after another, “I

+agree,” or for variety, “I too am of that opinion,” and so on had even a

+mournful effect.

+

+The secretary was told to write down the resolution of the Moscow

+nobility and gentry, that they would furnish ten men, fully equipped,

+out of every thousand serfs, as the Smolénsk gentry had done. Their

+chairs made a scraping noise as the gentlemen who had conferred rose

+with apparent relief, and began walking up and down, arm in arm, to

+stretch their legs and converse in couples.

+

+“The Emperor! The Emperor!” a sudden cry resounded through the halls and

+the whole throng hurried to the entrance.

+

+The Emperor entered the hall through a broad path between two lines of

+nobles. Every face expressed respectful, awe-struck curiosity. Pierre

+stood rather far off and could not hear all that the Emperor said. From

+what he did hear he understood that the Emperor spoke of the danger

+threatening the empire and of the hopes he placed on the Moscow

+nobility. He was answered by a voice which informed him of the

+resolution just arrived at.

+

+“Gentlemen!” said the Emperor with a quivering voice.

+

+There was a rustling among the crowd and it again subsided, so that

+Pierre distinctly heard the pleasantly human voice of the Emperor saying

+with emotion:

+

+“I never doubted the devotion of the Russian nobles, but today it has

+surpassed my expectations. I thank you in the name of the Fatherland!

+Gentlemen, let us act! Time is most precious....”

+

+The Emperor ceased speaking, the crowd began pressing round him, and

+rapturous exclamations were heard from all sides.

+

+“Yes, most precious... a royal word,” said Count Rostóv, with a sob. He

+stood at the back, and, though he had heard hardly anything, understood

+everything in his own way.

+

+From the hall of the nobility the Emperor went to that of the merchants.

+There he remained about ten minutes. Pierre was among those who saw him

+come out from the merchants’ hall with tears of emotion in his eyes.

+As became known later, he had scarcely begun to address the merchants

+before tears gushed from his eyes and he concluded in a trembling

+voice. When Pierre saw the Emperor he was coming out accompanied by two

+merchants, one of whom Pierre knew, a fat otkupshchík. The other was

+the mayor, a man with a thin sallow face and narrow beard. Both were

+weeping. Tears filled the thin man’s eyes, and the fat otkupshchík

+sobbed outright like a child and kept repeating:

+

+“Our lives and property—take them, Your Majesty!”

+

+Pierre’s one feeling at the moment was a desire to show that he was

+ready to go all lengths and was prepared to sacrifice everything. He now

+felt ashamed of his speech with its constitutional tendency and sought

+an opportunity of effacing it. Having heard that Count Mamónov was

+furnishing a regiment, Bezúkhov at once informed Rostopchín that he

+would give a thousand men and their maintenance.

+

+Old Rostóv could not tell his wife of what had passed without tears, and

+at once consented to Pétya’s request and went himself to enter his name.

+

+Next day the Emperor left Moscow. The assembled nobles all took off

+their uniforms and settled down again in their homes and clubs, and not

+without some groans gave orders to their stewards about the enrollment,

+feeling amazed themselves at what they had done.

+

+

+

+

+

+BOOK TEN: 1812

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+Napoleon began the war with Russia because he could not resist going

+to Dresden, could not help having his head turned by the homage he

+received, could not help donning a Polish uniform and yielding to the

+stimulating influence of a June morning, and could not refrain from

+bursts of anger in the presence of Kurákin and then of Balashëv.

+

+Alexander refused negotiations because he felt himself to be personally

+insulted. Barclay de Tolly tried to command the army in the best

+way, because he wished to fulfill his duty and earn fame as a great

+commander. Rostóv charged the French because he could not restrain

+his wish for a gallop across a level field; and in the same way the

+innumerable people who took part in the war acted in accord with their

+personal characteristics, habits, circumstances, and aims. They were

+moved by fear or vanity, rejoiced or were indignant, reasoned, imagining

+that they knew what they were doing and did it of their own free will,

+but they all were involuntary tools of history, carrying on a work

+concealed from them but comprehensible to us. Such is the inevitable

+fate of men of action, and the higher they stand in the social hierarchy

+the less are they free.

+

+The actors of 1812 have long since left the stage, their personal

+interests have vanished leaving no trace, and nothing remains of that

+time but its historic results.

+

+Providence compelled all these men, striving to attain personal aims, to

+further the accomplishment of a stupendous result no one of them at all

+expected—neither Napoleon, nor Alexander, nor still less any of those

+who did the actual fighting.

+

+The cause of the destruction of the French army in 1812 is clear to us

+now. No one will deny that that cause was, on the one hand, its advance

+into the heart of Russia late in the season without any preparation for

+a winter campaign and, on the other, the character given to the war

+by the burning of Russian towns and the hatred of the foe this aroused

+among the Russian people. But no one at the time foresaw (what now seems

+so evident) that this was the only way an army of eight hundred thousand

+men—the best in the world and led by the best general—could be destroyed

+in conflict with a raw army of half its numerical strength, and led by

+inexperienced commanders as the Russian army was. Not only did no one

+see this, but on the Russian side every effort was made to hinder the

+only thing that could save Russia, while on the French side, despite

+Napoleon’s experience and so-called military genius, every effort was

+directed to pushing on to Moscow at the end of the summer, that is, to

+doing the very thing that was bound to lead to destruction.

+

+In historical works on the year 1812 French writers are very fond of

+saying that Napoleon felt the danger of extending his line, that he

+sought a battle and that his marshals advised him to stop at Smolénsk,

+and of making similar statements to show that the danger of the campaign

+was even then understood. Russian authors are still fonder of telling

+us that from the commencement of the campaign a Scythian war plan was

+adopted to lure Napoleon into the depths of Russia, and this plan some

+of them attribute to Pfuel, others to a certain Frenchman, others to

+Toll, and others again to Alexander himself—pointing to notes, projects,

+and letters which contain hints of such a line of action. But all these

+hints at what happened, both from the French side and the Russian, are

+advanced only because they fit in with the event. Had that event not

+occurred these hints would have been forgotten, as we have forgotten the

+thousands and millions of hints and expectations to the contrary

+which were current then but have now been forgotten because the event

+falsified them. There are always so many conjectures as to the issue of

+any event that however it may end there will always be people to say:

+“I said then that it would be so,” quite forgetting that amid their

+innumerable conjectures many were to quite the contrary effect.

+

+Conjectures as to Napoleon’s awareness of the danger of extending his

+line, and (on the Russian side) as to luring the enemy into the depths

+of Russia, are evidently of that kind, and only by much straining can

+historians attribute such conceptions to Napoleon and his marshals,

+or such plans to the Russian commanders. All the facts are in flat

+contradiction to such conjectures. During the whole period of the war

+not only was there no wish on the Russian side to draw the French

+into the heart of the country, but from their first entry into Russia

+everything was done to stop them. And not only was Napoleon not afraid

+to extend his line, but he welcomed every step forward as a triumph and

+did not seek battle as eagerly as in former campaigns, but very lazily.

+

+At the very beginning of the war our armies were divided, and our sole

+aim was to unite them, though uniting the armies was no advantage if we

+meant to retire and lure the enemy into the depths of the country. Our

+Emperor joined the army to encourage it to defend every inch of Russian

+soil and not to retreat. The enormous Drissa camp was formed on Pfuel’s

+plan, and there was no intention of retiring farther. The Emperor

+reproached the commanders in chief for every step they retired. He could

+not bear the idea of letting the enemy even reach Smolénsk, still less

+could he contemplate the burning of Moscow, and when our armies did

+unite he was displeased that Smolénsk was abandoned and burned without a

+general engagement having been fought under its walls.

+

+So thought the Emperor, and the Russian commanders and people were still

+more provoked at the thought that our forces were retreating into the

+depths of the country.

+

+Napoleon having cut our armies apart advanced far into the country and

+missed several chances of forcing an engagement. In August he was at

+Smolénsk and thought only of how to advance farther, though as we now

+see that advance was evidently ruinous to him.

+

+The facts clearly show that Napoleon did not foresee the danger of the

+advance on Moscow, nor did Alexander and the Russian commanders then

+think of luring Napoleon on, but quite the contrary. The luring of

+Napoleon into the depths of the country was not the result of any plan,

+for no one believed it to be possible; it resulted from a most complex

+interplay of intrigues, aims, and wishes among those who took part in

+the war and had no perception whatever of the inevitable, or of the one

+way of saving Russia. Everything came about fortuitously. The armies

+were divided at the commencement of the campaign. We tried to unite

+them, with the evident intention of giving battle and checking the

+enemy’s advance, and by this effort to unite them while avoiding battle

+with a much stronger enemy, and necessarily withdrawing the armies at

+an acute angle—we led the French on to Smolénsk. But we withdrew at an

+acute angle not only because the French advanced between our two armies;

+the angle became still more acute and we withdrew still farther, because

+Barclay de Tolly was an unpopular foreigner disliked by Bagratión (who

+would come under his command), and Bagratión—being in command of the

+second army—tried to postpone joining up and coming under Barclay’s

+command as long as he could. Bagratión was slow in effecting the

+junction—though that was the chief aim of all at headquarters—because,

+as he alleged, he exposed his army to danger on this march, and it was

+best for him to retire more to the left and more to the south, worrying

+the enemy from flank and rear and securing from the Ukraine recruits for

+his army; and it looks as if he planned this in order not to come under

+the command of the detested foreigner Barclay, whose rank was inferior

+to his own.

+

+The Emperor was with the army to encourage it, but his presence and

+ignorance of what steps to take, and the enormous number of advisers and

+plans, destroyed the first army’s energy and it retired.

+

+The intention was to make a stand at the Drissa camp, but Paulucci,

+aiming at becoming commander in chief, unexpectedly employed his energy

+to influence Alexander, and Pfuel’s whole plan was abandoned and the

+command entrusted to Barclay. But as Barclay did not inspire confidence

+his power was limited. The armies were divided, there was no unity of

+command, and Barclay was unpopular; but from this confusion, division,

+and the unpopularity of the foreign commander in chief, there resulted

+on the one hand indecision and the avoidance of a battle (which we could

+not have refrained from had the armies been united and had someone else,

+instead of Barclay, been in command) and on the other an ever-increasing

+indignation against the foreigners and an increase in patriotic zeal.

+

+At last the Emperor left the army, and as the most convenient and indeed

+the only pretext for his departure it was decided that it was necessary

+for him to inspire the people in the capitals and arouse the nation in

+general to a patriotic war. And by this visit of the Emperor to Moscow

+the strength of the Russian army was trebled.

+

+He left in order not to obstruct the commander in chief’s undivided

+control of the army, and hoping that more decisive action would then

+be taken, but the command of the armies became still more confused and

+enfeebled. Bennigsen, the Tsarévich, and a swarm of adjutants general

+remained with the army to keep the commander in chief under observation

+and arouse his energy, and Barclay, feeling less free than ever under

+the observation of all these “eyes of the Emperor,” became still more

+cautious of undertaking any decisive action and avoided giving battle.

+

+Barclay stood for caution. The Tsarévich hinted at treachery and

+demanded a general engagement. Lubomírski, Bronnítski, Wlocki, and the

+others of that group stirred up so much trouble that Barclay, under

+pretext of sending papers to the Emperor, dispatched these Polish

+adjutants general to Petersburg and plunged into an open struggle with

+Bennigsen and the Tsarévich.

+

+At Smolénsk the armies at last reunited, much as Bagratión disliked it.

+

+Bagratión drove up in a carriage to the house occupied by Barclay.

+Barclay donned his sash and came out to meet and report to his senior

+officer Bagratión.

+

+Despite his seniority in rank Bagratión, in this contest of magnanimity,

+took his orders from Barclay, but, having submitted, agreed with him

+less than ever. By the Emperor’s orders Bagratión reported direct to

+him. He wrote to Arakchéev, the Emperor’s confidant: “It must be as

+my sovereign pleases, but I cannot work with the Minister (meaning

+Barclay). For God’s sake send me somewhere else if only in command of

+a regiment. I cannot stand it here. Headquarters are so full of Germans

+that a Russian cannot exist and there is no sense in anything. I thought

+I was really serving my sovereign and the Fatherland, but it turns out

+that I am serving Barclay. I confess I do not want to.”

+

+The swarm of Bronnítskis and Wintzingerodes and their like still further

+embittered the relations between the commanders in chief, and even

+less unity resulted. Preparations were made to fight the French before

+Smolénsk. A general was sent to survey the position. This general,

+hating Barclay, rode to visit a friend of his own, a corps commander,

+and, having spent the day with him, returned to Barclay and condemned,

+as unsuitable from every point of view, the battleground he had not

+seen.

+

+While disputes and intrigues were going on about the future field of

+battle, and while we were looking for the French—having lost touch with

+them—the French stumbled upon Nevérovski’s division and reached the

+walls of Smolénsk.

+

+It was necessary to fight an unexpected battle at Smolénsk to save our

+lines of communication. The battle was fought and thousands were killed

+on both sides.

+

+Smolénsk was abandoned contrary to the wishes of the Emperor and of the

+whole people. But Smolénsk was burned by its own inhabitants who had

+been misled by their governor. And these ruined inhabitants, setting

+an example to other Russians, went to Moscow thinking only of their own

+losses but kindling hatred of the foe. Napoleon advanced farther and we

+retired, thus arriving at the very result which caused his destruction.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+The day after his son had left, Prince Nicholas sent for Princess Mary

+to come to his study.

+

+“Well? Are you satisfied now?” said he. “You’ve made me quarrel with my

+son! Satisfied, are you? That’s all you wanted! Satisfied?... It hurts

+me, it hurts. I’m old and weak and this is what you wanted. Well then,

+gloat over it! Gloat over it!”

+

+After that Princess Mary did not see her father for a whole week. He was

+ill and did not leave his study.

+

+Princess Mary noticed to her surprise that during this illness the

+old prince not only excluded her from his room, but did not admit

+Mademoiselle Bourienne either. Tíkhon alone attended him.

+

+At the end of the week the prince reappeared and resumed his former way

+of life, devoting himself with special activity to building operations

+and the arrangement of the gardens and completely breaking off his

+relations with Mademoiselle Bourienne. His looks and cold tone to his

+daughter seemed to say: “There, you see? You plotted against me, you

+lied to Prince Andrew about my relations with that Frenchwoman and made

+me quarrel with him, but you see I need neither her nor you!”

+

+Princess Mary spent half of every day with little Nicholas, watching

+his lessons, teaching him Russian and music herself, and talking to

+Dessalles; the rest of the day she spent over her books, with her old

+nurse, or with “God’s folk” who sometimes came by the back door to see

+her.

+

+Of the war Princess Mary thought as women do think about wars. She

+feared for her brother who was in it, was horrified by and amazed at

+the strange cruelty that impels men to kill one another, but she did not

+understand the significance of this war, which seemed to her like all

+previous wars. She did not realize the significance of this war, though

+Dessalles with whom she constantly conversed was passionately interested

+in its progress and tried to explain his own conception of it to her,

+and though the “God’s folk” who came to see her reported, in their own

+way, the rumors current among the people of an invasion by Antichrist,

+and though Julie (now Princess Drubetskáya), who had resumed

+correspondence with her, wrote patriotic letters from Moscow.

+

+“I write you in Russian, my good friend,” wrote Julie in her Frenchified

+Russian, “because I have a detestation for all the French, and the

+same for their language which I cannot support to hear spoken.... We in

+Moscow are elated by enthusiasm for our adored Emperor.

+

+“My poor husband is enduring pains and hunger in Jewish taverns, but the

+news which I have inspires me yet more.

+

+“You heard probably of the heroic exploit of Raévski, embracing his two

+sons and saying: ‘I will perish with them but we will not be shaken!’

+And truly though the enemy was twice stronger than we, we were

+unshakable. We pass the time as we can, but in war as in war! The

+princesses Aline and Sophie sit whole days with me, and we, unhappy

+widows of live men, make beautiful conversations over our charpie, only

+you, my friend, are missing...” and so on.

+

+The chief reason Princess Mary did not realize the full significance of

+this war was that the old prince never spoke of it, did not recognize

+it, and laughed at Dessalles when he mentioned it at dinner.

+The prince’s tone was so calm and confident that Princess Mary

+unhesitatingly believed him.

+

+All that July the old prince was exceedingly active and even animated.

+He planned another garden and began a new building for the domestic

+serfs. The only thing that made Princess Mary anxious about him was that

+he slept very little and, instead of sleeping in his study as usual,

+changed his sleeping place every day. One day he would order his camp

+bed to be set up in the glass gallery, another day he remained on the

+couch or on the lounge chair in the drawing room and dozed there without

+undressing, while—instead of Mademoiselle Bourienne—a serf boy read to

+him. Then again he would spend a night in the dining room.

+

+On August 1, a second letter was received from Prince Andrew. In his

+first letter which came soon after he had left home, Prince Andrew had

+dutifully asked his father’s forgiveness for what he had allowed himself

+to say and begged to be restored to his favor. To this letter the old

+prince had replied affectionately, and from that time had kept the

+Frenchwoman at a distance. Prince Andrew’s second letter, written near

+Vítebsk after the French had occupied that town, gave a brief account of

+the whole campaign, enclosed for them a plan he had drawn and forecasts

+as to the further progress of the war. In this letter Prince Andrew

+pointed out to his father the danger of staying at Bald Hills, so near

+the theater of war and on the army’s direct line of march, and advised

+him to move to Moscow.

+

+At dinner that day, on Dessalles’ mentioning that the French were said

+to have already entered Vítebsk, the old prince remembered his son’s

+letter.

+

+“There was a letter from Prince Andrew today,” he said to Princess

+Mary—“Haven’t you read it?”

+

+“No, Father,” she replied in a frightened voice.

+

+She could not have read the letter as she did not even know it had

+arrived.

+

+“He writes about this war,” said the prince, with the ironic smile that

+had become habitual to him in speaking of the present war.

+

+“That must be very interesting,” said Dessalles. “Prince Andrew is in a

+position to know...”

+

+“Oh, very interesting!” said Mademoiselle Bourienne.

+

+“Go and get it for me,” said the old prince to Mademoiselle Bourienne.

+“You know—under the paperweight on the little table.”

+

+Mademoiselle Bourienne jumped up eagerly.

+

+“No, don’t!” he exclaimed with a frown. “You go, Michael Ivánovich.”

+

+Michael Ivánovich rose and went to the study. But as soon as he had left

+the room the old prince, looking uneasily round, threw down his napkin

+and went himself.

+

+“They can’t do anything... always make some muddle,” he muttered.

+

+While he was away Princess Mary, Dessalles, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and

+even little Nicholas exchanged looks in silence. The old prince returned

+with quick steps, accompanied by Michael Ivánovich, bringing the letter

+and a plan. These he put down beside him—not letting anyone read them at

+dinner.

+

+On moving to the drawing room he handed the letter to Princess Mary and,

+spreading out before him the plan of the new building and fixing his

+eyes upon it, told her to read the letter aloud. When she had done so

+Princess Mary looked inquiringly at her father. He was examining the

+plan, evidently engrossed in his own ideas.

+

+“What do you think of it, Prince?” Dessalles ventured to ask.

+

+“I? I?...” said the prince as if unpleasantly awakened, and not taking

+his eyes from the plan of the building.

+

+“Very possibly the theater of war will move so near to us that...”

+

+“Ha ha ha! The theater of war!” said the prince. “I have said and still

+say that the theater of war is Poland and the enemy will never get

+beyond the Niemen.”

+

+Dessalles looked in amazement at the prince, who was talking of the

+Niemen when the enemy was already at the Dnieper, but Princess Mary,

+forgetting the geographical position of the Niemen, thought that what

+her father was saying was correct.

+

+“When the snow melts they’ll sink in the Polish swamps. Only they

+could fail to see it,” the prince continued, evidently thinking of the

+campaign of 1807 which seemed to him so recent. “Bennigsen should have

+advanced into Prussia sooner, then things would have taken a different

+turn...”

+

+“But, Prince,” Dessalles began timidly, “the letter mentions

+Vítebsk....”

+

+“Ah, the letter? Yes...” replied the prince peevishly. “Yes... yes...”

+His face suddenly took on a morose expression. He paused. “Yes, he

+writes that the French were beaten at... at... what river is it?”

+

+Dessalles dropped his eyes.

+

+“The prince says nothing about that,” he remarked gently.

+

+“Doesn’t he? But I didn’t invent it myself.”

+

+No one spoke for a long time.

+

+“Yes... yes... Well, Michael Ivánovich,” he suddenly went on, raising

+his head and pointing to the plan of the building, “tell me how you mean

+to alter it....”

+

+Michael Ivánovich went up to the plan, and the prince after speaking to

+him about the building looked angrily at Princess Mary and Dessalles and

+went to his own room.

+

+Princess Mary saw Dessalles’ embarrassed and astonished look fixed on

+her father, noticed his silence, and was struck by the fact that her

+father had forgotten his son’s letter on the drawing room table; but she

+was not only afraid to speak of it and ask Dessalles the reason of his

+confusion and silence, but was afraid even to think about it.

+

+In the evening Michael Ivánovich, sent by the prince, came to Princess

+Mary for Prince Andrew’s letter which had been forgotten in the drawing

+room. She gave it to him and, unpleasant as it was to her to do so,

+ventured to ask him what her father was doing.

+

+“Always busy,” replied Michael Ivánovich with a respectfully ironic

+smile which caused Princess Mary to turn pale. “He’s worrying very much

+about the new building. He has been reading a little, but now”—Michael

+Ivánovich went on, lowering his voice—“now he’s at his desk, busy with

+his will, I expect.” (One of the prince’s favorite occupations of late

+had been the preparation of some papers he meant to leave at his death

+and which he called his “will.”)

+

+“And Alpátych is being sent to Smolénsk?” asked Princess Mary.

+

+“Oh, yes, he has been waiting to start for some time.”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+When Michael Ivánovich returned to the study with the letter, the old

+prince, with spectacles on and a shade over his eyes, was sitting at his

+open bureau with screened candles, holding a paper in his outstretched

+hand, and in a somewhat dramatic attitude was reading his manuscript—his

+“Remarks” as he termed it—which was to be transmitted to the Emperor

+after his death.

+

+When Michael Ivánovich went in there were tears in the prince’s eyes

+evoked by the memory of the time when the paper he was now reading had

+been written. He took the letter from Michael Ivánovich’s hand, put it

+in his pocket, folded up his papers, and called in Alpátych who had long

+been waiting.

+

+The prince had a list of things to be bought in Smolénsk and, walking

+up and down the room past Alpátych who stood by the door, he gave his

+instructions.

+

+“First, notepaper—do you hear? Eight quires, like this sample,

+gilt-edged... it must be exactly like the sample. Varnish, sealing wax,

+as in Michael Ivánovich’s list.”

+

+He paced up and down for a while and glanced at his notes.

+

+“Then hand to the governor in person a letter about the deed.”

+

+Next, bolts for the doors of the new building were wanted and had to be

+of a special shape the prince had himself designed, and a leather case

+had to be ordered to keep the “will” in.

+

+The instructions to Alpátych took over two hours and still the prince

+did not let him go. He sat down, sank into thought, closed his eyes, and

+dozed off. Alpátych made a slight movement.

+

+“Well, go, go! If anything more is wanted I’ll send after you.”

+

+Alpátych went out. The prince again went to his bureau, glanced into it,

+fingered his papers, closed the bureau again, and sat down at the table

+to write to the governor.

+

+It was already late when he rose after sealing the letter. He wished

+to sleep, but he knew he would not be able to and that most depressing

+thoughts came to him in bed. So he called Tíkhon and went through the

+rooms with him to show him where to set up the bed for that night.

+

+He went about looking at every corner. Every place seemed

+unsatisfactory, but worst of all was his customary couch in the study.

+That couch was dreadful to him, probably because of the oppressive

+thoughts he had had when lying there. It was unsatisfactory everywhere,

+but the corner behind the piano in the sitting room was better than

+other places: he had never slept there yet.

+

+With the help of a footman Tíkhon brought in the bedstead and began

+putting it up.

+

+“That’s not right! That’s not right!” cried the prince, and himself

+pushed it a few inches from the corner and then closer in again.

+

+“Well, at last I’ve finished, now I’ll rest,” thought the prince, and

+let Tíkhon undress him.

+

+Frowning with vexation at the effort necessary to divest himself of his

+coat and trousers, the prince undressed, sat down heavily on the

+bed, and appeared to be meditating as he looked contemptuously at his

+withered yellow legs. He was not meditating, but only deferring the

+moment of making the effort to lift those legs up and turn over on the

+bed. “Ugh, how hard it is! Oh, that this toil might end and you would

+release me!” thought he. Pressing his lips together he made that effort

+for the twenty-thousandth time and lay down. But hardly had he done so

+before he felt the bed rocking backwards and forwards beneath him as if

+it were breathing heavily and jolting. This happened to him almost every

+night. He opened his eyes as they were closing.

+

+“No peace, damn them!” he muttered, angry he knew not with whom. “Ah

+yes, there was something else important, very important, that I was

+keeping till I should be in bed. The bolts? No, I told him about them.

+No, it was something, something in the drawing room. Princess Mary

+talked some nonsense. Dessalles, that fool, said something. Something in

+my pocket—can’t remember....”

+

+“Tíkhon, what did we talk about at dinner?”

+

+“About Prince Michael...”

+

+“Be quiet, quiet!” The prince slapped his hand on the table. “Yes, I

+know, Prince Andrew’s letter! Princess Mary read it. Dessalles said

+something about Vítebsk. Now I’ll read it.”

+

+He had the letter taken from his pocket and the table—on which stood a

+glass of lemonade and a spiral wax candle—moved close to the bed, and

+putting on his spectacles he began reading. Only now in the stillness of

+the night, reading it by the faint light under the green shade, did he

+grasp its meaning for a moment.

+

+“The French at Vítebsk, in four days’ march they may be at Smolénsk;

+perhaps are already there! Tíkhon!” Tíkhon jumped up. “No, no, I don’t

+want anything!” he shouted.

+

+He put the letter under the candlestick and closed his eyes. And there

+rose before him the Danube at bright noonday: reeds, the Russian

+camp, and himself a young general without a wrinkle on his ruddy face,

+vigorous and alert, entering Potëmkin’s gaily colored tent, and a

+burning sense of jealousy of “the favorite” agitated him now as strongly

+as it had done then. He recalled all the words spoken at that

+first meeting with Potëmkin. And he saw before him a plump, rather

+sallow-faced, short, stout woman, the Empress Mother, with her smile

+and her words at her first gracious reception of him, and then that same

+face on the catafalque, and the encounter he had with Zúbov over her

+coffin about his right to kiss her hand.

+

+“Oh, quicker, quicker! To get back to that time and have done with all

+the present! Quicker, quicker—and that they should leave me in peace!”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Bolkónski’s estate, lay forty miles east

+from Smolénsk and two miles from the main road to Moscow.

+

+The same evening that the prince gave his instructions to Alpátych,

+Dessalles, having asked to see Princess Mary, told her that, as the

+prince was not very well and was taking no steps to secure his safety,

+though from Prince Andrew’s letter it was evident that to remain at Bald

+Hills might be dangerous, he respectfully advised her to send a letter

+by Alpátych to the Provincial Governor at Smolénsk, asking him to let

+her know the state of affairs and the extent of the danger to which

+Bald Hills was exposed. Dessalles wrote this letter to the Governor

+for Princess Mary, she signed it, and it was given to Alpátych with

+instructions to hand it to the Governor and to come back as quickly as

+possible if there was danger.

+

+Having received all his orders Alpátych, wearing a white beaver hat—a

+present from the prince—and carrying a stick as the prince did, went out

+accompanied by his family. Three well-fed roans stood ready harnessed to

+a small conveyance with a leather hood.

+

+The larger bell was muffled and the little bells on the harness stuffed

+with paper. The prince allowed no one at Bald Hills to drive with

+ringing bells; but on a long journey Alpátych liked to have them. His

+satellites—the senior clerk, a countinghouse clerk, a scullery maid,

+a cook, two old women, a little pageboy, the coachman, and various

+domestic serfs—were seeing him off.

+

+His daughter placed chintz-covered down cushions for him to sit on and

+behind his back. His old sister-in-law popped in a small bundle, and one

+of the coachmen helped him into the vehicle.

+

+“There! There! Women’s fuss! Women, women!” said Alpátych, puffing and

+speaking rapidly just as the prince did, and he climbed into the trap.

+

+After giving the clerk orders about the work to be done, Alpátych, not

+trying to imitate the prince now, lifted the hat from his bald head and

+crossed himself three times.

+

+“If there is anything... come back, Yákov Alpátych! For Christ’s sake

+think of us!” cried his wife, referring to the rumors of war and the

+enemy.

+

+“Women, women! Women’s fuss!” muttered Alpátych to himself and started

+on his journey, looking round at the fields of yellow rye and the

+still-green, thickly growing oats, and at other quite black fields just

+being plowed a second time.

+

+As he went along he looked with pleasure at the year’s splendid crop

+of corn, scrutinized the strips of ryefield which here and there were

+already being reaped, made his calculations as to the sowing and the

+harvest, and asked himself whether he had not forgotten any of the

+prince’s orders.

+

+Having baited the horses twice on the way, he arrived at the town toward

+evening on the fourth of August.

+

+Alpátych kept meeting and overtaking baggage trains and troops on the

+road. As he approached Smolénsk he heard the sounds of distant firing,

+but these did not impress him. What struck him most was the sight of a

+splendid field of oats in which a camp had been pitched and which

+was being mown down by the soldiers, evidently for fodder. This fact

+impressed Alpátych, but in thinking about his own business he soon

+forgot it.

+

+All the interests of his life for more than thirty years had been

+bounded by the will of the prince, and he never went beyond that limit.

+Everything not connected with the execution of the prince’s orders did

+not interest and did not even exist for Alpátych.

+

+On reaching Smolénsk on the evening of the fourth of August he put up

+in the Gáchina suburb across the Dnieper, at the inn kept by Ferapóntov,

+where he had been in the habit of putting up for the last thirty years.

+Some thirty years ago Ferapóntov, by Alpátych’s advice, had bought a

+wood from the prince, had begun to trade, and now had a house, an

+inn, and a corn dealer’s shop in that province. He was a stout, dark,

+red-faced peasant in the forties, with thick lips, a broad knob of a

+nose, similar knobs over his black frowning brows, and a round belly.

+

+Wearing a waistcoat over his cotton shirt, Ferapóntov was standing

+before his shop which opened onto the street. On seeing Alpátych he went

+up to him.

+

+“You’re welcome, Yákov Alpátych. Folks are leaving the town, but you

+have come to it,” said he.

+

+“Why are they leaving the town?” asked Alpátych.

+

+“That’s what I say. Folks are foolish! Always afraid of the French.”

+

+“Women’s fuss, women’s fuss!” said Alpátych.

+

+“Just what I think, Yákov Alpátych. What I say is: orders have been

+given not to let them in, so that must be right. And the peasants are

+asking three rubles for carting—it isn’t Christian!”

+

+Yákov Alpátych heard without heeding. He asked for a samovar and for hay

+for his horses, and when he had had his tea he went to bed.

+

+All night long troops were moving past the inn. Next morning Alpátych

+donned a jacket he wore only in town and went out on business. It was a

+sunny morning and by eight o’clock it was already hot. “A good day for

+harvesting,” thought Alpátych.

+

+From beyond the town firing had been heard since early morning. At eight

+o’clock the booming of cannon was added to the sound of musketry. Many

+people were hurrying through the streets and there were many soldiers,

+but cabs were still driving about, tradesmen stood at their shops, and

+service was being held in the churches as usual. Alpátych went to the

+shops, to government offices, to the post office, and to the Governor’s.

+In the offices and shops and at the post office everyone was talking

+about the army and about the enemy who was already attacking the town,

+everybody was asking what should be done, and all were trying to calm

+one another.

+

+In front of the Governor’s house Alpátych found a large number of

+people, Cossacks, and a traveling carriage of the Governor’s. At the

+porch he met two of the landed gentry, one of whom he knew. This man, an

+ex-captain of police, was saying angrily:

+

+“It’s no joke, you know! It’s all very well if you’re single. ‘One man

+though undone is but one,’ as the proverb says, but with thirteen in

+your family and all the property... They’ve brought us to utter ruin!

+What sort of governors are they to do that? They ought to be hanged—the

+brigands!...”

+

+“Oh come, that’s enough!” said the other.

+

+“What do I care? Let him hear! We’re not dogs,” said the ex-captain of

+police, and looking round he noticed Alpátych.

+

+“Oh, Yákov Alpátych! What have you come for?”

+

+“To see the Governor by his excellency’s order,” answered Alpátych,

+lifting his head and proudly thrusting his hand into the bosom of his

+coat as he always did when he mentioned the prince.... “He has ordered

+me to inquire into the position of affairs,” he added.

+

+“Yes, go and find out!” shouted the angry gentleman. “They’ve brought

+things to such a pass that there are no carts or anything!... There it

+is again, do you hear?” said he, pointing in the direction whence came

+the sounds of firing.

+

+“They’ve brought us all to ruin... the brigands!” he repeated, and

+descended the porch steps.

+

+Alpátych swayed his head and went upstairs. In the waiting room were

+tradesmen, women, and officials, looking silently at one another. The

+door of the Governor’s room opened and they all rose and moved forward.

+An official ran out, said some words to a merchant, called a stout

+official with a cross hanging on his neck to follow him, and vanished

+again, evidently wishing to avoid the inquiring looks and questions

+addressed to him. Alpátych moved forward and next time the official came

+out addressed him, one hand placed in the breast of his buttoned coat,

+and handed him two letters.

+

+“To his Honor Baron Asch, from General-in-Chief Prince Bolkónski,” he

+announced with such solemnity and significance that the official turned

+to him and took the letters.

+

+A few minutes later the Governor received Alpátych and hurriedly said to

+him:

+

+“Inform the prince and princess that I knew nothing: I acted on the

+highest instructions—here...” and he handed a paper to Alpátych. “Still,

+as the prince is unwell my advice is that they should go to Moscow. I am

+just starting myself. Inform them...”

+

+But the Governor did not finish: a dusty perspiring officer ran into the

+room and began to say something in French. The Governor’s face expressed

+terror.

+

+“Go,” he said, nodding his head to Alpátych, and began questioning the

+officer.

+

+Eager, frightened, helpless glances were turned on Alpátych when he came

+out of the Governor’s room. Involuntarily listening now to the firing,

+which had drawn nearer and was increasing in strength, Alpátych hurried

+to his inn. The paper handed to him by the Governor said this:

+

+“I assure you that the town of Smolénsk is not in the slightest danger

+as yet and it is unlikely that it will be threatened with any. I from

+the one side and Prince Bagratión from the other are marching to unite

+our forces before Smolénsk, which junction will be effected on the

+22nd instant, and both armies with their united forces will defend our

+compatriots of the province entrusted to your care till our efforts

+shall have beaten back the enemies of our Fatherland, or till the last

+warrior in our valiant ranks has perished. From this you will see that

+you have a perfect right to reassure the inhabitants of Smolénsk, for

+those defended by two such brave armies may feel assured of victory.”

+(Instructions from Barclay de Tolly to Baron Asch, the civil governor of

+Smolénsk, 1812.)

+

+People were anxiously roaming about the streets.

+

+Carts piled high with household utensils, chairs, and cupboards kept

+emerging from the gates of the yards and moving along the streets.

+Loaded carts stood at the house next to Ferapóntov’s and women were

+wailing and lamenting as they said good-by. A small watchdog ran round

+barking in front of the harnessed horses.

+

+Alpátych entered the innyard at a quicker pace than usual and went

+straight to the shed where his horses and trap were. The coachman was

+asleep. He woke him up, told him to harness, and went into the passage.

+From the host’s room came the sounds of a child crying, the despairing

+sobs of a woman, and the hoarse angry shouting of Ferapóntov. The cook

+began running hither and thither in the passage like a frightened hen,

+just as Alpátych entered.

+

+“He’s done her to death. Killed the mistress!... Beat her... dragged her

+about so!...”

+

+“What for?” asked Alpátych.

+

+“She kept begging to go away. She’s a woman! ‘Take me away,’ says she,

+‘don’t let me perish with my little children! Folks,’ she says, ‘are all

+gone, so why,’ she says, ‘don’t we go?’ And he began beating and pulling

+her about so!”

+

+At these words Alpátych nodded as if in approval, and not wishing to

+hear more went to the door of the room opposite the innkeeper’s, where

+he had left his purchases.

+

+“You brute, you murderer!” screamed a thin, pale woman who, with a baby

+in her arms and her kerchief torn from her head, burst through the door

+at that moment and down the steps into the yard.

+

+Ferapóntov came out after her, but on seeing Alpátych adjusted his

+waistcoat, smoothed his hair, yawned, and followed Alpátych into the

+opposite room.

+

+“Going already?” said he.

+

+Alpátych, without answering or looking at his host, sorted his packages

+and asked how much he owed.

+

+“We’ll reckon up! Well, have you been to the Governor’s?” asked

+Ferapóntov. “What has been decided?”

+

+Alpátych replied that the Governor had not told him anything definite.

+

+“With our business, how can we get away?” said Ferapóntov. “We’d have

+to pay seven rubles a cartload to Dorogobúzh and I tell them they’re

+not Christians to ask it! Selivánov, now, did a good stroke last

+Thursday—sold flour to the army at nine rubles a sack. Will you have

+some tea?” he added.

+

+While the horses were being harnessed Alpátych and Ferapóntov over their

+tea talked of the price of corn, the crops, and the good weather for

+harvesting.

+

+“Well, it seems to be getting quieter,” remarked Ferapóntov, finishing

+his third cup of tea and getting up. “Ours must have got the best of it.

+The orders were not to let them in. So we’re in force, it seems....

+They say the other day Matthew Iványch Plátov drove them into the river

+Márina and drowned some eighteen thousand in one day.”

+

+Alpátych collected his parcels, handed them to the coachman who had come

+in, and settled up with the innkeeper. The noise of wheels, hoofs, and

+bells was heard from the gateway as a little trap passed out.

+

+It was by now late in the afternoon. Half the street was in shadow, the

+other half brightly lit by the sun. Alpátych looked out of the window

+and went to the door. Suddenly the strange sound of a far-off whistling

+and thud was heard, followed by a boom of cannon blending into a dull

+roar that set the windows rattling.

+

+He went out into the street: two men were running past toward the

+bridge. From different sides came whistling sounds and the thud of

+cannon balls and bursting shells falling on the town. But these sounds

+were hardly heard in comparison with the noise of the firing outside the

+town and attracted little attention from the inhabitants. The town was

+being bombarded by a hundred and thirty guns which Napoleon had ordered

+up after four o’clock. The people did not at once realize the meaning of

+this bombardment.

+

+At first the noise of the falling bombs and shells only aroused

+curiosity. Ferapóntov’s wife, who till then had not ceased wailing under

+the shed, became quiet and with the baby in her arms went to the gate,

+listening to the sounds and looking in silence at the people.

+

+The cook and a shop assistant came to the gate. With lively curiosity

+everyone tried to get a glimpse of the projectiles as they flew over

+their heads. Several people came round the corner talking eagerly.

+

+“What force!” remarked one. “Knocked the roof and ceiling all to

+splinters!”

+

+“Routed up the earth like a pig,” said another.

+

+“That’s grand, it bucks one up!” laughed the first. “Lucky you jumped

+aside, or it would have wiped you out!”

+

+Others joined those men and stopped and told how cannon balls had fallen

+on a house close to them. Meanwhile still more projectiles, now with

+the swift sinister whistle of a cannon ball, now with the agreeable

+intermittent whistle of a shell, flew over people’s heads incessantly,

+but not one fell close by, they all flew over. Alpátych was getting into

+his trap. The innkeeper stood at the gate.

+

+“What are you staring at?” he shouted to the cook, who in her red skirt,

+with sleeves rolled up, swinging her bare elbows, had stepped to the

+corner to listen to what was being said.

+

+“What marvels!” she exclaimed, but hearing her master’s voice she turned

+back, pulling down her tucked-up skirt.

+

+Once more something whistled, but this time quite close, swooping

+downwards like a little bird; a flame flashed in the middle of the

+street, something exploded, and the street was shrouded in smoke.

+

+“Scoundrel, what are you doing?” shouted the innkeeper, rushing to the

+cook.

+

+At that moment the pitiful wailing of women was heard from different

+sides, the frightened baby began to cry, and people crowded silently

+with pale faces round the cook. The loudest sound in that crowd was her

+wailing.

+

+“Oh-h-h! Dear souls, dear kind souls! Don’t let me die! My good

+souls!...”

+

+Five minutes later no one remained in the street. The cook, with her

+thigh broken by a shell splinter, had been carried into the kitchen.

+Alpátych, his coachman, Ferapóntov’s wife and children and the house

+porter were all sitting in the cellar, listening. The roar of guns, the

+whistling of projectiles, and the piteous moaning of the cook, which

+rose above the other sounds, did not cease for a moment. The mistress

+rocked and hushed her baby and when anyone came into the cellar asked

+in a pathetic whisper what had become of her husband who had remained

+in the street. A shopman who entered told her that her husband had

+gone with others to the cathedral, whence they were fetching the

+wonder-working icon of Smolénsk.

+

+Toward dusk the cannonade began to subside. Alpátych left the cellar

+and stopped in the doorway. The evening sky that had been so clear was

+clouded with smoke, through which, high up, the sickle of the new moon

+shone strangely. Now that the terrible din of the guns had ceased a hush

+seemed to reign over the town, broken only by the rustle of footsteps,

+the moaning, the distant cries, and the crackle of fires which seemed

+widespread everywhere. The cook’s moans had now subsided. On two sides

+black curling clouds of smoke rose and spread from the fires. Through

+the streets soldiers in various uniforms walked or ran confusedly in

+different directions like ants from a ruined ant-hill. Several of them

+ran into Ferapóntov’s yard before Alpátych’s eyes. Alpátych went out

+to the gate. A retreating regiment, thronging and hurrying, blocked the

+street.

+

+Noticing him, an officer said: “The town is being abandoned. Get away,

+get away!” and then, turning to the soldiers, shouted:

+

+“I’ll teach you to run into the yards!”

+

+Alpátych went back to the house, called the coachman, and told him to

+set off. Ferapóntov’s whole household came out too, following Alpátych

+and the coachman. The women, who had been silent till then, suddenly

+began to wail as they looked at the fires—the smoke and even the flames

+of which could be seen in the failing twilight—and as if in reply the

+same kind of lamentation was heard from other parts of the street.

+Inside the shed Alpátych and the coachman arranged the tangled reins and

+traces of their horses with trembling hands.

+

+As Alpátych was driving out of the gate he saw some ten soldiers in

+Ferapóntov’s open shop, talking loudly and filling their bags and

+knapsacks with flour and sunflower seeds. Just then Ferapóntov returned

+and entered his shop. On seeing the soldiers he was about to shout at

+them, but suddenly stopped and, clutching at his hair, burst into sobs

+and laughter:

+

+“Loot everything, lads! Don’t let those devils get it!” he cried, taking

+some bags of flour himself and throwing them into the street.

+

+Some of the soldiers were frightened and ran away, others went on

+filling their bags. On seeing Alpátych, Ferapóntov turned to him:

+

+“Russia is done for!” he cried. “Alpátych, I’ll set the place on fire

+myself. We’re done for!...” and Ferapóntov ran into the yard.

+

+Soldiers were passing in a constant stream along the street blocking

+it completely, so that Alpátych could not pass out and had to wait.

+Ferapóntov’s wife and children were also sitting in a cart waiting till

+it was possible to drive out.

+

+Night had come. There were stars in the sky and the new moon shone out

+amid the smoke that screened it. On the sloping descent to the Dnieper

+Alpátych’s cart and that of the innkeeper’s wife, which were slowly

+moving amid the rows of soldiers and of other vehicles, had to stop.

+In a side street near the crossroads where the vehicles had stopped, a

+house and some shops were on fire. This fire was already burning itself

+out. The flames now died down and were lost in the black smoke, now

+suddenly flared up again brightly, lighting up with strange distinctness

+the faces of the people crowding at the crossroads. Black figures

+flitted about before the fire, and through the incessant crackling of

+the flames talking and shouting could be heard. Seeing that his trap

+would not be able to move on for some time, Alpátych got down and turned

+into the side street to look at the fire. Soldiers were continually

+rushing backwards and forwards near it, and he saw two of them and a

+man in a frieze coat dragging burning beams into another yard across the

+street, while others carried bundles of hay.

+

+Alpátych went up to a large crowd standing before a high barn which was

+blazing briskly. The walls were all on fire and the back wall had fallen

+in, the wooden roof was collapsing, and the rafters were alight. The

+crowd was evidently watching for the roof to fall in, and Alpátych

+watched for it too.

+

+“Alpátych!” a familiar voice suddenly hailed the old man.

+

+“Mercy on us! Your excellency!” answered Alpátych, immediately

+recognizing the voice of his young prince.

+

+Prince Andrew in his riding cloak, mounted on a black horse, was looking

+at Alpátych from the back of the crowd.

+

+“Why are you here?” he asked.

+

+“Your... your excellency,” stammered Alpátych and broke into sobs. “Are

+we really lost? Master!...”

+

+“Why are you here?” Prince Andrew repeated.

+

+At that moment the flames flared up and showed his young master’s pale

+worn face. Alpátych told how he had been sent there and how difficult it

+was to get away.

+

+“Are we really quite lost, your excellency?” he asked again.

+

+Prince Andrew without replying took out a notebook and raising his knee

+began writing in pencil on a page he tore out. He wrote to his sister:

+

+“Smolénsk is being abandoned. Bald Hills will be occupied by the enemy

+within a week. Set off immediately for Moscow. Let me know at once when

+you will start. Send by special messenger to Usvyázh.”

+

+Having written this and given the paper to Alpátych, he told him how

+to arrange for departure of the prince, the princess, his son, and the

+boy’s tutor, and how and where to let him know immediately. Before

+he had had time to finish giving these instructions, a chief of staff

+followed by a suite galloped up to him.

+

+“You are a colonel?” shouted the chief of staff with a German accent,

+in a voice familiar to Prince Andrew. “Houses are set on fire in your

+presence and you stand by! What does this mean? You will answer for

+it!” shouted Berg, who was now assistant to the chief of staff of the

+commander of the left flank of the infantry of the first army, a place,

+as Berg said, “very agreeable and well en évidence.”

+

+Prince Andrew looked at him and without replying went on speaking to

+Alpátych.

+

+“So tell them that I shall await a reply till the tenth, and if by the

+tenth I don’t receive news that they have all got away I shall have to

+throw up everything and come myself to Bald Hills.”

+

+“Prince,” said Berg, recognizing Prince Andrew, “I only spoke because

+I have to obey orders, because I always do obey exactly.... You must

+please excuse me,” he went on apologetically.

+

+Something cracked in the flames. The fire died down for a moment and

+wreaths of black smoke rolled from under the roof. There was another

+terrible crash and something huge collapsed.

+

+“Ou-rou-rou!” yelled the crowd, echoing the crash of the collapsing roof

+of the barn, the burning grain in which diffused a cakelike aroma all

+around. The flames flared up again, lighting the animated, delighted,

+exhausted faces of the spectators.

+

+The man in the frieze coat raised his arms and shouted:

+

+“It’s fine, lads! Now it’s raging... It’s fine!”

+

+“That’s the owner himself,” cried several voices.

+

+“Well then,” continued Prince Andrew to Alpátych, “report to them as I

+have told you”; and not replying a word to Berg who was now mute beside

+him, he touched his horse and rode down the side street.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+From Smolénsk the troops continued to retreat, followed by the enemy.

+On the tenth of August the regiment Prince Andrew commanded was marching

+along the highroad past the avenue leading to Bald Hills. Heat and

+drought had continued for more than three weeks. Each day fleecy clouds

+floated across the sky and occasionally veiled the sun, but toward

+evening the sky cleared again and the sun set in reddish-brown mist.

+Heavy night dews alone refreshed the earth. The unreaped corn was

+scorched and shed its grain. The marshes dried up. The cattle lowed from

+hunger, finding no food on the sun-parched meadows. Only at night and

+in the forests while the dew lasted was there any freshness. But on the

+road, the highroad along which the troops marched, there was no such

+freshness even at night or when the road passed through the forest; the

+dew was imperceptible on the sandy dust churned up more than six inches

+deep. As soon as day dawned the march began. The artillery and baggage

+wagons moved noiselessly through the deep dust that rose to the very

+hubs of the wheels, and the infantry sank ankle-deep in that soft,

+choking, hot dust that never cooled even at night. Some of this dust

+was kneaded by the feet and wheels, while the rest rose and hung like a

+cloud over the troops, settling in eyes, ears, hair, and nostrils, and

+worst of all in the lungs of the men and beasts as they moved along that

+road. The higher the sun rose the higher rose that cloud of dust, and

+through the screen of its hot fine particles one could look with naked

+eye at the sun, which showed like a huge crimson ball in the unclouded

+sky. There was no wind, and the men choked in that motionless

+atmosphere. They marched with handkerchiefs tied over their noses and

+mouths. When they passed through a village they all rushed to the wells

+and fought for the water and drank it down to the mud.

+

+Prince Andrew was in command of a regiment, and the management of that

+regiment, the welfare of the men and the necessity of receiving

+and giving orders, engrossed him. The burning of Smolénsk and its

+abandonment made an epoch in his life. A novel feeling of anger against

+the foe made him forget his own sorrow. He was entirely devoted to the

+affairs of his regiment and was considerate and kind to his men and

+officers. In the regiment they called him “our prince,” were proud

+of him and loved him. But he was kind and gentle only to those of his

+regiment, to Timókhin and the like—people quite new to him, belonging

+to a different world and who could not know and understand his past. As

+soon as he came across a former acquaintance or anyone from the

+staff, he bristled up immediately and grew spiteful, ironical, and

+contemptuous. Everything that reminded him of his past was repugnant to

+him, and so in his relations with that former circle he confined himself

+to trying to do his duty and not to be unfair.

+

+In truth everything presented itself in a dark and gloomy light to

+Prince Andrew, especially after the abandonment of Smolénsk on the sixth

+of August (he considered that it could and should have been defended)

+and after his sick father had had to flee to Moscow, abandoning to

+pillage his dearly beloved Bald Hills which he had built and peopled.

+But despite this, thanks to his regiment, Prince Andrew had something to

+think about entirely apart from general questions. Two days previously

+he had received news that his father, son, and sister had left for

+Moscow; and though there was nothing for him to do at Bald Hills, Prince

+Andrew with a characteristic desire to foment his own grief decided that

+he must ride there.

+

+He ordered his horse to be saddled and, leaving his regiment on the

+march, rode to his father’s estate where he had been born and spent his

+childhood. Riding past the pond where there used always to be dozens

+of women chattering as they rinsed their linen or beat it with wooden

+beetles, Prince Andrew noticed that there was not a soul about and that

+the little washing wharf, torn from its place and half submerged, was

+floating on its side in the middle of the pond. He rode to the keeper’s

+lodge. No one at the stone entrance gates of the drive and the door

+stood open. Grass had already begun to grow on the garden paths, and

+horses and calves were straying in the English park. Prince Andrew rode

+up to the hothouse; some of the glass panes were broken, and of the

+trees in tubs some were overturned and others dried up. He called for

+Tarás the gardener, but no one replied. Having gone round the corner

+of the hothouse to the ornamental garden, he saw that the carved garden

+fence was broken and branches of the plum trees had been torn off with

+the fruit. An old peasant whom Prince Andrew in his childhood had often

+seen at the gate was sitting on a green garden seat, plaiting a bast

+shoe.

+

+He was deaf and did not hear Prince Andrew ride up. He was sitting on

+the seat the old prince used to like to sit on, and beside him strips of

+bast were hanging on the broken and withered branch of a magnolia.

+

+Prince Andrew rode up to the house. Several limes in the old garden had

+been cut down and a piebald mare and her foal were wandering in front of

+the house among the rosebushes. The shutters were all closed, except at

+one window which was open. A little serf boy, seeing Prince Andrew, ran

+into the house. Alpátych, having sent his family away, was alone at

+Bald Hills and was sitting indoors reading the Lives of the Saints. On

+hearing that Prince Andrew had come, he went out with his spectacles on

+his nose, buttoning his coat, and, hastily stepping up, without a word

+began weeping and kissing Prince Andrew’s knee.

+

+Then, vexed at his own weakness, he turned away and began to report

+on the position of affairs. Everything precious and valuable had been

+removed to Boguchárovo. Seventy quarters of grain had also been carted

+away. The hay and the spring corn, of which Alpátych said there had been

+a remarkable crop that year, had been commandeered by the troops and

+mown down while still green. The peasants were ruined; some of them too

+had gone to Boguchárovo, only a few remained.

+

+Without waiting to hear him out, Prince Andrew asked:

+

+“When did my father and sister leave?” meaning when did they leave for

+Moscow.

+

+Alpátych, understanding the question to refer to their departure for

+Boguchárovo, replied that they had left on the seventh and again went

+into details concerning the estate management, asking for instructions.

+

+“Am I to let the troops have the oats, and to take a receipt for them?

+We have still six hundred quarters left,” he inquired.

+

+“What am I to say to him?” thought Prince Andrew, looking down on the

+old man’s bald head shining in the sun and seeing by the expression on

+his face that the old man himself understood how untimely such questions

+were and only asked them to allay his grief.

+

+“Yes, let them have it,” replied Prince Andrew.

+

+“If you noticed some disorder in the garden,” said Alpátych, “it was

+impossible to prevent it. Three regiments have been here and spent

+the night, dragoons mostly. I took down the name and rank of their

+commanding officer, to hand in a complaint about it.”

+

+“Well, and what are you going to do? Will you stay here if the enemy

+occupies the place?” asked Prince Andrew.

+

+Alpátych turned his face to Prince Andrew, looked at him, and suddenly

+with a solemn gesture raised his arm.

+

+“He is my refuge! His will be done!” he exclaimed.

+

+A group of bareheaded peasants was approaching across the meadow toward

+the prince.

+

+“Well, good-by!” said Prince Andrew, bending over to Alpátych. “You

+must go away too, take away what you can and tell the serfs to go to the

+Ryazán estate or to the one near Moscow.”

+

+Alpátych clung to Prince Andrew’s leg and burst into sobs. Gently

+disengaging himself, the prince spurred his horse and rode down the

+avenue at a gallop.

+

+The old man was still sitting in the ornamental garden, like a fly

+impassive on the face of a loved one who is dead, tapping the last on

+which he was making the bast shoe, and two little girls, running out

+from the hot house carrying in their skirts plums they had plucked from

+the trees there, came upon Prince Andrew. On seeing the young master,

+the elder one with frightened look clutched her younger companion by the

+hand and hid with her behind a birch tree, not stopping to pick up some

+green plums they had dropped.

+

+Prince Andrew turned away with startled haste, unwilling to let them

+see that they had been observed. He was sorry for the pretty frightened

+little girl, was afraid of looking at her, and yet felt an irresistible

+desire to do so. A new sensation of comfort and relief came over him

+when, seeing these girls, he realized the existence of other human

+interests entirely aloof from his own and just as legitimate as those

+that occupied him. Evidently these girls passionately desired one

+thing—to carry away and eat those green plums without being caught—and

+Prince Andrew shared their wish for the success of their enterprise. He

+could not resist looking at them once more. Believing their danger past,

+they sprang from their ambush and, chirruping something in their shrill

+little voices and holding up their skirts, their bare little sunburned

+feet scampered merrily and quickly across the meadow grass.

+

+Prince Andrew was somewhat refreshed by having ridden off the dusty

+highroad along which the troops were moving. But not far from Bald Hills

+he again came out on the road and overtook his regiment at its halting

+place by the dam of a small pond. It was past one o’clock. The sun,

+a red ball through the dust, burned and scorched his back intolerably

+through his black coat. The dust always hung motionless above the buzz

+of talk that came from the resting troops. There was no wind. As he

+crossed the dam Prince Andrew smelled the ooze and freshness of the

+pond. He longed to get into that water, however dirty it might be, and

+he glanced round at the pool from whence came sounds of shrieks and

+laughter. The small, muddy, green pond had risen visibly more than a

+foot, flooding the dam, because it was full of the naked white bodies

+of soldiers with brick-red hands, necks, and faces, who were splashing

+about in it. All this naked white human flesh, laughing and shrieking,

+floundered about in that dirty pool like carp stuffed into a watering

+can, and the suggestion of merriment in that floundering mass rendered

+it specially pathetic.

+

+One fair-haired young soldier of the third company, whom Prince Andrew

+knew and who had a strap round the calf of one leg, crossed himself,

+stepped back to get a good run, and plunged into the water; another,

+a dark noncommissioned officer who was always shaggy, stood up to his

+waist in the water joyfully wriggling his muscular figure and snorted

+with satisfaction as he poured the water over his head with hands

+blackened to the wrists. There were sounds of men slapping one another,

+yelling, and puffing.

+

+Everywhere on the bank, on the dam, and in the pond, there was healthy,

+white, muscular flesh. The officer, Timókhin, with his red little nose,

+standing on the dam wiping himself with a towel, felt confused at seeing

+the prince, but made up his mind to address him nevertheless.

+

+“It’s very nice, your excellency! Wouldn’t you like to?” said he.

+

+“It’s dirty,” replied Prince Andrew, making a grimace.

+

+“We’ll clear it out for you in a minute,” said Timókhin, and, still

+undressed, ran off to clear the men out of the pond.

+

+“The prince wants to bathe.”

+

+“What prince? Ours?” said many voices, and the men were in such haste

+to clear out that the prince could hardly stop them. He decided that he

+would rather wash himself with water in the barn.

+

+“Flesh, bodies, cannon fodder!” he thought, and he looked at his own

+naked body and shuddered, not from cold but from a sense of disgust

+and horror he did not himself understand, aroused by the sight of that

+immense number of bodies splashing about in the dirty pond.

+

+

+On the seventh of August Prince Bagratión wrote as follows from his

+quarters at Mikháylovna on the Smolénsk road:

+

+Dear Count Aléxis Andréevich—(He was writing to Arakchéev but knew that

+his letter would be read by the Emperor, and therefore weighed every

+word in it to the best of his ability.)

+

+I expect the Minister (Barclay de Tolly) has already reported the

+abandonment of Smolénsk to the enemy. It is pitiable and sad, and

+the whole army is in despair that this most important place has been

+wantonly abandoned. I, for my part, begged him personally most urgently

+and finally wrote him, but nothing would induce him to consent. I swear

+to you on my honor that Napoleon was in such a fix as never before and

+might have lost half his army but could not have taken Smolénsk. Our

+troops fought, and are fighting, as never before. With fifteen thousand

+men I held the enemy at bay for thirty-five hours and beat him; but he

+would not hold out even for fourteen hours. It is disgraceful, a stain

+on our army, and as for him, he ought, it seems to me, not to live. If

+he reports that our losses were great, it is not true; perhaps about

+four thousand, not more, and not even that; but even were they ten

+thousand, that’s war! But the enemy has lost masses....

+

+What would it have cost him to hold out for another two days? They would

+have had to retire of their own accord, for they had no water for men

+or horses. He gave me his word he would not retreat, but suddenly sent

+instructions that he was retiring that night. We cannot fight in this

+way, or we may soon bring the enemy to Moscow....

+

+There is a rumor that you are thinking of peace. God forbid that you

+should make peace after all our sacrifices and such insane retreats! You

+would set all Russia against you and everyone of us would feel ashamed

+to wear the uniform. If it has come to this—we must fight as long as

+Russia can and as long as there are men able to stand....

+

+One man ought to be in command, and not two. Your Minister may perhaps

+be good as a Minister, but as a general he is not merely bad but

+execrable, yet to him is entrusted the fate of our whole country.... I

+am really frantic with vexation; forgive my writing boldly. It is clear

+that the man who advocates the conclusion of a peace, and that the

+Minister should command the army, does not love our sovereign and

+desires the ruin of us all. So I write you frankly: call out the

+militia. For the Minister is leading these visitors after him to Moscow

+in a most masterly way. The whole army feels great suspicion of the

+Imperial aide-de-camp Wolzogen. He is said to be more Napoleon’s man

+than ours, and he is always advising the Minister. I am not merely civil

+to him but obey him like a corporal, though I am his senior. This is

+painful, but, loving my benefactor and sovereign, I submit. Only I am

+sorry for the Emperor that he entrusts our fine army to such as he.

+Consider that on our retreat we have lost by fatigue and left in the

+hospital more than fifteen thousand men, and had we attacked this would

+not have happened. Tell me, for God’s sake, what will Russia, our mother

+Russia, say to our being so frightened, and why are we abandoning our

+good and gallant Fatherland to such rabble and implanting feelings of

+hatred and shame in all our subjects? What are we scared at and of whom

+are we afraid? I am not to blame that the Minister is vacillating,

+a coward, dense, dilatory, and has all bad qualities. The whole army

+bewails it and calls down curses upon him....

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+Among the innumerable categories applicable to the phenomena of human

+life one may discriminate between those in which substance prevails

+and those in which form prevails. To the latter—as distinguished

+from village, country, provincial, or even Moscow life—we may allot

+Petersburg life, and especially the life of its salons. That life of

+the salons is unchanging. Since the year 1805 we had made peace and had

+again quarreled with Bonaparte and had made constitutions and unmade

+them again, but the salons of Anna Pávlovna and Hélène remained just

+as they had been—the one seven and the other five years before. At Anna

+Pávlovna’s they talked with perplexity of Bonaparte’s successes just

+as before and saw in them and in the subservience shown to him by the

+European sovereigns a malicious conspiracy, the sole object of which was

+to cause unpleasantness and anxiety to the court circle of which Anna

+Pávlovna was the representative. And in Hélène’s salon, which Rumyántsev

+himself honored with his visits, regarding Hélène as a remarkably

+intelligent woman, they talked with the same ecstasy in 1812 as in 1808

+of the “great nation” and the “great man,” and regretted our rupture

+with France, a rupture which, according to them, ought to be promptly

+terminated by peace.

+

+Of late, since the Emperor’s return from the army, there had been some

+excitement in these conflicting salon circles and some demonstrations

+of hostility to one another, but each camp retained its own tendency.

+In Anna Pávlovna’s circle only those Frenchmen were admitted who were

+deep-rooted legitimists, and patriotic views were expressed to the

+effect that one ought not to go to the French theater and that to

+maintain the French troupe was costing the government as much as a whole

+army corps. The progress of the war was eagerly followed, and only

+the reports most flattering to our army were circulated. In the French

+circle of Hélène and Rumyántsev the reports of the cruelty of the

+enemy and of the war were contradicted and all Napoleon’s attempts at

+conciliation were discussed. In that circle they discountenanced those

+who advised hurried preparations for a removal to Kazán of the court and

+the girls’ educational establishments under the patronage of the Dowager

+Empress. In Hélène’s circle the war in general was regarded as a series

+of formal demonstrations which would very soon end in peace, and the

+view prevailed expressed by Bilíbin—who now in Petersburg was quite at

+home in Hélène’s house, which every clever man was obliged to visit—that

+not by gunpowder but by those who invented it would matters be

+settled. In that circle the Moscow enthusiasm—news of which had reached

+Petersburg simultaneously with the Emperor’s return—was ridiculed

+sarcastically and very cleverly, though with much caution.

+

+Anna Pávlovna’s circle on the contrary was enraptured by this enthusiasm

+and spoke of it as Plutarch speaks of the deeds of the ancients.

+Prince Vasíli, who still occupied his former important posts, formed a

+connecting link between these two circles. He visited his “good friend

+Anna Pávlovna” as well as his daughter’s “diplomatic salon,” and often

+in his constant comings and goings between the two camps became confused

+and said at Hélène’s what he should have said at Anna Pávlovna’s and

+vice versa.

+

+Soon after the Emperor’s return Prince Vasíli in a conversation about

+the war at Anna Pávlovna’s severely condemned Barclay de Tolly, but was

+undecided as to who ought to be appointed commander in chief. One of the

+visitors, usually spoken of as “a man of great merit,” having described

+how he had that day seen Kutúzov, the newly chosen chief of the

+Petersburg militia, presiding over the enrollment of recruits at the

+Treasury, cautiously ventured to suggest that Kutúzov would be the man

+to satisfy all requirements.

+

+Anna Pávlovna remarked with a melancholy smile that Kutúzov had done

+nothing but cause the Emperor annoyance.

+

+“I have talked and talked at the Assembly of the Nobility,” Prince

+Vasíli interrupted, “but they did not listen to me. I told them his

+election as chief of the militia would not please the Emperor. They did

+not listen to me.

+

+“It’s all this mania for opposition,” he went on. “And who for? It is

+all because we want to ape the foolish enthusiasm of those Muscovites,”

+Prince Vasíli continued, forgetting for a moment that though at Hélène’s

+one had to ridicule the Moscow enthusiasm, at Anna Pávlovna’s one had to

+be ecstatic about it. But he retrieved his mistake at once. “Now, is

+it suitable that Count Kutúzov, the oldest general in Russia, should

+preside at that tribunal? He will get nothing for his pains! How could

+they make a man commander in chief who cannot mount a horse, who drops

+asleep at a council, and has the very worst morals! A good reputation

+he made for himself at Bucharest! I don’t speak of his capacity as a

+general, but at a time like this how they appoint a decrepit, blind old

+man, positively blind? A fine idea to have a blind general! He can’t see

+anything. To play blindman’s bluff? He can’t see at all!”

+

+No one replied to his remarks.

+

+This was quite correct on the twenty-fourth of July. But on the

+twenty-ninth of July Kutúzov received the title of Prince. This might

+indicate a wish to get rid of him, and therefore Prince Vasíli’s opinion

+continued to be correct though he was not now in any hurry to express

+it. But on the eighth of August a committee, consisting of Field Marshal

+Saltykóv, Arakchéev, Vyazmítinov, Lopukhín, and Kochubéy met to consider

+the progress of the war. This committee came to the conclusion that

+our failures were due to a want of unity in the command and though the

+members of the committee were aware of the Emperor’s dislike of Kutúzov,

+after a short deliberation they agreed to advise his appointment as

+commander in chief. That same day Kutúzov was appointed commander

+in chief with full powers over the armies and over the whole region

+occupied by them.

+

+On the ninth of August Prince Vasíli at Anna Pávlovna’s again met the

+“man of great merit.” The latter was very attentive to Anna Pávlovna

+because he wanted to be appointed director of one of the educational

+establishments for young ladies. Prince Vasíli entered the room with the

+air of a happy conqueror who has attained the object of his desires.

+

+“Well, have you heard the great news? Prince Kutúzov is field marshal!

+All dissensions are at an end! I am so glad, so delighted! At last

+we have a man!” said he, glancing sternly and significantly round at

+everyone in the drawing room.

+

+The “man of great merit,” despite his desire to obtain the post of

+director, could not refrain from reminding Prince Vasíli of his former

+opinion. Though this was impolite to Prince Vasíli in Anna Pávlovna’s

+drawing room, and also to Anna Pávlovna herself who had received the

+news with delight, he could not resist the temptation.

+

+“But, Prince, they say he is blind!” said he, reminding Prince Vasíli of

+his own words.

+

+“Eh? Nonsense! He sees well enough,” said Prince Vasíli rapidly, in a

+deep voice and with a slight cough—the voice and cough with which he was

+wont to dispose of all difficulties.

+

+“He sees well enough,” he added. “And what I am so pleased about,” he

+went on, “is that our sovereign has given him full powers over all

+the armies and the whole region—powers no commander in chief ever had

+before. He is a second autocrat,” he concluded with a victorious smile.

+

+“God grant it! God grant it!” said Anna Pávlovna.

+

+The “man of great merit,” who was still a novice in court circles,

+wishing to flatter Anna Pávlovna by defending her former position on

+this question, observed:

+

+“It is said that the Emperor was reluctant to give Kutúzov those powers.

+They say he blushed like a girl to whom Joconde is read, when he said to

+Kutúzov: ‘Your Emperor and the Fatherland award you this honor.’”

+

+“Perhaps the heart took no part in that speech,” said Anna Pávlovna.

+

+“Oh, no, no!” warmly rejoined Prince Vasíli, who would not now yield

+Kutúzov to anyone; in his opinion Kutúzov was not only admirable

+himself, but was adored by everybody. “No, that’s impossible,” said he,

+“for our sovereign appreciated him so highly before.”

+

+“God grant only that Prince Kutúzov assumes real power and does not

+allow anyone to put a spoke in his wheel,” observed Anna Pávlovna.

+

+Understanding at once to whom she alluded, Prince Vasíli said in a

+whisper:

+

+“I know for a fact that Kutúzov made it an absolute condition that the

+Tsarévich should not be with the army. Do you know what he said to the

+Emperor?”

+

+And Prince Vasíli repeated the words supposed to have been spoken by

+Kutúzov to the Emperor. “I can neither punish him if he does wrong nor

+reward him if he does right.”

+

+“Oh, a very wise man is Prince Kutúzov! I have known him a long time!”

+

+“They even say,” remarked the “man of great merit” who did not yet

+possess courtly tact, “that his excellency made it an express condition

+that the sovereign himself should not be with the army.”

+

+As soon as he said this both Prince Vasíli and Anna Pávlovna turned away

+from him and glanced sadly at one another with a sigh at his naïveté.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+While this was taking place in Petersburg the French had already passed

+Smolénsk and were drawing nearer and nearer to Moscow. Napoleon’s

+historian Thiers, like other of his historians, trying to justify his

+hero says that he was drawn to the walls of Moscow against his will. He

+is as right as other historians who look for the explanation of historic

+events in the will of one man; he is as right as the Russian historians

+who maintain that Napoleon was drawn to Moscow by the skill of the

+Russian commanders. Here besides the law of retrospection, which regards

+all the past as a preparation for events that subsequently occur,

+the law of reciprocity comes in, confusing the whole matter. A good

+chessplayer having lost a game is sincerely convinced that his loss

+resulted from a mistake he made and looks for that mistake in the

+opening, but forgets that at each stage of the game there were similar

+mistakes and that none of his moves were perfect. He only notices the

+mistake to which he pays attention, because his opponent took advantage

+of it. How much more complex than this is the game of war, which

+occurs under certain limits of time, and where it is not one will that

+manipulates lifeless objects, but everything results from innumerable

+conflicts of various wills!

+

+After Smolénsk Napoleon sought a battle beyond Dorogobúzh at Vyázma, and

+then at Tsárevo-Zaymíshche, but it happened that owing to a conjunction

+of innumerable circumstances the Russians could not give battle till

+they reached Borodinó, seventy miles from Moscow. From Vyázma Napoleon

+ordered a direct advance on Moscow.

+

+Moscou, la capitale asiatique de ce grand empire, la ville sacrée des

+peuples d’Alexandre, Moscou avec ses innombrables églises en forme de

+pagodes chinoises, * this Moscow gave Napoleon’s imagination no rest.

+On the march from Vyázma to Tsárevo-Zaymíshche he rode his light bay

+bobtailed ambler accompanied by his Guards, his bodyguard, his pages,

+and aides-de-camp. Berthier, his chief of staff, dropped behind to

+question a Russian prisoner captured by the cavalry. Followed by

+Lelorgne d’Ideville, an interpreter, he overtook Napoleon at a gallop

+and reined in his horse with an amused expression.

+

+     * “Moscow, the Asiatic capital of this great empire, the

+     sacred city of Alexander’s people, Moscow with its

+     innumerable churches shaped like Chinese pagodas.”

+

+

+“Well?” asked Napoleon.

+

+“One of Plátov’s Cossacks says that Plátov’s corps is joining up with

+the main army and that Kutúzov has been appointed commander in chief. He

+is a very shrewd and garrulous fellow.”

+

+Napoleon smiled and told them to give the Cossack a horse and bring the

+man to him. He wished to talk to him himself. Several adjutants galloped

+off, and an hour later, Lavrúshka, the serf Denísov had handed over

+to Rostóv, rode up to Napoleon in an orderly’s jacket and on a French

+cavalry saddle, with a merry, and tipsy face. Napoleon told him to ride

+by his side and began questioning him.

+

+“You are a Cossack?”

+

+“Yes, a Cossack, your Honor.”

+

+“The Cossack, not knowing in what company he was, for Napoleon’s plain

+appearance had nothing about it that would reveal to an Oriental mind

+the presence of a monarch, talked with extreme familiarity of the

+incidents of the war,” says Thiers, narrating this episode. In

+reality Lavrúshka, having got drunk the day before and left his master

+dinnerless, had been whipped and sent to the village in quest of

+chickens, where he engaged in looting till the French took him prisoner.

+Lavrúshka was one of those coarse, bare-faced lackeys who have seen all

+sorts of things, consider it necessary to do everything in a mean and

+cunning way, are ready to render any sort of service to their master,

+and are keen at guessing their master’s baser impulses, especially those

+prompted by vanity and pettiness.

+

+Finding himself in the company of Napoleon, whose identity he had easily

+and surely recognized, Lavrúshka was not in the least abashed but merely

+did his utmost to gain his new master’s favor.

+

+He knew very well that this was Napoleon, but Napoleon’s presence could

+no more intimidate him than Rostóv’s, or a sergeant major’s with the

+rods, would have done, for he had nothing that either the sergeant major

+or Napoleon could deprive him of.

+

+So he rattled on, telling all the gossip he had heard among the

+orderlies. Much of it true. But when Napoleon asked him whether the

+Russians thought they would beat Bonaparte or not, Lavrúshka screwed up

+his eyes and considered.

+

+In this question he saw subtle cunning, as men of his type see cunning

+in everything, so he frowned and did not answer immediately.

+

+“It’s like this,” he said thoughtfully, “if there’s a battle soon, yours

+will win. That’s right. But if three days pass, then after that, well,

+then that same battle will not soon be over.”

+

+Lelorgne d’Ideville smilingly interpreted this speech to Napoleon thus:

+“If a battle takes place within the next three days the French will

+win, but if later, God knows what will happen.” Napoleon did not smile,

+though he was evidently in high good humor, and he ordered these words

+to be repeated.

+

+Lavrúshka noticed this and to entertain him further, pretending not to

+know who Napoleon was, added:

+

+“We know that you have Bonaparte and that he has beaten everybody in the

+world, but we are a different matter...”—without knowing why or how this

+bit of boastful patriotism slipped out at the end.

+

+The interpreter translated these words without the last phrase, and

+Bonaparte smiled. “The young Cossack made his mighty interlocutor

+smile,” says Thiers. After riding a few paces in silence, Napoleon

+turned to Berthier and said he wished to see how the news that he was

+talking to the Emperor himself, to that very Emperor who had written his

+immortally victorious name on the Pyramids, would affect this enfant du

+Don. *

+

+    * “Child of the Don.”

+

+

+The fact was accordingly conveyed to Lavrúshka.

+

+Lavrúshka, understanding that this was done to perplex him and that

+Napoleon expected him to be frightened, to gratify his new masters

+promptly pretended to be astonished and awe-struck, opened his eyes

+wide, and assumed the expression he usually put on when taken to be

+whipped. “As soon as Napoleon’s interpreter had spoken,” says Thiers,

+“the Cossack, seized by amazement, did not utter another word, but rode

+on, his eyes fixed on the conqueror whose fame had reached him across

+the steppes of the East. All his loquacity was suddenly arrested and

+replaced by a naïve and silent feeling of admiration. Napoleon, after

+making the Cossack a present, had him set free like a bird restored to

+its native fields.”

+

+Napoleon rode on, dreaming of the Moscow that so appealed to his

+imagination, and “the bird restored to its native fields” galloped to

+our outposts, inventing on the way all that had not taken place but that

+he meant to relate to his comrades. What had really taken place he did

+not wish to relate because it seemed to him not worth telling. He

+found the Cossacks, inquired for the regiment operating with Plátov’s

+detachment and by evening found his master, Nicholas Rostóv, quartered

+at Yankóvo. Rostóv was just mounting to go for a ride round the

+neighboring villages with Ilyín; he let Lavrúshka have another horse and

+took him along with him.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+Princess Mary was not in Moscow and out of danger as Prince Andrew

+supposed.

+

+After the return of Alpátych from Smolénsk the old prince suddenly

+seemed to awake as from a dream. He ordered the militiamen to be called

+up from the villages and armed, and wrote a letter to the commander in

+chief informing him that he had resolved to remain at Bald Hills to the

+last extremity and to defend it, leaving to the commander in chief’s

+discretion to take measures or not for the defense of Bald Hills, where

+one of Russia’s oldest generals would be captured or killed, and he

+announced to his household that he would remain at Bald Hills.

+

+But while himself remaining, he gave instructions for the departure of

+the princess and Dessalles with the little prince to Boguchárovo and

+thence to Moscow. Princess Mary, alarmed by her father’s feverish and

+sleepless activity after his previous apathy, could not bring herself to

+leave him alone and for the first time in her life ventured to disobey

+him. She refused to go away and her father’s fury broke over her in a

+terrible storm. He repeated every injustice he had ever inflicted on

+her. Trying to convict her, he told her she had worn him out, had caused

+his quarrel with his son, had harbored nasty suspicions of him, making

+it the object of her life to poison his existence, and he drove her from

+his study telling her that if she did not go away it was all the same

+to him. He declared that he did not wish to remember her existence and

+warned her not to dare to let him see her. The fact that he did not, as

+she had feared, order her to be carried away by force but only told her

+not to let him see her cheered Princess Mary. She knew it was a proof

+that in the depth of his soul he was glad she was remaining at home and

+had not gone away.

+

+The morning after little Nicholas had left, the old prince donned his

+full uniform and prepared to visit the commander in chief. His calèche

+was already at the door. Princess Mary saw him walk out of the house in

+his uniform wearing all his orders and go down the garden to review his

+armed peasants and domestic serfs. She sat by the window listening to

+his voice which reached her from the garden. Suddenly several men came

+running up the avenue with frightened faces.

+

+Princess Mary ran out to the porch, down the flower-bordered path, and

+into the avenue. A large crowd of militiamen and domestics were moving

+toward her, and in their midst several men were supporting by

+the armpits and dragging along a little old man in a uniform and

+decorations. She ran up to him and, in the play of the sunlight that

+fell in small round spots through the shade of the lime-tree avenue,

+could not be sure what change there was in his face. All she could see

+was that his former stern and determined expression had altered to one

+of timidity and submission. On seeing his daughter he moved his helpless

+lips and made a hoarse sound. It was impossible to make out what he

+wanted. He was lifted up, carried to his study, and laid on the very

+couch he had so feared of late.

+

+The doctor, who was fetched that same night, bled him and said that the

+prince had had a seizure paralyzing his right side.

+

+It was becoming more and more dangerous to remain at Bald Hills, and

+next day they moved the prince to Boguchárovo, the doctor accompanying

+him.

+

+By the time they reached Boguchárovo, Dessalles and the little prince

+had already left for Moscow.

+

+For three weeks the old prince lay stricken by paralysis in the new

+house Prince Andrew had built at Boguchárovo, ever in the same state,

+getting neither better nor worse. He was unconscious and lay like

+a distorted corpse. He muttered unceasingly, his eyebrows and lips

+twitching, and it was impossible to tell whether he understood what was

+going on around him or not. One thing was certain—that he was suffering

+and wished to say something. But what it was, no one could tell: it

+might be some caprice of a sick and half-crazy man, or it might relate

+to public affairs, or possibly to family concerns.

+

+The doctor said this restlessness did not mean anything and was due

+to physical causes; but Princess Mary thought he wished to tell

+her something, and the fact that her presence always increased his

+restlessness confirmed her opinion.

+

+He was evidently suffering both physically and mentally. There was no

+hope of recovery. It was impossible for him to travel, it would not do

+to let him die on the road. “Would it not be better if the end did come,

+the very end?” Princess Mary sometimes thought. Night and day, hardly

+sleeping at all, she watched him and, terrible to say, often watched

+him not with hope of finding signs of improvement but wishing to find

+symptoms of the approach of the end.

+

+Strange as it was to her to acknowledge this feeling in herself, yet

+there it was. And what seemed still more terrible to her was that since

+her father’s illness began (perhaps even sooner, when she stayed with

+him expecting something to happen), all the personal desires and hopes

+that had been forgotten or sleeping within her had awakened. Thoughts

+that had not entered her mind for years—thoughts of a life free from

+the fear of her father, and even the possibility of love and of family

+happiness—floated continually in her imagination like temptations of the

+devil. Thrust them aside as she would, questions continually recurred

+to her as to how she would order her life now, after that. These were

+temptations of the devil and Princess Mary knew it. She knew that the

+sole weapon against him was prayer, and she tried to pray. She assumed

+an attitude of prayer, looked at the icons, repeated the words of a

+prayer, but she could not pray. She felt that a different world had

+now taken possession of her—the life of a world of strenuous and free

+activity, quite opposed to the spiritual world in which till now she

+had been confined and in which her greatest comfort had been prayer.

+She could not pray, could not weep, and worldly cares took possession of

+her.

+

+It was becoming dangerous to remain in Boguchárovo. News of the approach

+of the French came from all sides, and in one village, ten miles from

+Boguchárovo, a homestead had been looted by French marauders.

+

+The doctor insisted on the necessity of moving the prince; the

+provincial Marshal of the Nobility sent an official to Princess Mary

+to persuade her to get away as quickly as possible, and the head of the

+rural police having come to Boguchárovo urged the same thing, saying

+that the French were only some twenty-five miles away, that French

+proclamations were circulating in the villages, and that if the princess

+did not take her father away before the fifteenth, he could not answer

+for the consequences.

+

+The princess decided to leave on the fifteenth. The cares of preparation

+and giving orders, for which everyone came to her, occupied her all day.

+She spent the night of the fourteenth as usual, without undressing, in

+the room next to the one where the prince lay. Several times, waking up,

+she heard his groans and muttering, the creak of his bed, and the steps

+of Tíkhon and the doctor when they turned him over. Several times she

+listened at the door, and it seemed to her that his mutterings were

+louder than usual and that they turned him over oftener. She could not

+sleep and several times went to the door and listened, wishing to enter

+but not deciding to do so. Though he did not speak, Princess Mary saw

+and knew how unpleasant every sign of anxiety on his account was to him.

+She had noticed with what dissatisfaction he turned from the look she

+sometimes involuntarily fixed on him. She knew that her going in during

+the night at an unusual hour would irritate him.

+

+But never had she felt so grieved for him or so much afraid of losing

+him. She recalled all her life with him and in every word and act of his

+found an expression of his love of her. Occasionally amid these memories

+temptations of the devil would surge into her imagination: thoughts of

+how things would be after his death, and how her new, liberated life

+would be ordered. But she drove these thoughts away with disgust. Toward

+morning he became quiet and she fell asleep.

+

+She woke late. That sincerity which often comes with waking showed her

+clearly what chiefly concerned her about her father’s illness. On waking

+she listened to what was going on behind the door and, hearing him

+groan, said to herself with a sigh that things were still the same.

+

+“But what could have happened? What did I want? I want his death!” she

+cried with a feeling of loathing for herself.

+

+She washed, dressed, said her prayers, and went out to the porch. In

+front of it stood carriages without horses and things were being packed

+into the vehicles.

+

+It was a warm, gray morning. Princess Mary stopped at the porch, still

+horrified by her spiritual baseness and trying to arrange her thoughts

+before going to her father. The doctor came downstairs and went out to

+her.

+

+“He is a little better today,” said he. “I was looking for you. One can

+make out something of what he is saying. His head is clearer. Come in,

+he is asking for you....”

+

+Princess Mary’s heart beat so violently at this news that she grew pale

+and leaned against the wall to keep from falling. To see him, talk to

+him, feel his eyes on her now that her whole soul was overflowing with

+those dreadful, wicked temptations, was a torment of joy and terror.

+

+“Come,” said the doctor.

+

+Princess Mary entered her father’s room and went up to his bed. He was

+lying on his back propped up high, and his small bony hands with

+their knotted purple veins were lying on the quilt; his left eye gazed

+straight before him, his right eye was awry, and his brows and lips

+motionless. He seemed altogether so thin, small, and pathetic. His face

+seemed to have shriveled or melted; his features had grown smaller.

+Princess Mary went up and kissed his hand. His left hand pressed hers

+so that she understood that he had long been waiting for her to come. He

+twitched her hand, and his brows and lips quivered angrily.

+

+She looked at him in dismay trying to guess what he wanted of her. When

+she changed her position so that his left eye could see her face he

+calmed down, not taking his eyes off her for some seconds. Then his lips

+and tongue moved, sounds came, and he began to speak, gazing timidly and

+imploringly at her, evidently afraid that she might not understand.

+

+Straining all her faculties Princess Mary looked at him. The comic

+efforts with which he moved his tongue made her drop her eyes and with

+difficulty repress the sobs that rose to her throat. He said something,

+repeating the same words several times. She could not understand them,

+but tried to guess what he was saying and inquiringly repeated the words

+he uttered.

+

+“Mmm...ar...ate...ate...” he repeated several times.

+

+It was quite impossible to understand these sounds. The doctor thought

+he had guessed them, and inquiringly repeated: “Mary, are you afraid?”

+The prince shook his head, again repeated the same sounds.

+

+“My mind, my mind aches?” questioned Princess Mary.

+

+He made a mumbling sound in confirmation of this, took her hand, and

+began pressing it to different parts of his breast as if trying to find

+the right place for it.

+

+“Always thoughts... about you... thoughts...” he then uttered much

+more clearly than he had done before, now that he was sure of being

+understood.

+

+Princess Mary pressed her head against his hand, trying to hide her sobs

+and tears.

+

+He moved his hand over her hair.

+

+“I have been calling you all night...” he brought out.

+

+“If only I had known...” she said through her tears. “I was afraid to

+come in.”

+

+He pressed her hand.

+

+“Weren’t you asleep?”

+

+“No, I did not sleep,” said Princess Mary, shaking her head.

+

+Unconsciously imitating her father, she now tried to express herself as

+he did, as much as possible by signs, and her tongue too seemed to move

+with difficulty.

+

+“Dear one... Dearest...” Princess Mary could not quite make out what he

+had said, but from his look it was clear that he had uttered a tender

+caressing word such as he had never used to her before. “Why didn’t you

+come in?”

+

+“And I was wishing for his death!” thought Princess Mary.

+

+He was silent awhile.

+

+“Thank you... daughter dear!... for all, for all... forgive!... thank

+you!... forgive!... thank you!...” and tears began to flow from his

+eyes. “Call Andrew!” he said suddenly, and a childish, timid expression

+of doubt showed itself on his face as he spoke.

+

+He himself seemed aware that his demand was meaningless. So at least it

+seemed to Princess Mary.

+

+“I have a letter from him,” she replied.

+

+He glanced at her with timid surprise.

+

+“Where is he?”

+

+“He’s with the army, Father, at Smolénsk.”

+

+He closed his eyes and remained silent a long time. Then as if in

+answer to his doubts and to confirm the fact that now he understood and

+remembered everything, he nodded his head and reopened his eyes.

+

+“Yes,” he said, softly and distinctly. “Russia has perished. They’ve

+destroyed her.”

+

+And he began to sob, and again tears flowed from his eyes. Princess Mary

+could no longer restrain herself and wept while she gazed at his face.

+

+Again he closed his eyes. His sobs ceased, he pointed to his eyes, and

+Tíkhon, understanding him, wiped away the tears.

+

+Then he again opened his eyes and said something none of them could

+understand for a long time, till at last Tíkhon understood and repeated

+it. Princess Mary had sought the meaning of his words in the mood in

+which he had just been speaking. She thought he was speaking of Russia,

+or Prince Andrew, of herself, of his grandson, or of his own death, and

+so she could not guess his words.

+

+“Put on your white dress. I like it,” was what he said.

+

+Having understood this Princess Mary sobbed still louder, and the doctor

+taking her arm led her out to the veranda, soothing her and trying to

+persuade her to prepare for her journey. When she had left the room the

+prince again began speaking about his son, about the war, and about the

+Emperor, angrily twitching his brows and raising his hoarse voice, and

+then he had a second and final stroke.

+

+Princess Mary stayed on the veranda. The day had cleared, it was hot and

+sunny. She could understand nothing, think of nothing and feel nothing,

+except passionate love for her father, love such as she thought she had

+never felt till that moment. She ran out sobbing into the garden and as

+far as the pond, along the avenues of young lime trees Prince Andrew had

+planted.

+

+“Yes... I... I... I wished for his death! Yes, I wanted it to end

+quicker.... I wished to be at peace.... And what will become of me? What

+use will peace be when he is no longer here?” Princess Mary murmured,

+pacing the garden with hurried steps and pressing her hands to her bosom

+which heaved with convulsive sobs.

+

+When she had completed the tour of the garden, which brought her

+again to the house, she saw Mademoiselle Bourienne—who had remained

+at Boguchárovo and did not wish to leave it—coming toward her with a

+stranger. This was the Marshal of the Nobility of the district, who

+had come personally to point out to the princess the necessity for her

+prompt departure. Princess Mary listened without understanding him; she

+led him to the house, offered him lunch, and sat down with him. Then,

+excusing herself, she went to the door of the old prince’s room. The

+doctor came out with an agitated face and said she could not enter.

+

+“Go away, Princess! Go away... go away!”

+

+She returned to the garden and sat down on the grass at the foot of the

+slope by the pond, where no one could see her. She did not know how

+long she had been there when she was aroused by the sound of a woman’s

+footsteps running along the path. She rose and saw Dunyásha her maid,

+who was evidently looking for her, and who stopped suddenly as if in

+alarm on seeing her mistress.

+

+“Please come, Princess... The Prince,” said Dunyásha in a breaking

+voice.

+

+“Immediately, I’m coming, I’m coming!” replied the princess hurriedly,

+not giving Dunyásha time to finish what she was saying, and trying to

+avoid seeing the girl she ran toward the house.

+

+“Princess, it’s God’s will! You must be prepared for everything,” said

+the Marshal, meeting her at the house door.

+

+“Let me alone; it’s not true!” she cried angrily to him.

+

+The doctor tried to stop her. She pushed him aside and ran to her

+father’s door. “Why are these people with frightened faces stopping me?

+I don’t want any of them! And what are they doing here?” she thought.

+She opened the door and the bright daylight in that previously darkened

+room startled her. In the room were her nurse and other women. They all

+drew back from the bed, making way for her. He was still lying on the

+bed as before, but the stern expression of his quiet face made Princess

+Mary stop short on the threshold.

+

+“No, he’s not dead—it’s impossible!” she told herself and approached

+him, and repressing the terror that seized her, she pressed her lips

+to his cheek. But she stepped back immediately. All the force of the

+tenderness she had been feeling for him vanished instantly and was

+replaced by a feeling of horror at what lay there before her. “No, he

+is no more! He is not, but here where he was is something unfamiliar and

+hostile, some dreadful, terrifying, and repellent mystery!” And hiding

+her face in her hands, Princess Mary sank into the arms of the doctor,

+who held her up.

+

+

+In the presence of Tíkhon and the doctor the women washed what had been

+the prince, tied his head up with a handkerchief that the mouth should

+not stiffen while open, and with another handkerchief tied together the

+legs that were already spreading apart. Then they dressed him in uniform

+with his decorations and placed his shriveled little body on a table.

+Heaven only knows who arranged all this and when, but it all got done

+as if of its own accord. Toward night candles were burning round his

+coffin, a pall was spread over it, the floor was strewn with sprays of

+juniper, a printed band was tucked in under his shriveled head, and in a

+corner of the room sat a chanter reading the psalms.

+

+Just as horses shy and snort and gather about a dead horse, so the

+inmates of the house and strangers crowded into the drawing room round

+the coffin—the Marshal, the village Elder, peasant women—and all with

+fixed and frightened eyes, crossing themselves, bowed and kissed the old

+prince’s cold and stiffened hand.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+Until Prince Andrew settled in Boguchárovo its owners had always been

+absentees, and its peasants were of quite a different character from

+those of Bald Hills. They differed from them in speech, dress, and

+disposition. They were called steppe peasants. The old prince used to

+approve of them for their endurance at work when they came to Bald Hills

+to help with the harvest or to dig ponds, and ditches, but he disliked

+them for their boorishness.

+

+Prince Andrew’s last stay at Boguchárovo, when he introduced hospitals

+and schools and reduced the quitrent the peasants had to pay, had not

+softened their disposition but had on the contrary strengthened in

+them the traits of character the old prince called boorishness. Various

+obscure rumors were always current among them: at one time a rumor that

+they would all be enrolled as Cossacks; at another of a new religion to

+which they were all to be converted; then of some proclamation of the

+Tsar’s and of an oath to the Tsar Paul in 1797 (in connection with which

+it was rumored that freedom had been granted them but the landowners had

+stopped it), then of Peter Fëdorovich’s return to the throne in seven

+years’ time, when everything would be made free and so “simple” that

+there would be no restrictions. Rumors of the war with Bonaparte and

+his invasion were connected in their minds with the same sort of vague

+notions of Antichrist, the end of the world, and “pure freedom.”

+

+In the vicinity of Boguchárovo were large villages belonging to the

+crown or to owners whose serfs paid quitrent and could work where they

+pleased. There were very few resident landlords in the neighborhood

+and also very few domestic or literate serfs, and in the lives of the

+peasantry of those parts the mysterious undercurrents in the life of

+the Russian people, the causes and meaning of which are so baffling to

+contemporaries, were more clearly and strongly noticeable than among

+others. One instance, which had occurred some twenty years before, was

+a movement among the peasants to emigrate to some unknown “warm rivers.”

+Hundreds of peasants, among them the Boguchárovo folk, suddenly began

+selling their cattle and moving in whole families toward the southeast.

+As birds migrate to somewhere beyond the sea, so these men with their

+wives and children streamed to the southeast, to parts where none of

+them had ever been. They set off in caravans, bought their freedom one

+by one or ran away, and drove or walked toward the “warm rivers.” Many

+of them were punished, some sent to Siberia, many died of cold and

+hunger on the road, many returned of their own accord, and the movement

+died down of itself just as it had sprung up, without apparent reason.

+But such undercurrents still existed among the people and gathered new

+forces ready to manifest themselves just as strangely, unexpectedly, and

+at the same time simply, naturally, and forcibly. Now in 1812, to anyone

+living in close touch with these people it was apparent that these

+undercurrents were acting strongly and nearing an eruption.

+

+Alpátych, who had reached Boguchárovo shortly before the old prince’s

+death, noticed an agitation among the peasants, and that contrary to

+what was happening in the Bald Hills district, where over a radius of

+forty miles all the peasants were moving away and leaving their villages

+to be devastated by the Cossacks, the peasants in the steppe region

+round Boguchárovo were, it was rumored, in touch with the French,

+received leaflets from them that passed from hand to hand, and did not

+migrate. He learned from domestic serfs loyal to him that the peasant

+Karp, who possessed great influence in the village commune and had

+recently been away driving a government transport, had returned with

+news that the Cossacks were destroying deserted villages, but that the

+French did not harm them. Alpátych also knew that on the previous day

+another peasant had even brought from the village of Visloúkhovo, which

+was occupied by the French, a proclamation by a French general that no

+harm would be done to the inhabitants, and if they remained they would

+be paid for anything taken from them. As proof of this the peasant had

+brought from Visloúkhovo a hundred rubles in notes (he did not know that

+they were false) paid to him in advance for hay.

+

+More important still, Alpátych learned that on the morning of the

+very day he gave the village Elder orders to collect carts to move the

+princess’ luggage from Boguchárovo, there had been a village meeting at

+which it had been decided not to move but to wait. Yet there was no

+time to waste. On the fifteenth, the day of the old prince’s death,

+the Marshal had insisted on Princess Mary’s leaving at once, as it was

+becoming dangerous. He had told her that after the sixteenth he could

+not be responsible for what might happen. On the evening of the day the

+old prince died the Marshal went away, promising to return next day for

+the funeral. But this he was unable to do, for he received tidings that

+the French had unexpectedly advanced, and had barely time to remove his

+own family and valuables from his estate.

+

+For some thirty years Boguchárovo had been managed by the village Elder,

+Dron, whom the old prince called by the diminutive “Drónushka.”

+

+Dron was one of those physically and mentally vigorous peasants who grow

+big beards as soon as they are of age and go on unchanged till they

+are sixty or seventy, without a gray hair or the loss of a tooth, as

+straight and strong at sixty as at thirty.

+

+Soon after the migration to the “warm rivers,” in which he had taken

+part like the rest, Dron was made village Elder and overseer of

+Boguchárovo, and had since filled that post irreproachably for

+twenty-three years. The peasants feared him more than they did their

+master. The masters, both the old prince and the young, and the steward

+respected him and jestingly called him “the Minister.” During the

+whole time of his service Dron had never been drunk or ill, never after

+sleepless nights or the hardest tasks had he shown the least fatigue,

+and though he could not read he had never forgotten a single money

+account or the number of quarters of flour in any of the endless

+cartloads he sold for the prince, nor a single shock of the whole corn

+crop on any single acre of the Boguchárovo fields.

+

+Alpátych, arriving from the devastated Bald Hills estate, sent for his

+Dron on the day of the prince’s funeral and told him to have twelve

+horses got ready for the princess’ carriages and eighteen carts for

+the things to be removed from Boguchárovo. Though the peasants paid

+quitrent, Alpátych thought no difficulty would be made about complying

+with this order, for there were two hundred and thirty households at

+work in Boguchárovo and the peasants were well to do. But on hearing the

+order Dron lowered his eyes and remained silent. Alpátych named certain

+peasants he knew, from whom he told him to take the carts.

+

+Dron replied that the horses of these peasants were away carting.

+Alpátych named others, but they too, according to Dron, had no horses

+available: some horses were carting for the government, others were too

+weak, and others had died for want of fodder. It seemed that no horses

+could be had even for the carriages, much less for the carting.

+

+Alpátych looked intently at Dron and frowned. Just as Dron was a model

+village Elder, so Alpátych had not managed the prince’s estates for

+twenty years in vain. He was a model steward, possessing in the highest

+degree the faculty of divining the needs and instincts of those he dealt

+with. Having glanced at Dron he at once understood that his answers did

+not express his personal views but the general mood of the Boguchárovo

+commune, by which the Elder had already been carried away. But he also

+knew that Dron, who had acquired property and was hated by the commune,

+must be hesitating between the two camps: the masters’ and the serfs’.

+He noticed this hesitation in Dron’s look and therefore frowned and

+moved closer up to him.

+

+“Now just listen, Drónushka,” said he. “Don’t talk nonsense to me. His

+excellency Prince Andrew himself gave me orders to move all the people

+away and not leave them with the enemy, and there is an order from the

+Tsar about it too. Anyone who stays is a traitor to the Tsar. Do you

+hear?”

+

+“I hear,” Dron answered without lifting his eyes.

+

+Alpátych was not satisfied with this reply.

+

+“Eh, Dron, it will turn out badly!” he said, shaking his head.

+

+“The power is in your hands,” Dron rejoined sadly.

+

+“Eh, Dron, drop it!” Alpátych repeated, withdrawing his hand from his

+bosom and solemnly pointing to the floor at Dron’s feet. “I can see

+through you and three yards into the ground under you,” he continued,

+gazing at the floor in front of Dron.

+

+Dron was disconcerted, glanced furtively at Alpátych and again lowered

+his eyes.

+

+“You drop this nonsense and tell the people to get ready to leave their

+homes and go to Moscow and to get carts ready for tomorrow morning

+for the princess’ things. And don’t go to any meeting yourself, do you

+hear?”

+

+Dron suddenly fell on his knees.

+

+“Yákov Alpátych, discharge me! Take the keys from me and discharge me,

+for Christ’s sake!”

+

+“Stop that!” cried Alpátych sternly. “I see through you and three yards

+under you,” he repeated, knowing that his skill in beekeeping, his

+knowledge of the right time to sow the oats, and the fact that he had

+been able to retain the old prince’s favor for twenty years had long

+since gained him the reputation of being a wizard, and that the power of

+seeing three yards under a man is considered an attribute of wizards.

+

+Dron got up and was about to say something, but Alpátych interrupted

+him.

+

+“What is it you have got into your heads, eh?... What are you thinking

+of, eh?”

+

+“What am I to do with the people?” said Dron. “They’re quite beside

+themselves; I have already told them...”

+

+“‘Told them,’ I dare say!” said Alpátych. “Are they drinking?” he asked

+abruptly.

+

+“Quite beside themselves, Yákov Alpátych; they’ve fetched another

+barrel.”

+

+“Well, then, listen! I’ll go to the police officer, and you tell them

+so, and that they must stop this and the carts must be got ready.”

+

+“I understand.”

+

+Alpátych did not insist further. He had managed people for a long time

+and knew that the chief way to make them obey is to show no suspicion

+that they can possibly disobey. Having wrung a submissive “I understand”

+from Dron, Alpátych contented himself with that, though he not only

+doubted but felt almost certain that without the help of troops the

+carts would not be forthcoming.

+

+And so it was, for when evening came no carts had been provided. In the

+village, outside the drink shop, another meeting was being held, which

+decided that the horses should be driven out into the woods and the

+carts should not be provided. Without saying anything of this to the

+princess, Alpátych had his own belongings taken out of the carts which

+had arrived from Bald Hills and had those horses got ready for

+the princess’ carriages. Meanwhile he went himself to the police

+authorities.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+After her father’s funeral Princess Mary shut herself up in her room and

+did not admit anyone. A maid came to the door to say that Alpátych was

+asking for orders about their departure. (This was before his talk with

+Dron.) Princess Mary raised herself on the sofa on which she had been

+lying and replied through the closed door that she did not mean to go

+away and begged to be left in peace.

+

+The windows of the room in which she was lying looked westward. She

+lay on the sofa with her face to the wall, fingering the buttons of the

+leather cushion and seeing nothing but that cushion, and her confused

+thoughts were centered on one subject—the irrevocability of death and

+her own spiritual baseness, which she had not suspected, but which had

+shown itself during her father’s illness. She wished to pray but did not

+dare to, dared not in her present state of mind address herself to God.

+She lay for a long time in that position.

+

+The sun had reached the other side of the house, and its slanting rays

+shone into the open window, lighting up the room and part of the morocco

+cushion at which Princess Mary was looking. The flow of her thoughts

+suddenly stopped. Unconsciously she sat up, smoothed her hair, got up,

+and went to the window, involuntarily inhaling the freshness of the

+clear but windy evening.

+

+“Yes, you can well enjoy the evening now! He is gone and no one will

+hinder you,” she said to herself, and sinking into a chair she let her

+head fall on the window sill.

+

+Someone spoke her name in a soft and tender voice from the garden and

+kissed her head. She looked up. It was Mademoiselle Bourienne in a black

+dress and weepers. She softly approached Princess Mary, sighed, kissed

+her, and immediately began to cry. The princess looked up at her. All

+their former disharmony and her own jealousy recurred to her mind.

+But she remembered too how he had changed of late toward Mademoiselle

+Bourienne and could not bear to see her, thereby showing how unjust were

+the reproaches Princess Mary had mentally addressed to her. “Besides,

+is it for me, for me who desired his death, to condemn anyone?” she

+thought.

+

+Princess Mary vividly pictured to herself the position of Mademoiselle

+Bourienne, whom she had of late kept at a distance, but who yet was

+dependent on her and living in her house. She felt sorry for her

+and held out her hand with a glance of gentle inquiry. Mademoiselle

+Bourienne at once began crying again and kissed that hand, speaking of

+the princess’ sorrow and making herself a partner in it. She said her

+only consolation was the fact that the princess allowed her to share her

+sorrow, that all the old misunderstandings should sink into nothing but

+this great grief; that she felt herself blameless in regard to everyone,

+and that he, from above, saw her affection and gratitude. The princess

+heard her, not heeding her words but occasionally looking up at her and

+listening to the sound of her voice.

+

+“Your position is doubly terrible, dear princess,” said Mademoiselle

+Bourienne after a pause. “I understand that you could not, and cannot,

+think of yourself, but with my love for you I must do so.... Has

+Alpátych been to you? Has he spoken to you of going away?” she asked.

+

+Princess Mary did not answer. She did not understand who was to go or

+where to. “Is it possible to plan or think of anything now? Is it not

+all the same?” she thought, and did not reply.

+

+“You know, chère Marie,” said Mademoiselle Bourienne, “that we are in

+danger—are surrounded by the French. It would be dangerous to move now.

+If we go we are almost sure to be taken prisoners, and God knows...”

+

+Princess Mary looked at her companion without understanding what she was

+talking about.

+

+“Oh, if anyone knew how little anything matters to me now,” she said.

+“Of course I would on no account wish to go away from him.... Alpátych

+did say something about going.... Speak to him; I can do nothing,

+nothing, and don’t want to....”

+

+“I’ve spoken to him. He hopes we should be in time to get away tomorrow,

+but I think it would now be better to stay here,” said Mademoiselle

+Bourienne. “Because, you will agree, chère Marie, to fall into the hands

+of the soldiers or of riotous peasants would be terrible.”

+

+Mademoiselle Bourienne took from her reticule a proclamation (not

+printed on ordinary Russian paper) of General Rameau’s, telling people

+not to leave their homes and that the French authorities would afford

+them proper protection. She handed this to the princess.

+

+“I think it would be best to appeal to that general,” she continued,

+“and I am sure that all due respect would be shown you.”

+

+Princess Mary read the paper, and her face began to quiver with stifled

+sobs.

+

+“From whom did you get this?” she asked.

+

+“They probably recognized that I am French, by my name,” replied

+Mademoiselle Bourienne blushing.

+

+Princess Mary, with the paper in her hand, rose from the window and with

+a pale face went out of the room and into what had been Prince Andrew’s

+study.

+

+“Dunyásha, send Alpátych, or Drónushka, or somebody to me!” she said,

+“and tell Mademoiselle Bourienne not to come to me,” she added, hearing

+Mademoiselle Bourienne’s voice. “We must go at once, at once!” she said,

+appalled at the thought of being left in the hands of the French.

+

+“If Prince Andrew heard that I was in the power of the French! That

+I, the daughter of Prince Nicholas Bolkónski, asked General Rameau for

+protection and accepted his favor!” This idea horrified her, made her

+shudder, blush, and feel such a rush of anger and pride as she had never

+experienced before. All that was distressing, and especially all that

+was humiliating, in her position rose vividly to her mind. “They, the

+French, would settle in this house: M. le Général Rameau would occupy

+Prince Andrew’s study and amuse himself by looking through and reading

+his letters and papers. Mademoiselle Bourienne would do the honors of

+Boguchárovo for him. I should be given a small room as a favor, the

+soldiers would violate my father’s newly dug grave to steal his crosses

+and stars, they would tell me of their victories over the Russians, and

+would pretend to sympathize with my sorrow...” thought Princess Mary,

+not thinking her own thoughts but feeling bound to think like her father

+and her brother. For herself she did not care where she remained or what

+happened to her, but she felt herself the representative of her dead

+father and of Prince Andrew. Involuntarily she thought their thoughts

+and felt their feelings. What they would have said and what they would

+have done she felt bound to say and do. She went into Prince Andrew’s

+study, trying to enter completely into his ideas, and considered her

+position.

+

+The demands of life, which had seemed to her annihilated by her father’s

+death, all at once rose before her with a new, previously unknown force

+and took possession of her.

+

+Agitated and flushed she paced the room, sending now for Michael

+Ivánovich and now for Tíkhon or Dron. Dunyásha, the nurse, and the other

+maids could not say in how far Mademoiselle Bourienne’s statement was

+correct. Alpátych was not at home, he had gone to the police. Neither

+could the architect Michael Ivánovich, who on being sent for came in

+with sleepy eyes, tell Princess Mary anything. With just the same smile

+of agreement with which for fifteen years he had been accustomed to

+answer the old prince without expressing views of his own, he now

+replied to Princess Mary, so that nothing definite could be got from his

+answers. The old valet Tíkhon, with sunken, emaciated face that bore the

+stamp of inconsolable grief, replied: “Yes, Princess” to all Princess

+Mary’s questions and hardly refrained from sobbing as he looked at her.

+

+At length Dron, the village Elder, entered the room and with a deep bow

+to Princess Mary came to a halt by the doorpost.

+

+Princess Mary walked up and down the room and stopped in front of him.

+

+“Drónushka,” she said, regarding as a sure friend this Drónushka who

+always used to bring a special kind of gingerbread from his visit to the

+fair at Vyázma every year and smilingly offer it to her, “Drónushka, now

+since our misfortune...” she began, but could not go on.

+

+“We are all in God’s hands,” said he, with a sigh.

+

+They were silent for a while.

+

+“Drónushka, Alpátych has gone off somewhere and I have no one to turn

+to. Is it true, as they tell me, that I can’t even go away?”

+

+“Why shouldn’t you go away, your excellency? You can go,” said Dron.

+

+“I was told it would be dangerous because of the enemy. Dear friend, I

+can do nothing. I understand nothing. I have nobody! I want to go away

+tonight or early tomorrow morning.”

+

+Dron paused. He looked askance at Princess Mary and said: “There are no

+horses; I told Yákov Alpátych so.”

+

+“Why are there none?” asked the princess.

+

+“It’s all God’s scourge,” said Dron. “What horses we had have been

+taken for the army or have died—this is such a year! It’s not a case of

+feeding horses—we may die of hunger ourselves! As it is, some go three

+days without eating. We’ve nothing, we’ve been ruined.”

+

+Princess Mary listened attentively to what he told her.

+

+“The peasants are ruined? They have no bread?” she asked.

+

+“They’re dying of hunger,” said Dron. “It’s not a case of carting.”

+

+“But why didn’t you tell me, Drónushka? Isn’t it possible to help them?

+I’ll do all I can....”

+

+To Princess Mary it was strange that now, at a moment when such sorrow

+was filling her soul, there could be rich people and poor, and the rich

+could refrain from helping the poor. She had heard vaguely that there

+was such a thing as “landlord’s corn” which was sometimes given to the

+peasants. She also knew that neither her father nor her brother would

+refuse to help the peasants in need, she only feared to make some

+mistake in speaking about the distribution of the grain she wished to

+give. She was glad such cares presented themselves, enabling her

+without scruple to forget her own grief. She began asking Dron about the

+peasants’ needs and what there was in Boguchárovo that belonged to the

+landlord.

+

+“But we have grain belonging to my brother?” she said.

+

+“The landlord’s grain is all safe,” replied Dron proudly. “Our prince

+did not order it to be sold.”

+

+“Give it to the peasants, let them have all they need; I give you leave

+in my brother’s name,” said she.

+

+Dron made no answer but sighed deeply.

+

+“Give them that corn if there is enough of it. Distribute it all. I

+give this order in my brother’s name; and tell them that what is ours is

+theirs. We do not grudge them anything. Tell them so.”

+

+Dron looked intently at the princess while she was speaking.

+

+“Discharge me, little mother, for God’s sake! Order the keys to be taken

+from me,” said he. “I have served twenty-three years and have done no

+wrong. Discharge me, for God’s sake!”

+

+Princess Mary did not understand what he wanted of her or why he was

+asking to be discharged. She replied that she had never doubted his

+devotion and that she was ready to do anything for him and for the

+peasants.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+An hour later Dunyásha came to tell the princess that Dron had come, and

+all the peasants had assembled at the barn by the princess’ order and

+wished to have word with their mistress.

+

+“But I never told them to come,” said Princess Mary. “I only told Dron

+to let them have the grain.”

+

+“Only, for God’s sake, Princess dear, have them sent away and don’t go

+out to them. It’s all a trick,” said Dunyásha, “and when Yákov Alpátych

+returns let us get away... and please don’t...”

+

+“What is a trick?” asked Princess Mary in surprise.

+

+“I know it is, only listen to me for God’s sake! Ask nurse too. They say

+they don’t agree to leave Boguchárovo as you ordered.”

+

+“You’re making some mistake. I never ordered them to go away,” said

+Princess Mary. “Call Drónushka.”

+

+Dron came and confirmed Dunyásha’s words; the peasants had come by the

+princess’ order.

+

+“But I never sent for them,” declared the princess. “You must have given

+my message wrong. I only said that you were to give them the grain.”

+

+Dron only sighed in reply.

+

+“If you order it they will go away,” said he.

+

+“No, no. I’ll go out to them,” said Princess Mary, and in spite of

+the nurse’s and Dunyásha’s protests she went out into the porch; Dron,

+Dunyásha, the nurse, and Michael Ivánovich following her.

+

+“They probably think I am offering them the grain to bribe them to

+remain here, while I myself go away leaving them to the mercy of the

+French,” thought Princess Mary. “I will offer them monthly rations and

+housing at our Moscow estate. I am sure Andrew would do even more in

+my place,” she thought as she went out in the twilight toward the crowd

+standing on the pasture by the barn.

+

+The men crowded closer together, stirred, and rapidly took off their

+hats. Princess Mary lowered her eyes and, tripping over her skirt, came

+close up to them. So many different eyes, old and young, were fixed

+on her, and there were so many different faces, that she could not

+distinguish any of them and, feeling that she must speak to them all

+at once, did not know how to do it. But again the sense that she

+represented her father and her brother gave her courage, and she boldly

+began her speech.

+

+“I am very glad you have come,” she said without raising her eyes, and

+feeling her heart beating quickly and violently. “Drónushka tells me

+that the war has ruined you. That is our common misfortune, and I

+shall grudge nothing to help you. I am myself going away because it

+is dangerous here... the enemy is near... because... I am giving you

+everything, my friends, and I beg you to take everything, all our grain,

+so that you may not suffer want! And if you have been told that I am

+giving you the grain to keep you here—that is not true. On the contrary,

+I ask you to go with all your belongings to our estate near Moscow, and

+I promise you I will see to it that there you shall want for nothing.

+You shall be given food and lodging.”

+

+The princess stopped. Sighs were the only sound heard in the crowd.

+

+“I am not doing this on my own account,” she continued, “I do it in the

+name of my dead father, who was a good master to you, and of my brother

+and his son.”

+

+Again she paused. No one broke the silence.

+

+“Ours is a common misfortune and we will share it together. All that is

+mine is yours,” she concluded, scanning the faces before her.

+

+All eyes were gazing at her with one and the same expression. She

+could not fathom whether it was curiosity, devotion, gratitude, or

+apprehension and distrust—but the expression on all the faces was

+identical.

+

+“We are all very thankful for your bounty, but it won’t do for us to

+take the landlord’s grain,” said a voice at the back of the crowd.

+

+“But why not?” asked the princess.

+

+No one replied and Princess Mary, looking round at the crowd, found that

+every eye she met now was immediately dropped.

+

+“But why don’t you want to take it?” she asked again.

+

+No one answered.

+

+The silence began to oppress the princess and she tried to catch

+someone’s eye.

+

+“Why don’t you speak?” she inquired of a very old man who stood just

+in front of her leaning on his stick. “If you think something more is

+wanted, tell me! I will do anything,” said she, catching his eye.

+

+But as if this angered him, he bent his head quite low and muttered:

+

+“Why should we agree? We don’t want the grain.”

+

+“Why should we give up everything? We don’t agree. Don’t agree.... We

+are sorry for you, but we’re not willing. Go away yourself, alone...”

+came from various sides of the crowd.

+

+And again all the faces in that crowd bore an identical expression,

+though now it was certainly not an expression of curiosity or gratitude,

+but of angry resolve.

+

+“But you can’t have understood me,” said Princess Mary with a sad smile.

+“Why don’t you want to go? I promise to house and feed you, while here

+the enemy would ruin you....”

+

+But her voice was drowned by the voices of the crowd.

+

+“We’re not willing. Let them ruin us! We won’t take your grain. We don’t

+agree.”

+

+Again Princess Mary tried to catch someone’s eye, but not a single eye

+in the crowd was turned to her; evidently they were all trying to avoid

+her look. She felt strange and awkward.

+

+“Oh yes, an artful tale! Follow her into slavery! Pull down your houses

+and go into bondage! I dare say! ‘I’ll give you grain, indeed!’ she

+says,” voices in the crowd were heard saying.

+

+With drooping head Princess Mary left the crowd and went back to the

+house. Having repeated her order to Dron to have horses ready for her

+departure next morning, she went to her room and remained alone with her

+own thoughts.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+For a long time that night Princess Mary sat by the open window of her

+room hearing the sound of the peasants’ voices that reached her from

+the village, but it was not of them she was thinking. She felt that she

+could not understand them however much she might think about them. She

+thought only of one thing, her sorrow, which, after the break caused

+by cares for the present, seemed already to belong to the past. Now she

+could remember it and weep or pray.

+

+After sunset the wind had dropped. The night was calm and fresh. Toward

+midnight the voices began to subside, a cock crowed, the full moon began

+to show from behind the lime trees, a fresh white dewy mist began to

+rise, and stillness reigned over the village and the house.

+

+Pictures of the near past—her father’s illness and last moments—rose

+one after another to her memory. With mournful pleasure she now lingered

+over these images, repelling with horror only the last one, the

+picture of his death, which she felt she could not contemplate even in

+imagination at this still and mystic hour of night. And these pictures

+presented themselves to her so clearly and in such detail that they

+seemed now present, now past, and now future.

+

+She vividly recalled the moment when he had his first stroke and was

+being dragged along by his armpits through the garden at Bald Hills,

+muttering something with his helpless tongue, twitching his gray

+eyebrows and looking uneasily and timidly at her.

+

+“Even then he wanted to tell me what he told me the day he died,” she

+thought. “He had always thought what he said then.” And she recalled in

+all its detail the night at Bald Hills before he had the last stroke,

+when with a foreboding of disaster she had remained at home against his

+will. She had not slept and had stolen downstairs on tiptoe, and going

+to the door of the conservatory where he slept that night had listened

+at the door. In a suffering and weary voice he was saying something to

+Tíkhon, speaking of the Crimea and its warm nights and of the Empress.

+Evidently he had wanted to talk. “And why didn’t he call me? Why didn’t

+he let me be there instead of Tíkhon?” Princess Mary had thought and

+thought again now. “Now he will never tell anyone what he had in his

+soul. Never will that moment return for him or for me when he might have

+said all he longed to say, and not Tíkhon but I might have heard and

+understood him. Why didn’t I enter the room?” she thought. “Perhaps he

+would then have said to me what he said the day he died. While talking

+to Tíkhon he asked about me twice. He wanted to see me, and I was

+standing close by, outside the door. It was sad and painful for him

+to talk to Tíkhon who did not understand him. I remember how he began

+speaking to him about Lise as if she were alive—he had forgotten she

+was dead—and Tíkhon reminded him that she was no more, and he shouted,

+‘Fool!’ He was greatly depressed. From behind the door I heard how he

+lay down on his bed groaning and loudly exclaimed, ‘My God!’ Why didn’t

+I go in then? What could he have done to me? What could I have lost? And

+perhaps he would then have been comforted and would have said that word

+to me.” And Princess Mary uttered aloud the caressing word he had said

+to her on the day of his death. “Dear-est!” she repeated, and began

+sobbing, with tears that relieved her soul. She now saw his face before

+her. And not the face she had known ever since she could remember and

+had always seen at a distance, but the timid, feeble face she had seen

+for the first time quite closely, with all its wrinkles and details,

+when she stooped near to his mouth to catch what he said.

+

+“Dear-est!” she repeated again.

+

+“What was he thinking when he uttered that word? What is he thinking

+now?” This question suddenly presented itself to her, and in answer she

+saw him before her with the expression that was on his face as he lay

+in his coffin with his chin bound up with a white handkerchief. And the

+horror that had seized her when she touched him and convinced herself

+that that was not he, but something mysterious and horrible, seized her

+again. She tried to think of something else and to pray, but could do

+neither. With wide-open eyes she gazed at the moonlight and the shadows,

+expecting every moment to see his dead face, and she felt that the

+silence brooding over the house and within it held her fast.

+

+“Dunyásha,” she whispered. “Dunyásha!” she screamed wildly, and tearing

+herself out of this silence she ran to the servants’ quarters to meet

+her old nurse and the maidservants who came running toward her.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+On the seventeenth of August Rostóv and Ilyín, accompanied by Lavrúshka

+who had just returned from captivity and by an hussar orderly, left

+their quarters at Yankóvo, ten miles from Boguchárovo, and went for a

+ride—to try a new horse Ilyín had bought and to find out whether there

+was any hay to be had in the villages.

+

+For the last three days Boguchárovo had lain between the two hostile

+armies, so that it was as easy for the Russian rearguard to get to it as

+for the French vanguard; Rostóv, as a careful squadron commander, wished

+to take such provisions as remained at Boguchárovo before the French

+could get them.

+

+Rostóv and Ilyín were in the merriest of moods. On the way to

+Boguchárovo, a princely estate with a dwelling house and farm where

+they hoped to find many domestic serfs and pretty girls, they questioned

+Lavrúshka about Napoleon and laughed at his stories, and raced one

+another to try Ilyín’s horse.

+

+Rostóv had no idea that the village he was entering was the property of

+that very Bolkónski who had been engaged to his sister.

+

+Rostóv and Ilyín gave rein to their horses for a last race along the

+incline before reaching Boguchárovo, and Rostóv, outstripping Ilyín, was

+the first to gallop into the village street.

+

+“You’re first!” cried Ilyín, flushed.

+

+“Yes, always first both on the grassland and here,” answered Rostóv,

+stroking his heated Donéts horse.

+

+“And I’d have won on my Frenchy, your excellency,” said Lavrúshka

+from behind, alluding to his shabby cart horse, “only I didn’t wish to

+mortify you.”

+

+They rode at a footpace to the barn, where a large crowd of peasants was

+standing.

+

+Some of the men bared their heads, others stared at the new arrivals

+without doffing their caps. Two tall old peasants with wrinkled faces

+and scanty beards emerged from the tavern, smiling, staggering, and

+singing some incoherent song, and approached the officers.

+

+“Fine fellows!” said Rostóv laughing. “Is there any hay here?”

+

+“And how like one another,” said Ilyín.

+

+“A mo-o-st me-r-r-y co-o-m-pa...!” sang one of the peasants with a

+blissful smile.

+

+One of the men came out of the crowd and went up to Rostóv.

+

+“Who do you belong to?” he asked.

+

+“The French,” replied Ilyín jestingly, “and here is Napoleon

+himself”—and he pointed to Lavrúshka.

+

+“Then you are Russians?” the peasant asked again.

+

+“And is there a large force of you here?” said another, a short man,

+coming up.

+

+“Very large,” answered Rostóv. “But why have you collected here?” he

+added. “Is it a holiday?”

+

+“The old men have met to talk over the business of the commune,” replied

+the peasant, moving away.

+

+At that moment, on the road leading from the big house, two women and a

+man in a white hat were seen coming toward the officers.

+

+“The one in pink is mine, so keep off!” said Ilyín on seeing Dunyásha

+running resolutely toward him.

+

+“She’ll be ours!” said Lavrúshka to Ilyín, winking.

+

+“What do you want, my pretty?” said Ilyín with a smile.

+

+“The princess ordered me to ask your regiment and your name.”

+

+“This is Count Rostóv, squadron commander, and I am your humble

+servant.”

+

+“Co-o-om-pa-ny!” roared the tipsy peasant with a beatific smile as

+he looked at Ilyín talking to the girl. Following Dunyásha, Alpátych

+advanced to Rostóv, having bared his head while still at a distance.

+

+“May I make bold to trouble your honor?” said he respectfully, but with

+a shade of contempt for the youthfulness of this officer and with a hand

+thrust into his bosom. “My mistress, daughter of General in Chief Prince

+Nicholas Bolkónski who died on the fifteenth of this month, finding

+herself in difficulties owing to the boorishness of these people”—he

+pointed to the peasants—“asks you to come up to the house.... Won’t

+you, please, ride on a little farther,” said Alpátych with a melancholy

+smile, “as it is not convenient in the presence of...?” He pointed to

+the two peasants who kept as close to him as horseflies to a horse.

+

+“Ah!... Alpátych... Ah, Yákov Alpátych... Grand! Forgive us for Christ’s

+sake, eh?” said the peasants, smiling joyfully at him.

+

+Rostóv looked at the tipsy peasants and smiled.

+

+“Or perhaps they amuse your honor?” remarked Alpátych with a staid air,

+as he pointed at the old men with his free hand.

+

+“No, there’s not much to be amused at here,” said Rostóv, and rode on a

+little way. “What’s the matter?” he asked.

+

+“I make bold to inform your honor that the rude peasants here don’t

+wish to let the mistress leave the estate, and threaten to unharness her

+horses, so that though everything has been packed up since morning, her

+excellency cannot get away.”

+

+“Impossible!” exclaimed Rostóv.

+

+“I have the honor to report to you the actual truth,” said Alpátych.

+

+Rostóv dismounted, gave his horse to the orderly, and followed Alpátych

+to the house, questioning him as to the state of affairs. It appeared

+that the princess’ offer of corn to the peasants the previous day, and

+her talk with Dron and at the meeting, had actually had so bad an effect

+that Dron had finally given up the keys and joined the peasants and had

+not appeared when Alpátych sent for him; and that in the morning when

+the princess gave orders to harness for her journey, the peasants had

+come in a large crowd to the barn and sent word that they would not let

+her leave the village: that there was an order not to move, and that

+they would unharness the horses. Alpátych had gone out to admonish them,

+but was told (it was chiefly Karp who did the talking, Dron not showing

+himself in the crowd) that they could not let the princess go, that

+there was an order to the contrary, but that if she stayed they would

+serve her as before and obey her in everything.

+

+At the moment when Rostóv and Ilyín were galloping along the road,

+Princess Mary, despite the dissuasions of Alpátych, her nurse, and the

+maids, had given orders to harness and intended to start, but when the

+cavalrymen were espied they were taken for Frenchmen, the coachman ran

+away, and the women in the house began to wail.

+

+“Father! Benefactor! God has sent you!” exclaimed deeply moved voices as

+Rostóv passed through the anteroom.

+

+Princess Mary was sitting helpless and bewildered in the large sitting

+room, when Rostóv was shown in. She could not grasp who he was and why

+he had come, or what was happening to her. When she saw his Russian

+face, and by his walk and the first words he uttered recognized him as a

+man of her own class, she glanced at him with her deep radiant look and

+began speaking in a voice that faltered and trembled with emotion. This

+meeting immediately struck Rostóv as a romantic event. “A helpless girl

+overwhelmed with grief, left to the mercy of coarse, rioting peasants!

+And what a strange fate sent me here! What gentleness and nobility there

+are in her features and expression!” thought he as he looked at her and

+listened to her timid story.

+

+When she began to tell him that all this had happened the day after her

+father’s funeral, her voice trembled. She turned away, and then, as if

+fearing he might take her words as meant to move him to pity, looked at

+him with an apprehensive glance of inquiry. There were tears in Rostóv’s

+eyes. Princess Mary noticed this and glanced gratefully at him with that

+radiant look which caused the plainness of her face to be forgotten.

+

+“I cannot express, Princess, how glad I am that I happened to ride here

+and am able to show my readiness to serve you,” said Rostóv, rising. “Go

+when you please, and I give you my word of honor that no one shall dare

+to cause you annoyance if only you will allow me to act as your escort.”

+And bowing respectfully, as if to a lady of royal blood, he moved toward

+the door.

+

+Rostóv’s deferential tone seemed to indicate that though he would

+consider himself happy to be acquainted with her, he did not wish to

+take advantage of her misfortunes to intrude upon her.

+

+Princess Mary understood this and appreciated his delicacy.

+

+“I am very, very grateful to you,” she said in French, “but I hope it

+was all a misunderstanding and that no one is to blame for it.” She

+suddenly began to cry.

+

+“Excuse me!” she said.

+

+Rostóv, knitting his brows, left the room with another low bow.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV

+

+“Well, is she pretty? Ah, friend—my pink one is delicious; her name is

+Dunyásha....”

+

+But on glancing at Rostóv’s face Ilyín stopped short. He saw that his

+hero and commander was following quite a different train of thought.

+

+Rostóv glanced angrily at Ilyín and without replying strode off with

+rapid steps to the village.

+

+“I’ll show them; I’ll give it to them, the brigands!” said he to

+himself.

+

+Alpátych at a gliding trot, only just managing not to run, kept up with

+him with difficulty.

+

+“What decision have you been pleased to come to?” said he.

+

+Rostóv stopped and, clenching his fists, suddenly and sternly turned on

+Alpátych.

+

+“Decision? What decision? Old dotard!...” cried he. “What have you been

+about? Eh? The peasants are rioting, and you can’t manage them? You’re

+a traitor yourself! I know you. I’ll flay you all alive!...” And as if

+afraid of wasting his store of anger, he left Alpátych and went rapidly

+forward. Alpátych, mastering his offended feelings, kept pace with

+Rostóv at a gliding gait and continued to impart his views. He said

+the peasants were obdurate and that at the present moment it would be

+imprudent to “overresist” them without an armed force, and would it not

+be better first to send for the military?

+

+“I’ll give them armed force... I’ll ‘overresist’ them!” uttered Rostóv

+meaninglessly, breathless with irrational animal fury and the need to

+vent it.

+

+Without considering what he would do he moved unconciously with quick,

+resolute steps toward the crowd. And the nearer he drew to it the more

+Alpátych felt that this unreasonable action might produce good results.

+The peasants in the crowd were similarly impressed when they saw

+Rostóv’s rapid, firm steps and resolute, frowning face.

+

+After the hussars had come to the village and Rostóv had gone to see the

+princess, a certain confusion and dissension had arisen among the crowd.

+Some of the peasants said that these new arrivals were Russians and

+might take it amiss that the mistress was being detained. Dron was of

+this opinion, but as soon as he expressed it Karp and others attacked

+their ex-Elder.

+

+“How many years have you been fattening on the commune?” Karp shouted at

+him. “It’s all one to you! You’ll dig up your pot of money and take

+it away with you.... What does it matter to you whether our homes are

+ruined or not?”

+

+“We’ve been told to keep order, and that no one is to leave their homes

+or take away a single grain, and that’s all about it!” cried another.

+

+“It was your son’s turn to be conscripted, but no fear! You begrudged

+your lump of a son,” a little old man suddenly began attacking Dron—“and

+so they took my Vánka to be shaved for a soldier! But we all have to

+die.”

+

+“To be sure, we all have to die. I’m not against the commune,” said

+Dron.

+

+“That’s it—not against it! You’ve filled your belly....”

+

+The two tall peasants had their say. As soon as Rostóv, followed by

+Ilyín, Lavrúshka, and Alpátych, came up to the crowd, Karp, thrusting

+his fingers into his belt and smiling a little, walked to the front.

+Dron on the contrary retired to the rear and the crowd drew closer

+together.

+

+“Who is your Elder here? Hey?” shouted Rostóv, coming up to the crowd

+with quick steps.

+

+“The Elder? What do you want with him?...” asked Karp.

+

+But before the words were well out of his mouth, his cap flew off and a

+fierce blow jerked his head to one side.

+

+“Caps off, traitors!” shouted Rostóv in a wrathful voice. “Where’s the

+Elder?” he cried furiously.

+

+“The Elder.... He wants the Elder!... Dron Zakhárych, you!” meek and

+flustered voices here and there were heard calling and caps began to

+come off their heads.

+

+“We don’t riot, we’re following the orders,” declared Karp, and at that

+moment several voices began speaking together.

+

+“It’s as the old men have decided—there’s too many of you giving

+orders.”

+

+“Arguing? Mutiny!... Brigands! Traitors!” cried Rostóv unmeaningly in a

+voice not his own, gripping Karp by the collar. “Bind him, bind him!” he

+shouted, though there was no one to bind him but Lavrúshka and Alpátych.

+

+Lavrúshka, however, ran up to Karp and seized him by the arms from

+behind.

+

+“Shall I call up our men from beyond the hill?” he called out.

+

+Alpátych turned to the peasants and ordered two of them by name to come

+and bind Karp. The men obediently came out of the crowd and began taking

+off their belts.

+

+“Where’s the Elder?” demanded Rostóv in a loud voice.

+

+With a pale and frowning face Dron stepped out of the crowd.

+

+“Are you the Elder? Bind him, Lavrúshka!” shouted Rostóv, as if that

+order, too, could not possibly meet with any opposition.

+

+And in fact two more peasants began binding Dron, who took off his own

+belt and handed it to them, as if to aid them.

+

+“And you all listen to me!” said Rostóv to the peasants. “Be off to your

+houses at once, and don’t let one of your voices be heard!”

+

+“Why, we’ve not done any harm! We did it just out of foolishness. It’s

+all nonsense.... I said then that it was not in order,” voices were

+heard bickering with one another.

+

+“There! What did I say?” said Alpátych, coming into his own again. “It’s

+wrong, lads!”

+

+“All our stupidity, Yákov Alpátych,” came the answers, and the crowd

+began at once to disperse through the village.

+

+The two bound men were led off to the master’s house. The two drunken

+peasants followed them.

+

+“Aye, when I look at you!...” said one of them to Karp.

+

+“How can one talk to the masters like that? What were you thinking of,

+you fool?” added the other—“A real fool!”

+

+Two hours later the carts were standing in the courtyard of the

+Boguchárovo house. The peasants were briskly carrying out the

+proprietor’s goods and packing them on the carts, and Dron, liberated at

+Princess Mary’s wish from the cupboard where he had been confined, was

+standing in the yard directing the men.

+

+“Don’t put it in so carelessly,” said one of the peasants, a man with a

+round smiling face, taking a casket from a housemaid. “You know it has

+cost money! How can you chuck it in like that or shove it under the cord

+where it’ll get rubbed? I don’t like that way of doing things. Let it

+all be done properly, according to rule. Look here, put it under the

+bast matting and cover it with hay—that’s the way!”

+

+“Eh, books, books!” said another peasant, bringing out Prince Andrew’s

+library cupboards. “Don’t catch up against it! It’s heavy, lads—solid

+books.”

+

+“Yes, they worked all day and didn’t play!” remarked the tall,

+round-faced peasant gravely, pointing with a significant wink at the

+dictionaries that were on the top.

+

+

+Unwilling to obtrude himself on the princess, Rostóv did not go back to

+the house but remained in the village awaiting her departure. When her

+carriage drove out of the house, he mounted and accompanied her eight

+miles from Boguchárovo to where the road was occupied by our troops. At

+the inn at Yankóvo he respectfully took leave of her, for the first time

+permitting himself to kiss her hand.

+

+“How can you speak so!” he blushingly replied to Princess Mary’s

+expressions of gratitude for her deliverance, as she termed what had

+occurred. “Any police officer would have done as much! If we had had

+only peasants to fight, we should not have let the enemy come so far,”

+said he with a sense of shame and wishing to change the subject. “I

+am only happy to have had the opportunity of making your acquaintance.

+Good-by, Princess. I wish you happiness and consolation and hope to meet

+you again in happier circumstances. If you don’t want to make me blush,

+please don’t thank me!”

+

+But the princess, if she did not again thank him in words, thanked

+him with the whole expression of her face, radiant with gratitude and

+tenderness. She could not believe that there was nothing to thank him

+for. On the contrary, it seemed to her certain that had he not been

+there she would have perished at the hands of the mutineers and of the

+French, and that he had exposed himself to terrible and obvious danger

+to save her, and even more certain was it that he was a man of lofty and

+noble soul, able to understand her position and her sorrow. His kind,

+honest eyes, with the tears rising in them when she herself had begun to

+cry as she spoke of her loss, did not leave her memory.

+

+When she had taken leave of him and remained alone she suddenly felt

+her eyes filling with tears, and then not for the first time the strange

+question presented itself to her: did she love him?

+

+On the rest of the way to Moscow, though the princess’ position was not

+a cheerful one, Dunyásha, who went with her in the carriage, more than

+once noticed that her mistress leaned out of the window and smiled at

+something with an expression of mingled joy and sorrow.

+

+“Well, supposing I do love him?” thought Princess Mary.

+

+Ashamed as she was of acknowledging to herself that she had fallen in

+love with a man who would perhaps never love her, she comforted herself

+with the thought that no one would ever know it and that she would not

+be to blame if, without ever speaking of it to anyone, she continued to

+the end of her life to love the man with whom she had fallen in love for

+the first and last time in her life.

+

+Sometimes when she recalled his looks, his sympathy, and his words,

+happiness did not appear impossible to her. It was at those moments that

+Dunyásha noticed her smiling as she looked out of the carriage window.

+

+“Was it not fate that brought him to Boguchárovo, and at that very

+moment?” thought Princess Mary. “And that caused his sister to refuse my

+brother?” And in all this Princess Mary saw the hand of Providence.

+

+The impression the princess made on Rostóv was a very agreeable one. To

+remember her gave him pleasure, and when his comrades, hearing of his

+adventure at Boguchárovo, rallied him on having gone to look for hay

+and having picked up one of the wealthiest heiresses in Russia, he grew

+angry. It made him angry just because the idea of marrying the gentle

+Princess Mary, who was attractive to him and had an enormous fortune,

+had against his will more than once entered his head. For himself

+personally Nicholas could not wish for a better wife: by marrying her

+he would make the countess his mother happy, would be able to put his

+father’s affairs in order, and would even—he felt it—ensure Princess

+Mary’s happiness.

+

+But Sónya? And his plighted word? That was why Rostóv grew angry when he

+was rallied about Princess Bolkónskaya.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV

+

+On receiving command of the armies Kutúzov remembered Prince Andrew and

+sent an order for him to report at headquarters.

+

+Prince Andrew arrived at Tsárevo-Zaymíshche on the very day and at the

+very hour that Kutúzov was reviewing the troops for the first time. He

+stopped in the village at the priest’s house in front of which stood the

+commander in chief’s carriage, and he sat down on the bench at the gate

+awaiting his Serene Highness, as everyone now called Kutúzov. From the

+field beyond the village came now sounds of regimental music and now the

+roar of many voices shouting “Hurrah!” to the new commander in chief.

+Two orderlies, a courier and a major-domo, stood near by, some ten paces

+from Prince Andrew, availing themselves of Kutúzov’s absence and of the

+fine weather. A short, swarthy lieutenant colonel of hussars with thick

+mustaches and whiskers rode up to the gate and, glancing at Prince

+Andrew, inquired whether his Serene Highness was putting up there and

+whether he would soon be back.

+

+Prince Andrew replied that he was not on his Serene Highness’ staff

+but was himself a new arrival. The lieutenant colonel turned to a smart

+orderly, who, with the peculiar contempt with which a commander in

+chief’s orderly speaks to officers, replied:

+

+“What? His Serene Highness? I expect he’ll be here soon. What do you

+want?”

+

+The lieutenant colonel of hussars smiled beneath his mustache at the

+orderly’s tone, dismounted, gave his horse to a dispatch runner, and

+approached Bolkónski with a slight bow. Bolkónski made room for him on

+the bench and the lieutenant colonel sat down beside him.

+

+“You’re also waiting for the commander in chief?” said he. “They say he

+weceives evewyone, thank God!... It’s awful with those sausage eaters!

+Ermólov had weason to ask to be pwomoted to be a German! Now p’waps

+Wussians will get a look in. As it was, devil only knows what was

+happening. We kept wetweating and wetweating. Did you take part in the

+campaign?” he asked.

+

+“I had the pleasure,” replied Prince Andrew, “not only of taking part in

+the retreat but of losing in that retreat all I held dear—not to mention

+the estate and home of my birth—my father, who died of grief. I belong

+to the province of Smolénsk.”

+

+“Ah? You’re Pwince Bolkónski? Vewy glad to make your acquaintance! I’m

+Lieutenant Colonel Denísov, better known as ‘Váska,’” said Denísov,

+pressing Prince Andrew’s hand and looking into his face with a

+particularly kindly attention. “Yes, I heard,” said he sympathetically,

+and after a short pause added: “Yes, it’s Scythian warfare. It’s all

+vewy well—only not for those who get it in the neck. So you are Pwince

+Andwew Bolkónski?” He swayed his head. “Vewy pleased, Pwince, to make

+your acquaintance!” he repeated again, smiling sadly, and he again

+pressed Prince Andrew’s hand.

+

+Prince Andrew knew Denísov from what Natásha had told him of her first

+suitor. This memory carried him sadly and sweetly back to those painful

+feelings of which he had not thought lately, but which still found

+place in his soul. Of late he had received so many new and very serious

+impressions—such as the retreat from Smolénsk, his visit to Bald Hills,

+and the recent news of his father’s death—and had experienced so many

+emotions, that for a long time past those memories had not entered his

+mind, and now that they did, they did not act on him with nearly their

+former strength. For Denísov, too, the memories awakened by the name of

+Bolkónski belonged to a distant, romantic past, when after supper and

+after Natásha’s singing he had proposed to a little girl of fifteen

+without realizing what he was doing. He smiled at the recollection of

+that time and of his love for Natásha, and passed at once to what now

+interested him passionately and exclusively. This was a plan of campaign

+he had devised while serving at the outposts during the retreat. He had

+proposed that plan to Barclay de Tolly and now wished to propose it

+to Kutúzov. The plan was based on the fact that the French line

+of operation was too extended, and it proposed that instead of, or

+concurrently with, action on the front to bar the advance of the French,

+we should attack their line of communication. He began explaining his

+plan to Prince Andrew.

+

+“They can’t hold all that line. It’s impossible. I will undertake to

+bweak thwough. Give me five hundwed men and I will bweak the line,

+that’s certain! There’s only one way—guewilla warfare!”

+

+Denísov rose and began gesticulating as he explained his plan to

+Bolkónski. In the midst of his explanation shouts were heard from the

+army, growing more incoherent and more diffused, mingling with music

+and songs and coming from the field where the review was held. Sounds of

+hoofs and shouts were nearing the village.

+

+“He’s coming! He’s coming!” shouted a Cossack standing at the gate.

+

+Bolkónski and Denísov moved to the gate, at which a knot of soldiers

+(a guard of honor) was standing, and they saw Kutúzov coming down the

+street mounted on a rather small sorrel horse. A huge suite of generals

+rode behind him. Barclay was riding almost beside him, and a crowd of

+officers ran after and around them shouting, “Hurrah!”

+

+His adjutants galloped into the yard before him. Kutúzov was impatiently

+urging on his horse, which ambled smoothly under his weight, and he

+raised his hand to his white Horse Guard’s cap with a red band and no

+peak, nodding his head continually. When he came up to the guard of

+honor, a fine set of Grenadiers mostly wearing decorations, who were

+giving him the salute, he looked at them silently and attentively for

+nearly a minute with the steady gaze of a commander and then turned to

+the crowd of generals and officers surrounding him. Suddenly his face

+assumed a subtle expression, he shrugged his shoulders with an air of

+perplexity.

+

+“And with such fine fellows to retreat and retreat! Well, good-by,

+General,” he added, and rode into the yard past Prince Andrew and

+Denísov.

+

+“Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!” shouted those behind him.

+

+Since Prince Andrew had last seen him Kutúzov had grown still more

+corpulent, flaccid, and fat. But the bleached eyeball, the scar, and the

+familiar weariness of his expression were still the same. He was wearing

+the white Horse Guard’s cap and a military overcoat with a whip hanging

+over his shoulder by a thin strap. He sat heavily and swayed limply on

+his brisk little horse.

+

+“Whew... whew... whew!” he whistled just audibly as he rode into the

+yard. His face expressed the relief of relaxed strain felt by a man who

+means to rest after a ceremony. He drew his left foot out of the stirrup

+and, lurching with his whole body and puckering his face with the

+effort, raised it with difficulty onto the saddle, leaned on his knee,

+groaned, and slipped down into the arms of the Cossacks and adjutants

+who stood ready to assist him.

+

+He pulled himself together, looked round, screwing up his eyes, glanced

+at Prince Andrew, and, evidently not recognizing him, moved with his

+waddling gait to the porch. “Whew... whew... whew!” he whistled, and

+again glanced at Prince Andrew. As often occurs with old men, it was

+only after some seconds that the impression produced by Prince Andrew’s

+face linked itself up with Kutúzov’s remembrance of his personality.

+

+“Ah, how do you do, my dear prince? How do you do, my dear boy? Come

+along...” said he, glancing wearily round, and he stepped onto the porch

+which creaked under his weight.

+

+He unbuttoned his coat and sat down on a bench in the porch.

+

+“And how’s your father?”

+

+“I received news of his death, yesterday,” replied Prince Andrew

+abruptly.

+

+Kutúzov looked at him with eyes wide open with dismay and then took off

+his cap and crossed himself:

+

+“May the kingdom of Heaven be his! God’s will be done to us all!” He

+sighed deeply, his whole chest heaving, and was silent for a while. “I

+loved him and respected him, and sympathize with you with all my heart.”

+

+He embraced Prince Andrew, pressing him to his fat breast, and for some

+time did not let him go. When he released him Prince Andrew saw that

+Kutúzov’s flabby lips were trembling and that tears were in his eyes. He

+sighed and pressed on the bench with both hands to raise himself.

+

+“Come! Come with me, we’ll have a talk,” said he.

+

+But at that moment Denísov, no more intimidated by his superiors than by

+the enemy, came with jingling spurs up the steps of the porch, despite

+the angry whispers of the adjutants who tried to stop him. Kutúzov, his

+hands still pressed on the seat, glanced at him glumly. Denísov, having

+given his name, announced that he had to communicate to his Serene

+Highness a matter of great importance for their country’s welfare.

+Kutúzov looked wearily at him and, lifting his hands with a gesture of

+annoyance, folded them across his stomach, repeating the words: “For our

+country’s welfare? Well, what is it? Speak!” Denísov blushed like a

+girl (it was strange to see the color rise in that shaggy, bibulous,

+time-worn face) and boldly began to expound his plan of cutting the

+enemy’s lines of communication between Smolénsk and Vyázma. Denísov came

+from those parts and knew the country well. His plan seemed decidedly

+a good one, especially from the strength of conviction with which he

+spoke. Kutúzov looked down at his own legs, occasionally glancing at the

+door of the adjoining hut as if expecting something unpleasant to emerge

+from it. And from that hut, while Denísov was speaking, a general with a

+portfolio under his arm really did appear.

+

+“What?” said Kutúzov, in the midst of Denísov’s explanations, “are you

+ready so soon?”

+

+“Ready, your Serene Highness,” replied the general.

+

+Kutúzov swayed his head, as much as to say: “How is one man to deal with

+it all?” and again listened to Denísov.

+

+“I give my word of honor as a Wussian officer,” said Denísov, “that I

+can bweak Napoleon’s line of communication!”

+

+“What relation are you to Intendant General Kiríl Andréevich Denísov?”

+asked Kutúzov, interrupting him.

+

+“He is my uncle, your Sewene Highness.”

+

+“Ah, we were friends,” said Kutúzov cheerfully. “All right, all right,

+friend, stay here at the staff and tomorrow we’ll have a talk.”

+

+With a nod to Denísov he turned away and put out his hand for the papers

+Konovnítsyn had brought him.

+

+“Would not your Serene Highness like to come inside?” said the general

+on duty in a discontented voice, “the plans must be examined and several

+papers have to be signed.”

+

+An adjutant came out and announced that everything was in readiness

+within. But Kutúzov evidently did not wish to enter that room till he

+was disengaged. He made a grimace....

+

+“No, tell them to bring a small table out here, my dear boy. I’ll look

+at them here,” said he. “Don’t go away,” he added, turning to Prince

+Andrew, who remained in the porch and listened to the general’s report.

+

+While this was being given, Prince Andrew heard the whisper of a woman’s

+voice and the rustle of a silk dress behind the door. Several times on

+glancing that way he noticed behind that door a plump, rosy, handsome

+woman in a pink dress with a lilac silk kerchief on her head, holding

+a dish and evidently awaiting the entrance of the commander in chief.

+Kutúzov’s adjutant whispered to Prince Andrew that this was the wife of

+the priest whose home it was, and that she intended to offer his Serene

+Highness bread and salt. “Her husband has welcomed his Serene Highness

+with the cross at the church, and she intends to welcome him in the

+house.... She’s very pretty,” added the adjutant with a smile. At

+those words Kutúzov looked round. He was listening to the general’s

+report—which consisted chiefly of a criticism of the position at

+Tsárevo-Zaymíshche—as he had listened to Denísov, and seven years

+previously had listened to the discussion at the Austerlitz council of

+war. He evidently listened only because he had ears which, though there

+was a piece of tow in one of them, could not help hearing; but it

+was evident that nothing the general could say would surprise or even

+interest him, that he knew all that would be said beforehand, and heard

+it all only because he had to, as one has to listen to the chanting of

+a service of prayer. All that Denísov had said was clever and to the

+point. What the general was saying was even more clever and to

+the point, but it was evident that Kutúzov despised knowledge

+and cleverness, and knew of something else that would decide the

+matter—something independent of cleverness and knowledge. Prince

+Andrew watched the commander in chief’s face attentively, and the only

+expression he could see there was one of boredom, curiosity as to the

+meaning of the feminine whispering behind the door, and a desire to

+observe propriety. It was evident that Kutúzov despised cleverness and

+learning and even the patriotic feeling shown by Denísov, but despised

+them not because of his own intellect, feelings, or knowledge—he did not

+try to display any of these—but because of something else. He despised

+them because of his old age and experience of life. The only instruction

+Kutúzov gave of his own accord during that report referred to looting by

+the Russian troops. At the end of the report the general put before

+him for signature a paper relating to the recovery of payment from army

+commanders for green oats mown down by the soldiers, when landowners

+lodged petitions for compensation.

+

+After hearing the matter, Kutúzov smacked his lips together and shook

+his head.

+

+“Into the stove... into the fire with it! I tell you once for all, my

+dear fellow,” said he, “into the fire with all such things! Let them cut

+the crops and burn wood to their hearts’ content. I don’t order it

+or allow it, but I don’t exact compensation either. One can’t get on

+without it. ‘When wood is chopped the chips will fly.’” He looked at the

+paper again. “Oh, this German precision!” he muttered, shaking his head.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI

+

+“Well, that’s all!” said Kutúzov as he signed the last of the documents,

+and rising heavily and smoothing out the folds in his fat white neck he

+moved toward the door with a more cheerful expression.

+

+The priest’s wife, flushing rosy red, caught up the dish she had after

+all not managed to present at the right moment, though she had so long

+been preparing for it, and with a low bow offered it to Kutúzov.

+

+He screwed up his eyes, smiled, lifted her chin with his hand, and said:

+

+“Ah, what a beauty! Thank you, sweetheart!”

+

+He took some gold pieces from his trouser pocket and put them on the

+dish for her. “Well, my dear, and how are we getting on?” he asked,

+moving to the door of the room assigned to him. The priest’s wife

+smiled, and with dimples in her rosy cheeks followed him into the room.

+The adjutant came out to the porch and asked Prince Andrew to lunch with

+him. Half an hour later Prince Andrew was again called to Kutúzov.

+He found him reclining in an armchair, still in the same unbuttoned

+overcoat. He had in his hand a French book which he closed as Prince

+Andrew entered, marking the place with a knife. Prince Andrew saw by the

+cover that it was Les Chevaliers du Cygne by Madame de Genlis.

+

+“Well, sit down, sit down here. Let’s have a talk,” said Kutúzov. “It’s

+sad, very sad. But remember, my dear fellow, that I am a father to you,

+a second father....”

+

+Prince Andrew told Kutúzov all he knew of his father’s death, and what

+he had seen at Bald Hills when he passed through it.

+

+“What... what they have brought us to!” Kutúzov suddenly cried in an

+agitated voice, evidently picturing vividly to himself from Prince

+Andrew’s story the condition Russia was in. “But give me time, give me

+time!” he said with a grim look, evidently not wishing to continue this

+agitating conversation, and added: “I sent for you to keep you with me.”

+

+“I thank your Serene Highness, but I fear I am no longer fit for the

+staff,” replied Prince Andrew with a smile which Kutúzov noticed.

+

+Kutúzov glanced inquiringly at him.

+

+“But above all,” added Prince Andrew, “I have grown used to my regiment,

+am fond of the officers, and I fancy the men also like me. I should be

+sorry to leave the regiment. If I decline the honor of being with you,

+believe me...”

+

+A shrewd, kindly, yet subtly derisive expression lit up Kutúzov’s podgy

+face. He cut Bolkónski short.

+

+“I am sorry, for I need you. But you’re right, you’re right! It’s not

+here that men are needed. Advisers are always plentiful, but men are

+not. The regiments would not be what they are if the would-be advisers

+served there as you do. I remember you at Austerlitz.... I remember,

+yes, I remember you with the standard!” said Kutúzov, and a flush of

+pleasure suffused Prince Andrew’s face at this recollection.

+

+Taking his hand and drawing him downwards, Kutúzov offered his cheek to

+be kissed, and again Prince Andrew noticed tears in the old man’s eyes.

+Though Prince Andrew knew that Kutúzov’s tears came easily, and that he

+was particularly tender to and considerate of him from a wish to

+show sympathy with his loss, yet this reminder of Austerlitz was both

+pleasant and flattering to him.

+

+“Go your way and God be with you. I know your path is the path of

+honor!” He paused. “I missed you at Bucharest, but I needed someone to

+send.” And changing the subject, Kutúzov began to speak of the Turkish

+war and the peace that had been concluded. “Yes, I have been much

+blamed,” he said, “both for that war and the peace... but everything

+came at the right time. Tout vient à point à celui qui sait attendre. *

+And there were as many advisers there as here...” he went on, returning

+to the subject of “advisers” which evidently occupied him. “Ah, those

+advisers!” said he. “If we had listened to them all we should not have

+made peace with Turkey and should not have been through with that war.

+Everything in haste, but more haste, less speed. Kámenski would have

+been lost if he had not died. He stormed fortresses with thirty thousand

+men. It is not difficult to capture a fortress but it is difficult to

+win a campaign. For that, not storming and attacking but patience and

+time are wanted. Kámenski sent soldiers to Rustchuk, but I only employed

+these two things and took more fortresses than Kámenski and made them

+Turks eat horseflesh!” He swayed his head. “And the French shall too,

+believe me,” he went on, growing warmer and beating his chest, “I’ll

+make them eat horseflesh!” And tears again dimmed his eyes.

+

+    * “Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.”

+

+

+“But shan’t we have to accept battle?” remarked Prince Andrew.

+

+“We shall if everybody wants it; it can’t be helped.... But believe

+me, my dear boy, there is nothing stronger than those two: patience and

+time, they will do it all. But the advisers n’entendent pas de cette

+oreille, voilà le mal. * Some want a thing—others don’t. What’s one to

+do?” he asked, evidently expecting an answer. “Well, what do you want

+us to do?” he repeated and his eye shone with a deep, shrewd look.

+“I’ll tell you what to do,” he continued, as Prince Andrew still did not

+reply: “I will tell you what to do, and what I do. Dans le doute, mon

+cher,” he paused, “abstiens-toi” *(2)—he articulated the French proverb

+deliberately.

+

+     * “Don’t see it that way, that’s the trouble.”

+

+     * (2) “When in doubt, my dear fellow, do nothing.”

+

+

+“Well, good-by, my dear fellow; remember that with all my heart I share

+your sorrow, and that for you I am not a Serene Highness, nor a prince,

+nor a commander in chief, but a father! If you want anything come

+straight to me. Good-by, my dear boy.”

+

+Again he embraced and kissed Prince Andrew, but before the latter

+had left the room Kutúzov gave a sigh of relief and went on with his

+unfinished novel, Les Chevaliers du Cygne by Madame de Genlis.

+

+Prince Andrew could not have explained how or why it was, but after that

+interview with Kutúzov he went back to his regiment reassured as to

+the general course of affairs and as to the man to whom it had been

+entrusted. The more he realized the absence of all personal motive in

+that old man—in whom there seemed to remain only the habit of passions,

+and in place of an intellect (grouping events and drawing conclusions)

+only the capacity calmly to contemplate the course of events—the more

+reassured he was that everything would be as it should. “He will not

+bring in any plan of his own. He will not devise or undertake

+anything,” thought Prince Andrew, “but he will hear everything, remember

+everything, and put everything in its place. He will not hinder

+anything useful nor allow anything harmful. He understands that there is

+something stronger and more important than his own will—the inevitable

+course of events, and he can see them and grasp their significance,

+and seeing that significance can refrain from meddling and renounce his

+personal wish directed to something else. And above all,” thought Prince

+Andrew, “one believes in him because he’s Russian, despite the novel

+by Genlis and the French proverbs, and because his voice shook when he

+said: ‘What they have brought us to!’ and had a sob in it when he said

+he would ‘make them eat horseflesh!’”

+

+On such feelings, more or less dimly shared by all, the unanimity and

+general approval were founded with which, despite court influences, the

+popular choice of Kutúzov as commander in chief was received.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVII

+

+After the Emperor had left Moscow, life flowed on there in its usual

+course, and its course was so very usual that it was difficult to

+remember the recent days of patriotic elation and ardor, hard to believe

+that Russia was really in danger and that the members of the English

+Club were also sons of the Fatherland ready to sacrifice everything

+for it. The one thing that recalled the patriotic fervor everyone had

+displayed during the Emperor’s stay was the call for contributions of

+men and money, a necessity that as soon as the promises had been made

+assumed a legal, official form and became unavoidable.

+

+With the enemy’s approach to Moscow, the Moscovites’ view of their

+situation did not grow more serious but on the contrary became even

+more frivolous, as always happens with people who see a great danger

+approaching. At the approach of danger there are always two voices that

+speak with equal power in the human soul: one very reasonably tells a

+man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of escaping it;

+the other, still more reasonably, says that it is too depressing and

+painful to think of the danger, since it is not in man’s power to

+foresee everything and avert the general course of events, and it is

+therefore better to disregard what is painful till it comes, and to

+think about what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally listens to

+the first voice, but in society to the second. So it was now with the

+inhabitants of Moscow. It was long since people had been as gay in

+Moscow as that year.

+

+Rostopchín’s broadsheets, headed by woodcuts of a drink shop, a potman,

+and a Moscow burgher called Karpúshka Chigírin, “who—having been a

+militiaman and having had rather too much at the pub—heard that Napoleon

+wished to come to Moscow, grew angry, abused the French in very bad

+language, came out of the drink shop, and, under the sign of the

+eagle, began to address the assembled people,” were read and discussed,

+together with the latest of Vasíli Lvóvich Púshkin’s bouts rimés.

+

+In the corner room at the Club, members gathered to read these

+broadsheets, and some liked the way Karpúshka jeered at the French,

+saying: “They will swell up with Russian cabbage, burst with our

+buckwheat porridge, and choke themselves with cabbage soup. They are all

+dwarfs and one peasant woman will toss three of them with a hayfork.”

+Others did not like that tone and said it was stupid and vulgar. It was

+said that Rostopchín had expelled all Frenchmen and even all foreigners

+from Moscow, and that there had been some spies and agents of Napoleon

+among them; but this was told chiefly to introduce Rostopchín’s witty

+remark on that occasion. The foreigners were deported to Nízhni by

+boat, and Rostopchín had said to them in French: “Rentrez en vous-mêmes;

+entrez dans la barque, et n’en faites pas une barque de Charon.” * There

+was talk of all the government offices having been already removed from

+Moscow, and to this Shinshín’s witticism was added—that for that alone

+Moscow ought to be grateful to Napoleon. It was said that Mamónov’s

+regiment would cost him eight hundred thousand rubles, and that Bezúkhov

+had spent even more on his, but that the best thing about Bezúkhov’s

+action was that he himself was going to don a uniform and ride at the

+head of his regiment without charging anything for the show.

+

+     * “Think it over; get into the barque, and take care not to

+     make it a barque of Charon.”

+

+

+“You don’t spare anyone,” said Julie Drubetskáya as she collected

+and pressed together a bunch of raveled lint with her thin, beringed

+fingers.

+

+Julie was preparing to leave Moscow next day and was giving a farewell

+soiree.

+

+“Bezúkhov est ridicule, but he is so kind and good-natured. What

+pleasure is there to be so caustique?”

+

+“A forfeit!” cried a young man in militia uniform whom Julie called “mon

+chevalier,” and who was going with her to Nízhni.

+

+In Julie’s set, as in many other circles in Moscow, it had been agreed

+that they would speak nothing but Russian and that those who made a

+slip and spoke French should pay fines to the Committee of Voluntary

+Contributions.

+

+“Another forfeit for a Gallicism,” said a Russian writer who was

+present. “‘What pleasure is there to be’ is not Russian!”

+

+“You spare no one,” continued Julie to the young man without heeding the

+author’s remark.

+

+“For caustique—I am guilty and will pay, and I am prepared to pay again

+for the pleasure of telling you the truth. For Gallicisms I won’t be

+responsible,” she remarked, turning to the author: “I have neither the

+money nor the time, like Prince Galítsyn, to engage a master to teach me

+Russian!”

+

+“Ah, here he is!” she added. “Quand on... No, no,” she said to the

+militia officer, “you won’t catch me. Speak of the sun and you see its

+rays!” and she smiled amiably at Pierre. “We were just talking of you,”

+she said with the facility in lying natural to a society woman. “We were

+saying that your regiment would be sure to be better than Mamónov’s.”

+

+“Oh, don’t talk to me of my regiment,” replied Pierre, kissing his

+hostess’ hand and taking a seat beside her. “I am so sick of it.”

+

+“You will, of course, command it yourself?” said Julie, directing a sly,

+sarcastic glance toward the militia officer.

+

+The latter in Pierre’s presence had ceased to be caustic, and his face

+expressed perplexity as to what Julie’s smile might mean. In spite of

+his absent-mindedness and good nature, Pierre’s personality immediately

+checked any attempt to ridicule him to his face.

+

+“No,” said Pierre, with a laughing glance at his big, stout body. “I

+should make too good a target for the French, besides I am afraid I

+should hardly be able to climb onto a horse.”

+

+Among those whom Julie’s guests happened to choose to gossip about were

+the Rostóvs.

+

+“I hear that their affairs are in a very bad way,” said Julie. “And he

+is so unreasonable, the count himself I mean. The Razumóvskis wanted

+to buy his house and his estate near Moscow, but it drags on and on. He

+asks too much.”

+

+“No, I think the sale will come off in a few days,” said someone.

+“Though it is madness to buy anything in Moscow now.”

+

+“Why?” asked Julie. “You don’t think Moscow is in danger?”

+

+“Then why are you leaving?”

+

+“I? What a question! I am going because... well, because everyone is

+going: and besides—I am not Joan of Arc or an Amazon.”

+

+“Well, of course, of course! Let me have some more strips of linen.”

+

+“If he manages the business properly he will be able to pay off all his

+debts,” said the militia officer, speaking of Rostóv.

+

+“A kindly old man but not up to much. And why do they stay on so long in

+Moscow? They meant to leave for the country long ago. Natalie is quite

+well again now, isn’t she?” Julie asked Pierre with a knowing smile.

+

+“They are waiting for their younger son,” Pierre replied. “He joined

+Obolénski’s Cossacks and went to Bélaya Tsérkov where the regiment is

+being formed. But now they have had him transferred to my regiment and

+are expecting him every day. The count wanted to leave long ago, but the

+countess won’t on any account leave Moscow till her son returns.”

+

+“I met them the day before yesterday at the Arkhárovs’. Natalie has

+recovered her looks and is brighter. She sang a song. How easily some

+people get over everything!”

+

+“Get over what?” inquired Pierre, looking displeased.

+

+Julie smiled.

+

+“You know, Count, such knights as you are only found in Madame de

+Souza’s novels.”

+

+“What knights? What do you mean?” demanded Pierre, blushing.

+

+“Oh, come, my dear count! C’est la fable de tout Moscou. Je vous admire,

+ma parole d’honneur!” *

+

+    * “It is the talk of all Moscow. My word, I admire you!”

+

+

+“Forfeit, forfeit!” cried the militia officer.

+

+“All right, one can’t talk—how tiresome!”

+

+“What is ‘the talk of all Moscow’?” Pierre asked angrily, rising to his

+feet.

+

+“Come now, Count, you know!”

+

+“I don’t know anything about it,” said Pierre.

+

+“I know you were friendly with Natalie, and so... but I was always more

+friendly with Véra—that dear Véra.”

+

+“No, madame!” Pierre continued in a tone of displeasure, “I have not

+taken on myself the role of Natalie Rostóva’s knight at all, and have

+not been to their house for nearly a month. But I cannot understand the

+cruelty...”

+

+“Qui s’excuse s’accuse,” * said Julie, smiling and waving the lint

+triumphantly, and to have the last word she promptly changed the

+subject. “Do you know what I heard today? Poor Mary Bolkónskaya arrived

+in Moscow yesterday. Do you know that she has lost her father?”

+

+    * “Who excuses himself, accuses himself.”

+

+

+“Really? Where is she? I should like very much to see her,” said Pierre.

+

+“I spent the evening with her yesterday. She is going to their estate

+near Moscow either today or tomorrow morning, with her nephew.”

+

+“Well, and how is she?” asked Pierre.

+

+“She is well, but sad. But do you know who rescued her? It is quite a

+romance. Nicholas Rostóv! She was surrounded, and they wanted to kill

+her and had wounded some of her people. He rushed in and saved her....”

+

+“Another romance,” said the militia officer. “Really, this general

+flight has been arranged to get all the old maids married off. Catiche

+is one and Princess Bolkónskaya another.”

+

+“Do you know, I really believe she is un petit peu amoureuse du jeune

+homme.” *

+

+    * “A little bit in love with the young man.”

+

+

+“Forfeit, forfeit, forfeit!”

+

+“But how could one say that in Russian?”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVIII

+

+When Pierre returned home he was handed two of Rostopchín’s broadsheets

+that had been brought that day.

+

+The first declared that the report that Count Rostopchín had forbidden

+people to leave Moscow was false; on the contrary he was glad that

+ladies and tradesmen’s wives were leaving the city. “There will be less

+panic and less gossip,” ran the broadsheet “but I will stake my life on

+it that that scoundrel will not enter Moscow.” These words showed Pierre

+clearly for the first time that the French would enter Moscow. The

+second broadsheet stated that our headquarters were at Vyázma, that

+Count Wittgenstein had defeated the French, but that as many of the

+inhabitants of Moscow wished to be armed, weapons were ready for them

+at the arsenal: sabers, pistols, and muskets which could be had at a low

+price. The tone of the proclamation was not as jocose as in the former

+Chigírin talks. Pierre pondered over these broadsheets. Evidently the

+terrible stormcloud he had desired with the whole strength of his soul

+but which yet aroused involuntary horror in him was drawing near.

+

+“Shall I join the army and enter the service, or wait?” he asked himself

+for the hundredth time. He took a pack of cards that lay on the table

+and began to lay them out for a game of patience.

+

+“If this patience comes out,” he said to himself after shuffling the

+cards, holding them in his hand, and lifting his head, “if it comes out,

+it means... what does it mean?”

+

+He had not decided what it should mean when he heard the voice of the

+eldest princess at the door asking whether she might come in.

+

+“Then it will mean that I must go to the army,” said Pierre to himself.

+“Come in, come in!” he added to the princess.

+

+Only the eldest princess, the one with the stony face and long waist,

+was still living in Pierre’s house. The two younger ones had both

+married.

+

+“Excuse my coming to you, cousin,” she said in a reproachful and

+agitated voice. “You know some decision must be come to. What is going

+to happen? Everyone has left Moscow and the people are rioting. How is

+it that we are staying on?”

+

+“On the contrary, things seem satisfactory, ma cousine,” said Pierre

+in the bantering tone he habitually adopted toward her, always feeling

+uncomfortable in the role of her benefactor.

+

+“Satisfactory, indeed! Very satisfactory! Barbara Ivánovna told me today

+how our troops are distinguishing themselves. It certainly does them

+credit! And the people too are quite mutinous—they no longer obey,

+even my maid has taken to being rude. At this rate they will soon begin

+beating us. One can’t walk in the streets. But, above all, the French

+will be here any day now, so what are we waiting for? I ask just one

+thing of you, cousin,” she went on, “arrange for me to be taken to

+Petersburg. Whatever I may be, I can’t live under Bonaparte’s rule.”

+

+“Oh, come, ma cousine! Where do you get your information from? On the

+contrary...”

+

+“I won’t submit to your Napoleon! Others may if they please.... If you

+don’t want to do this...”

+

+“But I will, I’ll give the order at once.”

+

+The princess was apparently vexed at not having anyone to be angry with.

+Muttering to herself, she sat down on a chair.

+

+“But you have been misinformed,” said Pierre. “Everything is quiet in

+the city and there is not the slightest danger. See! I’ve just been

+reading...” He showed her the broadsheet. “Count Rostopchín writes that

+he will stake his life on it that the enemy will not enter Moscow.”

+

+“Oh, that count of yours!” said the princess malevolently. “He is a

+hypocrite, a rascal who has himself roused the people to riot. Didn’t

+he write in those idiotic broadsheets that anyone, ‘whoever it might be,

+should be dragged to the lockup by his hair’? (How silly!) ‘And honor

+and glory to whoever captures him,’ he says. This is what his cajolery

+has brought us to! Barbara Ivánovna told me the mob near killed her

+because she said something in French.”

+

+“Oh, but it’s so... You take everything so to heart,” said Pierre, and

+began laying out his cards for patience.

+

+Although that patience did come out, Pierre did not join the army,

+but remained in deserted Moscow ever in the same state of agitation,

+irresolution, and alarm, yet at the same time joyfully expecting

+something terrible.

+

+Next day toward evening the princess set off, and Pierre’s head steward

+came to inform him that the money needed for the equipment of his

+regiment could not be found without selling one of the estates. In

+general the head steward made out to Pierre that his project of raising

+a regiment would ruin him. Pierre listened to him, scarcely able to

+repress a smile.

+

+“Well then, sell it,” said he. “What’s to be done? I can’t draw back

+now!”

+

+The worse everything became, especially his own affairs, the better

+was Pierre pleased and the more evident was it that the catastrophe he

+expected was approaching. Hardly anyone he knew was left in town. Julie

+had gone, and so had Princess Mary. Of his intimate friends only the

+Rostóvs remained, but he did not go to see them.

+

+To distract his thoughts he drove that day to the village of Vorontsóvo

+to see the great balloon Leppich was constructing to destroy the foe,

+and a trial balloon that was to go up next day. The balloon was not yet

+ready, but Pierre learned that it was being constructed by the Emperor’s

+desire. The Emperor had written to Count Rostopchín as follows:

+

+As soon as Leppich is ready, get together a crew of reliable and

+intelligent men for his car and send a courier to General Kutúzov to let

+him know. I have informed him of the matter.

+

+Please impress upon Leppich to be very careful where he descends for

+the first time, that he may not make a mistake and fall into the enemy’s

+hands. It is essential for him to combine his movements with those of

+the commander in chief.

+

+

+On his way home from Vorontsóvo, as he was passing the Bolótnoe Place

+Pierre, seeing a large crowd round the Lóbnoe Place, stopped and got out

+of his trap. A French cook accused of being a spy was being flogged. The

+flogging was only just over, and the executioner was releasing from the

+flogging bench a stout man with red whiskers, in blue stockings and

+a green jacket, who was moaning piteously. Another criminal, thin and

+pale, stood near. Judging by their faces they were both Frenchmen. With

+a frightened and suffering look resembling that on the thin Frenchman’s

+face, Pierre pushed his way in through the crowd.

+

+“What is it? Who is it? What is it for?” he kept asking.

+

+But the attention of the crowd—officials, burghers, shopkeepers,

+peasants, and women in cloaks and in pelisses—was so eagerly centered on

+what was passing in Lóbnoe Place that no one answered him. The stout man

+rose, frowned, shrugged his shoulders, and evidently trying to appear

+firm began to pull on his jacket without looking about him, but suddenly

+his lips trembled and he began to cry, in the way full-blooded grown-up

+men cry, though angry with himself for doing so. In the crowd people

+began talking loudly, to stifle their feelings of pity as it seemed to

+Pierre.

+

+“He’s cook to some prince.”

+

+“Eh, mounseer, Russian sauce seems to be sour to a Frenchman... sets his

+teeth on edge!” said a wrinkled clerk who was standing behind Pierre,

+when the Frenchman began to cry.

+

+The clerk glanced round, evidently hoping that his joke would be

+appreciated. Some people began to laugh, others continued to watch in

+dismay the executioner who was undressing the other man.

+

+Pierre choked, his face puckered, and he turned hastily away, went back

+to his trap muttering something to himself as he went, and took his

+seat. As they drove along he shuddered and exclaimed several times so

+audibly that the coachman asked him:

+

+“What is your pleasure?”

+

+“Where are you going?” shouted Pierre to the man, who was driving to

+Lubyánka Street.

+

+“To the Governor’s, as you ordered,” answered the coachman.

+

+“Fool! Idiot!” shouted Pierre, abusing his coachman—a thing he rarely

+did. “Home, I told you! And drive faster, blockhead!” “I must get away

+this very day,” he murmured to himself.

+

+At the sight of the tortured Frenchman and the crowd surrounding the

+Lóbnoe Place, Pierre had so definitely made up his mind that he could no

+longer remain in Moscow and would leave for the army that very day that

+it seemed to him that either he had told the coachman this or that the

+man ought to have known it for himself.

+

+On reaching home Pierre gave orders to Evstáfey—his head coachman who

+knew everything, could do anything, and was known to all Moscow—that

+he would leave that night for the army at Mozháysk, and that his saddle

+horses should be sent there. This could not all be arranged that day,

+so on Evstáfey’s representation Pierre had to put off his departure till

+next day to allow time for the relay horses to be sent on in advance.

+

+On the twenty-fourth the weather cleared up after a spell of rain, and

+after dinner Pierre left Moscow. When changing horses that night

+in Perkhúshkovo, he learned that there had been a great battle that

+evening. (This was the battle of Shevárdino.) He was told that there in

+Perkhúshkovo the earth trembled from the firing, but nobody could answer

+his questions as to who had won. At dawn next day Pierre was approaching

+Mozháysk.

+

+Every house in Mozháysk had soldiers quartered in it, and at the hostel

+where Pierre was met by his groom and coachman there was no room to be

+had. It was full of officers.

+

+Everywhere in Mozháysk and beyond it, troops were stationed or on the

+march. Cossacks, foot and horse soldiers, wagons, caissons, and cannon

+were everywhere. Pierre pushed forward as fast as he could, and the

+farther he left Moscow behind and the deeper he plunged into that sea

+of troops the more was he overcome by restless agitation and a new and

+joyful feeling he had not experienced before. It was a feeling akin

+to what he had felt at the Slobóda Palace during the Emperor’s visit—a

+sense of the necessity of undertaking something and sacrificing

+something. He now experienced a glad consciousness that everything that

+constitutes men’s happiness—the comforts of life, wealth, even

+life itself—is rubbish it is pleasant to throw away, compared with

+something... With what? Pierre could not say, and he did not try to

+determine for whom and for what he felt such particular delight in

+sacrificing everything. He was not occupied with the question of what to

+sacrifice for; the fact of sacrificing in itself afforded him a new and

+joyous sensation.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIX

+

+On the twenty-fourth of August the battle of the Shevárdino Redoubt was

+fought, on the twenty-fifth not a shot was fired by either side, and on

+the twenty-sixth the battle of Borodinó itself took place.

+

+Why and how were the battles of Shevárdino and Borodinó given and

+accepted? Why was the battle of Borodinó fought? There was not the least

+sense in it for either the French or the Russians. Its immediate result

+for the Russians was, and was bound to be, that we were brought nearer

+to the destruction of Moscow—which we feared more than anything in

+the world; and for the French its immediate result was that they were

+brought nearer to the destruction of their whole army—which they feared

+more than anything in the world. What the result must be was quite

+obvious, and yet Napoleon offered and Kutúzov accepted that battle.

+

+If the commanders had been guided by reason, it would seem that it must

+have been obvious to Napoleon that by advancing thirteen hundred miles

+and giving battle with a probability of losing a quarter of his army,

+he was advancing to certain destruction, and it must have been equally

+clear to Kutúzov that by accepting battle and risking the loss of a

+quarter of his army he would certainly lose Moscow. For Kutúzov this was

+mathematically clear, as it is that if when playing draughts I have one

+man less and go on exchanging, I shall certainly lose, and therefore

+should not exchange. When my opponent has sixteen men and I have

+fourteen, I am only one eighth weaker than he, but when I have exchanged

+thirteen more men he will be three times as strong as I am.

+

+Before the battle of Borodinó our strength in proportion to the French

+was about as five to six, but after that battle it was little more than

+one to two: previously we had a hundred thousand against a hundred and

+twenty thousand; afterwards little more than fifty thousand against a

+hundred thousand. Yet the shrewd and experienced Kutúzov accepted the

+battle, while Napoleon, who was said to be a commander of genius,

+gave it, losing a quarter of his army and lengthening his lines of

+communication still more. If it is said that he expected to end the

+campaign by occupying Moscow as he had ended a previous campaign by

+occupying Vienna, there is much evidence to the contrary. Napoleon’s

+historians themselves tell us that from Smolénsk onwards he wished

+to stop, knew the danger of his extended position, and knew that the

+occupation of Moscow would not be the end of the campaign, for he had

+seen at Smolénsk the state in which Russian towns were left to him, and

+had not received a single reply to his repeated announcements of his

+wish to negotiate.

+

+In giving and accepting battle at Borodinó, Kutúzov acted involuntarily

+and irrationally. But later on, to fit what had occurred, the historians

+provided cunningly devised evidence of the foresight and genius of the

+generals who, of all the blind tools of history were the most enslaved

+and involuntary.

+

+The ancients have left us model heroic poems in which the heroes furnish

+the whole interest of the story, and we are still unable to accustom

+ourselves to the fact that for our epoch histories of that kind are

+meaningless.

+

+On the other question, how the battle of Borodinó and the preceding

+battle of Shevárdino were fought, there also exists a definite and

+well-known, but quite false, conception. All the historians describe the

+affair as follows:

+

+The Russian army, they say, in its retreat from Smolénsk sought out

+for itself the best position for a general engagement and found such a

+position at Borodinó.

+

+The Russians, they say, fortified this position in advance on the left

+of the highroad (from Moscow to Smolénsk) and almost at a right angle

+to it, from Borodinó to Utítsa, at the very place where the battle was

+fought.

+

+In front of this position, they say, a fortified outpost was set up on

+the Shevárdino mound to observe the enemy. On the twenty-fourth, we

+are told, Napoleon attacked this advanced post and took it, and, on the

+twenty-sixth, attacked the whole Russian army, which was in position on

+the field of Borodinó.

+

+So the histories say, and it is all quite wrong, as anyone who cares to

+look into the matter can easily convince himself.

+

+The Russians did not seek out the best position but, on the contrary,

+during the retreat passed many positions better than Borodinó. They did

+not stop at any one of these positions because Kutúzov did not wish to

+occupy a position he had not himself chosen, because the popular demand

+for a battle had not yet expressed itself strongly enough, and because

+Milorádovich had not yet arrived with the militia, and for many other

+reasons. The fact is that other positions they had passed were stronger,

+and that the position at Borodinó (the one where the battle was fought),

+far from being strong, was no more a position than any other spot one

+might find in the Russian Empire by sticking a pin into the map at

+hazard.

+

+Not only did the Russians not fortify the position on the field of

+Borodinó to the left of, and at a right angle to, the highroad (that

+is, the position on which the battle took place), but never till the

+twenty-fifth of August, 1812, did they think that a battle might be

+fought there. This was shown first by the fact that there were no

+entrenchments there by the twenty fifth and that those begun on the

+twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth were not completed, and secondly, by the

+position of the Shevárdino Redoubt. That redoubt was quite senseless

+in front of the position where the battle was accepted. Why was it

+more strongly fortified than any other post? And why were all efforts

+exhausted and six thousand men sacrificed to defend it till late at

+night on the twenty-fourth? A Cossack patrol would have sufficed to

+observe the enemy. Thirdly, as proof that the position on which the

+battle was fought had not been foreseen and that the Shevárdino Redoubt

+was not an advanced post of that position, we have the fact that up to

+the twenty-fifth, Barclay de Tolly and Bagratión were convinced that the

+Shevárdino Redoubt was the left flank of the position, and that Kutúzov

+himself in his report, written in hot haste after the battle, speaks of

+the Shevárdino Redoubt as the left flank of the position. It was much

+later, when reports on the battle of Borodinó were written at leisure,

+that the incorrect and extraordinary statement was invented (probably to

+justify the mistakes of a commander in chief who had to be represented

+as infallible) that the Shevárdino Redoubt was an advanced post—whereas

+in reality it was simply a fortified point on the left flank—and that

+the battle of Borodinó was fought by us on an entrenched position

+previously selected, whereas it was fought on a quite unexpected spot

+which was almost unentrenched.

+

+The case was evidently this: a position was selected along the river

+Kolochá—which crosses the highroad not at a right angle but at an acute

+angle—so that the left flank was at Shevárdino, the right flank near the

+village of Nóvoe, and the center at Borodinó at the confluence of the

+rivers Kolochá and Vóyna.

+

+To anyone who looks at the field of Borodinó without thinking of how

+the battle was actually fought, this position, protected by the river

+Kolochá, presents itself as obvious for an army whose object was to

+prevent an enemy from advancing along the Smolénsk road to Moscow.

+

+Napoleon, riding to Valúevo on the twenty-fourth, did not see (as the

+history books say he did) the position of the Russians from Utítsa

+to Borodinó (he could not have seen that position because it did not

+exist), nor did he see an advanced post of the Russian army, but while

+pursuing the Russian rearguard he came upon the left flank of the

+Russian position—at the Shevárdino Redoubt—and unexpectedly for the

+Russians moved his army across the Kolochá. And the Russians, not having

+time to begin a general engagement, withdrew their left wing from the

+position they had intended to occupy and took up a new position which

+had not been foreseen and was not fortified. By crossing to the other

+side of the Kolochá to the left of the highroad, Napoleon shifted the

+whole forthcoming battle from right to left (looking from the Russian

+side) and transferred it to the plain between Utítsa, Semënovsk, and

+Borodinó—a plain no more advantageous as a position than any other plain

+in Russia—and there the whole battle of the twenty-sixth of August took

+place.

+

+Had Napoleon not ridden out on the evening of the twenty-fourth to the

+Kolochá, and had he not then ordered an immediate attack on the redoubt

+but had begun the attack next morning, no one would have doubted that

+the Shevárdino Redoubt was the left flank of our position, and the

+battle would have taken place where we expected it. In that case

+we should probably have defended the Shevárdino Redoubt—our left

+flank—still more obstinately. We should have attacked Napoleon in the

+center or on the right, and the engagement would have taken place on the

+twenty-fifth, in the position we intended and had fortified. But as the

+attack on our left flank took place in the evening after the retreat of

+our rear guard (that is, immediately after the fight at Gridnëva), and

+as the Russian commanders did not wish, or were not in time, to begin a

+general engagement then on the evening of the twenty-fourth, the first

+and chief action of the battle of Borodinó was already lost on the

+twenty-fourth, and obviously led to the loss of the one fought on the

+twenty-sixth.

+

+After the loss of the Shevárdino Redoubt, we found ourselves on the

+morning of the twenty-fifth without a position for our left flank, and

+were forced to bend it back and hastily entrench it where it chanced to

+be.

+

+Not only was the Russian army on the twenty-sixth defended by weak,

+unfinished entrenchments, but the disadvantage of that position was

+increased by the fact that the Russian commanders—not having fully

+realized what had happened, namely the loss of our position on the left

+flank and the shifting of the whole field of the forthcoming battle from

+right to left—maintained their extended position from the village of

+Nóvoe to Utítsa, and consequently had to move their forces from right to

+left during the battle. So it happened that throughout the whole battle

+the Russians opposed the entire French army launched against our left

+flank with but half as many men. (Poniatowski’s action against Utítsa,

+and Uvárov’s on the right flank against the French, were actions

+distinct from the main course of the battle.) So the battle of Borodinó

+did not take place at all as (in an effort to conceal our commanders’

+mistakes even at the cost of diminishing the glory due to the Russian

+army and people) it has been described. The battle of Borodinó was not

+fought on a chosen and entrenched position with forces only slightly

+weaker than those of the enemy, but, as a result of the loss of the

+Shevárdino Redoubt, the Russians fought the battle of Borodinó on an

+open and almost unentrenched position, with forces only half as numerous

+as the French; that is to say, under conditions in which it was not

+merely unthinkable to fight for ten hours and secure an indecisive

+result, but unthinkable to keep an army even from complete

+disintegration and flight.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XX

+

+On the morning of the twenty-fifth Pierre was leaving Mozháysk. At the

+descent of the high steep hill, down which a winding road led out of the

+town past the cathedral on the right, where a service was being held and

+the bells were ringing, Pierre got out of his vehicle and proceeded on

+foot. Behind him a cavalry regiment was coming down the hill preceded by

+its singers. Coming up toward him was a train of carts carrying men who

+had been wounded in the engagement the day before. The peasant drivers,

+shouting and lashing their horses, kept crossing from side to side. The

+carts, in each of which three or four wounded soldiers were lying

+or sitting, jolted over the stones that had been thrown on the steep

+incline to make it something like a road. The wounded, bandaged with

+rags, with pale cheeks, compressed lips, and knitted brows, held on to

+the sides of the carts as they were jolted against one another. Almost

+all of them stared with naïve, childlike curiosity at Pierre’s white hat

+and green swallow-tail coat.

+

+Pierre’s coachman shouted angrily at the convoy of wounded to keep to

+one side of the road. The cavalry regiment, as it descended the hill

+with its singers, surrounded Pierre’s carriage and blocked the road.

+Pierre stopped, being pressed against the side of the cutting in which

+the road ran. The sunshine from behind the hill did not penetrate into

+the cutting and there it was cold and damp, but above Pierre’s head was

+the bright August sunshine and the bells sounded merrily. One of the

+carts with wounded stopped by the side of the road close to Pierre. The

+driver in his bast shoes ran panting up to it, placed a stone under one

+of its tireless hind wheels, and began arranging the breech-band on his

+little horse.

+

+One of the wounded, an old soldier with a bandaged arm who was following

+the cart on foot, caught hold of it with his sound hand and turned to

+look at Pierre.

+

+“I say, fellow countryman! Will they set us down here or take us on to

+Moscow?” he asked.

+

+Pierre was so deep in thought that he did not hear the question. He was

+looking now at the cavalry regiment that had met the convoy of wounded,

+now at the cart by which he was standing, in which two wounded men

+were sitting and one was lying. One of those sitting up in the cart had

+probably been wounded in the cheek. His whole head was wrapped in rags

+and one cheek was swollen to the size of a baby’s head. His nose

+and mouth were twisted to one side. This soldier was looking at the

+cathedral and crossing himself. Another, a young lad, a fair-haired

+recruit as white as though there was no blood in his thin face, looked

+at Pierre kindly, with a fixed smile. The third lay prone so that his

+face was not visible. The cavalry singers were passing close by:

+

+   Ah lost, quite lost... is my head so keen,

+   Living in a foreign land...

+

+they sang their soldiers’ dance song.

+

+As if responding to them but with a different sort of merriment, the

+metallic sound of the bells reverberated high above and the hot rays of

+the sun bathed the top of the opposite slope with yet another sort of

+merriment. But beneath the slope, by the cart with the wounded near the

+panting little nag where Pierre stood, it was damp, somber, and sad.

+

+The soldier with the swollen cheek looked angrily at the cavalry

+singers.

+

+“Oh, the coxcombs!” he muttered reproachfully.

+

+“It’s not the soldiers only, but I’ve seen peasants today, too....

+The peasants—even they have to go,” said the soldier behind the cart,

+addressing Pierre with a sad smile. “No distinctions made nowadays....

+They want the whole nation to fall on them—in a word, it’s Moscow! They

+want to make an end of it.”

+

+In spite of the obscurity of the soldier’s words Pierre understood what

+he wanted to say and nodded approval.

+

+The road was clear again; Pierre descended the hill and drove on.

+

+He kept looking to either side of the road for familiar faces, but only

+saw everywhere the unfamiliar faces of various military men of different

+branches of the service, who all looked with astonishment at his white

+hat and green tail coat.

+

+Having gone nearly three miles he at last met an acquaintance and

+eagerly addressed him. This was one of the head army doctors. He was

+driving toward Pierre in a covered gig, sitting beside a young surgeon,

+and on recognizing Pierre he told the Cossack who occupied the driver’s

+seat to pull up.

+

+“Count! Your excellency, how come you to be here?” asked the doctor.

+

+“Well, you know, I wanted to see...”

+

+“Yes, yes, there will be something to see....”

+

+Pierre got out and talked to the doctor, explaining his intention of

+taking part in a battle.

+

+The doctor advised him to apply direct to Kutúzov.

+

+“Why should you be God knows where out of sight, during the battle?” he

+said, exchanging glances with his young companion. “Anyhow his Serene

+Highness knows you and will receive you graciously. That’s what you must

+do.”

+

+The doctor seemed tired and in a hurry.

+

+“You think so?... Ah, I also wanted to ask you where our position is

+exactly?” said Pierre.

+

+“The position?” repeated the doctor. “Well, that’s not my line. Drive

+past Tatárinova, a lot of digging is going on there. Go up the hillock

+and you’ll see.”

+

+“Can one see from there?... If you would...”

+

+But the doctor interrupted him and moved toward his gig.

+

+“I would go with you but on my honor I’m up to here”—and he pointed to

+his throat. “I’m galloping to the commander of the corps. How do matters

+stand?... You know, Count, there’ll be a battle tomorrow. Out of an army

+of a hundred thousand we must expect at least twenty thousand wounded,

+and we haven’t stretchers, or bunks, or dressers, or doctors enough for

+six thousand. We have ten thousand carts, but we need other things as

+well—we must manage as best we can!”

+

+The strange thought that of the thousands of men, young and old, who

+had stared with merry surprise at his hat (perhaps the very men he had

+noticed), twenty thousand were inevitably doomed to wounds and death

+amazed Pierre.

+

+“They may die tomorrow; why are they thinking of anything but death?”

+And by some latent sequence of thought the descent of the Mozháysk hill,

+the carts with the wounded, the ringing bells, the slanting rays of the

+sun, and the songs of the cavalrymen vividly recurred to his mind.

+

+“The cavalry ride to battle and meet the wounded and do not for a moment

+think of what awaits them, but pass by, winking at the wounded. Yet from

+among these men twenty thousand are doomed to die, and they wonder at my

+hat! Strange!” thought Pierre, continuing his way to Tatárinova.

+

+In front of a landowner’s house to the left of the road stood carriages,

+wagons, and crowds of orderlies and sentinels. The commander in chief

+was putting up there, but just when Pierre arrived he was not in and

+hardly any of the staff were there—they had gone to the church service.

+Pierre drove on toward Górki.

+

+When he had ascended the hill and reached the little village street, he

+saw for the first time peasant militiamen in their white shirts and with

+crosses on their caps, who, talking and laughing loudly, animated and

+perspiring, were at work on a huge knoll overgrown with grass to the

+right of the road.

+

+Some of them were digging, others were wheeling barrowloads of earth

+along planks, while others stood about doing nothing.

+

+Two officers were standing on the knoll, directing the men. On seeing

+these peasants, who were evidently still amused by the novelty of their

+position as soldiers, Pierre once more thought of the wounded men at

+Mozháysk and understood what the soldier had meant when he said: “They

+want the whole nation to fall on them.” The sight of these bearded

+peasants at work on the battlefield, with their queer, clumsy boots

+and perspiring necks, and their shirts opening from the left toward

+the middle, unfastened, exposing their sunburned collarbones, impressed

+Pierre more strongly with the solemnity and importance of the moment

+than anything he had yet seen or heard.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXI

+

+Pierre stepped out of his carriage and, passing the toiling militiamen,

+ascended the knoll from which, according to the doctor, the battlefield

+could be seen.

+

+It was about eleven o’clock. The sun shone somewhat to the left and

+behind him and brightly lit up the enormous panorama which, rising like

+an amphitheater, extended before him in the clear rarefied atmosphere.

+

+From above on the left, bisecting that amphitheater, wound the Smolénsk

+highroad, passing through a village with a white church some five

+hundred paces in front of the knoll and below it. This was Borodinó.

+Below the village the road crossed the river by a bridge and, winding

+down and up, rose higher and higher to the village of Valúevo visible

+about four miles away, where Napoleon was then stationed. Beyond Valúevo

+the road disappeared into a yellowing forest on the horizon. Far in

+the distance in that birch and fir forest to the right of the road, the

+cross and belfry of the Kolochá Monastery gleamed in the sun. Here and

+there over the whole of that blue expanse, to right and left of the

+forest and the road, smoking campfires could be seen and indefinite

+masses of troops—ours and the enemy’s. The ground to the right—along the

+course of the Kolochá and Moskvá rivers—was broken and hilly. Between

+the hollows the villages of Bezúbova and Zakhárino showed in the

+distance. On the left the ground was more level; there were fields of

+grain, and the smoking ruins of Semënovsk, which had been burned down,

+could be seen.

+

+All that Pierre saw was so indefinite that neither the left nor the

+right side of the field fully satisfied his expectations. Nowhere

+could he see the battlefield he had expected to find, but only fields,

+meadows, troops, woods, the smoke of campfires, villages, mounds, and

+streams; and try as he would he could descry no military “position” in

+this place which teemed with life, nor could he even distinguish our

+troops from the enemy’s.

+

+“I must ask someone who knows,” he thought, and addressed an officer who

+was looking with curiosity at his huge unmilitary figure.

+

+“May I ask you,” said Pierre, “what village that is in front?”

+

+“Búrdino, isn’t it?” said the officer, turning to his companion.

+

+“Borodinó,” the other corrected him.

+

+The officer, evidently glad of an opportunity for a talk, moved up to

+Pierre.

+

+“Are those our men there?” Pierre inquired.

+

+“Yes, and there, further on, are the French,” said the officer. “There

+they are, there... you can see them.”

+

+“Where? Where?” asked Pierre.

+

+“One can see them with the naked eye... Why, there!”

+

+The officer pointed with his hand to the smoke visible on the left

+beyond the river, and the same stern and serious expression that Pierre

+had noticed on many of the faces he had met came into his face.

+

+“Ah, those are the French! And over there?...” Pierre pointed to a knoll

+on the left, near which some troops could be seen.

+

+“Those are ours.”

+

+“Ah, ours! And there?...” Pierre pointed to another knoll in the

+distance with a big tree on it, near a village that lay in a hollow

+where also some campfires were smoking and something black was visible.

+

+“That’s his again,” said the officer. (It was the Shevárdino Redoubt.)

+“It was ours yesterday, but now it is his.”

+

+“Then how about our position?”

+

+“Our position?” replied the officer with a smile of satisfaction. “I

+can tell you quite clearly, because I constructed nearly all our

+entrenchments. There, you see? There’s our center, at Borodinó, just

+there,” and he pointed to the village in front of them with the white

+church. “That’s where one crosses the Kolochá. You see down there where

+the rows of hay are lying in the hollow, there’s the bridge. That’s our

+center. Our right flank is over there”—he pointed sharply to the right,

+far away in the broken ground—“That’s where the Moskvá River is, and

+we have thrown up three redoubts there, very strong ones. The left

+flank...” here the officer paused. “Well, you see, that’s difficult to

+explain.... Yesterday our left flank was there at Shevárdino, you see,

+where the oak is, but now we have withdrawn our left wing—now it is over

+there, do you see that village and the smoke? That’s Semënovsk, yes,

+there,” he pointed to Raévski’s knoll. “But the battle will hardly

+be there. His having moved his troops there is only a ruse; he will

+probably pass round to the right of the Moskvá. But wherever it may be,

+many a man will be missing tomorrow!” he remarked.

+

+An elderly sergeant who had approached the officer while he was giving

+these explanations had waited in silence for him to finish speaking, but

+at this point, evidently not liking the officer’s remark, interrupted

+him.

+

+“Gabions must be sent for,” said he sternly.

+

+The officer appeared abashed, as though he understood that one might

+think of how many men would be missing tomorrow but ought not to speak

+of it.

+

+“Well, send number three company again,” the officer replied hurriedly.

+

+“And you, are you one of the doctors?”

+

+“No, I’ve come on my own,” answered Pierre, and he went down the hill

+again, passing the militiamen.

+

+“Oh, those damned fellows!” muttered the officer who followed him,

+holding his nose as he ran past the men at work.

+

+“There they are... bringing her, coming... There they are... They’ll be

+here in a minute...” voices were suddenly heard saying; and officers,

+soldiers, and militiamen began running forward along the road.

+

+A church procession was coming up the hill from Borodinó. First along

+the dusty road came the infantry in ranks, bareheaded and with arms

+reversed. From behind them came the sound of church singing.

+

+Soldiers and militiamen ran bareheaded past Pierre toward the

+procession.

+

+“They are bringing her, our Protectress!... The Iberian Mother of God!”

+someone cried.

+

+“The Smolénsk Mother of God,” another corrected him.

+

+The militiamen, both those who had been in the village and those who had

+been at work on the battery, threw down their spades and ran to meet the

+church procession. Following the battalion that marched along the dusty

+road came priests in their vestments—one little old man in a hood with

+attendants and singers. Behind them soldiers and officers bore a large,

+dark-faced icon with an embossed metal cover. This was the icon that had

+been brought from Smolénsk and had since accompanied the army. Behind,

+before, and on both sides, crowds of militiamen with bared heads walked,

+ran, and bowed to the ground.

+

+At the summit of the hill they stopped with the icon; the men who had

+been holding it up by the linen bands attached to it were relieved by

+others, the chanters relit their censers, and service began. The hot

+rays of the sun beat down vertically and a fresh soft wind played with

+the hair of the bared heads and with the ribbons decorating the icon.

+The singing did not sound loud under the open sky. An immense crowd

+of bareheaded officers, soldiers, and militiamen surrounded the icon.

+Behind the priest and a chanter stood the notabilities on a spot

+reserved for them. A bald general with a St. George’s Cross on his neck

+stood just behind the priest’s back, and without crossing himself (he

+was evidently a German) patiently awaited the end of the service, which

+he considered it necessary to hear to the end, probably to arouse the

+patriotism of the Russian people. Another general stood in a martial

+pose, crossing himself by shaking his hand in front of his chest

+while looking about him. Standing among the crowd of peasants, Pierre

+recognized several acquaintances among these notables, but did not

+look at them—his whole attention was absorbed in watching the serious

+expression on the faces of the crowd of soldiers and militiamen who were

+all gazing eagerly at the icon. As soon as the tired chanters, who were

+singing the service for the twentieth time that day, began lazily and

+mechanically to sing: “Save from calamity Thy servants, O Mother of

+God,” and the priest and deacon chimed in: “For to Thee under God we all

+flee as to an inviolable bulwark and protection,” there again kindled in

+all those faces the same expression of consciousness of the solemnity

+of the impending moment that Pierre had seen on the faces at the foot of

+the hill at Mozháysk and momentarily on many and many faces he had met

+that morning; and heads were bowed more frequently and hair tossed back,

+and sighs and the sound men made as they crossed themselves were heard.

+

+The crowd round the icon suddenly parted and pressed against Pierre.

+Someone, a very important personage judging by the haste with which way

+was made for him, was approaching the icon.

+

+It was Kutúzov, who had been riding round the position and on his way

+back to Tatárinova had stopped where the service was being held. Pierre

+recognized him at once by his peculiar figure, which distinguished him

+from everybody else.

+

+With a long overcoat on his exceedingly stout, round-shouldered body,

+with uncovered white head and puffy face showing the white ball of the

+eye he had lost, Kutúzov walked with plunging, swaying gait into

+the crowd and stopped behind the priest. He crossed himself with an

+accustomed movement, bent till he touched the ground with his hand, and

+bowed his white head with a deep sigh. Behind Kutúzov was Bennigsen and

+the suite. Despite the presence of the commander in chief, who attracted

+the attention of all the superior officers, the militiamen and soldiers

+continued their prayers without looking at him.

+

+When the service was over, Kutúzov stepped up to the icon, sank heavily

+to his knees, bowed to the ground, and for a long time tried vainly to

+rise, but could not do so on account of his weakness and weight. His

+white head twitched with the effort. At last he rose, kissed the icon as

+a child does with naïvely pouting lips, and again bowed till he touched

+the ground with his hand. The other generals followed his example,

+then the officers, and after them with excited faces, pressing on one

+another, crowding, panting, and pushing, scrambled the soldiers and

+militiamen.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXII

+

+Staggering amid the crush, Pierre looked about him.

+

+“Count Peter Kirílovich! How did you get here?” said a voice.

+

+Pierre looked round. Borís Drubetskóy, brushing his knees with his hand

+(he had probably soiled them when he, too, had knelt before the icon),

+came up to him smiling. Borís was elegantly dressed, with a slightly

+martial touch appropriate to a campaign. He wore a long coat and like

+Kutúzov had a whip slung across his shoulder.

+

+Meanwhile Kutúzov had reached the village and seated himself in the

+shade of the nearest house, on a bench which one Cossack had run

+to fetch and another had hastily covered with a rug. An immense and

+brilliant suite surrounded him.

+

+The icon was carried further, accompanied by the throng. Pierre stopped

+some thirty paces from Kutúzov, talking to Borís.

+

+He explained his wish to be present at the battle and to see the

+position.

+

+“This is what you must do,” said Borís. “I will do the honors of the

+camp to you. You will see everything best from where Count Bennigsen

+will be. I am in attendance on him, you know; I’ll mention it to him.

+But if you want to ride round the position, come along with us. We are

+just going to the left flank. Then when we get back, do spend the night

+with me and we’ll arrange a game of cards. Of course you know Dmítri

+Sergéevich? Those are his quarters,” and he pointed to the third house

+in the village of Górki.

+

+“But I should like to see the right flank. They say it’s very strong,”

+said Pierre. “I should like to start from the Moskvá River and ride

+round the whole position.”

+

+“Well, you can do that later, but the chief thing is the left flank.”

+

+“Yes, yes. But where is Prince Bolkónski’s regiment? Can you point it

+out to me?”

+

+“Prince Andrew’s? We shall pass it and I’ll take you to him.”

+

+“What about the left flank?” asked Pierre

+

+“To tell you the truth, between ourselves, God only knows what state our

+left flank is in,” said Borís confidentially lowering his voice. “It is

+not at all what Count Bennigsen intended. He meant to fortify that knoll

+quite differently, but...” Borís shrugged his shoulders, “his Serene

+Highness would not have it, or someone persuaded him. You see...” but

+Borís did not finish, for at that moment Kaysárov, Kutúzov’s adjutant,

+came up to Pierre. “Ah, Kaysárov!” said Borís, addressing him with an

+unembarrassed smile, “I was just trying to explain our position to

+the count. It is amazing how his Serene Highness could so foresee the

+intentions of the French!”

+

+“You mean the left flank?” asked Kaysárov.

+

+“Yes, exactly; the left flank is now extremely strong.”

+

+Though Kutúzov had dismissed all unnecessary men from the staff, Borís

+had contrived to remain at headquarters after the changes. He had

+established himself with Count Bennigsen, who, like all on whom Borís

+had been in attendance, considered young Prince Drubetskóy an invaluable

+man.

+

+In the higher command there were two sharply defined parties: Kutúzov’s

+party and that of Bennigsen, the chief of staff. Borís belonged to the

+latter and no one else, while showing servile respect to Kutúzov, could

+so create an impression that the old fellow was not much good and that

+Bennigsen managed everything. Now the decisive moment of battle had come

+when Kutúzov would be destroyed and the power pass to Bennigsen, or even

+if Kutúzov won the battle it would be felt that everything was done by

+Bennigsen. In any case many great rewards would have to be given for

+tomorrow’s action, and new men would come to the front. So Borís was

+full of nervous vivacity all day.

+

+After Kaysárov, others whom Pierre knew came up to him, and he had not

+time to reply to all the questions about Moscow that were showered upon

+him, or to listen to all that was told him. The faces all expressed

+animation and apprehension, but it seemed to Pierre that the cause of

+the excitement shown in some of these faces lay chiefly in questions

+of personal success; his mind, however, was occupied by the different

+expression he saw on other faces—an expression that spoke not of

+personal matters but of the universal questions of life and death.

+Kutúzov noticed Pierre’s figure and the group gathered round him.

+

+“Call him to me,” said Kutúzov.

+

+An adjutant told Pierre of his Serene Highness’ wish, and Pierre went

+toward Kutúzov’s bench. But a militiaman got there before him. It was

+Dólokhov.

+

+“How did that fellow get here?” asked Pierre.

+

+“He’s a creature that wriggles in anywhere!” was the answer. “He

+has been degraded, you know. Now he wants to bob up again. He’s been

+proposing some scheme or other and has crawled into the enemy’s picket

+line at night.... He’s a brave fellow.”

+

+Pierre took off his hat and bowed respectfully to Kutúzov.

+

+“I concluded that if I reported to your Serene Highness you might send

+me away or say that you knew what I was reporting, but then I shouldn’t

+lose anything...” Dólokhov was saying.

+

+“Yes, yes.”

+

+“But if I were right, I should be rendering a service to my Fatherland

+for which I am ready to die.”

+

+“Yes, yes.”

+

+“And should your Serene Highness require a man who will not spare his

+skin, please think of me.... Perhaps I may prove useful to your Serene

+Highness.”

+

+“Yes... Yes...” Kutúzov repeated, his laughing eye narrowing more and

+more as he looked at Pierre.

+

+Just then Borís, with his courtierlike adroitness, stepped up to

+Pierre’s side near Kutúzov and in a most natural manner, without

+raising his voice, said to Pierre, as though continuing an interrupted

+conversation:

+

+“The militia have put on clean white shirts to be ready to die. What

+heroism, Count!”

+

+Borís evidently said this to Pierre in order to be overheard by his

+Serene Highness. He knew Kutúzov’s attention would be caught by those

+words, and so it was.

+

+“What are you saying about the militia?” he asked Borís.

+

+“Preparing for tomorrow, your Serene Highness—for death—they have put on

+clean shirts.”

+

+“Ah... a wonderful, a matchless people!” said Kutúzov; and he closed his

+eyes and swayed his head. “A matchless people!” he repeated with a sigh.

+

+“So you want to smell gunpowder?” he said to Pierre. “Yes, it’s a

+pleasant smell. I have the honor to be one of your wife’s adorers. Is

+she well? My quarters are at your service.”

+

+And as often happens with old people, Kutúzov began looking about

+absent-mindedly as if forgetting all he wanted to say or do.

+

+Then, evidently remembering what he wanted, he beckoned to Andrew

+Kaysárov, his adjutant’s brother.

+

+“Those verses... those verses of Márin’s... how do they go, eh? Those he

+wrote about Gerákov: ‘Lectures for the corps inditing’... Recite them,

+recite them!” said he, evidently preparing to laugh.

+

+Kaysárov recited.... Kutúzov smilingly nodded his head to the rhythm of

+the verses.

+

+When Pierre had left Kutúzov, Dólokhov came up to him and took his hand.

+

+“I am very glad to meet you here, Count,” he said aloud, regardless

+of the presence of strangers and in a particularly resolute and solemn

+tone. “On the eve of a day when God alone knows who of us is fated to

+survive, I am glad of this opportunity to tell you that I regret the

+misunderstandings that occurred between us and should wish you not to

+have any ill feeling for me. I beg you to forgive me.”

+

+Pierre looked at Dólokhov with a smile, not knowing what to say to him.

+With tears in his eyes Dólokhov embraced Pierre and kissed him.

+

+Borís said a few words to his general, and Count Bennigsen turned to

+Pierre and proposed that he should ride with him along the line.

+

+“It will interest you,” said he.

+

+“Yes, very much,” replied Pierre.

+

+Half an hour later Kutúzov left for Tatárinova, and Bennigsen and his

+suite, with Pierre among them, set out on their ride along the line.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIII

+

+From Górki, Bennigsen descended the highroad to the bridge which, when

+they had looked at it from the hill, the officer had pointed out as

+being the center of our position and where rows of fragrant new-mown hay

+lay by the riverside. They rode across that bridge into the village of

+Borodinó and thence turned to the left, passing an enormous number of

+troops and guns, and came to a high knoll where militiamen were digging.

+This was the redoubt, as yet unnamed, which afterwards became known as

+the Raévski Redoubt, or the Knoll Battery, but Pierre paid no special

+attention to it. He did not know that it would become more memorable to

+him than any other spot on the plain of Borodinó.

+

+They then crossed the hollow to Semënovsk, where the soldiers were

+dragging away the last logs from the huts and barns. Then they rode

+downhill and uphill, across a ryefield trodden and beaten down as if by

+hail, following a track freshly made by the artillery over the furrows

+of the plowed land, and reached some flèches * which were still being

+dug.

+

+    * A kind of entrenchment.

+

+At the flèches Bennigsen stopped and began looking at the Shevárdino

+Redoubt opposite, which had been ours the day before and where several

+horsemen could be descried. The officers said that either Napoleon or

+Murat was there, and they all gazed eagerly at this little group of

+horsemen. Pierre also looked at them, trying to guess which of the

+scarcely discernible figures was Napoleon. At last those mounted men

+rode away from the mound and disappeared.

+

+Bennigsen spoke to a general who approached him, and began explaining

+the whole position of our troops. Pierre listened to him, straining each

+faculty to understand the essential points of the impending battle, but

+was mortified to feel that his mental capacity was inadequate for the

+task. He could make nothing of it. Bennigsen stopped speaking and,

+noticing that Pierre was listening, suddenly said to him:

+

+“I don’t think this interests you?”

+

+“On the contrary it’s very interesting!” replied Pierre not quite

+truthfully.

+

+From the flèches they rode still farther to the left, along a road

+winding through a thick, low-growing birch wood. In the middle of the

+wood a brown hare with white feet sprang out and, scared by the tramp of

+the many horses, grew so confused that it leaped along the road in front

+of them for some time, arousing general attention and laughter, and only

+when several voices shouted at it did it dart to one side and disappear

+in the thicket. After going through the wood for about a mile and a half

+they came out on a glade where troops of Túchkov’s corps were stationed

+to defend the left flank.

+

+Here, at the extreme left flank, Bennigsen talked a great deal and with

+much heat, and, as it seemed to Pierre, gave orders of great military

+importance. In front of Túchkov’s troops was some high ground not

+occupied by troops. Bennigsen loudly criticized this mistake, saying

+that it was madness to leave a height which commanded the country around

+unoccupied and to place troops below it. Some of the generals expressed

+the same opinion. One in particular declared with martial heat that they

+were put there to be slaughtered. Bennigsen on his own authority ordered

+the troops to occupy the high ground. This disposition on the left flank

+increased Pierre’s doubt of his own capacity to understand military

+matters. Listening to Bennigsen and the generals criticizing the

+position of the troops behind the hill, he quite understood them and

+shared their opinion, but for that very reason he could not understand

+how the man who put them there behind the hill could have made so gross

+and palpable a blunder.

+

+Pierre did not know that these troops were not, as Bennigsen supposed,

+put there to defend the position, but were in a concealed position as

+an ambush, that they should not be seen and might be able to strike an

+approaching enemy unexpectedly. Bennigsen did not know this and moved

+the troops forward according to his own ideas without mentioning the

+matter to the commander in chief.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIV

+

+On that bright evening of August 25, Prince Andrew lay leaning on his

+elbow in a broken-down shed in the village of Knyazkóvo at the further

+end of his regiment’s encampment. Through a gap in the broken wall he

+could see, beside the wooden fence, a row of thirty-year-old birches

+with their lower branches lopped off, a field on which shocks of

+oats were standing, and some bushes near which rose the smoke of

+campfires—the soldiers’ kitchens.

+

+Narrow and burdensome and useless to anyone as his life now seemed to

+him, Prince Andrew on the eve of battle felt agitated and irritable as

+he had done seven years before at Austerlitz.

+

+He had received and given the orders for next day’s battle and had

+nothing more to do. But his thoughts—the simplest, clearest, and

+therefore most terrible thoughts—would give him no peace. He knew that

+tomorrow’s battle would be the most terrible of all he had taken

+part in, and for the first time in his life the possibility of death

+presented itself to him—not in relation to any worldly matter or with

+reference to its effect on others, but simply in relation to himself, to

+his own soul—vividly, plainly, terribly, and almost as a certainty. And

+from the height of this perception all that had previously tormented and

+preoccupied him suddenly became illumined by a cold white light without

+shadows, without perspective, without distinction of outline. All life

+appeared to him like magic-lantern pictures at which he had long been

+gazing by artificial light through a glass. Now he suddenly saw those

+badly daubed pictures in clear daylight and without a glass. “Yes,

+yes! There they are, those false images that agitated, enraptured,

+and tormented me,” said he to himself, passing in review the principal

+pictures of the magic lantern of life and regarding them now in the cold

+white daylight of his clear perception of death. “There they are, those

+rudely painted figures that once seemed splendid and mysterious.

+Glory, the good of society, love of a woman, the Fatherland itself—how

+important these pictures appeared to me, with what profound meaning they

+seemed to be filled! And it is all so simple, pale, and crude in the

+cold white light of this morning which I feel is dawning for me.” The

+three great sorrows of his life held his attention in particular: his

+love for a woman, his father’s death, and the French invasion which had

+overrun half Russia. “Love... that little girl who seemed to me brimming

+over with mystic forces! Yes, indeed, I loved her. I made romantic plans

+of love and happiness with her! Oh, what a boy I was!” he said aloud

+bitterly. “Ah me! I believed in some ideal love which was to keep her

+faithful to me for the whole year of my absence! Like the gentle dove

+in the fable she was to pine apart from me.... But it was much simpler

+really.... It was all very simple and horrible.”

+

+“When my father built Bald Hills he thought the place was his: his

+land, his air, his peasants. But Napoleon came and swept him aside,

+unconscious of his existence, as he might brush a chip from his path,

+and his Bald Hills and his whole life fell to pieces. Princess Mary says

+it is a trial sent from above. What is the trial for, when he is not

+here and will never return? He is not here! For whom then is the trial

+intended? The Fatherland, the destruction of Moscow! And tomorrow I

+shall be killed, perhaps not even by a Frenchman but by one of our own

+men, by a soldier discharging a musket close to my ear as one of them

+did yesterday, and the French will come and take me by head and heels

+and fling me into a hole that I may not stink under their noses, and new

+conditions of life will arise, which will seem quite ordinary to others

+and about which I shall know nothing. I shall not exist....”

+

+He looked at the row of birches shining in the sunshine, with their

+motionless green and yellow foliage and white bark. “To die... to be

+killed tomorrow... That I should not exist... That all this should still

+be, but no me....”

+

+And the birches with their light and shade, the curly clouds, the

+smoke of the campfires, and all that was around him changed and seemed

+terrible and menacing. A cold shiver ran down his spine. He rose

+quickly, went out of the shed, and began to walk about.

+

+After he had returned, voices were heard outside the shed. “Who’s that?”

+he cried.

+

+The red-nosed Captain Timókhin, formerly Dólokhov’s squadron commander,

+but now from lack of officers a battalion commander, shyly entered the

+shed followed by an adjutant and the regimental paymaster.

+

+Prince Andrew rose hastily, listened to the business they had come

+about, gave them some further instructions, and was about to dismiss

+them when he heard a familiar, lisping, voice behind the shed.

+

+“Devil take it!” said the voice of a man stumbling over something.

+

+Prince Andrew looked out of the shed and saw Pierre, who had tripped

+over a pole on the ground and had nearly fallen, coming his way. It was

+unpleasant to Prince Andrew to meet people of his own set in general,

+and Pierre especially, for he reminded him of all the painful moments of

+his last visit to Moscow.

+

+“You? What a surprise!” said he. “What brings you here? This is

+unexpected!”

+

+As he said this his eyes and face expressed more than coldness—they

+expressed hostility, which Pierre noticed at once. He had approached

+the shed full of animation, but on seeing Prince Andrew’s face he felt

+constrained and ill at ease.

+

+“I have come... simply... you know... come... it interests me,” said

+Pierre, who had so often that day senselessly repeated that word

+“interesting.” “I wish to see the battle.”

+

+“Oh yes, and what do the Masonic brothers say about war? How would they

+stop it?” said Prince Andrew sarcastically. “Well, and how’s Moscow? And

+my people? Have they reached Moscow at last?” he asked seriously.

+

+“Yes, they have. Julie Drubetskáya told me so. I went to see them, but

+missed them. They have gone to your estate near Moscow.”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXV

+

+The officers were about to take leave, but Prince Andrew, apparently

+reluctant to be left alone with his friend, asked them to stay and have

+tea. Seats were brought in and so was the tea. The officers gazed with

+surprise at Pierre’s huge stout figure and listened to his talk of

+Moscow and the position of our army, round which he had ridden. Prince

+Andrew remained silent, and his expression was so forbidding that Pierre

+addressed his remarks chiefly to the good-natured battalion commander.

+

+“So you understand the whole position of our troops?” Prince Andrew

+interrupted him.

+

+“Yes—that is, how do you mean?” said Pierre. “Not being a military man

+I can’t say I have understood it fully, but I understand the general

+position.”

+

+“Well, then, you know more than anyone else, be it who it may,” said

+Prince Andrew.

+

+“Oh!” said Pierre, looking over his spectacles in perplexity at Prince

+Andrew. “Well, and what do you think of Kutúzov’s appointment?” he

+asked.

+

+“I was very glad of his appointment, that’s all I know,” replied Prince

+Andrew.

+

+“And tell me your opinion of Barclay de Tolly. In Moscow they are saying

+heaven knows what about him.... What do you think of him?”

+

+“Ask them,” replied Prince Andrew, indicating the officers.

+

+Pierre looked at Timókhin with the condescendingly interrogative smile

+with which everybody involuntarily addressed that officer.

+

+“We see light again, since his Serenity has been appointed, your

+excellency,” said Timókhin timidly, and continually turning to glance at

+his colonel.

+

+“Why so?” asked Pierre.

+

+“Well, to mention only firewood and fodder, let me inform you. Why, when

+we were retreating from Sventsyáni we dare not touch a stick or a wisp

+of hay or anything. You see, we were going away, so he would get it all;

+wasn’t it so, your excellency?” and again Timókhin turned to the prince.

+“But we daren’t. In our regiment two officers were court-martialed for

+that kind of thing. But when his Serenity took command everything became

+straightforward. Now we see light....”

+

+“Then why was it forbidden?”

+

+Timókhin looked about in confusion, not knowing what or how to answer

+such a question. Pierre put the same question to Prince Andrew.

+

+“Why, so as not to lay waste the country we were abandoning to the

+enemy,” said Prince Andrew with venomous irony. “It is very sound:

+one can’t permit the land to be pillaged and accustom the troops to

+marauding. At Smolénsk too he judged correctly that the French might

+outflank us, as they had larger forces. But he could not understand

+this,” cried Prince Andrew in a shrill voice that seemed to escape him

+involuntarily: “he could not understand that there, for the first time,

+we were fighting for Russian soil, and that there was a spirit in the

+men such as I had never seen before, that we had held the French for

+two days, and that that success had increased our strength tenfold. He

+ordered us to retreat, and all our efforts and losses went for nothing.

+He had no thought of betraying us, he tried to do the best he could,

+he thought out everything, and that is why he is unsuitable. He is

+unsuitable now, just because he plans out everything very thoroughly and

+accurately as every German has to. How can I explain?... Well, say your

+father has a German valet, and he is a splendid valet and satisfies your

+father’s requirements better than you could, then it’s all right to let

+him serve. But if your father is mortally sick you’ll send the valet

+away and attend to your father with your own unpracticed, awkward hands,

+and will soothe him better than a skilled man who is a stranger could.

+So it has been with Barclay. While Russia was well, a foreigner could

+serve her and be a splendid minister; but as soon as she is in danger

+she needs one of her own kin. But in your Club they have been making him

+out a traitor! They slander him as a traitor, and the only result will

+be that afterwards, ashamed of their false accusations, they will make

+him out a hero or a genius instead of a traitor, and that will be still

+more unjust. He is an honest and very punctilious German.”

+

+“And they say he’s a skillful commander,” rejoined Pierre.

+

+“I don’t understand what is meant by ‘a skillful commander,’” replied

+Prince Andrew ironically.

+

+“A skillful commander?” replied Pierre. “Why, one who foresees all

+contingencies... and foresees the adversary’s intentions.”

+

+“But that’s impossible,” said Prince Andrew as if it were a matter

+settled long ago.

+

+Pierre looked at him in surprise.

+

+“And yet they say that war is like a game of chess?” he remarked.

+

+“Yes,” replied Prince Andrew, “but with this little difference, that

+in chess you may think over each move as long as you please and are not

+limited for time, and with this difference too, that a knight is always

+stronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one, while

+in war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division and sometimes

+weaker than a company. The relative strength of bodies of troops can

+never be known to anyone. Believe me,” he went on, “if things

+depended on arrangements made by the staff, I should be there making

+arrangements, but instead of that I have the honor to serve here in

+the regiment with these gentlemen, and I consider that on us tomorrow’s

+battle will depend and not on those others.... Success never depends,

+and never will depend, on position, or equipment, or even on numbers,

+and least of all on position.”

+

+“But on what then?”

+

+“On the feeling that is in me and in him,” he pointed to Timókhin, “and

+in each soldier.”

+

+Prince Andrew glanced at Timókhin, who looked at his commander in alarm

+and bewilderment. In contrast to his former reticent taciturnity

+Prince Andrew now seemed excited. He could apparently not refrain from

+expressing the thoughts that had suddenly occurred to him.

+

+“A battle is won by those who firmly resolve to win it! Why did we lose

+the battle at Austerlitz? The French losses were almost equal to ours,

+but very early we said to ourselves that we were losing the battle,

+and we did lose it. And we said so because we had nothing to fight for

+there, we wanted to get away from the battlefield as soon as we could.

+‘We’ve lost, so let us run,’ and we ran. If we had not said that till

+the evening, heaven knows what might not have happened. But tomorrow we

+shan’t say it! You talk about our position, the left flank weak and the

+right flank too extended,” he went on. “That’s all nonsense, there’s

+nothing of the kind. But what awaits us tomorrow? A hundred million most

+diverse chances which will be decided on the instant by the fact that

+our men or theirs run or do not run, and that this man or that man is

+killed, but all that is being done at present is only play. The fact is

+that those men with whom you have ridden round the position not only

+do not help matters, but hinder. They are only concerned with their own

+petty interests.”

+

+“At such a moment?” said Pierre reproachfully.

+

+“At such a moment!” Prince Andrew repeated. “To them it is only a moment

+affording opportunities to undermine a rival and obtain an extra cross

+or ribbon. For me tomorrow means this: a Russian army of a hundred

+thousand and a French army of a hundred thousand have met to fight, and

+the thing is that these two hundred thousand men will fight and the side

+that fights more fiercely and spares itself least will win. And if you

+like I will tell you that whatever happens and whatever muddles those at

+the top may make, we shall win tomorrow’s battle. Tomorrow, happen what

+may, we shall win!”

+

+“There now, your excellency! That’s the truth, the real truth,” said

+Timókhin. “Who would spare himself now? The soldiers in my battalion,

+believe me, wouldn’t drink their vodka! ‘It’s not the day for that!’

+they say.”

+

+All were silent. The officers rose. Prince Andrew went out of the shed

+with them, giving final orders to the adjutant. After they had gone

+Pierre approached Prince Andrew and was about to start a conversation

+when they heard the clatter of three horses’ hoofs on the road not far

+from the shed, and looking in that direction Prince Andrew recognized

+Wolzogen and Clausewitz accompanied by a Cossack. They rode close by

+continuing to converse, and Prince Andrew involuntarily heard these

+words:

+

+“Der Krieg muss in Raum verlegt werden. Der Ansicht kann ich nicht genug

+Preis geben,” * said one of them.

+

+     * “The war must be extended widely. I cannot sufficiently

+     commend that view.”

+

+

+“Oh, ja,” said the other, “der Zweck ist nur den Feind zu schwächen,

+so kann man gewiss nicht den Verlust der Privat-Personen in Achtung

+nehmen.” *

+

+     * “Oh, yes, the only aim is to weaken the enemy, so of

+     course one cannot take into account the loss of private

+     individuals.”

+

+

+“Oh, no,” agreed the other.

+

+“Extend widely!” said Prince Andrew with an angry snort, when they had

+ridden past. “In that ‘extend’ were my father, son, and sister, at Bald

+Hills. That’s all the same to him! That’s what I was saying to you—those

+German gentlemen won’t win the battle tomorrow but will only make all

+the mess they can, because they have nothing in their German heads but

+theories not worth an empty eggshell and haven’t in their hearts the one

+thing needed tomorrow—that which Timókhin has. They have yielded up all

+Europe to him, and have now come to teach us. Fine teachers!” and again

+his voice grew shrill.

+

+“So you think we shall win tomorrow’s battle?” asked Pierre.

+

+“Yes, yes,” answered Prince Andrew absently. “One thing I would do if

+I had the power,” he began again, “I would not take prisoners. Why take

+prisoners? It’s chivalry! The French have destroyed my home and are on

+their way to destroy Moscow, they have outraged and are outraging me

+every moment. They are my enemies. In my opinion they are all criminals.

+And so thinks Timókhin and the whole army. They should be executed!

+Since they are my foes they cannot be my friends, whatever may have been

+said at Tilsit.”

+

+“Yes, yes,” muttered Pierre, looking with shining eyes at Prince Andrew.

+“I quite agree with you!”

+

+The question that had perturbed Pierre on the Mozháysk hill and all

+that day now seemed to him quite clear and completely solved. He now

+understood the whole meaning and importance of this war and of the

+impending battle. All he had seen that day, all the significant and

+stern expressions on the faces he had seen in passing, were lit up

+for him by a new light. He understood that latent heat (as they say in

+physics) of patriotism which was present in all these men he had seen,

+and this explained to him why they all prepared for death calmly, and as

+it were lightheartedly.

+

+“Not take prisoners,” Prince Andrew continued: “That by itself would

+quite change the whole war and make it less cruel. As it is we have

+played at war—that’s what’s vile! We play at magnanimity and all that

+stuff. Such magnanimity and sensibility are like the magnanimity and

+sensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed: she

+is so kindhearted that she can’t look at blood, but enjoys eating the

+calf served up with sauce. They talk to us of the rules of war, of

+chivalry, of flags of truce, of mercy to the unfortunate and so on. It’s

+all rubbish! I saw chivalry and flags of truce in 1805; they humbugged

+us and we humbugged them. They plunder other people’s houses, issue

+false paper money, and worst of all they kill my children and my

+father, and then talk of rules of war and magnanimity to foes! Take no

+prisoners, but kill and be killed! He who has come to this as I have

+through the same sufferings...”

+

+Prince Andrew, who had thought it was all the same to him whether or

+not Moscow was taken as Smolénsk had been, was suddenly checked in his

+speech by an unexpected cramp in his throat. He paced up and down a

+few times in silence, but his eyes glittered feverishly and his lips

+quivered as he began speaking.

+

+“If there was none of this magnanimity in war, we should go to war only

+when it was worth while going to certain death, as now. Then there would

+not be war because Paul Ivánovich had offended Michael Ivánovich. And

+when there was a war, like this one, it would be war! And then the

+determination of the troops would be quite different. Then all these

+Westphalians and Hessians whom Napoleon is leading would not follow

+him into Russia, and we should not go to fight in Austria and Prussia

+without knowing why. War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in

+life; and we ought to understand that and not play at war. We ought to

+accept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It all lies in

+that: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game. As it is

+now, war is the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous. The military

+calling is the most highly honored.

+

+“But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What are the

+habits of the military? The aim of war is murder; the methods of war

+are spying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of a country’s

+inhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army, and fraud

+and falsehood termed military craft. The habits of the military class

+are the absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance,

+cruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And in spite of all this it is the

+highest class, respected by everyone. All the kings, except the Chinese,

+wear military uniforms, and he who kills most people receives the

+highest rewards.

+

+“They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they kill

+and maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services for

+having killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number), and they

+announce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed

+the greater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear

+them?” exclaimed Prince Andrew in a shrill, piercing voice. “Ah, my

+friend, it has of late become hard for me to live. I see that I have

+begun to understand too much. And it doesn’t do for man to taste of the

+tree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it’s not for long!” he

+added.

+

+“However, you’re sleepy, and it’s time for me to sleep. Go back to

+Górki!” said Prince Andrew suddenly.

+

+“Oh no!” Pierre replied, looking at Prince Andrew with frightened,

+compassionate eyes.

+

+“Go, go! Before a battle one must have one’s sleep out,” repeated Prince

+Andrew.

+

+He came quickly up to Pierre and embraced and kissed him. “Good-by, be

+off!” he shouted. “Whether we meet again or not...” and turning away

+hurriedly he entered the shed.

+

+It was already dark, and Pierre could not make out whether the

+expression of Prince Andrew’s face was angry or tender.

+

+For some time he stood in silence considering whether he should follow

+him or go away. “No, he does not want it!” Pierre concluded. “And I know

+that this is our last meeting!” He sighed deeply and rode back to Górki.

+

+On re-entering the shed Prince Andrew lay down on a rug, but he could

+not sleep.

+

+He closed his eyes. One picture succeeded another in his imagination. On

+one of them he dwelt long and joyfully. He vividly recalled an evening

+in Petersburg. Natásha with animated and excited face was telling him

+how she had gone to look for mushrooms the previous summer and had lost

+her way in the big forest. She incoherently described the depths of

+the forest, her feelings, and a talk with a beekeeper she met, and

+constantly interrupted her story to say: “No, I can’t! I’m not telling

+it right; no, you don’t understand,” though he encouraged her by saying

+that he did understand, and he really had understood all she wanted to

+say. But Natásha was not satisfied with her own words: she felt that

+they did not convey the passionately poetic feeling she had experienced

+that day and wished to convey. “He was such a delightful old man, and

+it was so dark in the forest... and he had such kind... No, I can’t

+describe it,” she had said, flushed and excited. Prince Andrew smiled

+now the same happy smile as then when he had looked into her eyes. “I

+understood her,” he thought. “I not only understood her, but it was just

+that inner, spiritual force, that sincerity, that frankness of soul—that

+very soul of hers which seemed to be fettered by her body—it was that

+soul I loved in her... loved so strongly and happily...” and suddenly

+he remembered how his love had ended. “He did not need anything of that

+kind. He neither saw nor understood anything of the sort. He only saw in

+her a pretty and fresh young girl, with whom he did not deign to unite

+his fate. And I?... and he is still alive and gay!”

+

+Prince Andrew jumped up as if someone had burned him, and again began

+pacing up and down in front of the shed.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVI

+

+On August 25, the eve of the battle of Borodinó, M. de Beausset, prefect

+of the French Emperor’s palace, arrived at Napoleon’s quarters at

+Valúevo with Colonel Fabvier, the former from Paris and the latter from

+Madrid.

+

+Donning his court uniform, M. de Beausset ordered a box he had

+brought for the Emperor to be carried before him and entered the first

+compartment of Napoleon’s tent, where he began opening the box while

+conversing with Napoleon’s aides-de-camp who surrounded him.

+

+Fabvier, not entering the tent, remained at the entrance talking to some

+generals of his acquaintance.

+

+The Emperor Napoleon had not yet left his bedroom and was finishing his

+toilet. Slightly snorting and grunting, he presented now his back and

+now his plump hairy chest to the brush with which his valet was rubbing

+him down. Another valet, with his finger over the mouth of a bottle,

+was sprinkling Eau de Cologne on the Emperor’s pampered body with an

+expression which seemed to say that he alone knew where and how much Eau

+de Cologne should be sprinkled. Napoleon’s short hair was wet and

+matted on the forehead, but his face, though puffy and yellow, expressed

+physical satisfaction. “Go on, harder, go on!” he muttered to the valet

+who was rubbing him, slightly twitching and grunting. An aide-de-camp,

+who had entered the bedroom to report to the Emperor the number of

+prisoners taken in yesterday’s action, was standing by the door after

+delivering his message, awaiting permission to withdraw. Napoleon,

+frowning, looked at him from under his brows.

+

+“No prisoners!” said he, repeating the aide-de-camp’s words. “They

+are forcing us to exterminate them. So much the worse for the Russian

+army.... Go on... harder, harder!” he muttered, hunching his back and

+presenting his fat shoulders.

+

+“All right. Let Monsieur de Beausset enter, and Fabvier too,” he said,

+nodding to the aide-de-camp.

+

+“Yes, sire,” and the aide-de-camp disappeared through the door of the

+tent.

+

+Two valets rapidly dressed His Majesty, and wearing the blue uniform of

+the Guards he went with firm quick steps to the reception room.

+

+De Beausset’s hands meanwhile were busily engaged arranging the present

+he had brought from the Empress, on two chairs directly in front of the

+entrance. But Napoleon had dressed and come out with such unexpected

+rapidity that he had not time to finish arranging the surprise.

+

+Napoleon noticed at once what they were about and guessed that they were

+not ready. He did not wish to deprive them of the pleasure of giving him

+a surprise, so he pretended not to see de Beausset and called Fabvier to

+him, listening silently and with a stern frown to what Fabvier told him

+of the heroism and devotion of his troops fighting at Salamanca, at

+the other end of Europe, with but one thought—to be worthy of their

+Emperor—and but one fear—to fail to please him. The result of that

+battle had been deplorable. Napoleon made ironic remarks during

+Fabvier’s account, as if he had not expected that matters could go

+otherwise in his absence.

+

+“I must make up for that in Moscow,” said Napoleon. “I’ll see you

+later,” he added, and summoned de Beausset, who by that time had

+prepared the surprise, having placed something on the chairs and covered

+it with a cloth.

+

+De Beausset bowed low, with that courtly French bow which only the

+old retainers of the Bourbons knew how to make, and approached him,

+presenting an envelope.

+

+Napoleon turned to him gaily and pulled his ear.

+

+“You have hurried here. I am very glad. Well, what is Paris saying?” he

+asked, suddenly changing his former stern expression for a most cordial

+tone.

+

+“Sire, all Paris regrets your absence,” replied de Beausset as was

+proper.

+

+But though Napoleon knew that de Beausset had to say something of this

+kind, and though in his lucid moments he knew it was untrue, he was

+pleased to hear it from him. Again he honored him by touching his ear.

+

+“I am very sorry to have made you travel so far,” said he.

+

+“Sire, I expected nothing less than to find you at the gates of Moscow,”

+replied de Beausset.

+

+Napoleon smiled and, lifting his head absent-mindedly, glanced to the

+right. An aide-de-camp approached with gliding steps and offered him a

+gold snuffbox, which he took.

+

+“Yes, it has happened luckily for you,” he said, raising the open

+snuffbox to his nose. “You are fond of travel, and in three days you

+will see Moscow. You surely did not expect to see that Asiatic capital.

+You will have a pleasant journey.”

+

+De Beausset bowed gratefully at this regard for his taste for travel (of

+which he had not till then been aware).

+

+“Ha, what’s this?” asked Napoleon, noticing that all the courtiers were

+looking at something concealed under a cloth.

+

+With courtly adroitness de Beausset half turned and without turning his

+back to the Emperor retired two steps, twitching off the cloth at the

+same time, and said:

+

+“A present to Your Majesty from the Empress.”

+

+It was a portrait, painted in bright colors by Gérard, of the son borne

+to Napoleon by the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, the boy whom for

+some reason everyone called “The King of Rome.”

+

+A very pretty curly-headed boy with a look of the Christ in the Sistine

+Madonna was depicted playing at stick and ball. The ball represented the

+terrestrial globe and the stick in his other hand a scepter.

+

+Though it was not clear what the artist meant to express by depicting

+the so-called King of Rome spiking the earth with a stick, the allegory

+apparently seemed to Napoleon, as it had done to all who had seen it in

+Paris, quite clear and very pleasing.

+

+“The King of Rome!” he said, pointing to the portrait with a graceful

+gesture. “Admirable!”

+

+With the natural capacity of an Italian for changing the expression of

+his face at will, he drew nearer to the portrait and assumed a look

+of pensive tenderness. He felt that what he now said and did would be

+historical, and it seemed to him that it would now be best for him—whose

+grandeur enabled his son to play stick and ball with the terrestrial

+globe—to show, in contrast to that grandeur, the simplest paternal

+tenderness. His eyes grew dim, he moved forward, glanced round at a

+chair (which seemed to place itself under him), and sat down on it

+before the portrait. At a single gesture from him everyone went out on

+tiptoe, leaving the great man to himself and his emotion.

+

+Having sat still for a while he touched—himself not knowing why—the

+thick spot of paint representing the highest light in the portrait,

+rose, and recalled de Beausset and the officer on duty. He ordered the

+portrait to be carried outside his tent, that the Old Guard, stationed

+round it, might not be deprived of the pleasure of seeing the King of

+Rome, the son and heir of their adored monarch.

+

+And while he was doing M. de Beausset the honor of breakfasting with

+him, they heard, as Napoleon had anticipated, the rapturous cries of the

+officers and men of the Old Guard who had run up to see the portrait.

+

+“Vive l’Empereur! Vive le roi de Rome! Vive l’Empereur!” came those

+ecstatic cries.

+

+After breakfast Napoleon in de Beausset’s presence dictated his order of

+the day to the army.

+

+“Short and energetic!” he remarked when he had read over the

+proclamation which he had dictated straight off without corrections. It

+ran:

+

+Soldiers! This is the battle you have so longed for. Victory depends on

+you. It is essential for us; it will give us all we need: comfortable

+quarters and a speedy return to our country. Behave as you did at

+Austerlitz, Friedland, Vítebsk, and Smolénsk. Let our remotest posterity

+recall your achievements this day with pride. Let it be said of each of

+you: “He was in the great battle before Moscow!”

+

+“Before Moscow!” repeated Napoleon, and inviting M. de Beausset, who was

+so fond of travel, to accompany him on his ride, he went out of the tent

+to where the horses stood saddled.

+

+“Your Majesty is too kind!” replied de Beausset to the invitation to

+accompany the Emperor; he wanted to sleep, did not know how to ride and

+was afraid of doing so.

+

+But Napoleon nodded to the traveler, and de Beausset had to mount. When

+Napoleon came out of the tent the shouting of the Guards before his

+son’s portrait grew still louder. Napoleon frowned.

+

+“Take him away!” he said, pointing with a gracefully majestic gesture to

+the portrait. “It is too soon for him to see a field of battle.”

+

+De Beausset closed his eyes, bowed his head, and sighed deeply, to

+indicate how profoundly he valued and comprehended the Emperor’s words.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVII

+

+On the twenty-fifth of August, so his historians tell us, Napoleon spent

+the whole day on horseback inspecting the locality, considering plans

+submitted to him by his marshals, and personally giving commands to his

+generals.

+

+The original line of the Russian forces along the river Kolochá had

+been dislocated by the capture of the Shevárdino Redoubt on the

+twenty-fourth, and part of the line—the left flank—had been drawn back.

+That part of the line was not entrenched and in front of it the ground

+was more open and level than elsewhere. It was evident to anyone,

+military or not, that it was here the French should attack. It would

+seem that not much consideration was needed to reach this conclusion,

+nor any particular care or trouble on the part of the Emperor and his

+marshals, nor was there any need of that special and supreme quality

+called genius that people are so apt to ascribe to Napoleon; yet the

+historians who described the event later and the men who then surrounded

+Napoleon, and he himself, thought otherwise.

+

+Napoleon rode over the plain and surveyed the locality with a profound

+air and in silence, nodded with approval or shook his head dubiously,

+and without communicating to the generals around him the profound

+course of ideas which guided his decisions merely gave them his final

+conclusions in the form of commands. Having listened to a suggestion

+from Davout, who was now called Prince d’Eckmühl, to turn the Russian

+left wing, Napoleon said it should not be done, without explaining

+why not. To a proposal made by General Campan (who was to attack the

+flèches) to lead his division through the woods, Napoleon agreed, though

+the so-called Duke of Elchingen (Ney) ventured to remark that a movement

+through the woods was dangerous and might disorder the division.

+

+Having inspected the country opposite the Shevárdino Redoubt, Napoleon

+pondered a little in silence and then indicated the spots where two

+batteries should be set up by the morrow to act against the Russian

+entrenchments, and the places where, in line with them, the field

+artillery should be placed.

+

+After giving these and other commands he returned to his tent, and the

+dispositions for the battle were written down from his dictation.

+

+These dispositions, of which the French historians write with enthusiasm

+and other historians with profound respect, were as follows:

+

+At dawn the two new batteries established during the night on the

+plain occupied by the Prince d’Eckmühl will open fire on the opposing

+batteries of the enemy.

+

+At the same time the commander of the artillery of the 1st Corps,

+General Pernetti, with thirty cannon of Campan’s division and all the

+howitzers of Dessaix’s and Friant’s divisions, will move forward, open

+fire, and overwhelm with shellfire the enemy’s battery, against which

+will operate:

+

+        24 guns of the artillery of the Guards

+        30 guns of Campan’s division

+

+ and     8 guns of Friant’s and Dessaix’s divisions

+        —

+

+ in all 62 guns.

+

+The commander of the artillery of the 3rd Corps, General Fouché, will

+place the howitzers of the 3rd and 8th Corps, sixteen in all, on the

+flanks of the battery that is to bombard the entrenchment on the left,

+which will have forty guns in all directed against it.

+

+General Sorbier must be ready at the first order to advance with all the

+howitzers of the Guard’s artillery against either one or other of the

+entrenchments.

+

+During the cannonade Prince Poniatowski is to advance through the wood

+on the village and turn the enemy’s position.

+

+General Campan will move through the wood to seize the first

+fortification.

+

+After the advance has begun in this manner, orders will be given in

+accordance with the enemy’s movements.

+

+The cannonade on the left flank will begin as soon as the guns of the

+right wing are heard. The sharpshooters of Morand’s division and of

+the vice-King’s division will open a heavy fire on seeing the attack

+commence on the right wing.

+

+The vice-King will occupy the village and cross by its three bridges,

+advancing to the same heights as Morand’s and Gibrard’s divisions, which

+under his leadership will be directed against the redoubt and come into

+line with the rest of the forces.

+

+All this must be done in good order (le tout se fera avec ordre et

+méthode) as far as possible retaining troops in reserve.

+

+The Imperial Camp near Mozháysk,

+

+September, 6, 1812.

+

+

+These dispositions, which are very obscure and confused if one allows

+oneself to regard the arrangements without religious awe of his genius,

+related to Napoleon’s orders to deal with four points—four different

+orders. Not one of these was, or could be, carried out.

+

+In the disposition it is said first that the batteries placed on the

+spot chosen by Napoleon, with the guns of Pernetti and Fouché; which

+were to come in line with them, 102 guns in all, were to open fire and

+shower shells on the Russian flèches and redoubts. This could not be

+done, as from the spots selected by Napoleon the projectiles did not

+carry to the Russian works, and those 102 guns shot into the air until

+the nearest commander, contrary to Napoleon’s instructions, moved them

+forward.

+

+The second order was that Poniatowski, moving to the village through the

+wood, should turn the Russian left flank. This could not be done and

+was not done, because Poniatowski, advancing on the village through the

+wood, met Túchkov there barring his way, and could not and did not turn

+the Russian position.

+

+The third order was: General Campan will move through the wood to seize

+the first fortification. General Campan’s division did not seize the

+first fortification but was driven back, for on emerging from the wood

+it had to reform under grapeshot, of which Napoleon was unaware.

+

+The fourth order was: The vice-King will occupy the village (Borodinó)

+and cross by its three bridges, advancing to the same heights as

+Morand’s and Gérard’s divisions (for whose movements no directions are

+given), which under his leadership will be directed against the redoubt

+and come into line with the rest of the forces.

+

+As far as one can make out, not so much from this unintelligible

+sentence as from the attempts the vice-King made to execute the orders

+given him, he was to advance from the left through Borodinó to the

+redoubt while the divisions of Morand and Gérard were to advance

+simultaneously from the front.

+

+All this, like the other parts of the disposition, was not and could

+not be executed. After passing through Borodinó the vice-King was driven

+back to the Kolochá and could get no farther; while the divisions of

+Morand and Gérard did not take the redoubt but were driven back, and the

+redoubt was only taken at the end of the battle by the cavalry (a thing

+probably unforeseen and not heard of by Napoleon). So not one of

+the orders in the disposition was, or could be, executed. But in the

+disposition it is said that, after the fight has commenced in this

+manner, orders will be given in accordance with the enemy’s movements,

+and so it might be supposed that all necessary arrangements would be

+made by Napoleon during the battle. But this was not and could not be

+done, for during the whole battle Napoleon was so far away that, as

+appeared later, he could not know the course of the battle and not one

+of his orders during the fight could be executed.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVIII

+

+Many historians say that the French did not win the battle of Borodinó

+because Napoleon had a cold, and that if he had not had a cold the

+orders he gave before and during the battle would have been still more

+full of genius and Russia would have been lost and the face of the world

+have been changed. To historians who believe that Russia was shaped

+by the will of one man—Peter the Great—and that France from a republic

+became an empire and French armies went to Russia at the will of one

+man—Napoleon—to say that Russia remained a power because Napoleon had a

+bad cold on the twenty-fourth of August may seem logical and convincing.

+

+If it had depended on Napoleon’s will to fight or not to fight the

+battle of Borodinó, and if this or that other arrangement depended on

+his will, then evidently a cold affecting the manifestation of his will

+might have saved Russia, and consequently the valet who omitted to bring

+Napoleon his waterproof boots on the twenty-fourth would have been

+the savior of Russia. Along that line of thought such a deduction is

+indubitable, as indubitable as the deduction Voltaire made in jest

+(without knowing what he was jesting at) when he saw that the Massacre

+of St. Bartholomew was due to Charles IX’s stomach being deranged. But

+to men who do not admit that Russia was formed by the will of one man,

+Peter I, or that the French Empire was formed and the war with Russia

+begun by the will of one man, Napoleon, that argument seems not merely

+untrue and irrational, but contrary to all human reality. To the

+question of what causes historic events another answer presents itself,

+namely, that the course of human events is predetermined from on

+high—depends on the coincidence of the wills of all who take part in the

+events, and that a Napoleon’s influence on the course of these events is

+purely external and fictitious.

+

+Strange as at first glance it may seem to suppose that the Massacre of

+St. Bartholomew was not due to Charles IX’s will, though he gave the

+order for it and thought it was done as a result of that order; and

+strange as it may seem to suppose that the slaughter of eighty thousand

+men at Borodinó was not due to Napoleon’s will, though he ordered the

+commencement and conduct of the battle and thought it was done

+because he ordered it; strange as these suppositions appear, yet human

+dignity—which tells me that each of us is, if not more at least not less

+a man than the great Napoleon—demands the acceptance of that solution of

+the question, and historic investigation abundantly confirms it.

+

+At the battle of Borodinó Napoleon shot at no one and killed no one.

+That was all done by the soldiers. Therefore it was not he who killed

+people.

+

+The French soldiers went to kill and be killed at the battle of Borodinó

+not because of Napoleon’s orders but by their own volition. The whole

+army—French, Italian, German, Polish, and Dutch—hungry, ragged, and

+weary of the campaign, felt at the sight of an army blocking their road

+to Moscow that the wine was drawn and must be drunk. Had Napoleon then

+forbidden them to fight the Russians, they would have killed him and

+have proceeded to fight the Russians because it was inevitable.

+

+When they heard Napoleon’s proclamation offering them, as compensation

+for mutilation and death, the words of posterity about their having been

+in the battle before Moscow, they cried “Vive l’Empereur!” just as they

+had cried “Vive l’Empereur!” at the sight of the portrait of the boy

+piercing the terrestrial globe with a toy stick, and just as they would

+have cried “Vive l’Empereur!” at any nonsense that might be told them.

+There was nothing left for them to do but cry “Vive l’Empereur!” and go

+to fight, in order to get food and rest as conquerors in Moscow. So it

+was not because of Napoleon’s commands that they killed their fellow

+men.

+

+And it was not Napoleon who directed the course of the battle, for none

+of his orders were executed and during the battle he did not know what

+was going on before him. So the way in which these people killed one

+another was not decided by Napoleon’s will but occurred independently of

+him, in accord with the will of hundreds of thousands of people who took

+part in the common action. It only seemed to Napoleon that it all took

+place by his will. And so the question whether he had or had not a

+cold has no more historic interest than the cold of the least of the

+transport soldiers.

+

+Moreover, the assertion made by various writers that his cold was

+the cause of his dispositions not being as well-planned as on former

+occasions, and of his orders during the battle not being as good as

+previously, is quite baseless, which again shows that Napoleon’s cold on

+the twenty-sixth of August was unimportant.

+

+The dispositions cited above are not at all worse, but are even

+better, than previous dispositions by which he had won victories. His

+pseudo-orders during the battle were also no worse than formerly, but

+much the same as usual. These dispositions and orders only seem worse

+than previous ones because the battle of Borodinó was the first Napoleon

+did not win. The profoundest and most excellent dispositions and orders

+seem very bad, and every learned militarist criticizes them with looks

+of importance, when they relate to a battle that has been lost, and the

+very worst dispositions and orders seem very good, and serious people

+fill whole volumes to demonstrate their merits, when they relate to a

+battle that has been won.

+

+The dispositions drawn up by Weyrother for the battle of Austerlitz were

+a model of perfection for that kind of composition, but still they were

+criticized—criticized for their very perfection, for their excessive

+minuteness.

+

+Napoleon at the battle of Borodinó fulfilled his office as

+representative of authority as well as, and even better than, at other

+battles. He did nothing harmful to the progress of the battle; he

+inclined to the most reasonable opinions, he made no confusion, did not

+contradict himself, did not get frightened or run away from the field of

+battle, but with his great tact and military experience carried out his

+role of appearing to command, calmly and with dignity.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIX

+

+On returning from a second inspection of the lines, Napoleon remarked:

+

+“The chessmen are set up, the game will begin tomorrow!”

+

+Having ordered punch and summoned de Beausset, he began to talk to him

+about Paris and about some changes he meant to make in the Empress’

+household, surprising the prefect by his memory of minute details

+relating to the court.

+

+He showed an interest in trifles, joked about de Beausset’s love of

+travel, and chatted carelessly, as a famous, self-confident surgeon who

+knows his job does when turning up his sleeves and putting on his apron

+while a patient is being strapped to the operating table. “The matter is

+in my hands and is clear and definite in my head. When the time comes to

+set to work I shall do it as no one else could, but now I can jest, and

+the more I jest and the calmer I am the more tranquil and confident you

+ought to be, and the more amazed at my genius.”

+

+Having finished his second glass of punch, Napoleon went to rest before

+the serious business which, he considered, awaited him next day. He

+was so much interested in that task that he was unable to sleep, and

+in spite of his cold which had grown worse from the dampness of the

+evening, he went into the large division of the tent at three o’clock in

+the morning, loudly blowing his nose. He asked whether the Russians had

+not withdrawn, and was told that the enemy’s fires were still in the

+same places. He nodded approval.

+

+The adjutant in attendance came into the tent.

+

+“Well, Rapp, do you think we shall do good business today?” Napoleon

+asked him.

+

+“Without doubt, sire,” replied Rapp.

+

+Napoleon looked at him.

+

+“Do you remember, sire, what you did me the honor to say at Smolénsk?”

+continued Rapp. “The wine is drawn and must be drunk.”

+

+Napoleon frowned and sat silent for a long time leaning his head on his

+hand.

+

+“This poor army!” he suddenly remarked. “It has diminished greatly since

+Smolénsk. Fortune is frankly a courtesan, Rapp. I have always said so

+and I am beginning to experience it. But the Guards, Rapp, the Guards

+are intact?” he remarked interrogatively.

+

+“Yes, sire,” replied Rapp.

+

+Napoleon took a lozenge, put it in his mouth, and glanced at his watch.

+He was not sleepy and it was still not nearly morning. It was impossible

+to give further orders for the sake of killing time, for the orders had

+all been given and were now being executed.

+

+“Have the biscuits and rice been served out to the regiments of the

+Guards?” asked Napoleon sternly.

+

+“Yes, sire.”

+

+“The rice too?”

+

+Rapp replied that he had given the Emperor’s order about the rice, but

+Napoleon shook his head in dissatisfaction as if not believing that

+his order had been executed. An attendant came in with punch. Napoleon

+ordered another glass to be brought for Rapp, and silently sipped his

+own.

+

+“I have neither taste nor smell,” he remarked, sniffing at his glass.

+“This cold is tiresome. They talk about medicine—what is the good of

+medicine when it can’t cure a cold! Corvisart gave me these lozenges but

+they don’t help at all. What can doctors cure? One can’t cure anything.

+Our body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its

+nature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it

+will do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies.

+Our body is like a perfect watch that should go for a certain time; the

+watchmaker cannot open it, he can only adjust it by fumbling, and that

+blindfold.... Yes, our body is just a machine for living, that is all.”

+

+And having entered on the path of definition, of which he was fond,

+Napoleon suddenly and unexpectedly gave a new one.

+

+“Do you know, Rapp, what military art is?” asked he. “It is the art of

+being stronger than the enemy at a given moment. That’s all.”

+

+Rapp made no reply.

+

+“Tomorrow we shall have to deal with Kutúzov!” said Napoleon. “We shall

+see! Do you remember at Braunau he commanded an army for three weeks

+and did not once mount a horse to inspect his entrenchments.... We shall

+see!”

+

+He looked at his watch. It was still only four o’clock. He did not feel

+sleepy. The punch was finished and there was still nothing to do. He

+rose, walked to and fro, put on a warm overcoat and a hat, and went

+out of the tent. The night was dark and damp, a scarcely perceptible

+moisture was descending from above. Near by, the campfires were dimly

+burning among the French Guards, and in the distance those of the

+Russian line shone through the smoke. The weather was calm, and the

+rustle and tramp of the French troops already beginning to move to take

+up their positions were clearly audible.

+

+Napoleon walked about in front of his tent, looked at the fires and

+listened to these sounds, and as he was passing a tall guardsman in

+a shaggy cap, who was standing sentinel before his tent and had drawn

+himself up like a black pillar at sight of the Emperor, Napoleon stopped

+in front of him.

+

+“What year did you enter the service?” he asked with that affectation

+of military bluntness and geniality with which he always addressed the

+soldiers.

+

+The man answered the question.

+

+“Ah! One of the old ones! Has your regiment had its rice?”

+

+“It has, Your Majesty.”

+

+Napoleon nodded and walked away.

+

+

+At half-past five Napoleon rode to the village of Shevárdino.

+

+It was growing light, the sky was clearing, only a single cloud lay in

+the east. The abandoned campfires were burning themselves out in the

+faint morning light.

+

+On the right a single deep report of a cannon resounded and died away in

+the prevailing silence. Some minutes passed. A second and a third report

+shook the air, then a fourth and a fifth boomed solemnly near by on the

+right.

+

+The first shots had not yet ceased to reverberate before others rang out

+and yet more were heard mingling with and overtaking one another.

+

+Napoleon with his suite rode up to the Shevárdino Redoubt where he

+dismounted. The game had begun.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXX

+

+On returning to Górki after having seen Prince Andrew, Pierre ordered

+his groom to get the horses ready and to call him early in the morning,

+and then immediately fell asleep behind a partition in a corner Borís

+had given up to him.

+

+Before he was thoroughly awake next morning everybody had already left

+the hut. The panes were rattling in the little windows and his groom was

+shaking him.

+

+“Your excellency! Your excellency! Your excellency!” he kept repeating

+pertinaciously while he shook Pierre by the shoulder without looking at

+him, having apparently lost hope of getting him to wake up.

+

+“What? Has it begun? Is it time?” Pierre asked, waking up.

+

+“Hear the firing,” said the groom, a discharged soldier. “All the

+gentlemen have gone out, and his Serene Highness himself rode past long

+ago.”

+

+Pierre dressed hastily and ran out to the porch. Outside all was bright,

+fresh, dewy, and cheerful. The sun, just bursting forth from behind a

+cloud that had concealed it, was shining, with rays still half broken

+by the clouds, over the roofs of the street opposite, on the

+dew-besprinkled dust of the road, on the walls of the houses, on the

+windows, the fence, and on Pierre’s horses standing before the hut. The

+roar of guns sounded more distinct outside. An adjutant accompanied by a

+Cossack passed by at a sharp trot.

+

+“It’s time, Count; it’s time!” cried the adjutant.

+

+Telling the groom to follow him with the horses, Pierre went down the

+street to the knoll from which he had looked at the field of battle the

+day before. A crowd of military men was assembled there, members of the

+staff could be heard conversing in French, and Kutúzov’s gray head in

+a white cap with a red band was visible, his gray nape sunk between his

+shoulders. He was looking through a field glass down the highroad before

+him.

+

+Mounting the steps to the knoll Pierre looked at the scene before him,

+spellbound by beauty. It was the same panorama he had admired from that

+spot the day before, but now the whole place was full of troops and

+covered by smoke clouds from the guns, and the slanting rays of the

+bright sun, rising slightly to the left behind Pierre, cast upon it

+through the clear morning air penetrating streaks of rosy, golden-tinted

+light and long dark shadows. The forest at the farthest extremity of

+the panorama seemed carved in some precious stone of a yellowish-green

+color; its undulating outline was silhouetted against the horizon and

+was pierced beyond Valúevo by the Smolénsk highroad crowded with troops.

+Nearer at hand glittered golden cornfields interspersed with copses.

+There were troops to be seen everywhere, in front and to the right and

+left. All this was vivid, majestic, and unexpected; but what impressed

+Pierre most of all was the view of the battlefield itself, of Borodinó

+and the hollows on both sides of the Kolochá.

+

+Above the Kolochá, in Borodinó and on both sides of it, especially to

+the left where the Vóyna flowing between its marshy banks falls into

+the Kolochá, a mist had spread which seemed to melt, to dissolve, and to

+become translucent when the brilliant sun appeared and magically colored

+and outlined everything. The smoke of the guns mingled with this mist,

+and over the whole expanse and through that mist the rays of the morning

+sun were reflected, flashing back like lightning from the water, from

+the dew, and from the bayonets of the troops crowded together by the

+riverbanks and in Borodinó. A white church could be seen through the

+mist, and here and there the roofs of huts in Borodinó as well as dense

+masses of soldiers, or green ammunition chests and ordnance. And all

+this moved, or seemed to move, as the smoke and mist spread out over

+the whole space. Just as in the mist-enveloped hollow near Borodinó, so

+along the entire line outside and above it and especially in the woods

+and fields to the left, in the valleys and on the summits of the high

+ground, clouds of powder smoke seemed continually to spring up out of

+nothing, now singly, now several at a time, some translucent, others

+dense, which, swelling, growing, rolling, and blending, extended over

+the whole expanse.

+

+These puffs of smoke and (strange to say) the sound of the firing

+produced the chief beauty of the spectacle.

+

+“Puff!”—suddenly a round compact cloud of smoke was seen merging from

+violet into gray and milky white, and “boom!” came the report a second

+later.

+

+“Puff! puff!”—and two clouds arose pushing one another and blending

+together; and “boom, boom!” came the sounds confirming what the eye had

+seen.

+

+Pierre glanced round at the first cloud, which he had seen as a round

+compact ball, and in its place already were balloons of smoke floating

+to one side, and—“puff” (with a pause)—“puff, puff!” three and then four

+more appeared and then from each, with the same interval—“boom—boom,

+boom!” came the fine, firm, precise sounds in reply. It seemed as if

+those smoke clouds sometimes ran and sometimes stood still while woods,

+fields, and glittering bayonets ran past them. From the left, over

+fields and bushes, those large balls of smoke were continually appearing

+followed by their solemn reports, while nearer still, in the hollows and

+woods, there burst from the muskets small cloudlets that had no time

+to become balls, but had their little echoes in just the same way.

+“Trakh-ta-ta-takh!” came the frequent crackle of musketry, but it was

+irregular and feeble in comparison with the reports of the cannon.

+

+Pierre wished to be there with that smoke, those shining bayonets, that

+movement, and those sounds. He turned to look at Kutúzov and his suite,

+to compare his impressions with those of others. They were all looking

+at the field of battle as he was, and, as it seemed to him, with the

+same feelings. All their faces were now shining with that latent warmth

+of feeling Pierre had noticed the day before and had fully understood

+after his talk with Prince Andrew.

+

+“Go, my dear fellow, go... and Christ be with you!” Kutúzov was

+saying to a general who stood beside him, not taking his eye from the

+battlefield.

+

+Having received this order the general passed by Pierre on his way down

+the knoll.

+

+“To the crossing!” said the general coldly and sternly in reply to one

+of the staff who asked where he was going.

+

+“I’ll go there too, I too!” thought Pierre, and followed the general.

+

+The general mounted a horse a Cossack had brought him. Pierre went to

+his groom who was holding his horses and, asking which was the quietest,

+clambered onto it, seized it by the mane, and turning out his toes

+pressed his heels against its sides and, feeling that his spectacles

+were slipping off but unable to let go of the mane and reins, he

+galloped after the general, causing the staff officers to smile as they

+watched him from the knoll.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXXI

+

+Having descended the hill the general after whom Pierre was galloping

+turned sharply to the left, and Pierre, losing sight of him, galloped

+in among some ranks of infantry marching ahead of him. He tried to pass

+either in front of them or to the right or left, but there were soldiers

+everywhere, all with the same preoccupied expression and busy with

+some unseen but evidently important task. They all gazed with the same

+dissatisfied and inquiring expression at this stout man in a white hat,

+who for some unknown reason threatened to trample them under his horse’s

+hoofs.

+

+“Why ride into the middle of the battalion?” one of them shouted at him.

+

+Another prodded his horse with the butt end of a musket, and Pierre,

+bending over his saddlebow and hardly able to control his shying horse,

+galloped ahead of the soldiers where there was a free space.

+

+There was a bridge ahead of him, where other soldiers stood firing.

+Pierre rode up to them. Without being aware of it he had come to the

+bridge across the Kolochá between Górki and Borodinó, which the French

+(having occupied Borodinó) were attacking in the first phase of the

+battle. Pierre saw that there was a bridge in front of him and that

+soldiers were doing something on both sides of it and in the meadow,

+among the rows of new-mown hay which he had taken no notice of amid the

+smoke of the campfires the day before; but despite the incessant firing

+going on there he had no idea that this was the field of battle. He did

+not notice the sound of the bullets whistling from every side, or the

+projectiles that flew over him, did not see the enemy on the other side

+of the river, and for a long time did not notice the killed and wounded,

+though many fell near him. He looked about him with a smile which did

+not leave his face.

+

+“Why’s that fellow in front of the line?” shouted somebody at him again.

+

+“To the left!... Keep to the right!” the men shouted to him.

+

+Pierre went to the right, and unexpectedly encountered one of Raévski’s

+adjutants whom he knew. The adjutant looked angrily at him, evidently

+also intending to shout at him, but on recognizing him he nodded.

+

+“How have you got here?” he said, and galloped on.

+

+Pierre, feeling out of place there, having nothing to do, and afraid of

+getting in someone’s way again, galloped after the adjutant.

+

+“What’s happening here? May I come with you?” he asked.

+

+“One moment, one moment!” replied the adjutant, and riding up to a stout

+colonel who was standing in the meadow, he gave him some message and

+then addressed Pierre.

+

+“Why have you come here, Count?” he asked with a smile. “Still

+inquisitive?”

+

+“Yes, yes,” assented Pierre.

+

+But the adjutant turned his horse about and rode on.

+

+“Here it’s tolerable,” said he, “but with Bagratión on the left flank

+they’re getting it frightfully hot.”

+

+“Really?” said Pierre. “Where is that?”

+

+“Come along with me to our knoll. We can get a view from there and in

+our battery it is still bearable,” said the adjutant. “Will you come?”

+

+“Yes, I’ll come with you,” replied Pierre, looking round for his groom.

+

+It was only now that he noticed wounded men staggering along or being

+carried on stretchers. On that very meadow he had ridden over the day

+before, a soldier was lying athwart the rows of scented hay, with his

+head thrown awkwardly back and his shako off.

+

+“Why haven’t they carried him away?” Pierre was about to ask, but seeing

+the stern expression of the adjutant who was also looking that way, he

+checked himself.

+

+Pierre did not find his groom and rode along the hollow with the

+adjutant to Raévski’s Redoubt. His horse lagged behind the adjutant’s

+and jolted him at every step.

+

+“You don’t seem to be used to riding, Count?” remarked the adjutant.

+

+“No it’s not that, but her action seems so jerky,” said Pierre in a

+puzzled tone.

+

+“Why... she’s wounded!” said the adjutant. “In the off foreleg above the

+knee. A bullet, no doubt. I congratulate you, Count, on your baptism of

+fire!”

+

+Having ridden in the smoke past the Sixth Corps, behind the artillery

+which had been moved forward and was in action, deafening them with the

+noise of firing, they came to a small wood. There it was cool and quiet,

+with a scent of autumn. Pierre and the adjutant dismounted and walked up

+the hill on foot.

+

+“Is the general here?” asked the adjutant on reaching the knoll.

+

+“He was here a minute ago but has just gone that way,” someone told him,

+pointing to the right.

+

+The adjutant looked at Pierre as if puzzled what to do with him now.

+

+“Don’t trouble about me,” said Pierre. “I’ll go up onto the knoll if I

+may?”

+

+“Yes, do. You’ll see everything from there and it’s less dangerous, and

+I’ll come for you.”

+

+Pierre went to the battery and the adjutant rode on. They did not meet

+again, and only much later did Pierre learn that he lost an arm that

+day.

+

+The knoll to which Pierre ascended was that famous one afterwards known

+to the Russians as the Knoll Battery or Raévski’s Redoubt, and to the

+French as la grande redoute, la fatale redoute, la redoute du centre,

+around which tens of thousands fell, and which the French regarded as

+the key to the whole position.

+

+This redoubt consisted of a knoll, on three sides of which trenches had

+been dug. Within the entrenchment stood ten guns that were being fired

+through openings in the earthwork.

+

+In line with the knoll on both sides stood other guns which also fired

+incessantly. A little behind the guns stood infantry. When ascending

+that knoll Pierre had no notion that this spot, on which small trenches

+had been dug and from which a few guns were firing, was the most

+important point of the battle.

+

+On the contrary, just because he happened to be there he thought it one

+of the least significant parts of the field.

+

+Having reached the knoll, Pierre sat down at one end of a trench

+surrounding the battery and gazed at what was going on around him with

+an unconsciously happy smile. Occasionally he rose and walked about the

+battery still with that same smile, trying not to obstruct the soldiers

+who were loading, hauling the guns, and continually running past

+him with bags and charges. The guns of that battery were being fired

+continually one after another with a deafening roar, enveloping the

+whole neighborhood in powder smoke.

+

+In contrast with the dread felt by the infantrymen placed in support,

+here in the battery where a small number of men busy at their work were

+separated from the rest by a trench, everyone experienced a common and

+as it were family feeling of animation.

+

+The intrusion of Pierre’s nonmilitary figure in a white hat made an

+unpleasant impression at first. The soldiers looked askance at him with

+surprise and even alarm as they went past him. The senior artillery

+officer, a tall, long-legged, pockmarked man, moved over to Pierre as if

+to see the action of the farthest gun and looked at him with curiosity.

+

+A young round-faced officer, quite a boy still and evidently only just

+out of the Cadet College, who was zealously commanding the two guns

+entrusted to him, addressed Pierre sternly.

+

+“Sir,” he said, “permit me to ask you to stand aside. You must not be

+here.”

+

+The soldiers shook their heads disapprovingly as they looked at Pierre.

+But when they had convinced themselves that this man in the white hat

+was doing no harm, but either sat quietly on the slope of the trench

+with a shy smile or, politely making way for the soldiers, paced up

+and down the battery under fire as calmly as if he were on a boulevard,

+their feeling of hostile distrust gradually began to change into a

+kindly and bantering sympathy, such as soldiers feel for their dogs,

+cocks, goats, and in general for the animals that live with the

+regiment. The men soon accepted Pierre into their family, adopted him,

+gave him a nickname (“our gentleman”), and made kindly fun of him among

+themselves.

+

+A shell tore up the earth two paces from Pierre and he looked around

+with a smile as he brushed from his clothes some earth it had thrown up.

+

+“And how’s it you’re not afraid, sir, really now?” a red-faced,

+broad-shouldered soldier asked Pierre, with a grin that disclosed a set

+of sound, white teeth.

+

+“Are you afraid, then?” said Pierre.

+

+“What else do you expect?” answered the soldier. “She has no mercy, you

+know! When she comes spluttering down, out go your innards. One can’t

+help being afraid,” he said laughing.

+

+Several of the men, with bright kindly faces, stopped beside Pierre.

+They seemed not to have expected him to talk like anybody else, and the

+discovery that he did so delighted them.

+

+“It’s the business of us soldiers. But in a gentleman it’s wonderful!

+There’s a gentleman for you!”

+

+“To your places!” cried the young officer to the men gathered round

+Pierre.

+

+The young officer was evidently exercising his duties for the first or

+second time and therefore treated both his superiors and the men with

+great precision and formality.

+

+The booming cannonade and the fusillade of musketry were growing more

+intense over the whole field, especially to the left where Bagratión’s

+flèches were, but where Pierre was the smoke of the firing made it

+almost impossible to distinguish anything. Moreover, his whole

+attention was engrossed by watching the family circle—separated from all

+else—formed by the men in the battery. His first unconscious feeling of

+joyful animation produced by the sights and sounds of the battlefield

+was now replaced by another, especially since he had seen that soldier

+lying alone in the hayfield. Now, seated on the slope of the trench, he

+observed the faces of those around him.

+

+By ten o’clock some twenty men had already been carried away from the

+battery; two guns were smashed and cannon balls fell more and more

+frequently on the battery and spent bullets buzzed and whistled around.

+But the men in the battery seemed not to notice this, and merry voices

+and jokes were heard on all sides.

+

+“A live one!” shouted a man as a whistling shell approached.

+

+“Not this way! To the infantry!” added another with loud laughter,

+seeing the shell fly past and fall into the ranks of the supports.

+

+“Are you bowing to a friend, eh?” remarked another, chaffing a peasant

+who ducked low as a cannon ball flew over.

+

+Several soldiers gathered by the wall of the trench, looking out to see

+what was happening in front.

+

+“They’ve withdrawn the front line, it has retired,” said they, pointing

+over the earthwork.

+

+“Mind your own business,” an old sergeant shouted at them. “If they’ve

+retired it’s because there’s work for them to do farther back.”

+

+And the sergeant, taking one of the men by the shoulders, gave him a

+shove with his knee. This was followed by a burst of laughter.

+

+“To the fifth gun, wheel it up!” came shouts from one side.

+

+“Now then, all together, like bargees!” rose the merry voices of those

+who were moving the gun.

+

+“Oh, she nearly knocked our gentleman’s hat off!” cried the red-faced

+humorist, showing his teeth chaffing Pierre. “Awkward baggage!” he added

+reproachfully to a cannon ball that struck a cannon wheel and a man’s

+leg.

+

+“Now then, you foxes!” said another, laughing at some militiamen who,

+stooping low, entered the battery to carry away the wounded man.

+

+“So this gruel isn’t to your taste? Oh, you crows! You’re scared!” they

+shouted at the militiamen who stood hesitating before the man whose leg

+had been torn off.

+

+“There, lads... oh, oh!” they mimicked the peasants, “they don’t like it

+at all!”

+

+Pierre noticed that after every ball that hit the redoubt, and after

+every loss, the liveliness increased more and more.

+

+As the flames of the fire hidden within come more and more vividly and

+rapidly from an approaching thundercloud, so, as if in opposition to

+what was taking place, the lightning of hidden fire growing more and

+more intense glowed in the faces of these men.

+

+Pierre did not look out at the battlefield and was not concerned to know

+what was happening there; he was entirely absorbed in watching this fire

+which burned ever more brightly and which he felt was flaming up in the

+same way in his own soul.

+

+At ten o’clock the infantry that had been among the bushes in front of

+the battery and along the Kámenka streamlet retreated. From the battery

+they could be seen running back past it carrying their wounded on

+their muskets. A general with his suite came to the battery, and after

+speaking to the colonel gave Pierre an angry look and went away again

+having ordered the infantry supports behind the battery to lie down,

+so as to be less exposed to fire. After this from amid the ranks of

+infantry to the right of the battery came the sound of a drum and shouts

+of command, and from the battery one saw how those ranks of infantry

+moved forward.

+

+Pierre looked over the wall of the trench and was particularly struck

+by a pale young officer who, letting his sword hang down, was walking

+backwards and kept glancing uneasily around.

+

+The ranks of the infantry disappeared amid the smoke but their

+long-drawn shout and rapid musketry firing could still be heard. A few

+minutes later crowds of wounded men and stretcher-bearers came back from

+that direction. Projectiles began to fall still more frequently in the

+battery. Several men were lying about who had not been removed. Around

+the cannon the men moved still more briskly and busily. No one any

+longer took notice of Pierre. Once or twice he was shouted at for being

+in the way. The senior officer moved with big, rapid strides from one

+gun to another with a frowning face. The young officer, with his face

+still more flushed, commanded the men more scrupulously than ever. The

+soldiers handed up the charges, turned, loaded, and did their business

+with strained smartness. They gave little jumps as they walked, as

+though they were on springs.

+

+The stormcloud had come upon them, and in every face the fire which

+Pierre had watched kindle burned up brightly. Pierre standing beside the

+commanding officer. The young officer, his hand to his shako, ran up to

+his superior.

+

+“I have the honor to report, sir, that only eight rounds are left. Are

+we to continue firing?” he asked.

+

+“Grapeshot!” the senior shouted, without answering the question, looking

+over the wall of the trench.

+

+Suddenly something happened: the young officer gave a gasp and bending

+double sat down on the ground like a bird shot on the wing. Everything

+became strange, confused, and misty in Pierre’s eyes.

+

+One cannon ball after another whistled by and struck the earthwork, a

+soldier, or a gun. Pierre, who had not noticed these sounds before,

+now heard nothing else. On the right of the battery soldiers shouting

+“Hurrah!” were running not forwards but backwards, it seemed to Pierre.

+

+A cannon ball struck the very end of the earth work by which he was

+standing, crumbling down the earth; a black ball flashed before his eyes

+and at the same instant plumped into something. Some militiamen who were

+entering the battery ran back.

+

+“All with grapeshot!” shouted the officer.

+

+The sergeant ran up to the officer and in a frightened whisper informed

+him (as a butler at dinner informs his master that there is no more of

+some wine asked for) that there were no more charges.

+

+“The scoundrels! What are they doing?” shouted the officer, turning to

+Pierre.

+

+The officer’s face was red and perspiring and his eyes glittered under

+his frowning brow.

+

+“Run to the reserves and bring up the ammunition boxes!” he yelled,

+angrily avoiding Pierre with his eyes and speaking to his men.

+

+“I’ll go,” said Pierre.

+

+The officer, without answering him, strode across to the opposite side.

+

+“Don’t fire.... Wait!” he shouted.

+

+The man who had been ordered to go for ammunition stumbled against

+Pierre.

+

+“Eh, sir, this is no place for you,” said he, and ran down the slope.

+

+Pierre ran after him, avoiding the spot where the young officer was

+sitting.

+

+One cannon ball, another, and a third flew over him, falling in front,

+beside, and behind him. Pierre ran down the slope. “Where am I going?”

+he suddenly asked himself when he was already near the green ammunition

+wagons. He halted irresolutely, not knowing whether to return or go on.

+Suddenly a terrible concussion threw him backwards to the ground. At the

+same instant he was dazzled by a great flash of flame, and immediately a

+deafening roar, crackling, and whistling made his ears tingle.

+

+When he came to himself he was sitting on the ground leaning on his

+hands; the ammunition wagons he had been approaching no longer existed,

+only charred green boards and rags littered the scorched grass, and a

+horse, dangling fragments of its shaft behind it, galloped past, while

+another horse lay, like Pierre, on the ground, uttering prolonged and

+piercing cries.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXXII

+

+Beside himself with terror Pierre jumped up and ran back to the battery,

+as to the only refuge from the horrors that surrounded him.

+

+On entering the earthwork he noticed that there were men doing something

+there but that no shots were being fired from the battery. He had no

+time to realize who these men were. He saw the senior officer lying on

+the earth wall with his back turned as if he were examining something

+down below and that one of the soldiers he had noticed before was

+struggling forward shouting “Brothers!” and trying to free himself from

+some men who were holding him by the arm. He also saw something else

+that was strange.

+

+But he had not time to realize that the colonel had been killed, that

+the soldier shouting “Brothers!” was a prisoner, and that another man

+had been bayoneted in the back before his eyes, for hardly had he run

+into the redoubt before a thin, sallow-faced, perspiring man in a blue

+uniform rushed on him sword in hand, shouting something. Instinctively

+guarding against the shock—for they had been running together at full

+speed before they saw one another—Pierre put out his hands and seized

+the man (a French officer) by the shoulder with one hand and by the

+throat with the other. The officer, dropping his sword, seized Pierre by

+his collar.

+

+For some seconds they gazed with frightened eyes at one another’s

+unfamiliar faces and both were perplexed at what they had done and

+what they were to do next. “Am I taken prisoner or have I taken him

+prisoner?” each was thinking. But the French officer was evidently more

+inclined to think he had been taken prisoner because Pierre’s strong

+hand, impelled by instinctive fear, squeezed his throat ever tighter and

+tighter. The Frenchman was about to say something, when just above their

+heads, terrible and low, a cannon ball whistled, and it seemed to Pierre

+that the French officer’s head had been torn off, so swiftly had he

+ducked it.

+

+Pierre too bent his head and let his hands fall. Without further thought

+as to who had taken whom prisoner, the Frenchman ran back to the battery

+and Pierre ran down the slope stumbling over the dead and wounded who,

+it seemed to him, caught at his feet. But before he reached the foot

+of the knoll he was met by a dense crowd of Russian soldiers who,

+stumbling, tripping up, and shouting, ran merrily and wildly toward

+the battery. (This was the attack for which Ermólov claimed the credit,

+declaring that only his courage and good luck made such a feat possible:

+it was the attack in which he was said to have thrown some St. George’s

+Crosses he had in his pocket into the battery for the first soldiers to

+take who got there.)

+

+The French who had occupied the battery fled, and our troops shouting

+“Hurrah!” pursued them so far beyond the battery that it was difficult

+to call them back.

+

+The prisoners were brought down from the battery and among them was

+a wounded French general, whom the officers surrounded. Crowds of

+wounded—some known to Pierre and some unknown—Russians and French,

+with faces distorted by suffering, walked, crawled, and were carried on

+stretchers from the battery. Pierre again went up onto the knoll where

+he had spent over an hour, and of that family circle which had received

+him as a member he did not find a single one. There were many dead whom

+he did not know, but some he recognized. The young officer still sat in

+the same way, bent double, in a pool of blood at the edge of the earth

+wall. The red-faced man was still twitching, but they did not carry him

+away.

+

+Pierre ran down the slope once more.

+

+“Now they will stop it, now they will be horrified at what they have

+done!” he thought, aimlessly going toward a crowd of stretcher bearers

+moving from the battlefield.

+

+But behind the veil of smoke the sun was still high, and in front and

+especially to the left, near Semënovsk, something seemed to be seething

+in the smoke, and the roar of cannon and musketry did not diminish, but

+even increased to desperation like a man who, straining himself, shrieks

+with all his remaining strength.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXXIII

+

+The chief action of the battle of Borodinó was fought within the seven

+thousand feet between Borodinó and Bagratión’s flèches. Beyond that

+space there was, on the one side, a demonstration made by the Russians

+with Uvárov’s cavalry at midday, and on the other side, beyond Utítsa,

+Poniatowski’s collision with Túchkov; but these two were detached and

+feeble actions in comparison with what took place in the center of the

+battlefield. On the field between Borodinó and the flèches, beside the

+wood, the chief action of the day took place on an open space visible

+from both sides and was fought in the simplest and most artless way.

+

+The battle began on both sides with a cannonade from several hundred

+guns.

+

+Then when the whole field was covered with smoke, two divisions,

+Campan’s and Dessaix’s, advanced from the French right, while Murat’s

+troops advanced on Borodinó from their left.

+

+From the Shevárdino Redoubt where Napoleon was standing the flèches were

+two thirds of a mile away, and it was more than a mile as the crow flies

+to Borodinó, so that Napoleon could not see what was happening there,

+especially as the smoke mingling with the mist hid the whole locality.

+The soldiers of Dessaix’s division advancing against the flèches could

+only be seen till they had entered the hollow that lay between them and

+the flèches. As soon as they had descended into that hollow, the smoke

+of the guns and musketry on the flèches grew so dense that it covered

+the whole approach on that side of it. Through the smoke glimpses could

+be caught of something black—probably men—and at times the glint of

+bayonets. But whether they were moving or stationary, whether they were

+French or Russian, could not be discovered from the Shevárdino Redoubt.

+

+The sun had risen brightly and its slanting rays struck straight into

+Napoleon’s face as, shading his eyes with his hand, he looked at the

+flèches. The smoke spread out before them, and at times it looked as if

+the smoke were moving, at times as if the troops moved. Sometimes shouts

+were heard through the firing, but it was impossible to tell what was

+being done there.

+

+Napoleon, standing on the knoll, looked through a field glass, and in

+its small circlet saw smoke and men, sometimes his own and sometimes

+Russians, but when he looked again with the naked eye, he could not tell

+where what he had seen was.

+

+He descended the knoll and began walking up and down before it.

+

+Occasionally he stopped, listened to the firing, and gazed intently at

+the battlefield.

+

+But not only was it impossible to make out what was happening from where

+he was standing down below, or from the knoll above on which some of his

+generals had taken their stand, but even from the flèches themselves—in

+which by this time there were now Russian and now French soldiers,

+alternately or together, dead, wounded, alive, frightened, or

+maddened—even at those flèches themselves it was impossible to make out

+what was taking place. There for several hours amid incessant cannon and

+musketry fire, now Russians were seen alone, now Frenchmen alone, now

+infantry, and now cavalry: they appeared, fired, fell, collided, not

+knowing what to do with one another, screamed, and ran back again.

+

+From the battlefield adjutants he had sent out, and orderlies from his

+marshals, kept galloping up to Napoleon with reports of the progress

+of the action, but all these reports were false, both because it was

+impossible in the heat of battle to say what was happening at any given

+moment and because many of the adjutants did not go to the actual place

+of conflict but reported what they had heard from others; and also

+because while an adjutant was riding more than a mile to Napoleon

+circumstances changed and the news he brought was already becoming

+false. Thus an adjutant galloped up from Murat with tidings that

+Borodinó had been occupied and the bridge over the Kolochá was in the

+hands of the French. The adjutant asked whether Napoleon wished the

+troops to cross it? Napoleon gave orders that the troops should form up

+on the farther side and wait. But before that order was given—almost

+as soon in fact as the adjutant had left Borodinó—the bridge had been

+retaken by the Russians and burned, in the very skirmish at which Pierre

+had been present at the beginning of the battle.

+

+An adjutant galloped up from the flèches with a pale and frightened face

+and reported to Napoleon that their attack had been repulsed, Campan

+wounded, and Davout killed; yet at the very time the adjutant had been

+told that the French had been repulsed, the flèches had in fact been

+recaptured by other French troops, and Davout was alive and only

+slightly bruised. On the basis of these necessarily untrustworthy

+reports Napoleon gave his orders, which had either been executed before

+he gave them or could not be and were not executed.

+

+The marshals and generals, who were nearer to the field of battle

+but, like Napoleon, did not take part in the actual fighting and only

+occasionally went within musket range, made their own arrangements

+without asking Napoleon and issued orders where and in what direction to

+fire and where cavalry should gallop and infantry should run. But even

+their orders, like Napoleon’s, were seldom carried out, and then but

+partially. For the most part things happened contrary to their orders.

+Soldiers ordered to advance ran back on meeting grapeshot; soldiers

+ordered to remain where they were, suddenly, seeing Russians

+unexpectedly before them, sometimes rushed back and sometimes forward,

+and the cavalry dashed without orders in pursuit of the flying Russians.

+In this way two cavalry regiments galloped through the Semënovsk hollow

+and as soon as they reached the top of the incline turned round and

+galloped full speed back again. The infantry moved in the same way,

+sometimes running to quite other places than those they were ordered to

+go to. All orders as to where and when to move the guns, when to send

+infantry to shoot or horsemen to ride down the Russian infantry—all

+such orders were given by the officers on the spot nearest to the

+units concerned, without asking either Ney, Davout, or Murat, much less

+Napoleon. They did not fear getting into trouble for not fulfilling

+orders or for acting on their own initiative, for in battle what is at

+stake is what is dearest to man—his own life—and it sometimes seems that

+safety lies in running back, sometimes in running forward; and these men

+who were right in the heat of the battle acted according to the mood

+of the moment. In reality, however, all these movements forward and

+backward did not improve or alter the position of the troops. All

+their rushing and galloping at one another did little harm, the harm of

+disablement and death was caused by the balls and bullets that flew over

+the fields on which these men were floundering about. As soon as they

+left the place where the balls and bullets were flying about, their

+superiors, located in the background, re-formed them and brought them

+under discipline and under the influence of that discipline led them

+back to the zone of fire, where under the influence of fear of death

+they lost their discipline and rushed about according to the chance

+promptings of the throng.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXXIV

+

+Napoleon’s generals—Davout, Ney, and Murat, who were near that region of

+fire and sometimes even entered it—repeatedly led into it huge masses of

+well-ordered troops. But contrary to what had always happened in their

+former battles, instead of the news they expected of the enemy’s flight,

+these orderly masses returned thence as disorganized and terrified mobs.

+The generals re-formed them, but their numbers constantly decreased.

+In the middle of the day Murat sent his adjutant to Napoleon to demand

+reinforcements.

+

+Napoleon sat at the foot of the knoll, drinking punch, when Murat’s

+adjutant galloped up with an assurance that the Russians would be routed

+if His Majesty would let him have another division.

+

+“Reinforcements?” said Napoleon in a tone of stern surprise, looking at

+the adjutant—a handsome lad with long black curls arranged like Murat’s

+own—as though he did not understand his words.

+

+“Reinforcements!” thought Napoleon to himself. “How can they need

+reinforcements when they already have half the army directed against a

+weak, unentrenched Russian wing?”

+

+“Tell the King of Naples,” said he sternly, “that it is not noon yet,

+and I don’t yet see my chessboard clearly. Go!...”

+

+The handsome boy adjutant with the long hair sighed deeply without

+removing his hand from his hat and galloped back to where men were being

+slaughtered.

+

+Napoleon rose and having summoned Caulaincourt and Berthier began

+talking to them about matters unconnected with the battle.

+

+In the midst of this conversation, which was beginning to interest

+Napoleon, Berthier’s eyes turned to look at a general with a suite, who

+was galloping toward the knoll on a lathering horse. It was Belliard.

+Having dismounted he went up to the Emperor with rapid strides and in

+a loud voice began boldly demonstrating the necessity of sending

+reinforcements. He swore on his honor that the Russians were lost if the

+Emperor would give another division.

+

+Napoleon shrugged his shoulders and continued to pace up and down

+without replying. Belliard began talking loudly and eagerly to the

+generals of the suite around him.

+

+“You are very fiery, Belliard,” said Napoleon, when he again came up to

+the general. “In the heat of a battle it is easy to make a mistake. Go

+and have another look and then come back to me.”

+

+Before Belliard was out of sight, a messenger from another part of the

+battlefield galloped up.

+

+“Now then, what do you want?” asked Napoleon in the tone of a man

+irritated at being continually disturbed.

+

+“Sire, the prince...” began the adjutant.

+

+“Asks for reinforcements?” said Napoleon with an angry gesture.

+

+The adjutant bent his head affirmatively and began to report, but the

+Emperor turned from him, took a couple of steps, stopped, came back, and

+called Berthier.

+

+“We must give reserves,” he said, moving his arms slightly apart.

+“Who do you think should be sent there?” he asked of Berthier (whom he

+subsequently termed “that gosling I have made an eagle”).

+

+“Send Claparède’s division, sire,” replied Berthier, who knew all the

+division’s regiments, and battalions by heart.

+

+Napoleon nodded assent.

+

+The adjutant galloped to Claparède’s division and a few minutes later

+the Young Guards stationed behind the knoll moved forward. Napoleon

+gazed silently in that direction.

+

+“No!” he suddenly said to Berthier. “I can’t send Claparède. Send

+Friant’s division.”

+

+Though there was no advantage in sending Friant’s division instead of

+Claparède’s, and even an obvious inconvenience and delay in stopping

+Claparède and sending Friant now, the order was carried out exactly.

+Napoleon did not notice that in regard to his army he was playing

+the part of a doctor who hinders by his medicines—a role he so justly

+understood and condemned.

+

+Friant’s division disappeared as the others had done into the smoke

+of the battlefield. From all sides adjutants continued to arrive at a

+gallop and as if by agreement all said the same thing. They all asked

+for reinforcements and all said that the Russians were holding their

+positions and maintaining a hellish fire under which the French army was

+melting away.

+

+Napoleon sat on a campstool, wrapped in thought.

+

+M. de Beausset, the man so fond of travel, having fasted since morning,

+came up to the Emperor and ventured respectfully to suggest lunch to His

+Majesty.

+

+“I hope I may now congratulate Your Majesty on a victory?” said he.

+

+Napoleon silently shook his head in negation. Assuming the negation to

+refer only to the victory and not to the lunch, M. de Beausset ventured

+with respectful jocularity to remark that there is no reason for not

+having lunch when one can get it.

+

+“Go away...” exclaimed Napoleon suddenly and morosely, and turned aside.

+

+A beatific smile of regret, repentance, and ecstasy beamed on M. de

+Beausset’s face and he glided away to the other generals.

+

+Napoleon was experiencing a feeling of depression like that of an

+ever-lucky gambler who, after recklessly flinging money about and always

+winning, suddenly just when he has calculated all the chances of the

+game, finds that the more he considers his play the more surely he

+loses.

+

+His troops were the same, his generals the same, the same preparations

+had been made, the same dispositions, and the same proclamation courte

+et énergique, he himself was still the same: he knew that and knew that

+he was now even more experienced and skillful than before. Even the

+enemy was the same as at Austerlitz and Friedland—yet the terrible

+stroke of his arm had supernaturally become impotent.

+

+All the old methods that had been unfailingly crowned with success: the

+concentration of batteries on one point, an attack by reserves to break

+the enemy’s line, and a cavalry attack by “the men of iron,” all these

+methods had already been employed, yet not only was there no victory,

+but from all sides came the same news of generals killed and wounded,

+of reinforcements needed, of the impossibility of driving back the

+Russians, and of disorganization among his own troops.

+

+Formerly, after he had given two or three orders and uttered a

+few phrases, marshals and adjutants had come galloping up with

+congratulations and happy faces, announcing the trophies taken, the

+corps of prisoners, bundles of enemy eagles and standards, cannon and

+stores, and Murat had only begged leave to loose the cavalry to gather

+in the baggage wagons. So it had been at Lodi, Marengo, Arcola, Jena,

+Austerlitz, Wagram, and so on. But now something strange was happening

+to his troops.

+

+Despite news of the capture of the flèches, Napoleon saw that this was

+not the same, not at all the same, as what had happened in his former

+battles. He saw that what he was feeling was felt by all the men about

+him experienced in the art of war. All their faces looked dejected, and

+they all shunned one another’s eyes—only a de Beausset could fail to

+grasp the meaning of what was happening.

+

+But Napoleon with his long experience of war well knew the meaning of

+a battle not gained by the attacking side in eight hours, after all

+efforts had been expended. He knew that it was a lost battle and that

+the least accident might now—with the fight balanced on such a strained

+center—destroy him and his army.

+

+When he ran his mind over the whole of this strange Russian campaign in

+which not one battle had been won, and in which not a flag, or cannon,

+or army corps had been captured in two months, when he looked at the

+concealed depression on the faces around him and heard reports of the

+Russians still holding their ground—a terrible feeling like a nightmare

+took possession of him, and all the unlucky accidents that might destroy

+him occurred to his mind. The Russians might fall on his left wing,

+might break through his center, he himself might be killed by a stray

+cannon ball. All this was possible. In former battles he had only

+considered the possibilities of success, but now innumerable unlucky

+chances presented themselves, and he expected them all. Yes, it was like

+a dream in which a man fancies that a ruffian is coming to attack him,

+and raises his arm to strike that ruffian a terrible blow which he knows

+should annihilate him, but then feels that his arm drops powerless and

+limp like a rag, and the horror of unavoidable destruction seizes him in

+his helplessness.

+

+The news that the Russians were attacking the left flank of the French

+army aroused that horror in Napoleon. He sat silently on a campstool

+below the knoll, with head bowed and elbows on his knees. Berthier

+approached and suggested that they should ride along the line to

+ascertain the position of affairs.

+

+“What? What do you say?” asked Napoleon. “Yes, tell them to bring me my

+horse.”

+

+He mounted and rode toward Semënovsk.

+

+Amid the powder smoke, slowly dispersing over the whole space through

+which Napoleon rode, horses and men were lying in pools of blood, singly

+or in heaps. Neither Napoleon nor any of his generals had ever before

+seen such horrors or so many slain in such a small area. The roar of

+guns, that had not ceased for ten hours, wearied the ear and gave

+a peculiar significance to the spectacle, as music does to tableaux

+vivants. Napoleon rode up the high ground at Semënovsk, and through the

+smoke saw ranks of men in uniforms of a color unfamiliar to him. They

+were Russians.

+

+The Russians stood in serried ranks behind Semënovsk village and its

+knoll, and their guns boomed incessantly along their line and sent

+forth clouds of smoke. It was no longer a battle: it was a continuous

+slaughter which could be of no avail either to the French or the

+Russians. Napoleon stopped his horse and again fell into the reverie

+from which Berthier had aroused him. He could not stop what was going on

+before him and around him and was supposed to be directed by him and to

+depend on him, and from its lack of success this affair, for the first

+time, seemed to him unnecessary and horrible.

+

+One of the generals rode up to Napoleon and ventured to offer to lead

+the Old Guard into action. Ney and Berthier, standing near Napoleon,

+exchanged looks and smiled contemptuously at this general’s senseless

+offer.

+

+Napoleon bowed his head and remained silent a long time.

+

+“At eight hundred leagues from France, I will not have my Guard

+destroyed!” he said, and turning his horse rode back to Shevárdino.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXXV

+

+On the rug-covered bench where Pierre had seen him in the morning sat

+Kutúzov, his gray head hanging, his heavy body relaxed. He gave no

+orders, but only assented to or dissented from what others suggested.

+

+“Yes, yes, do that,” he replied to various proposals. “Yes, yes: go,

+dear boy, and have a look,” he would say to one or another of those

+about him; or, “No, don’t, we’d better wait!” He listened to the reports

+that were brought him and gave directions when his subordinates demanded

+that of him; but when listening to the reports it seemed as if he

+were not interested in the import of the words spoken, but rather in

+something else—in the expression of face and tone of voice of those who

+were reporting. By long years of military experience he knew, and with

+the wisdom of age understood, that it is impossible for one man to

+direct hundreds of thousands of others struggling with death, and he

+knew that the result of a battle is decided not by the orders of a

+commander in chief, nor the place where the troops are stationed, nor by

+the number of cannon or of slaughtered men, but by that intangible force

+called the spirit of the army, and he watched this force and guided it

+in as far as that was in his power.

+

+Kutúzov’s general expression was one of concentrated quiet attention,

+and his face wore a strained look as if he found it difficult to master

+the fatigue of his old and feeble body.

+

+At eleven o’clock they brought him news that the flèches captured by the

+French had been retaken, but that Prince Bagratión was wounded. Kutúzov

+groaned and swayed his head.

+

+“Ride over to Prince Peter Ivánovich and find out about it exactly,” he

+said to one of his adjutants, and then turned to the Duke of Württemberg

+who was standing behind him.

+

+“Will Your Highness please take command of the first army?”

+

+Soon after the duke’s departure—before he could possibly have reached

+Semënovsk—his adjutant came back from him and told Kutúzov that the duke

+asked for more troops.

+

+Kutúzov made a grimace and sent an order to Dokhtúrov to take over the

+command of the first army, and a request to the duke—whom he said he

+could not spare at such an important moment—to return to him. When

+they brought him news that Murat had been taken prisoner, and the staff

+officers congratulated him, Kutúzov smiled.

+

+“Wait a little, gentlemen,” said he. “The battle is won, and there is

+nothing extraordinary in the capture of Murat. Still, it is better to

+wait before we rejoice.”

+

+But he sent an adjutant to take the news round the army.

+

+When Scherbínin came galloping from the left flank with news that the

+French had captured the flèches and the village of Semënovsk, Kutúzov,

+guessing by the sounds of the battle and by Scherbínin’s looks that the

+news was bad, rose as if to stretch his legs and, taking Scherbínin’s

+arm, led him aside.

+

+“Go, my dear fellow,” he said to Ermólov, “and see whether something

+can’t be done.”

+

+Kutúzov was in Górki, near the center of the Russian position. The

+attack directed by Napoleon against our left flank had been several

+times repulsed. In the center the French had not got beyond Borodinó,

+and on their left flank Uvárov’s cavalry had put the French to flight.

+

+Toward three o’clock the French attacks ceased. On the faces of all

+who came from the field of battle, and of those who stood around him,

+Kutúzov noticed an expression of extreme tension. He was satisfied with

+the day’s success—a success exceeding his expectations, but the old

+man’s strength was failing him. Several times his head dropped low as if

+it were falling and he dozed off. Dinner was brought him.

+

+Adjutant General Wolzogen, the man who when riding past Prince Andrew

+had said, “the war should be extended widely,” and whom Bagratión so

+detested, rode up while Kutúzov was at dinner. Wolzogen had come from

+Barclay de Tolly to report on the progress of affairs on the left flank.

+The sagacious Barclay de Tolly, seeing crowds of wounded men running

+back and the disordered rear of the army, weighed all the circumstances,

+concluded that the battle was lost, and sent his favorite officer to the

+commander in chief with that news.

+

+Kutúzov was chewing a piece of roast chicken with difficulty and glanced

+at Wolzogen with eyes that brightened under their puckering lids.

+

+Wolzogen, nonchalantly stretching his legs, approached Kutúzov with a

+half-contemptuous smile on his lips, scarcely touching the peak of his

+cap.

+

+He treated his Serene Highness with a somewhat affected nonchalance

+intended to show that, as a highly trained military man, he left it to

+Russians to make an idol of this useless old man, but that he knew whom

+he was dealing with. “Der alte Herr” (as in their own set the Germans

+called Kutúzov) “is making himself very comfortable,” thought Wolzogen,

+and looking severely at the dishes in front of Kutúzov he began to

+report to “the old gentleman” the position of affairs on the left flank

+as Barclay had ordered him to and as he himself had seen and understood

+it.

+

+“All the points of our position are in the enemy’s hands and we cannot

+dislodge them for lack of troops, the men are running away and it is

+impossible to stop them,” he reported.

+

+Kutúzov ceased chewing and fixed an astonished gaze on Wolzogen, as

+if not understanding what was said to him. Wolzogen, noticing “the old

+gentleman’s” agitation, said with a smile:

+

+“I have not considered it right to conceal from your Serene Highness

+what I have seen. The troops are in complete disorder....”

+

+“You have seen? You have seen?...” Kutúzov shouted. Frowning and rising

+quickly, he went up to Wolzogen.

+

+“How... how dare you!...” he shouted, choking and making a threatening

+gesture with his trembling arms: “How dare you, sir, say that to me? You

+know nothing about it. Tell General Barclay from me that his information

+is incorrect and that the real course of the battle is better known to

+me, the commander in chief, than to him.”

+

+Wolzogen was about to make a rejoinder, but Kutúzov interrupted him.

+

+“The enemy has been repulsed on the left and defeated on the right

+flank. If you have seen amiss, sir, do not allow yourself to say what

+you don’t know! Be so good as to ride to General Barclay and inform

+him of my firm intention to attack the enemy tomorrow,” said Kutúzov

+sternly.

+

+All were silent, and the only sound audible was the heavy breathing of

+the panting old general.

+

+“They are repulsed everywhere, for which I thank God and our brave army!

+The enemy is beaten, and tomorrow we shall drive him from the sacred

+soil of Russia,” said Kutúzov crossing himself, and he suddenly sobbed

+as his eyes filled with tears.

+

+Wolzogen, shrugging his shoulders and curling his lips, stepped silently

+aside, marveling at “the old gentleman’s” conceited stupidity.

+

+“Ah, here he is, my hero!” said Kutúzov to a portly, handsome,

+dark-haired general who was just ascending the knoll.

+

+This was Raévski, who had spent the whole day at the most important part

+of the field of Borodinó.

+

+Raévski reported that the troops were firmly holding their ground and

+that the French no longer ventured to attack.

+

+After hearing him, Kutúzov said in French:

+

+“Then you do not think, like some others, that we must retreat?”

+

+“On the contrary, your Highness, in indecisive actions it is always

+the most stubborn who remain victors,” replied Raévski, “and in my

+opinion...”

+

+“Kaysárov!” Kutúzov called to his adjutant. “Sit down and write out

+the order of the day for tomorrow. And you,” he continued, addressing

+another, “ride along the line and announce that tomorrow we attack.”

+

+While Kutúzov was talking to Raévski and dictating the order of the day,

+Wolzogen returned from Barclay and said that General Barclay wished to

+have written confirmation of the order the field marshal had given.

+

+Kutúzov, without looking at Wolzogen, gave directions for the order to

+be written out which the former commander in chief, to avoid personal

+responsibility, very judiciously wished to receive.

+

+And by means of that mysterious indefinable bond which maintains

+throughout an army one and the same temper, known as “the spirit of

+the army,” and which constitutes the sinew of war, Kutúzov’s words, his

+order for a battle next day, immediately became known from one end of

+the army to the other.

+

+It was far from being the same words or the same order that reached the

+farthest links of that chain. The tales passing from mouth to mouth at

+different ends of the army did not even resemble what Kutúzov had said,

+but the sense of his words spread everywhere because what he said was

+not the outcome of cunning calculations, but of a feeling that lay in

+the commander in chief’s soul as in that of every Russian.

+

+And on learning that tomorrow they were to attack the enemy, and hearing

+from the highest quarters a confirmation of what they wanted to believe,

+the exhausted, wavering men felt comforted and inspirited.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXXVI

+

+Prince Andrew’s regiment was among the reserves which till after one

+o’clock were stationed inactive behind Semënovsk, under heavy artillery

+fire. Toward two o’clock the regiment, having already lost more than

+two hundred men, was moved forward into a trampled oatfield in the gap

+between Semënovsk and the Knoll Battery, where thousands of men perished

+that day and on which an intense, concentrated fire from several hundred

+enemy guns was directed between one and two o’clock.

+

+Without moving from that spot or firing a single shot the regiment here

+lost another third of its men. From in front and especially from the

+right, in the unlifting smoke the guns boomed, and out of the mysterious

+domain of smoke that overlay the whole space in front, quick hissing

+cannon balls and slow whistling shells flew unceasingly. At times, as

+if to allow them a respite, a quarter of an hour passed during which

+the cannon balls and shells all flew overhead, but sometimes several men

+were torn from the regiment in a minute and the slain were continually

+being dragged away and the wounded carried off.

+

+With each fresh blow less and less chance of life remained for those not

+yet killed. The regiment stood in columns of battalion, three hundred

+paces apart, but nevertheless the men were always in one and the same

+mood. All alike were taciturn and morose. Talk was rarely heard in the

+ranks, and it ceased altogether every time the thud of a successful

+shot and the cry of “stretchers!” was heard. Most of the time, by their

+officers’ order, the men sat on the ground. One, having taken off his

+shako, carefully loosened the gathers of its lining and drew them tight

+again; another, rubbing some dry clay between his palms, polished

+his bayonet; another fingered the strap and pulled the buckle of his

+bandolier, while another smoothed and refolded his leg bands and put

+his boots on again. Some built little houses of the tufts in the plowed

+ground, or plaited baskets from the straw in the cornfield. All seemed

+fully absorbed in these pursuits. When men were killed or wounded, when

+rows of stretchers went past, when some troops retreated, and when great

+masses of the enemy came into view through the smoke, no one paid any

+attention to these things. But when our artillery or cavalry advanced or

+some of our infantry were seen to move forward, words of approval

+were heard on all sides. But the liveliest attention was attracted by

+occurrences quite apart from, and unconnected with, the battle. It was

+as if the minds of these morally exhausted men found relief in everyday,

+commonplace occurrences. A battery of artillery was passing in front of

+the regiment. The horse of an ammunition cart put its leg over a trace.

+“Hey, look at the trace horse!... Get her leg out! She’ll fall.... Ah,

+they don’t see it!” came identical shouts from the ranks all along the

+regiment. Another time, general attention was attracted by a small brown

+dog, coming heaven knows whence, which trotted in a preoccupied manner

+in front of the ranks with tail stiffly erect till suddenly a shell fell

+close by, when it yelped, tucked its tail between its legs, and darted

+aside. Yells and shrieks of laughter rose from the whole regiment. But

+such distractions lasted only a moment, and for eight hours the men had

+been inactive, without food, in constant fear of death, and their pale

+and gloomy faces grew ever paler and gloomier.

+

+Prince Andrew, pale and gloomy like everyone in the regiment, paced up

+and down from the border of one patch to another, at the edge of the

+meadow beside an oatfield, with head bowed and arms behind his back.

+There was nothing for him to do and no orders to be given. Everything

+went on of itself. The killed were dragged from the front, the wounded

+carried away, and the ranks closed up. If any soldiers ran to the

+rear they returned immediately and hastily. At first Prince Andrew,

+considering it his duty to rouse the courage of the men and to set them

+an example, walked about among the ranks, but he soon became convinced

+that this was unnecessary and that there was nothing he could teach

+them. All the powers of his soul, as of every soldier there, were

+unconsciously bent on avoiding the contemplation of the horrors of their

+situation. He walked along the meadow, dragging his feet, rustling the

+grass, and gazing at the dust that covered his boots; now he took big

+strides trying to keep to the footprints left on the meadow by the

+mowers, then he counted his steps, calculating how often he must walk

+from one strip to another to walk a mile, then he stripped the flowers

+from the wormwood that grew along a boundary rut, rubbed them in his

+palms, and smelled their pungent, sweetly bitter scent. Nothing remained

+of the previous day’s thoughts. He thought of nothing. He listened with

+weary ears to the ever-recurring sounds, distinguishing the whistle

+of flying projectiles from the booming of the reports, glanced at the

+tiresomely familiar faces of the men of the first battalion, and

+waited. “Here it comes... this one is coming our way again!” he thought,

+listening to an approaching whistle in the hidden region of smoke. “One,

+another! Again! It has hit....” He stopped and looked at the ranks. “No,

+it has gone over. But this one has hit!” And again he started trying

+to reach the boundary strip in sixteen paces. A whizz and a thud! Five

+paces from him, a cannon ball tore up the dry earth and disappeared. A

+chill ran down his back. Again he glanced at the ranks. Probably many

+had been hit—a large crowd had gathered near the second battalion.

+

+“Adjutant!” he shouted. “Order them not to crowd together.”

+

+The adjutant, having obeyed this instruction, approached Prince Andrew.

+From the other side a battalion commander rode up.

+

+“Look out!” came a frightened cry from a soldier and, like a bird

+whirring in rapid flight and alighting on the ground, a shell dropped

+with little noise within two steps of Prince Andrew and close to the

+battalion commander’s horse. The horse first, regardless of whether it

+was right or wrong to show fear, snorted, reared almost throwing the

+major, and galloped aside. The horse’s terror infected the men.

+

+“Lie down!” cried the adjutant, throwing himself flat on the ground.

+

+Prince Andrew hesitated. The smoking shell spun like a top between him

+and the prostrate adjutant, near a wormwood plant between the field and

+the meadow.

+

+“Can this be death?” thought Prince Andrew, looking with a quite new,

+envious glance at the grass, the wormwood, and the streamlet of smoke

+that curled up from the rotating black ball. “I cannot, I do not wish to

+die. I love life—I love this grass, this earth, this air....” He thought

+this, and at the same time remembered that people were looking at him.

+

+“It’s shameful, sir!” he said to the adjutant. “What...”

+

+He did not finish speaking. At one and the same moment came the sound of

+an explosion, a whistle of splinters as from a breaking window frame,

+a suffocating smell of powder, and Prince Andrew started to one side,

+raising his arm, and fell on his chest. Several officers ran up to him.

+From the right side of his abdomen, blood was welling out making a large

+stain on the grass.

+

+The militiamen with stretchers who were called up stood behind the

+officers. Prince Andrew lay on his chest with his face in the grass,

+breathing heavily and noisily.

+

+“What are you waiting for? Come along!”

+

+The peasants went up and took him by his shoulders and legs, but he

+moaned piteously and, exchanging looks, they set him down again.

+

+“Pick him up, lift him, it’s all the same!” cried someone.

+

+They again took him by the shoulders and laid him on the stretcher.

+

+“Ah, God! My God! What is it? The stomach? That means death! My

+God!”—voices among the officers were heard saying.

+

+“It flew a hair’s breadth past my ear,” said the adjutant.

+

+The peasants, adjusting the stretcher to their shoulders, started

+hurriedly along the path they had trodden down, to the dressing station.

+

+“Keep in step! Ah... those peasants!” shouted an officer, seizing by

+their shoulders and checking the peasants, who were walking unevenly and

+jolting the stretcher.

+

+“Get into step, Fëdor... I say, Fëdor!” said the foremost peasant.

+

+“Now that’s right!” said the one behind joyfully, when he had got into

+step.

+

+“Your excellency! Eh, Prince!” said the trembling voice of Timókhin, who

+had run up and was looking down on the stretcher.

+

+Prince Andrew opened his eyes and looked up at the speaker from the

+stretcher into which his head had sunk deep and again his eyelids

+drooped.

+

+

+The militiamen carried Prince Andrew to the dressing station by the

+wood, where wagons were stationed. The dressing station consisted of

+three tents with flaps turned back, pitched at the edge of a birch wood.

+In the wood, wagons and horses were standing. The horses were eating

+oats from their movable troughs and sparrows flew down and pecked the

+grains that fell. Some crows, scenting blood, flew among the birch

+trees cawing impatiently. Around the tents, over more than five acres,

+bloodstained men in various garbs stood, sat, or lay. Around the wounded

+stood crowds of soldier stretcher-bearers with dismal and attentive

+faces, whom the officers keeping order tried in vain to drive from the

+spot. Disregarding the officers’ orders, the soldiers stood leaning

+against their stretchers and gazing intently, as if trying to comprehend

+the difficult problem of what was taking place before them. From the

+tents came now loud angry cries and now plaintive groans. Occasionally

+dressers ran out to fetch water, or to point out those who were to be

+brought in next. The wounded men awaiting their turn outside the tents

+groaned, sighed, wept, screamed, swore, or asked for vodka. Some were

+delirious. Prince Andrew’s bearers, stepping over the wounded who had

+not yet been bandaged, took him, as a regimental commander, close up to

+one of the tents and there stopped, awaiting instructions. Prince Andrew

+opened his eyes and for a long time could not make out what was going

+on around him. He remembered the meadow, the wormwood, the field, the

+whirling black ball, and his sudden rush of passionate love of life.

+Two steps from him, leaning against a branch and talking loudly and

+attracting general attention, stood a tall, handsome, black-haired

+noncommissioned officer with a bandaged head. He had been wounded in the

+head and leg by bullets. Around him, eagerly listening to his talk, a

+crowd of wounded and stretcher-bearers was gathered.

+

+“We kicked him out from there so that he chucked everything, we grabbed

+the King himself!” cried he, looking around him with eyes that glittered

+with fever. “If only reserves had come up just then, lads, there

+wouldn’t have been nothing left of him! I tell you surely....”

+

+Like all the others near the speaker, Prince Andrew looked at him with

+shining eyes and experienced a sense of comfort. “But isn’t it all the

+same now?” thought he. “And what will be there, and what has there been

+here? Why was I so reluctant to part with life? There was something in

+this life I did not and do not understand.”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXXVII

+

+One of the doctors came out of the tent in a bloodstained apron,

+holding a cigar between the thumb and little finger of one of his small

+bloodstained hands, so as not to smear it. He raised his head and looked

+about him, but above the level of the wounded men. He evidently wanted a

+little respite. After turning his head from right to left for some time,

+he sighed and looked down.

+

+“All right, immediately,” he replied to a dresser who pointed Prince

+Andrew out to him, and he told them to carry him into the tent.

+

+Murmurs arose among the wounded who were waiting.

+

+“It seems that even in the next world only the gentry are to have a

+chance!” remarked one.

+

+Prince Andrew was carried in and laid on a table that had only just been

+cleared and which a dresser was washing down. Prince Andrew could not

+make out distinctly what was in that tent. The pitiful groans from all

+sides and the torturing pain in his thigh, stomach, and back distracted

+him. All he saw about him merged into a general impression of naked,

+bleeding human bodies that seemed to fill the whole of the low tent, as

+a few weeks previously, on that hot August day, such bodies had filled

+the dirty pond beside the Smolénsk road. Yes, it was the same flesh,

+the same chair à canon, the sight of which had even then filled him with

+horror, as by a presentiment.

+

+There were three operating tables in the tent. Two were occupied, and

+on the third they placed Prince Andrew. For a little while he was left

+alone and involuntarily witnessed what was taking place on the other two

+tables. On the nearest one sat a Tartar, probably a Cossack, judging by

+the uniform thrown down beside him. Four soldiers were holding him, and

+a spectacled doctor was cutting into his muscular brown back.

+

+“Ooh, ooh, ooh!” grunted the Tartar, and suddenly lifting up his swarthy

+snub-nosed face with its high cheekbones, and baring his white teeth,

+he began to wriggle and twitch his body and utter piercing, ringing,

+and prolonged yells. On the other table, round which many people were

+crowding, a tall well-fed man lay on his back with his head thrown back.

+His curly hair, its color, and the shape of his head seemed strangely

+familiar to Prince Andrew. Several dressers were pressing on his chest

+to hold him down. One large, white, plump leg twitched rapidly all

+the time with a feverish tremor. The man was sobbing and choking

+convulsively. Two doctors—one of whom was pale and trembling—were

+silently doing something to this man’s other, gory leg. When he had

+finished with the Tartar, whom they covered with an overcoat, the

+spectacled doctor came up to Prince Andrew, wiping his hands.

+

+He glanced at Prince Andrew’s face and quickly turned away.

+

+“Undress him! What are you waiting for?” he cried angrily to the

+dressers.

+

+His very first, remotest recollections of childhood came back to Prince

+Andrew’s mind when the dresser with sleeves rolled up began hastily to

+undo the buttons of his clothes and undressed him. The doctor bent

+down over the wound, felt it, and sighed deeply. Then he made a sign to

+someone, and the torturing pain in his abdomen caused Prince Andrew to

+lose consciousness. When he came to himself the splintered portions of

+his thighbone had been extracted, the torn flesh cut away, and the

+wound bandaged. Water was being sprinkled on his face. As soon as Prince

+Andrew opened his eyes, the doctor bent over, kissed him silently on the

+lips, and hurried away.

+

+After the sufferings he had been enduring, Prince Andrew enjoyed a

+blissful feeling such as he had not experienced for a long time. All the

+best and happiest moments of his life—especially his earliest childhood,

+when he used to be undressed and put to bed, and when leaning over him

+his nurse sang him to sleep and he, burying his head in the pillow,

+felt happy in the mere consciousness of life—returned to his memory, not

+merely as something past but as something present.

+

+The doctors were busily engaged with the wounded man the shape of whose

+head seemed familiar to Prince Andrew: they were lifting him up and

+trying to quiet him.

+

+“Show it to me.... Oh, ooh... Oh! Oh, ooh!” his frightened moans could

+be heard, subdued by suffering and broken by sobs.

+

+Hearing those moans Prince Andrew wanted to weep. Whether because he

+was dying without glory, or because he was sorry to part with life,

+or because of those memories of a childhood that could not return, or

+because he was suffering and others were suffering and that man near him

+was groaning so piteously—he felt like weeping childlike, kindly, and

+almost happy tears.

+

+The wounded man was shown his amputated leg stained with clotted blood

+and with the boot still on.

+

+“Oh! Oh, ooh!” he sobbed, like a woman.

+

+The doctor who had been standing beside him, preventing Prince Andrew

+from seeing his face, moved away.

+

+“My God! What is this? Why is he here?” said Prince Andrew to himself.

+

+In the miserable, sobbing, enfeebled man whose leg had just been

+amputated, he recognized Anatole Kurágin. Men were supporting him in

+their arms and offering him a glass of water, but his trembling, swollen

+lips could not grasp its rim. Anatole was sobbing painfully. “Yes, it is

+he! Yes, that man is somehow closely and painfully connected with me,”

+thought Prince Andrew, not yet clearly grasping what he saw before him.

+“What is the connection of that man with my childhood and life?” he

+asked himself without finding an answer. And suddenly a new unexpected

+memory from that realm of pure and loving childhood presented itself to

+him. He remembered Natásha as he had seen her for the first time at the

+ball in 1810, with her slender neck and arms and with a frightened happy

+face ready for rapture, and love and tenderness for her, stronger

+and more vivid than ever, awoke in his soul. He now remembered the

+connection that existed between himself and this man who was dimly

+gazing at him through tears that filled his swollen eyes. He remembered

+everything, and ecstatic pity and love for that man overflowed his happy

+heart.

+

+Prince Andrew could no longer restrain himself and wept tender loving

+tears for his fellow men, for himself, and for his own and their errors.

+

+“Compassion, love of our brothers, for those who love us and for those

+who hate us, love of our enemies; yes, that love which God preached on

+earth and which Princess Mary taught me and I did not understand—that is

+what made me sorry to part with life, that is what remained for me had I

+lived. But now it is too late. I know it!”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXXVIII

+

+The terrible spectacle of the battlefield covered with dead and wounded,

+together with the heaviness of his head and the news that some twenty

+generals he knew personally had been killed or wounded, and the

+consciousness of the impotence of his once mighty arm, produced an

+unexpected impression on Napoleon who usually liked to look at the

+killed and wounded, thereby, he considered, testing his strength of

+mind. This day the horrible appearance of the battlefield overcame

+that strength of mind which he thought constituted his merit and his

+greatness. He rode hurriedly from the battlefield and returned to the

+Shevárdino knoll, where he sat on his campstool, his sallow face

+swollen and heavy, his eyes dim, his nose red, and his voice hoarse,

+involuntarily listening, with downcast eyes, to the sounds of firing.

+With painful dejection he awaited the end of this action, in which he

+regarded himself as a participant and which he was unable to arrest.

+A personal, human feeling for a brief moment got the better of the

+artificial phantasm of life he had served so long. He felt in his own

+person the sufferings and death he had witnessed on the battlefield.

+The heaviness of his head and chest reminded him of the possibility

+of suffering and death for himself. At that moment he did not desire

+Moscow, or victory, or glory (what need had he for any more glory?). The

+one thing he wished for was rest, tranquillity, and freedom. But when he

+had been on the Semënovsk heights the artillery commander had proposed

+to him to bring several batteries of artillery up to those heights to

+strengthen the fire on the Russian troops crowded in front of Knyazkóvo.

+Napoleon had assented and had given orders that news should be brought

+to him of the effect those batteries produced.

+

+An adjutant came now to inform him that the fire of two hundred guns

+had been concentrated on the Russians, as he had ordered, but that they

+still held their ground.

+

+“Our fire is mowing them down by rows, but still they hold on,” said the

+adjutant.

+

+“They want more!...” said Napoleon in a hoarse voice.

+

+“Sire?” asked the adjutant who had not heard the remark.

+

+“They want more!” croaked Napoleon frowning. “Let them have it!”

+

+Even before he gave that order the thing he did not desire, and for

+which he gave the order only because he thought it was expected of him,

+was being done. And he fell back into that artificial realm of imaginary

+greatness, and again—as a horse walking a treadmill thinks it is doing

+something for itself—he submissively fulfilled the cruel, sad, gloomy,

+and inhuman role predestined for him.

+

+And not for that day and hour alone were the mind and conscience

+darkened of this man on whom the responsibility for what was happening

+lay more than on all the others who took part in it. Never to the end

+of his life could he understand goodness, beauty, or truth, or the

+significance of his actions which were too contrary to goodness and

+truth, too remote from everything human, for him ever to be able to

+grasp their meaning. He could not disavow his actions, belauded as they

+were by half the world, and so he had to repudiate truth, goodness, and

+all humanity.

+

+Not only on that day, as he rode over the battlefield strewn with men

+killed and maimed (by his will as he believed), did he reckon as he

+looked at them how many Russians there were for each Frenchman and,

+deceiving himself, find reason for rejoicing in the calculation that

+there were five Russians for every Frenchman. Not on that day alone

+did he write in a letter to Paris that “the battle field was superb,”

+because fifty thousand corpses lay there, but even on the island of St.

+Helena in the peaceful solitude where he said he intended to devote his

+leisure to an account of the great deeds he had done, he wrote:

+

+The Russian war should have been the most popular war of modern times:

+it was a war of good sense, for real interests, for the tranquillity and

+security of all; it was purely pacific and conservative.

+

+It was a war for a great cause, the end of uncertainties and the

+beginning of security. A new horizon and new labors were opening out,

+full of well-being and prosperity for all. The European system was

+already founded; all that remained was to organize it.

+

+Satisfied on these great points and with tranquility everywhere, I

+too should have had my Congress and my Holy Alliance. Those ideas were

+stolen from me. In that reunion of great sovereigns we should have

+discussed our interests like one family, and have rendered account to

+the peoples as clerk to master.

+

+Europe would in this way soon have been, in fact, but one people, and

+anyone who traveled anywhere would have found himself always in the

+common fatherland. I should have demanded the freedom of all navigable

+rivers for everybody, that the seas should be common to all, and that

+the great standing armies should be reduced henceforth to mere guards

+for the sovereigns.

+

+On returning to France, to the bosom of the great, strong, magnificent,

+peaceful, and glorious fatherland, I should have proclaimed

+her frontiers immutable; all future wars purely defensive, all

+aggrandizement antinational. I should have associated my son in the

+Empire; my dictatorship would have been finished, and his constitutional

+reign would have begun.

+

+Paris would have been the capital of the world, and the French the envy

+of the nations!

+

+My leisure then, and my old age, would have been devoted, in company

+with the Empress and during the royal apprenticeship of my son, to

+leisurely visiting, with our own horses and like a true country couple,

+every corner of the Empire, receiving complaints, redressing wrongs,

+and scattering public buildings and benefactions on all sides and

+everywhere.

+

+Napoleon, predestined by Providence for the gloomy role of executioner

+of the peoples, assured himself that the aim of his actions had been the

+peoples’ welfare and that he could control the fate of millions and by

+the employment of power confer benefactions.

+

+“Of four hundred thousand who crossed the Vistula,” he wrote further

+of the Russian war, “half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles,

+Bavarians, Württembergers, Mecklenburgers, Spaniards, Italians, and

+Neapolitans. The Imperial army, strictly speaking, was one third

+composed of Dutch, Belgians, men from the borders of the Rhine,

+Piedmontese, Swiss, Genevese, Tuscans, Romans, inhabitants of the

+Thirty-second Military Division, of Bremen, of Hamburg, and so on: it

+included scarcely a hundred and forty thousand who spoke French. The

+Russian expedition actually cost France less than fifty thousand men;

+the Russian army in its retreat from Vílna to Moscow lost in the various

+battles four times more men than the French army; the burning of Moscow

+cost the lives of a hundred thousand Russians who died of cold and want

+in the woods; finally, in its march from Moscow to the Oder the Russian

+army also suffered from the severity of the season; so that by the time

+it reached Vílna it numbered only fifty thousand, and at Kálisch less

+than eighteen thousand.”

+

+He imagined that the war with Russia came about by his will, and the

+horrors that occurred did not stagger his soul. He boldly took the

+whole responsibility for what happened, and his darkened mind found

+justification in the belief that among the hundreds of thousands who

+perished there were fewer Frenchmen than Hessians and Bavarians.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXXIX

+

+Several tens of thousands of the slain lay in diverse postures and

+various uniforms on the fields and meadows belonging to the Davýdov

+family and to the crown serfs—those fields and meadows where for

+hundreds of years the peasants of Borodinó, Górki, Shevárdino, and

+Semënovsk had reaped their harvests and pastured their cattle. At the

+dressing stations the grass and earth were soaked with blood for a space

+of some three acres around. Crowds of men of various arms, wounded and

+unwounded, with frightened faces, dragged themselves back to Mozháysk

+from the one army and back to Valúevo from the other. Other crowds,

+exhausted and hungry, went forward led by their officers. Others held

+their ground and continued to fire.

+

+Over the whole field, previously so gaily beautiful with the glitter of

+bayonets and cloudlets of smoke in the morning sun, there now spread a

+mist of damp and smoke and a strange acid smell of saltpeter and blood.

+Clouds gathered and drops of rain began to fall on the dead and wounded,

+on the frightened, exhausted, and hesitating men, as if to say: “Enough,

+men! Enough! Cease... bethink yourselves! What are you doing?”

+

+To the men of both sides alike, worn out by want of food and rest,

+it began equally to appear doubtful whether they should continue to

+slaughter one another; all the faces expressed hesitation, and the

+question arose in every soul: “For what, for whom, must I kill and be

+killed?... You may go and kill whom you please, but I don’t want to do

+so any more!” By evening this thought had ripened in every soul. At any

+moment these men might have been seized with horror at what they were

+doing and might have thrown up everything and run away anywhere.

+

+But though toward the end of the battle the men felt all the horror of

+what they were doing, though they would have been glad to leave off,

+some incomprehensible, mysterious power continued to control them, and

+they still brought up the charges, loaded, aimed, and applied the match,

+though only one artilleryman survived out of every three, and though

+they stumbled and panted with fatigue, perspiring and stained with blood

+and powder. The cannon balls flew just as swiftly and cruelly from both

+sides, crushing human bodies, and that terrible work which was not done

+by the will of a man but at the will of Him who governs men and worlds

+continued.

+

+Anyone looking at the disorganized rear of the Russian army would have

+said that, if only the French made one more slight effort, it would

+disappear; and anyone looking at the rear of the French army would have

+said that the Russians need only make one more slight effort and the

+French would be destroyed. But neither the French nor the Russians made

+that effort, and the flame of battle burned slowly out.

+

+The Russians did not make that effort because they were not attacking

+the French. At the beginning of the battle they stood blocking the

+way to Moscow and they still did so at the end of the battle as at the

+beginning. But even had the aim of the Russians been to drive the French

+from their positions, they could not have made this last effort, for all

+the Russian troops had been broken up, there was no part of the Russian

+army that had not suffered in the battle, and though still holding their

+positions they had lost ONE HALF of their army.

+

+The French, with the memory of all their former victories during

+fifteen years, with the assurance of Napoleon’s invincibility, with the

+consciousness that they had captured part of the battlefield and had

+lost only a quarter of their men and still had their Guards intact,

+twenty thousand strong, might easily have made that effort. The French

+who had attacked the Russian army in order to drive it from its position

+ought to have made that effort, for as long as the Russians continued to

+block the road to Moscow as before, the aim of the French had not been

+attained and all their efforts and losses were in vain. But the French

+did not make that effort. Some historians say that Napoleon need only

+have used his Old Guards, who were intact, and the battle would have

+been won. To speak of what would have happened had Napoleon sent his

+Guards is like talking of what would happen if autumn became spring. It

+could not be. Napoleon did not give his Guards, not because he did not

+want to, but because it could not be done. All the generals, officers,

+and soldiers of the French army knew it could not be done, because the

+flagging spirit of the troops would not permit it.

+

+It was not Napoleon alone who had experienced that nightmare feeling

+of the mighty arm being stricken powerless, but all the generals and

+soldiers of his army whether they had taken part in the battle or not,

+after all their experience of previous battles—when after one tenth of

+such efforts the enemy had fled—experienced a similar feeling of terror

+before an enemy who, after losing HALF his men, stood as threateningly

+at the end as at the beginning of the battle. The moral force of the

+attacking French army was exhausted. Not that sort of victory which is

+defined by the capture of pieces of material fastened to sticks, called

+standards, and of the ground on which the troops had stood and were

+standing, but a moral victory that convinces the enemy of the moral

+superiority of his opponent and of his own impotence was gained by the

+Russians at Borodinó. The French invaders, like an infuriated animal

+that has in its onslaught received a mortal wound, felt that they were

+perishing, but could not stop, any more than the Russian army, weaker

+by one half, could help swerving. By impetus gained, the French army was

+still able to roll forward to Moscow, but there, without further effort

+on the part of the Russians, it had to perish, bleeding from the mortal

+wound it had received at Borodinó. The direct consequence of the battle

+of Borodinó was Napoleon’s senseless flight from Moscow, his retreat

+along the old Smolénsk road, the destruction of the invading army of

+five hundred thousand men, and the downfall of Napoleonic France, on

+which at Borodinó for the first time the hand of an opponent of stronger

+spirit had been laid.

+

+

+

+

+

+BOOK ELEVEN: 1812

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+Absolute continuity of motion is not comprehensible to the human mind.

+Laws of motion of any kind become comprehensible to man only when he

+examines arbitrarily selected elements of that motion; but at the

+same time, a large proportion of human error comes from the arbitrary

+division of continuous motion into discontinuous elements. There is a

+well-known, so-called sophism of the ancients consisting in this, that

+Achilles could never catch up with a tortoise he was following, in spite

+of the fact that he traveled ten times as fast as the tortoise. By

+the time Achilles has covered the distance that separated him from the

+tortoise, the tortoise has covered one tenth of that distance ahead

+of him: when Achilles has covered that tenth, the tortoise has covered

+another one hundredth, and so on forever. This problem seemed to

+the ancients insoluble. The absurd answer (that Achilles could never

+overtake the tortoise) resulted from this: that motion was arbitrarily

+divided into discontinuous elements, whereas the motion both of Achilles

+and of the tortoise was continuous.

+

+By adopting smaller and smaller elements of motion we only approach a

+solution of the problem, but never reach it. Only when we have admitted

+the conception of the infinitely small, and the resulting geometrical

+progression with a common ratio of one tenth, and have found the sum of

+this progression to infinity, do we reach a solution of the problem.

+

+A modern branch of mathematics having achieved the art of dealing with

+the infinitely small can now yield solutions in other more complex

+problems of motion which used to appear insoluble.

+

+This modern branch of mathematics, unknown to the ancients, when dealing

+with problems of motion admits the conception of the infinitely small,

+and so conforms to the chief condition of motion (absolute continuity)

+and thereby corrects the inevitable error which the human mind cannot

+avoid when it deals with separate elements of motion instead of

+examining continuous motion.

+

+In seeking the laws of historical movement just the same thing happens.

+The movement of humanity, arising as it does from innumerable arbitrary

+human wills, is continuous.

+

+To understand the laws of this continuous movement is the aim of

+history. But to arrive at these laws, resulting from the sum of all

+those human wills, man’s mind postulates arbitrary and disconnected

+units. The first method of history is to take an arbitrarily selected

+series of continuous events and examine it apart from others, though

+there is and can be no beginning to any event, for one event always

+flows uninterruptedly from another.

+

+The second method is to consider the actions of some one man—a king or a

+commander—as equivalent to the sum of many individual wills; whereas the

+sum of individual wills is never expressed by the activity of a single

+historic personage.

+

+Historical science in its endeavor to draw nearer to truth continually

+takes smaller and smaller units for examination. But however small the

+units it takes, we feel that to take any unit disconnected from others,

+or to assume a beginning of any phenomenon, or to say that the will of

+many men is expressed by the actions of any one historic personage, is

+in itself false.

+

+It needs no critical exertion to reduce utterly to dust any deductions

+drawn from history. It is merely necessary to select some larger or

+smaller unit as the subject of observation—as criticism has every

+right to do, seeing that whatever unit history observes must always be

+arbitrarily selected.

+

+Only by taking infinitesimally small units for observation (the

+differential of history, that is, the individual tendencies of men) and

+attaining to the art of integrating them (that is, finding the sum of

+these infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history.

+

+The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe present an

+extraordinary movement of millions of people. Men leave their customary

+pursuits, hasten from one side of Europe to the other, plunder and

+slaughter one another, triumph and are plunged in despair, and for some

+years the whole course of life is altered and presents an intensive

+movement which first increases and then slackens. What was the cause of

+this movement, by what laws was it governed? asks the mind of man.

+

+The historians, replying to this question, lay before us the sayings and

+doings of a few dozen men in a building in the city of Paris, calling

+these sayings and doings “the Revolution”; then they give a detailed

+biography of Napoleon and of certain people favorable or hostile to him;

+tell of the influence some of these people had on others, and say: that

+is why this movement took place and those are its laws.

+

+But the mind of man not only refuses to believe this explanation, but

+plainly says that this method of explanation is fallacious, because in

+it a weaker phenomenon is taken as the cause of a stronger. The sum of

+human wills produced the Revolution and Napoleon, and only the sum of

+those wills first tolerated and then destroyed them.

+

+“But every time there have been conquests there have been conquerors;

+every time there has been a revolution in any state there have been

+great men,” says history. And, indeed, human reason replies: every time

+conquerors appear there have been wars, but this does not prove that the

+conquerors caused the wars and that it is possible to find the laws of

+a war in the personal activity of a single man. Whenever I look at my

+watch and its hands point to ten, I hear the bells of the neighboring

+church; but because the bells begin to ring when the hands of the clock

+reach ten, I have no right to assume that the movement of the bells is

+caused by the position of the hands of the watch.

+

+Whenever I see the movement of a locomotive I hear the whistle and see

+the valves opening and wheels turning; but I have no right to conclude

+that the whistling and the turning of wheels are the cause of the

+movement of the engine.

+

+The peasants say that a cold wind blows in late spring because the oaks

+are budding, and really every spring cold winds do blow when the oak

+is budding. But though I do not know what causes the cold winds to blow

+when the oak buds unfold, I cannot agree with the peasants that the

+unfolding of the oak buds is the cause of the cold wind, for the

+force of the wind is beyond the influence of the buds. I see only a

+coincidence of occurrences such as happens with all the phenomena of

+life, and I see that however much and however carefully I observe the

+hands of the watch, and the valves and wheels of the engine, and the

+oak, I shall not discover the cause of the bells ringing, the engine

+moving, or of the winds of spring. To that I must entirely change my

+point of view and study the laws of the movement of steam, of the

+bells, and of the wind. History must do the same. And attempts in this

+direction have already been made.

+

+To study the laws of history we must completely change the subject of

+our observation, must leave aside kings, ministers, and generals, and

+study the common, infinitesimally small elements by which the masses are

+moved. No one can say in how far it is possible for man to advance

+in this way toward an understanding of the laws of history; but it is

+evident that only along that path does the possibility of discovering

+the laws of history lie, and that as yet not a millionth part as much

+mental effort has been applied in this direction by historians as has

+been devoted to describing the actions of various kings, commanders,

+and ministers and propounding the historians’ own reflections concerning

+these actions.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+The forces of a dozen European nations burst into Russia. The Russian

+army and people avoided a collision till Smolénsk was reached, and again

+from Smolénsk to Borodinó. The French army pushed on to Moscow, its

+goal, its impetus ever increasing as it neared its aim, just as the

+velocity of a falling body increases as it approaches the earth. Behind

+it were seven hundred miles of hunger-stricken, hostile country; ahead

+were a few dozen miles separating it from its goal. Every soldier in

+Napoleon’s army felt this and the invasion moved on by its own momentum.

+

+The more the Russian army retreated the more fiercely a spirit of hatred

+of the enemy flared up, and while it retreated the army increased and

+consolidated. At Borodinó a collision took place. Neither army was

+broken up, but the Russian army retreated immediately after the

+collision as inevitably as a ball recoils after colliding with another

+having a greater momentum, and with equal inevitability the ball

+of invasion that had advanced with such momentum rolled on for some

+distance, though the collision had deprived it of all its force.

+

+The Russians retreated eighty miles—to beyond Moscow—and the French

+reached Moscow and there came to a standstill. For five weeks after that

+there was not a single battle. The French did not move. As a bleeding,

+mortally wounded animal licks its wounds, they remained inert in Moscow

+for five weeks, and then suddenly, with no fresh reason, fled back:

+they made a dash for the Kalúga road, and (after a victory—for at

+Málo-Yaroslávets the field of conflict again remained theirs) without

+undertaking a single serious battle, they fled still more rapidly back

+to Smolénsk, beyond Smolénsk, beyond the Berëzina, beyond Vílna, and

+farther still.

+

+On the evening of the twenty-sixth of August, Kutúzov and the whole

+Russian army were convinced that the battle of Borodinó was a victory.

+Kutúzov reported so to the Emperor. He gave orders to prepare for a

+fresh conflict to finish the enemy and did this not to deceive anyone,

+but because he knew that the enemy was beaten, as everyone who had taken

+part in the battle knew it.

+

+But all that evening and next day reports came in one after another

+of unheard-of losses, of the loss of half the army, and a fresh battle

+proved physically impossible.

+

+It was impossible to give battle before information had been collected,

+the wounded gathered in, the supplies of ammunition replenished, the

+slain reckoned up, new officers appointed to replace those who had been

+killed, and before the men had had food and sleep. And meanwhile, the

+very next morning after the battle, the French army advanced of itself

+upon the Russians, carried forward by the force of its own momentum now

+seemingly increased in inverse proportion to the square of the distance

+from its aim. Kutúzov’s wish was to attack next day, and the whole

+army desired to do so. But to make an attack the wish to do so is not

+sufficient, there must also be a possibility of doing it, and that

+possibility did not exist. It was impossible not to retreat a day’s

+march, and then in the same way it was impossible not to retreat another

+and a third day’s march, and at last, on the first of September when

+the army drew near Moscow—despite the strength of the feeling that had

+arisen in all ranks—the force of circumstances compelled it to retire

+beyond Moscow. And the troops retired one more, last, day’s march, and

+abandoned Moscow to the enemy.

+

+For people accustomed to think that plans of campaign and battles are

+made by generals—as anyone of us sitting over a map in his study may

+imagine how he would have arranged things in this or that battle—the

+questions present themselves: Why did Kutúzov during the retreat not do

+this or that? Why did he not take up a position before reaching Filí?

+Why did he not retire at once by the Kalúga road, abandoning Moscow? and

+so on. People accustomed to think in that way forget, or do not know,

+the inevitable conditions which always limit the activities of any

+commander in chief. The activity of a commander in chief does not at all

+resemble the activity we imagine to ourselves when we sit at ease in

+our studies examining some campaign on the map, with a certain number of

+troops on this and that side in a certain known locality, and begin our

+plans from some given moment. A commander in chief is never dealing with

+the beginning of any event—the position from which we always contemplate

+it. The commander in chief is always in the midst of a series of

+shifting events and so he never can at any moment consider the whole

+import of an event that is occurring. Moment by moment the event is

+imperceptibly shaping itself, and at every moment of this continuous,

+uninterrupted shaping of events the commander in chief is in the

+midst of a most complex play of intrigues, worries, contingencies,

+authorities, projects, counsels, threats, and deceptions and is

+continually obliged to reply to innumerable questions addressed to him,

+which constantly conflict with one another.

+

+Learned military authorities quite seriously tell us that Kutúzov should

+have moved his army to the Kalúga road long before reaching Filí, and

+that somebody actually submitted such a proposal to him. But a commander

+in chief, especially at a difficult moment, has always before him not

+one proposal but dozens simultaneously. And all these proposals, based

+on strategics and tactics, contradict each other.

+

+A commander in chief’s business, it would seem, is simply to choose one

+of these projects. But even that he cannot do. Events and time do not

+wait. For instance, on the twenty-eighth it is suggested to him to

+cross to the Kalúga road, but just then an adjutant gallops up from

+Milorádovich asking whether he is to engage the French or retire. An

+order must be given him at once, that instant. And the order to retreat

+carries us past the turn to the Kalúga road. And after the adjutant

+comes the commissary general asking where the stores are to be taken,

+and the chief of the hospitals asks where the wounded are to go, and a

+courier from Petersburg brings a letter from the sovereign which does

+not admit of the possibility of abandoning Moscow, and the commander in

+chief’s rival, the man who is undermining him (and there are always

+not merely one but several such), presents a new project diametrically

+opposed to that of turning to the Kalúga road, and the commander in

+chief himself needs sleep and refreshment to maintain his energy and

+a respectable general who has been overlooked in the distribution of

+rewards comes to complain, and the inhabitants of the district pray to

+be defended, and an officer sent to inspect the locality comes in and

+gives a report quite contrary to what was said by the officer

+previously sent; and a spy, a prisoner, and a general who has been

+on reconnaissance, all describe the position of the enemy’s army

+differently. People accustomed to misunderstand or to forget these

+inevitable conditions of a commander in chief’s actions describe to

+us, for instance, the position of the army at Filí and assume that the

+commander in chief could, on the first of September, quite freely decide

+whether to abandon Moscow or defend it; whereas, with the Russian army

+less than four miles from Moscow, no such question existed. When had

+that question been settled? At Drissa and at Smolénsk and most

+palpably of all on the twenty-fourth of August at Shevárdino and on

+the twenty-sixth at Borodinó, and each day and hour and minute of the

+retreat from Borodinó to Filí.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+When Ermólov, having been sent by Kutúzov to inspect the position, told

+the field marshal that it was impossible to fight there before Moscow

+and that they must retreat, Kutúzov looked at him in silence.

+

+“Give me your hand,” said he and, turning it over so as to feel the

+pulse, added: “You are not well, my dear fellow. Think what you are

+saying!”

+

+Kutúzov could not yet admit the possibility of retreating beyond Moscow

+without a battle.

+

+On the Poklónny Hill, four miles from the Dorogomílov gate of Moscow,

+Kutúzov got out of his carriage and sat down on a bench by the roadside.

+A great crowd of generals gathered round him, and Count Rostopchín, who

+had come out from Moscow, joined them. This brilliant company separated

+into several groups who all discussed the advantages and disadvantages

+of the position, the state of the army, the plans suggested, the

+situation of Moscow, and military questions generally. Though they had

+not been summoned for the purpose, and though it was not so called, they

+all felt that this was really a council of war. The conversations all

+dealt with public questions. If anyone gave or asked for personal

+news, it was done in a whisper and they immediately reverted to general

+matters. No jokes, or laughter, or smiles even, were seen among all

+these men. They evidently all made an effort to hold themselves at the

+height the situation demanded. And all these groups, while talking

+among themselves, tried to keep near the commander in chief (whose

+bench formed the center of the gathering) and to speak so that he might

+overhear them. The commander in chief listened to what was being said

+and sometimes asked them to repeat their remarks, but did not himself

+take part in the conversations or express any opinion. After hearing

+what was being said by one or other of these groups he generally turned

+away with an air of disappointment, as though they were not speaking of

+anything he wished to hear. Some discussed the position that had been

+chosen, criticizing not the position itself so much as the mental

+capacity of those who had chosen it. Others argued that a mistake had

+been made earlier and that a battle should have been fought two days

+before. Others again spoke of the battle of Salamanca, which was

+described by Crosart, a newly arrived Frenchman in a Spanish uniform.

+(This Frenchman and one of the German princes serving with the Russian

+army were discussing the siege of Saragossa and considering the

+possibility of defending Moscow in a similar manner.) Count Rostopchín

+was telling a fourth group that he was prepared to die with the city

+train bands under the walls of the capital, but that he still could not

+help regretting having been left in ignorance of what was happening, and

+that had he known it sooner things would have been different.... A

+fifth group, displaying the profundity of their strategic perceptions,

+discussed the direction the troops would now have to take. A sixth group

+was talking absolute nonsense. Kutúzov’s expression grew more and more

+preoccupied and gloomy. From all this talk he saw only one thing: that

+to defend Moscow was a physical impossibility in the full meaning of

+those words, that is to say, so utterly impossible that if any senseless

+commander were to give orders to fight, confusion would result but the

+battle would still not take place. It would not take place because the

+commanders not merely all recognized the position to be impossible, but

+in their conversations were only discussing what would happen after its

+inevitable abandonment. How could the commanders lead their troops to

+a field of battle they considered impossible to hold? The lower-grade

+officers and even the soldiers (who too reason) also considered the

+position impossible and therefore could not go to fight, fully convinced

+as they were of defeat. If Bennigsen insisted on the position being

+defended and others still discussed it, the question was no longer

+important in itself but only as a pretext for disputes and intrigue.

+This Kutúzov knew well.

+

+Bennigsen, who had chosen the position, warmly displayed his Russian

+patriotism (Kutúzov could not listen to this without wincing) by

+insisting that Moscow must be defended. His aim was as clear as daylight

+to Kutúzov: if the defense failed, to throw the blame on Kutúzov who had

+brought the army as far as the Sparrow Hills without giving battle; if

+it succeeded, to claim the success as his own; or if battle were not

+given, to clear himself of the crime of abandoning Moscow. But this

+intrigue did not now occupy the old man’s mind. One terrible question

+absorbed him and to that question he heard no reply from anyone. The

+question for him now was: “Have I really allowed Napoleon to reach

+Moscow, and when did I do so? When was it decided? Can it have been

+yesterday when I ordered Plátov to retreat, or was it the evening

+before, when I had a nap and told Bennigsen to issue orders? Or was it

+earlier still?... When, when was this terrible affair decided? Moscow

+must be abandoned. The army must retreat and the order to do so must

+be given.” To give that terrible order seemed to him equivalent to

+resigning the command of the army. And not only did he love power to

+which he was accustomed (the honours awarded to Prince Prozoróvski,

+under whom he had served in Turkey, galled him), but he was convinced

+that he was destined to save Russia and that that was why, against

+the Emperor’s wish and by the will of the people, he had been chosen

+commander in chief. He was convinced that he alone could maintain

+command of the army in these difficult circumstances, and that in all

+the world he alone could encounter the invincible Napoleon without fear,

+and he was horrified at the thought of the order he had to issue. But

+something had to be decided, and these conversations around him which

+were assuming too free a character must be stopped.

+

+He called the most important generals to him.

+

+“My head, be it good or bad, must depend on itself,” said he, rising

+from the bench, and he rode to Filí where his carriages were waiting.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+The Council of War began to assemble at two in the afternoon in the

+better and roomier part of Andrew Savostyánov’s hut. The men, women, and

+children of the large peasant family crowded into the back room across

+the passage. Only Malásha, Andrew’s six-year-old granddaughter whom

+his Serene Highness had petted and to whom he had given a lump of sugar

+while drinking his tea, remained on the top of the brick oven in the

+larger room. Malásha looked down from the oven with shy delight at the

+faces, uniforms, and decorations of the generals, who one after another

+came into the room and sat down on the broad benches in the corner

+under the icons. “Granddad” himself, as Malásha in her own mind called

+Kutúzov, sat apart in a dark corner behind the oven. He sat, sunk deep

+in a folding armchair, and continually cleared his throat and pulled at

+the collar of his coat which, though it was unbuttoned, still seemed

+to pinch his neck. Those who entered went up one by one to the field

+marshal; he pressed the hands of some and nodded to others. His adjutant

+Kaysárov was about to draw back the curtain of the window facing

+Kutúzov, but the latter moved his hand angrily and Kaysárov understood

+that his Serene Highness did not wish his face to be seen.

+

+Round the peasant’s deal table, on which lay maps, plans, pencils, and

+papers, so many people gathered that the orderlies brought in another

+bench and put it beside the table. Ermólov, Kaysárov, and Toll, who had

+just arrived, sat down on this bench. In the foremost place, immediately

+under the icons, sat Barclay de Tolly, his high forehead merging into

+his bald crown. He had a St. George’s Cross round his neck and looked

+pale and ill. He had been feverish for two days and was now shivering

+and in pain. Beside him sat Uvárov, who with rapid gesticulations was

+giving him some information, speaking in low tones as they all did.

+Chubby little Dokhtúrov was listening attentively with eyebrows

+raised and arms folded on his stomach. On the other side sat Count

+Ostermann-Tolstóy, seemingly absorbed in his own thoughts. His broad

+head with its bold features and glittering eyes was resting on his hand.

+Raévski, twitching forward the black hair on his temples as was his

+habit, glanced now at Kutúzov and now at the door with a look of

+impatience. Konovnítsyn’s firm, handsome, and kindly face was lit up by

+a tender, sly smile. His glance met Malásha’s, and the expression of his

+eyes caused the little girl to smile.

+

+They were all waiting for Bennigsen, who on the pretext of inspecting

+the position was finishing his savory dinner. They waited for him from

+four till six o’clock and did not begin their deliberations all that

+time but talked in low tones of other matters.

+

+Only when Bennigsen had entered the hut did Kutúzov leave his corner and

+draw toward the table, but not near enough for the candles that had been

+placed there to light up his face.

+

+Bennigsen opened the council with the question: “Are we to abandon

+Russia’s ancient and sacred capital without a struggle, or are we to

+defend it?” A prolonged and general silence followed. There was a frown

+on every face and only Kutúzov’s angry grunts and occasional cough

+broke the silence. All eyes were gazing at him. Malásha too looked at

+“Granddad.” She was nearest to him and saw how his face puckered; he

+seemed about to cry, but this did not last long.

+

+“Russia’s ancient and sacred capital!” he suddenly said, repeating

+Bennigsen’s words in an angry voice and thereby drawing attention to the

+false note in them. “Allow me to tell you, your excellency, that that

+question has no meaning for a Russian.” (He lurched his heavy body

+forward.) “Such a question cannot be put; it is senseless! The question

+I have asked these gentlemen to meet to discuss is a military one.

+The question is that of saving Russia. Is it better to give up Moscow

+without a battle, or by accepting battle to risk losing the army as well

+as Moscow? That is the question on which I want your opinion,” and he

+sank back in his chair.

+

+The discussion began. Bennigsen did not yet consider his game lost.

+Admitting the view of Barclay and others that a defensive battle at

+Filí was impossible, but imbued with Russian patriotism and the love

+of Moscow, he proposed to move troops from the right to the left flank

+during the night and attack the French right flank the following day.

+Opinions were divided, and arguments were advanced for and against that

+project. Ermólov, Dokhtúrov, and Raévski agreed with Bennigsen. Whether

+feeling it necessary to make a sacrifice before abandoning the capital

+or guided by other, personal considerations, these generals seemed not

+to understand that this council could not alter the inevitable course

+of events and that Moscow was in effect already abandoned. The other

+generals, however, understood it and, leaving aside the question of

+Moscow, spoke of the direction the army should take in its retreat.

+Malásha, who kept her eyes fixed on what was going on before her,

+understood the meaning of the council differently. It seemed to her that

+it was only a personal struggle between “Granddad” and “Long-coat” as

+she termed Bennigsen. She saw that they grew spiteful when they spoke to

+one another, and in her heart she sided with “Granddad.” In the midst of

+the conversation she noticed “Granddad” give Bennigsen a quick, subtle

+glance, and then to her joys she saw that “Granddad” said something to

+“Long-coat” which settled him. Bennigsen suddenly reddened and paced

+angrily up and down the room. What so affected him was Kutúzov’s calm

+and quiet comment on the advantage or disadvantage of Bennigsen’s

+proposal to move troops by night from the right to the left flank to

+attack the French right wing.

+

+“Gentlemen,” said Kutúzov, “I cannot approve of the count’s plan. Moving

+troops in close proximity to an enemy is always dangerous, and military

+history supports that view. For instance...” Kutúzov seemed to reflect,

+searching for an example, then with a clear, naïve look at Bennigsen he

+added: “Oh yes; take the battle of Friedland, which I think the count

+well remembers, and which was... not fully successful, only because our

+troops were rearranged too near the enemy....”

+

+There followed a momentary pause, which seemed very long to them all.

+

+The discussion recommenced, but pauses frequently occurred and they all

+felt that there was no more to be said.

+

+During one of these pauses Kutúzov heaved a deep sigh as if preparing to

+speak. They all looked at him.

+

+“Well, gentlemen, I see that it is I who will have to pay for the broken

+crockery,” said he, and rising slowly he moved to the table. “Gentlemen,

+I have heard your views. Some of you will not agree with me. But I,” he

+paused, “by the authority entrusted to me by my Sovereign and country,

+order a retreat.”

+

+After that the generals began to disperse with the solemnity and

+circumspect silence of people who are leaving, after a funeral.

+

+Some of the generals, in low tones and in a strain very different from

+the way they had spoken during the council, communicated something to

+their commander in chief.

+

+Malásha, who had long been expected for supper, climbed carefully

+backwards down from the oven, her bare little feet catching at its

+projections, and slipping between the legs of the generals she darted

+out of the room.

+

+When he had dismissed the generals Kutúzov sat a long time with his

+elbows on the table, thinking always of the same terrible question:

+“When, when did the abandonment of Moscow become inevitable? When was

+that done which settled the matter? And who was to blame for it?”

+

+“I did not expect this,” said he to his adjutant Schneider when the

+latter came in late that night. “I did not expect this! I did not think

+this would happen.”

+

+“You should take some rest, your Serene Highness,” replied Schneider.

+

+“But no! They shall eat horseflesh yet, like the Turks!” exclaimed

+Kutúzov without replying, striking the table with his podgy fist. “They

+shall too, if only...”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+At that very time, in circumstances even more important than retreating

+without a battle, namely the evacuation and burning of Moscow,

+Rostopchín, who is usually represented as being the instigator of that

+event, acted in an altogether different manner from Kutúzov.

+

+After the battle of Borodinó the abandonment and burning of Moscow was

+as inevitable as the retreat of the army beyond Moscow without fighting.

+

+Every Russian might have predicted it, not by reasoning but by the

+feeling implanted in each of us and in our fathers.

+

+The same thing that took place in Moscow had happened in all the towns

+and villages on Russian soil beginning with Smolénsk, without the

+participation of Count Rostopchín and his broadsheets. The people

+awaited the enemy unconcernedly, did not riot or become excited or tear

+anyone to pieces, but faced its fate, feeling within it the strength to

+find what it should do at that most difficult moment. And as soon as the

+enemy drew near the wealthy classes went away abandoning their property,

+while the poorer remained and burned and destroyed what was left.

+

+The consciousness that this would be so and would always be so was and

+is present in the heart of every Russian. And a consciousness of this,

+and a foreboding that Moscow would be taken, was present in Russian

+Moscow society in 1812. Those who had quitted Moscow already in July

+and at the beginning of August showed that they expected this. Those who

+went away, taking what they could and abandoning their houses and half

+their belongings, did so from the latent patriotism which expresses

+itself not by phrases or by giving one’s children to save the fatherland

+and similar unnatural exploits, but unobtrusively, simply, organically,

+and therefore in the way that always produces the most powerful results.

+

+“It is disgraceful to run away from danger; only cowards are running

+away from Moscow,” they were told. In his broadsheets Rostopchín

+impressed on them that to leave Moscow was shameful. They were ashamed

+to be called cowards, ashamed to leave, but still they left, knowing

+it had to be done. Why did they go? It is impossible to suppose that

+Rostopchín had scared them by his accounts of horrors Napoleon had

+committed in conquered countries. The first people to go away were the

+rich educated people who knew quite well that Vienna and Berlin had

+remained intact and that during Napoleon’s occupation the inhabitants

+had spent their time pleasantly in the company of the charming Frenchmen

+whom the Russians, and especially the Russian ladies, then liked so

+much.

+

+They went away because for Russians there could be no question as to

+whether things would go well or ill under French rule in Moscow. It was

+out of the question to be under French rule, it would be the worst thing

+that could happen. They went away even before the battle of Borodinó and

+still more rapidly after it, despite Rostopchín’s calls to defend Moscow

+or the announcement of his intention to take the wonder-working icon of

+the Iberian Mother of God and go to fight, or of the balloons that were

+to destroy the French, and despite all the nonsense Rostopchín wrote in

+his broadsheets. They knew that it was for the army to fight, and that

+if it could not succeed it would not do to take young ladies and house

+serfs to the Three Hills quarter of Moscow to fight Napoleon, and that

+they must go away, sorry as they were to abandon their property

+to destruction. They went away without thinking of the tremendous

+significance of that immense and wealthy city being given over to

+destruction, for a great city with wooden buildings was certain when

+abandoned by its inhabitants to be burned. They went away each on his

+own account, and yet it was only in consequence of their going away

+that the momentous event was accomplished that will always remain the

+greatest glory of the Russian people. The lady who, afraid of being

+stopped by Count Rostopchín’s orders, had already in June moved with her

+Negroes and her women jesters from Moscow to her Sarátov estate, with

+a vague consciousness that she was not Bonaparte’s servant, was really,

+simply, and truly carrying out the great work which saved Russia. But

+Count Rostopchín, who now taunted those who left Moscow and now had the

+government offices removed; now distributed quite useless weapons to

+the drunken rabble; now had processions displaying the icons, and now

+forbade Father Augustin to remove icons or the relics of saints; now

+seized all the private carts in Moscow and on one hundred and thirty-six

+of them removed the balloon that was being constructed by Leppich; now

+hinted that he would burn Moscow and related how he had set fire to his

+own house; now wrote a proclamation to the French solemnly upbraiding

+them for having destroyed his Orphanage; now claimed the glory of

+having hinted that he would burn Moscow and now repudiated the deed;

+now ordered the people to catch all spies and bring them to him, and now

+reproached them for doing so; now expelled all the French residents from

+Moscow, and now allowed Madame Aubert-Chalmé (the center of the whole

+French colony in Moscow) to remain, but ordered the venerable old

+postmaster Klyucharëv to be arrested and exiled for no particular

+offense; now assembled the people at the Three Hills to fight the French

+and now, to get rid of them, handed over to them a man to be killed

+and himself drove away by a back gate; now declared that he would

+not survive the fall of Moscow, and now wrote French verses in albums

+concerning his share in the affair—this man did not understand the

+meaning of what was happening but merely wanted to do something himself

+that would astonish people, to perform some patriotically heroic

+feat; and like a child he made sport of the momentous, and unavoidable

+event—the abandonment and burning of Moscow—and tried with his puny hand

+now to speed and now to stay the enormous, popular tide that bore him

+along with it.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+Hélène, having returned with the court from Vílna to Petersburg, found

+herself in a difficult position.

+

+In Petersburg she had enjoyed the special protection of a grandee who

+occupied one of the highest posts in the Empire. In Vílna she had formed

+an intimacy with a young foreign prince. When she returned to Petersburg

+both the magnate and the prince were there, and both claimed their

+rights. Hélène was faced by a new problem—how to preserve her intimacy

+with both without offending either.

+

+What would have seemed difficult or even impossible to another woman did

+not cause the least embarrassment to Countess Bezúkhova, who evidently

+deserved her reputation of being a very clever woman. Had she attempted

+concealment, or tried to extricate herself from her awkward position

+by cunning, she would have spoiled her case by acknowledging herself

+guilty. But Hélène, like a really great man who can do whatever

+he pleases, at once assumed her own position to be correct, as she

+sincerely believed it to be, and that everyone else was to blame.

+

+The first time the young foreigner allowed himself to reproach her, she

+lifted her beautiful head and, half turning to him, said firmly: “That’s

+just like a man—selfish and cruel! I expected nothing else. A woman

+sacrifices herself for you, she suffers, and this is her reward! What

+right have you, monseigneur, to demand an account of my attachments and

+friendships? He is a man who has been more than a father to me!” The

+prince was about to say something, but Hélène interrupted him.

+

+“Well, yes,” said she, “it may be that he has other sentiments for me

+than those of a father, but that is not a reason for me to shut my door

+on him. I am not a man, that I should repay kindness with ingratitude!

+Know, monseigneur, that in all that relates to my intimate feelings I

+render account only to God and to my conscience,” she concluded, laying

+her hand on her beautiful, fully expanded bosom and looking up to

+heaven.

+

+“But for heaven’s sake listen to me!”

+

+“Marry me, and I will be your slave!”

+

+“But that’s impossible.”

+

+“You won’t deign to demean yourself by marrying me, you...” said Hélène,

+beginning to cry.

+

+The prince tried to comfort her, but Hélène, as if quite distraught,

+said through her tears that there was nothing to prevent her marrying,

+that there were precedents (there were up to that time very few, but

+she mentioned Napoleon and some other exalted personages), that she had

+never been her husband’s wife, and that she had been sacrificed.

+

+“But the law, religion...” said the prince, already yielding.

+

+“The law, religion... What have they been invented for if they can’t

+arrange that?” said Hélène.

+

+The prince was surprised that so simple an idea had not occurred to him,

+and he applied for advice to the holy brethren of the Society of Jesus,

+with whom he was on intimate terms.

+

+A few days later at one of those enchanting fetes which Hélène gave at

+her country house on the Stone Island, the charming Monsieur de Jobert,

+a man no longer young, with snow white hair and brilliant black eyes,

+a Jesuit à robe courte * was presented to her, and in the garden by the

+light of the illuminations and to the sound of music talked to her for a

+long time of the love of God, of Christ, of the Sacred Heart, and of the

+consolations the one true Catholic religion affords in this world and

+the next. Hélène was touched, and more than once tears rose to her eyes

+and to those of Monsieur de Jobert and their voices trembled. A dance,

+for which her partner came to seek her, put an end to her discourse with

+her future directeur de conscience, but the next evening Monsieur de

+Jobert came to see Hélène when she was alone, and after that often came

+again.

+

+    * Lay member of the Society of Jesus.

+

+One day he took the countess to a Roman Catholic church, where she knelt

+down before the altar to which she was led. The enchanting, middle-aged

+Frenchman laid his hands on her head and, as she herself afterward

+described it, she felt something like a fresh breeze wafted into her

+soul. It was explained to her that this was la grâce.

+

+After that a long-frocked abbé was brought to her. She confessed to

+him, and he absolved her from her sins. Next day she received a box

+containing the Sacred Host, which was left at her house for her to

+partake of. A few days later Hélène learned with pleasure that she had

+now been admitted to the true Catholic Church and that in a few days the

+Pope himself would hear of her and would send her a certain document.

+

+All that was done around her and to her at this time, all the attention

+devoted to her by so many clever men and expressed in such pleasant,

+refined ways, and the state of dove-like purity she was now in (she wore

+only white dresses and white ribbons all that time) gave her pleasure,

+but her pleasure did not cause her for a moment to forget her aim. And

+as it always happens in contests of cunning that a stupid person gets

+the better of cleverer ones, Hélène—having realized that the main object

+of all these words and all this trouble was, after converting her to

+Catholicism, to obtain money from her for Jesuit institutions (as to

+which she received indications)—before parting with her money insisted

+that the various operations necessary to free her from her husband

+should be performed. In her view the aim of every religion was merely

+to preserve certain proprieties while affording satisfaction to

+human desires. And with this aim, in one of her talks with her Father

+Confessor, she insisted on an answer to the question, in how far was she

+bound by her marriage?

+

+They were sitting in the twilight by a window in the drawing room.

+The scent of flowers came in at the window. Hélène was wearing a white

+dress, transparent over her shoulders and bosom. The abbé, a well-fed

+man with a plump, clean-shaven chin, a pleasant firm mouth, and white

+hands meekly folded on his knees, sat close to Hélène and, with a

+subtle smile on his lips and a peaceful look of delight at her beauty,

+occasionally glanced at her face as he explained his opinion on the

+subject. Hélène with an uneasy smile looked at his curly hair and his

+plump, clean-shaven, blackish cheeks and every moment expected the

+conversation to take a fresh turn. But the abbé, though he evidently

+enjoyed the beauty of his companion, was absorbed in his mastery of the

+matter.

+

+The course of the Father Confessor’s arguments ran as follows: “Ignorant

+of the import of what you were undertaking, you made a vow of conjugal

+fidelity to a man who on his part, by entering the married state without

+faith in the religious significance of marriage, committed an act of

+sacrilege. That marriage lacked the dual significance it should have

+had. Yet in spite of this your vow was binding. You swerved from it.

+What did you commit by so acting? A venial, or a mortal, sin? A venial

+sin, for you acted without evil intention. If now you married again

+with the object of bearing children, your sin might be forgiven. But the

+question is again a twofold one: firstly...”

+

+But suddenly Hélène, who was getting bored, said with one of her

+bewitching smiles: “But I think that having espoused the true religion I

+cannot be bound by what a false religion laid upon me.”

+

+The director of her conscience was astounded at having the case

+presented to him thus with the simplicity of Columbus’ egg. He was

+delighted at the unexpected rapidity of his pupil’s progress, but could

+not abandon the edifice of argument he had laboriously constructed.

+

+“Let us understand one another, Countess,” said he with a smile, and

+began refuting his spiritual daughter’s arguments.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+Hélène understood that the question was very simple and easy from

+the ecclesiastical point of view, and that her directors were making

+difficulties only because they were apprehensive as to how the matter

+would be regarded by the secular authorities.

+

+So she decided that it was necessary to prepare the opinion of society.

+She provoked the jealousy of the elderly magnate and told him what she

+had told her other suitor; that is, she put the matter so that the only

+way for him to obtain a right over her was to marry her. The elderly

+magnate was at first as much taken aback by this suggestion of marriage

+with a woman whose husband was alive, as the younger man had been, but

+Hélène’s imperturbable conviction that it was as simple and natural as

+marrying a maiden had its effect on him too. Had Hélène herself shown

+the least sign of hesitation, shame, or secrecy, her cause would

+certainly have been lost; but not only did she show no signs of secrecy

+or shame, on the contrary, with good-natured naïveté she told her

+intimate friends (and these were all Petersburg) that both the prince

+and the magnate had proposed to her and that she loved both and was

+afraid of grieving either.

+

+A rumor immediately spread in Petersburg, not that Hélène wanted to

+be divorced from her husband (had such a report spread many would have

+opposed so illegal an intention) but simply that the unfortunate and

+interesting Hélène was in doubt which of the two men she should marry.

+The question was no longer whether this was possible, but only which was

+the better match and how the matter would be regarded at court. There

+were, it is true, some rigid individuals unable to rise to the height of

+such a question, who saw in the project a desecration of the sacrament

+of marriage, but there were not many such and they remained silent,

+while the majority were interested in Hélène’s good fortune and in the

+question which match would be the more advantageous. Whether it was

+right or wrong to remarry while one had a husband living they did not

+discuss, for that question had evidently been settled by people “wiser

+than you or me,” as they said, and to doubt the correctness of that

+decision would be to risk exposing one’s stupidity and incapacity to

+live in society.

+

+Only Márya Dmítrievna Akhrosímova, who had come to Petersburg that

+summer to see one of her sons, allowed herself plainly to express

+an opinion contrary to the general one. Meeting Hélène at a ball she

+stopped her in the middle of the room and, amid general silence, said

+in her gruff voice: “So wives of living men have started marrying

+again! Perhaps you think you have invented a novelty? You have been

+forestalled, my dear! It was thought of long ago. It is done in all the

+brothels,” and with these words Márya Dmítrievna, turning up her wide

+sleeves with her usual threatening gesture and glancing sternly round,

+moved across the room.

+

+Though people were afraid of Márya Dmítrievna she was regarded in

+Petersburg as a buffoon, and so of what she had said they only noticed,

+and repeated in a whisper, the one coarse word she had used, supposing

+the whole sting of her remark to lie in that word.

+

+Prince Vasíli, who of late very often forgot what he had said and

+repeated one and the same thing a hundred times, remarked to his

+daughter whenever he chanced to see her:

+

+“Hélène, I have a word to say to you,” and he would lead her

+aside, drawing her hand downward. “I have heard of certain projects

+concerning... you know. Well my dear child, you know how your father’s

+heart rejoices to know that you... You have suffered so much.... But, my

+dear child, consult only your own heart. That is all I have to say,” and

+concealing his unvarying emotion he would press his cheek against his

+daughter’s and move away.

+

+Bilíbin, who had not lost his reputation of an exceedingly clever man,

+and who was one of the disinterested friends so brilliant a woman as

+Hélène always has—men friends who can never change into lovers—once gave

+her his view of the matter at a small and intimate gathering.

+

+“Listen, Bilíbin,” said Hélène (she always called friends of that sort

+by their surnames), and she touched his coat sleeve with her white,

+beringed fingers. “Tell me, as you would a sister, what I ought to do.

+Which of the two?”

+

+Bilíbin wrinkled up the skin over his eyebrows and pondered, with a

+smile on his lips.

+

+“You are not taking me unawares, you know,” said he. “As a true friend,

+I have thought and thought again about your affair. You see, if you

+marry the prince”—he meant the younger man—and he crooked one finger,

+“you forever lose the chance of marrying the other, and you will

+displease the court besides. (You know there is some kind of

+connection.) But if you marry the old count you will make his last days

+happy, and as widow of the Grand... the prince would no longer be making

+a mésalliance by marrying you,” and Bilíbin smoothed out his forehead.

+

+“That’s a true friend!” said Hélène beaming, and again touching

+Bilíbin’s sleeve. “But I love them, you know, and don’t want to distress

+either of them. I would give my life for the happiness of them both.”

+

+Bilíbin shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say that not even he could

+help in that difficulty.

+

+“Une maîtresse-femme! * That’s what is called putting things squarely.

+She would like to be married to all three at the same time,” thought he.

+

+    * A masterly woman.

+

+“But tell me, how will your husband look at the matter?” Bilíbin asked,

+his reputation being so well established that he did not fear to ask so

+naïve a question. “Will he agree?”

+

+“Oh, he loves me so!” said Hélène, who for some reason imagined that

+Pierre too loved her. “He will do anything for me.”

+

+Bilíbin puckered his skin in preparation for something witty.

+

+“Even divorce you?” said he.

+

+Hélène laughed.

+

+Among those who ventured to doubt the justifiability of the proposed

+marriage was Hélène’s mother, Princess Kurágina. She was continually

+tormented by jealousy of her daughter, and now that jealousy concerned

+a subject near to her own heart, she could not reconcile herself to the

+idea. She consulted a Russian priest as to the possibility of divorce

+and remarriage during a husband’s lifetime, and the priest told her that

+it was impossible, and to her delight showed her a text in the Gospel

+which (as it seemed to him) plainly forbids remarriage while the husband

+is alive.

+

+Armed with these arguments, which appeared to her unanswerable, she

+drove to her daughter’s early one morning so as to find her alone.

+

+Having listened to her mother’s objections, Hélène smiled blandly and

+ironically.

+

+“But it says plainly: ‘Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced...’”

+said the old princess.

+

+“Ah, Maman, ne dites pas de bêtises. Vous ne comprenez rien. Dans ma

+position j’ai des devoirs,” * said Hélène changing from Russian, in

+which language she always felt that her case did not sound quite clear,

+into French which suited it better.

+

+     * “Oh, Mamma, don’t talk nonsense! You don’t understand

+     anything. In my position I have obligations.”

+

+

+“But, my dear....”

+

+“Oh, Mamma, how is it you don’t understand that the Holy Father, who has

+the right to grant dispensations...”

+

+Just then the lady companion who lived with Hélène came in to announce

+that His Highness was in the ballroom and wished to see her.

+

+“Non, dites-lui que je ne veux pas le voir, que je suis furieuse contre

+lui, parce qu’il m’a manqué parole.” *

+

+     * “No, tell him I don’t wish to see him, I am furious with

+     him for not keeping his word to me.”

+

+

+“Comtesse, à tout péché miséricorde,” * said a fair-haired young man

+with a long face and nose, as he entered the room.

+

+    * “Countess, there is mercy for every sin.”

+

+

+The old princess rose respectfully and curtsied. The young man who had

+entered took no notice of her. The princess nodded to her daughter and

+sidled out of the room.

+

+“Yes, she is right,” thought the old princess, all her convictions

+dissipated by the appearance of His Highness. “She is right, but how

+is it that we in our irrecoverable youth did not know it? Yet it is so

+simple,” she thought as she got into her carriage.

+

+

+By the beginning of August Hélène’s affairs were clearly defined and

+she wrote a letter to her husband—who, as she imagined, loved her very

+much—informing him of her intention to marry N.N. and of her having

+embraced the one true faith, and asking him to carry out all the

+formalities necessary for a divorce, which would be explained to him by

+the bearer of the letter.

+

+And so I pray God to have you, my friend, in His holy and powerful

+keeping—Your friend Hélène.

+

+This letter was brought to Pierre’s house when he was on the field of

+Borodinó.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+Toward the end of the battle of Borodinó, Pierre, having run down

+from Raévski’s battery a second time, made his way through a gully to

+Knyazkóvo with a crowd of soldiers, reached the dressing station, and

+seeing blood and hearing cries and groans hurried on, still entangled in

+the crowds of soldiers.

+

+The one thing he now desired with his whole soul was to get away quickly

+from the terrible sensations amid which he had lived that day and return

+to ordinary conditions of life and sleep quietly in a room in his own

+bed. He felt that only in the ordinary conditions of life would he

+be able to understand himself and all he had seen and felt. But such

+ordinary conditions of life were nowhere to be found.

+

+Though shells and bullets did not whistle over the road along which he

+was going, still on all sides there was what there had been on the field

+of battle. There were still the same suffering, exhausted, and sometimes

+strangely indifferent faces, the same blood, the same soldiers’

+overcoats, the same sounds of firing which, though distant now, still

+aroused terror, and besides this there were the foul air and the dust.

+

+Having gone a couple of miles along the Mozháysk road, Pierre sat down

+by the roadside.

+

+Dusk had fallen, and the roar of guns died away. Pierre lay leaning on

+his elbow for a long time, gazing at the shadows that moved past him in

+the darkness. He was continually imagining that a cannon ball was flying

+toward him with a terrific whizz, and then he shuddered and sat up. He

+had no idea how long he had been there. In the middle of the night three

+soldiers, having brought some firewood, settled down near him and began

+lighting a fire.

+

+The soldiers, who threw sidelong glances at Pierre, got the fire to burn

+and placed an iron pot on it into which they broke some dried bread and

+put a little dripping. The pleasant odor of greasy viands mingled with

+the smell of smoke. Pierre sat up and sighed. The three soldiers were

+eating and talking among themselves, taking no notice of him.

+

+“And who may you be?” one of them suddenly asked Pierre, evidently

+meaning what Pierre himself had in mind, namely: “If you want to eat

+we’ll give you some food, only let us know whether you are an honest

+man.”

+

+“I, I...” said Pierre, feeling it necessary to minimize his social

+position as much as possible so as to be nearer to the soldiers and

+better understood by them. “By rights I am a militia officer, but my men

+are not here. I came to the battle and have lost them.”

+

+“There now!” said one of the soldiers.

+

+Another shook his head.

+

+“Would you like a little mash?” the first soldier asked, and handed

+Pierre a wooden spoon after licking it clean.

+

+Pierre sat down by the fire and began eating the mash, as they called

+the food in the cauldron, and he thought it more delicious than any food

+he had ever tasted. As he sat bending greedily over it, helping himself

+to large spoonfuls and chewing one after another, his face was lit up by

+the fire and the soldiers looked at him in silence.

+

+“Where have you to go to? Tell us!” said one of them.

+

+“To Mozháysk.”

+

+“You’re a gentleman, aren’t you?”

+

+“Yes.”

+

+“And what’s your name?”

+

+“Peter Kirílych.”

+

+“Well then, Peter Kirílych, come along with us, we’ll take you there.”

+

+In the total darkness the soldiers walked with Pierre to Mozháysk.

+

+By the time they got near Mozháysk and began ascending the steep hill

+into the town, the cocks were already crowing. Pierre went on with the

+soldiers, quite forgetting that his inn was at the bottom of the hill

+and that he had already passed it. He would not soon have remembered

+this, such was his state of forgetfulness, had he not halfway up the

+hill stumbled upon his groom, who had been to look for him in the

+town and was returning to the inn. The groom recognized Pierre in the

+darkness by his white hat.

+

+“Your excellency!” he said. “Why, we were beginning to despair! How is

+it you are on foot? And where are you going, please?”

+

+“Oh, yes!” said Pierre.

+

+The soldiers stopped.

+

+“So you’ve found your folk?” said one of them. “Well, good-by, Peter

+Kirílych—isn’t it?”

+

+“Good-by, Peter Kirílych!” Pierre heard the other voices repeat.

+

+“Good-by!” he said and turned with his groom toward the inn.

+

+“I ought to give them something!” he thought, and felt in his pocket.

+“No, better not!” said another, inner voice.

+

+There was not a room to be had at the inn, they were all occupied.

+Pierre went out into the yard and, covering himself up head and all, lay

+down in his carriage.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+Scarcely had Pierre laid his head on the pillow before he felt himself

+falling asleep, but suddenly, almost with the distinctness of reality,

+he heard the boom, boom, boom of firing, the thud of projectiles, groans

+and cries, and smelled blood and powder, and a feeling of horror and

+dread of death seized him. Filled with fright he opened his eyes and

+lifted his head from under his cloak. All was tranquil in the yard. Only

+someone’s orderly passed through the gateway, splashing through the mud,

+and talked to the innkeeper. Above Pierre’s head some pigeons, disturbed

+by the movement he had made in sitting up, fluttered under the dark roof

+of the penthouse. The whole courtyard was permeated by a strong peaceful

+smell of stable yards, delightful to Pierre at that moment. He could see

+the clear starry sky between the dark roofs of two penthouses.

+

+“Thank God, there is no more of that!” he thought, covering up his head

+again. “Oh, what a terrible thing is fear, and how shamefully I yielded

+to it! But they... they were steady and calm all the time, to the

+end...” thought he.

+

+They, in Pierre’s mind, were the soldiers, those who had been at the

+battery, those who had given him food, and those who had prayed before

+the icon. They, those strange men he had not previously known, stood out

+clearly and sharply from everyone else.

+

+“To be a soldier, just a soldier!” thought Pierre as he fell asleep,

+“to enter communal life completely, to be imbued by what makes them what

+they are. But how cast off all the superfluous, devilish burden of my

+outer man? There was a time when I could have done it. I could have run

+away from my father, as I wanted to. Or I might have been sent to serve

+as a soldier after the duel with Dólokhov.” And the memory of the dinner

+at the English Club when he had challenged Dólokhov flashed through

+Pierre’s mind, and then he remembered his benefactor at Torzhók. And now

+a picture of a solemn meeting of the lodge presented itself to his mind.

+It was taking place at the English Club and someone near and dear to him

+sat at the end of the table. “Yes, that is he! It is my benefactor.

+But he died!” thought Pierre. “Yes, he died, and I did not know he was

+alive. How sorry I am that he died, and how glad I am that he is alive

+again!” On one side of the table sat Anatole, Dólokhov, Nesvítski,

+Denísov, and others like them (in his dream the category to which these

+men belonged was as clearly defined in his mind as the category of

+those he termed they), and he heard those people, Anatole and Dólokhov,

+shouting and singing loudly; yet through their shouting the voice of his

+benefactor was heard speaking all the time and the sound of his words

+was as weighty and uninterrupted as the booming on the battlefield, but

+pleasant and comforting. Pierre did not understand what his benefactor

+was saying, but he knew (the categories of thoughts were also quite

+distinct in his dream) that he was talking of goodness and the

+possibility of being what they were. And they with their simple, kind,

+firm faces surrounded his benefactor on all sides. But though they were

+kindly they did not look at Pierre and did not know him. Wishing to

+speak and to attract their attention, he got up, but at that moment his

+legs grew cold and bare.

+

+He felt ashamed, and with one arm covered his legs from which his cloak

+had in fact slipped. For a moment as he was rearranging his cloak Pierre

+opened his eyes and saw the same penthouse roofs, posts, and yard, but

+now they were all bluish, lit up, and glittering with frost or dew.

+

+“It is dawn,” thought Pierre. “But that’s not what I want. I want to

+hear and understand my benefactor’s words.” Again he covered himself up

+with his cloak, but now neither the lodge nor his benefactor was there.

+There were only thoughts clearly expressed in words, thoughts that

+someone was uttering or that he himself was formulating.

+

+Afterwards when he recalled those thoughts Pierre was convinced that

+someone outside himself had spoken them, though the impressions of that

+day had evoked them. He had never, it seemed to him, been able to think

+and express his thoughts like that when awake.

+

+“To endure war is the most difficult subordination of man’s freedom to

+the law of God,” the voice had said. “Simplicity is submission to the

+will of God; you cannot escape from Him. And they are simple. They do

+not talk, but act. The spoken word is silver but the unspoken is golden.

+Man can be master of nothing while he fears death, but he who does not

+fear it possesses all. If there were no suffering, man would not know

+his limitations, would not know himself. The hardest thing (Pierre went

+on thinking, or hearing, in his dream) is to be able in your soul to

+unite the meaning of all. To unite all?” he asked himself. “No, not

+to unite. Thoughts cannot be united, but to harness all these thoughts

+together is what we need! Yes, one must harness them, must harness

+them!” he repeated to himself with inward rapture, feeling that these

+words and they alone expressed what he wanted to say and solved the

+question that tormented him.

+

+“Yes, one must harness, it is time to harness.”

+

+“Time to harness, time to harness, your excellency! Your excellency!”

+some voice was repeating. “We must harness, it is time to harness....”

+

+It was the voice of the groom, trying to wake him. The sun shone

+straight into Pierre’s face. He glanced at the dirty innyard in the

+middle of which soldiers were watering their lean horses at the pump

+while carts were passing out of the gate. Pierre turned away with

+repugnance, and closing his eyes quickly fell back on the carriage seat.

+“No, I don’t want that, I don’t want to see and understand that. I want

+to understand what was revealing itself to me in my dream. One second

+more and I should have understood it all! But what am I to do? Harness,

+but how can I harness everything?” and Pierre felt with horror that the

+meaning of all he had seen and thought in the dream had been destroyed.

+

+The groom, the coachman, and the innkeeper told Pierre that an officer

+had come with news that the French were already near Mozháysk and that

+our men were leaving it.

+

+Pierre got up and, having told them to harness and overtake him, went on

+foot through the town.

+

+The troops were moving on, leaving about ten thousand wounded behind

+them. There were wounded in the yards, at the windows of the houses, and

+the streets were crowded with them. In the streets, around carts that

+were to take some of the wounded away, shouts, curses, and blows could

+be heard. Pierre offered the use of his carriage, which had overtaken

+him, to a wounded general he knew, and drove with him to Moscow. On the

+way Pierre was told of the death of his brother-in-law Anatole and of

+that of Prince Andrew.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+On the thirtieth of August Pierre reached Moscow. Close to the gates of

+the city he was met by Count Rostopchín’s adjutant.

+

+“We have been looking for you everywhere,” said the adjutant. “The count

+wants to see you particularly. He asks you to come to him at once on a

+very important matter.”

+

+Without going home, Pierre took a cab and drove to see the Moscow

+commander in chief.

+

+Count Rostopchín had only that morning returned to town from his summer

+villa at Sokólniki. The anteroom and reception room of his house

+were full of officials who had been summoned or had come for orders.

+Vasílchikov and Plátov had already seen the count and explained to him

+that it was impossible to defend Moscow and that it would have to be

+surrendered. Though this news was being concealed from the inhabitants,

+the officials—the heads of the various government departments—knew that

+Moscow would soon be in the enemy’s hands, just as Count Rostopchín

+himself knew it, and to escape personal responsibility they had all

+come to the governor to ask how they were to deal with their various

+departments.

+

+As Pierre was entering the reception room a courier from the army came

+out of Rostopchín’s private room.

+

+In answer to questions with which he was greeted, the courier made a

+despairing gesture with his hand and passed through the room.

+

+While waiting in the reception room Pierre with weary eyes watched the

+various officials, old and young, military and civilian, who were there.

+They all seemed dissatisfied and uneasy. Pierre went up to a group of

+men, one of whom he knew. After greeting Pierre they continued their

+conversation.

+

+“If they’re sent out and brought back again later on it will do no harm,

+but as things are now one can’t answer for anything.”

+

+“But you see what he writes...” said another, pointing to a printed

+sheet he held in his hand.

+

+“That’s another matter. That’s necessary for the people,” said the

+first.

+

+“What is it?” asked Pierre.

+

+“Oh, it’s a fresh broadsheet.”

+

+Pierre took it and began reading.

+

+His Serene Highness has passed through Mozháysk in order to join up with

+the troops moving toward him and has taken up a strong position where

+the enemy will not soon attack him. Forty-eight guns with ammunition

+have been sent him from here, and his Serene Highness says he will

+defend Moscow to the last drop of blood and is even ready to fight in

+the streets. Do not be upset, brothers, that the law courts are closed;

+things have to be put in order, and we will deal with villains in our

+own way! When the time comes I shall want both town and peasant lads and

+will raise the cry a day or two beforehand, but they are not wanted yet

+so I hold my peace. An ax will be useful, a hunting spear not bad, but a

+three-pronged fork will be best of all: a Frenchman is no heavier than a

+sheaf of rye. Tomorrow after dinner I shall take the Iberian icon of

+the Mother of God to the wounded in the Catherine Hospital where we will

+have some water blessed. That will help them to get well quicker. I,

+too, am well now: one of my eyes was sore but now I am on the lookout

+with both.

+

+“But military men have told me that it is impossible to fight in the

+town,” said Pierre, “and that the position...”

+

+“Well, of course! That’s what we were saying,” replied the first

+speaker.

+

+“And what does he mean by ‘One of my eyes was sore but now I am on the

+lookout with both’?” asked Pierre.

+

+“The count had a sty,” replied the adjutant smiling, “and was very much

+upset when I told him people had come to ask what was the matter with

+him. By the by, Count,” he added suddenly, addressing Pierre with a

+smile, “we heard that you have family troubles and that the countess,

+your wife...”

+

+“I have heard nothing,” Pierre replied unconcernedly. “But what have you

+heard?”

+

+“Oh, well, you know people often invent things. I only say what I

+heard.”

+

+“But what did you hear?”

+

+“Well, they say,” continued the adjutant with the same smile, “that

+the countess, your wife, is preparing to go abroad. I expect it’s

+nonsense....”

+

+“Possibly,” remarked Pierre, looking about him absent-mindedly. “And who

+is that?” he asked, indicating a short old man in a clean blue peasant

+overcoat, with a big snow-white beard and eyebrows and a ruddy face.

+

+“He? That’s a tradesman, that is to say, he’s the restaurant

+keeper, Vereshchágin. Perhaps you have heard of that affair with the

+proclamation.”

+

+“Oh, so that is Vereshchágin!” said Pierre, looking at the firm, calm

+face of the old man and seeking any indication of his being a traitor.

+

+“That’s not he himself, that’s the father of the fellow who wrote the

+proclamation,” said the adjutant. “The young man is in prison and I

+expect it will go hard with him.”

+

+An old gentleman wearing a star and another official, a German wearing a

+cross round his neck, approached the speaker.

+

+“It’s a complicated story, you know,” said the adjutant. “That

+proclamation appeared about two months ago. The count was informed of

+it. He gave orders to investigate the matter. Gabriel Ivánovich

+here made the inquiries. The proclamation had passed through exactly

+sixty-three hands. He asked one, ‘From whom did you get it?’ ‘From

+so-and-so.’ He went to the next one. ‘From whom did you get it?’ and so

+on till he reached Vereshchágin, a half educated tradesman, you know, ‘a

+pet of a trader,’” said the adjutant smiling. “They asked him, ‘Who gave

+it you?’ And the point is that we knew whom he had it from. He could

+only have had it from the Postmaster. But evidently they had come to

+some understanding. He replied: ‘From no one; I made it up myself.’

+They threatened and questioned him, but he stuck to that: ‘I made it

+up myself.’ And so it was reported to the count, who sent for the man.

+‘From whom did you get the proclamation?’ ‘I wrote it myself.’ Well, you

+know the count,” said the adjutant cheerfully, with a smile of pride,

+“he flared up dreadfully—and just think of the fellow’s audacity, lying,

+and obstinacy!”

+

+“And the count wanted him to say it was from Klyucharëv? I understand!”

+said Pierre.

+

+“Not at all,” rejoined the adjutant in dismay. “Klyucharëv had his own

+sins to answer for without that and that is why he has been banished.

+But the point is that the count was much annoyed. ‘How could you have

+written it yourself?’ said he, and he took up the Hamburg Gazette that

+was lying on the table. ‘Here it is! You did not write it yourself but

+translated it, and translated it abominably, because you don’t even know

+French, you fool.’ And what do you think? ‘No,’ said he, ‘I have not

+read any papers, I made it up myself.’ ‘If that’s so, you’re a traitor

+and I’ll have you tried, and you’ll be hanged! Say from whom you had

+it.’ ‘I have seen no papers, I made it up myself.’ And that was the end

+of it. The count had the father fetched, but the fellow stuck to it.

+He was sent for trial and condemned to hard labor, I believe. Now the

+father has come to intercede for him. But he’s a good-for-nothing lad!

+You know that sort of tradesman’s son, a dandy and lady-killer. He

+attended some lectures somewhere and imagines that the devil is no match

+for him. That’s the sort of fellow he is. His father keeps a cookshop

+here by the Stone Bridge, and you know there was a large icon of God

+Almighty painted with a scepter in one hand and an orb in the other.

+Well, he took that icon home with him for a few days and what did he do?

+He found some scoundrel of a painter...”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+In the middle of this fresh tale Pierre was summoned to the commander in

+chief.

+

+When he entered the private room Count Rostopchín, puckering his face,

+was rubbing his forehead and eyes with his hand. A short man was saying

+something, but when Pierre entered he stopped speaking and went out.

+

+“Ah, how do you do, great warrior?” said Rostopchín as soon as the short

+man had left the room. “We have heard of your prowess. But that’s not

+the point. Between ourselves, mon cher, do you belong to the Masons?” he

+went on severely, as though there were something wrong about it which

+he nevertheless intended to pardon. Pierre remained silent. “I am well

+informed, my friend, but I am aware that there are Masons and I hope

+that you are not one of those who on pretense of saving mankind wish to

+ruin Russia.”

+

+“Yes, I am a Mason,” Pierre replied.

+

+“There, you see, mon cher! I expect you know that Messrs. Speránski and

+Magnítski have been deported to their proper place. Mr. Klyucharëv has

+been treated in the same way, and so have others who on the plea of

+building up the temple of Solomon have tried to destroy the temple of

+their fatherland. You can understand that there are reasons for this and

+that I could not have exiled the Postmaster had he not been a harmful

+person. It has now come to my knowledge that you lent him your carriage

+for his removal from town, and that you have even accepted papers from

+him for safe custody. I like you and don’t wish you any harm and—as

+you are only half my age—I advise you, as a father would, to cease

+all communication with men of that stamp and to leave here as soon as

+possible.”

+

+“But what did Klyucharëv do wrong, Count?” asked Pierre.

+

+“That is for me to know, but not for you to ask,” shouted Rostopchín.

+

+“If he is accused of circulating Napoleon’s proclamation it is not

+proved that he did so,” said Pierre without looking at Rostopchín, “and

+Vereshchágin...”

+

+“There we are!” Rostopchín shouted at Pierre louder than before,

+frowning suddenly. “Vereshchágin is a renegade and a traitor who will

+be punished as he deserves,” said he with the vindictive heat with which

+people speak when recalling an insult. “But I did not summon you to

+discuss my actions, but to give you advice—or an order if you prefer it.

+I beg you to leave the town and break off all communication with such

+men as Klyucharëv. And I will knock the nonsense out of anybody”—but

+probably realizing that he was shouting at Bezúkhov who so far was not

+guilty of anything, he added, taking Pierre’s hand in a friendly manner,

+“We are on the eve of a public disaster and I haven’t time to be polite

+to everybody who has business with me. My head is sometimes in a whirl.

+Well, mon cher, what are you doing personally?”

+

+“Why, nothing,” answered Pierre without raising his eyes or changing the

+thoughtful expression of his face.

+

+The count frowned.

+

+“A word of friendly advice, mon cher. Be off as soon as you can, that’s

+all I have to tell you. Happy he who has ears to hear. Good-by, my dear

+fellow. Oh, by the by!” he shouted through the doorway after Pierre,

+“is it true that the countess has fallen into the clutches of the holy

+fathers of the Society of Jesus?”

+

+Pierre did not answer and left Rostopchín’s room more sullen and angry

+than he had ever before shown himself.

+

+When he reached home it was already getting dark. Some eight people had

+come to see him that evening: the secretary of a committee, the colonel

+of his battalion, his steward, his major-domo, and various petitioners.

+They all had business with Pierre and wanted decisions from him. Pierre

+did not understand and was not interested in any of these questions and

+only answered them in order to get rid of these people. When left alone

+at last he opened and read his wife’s letter.

+

+“They, the soldiers at the battery, Prince Andrew killed... that old

+man... Simplicity is submission to God. Suffering is necessary... the

+meaning of all... one must harness... my wife is getting married... One

+must forget and understand...” And going to his bed he threw himself on

+it without undressing and immediately fell asleep.

+

+When he awoke next morning the major-domo came to inform him that a

+special messenger, a police officer, had come from Count Rostopchín to

+know whether Count Bezúkhov had left or was leaving the town.

+

+A dozen persons who had business with Pierre were awaiting him in the

+drawing room. Pierre dressed hurriedly and, instead of going to see

+them, went to the back porch and out through the gate.

+

+From that time till the end of the destruction of Moscow no one of

+Bezúkhov’s household, despite all the search they made, saw Pierre again

+or knew where he was.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+The Rostóvs remained in Moscow till the first of September, that is,

+till the eve of the enemy’s entry into the city.

+

+After Pétya had joined Obolénski’s regiment of Cossacks and left for

+Bélaya Tsérkov where that regiment was forming, the countess was seized

+with terror. The thought that both her sons were at the war, had both

+gone from under her wing, that today or tomorrow either or both of them

+might be killed like the three sons of one of her acquaintances, struck

+her that summer for the first time with cruel clearness. She tried to

+get Nicholas back and wished to go herself to join Pétya, or to get

+him an appointment somewhere in Petersburg, but neither of these proved

+possible. Pétya could not return unless his regiment did so or unless

+he was transferred to another regiment on active service. Nicholas was

+somewhere with the army and had not sent a word since his last letter,

+in which he had given a detailed account of his meeting with Princess

+Mary. The countess did not sleep at night, or when she did fall asleep

+dreamed that she saw her sons lying dead. After many consultations and

+conversations, the count at last devised means to tranquillize her. He

+got Pétya transferred from Obolénski’s regiment to Bezúkhov’s, which was

+in training near Moscow. Though Pétya would remain in the service, this

+transfer would give the countess the consolation of seeing at least one

+of her sons under her wing, and she hoped to arrange matters for her

+Pétya so as not to let him go again, but always get him appointed to

+places where he could not possibly take part in a battle. As long as

+Nicholas alone was in danger the countess imagined that she loved her

+first-born more than all her other children and even reproached herself

+for it; but when her youngest: the scapegrace who had been bad at

+lessons, was always breaking things in the house and making himself a

+nuisance to everybody, that snub-nosed Pétya with his merry black eyes

+and fresh rosy cheeks where soft down was just beginning to show—when

+he was thrown amid those big, dreadful, cruel men who were fighting

+somewhere about something and apparently finding pleasure in it—then

+his mother thought she loved him more, much more, than all her other

+children. The nearer the time came for Pétya to return, the more uneasy

+grew the countess. She began to think she would never live to see such

+happiness. The presence of Sónya, of her beloved Natásha, or even of

+her husband irritated her. “What do I want with them? I want no one but

+Pétya,” she thought.

+

+At the end of August the Rostóvs received another letter from Nicholas.

+He wrote from the province of Vorónezh where he had been sent to procure

+remounts, but that letter did not set the countess at ease. Knowing that

+one son was out of danger she became the more anxious about Pétya.

+

+Though by the twentieth of August nearly all the Rostóvs’ acquaintances

+had left Moscow, and though everybody tried to persuade the countess to

+get away as quickly as possible, she would not hear of leaving before

+her treasure, her adored Pétya, returned. On the twenty-eighth of August

+he arrived. The passionate tenderness with which his mother received him

+did not please the sixteen-year-old officer. Though she concealed from

+him her intention of keeping him under her wing, Pétya guessed her

+designs, and instinctively fearing that he might give way to emotion

+when with her—might “become womanish” as he termed it to himself—he

+treated her coldly, avoided her, and during his stay in Moscow attached

+himself exclusively to Natásha for whom he had always had a particularly

+brotherly tenderness, almost lover-like.

+

+Owing to the count’s customary carelessness nothing was ready for their

+departure by the twenty-eighth of August and the carts that were to

+come from their Ryazán and Moscow estates to remove their household

+belongings did not arrive till the thirtieth.

+

+From the twenty-eighth till the thirty-first all Moscow was in a bustle

+and commotion. Every day thousands of men wounded at Borodinó were

+brought in by the Dorogomílov gate and taken to various parts of Moscow,

+and thousands of carts conveyed the inhabitants and their possessions

+out by the other gates. In spite of Rostopchín’s broadsheets, or because

+of them or independently of them, the strangest and most contradictory

+rumors were current in the town. Some said that no one was to be allowed

+to leave the city, others on the contrary said that all the icons had

+been taken out of the churches and everybody was to be ordered to leave.

+Some said there had been another battle after Borodinó at which the

+French had been routed, while others on the contrary reported that the

+Russian army had been destroyed. Some talked about the Moscow militia

+which, preceded by the clergy, would go to the Three Hills; others

+whispered that Augustin had been forbidden to leave, that traitors had

+been seized, that the peasants were rioting and robbing people on their

+way from Moscow, and so on. But all this was only talk; in reality

+(though the Council of Filí, at which it was decided to abandon Moscow,

+had not yet been held) both those who went away and those who remained

+behind felt, though they did not show it, that Moscow would certainly

+be abandoned, and that they ought to get away as quickly as possible and

+save their belongings. It was felt that everything would suddenly break

+up and change, but up to the first of September nothing had done so.

+As a criminal who is being led to execution knows that he must die

+immediately, but yet looks about him and straightens the cap that is

+awry on his head, so Moscow involuntarily continued its wonted life,

+though it knew that the time of its destruction was near when the

+conditions of life to which its people were accustomed to submit would

+be completely upset.

+

+During the three days preceding the occupation of Moscow the whole

+Rostóv family was absorbed in various activities. The head of the

+family, Count Ilyá Rostóv, continually drove about the city collecting

+the current rumors from all sides and gave superficial and hasty orders

+at home about the preparations for their departure.

+

+The countess watched the things being packed, was dissatisfied with

+everything, was constantly in pursuit of Pétya who was always running

+away from her, and was jealous of Natásha with whom he spent all his

+time. Sónya alone directed the practical side of matters by getting

+things packed. But of late Sónya had been particularly sad and silent.

+Nicholas’ letter in which he mentioned Princess Mary had elicited, in

+her presence, joyous comments from the countess, who saw an intervention

+of Providence in this meeting of the princess and Nicholas.

+

+“I was never pleased at Bolkónski’s engagement to Natásha,” said the

+countess, “but I always wanted Nicholas to marry the princess, and had a

+presentiment that it would happen. What a good thing it would be!”

+

+Sónya felt that this was true: that the only possibility of retrieving

+the Rostóvs’ affairs was by Nicholas marrying a rich woman, and that the

+princess was a good match. It was very bitter for her. But despite

+her grief, or perhaps just because of it, she took on herself all the

+difficult work of directing the storing and packing of their things and

+was busy for whole days. The count and countess turned to her when they

+had any orders to give. Pétya and Natásha on the contrary, far from

+helping their parents, were generally a nuisance and a hindrance to

+everyone. Almost all day long the house resounded with their running

+feet, their cries, and their spontaneous laughter. They laughed and were

+gay not because there was any reason to laugh, but because gaiety and

+mirth were in their hearts and so everything that happened was a cause

+for gaiety and laughter to them. Pétya was in high spirits because

+having left home a boy he had returned (as everybody told him) a fine

+young man, because he was at home, because he had left Bélaya Tsérkov

+where there was no hope of soon taking part in a battle and had come to

+Moscow where there was to be fighting in a few days, and chiefly because

+Natásha, whose lead he always followed, was in high spirits. Natásha was

+gay because she had been sad too long and now nothing reminded her of

+the cause of her sadness, and because she was feeling well. She was also

+happy because she had someone to adore her: the adoration of others was

+a lubricant the wheels of her machine needed to make them run freely—and

+Pétya adored her. Above all, they were gay because there was a war near

+Moscow, there would be fighting at the town gates, arms were being

+given out, everybody was escaping—going away somewhere, and in general

+something extraordinary was happening, and that is always exciting,

+especially to the young.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+On Saturday, the thirty-first of August, everything in the Rostóvs’

+house seemed topsy-turvy. All the doors were open, all the furniture was

+being carried out or moved about, and the mirrors and pictures had been

+taken down. There were trunks in the rooms, and hay, wrapping paper, and

+ropes were scattered about. The peasants and house serfs carrying out

+the things were treading heavily on the parquet floors. The yard was

+crowded with peasant carts, some loaded high and already corded up,

+others still empty.

+

+The voices and footsteps of the many servants and of the peasants who

+had come with the carts resounded as they shouted to one another in

+the yard and in the house. The count had been out since morning. The

+countess had a headache brought on by all the noise and turmoil and was

+lying down in the new sitting room with a vinegar compress on her head.

+Pétya was not at home, he had gone to visit a friend with whom he meant

+to obtain a transfer from the militia to the active army. Sónya was in

+the ballroom looking after the packing of the glass and china. Natásha

+was sitting on the floor of her dismantled room with dresses, ribbons,

+and scarves strewn all about her, gazing fixedly at the floor and

+holding in her hands the old ball dress (already out of fashion) which

+she had worn at her first Petersburg ball.

+

+Natásha was ashamed of doing nothing when everyone else was so busy, and

+several times that morning had tried to set to work, but her heart was

+not in it, and she could not and did not know how to do anything except

+with all her heart and all her might. For a while she had stood beside

+Sónya while the china was being packed and tried to help, but soon gave

+it up and went to her room to pack her own things. At first she found it

+amusing to give away dresses and ribbons to the maids, but when that was

+done and what was left had still to be packed, she found it dull.

+

+“Dunyásha, you pack! You will, won’t you, dear?” And when Dunyásha

+willingly promised to do it all for her, Natásha sat down on the floor,

+took her old ball dress, and fell into a reverie quite unrelated to what

+ought to have occupied her thoughts now. She was roused from her reverie

+by the talk of the maids in the next room (which was theirs) and by the

+sound of their hurried footsteps going to the back porch. Natásha got

+up and looked out of the window. An enormously long row of carts full of

+wounded men had stopped in the street.

+

+The housekeeper, the old nurse, the cooks, coachmen, maids, footmen,

+postilions, and scullions stood at the gate, staring at the wounded.

+

+Natásha, throwing a clean pocket handkerchief over her hair and holding

+an end of it in each hand, went out into the street.

+

+The former housekeeper, old Mávra Kuzmínichna, had stepped out of the

+crowd by the gate, gone up to a cart with a hood constructed of bast

+mats, and was speaking to a pale young officer who lay inside.

+Natásha moved a few steps forward and stopped shyly, still holding her

+handkerchief, and listened to what the housekeeper was saying.

+

+“Then you have nobody in Moscow?” she was saying. “You would be more

+comfortable somewhere in a house... in ours, for instance... the family

+are leaving.”

+

+“I don’t know if it would be allowed,” replied the officer in a weak

+voice. “Here is our commanding officer... ask him,” and he pointed to a

+stout major who was walking back along the street past the row of carts.

+

+Natásha glanced with frightened eyes at the face of the wounded officer

+and at once went to meet the major.

+

+“May the wounded men stay in our house?” she asked.

+

+The major raised his hand to his cap with a smile.

+

+“Which one do you want, Ma’am’selle?” said he, screwing up his eyes and

+smiling.

+

+Natásha quietly repeated her question, and her face and whole

+manner were so serious, though she was still holding the ends of her

+handkerchief, that the major ceased smiling and after some reflection—as

+if considering in how far the thing was possible—replied in the

+affirmative.

+

+“Oh yes, why not? They may,” he said.

+

+With a slight inclination of her head, Natásha stepped back quickly to

+Mávra Kuzmínichna, who stood talking compassionately to the officer.

+

+“They may. He says they may!” whispered Natásha.

+

+The cart in which the officer lay was turned into the Rostóvs’ yard,

+and dozens of carts with wounded men began at the invitation of the

+townsfolk to turn into the yards and to draw up at the entrances of the

+houses in Povarskáya Street. Natásha was evidently pleased to be dealing

+with new people outside the ordinary routine of her life. She and Mávra

+Kuzmínichna tried to get as many of the wounded as possible into their

+yard.

+

+“Your Papa must be told, though,” said Mávra Kuzmínichna.

+

+“Never mind, never mind, what does it matter? For one day we can move

+into the drawing room. They can have all our half of the house.”

+

+“There now, young lady, you do take things into your head! Even if we

+put them into the wing, the men’s room, or the nurse’s room, we must ask

+permission.”

+

+“Well, I’ll ask.”

+

+Natásha ran into the house and went on tiptoe through the half-open door

+into the sitting room, where there was a smell of vinegar and Hoffman’s

+drops.

+

+“Are you asleep, Mamma?”

+

+“Oh, what sleep—?” said the countess, waking up just as she was dropping

+into a doze.

+

+“Mamma darling!” said Natásha, kneeling by her mother and bringing her

+face close to her mother’s, “I am sorry, forgive me, I’ll never do it

+again; I woke you up! Mávra Kuzmínichna has sent me: they have brought

+some wounded here—officers. Will you let them come? They have nowhere to

+go. I knew you’d let them come!” she said quickly all in one breath.

+

+“What officers? Whom have they brought? I don’t understand anything

+about it,” said the countess.

+

+Natásha laughed, and the countess too smiled slightly.

+

+“I knew you’d give permission... so I’ll tell them,” and, having kissed

+her mother, Natásha got up and went to the door.

+

+In the hall she met her father, who had returned with bad news.

+

+“We’ve stayed too long!” said the count with involuntary vexation. “The

+Club is closed and the police are leaving.”

+

+“Papa, is it all right—I’ve invited some of the wounded into the house?”

+said Natásha.

+

+“Of course it is,” he answered absently. “That’s not the point. I beg

+you not to indulge in trifles now, but to help to pack, and tomorrow we

+must go, go, go!...”

+

+And the count gave a similar order to the major-domo and the servants.

+

+At dinner Pétya having returned home told them the news he had heard.

+He said the people had been getting arms in the Krémlin, and that though

+Rostopchín’s broadsheet had said that he would sound a call two or three

+days in advance, the order had certainly already been given for everyone

+to go armed to the Three Hills tomorrow, and that there would be a big

+battle there.

+

+The countess looked with timid horror at her son’s eager, excited face

+as he said this. She realized that if she said a word about his not

+going to the battle (she knew he enjoyed the thought of the impending

+engagement) he would say something about men, honor, and the

+fatherland—something senseless, masculine, and obstinate which there

+would be no contradicting, and her plans would be spoiled; and so,

+hoping to arrange to leave before then and take Pétya with her as their

+protector and defender, she did not answer him, but after dinner called

+the count aside and implored him with tears to take her away quickly,

+that very night if possible. With a woman’s involuntary loving cunning

+she, who till then had not shown any alarm, said that she would die of

+fright if they did not leave that very night. Without any pretense she

+was now afraid of everything.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV

+

+Madame Schoss, who had been out to visit her daughter, increased the

+countess’ fears still more by telling what she had seen at a spirit

+dealer’s in Myasnítski Street. When returning by that street she had

+been unable to pass because of a drunken crowd rioting in front of

+the shop. She had taken a cab and driven home by a side street and the

+cabman had told her that the people were breaking open the barrels at

+the drink store, having received orders to do so.

+

+After dinner the whole Rostóv household set to work with enthusiastic

+haste packing their belongings and preparing for their departure. The

+old count, suddenly setting to work, kept passing from the yard to the

+house and back again, shouting confused instructions to the hurrying

+people, and flurrying them still more. Pétya directed things in the

+yard. Sónya, owing to the count’s contradictory orders, lost her head

+and did not know what to do. The servants ran noisily about the house

+and yard, shouting and disputing. Natásha, with the ardor characteristic

+of all she did suddenly set to work too. At first her intervention in

+the business of packing was received skeptically. Everybody expected

+some prank from her and did not wish to obey her; but she resolutely

+and passionately demanded obedience, grew angry and nearly cried because

+they did not heed her, and at last succeeded in making them believe her.

+Her first exploit, which cost her immense effort and established her

+authority, was the packing of the carpets. The count had valuable

+Gobelin tapestries and Persian carpets in the house. When Natásha set

+to work two cases were standing open in the ballroom, one almost full

+up with crockery, the other with carpets. There was also much china

+standing on the tables, and still more was being brought in from the

+storeroom. A third case was needed and servants had gone to fetch it.

+

+“Sónya, wait a bit—we’ll pack everything into these,” said Natásha.

+

+“You can’t, Miss, we have tried to,” said the butler’s assistant.

+

+“No, wait a minute, please.”

+

+And Natásha began rapidly taking out of the case dishes and plates

+wrapped in paper.

+

+“The dishes must go in here among the carpets,” said she.

+

+“Why, it’s a mercy if we can get the carpets alone into three cases,”

+said the butler’s assistant.

+

+“Oh, wait, please!” And Natásha began rapidly and deftly sorting out the

+things. “These aren’t needed,” said she, putting aside some plates

+of Kiev ware. “These—yes, these must go among the carpets,” she said,

+referring to the Saxony china dishes.

+

+“Don’t, Natásha! Leave it alone! We’ll get it all packed,” urged Sónya

+reproachfully.

+

+“What a young lady she is!” remarked the major-domo.

+

+But Natásha would not give in. She turned everything out and began

+quickly repacking, deciding that the inferior Russian carpets and

+unnecessary crockery should not be taken at all. When everything had

+been taken out of the cases, they recommenced packing, and it turned

+out that when the cheaper things not worth taking had nearly all been

+rejected, the valuable ones really did all go into the two cases. Only

+the lid of the case containing the carpets would not shut down. A few

+more things might have been taken out, but Natásha insisted on having

+her own way. She packed, repacked, pressed, made the butler’s assistant

+and Pétya—whom she had drawn into the business of packing—press on the

+lid, and made desperate efforts herself.

+

+“That’s enough, Natásha,” said Sónya. “I see you were right, but just

+take out the top one.”

+

+“I won’t!” cried Natásha, with one hand holding back the hair that hung

+over her perspiring face, while with the other she pressed down the

+carpets. “Now press, Pétya! Press, Vasílich, press hard!” she cried.

+

+The carpets yielded and the lid closed; Natásha, clapping her hands,

+screamed with delight and tears fell from her eyes. But this only

+lasted a moment. She at once set to work afresh and they now trusted her

+completely. The count was not angry even when they told him that Natásha

+had countermanded an order of his, and the servants now came to her

+to ask whether a cart was sufficiently loaded, and whether it might

+be corded up. Thanks to Natásha’s directions the work now went on

+expeditiously, unnecessary things were left, and the most valuable

+packed as compactly as possible.

+

+But hard as they all worked till quite late that night, they could not

+get everything packed. The countess had fallen asleep and the count,

+having put off their departure till next morning, went to bed.

+

+Sónya and Natásha slept in the sitting room without undressing.

+

+That night another wounded man was driven down the Povarskáya, and Mávra

+Kuzmínichna, who was standing at the gate, had him brought into the

+Rostóvs’ yard. Mávra Kuzmínichna concluded that he was a very important

+man. He was being conveyed in a calèche with a raised hood, and was

+quite covered by an apron. On the box beside the driver sat a venerable

+old attendant. A doctor and two soldiers followed the carriage in a

+cart.

+

+“Please come in here. The masters are going away and the whole house

+will be empty,” said the old woman to the old attendant.

+

+“Well, perhaps,” said he with a sigh. “We don’t expect to get him home

+alive! We have a house of our own in Moscow, but it’s a long way from

+here, and there’s nobody living in it.”

+

+“Do us the honor to come in, there’s plenty of everything in the

+master’s house. Come in,” said Mávra Kuzmínichna. “Is he very ill?” she

+asked.

+

+The attendant made a hopeless gesture.

+

+“We don’t expect to get him home! We must ask the doctor.”

+

+And the old servant got down from the box and went up to the cart.

+

+“All right!” said the doctor.

+

+The old servant returned to the calèche, looked into it, shook his

+head disconsolately, told the driver to turn into the yard, and stopped

+beside Mávra Kuzmínichna.

+

+“O, Lord Jesus Christ!” she murmured.

+

+She invited them to take the wounded man into the house.

+

+“The masters won’t object...” she said.

+

+But they had to avoid carrying the man upstairs, and so they took him

+into the wing and put him in the room that had been Madame Schoss’.

+

+This wounded man was Prince Andrew Bolkónski.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV

+

+Moscow’s last day had come. It was a clear bright autumn day, a Sunday.

+The church bells everywhere were ringing for service, just as usual on

+Sundays. Nobody seemed yet to realize what awaited the city.

+

+Only two things indicated the social condition of Moscow—the rabble,

+that is the poor people, and the price of commodities. An enormous crowd

+of factory hands, house serfs, and peasants, with whom some officials,

+seminarists, and gentry were mingled, had gone early that morning to

+the Three Hills. Having waited there for Rostopchín who did not turn

+up, they became convinced that Moscow would be surrendered, and then

+dispersed all about the town to the public houses and cookshops. Prices

+too that day indicated the state of affairs. The price of weapons, of

+gold, of carts and horses, kept rising, but the value of paper money and

+city articles kept falling, so that by midday there were instances of

+carters removing valuable goods, such as cloth, and receiving in payment

+a half of what they carted, while peasant horses were fetching five

+hundred rubles each, and furniture, mirrors, and bronzes were being

+given away for nothing.

+

+In the Rostóvs’ staid old-fashioned house the dissolution of former

+conditions of life was but little noticeable. As to the serfs the only

+indication was that three out of their huge retinue disappeared

+during the night, but nothing was stolen; and as to the value of their

+possessions, the thirty peasant carts that had come in from their

+estates and which many people envied proved to be extremely valuable and

+they were offered enormous sums of money for them. Not only were huge

+sums offered for the horses and carts, but on the previous evening and

+early in the morning of the first of September, orderlies and servants

+sent by wounded officers came to the Rostóvs’ and wounded men dragged

+themselves there from the Rostóvs’ and from neighboring houses where

+they were accommodated, entreating the servants to try to get them

+a lift out of Moscow. The major-domo to whom these entreaties were

+addressed, though he was sorry for the wounded, resolutely refused,

+saying that he dare not even mention the matter to the count. Pity these

+wounded men as one might, it was evident that if they were given one

+cart there would be no reason to refuse another, or all the carts and

+one’s own carriages as well. Thirty carts could not save all the wounded

+and in the general catastrophe one could not disregard oneself and one’s

+own family. So thought the major-domo on his master’s behalf.

+

+On waking up that morning Count Ilyá Rostóv left his bedroom softly, so

+as not to wake the countess who had fallen asleep only toward morning,

+and came out to the porch in his lilac silk dressing gown. In the yard

+stood the carts ready corded. The carriages were at the front porch.

+The major-domo stood at the porch talking to an elderly orderly and to

+a pale young officer with a bandaged arm. On seeing the count the

+major-domo made a significant and stern gesture to them both to go away.

+

+“Well, Vasílich, is everything ready?” asked the count, and stroking his

+bald head he looked good-naturedly at the officer and the orderly and

+nodded to them. (He liked to see new faces.)

+

+“We can harness at once, your excellency.”

+

+“Well, that’s right. As soon as the countess wakes we’ll be off, God

+willing! What is it, gentlemen?” he added, turning to the officer. “Are

+you staying in my house?”

+

+The officer came nearer and suddenly his face flushed crimson.

+

+“Count, be so good as to allow me... for God’s sake, to get into some

+corner of one of your carts! I have nothing here with me.... I shall be

+all right on a loaded cart....”

+

+Before the officer had finished speaking the orderly made the same

+request on behalf of his master.

+

+“Oh, yes, yes, yes!” said the count hastily. “I shall be very pleased,

+very pleased. Vasílich, you’ll see to it. Just unload one or two carts.

+Well, what of it... do what’s necessary...” said the count, muttering

+some indefinite order.

+

+But at the same moment an expression of warm gratitude on the officer’s

+face had already sealed the order. The count looked around him. In the

+yard, at the gates, at the window of the wings, wounded officers and

+their orderlies were to be seen. They were all looking at the count and

+moving toward the porch.

+

+“Please step into the gallery, your excellency,” said the major-domo.

+“What are your orders about the pictures?”

+

+The count went into the house with him, repeating his order not to

+refuse the wounded who asked for a lift.

+

+“Well, never mind, some of the things can be unloaded,” he added in a

+soft, confidential voice, as though afraid of being overheard.

+

+At nine o’clock the countess woke up, and Matrëna Timoféevna, who had

+been her lady’s maid before her marriage and now performed a sort of

+chief gendarme’s duty for her, came to say that Madame Schoss was much

+offended and the young ladies’ summer dresses could not be left behind.

+On inquiry, the countess learned that Madame Schoss was offended because

+her trunk had been taken down from its cart, and all the loads were

+being uncorded and the luggage taken out of the carts to make room for

+wounded men whom the count in the simplicity of his heart had ordered

+that they should take with them. The countess sent for her husband.

+

+“What is this, my dear? I hear that the luggage is being unloaded.”

+

+“You know, love, I wanted to tell you... Countess dear... an officer

+came to me to ask for a few carts for the wounded. After all, ours are

+things that can be bought but think what being left behind means to

+them!... Really now, in our own yard—we asked them in ourselves and

+there are officers among them.... You know, I think, my dear... let them

+be taken... where’s the hurry?”

+

+The count spoke timidly, as he always did when talking of money matters.

+The countess was accustomed to this tone as a precursor of news of

+something detrimental to the children’s interests, such as the building

+of a new gallery or conservatory, the inauguration of a private theater

+or an orchestra. She was accustomed always to oppose anything announced

+in that timid tone and considered it her duty to do so.

+

+She assumed her dolefully submissive manner and said to her husband:

+“Listen to me, Count, you have managed matters so that we are getting

+nothing for the house, and now you wish to throw away all our—all the

+children’s property! You said yourself that we have a hundred thousand

+rubles’ worth of things in the house. I don’t consent, my dear, I don’t!

+Do as you please! It’s the government’s business to look after the

+wounded; they know that. Look at the Lopukhíns opposite, they cleared

+out everything two days ago. That’s what other people do. It’s only

+we who are such fools. If you have no pity on me, have some for the

+children.”

+

+Flourishing his arms in despair the count left the room without

+replying.

+

+“Papa, what are you doing that for?” asked Natásha, who had followed him

+into her mother’s room.

+

+“Nothing! What business is it of yours?” muttered the count angrily.

+

+“But I heard,” said Natásha. “Why does Mamma object?”

+

+“What business is it of yours?” cried the count.

+

+Natásha stepped up to the window and pondered.

+

+“Papa! Here’s Berg coming to see us,” said she, looking out of the

+window.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI

+

+Berg, the Rostóvs’ son-in-law, was already a colonel wearing the orders

+of Vladímir and Anna, and he still filled the quiet and agreeable post

+of assistant to the head of the staff of the assistant commander of the

+first division of the Second Army.

+

+On the first of September he had come to Moscow from the army.

+

+He had nothing to do in Moscow, but he had noticed that everyone in the

+army was asking for leave to visit Moscow and had something to do there.

+So he considered it necessary to ask for leave of absence for family and

+domestic reasons.

+

+Berg drove up to his father-in-law’s house in his spruce little trap

+with a pair of sleek roans, exactly like those of a certain prince. He

+looked attentively at the carts in the yard and while going up to the

+porch took out a clean pocket handkerchief and tied a knot in it.

+

+From the anteroom Berg ran with smooth though impatient steps into the

+drawing room, where he embraced the count, kissed the hands of Natásha

+and Sónya, and hastened to inquire after “Mamma’s” health.

+

+“Health, at a time like this?” said the count. “Come, tell us the news!

+Is the army retreating or will there be another battle?”

+

+“God Almighty alone can decide the fate of our fatherland, Papa,” said

+Berg. “The army is burning with a spirit of heroism and the leaders, so

+to say, have now assembled in council. No one knows what is coming. But

+in general I can tell you, Papa, that such a heroic spirit, the truly

+antique valor of the Russian army, which they—which it” (he corrected

+himself) “has shown or displayed in the battle of the twenty-sixth—there

+are no words worthy to do it justice! I tell you, Papa” (he smote

+himself on the breast as a general he had heard speaking had done, but

+Berg did it a trifle late for he should have struck his breast at the

+words “Russian army”), “I tell you frankly that we, the commanders, far

+from having to urge the men on or anything of that kind, could hardly

+restrain those... those... yes, those exploits of antique valor,” he

+went on rapidly. “General Barclay de Tolly risked his life everywhere at

+the head of the troops, I can assure you. Our corps was stationed on a

+hillside. You can imagine!”

+

+And Berg related all that he remembered of the various tales he had

+heard those days. Natásha watched him with an intent gaze that confused

+him, as if she were trying to find in his face the answer to some

+question.

+

+“Altogether such heroism as was displayed by the Russian warriors

+cannot be imagined or adequately praised!” said Berg, glancing round

+at Natásha, and as if anxious to conciliate her, replying to her intent

+look with a smile. “‘Russia is not in Moscow, she lives in the hearts of

+her sons!’ Isn’t it so, Papa?” said he.

+

+Just then the countess came in from the sitting room with a weary and

+dissatisfied expression. Berg hurriedly jumped up, kissed her hand,

+asked about her health, and, swaying his head from side to side to

+express sympathy, remained standing beside her.

+

+“Yes, Mamma, I tell you sincerely that these are hard and sad times for

+every Russian. But why are you so anxious? You have still time to get

+away....”

+

+“I can’t think what the servants are about,” said the countess, turning

+to her husband. “I have just been told that nothing is ready yet.

+Somebody after all must see to things. One misses Mítenka at such times.

+There won’t be any end to it.”

+

+The count was about to say something, but evidently restrained himself.

+He got up from his chair and went to the door.

+

+At that moment Berg drew out his handkerchief as if to blow his nose

+and, seeing the knot in it, pondered, shaking his head sadly and

+significantly.

+

+“And I have a great favor to ask of you, Papa,” said he.

+

+“Hm...” said the count, and stopped.

+

+“I was driving past Yusúpov’s house just now,” said Berg with a laugh,

+“when the steward, a man I know, ran out and asked me whether I wouldn’t

+buy something. I went in out of curiosity, you know, and there is a

+small chiffonier and a dressing table. You know how dear Véra wanted a

+chiffonier like that and how we had a dispute about it.” (At the mention

+of the chiffonier and dressing table Berg involuntarily changed his tone

+to one of pleasure at his admirable domestic arrangements.) “And it’s

+such a beauty! It pulls out and has a secret English drawer, you know!

+And dear Véra has long wanted one. I wish to give her a surprise, you

+see. I saw so many of those peasant carts in your yard. Please let me

+have one, I will pay the man well, and...”

+

+The count frowned and coughed.

+

+“Ask the countess, I don’t give orders.”

+

+“If it’s inconvenient, please don’t,” said Berg. “Only I so wanted it,

+for dear Véra’s sake.”

+

+“Oh, go to the devil, all of you! To the devil, the devil, the devil...”

+cried the old count. “My head’s in a whirl!”

+

+And he left the room. The countess began to cry.

+

+“Yes, Mamma! Yes, these are very hard times!” said Berg.

+

+Natásha left the room with her father and, as if finding it difficult to

+reach some decision, first followed him and then ran downstairs.

+

+Pétya was in the porch, engaged in giving out weapons to the servants

+who were to leave Moscow. The loaded carts were still standing in the

+yard. Two of them had been uncorded and a wounded officer was climbing

+into one of them helped by an orderly.

+

+“Do you know what it’s about?” Pétya asked Natásha.

+

+She understood that he meant what were their parents quarreling about.

+She did not answer.

+

+“It’s because Papa wanted to give up all the carts to the wounded,” said

+Pétya. “Vasílich told me. I consider...”

+

+“I consider,” Natásha suddenly almost shouted, turning her angry face to

+Pétya, “I consider it so horrid, so abominable, so... I don’t know what.

+Are we despicable Germans?”

+

+Her throat quivered with convulsive sobs and, afraid of weakening and

+letting the force of her anger run to waste, she turned and rushed

+headlong up the stairs.

+

+Berg was sitting beside the countess consoling her with the respectful

+attention of a relative. The count, pipe in hand, was pacing up and down

+the room, when Natásha, her face distorted by anger, burst in like a

+tempest and approached her mother with rapid steps.

+

+“It’s horrid! It’s abominable!” she screamed. “You can’t possibly have

+ordered it!”

+

+Berg and the countess looked at her, perplexed and frightened. The count

+stood still at the window and listened.

+

+“Mamma, it’s impossible: see what is going on in the yard!” she cried.

+“They will be left!...”

+

+“What’s the matter with you? Who are ‘they’? What do you want?”

+

+“Why, the wounded! It’s impossible, Mamma. It’s monstrous!... No, Mamma

+darling, it’s not the thing. Please forgive me, darling.... Mamma, what

+does it matter what we take away? Only look what is going on in the

+yard... Mamma!... It’s impossible!”

+

+The count stood by the window and listened without turning round.

+Suddenly he sniffed and put his face closer to the window.

+

+The countess glanced at her daughter, saw her face full of shame for her

+mother, saw her agitation, and understood why her husband did not turn

+to look at her now, and she glanced round quite disconcerted.

+

+“Oh, do as you like! Am I hindering anyone?” she said, not surrendering

+at once.

+

+“Mamma, darling, forgive me!”

+

+But the countess pushed her daughter away and went up to her husband.

+

+“My dear, you order what is right.... You know I don’t understand about

+it,” said she, dropping her eyes shamefacedly.

+

+“The eggs... the eggs are teaching the hen,” muttered the count through

+tears of joy, and he embraced his wife who was glad to hide her look of

+shame on his breast.

+

+“Papa! Mamma! May I see to it? May I?...” asked Natásha. “We will still

+take all the most necessary things.”

+

+The count nodded affirmatively, and Natásha, at the rapid pace at which

+she used to run when playing at tag, ran through the ballroom to the

+anteroom and downstairs into the yard.

+

+The servants gathered round Natásha, but could not believe the strange

+order she brought them until the count himself, in his wife’s name,

+confirmed the order to give up all the carts to the wounded and take the

+trunks to the storerooms. When they understood that order the servants

+set to work at this new task with pleasure and zeal. It no longer seemed

+strange to them but on the contrary it seemed the only thing that could

+be done, just as a quarter of an hour before it had not seemed strange

+to anyone that the wounded should be left behind and the goods carted

+away but that had seemed the only thing to do.

+

+The whole household, as if to atone for not having done it sooner, set

+eagerly to work at the new task of placing the wounded in the carts. The

+wounded dragged themselves out of their rooms and stood with pale but

+happy faces round the carts. The news that carts were to be had spread

+to the neighboring houses, from which wounded men began to come into the

+Rostóvs’ yard. Many of the wounded asked them not to unload the carts

+but only to let them sit on the top of the things. But the work of

+unloading, once started, could not be arrested. It seemed not to matter

+whether all or only half the things were left behind. Cases full of

+china, bronzes, pictures, and mirrors that had been so carefully

+packed the night before now lay about the yard, and still they went on

+searching for and finding possibilities of unloading this or that and

+letting the wounded have another and yet another cart.

+

+“We can take four more men,” said the steward. “They can have my trap,

+or else what is to become of them?”

+

+“Let them have my wardrobe cart,” said the countess. “Dunyásha can go

+with me in the carriage.”

+

+They unloaded the wardrobe cart and sent it to take wounded men from a

+house two doors off. The whole household, servants included, was bright

+and animated. Natásha was in a state of rapturous excitement such as she

+had not known for a long time.

+

+“What could we fasten this onto?” asked the servants, trying to fix a

+trunk on the narrow footboard behind a carriage. “We must keep at least

+one cart.”

+

+“What’s in it?” asked Natásha.

+

+“The count’s books.”

+

+“Leave it, Vasílich will put it away. It’s not wanted.”

+

+The phaeton was full of people and there was a doubt as to where Count

+Peter could sit.

+

+“On the box. You’ll sit on the box, won’t you, Pétya?” cried Natásha.

+

+Sónya too was busy all this time, but the aim of her efforts was quite

+different from Natásha’s. She was putting away the things that had to

+be left behind and making a list of them as the countess wished, and she

+tried to get as much taken away with them as possible.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVII

+

+Before two o’clock in the afternoon the Rostóvs’ four carriages, packed

+full and with the horses harnessed, stood at the front door. One by one

+the carts with the wounded had moved out of the yard.

+

+The calèche in which Prince Andrew was being taken attracted Sónya’s

+attention as it passed the front porch. With the help of a maid she was

+arranging a seat for the countess in the huge high coach that stood at

+the entrance.

+

+“Whose calèche is that?” she inquired, leaning out of the carriage

+window.

+

+“Why, didn’t you know, Miss?” replied the maid. “The wounded prince: he

+spent the night in our house and is going with us.”

+

+“But who is it? What’s his name?”

+

+“It’s our intended that was—Prince Bolkónski himself! They say he is

+dying,” replied the maid with a sigh.

+

+Sónya jumped out of the coach and ran to the countess. The countess,

+tired out and already dressed in shawl and bonnet for her journey,

+was pacing up and down the drawing room, waiting for the household to

+assemble for the usual silent prayer with closed doors before starting.

+Natásha was not in the room.

+

+“Mamma,” said Sónya, “Prince Andrew is here, mortally wounded. He is

+going with us.”

+

+The countess opened her eyes in dismay and, seizing Sónya’s arm, glanced

+around.

+

+“Natásha?” she murmured.

+

+At that moment this news had only one significance for both of them.

+They knew their Natásha, and alarm as to what would happen if she heard

+this news stifled all sympathy for the man they both liked.

+

+“Natásha does not know yet, but he is going with us,” said Sónya.

+

+“You say he is dying?”

+

+Sónya nodded.

+

+The countess put her arms around Sónya and began to cry.

+

+“The ways of God are past finding out!” she thought, feeling that the

+Almighty Hand, hitherto unseen, was becoming manifest in all that was

+now taking place.

+

+“Well, Mamma? Everything is ready. What’s the matter?” asked Natásha, as

+with animated face she ran into the room.

+

+“Nothing,” answered the countess. “If everything is ready let us start.”

+

+And the countess bent over her reticule to hide her agitated face. Sónya

+embraced Natásha and kissed her.

+

+Natásha looked at her inquiringly.

+

+“What is it? What has happened?”

+

+“Nothing... No...”

+

+“Is it something very bad for me? What is it?” persisted Natásha with

+her quick intuition.

+

+Sónya sighed and made no reply. The count, Pétya, Madame Schoss, Mávra

+Kuzmínichna, and Vasílich came into the drawing room and, having closed

+the doors, they all sat down and remained for some moments silently

+seated without looking at one another.

+

+The count was the first to rise, and with a loud sigh crossed himself

+before the icon. All the others did the same. Then the count embraced

+Mávra Kuzmínichna and Vasílich, who were to remain in Moscow, and while

+they caught at his hand and kissed his shoulder he patted their backs

+lightly with some vaguely affectionate and comforting words. The

+countess went into the oratory and there Sónya found her on her knees

+before the icons that had been left here and there hanging on the wall.

+(The most precious ones, with which some family tradition was connected,

+were being taken with them.)

+

+In the porch and in the yard the men whom Pétya had armed with swords

+and daggers, with trousers tucked inside their high boots and with belts

+and girdles tightened, were taking leave of those remaining behind.

+

+As is always the case at a departure, much had been forgotten or put in

+the wrong place, and for a long time two menservants stood one on

+each side of the open door and the carriage steps waiting to help the

+countess in, while maids rushed with cushions and bundles from the house

+to the carriages, the calèche, the phaeton, and back again.

+

+“They always will forget everything!” said the countess. “Don’t you know

+I can’t sit like that?”

+

+And Dunyásha, with clenched teeth, without replying but with an

+aggrieved look on her face, hastily got into the coach to rearrange the

+seat.

+

+“Oh, those servants!” said the count, swaying his head.

+

+Efím, the old coachman, who was the only one the countess trusted to

+drive her, sat perched up high on the box and did not so much as glance

+round at what was going on behind him. From thirty years’ experience

+he knew it would be some time yet before the order, “Be off, in God’s

+name!” would be given him: and he knew that even when it was said

+he would be stopped once or twice more while they sent back to fetch

+something that had been forgotten, and even after that he would again

+be stopped and the countess herself would lean out of the window and beg

+him for the love of heaven to drive carefully down the hill. He knew

+all this and therefore waited calmly for what would happen, with more

+patience than the horses, especially the near one, the chestnut Falcon,

+who was pawing the ground and champing his bit. At last all were

+seated, the carriage steps were folded and pulled up, the door was shut,

+somebody was sent for a traveling case, and the countess leaned out

+and said what she had to say. Then Efím deliberately doffed his hat and

+began crossing himself. The postilion and all the other servants did the

+same. “Off, in God’s name!” said Efím, putting on his hat. “Start!” The

+postilion started the horses, the off pole horse tugged at his collar,

+the high springs creaked, and the body of the coach swayed. The footman

+sprang onto the box of the moving coach which jolted as it passed out

+of the yard onto the uneven roadway; the other vehicles jolted in

+their turn, and the procession of carriages moved up the street. In the

+carriages, the calèche, and the phaeton, all crossed themselves as they

+passed the church opposite the house. Those who were to remain in Moscow

+walked on either side of the vehicles seeing the travelers off.

+

+Rarely had Natásha experienced so joyful a feeling as now, sitting in

+the carriage beside the countess and gazing at the slowly receding

+walls of forsaken, agitated Moscow. Occasionally she leaned out of the

+carriage window and looked back and then forward at the long train of

+wounded in front of them. Almost at the head of the line she could see

+the raised hood of Prince Andrew’s calèche. She did not know who was

+in it, but each time she looked at the procession her eyes sought that

+calèche. She knew it was right in front.

+

+In Kúdrino, from the Nikítski, Présnya, and Podnovínsk Streets came

+several other trains of vehicles similar to the Rostóvs’, and as they

+passed along the Sadóvaya Street the carriages and carts formed two rows

+abreast.

+

+As they were going round the Súkharev water tower Natásha, who was

+inquisitively and alertly scrutinizing the people driving or walking

+past, suddenly cried out in joyful surprise:

+

+“Dear me! Mamma, Sónya, look, it’s he!”

+

+“Who? Who?”

+

+“Look! Yes, on my word, it’s Bezúkhov!” said Natásha, putting her head

+out of the carriage and staring at a tall, stout man in a coachman’s

+long coat, who from his manner of walking and moving was evidently

+a gentleman in disguise, and who was passing under the arch of the

+Súkharev tower accompanied by a small, sallow-faced, beardless old man

+in a frieze coat.

+

+“Yes, it really is Bezúkhov in a coachman’s coat, with a queer-looking

+old boy. Really,” said Natásha, “look, look!”

+

+“No, it’s not he. How can you talk such nonsense?”

+

+“Mamma,” screamed Natásha, “I’ll stake my head it’s he! I assure you!

+Stop, stop!” she cried to the coachman.

+

+But the coachman could not stop, for from the Meshchánski Street came

+more carts and carriages, and the Rostóvs were being shouted at to move

+on and not block the way.

+

+In fact, however, though now much farther off than before, the Rostóvs

+all saw Pierre—or someone extraordinarily like him—in a coachman’s coat,

+going down the street with head bent and a serious face beside a small,

+beardless old man who looked like a footman. That old man noticed a

+face thrust out of the carriage window gazing at them, and respectfully

+touching Pierre’s elbow said something to him and pointed to the

+carriage. Pierre, evidently engrossed in thought, could not at first

+understand him. At length when he had understood and looked in the

+direction the old man indicated, he recognized Natásha, and following

+his first impulse stepped instantly and rapidly toward the coach. But

+having taken a dozen steps he seemed to remember something and stopped.

+

+Natásha’s face, leaning out of the window, beamed with quizzical

+kindliness.

+

+“Peter Kirílovich, come here! We have recognized you! This is

+wonderful!” she cried, holding out her hand to him. “What are you doing?

+Why are you like this?”

+

+Pierre took her outstretched hand and kissed it awkwardly as he walked

+along beside her while the coach still moved on.

+

+“What is the matter, Count?” asked the countess in a surprised and

+commiserating tone.

+

+“What? What? Why? Don’t ask me,” said Pierre, and looked round at

+Natásha whose radiant, happy expression—of which he was conscious

+without looking at her—filled him with enchantment.

+

+“Are you remaining in Moscow, then?”

+

+Pierre hesitated.

+

+“In Moscow?” he said in a questioning tone. “Yes, in Moscow. Good-by!”

+

+“Ah, if only I were a man! I’d certainly stay with you. How splendid!”

+said Natásha. “Mamma, if you’ll let me, I’ll stay!”

+

+Pierre glanced absently at Natásha and was about to say something, but

+the countess interrupted him.

+

+“You were at the battle, we heard.”

+

+“Yes, I was,” Pierre answered. “There will be another battle

+tomorrow...” he began, but Natásha interrupted him.

+

+“But what is the matter with you, Count? You are not like yourself....”

+

+“Oh, don’t ask me, don’t ask me! I don’t know myself. Tomorrow... But

+no! Good-by, good-by!” he muttered. “It’s an awful time!” and dropping

+behind the carriage he stepped onto the pavement.

+

+Natásha continued to lean out of the window for a long time, beaming at

+him with her kindly, slightly quizzical, happy smile.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVIII

+

+For the last two days, ever since leaving home, Pierre had been living

+in the empty house of his deceased benefactor, Bazdéev. This is how it

+happened.

+

+When he woke up on the morning after his return to Moscow and his

+interview with Count Rostopchín, he could not for some time make out

+where he was and what was expected of him. When he was informed that

+among others awaiting him in his reception room there was a Frenchman

+who had brought a letter from his wife, the Countess Hélène, he felt

+suddenly overcome by that sense of confusion and hopelessness to which

+he was apt to succumb. He felt that everything was now at an end, all

+was in confusion and crumbling to pieces, that nobody was right or

+wrong, the future held nothing, and there was no escape from this

+position. Smiling unnaturally and muttering to himself, he first sat

+down on the sofa in an attitude of despair, then rose, went to the door

+of the reception room and peeped through the crack, returned flourishing

+his arms, and took up a book. His major-domo came in a second time to

+say that the Frenchman who had brought the letter from the countess

+was very anxious to see him if only for a minute, and that someone from

+Bazdéev’s widow had called to ask Pierre to take charge of her husband’s

+books, as she herself was leaving for the country.

+

+“Oh, yes, in a minute; wait... or no! No, of course... go and say I will

+come directly,” Pierre replied to the major-domo.

+

+But as soon as the man had left the room Pierre took up his hat which

+was lying on the table and went out of his study by the other door.

+There was no one in the passage. He went along the whole length of this

+passage to the stairs and, frowning and rubbing his forehead with

+both hands, went down as far as the first landing. The hall porter was

+standing at the front door. From the landing where Pierre stood there

+was a second staircase leading to the back entrance. He went down that

+staircase and out into the yard. No one had seen him. But there were

+some carriages waiting, and as soon as Pierre stepped out of the gate

+the coachmen and the yard porter noticed him and raised their caps to

+him. When he felt he was being looked at he behaved like an ostrich

+which hides its head in a bush in order not to be seen: he hung his head

+and quickening his pace went down the street.

+

+Of all the affairs awaiting Pierre that day the sorting of Joseph

+Bazdéev’s books and papers appeared to him the most necessary.

+

+He hired the first cab he met and told the driver to go to the

+Patriarch’s Ponds, where the widow Bazdéev’s house was.

+

+Continually turning round to look at the rows of loaded carts that were

+making their way from all sides out of Moscow, and balancing his bulky

+body so as not to slip out of the ramshackle old vehicle, Pierre,

+experiencing the joyful feeling of a boy escaping from school, began to

+talk to his driver.

+

+The man told him that arms were being distributed today at the Krémlin

+and that tomorrow everyone would be sent out beyond the Three Hills

+gates and a great battle would be fought there.

+

+Having reached the Patriarch’s Ponds Pierre found the Bazdéevs’ house,

+where he had not been for a long time past. He went up to the gate.

+Gerásim, that sallow beardless old man Pierre had seen at Torzhók five

+years before with Joseph Bazdéev, came out in answer to his knock.

+

+“At home?” asked Pierre.

+

+“Owing to the present state of things Sophia Danílovna has gone to the

+Torzhók estate with the children, your excellency.”

+

+“I will come in all the same, I have to look through the books,” said

+Pierre.

+

+“Be so good as to step in. Makár Alexéevich, the brother of my late

+master—may the kingdom of heaven be his—has remained here, but he is in

+a weak state as you know,” said the old servant.

+

+Pierre knew that Makár Alexéevich was Joseph Bazdéev’s half-insane

+brother and a hard drinker.

+

+“Yes, yes, I know. Let us go in...” said Pierre and entered the house.

+

+A tall, bald-headed old man with a red nose, wearing a dressing gown and

+with galoshes on his bare feet, stood in the anteroom. On seeing Pierre

+he muttered something angrily and went away along the passage.

+

+“He was a very clever man but has now grown quite feeble, as your honor

+sees,” said Gerásim. “Will you step into the study?” Pierre nodded. “As

+it was sealed up so it has remained, but Sophia Danílovna gave orders

+that if anyone should come from you they were to have the books.”

+

+Pierre went into that gloomy study which he had entered with such

+trepidation in his benefactor’s lifetime. The room, dusty and untouched

+since the death of Joseph Bazdéev was now even gloomier.

+

+Gerásim opened one of the shutters and left the room on tiptoe. Pierre

+went round the study, approached the cupboard in which the manuscripts

+were kept, and took out what had once been one of the most important,

+the holy of holies of the order. This was the authentic Scotch Acts

+with Bazdéev’s notes and explanations. He sat down at the dusty writing

+table, and, having laid the manuscripts before him, opened them out,

+closed them, finally pushed them away, and resting his head on his hand

+sank into meditation.

+

+Gerásim looked cautiously into the study several times and saw Pierre

+always sitting in the same attitude.

+

+More than two hours passed and Gerásim took the liberty of making a

+slight noise at the door to attract his attention, but Pierre did not

+hear him.

+

+“Is the cabman to be discharged, your honor?”

+

+“Oh yes!” said Pierre, rousing himself and rising hurriedly. “Look

+here,” he added, taking Gerásim by a button of his coat and looking down

+at the old man with moist, shining, and ecstatic eyes, “I say, do you

+know that there is going to be a battle tomorrow?”

+

+“We heard so,” replied the man.

+

+“I beg you not to tell anyone who I am, and to do what I ask you.”

+

+“Yes, your excellency,” replied Gerásim. “Will you have something to

+eat?”

+

+“No, but I want something else. I want peasant clothes and a pistol,”

+said Pierre, unexpectedly blushing.

+

+“Yes, your excellency,” said Gerásim after thinking for a moment.

+

+All the rest of that day Pierre spent alone in his benefactor’s study,

+and Gerásim heard him pacing restlessly from one corner to another and

+talking to himself. And he spent the night on a bed made up for him

+there.

+

+Gerásim, being a servant who in his time had seen many strange things,

+accepted Pierre’s taking up his residence in the house without surprise,

+and seemed pleased to have someone to wait on. That same evening—without

+even asking himself what they were wanted for—he procured a coachman’s

+coat and cap for Pierre, and promised to get him the pistol next day.

+Makár Alexéevich came twice that evening shuffling along in his galoshes

+as far as the door and stopped and looked ingratiatingly at Pierre. But

+as soon as Pierre turned toward him he wrapped his dressing gown around

+him with a shamefaced and angry look and hurried away. It was when

+Pierre (wearing the coachman’s coat which Gerásim had procured for him

+and had disinfected by steam) was on his way with the old man to buy the

+pistol at the Súkharev market that he met the Rostóvs.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIX

+

+Kutúzov’s order to retreat through Moscow to the Ryazán road was issued

+at night on the first of September.

+

+The first troops started at once, and during the night they marched

+slowly and steadily without hurry. At daybreak, however, those nearing

+the town at the Dorogomílov bridge saw ahead of them masses of soldiers

+crowding and hurrying across the bridge, ascending on the opposite side

+and blocking the streets and alleys, while endless masses of troops were

+bearing down on them from behind, and an unreasoning hurry and alarm

+overcame them. They all rushed forward to the bridge, onto it, and

+to the fords and the boats. Kutúzov himself had driven round by side

+streets to the other side of Moscow.

+

+By ten o’clock in the morning of the second of September, only the rear

+guard remained in the Dorogomílov suburb, where they had ample room. The

+main army was on the other side of Moscow or beyond it.

+

+At that very time, at ten in the morning of the second of September,

+Napoleon was standing among his troops on the Poklónny Hill looking at

+the panorama spread out before him. From the twenty-sixth of August

+to the second of September, that is from the battle of Borodinó to the

+entry of the French into Moscow, during the whole of that agitating,

+memorable week, there had been the extraordinary autumn weather that

+always comes as a surprise, when the sun hangs low and gives more heat

+than in spring, when everything shines so brightly in the rare clear

+atmosphere that the eyes smart, when the lungs are strengthened and

+refreshed by inhaling the aromatic autumn air, when even the nights

+are warm, and when in those dark warm nights, golden stars startle and

+delight us continually by falling from the sky.

+

+At ten in the morning of the second of September this weather still

+held.

+

+The brightness of the morning was magical. Moscow seen from the Poklónny

+Hill lay spaciously spread out with her river, her gardens, and her

+churches, and she seemed to be living her usual life, her cupolas

+glittering like stars in the sunlight.

+

+The view of the strange city with its peculiar architecture, such as

+he had never seen before, filled Napoleon with the rather envious and

+uneasy curiosity men feel when they see an alien form of life that has

+no knowledge of them. This city was evidently living with the full force

+of its own life. By the indefinite signs which, even at a distance,

+distinguish a living body from a dead one, Napoleon from the Poklónny

+Hill perceived the throb of life in the town and felt, as it were, the

+breathing of that great and beautiful body.

+

+Every Russian looking at Moscow feels her to be a mother; every

+foreigner who sees her, even if ignorant of her significance as the

+mother city, must feel her feminine character, and Napoleon felt it.

+

+“Cette ville asiatique aux innombrables églises, Moscou la sainte. La

+voilà donc enfin, cette fameuse ville! Il était temps,” * said he, and

+dismounting he ordered a plan of Moscow to be spread out before him, and

+summoned Lelorgne d’Ideville, the interpreter.

+

+     * “That Asiatic city of the innumerable churches, holy

+     Moscow! Here it is then at last, that famous city. It was

+     high time.”

+

+

+“A town captured by the enemy is like a maid who has lost her honor,”

+thought he (he had said so to Túchkov at Smolénsk). From that point of

+view he gazed at the Oriental beauty he had not seen before. It seemed

+strange to him that his long-felt wish, which had seemed unattainable,

+had at last been realized. In the clear morning light he gazed now at

+the city and now at the plan, considering its details, and the assurance

+of possessing it agitated and awed him.

+

+“But could it be otherwise?” he thought. “Here is this capital at my

+feet. Where is Alexander now, and of what is he thinking? A strange,

+beautiful, and majestic city; and a strange and majestic moment! In what

+light must I appear to them!” thought he, thinking of his troops.

+“Here she is, the reward for all those fainthearted men,” he reflected,

+glancing at those near him and at the troops who were approaching and

+forming up. “One word from me, one movement of my hand, and that ancient

+capital of the Tsars would perish. But my clemency is always ready to

+descend upon the vanquished. I must be magnanimous and truly great. But

+no, it can’t be true that I am in Moscow,” he suddenly thought.

+“Yet here she is lying at my feet, with her golden domes and crosses

+scintillating and twinkling in the sunshine. But I shall spare her. On

+the ancient monuments of barbarism and despotism I will inscribe great

+words of justice and mercy.... It is just this which Alexander will

+feel most painfully, I know him.” (It seemed to Napoleon that the chief

+import of what was taking place lay in the personal struggle between

+himself and Alexander.) “From the height of the Krémlin—yes, there

+is the Krémlin, yes—I will give them just laws; I will teach them the

+meaning of true civilization, I will make generations of boyars remember

+their conqueror with love. I will tell the deputation that I did not,

+and do not, desire war, that I have waged war only against the false

+policy of their court; that I love and respect Alexander and that in

+Moscow I will accept terms of peace worthy of myself and of my people.

+I do not wish to utilize the fortunes of war to humiliate an honored

+monarch. ‘Boyars,’ I will say to them, ‘I do not desire war, I desire

+the peace and welfare of all my subjects.’ However, I know their

+presence will inspire me, and I shall speak to them as I always do:

+clearly, impressively, and majestically. But can it be true that I am in

+Moscow? Yes, there she lies.”

+

+“Qu’on m’amène les boyars,” * said he to his suite.

+

+    * “Bring the boyars to me.”

+

+

+A general with a brilliant suite galloped off at once to fetch the

+boyars.

+

+Two hours passed. Napoleon had lunched and was again standing in the

+same place on the Poklónny Hill awaiting the deputation. His speech to

+the boyars had already taken definite shape in his imagination. That

+speech was full of dignity and greatness as Napoleon understood it.

+

+He was himself carried away by the tone of magnanimity he intended to

+adopt toward Moscow. In his imagination he appointed days for assemblies

+at the palace of the Tsars, at which Russian notables and his own would

+mingle. He mentally appointed a governor, one who would win the

+hearts of the people. Having learned that there were many charitable

+institutions in Moscow he mentally decided that he would shower favors

+on them all. He thought that, as in Africa he had to put on a burnoose

+and sit in a mosque, so in Moscow he must be beneficent like the Tsars.

+And in order finally to touch the hearts of the Russians—and being like

+all Frenchmen unable to imagine anything sentimental without a reference

+to ma chère, ma tendre, ma pauvre mère * —he decided that he would

+place an inscription on all these establishments in large letters:

+“This establishment is dedicated to my dear mother.” Or no, it should

+be simply: Maison de ma Mère, *(2) he concluded. “But am I really in

+Moscow? Yes, here it lies before me, but why is the deputation from the

+city so long in appearing?” he wondered.

+

+     * “My dear, my tender, my poor mother.”

+

+     * (2) “House of my Mother.”

+

+

+Meanwhile an agitated consultation was being carried on in whispers

+among his generals and marshals at the rear of his suite. Those sent to

+fetch the deputation had returned with the news that Moscow was empty,

+that everyone had left it. The faces of those who were not conferring

+together were pale and perturbed. They were not alarmed by the fact

+that Moscow had been abandoned by its inhabitants (grave as that fact

+seemed), but by the question how to tell the Emperor—without putting

+him in the terrible position of appearing ridiculous—that he had been

+awaiting the boyars so long in vain: that there were drunken mobs left

+in Moscow but no one else. Some said that a deputation of some sort must

+be scraped together, others disputed that opinion and maintained that

+the Emperor should first be carefully and skillfully prepared, and then

+told the truth.

+

+“He will have to be told, all the same,” said some gentlemen of the

+suite. “But, gentlemen...”

+

+The position was the more awkward because the Emperor, meditating upon

+his magnanimous plans, was pacing patiently up and down before the

+outspread map, occasionally glancing along the road to Moscow from under

+his lifted hand with a bright and proud smile.

+

+“But it’s impossible...” declared the gentlemen of the suite, shrugging

+their shoulders but not venturing to utter the implied word—le

+ridicule....

+

+At last the Emperor, tired of futile expectation, his actor’s instinct

+suggesting to him that the sublime moment having been too long drawn out

+was beginning to lose its sublimity, gave a sign with his hand. A single

+report of a signaling gun followed, and the troops, who were already

+spread out on different sides of Moscow, moved into the city through the

+Tver, Kalúga, and Dorogomílov gates. Faster and faster, vying with

+one another, they moved at the double or at a trot, vanishing amid the

+clouds of dust they raised and making the air ring with a deafening roar

+of mingling shouts.

+

+Drawn on by the movement of his troops Napoleon rode with them as far as

+the Dorogomílov gate, but there again stopped and, dismounting from his

+horse, paced for a long time by the Kámmer-Kollézski rampart, awaiting

+the deputation.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XX

+

+Meanwhile Moscow was empty. There were still people in it, perhaps a

+fiftieth part of its former inhabitants had remained, but it was empty.

+It was empty in the sense that a dying queenless hive is empty.

+

+In a queenless hive no life is left though to a superficial glance it

+seems as much alive as other hives.

+

+The bees circle round a queenless hive in the hot beams of the midday

+sun as gaily as around the living hives; from a distance it smells of

+honey like the others, and bees fly in and out in the same way. But one

+has only to observe that hive to realize that there is no longer any

+life in it. The bees do not fly in the same way, the smell and the sound

+that meet the beekeeper are not the same. To the beekeeper’s tap on the

+wall of the sick hive, instead of the former instant unanimous

+humming of tens of thousands of bees with their abdomens threateningly

+compressed, and producing by the rapid vibration of their wings an

+aerial living sound, the only reply is a disconnected buzzing from

+different parts of the deserted hive. From the alighting board, instead

+of the former spirituous fragrant smell of honey and venom, and the warm

+whiffs of crowded life, comes an odor of emptiness and decay mingling

+with the smell of honey. There are no longer sentinels sounding the

+alarm with their abdomens raised, and ready to die in defense of the

+hive. There is no longer the measured quiet sound of throbbing activity,

+like the sound of boiling water, but diverse discordant sounds of

+disorder. In and out of the hive long black robber bees smeared with

+honey fly timidly and shiftily. They do not sting, but crawl away from

+danger. Formerly only bees laden with honey flew into the hive, and they

+flew out empty; now they fly out laden. The beekeeper opens the lower

+part of the hive and peers in. Instead of black, glossy bees—tamed by

+toil, clinging to one another’s legs and drawing out the wax, with a

+ceaseless hum of labor—that used to hang in long clusters down to the

+floor of the hive, drowsy shriveled bees crawl about separately in

+various directions on the floor and walls of the hive. Instead of a

+neatly glued floor, swept by the bees with the fanning of their wings,

+there is a floor littered with bits of wax, excrement, dying bees

+scarcely moving their legs, and dead ones that have not been cleared

+away.

+

+The beekeeper opens the upper part of the hive and examines the super.

+Instead of serried rows of bees sealing up every gap in the combs and

+keeping the brood warm, he sees the skillful complex structures of the

+combs, but no longer in their former state of purity. All is neglected

+and foul. Black robber bees are swiftly and stealthily prowling about

+the combs, and the short home bees, shriveled and listless as if they

+were old, creep slowly about without trying to hinder the robbers,

+having lost all motive and all sense of life. Drones, bumblebees, wasps,

+and butterflies knock awkwardly against the walls of the hive in their

+flight. Here and there among the cells containing dead brood and honey

+an angry buzzing can sometimes be heard. Here and there a couple of

+bees, by force of habit and custom cleaning out the brood cells, with

+efforts beyond their strength laboriously drag away a dead bee or

+bumblebee without knowing why they do it. In another corner two old bees

+are languidly fighting, or cleaning themselves, or feeding one another,

+without themselves knowing whether they do it with friendly or hostile

+intent. In a third place a crowd of bees, crushing one another, attack

+some victim and fight and smother it, and the victim, enfeebled or

+killed, drops from above slowly and lightly as a feather, among the heap

+of corpses. The keeper opens the two center partitions to examine

+the brood cells. In place of the former close dark circles formed by

+thousands of bees sitting back to back and guarding the high mystery

+of generation, he sees hundreds of dull, listless, and sleepy shells of

+bees. They have almost all died unawares, sitting in the sanctuary they

+had guarded and which is now no more. They reek of decay and death. Only

+a few of them still move, rise, and feebly fly to settle on the enemy’s

+hand, lacking the spirit to die stinging him; the rest are dead and fall

+as lightly as fish scales. The beekeeper closes the hive, chalks a mark

+on it, and when he has time tears out its contents and burns it clean.

+

+So in the same way Moscow was empty when Napoleon, weary, uneasy, and

+morose, paced up and down in front of the Kámmer-Kollézski rampart,

+awaiting what to his mind was a necessary, if but formal, observance of

+the proprieties—a deputation.

+

+In various corners of Moscow there still remained a few people aimlessly

+moving about, following their old habits and hardly aware of what they

+were doing.

+

+When with due circumspection Napoleon was informed that Moscow was

+empty, he looked angrily at his informant, turned away, and silently

+continued to walk to and fro.

+

+“My carriage!” he said.

+

+He took his seat beside the aide-de-camp on duty and drove into the

+suburb. “Moscow deserted!” he said to himself. “What an incredible

+event!”

+

+He did not drive into the town, but put up at an inn in the Dorogomílov

+suburb.

+

+The coup de théâtre had not come off.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXI

+

+The Russian troops were passing through Moscow from two o’clock at night

+till two in the afternoon and bore away with them the wounded and the

+last of the inhabitants who were leaving.

+

+The greatest crush during the movement of the troops took place at the

+Stone, Moskvá, and Yaúza bridges.

+

+While the troops, dividing into two parts when passing around the

+Krémlin, were thronging the Moskvá and the Stone bridges, a great many

+soldiers, taking advantage of the stoppage and congestion, turned back

+from the bridges and slipped stealthily and silently past the church of

+Vasíli the Beatified and under the Borovítski gate, back up the hill

+to the Red Square where some instinct told them they could easily take

+things not belonging to them. Crowds of the kind seen at cheap sales

+filled all the passages and alleys of the Bazaar. But there were no

+dealers with voices of ingratiating affability inviting customers to

+enter; there were no hawkers, nor the usual motley crowd of female

+purchasers—but only soldiers, in uniforms and overcoats though without

+muskets, entering the Bazaar empty-handed and silently making their way

+out through its passages with bundles. Tradesmen and their assistants

+(of whom there were but few) moved about among the soldiers quite

+bewildered. They unlocked their shops and locked them up again, and

+themselves carried goods away with the help of their assistants. On the

+square in front of the Bazaar were drummers beating the muster call.

+But the roll of the drums did not make the looting soldiers run in the

+direction of the drum as formerly, but made them, on the contrary, run

+farther away. Among the soldiers in the shops and passages some men were

+to be seen in gray coats, with closely shaven heads. Two officers, one

+with a scarf over his uniform and mounted on a lean, dark-gray horse,

+the other in an overcoat and on foot, stood at the corner of Ilyínka

+Street, talking. A third officer galloped up to them.

+

+“The general orders them all to be driven out at once, without fail.

+This is outrageous! Half the men have dispersed.”

+

+“Where are you off to?... Where?...” he shouted to three infantrymen

+without muskets who, holding up the skirts of their overcoats, were

+slipping past him into the Bazaar passage. “Stop, you rascals!”

+

+“But how are you going to stop them?” replied another officer. “There is

+no getting them together. The army should push on before the rest bolt,

+that’s all!”

+

+“How can one push on? They are stuck there, wedged on the bridge, and

+don’t move. Shouldn’t we put a cordon round to prevent the rest from

+running away?”

+

+“Come, go in there and drive them out!” shouted the senior officer.

+

+The officer in the scarf dismounted, called up a drummer, and went with

+him into the arcade. Some soldiers started running away in a group. A

+shopkeeper with red pimples on his cheeks near the nose, and a calm,

+persistent, calculating expression on his plump face, hurriedly and

+ostentatiously approached the officer, swinging his arms.

+

+“Your honor!” said he. “Be so good as to protect us! We won’t grudge

+trifles, you are welcome to anything—we shall be delighted! Pray!...

+I’ll fetch a piece of cloth at once for such an honorable gentleman,

+or even two pieces with pleasure. For we feel how it is; but what’s all

+this—sheer robbery! If you please, could not guards be placed if only to

+let us close the shop....”

+

+Several shopkeepers crowded round the officer.

+

+“Eh, what twaddle!” said one of them, a thin, stern-looking man. “When

+one’s head is gone one doesn’t weep for one’s hair! Take what any of you

+like!” And flourishing his arm energetically he turned sideways to the

+officer.

+

+“It’s all very well for you, Iván Sidórych, to talk,” said the first

+tradesman angrily. “Please step inside, your honor!”

+

+“Talk indeed!” cried the thin one. “In my three shops here I have a

+hundred thousand rubles’ worth of goods. Can they be saved when the army

+has gone? Eh, what people! ‘Against God’s might our hands can’t fight.’”

+

+“Come inside, your honor!” repeated the tradesman, bowing.

+

+The officer stood perplexed and his face showed indecision.

+

+“It’s not my business!” he exclaimed, and strode on quickly down one of

+the passages.

+

+From one open shop came the sound of blows and vituperation, and just

+as the officer came up to it a man in a gray coat with a shaven head was

+flung out violently.

+

+This man, bent double, rushed past the tradesman and the officer. The

+officer pounced on the soldiers who were in the shops, but at that

+moment fearful screams reached them from the huge crowd on the Moskvá

+bridge and the officer ran out into the square.

+

+“What is it? What is it?” he asked, but his comrade was already

+galloping off past Vasíli the Beatified in the direction from which the

+screams came.

+

+The officer mounted his horse and rode after him. When he reached the

+bridge he saw two unlimbered guns, the infantry crossing the bridge,

+several overturned carts, and frightened and laughing faces among the

+troops. Beside the cannon a cart was standing to which two horses were

+harnessed. Four borzois with collars were pressing close to the wheels.

+The cart was loaded high, and at the very top, beside a child’s chair

+with its legs in the air, sat a peasant woman uttering piercing and

+desperate shrieks. He was told by his fellow officers that the screams

+of the crowd and the shrieks of the woman were due to the fact that

+General Ermólov, coming up to the crowd and learning that soldiers were

+dispersing among the shops while crowds of civilians blocked the bridge,

+had ordered two guns to be unlimbered and made a show of firing at the

+bridge. The crowd, crushing one another, upsetting carts, and shouting

+and squeezing desperately, had cleared off the bridge and the troops

+were now moving forward.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXII

+

+Meanwhile, the city itself was deserted. There was hardly anyone in the

+streets. The gates and shops were all closed, only here and there round

+the taverns solitary shouts or drunken songs could be heard. Nobody

+drove through the streets and footsteps were rarely heard. The

+Povarskáya was quite still and deserted. The huge courtyard of the

+Rostóvs’ house was littered with wisps of hay and with dung from the

+horses, and not a soul was to be seen there. In the great drawing

+room of the house, which had been left with all it contained, were

+two people. They were the yard porter Ignát, and the page boy Míshka,

+Vasílich’s grandson who had stayed in Moscow with his grandfather.

+Míshka had opened the clavichord and was strumming on it with

+one finger. The yard porter, his arms akimbo, stood smiling with

+satisfaction before the large mirror.

+

+“Isn’t it fine, eh, Uncle Ignát?” said the boy, suddenly beginning to

+strike the keyboard with both hands.

+

+“Only fancy!” answered Ignát, surprised at the broadening grin on his

+face in the mirror.

+

+“Impudence! Impudence!” they heard behind them the voice of Mávra

+Kuzmínichna who had entered silently. “How he’s grinning, the fat mug!

+Is that what you’re here for? Nothing’s cleared away down there and

+Vasílich is worn out. Just you wait a bit!”

+

+Ignát left off smiling, adjusted his belt, and went out of the room with

+meekly downcast eyes.

+

+“Aunt, I did it gently,” said the boy.

+

+“I’ll give you something gently, you monkey you!” cried Mávra

+Kuzmínichna, raising her arm threateningly. “Go and get the samovar to

+boil for your grandfather.”

+

+Mávra Kuzmínichna flicked the dust off the clavichord and closed it, and

+with a deep sigh left the drawing room and locked its main door.

+

+Going out into the yard she paused to consider where she should go

+next—to drink tea in the servants’ wing with Vasílich, or into the

+storeroom to put away what still lay about.

+

+She heard the sound of quick footsteps in the quiet street. Someone

+stopped at the gate, and the latch rattled as someone tried to open it.

+Mávra Kuzmínichna went to the gate.

+

+“Who do you want?”

+

+“The count—Count Ilyá Andréevich Rostóv.”

+

+“And who are you?”

+

+“An officer, I have to see him,” came the reply in a pleasant, well-bred

+Russian voice.

+

+Mávra Kuzmínichna opened the gate and an officer of eighteen, with the

+round face of a Rostóv, entered the yard.

+

+“They have gone away, sir. Went away yesterday at vespertime,” said

+Mávra Kuzmínichna cordially.

+

+The young officer standing in the gateway, as if hesitating whether to

+enter or not, clicked his tongue.

+

+“Ah, how annoying!” he muttered. “I should have come yesterday.... Ah,

+what a pity.”

+

+Meanwhile, Mávra Kuzmínichna was attentively and sympathetically

+examining the familiar Rostóv features of the young man’s face, his

+tattered coat and trodden-down boots.

+

+“What did you want to see the count for?” she asked.

+

+“Oh well... it can’t be helped!” said he in a tone of vexation and

+placed his hand on the gate as if to leave.

+

+He again paused in indecision.

+

+“You see,” he suddenly said, “I am a kinsman of the count’s and he has

+been very kind to me. As you see” (he glanced with an amused air and

+good-natured smile at his coat and boots) “my things are worn out and I

+have no money, so I was going to ask the count...”

+

+Mávra Kuzmínichna did not let him finish.

+

+“Just wait a minute, sir. One little moment,” said she.

+

+And as soon as the officer let go of the gate handle she turned and,

+hurrying away on her old legs, went through the back yard to the

+servants’ quarters.

+

+While Mávra Kuzmínichna was running to her room the officer walked about

+the yard gazing at his worn-out boots with lowered head and a faint

+smile on his lips. “What a pity I’ve missed Uncle! What a nice old

+woman! Where has she run off to? And how am I to find the nearest way

+to overtake my regiment, which must by now be getting near the Rogózhski

+gate?” thought he. Just then Mávra Kuzmínichna appeared from behind

+the corner of the house with a frightened yet resolute look, carrying a

+rolled-up check kerchief in her hand. While still a few steps from

+the officer she unfolded the kerchief and took out of it a white

+twenty-five-ruble assignat and hastily handed it to him.

+

+“If his excellency had been at home, as a kinsman he would of course...

+but as it is...”

+

+Mávra Kuzmínichna grew abashed and confused. The officer did not

+decline, but took the note quietly and thanked her.

+

+“If the count had been at home...” Mávra Kuzmínichna went on

+apologetically. “Christ be with you, sir! May God preserve you!” said

+she, bowing as she saw him out.

+

+Swaying his head and smiling as if amused at himself, the officer ran

+almost at a trot through the deserted streets toward the Yaúza bridge to

+overtake his regiment.

+

+But Mávra Kuzmínichna stood at the closed gate for some time with moist

+eyes, pensively swaying her head and feeling an unexpected flow of

+motherly tenderness and pity for the unknown young officer.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIII

+

+From an unfinished house on the Varvárka, the ground floor of which was

+a dramshop, came drunken shouts and songs. On benches round the tables

+in a dirty little room sat some ten factory hands. Tipsy and perspiring,

+with dim eyes and wide-open mouths, they were all laboriously singing

+some song or other. They were singing discordantly, arduously, and with

+great effort, evidently not because they wished to sing, but because

+they wanted to show they were drunk and on a spree. One, a tall,

+fair-haired lad in a clean blue coat, was standing over the others. His

+face with its fine straight nose would have been handsome had it not

+been for his thin, compressed, twitching lips and dull, gloomy, fixed

+eyes. Evidently possessed by some idea, he stood over those who were

+singing, and solemnly and jerkily flourished above their heads his white

+arm with the sleeve turned up to the elbow, trying unnaturally to spread

+out his dirty fingers. The sleeve of his coat kept slipping down and he

+always carefully rolled it up again with his left hand, as if it were

+most important that the sinewy white arm he was flourishing should be

+bare. In the midst of the song cries were heard, and fighting and blows

+in the passage and porch. The tall lad waved his arm.

+

+“Stop it!” he exclaimed peremptorily. “There’s a fight, lads!” And,

+still rolling up his sleeve, he went out to the porch.

+

+The factory hands followed him. These men, who under the leadership of

+the tall lad were drinking in the dramshop that morning, had brought the

+publican some skins from the factory and for this had had drink served

+them. The blacksmiths from a neighboring smithy, hearing the sounds of

+revelry in the tavern and supposing it to have been broken into, wished

+to force their way in too and a fight in the porch had resulted.

+

+The publican was fighting one of the smiths at the door, and when the

+workmen came out the smith, wrenching himself free from the tavern

+keeper, fell face downward on the pavement.

+

+Another smith tried to enter the doorway, pressing against the publican

+with his chest.

+

+The lad with the turned-up sleeve gave the smith a blow in the face and

+cried wildly: “They’re fighting us, lads!”

+

+At that moment the first smith got up and, scratching his bruised

+face to make it bleed, shouted in a tearful voice: “Police! Murder!...

+They’ve killed a man, lads!”

+

+“Oh, gracious me, a man beaten to death—killed!...” screamed a woman

+coming out of a gate close by.

+

+A crowd gathered round the bloodstained smith.

+

+“Haven’t you robbed people enough—taking their last shirts?” said a

+voice addressing the publican. “What have you killed a man for, you

+thief?”

+

+The tall lad, standing in the porch, turned his bleared eyes from the

+publican to the smith and back again as if considering whom he ought to

+fight now.

+

+“Murderer!” he shouted suddenly to the publican. “Bind him, lads!”

+

+“I daresay you would like to bind me!” shouted the publican, pushing

+away the men advancing on him, and snatching his cap from his head he

+flung it on the ground.

+

+As if this action had some mysterious and menacing significance, the

+workmen surrounding the publican paused in indecision.

+

+“I know the law very well, mates! I’ll take the matter to the captain

+of police. You think I won’t get to him? Robbery is not permitted to

+anybody nowadays!” shouted the publican, picking up his cap.

+

+“Come along then! Come along then!” the publican and the tall young

+fellow repeated one after the other, and they moved up the street

+together.

+

+The bloodstained smith went beside them. The factory hands and others

+followed behind, talking and shouting.

+

+At the corner of the Moroséyka, opposite a large house with closed

+shutters and bearing a bootmaker’s signboard, stood a score of thin,

+worn-out, gloomy-faced bootmakers, wearing overalls and long tattered

+coats.

+

+“He should pay folks off properly,” a thin workingman, with frowning

+brows and a straggly beard, was saying.

+

+“But he’s sucked our blood and now he thinks he’s quit of us. He’s been

+misleading us all the week and now that he’s brought us to this pass

+he’s made off.”

+

+On seeing the crowd and the bloodstained man the workman ceased

+speaking, and with eager curiosity all the bootmakers joined the moving

+crowd.

+

+“Where are all the folks going?”

+

+“Why, to the police, of course!”

+

+“I say, is it true that we have been beaten?” “And what did you think?

+Look what folks are saying.”

+

+Questions and answers were heard. The publican, taking advantage of the

+increased crowd, dropped behind and returned to his tavern.

+

+The tall youth, not noticing the disappearance of his foe, waved his

+bare arm and went on talking incessantly, attracting general attention

+to himself. It was around him that the people chiefly crowded, expecting

+answers from him to the questions that occupied all their minds.

+

+“He must keep order, keep the law, that’s what the government is there

+for. Am I not right, good Christians?” said the tall youth, with a

+scarcely perceptible smile. “He thinks there’s no government! How can

+one do without government? Or else there would be plenty who’d rob us.”

+

+“Why talk nonsense?” rejoined voices in the crowd. “Will they give

+up Moscow like this? They told you that for fun, and you believed it!

+Aren’t there plenty of troops on the march? Let him in, indeed! That’s

+what the government is for. You’d better listen to what people are

+saying,” said some of the mob pointing to the tall youth.

+

+By the wall of China-Town a smaller group of people were gathered round

+a man in a frieze coat who held a paper in his hand.

+

+“An ukáse, they are reading an ukáse! Reading an ukáse!” cried voices in

+the crowd, and the people rushed toward the reader.

+

+The man in the frieze coat was reading the broadsheet of August 31. When

+the crowd collected round him he seemed confused, but at the demand

+of the tall lad who had pushed his way up to him, he began in a rather

+tremulous voice to read the sheet from the beginning.

+

+“Early tomorrow I shall go to his Serene Highness,” he read (“Sirin

+Highness,” said the tall fellow with a triumphant smile on his lips and

+a frown on his brow), “to consult with him to act, and to aid the army

+to exterminate these scoundrels. We too will take part...” the reader

+went on, and then paused (“Do you see,” shouted the youth victoriously,

+“he’s going to clear up the whole affair for you....”), “in destroying

+them, and will send these visitors to the devil. I will come back to

+dinner, and we’ll set to work. We will do, completely do, and undo these

+scoundrels.”

+

+The last words were read out in the midst of complete silence. The tall

+lad hung his head gloomily. It was evident that no one had understood

+the last part. In particular, the words “I will come back to dinner,”

+evidently displeased both reader and audience. The people’s minds

+were tuned to a high pitch and this was too simple and needlessly

+comprehensible—it was what anyone of them might have said and therefore

+was what an ukáse emanating from the highest authority should not say.

+

+They all stood despondent and silent. The tall youth moved his lips and

+swayed from side to side.

+

+“We should ask him... that’s he himself?”... “Yes, ask him indeed!...

+Why not? He’ll explain”... voices in the rear of the crowd were

+suddenly heard saying, and the general attention turned to the police

+superintendent’s trap which drove into the square attended by two

+mounted dragoons.

+

+The superintendent of police, who had gone that morning by Count

+Rostopchín’s orders to burn the barges and had in connection with that

+matter acquired a large sum of money which was at that moment in his

+pocket, on seeing a crowd bearing down upon him told his coachman to

+stop.

+

+“What people are these?” he shouted to the men, who were moving singly

+and timidly in the direction of his trap.

+

+“What people are these?” he shouted again, receiving no answer.

+

+“Your honor...” replied the shopman in the frieze coat, “your honor, in

+accord with the proclamation of his highest excellency the count, they

+desire to serve, not sparing their lives, and it is not any kind of

+riot, but as his highest excellence said...”

+

+“The count has not left, he is here, and an order will be issued

+concerning you,” said the superintendent of police. “Go on!” he ordered

+his coachman.

+

+The crowd halted, pressing around those who had heard what the

+superintendent had said, and looking at the departing trap.

+

+The superintendent of police turned round at that moment with a scared

+look, said something to his coachman, and his horses increased their

+speed.

+

+“It’s a fraud, lads! Lead the way to him, himself!” shouted the tall

+youth. “Don’t let him go, lads! Let him answer us! Keep him!” shouted

+different people and the people dashed in pursuit of the trap.

+

+Following the superintendent of police and talking loudly the crowd went

+in the direction of the Lubyánka Street.

+

+“There now, the gentry and merchants have gone away and left us to

+perish. Do they think we’re dogs?” voices in the crowd were heard saying

+more and more frequently.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIV

+

+On the evening of the first of September, after his interview with

+Kutúzov, Count Rostopchín had returned to Moscow mortified and offended

+because he had not been invited to attend the council of war, and

+because Kutúzov had paid no attention to his offer to take part in the

+defense of the city; amazed also at the novel outlook revealed to him

+at the camp, which treated the tranquillity of the capital and its

+patriotic fervor as not merely secondary but quite irrelevant and

+unimportant matters. Distressed, offended, and surprised by all this,

+Rostopchín had returned to Moscow. After supper he lay down on a sofa

+without undressing, and was awakened soon after midnight by a courier

+bringing him a letter from Kutúzov. This letter requested the count to

+send police officers to guide the troops through the town, as the army

+was retreating to the Ryazán road beyond Moscow. This was not news to

+Rostopchín. He had known that Moscow would be abandoned not merely since

+his interview the previous day with Kutúzov on the Poklónny Hill but

+ever since the battle of Borodinó, for all the generals who came to

+Moscow after that battle had said unanimously that it was impossible to

+fight another battle, and since then the government property had been

+removed every night, and half the inhabitants had left the city

+with Rostopchín’s own permission. Yet all the same this information

+astonished and irritated the count, coming as it did in the form of a

+simple note with an order from Kutúzov, and received at night, breaking

+in on his beauty sleep.

+

+When later on in his memoirs Count Rostopchín explained his actions at

+this time, he repeatedly says that he was then actuated by two important

+considerations: to maintain tranquillity in Moscow and expedite the

+departure of the inhabitants. If one accepts this twofold aim all

+Rostopchín’s actions appear irreproachable. “Why were the holy relics,

+the arms, ammunition, gunpowder, and stores of corn not removed? Why

+were thousands of inhabitants deceived into believing that Moscow would

+not be given up—and thereby ruined?” “To preserve the tranquillity

+of the city,” explains Count Rostopchín. “Why were bundles of useless

+papers from the government offices, and Leppich’s balloon and other

+articles removed?” “To leave the town empty,” explains Count Rostopchín.

+One need only admit that public tranquillity is in danger and any action

+finds a justification.

+

+All the horrors of the reign of terror were based only on solicitude for

+public tranquillity.

+

+On what, then, was Count Rostopchín’s fear for the tranquillity of

+Moscow based in 1812? What reason was there for assuming any probability

+of an uprising in the city? The inhabitants were leaving it and the

+retreating troops were filling it. Why should that cause the masses to

+riot?

+

+Neither in Moscow nor anywhere in Russia did anything resembling an

+insurrection ever occur when the enemy entered a town. More than

+ten thousand people were still in Moscow on the first and second of

+September, and except for a mob in the governor’s courtyard, assembled

+there at his bidding, nothing happened. It is obvious that there would

+have been even less reason to expect a disturbance among the people

+if after the battle of Borodinó, when the surrender of Moscow became

+certain or at least probable, Rostopchín instead of exciting the people

+by distributing arms and broadsheets had taken steps to remove all

+the holy relics, the gunpowder, munitions, and money, and had told the

+population plainly that the town would be abandoned.

+

+Rostopchín, though he had patriotic sentiments, was a sanguine and

+impulsive man who had always moved in the highest administrative circles

+and had no understanding at all of the people he supposed himself to

+be guiding. Ever since the enemy’s entry into Smolénsk he had in

+imagination been playing the role of director of the popular feeling

+of “the heart of Russia.” Not only did it seem to him (as to all

+administrators) that he controlled the external actions of Moscow’s

+inhabitants, but he also thought he controlled their mental attitude by

+means of his broadsheets and posters, written in a coarse tone which the

+people despise in their own class and do not understand from those in

+authority. Rostopchín was so pleased with the fine role of leader of

+popular feeling, and had grown so used to it, that the necessity of

+relinquishing that role and abandoning Moscow without any heroic display

+took him unawares and he suddenly felt the ground slip away from under

+his feet, so that he positively did not know what to do. Though he knew

+it was coming, he did not till the last moment wholeheartedly believe

+that Moscow would be abandoned, and did not prepare for it. The

+inhabitants left against his wishes. If the government offices were

+removed, this was only done on the demand of officials to whom the count

+yielded reluctantly. He was absorbed in the role he had created

+for himself. As is often the case with those gifted with an ardent

+imagination, though he had long known that Moscow would be abandoned he

+knew it only with his intellect, he did not believe it in his heart and

+did not adapt himself mentally to this new position of affairs.

+

+All his painstaking and energetic activity (in how far it was useful

+and had any effect on the people is another question) had been simply

+directed toward arousing in the masses his own feeling of patriotic

+hatred of the French.

+

+But when events assumed their true historical character, when expressing

+hatred for the French in words proved insufficient, when it was not

+even possible to express that hatred by fighting a battle, when

+self-confidence was of no avail in relation to the one question before

+Moscow, when the whole population streamed out of Moscow as one man,

+abandoning their belongings and proving by that negative action all

+the depth of their national feeling, then the role chosen by Rostopchín

+suddenly appeared senseless. He unexpectedly felt himself ridiculous,

+weak, and alone, with no ground to stand on.

+

+When, awakened from his sleep, he received that cold, peremptory note

+from Kutúzov, he felt the more irritated the more he felt himself

+to blame. All that he had been specially put in charge of, the state

+property which he should have removed, was still in Moscow and it was no

+longer possible to take the whole of it away.

+

+“Who is to blame for it? Who has let things come to such a pass?” he

+ruminated. “Not I, of course. I had everything ready. I had Moscow

+firmly in hand. And this is what they have let it come to! Villains!

+Traitors!” he thought, without clearly defining who the villains and

+traitors were, but feeling it necessary to hate those traitors whoever

+they might be who were to blame for the false and ridiculous position in

+which he found himself.

+

+All that night Count Rostopchín issued orders, for which people came to

+him from all parts of Moscow. Those about him had never seen the count

+so morose and irritable.

+

+“Your excellency, the Director of the Registrar’s Department has sent

+for instructions.... From the Consistory, from the Senate, from the

+University, from the Foundling Hospital, the Suffragan has sent...

+asking for information.... What are your orders about the Fire Brigade?

+From the governor of the prison... from the superintendent of the

+lunatic asylum...” All night long such announcements were continually

+being received by the count.

+

+To all these inquiries he gave brief and angry replies indicating that

+orders from him were not now needed, that the whole affair, carefully

+prepared by him, had now been ruined by somebody, and that that somebody

+would have to bear the whole responsibility for all that might happen.

+

+“Oh, tell that blockhead,” he said in reply to the question from the

+Registrar’s Department, “that he should remain to guard his documents.

+Now why are you asking silly questions about the Fire Brigade? They have

+horses, let them be off to Vladímir, and not leave them to the French.”

+

+“Your excellency, the superintendent of the lunatic asylum has come:

+what are your commands?”

+

+“My commands? Let them go away, that’s all.... And let the lunatics

+out into the town. When lunatics command our armies God evidently means

+these other madmen to be free.”

+

+In reply to an inquiry about the convicts in the prison, Count

+Rostopchín shouted angrily at the governor:

+

+“Do you expect me to give you two battalions—which we have not got—for a

+convoy? Release them, that’s all about it!”

+

+“Your excellency, there are some political prisoners, Meshkóv,

+Vereshchágin...”

+

+“Vereshchágin! Hasn’t he been hanged yet?” shouted Rostopchín. “Bring

+him to me!”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXV

+

+Toward nine o’clock in the morning, when the troops were already moving

+through Moscow, nobody came to the count any more for instructions.

+Those who were able to get away were going of their own accord, those

+who remained behind decided for themselves what they must do.

+

+The count ordered his carriage that he might drive to Sokólniki, and sat

+in his study with folded hands, morose, sallow, and taciturn.

+

+In quiet and untroubled times it seems to every administrator that it

+is only by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is

+kept going, and in this consciousness of being indispensable every

+administrator finds the chief reward of his labor and efforts. While the

+sea of history remains calm the ruler-administrator in his frail bark,

+holding on with a boat hook to the ship of the people and himself

+moving, naturally imagines that his efforts move the ship he is holding

+on to. But as soon as a storm arises and the sea begins to heave and

+the ship to move, such a delusion is no longer possible. The ship moves

+independently with its own enormous motion, the boat hook no longer

+reaches the moving vessel, and suddenly the administrator, instead

+of appearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant,

+useless, feeble man.

+

+Rostopchín felt this, and it was this which exasperated him.

+

+The superintendent of police, whom the crowd had stopped, went in to

+see him at the same time as an adjutant who informed the count that the

+horses were harnessed. They were both pale, and the superintendent of

+police, after reporting that he had executed the instructions he had

+received, informed the count that an immense crowd had collected in the

+courtyard and wished to see him.

+

+Without saying a word Rostopchín rose and walked hastily to his light,

+luxurious drawing room, went to the balcony door, took hold of the

+handle, let it go again, and went to the window from which he had a

+better view of the whole crowd. The tall lad was standing in front,

+flourishing his arm and saying something with a stern look. The

+blood-stained smith stood beside him with a gloomy face. A drone of

+voices was audible through the closed window.

+

+“Is my carriage ready?” asked Rostopchín, stepping back from the window.

+

+“It is, your excellency,” replied the adjutant.

+

+Rostopchín went again to the balcony door.

+

+“But what do they want?” he asked the superintendent of police.

+

+“Your excellency, they say they have got ready, according to your

+orders, to go against the French, and they shouted something about

+treachery. But it is a turbulent crowd, your excellency—I hardly managed

+to get away from it. Your excellency, I venture to suggest...”

+

+“You may go. I don’t need you to tell me what to do!” exclaimed

+Rostopchín angrily.

+

+He stood by the balcony door looking at the crowd.

+

+“This is what they have done with Russia! This is what they have done

+with me!” thought he, full of an irrepressible fury that welled up

+within him against the someone to whom what was happening might be

+attributed. As often happens with passionate people, he was mastered by

+anger but was still seeking an object on which to vent it. “Here is

+that mob, the dregs of the people,” he thought as he gazed at the crowd:

+“this rabble they have roused by their folly! They want a victim,”

+he thought as he looked at the tall lad flourishing his arm. And this

+thought occurred to him just because he himself desired a victim,

+something on which to vent his rage.

+

+“Is the carriage ready?” he asked again.

+

+“Yes, your excellency. What are your orders about Vereshchágin? He is

+waiting at the porch,” said the adjutant.

+

+“Ah!” exclaimed Rostopchín, as if struck by an unexpected recollection.

+

+And rapidly opening the door he went resolutely out onto the balcony.

+The talking instantly ceased, hats and caps were doffed, and all eyes

+were raised to the count.

+

+“Good morning, lads!” said the count briskly and loudly. “Thank you for

+coming. I’ll come out to you in a moment, but we must first settle

+with the villain. We must punish the villain who has caused the ruin of

+Moscow. Wait for me!”

+

+And the count stepped as briskly back into the room and slammed the door

+behind him.

+

+A murmur of approbation and satisfaction ran through the crowd. “He’ll

+settle with all the villains, you’ll see! And you said the French...

+He’ll show you what law is!” the mob were saying as if reproving one

+another for their lack of confidence.

+

+A few minutes later an officer came hurriedly out of the front door,

+gave an order, and the dragoons formed up in line. The crowd moved

+eagerly from the balcony toward the porch. Rostopchín, coming out there

+with quick angry steps, looked hastily around as if seeking someone.

+

+“Where is he?” he inquired. And as he spoke he saw a young man coming

+round the corner of the house between two dragoons. He had a long thin

+neck, and his head, that had been half shaved, was again covered by

+short hair. This young man was dressed in a threadbare blue cloth coat

+lined with fox fur, that had once been smart, and dirty hempen convict

+trousers, over which were pulled his thin, dirty, trodden-down boots.

+On his thin, weak legs were heavy chains which hampered his irresolute

+movements.

+

+“Ah!” said Rostopchín, hurriedly turning away his eyes from the young

+man in the fur-lined coat and pointing to the bottom step of the porch.

+“Put him there.”

+

+The young man in his clattering chains stepped clumsily to the spot

+indicated, holding away with one finger the coat collar which chafed

+his neck, turned his long neck twice this way and that, sighed, and

+submissively folded before him his thin hands, unused to work.

+

+For several seconds while the young man was taking his place on the step

+the silence continued. Only among the back rows of the people, who were

+all pressing toward the one spot, could sighs, groans, and the shuffling

+of feet be heard.

+

+While waiting for the young man to take his place on the step Rostopchín

+stood frowning and rubbing his face with his hand.

+

+“Lads!” said he, with a metallic ring in his voice. “This man,

+Vereshchágin, is the scoundrel by whose doing Moscow is perishing.”

+

+The young man in the fur-lined coat, stooping a little, stood in a

+submissive attitude, his fingers clasped before him. His emaciated young

+face, disfigured by the half-shaven head, hung down hopelessly. At

+the count’s first words he raised it slowly and looked up at him as if

+wishing to say something or at least to meet his eye. But Rostopchín did

+not look at him. A vein in the young man’s long thin neck swelled like a

+cord and went blue behind the ear, and suddenly his face flushed.

+

+All eyes were fixed on him. He looked at the crowd, and rendered more

+hopeful by the expression he read on the faces there, he smiled sadly

+and timidly, and lowering his head shifted his feet on the step.

+

+“He has betrayed his Tsar and his country, he has gone over to

+Bonaparte. He alone of all the Russians has disgraced the Russian name,

+he has caused Moscow to perish,” said Rostopchín in a sharp, even voice,

+but suddenly he glanced down at Vereshchágin who continued to stand in

+the same submissive attitude. As if inflamed by the sight, he raised his

+arm and addressed the people, almost shouting:

+

+“Deal with him as you think fit! I hand him over to you.”

+

+The crowd remained silent and only pressed closer and closer to

+one another. To keep one another back, to breathe in that stifling

+atmosphere, to be unable to stir, and to await something unknown,

+uncomprehended, and terrible, was becoming unbearable. Those standing

+in front, who had seen and heard what had taken place before them, all

+stood with wide-open eyes and mouths, straining with all their strength,

+and held back the crowd that was pushing behind them.

+

+“Beat him!... Let the traitor perish and not disgrace the Russian name!”

+shouted Rostopchín. “Cut him down. I command it.”

+

+Hearing not so much the words as the angry tone of Rostopchín’s voice,

+the crowd moaned and heaved forward, but again paused.

+

+“Count!” exclaimed the timid yet theatrical voice of Vereshchágin in the

+midst of the momentary silence that ensued, “Count! One God is above us

+both....” He lifted his head and again the thick vein in his thin neck

+filled with blood and the color rapidly came and went in his face.

+

+He did not finish what he wished to say.

+

+“Cut him down! I command it...” shouted Rostopchín, suddenly growing

+pale like Vereshchágin.

+

+“Draw sabers!” cried the dragoon officer, drawing his own.

+

+Another still stronger wave flowed through the crowd and reaching the

+front ranks carried it swaying to the very steps of the porch. The tall

+youth, with a stony look on his face, and rigid and uplifted arm, stood

+beside Vereshchágin.

+

+“Saber him!” the dragoon officer almost whispered.

+

+And one of the soldiers, his face all at once distorted with fury,

+struck Vereshchágin on the head with the blunt side of his saber.

+

+“Ah!” cried Vereshchágin in meek surprise, looking round with a

+frightened glance as if not understanding why this was done to him. A

+similar moan of surprise and horror ran through the crowd. “O Lord!”

+exclaimed a sorrowful voice.

+

+But after the exclamation of surprise that had escaped from Vereshchágin

+he uttered a plaintive cry of pain, and that cry was fatal. The barrier

+of human feeling, strained to the utmost, that had held the crowd in

+check suddenly broke. The crime had begun and must now be completed. The

+plaintive moan of reproach was drowned by the threatening and angry roar

+of the crowd. Like the seventh and last wave that shatters a ship, that

+last irresistible wave burst from the rear and reached the front ranks,

+carrying them off their feet and engulfing them all. The dragoon was

+about to repeat his blow. Vereshchágin with a cry of horror, covering

+his head with his hands, rushed toward the crowd. The tall youth,

+against whom he stumbled, seized his thin neck with his hands and,

+yelling wildly, fell with him under the feet of the pressing, struggling

+crowd.

+

+Some beat and tore at Vereshchágin, others at the tall youth. And the

+screams of those that were being trampled on and of those who tried to

+rescue the tall lad only increased the fury of the crowd. It was a long

+time before the dragoons could extricate the bleeding youth, beaten

+almost to death. And for a long time, despite the feverish haste with

+which the mob tried to end the work that had been begun, those who were

+hitting, throttling, and tearing at Vereshchágin were unable to kill

+him, for the crowd pressed from all sides, swaying as one mass with them

+in the center and rendering it impossible for them either to kill him or

+let him go.

+

+“Hit him with an ax, eh!... Crushed?... Traitor, he sold Christ....

+Still alive... tenacious... serves him right! Torture serves a thief

+right. Use the hatchet!... What—still alive?”

+

+Only when the victim ceased to struggle and his cries changed to a

+long-drawn, measured death rattle did the crowd around his prostrate,

+bleeding corpse begin rapidly to change places. Each one came

+up, glanced at what had been done, and with horror, reproach, and

+astonishment pushed back again.

+

+“O Lord! The people are like wild beasts! How could he be alive?” voices

+in the crowd could be heard saying. “Quite a young fellow too... must

+have been a merchant’s son. What men!... and they say he’s not the right

+one.... How not the right one?... O Lord! And there’s another has been

+beaten too—they say he’s nearly done for.... Oh, the people... Aren’t

+they afraid of sinning?...” said the same mob now, looking with pained

+distress at the dead body with its long, thin, half-severed neck and its

+livid face stained with blood and dust.

+

+A painstaking police officer, considering the presence of a corpse in

+his excellency’s courtyard unseemly, told the dragoons to take it away.

+Two dragoons took it by its distorted legs and dragged it along the

+ground. The gory, dust-stained, half-shaven head with its long neck

+trailed twisting along the ground. The crowd shrank back from it.

+

+At the moment when Vereshchágin fell and the crowd closed in with savage

+yells and swayed about him, Rostopchín suddenly turned pale and, instead

+of going to the back entrance where his carriage awaited him, went

+with hurried steps and bent head, not knowing where and why, along the

+passage leading to the rooms on the ground floor. The count’s face was

+white and he could not control the feverish twitching of his lower jaw.

+

+“This way, your excellency... Where are you going?... This way,

+please...” said a trembling, frightened voice behind him.

+

+Count Rostopchín was unable to reply and, turning obediently, went in

+the direction indicated. At the back entrance stood his calèche. The

+distant roar of the yelling crowd was audible even there. He hastily

+took his seat and told the coachman to drive him to his country house in

+Sokólniki.

+

+When they reached the Myasnítski Street and could no longer hear

+the shouts of the mob, the count began to repent. He remembered with

+dissatisfaction the agitation and fear he had betrayed before his

+subordinates. “The mob is terrible—disgusting,” he said to himself

+in French. “They are like wolves whom nothing but flesh can appease.”

+“Count! One God is above us both!”—Vereshchágin’s words suddenly

+recurred to him, and a disagreeable shiver ran down his back. But this

+was only a momentary feeling and Count Rostopchín smiled disdainfully

+at himself. “I had other duties,” thought he. “The people had to be

+appeased. Many other victims have perished and are perishing for the

+public good”—and he began thinking of his social duties to his family

+and to the city entrusted to him, and of himself—not himself as Theodore

+Vasílyevich Rostopchín (he fancied that Theodore Vasílyevich Rostopchín

+was sacrificing himself for the public good) but himself as governor,

+the representative of authority and of the Tsar. “Had I been simply

+Theodore Vasílyevich my course of action would have been quite

+different, but it was my duty to safeguard my life and dignity as

+commander in chief.”

+

+Lightly swaying on the flexible springs of his carriage and no longer

+hearing the terrible sounds of the crowd, Rostopchín grew physically

+calm and, as always happens, as soon as he became physically tranquil

+his mind devised reasons why he should be mentally tranquil too. The

+thought which tranquillized Rostopchín was not a new one. Since the

+world began and men have killed one another no one has ever committed

+such a crime against his fellow man without comforting himself with

+this same idea. This idea is le bien public, the hypothetical welfare of

+other people.

+

+To a man not swayed by passion that welfare is never certain, but he

+who commits such a crime always knows just where that welfare lies. And

+Rostopchín now knew it.

+

+Not only did his reason not reproach him for what he had done, but

+he even found cause for self-satisfaction in having so successfully

+contrived to avail himself of a convenient opportunity to punish a

+criminal and at the same time pacify the mob.

+

+“Vereshchágin was tried and condemned to death,” thought Rostopchín

+(though the Senate had only condemned Vereshchágin to hard labor), “he

+was a traitor and a spy. I could not let him go unpunished and so I have

+killed two birds with one stone: to appease the mob I gave them a victim

+and at the same time punished a miscreant.”

+

+Having reached his country house and begun to give orders about domestic

+arrangements, the count grew quite tranquil.

+

+Half an hour later he was driving with his fast horses across the

+Sokólniki field, no longer thinking of what had occurred but considering

+what was to come. He was driving to the Yaúza bridge where he had heard

+that Kutúzov was. Count Rostopchín was mentally preparing the angry and

+stinging reproaches he meant to address to Kutúzov for his deception. He

+would make that foxy old courtier feel that the responsibility for all

+the calamities that would follow the abandonment of the city and the

+ruin of Russia (as Rostopchín regarded it) would fall upon his doting

+old head. Planning beforehand what he would say to Kutúzov, Rostopchín

+turned angrily in his calèche and gazed sternly from side to side.

+

+The Sokólniki field was deserted. Only at the end of it, in front of the

+almshouse and the lunatic asylum, could be seen some people in white

+and others like them walking singly across the field shouting and

+gesticulating.

+

+One of these was running to cross the path of Count Rostopchín’s

+carriage, and the count himself, his coachman, and his dragoons

+looked with vague horror and curiosity at these released lunatics and

+especially at the one running toward them.

+

+Swaying from side to side on his long, thin legs in his fluttering

+dressing gown, this lunatic was running impetuously, his gaze fixed on

+Rostopchín, shouting something in a hoarse voice and making signs to him

+to stop. The lunatic’s solemn, gloomy face was thin and yellow, with

+its beard growing in uneven tufts. His black, agate pupils with

+saffron-yellow whites moved restlessly near the lower eyelids.

+

+“Stop! Pull up, I tell you!” he cried in a piercing voice, and again

+shouted something breathlessly with emphatic intonations and gestures.

+

+Coming abreast of the calèche he ran beside it.

+

+“Thrice have they slain me, thrice have I risen from the dead. They

+stoned me, crucified me... I shall rise... shall rise... shall rise.

+They have torn my body. The kingdom of God will be overthrown... Thrice

+will I overthrow it and thrice re-establish it!” he cried, raising his

+voice higher and higher.

+

+Count Rostopchín suddenly grew pale as he had done when the crowd closed

+in on Vereshchágin. He turned away. “Go fas... faster!” he cried in a

+trembling voice to his coachman. The calèche flew over the ground as

+fast as the horses could draw it, but for a long time Count Rostopchín

+still heard the insane despairing screams growing fainter in the

+distance, while his eyes saw nothing but the astonished, frightened,

+bloodstained face of “the traitor” in the fur-lined coat.

+

+Recent as that mental picture was, Rostopchín already felt that it had

+cut deep into his heart and drawn blood. Even now he felt clearly that

+the gory trace of that recollection would not pass with time, but that

+the terrible memory would, on the contrary, dwell in his heart ever more

+cruelly and painfully to the end of his life. He seemed still to hear

+the sound of his own words: “Cut him down! I command it....”

+

+“Why did I utter those words? It was by some accident I said them....

+I need not have said them,” he thought. “And then nothing would have

+happened.” He saw the frightened and then infuriated face of the dragoon

+who dealt the blow, the look of silent, timid reproach that boy in the

+fur-lined coat had turned upon him. “But I did not do it for my own

+sake. I was bound to act that way.... The mob, the traitor... the public

+welfare,” thought he.

+

+Troops were still crowding at the Yaúza bridge. It was hot. Kutúzov,

+dejected and frowning, sat on a bench by the bridge toying with his

+whip in the sand when a calèche dashed up noisily. A man in a general’s

+uniform with plumes in his hat went up to Kutúzov and said something

+in French. It was Count Rostopchín. He told Kutúzov that he had come

+because Moscow, the capital, was no more and only the army remained.

+

+“Things would have been different if your Serene Highness had not told

+me that you would not abandon Moscow without another battle; all this

+would not have happened,” he said.

+

+Kutúzov looked at Rostopchín as if, not grasping what was said to him,

+he was trying to read something peculiar written at that moment on the

+face of the man addressing him. Rostopchín grew confused and became

+silent. Kutúzov slightly shook his head and not taking his penetrating

+gaze from Rostopchín’s face muttered softly:

+

+“No! I shall not give up Moscow without a battle!”

+

+Whether Kutúzov was thinking of something entirely different when

+he spoke those words, or uttered them purposely, knowing them to be

+meaningless, at any rate Rostopchín made no reply and hastily left him.

+And strange to say, the Governor of Moscow, the proud Count Rostopchín,

+took up a Cossack whip and went to the bridge where he began with shouts

+to drive on the carts that blocked the way.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVI

+

+Toward four o’clock in the afternoon Murat’s troops were entering

+Moscow. In front rode a detachment of Württemberg hussars and behind

+them rode the King of Naples himself accompanied by a numerous suite.

+

+About the middle of the Arbát Street, near the Church of the Miraculous

+Icon of St. Nicholas, Murat halted to await news from the advanced

+detachment as to the condition in which they had found the citadel, le

+Kremlin.

+

+Around Murat gathered a group of those who had remained in Moscow. They

+all stared in timid bewilderment at the strange, long-haired commander

+dressed up in feathers and gold.

+

+“Is that their Tsar himself? He’s not bad!” low voices could be heard

+saying.

+

+An interpreter rode up to the group.

+

+“Take off your cap... your caps!” These words went from one to another

+in the crowd. The interpreter addressed an old porter and asked if

+it was far to the Krémlin. The porter, listening in perplexity to the

+unfamiliar Polish accent and not realizing that the interpreter was

+speaking Russian, did not understand what was being said to him and

+slipped behind the others.

+

+Murat approached the interpreter and told him to ask where the Russian

+army was. One of the Russians understood what was asked and several

+voices at once began answering the interpreter. A French officer,

+returning from the advanced detachment, rode up to Murat and reported

+that the gates of the citadel had been barricaded and that there was

+probably an ambuscade there.

+

+“Good!” said Murat and, turning to one of the gentlemen in his suite,

+ordered four light guns to be moved forward to fire at the gates.

+

+The guns emerged at a trot from the column following Murat and advanced

+up the Arbát. When they reached the end of the Vozdvízhenka Street they

+halted and drew in the Square. Several French officers superintended the

+placing of the guns and looked at the Krémlin through field glasses.

+

+The bells in the Krémlin were ringing for vespers, and this sound

+troubled the French. They imagined it to be a call to arms. A few

+infantrymen ran to the Kutáfyev Gate. Beams and wooden screens had been

+put there, and two musket shots rang out from under the gate as soon as

+an officer and men began to run toward it. A general who was standing

+by the guns shouted some words of command to the officer, and the latter

+ran back again with his men.

+

+The sound of three more shots came from the gate.

+

+One shot struck a French soldier’s foot, and from behind the screens

+came the strange sound of a few voices shouting. Instantly as at a

+word of command the expression of cheerful serenity on the faces of

+the French general, officers, and men changed to one of determined

+concentrated readiness for strife and suffering. To all of them from

+the marshal to the least soldier, that place was not the Vozdvízhenka,

+Mokhaváya, or Kutáfyev Street, nor the Tróitsa Gate (places familiar in

+Moscow), but a new battlefield which would probably prove sanguinary.

+And all made ready for that battle. The cries from the gates ceased. The

+guns were advanced, the artillerymen blew the ash off their linstocks,

+and an officer gave the word “Fire!” This was followed by two whistling

+sounds of canister shot, one after another. The shot rattled against

+the stone of the gate and upon the wooden beams and screens, and two

+wavering clouds of smoke rose over the Square.

+

+A few instants after the echo of the reports resounding over the

+stone-built Krémlin had died away the French heard a strange sound above

+their head. Thousands of crows rose above the walls and circled in the

+air, cawing and noisily flapping their wings. Together with that sound

+came a solitary human cry from the gateway and amid the smoke appeared

+the figure of a bareheaded man in a peasant’s coat. He grasped a musket

+and took aim at the French. “Fire!” repeated the officer once more,

+and the reports of a musket and of two cannon shots were heard

+simultaneously. The gate was again hidden by smoke.

+

+Nothing more stirred behind the screens and the French infantry soldiers

+and officers advanced to the gate. In the gateway lay three wounded and

+four dead. Two men in peasant coats ran away at the foot of the wall,

+toward the Známenka.

+

+“Clear that away!” said the officer, pointing to the beams and the

+corpses, and the French soldiers, after dispatching the wounded, threw

+the corpses over the parapet.

+

+Who these men were nobody knew. “Clear that away!” was all that was said

+of them, and they were thrown over the parapet and removed later on that

+they might not stink. Thiers alone dedicates a few eloquent lines to

+their memory: “These wretches had occupied the sacred citadel, having

+supplied themselves with guns from the arsenal, and fired” (the

+wretches) “at the French. Some of them were sabered and the Krémlin was

+purged of their presence.”

+

+Murat was informed that the way had been cleared. The French entered

+the gates and began pitching their camp in the Senate Square. Out of the

+windows of the Senate House the soldiers threw chairs into the Square

+for fuel and kindled fires there.

+

+Other detachments passed through the Krémlin and encamped along

+the Moroséyka, the Lubyánka, and Pokróvka Streets. Others quartered

+themselves along the Vozdvízhenka, the Nikólski, and the Tverskóy

+Streets. No masters of the houses being found anywhere, the French were

+not billeted on the inhabitants as is usual in towns but lived in it as

+in a camp.

+

+Though tattered, hungry, worn out, and reduced to a third of their

+original number, the French entered Moscow in good marching order. It

+was a weary and famished, but still a fighting and menacing army. But

+it remained an army only until its soldiers had dispersed into their

+different lodgings. As soon as the men of the various regiments began

+to disperse among the wealthy and deserted houses, the army was lost

+forever and there came into being something nondescript, neither

+citizens nor soldiers but what are known as marauders. When five weeks

+later these same men left Moscow, they no longer formed an army. They

+were a mob of marauders, each carrying a quantity of articles which

+seemed to him valuable or useful. The aim of each man when he left

+Moscow was no longer, as it had been, to conquer, but merely to keep

+what he had acquired. Like a monkey which puts its paw into the narrow

+neck of a jug, and having seized a handful of nuts will not open its

+fist for fear of losing what it holds, and therefore perishes, the

+French when they left Moscow had inevitably to perish because they

+carried their loot with them, yet to abandon what they had stolen was as

+impossible for them as it is for the monkey to open its paw and let

+go of its nuts. Ten minutes after each regiment had entered a Moscow

+district, not a soldier or officer was left. Men in military uniforms

+and Hessian boots could be seen through the windows, laughing and

+walking through the rooms. In cellars and storerooms similar men were

+busy among the provisions, and in the yards unlocking or breaking open

+coach house and stable doors, lighting fires in kitchens and kneading

+and baking bread with rolled-up sleeves, and cooking; or frightening,

+amusing, or caressing women and children. There were many such men both

+in the shops and houses—but there was no army.

+

+Order after order was issued by the French commanders that day

+forbidding the men to disperse about the town, sternly forbidding any

+violence to the inhabitants or any looting, and announcing a roll call

+for that very evening. But despite all these measures the men, who had

+till then constituted an army, flowed all over the wealthy, deserted

+city with its comforts and plentiful supplies. As a hungry herd of

+cattle keeps well together when crossing a barren field, but gets out

+of hand and at once disperses uncontrollably as soon as it reaches rich

+pastures, so did the army disperse all over the wealthy city.

+

+No residents were left in Moscow, and the soldiers—like water

+percolating through sand—spread irresistibly through the city in all

+directions from the Krémlin into which they had first marched. The

+cavalry, on entering a merchant’s house that had been abandoned and

+finding there stabling more than sufficient for their horses, went on,

+all the same, to the next house which seemed to them better. Many of

+them appropriated several houses, chalked their names on them, and

+quarreled and even fought with other companies for them. Before they had

+had time to secure quarters the soldiers ran out into the streets to

+see the city and, hearing that everything had been abandoned, rushed

+to places where valuables were to be had for the taking. The officers

+followed to check the soldiers and were involuntarily drawn into doing

+the same. In Carriage Row carriages had been left in the shops, and

+generals flocked there to select calèches and coaches for themselves.

+The few inhabitants who had remained invited commanding officers to

+their houses, hoping thereby to secure themselves from being plundered.

+There were masses of wealth and there seemed no end to it. All around

+the quarters occupied by the French were other regions still unexplored

+and unoccupied where, they thought, yet greater riches might be found.

+And Moscow engulfed the army ever deeper and deeper. When water is

+spilled on dry ground both the dry ground and the water disappear and

+mud results; and in the same way the entry of the famished army into the

+rich and deserted city resulted in fires and looting and the destruction

+of both the army and the wealthy city.

+

+

+The French attributed the Fire of Moscow au patriotisme féroce de

+Rostopchíne, * the Russians to the barbarity of the French. In reality,

+however, it was not, and could not be, possible to explain the burning

+of Moscow by making any individual, or any group of people, responsible

+for it. Moscow was burned because it found itself in a position in which

+any town built of wood was bound to burn, quite apart from whether it

+had, or had not, a hundred and thirty inferior fire engines. Deserted

+Moscow had to burn as inevitably as a heap of shavings has to burn on

+which sparks continually fall for several days. A town built of wood,

+where scarcely a day passes without conflagrations when the house owners

+are in residence and a police force is present, cannot help burning when

+its inhabitants have left it and it is occupied by soldiers who smoke

+pipes, make campfires of the Senate chairs in the Senate Square, and

+cook themselves meals twice a day. In peacetime it is only necessary to

+billet troops in the villages of any district and the number of fires in

+that district immediately increases. How much then must the probability

+of fire be increased in an abandoned, wooden town where foreign troops

+are quartered. “Le patriotisme féroce de Rostopchíne” and the barbarity

+of the French were not to blame in the matter. Moscow was set on fire by

+the soldiers’ pipes, kitchens, and campfires, and by the carelessness of

+enemy soldiers occupying houses they did not own. Even if there was any

+arson (which is very doubtful, for no one had any reason to burn the

+houses—in any case a troublesome and dangerous thing to do), arson

+cannot be regarded as the cause, for the same thing would have happened

+without any incendiarism.

+

+    * To Rostopchín’s ferocious patriotism.

+

+However tempting it might be for the French to blame Rostopchín’s

+ferocity and for Russians to blame the scoundrel Bonaparte, or later

+on to place an heroic torch in the hands of their own people, it is

+impossible not to see that there could be no such direct cause of the

+fire, for Moscow had to burn as every village, factory, or house must

+burn which is left by its owners and in which strangers are allowed to

+live and cook their porridge. Moscow was burned by its inhabitants, it

+is true, but by those who had abandoned it and not by those who remained

+in it. Moscow when occupied by the enemy did not remain intact like

+Berlin, Vienna, and other towns, simply because its inhabitants

+abandoned it and did not welcome the French with bread and salt, nor

+bring them the keys of the city.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVII

+

+The absorption of the French by Moscow, radiating starwise as it did,

+only reached the quarter where Pierre was staying by the evening of the

+second of September.

+

+After the last two days spent in solitude and unusual circumstances,

+Pierre was in a state bordering on insanity. He was completely obsessed

+by one persistent thought. He did not know how or when this thought had

+taken such possession of him, but he remembered nothing of the past,

+understood nothing of the present, and all he saw and heard appeared to

+him like a dream.

+

+He had left home only to escape the intricate tangle of life’s demands

+that enmeshed him, and which in his present condition he was unable

+to unravel. He had gone to Joseph Alexéevich’s house, on the plea of

+sorting the deceased’s books and papers, only in search of rest from

+life’s turmoil, for in his mind the memory of Joseph Alexéevich was

+connected with a world of eternal, solemn, and calm thoughts, quite

+contrary to the restless confusion into which he felt himself being

+drawn. He sought a quiet refuge, and in Joseph Alexéevich’s study he

+really found it. When he sat with his elbows on the dusty writing table

+in the deathlike stillness of the study, calm and significant memories

+of the last few days rose one after another in his imagination,

+particularly of the battle of Borodinó and of that vague sense of his

+own insignificance and insincerity compared with the truth, simplicity,

+and strength of the class of men he mentally classed as they. When

+Gerásim roused him from his reverie the idea occurred to him of taking

+part in the popular defense of Moscow which he knew was projected. And

+with that object he had asked Gerásim to get him a peasant’s coat and

+a pistol, confiding to him his intentions of remaining in Joseph

+Alexéevich’s house and keeping his name secret. Then during the first

+day spent in inaction and solitude (he tried several times to fix his

+attention on the Masonic manuscripts, but was unable to do so) the idea

+that had previously occurred to him of the cabalistic significance of

+his name in connection with Bonaparte’s more than once vaguely presented

+itself. But the idea that he, L’russe Besuhof, was destined to set a

+limit to the power of the Beast was as yet only one of the fancies that

+often passed through his mind and left no trace behind.

+

+When, having bought the coat merely with the object of taking part among

+the people in the defense of Moscow, Pierre had met the Rostóvs and

+Natásha had said to him: “Are you remaining in Moscow?... How splendid!”

+the thought flashed into his mind that it really would be a good thing,

+even if Moscow were taken, for him to remain there and do what he was

+predestined to do.

+

+Next day, with the sole idea of not sparing himself and not lagging in

+any way behind them, Pierre went to the Three Hills gate. But when he

+returned to the house convinced that Moscow would not be defended, he

+suddenly felt that what before had seemed to him merely a possibility

+had now become absolutely necessary and inevitable. He must remain in

+Moscow, concealing his name, and must meet Napoleon and kill him, and

+either perish or put an end to the misery of all Europe—which it seemed

+to him was solely due to Napoleon.

+

+Pierre knew all the details of the attempt on Bonaparte’s life in 1809

+by a German student in Vienna, and knew that the student had been shot.

+And the risk to which he would expose his life by carrying out his

+design excited him still more.

+

+Two equally strong feelings drew Pierre irresistibly to this purpose.

+The first was a feeling of the necessity of sacrifice and suffering in

+view of the common calamity, the same feeling that had caused him to go

+to Mozháysk on the twenty-fifth and to make his way to the very thick

+of the battle and had now caused him to run away from his home and, in

+place of the luxury and comfort to which he was accustomed, to sleep

+on a hard sofa without undressing and eat the same food as Gerásim.

+The other was that vague and quite Russian feeling of contempt for

+everything conventional, artificial, and human—for everything the

+majority of men regard as the greatest good in the world. Pierre had

+first experienced this strange and fascinating feeling at the Slobóda

+Palace, when he had suddenly felt that wealth, power, and life—all that

+men so painstakingly acquire and guard—if it has any worth has so only

+by reason of the joy with which it can all be renounced.

+

+It was the feeling that induces a volunteer recruit to spend his last

+penny on drink, and a drunken man to smash mirrors or glasses for no

+apparent reason and knowing that it will cost him all the money he

+possesses: the feeling which causes a man to perform actions which from

+an ordinary point of view are insane, to test, as it were, his personal

+power and strength, affirming the existence of a higher, nonhuman

+criterion of life.

+

+From the very day Pierre had experienced this feeling for the first time

+at the Slobóda Palace he had been continuously under its influence, but

+only now found full satisfaction for it. Moreover, at this moment Pierre

+was supported in his design and prevented from renouncing it by what he

+had already done in that direction. If he were now to leave Moscow like

+everyone else, his flight from home, the peasant coat, the pistol, and

+his announcement to the Rostóvs that he would remain in Moscow would all

+become not merely meaningless but contemptible and ridiculous, and to

+this Pierre was very sensitive.

+

+Pierre’s physical condition, as is always the case, corresponded to his

+mental state. The unaccustomed coarse food, the vodka he drank during

+those days, the absence of wine and cigars, his dirty unchanged linen,

+two almost sleepless nights passed on a short sofa without bedding—all

+this kept him in a state of excitement bordering on insanity.

+

+It was two o’clock in the afternoon. The French had already entered

+Moscow. Pierre knew this, but instead of acting he only thought about

+his undertaking, going over its minutest details in his mind. In his

+fancy he did not clearly picture to himself either the striking of the

+blow or the death of Napoleon, but with extraordinary vividness and

+melancholy enjoyment imagined his own destruction and heroic endurance.

+

+“Yes, alone, for the sake of all, I must do it or perish!” he thought.

+“Yes, I will approach... and then suddenly... with pistol or dagger?

+But that is all the same! ‘It is not I but the hand of Providence that

+punishes thee,’ I shall say,” thought he, imagining what he would say

+when killing Napoleon. “Well then, take me and execute me!” he went on,

+speaking to himself and bowing his head with a sad but firm expression.

+

+While Pierre, standing in the middle of the room, was talking to himself

+in this way, the study door opened and on the threshold appeared

+the figure of Makár Alexéevich, always so timid before but now quite

+transformed.

+

+His dressing gown was unfastened, his face red and distorted. He

+was obviously drunk. On seeing Pierre he grew confused at first, but

+noticing embarrassment on Pierre’s face immediately grew bold and,

+staggering on his thin legs, advanced into the middle of the room.

+

+“They’re frightened,” he said confidentially in a hoarse voice. “I say I

+won’t surrender, I say... Am I not right, sir?”

+

+He paused and then suddenly seeing the pistol on the table seized it

+with unexpected rapidity and ran out into the corridor.

+

+Gerásim and the porter, who had followed Makár Alexéevich, stopped him

+in the vestibule and tried to take the pistol from him. Pierre, coming

+out into the corridor, looked with pity and repulsion at the half-crazy

+old man. Makár Alexéevich, frowning with exertion, held on to the pistol

+and screamed hoarsely, evidently with some heroic fancy in his head.

+

+“To arms! Board them! No, you shan’t get it,” he yelled.

+

+“That will do, please, that will do. Have the goodness—please, sir, to

+let go! Please, sir...” pleaded Gerásim, trying carefully to steer Makár

+Alexéevich by the elbows back to the door.

+

+“Who are you? Bonaparte!...” shouted Makár Alexéevich.

+

+“That’s not right, sir. Come to your room, please, and rest. Allow me to

+have the pistol.”

+

+“Be off, thou base slave! Touch me not! See this?” shouted Makár

+Alexéevich, brandishing the pistol. “Board them!”

+

+“Catch hold!” whispered Gerásim to the porter.

+

+They seized Makár Alexéevich by the arms and dragged him to the door.

+

+The vestibule was filled with the discordant sounds of a struggle and of

+a tipsy, hoarse voice.

+

+Suddenly a fresh sound, a piercing feminine scream, reverberated from

+the porch and the cook came running into the vestibule.

+

+“It’s them! Gracious heavens! O Lord, four of them, horsemen!” she

+cried.

+

+Gerásim and the porter let Makár Alexéevich go, and in the now silent

+corridor the sound of several hands knocking at the front door could be

+heard.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXVIII

+

+Pierre, having decided that until he had carried out his design he would

+disclose neither his identity nor his knowledge of French, stood at the

+half-open door of the corridor, intending to conceal himself as soon

+as the French entered. But the French entered and still Pierre did not

+retire—an irresistible curiosity kept him there.

+

+There were two of them. One was an officer—a tall, soldierly, handsome

+man—the other evidently a private or an orderly, sunburned, short, and

+thin, with sunken cheeks and a dull expression. The officer walked in

+front, leaning on a stick and slightly limping. When he had advanced

+a few steps he stopped, having apparently decided that these were good

+quarters, turned round to the soldiers standing at the entrance, and in

+a loud voice of command ordered them to put up the horses. Having done

+that, the officer, lifting his elbow with a smart gesture, stroked his

+mustache and lightly touched his hat.

+

+“Bonjour, la compagnie!” * said he gaily, smiling and looking about him.

+

+    * “Good day, everybody!”

+

+

+No one gave any reply.

+

+“Vous êtes le bourgeois?” * the officer asked Gerásim.

+

+    * “Are you the master here?”

+

+

+Gerásim gazed at the officer with an alarmed and inquiring look.

+

+“Quartier, quartier, logement!” said the officer, looking down at the

+little man with a condescending and good-natured smile. “Les français

+sont de bons enfants. Que diable! Voyons! Ne nous fâchons pas, mon

+vieux!” * added he, clapping the scared and silent Gerásim on the

+shoulder. “Well, does no one speak French in this establishment?” he

+asked again in French, looking around and meeting Pierre’s eyes. Pierre

+moved away from the door.

+

+     * “Quarters, quarters, lodgings! The French are good

+     fellows. What the devil! There, don’t let us be cross, old

+     fellow!”

+

+

+Again the officer turned to Gerásim and asked him to show him the rooms

+in the house.

+

+“Master, not here—don’t understand... me, you...” said Gerásim, trying

+to render his words more comprehensible by contorting them.

+

+Still smiling, the French officer spread out his hands before Gerásim’s

+nose, intimating that he did not understand him either, and moved,

+limping, to the door at which Pierre was standing. Pierre wished to go

+away and conceal himself, but at that moment he saw Makár Alexéevich

+appearing at the open kitchen door with the pistol in his hand. With

+a madman’s cunning, Makár Alexéevich eyed the Frenchman, raised his

+pistol, and took aim.

+

+“Board them!” yelled the tipsy man, trying to press the trigger. Hearing

+the yell the officer turned round, and at the same moment Pierre threw

+himself on the drunkard. Just when Pierre snatched at and struck up the

+pistol Makár Alexéevich at last got his fingers on the trigger, there

+was a deafening report, and all were enveloped in a cloud of smoke. The

+Frenchman turned pale and rushed to the door.

+

+Forgetting his intention of concealing his knowledge of French, Pierre,

+snatching away the pistol and throwing it down, ran up to the officer

+and addressed him in French.

+

+“You are not wounded?” he asked.

+

+“I think not,” answered the Frenchman, feeling himself over. “But I have

+had a lucky escape this time,” he added, pointing to the damaged plaster

+of the wall. “Who is that man?” said he, looking sternly at Pierre.

+

+“Oh, I am really in despair at what has occurred,” said Pierre rapidly,

+quite forgetting the part he had intended to play. “He is an unfortunate

+madman who did not know what he was doing.”

+

+The officer went up to Makár Alexéevich and took him by the collar.

+

+Makár Alexéevich was standing with parted lips, swaying, as if about to

+fall asleep, as he leaned against the wall.

+

+“Brigand! You shall pay for this,” said the Frenchman, letting go

+of him. “We French are merciful after victory, but we do not pardon

+traitors,” he added, with a look of gloomy dignity and a fine energetic

+gesture.

+

+Pierre continued, in French, to persuade the officer not to hold that

+drunken imbecile to account. The Frenchman listened in silence with the

+same gloomy expression, but suddenly turned to Pierre with a smile. For

+a few seconds he looked at him in silence. His handsome face assumed a

+melodramatically gentle expression and he held out his hand.

+

+“You have saved my life. You are French,” said he.

+

+For a Frenchman that deduction was indubitable. Only a Frenchman could

+perform a great deed, and to save his life—the life of M. Ramballe,

+captain of the 13th Light Regiment—was undoubtedly a very great deed.

+

+But however indubitable that conclusion and the officer’s conviction

+based upon it, Pierre felt it necessary to disillusion him.

+

+“I am Russian,” he said quickly.

+

+“Tut, tut, tut! Tell that to others,” said the officer, waving his

+finger before his nose and smiling. “You shall tell me all about that

+presently. I am delighted to meet a compatriot. Well, and what are we

+to do with this man?” he added, addressing himself to Pierre as to a

+brother.

+

+Even if Pierre were not a Frenchman, having once received that loftiest

+of human appellations he could not renounce it, said the officer’s look

+and tone. In reply to his last question Pierre again explained who Makár

+Alexéevich was and how just before their arrival that drunken imbecile

+had seized the loaded pistol which they had not had time to recover from

+him, and begged the officer to let the deed go unpunished.

+

+The Frenchman expanded his chest and made a majestic gesture with his

+arm.

+

+“You have saved my life! You are French. You ask his pardon? I grant it

+you. Lead that man away!” said he quickly and energetically, and taking

+the arm of Pierre whom he had promoted to be a Frenchman for saving his

+life, he went with him into the room.

+

+The soldiers in the yard, hearing the shot, came into the passage asking

+what had happened, and expressed their readiness to punish the culprits,

+but the officer sternly checked them.

+

+“You will be called in when you are wanted,” he said.

+

+The soldiers went out again, and the orderly, who had meanwhile had time

+to visit the kitchen, came up to his officer.

+

+“Captain, there is soup and a leg of mutton in the kitchen,” said he.

+“Shall I serve them up?”

+

+“Yes, and some wine,” answered the captain.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXIX

+

+When the French officer went into the room with Pierre the latter again

+thought it his duty to assure him that he was not French and wished to

+go away, but the officer would not hear of it. He was so very polite,

+amiable, good-natured, and genuinely grateful to Pierre for saving his

+life that Pierre had not the heart to refuse, and sat down with him in

+the parlor—the first room they entered. To Pierre’s assurances that he

+was not a Frenchman, the captain, evidently not understanding how anyone

+could decline so flattering an appellation, shrugged his shoulders and

+said that if Pierre absolutely insisted on passing for a Russian let it

+be so, but for all that he would be forever bound to Pierre by gratitude

+for saving his life.

+

+Had this man been endowed with the slightest capacity for perceiving the

+feelings of others, and had he at all understood what Pierre’s feelings

+were, the latter would probably have left him, but the man’s animated

+obtuseness to everything other than himself disarmed Pierre.

+

+“A Frenchman or a Russian prince incognito,” said the officer, looking

+at Pierre’s fine though dirty linen and at the ring on his finger.

+“I owe my life to you and offer you my friendship. A Frenchman never

+forgets either an insult or a service. I offer you my friendship. That

+is all I can say.”

+

+There was so much good nature and nobility (in the French sense of the

+word) in the officer’s voice, in the expression of his face and in

+his gestures, that Pierre, unconsciously smiling in response to the

+Frenchman’s smile, pressed the hand held out to him.

+

+“Captain Ramballe, of the 13th Light Regiment, Chevalier of the Legion

+of Honor for the affair on the seventh of September,” he introduced

+himself, a self-satisfied irrepressible smile puckering his lips under

+his mustache. “Will you now be so good as to tell me with whom I have

+the honor of conversing so pleasantly, instead of being in the ambulance

+with that maniac’s bullet in my body?”

+

+Pierre replied that he could not tell him his name and, blushing,

+began to try to invent a name and to say something about his reason for

+concealing it, but the Frenchman hastily interrupted him.

+

+“Oh, please!” said he. “I understand your reasons. You are an officer...

+a superior officer perhaps. You have borne arms against us. That’s not

+my business. I owe you my life. That is enough for me. I am quite at

+your service. You belong to the gentry?” he concluded with a shade of

+inquiry in his tone. Pierre bent his head. “Your baptismal name, if you

+please. That is all I ask. Monsieur Pierre, you say.... That’s all I

+want to know.”

+

+When the mutton and an omelet had been served and a samovar and vodka

+brought, with some wine which the French had taken from a Russian cellar

+and brought with them, Ramballe invited Pierre to share his dinner, and

+himself began to eat greedily and quickly like a healthy and hungry man,

+munching his food rapidly with his strong teeth, continually smacking

+his lips, and repeating—“Excellent! Delicious!” His face grew red and

+was covered with perspiration. Pierre was hungry and shared the dinner

+with pleasure. Morel, the orderly, brought some hot water in a saucepan

+and placed a bottle of claret in it. He also brought a bottle of kvass,

+taken from the kitchen for them to try. That beverage was already known

+to the French and had been given a special name. They called it limonade

+de cochon (pig’s lemonade), and Morel spoke well of the limonade de

+cochon he had found in the kitchen. But as the captain had the wine they

+had taken while passing through Moscow, he left the kvass to Morel and

+applied himself to the bottle of Bordeaux. He wrapped the bottle up

+to its neck in a table napkin and poured out wine for himself and for

+Pierre. The satisfaction of his hunger and the wine rendered the captain

+still more lively and he chatted incessantly all through dinner.

+

+“Yes, my dear Monsieur Pierre, I owe you a fine votive candle for

+saving me from that maniac.... You see, I have bullets enough in my

+body already. Here is one I got at Wagram” (he touched his side) “and a

+second at Smolénsk”—he showed a scar on his cheek—“and this leg which as

+you see does not want to march, I got that on the seventh at the great

+battle of la Moskowa. Sacré Dieu! It was splendid! That deluge of fire

+was worth seeing. It was a tough job you set us there, my word! You may

+be proud of it! And on my honor, in spite of the cough I caught there, I

+should be ready to begin again. I pity those who did not see it.”

+

+“I was there,” said Pierre.

+

+“Bah, really? So much the better! You are certainly brave foes. The

+great redoubt held out well, by my pipe!” continued the Frenchman. “And

+you made us pay dear for it. I was at it three times—sure as I sit here.

+Three times we reached the guns and three times we were thrown back

+like cardboard figures. Oh, it was beautiful, Monsieur Pierre! Your

+grenadiers were splendid, by heaven! I saw them close up their ranks six

+times in succession and march as if on parade. Fine fellows! Our King of

+Naples, who knows what’s what, cried ‘Bravo!’ Ha, ha! So you are one of

+us soldiers!” he added, smiling, after a momentary pause. “So much

+the better, so much the better, Monsieur Pierre! Terrible in battle...

+gallant... with the fair” (he winked and smiled), “that’s what the

+French are, Monsieur Pierre, aren’t they?”

+

+The captain was so naïvely and good-humoredly gay, so real, and so

+pleased with himself that Pierre almost winked back as he looked merrily

+at him. Probably the word “gallant” turned the captain’s thoughts to the

+state of Moscow.

+

+“Apropos, tell me please, is it true that the women have all left

+Moscow? What a queer idea! What had they to be afraid of?”

+

+“Would not the French ladies leave Paris if the Russians entered it?”

+asked Pierre.

+

+“Ha, ha, ha!” The Frenchman emitted a merry, sanguine chuckle, patting

+Pierre on the shoulder. “What a thing to say!” he exclaimed. “Paris?...

+But Paris, Paris...”

+

+“Paris—the capital of the world,” Pierre finished his remark for him.

+

+The captain looked at Pierre. He had a habit of stopping short in the

+middle of his talk and gazing intently with his laughing, kindly eyes.

+

+“Well, if you hadn’t told me you were Russian, I should have wagered

+that you were Parisian! You have that... I don’t know what, that...” and

+having uttered this compliment, he again gazed at him in silence.

+

+“I have been in Paris. I spent years there,” said Pierre.

+

+“Oh yes, one sees that plainly. Paris!... A man who doesn’t know Paris

+is a savage. You can tell a Parisian two leagues off. Paris is Talma, la

+Duchénois, Potier, the Sorbonne, the boulevards,” and noticing that

+his conclusion was weaker than what had gone before, he added quickly:

+“There is only one Paris in the world. You have been to Paris and have

+remained Russian. Well, I don’t esteem you the less for it.”

+

+Under the influence of the wine he had drunk, and after the days he had

+spent alone with his depressing thoughts, Pierre involuntarily enjoyed

+talking with this cheerful and good-natured man.

+

+“To return to your ladies—I hear they are lovely. What a wretched idea

+to go and bury themselves in the steppes when the French army is in

+Moscow. What a chance those girls have missed! Your peasants, now—that’s

+another thing; but you civilized people, you ought to know us better

+than that. We took Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Naples, Rome, Warsaw, all

+the world’s capitals.... We are feared, but we are loved. We are nice to

+know. And then the Emperor...” he began, but Pierre interrupted him.

+

+“The Emperor,” Pierre repeated, and his face suddenly became sad and

+embarrassed, “is the Emperor...?”

+

+“The Emperor? He is generosity, mercy, justice, order, genius—that’s

+what the Emperor is! It is I, Ramballe, who tell you so.... I assure you

+I was his enemy eight years ago. My father was an emigrant count.... But

+that man has vanquished me. He has taken hold of me. I could not resist

+the sight of the grandeur and glory with which he has covered France.

+When I understood what he wanted—when I saw that he was preparing a bed

+of laurels for us, you know, I said to myself: ‘That is a monarch,’ and

+I devoted myself to him! So there! Oh yes, mon cher, he is the greatest

+man of the ages past or future.”

+

+“Is he in Moscow?” Pierre stammered with a guilty look.

+

+The Frenchman looked at his guilty face and smiled.

+

+“No, he will make his entry tomorrow,” he replied, and continued his

+talk.

+

+Their conversation was interrupted by the cries of several voices at

+the gate and by Morel, who came to say that some Württemberg hussars had

+come and wanted to put up their horses in the yard where the captain’s

+horses were. This difficulty had arisen chiefly because the hussars did

+not understand what was said to them in French.

+

+The captain had their senior sergeant called in, and in a stern voice

+asked him to what regiment he belonged, who was his commanding officer,

+and by what right he allowed himself to claim quarters that were already

+occupied. The German who knew little French, answered the two first

+questions by giving the names of his regiment and of his commanding

+officer, but in reply to the third question which he did not understand

+said, introducing broken French into his own German, that he was the

+quartermaster of the regiment and his commander had ordered him to

+occupy all the houses one after another. Pierre, who knew German,

+translated what the German said to the captain and gave the captain’s

+reply to the Württemberg hussar in German. When he had understood what

+was said to him, the German submitted and took his men elsewhere. The

+captain went out into the porch and gave some orders in a loud voice.

+

+When he returned to the room Pierre was sitting in the same place as

+before, with his head in his hands. His face expressed suffering. He

+really was suffering at that moment. When the captain went out and he

+was left alone, suddenly he came to himself and realized the position

+he was in. It was not that Moscow had been taken or that the happy

+conquerors were masters in it and were patronizing him. Painful as

+that was it was not that which tormented Pierre at the moment. He was

+tormented by the consciousness of his own weakness. The few glasses of

+wine he had drunk and the conversation with this good-natured man had

+destroyed the mood of concentrated gloom in which he had spent the last

+few days and which was essential for the execution of his design. The

+pistol, dagger, and peasant coat were ready. Napoleon was to enter the

+town next day. Pierre still considered that it would be a useful and

+worthy action to slay the evildoer, but now he felt that he would not

+do it. He did not know why, but he felt a foreboding that he would not

+carry out his intention. He struggled against the confession of his

+weakness but dimly felt that he could not overcome it and that his

+former gloomy frame of mind, concerning vengeance, killing, and

+self-sacrifice, had been dispersed like dust by contact with the first

+man he met.

+

+The captain returned to the room, limping slightly and whistling a tune.

+

+The Frenchman’s chatter which had previously amused Pierre now repelled

+him. The tune he was whistling, his gait, and the gesture with which

+he twirled his mustache, all now seemed offensive. “I will go away

+immediately. I won’t say another word to him,” thought Pierre. He

+thought this, but still sat in the same place. A strange feeling of

+weakness tied him to the spot; he wished to get up and go away, but

+could not do so.

+

+The captain, on the other hand, seemed very cheerful. He paced up and

+down the room twice. His eyes shone and his mustache twitched as if he

+were smiling to himself at some amusing thought.

+

+“The colonel of those Württembergers is delightful,” he suddenly said.

+“He’s a German, but a nice fellow all the same.... But he’s a German.”

+He sat down facing Pierre. “By the way, you know German, then?”

+

+Pierre looked at him in silence.

+

+“What is the German for ‘shelter’?”

+

+“Shelter?” Pierre repeated. “The German for shelter is Unterkunft.”

+

+“How do you say it?” the captain asked quickly and doubtfully.

+

+“Unterkunft,” Pierre repeated.

+

+“Onterkoff,” said the captain and looked at Pierre for some seconds with

+laughing eyes. “These Germans are first-rate fools, don’t you think so,

+Monsieur Pierre?” he concluded.

+

+“Well, let’s have another bottle of this Moscow Bordeaux, shall we?

+Morel will warm us up another little bottle. Morel!” he called out

+gaily.

+

+Morel brought candles and a bottle of wine. The captain looked at Pierre

+by the candlelight and was evidently struck by the troubled expression

+on his companion’s face. Ramballe, with genuine distress and sympathy in

+his face, went up to Pierre and bent over him.

+

+“There now, we’re sad,” said he, touching Pierre’s hand. “Have I

+upset you? No, really, have you anything against me?” he asked Pierre.

+“Perhaps it’s the state of affairs?”

+

+Pierre did not answer, but looked cordially into the Frenchman’s eyes

+whose expression of sympathy was pleasing to him.

+

+“Honestly, without speaking of what I owe you, I feel friendship for

+you. Can I do anything for you? Dispose of me. It is for life and death.

+I say it with my hand on my heart!” said he, striking his chest.

+

+“Thank you,” said Pierre.

+

+The captain gazed intently at him as he had done when he learned that

+“shelter” was Unterkunft in German, and his face suddenly brightened.

+

+“Well, in that case, I drink to our friendship!” he cried gaily, filling

+two glasses with wine.

+

+Pierre took one of the glasses and emptied it. Ramballe emptied his too,

+again pressed Pierre’s hand, and leaned his elbows on the table in a

+pensive attitude.

+

+“Yes, my dear friend,” he began, “such is fortune’s caprice. Who would

+have said that I should be a soldier and a captain of dragoons in the

+service of Bonaparte, as we used to call him? Yet here I am in Moscow

+with him. I must tell you, mon cher,” he continued in the sad and

+measured tones of a man who intends to tell a long story, “that our name

+is one of the most ancient in France.”

+

+And with a Frenchman’s easy and naïve frankness the captain told Pierre

+the story of his ancestors, his childhood, youth, and manhood, and all

+about his relations and his financial and family affairs, “ma pauvre

+mère” playing of course an important part in the story.

+

+“But all that is only life’s setting, the real thing is love—love! Am I

+not right, Monsieur Pierre?” said he, growing animated. “Another glass?”

+

+Pierre again emptied his glass and poured himself out a third.

+

+“Oh, women, women!” and the captain, looking with glistening eyes at

+Pierre, began talking of love and of his love affairs.

+

+There were very many of these, as one could easily believe, looking

+at the officer’s handsome, self-satisfied face, and noting the eager

+enthusiasm with which he spoke of women. Though all Ramballe’s love

+stories had the sensual character which Frenchmen regard as the special

+charm and poetry of love, yet he told his story with such sincere

+conviction that he alone had experienced and known all the charm of love

+and he described women so alluringly that Pierre listened to him with

+curiosity.

+

+It was plain that l’amour which the Frenchman was so fond of was not

+that low and simple kind that Pierre had once felt for his wife, nor

+was it the romantic love stimulated by himself that he experienced for

+Natásha. (Ramballe despised both these kinds of love equally: the one

+he considered the “love of clodhoppers” and the other the “love

+of simpletons.”) L’amour which the Frenchman worshiped consisted

+principally in the unnaturalness of his relation to the woman and in a

+combination of incongruities giving the chief charm to the feeling.

+

+Thus the captain touchingly recounted the story of his love for a

+fascinating marquise of thirty-five and at the same time for a charming,

+innocent child of seventeen, daughter of the bewitching marquise. The

+conflict of magnanimity between the mother and the daughter, ending in

+the mother’s sacrificing herself and offering her daughter in marriage

+to her lover, even now agitated the captain, though it was the memory of

+a distant past. Then he recounted an episode in which the husband played

+the part of the lover, and he—the lover—assumed the role of the husband,

+as well as several droll incidents from his recollections of Germany,

+where “shelter” is called Unterkunft and where the husbands eat

+sauerkraut and the young girls are “too blonde.”

+

+Finally, the latest episode in Poland still fresh in the captain’s

+memory, and which he narrated with rapid gestures and glowing face, was

+of how he had saved the life of a Pole (in general, the saving of

+life continually occurred in the captain’s stories) and the Pole had

+entrusted to him his enchanting wife (parisienne de cœur) while himself

+entering the French service. The captain was happy, the enchanting

+Polish lady wished to elope with him, but, prompted by magnanimity, the

+captain restored the wife to the husband, saying as he did so: “I have

+saved your life, and I save your honor!” Having repeated these words the

+captain wiped his eyes and gave himself a shake, as if driving away the

+weakness which assailed him at this touching recollection.

+

+Listening to the captain’s tales, Pierre—as often happens late in the

+evening and under the influence of wine—followed all that was told him,

+understood it all, and at the same time followed a train of personal

+memories which, he knew not why, suddenly arose in his mind. While

+listening to these love stories his own love for Natásha unexpectedly

+rose to his mind, and going over the pictures of that love in his

+imagination he mentally compared them with Ramballe’s tales. Listening

+to the story of the struggle between love and duty, Pierre saw before

+his eyes every minutest detail of his last meeting with the object of

+his love at the Súkharev water tower. At the time of that meeting it had

+not produced an effect upon him—he had not even once recalled it. But

+now it seemed to him that that meeting had had in it something very

+important and poetic.

+

+“Peter Kirílovich, come here! We have recognized you,” he now seemed

+to hear the words she had uttered and to see before him her eyes, her

+smile, her traveling hood, and a stray lock of her hair... and there

+seemed to him something pathetic and touching in all this.

+

+Having finished his tale about the enchanting Polish lady, the captain

+asked Pierre if he had ever experienced a similar impulse to sacrifice

+himself for love and a feeling of envy of the legitimate husband.

+

+Challenged by this question Pierre raised his head and felt a need to

+express the thoughts that filled his mind. He began to explain that he

+understood love for a woman somewhat differently. He said that in all

+his life he had loved and still loved only one woman, and that she could

+never be his.

+

+“Tiens!” said the captain.

+

+Pierre then explained that he had loved this woman from his earliest

+years, but that he had not dared to think of her because she was too

+young, and because he had been an illegitimate son without a name.

+Afterwards when he had received a name and wealth he dared not think of

+her because he loved her too well, placing her far above everything in

+the world, and especially therefore above himself.

+

+When he had reached this point, Pierre asked the captain whether he

+understood that.

+

+The captain made a gesture signifying that even if he did not understand

+it he begged Pierre to continue.

+

+“Platónic love, clouds...” he muttered.

+

+Whether it was the wine he had drunk, or an impulse of frankness, or the

+thought that this man did not, and never would, know any of those who

+played a part in his story, or whether it was all these things together,

+something loosened Pierre’s tongue. Speaking thickly and with a faraway

+look in his shining eyes, he told the whole story of his life: his

+marriage, Natásha’s love for his best friend, her betrayal of him, and

+all his own simple relations with her. Urged on by Ramballe’s questions

+he also told what he had at first concealed—his own position and even

+his name.

+

+More than anything else in Pierre’s story the captain was impressed by

+the fact that Pierre was very rich, had two mansions in Moscow, and that

+he had abandoned everything and not left the city, but remained there

+concealing his name and station.

+

+When it was late at night they went out together into the street. The

+night was warm and light. To the left of the house on the Pokróvka a

+fire glowed—the first of those that were beginning in Moscow. To the

+right and high up in the sky was the sickle of the waning moon and

+opposite to it hung that bright comet which was connected in Pierre’s

+heart with his love. At the gate stood Gerásim, the cook, and two

+Frenchmen. Their laughter and their mutually incomprehensible remarks in

+two languages could be heard. They were looking at the glow seen in the

+town.

+

+There was nothing terrible in the one small, distant fire in the immense

+city.

+

+Gazing at the high starry sky, at the moon, at the comet, and at the

+glow from the fire, Pierre experienced a joyful emotion. “There now,

+how good it is, what more does one need?” thought he. And suddenly

+remembering his intention he grew dizzy and felt so faint that he leaned

+against the fence to save himself from falling.

+

+Without taking leave of his new friend, Pierre left the gate with

+unsteady steps and returning to his room lay down on the sofa and

+immediately fell asleep.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXX

+

+The glow of the first fire that began on the second of September was

+watched from the various roads by the fugitive Muscovites and by the

+retreating troops, with many different feelings.

+

+The Rostóv party spent the night at Mytíshchi, fourteen miles from

+Moscow. They had started so late on the first of September, the road

+had been so blocked by vehicles and troops, so many things had been

+forgotten for which servants were sent back, that they had decided to

+spend that night at a place three miles out of Moscow. The next morning

+they woke late and were again delayed so often that they only got as far

+as Great Mytíshchi. At ten o’clock that evening the Rostóv family and

+the wounded traveling with them were all distributed in the yards and

+huts of that large village. The Rostóvs’ servants and coachmen and the

+orderlies of the wounded officers, after attending to their masters, had

+supper, fed the horses, and came out into the porches.

+

+In a neighboring hut lay Raévski’s adjutant with a fractured wrist. The

+awful pain he suffered made him moan incessantly and piteously, and his

+moaning sounded terrible in the darkness of the autumn night. He had

+spent the first night in the same yard as the Rostóvs. The countess said

+she had been unable to close her eyes on account of his moaning, and at

+Mytíshchi she moved into a worse hut simply to be farther away from the

+wounded man.

+

+In the darkness of the night one of the servants noticed, above the high

+body of a coach standing before the porch, the small glow of another

+fire. One glow had long been visible and everybody knew that it was

+Little Mytíshchi burning—set on fire by Mamónov’s Cossacks.

+

+“But look here, brothers, there’s another fire!” remarked an orderly.

+

+All turned their attention to the glow.

+

+“But they told us Little Mytíshchi had been set on fire by Mamónov’s

+Cossacks.”

+

+“But that’s not Mytíshchi, it’s farther away.”

+

+“Look, it must be in Moscow!”

+

+Two of the gazers went round to the other side of the coach and sat down

+on its steps.

+

+“It’s more to the left, why, Little Mytíshchi is over there, and this is

+right on the other side.”

+

+Several men joined the first two.

+

+“See how it’s flaring,” said one. “That’s a fire in Moscow: either in

+the Sushchévski or the Rogózhski quarter.”

+

+No one replied to this remark and for some time they all gazed silently

+at the spreading flames of the second fire in the distance.

+

+Old Daniel Teréntich, the count’s valet (as he was called), came up to

+the group and shouted at Míshka.

+

+“What are you staring at, you good-for-nothing?... The count will be

+calling and there’s nobody there; go and gather the clothes together.”

+

+“I only ran out to get some water,” said Míshka.

+

+“But what do you think, Daniel Teréntich? Doesn’t it look as if that

+glow were in Moscow?” remarked one of the footmen.

+

+Daniel Teréntich made no reply, and again for a long time they were all

+silent. The glow spread, rising and falling, farther and farther still.

+

+“God have mercy.... It’s windy and dry...” said another voice.

+

+“Just look! See what it’s doing now. O Lord! You can even see the crows

+flying. Lord have mercy on us sinners!”

+

+“They’ll put it out, no fear!”

+

+“Who’s to put it out?” Daniel Teréntich, who had hitherto been silent,

+was heard to say. His voice was calm and deliberate. “Moscow it is,

+brothers,” said he. “Mother Moscow, the white...” his voice faltered,

+and he gave way to an old man’s sob.

+

+And it was as if they had all only waited for this to realize the

+significance for them of the glow they were watching. Sighs were heard,

+words of prayer, and the sobbing of the count’s old valet.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXXI

+

+The valet, returning to the cottage, informed the count that Moscow was

+burning. The count donned his dressing gown and went out to look. Sónya

+and Madame Schoss, who had not yet undressed, went out with him. Only

+Natásha and the countess remained in the room. Pétya was no longer

+with the family, he had gone on with his regiment which was making for

+Tróitsa.

+

+The countess, on hearing that Moscow was on fire, began to cry. Natásha,

+pale, with a fixed look, was sitting on the bench under the icons just

+where she had sat down on arriving and paid no attention to her father’s

+words. She was listening to the ceaseless moaning of the adjutant, three

+houses off.

+

+“Oh, how terrible,” said Sónya returning from the yard chilled and

+frightened. “I believe the whole of Moscow will burn, there’s an awful

+glow! Natásha, do look! You can see it from the window,” she said to her

+cousin, evidently wishing to distract her mind.

+

+But Natásha looked at her as if not understanding what was said to her

+and again fixed her eyes on the corner of the stove. She had been in

+this condition of stupor since the morning, when Sónya, to the surprise

+and annoyance of the countess, had for some unaccountable reason found

+it necessary to tell Natásha of Prince Andrew’s wound and of his being

+with their party. The countess had seldom been so angry with anyone as

+she was with Sónya. Sónya had cried and begged to be forgiven and now,

+as if trying to atone for her fault, paid unceasing attention to her

+cousin.

+

+“Look, Natásha, how dreadfully it is burning!” said she.

+

+“What’s burning?” asked Natásha. “Oh, yes, Moscow.”

+

+And as if in order not to offend Sónya and to get rid of her, she turned

+her face to the window, looked out in such a way that it was evident

+that she could not see anything, and again settled down in her former

+attitude.

+

+“But you didn’t see it!”

+

+“Yes, really I did,” Natásha replied in a voice that pleaded to be left

+in peace.

+

+Both the countess and Sónya understood that, naturally, neither Moscow

+nor the burning of Moscow nor anything else could seem of importance to

+Natásha.

+

+The count returned and lay down behind the partition. The countess went

+up to her daughter and touched her head with the back of her hand as she

+was wont to do when Natásha was ill, then touched her forehead with her

+lips as if to feel whether she was feverish, and finally kissed her.

+

+“You are cold. You are trembling all over. You’d better lie down,” said

+the countess.

+

+“Lie down? All right, I will. I’ll lie down at once,” said Natásha.

+

+When Natásha had been told that morning that Prince Andrew was seriously

+wounded and was traveling with their party, she had at first asked many

+questions: Where was he going? How was he wounded? Was it serious? And

+could she see him? But after she had been told that she could not see

+him, that he was seriously wounded but that his life was not in danger,

+she ceased to ask questions or to speak at all, evidently disbelieving

+what they told her, and convinced that say what she might she would

+still be told the same. All the way she had sat motionless in a corner

+of the coach with wide open eyes, and the expression in them which the

+countess knew so well and feared so much, and now she sat in the same

+way on the bench where she had seated herself on arriving. She was

+planning something and either deciding or had already decided something

+in her mind. The countess knew this, but what it might be she did not

+know, and this alarmed and tormented her.

+

+“Natásha, undress, darling; lie down on my bed.”

+

+A bed had been made on a bedstead for the countess only. Madame Schoss

+and the two girls were to sleep on some hay on the floor.

+

+“No, Mamma, I will lie down here on the floor,” Natásha replied

+irritably and she went to the window and opened it. Through the open

+window the moans of the adjutant could be heard more distinctly. She put

+her head out into the damp night air, and the countess saw her slim neck

+shaking with sobs and throbbing against the window frame. Natásha knew

+it was not Prince Andrew who was moaning. She knew Prince Andrew was in

+the same yard as themselves and in a part of the hut across the passage;

+but this dreadful incessant moaning made her sob. The countess exchanged

+a look with Sónya.

+

+“Lie down, darling; lie down, my pet,” said the countess, softly

+touching Natásha’s shoulders. “Come, lie down.”

+

+“Oh, yes... I’ll lie down at once,” said Natásha, and began hurriedly

+undressing, tugging at the tapes of her petticoat.

+

+When she had thrown off her dress and put on a dressing jacket, she sat

+down with her foot under her on the bed that had been made up on the

+floor, jerked her thin and rather short plait of hair to the front,

+and began replaiting it. Her long, thin, practiced fingers rapidly

+unplaited, replaited, and tied up her plait. Her head moved from side

+to side from habit, but her eyes, feverishly wide, looked fixedly before

+her. When her toilet for the night was finished she sank gently onto the

+sheet spread over the hay on the side nearest the door.

+

+“Natásha, you’d better lie in the middle,” said Sónya.

+

+“I’ll stay here,” muttered Natásha. “Do lie down,” she added crossly,

+and buried her face in the pillow.

+

+The countess, Madame Schoss, and Sónya undressed hastily and lay down.

+The small lamp in front of the icons was the only light left in

+the room. But in the yard there was a light from the fire at Little

+Mytíshchi a mile and a half away, and through the night came the noise

+of people shouting at a tavern Mamónov’s Cossacks had set up across the

+street, and the adjutant’s unceasing moans could still be heard.

+

+For a long time Natásha listened attentively to the sounds that reached

+her from inside and outside the room and did not move. First she heard

+her mother praying and sighing and the creaking of her bed under

+her, then Madame Schoss’ familiar whistling snore and Sónya’s gentle

+breathing. Then the countess called to Natásha. Natásha did not answer.

+

+“I think she’s asleep, Mamma,” said Sónya softly.

+

+After a short silence the countess spoke again but this time no one

+replied.

+

+Soon after that Natásha heard her mother’s even breathing. Natásha did

+not move, though her little bare foot, thrust out from under the quilt,

+was growing cold on the bare floor.

+

+As if to celebrate a victory over everybody, a cricket chirped in a

+crack in the wall. A cock crowed far off and another replied near

+by. The shouting in the tavern had died down; only the moaning of the

+adjutant was heard. Natásha sat up.

+

+“Sónya, are you asleep? Mamma?” she whispered.

+

+No one replied. Natásha rose slowly and carefully, crossed herself, and

+stepped cautiously on the cold and dirty floor with her slim, supple,

+bare feet. The boards of the floor creaked. Stepping cautiously from one

+foot to the other she ran like a kitten the few steps to the door and

+grasped the cold door handle.

+

+It seemed to her that something heavy was beating rhythmically against

+all the walls of the room: it was her own heart, sinking with alarm and

+terror and overflowing with love.

+

+She opened the door and stepped across the threshold and onto the cold,

+damp earthen floor of the passage. The cold she felt refreshed her. With

+her bare feet she touched a sleeping man, stepped over him, and opened

+the door into the part of the hut where Prince Andrew lay. It was dark

+in there. In the farthest corner, on a bench beside a bed on which

+something was lying, stood a tallow candle with a long, thick, and

+smoldering wick.

+

+From the moment she had been told that morning of Prince Andrew’s wound

+and his presence there, Natásha had resolved to see him. She did not

+know why she had to, she knew the meeting would be painful, but felt the

+more convinced that it was necessary.

+

+All day she had lived only in hope of seeing him that night. But now

+that the moment had come she was filled with dread of what she might

+see. How was he maimed? What was left of him? Was he like that incessant

+moaning of the adjutant’s? Yes, he was altogether like that. In her

+imagination he was that terrible moaning personified. When she saw an

+indistinct shape in the corner, and mistook his knees raised under the

+quilt for his shoulders, she imagined a horrible body there, and stood

+still in terror. But an irresistible impulse drew her forward. She

+cautiously took one step and then another, and found herself in the

+middle of a small room containing baggage. Another man—Timókhin—was

+lying in a corner on the benches beneath the icons, and two others—the

+doctor and a valet—lay on the floor.

+

+The valet sat up and whispered something. Timókhin, kept awake by the

+pain in his wounded leg, gazed with wide-open eyes at this strange

+apparition of a girl in a white chemise, dressing jacket, and nightcap.

+The valet’s sleepy, frightened exclamation, “What do you want? What’s

+the matter?” made Natásha approach more swiftly to what was lying in the

+corner. Horribly unlike a man as that body looked, she must see him.

+She passed the valet, the snuff fell from the candle wick, and she saw

+Prince Andrew clearly with his arms outside the quilt, and such as she

+had always seen him.

+

+He was the same as ever, but the feverish color of his face, his

+glittering eyes rapturously turned toward her, and especially his neck,

+delicate as a child’s, revealed by the turn-down collar of his shirt,

+gave him a peculiarly innocent, childlike look, such as she had never

+seen on him before. She went up to him and with a swift, flexible,

+youthful movement dropped on her knees.

+

+He smiled and held out his hand to her.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXXII

+

+Seven days had passed since Prince Andrew found himself in the

+ambulance station on the field of Borodinó. His feverish state and the

+inflammation of his bowels, which were injured, were in the doctor’s

+opinion sure to carry him off. But on the seventh day he ate with

+pleasure a piece of bread with some tea, and the doctor noticed that his

+temperature was lower. He had regained consciousness that morning.

+The first night after they left Moscow had been fairly warm and he had

+remained in the calèche, but at Mytíshchi the wounded man himself asked

+to be taken out and given some tea. The pain caused by his removal into

+the hut had made him groan aloud and again lose consciousness. When he

+had been placed on his camp bed he lay for a long time motionless with

+closed eyes. Then he opened them and whispered softly: “And the tea?”

+His remembering such a small detail of everyday life astonished

+the doctor. He felt Prince Andrew’s pulse, and to his surprise and

+dissatisfaction found it had improved. He was dissatisfied because he

+knew by experience that if his patient did not die now, he would do so

+a little later with greater suffering. Timókhin, the red-nosed major of

+Prince Andrew’s regiment, had joined him in Moscow and was being

+taken along with him, having been wounded in the leg at the battle of

+Borodinó. They were accompanied by a doctor, Prince Andrew’s valet, his

+coachman, and two orderlies.

+

+They gave Prince Andrew some tea. He drank it eagerly, looking with

+feverish eyes at the door in front of him as if trying to understand and

+remember something.

+

+“I don’t want any more. Is Timókhin here?” he asked.

+

+Timókhin crept along the bench to him.

+

+“I am here, your excellency.”

+

+“How’s your wound?”

+

+“Mine, sir? All right. But how about you?”

+

+Prince Andrew again pondered as if trying to remember something.

+

+“Couldn’t one get a book?” he asked.

+

+“What book?”

+

+“The Gospels. I haven’t one.”

+

+The doctor promised to procure it for him and began to ask how he

+was feeling. Prince Andrew answered all his questions reluctantly but

+reasonably, and then said he wanted a bolster placed under him as he was

+uncomfortable and in great pain. The doctor and valet lifted the cloak

+with which he was covered and, making wry faces at the noisome smell of

+mortifying flesh that came from the wound, began examining that dreadful

+place. The doctor was very much displeased about something and made a

+change in the dressings, turning the wounded man over so that he groaned

+again and grew unconscious and delirious from the agony. He kept asking

+them to get him the book and put it under him.

+

+“What trouble would it be to you?” he said. “I have not got one. Please

+get it for me and put it under for a moment,” he pleaded in a piteous

+voice.

+

+The doctor went into the passage to wash his hands.

+

+“You fellows have no conscience,” said he to the valet who was pouring

+water over his hands. “For just one moment I didn’t look after you...

+It’s such pain, you know, that I wonder how he can bear it.”

+

+“By the Lord Jesus Christ, I thought we had put something under him!”

+said the valet.

+

+The first time Prince Andrew understood where he was and what was the

+matter with him and remembered being wounded and how was when he asked

+to be carried into the hut after his calèche had stopped at Mytíshchi.

+After growing confused from pain while being carried into the hut he

+again regained consciousness, and while drinking tea once more recalled

+all that had happened to him, and above all vividly remembered the

+moment at the ambulance station when, at the sight of the sufferings of

+a man he disliked, those new thoughts had come to him which promised him

+happiness. And those thoughts, though now vague and indefinite, again

+possessed his soul. He remembered that he had now a new source of

+happiness and that this happiness had something to do with the Gospels.

+That was why he asked for a copy of them. The uncomfortable position in

+which they had put him and turned him over again confused his thoughts,

+and when he came to himself a third time it was in the complete

+stillness of the night. Everybody near him was sleeping. A cricket

+chirped from across the passage; someone was shouting and singing in

+the street; cockroaches rustled on the table, on the icons, and on

+the walls, and a big fly flopped at the head of the bed and around the

+candle beside him, the wick of which was charred and had shaped itself

+like a mushroom.

+

+His mind was not in a normal state. A healthy man usually thinks of,

+feels, and remembers innumerable things simultaneously, but has the

+power and will to select one sequence of thoughts or events on which to

+fix his whole attention. A healthy man can tear himself away from the

+deepest reflections to say a civil word to someone who comes in and can

+then return again to his own thoughts. But Prince Andrew’s mind was not

+in a normal state in that respect. All the powers of his mind were more

+active and clearer than ever, but they acted apart from his will. Most

+diverse thoughts and images occupied him simultaneously. At times his

+brain suddenly began to work with a vigor, clearness, and depth it had

+never reached when he was in health, but suddenly in the midst of its

+work it would turn to some unexpected idea and he had not the strength

+to turn it back again.

+

+“Yes, a new happiness was revealed to me of which man cannot be

+deprived,” he thought as he lay in the semidarkness of the quiet hut,

+gazing fixedly before him with feverish wide open eyes. “A happiness

+lying beyond material forces, outside the material influences that act

+on man—a happiness of the soul alone, the happiness of loving. Every man

+can understand it, but to conceive it and enjoin it was possible only

+for God. But how did God enjoin that law? And why was the Son...?”

+

+And suddenly the sequence of these thoughts broke off, and Prince Andrew

+heard (without knowing whether it was a delusion or reality) a

+soft whispering voice incessantly and rhythmically repeating

+“piti-piti-piti,” and then “titi,” and then again “piti-piti-piti,” and

+“ti-ti” once more. At the same time he felt that above his face, above

+the very middle of it, some strange airy structure was being erected out

+of slender needles or splinters, to the sound of this whispered music.

+He felt that he had to balance carefully (though it was difficult) so

+that this airy structure should not collapse; but nevertheless it kept

+collapsing and again slowly rising to the sound of whispered rhythmic

+music—“it stretches, stretches, spreading out and stretching,” said

+Prince Andrew to himself. While listening to this whispering and feeling

+the sensation of this drawing out and the construction of this edifice

+of needles, he also saw by glimpses a red halo round the candle, and

+heard the rustle of the cockroaches and the buzzing of the fly that

+flopped against his pillow and his face. Each time the fly touched his

+face it gave him a burning sensation and yet to his surprise it did not

+destroy the structure, though it knocked against the very region of his

+face where it was rising. But besides this there was something else of

+importance. It was something white by the door—the statue of a sphinx,

+which also oppressed him.

+

+“But perhaps that’s my shirt on the table,” he thought, “and that’s my

+legs, and that is the door, but why is it always stretching and drawing

+itself out, and ‘piti-piti-piti’ and ‘ti-ti’ and ‘piti-piti-piti’...?

+That’s enough, please leave off!” Prince Andrew painfully entreated

+someone. And suddenly thoughts and feelings again swam to the surface of

+his mind with peculiar clearness and force.

+

+“Yes—love,” he thought again quite clearly. “But not love which loves

+for something, for some quality, for some purpose, or for some reason,

+but the love which I—while dying—first experienced when I saw my enemy

+and yet loved him. I experienced that feeling of love which is the very

+essence of the soul and does not require an object. Now again I feel

+that bliss. To love one’s neighbors, to love one’s enemies, to love

+everything, to love God in all His manifestations. It is possible to

+love someone dear to you with human love, but an enemy can only be loved

+by divine love. That is why I experienced such joy when I felt that I

+loved that man. What has become of him? Is he alive?...

+

+“When loving with human love one may pass from love to hatred, but

+divine love cannot change. No, neither death nor anything else can

+destroy it. It is the very essence of the soul. Yet how many people have

+I hated in my life? And of them all, I loved and hated none as I did

+her.” And he vividly pictured to himself Natásha, not as he had done in

+the past with nothing but her charms which gave him delight, but for

+the first time picturing to himself her soul. And he understood her

+feelings, her sufferings, shame, and remorse. He now understood for the

+first time all the cruelty of his rejection of her, the cruelty of his

+rupture with her. “If only it were possible for me to see her once more!

+Just once, looking into those eyes to say...”

+

+“Piti-piti-piti and ti-ti and piti-piti-piti boom!” flopped the fly....

+And his attention was suddenly carried into another world, a world of

+reality and delirium in which something particular was happening. In

+that world some structure was still being erected and did not fall,

+something was still stretching out, and the candle with its red halo

+was still burning, and the same shirtlike sphinx lay near the door; but

+besides all this something creaked, there was a whiff of fresh air, and

+a new white sphinx appeared, standing at the door. And that sphinx had

+the pale face and shining eyes of the very Natásha of whom he had just

+been thinking.

+

+“Oh, how oppressive this continual delirium is,” thought Prince Andrew,

+trying to drive that face from his imagination. But the face remained

+before him with the force of reality and drew nearer. Prince Andrew

+wished to return to that former world of pure thought, but he could not,

+and delirium drew him back into its domain. The soft whispering voice

+continued its rhythmic murmur, something oppressed him and stretched

+out, and the strange face was before him. Prince Andrew collected all

+his strength in an effort to recover his senses, he moved a little, and

+suddenly there was a ringing in his ears, a dimness in his eyes, and

+like a man plunged into water he lost consciousness. When he came to

+himself, Natásha, that same living Natásha whom of all people he most

+longed to love with this new pure divine love that had been revealed to

+him, was kneeling before him. He realized that it was the real living

+Natásha, and he was not surprised but quietly happy. Natásha, motionless

+on her knees (she was unable to stir), with frightened eyes riveted on

+him, was restraining her sobs. Her face was pale and rigid. Only in the

+lower part of it something quivered.

+

+Prince Andrew sighed with relief, smiled, and held out his hand.

+

+“You?” he said. “How fortunate!”

+

+With a rapid but careful movement Natásha drew nearer to him on her

+knees and, taking his hand carefully, bent her face over it and began

+kissing it, just touching it lightly with her lips.

+

+“Forgive me!” she whispered, raising her head and glancing at him.

+“Forgive me!”

+

+“I love you,” said Prince Andrew.

+

+“Forgive...!”

+

+“Forgive what?” he asked.

+

+“Forgive me for what I ha-ve do-ne!” faltered Natásha in a scarcely

+audible, broken whisper, and began kissing his hand more rapidly, just

+touching it with her lips.

+

+“I love you more, better than before,” said Prince Andrew, lifting her

+face with his hand so as to look into her eyes.

+

+Those eyes, filled with happy tears, gazed at him timidly,

+compassionately, and with joyous love. Natásha’s thin pale face, with

+its swollen lips, was more than plain—it was dreadful. But Prince Andrew

+did not see that, he saw her shining eyes which were beautiful. They

+heard the sound of voices behind them.

+

+Peter the valet, who was now wide awake, had roused the doctor.

+Timókhin, who had not slept at all because of the pain in his leg, had

+long been watching all that was going on, carefully covering his bare

+body with the sheet as he huddled up on his bench.

+

+“What’s this?” said the doctor, rising from his bed. “Please go away,

+madam!”

+

+At that moment a maid sent by the countess, who had noticed her

+daughter’s absence, knocked at the door.

+

+Like a somnambulist aroused from her sleep Natásha went out of the room

+and, returning to her hut, fell sobbing on her bed.

+

+From that time, during all the rest of the Rostóvs’ journey, at every

+halting place and wherever they spent a night, Natásha never left the

+wounded Bolkónski, and the doctor had to admit that he had not expected

+from a young girl either such firmness or such skill in nursing a

+wounded man.

+

+Dreadful as the countess imagined it would be should Prince Andrew die

+in her daughter’s arms during the journey—as, judging by what the doctor

+said, it seemed might easily happen—she could not oppose Natásha. Though

+with the intimacy now established between the wounded man and Natásha

+the thought occurred that should he recover their former engagement

+would be renewed, no one—least of all Natásha and Prince Andrew—spoke of

+this: the unsettled question of life and death, which hung not only over

+Bolkónski but over all Russia, shut out all other considerations.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXXIII

+

+On the third of September Pierre awoke late. His head was aching, the

+clothes in which he had slept without undressing felt uncomfortable on

+his body, and his mind had a dim consciousness of something shameful

+he had done the day before. That something shameful was his yesterday’s

+conversation with Captain Ramballe.

+

+It was eleven by the clock, but it seemed peculiarly dark out of doors.

+Pierre rose, rubbed his eyes, and seeing the pistol with an engraved

+stock which Gerásim had replaced on the writing table, he remembered

+where he was and what lay before him that very day.

+

+“Am I not too late?” he thought. “No, probably he won’t make his entry

+into Moscow before noon.”

+

+Pierre did not allow himself to reflect on what lay before him, but

+hastened to act.

+

+After arranging his clothes, he took the pistol and was about to go out.

+But it then occurred to him for the first time that he certainly could

+not carry the weapon in his hand through the streets. It was difficult

+to hide such a big pistol even under his wide coat. He could not

+carry it unnoticed in his belt or under his arm. Besides, it had been

+discharged, and he had not had time to reload it. “No matter, the dagger

+will do,” he said to himself, though when planning his design he had

+more than once come to the conclusion that the chief mistake made by the

+student in 1809 had been to try to kill Napoleon with a dagger. But as

+his chief aim consisted not in carrying out his design, but in proving

+to himself that he would not abandon his intention and was doing all he

+could to achieve it, Pierre hastily took the blunt jagged dagger in a

+green sheath which he had bought at the Súkharev market with the pistol,

+and hid it under his waistcoat.

+

+Having tied a girdle over his coat and pulled his cap low on his head,

+Pierre went down the corridor, trying to avoid making a noise or meeting

+the captain, and passed out into the street.

+

+The conflagration, at which he had looked with so much indifference the

+evening before, had greatly increased during the night. Moscow was on

+fire in several places. The buildings in Carriage Row, across the river,

+in the Bazaar and the Povarskóy, as well as the barges on the Moskvá

+River and the timber yards by the Dorogomílov Bridge, were all ablaze.

+

+Pierre’s way led through side streets to the Povarskóy and from there

+to the church of St. Nicholas on the Arbát, where he had long before

+decided that the deed should be done. The gates of most of the houses

+were locked and the shutters up. The streets and lanes were deserted.

+The air was full of smoke and the smell of burning. Now and then he met

+Russians with anxious and timid faces, and Frenchmen with an air not of

+the city but of the camp, walking in the middle of the streets. Both

+the Russians and the French looked at Pierre with surprise. Besides his

+height and stoutness, and the strange morose look of suffering in his

+face and whole figure, the Russians stared at Pierre because they could

+not make out to what class he could belong. The French followed him with

+astonishment in their eyes chiefly because Pierre, unlike all the

+other Russians who gazed at the French with fear and curiosity, paid no

+attention to them. At the gate of one house three Frenchmen, who were

+explaining something to some Russians who did not understand them,

+stopped Pierre asking if he did not know French.

+

+Pierre shook his head and went on. In another side street a sentinel

+standing beside a green caisson shouted at him, but only when the shout

+was threateningly repeated and he heard the click of the man’s musket as

+he raised it did Pierre understand that he had to pass on the other side

+of the street. He heard nothing and saw nothing of what went on around

+him. He carried his resolution within himself in terror and haste, like

+something dreadful and alien to him, for, after the previous night’s

+experience, he was afraid of losing it. But he was not destined to bring

+his mood safely to his destination. And even had he not been hindered by

+anything on the way, his intention could not now have been carried out,

+for Napoleon had passed the Arbát more than four hours previously on his

+way from the Dorogomílov suburb to the Krémlin, and was now sitting in

+a very gloomy frame of mind in a royal study in the Krémlin, giving

+detailed and exact orders as to measures to be taken immediately

+to extinguish the fire, to prevent looting, and to reassure the

+inhabitants. But Pierre did not know this; he was entirely absorbed

+in what lay before him, and was tortured—as those are who obstinately

+undertake a task that is impossible for them not because of its

+difficulty but because of its incompatibility with their natures—by the

+fear of weakening at the decisive moment and so losing his self-esteem.

+

+Though he heard and saw nothing around him he found his way by instinct

+and did not go wrong in the side streets that led to the Povarskóy.

+

+As Pierre approached that street the smoke became denser and denser—he

+even felt the heat of the fire. Occasionally curly tongues of flame rose

+from under the roofs of the houses. He met more people in the streets

+and they were more excited. But Pierre, though he felt that something

+unusual was happening around him, did not realize that he was

+approaching the fire. As he was going along a footpath across a

+wide-open space adjoining the Povarskóy on one side and the gardens

+of Prince Gruzínski’s house on the other, Pierre suddenly heard the

+desperate weeping of a woman close to him. He stopped as if awakening

+from a dream and lifted his head.

+

+By the side of the path, on the dusty dry grass, all sorts of household

+goods lay in a heap: featherbeds, a samovar, icons, and trunks. On the

+ground, beside the trunks, sat a thin woman no longer young, with long,

+prominent upper teeth, and wearing a black cloak and cap. This woman,

+swaying to and fro and muttering something, was choking with sobs. Two

+girls of about ten and twelve, dressed in dirty short frocks and cloaks,

+were staring at their mother with a look of stupefaction on their pale

+frightened faces. The youngest child, a boy of about seven, who wore an

+overcoat and an immense cap evidently not his own, was crying in his

+old nurse’s arms. A dirty, barefooted maid was sitting on a trunk,

+and, having undone her pale-colored plait, was pulling it straight

+and sniffing at her singed hair. The woman’s husband, a short,

+round-shouldered man in the undress uniform of a civilian official, with

+sausage-shaped whiskers and showing under his square-set cap the hair

+smoothly brushed forward over his temples, with expressionless face was

+moving the trunks, which were placed one on another, and was dragging

+some garments from under them.

+

+As soon as she saw Pierre, the woman almost threw herself at his feet.

+

+“Dear people, good Christians, save me, help me, dear friends... help

+us, somebody,” she muttered between her sobs. “My girl... My daughter!

+My youngest daughter is left behind. She’s burned! Ooh! Was it for this

+I nursed you.... Ooh!”

+

+“Don’t, Mary Nikoláevna!” said her husband to her in a low voice,

+evidently only to justify himself before the stranger. “Sister must have

+taken her, or else where can she be?” he added.

+

+“Monster! Villain!” shouted the woman angrily, suddenly ceasing to weep.

+“You have no heart, you don’t feel for your own child! Another man would

+have rescued her from the fire. But this is a monster and neither a

+man nor a father! You, honored sir, are a noble man,” she went on,

+addressing Pierre rapidly between her sobs. “The fire broke out

+alongside, and blew our way, the maid called out ‘Fire!’ and we rushed

+to collect our things. We ran out just as we were.... This is what we

+have brought away.... The icons, and my dowry bed, all the rest is lost.

+We seized the children. But not Katie! Ooh! O Lord!...” and again she

+began to sob. “My child, my dear one! Burned, burned!”

+

+“But where was she left?” asked Pierre.

+

+From the expression of his animated face the woman saw that this man

+might help her.

+

+“Oh, dear sir!” she cried, seizing him by the legs. “My benefactor, set

+my heart at ease.... Aníska, go, you horrid girl, show him the way!” she

+cried to the maid, angrily opening her mouth and still farther exposing

+her long teeth.

+

+“Show me the way, show me, I... I’ll do it,” gasped Pierre rapidly.

+

+The dirty maidservant stepped from behind the trunk, put up her plait,

+sighed, and went on her short, bare feet along the path. Pierre felt

+as if he had come back to life after a heavy swoon. He held his head

+higher, his eyes shone with the light of life, and with swift steps

+he followed the maid, overtook her, and came out on the Povarskóy. The

+whole street was full of clouds of black smoke. Tongues of flame here

+and there broke through that cloud. A great number of people crowded in

+front of the conflagration. In the middle of the street stood a French

+general saying something to those around him. Pierre, accompanied by the

+maid, was advancing to the spot where the general stood, but the French

+soldiers stopped him.

+

+“On ne passe pas!” * cried a voice.

+

+    * “You can’t pass!”

+

+

+“This way, uncle,” cried the girl. “We’ll pass through the side street,

+by the Nikúlins’!”

+

+Pierre turned back, giving a spring now and then to keep up with her.

+She ran across the street, turned down a side street to the left, and,

+passing three houses, turned into a yard on the right.

+

+“It’s here, close by,” said she and, running across the yard, opened a

+gate in a wooden fence and, stopping, pointed out to him a small wooden

+wing of the house, which was burning brightly and fiercely. One of its

+sides had fallen in, another was on fire, and bright flames issued from

+the openings of the windows and from under the roof.

+

+As Pierre passed through the fence gate, he was enveloped by hot air and

+involuntarily stopped.

+

+“Which is it? Which is your house?” he asked.

+

+“Ooh!” wailed the girl, pointing to the wing. “That’s it, that was our

+lodging. You’ve burned to death, our treasure, Katie, my precious little

+missy! Ooh!” lamented Aníska, who at the sight of the fire felt that she

+too must give expression to her feelings.

+

+Pierre rushed to the wing, but the heat was so great that he

+involuntarily passed round in a curve and came upon the large house

+that was as yet burning only at one end, just below the roof, and around

+which swarmed a crowd of Frenchmen. At first Pierre did not realize

+what these men, who were dragging something out, were about; but seeing

+before him a Frenchman hitting a peasant with a blunt saber and trying

+to take from him a fox-fur coat, he vaguely understood that looting was

+going on there, but he had no time to dwell on that idea.

+

+The sounds of crackling and the din of falling walls and ceilings, the

+whistle and hiss of the flames, the excited shouts of the people, and

+the sight of the swaying smoke, now gathering into thick black clouds

+and now soaring up with glittering sparks, with here and there dense

+sheaves of flame (now red and now like golden fish scales creeping along

+the walls), and the heat and smoke and rapidity of motion, produced

+on Pierre the usual animating effects of a conflagration. It had a

+peculiarly strong effect on him because at the sight of the fire he felt

+himself suddenly freed from the ideas that had weighed him down. He felt

+young, bright, adroit, and resolute. He ran round to the other side of

+the lodge and was about to dash into that part of it which was still

+standing, when just above his head he heard several voices shouting

+and then a cracking sound and the ring of something heavy falling close

+beside him.

+

+Pierre looked up and saw at a window of the large house some Frenchmen

+who had just thrown out the drawer of a chest, filled with metal

+articles. Other French soldiers standing below went up to the drawer.

+

+“What does this fellow want?” shouted one of them referring to Pierre.

+

+“There’s a child in that house. Haven’t you seen a child?” cried Pierre.

+

+“What’s he talking about? Get along!” said several voices, and one of

+the soldiers, evidently afraid that Pierre might want to take from

+them some of the plate and bronzes that were in the drawer, moved

+threateningly toward him.

+

+“A child?” shouted a Frenchman from above. “I did hear something

+squealing in the garden. Perhaps it’s his brat that the fellow is

+looking for. After all, one must be human, you know....”

+

+“Where is it? Where?” said Pierre.

+

+“There! There!” shouted the Frenchman at the window, pointing to the

+garden at the back of the house. “Wait a bit—I’m coming down.”

+

+And a minute or two later the Frenchman, a black-eyed fellow with a spot

+on his cheek, in shirt sleeves, really did jump out of a window on the

+ground floor, and clapping Pierre on the shoulder ran with him into the

+garden.

+

+“Hurry up, you others!” he called out to his comrades. “It’s getting

+hot.”

+

+When they reached a gravel path behind the house the Frenchman pulled

+Pierre by the arm and pointed to a round, graveled space where a

+three-year-old girl in a pink dress was lying under a seat.

+

+“There is your child! Oh, a girl, so much the better!” said the

+Frenchman. “Good-by, Fatty. We must be human, we are all mortal you

+know!” and the Frenchman with the spot on his cheek ran back to his

+comrades.

+

+Breathless with joy, Pierre ran to the little girl and was going to take

+her in his arms. But seeing a stranger the sickly, scrofulous-looking

+child, unattractively like her mother, began to yell and run away.

+Pierre, however, seized her and lifted her in his arms. She screamed

+desperately and angrily and tried with her little hands to pull Pierre’s

+hands away and to bite them with her slobbering mouth. Pierre was seized

+by a sense of horror and repulsion such as he had experienced when

+touching some nasty little animal. But he made an effort not to throw

+the child down and ran with her to the large house. It was now, however,

+impossible to get back the way he had come; the maid, Aníska, was no

+longer there, and Pierre with a feeling of pity and disgust pressed the

+wet, painfully sobbing child to himself as tenderly as he could and ran

+with her through the garden seeking another way out.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XXXIV

+

+Having run through different yards and side streets, Pierre got back

+with his little burden to the Gruzínski garden at the corner of the

+Povarskóy. He did not at first recognize the place from which he had set

+out to look for the child, so crowded was it now with people and goods

+that had been dragged out of the houses. Besides Russian families who

+had taken refuge here from the fire with their belongings, there were

+several French soldiers in a variety of clothing. Pierre took no notice

+of them. He hurried to find the family of that civil servant in order to

+restore the daughter to her mother and go to save someone else. Pierre

+felt that he had still much to do and to do quickly. Glowing with the

+heat and from running, he felt at that moment more strongly than ever

+the sense of youth, animation, and determination that had come on him

+when he ran to save the child. She had now become quiet and, clinging

+with her little hands to Pierre’s coat, sat on his arm gazing about

+her like some little wild animal. He glanced at her occasionally with a

+slight smile. He fancied he saw something pathetically innocent in that

+frightened, sickly little face.

+

+He did not find the civil servant or his wife where he had left them. He

+walked among the crowd with rapid steps, scanning the various faces he

+met. Involuntarily he noticed a Georgian or Armenian family

+consisting of a very handsome old man of Oriental type, wearing a new,

+cloth-covered, sheepskin coat and new boots, an old woman of similar

+type, and a young woman. That very young woman seemed to Pierre the

+perfection of Oriental beauty, with her sharply outlined, arched,

+black eyebrows and the extraordinarily soft, bright color of her long,

+beautiful, expressionless face. Amid the scattered property and the

+crowd on the open space, she, in her rich satin cloak with a bright

+lilac shawl on her head, suggested a delicate exotic plant thrown out

+onto the snow. She was sitting on some bundles a little behind the old

+woman, and looked from under her long lashes with motionless, large,

+almond-shaped eyes at the ground before her. Evidently she was aware

+of her beauty and fearful because of it. Her face struck Pierre and,

+hurrying along by the fence, he turned several times to look at her.

+When he had reached the fence, still without finding those he sought, he

+stopped and looked about him.

+

+With the child in his arms his figure was now more conspicuous than

+before, and a group of Russians, both men and women, gathered about him.

+

+“Have you lost anyone, my dear fellow? You’re of the gentry yourself,

+aren’t you? Whose child is it?” they asked him.

+

+Pierre replied that the child belonged to a woman in a black coat who

+had been sitting there with her other children, and he asked whether

+anyone knew where she had gone.

+

+“Why, that must be the Anférovs,” said an old deacon, addressing a

+pockmarked peasant woman. “Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy!” he added

+in his customary bass.

+

+“The Anférovs? No,” said the woman. “They left in the morning. That must

+be either Mary Nikoláevna’s or the Ivánovs’!”

+

+“He says ‘a woman,’ and Mary Nikoláevna is a lady,” remarked a house

+serf.

+

+“Do you know her? She’s thin, with long teeth,” said Pierre.

+

+“That’s Mary Nikoláevna! They went inside the garden when these wolves

+swooped down,” said the woman, pointing to the French soldiers.

+

+“O Lord, have mercy!” added the deacon.

+

+“Go over that way, they’re there. It’s she! She kept on lamenting and

+crying,” continued the woman. “It’s she. Here, this way!”

+

+But Pierre was not listening to the woman. He had for some seconds been

+intently watching what was going on a few steps away. He was looking at

+the Armenian family and at two French soldiers who had gone up to them.

+One of these, a nimble little man, was wearing a blue coat tied round

+the waist with a rope. He had a nightcap on his head and his feet were

+bare. The other, whose appearance particularly struck Pierre, was a

+long, lank, round-shouldered, fair-haired man, slow in his movements

+and with an idiotic expression of face. He wore a woman’s loose gown

+of frieze, blue trousers, and large torn Hessian boots. The little

+barefooted Frenchman in the blue coat went up to the Armenians and,

+saying something, immediately seized the old man by his legs and the old

+man at once began pulling off his boots. The other in the frieze gown

+stopped in front of the beautiful Armenian girl and with his hands in

+his pockets stood staring at her, motionless and silent.

+

+“Here, take the child!” said Pierre peremptorily and hurriedly to the

+woman, handing the little girl to her. “Give her back to them, give her

+back!” he almost shouted, putting the child, who began screaming, on the

+ground, and again looking at the Frenchman and the Armenian family.

+

+The old man was already sitting barefoot. The little Frenchman had

+secured his second boot and was slapping one boot against the other.

+The old man was saying something in a voice broken by sobs, but Pierre

+caught but a glimpse of this, his whole attention was directed to the

+Frenchman in the frieze gown who meanwhile, swaying slowly from side to

+side, had drawn nearer to the young woman and taking his hands from his

+pockets had seized her by the neck.

+

+The beautiful Armenian still sat motionless and in the same attitude,

+with her long lashes drooping as if she did not see or feel what the

+soldier was doing to her.

+

+While Pierre was running the few steps that separated him from the

+Frenchman, the tall marauder in the frieze gown was already tearing

+from her neck the necklace the young Armenian was wearing, and the young

+woman, clutching at her neck, screamed piercingly.

+

+“Let that woman alone!” exclaimed Pierre hoarsely in a furious voice,

+seizing the soldier by his round shoulders and throwing him aside.

+

+The soldier fell, got up, and ran away. But his comrade, throwing down

+the boots and drawing his sword, moved threateningly toward Pierre.

+

+“Voyons, pas de bêtises!” * he cried.

+

+    * “Look here, no nonsense!”

+

+

+Pierre was in such a transport of rage that he remembered nothing and

+his strength increased tenfold. He rushed at the barefooted Frenchman

+and, before the latter had time to draw his sword, knocked him off his

+feet and hammered him with his fists. Shouts of approval were heard

+from the crowd around, and at the same moment a mounted patrol of French

+Uhlans appeared from round the corner. The Uhlans came up at a trot to

+Pierre and the Frenchman and surrounded them. Pierre remembered nothing

+of what happened after that. He only remembered beating someone and

+being beaten and finally feeling that his hands were bound and that a

+crowd of French soldiers stood around him and were searching him.

+

+“Lieutenant, he has a dagger,” were the first words Pierre understood.

+

+“Ah, a weapon?” said the officer and turned to the barefooted soldier

+who had been arrested with Pierre. “All right, you can tell all about it

+at the court-martial.” Then he turned to Pierre. “Do you speak French?”

+

+Pierre looked around him with bloodshot eyes and did not reply. His

+face probably looked very terrible, for the officer said something in

+a whisper and four more Uhlans left the ranks and placed themselves on

+both sides of Pierre.

+

+“Do you speak French?” the officer asked again, keeping at a distance

+from Pierre. “Call the interpreter.”

+

+A little man in Russian civilian clothes rode out from the ranks, and

+by his clothes and manner of speaking Pierre at once knew him to be a

+French salesman from one of the Moscow shops.

+

+“He does not look like a common man,” said the interpreter, after a

+searching look at Pierre.

+

+“Ah, he looks very much like an incendiary,” remarked the officer. “And

+ask him who he is,” he added.

+

+“Who are you?” asked the interpreter in poor Russian. “You must answer

+the chief.”

+

+“I will not tell you who I am. I am your prisoner—take me!” Pierre

+suddenly replied in French.

+

+“Ah, ah!” muttered the officer with a frown. “Well then, march!”

+

+A crowd had collected round the Uhlans. Nearest to Pierre stood the

+pockmarked peasant woman with the little girl, and when the patrol

+started she moved forward.

+

+“Where are they taking you to, you poor dear?” said she. “And the little

+girl, the little girl, what am I to do with her if she’s not theirs?”

+said the woman.

+

+“What does that woman want?” asked the officer.

+

+Pierre was as if intoxicated. His elation increased at the sight of the

+little girl he had saved.

+

+“What does she want?” he murmured. “She is bringing me my daughter whom

+I have just saved from the flames,” said he. “Good-by!” And without

+knowing how this aimless lie had escaped him, he went along with

+resolute and triumphant steps between the French soldiers.

+

+The French patrol was one of those sent out through the various

+streets of Moscow by Durosnel’s order to put a stop to the pillage,

+and especially to catch the incendiaries who, according to the general

+opinion which had that day originated among the higher French officers,

+were the cause of the conflagrations. After marching through a number

+of streets the patrol arrested five more Russian suspects: a small

+shopkeeper, two seminary students, a peasant, and a house serf, besides

+several looters. But of all these various suspected characters, Pierre

+was considered to be the most suspicious of all. When they had all been

+brought for the night to a large house on the Zúbov Rampart that was

+being used as a guardhouse, Pierre was placed apart under strict guard.

+

+

+

+

+

+BOOK TWELVE: 1812

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+In Petersburg at that time a complicated struggle was being carried on

+with greater heat than ever in the highest circles, between the parties

+of Rumyántsev, the French, Márya Fëdorovna, the Tsarévich, and others,

+drowned as usual by the buzzing of the court drones. But the calm,

+luxurious life of Petersburg, concerned only about phantoms and

+reflections of real life, went on in its old way and made it hard,

+except by a great effort, to realize the danger and the difficult

+position of the Russian people. There were the same receptions and

+balls, the same French theater, the same court interests and service

+interests and intrigues as usual. Only in the very highest circles were

+attempts made to keep in mind the difficulties of the actual position.

+Stories were whispered of how differently the two Empresses behaved

+in these difficult circumstances. The Empress Márya, concerned for

+the welfare of the charitable and educational institutions under her

+patronage, had given directions that they should all be removed to

+Kazán, and the things belonging to these institutions had already been

+packed up. The Empress Elisabeth, however, when asked what instructions

+she would be pleased to give—with her characteristic Russian patriotism

+had replied that she could give no directions about state institutions

+for that was the affair of the sovereign, but as far as she personally

+was concerned she would be the last to quit Petersburg.

+

+At Anna Pávlovna’s on the twenty-sixth of August, the very day of the

+battle of Borodinó, there was a soiree, the chief feature of which was

+to be the reading of a letter from His Lordship the Bishop when sending

+the Emperor an icon of the Venerable Sergius. It was regarded as a model

+of ecclesiastical, patriotic eloquence. Prince Vasíli himself, famed for

+his elocution, was to read it. (He used to read at the Empress’.) The

+art of his reading was supposed to lie in rolling out the words, quite

+independently of their meaning, in a loud and singsong voice alternating

+between a despairing wail and a tender murmur, so that the wail fell

+quite at random on one word and the murmur on another. This reading,

+as was always the case at Anna Pávlovna’s soirees, had a political

+significance. That evening she expected several important personages who

+had to be made ashamed of their visits to the French theater and aroused

+to a patriotic temper. A good many people had already arrived, but Anna

+Pávlovna, not yet seeing all those whom she wanted in her drawing room,

+did not let the reading begin but wound up the springs of a general

+conversation.

+

+The news of the day in Petersburg was the illness of Countess Bezúkhova.

+She had fallen ill unexpectedly a few days previously, had missed

+several gatherings of which she was usually the ornament, and was said

+to be receiving no one, and instead of the celebrated Petersburg doctors

+who usually attended her had entrusted herself to some Italian doctor

+who was treating her in some new and unusual way.

+

+They all knew very well that the enchanting countess’ illness arose from

+an inconvenience resulting from marrying two husbands at the same time,

+and that the Italian’s cure consisted in removing such inconvenience;

+but in Anna Pávlovna’s presence no one dared to think of this or even

+appear to know it.

+

+“They say the poor countess is very ill. The doctor says it is angina

+pectoris.”

+

+“Angina? Oh, that’s a terrible illness!”

+

+“They say that the rivals are reconciled, thanks to the angina...” and

+the word angina was repeated with great satisfaction.

+

+“The count is pathetic, they say. He cried like a child when the doctor

+told him the case was dangerous.”

+

+“Oh, it would be a terrible loss, she is an enchanting woman.”

+

+“You are speaking of the poor countess?” said Anna Pávlovna, coming

+up just then. “I sent to ask for news, and hear that she is a little

+better. Oh, she is certainly the most charming woman in the world,” she

+went on, with a smile at her own enthusiasm. “We belong to different

+camps, but that does not prevent my esteeming her as she deserves. She

+is very unfortunate!” added Anna Pávlovna.

+

+Supposing that by these words Anna Pávlovna was somewhat lifting the

+veil from the secret of the countess’ malady, an unwary young man

+ventured to express surprise that well-known doctors had not been called

+in and that the countess was being attended by a charlatan who might

+employ dangerous remedies.

+

+“Your information may be better than mine,” Anna Pávlovna suddenly and

+venomously retorted on the inexperienced young man, “but I know on good

+authority that this doctor is a very learned and able man. He is private

+physician to the Queen of Spain.”

+

+And having thus demolished the young man, Anna Pávlovna turned to

+another group where Bilíbin was talking about the Austrians: having

+wrinkled up his face he was evidently preparing to smooth it out again

+and utter one of his mots.

+

+“I think it is delightful,” he said, referring to a diplomatic note that

+had been sent to Vienna with some Austrian banners captured from the

+French by Wittgenstein, “the hero of Petropol” as he was then called in

+Petersburg.

+

+“What? What’s that?” asked Anna Pávlovna, securing silence for the mot,

+which she had heard before.

+

+And Bilíbin repeated the actual words of the diplomatic dispatch, which

+he had himself composed.

+

+“The Emperor returns these Austrian banners,” said Bilíbin, “friendly

+banners gone astray and found on a wrong path,” and his brow became

+smooth again.

+

+“Charming, charming!” observed Prince Vasíli.

+

+“The path to Warsaw, perhaps,” Prince Hippolyte remarked loudly and

+unexpectedly. Everybody looked at him, understanding what he meant.

+Prince Hippolyte himself glanced around with amused surprise. He knew no

+more than the others what his words meant. During his diplomatic career

+he had more than once noticed that such utterances were received as very

+witty, and at every opportunity he uttered in that way the first words

+that entered his head. “It may turn out very well,” he thought, “but

+if not, they’ll know how to arrange matters.” And really, during the

+awkward silence that ensued, that insufficiently patriotic person

+entered whom Anna Pávlovna had been waiting for and wished to convert,

+and she, smiling and shaking a finger at Hippolyte, invited Prince

+Vasíli to the table and bringing him two candles and the manuscript

+begged him to begin. Everyone became silent.

+

+“Most Gracious Sovereign and Emperor!” Prince Vasíli sternly declaimed,

+looking round at his audience as if to inquire whether anyone had

+anything to say to the contrary. But no one said anything. “Moscow, our

+ancient capital, the New Jerusalem, receives her Christ”—he placed a

+sudden emphasis on the word her—“as a mother receives her zealous sons

+into her arms, and through the gathering mists, foreseeing the brilliant

+glory of thy rule, sings in exultation, ‘Hosanna, blessed is he that

+cometh!’”

+

+Prince Vasíli pronounced these last words in a tearful voice.

+

+Bilíbin attentively examined his nails, and many of those present

+appeared intimidated, as if asking in what they were to blame. Anna

+Pávlovna whispered the next words in advance, like an old woman

+muttering the prayer at Communion: “Let the bold and insolent

+Goliath...” she whispered.

+

+Prince Vasíli continued.

+

+“Let the bold and insolent Goliath from the borders of France encompass

+the realms of Russia with death-bearing terrors; humble Faith, the sling

+of the Russian David, shall suddenly smite his head in his bloodthirsty

+pride. This icon of the Venerable Sergius, the servant of God and

+zealous champion of old of our country’s weal, is offered to Your

+Imperial Majesty. I grieve that my waning strength prevents rejoicing

+in the sight of your most gracious presence. I raise fervent prayers to

+Heaven that the Almighty may exalt the race of the just, and mercifully

+fulfill the desires of Your Majesty.”

+

+“What force! What a style!” was uttered in approval both of reader and

+of author.

+

+Animated by that address Anna Pávlovna’s guests talked for a long time

+of the state of the fatherland and offered various conjectures as to the

+result of the battle to be fought in a few days.

+

+“You will see,” said Anna Pávlovna, “that tomorrow, on the Emperor’s

+birthday, we shall receive news. I have a favorable presentiment!”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+Anna Pávlovna’s presentiment was in fact fulfilled. Next day during the

+service at the palace church in honor of the Emperor’s birthday, Prince

+Volkónski was called out of the church and received a dispatch from

+Prince Kutúzov. It was Kutúzov’s report, written from Tatárinova on the

+day of the battle. Kutúzov wrote that the Russians had not retreated a

+step, that the French losses were much heavier than ours, and that he

+was writing in haste from the field of battle before collecting full

+information. It followed that there must have been a victory. And at

+once, without leaving the church, thanks were rendered to the Creator

+for His help and for the victory.

+

+Anna Pávlovna’s presentiment was justified, and all that morning a

+joyously festive mood reigned in the city. Everyone believed the victory

+to have been complete, and some even spoke of Napoleon’s having been

+captured, of his deposition, and of the choice of a new ruler for

+France.

+

+It is very difficult for events to be reflected in their real strength

+and completeness amid the conditions of court life and far from the

+scene of action. General events involuntarily group themselves around

+some particular incident. So now the courtiers’ pleasure was based as

+much on the fact that the news had arrived on the Emperor’s birthday as

+on the fact of the victory itself. It was like a successfully arranged

+surprise. Mention was made in Kutúzov’s report of the Russian losses,

+among which figured the names of Túchkov, Bagratión, and Kutáysov. In

+the Petersburg world this sad side of the affair again involuntarily

+centered round a single incident: Kutáysov’s death. Everybody knew

+him, the Emperor liked him, and he was young and interesting. That day

+everyone met with the words:

+

+“What a wonderful coincidence! Just during the service. But what a loss

+Kutáysov is! How sorry I am!”

+

+“What did I tell about Kutúzov?” Prince Vasíli now said with a

+prophet’s pride. “I always said he was the only man capable of defeating

+Napoleon.”

+

+But next day no news arrived from the army and the public mood grew

+anxious. The courtiers suffered because of the suffering the suspense

+occasioned the Emperor.

+

+“Fancy the Emperor’s position!” said they, and instead of extolling

+Kutúzov as they had done the day before, they condemned him as the cause

+of the Emperor’s anxiety. That day Prince Vasíli no longer boasted of

+his protégé Kutúzov, but remained silent when the commander in chief was

+mentioned. Moreover, toward evening, as if everything conspired to make

+Petersburg society anxious and uneasy, a terrible piece of news was

+added. Countess Hélène Bezúkhova had suddenly died of that terrible

+malady it had been so agreeable to mention. Officially, at large

+gatherings, everyone said that Countess Bezúkhova had died of a

+terrible attack of angina pectoris, but in intimate circles details

+were mentioned of how the private physician of the Queen of Spain had

+prescribed small doses of a certain drug to produce a certain effect;

+but Hélène, tortured by the fact that the old count suspected her and

+that her husband to whom she had written (that wretched, profligate

+Pierre) had not replied, had suddenly taken a very large dose of the

+drug, and had died in agony before assistance could be rendered her.

+It was said that Prince Vasíli and the old count had turned upon the

+Italian, but the latter had produced such letters from the unfortunate

+deceased that they had immediately let the matter drop.

+

+Talk in general centered round three melancholy facts: the Emperor’s

+lack of news, the loss of Kutáysov, and the death of Hélène.

+

+On the third day after Kutúzov’s report a country gentleman arrived from

+Moscow, and news of the surrender of Moscow to the French spread through

+the whole town. This was terrible! What a position for the Emperor to

+be in! Kutúzov was a traitor, and Prince Vasíli during the visits of

+condolence paid to him on the occasion of his daughter’s death said of

+Kutúzov, whom he had formerly praised (it was excusable for him in his

+grief to forget what he had said), that it was impossible to expect

+anything else from a blind and depraved old man.

+

+“I only wonder that the fate of Russia could have been entrusted to such

+a man.”

+

+As long as this news remained unofficial it was possible to doubt it,

+but the next day the following communication was received from Count

+Rostopchín:

+

+Prince Kutúzov’s adjutant has brought me a letter in which he demands

+police officers to guide the army to the Ryazán road. He writes that

+he is regretfully abandoning Moscow. Sire! Kutúzov’s action decides the

+fate of the capital and of your empire! Russia will shudder to learn of

+the abandonment of the city in which her greatness is centered and in

+which lie the ashes of your ancestors! I shall follow the army. I have

+had everything removed, and it only remains for me to weep over the fate

+of my fatherland.

+

+On receiving this dispatch the Emperor sent Prince Volkónski to Kutúzov

+with the following rescript:

+

+Prince Michael Ilariónovich! Since the twenty-ninth of August I have

+received no communication from you, yet on the first of September I

+received from the commander in chief of Moscow, via Yaroslávl, the sad

+news that you, with the army, have decided to abandon Moscow. You can

+yourself imagine the effect this news has had on me, and your silence

+increases my astonishment. I am sending this by Adjutant-General Prince

+Volkónski, to hear from you the situation of the army and the reasons

+that have induced you to take this melancholy decision.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+Nine days after the abandonment of Moscow, a messenger from Kutúzov

+reached Petersburg with the official announcement of that event. This

+messenger was Michaud, a Frenchman who did not know Russian, but who was

+quoique étranger, russe de cœur et d’âme, * as he said of himself.

+

+    * Though a foreigner, Russian in heart and soul.

+

+The Emperor at once received this messenger in his study at the palace

+on Stone Island. Michaud, who had never seen Moscow before the campaign

+and who did not know Russian, yet felt deeply moved (as he wrote) when

+he appeared before notre très gracieux souverain * with the news of the

+burning of Moscow, dont les flammes éclairaient sa route. *(2)

+

+     * Our most gracious sovereign.

+

+     * (2) Whose flames illumined his route.

+

+Though the source of M. Michaud’s chagrin must have been different from

+that which caused Russians to grieve, he had such a sad face when shown

+into the Emperor’s study that the latter at once asked:

+

+“Have you brought me sad news, Colonel?”

+

+“Very sad, sire,” replied Michaud, lowering his eyes with a sigh. “The

+abandonment of Moscow.”

+

+“Have they surrendered my ancient capital without a battle?” asked the

+Emperor quickly, his face suddenly flushing.

+

+Michaud respectfully delivered the message Kutúzov had entrusted to him,

+which was that it had been impossible to fight before Moscow, and that

+as the only remaining choice was between losing the army as well as

+Moscow, or losing Moscow alone, the field marshal had to choose the

+latter.

+

+The Emperor listened in silence, not looking at Michaud.

+

+“Has the enemy entered the city?” he asked.

+

+“Yes, sire, and Moscow is now in ashes. I left it all in flames,”

+replied Michaud in a decided tone, but glancing at the Emperor he was

+frightened by what he had done.

+

+The Emperor began to breathe heavily and rapidly, his lower lip

+trembled, and tears instantly appeared in his fine blue eyes.

+

+But this lasted only a moment. He suddenly frowned, as if blaming

+himself for his weakness, and raising his head addressed Michaud in a

+firm voice:

+

+“I see, Colonel, from all that is happening, that Providence requires

+great sacrifices of us... I am ready to submit myself in all things to

+His will; but tell me, Michaud, how did you leave the army when it

+saw my ancient capital abandoned without a battle? Did you not notice

+discouragement?...”

+

+Seeing that his most gracious ruler was calm once more, Michaud also

+grew calm, but was not immediately ready to reply to the Emperor’s

+direct and relevant question which required a direct answer.

+

+“Sire, will you allow me to speak frankly as befits a loyal soldier?” he

+asked to gain time.

+

+“Colonel, I always require it,” replied the Emperor. “Conceal nothing

+from me, I wish to know absolutely how things are.”

+

+“Sire!” said Michaud with a subtle, scarcely perceptible smile on his

+lips, having now prepared a well-phrased reply, “sire, I left the

+whole army, from its chiefs to the lowest soldier, without exception in

+desperate and agonized terror...”

+

+“How is that?” the Emperor interrupted him, frowning sternly. “Would

+misfortune make my Russians lose heart?... Never!”

+

+Michaud had only waited for this to bring out the phrase he had

+prepared.

+

+“Sire,” he said, with respectful playfulness, “they are only afraid lest

+Your Majesty, in the goodness of your heart, should allow yourself to be

+persuaded to make peace. They are burning for the combat,” declared this

+representative of the Russian nation, “and to prove to Your Majesty by

+the sacrifice of their lives how devoted they are....”

+

+“Ah!” said the Emperor reassured, and with a kindly gleam in his eyes,

+he patted Michaud on the shoulder. “You set me at ease, Colonel.”

+

+He bent his head and was silent for some time.

+

+“Well, then, go back to the army,” he said, drawing himself up to his

+full height and addressing Michaud with a gracious and majestic gesture,

+“and tell our brave men and all my good subjects wherever you go that

+when I have not a soldier left I shall put myself at the head of my

+beloved nobility and my good peasants and so use the last resources of

+my empire. It still offers me more than my enemies suppose,” said the

+Emperor growing more and more animated; “but should it ever be ordained

+by Divine Providence,” he continued, raising to heaven his fine eyes

+shining with emotion, “that my dynasty should cease to reign on the

+throne of my ancestors, then after exhausting all the means at my

+command, I shall let my beard grow to here” (he pointed halfway down his

+chest) “and go and eat potatoes with the meanest of my peasants, rather

+than sign the disgrace of my country and of my beloved people whose

+sacrifices I know how to appreciate.”

+

+Having uttered these words in an agitated voice the Emperor suddenly

+turned away as if to hide from Michaud the tears that rose to his eyes,

+and went to the further end of his study. Having stood there a few

+moments, he strode back to Michaud and pressed his arm below the elbow

+with a vigorous movement. The Emperor’s mild and handsome face was

+flushed and his eyes gleamed with resolution and anger.

+

+“Colonel Michaud, do not forget what I say to you here, perhaps we may

+recall it with pleasure someday... Napoleon or I,” said the Emperor,

+touching his breast. “We can no longer both reign together. I have

+learned to know him, and he will not deceive me any more....”

+

+And the Emperor paused, with a frown.

+

+When he heard these words and saw the expression of firm resolution in

+the Emperor’s eyes, Michaud—quoique étranger, russe de cœur et d’âme,—at

+that solemn moment felt himself enraptured by all that he had heard (as

+he used afterwards to say), and gave expression to his own feelings and

+those of the Russian people whose representative he considered himself

+to be, in the following words:

+

+“Sire!” said he, “Your Majesty is at this moment signing the glory of

+the nation and the salvation of Europe!”

+

+With an inclination of the head the Emperor dismissed him.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+It is natural for us who were not living in those days to imagine that

+when half Russia had been conquered and the inhabitants were fleeing to

+distant provinces, and one levy after another was being raised for the

+defense of the fatherland, all Russians from the greatest to the least

+were solely engaged in sacrificing themselves, saving their fatherland,

+or weeping over its downfall. The tales and descriptions of that time

+without exception speak only of the self-sacrifice, patriotic devotion,

+despair, grief, and the heroism of the Russians. But it was not really

+so. It appears so to us because we see only the general historic

+interest of that time and do not see all the personal human interests

+that people had. Yet in reality those personal interests of the moment

+so much transcend the general interests that they always prevent the

+public interest from being felt or even noticed. Most of the people at

+that time paid no attention to the general progress of events but were

+guided only by their private interests, and they were the very people

+whose activities at that period were most useful.

+

+Those who tried to understand the general course of events and to take

+part in it by self-sacrifice and heroism were the most useless members

+of society, they saw everything upside down, and all they did for the

+common good turned out to be useless and foolish—like Pierre’s and

+Mamónov’s regiments which looted Russian villages, and the lint the

+young ladies prepared and that never reached the wounded, and so on.

+Even those, fond of intellectual talk and of expressing their feelings,

+who discussed Russia’s position at the time involuntarily introduced

+into their conversation either a shade of pretense and falsehood or

+useless condemnation and anger directed against people accused of

+actions no one could possibly be guilty of. In historic events the rule

+forbidding us to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is specially

+applicable. Only unconscious action bears fruit, and he who plays a part

+in an historic event never understands its significance. If he tries to

+realize it his efforts are fruitless.

+

+The more closely a man was engaged in the events then taking place in

+Russia the less did he realize their significance. In Petersburg and

+in the provinces at a distance from Moscow, ladies, and gentlemen in

+militia uniforms, wept for Russia and its ancient capital and talked of

+self-sacrifice and so on; but in the army which retired beyond Moscow

+there was little talk or thought of Moscow, and when they caught sight

+of its burned ruins no one swore to be avenged on the French, but they

+thought about their next pay, their next quarters, of Matrëshka the

+vivandière, and like matters.

+

+As the war had caught him in the service, Nicholas Rostóv took a close

+and prolonged part in the defense of his country, but did so casually,

+without any aim at self-sacrifice, and he therefore looked at what was

+going on in Russia without despair and without dismally racking his

+brains over it. Had he been asked what he thought of the state of

+Russia, he would have said that it was not his business to think about

+it, that Kutúzov and others were there for that purpose, but that he had

+heard that the regiments were to be made up to their full strength, that

+fighting would probably go on for a long time yet, and that things being

+so it was quite likely he might be in command of a regiment in a couple

+of years’ time.

+

+As he looked at the matter in this way, he learned that he was being

+sent to Vorónezh to buy remounts for his division, not only without

+regret at being prevented from taking part in the coming battle, but

+with the greatest pleasure—which he did not conceal and which his

+comrades fully understood.

+

+A few days before the battle of Borodinó, Nicholas received the

+necessary money and warrants, and having sent some hussars on in

+advance, he set out with post horses for Vorónezh.

+

+Only a man who has experienced it—that is, has passed some months

+continuously in an atmosphere of campaigning and war—can understand the

+delight Nicholas felt when he escaped from the region covered by the

+army’s foraging operations, provision trains, and hospitals. When—free

+from soldiers, wagons, and the filthy traces of a camp—he saw villages

+with peasants and peasant women, gentlemen’s country houses, fields

+where cattle were grazing, posthouses with stationmasters asleep in

+them, he rejoiced as though seeing all this for the first time. What for

+a long while specially surprised and delighted him were the women, young

+and healthy, without a dozen officers making up to each of them; women,

+too, who were pleased and flattered that a passing officer should joke

+with them.

+

+In the highest spirits Nicholas arrived at night at a hotel in Vorónezh,

+ordered things he had long been deprived of in camp, and next day, very

+clean-shaven and in a full-dress uniform he had not worn for a long

+time, went to present himself to the authorities.

+

+The commander of the militia was a civilian general, an old man who was

+evidently pleased with his military designation and rank. He received

+Nicholas brusquely (imagining this to be characteristically military)

+and questioned him with an important air, as if considering the general

+progress of affairs and approving and disapproving with full right to do

+so. Nicholas was in such good spirits that this merely amused him.

+

+From the commander of the militia he drove to the governor. The governor

+was a brisk little man, very simple and affable. He indicated the stud

+farms at which Nicholas might procure horses, recommended to him a horse

+dealer in the town and a landowner fourteen miles out of town who had

+the best horses, and promised to assist him in every way.

+

+“You are Count Ilyá Rostóv’s son? My wife was a great friend of your

+mother’s. We are at home on Thursdays—today is Thursday, so please come

+and see us quite informally,” said the governor, taking leave of him.

+

+Immediately on leaving the governor’s, Nicholas hired post horses and,

+taking his squadron quartermaster with him, drove at a gallop to the

+landowner, fourteen miles away, who had the stud. Everything seemed to

+him pleasant and easy during that first part of his stay in Vorónezh

+and, as usually happens when a man is in a pleasant state of mind,

+everything went well and easily.

+

+The landowner to whom Nicholas went was a bachelor, an old cavalryman, a

+horse fancier, a sportsman, the possessor of some century-old brandy

+and some old Hungarian wine, who had a snuggery where he smoked, and who

+owned some splendid horses.

+

+In very few words Nicholas bought seventeen picked stallions for six

+thousand rubles—to serve, as he said, as samples of his remounts. After

+dining and taking rather too much of the Hungarian wine, Nicholas—having

+exchanged kisses with the landowner, with whom he was already on the

+friendliest terms—galloped back over abominable roads, in the brightest

+frame of mind, continually urging on the driver so as to be in time for

+the governor’s party.

+

+When he had changed, poured water over his head, and scented himself,

+Nicholas arrived at the governor’s rather late, but with the phrase

+“better late than never” on his lips.

+

+It was not a ball, nor had dancing been announced, but everyone knew

+that Catherine Petróvna would play valses and the écossaise on the

+clavichord and that there would be dancing, and so everyone had come as

+to a ball.

+

+Provincial life in 1812 went on very much as usual, but with this

+difference, that it was livelier in the towns in consequence of the

+arrival of many wealthy families from Moscow, and as in everything that

+went on in Russia at that time a special recklessness was noticeable, an

+“in for a penny, in for a pound—who cares?” spirit, and the inevitable

+small talk, instead of turning on the weather and mutual acquaintances,

+now turned on Moscow, the army, and Napoleon.

+

+The society gathered together at the governor’s was the best in

+Vorónezh.

+

+There were a great many ladies and some of Nicholas’ Moscow

+acquaintances, but there were no men who could at all vie with the

+cavalier of St. George, the hussar remount officer, the good-natured

+and well-bred Count Rostóv. Among the men was an Italian prisoner, an

+officer of the French army; and Nicholas felt that the presence of that

+prisoner enhanced his own importance as a Russian hero. The Italian

+was, as it were, a war trophy. Nicholas felt this, it seemed to him

+that everyone regarded the Italian in the same light, and he treated him

+cordially though with dignity and restraint.

+

+As soon as Nicholas entered in his hussar uniform, diffusing around him

+a fragrance of perfume and wine, and had uttered the words “better late

+than never” and heard them repeated several times by others, people

+clustered around him; all eyes turned on him, and he felt at once

+that he had entered into his proper position in the province—that of

+a universal favorite: a very pleasant position, and intoxicatingly so

+after his long privations. At posting stations, at inns, and in the

+landowner’s snuggery, maidservants had been flattered by his notice, and

+here too at the governor’s party there were (as it seemed to Nicholas)

+an inexhaustible number of pretty young women, married and unmarried,

+impatiently awaiting his notice. The women and girls flirted with him

+and, from the first day, the people concerned themselves to get this

+fine young daredevil of an hussar married and settled down. Among these

+was the governor’s wife herself, who welcomed Rostóv as a near relative

+and called him “Nicholas.”

+

+Catherine Petróvna did actually play valses and the écossaise, and

+dancing began in which Nicholas still further captivated the provincial

+society by his agility. His particularly free manner of dancing even

+surprised them all. Nicholas was himself rather surprised at the way he

+danced that evening. He had never danced like that in Moscow and would

+even have considered such a very free and easy manner improper and in

+bad form, but here he felt it incumbent on him to astonish them all by

+something unusual, something they would have to accept as the regular

+thing in the capital though new to them in the provinces.

+

+All the evening Nicholas paid attention to a blue-eyed, plump and

+pleasing little blonde, the wife of one of the provincial officials.

+With the naïve conviction of young men in a merry mood that other men’s

+wives were created for them, Rostóv did not leave the lady’s side and

+treated her husband in a friendly and conspiratorial style, as if,

+without speaking of it, they knew how capitally Nicholas and the lady

+would get on together. The husband, however, did not seem to share that

+conviction and tried to behave morosely with Rostóv. But the

+latter’s good-natured naïveté was so boundless that sometimes even he

+involuntarily yielded to Nicholas’ good humor. Toward the end of the

+evening, however, as the wife’s face grew more flushed and animated, the

+husband’s became more and more melancholy and solemn, as though there

+were but a given amount of animation between them and as the wife’s

+share increased the husband’s diminished.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+Nicholas sat leaning slightly forward in an armchair, bending closely

+over the blonde lady and paying her mythological compliments with a

+smile that never left his face. Jauntily shifting the position of his

+legs in their tight riding breeches, diffusing an odor of perfume, and

+admiring his partner, himself, and the fine outlines of his legs in

+their well-fitting Hessian boots, Nicholas told the blonde lady that he

+wished to run away with a certain lady here in Vorónezh.

+

+“Which lady?”

+

+“A charming lady, a divine one. Her eyes” (Nicholas looked at his

+partner) “are blue, her mouth coral and ivory; her figure” (he glanced

+at her shoulders) “like Diana’s....”

+

+The husband came up and sullenly asked his wife what she was talking

+about.

+

+“Ah, Nikíta Iványch!” cried Nicholas, rising politely, and as if wishing

+Nikíta Iványch to share his joke, he began to tell him of his intention

+to elope with a blonde lady.

+

+The husband smiled gloomily, the wife gaily. The governor’s good-natured

+wife came up with a look of disapproval.

+

+“Anna Ignátyevna wants to see you, Nicholas,” said she, pronouncing the

+name so that Nicholas at once understood that Anna Ignátyevna was a very

+important person. “Come, Nicholas! You know you let me call you so?”

+

+“Oh, yes, Aunt. Who is she?”

+

+“Anna Ignátyevna Malvíntseva. She has heard from her niece how you

+rescued her.... Can you guess?”

+

+“I rescued such a lot of them!” said Nicholas.

+

+“Her niece, Princess Bolkónskaya. She is here in Vorónezh with her aunt.

+Oho! How you blush. Why, are...?”

+

+“Not a bit! Please don’t, Aunt!”

+

+“Very well, very well!... Oh, what a fellow you are!”

+

+The governor’s wife led him up to a tall and very stout old lady with

+a blue headdress, who had just finished her game of cards with the most

+important personages of the town. This was Malvíntseva, Princess Mary’s

+aunt on her mother’s side, a rich, childless widow who always lived in

+Vorónezh. When Rostóv approached her she was standing settling up for

+the game. She looked at him and, screwing up her eyes sternly, continued

+to upbraid the general who had won from her.

+

+“Very pleased, mon cher,” she then said, holding out her hand to

+Nicholas. “Pray come and see me.”

+

+After a few words about Princess Mary and her late father, whom

+Malvíntseva had evidently not liked, and having asked what Nicholas

+knew of Prince Andrew, who also was evidently no favorite of hers, the

+important old lady dismissed Nicholas after repeating her invitation to

+come to see her.

+

+Nicholas promised to come and blushed again as he bowed. At the mention

+of Princess Mary he experienced a feeling of shyness and even of fear,

+which he himself did not understand.

+

+When he had parted from Malvíntseva Nicholas wished to return to the

+dancing, but the governor’s little wife placed her plump hand on his

+sleeve and, saying that she wanted to have a talk with him, led him to

+her sitting room, from which those who were there immediately withdrew

+so as not to be in her way.

+

+“Do you know, dear boy,” began the governor’s wife with a serious

+expression on her kind little face, “that really would be the match for

+you: would you like me to arrange it?”

+

+“Whom do you mean, Aunt?” asked Nicholas.

+

+“I will make a match for you with the princess. Catherine Petróvna

+speaks of Lily, but I say, no—the princess! Do you want me to do it? I

+am sure your mother will be grateful to me. What a charming girl she is,

+really! And she is not at all so plain, either.”

+

+“Not at all,” replied Nicholas as if offended at the idea. “As befits

+a soldier, Aunt, I don’t force myself on anyone or refuse anything,” he

+said before he had time to consider what he was saying.

+

+“Well then, remember, this is not a joke!”

+

+“Of course not!”

+

+“Yes, yes,” the governor’s wife said as if talking to herself. “But,

+my dear boy, among other things you are too attentive to the other, the

+blonde. One is sorry for the husband, really....”

+

+“Oh no, we are good friends with him,” said Nicholas in the simplicity

+of his heart; it did not enter his head that a pastime so pleasant to

+himself might not be pleasant to someone else.

+

+“But what nonsense I have been saying to the governor’s wife!” thought

+Nicholas suddenly at supper. “She will really begin to arrange a

+match... and Sónya...?” And on taking leave of the governor’s wife,

+when she again smilingly said to him, “Well then, remember!” he drew her

+aside.

+

+“But see here, to tell the truth, Aunt...”

+

+“What is it, my dear? Come, let’s sit down here,” said she.

+

+Nicholas suddenly felt a desire and need to tell his most intimate

+thoughts (which he would not have told to his mother, his sister, or

+his friend) to this woman who was almost a stranger. When he afterwards

+recalled that impulse to unsolicited and inexplicable frankness which

+had very important results for him, it seemed to him—as it seems to

+everyone in such cases—that it was merely some silly whim that seized

+him: yet that burst of frankness, together with other trifling events,

+had immense consequences for him and for all his family.

+

+“You see, Aunt, Mamma has long wanted me to marry an heiress, but the

+very idea of marrying for money is repugnant to me.”

+

+“Oh yes, I understand,” said the governor’s wife.

+

+“But Princess Bolkónskaya—that’s another matter. I will tell you the

+truth. In the first place I like her very much, I feel drawn to her; and

+then, after I met her under such circumstances—so strangely, the idea

+often occurred to me: ‘This is fate.’ Especially if you remember that

+Mamma had long been thinking of it; but I had never happened to meet her

+before, somehow it had always happened that we did not meet. And as long

+as my sister Natásha was engaged to her brother it was of course out of

+the question for me to think of marrying her. And it must needs happen

+that I should meet her just when Natásha’s engagement had been broken

+off... and then everything... So you see... I never told this to anyone

+and never will, only to you.”

+

+The governor’s wife pressed his elbow gratefully.

+

+“You know Sónya, my cousin? I love her, and promised to marry her, and

+will do so.... So you see there can be no question about—” said Nicholas

+incoherently and blushing.

+

+“My dear boy, what a way to look at it! You know Sónya has nothing and

+you yourself say your Papa’s affairs are in a very bad way. And what

+about your mother? It would kill her, that’s one thing. And what sort of

+life would it be for Sónya—if she’s a girl with a heart? Your mother

+in despair, and you all ruined.... No, my dear, you and Sónya ought to

+understand that.”

+

+Nicholas remained silent. It comforted him to hear these arguments.

+

+“All the same, Aunt, it is impossible,” he rejoined with a sigh, after

+a short pause. “Besides, would the princess have me? And besides, she is

+now in mourning. How can one think of it!”

+

+“But you don’t suppose I’m going to get you married at once? There is

+always a right way of doing things,” replied the governor’s wife.

+

+“What a matchmaker you are, Aunt...” said Nicholas, kissing her plump

+little hand.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+On reaching Moscow after her meeting with Rostóv, Princess Mary had

+found her nephew there with his tutor, and a letter from Prince Andrew

+giving her instructions how to get to her Aunt Malvíntseva at Vorónezh.

+That feeling akin to temptation which had tormented her during her

+father’s illness, since his death, and especially since her meeting with

+Rostóv was smothered by arrangements for the journey, anxiety about her

+brother, settling in a new house, meeting new people, and attending to

+her nephew’s education. She was sad. Now, after a month passed in quiet

+surroundings, she felt more and more deeply the loss of her father which

+was associated in her mind with the ruin of Russia. She was agitated and

+incessantly tortured by the thought of the dangers to which her brother,

+the only intimate person now remaining to her, was exposed. She was

+worried too about her nephew’s education for which she had always felt

+herself incompetent, but in the depths of her soul she felt at peace—a

+peace arising from consciousness of having stifled those personal dreams

+and hopes that had been on the point of awakening within her and were

+related to her meeting with Rostóv.

+

+The day after her party the governor’s wife came to see Malvíntseva

+and, after discussing her plan with the aunt, remarked that though

+under present circumstances a formal betrothal was, of course, not to be

+thought of, all the same the young people might be brought together and

+could get to know one another. Malvíntseva expressed approval, and the

+governor’s wife began to speak of Rostóv in Mary’s presence, praising

+him and telling how he had blushed when Princess Mary’s name was

+mentioned. But Princess Mary experienced a painful rather than a joyful

+feeling—her mental tranquillity was destroyed, and desires, doubts,

+self-reproach, and hopes reawoke.

+

+During the two days that elapsed before Rostóv called, Princess Mary

+continually thought of how she ought to behave to him. First she decided

+not to come to the drawing room when he called to see her aunt—that it

+would not be proper for her, in her deep mourning, to receive visitors;

+then she thought this would be rude after what he had done for her; then

+it occurred to her that her aunt and the governor’s wife had intentions

+concerning herself and Rostóv—their looks and words at times seemed to

+confirm this supposition—then she told herself that only she, with her

+sinful nature, could think this of them: they could not forget that

+situated as she was, while still wearing deep mourning, such matchmaking

+would be an insult to her and to her father’s memory. Assuming that she

+did go down to see him, Princess Mary imagined the words he would say

+to her and what she would say to him, and these words sometimes seemed

+undeservedly cold and then to mean too much. More than anything she

+feared lest the confusion she felt might overwhelm her and betray her as

+soon as she saw him.

+

+But when on Sunday after church the footman announced in the drawing

+room that Count Rostóv had called, the princess showed no confusion,

+only a slight blush suffused her cheeks and her eyes lit up with a new

+and radiant light.

+

+“You have met him, Aunt?” said she in a calm voice, unable herself to

+understand that she could be outwardly so calm and natural.

+

+When Rostóv entered the room, the princess dropped her eyes for an

+instant, as if to give the visitor time to greet her aunt, and then

+just as Nicholas turned to her she raised her head and met his look with

+shining eyes. With a movement full of dignity and grace she half rose

+with a smile of pleasure, held out her slender, delicate hand to him,

+and began to speak in a voice in which for the first time new deep

+womanly notes vibrated. Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was in the drawing

+room, looked at Princess Mary in bewildered surprise. Herself a

+consummate coquette, she could not have maneuvered better on meeting a

+man she wished to attract.

+

+“Either black is particularly becoming to her or she really has greatly

+improved without my having noticed it. And above all, what tact and

+grace!” thought Mademoiselle Bourienne.

+

+Had Princess Mary been capable of reflection at that moment, she would

+have been more surprised than Mademoiselle Bourienne at the change that

+had taken place in herself. From the moment she recognized that dear,

+loved face, a new life force took possession of her and compelled her to

+speak and act apart from her own will. From the time Rostóv entered, her

+face became suddenly transformed. It was as if a light had been kindled

+in a carved and painted lantern and the intricate, skillful, artistic

+work on its sides, that previously seemed dark, coarse, and meaningless,

+was suddenly shown up in unexpected and striking beauty. For the first

+time all that pure, spiritual, inward travail through which she had

+lived appeared on the surface. All her inward labor, her dissatisfaction

+with herself, her sufferings, her strivings after goodness, her

+meekness, love, and self-sacrifice—all this now shone in those radiant

+eyes, in her delicate smile, and in every trait of her gentle face.

+

+Rostóv saw all this as clearly as if he had known her whole life. He

+felt that the being before him was quite different from, and better

+than, anyone he had met before, and above all better than himself.

+

+Their conversation was very simple and unimportant. They spoke of the

+war, and like everyone else unconsciously exaggerated their sorrow

+about it; they spoke of their last meeting—Nicholas trying to change the

+subject—they talked of the governor’s kind wife, of Nicholas’ relations,

+and of Princess Mary’s.

+

+She did not talk about her brother, diverting the conversation as soon

+as her aunt mentioned Andrew. Evidently she could speak of Russia’s

+misfortunes with a certain artificiality, but her brother was too near

+her heart and she neither could nor would speak lightly of him. Nicholas

+noticed this, as he noticed every shade of Princess Mary’s character

+with an observation unusual to him, and everything confirmed his

+conviction that she was a quite unusual and extraordinary being.

+Nicholas blushed and was confused when people spoke to him about the

+princess (as she did when he was mentioned) and even when he thought of

+her, but in her presence he felt quite at ease, and said not at all what

+he had prepared, but what, quite appropriately, occurred to him at the

+moment.

+

+When a pause occurred during his short visit, Nicholas, as is usual when

+there are children, turned to Prince Andrew’s little son, caressing him

+and asking whether he would like to be an hussar. He took the boy on

+his knee, played with him, and looked round at Princess Mary. With a

+softened, happy, timid look she watched the boy she loved in the arms

+of the man she loved. Nicholas also noticed that look and, as if

+understanding it, flushed with pleasure and began to kiss the boy with

+good natured playfulness.

+

+As she was in mourning Princess Mary did not go out into society, and

+Nicholas did not think it the proper thing to visit her again; but all

+the same the governor’s wife went on with her matchmaking, passing on to

+Nicholas the flattering things Princess Mary said of him and vice

+versa, and insisting on his declaring himself to Princess Mary. For this

+purpose she arranged a meeting between the young people at the bishop’s

+house before Mass.

+

+Though Rostóv told the governor’s wife that he would not make any

+declaration to Princess Mary, he promised to go.

+

+As at Tilsit Rostóv had not allowed himself to doubt that what everybody

+considered right was right, so now, after a short but sincere struggle

+between his effort to arrange his life by his own sense of justice, and

+in obedient submission to circumstances, he chose the latter and yielded

+to the power he felt irresistibly carrying him he knew not where. He

+knew that after his promise to Sónya it would be what he deemed base to

+declare his feelings to Princess Mary. And he knew that he would never

+act basely. But he also knew (or rather felt at the bottom of his heart)

+that by resigning himself now to the force of circumstances and to those

+who were guiding him, he was not only doing nothing wrong, but was doing

+something very important—more important than anything he had ever done

+in his life.

+

+After meeting Princess Mary, though the course of his life went on

+externally as before, all his former amusements lost their charm for him

+and he often thought about her. But he never thought about her as he

+had thought of all the young ladies without exception whom he had met

+in society, nor as he had for a long time, and at one time rapturously,

+thought about Sónya. He had pictured each of those young ladies as

+almost all honest-hearted young men do, that is, as a possible wife,

+adapting her in his imagination to all the conditions of married life:

+a white dressing gown, his wife at the tea table, his wife’s carriage,

+little ones, Mamma and Papa, their relations to her, and so on—and these

+pictures of the future had given him pleasure. But with Princess Mary,

+to whom they were trying to get him engaged, he could never picture

+anything of future married life. If he tried, his pictures seemed

+incongruous and false. It made him afraid.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+The dreadful news of the battle of Borodinó, of our losses in killed and

+wounded, and the still more terrible news of the loss of Moscow reached

+Vorónezh in the middle of September. Princess Mary, having learned of

+her brother’s wound only from the Gazette and having no definite news of

+him, prepared (so Nicholas heard, he had not seen her again himself) to

+set off in search of Prince Andrew.

+

+When he received the news of the battle of Borodinó and the abandonment

+of Moscow, Rostóv was not seized with despair, anger, the desire for

+vengeance, or any feeling of that kind, but everything in Vorónezh

+suddenly seemed to him dull and tiresome, and he experienced an

+indefinite feeling of shame and awkwardness. The conversations he heard

+seemed to him insincere; he did not know how to judge all these affairs

+and felt that only in the regiment would everything again become clear

+to him. He made haste to finish buying the horses, and often became

+unreasonably angry with his servant and squadron quartermaster.

+

+A few days before his departure a special thanksgiving, at which

+Nicholas was present, was held in the cathedral for the Russian victory.

+He stood a little behind the governor and held himself with military

+decorum through the service, meditating on a great variety of subjects.

+When the service was over the governor’s wife beckoned him to her.

+

+“Have you seen the princess?” she asked, indicating with a movement of

+her head a lady standing on the opposite side, beyond the choir.

+

+Nicholas immediately recognized Princess Mary not so much by the profile

+he saw under her bonnet as by the feeling of solicitude, timidity, and

+pity that immediately overcame him. Princess Mary, evidently engrossed

+by her thoughts, was crossing herself for the last time before leaving

+the church.

+

+Nicholas looked at her face with surprise. It was the same face he had

+seen before, there was the same general expression of refined, inner,

+spiritual labor, but now it was quite differently lit up. There was a

+pathetic expression of sorrow, prayer, and hope in it. As had occurred

+before when she was present, Nicholas went up to her without waiting to

+be prompted by the governor’s wife and not asking himself whether or not

+it was right and proper to address her here in church, and told her he

+had heard of her trouble and sympathized with his whole soul. As soon as

+she heard his voice a vivid glow kindled in her face, lighting up both

+her sorrow and her joy.

+

+“There is one thing I wanted to tell you, Princess,” said Rostóv. “It

+is that if your brother, Prince Andrew Nikoláevich, were not living, it

+would have been at once announced in the Gazette, as he is a colonel.”

+

+The princess looked at him, not grasping what he was saying, but cheered

+by the expression of regretful sympathy on his face.

+

+“And I have known so many cases of a splinter wound” (the Gazette said

+it was a shell) “either proving fatal at once or being very slight,”

+continued Nicholas. “We must hope for the best, and I am sure...”

+

+Princess Mary interrupted him.

+

+“Oh, that would be so dread...” she began and, prevented by agitation

+from finishing, she bent her head with a movement as graceful as

+everything she did in his presence and, looking up at him gratefully,

+went out, following her aunt.

+

+That evening Nicholas did not go out, but stayed at home to settle some

+accounts with the horse dealers. When he had finished that business it

+was already too late to go anywhere but still too early to go to bed,

+and for a long time he paced up and down the room, reflecting on his

+life, a thing he rarely did.

+

+Princess Mary had made an agreeable impression on him when he had met

+her in Smolénsk province. His having encountered her in such exceptional

+circumstances, and his mother having at one time mentioned her to him as

+a good match, had drawn his particular attention to her. When he met her

+again in Vorónezh the impression she made on him was not merely pleasing

+but powerful. Nicholas had been struck by the peculiar moral beauty he

+observed in her at this time. He was, however, preparing to go away and

+it had not entered his head to regret that he was thus depriving himself

+of chances of meeting her. But that day’s encounter in church had, he

+felt, sunk deeper than was desirable for his peace of mind. That pale,

+sad, refined face, that radiant look, those gentle graceful gestures,

+and especially the deep and tender sorrow expressed in all her features

+agitated him and evoked his sympathy. In men Rostóv could not bear to

+see the expression of a higher spiritual life (that was why he did not

+like Prince Andrew) and he referred to it contemptuously as philosophy

+and dreaminess, but in Princess Mary that very sorrow which revealed

+the depth of a whole spiritual world foreign to him was an irresistible

+attraction.

+

+“She must be a wonderful woman. A real angel!” he said to himself.

+“Why am I not free? Why was I in such a hurry with Sónya?” And he

+involuntarily compared the two: the lack of spirituality in the one and

+the abundance of it in the other—a spirituality he himself lacked and

+therefore valued most highly. He tried to picture what would happen were

+he free. How he would propose to her and how she would become his wife.

+But no, he could not imagine that. He felt awed, and no clear picture

+presented itself to his mind. He had long ago pictured to himself a

+future with Sónya, and that was all clear and simple just because it

+had all been thought out and he knew all there was in Sónya, but it was

+impossible to picture a future with Princess Mary, because he did not

+understand her but simply loved her.

+

+Reveries about Sónya had had something merry and playful in them, but to

+dream of Princess Mary was always difficult and a little frightening.

+

+“How she prayed!” he thought. “It was plain that her whole soul was in

+her prayer. Yes, that was the prayer that moves mountains, and I am

+sure her prayer will be answered. Why don’t I pray for what I want?” he

+suddenly thought. “What do I want? To be free, released from Sónya...

+She was right,” he thought, remembering what the governor’s wife had

+said: “Nothing but misfortune can come of marrying Sónya. Muddles,

+grief for Mamma... business difficulties... muddles, terrible muddles!

+Besides, I don’t love her—not as I should. O, God! release me from

+this dreadful, inextricable position!” he suddenly began to pray. “Yes,

+prayer can move mountains, but one must have faith and not pray as

+Natásha and I used to as children, that the snow might turn into

+sugar—and then run out into the yard to see whether it had done so. No,

+but I am not praying for trifles now,” he thought as he put his pipe

+down in a corner, and folding his hands placed himself before the icon.

+Softened by memories of Princess Mary he began to pray as he had not

+done for a long time. Tears were in his eyes and in his throat when the

+door opened and Lavrúshka came in with some papers.

+

+“Blockhead! Why do you come in without being called?” cried Nicholas,

+quickly changing his attitude.

+

+“From the governor,” said Lavrúshka in a sleepy voice. “A courier has

+arrived and there’s a letter for you.”

+

+“Well, all right, thanks. You can go!”

+

+Nicholas took the two letters, one of which was from his mother and

+the other from Sónya. He recognized them by the handwriting and opened

+Sónya’s first. He had read only a few lines when he turned pale and his

+eyes opened wide with fear and joy.

+

+“No, it’s not possible!” he cried aloud.

+

+Unable to sit still he paced up and down the room holding the letter and

+reading it. He glanced through it, then read it again, and then again,

+and standing still in the middle of the room he raised his shoulders,

+stretching out his hands, with his mouth wide open and his eyes fixed.

+What he had just been praying for with confidence that God would hear

+him had come to pass; but Nicholas was as much astonished as if it were

+something extraordinary and unexpected, and as if the very fact that it

+had happened so quickly proved that it had not come from God to whom he

+had prayed, but by some ordinary coincidence.

+

+This unexpected and, as it seemed to Nicholas, quite voluntary letter

+from Sónya freed him from the knot that fettered him and from which

+there had seemed no escape. She wrote that the last unfortunate

+events—the loss of almost the whole of the Rostóvs’ Moscow property—and

+the countess’ repeatedly expressed wish that Nicholas should marry

+Princess Bolkónskaya, together with his silence and coldness of late,

+had all combined to make her decide to release him from his promise and

+set him completely free.

+

+It would be too painful to me to think that I might be a cause of sorrow

+or discord in the family that has been so good to me (she wrote), and my

+love has no aim but the happiness of those I love; so, Nicholas, I

+beg you to consider yourself free, and to be assured that, in spite of

+everything, no one can love you more than does

+

+Your Sónya

+

+Both letters were written from Tróitsa. The other, from the countess,

+described their last days in Moscow, their departure, the fire, and

+the destruction of all their property. In this letter the countess also

+mentioned that Prince Andrew was among the wounded traveling with them;

+his state was very critical, but the doctor said there was now more

+hope. Sónya and Natásha were nursing him.

+

+Next day Nicholas took his mother’s letter and went to see Princess

+Mary. Neither he nor she said a word about what “Natásha nursing him”

+might mean, but thanks to this letter Nicholas suddenly became almost as

+intimate with the princess as if they were relations.

+

+The following day he saw Princess Mary off on her journey to Yaroslávl,

+and a few days later left to rejoin his regiment.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+Sónya’s letter written from Tróitsa, which had come as an answer to

+Nicholas’ prayer, was prompted by this: the thought of getting Nicholas

+married to an heiress occupied the old countess’ mind more and more. She

+knew that Sónya was the chief obstacle to this happening, and Sónya’s

+life in the countess’ house had grown harder and harder, especially

+after they had received a letter from Nicholas telling of his meeting

+with Princess Mary in Boguchárovo. The countess let no occasion slip of

+making humiliating or cruel allusions to Sónya.

+

+But a few days before they left Moscow, moved and excited by all that

+was going on, she called Sónya to her and, instead of reproaching and

+making demands on her, tearfully implored her to sacrifice herself

+and repay all that the family had done for her by breaking off her

+engagement with Nicholas.

+

+“I shall not be at peace till you promise me this.”

+

+Sónya burst into hysterical tears and replied through her sobs that

+she would do anything and was prepared for anything, but gave no actual

+promise and could not bring herself to decide to do what was demanded

+of her. She must sacrifice herself for the family that had reared and

+brought her up. To sacrifice herself for others was Sónya’s habit. Her

+position in the house was such that only by sacrifice could she show her

+worth, and she was accustomed to this and loved doing it. But in all her

+former acts of self-sacrifice she had been happily conscious that they

+raised her in her own esteem and in that of others, and so made her more

+worthy of Nicholas whom she loved more than anything in the world. But

+now they wanted her to sacrifice the very thing that constituted the

+whole reward for her self-sacrifice and the whole meaning of her life.

+And for the first time she felt bitterness against those who had been

+her benefactors only to torture her the more painfully; she felt jealous

+of Natásha who had never experienced anything of this sort, had never

+needed to sacrifice herself, but made others sacrifice themselves for

+her and yet was beloved by everybody. And for the first time Sónya felt

+that out of her pure, quiet love for Nicholas a passionate feeling

+was beginning to grow up which was stronger than principle, virtue,

+or religion. Under the influence of this feeling Sónya, whose life of

+dependence had taught her involuntarily to be secretive, having answered

+the countess in vague general terms, avoided talking with her and

+resolved to wait till she should see Nicholas, not in order to set him

+free but on the contrary at that meeting to bind him to her forever.

+

+The bustle and terror of the Rostóvs’ last days in Moscow stifled the

+gloomy thoughts that oppressed Sónya. She was glad to find escape

+from them in practical activity. But when she heard of Prince Andrew’s

+presence in their house, despite her sincere pity for him and for

+Natásha, she was seized by a joyful and superstitious feeling that God

+did not intend her to be separated from Nicholas. She knew that Natásha

+loved no one but Prince Andrew and had never ceased to love him. She

+knew that being thrown together again under such terrible circumstances

+they would again fall in love with one another, and that Nicholas would

+then not be able to marry Princess Mary as they would be within the

+prohibited degrees of affinity. Despite all the terror of what had

+happened during those last days and during the first days of their

+journey, this feeling that Providence was intervening in her personal

+affairs cheered Sónya.

+

+At the Tróitsa monastery the Rostóvs first broke their journey for a

+whole day.

+

+Three large rooms were assigned to them in the monastery hostelry, one

+of which was occupied by Prince Andrew. The wounded man was much better

+that day and Natásha was sitting with him. In the next room sat the

+count and countess respectfully conversing with the prior, who was

+calling on them as old acquaintances and benefactors of the monastery.

+Sónya was there too, tormented by curiosity as to what Prince Andrew and

+Natásha were talking about. She heard the sound of their voices through

+the door. That door opened and Natásha came out, looking excited. Not

+noticing the monk, who had risen to greet her and was drawing back the

+wide sleeve on his right arm, she went up to Sónya and took her hand.

+

+“Natásha, what are you about? Come here!” said the countess.

+

+Natásha went up to the monk for his blessing, and he advised her to pray

+for aid to God and His saint.

+

+As soon as the prior withdrew, Natásha took her friend by the hand and

+went with her into the unoccupied room.

+

+“Sónya, will he live?” she asked. “Sónya, how happy I am, and how

+unhappy!... Sónya, dovey, everything is as it used to be. If only he

+lives! He cannot... because... because... of...” and Natásha burst into

+tears.

+

+“Yes! I knew it! Thank God!” murmured Sónya. “He will live.”

+

+Sónya was not less agitated than her friend by the latter’s fear and

+grief and by her own personal feelings which she shared with no one.

+Sobbing, she kissed and comforted Natásha. “If only he lives!” she

+thought. Having wept, talked, and wiped away their tears, the two

+friends went together to Prince Andrew’s door. Natásha opened it

+cautiously and glanced into the room, Sónya standing beside her at the

+half-open door.

+

+Prince Andrew was lying raised high on three pillows. His pale face was

+calm, his eyes closed, and they could see his regular breathing.

+

+“O, Natásha!” Sónya suddenly almost screamed, catching her companion’s

+arm and stepping back from the door.

+

+“What? What is it?” asked Natásha.

+

+“It’s that, that...” said Sónya, with a white face and trembling lips.

+

+Natásha softly closed the door and went with Sónya to the window, not

+yet understanding what the latter was telling her.

+

+“You remember,” said Sónya with a solemn and frightened expression.

+“You remember when I looked in the mirror for you... at Otrádnoe at

+Christmas? Do you remember what I saw?”

+

+“Yes, yes!” cried Natásha opening her eyes wide, and vaguely recalling

+that Sónya had told her something about Prince Andrew whom she had seen

+lying down.

+

+“You remember?” Sónya went on. “I saw it then and told everybody, you

+and Dunyásha. I saw him lying on a bed,” said she, making a gesture with

+her hand and a lifted finger at each detail, “and that he had his eyes

+closed and was covered just with a pink quilt, and that his hands were

+folded,” she concluded, convincing herself that the details she had just

+seen were exactly what she had seen in the mirror.

+

+She had in fact seen nothing then but had mentioned the first thing that

+came into her head, but what she had invented then seemed to her now

+as real as any other recollection. She not only remembered what she had

+then said—that he turned to look at her and smiled and was covered with

+something red—but was firmly convinced that she had then seen and said

+that he was covered with a pink quilt and that his eyes were closed.

+

+“Yes, yes, it really was pink!” cried Natásha, who now thought she

+too remembered the word pink being used, and saw in this the most

+extraordinary and mysterious part of the prediction.

+

+“But what does it mean?” she added meditatively.

+

+“Oh, I don’t know, it is all so strange,” replied Sónya, clutching at

+her head.

+

+A few minutes later Prince Andrew rang and Natásha went to him, but

+Sónya, feeling unusually excited and touched, remained at the window

+thinking about the strangeness of what had occurred.

+

+

+They had an opportunity that day to send letters to the army, and the

+countess was writing to her son.

+

+“Sónya!” said the countess, raising her eyes from her letter as her

+niece passed, “Sónya, won’t you write to Nicholas?” She spoke in a soft,

+tremulous voice, and in the weary eyes that looked over her spectacles

+Sónya read all that the countess meant to convey with these words. Those

+eyes expressed entreaty, shame at having to ask, fear of a refusal, and

+readiness for relentless hatred in case of such refusal.

+

+Sónya went up to the countess and, kneeling down, kissed her hand.

+

+“Yes, Mamma, I will write,” said she.

+

+Sónya was softened, excited, and touched by all that had occurred that

+day, especially by the mysterious fulfillment she had just seen of her

+vision. Now that she knew that the renewal of Natásha’s relations with

+Prince Andrew would prevent Nicholas from marrying Princess Mary, she

+was joyfully conscious of a return of that self-sacrificing spirit in

+which she was accustomed to live and loved to live. So with a joyful

+consciousness of performing a magnanimous deed—interrupted several times

+by the tears that dimmed her velvety black eyes—she wrote that touching

+letter the arrival of which had so amazed Nicholas.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+The officer and soldiers who had arrested Pierre treated him with

+hostility but yet with respect, in the guardhouse to which he was taken.

+In their attitude toward him could still be felt both uncertainty as

+to who he might be—perhaps a very important person—and hostility as a

+result of their recent personal conflict with him.

+

+But when the guard was relieved next morning, Pierre felt that for the

+new guard—both officers and men—he was not as interesting as he had

+been to his captors; and in fact the guard of the second day did not

+recognize in this big, stout man in a peasant coat the vigorous person

+who had fought so desperately with the marauder and the convoy and had

+uttered those solemn words about saving a child; they saw in him only

+No. 17 of the captured Russians, arrested and detained for some reason

+by order of the Higher Command. If they noticed anything remarkable

+about Pierre, it was only his unabashed, meditative concentration

+and thoughtfulness, and the way he spoke French, which struck them as

+surprisingly good. In spite of this he was placed that day with the

+other arrested suspects, as the separate room he had occupied was

+required by an officer.

+

+All the Russians confined with Pierre were men of the lowest class and,

+recognizing him as a gentleman, they all avoided him, more especially as

+he spoke French. Pierre felt sad at hearing them making fun of him.

+

+That evening he learned that all these prisoners (he, probably, among

+them) were to be tried for incendiarism. On the third day he was taken

+with the others to a house where a French general with a white mustache

+sat with two colonels and other Frenchmen with scarves on their arms.

+With the precision and definiteness customary in addressing prisoners,

+and which is supposed to preclude human frailty, Pierre like the others

+was questioned as to who he was, where he had been, with what object,

+and so on.

+

+These questions, like questions put at trials generally, left the

+essence of the matter aside, shut out the possibility of that essence’s

+being revealed, and were designed only to form a channel through which

+the judges wished the answers of the accused to flow so as to lead to

+the desired result, namely a conviction. As soon as Pierre began to say

+anything that did not fit in with that aim, the channel was removed and

+the water could flow to waste. Pierre felt, moreover, what the accused

+always feel at their trial, perplexity as to why these questions were

+put to him. He had a feeling that it was only out of condescension or a

+kind of civility that this device of placing a channel was employed. He

+knew he was in these men’s power, that only by force had they brought

+him there, that force alone gave them the right to demand answers

+to their questions, and that the sole object of that assembly was to

+inculpate him. And so, as they had the power and wish to inculpate

+him, this expedient of an inquiry and trial seemed unnecessary. It was

+evident that any answer would lead to conviction. When asked what he

+was doing when he was arrested, Pierre replied in a rather tragic manner

+that he was restoring to its parents a child he had saved from the

+flames. Why had he fought the marauder? Pierre answered that he “was

+protecting a woman,” and that “to protect a woman who was being insulted

+was the duty of every man; that...” They interrupted him, for this

+was not to the point. Why was he in the yard of a burning house where

+witnesses had seen him? He replied that he had gone out to see what

+was happening in Moscow. Again they interrupted him: they had not asked

+where he was going, but why he was found near the fire? Who was he? they

+asked, repeating their first question, which he had declined to answer.

+Again he replied that he could not answer it.

+

+“Put that down, that’s bad... very bad,” sternly remarked the general

+with the white mustache and red flushed face.

+

+

+On the fourth day fires broke out on the Zúbovski rampart.

+

+Pierre and thirteen others were moved to the coach house of a merchant’s

+house near the Crimean bridge. On his way through the streets Pierre

+felt stifled by the smoke which seemed to hang over the whole

+city. Fires were visible on all sides. He did not then realize the

+significance of the burning of Moscow, and looked at the fires with

+horror.

+

+He passed four days in the coach house near the Crimean bridge and

+during that time learned, from the talk of the French soldiers, that all

+those confined there were awaiting a decision which might come any day

+from the marshal. What marshal this was, Pierre could not learn from the

+soldiers. Evidently for them “the marshal” represented a very high and

+rather mysterious power.

+

+These first days, before the eighth of September when the prisoners were

+had up for a second examination, were the hardest of all for Pierre.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+On the eighth of September an officer—a very important one judging by

+the respect the guards showed him—entered the coach house where the

+prisoners were. This officer, probably someone on the staff, was holding

+a paper in his hand, and called over all the Russians there, naming

+Pierre as “the man who does not give his name.” Glancing indolently and

+indifferently at all the prisoners, he ordered the officer in charge

+to have them decently dressed and tidied up before taking them to the

+marshal. An hour later a squad of soldiers arrived and Pierre with

+thirteen others was led to the Virgin’s Field. It was a fine day, sunny

+after rain, and the air was unusually pure. The smoke did not hang low

+as on the day when Pierre had been taken from the guardhouse on the

+Zúbovski rampart, but rose through the pure air in columns. No flames

+were seen, but columns of smoke rose on all sides, and all Moscow as far

+as Pierre could see was one vast charred ruin. On all sides there were

+waste spaces with only stoves and chimney stacks still standing, and

+here and there the blackened walls of some brick houses. Pierre gazed

+at the ruins and did not recognize districts he had known well. Here and

+there he could see churches that had not been burned. The Krémlin, which

+was not destroyed, gleamed white in the distance with its towers and

+the belfry of Iván the Great. The domes of the New Convent of the Virgin

+glittered brightly and its bells were ringing particularly clearly.

+These bells reminded Pierre that it was Sunday and the feast of the

+Nativity of the Virgin. But there seemed to be no one to celebrate this

+holiday: everywhere were blackened ruins, and the few Russians to be

+seen were tattered and frightened people who tried to hide when they saw

+the French.

+

+It was plain that the Russian nest was ruined and destroyed, but in

+place of the Russian order of life that had been destroyed, Pierre

+unconsciously felt that a quite different, firm, French order had been

+established over this ruined nest. He felt this in the looks of

+the soldiers who, marching in regular ranks briskly and gaily, were

+escorting him and the other criminals; he felt it in the looks of an

+important French official in a carriage and pair driven by a soldier,

+whom they met on the way. He felt it in the merry sounds of regimental

+music he heard from the left side of the field, and felt and realized

+it especially from the list of prisoners the French officer had read out

+when he came that morning. Pierre had been taken by one set of soldiers

+and led first to one and then to another place with dozens of other men,

+and it seemed that they might have forgotten him, or confused him with

+the others. But no: the answers he had given when questioned had come

+back to him in his designation as “the man who does not give his name,”

+and under that appellation, which to Pierre seemed terrible, they were

+now leading him somewhere with unhesitating assurance on their faces

+that he and all the other prisoners were exactly the ones they wanted

+and that they were being taken to the proper place. Pierre felt himself

+to be an insignificant chip fallen among the wheels of a machine whose

+action he did not understand but which was working well.

+

+He and the other prisoners were taken to the right side of the Virgin’s

+Field, to a large white house with an immense garden not far from the

+convent. This was Prince Shcherbátov’s house, where Pierre had often

+been in other days, and which, as he learned from the talk of the

+soldiers, was now occupied by the marshal, the Duke of Eckmühl (Davout).

+

+They were taken to the entrance and led into the house one by one.

+Pierre was the sixth to enter. He was conducted through a glass gallery,

+an anteroom, and a hall, which were familiar to him, into a long low

+study at the door of which stood an adjutant.

+

+Davout, spectacles on nose, sat bent over a table at the further end of

+the room. Pierre went close up to him, but Davout, evidently consulting

+a paper that lay before him, did not look up. Without raising his eyes,

+he said in a low voice:

+

+“Who are you?”

+

+Pierre was silent because he was incapable of uttering a word. To him

+Davout was not merely a French general, but a man notorious for his

+cruelty. Looking at his cold face, as he sat like a stern schoolmaster

+who was prepared to wait awhile for an answer, Pierre felt that every

+instant of delay might cost him his life; but he did not know what

+to say. He did not venture to repeat what he had said at his first

+examination, yet to disclose his rank and position was dangerous and

+embarrassing. So he was silent. But before he had decided what to do,

+Davout raised his head, pushed his spectacles back on his forehead,

+screwed up his eyes, and looked intently at him.

+

+“I know that man,” he said in a cold, measured tone, evidently

+calculated to frighten Pierre.

+

+The chill that had been running down Pierre’s back now seized his head

+as in a vise.

+

+“You cannot know me, General, I have never seen you...”

+

+“He is a Russian spy,” Davout interrupted, addressing another general

+who was present, but whom Pierre had not noticed.

+

+Davout turned away. With an unexpected reverberation in his voice Pierre

+rapidly began:

+

+“No, monseigneur,” he said, suddenly remembering that Davout was a duke.

+“No, monseigneur, you cannot have known me. I am a militia officer and

+have not quitted Moscow.”

+

+“Your name?” asked Davout.

+

+“Bezúkhov.”

+

+“What proof have I that you are not lying?”

+

+“Monseigneur!” exclaimed Pierre, not in an offended but in a pleading

+voice.

+

+Davout looked up and gazed intently at him. For some seconds they looked

+at one another, and that look saved Pierre. Apart from conditions of war

+and law, that look established human relations between the two men. At

+that moment an immense number of things passed dimly through both their

+minds, and they realized that they were both children of humanity and

+were brothers.

+

+At the first glance, when Davout had only raised his head from the

+papers where human affairs and lives were indicated by numbers, Pierre

+was merely a circumstance, and Davout could have shot him without

+burdening his conscience with an evil deed, but now he saw in him a

+human being. He reflected for a moment.

+

+“How can you show me that you are telling the truth?” said Davout

+coldly.

+

+Pierre remembered Ramballe, and named him and his regiment and the

+street where the house was.

+

+“You are not what you say,” returned Davout.

+

+In a trembling, faltering voice Pierre began adducing proofs of the

+truth of his statements.

+

+But at that moment an adjutant entered and reported something to Davout.

+

+Davout brightened up at the news the adjutant brought, and began

+buttoning up his uniform. It seemed that he had quite forgotten Pierre.

+

+When the adjutant reminded him of the prisoner, he jerked his head in

+Pierre’s direction with a frown and ordered him to be led away. But

+where they were to take him Pierre did not know: back to the coach house

+or to the place of execution his companions had pointed out to him as

+they crossed the Virgin’s Field.

+

+He turned his head and saw that the adjutant was putting another

+question to Davout.

+

+“Yes, of course!” replied Davout, but what this “yes” meant, Pierre did

+not know.

+

+Pierre could not afterwards remember how he went, whether it was far, or

+in which direction. His faculties were quite numbed, he was stupefied,

+and noticing nothing around him went on moving his legs as the others

+did till they all stopped and he stopped too. The only thought in his

+mind at that time was: who was it that had really sentenced him to

+death? Not the men on the commission that had first examined him—not one

+of them wished to or, evidently, could have done it. It was not Davout,

+who had looked at him in so human a way. In another moment Davout would

+have realized that he was doing wrong, but just then the adjutant had

+come in and interrupted him. The adjutant, also, had evidently had no

+evil intent though he might have refrained from coming in. Then who was

+executing him, killing him, depriving him of life—him, Pierre, with all

+his memories, aspirations, hopes, and thoughts? Who was doing this? And

+Pierre felt that it was no one.

+

+It was a system—a concurrence of circumstances.

+

+A system of some sort was killing him—Pierre—depriving him of life, of

+everything, annihilating him.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+From Prince Shcherbátov’s house the prisoners were led straight down the

+Virgin’s Field, to the left of the nunnery, as far as a kitchen garden

+in which a post had been set up. Beyond that post a fresh pit had been

+dug in the ground, and near the post and the pit a large crowd stood

+in a semicircle. The crowd consisted of a few Russians and many

+of Napoleon’s soldiers who were not on duty—Germans, Italians, and

+Frenchmen, in a variety of uniforms. To the right and left of the post

+stood rows of French troops in blue uniforms with red epaulets and high

+boots and shakos.

+

+The prisoners were placed in a certain order, according to the list

+(Pierre was sixth), and were led to the post. Several drums suddenly

+began to beat on both sides of them, and at that sound Pierre felt as

+if part of his soul had been torn away. He lost the power of thinking or

+understanding. He could only hear and see. And he had only one wish—that

+the frightful thing that had to happen should happen quickly. Pierre

+looked round at his fellow prisoners and scrutinized them.

+

+The two first were convicts with shaven heads. One was tall and thin,

+the other dark, shaggy, and sinewy, with a flat nose. The third was

+a domestic serf, about forty-five years old, with grizzled hair and a

+plump, well-nourished body. The fourth was a peasant, a very handsome

+man with a broad, light-brown beard and black eyes. The fifth was a

+factory hand, a thin, sallow-faced lad of eighteen in a loose coat.

+

+Pierre heard the French consulting whether to shoot them separately or

+two at a time. “In couples,” replied the officer in command in a calm

+voice. There was a stir in the ranks of the soldiers and it was evident

+that they were all hurrying—not as men hurry to do something they

+understand, but as people hurry to finish a necessary but unpleasant and

+incomprehensible task.

+

+A French official wearing a scarf came up to the right of the row of

+prisoners and read out the sentence in Russian and in French.

+

+Then two pairs of Frenchmen approached the criminals and at the

+officer’s command took the two convicts who stood first in the row. The

+convicts stopped when they reached the post and, while sacks were being

+brought, looked dumbly around as a wounded beast looks at an approaching

+huntsman. One crossed himself continually, the other scratched his back

+and made a movement of the lips resembling a smile. With hurried hands

+the soldiers blindfolded them, drawing the sacks over their heads, and

+bound them to the post.

+

+Twelve sharpshooters with muskets stepped out of the ranks with a firm

+regular tread and halted eight paces from the post. Pierre turned away

+to avoid seeing what was going to happen. Suddenly a crackling, rolling

+noise was heard which seemed to him louder than the most terrific

+thunder, and he looked round. There was some smoke, and the Frenchmen

+were doing something near the pit, with pale faces and trembling hands.

+Two more prisoners were led up. In the same way and with similar looks,

+these two glanced vainly at the onlookers with only a silent appeal for

+protection in their eyes, evidently unable to understand or believe

+what was going to happen to them. They could not believe it because they

+alone knew what their life meant to them, and so they neither understood

+nor believed that it could be taken from them.

+

+Again Pierre did not wish to look and again turned away; but again the

+sound as of a frightful explosion struck his ear, and at the same moment

+he saw smoke, blood, and the pale, scared faces of the Frenchmen who

+were again doing something by the post, their trembling hands impeding

+one another. Pierre, breathing heavily, looked around as if asking what

+it meant. The same question was expressed in all the looks that met his.

+

+On the faces of all the Russians and of the French soldiers and officers

+without exception, he read the same dismay, horror, and conflict that

+were in his own heart. “But who, after all, is doing this? They are all

+suffering as I am. Who then is it? Who?” flashed for an instant through

+his mind.

+

+“Sharpshooters of the 86th, forward!” shouted someone. The fifth

+prisoner, the one next to Pierre, was led away—alone. Pierre did not

+understand that he was saved, that he and the rest had been brought

+there only to witness the execution. With ever-growing horror, and no

+sense of joy or relief, he gazed at what was taking place. The fifth man

+was the factory lad in the loose cloak. The moment they laid hands on

+him he sprang aside in terror and clutched at Pierre. (Pierre shuddered

+and shook himself free.) The lad was unable to walk. They dragged him

+along, holding him up under the arms, and he screamed. When they got

+him to the post he grew quiet, as if he suddenly understood something.

+Whether he understood that screaming was useless or whether he thought

+it incredible that men should kill him, at any rate he took his stand at

+the post, waiting to be blindfolded like the others, and like a wounded

+animal looked around him with glittering eyes.

+

+Pierre was no longer able to turn away and close his eyes. His curiosity

+and agitation, like that of the whole crowd, reached the highest pitch

+at this fifth murder. Like the others this fifth man seemed calm; he

+wrapped his loose cloak closer and rubbed one bare foot with the other.

+

+When they began to blindfold him he himself adjusted the knot which

+hurt the back of his head; then when they propped him against the

+bloodstained post, he leaned back and, not being comfortable in that

+position, straightened himself, adjusted his feet, and leaned back again

+more comfortably. Pierre did not take his eyes from him and did not miss

+his slightest movement.

+

+Probably a word of command was given and was followed by the reports of

+eight muskets; but try as he would Pierre could not afterwards remember

+having heard the slightest sound of the shots. He only saw how the

+workman suddenly sank down on the cords that held him, how blood showed

+itself in two places, how the ropes slackened under the weight of the

+hanging body, and how the workman sat down, his head hanging unnaturally

+and one leg bent under him. Pierre ran up to the post. No one hindered

+him. Pale, frightened people were doing something around the workman.

+The lower jaw of an old Frenchman with a thick mustache trembled as he

+untied the ropes. The body collapsed. The soldiers dragged it awkwardly

+from the post and began pushing it into the pit.

+

+They all plainly and certainly knew that they were criminals who must

+hide the traces of their guilt as quickly as possible.

+

+Pierre glanced into the pit and saw that the factory lad was lying with

+his knees close up to his head and one shoulder higher than the other.

+That shoulder rose and fell rhythmically and convulsively, but spadefuls

+of earth were already being thrown over the whole body. One of the

+soldiers, evidently suffering, shouted gruffly and angrily at Pierre to

+go back. But Pierre did not understand him and remained near the post,

+and no one drove him away.

+

+When the pit had been filled up a command was given. Pierre was taken

+back to his place, and the rows of troops on both sides of the post

+made a half turn and went past it at a measured pace. The twenty-four

+sharpshooters with discharged muskets, standing in the center of the

+circle, ran back to their places as the companies passed by.

+

+Pierre gazed now with dazed eyes at these sharpshooters who ran in

+couples out of the circle. All but one rejoined their companies. This

+one, a young soldier, his face deadly pale, his shako pushed back, and

+his musket resting on the ground, still stood near the pit at the spot

+from which he had fired. He swayed like a drunken man, taking some steps

+forward and back to save himself from falling. An old, noncommissioned

+officer ran out of the ranks and taking him by the elbow dragged him to

+his company. The crowd of Russians and Frenchmen began to disperse. They

+all went away silently and with drooping heads.

+

+“That will teach them to start fires,” said one of the Frenchmen.

+

+Pierre glanced round at the speaker and saw that it was a soldier who

+was trying to find some relief after what had been done, but was not

+able to do so. Without finishing what he had begun to say he made a

+hopeless movement with his arm and went away.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+After the execution Pierre was separated from the rest of the prisoners

+and placed alone in a small, ruined, and befouled church.

+

+Toward evening a noncommissioned officer entered with two soldiers and

+told him that he had been pardoned and would now go to the barracks for

+the prisoners of war. Without understanding what was said to him, Pierre

+got up and went with the soldiers. They took him to the upper end of the

+field, where there were some sheds built of charred planks, beams,

+and battens, and led him into one of them. In the darkness some twenty

+different men surrounded Pierre. He looked at them without understanding

+who they were, why they were there, or what they wanted of him. He heard

+what they said, but did not understand the meaning of the words and

+made no kind of deduction from or application of them. He replied to

+questions they put to him, but did not consider who was listening to his

+replies, nor how they would understand them. He looked at their faces

+and figures, but they all seemed to him equally meaningless.

+

+From the moment Pierre had witnessed those terrible murders committed by

+men who did not wish to commit them, it was as if the mainspring of

+his life, on which everything depended and which made everything appear

+alive, had suddenly been wrenched out and everything had collapsed

+into a heap of meaningless rubbish. Though he did not acknowledge it to

+himself, his faith in the right ordering of the universe, in humanity,

+in his own soul, and in God, had been destroyed. He had experienced this

+before, but never so strongly as now. When similar doubts had assailed

+him before, they had been the result of his own wrongdoing, and at the

+bottom of his heart he had felt that relief from his despair and from

+those doubts was to be found within himself. But now he felt that

+the universe had crumbled before his eyes and only meaningless ruins

+remained, and this not by any fault of his own. He felt that it was not

+in his power to regain faith in the meaning of life.

+

+Around him in the darkness men were standing and evidently something

+about him interested them greatly. They were telling him something and

+asking him something. Then they led him away somewhere, and at last he

+found himself in a corner of the shed among men who were laughing and

+talking on all sides.

+

+“Well, then, mates... that very prince who...” some voice at the other

+end of the shed was saying, with a strong emphasis on the word who.

+

+Sitting silent and motionless on a heap of straw against the wall,

+Pierre sometimes opened and sometimes closed his eyes. But as soon as

+he closed them he saw before him the dreadful face of the factory

+lad—especially dreadful because of its simplicity—and the faces of the

+murderers, even more dreadful because of their disquiet. And he opened

+his eyes again and stared vacantly into the darkness around him.

+

+Beside him in a stooping position sat a small man of whose presence he

+was first made aware by a strong smell of perspiration which came from

+him every time he moved. This man was doing something to his legs in the

+darkness, and though Pierre could not see his face he felt that the man

+continually glanced at him. On growing used to the darkness Pierre saw

+that the man was taking off his leg bands, and the way he did it aroused

+Pierre’s interest.

+

+Having unwound the string that tied the band on one leg, he carefully

+coiled it up and immediately set to work on the other leg, glancing up

+at Pierre. While one hand hung up the first string the other was already

+unwinding the band on the second leg. In this way, having carefully

+removed the leg bands by deft circular motions of his arm following

+one another uninterruptedly, the man hung the leg bands up on some pegs

+fixed above his head. Then he took out a knife, cut something, closed

+the knife, placed it under the head of his bed, and, seating himself

+comfortably, clasped his arms round his lifted knees and fixed his eyes

+on Pierre. The latter was conscious of something pleasant, comforting,

+and well-rounded in these deft movements, in the man’s well-ordered

+arrangements in his corner, and even in his very smell, and he looked at

+the man without taking his eyes from him.

+

+“You’ve seen a lot of trouble, sir, eh?” the little man suddenly said.

+

+And there was so much kindliness and simplicity in his singsong voice

+that Pierre tried to reply, but his jaw trembled and he felt tears

+rising to his eyes. The little fellow, giving Pierre no time to betray

+his confusion, instantly continued in the same pleasant tones:

+

+“Eh, lad, don’t fret!” said he, in the tender singsong caressing voice

+old Russian peasant women employ. “Don’t fret, friend—‘suffer an hour,

+live for an age!’ that’s how it is, my dear fellow. And here we live,

+thank heaven, without offense. Among these folk, too, there are good

+men as well as bad,” said he, and still speaking, he turned on his knees

+with a supple movement, got up, coughed, and went off to another part of

+the shed.

+

+“Eh, you rascal!” Pierre heard the same kind voice saying at the other

+end of the shed. “So you’ve come, you rascal? She remembers... Now, now,

+that’ll do!”

+

+And the soldier, pushing away a little dog that was jumping up at

+him, returned to his place and sat down. In his hands he had something

+wrapped in a rag.

+

+“Here, eat a bit, sir,” said he, resuming his former respectful tone as

+he unwrapped and offered Pierre some baked potatoes. “We had soup for

+dinner and the potatoes are grand!”

+

+Pierre had not eaten all day and the smell of the potatoes seemed

+extremely pleasant to him. He thanked the soldier and began to eat.

+

+“Well, are they all right?” said the soldier with a smile. “You should

+do like this.”

+

+He took a potato, drew out his clasp knife, cut the potato into two

+equal halves on the palm of his hand, sprinkled some salt on it from the

+rag, and handed it to Pierre.

+

+“The potatoes are grand!” he said once more. “Eat some like that!”

+

+Pierre thought he had never eaten anything that tasted better.

+

+“Oh, I’m all right,” said he, “but why did they shoot those poor

+fellows? The last one was hardly twenty.”

+

+“Tss, tt...!” said the little man. “Ah, what a sin... what a sin!” he

+added quickly, and as if his words were always waiting ready in his

+mouth and flew out involuntarily he went on: “How was it, sir, that you

+stayed in Moscow?”

+

+“I didn’t think they would come so soon. I stayed accidentally,” replied

+Pierre.

+

+“And how did they arrest you, dear lad? At your house?”

+

+“No, I went to look at the fire, and they arrested me there, and tried

+me as an incendiary.”

+

+“Where there’s law there’s injustice,” put in the little man.

+

+“And have you been here long?” Pierre asked as he munched the last of

+the potato.

+

+“I? It was last Sunday they took me, out of a hospital in Moscow.”

+

+“Why, are you a soldier then?”

+

+“Yes, we are soldiers of the Ápsheron regiment. I was dying of fever. We

+weren’t told anything. There were some twenty of us lying there. We had

+no idea, never guessed at all.”

+

+“And do you feel sad here?” Pierre inquired.

+

+“How can one help it, lad? My name is Platón, and the surname is

+Karatáev,” he added, evidently wishing to make it easier for Pierre to

+address him. “They call me ‘little falcon’ in the regiment. How is one

+to help feeling sad? Moscow—she’s the mother of cities. How can one see

+all this and not feel sad? But ‘the maggot gnaws the cabbage, yet dies

+first’; that’s what the old folks used to tell us,” he added rapidly.

+

+“What? What did you say?” asked Pierre.

+

+“Who? I?” said Karatáev. “I say things happen not as we plan but as God

+judges,” he replied, thinking that he was repeating what he had said

+before, and immediately continued:

+

+“Well, and you, have you a family estate, sir? And a house? So you have

+abundance, then? And a housewife? And your old parents, are they still

+living?” he asked.

+

+And though it was too dark for Pierre to see, he felt that a suppressed

+smile of kindliness puckered the soldier’s lips as he put these

+questions. He seemed grieved that Pierre had no parents, especially that

+he had no mother.

+

+“A wife for counsel, a mother-in-law for welcome, but there’s none as

+dear as one’s own mother!” said he. “Well, and have you little ones?” he

+went on asking.

+

+Again Pierre’s negative answer seemed to distress him, and he hastened

+to add:

+

+“Never mind! You’re young folks yet, and please God may still have some.

+The great thing is to live in harmony....”

+

+“But it’s all the same now,” Pierre could not help saying.

+

+“Ah, my dear fellow!” rejoined Karatáev, “never decline a prison or a

+beggar’s sack!”

+

+He seated himself more comfortably and coughed, evidently preparing to

+tell a long story.

+

+“Well, my dear fellow, I was still living at home,” he began. “We had

+a well-to-do homestead, plenty of land, we peasants lived well and our

+house was one to thank God for. When Father and we went out mowing

+there were seven of us. We lived well. We were real peasants. It so

+happened...”

+

+And Platón Karatáev told a long story of how he had gone into someone’s

+copse to take wood, how he had been caught by the keeper, had been

+tried, flogged, and sent to serve as a soldier.

+

+“Well, lad,” and a smile changed the tone of his voice “we thought it

+was a misfortune but it turned out a blessing! If it had not been for

+my sin, my brother would have had to go as a soldier. But he, my younger

+brother, had five little ones, while I, you see, only left a wife

+behind. We had a little girl, but God took her before I went as a

+soldier. I come home on leave and I’ll tell you how it was, I look and

+see that they are living better than before. The yard full of cattle,

+the women at home, two brothers away earning wages, and only Michael the

+youngest, at home. Father, he says, ‘All my children are the same to

+me: it hurts the same whichever finger gets bitten. But if Platón hadn’t

+been shaved for a soldier, Michael would have had to go.’ called us

+all to him and, will you believe it, placed us in front of the icons.

+‘Michael,’ he says, ‘come here and bow down to his feet; and you, young

+woman, you bow down too; and you, grandchildren, also bow down before

+him! Do you understand?’ he says. That’s how it is, dear fellow. Fate

+looks for a head. But we are always judging, ‘that’s not well—that’s

+not right!’ Our luck is like water in a dragnet: you pull at it and it

+bulges, but when you’ve drawn it out it’s empty! That’s how it is.”

+

+And Platón shifted his seat on the straw.

+

+After a short silence he rose.

+

+“Well, I think you must be sleepy,” said he, and began rapidly crossing

+himself and repeating:

+

+“Lord Jesus Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus

+Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus Christ, have

+mercy on us and save us!” he concluded, then bowed to the ground, got

+up, sighed, and sat down again on his heap of straw. “That’s the way.

+Lay me down like a stone, O God, and raise me up like a loaf,” he

+muttered as he lay down, pulling his coat over him.

+

+“What prayer was that you were saying?” asked Pierre.

+

+“Eh?” murmured Platón, who had almost fallen asleep. “What was I saying?

+I was praying. Don’t you pray?”

+

+“Yes, I do,” said Pierre. “But what was that you said: Frola and Lavra?”

+

+“Well, of course,” replied Platón quickly, “the horses’ saints. One must

+pity the animals too. Eh, the rascal! Now you’ve curled up and got warm,

+you daughter of a bitch!” said Karatáev, touching the dog that lay at

+his feet, and again turning over he fell asleep immediately.

+

+Sounds of crying and screaming came from somewhere in the distance

+outside, and flames were visible through the cracks of the shed, but

+inside it was quiet and dark. For a long time Pierre did not sleep, but

+lay with eyes open in the darkness, listening to the regular snoring

+of Platón who lay beside him, and he felt that the world that had been

+shattered was once more stirring in his soul with a new beauty and on

+new and unshakable foundations.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+Twenty-three soldiers, three officers, and two officials were confined

+in the shed in which Pierre had been placed and where he remained for

+four weeks.

+

+When Pierre remembered them afterwards they all seemed misty figures to

+him except Platón Karatáev, who always remained in his mind a most

+vivid and precious memory and the personification of everything Russian,

+kindly, and round. When Pierre saw his neighbor next morning at dawn

+the first impression of him, as of something round, was fully confirmed:

+Platón’s whole figure—in a French overcoat girdled with a cord, a

+soldier’s cap, and bast shoes—was round. His head was quite round, his

+back, chest, shoulders, and even his arms, which he held as if ever

+ready to embrace something, were rounded, his pleasant smile and his

+large, gentle brown eyes were also round.

+

+Platón Karatáev must have been fifty, judging by his stories of

+campaigns he had been in, told as by an old soldier. He did not himself

+know his age and was quite unable to determine it. But his brilliantly

+white, strong teeth which showed in two unbroken semicircles when he

+laughed—as he often did—were all sound and good, there was not a gray

+hair in his beard or on his head, and his whole body gave an impression

+of suppleness and especially of firmness and endurance.

+

+His face, despite its fine, rounded wrinkles, had an expression of

+innocence and youth, his voice was pleasant and musical. But the chief

+peculiarity of his speech was its directness and appositeness. It was

+evident that he never considered what he had said or was going to say,

+and consequently the rapidity and justice of his intonation had an

+irresistible persuasiveness.

+

+His physical strength and agility during the first days of his

+imprisonment were such that he seemed not to know what fatigue and

+sickness meant. Every night before lying down, he said: “Lord, lay me

+down as a stone and raise me up as a loaf!” and every morning on getting

+up, he said: “I lay down and curled up, I get up and shake myself.” And

+indeed he only had to lie down, to fall asleep like a stone, and he

+only had to shake himself, to be ready without a moment’s delay for some

+work, just as children are ready to play directly they awake. He could

+do everything, not very well but not badly. He baked, cooked, sewed,

+planed, and mended boots. He was always busy, and only at night allowed

+himself conversation—of which he was fond—and songs. He did not sing

+like a trained singer who knows he is listened to, but like the birds,

+evidently giving vent to the sounds in the same way that one stretches

+oneself or walks about to get rid of stiffness, and the sounds were

+always high-pitched, mournful, delicate, and almost feminine, and his

+face at such times was very serious.

+

+Having been taken prisoner and allowed his beard to grow, he seemed to

+have thrown off all that had been forced upon him—everything military

+and alien to himself—and had returned to his former peasant habits.

+

+“A soldier on leave—a shirt outside breeches,” he would say.

+

+He did not like talking about his life as a soldier, though he did not

+complain, and often mentioned that he had not been flogged once during

+the whole of his army service. When he related anything it was generally

+some old and evidently precious memory of his “Christian” life, as he

+called his peasant existence. The proverbs, of which his talk was full,

+were for the most part not the coarse and indecent saws soldiers

+employ, but those folk sayings which taken without a context seem so

+insignificant, but when used appositely suddenly acquire a significance

+of profound wisdom.

+

+He would often say the exact opposite of what he had said on a previous

+occasion, yet both would be right. He liked to talk and he talked well,

+adorning his speech with terms of endearment and with folk sayings which

+Pierre thought he invented himself, but the chief charm of his talk lay

+in the fact that the commonest events—sometimes just such as Pierre

+had witnessed without taking notice of them—assumed in Karatáev’s a

+character of solemn fitness. He liked to hear the folk tales one of the

+soldiers used to tell of an evening (they were always the same), but

+most of all he liked to hear stories of real life. He would smile

+joyfully when listening to such stories, now and then putting in a word

+or asking a question to make the moral beauty of what he was told clear

+to himself. Karatáev had no attachments, friendships, or love, as Pierre

+understood them, but loved and lived affectionately with everything life

+brought him in contact with, particularly with man—not any particular

+man, but those with whom he happened to be. He loved his dog, his

+comrades, the French, and Pierre who was his neighbor, but Pierre felt

+that in spite of Karatáev’s affectionate tenderness for him (by which

+he unconsciously gave Pierre’s spiritual life its due) he would not have

+grieved for a moment at parting from him. And Pierre began to feel in

+the same way toward Karatáev.

+

+To all the other prisoners Platón Karatáev seemed a most ordinary

+soldier. They called him “little falcon” or “Platósha,” chaffed him

+good-naturedly, and sent him on errands. But to Pierre he always

+remained what he had seemed that first night: an unfathomable, rounded,

+eternal personification of the spirit of simplicity and truth.

+

+Platón Karatáev knew nothing by heart except his prayers. When he began

+to speak he seemed not to know how he would conclude.

+

+Sometimes Pierre, struck by the meaning of his words, would ask him to

+repeat them, but Platón could never recall what he had said a moment

+before, just as he never could repeat to Pierre the words of his

+favorite song: native and birch tree and my heart is sick occurred in

+it, but when spoken and not sung, no meaning could be got out of it. He

+did not, and could not, understand the meaning of words apart from

+their context. Every word and action of his was the manifestation of

+an activity unknown to him, which was his life. But his life, as he

+regarded it, had no meaning as a separate thing. It had meaning only as

+part of a whole of which he was always conscious. His words and actions

+flowed from him as evenly, inevitably, and spontaneously as fragrance

+exhales from a flower. He could not understand the value or significance

+of any word or deed taken separately.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV

+

+When Princess Mary heard from Nicholas that her brother was with the

+Rostóvs at Yaroslávl she at once prepared to go there, in spite of her

+aunt’s efforts to dissuade her—and not merely to go herself but to take

+her nephew with her. Whether it were difficult or easy, possible or

+impossible, she did not ask and did not want to know: it was her duty,

+not only to herself, to be near her brother who was perhaps dying, but

+to do everything possible to take his son to him, and so she prepared

+to set off. That she had not heard from Prince Andrew himself, Princess

+Mary attributed to his being too weak to write or to his considering the

+long journey too hard and too dangerous for her and his son.

+

+In a few days Princess Mary was ready to start. Her equipages were the

+huge family coach in which she had traveled to Vorónezh, a semiopen

+trap, and a baggage cart. With her traveled Mademoiselle Bourienne,

+little Nicholas and his tutor, her old nurse, three maids, Tíkhon, and a

+young footman and courier her aunt had sent to accompany her.

+

+The usual route through Moscow could not be thought of, and the

+roundabout way Princess Mary was obliged to take through Lípetsk,

+Ryazán, Vladímir, and Shúya was very long and, as post horses were not

+everywhere obtainable, very difficult, and near Ryazán where the French

+were said to have shown themselves was even dangerous.

+

+During this difficult journey Mademoiselle Bourienne, Dessalles, and

+Princess Mary’s servants were astonished at her energy and firmness of

+spirit. She went to bed later and rose earlier than any of them, and

+no difficulties daunted her. Thanks to her activity and energy, which

+infected her fellow travelers, they approached Yaroslávl by the end of

+the second week.

+

+The last days of her stay in Vorónezh had been the happiest of her life.

+Her love for Rostóv no longer tormented or agitated her. It filled her

+whole soul, had become an integral part of herself, and she no longer

+struggled against it. Latterly she had become convinced that she loved

+and was beloved, though she never said this definitely to herself

+in words. She had become convinced of it at her last interview with

+Nicholas, when he had come to tell her that her brother was with the

+Rostóvs. Not by a single word had Nicholas alluded to the fact that

+Prince Andrew’s relations with Natásha might, if he recovered, be

+renewed, but Princess Mary saw by his face that he knew and thought of

+this.

+

+Yet in spite of that, his relation to her—considerate, delicate, and

+loving—not only remained unchanged, but it sometimes seemed to Princess

+Mary that he was even glad that the family connection between them

+allowed him to express his friendship more freely. She knew that she

+loved for the first and only time in her life and felt that she was

+beloved, and was happy in regard to it.

+

+But this happiness on one side of her spiritual nature did not prevent

+her feeling grief for her brother with full force; on the contrary, that

+spiritual tranquility on the one side made it the more possible for her

+to give full play to her feeling for her brother. That feeling was so

+strong at the moment of leaving Vorónezh that those who saw her off, as

+they looked at her careworn, despairing face, felt sure she would fall

+ill on the journey. But the very difficulties and preoccupations of the

+journey, which she took so actively in hand, saved her for a while from

+her grief and gave her strength.

+

+As always happens when traveling, Princess Mary thought only of the

+journey itself, forgetting its object. But as she approached Yaroslávl

+the thought of what might await her there—not after many days, but that

+very evening—again presented itself to her and her agitation increased

+to its utmost limit.

+

+The courier who had been sent on in advance to find out where the

+Rostóvs were staying in Yaroslávl, and in what condition Prince Andrew

+was, when he met the big coach just entering the town gates was appalled

+by the terrible pallor of the princess’ face that looked out at him from

+the window.

+

+“I have found out everything, your excellency: the Rostóvs are staying

+at the merchant Brónnikov’s house, in the Square not far from here,

+right above the Vólga,” said the courier.

+

+Princess Mary looked at him with frightened inquiry, not understanding

+why he did not reply to what she chiefly wanted to know: how was her

+brother? Mademoiselle Bourienne put that question for her.

+

+“How is the prince?” she asked.

+

+“His excellency is staying in the same house with them.”

+

+“Then he is alive,” thought Princess Mary, and asked in a low voice:

+“How is he?”

+

+“The servants say he is still the same.”

+

+What “still the same” might mean Princess Mary did not ask, but with an

+unnoticed glance at little seven-year-old Nicholas, who was sitting in

+front of her looking with pleasure at the town, she bowed her head

+and did not raise it again till the heavy coach, rumbling, shaking and

+swaying, came to a stop. The carriage steps clattered as they were let

+down.

+

+The carriage door was opened. On the left there was water—a great

+river—and on the right a porch. There were people at the entrance:

+servants, and a rosy girl with a large plait of black hair, smiling as

+it seemed to Princess Mary in an unpleasantly affected way. (This was

+Sónya.) Princess Mary ran up the steps. “This way, this way!” said the

+girl, with the same artificial smile, and the princess found herself in

+the hall facing an elderly woman of Oriental type, who came rapidly to

+meet her with a look of emotion. This was the countess. She embraced

+Princess Mary and kissed her.

+

+“Mon enfant!” she muttered, “je vous aime et vous connais depuis

+longtemps.” *

+

+    * “My child! I love you and have known you a long time.”

+

+

+Despite her excitement, Princess Mary realized that this was the

+countess and that it was necessary to say something to her. Hardly

+knowing how she did it, she contrived to utter a few polite phrases in

+French in the same tone as those that had been addressed to her, and

+asked: “How is he?”

+

+“The doctor says that he is not in danger,” said the countess, but as

+she spoke she raised her eyes with a sigh, and her gesture conveyed a

+contradiction of her words.

+

+“Where is he? Can I see him—can I?” asked the princess.

+

+“One moment, Princess, one moment, my dear! Is this his son?” said the

+countess, turning to little Nicholas who was coming in with Dessalles.

+“There will be room for everybody, this is a big house. Oh, what a

+lovely boy!”

+

+The countess took Princess Mary into the drawing room, where Sónya was

+talking to Mademoiselle Bourienne. The countess caressed the boy, and

+the old count came in and welcomed the princess. He had changed very

+much since Princess Mary had last seen him. Then he had been a brisk,

+cheerful, self-assured old man; now he seemed a pitiful, bewildered

+person. While talking to Princess Mary he continually looked round as

+if asking everyone whether he was doing the right thing. After the

+destruction of Moscow and of his property, thrown out of his accustomed

+groove he seemed to have lost the sense of his own significance and to

+feel that there was no longer a place for him in life.

+

+In spite of her one desire to see her brother as soon as possible, and

+her vexation that at the moment when all she wanted was to see him they

+should be trying to entertain her and pretending to admire her nephew,

+the princess noticed all that was going on around her and felt the

+necessity of submitting, for a time, to this new order of things which

+she had entered. She knew it to be necessary, and though it was hard for

+her she was not vexed with these people.

+

+“This is my niece,” said the count, introducing Sónya—“You don’t know

+her, Princess?”

+

+Princess Mary turned to Sónya and, trying to stifle the hostile

+feeling that arose in her toward the girl, she kissed her. But she felt

+oppressed by the fact that the mood of everyone around her was so far

+from what was in her own heart.

+

+“Where is he?” she asked again, addressing them all.

+

+“He is downstairs. Natásha is with him,” answered Sónya, flushing. “We

+have sent to ask. I think you must be tired, Princess.”

+

+Tears of vexation showed themselves in Princess Mary’s eyes. She turned

+away and was about to ask the countess again how to go to him, when

+light, impetuous, and seemingly buoyant steps were heard at the door.

+The princess looked round and saw Natásha coming in, almost running—that

+Natásha whom she had liked so little at their meeting in Moscow long

+since.

+

+But hardly had the princess looked at Natásha’s face before she realized

+that here was a real comrade in her grief, and consequently a friend.

+She ran to meet her, embraced her, and began to cry on her shoulder.

+

+As soon as Natásha, sitting at the head of Prince Andrew’s bed, heard

+of Princess Mary’s arrival, she softly left his room and hastened to her

+with those swift steps that had sounded buoyant to Princess Mary.

+

+There was only one expression on her agitated face when she ran into the

+drawing room—that of love—boundless love for him, for her, and for all

+that was near to the man she loved; and of pity, suffering for others,

+and passionate desire to give herself entirely to helping them. It was

+plain that at that moment there was in Natásha’s heart no thought of

+herself or of her own relations with Prince Andrew.

+

+Princess Mary, with her acute sensibility, understood all this at the

+first glance at Natásha’s face, and wept on her shoulder with sorrowful

+pleasure.

+

+“Come, come to him, Mary,” said Natásha, leading her into the other

+room.

+

+Princess Mary raised her head, dried her eyes, and turned to Natásha.

+She felt that from her she would be able to understand and learn

+everything.

+

+“How...” she began her question but stopped short.

+

+She felt that it was impossible to ask, or to answer, in words.

+Natásha’s face and eyes would have to tell her all more clearly and

+profoundly.

+

+Natásha was gazing at her, but seemed afraid and in doubt whether to say

+all she knew or not; she seemed to feel that before those luminous eyes

+which penetrated into the very depths of her heart, it was impossible

+not to tell the whole truth which she saw. And suddenly, Natásha’s lips

+twitched, ugly wrinkles gathered round her mouth, and covering her face

+with her hands she burst into sobs.

+

+Princess Mary understood.

+

+But she still hoped, and asked, in words she herself did not trust:

+

+“But how is his wound? What is his general condition?”

+

+“You, you... will see,” was all Natásha could say.

+

+They sat a little while downstairs near his room till they had left off

+crying and were able to go to him with calm faces.

+

+“How has his whole illness gone? Is it long since he grew worse? When

+did this happen?” Princess Mary inquired.

+

+Natásha told her that at first there had been danger from his feverish

+condition and the pain he suffered, but at Tróitsa that had passed

+and the doctor had only been afraid of gangrene. That danger had also

+passed. When they reached Yaroslávl the wound had begun to fester

+(Natásha knew all about such things as festering) and the doctor had

+said that the festering might take a normal course. Then fever set in,

+but the doctor had said the fever was not very serious.

+

+“But two days ago this suddenly happened,” said Natásha, struggling with

+her sobs. “I don’t know why, but you will see what he is like.”

+

+“Is he weaker? Thinner?” asked the princess.

+

+“No, it’s not that, but worse. You will see. O, Mary, he is too good, he

+cannot, cannot live, because...”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV

+

+When Natásha opened Prince Andrew’s door with a familiar movement and

+let Princess Mary pass into the room before her, the princess felt the

+sobs in her throat. Hard as she had tried to prepare herself, and now

+tried to remain tranquil, she knew that she would be unable to look at

+him without tears.

+

+The princess understood what Natásha had meant by the words: “two days

+ago this suddenly happened.” She understood those words to mean that he

+had suddenly softened and that this softening and gentleness were signs

+of approaching death. As she stepped to the door she already saw in

+imagination Andrew’s face as she remembered it in childhood, a gentle,

+mild, sympathetic face which he had rarely shown, and which therefore

+affected her very strongly. She was sure he would speak soft, tender

+words to her such as her father had uttered before his death, and

+that she would not be able to bear it and would burst into sobs in his

+presence. Yet sooner or later it had to be, and she went in. The sobs

+rose higher and higher in her throat as she more and more clearly

+distinguished his form and her shortsighted eyes tried to make out his

+features, and then she saw his face and met his gaze.

+

+He was lying in a squirrel-fur dressing gown on a divan, surrounded by

+pillows. He was thin and pale. In one thin, translucently white hand

+he held a handkerchief, while with the other he stroked the delicate

+mustache he had grown, moving his fingers slowly. His eyes gazed at them

+as they entered.

+

+On seeing his face and meeting his eyes Princess Mary’s pace suddenly

+slackened, she felt her tears dry up and her sobs ceased. She suddenly

+felt guilty and grew timid on catching the expression of his face and

+eyes.

+

+“But in what am I to blame?” she asked herself. And his cold, stern look

+replied: “Because you are alive and thinking of the living, while I...”

+

+In the deep gaze that seemed to look not outwards but inwards there

+was an almost hostile expression as he slowly regarded his sister and

+Natásha.

+

+He kissed his sister, holding her hand in his as was their wont.

+

+“How are you, Mary? How did you manage to get here?” said he in a voice

+as calm and aloof as his look.

+

+Had he screamed in agony, that scream would not have struck such horror

+into Princess Mary’s heart as the tone of his voice.

+

+“And have you brought little Nicholas?” he asked in the same slow, quiet

+manner and with an obvious effort to remember.

+

+“How are you now?” said Princess Mary, herself surprised at what she was

+saying.

+

+“That, my dear, you must ask the doctor,” he replied, and again making

+an evident effort to be affectionate, he said with his lips only (his

+words clearly did not correspond to his thoughts):

+

+“Merci, chère amie, d’être venue.” *

+

+    * “Thank you for coming, my dear.”

+

+

+Princess Mary pressed his hand. The pressure made him wince just

+perceptibly. He was silent, and she did not know what to say. She now

+understood what had happened to him two days before. In his words, his

+tone, and especially in that calm, almost antagonistic look could be

+felt an estrangement from everything belonging to this world, terrible

+in one who is alive. Evidently only with an effort did he understand

+anything living; but it was obvious that he failed to understand, not

+because he lacked the power to do so but because he understood something

+else—something the living did not and could not understand—and which

+wholly occupied his mind.

+

+“There, you see how strangely fate has brought us together,” said he,

+breaking the silence and pointing to Natásha. “She looks after me all

+the time.”

+

+Princess Mary heard him and did not understand how he could say such a

+thing. He, the sensitive, tender Prince Andrew, how could he say that,

+before her whom he loved and who loved him? Had he expected to live he

+could not have said those words in that offensively cold tone. If he had

+not known that he was dying, how could he have failed to pity her and

+how could he speak like that in her presence? The only explanation was

+that he was indifferent, because something else, much more important,

+had been revealed to him.

+

+The conversation was cold and disconnected and continually broke off.

+

+“Mary came by way of Ryazán,” said Natásha.

+

+Prince Andrew did not notice that she called his sister Mary, and only

+after calling her so in his presence did Natásha notice it herself.

+

+“Really?” he asked.

+

+“They told her that all Moscow has been burned down, and that...”

+

+Natásha stopped. It was impossible to talk. It was plain that he was

+making an effort to listen, but could not do so.

+

+“Yes, they say it’s burned,” he said. “It’s a great pity,” and he gazed

+straight before him, absently stroking his mustache with his fingers.

+

+“And so you have met Count Nicholas, Mary?” Prince Andrew suddenly said,

+evidently wishing to speak pleasantly to them. “He wrote here that he

+took a great liking to you,” he went on simply and calmly, evidently

+unable to understand all the complex significance his words had for

+living people. “If you liked him too, it would be a good thing for you

+to get married,” he added rather more quickly, as if pleased at having

+found words he had long been seeking.

+

+Princess Mary heard his words but they had no meaning for her, except as

+a proof of how far away he now was from everything living.

+

+“Why talk of me?” she said quietly and glanced at Natásha.

+

+Natásha, who felt her glance, did not look at her. All three were again

+silent.

+

+“Andrew, would you like...” Princess Mary suddenly said in a trembling

+voice, “would you like to see little Nicholas? He is always talking

+about you!”

+

+Prince Andrew smiled just perceptibly and for the first time, but

+Princess Mary, who knew his face so well, saw with horror that he did

+not smile with pleasure or affection for his son, but with quiet, gentle

+irony because he thought she was trying what she believed to be the last

+means of arousing him.

+

+“Yes, I shall be very glad to see him. Is he quite well?”

+

+When little Nicholas was brought into Prince Andrew’s room he looked at

+his father with frightened eyes, but did not cry, because no one else

+was crying. Prince Andrew kissed him and evidently did not know what to

+say to him.

+

+When Nicholas had been led away, Princess Mary again went up to her

+brother, kissed him, and unable to restrain her tears any longer began

+to cry.

+

+He looked at her attentively.

+

+“Is it about Nicholas?” he asked.

+

+Princess Mary nodded her head, weeping.

+

+“Mary, you know the Gosp...” but he broke off.

+

+“What did you say?”

+

+“Nothing. You mustn’t cry here,” he said, looking at her with the same

+cold expression.

+

+

+When Princess Mary began to cry, he understood that she was crying at

+the thought that little Nicholas would be left without a father. With

+a great effort he tried to return to life and to see things from their

+point of view.

+

+“Yes, to them it must seem sad!” he thought. “But how simple it is.

+

+“The fowls of the air sow not, neither do they reap, yet your Father

+feedeth them,” he said to himself and wished to say to Princess Mary;

+“but no, they will take it their own way, they won’t understand! They

+can’t understand that all those feelings they prize so—all our feelings,

+all those ideas that seem so important to us, are unnecessary. We cannot

+understand one another,” and he remained silent.

+

+

+Prince Andrew’s little son was seven. He could scarcely read, and knew

+nothing. After that day he lived through many things, gaining knowledge,

+observation, and experience, but had he possessed all the faculties he

+afterwards acquired, he could not have had a better or more profound

+understanding of the meaning of the scene he had witnessed between

+his father, Mary, and Natásha, than he had then. He understood it

+completely, and, leaving the room without crying, went silently up

+to Natásha who had come out with him and looked shyly at her with his

+beautiful, thoughtful eyes, then his uplifted, rosy upper lip trembled

+and leaning his head against her he began to cry.

+

+After that he avoided Dessalles and the countess who caressed him and

+either sat alone or came timidly to Princess Mary, or to Natásha of whom

+he seemed even fonder than of his aunt, and clung to them quietly and

+shyly.

+

+When Princess Mary had left Prince Andrew she fully understood what

+Natásha’s face had told her. She did not speak any more to Natásha of

+hopes of saving his life. She took turns with her beside his sofa, and

+did not cry any more, but prayed continually, turning in soul to that

+Eternal and Unfathomable, whose presence above the dying man was now so

+evident.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI

+

+Not only did Prince Andrew know he would die, but he felt that he was

+dying and was already half dead. He was conscious of an aloofness from

+everything earthly and a strange and joyous lightness of existence.

+Without haste or agitation he awaited what was coming. That inexorable,

+eternal, distant, and unknown the presence of which he had felt

+continually all his life—was now near to him and, by the strange

+lightness he experienced, almost comprehensible and palpable....

+

+

+Formerly he had feared the end. He had twice experienced that terribly

+tormenting fear of death—the end—but now he no longer understood that

+fear.

+

+He had felt it for the first time when the shell spun like a top before

+him, and he looked at the fallow field, the bushes, and the sky, and

+knew that he was face to face with death. When he came to himself after

+being wounded and the flower of eternal, unfettered love had instantly

+unfolded itself in his soul as if freed from the bondage of life that

+had restrained it, he no longer feared death and ceased to think about

+it.

+

+During the hours of solitude, suffering, and partial delirium he

+spent after he was wounded, the more deeply he penetrated into the new

+principle of eternal love revealed to him, the more he unconsciously

+detached himself from earthly life. To love everything and everybody and

+always to sacrifice oneself for love meant not to love anyone, not

+to live this earthly life. And the more imbued he became with that

+principle of love, the more he renounced life and the more completely he

+destroyed that dreadful barrier which—in the absence of such love—stands

+between life and death. When during those first days he remembered that

+he would have to die, he said to himself: “Well, what of it? So much the

+better!”

+

+But after the night in Mytíshchi when, half delirious, he had seen her

+for whom he longed appear before him and, having pressed her hand to his

+lips, had shed gentle, happy tears, love for a particular woman again

+crept unobserved into his heart and once more bound him to life. And

+joyful and agitating thoughts began to occupy his mind. Recalling the

+moment at the ambulance station when he had seen Kurágin, he could not

+now regain the feeling he then had, but was tormented by the question

+whether Kurágin was alive. And he dared not inquire.

+

+His illness pursued its normal physical course, but what Natásha

+referred to when she said: “This suddenly happened,” had occurred two

+days before Princess Mary arrived. It was the last spiritual struggle

+between life and death, in which death gained the victory. It was

+the unexpected realization of the fact that he still valued life as

+presented to him in the form of his love for Natásha, and a last, though

+ultimately vanquished, attack of terror before the unknown.

+

+It was evening. As usual after dinner he was slightly feverish, and his

+thoughts were preternaturally clear. Sónya was sitting by the table. He

+began to doze. Suddenly a feeling of happiness seized him.

+

+“Ah, she has come!” thought he.

+

+And so it was: in Sónya’s place sat Natásha who had just come in

+noiselessly.

+

+Since she had begun looking after him, he had always experienced this

+physical consciousness of her nearness. She was sitting in an armchair

+placed sideways, screening the light of the candle from him, and was

+knitting a stocking. She had learned to knit stockings since Prince

+Andrew had casually mentioned that no one nursed the sick so well as old

+nurses who knit stockings, and that there is something soothing in

+the knitting of stockings. The needles clicked lightly in her slender,

+rapidly moving hands, and he could clearly see the thoughtful profile

+of her drooping face. She moved, and the ball rolled off her knees. She

+started, glanced round at him, and screening the candle with her hand

+stooped carefully with a supple and exact movement, picked up the ball,

+and regained her former position.

+

+He looked at her without moving and saw that she wanted to draw a

+deep breath after stooping, but refrained from doing so and breathed

+cautiously.

+

+At the Tróitsa monastery they had spoken of the past, and he had told

+her that if he lived he would always thank God for his wound which had

+brought them together again, but after that they never spoke of the

+future.

+

+“Can it or can it not be?” he now thought as he looked at her and

+listened to the light click of the steel needles. “Can fate have brought

+me to her so strangely only for me to die?... Is it possible that the

+truth of life has been revealed to me only to show me that I have spent

+my life in falsity? I love her more than anything in the world! But what

+am I to do if I love her?” he thought, and he involuntarily groaned,

+from a habit acquired during his sufferings.

+

+On hearing that sound Natásha put down the stocking, leaned nearer to

+him, and suddenly, noticing his shining eyes, stepped lightly up to him

+and bent over him.

+

+“You are not asleep?”

+

+“No, I have been looking at you a long time. I felt you come in. No one

+else gives me that sense of soft tranquillity that you do... that light.

+I want to weep for joy.”

+

+Natásha drew closer to him. Her face shone with rapturous joy.

+

+“Natásha, I love you too much! More than anything in the world.”

+

+“And I!”—She turned away for an instant. “Why too much?” she asked.

+

+“Why too much?... Well, what do you, what do you feel in your soul, your

+whole soul—shall I live? What do you think?”

+

+“I am sure of it, sure!” Natásha almost shouted, taking hold of both his

+hands with a passionate movement.

+

+He remained silent awhile.

+

+“How good it would be!” and taking her hand he kissed it.

+

+Natásha felt happy and agitated, but at once remembered that this would

+not do and that he had to be quiet.

+

+“But you have not slept,” she said, repressing her joy. “Try to sleep...

+please!”

+

+He pressed her hand and released it, and she went back to the candle and

+sat down again in her former position. Twice she turned and looked at

+him, and her eyes met his beaming at her. She set herself a task on her

+stocking and resolved not to turn round till it was finished.

+

+Soon he really shut his eyes and fell asleep. He did not sleep long and

+suddenly awoke with a start and in a cold perspiration.

+

+As he fell asleep he had still been thinking of the subject that now

+always occupied his mind—about life and death, and chiefly about death.

+He felt himself nearer to it.

+

+“Love? What is love?” he thought.

+

+“Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I

+understand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only

+because I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to

+die means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and

+eternal source.” These thoughts seemed to him comforting. But they were

+only thoughts. Something was lacking in them, they were not clear, they

+were too one-sidedly personal and brain-spun. And there was the former

+agitation and obscurity. He fell asleep.

+

+He dreamed that he was lying in the room he really was in, but that

+he was quite well and unwounded. Many various, indifferent, and

+insignificant people appeared before him. He talked to them and

+discussed something trivial. They were preparing to go away somewhere.

+Prince Andrew dimly realized that all this was trivial and that he had

+more important cares, but he continued to speak, surprising them by

+empty witticisms. Gradually, unnoticed, all these persons began to

+disappear and a single question, that of the closed door, superseded

+all else. He rose and went to the door to bolt and lock it. Everything

+depended on whether he was, or was not, in time to lock it. He went, and

+tried to hurry, but his legs refused to move and he knew he would not be

+in time to lock the door though he painfully strained all his powers. He

+was seized by an agonizing fear. And that fear was the fear of death. It

+stood behind the door. But just when he was clumsily creeping toward

+the door, that dreadful something on the other side was already pressing

+against it and forcing its way in. Something not human—death—was

+breaking in through that door, and had to be kept out. He seized the

+door, making a final effort to hold it back—to lock it was no longer

+possible—but his efforts were weak and clumsy and the door, pushed from

+behind by that terror, opened and closed again.

+

+Once again it pushed from outside. His last superhuman efforts were vain

+and both halves of the door noiselessly opened. It entered, and it was

+death, and Prince Andrew died.

+

+But at the instant he died, Prince Andrew remembered that he was asleep,

+and at the very instant he died, having made an effort, he awoke.

+

+“Yes, it was death! I died—and woke up. Yes, death is an awakening!” And

+all at once it grew light in his soul and the veil that had till then

+concealed the unknown was lifted from his spiritual vision. He felt as

+if powers till then confined within him had been liberated, and that

+strange lightness did not again leave him.

+

+When, waking in a cold perspiration, he moved on the divan, Natásha went

+up and asked him what was the matter. He did not answer and looked at

+her strangely, not understanding.

+

+That was what had happened to him two days before Princess Mary’s

+arrival. From that day, as the doctor expressed it, the wasting fever

+assumed a malignant character, but what the doctor said did not interest

+Natásha, she saw the terrible moral symptoms which to her were more

+convincing.

+

+From that day an awakening from life came to Prince Andrew together with

+his awakening from sleep. And compared to the duration of life it did

+not seem to him slower than an awakening from sleep compared to the

+duration of a dream.

+

+There was nothing terrible or violent in this comparatively slow

+awakening.

+

+His last days and hours passed in an ordinary and simple way. Both

+Princess Mary and Natásha, who did not leave him, felt this. They did

+not weep or shudder and during these last days they themselves felt

+that they were not attending on him (he was no longer there, he had left

+them) but on what reminded them most closely of him—his body. Both felt

+this so strongly that the outward and terrible side of death did not

+affect them and they did not feel it necessary to foment their grief.

+Neither in his presence nor out of it did they weep, nor did they ever

+talk to one another about him. They felt that they could not express in

+words what they understood.

+

+They both saw that he was sinking slowly and quietly, deeper and deeper,

+away from them, and they both knew that this had to be so and that it

+was right.

+

+He confessed, and received communion: everyone came to take leave of

+him. When they brought his son to him, he pressed his lips to the boy’s

+and turned away, not because he felt it hard and sad (Princess Mary and

+Natásha understood that) but simply because he thought it was all that

+was required of him, but when they told him to bless the boy, he did

+what was demanded and looked round as if asking whether there was

+anything else he should do.

+

+When the last convulsions of the body, which the spirit was leaving,

+occurred, Princess Mary and Natásha were present.

+

+“Is it over?” said Princess Mary when his body had for a few minutes

+lain motionless, growing cold before them. Natásha went up, looked at

+the dead eyes, and hastened to close them. She closed them but did not

+kiss them, but clung to that which reminded her most nearly of him—his

+body.

+

+“Where has he gone? Where is he now?...”

+

+When the body, washed and dressed, lay in the coffin on a table,

+everyone came to take leave of him and they all wept.

+

+Little Nicholas cried because his heart was rent by painful perplexity.

+The countess and Sónya cried from pity for Natásha and because he was

+no more. The old count cried because he felt that before long, he, too,

+must take the same terrible step.

+

+Natásha and Princess Mary also wept now, but not because of their own

+personal grief; they wept with a reverent and softening emotion which

+had taken possession of their souls at the consciousness of the

+simple and solemn mystery of death that had been accomplished in their

+presence.

+

+

+

+

+

+BOOK THIRTEEN: 1812

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+Man’s mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but

+the desire to find those causes is implanted in man’s soul. And without

+considering the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions any one

+of which taken separately may seem to be the cause, he snatches at the

+first approximation to a cause that seems to him intelligible and says:

+“This is the cause!” In historical events (where the actions of men are

+the subject of observation) the first and most primitive approximation

+to present itself was the will of the gods and, after that, the will of

+those who stood in the most prominent position—the heroes of history.

+But we need only penetrate to the essence of any historic event—which

+lies in the activity of the general mass of men who take part in it—to

+be convinced that the will of the historic hero does not control the

+actions of the mass but is itself continually controlled. It may seem

+to be a matter of indifference whether we understand the meaning of

+historical events this way or that; yet there is the same difference

+between a man who says that the people of the West moved on the East

+because Napoleon wished it and a man who says that this happened because

+it had to happen, as there is between those who declared that the

+earth was stationary and that the planets moved round it and those who

+admitted that they did not know what upheld the earth, but knew there

+were laws directing its movement and that of the other planets. There

+is, and can be, no cause of an historical event except the one cause of

+all causes. But there are laws directing events, and some of these laws

+are known to us while we are conscious of others we cannot comprehend.

+The discovery of these laws is only possible when we have quite

+abandoned the attempt to find the cause in the will of some one man,

+just as the discovery of the laws of the motion of the planets was

+possible only when men abandoned the conception of the fixity of the

+earth.

+

+The historians consider that, next to the battle of Borodinó and the

+occupation of Moscow by the enemy and its destruction by fire, the most

+important episode of the war of 1812 was the movement of the Russian

+army from the Ryazána to the Kalúga road and to the Tarútino camp—the

+so-called flank march across the Krásnaya Pakhrá River. They ascribe the

+glory of that achievement of genius to different men and dispute as to

+whom the honor is due. Even foreign historians, including the French,

+acknowledge the genius of the Russian commanders when they speak of

+that flank march. But it is hard to understand why military writers,

+and following them others, consider this flank march to be the profound

+conception of some one man who saved Russia and destroyed Napoleon. In

+the first place it is hard to understand where the profundity and genius

+of this movement lay, for not much mental effort was needed to see that

+the best position for an army when it is not being attacked is where

+there are most provisions; and even a dull boy of thirteen could have

+guessed that the best position for an army after its retreat from Moscow

+in 1812 was on the Kalúga road. So it is impossible to understand by

+what reasoning the historians reach the conclusion that this maneuver

+was a profound one. And it is even more difficult to understand just why

+they think that this maneuver was calculated to save Russia and destroy

+the French; for this flank march, had it been preceded, accompanied,

+or followed by other circumstances, might have proved ruinous to the

+Russians and salutary for the French. If the position of the Russian

+army really began to improve from the time of that march, it does not at

+all follow that the march was the cause of it.

+

+That flank march might not only have failed to give any advantage to

+the Russian army, but might in other circumstances have led to its

+destruction. What would have happened had Moscow not burned down? If

+Murat had not lost sight of the Russians? If Napoleon had not remained

+inactive? If the Russian army at Krásnaya Pakhrá had given battle as

+Bennigsen and Barclay advised? What would have happened had the French

+attacked the Russians while they were marching beyond the Pakhrá? What

+would have happened if on approaching Tarútino, Napoleon had attacked

+the Russians with but a tenth of the energy he had shown when he

+attacked them at Smolénsk? What would have happened had the French moved

+on Petersburg?... In any of these eventualities the flank march that

+brought salvation might have proved disastrous.

+

+The third and most incomprehensible thing is that people studying

+history deliberately avoid seeing that this flank march cannot be

+attributed to any one man, that no one ever foresaw it, and that in

+reality, like the retreat from Filí, it did not suggest itself to anyone

+in its entirety, but resulted—moment by moment, step by step, event by

+event—from an endless number of most diverse circumstances and was only

+seen in its entirety when it had been accomplished and belonged to the

+past.

+

+At the council at Filí the prevailing thought in the minds of the

+Russian commanders was the one naturally suggesting itself, namely, a

+direct retreat by the Nízhni road. In proof of this there is the fact

+that the majority of the council voted for such a retreat, and above

+all there is the well-known conversation after the council, between the

+commander in chief and Lanskóy, who was in charge of the commissariat

+department. Lanskóy informed the commander in chief that the army

+supplies were for the most part stored along the Oká in the Túla and

+Ryazán provinces, and that if they retreated on Nízhni the army would

+be separated from its supplies by the broad river Oká, which cannot be

+crossed early in winter. This was the first indication of the necessity

+of deviating from what had previously seemed the most natural course—a

+direct retreat on Nízhni-Nóvgorod. The army turned more to the south,

+along the Ryazán road and nearer to its supplies. Subsequently the

+inactivity of the French (who even lost sight of the Russian army),

+concern for the safety of the arsenal at Túla, and especially the

+advantages of drawing nearer to its supplies caused the army to turn

+still further south to the Túla road. Having crossed over, by a forced

+march, to the Túla road beyond the Pakhrá, the Russian commanders

+intended to remain at Podólsk and had no thought of the Tarútino

+position; but innumerable circumstances and the reappearance of French

+troops who had for a time lost touch with the Russians, and projects

+of giving battle, and above all the abundance of provisions in Kalúga

+province, obliged our army to turn still more to the south and to cross

+from the Túla to the Kalúga road and go to Tarútino, which was between

+the roads along which those supplies lay. Just as it is impossible to

+say when it was decided to abandon Moscow, so it is impossible to say

+precisely when, or by whom, it was decided to move to Tarútino. Only

+when the army had got there, as the result of innumerable and varying

+forces, did people begin to assure themselves that they had desired this

+movement and long ago foreseen its result.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+The famous flank movement merely consisted in this: after the advance

+of the French had ceased, the Russian army, which had been continually

+retreating straight back from the invaders, deviated from that direct

+course and, not finding itself pursued, was naturally drawn toward the

+district where supplies were abundant.

+

+If instead of imagining to ourselves commanders of genius leading the

+Russian army, we picture that army without any leaders, it could not

+have done anything but make a return movement toward Moscow, describing

+an arc in the direction where most provisions were to be found and where

+the country was richest.

+

+That movement from the Nízhni to the Ryazán, Túla, and Kalúga roads was

+so natural that even the Russian marauders moved in that direction, and

+demands were sent from Petersburg for Kutúzov to take his army that

+way. At Tarútino Kutúzov received what was almost a reprimand from

+the Emperor for having moved his army along the Ryazán road, and the

+Emperor’s letter indicated to him the very position he had already

+occupied near Kalúga.

+

+Having rolled like a ball in the direction of the impetus given by the

+whole campaign and by the battle of Borodinó, the Russian army—when

+the strength of that impetus was exhausted and no fresh push was

+received—assumed the position natural to it.

+

+Kutúzov’s merit lay, not in any strategic maneuver of genius, as it is

+called, but in the fact that he alone understood the significance of

+what had happened. He alone then understood the meaning of the French

+army’s inactivity, he alone continued to assert that the battle of

+Borodinó had been a victory, he alone—who as commander in chief might

+have been expected to be eager to attack—employed his whole strength to

+restrain the Russian army from useless engagements.

+

+The beast wounded at Borodinó was lying where the fleeing hunter had

+left him; but whether he was still alive, whether he was strong and

+merely lying low, the hunter did not know. Suddenly the beast was heard

+to moan.

+

+The moan of that wounded beast (the French army) which betrayed its

+calamitous condition was the sending of Lauriston to Kutúzov’s camp with

+overtures for peace.

+

+Napoleon, with his usual assurance that whatever entered his head was

+right, wrote to Kutúzov the first words that occurred to him, though

+they were meaningless.

+

+

+MONSIEUR LE PRINCE KOUTOUZOV: I am sending one of my adjutants-general

+to discuss several interesting questions with you. I beg your Highness

+to credit what he says to you, especially when he expresses the

+sentiment of esteem and special regard I have long entertained for your

+person. This letter having no other object, I pray God, monsieur le

+prince Koutouzov, to keep you in His holy and gracious protection!

+

+NAPOLEON

+

+MOSCOW, OCTOBER 30, 1812

+

+

+Kutúzov replied: “I should be cursed by posterity were I looked on as

+the initiator of a settlement of any sort. Such is the present spirit

+of my nation.” But he continued to exert all his powers to restrain his

+troops from attacking.

+

+During the month that the French troops were pillaging in Moscow and

+the Russian troops were quietly encamped at Tarútino, a change had taken

+place in the relative strength of the two armies—both in spirit and in

+number—as a result of which the superiority had passed to the Russian

+side. Though the condition and numbers of the French army were unknown

+to the Russians, as soon as that change occurred the need of attacking

+at once showed itself by countless signs. These signs were: Lauriston’s

+mission; the abundance of provisions at Tarútino; the reports coming in

+from all sides of the inactivity and disorder of the French; the flow of

+recruits to our regiments; the fine weather; the long rest the Russian

+soldiers had enjoyed, and the impatience to do what they had been

+assembled for, which usually shows itself in an army that has been

+resting; curiosity as to what the French army, so long lost sight of,

+was doing; the boldness with which our outposts now scouted close up to

+the French stationed at Tarútino; the news of easy successes gained by

+peasants and guerrilla troops over the French, the envy aroused by this;

+the desire for revenge that lay in the heart of every Russian as long as

+the French were in Moscow, and (above all) a dim consciousness in every

+soldier’s mind that the relative strength of the armies had changed and

+that the advantage was now on our side. There was a substantial change

+in the relative strength, and an advance had become inevitable. And at

+once, as a clock begins to strike and chime as soon as the minute hand

+has completed a full circle, this change was shown by an increased

+activity, whirring, and chiming in the higher spheres.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+The Russian army was commanded by Kutúzov and his staff, and also by the

+Emperor from Petersburg. Before the news of the abandonment of Moscow

+had been received in Petersburg, a detailed plan of the whole campaign

+had been drawn up and sent to Kutúzov for his guidance. Though this plan

+had been drawn up on the supposition that Moscow was still in our hands,

+it was approved by the staff and accepted as a basis for action.

+Kutúzov only replied that movements arranged from a distance were always

+difficult to execute. So fresh instructions were sent for the solution

+of difficulties that might be encountered, as well as fresh people who

+were to watch Kutúzov’s actions and report upon them.

+

+Besides this, the whole staff of the Russian army was now reorganized.

+The posts left vacant by Bagratión, who had been killed, and by

+Barclay, who had gone away in dudgeon, had to be filled. Very serious

+consideration was given to the question whether it would be better to

+put A in B’s place and B in D’s, or on the contrary to put D in A’s

+place, and so on—as if anything more than A’s or B’s satisfaction

+depended on this.

+

+As a result of the hostility between Kutúzov and Bennigsen, his Chief of

+Staff, the presence of confidential representatives of the Emperor, and

+these transfers, a more than usually complicated play of parties

+was going on among the staff of the army. A was undermining B, D was

+undermining C, and so on in all possible combinations and permutations.

+In all these plottings the subject of intrigue was generally the conduct

+of the war, which all these men believed they were directing; but this

+affair of the war went on independently of them, as it had to go:

+that is, never in the way people devised, but flowing always from the

+essential attitude of the masses. Only in the highest spheres did

+all these schemes, crossings, and interminglings appear to be a true

+reflection of what had to happen.

+

+

+Prince Michael Ilariónovich! (wrote the Emperor on the second of October

+in a letter that reached Kutúzov after the battle at Tarútino) Since

+September 2 Moscow has been in the hands of the enemy. Your last reports

+were written on the twentieth, and during all this time not only has

+no action been taken against the enemy or for the relief of the ancient

+capital, but according to your last report you have even retreated

+farther. Sérpukhov is already occupied by an enemy detachment and Túla

+with its famous arsenal so indispensable to the army, is in danger.

+From General Wintzingerode’s reports, I see that an enemy corps of ten

+thousand men is moving on the Petersburg road. Another corps of several

+thousand men is moving on Dmítrov. A third has advanced along the

+Vladímir road, and a fourth, rather considerable detachment is stationed

+between Rúza and Mozháysk. Napoleon himself was in Moscow as late as

+the twenty-fifth. In view of all this information, when the enemy has

+scattered his forces in large detachments, and with Napoleon and his

+Guards in Moscow, is it possible that the enemy’s forces confronting you

+are so considerable as not to allow of your taking the offensive? On the

+contrary, he is probably pursuing you with detachments, or at most with

+an army corps much weaker than the army entrusted to you. It would seem

+that, availing yourself of these circumstances, you might advantageously

+attack a weaker one and annihilate him, or at least oblige him to

+retreat, retaining in our hands an important part of the provinces now

+occupied by the enemy, and thereby averting danger from Túla and other

+towns in the interior. You will be responsible if the enemy is able to

+direct a force of any size against Petersburg to threaten this capital

+in which it has not been possible to retain many troops; for with the

+army entrusted to you, and acting with resolution and energy, you have

+ample means to avert this fresh calamity. Remember that you have still

+to answer to our offended country for the loss of Moscow. You have

+experienced my readiness to reward you. That readiness will not weaken

+in me, but I and Russia have a right to expect from you all the zeal,

+firmness, and success which your intellect, military talent, and the

+courage of the troops you command justify us in expecting.

+

+

+But by the time this letter, which proved that the real relation of

+the forces had already made itself felt in Petersburg, was dispatched,

+Kutúzov had found himself unable any longer to restrain the army he

+commanded from attacking and a battle had taken place.

+

+On the second of October a Cossack, Shapoválov, who was out scouting,

+killed one hare and wounded another. Following the wounded hare he made

+his way far into the forest and came upon the left flank of Murat’s

+army, encamped there without any precautions. The Cossack laughingly

+told his comrades how he had almost fallen into the hands of the French.

+A cornet, hearing the story, informed his commander.

+

+The Cossack was sent for and questioned. The Cossack officers wished

+to take advantage of this chance to capture some horses, but one of

+the superior officers, who was acquainted with the higher authorities,

+reported the incident to a general on the staff. The state of things on

+the staff had of late been exceedingly strained. Ermólov had been to

+see Bennigsen a few days previously and had entreated him to use

+his influence with the commander in chief to induce him to take the

+offensive.

+

+“If I did not know you I should think you did not want what you are

+asking for. I need only advise anything and his Highness is sure to do

+the opposite,” replied Bennigsen.

+

+The Cossack’s report, confirmed by horse patrols who were sent out, was

+the final proof that events had matured. The tightly coiled spring was

+released, the clock began to whirr and the chimes to play. Despite all

+his supposed power, his intellect, his experience, and his knowledge

+of men, Kutúzov—having taken into consideration the Cossack’s report, a

+note from Bennigsen who sent personal reports to the Emperor, the wishes

+he supposed the Emperor to hold, and the fact that all the generals

+expressed the same wish—could no longer check the inevitable movement,

+and gave the order to do what he regarded as useless and harmful—gave

+his approval, that is, to the accomplished fact.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+Bennigsen’s note and the Cossack’s information that the left flank

+of the French was unguarded were merely final indications that it was

+necessary to order an attack, and it was fixed for the fifth of October.

+

+On the morning of the fourth of October Kutúzov signed the dispositions.

+Toll read them to Ermólov, asking him to attend to the further

+arrangements.

+

+“All right—all right. I haven’t time just now,” replied Ermólov, and

+left the hut.

+

+The dispositions drawn up by Toll were very good. As in the Austerlitz

+dispositions, it was written—though not in German this time:

+

+“The First Column will march here and here,” “the Second Column will

+march there and there,” and so on; and on paper, all these columns

+arrived at their places at the appointed time and destroyed the enemy.

+Everything had been admirably thought out as is usual in dispositions,

+and as is always the case, not a single column reached its place at the

+appointed time.

+

+When the necessary number of copies of the dispositions had been

+prepared, an officer was summoned and sent to deliver them to Ermólov

+to deal with. A young officer of the Horse Guards, Kutúzov’s orderly,

+pleased at the importance of the mission entrusted to him, went to

+Ermólov’s quarters.

+

+“Gone away,” said Ermólov’s orderly.

+

+The officer of the Horse Guards went to a general with whom Ermólov was

+often to be found.

+

+“No, and the general’s out too.”

+

+The officer, mounting his horse, rode off to someone else.

+

+“No, he’s gone out.”

+

+“If only they don’t make me responsible for this delay! What a nuisance

+it is!” thought the officer, and he rode round the whole camp. One man

+said he had seen Ermólov ride past with some other generals, others said

+he must have returned home. The officer searched till six o’clock in the

+evening without even stopping to eat. Ermólov was nowhere to be found

+and no one knew where he was. The officer snatched a little food at

+a comrade’s, and rode again to the vanguard to find Milorádovich.

+Milorádovich too was away, but here he was told that he had gone to a

+ball at General Kíkin’s and that Ermólov was probably there too.

+

+“But where is it?”

+

+“Why, there, over at Échkino,” said a Cossack officer, pointing to a

+country house in the far distance.

+

+“What, outside our line?”

+

+“They’ve put two regiments as outposts, and they’re having such a spree

+there, it’s awful! Two bands and three sets of singers!”

+

+The officer rode out beyond our lines to Échkino. While still at a

+distance he heard as he rode the merry sounds of a soldier’s dance song

+proceeding from the house.

+

+“In the meadows... in the meadows!” he heard, accompanied by whistling

+and the sound of a torban, drowned every now and then by shouts. These

+sounds made his spirits rise, but at the same time he was afraid that

+he would be blamed for not having executed sooner the important order

+entrusted to him. It was already past eight o’clock. He dismounted

+and went up into the porch of a large country house which had remained

+intact between the Russian and French forces. In the refreshment room

+and the hall, footmen were bustling about with wine and viands. Groups

+of singers stood outside the windows. The officer was admitted and

+immediately saw all the chief generals of the army together, and among

+them Ermólov’s big imposing figure. They all had their coats unbuttoned

+and were standing in a semicircle with flushed and animated faces,

+laughing loudly. In the middle of the room a short handsome general with

+a red face was dancing the trepák with much spirit and agility.

+

+“Ha, ha, ha! Bravo, Nicholas Iványch! Ha, ha, ha!”

+

+The officer felt that by arriving with important orders at such a moment

+he was doubly to blame, and he would have preferred to wait; but one of

+the generals espied him and, hearing what he had come about, informed

+Ermólov.

+

+Ermólov came forward with a frown on his face and, hearing what the

+officer had to say, took the papers from him without a word.

+

+

+“You think he went off just by chance?” said a comrade, who was on the

+staff that evening, to the officer of the Horse Guards, referring to

+Ermólov. “It was a trick. It was done on purpose to get Konovnítsyn into

+trouble. You’ll see what a mess there’ll be tomorrow.”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+Next day the decrepit Kutúzov, having given orders to be called early,

+said his prayers, dressed, and, with an unpleasant consciousness of

+having to direct a battle he did not approve of, got into his calèche

+and drove from Letashóvka (a village three and a half miles from

+Tarútino) to the place where the attacking columns were to meet. He sat

+in the calèche, dozing and waking up by turns, and listening for any

+sound of firing on the right as an indication that the action had begun.

+But all was still quiet. A damp dull autumn morning was just dawning. On

+approaching Tarútino Kutúzov noticed cavalrymen leading their horses to

+water across the road along which he was driving. Kutúzov looked at

+them searchingly, stopped his carriage, and inquired what regiment they

+belonged to. They belonged to a column that should have been far in

+front and in ambush long before then. “It may be a mistake,” thought

+the old commander in chief. But a little further on he saw infantry

+regiments with their arms piled and the soldiers, only partly dressed,

+eating their rye porridge and carrying fuel. He sent for an officer. The

+officer reported that no order to advance had been received.

+

+“How! Not rec...” Kutúzov began, but checked himself immediately and

+sent for a senior officer. Getting out of his calèche, he waited with

+drooping head and breathing heavily, pacing silently up and down. When

+Eýkhen, the officer of the general staff whom he had summoned, appeared,

+Kutúzov went purple in the face, not because that officer was to blame

+for the mistake, but because he was an object of sufficient importance

+for him to vent his wrath on. Trembling and panting the old man fell

+into that state of fury in which he sometimes used to roll on the

+ground, and he fell upon Eýkhen, threatening him with his hands,

+shouting and loading him with gross abuse. Another man, Captain Brózin,

+who happened to turn up and who was not at all to blame, suffered the

+same fate.

+

+“What sort of another blackguard are you? I’ll have you shot!

+Scoundrels!” yelled Kutúzov in a hoarse voice, waving his arms and

+reeling.

+

+He was suffering physically. He, the commander in chief, a Serene

+Highness who everybody said possessed powers such as no man had ever had

+in Russia, to be placed in this position—made the laughingstock of the

+whole army! “I needn’t have been in such a hurry to pray about today,

+or have kept awake thinking everything over all night,” thought he to

+himself. “When I was a chit of an officer no one would have dared to

+mock me so... and now!” He was in a state of physical suffering as if

+from corporal punishment, and could not avoid expressing it by cries of

+anger and distress. But his strength soon began to fail him, and looking

+about him, conscious of having said much that was amiss, he again got

+into his calèche and drove back in silence.

+

+His wrath, once expended, did not return, and blinking feebly he

+listened to excuses and self-justifications (Ermólov did not come to see

+him till the next day) and to the insistence of Bennigsen, Konovnítsyn,

+and Toll that the movement that had miscarried should be executed next

+day. And once more Kutúzov had to consent.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+Next day the troops assembled in their appointed places in the evening

+and advanced during the night. It was an autumn night with dark purple

+clouds, but no rain. The ground was damp but not muddy, and the troops

+advanced noiselessly, only occasionally a jingling of the artillery

+could be faintly heard. The men were forbidden to talk out loud, to

+smoke their pipes, or to strike a light, and they tried to prevent their

+horses neighing. The secrecy of the undertaking heightened its charm

+and they marched gaily. Some columns, supposing they had reached their

+destination, halted, piled arms, and settled down on the cold ground,

+but the majority marched all night and arrived at places where they

+evidently should not have been.

+

+Only Count Orlóv-Denísov with his Cossacks (the least important

+detachment of all) got to his appointed place at the right time. This

+detachment halted at the outskirts of a forest, on the path leading from

+the village of Stromílova to Dmítrovsk.

+

+Toward dawn, Count Orlóv-Denísov, who had dozed off, was awakened by a

+deserter from the French army being brought to him. This was a Polish

+sergeant of Poniatowski’s corps, who explained in Polish that he had

+come over because he had been slighted in the service: that he ought

+long ago to have been made an officer, that he was braver than any of

+them, and so he had left them and wished to pay them out. He said that

+Murat was spending the night less than a mile from where they were,

+and that if they would let him have a convoy of a hundred men he would

+capture him alive. Count Orlóv-Denísov consulted his fellow officers.

+

+The offer was too tempting to be refused. Everyone volunteered to go and

+everybody advised making the attempt. After much disputing and arguing,

+Major-General Grékov with two Cossack regiments decided to go with the

+Polish sergeant.

+

+“Now, remember,” said Count Orlóv-Denísov to the sergeant at parting,

+“if you have been lying I’ll have you hanged like a dog; but if it’s

+true you shall have a hundred gold pieces!”

+

+Without replying, the sergeant, with a resolute air, mounted and rode

+away with Grékov whose men had quickly assembled. They disappeared into

+the forest, and Count Orlóv-Denísov, having seen Grékov off, returned,

+shivering from the freshness of the early dawn and excited by what he

+had undertaken on his own responsibility, and began looking at the enemy

+camp, now just visible in the deceptive light of dawn and the dying

+campfires. Our columns ought to have begun to appear on an open

+declivity to his right. He looked in that direction, but though the

+columns would have been visible quite far off, they were not to be seen.

+It seemed to the count that things were beginning to stir in the French

+camp, and his keen-sighted adjutant confirmed this.

+

+“Oh, it is really too late,” said Count Orlóv, looking at the camp.

+

+As often happens when someone we have trusted is no longer before

+our eyes, it suddenly seemed quite clear and obvious to him that the

+sergeant was an impostor, that he had lied, and that the whole Russian

+attack would be ruined by the absence of those two regiments, which

+he would lead away heaven only knew where. How could one capture a

+commander in chief from among such a mass of troops!

+

+“I am sure that rascal was lying,” said the count.

+

+“They can still be called back,” said one of his suite, who like Count

+Orlóv felt distrustful of the adventure when he looked at the enemy’s

+camp.

+

+“Eh? Really... what do you think? Should we let them go on or not?”

+

+“Will you have them fetched back?”

+

+“Fetch them back, fetch them back!” said Count Orlóv with sudden

+determination, looking at his watch. “It will be too late. It is quite

+light.”

+

+And the adjutant galloped through the forest after Grékov. When Grékov

+returned, Count Orlóv-Denísov, excited both by the abandoned attempt and

+by vainly awaiting the infantry columns that still did not appear, as

+well as by the proximity of the enemy, resolved to advance. All his men

+felt the same excitement.

+

+“Mount!” he commanded in a whisper. The men took their places and

+crossed themselves.... “Forward, with God’s aid!”

+

+“Hurrah-ah-ah!” reverberated in the forest, and the Cossack companies,

+trailing their lances and advancing one after another as if poured out

+of a sack, dashed gaily across the brook toward the camp.

+

+One desperate, frightened yell from the first French soldier who saw the

+Cossacks, and all who were in the camp, undressed and only just waking

+up, ran off in all directions, abandoning cannons, muskets, and horses.

+

+Had the Cossacks pursued the French, without heeding what was behind and

+around them, they would have captured Murat and everything there.

+That was what the officers desired. But it was impossible to make the

+Cossacks budge when once they had got booty and prisoners. None of them

+listened to orders. Fifteen hundred prisoners and thirty-eight guns were

+taken on the spot, besides standards and (what seemed most important to

+the Cossacks) horses, saddles, horsecloths, and the like. All this had

+to be dealt with, the prisoners and guns secured, the booty divided—not

+without some shouting and even a little fighting among themselves—and it

+was on this that the Cossacks all busied themselves.

+

+The French, not being farther pursued, began to recover themselves: they

+formed into detachments and began firing. Orlóv-Denísov, still waiting

+for the other columns to arrive, advanced no further.

+

+Meantime, according to the dispositions which said that “the First

+Column will march” and so on, the infantry of the belated columns,

+commanded by Bennigsen and directed by Toll, had started in due order

+and, as always happens, had got somewhere, but not to their appointed

+places. As always happens the men, starting cheerfully, began to halt;

+murmurs were heard, there was a sense of confusion, and finally a

+backward movement. Adjutants and generals galloped about, shouted, grew

+angry, quarreled, said they had come quite wrong and were late, gave

+vent to a little abuse, and at last gave it all up and went forward,

+simply to get somewhere. “We shall get somewhere or other!” And they did

+indeed get somewhere, though not to their right places; a few eventually

+even got to their right place, but too late to be of any use and only

+in time to be fired at. Toll, who in this battle played the part of

+Weyrother at Austerlitz, galloped assiduously from place to place,

+finding everything upside down everywhere. Thus he stumbled on Bagovút’s

+corps in a wood when it was already broad daylight, though the corps

+should long before have joined Orlóv-Denísov. Excited and vexed by the

+failure and supposing that someone must be responsible for it, Toll

+galloped up to the commander of the corps and began upbraiding him

+severely, saying that he ought to be shot. General Bagovút, a fighting

+old soldier of placid temperament, being also upset by all the delay,

+confusion, and cross-purposes, fell into a rage to everybody’s surprise

+and quite contrary to his usual character and said disagreeable things

+to Toll.

+

+“I prefer not to take lessons from anyone, but I can die with my men as

+well as anybody,” he said, and advanced with a single division.

+

+Coming out onto a field under the enemy’s fire, this brave general went

+straight ahead, leading his men under fire, without considering in his

+agitation whether going into action now, with a single division, would

+be of any use or no. Danger, cannon balls, and bullets were just what he

+needed in his angry mood. One of the first bullets killed him, and other

+bullets killed many of his men. And his division remained under fire for

+some time quite uselessly.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+Meanwhile another column was to have attacked the French from the front,

+but Kutúzov accompanied that column. He well knew that nothing but

+confusion would come of this battle undertaken against his will, and as

+far as was in his power held the troops back. He did not advance.

+

+He rode silently on his small gray horse, indolently answering

+suggestions that they should attack.

+

+“The word attack is always on your tongue, but you don’t see that we are

+unable to execute complicated maneuvers,” said he to Milorádovich who

+asked permission to advance.

+

+“We couldn’t take Murat prisoner this morning or get to the place in

+time, and nothing can be done now!” he replied to someone else.

+

+When Kutúzov was informed that at the French rear—where according to the

+reports of the Cossacks there had previously been nobody—there were now

+two battalions of Poles, he gave a sidelong glance at Ermólov who was

+behind him and to whom he had not spoken since the previous day.

+

+“You see! They are asking to attack and making plans of all kinds,

+but as soon as one gets to business nothing is ready, and the enemy,

+forewarned, takes measures accordingly.”

+

+Ermólov screwed up his eyes and smiled faintly on hearing these words.

+He understood that for him the storm had blown over, and that Kutúzov

+would content himself with that hint.

+

+“He’s having a little fun at my expense,” said Ermólov softly, nudging

+with his knee Raévski who was at his side.

+

+Soon after this, Ermólov moved up to Kutúzov and respectfully remarked:

+

+“It is not too late yet, your Highness—the enemy has not gone away—if

+you were to order an attack! If not, the Guards will not so much as see

+a little smoke.”

+

+Kutúzov did not reply, but when they reported to him that Murat’s troops

+were in retreat he ordered an advance, though at every hundred paces he

+halted for three quarters of an hour.

+

+The whole battle consisted in what Orlóv-Denísov’s Cossacks had done:

+the rest of the army merely lost some hundreds of men uselessly.

+

+In consequence of this battle Kutúzov received a diamond decoration,

+and Bennigsen some diamonds and a hundred thousand rubles, others also

+received pleasant recognitions corresponding to their various grades,

+and following the battle fresh changes were made in the staff.

+

+“That’s how everything is done with us, all topsy-turvy!” said the

+Russian officers and generals after the Tarútino battle, letting it be

+understood that some fool there is doing things all wrong but that

+we ourselves should not have done so, just as people speak today. But

+people who talk like that either do not know what they are talking about

+or deliberately deceive themselves. No battle—Tarútino, Borodinó, or

+Austerlitz—takes place as those who planned it anticipated. That is an

+essential condition.

+

+A countless number of free forces (for nowhere is man freer than during

+a battle, where it is a question of life and death) influence the course

+taken by the fight, and that course never can be known in advance and

+never coincides with the direction of any one force.

+

+If many simultaneously and variously directed forces act on a given

+body, the direction of its motion cannot coincide with any one of those

+forces, but will always be a mean—what in mechanics is represented by

+the diagonal of a parallelogram of forces.

+

+If in the descriptions given by historians, especially French ones, we

+find their wars and battles carried out in accordance with previously

+formed plans, the only conclusion to be drawn is that those descriptions

+are false.

+

+The battle of Tarútino obviously did not attain the aim Toll had in

+view—to lead the troops into action in the order prescribed by the

+dispositions; nor that which Count Orlóv-Denísov may have had in view—to

+take Murat prisoner; nor the result of immediately destroying the whole

+corps, which Bennigsen and others may have had in view; nor the aim of

+the officer who wished to go into action to distinguish himself; nor

+that of the Cossack who wanted more booty than he got, and so on. But

+if the aim of the battle was what actually resulted and what all the

+Russians of that day desired—to drive the French out of Russia and

+destroy their army—it is quite clear that the battle of Tarútino, just

+because of its incongruities, was exactly what was wanted at that stage

+of the campaign. It would be difficult and even impossible to imagine

+any result more opportune than the actual outcome of this battle. With

+a minimum of effort and insignificant losses, despite the greatest

+confusion, the most important results of the whole campaign were

+attained: the transition from retreat to advance, an exposure of the

+weakness of the French, and the administration of that shock which

+Napoleon’s army had only awaited to begin its flight.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+Napoleon enters Moscow after the brilliant victory de la Moskowa; there

+can be no doubt about the victory for the battlefield remains in the

+hands of the French. The Russians retreat and abandon their ancient

+capital. Moscow, abounding in provisions, arms, munitions, and

+incalculable wealth, is in Napoleon’s hands. The Russian army, only half

+the strength of the French, does not make a single attempt to attack for

+a whole month. Napoleon’s position is most brilliant. He can either fall

+on the Russian army with double its strength and destroy it; negotiate

+an advantageous peace, or in case of a refusal make a menacing move on

+Petersburg, or even, in the case of a reverse, return to Smolénsk or

+Vílna; or remain in Moscow; in short, no special genius would seem to be

+required to retain the brilliant position the French held at that time.

+For that, only very simple and easy steps were necessary: not to allow

+the troops to loot, to prepare winter clothing—of which there was

+sufficient in Moscow for the whole army—and methodically to collect the

+provisions, of which (according to the French historians) there were

+enough in Moscow to supply the whole army for six months. Yet Napoleon,

+that greatest of all geniuses, who the historians declare had control of

+the army, took none of these steps.

+

+He not merely did nothing of the kind, but on the contrary he used his

+power to select the most foolish and ruinous of all the courses open

+to him. Of all that Napoleon might have done: wintering in Moscow,

+advancing on Petersburg or on Nízhni-Nóvgorod, or retiring by a more

+northerly or more southerly route (say by the road Kutúzov afterwards

+took), nothing more stupid or disastrous can be imagined than what he

+actually did. He remained in Moscow till October, letting the troops

+plunder the city; then, hesitating whether to leave a garrison behind

+him, he quitted Moscow, approached Kutúzov without joining battle,

+turned to the right and reached Málo-Yaroslávets, again without

+attempting to break through and take the road Kutúzov took, but retiring

+instead to Mozháysk along the devastated Smolénsk road. Nothing more

+stupid than that could have been devised, or more disastrous for the

+army, as the sequel showed. Had Napoleon’s aim been to destroy his army,

+the most skillful strategist could hardly have devised any series

+of actions that would so completely have accomplished that purpose,

+independently of anything the Russian army might do.

+

+Napoleon, the man of genius, did this! But to say that he destroyed his

+army because he wished to, or because he was very stupid, would be as

+unjust as to say that he had brought his troops to Moscow because he

+wished to and because he was very clever and a genius.

+

+In both cases his personal activity, having no more force than the

+personal activity of any soldier, merely coincided with the laws that

+guided the event.

+

+The historians quite falsely represent Napoleon’s faculties as having

+weakened in Moscow, and do so only because the results did not justify

+his actions. He employed all his ability and strength to do the best he

+could for himself and his army, as he had done previously and as he did

+subsequently in 1813. His activity at that time was no less astounding

+than it was in Egypt, in Italy, in Austria, and in Prussia. We do not

+know for certain in how far his genius was genuine in Egypt—where forty

+centuries looked down upon his grandeur—for his great exploits there are

+all told us by Frenchmen. We cannot accurately estimate his genius in

+Austria or Prussia, for we have to draw our information from French

+or German sources, and the incomprehensible surrender of whole corps

+without fighting and of fortresses without a siege must incline Germans

+to recognize his genius as the only explanation of the war carried on

+in Germany. But we, thank God, have no need to recognize his genius

+in order to hide our shame. We have paid for the right to look at the

+matter plainly and simply, and we will not abandon that right.

+

+His activity in Moscow was as amazing and as full of genius as

+elsewhere. Order after order and plan after plan were issued by him

+from the time he entered Moscow till the time he left it. The absence

+of citizens and of a deputation, and even the burning of Moscow, did not

+disconcert him. He did not lose sight either of the welfare of his

+army or of the doings of the enemy, or of the welfare of the people

+of Russia, or of the direction of affairs in Paris, or of diplomatic

+considerations concerning the terms of the anticipated peace.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+With regard to military matters, Napoleon immediately on his entry into

+Moscow gave General Sabastiani strict orders to observe the movements

+of the Russian army, sent army corps out along the different roads, and

+charged Murat to find Kutúzov. Then he gave careful directions about the

+fortification of the Krémlin, and drew up a brilliant plan for a future

+campaign over the whole map of Russia.

+

+With regard to diplomatic questions, Napoleon summoned Captain Yákovlev,

+who had been robbed and was in rags and did not know how to get out of

+Moscow, minutely explained to him his whole policy and his magnanimity,

+and having written a letter to the Emperor Alexander in which he

+considered it his duty to inform his Friend and Brother that Rostopchín

+had managed affairs badly in Moscow, he dispatched Yákovlev to

+Petersburg.

+

+Having similarly explained his views and his magnanimity to Tutólmin, he

+dispatched that old man also to Petersburg to negotiate.

+

+With regard to legal matters, immediately after the fires he gave orders

+to find and execute the incendiaries. And the scoundrel Rostopchín was

+punished by an order to burn down his houses.

+

+With regard to administrative matters, Moscow was granted a

+constitution. A municipality was established and the following

+announcement issued:

+

+

+INHABITANTS OF MOSCOW!

+

+Your misfortunes are cruel, but His Majesty the Emperor and King

+desires to arrest their course. Terrible examples have taught you how he

+punishes disobedience and crime. Strict measures have been taken to

+put an end to disorder and to re-establish public security. A

+paternal administration, chosen from among yourselves, will form your

+municipality or city government. It will take care of you, of your

+needs, and of your welfare. Its members will be distinguished by a red

+ribbon worn across the shoulder, and the mayor of the city will wear

+a white belt as well. But when not on duty they will only wear a red

+ribbon round the left arm.

+

+The city police is established on its former footing, and better order

+already prevails in consequence of its activity. The government has

+appointed two commissaries general, or chiefs of police, and twenty

+commissaries or captains of wards have been appointed to the different

+wards of the city. You will recognize them by the white ribbon they will

+wear on the left arm. Several churches of different denominations are

+open, and divine service is performed in them unhindered. Your fellow

+citizens are returning every day to their homes and orders have been

+given that they should find in them the help and protection due to

+their misfortunes. These are the measures the government has adopted to

+re-establish order and relieve your condition. But to achieve this

+aim it is necessary that you should add your efforts and should, if

+possible, forget the misfortunes you have suffered, should entertain

+the hope of a less cruel fate, should be certain that inevitable and

+ignominious death awaits those who make any attempt on your persons or

+on what remains of your property, and finally that you should not doubt

+that these will be safeguarded, since such is the will of the greatest

+and most just of monarchs. Soldiers and citizens, of whatever nation you

+may be, re-establish public confidence, the source of the welfare of

+a state, live like brothers, render mutual aid and protection one to

+another, unite to defeat the intentions of the evil-minded, obey the

+military and civil authorities, and your tears will soon cease to flow!

+

+

+With regard to supplies for the army, Napoleon decreed that all the

+troops in turn should enter Moscow à la maraude * to obtain provisions

+for themselves, so that the army might have its future provided for.

+

+    * As looters.

+

+With regard to religion, Napoleon ordered the priests to be brought back

+and services to be again performed in the churches.

+

+With regard to commerce and to provisioning the army, the following was

+placarded everywhere:

+

+PROCLAMATION

+

+You, peaceful inhabitants of Moscow, artisans and workmen whom

+misfortune has driven from the city, and you scattered tillers of

+the soil, still kept out in the fields by groundless fear, listen!

+Tranquillity is returning to this capital and order is being restored in

+it. Your fellow countrymen are emerging boldly from their hiding places

+on finding that they are respected. Any violence to them or to their

+property is promptly punished. His Majesty the Emperor and King protects

+them, and considers no one among you his enemy except those who disobey

+his orders. He desires to end your misfortunes and restore you to your

+homes and families. Respond, therefore, to his benevolent intentions

+and come to us without fear. Inhabitants, return with confidence to your

+abodes! You will soon find means of satisfying your needs. Craftsmen

+and industrious artisans, return to your work, your houses, your shops,

+where the protection of guards awaits you! You shall receive proper pay

+for your work. And lastly you too, peasants, come from the forests where

+you are hiding in terror, return to your huts without fear, in full

+assurance that you will find protection! Markets are established in the

+city where peasants can bring their surplus supplies and the products of

+the soil. The government has taken the following steps to ensure freedom

+of sale for them: (1) From today, peasants, husbandmen, and those

+living in the neighborhood of Moscow may without any danger bring their

+supplies of all kinds to two appointed markets, of which one is on

+the Mokhováya Street and the other at the Provision Market. (2) Such

+supplies will be bought from them at such prices as seller and buyer may

+agree on, and if a seller is unable to obtain a fair price he will be

+free to take his goods back to his village and no one may hinder him

+under any pretense. (3) Sunday and Wednesday of each week are appointed

+as the chief market days and to that end a sufficient number of troops

+will be stationed along the highroads on Tuesdays and Saturdays at such

+distances from the town as to protect the carts. (4) Similar measures

+will be taken that peasants with their carts and horses may meet with no

+hindrance on their return journey. (5) Steps will immediately be taken

+to re-establish ordinary trading.

+

+Inhabitants of the city and villages, and you, workingmen and artisans,

+to whatever nation you belong, you are called on to carry out the

+paternal intentions of His Majesty the Emperor and King and to

+co-operate with him for the public welfare! Lay your respect and

+confidence at his feet and do not delay to unite with us!

+

+

+With the object of raising the spirits of the troops and of the people,

+reviews were constantly held and rewards distributed. The Emperor

+rode through the streets to comfort the inhabitants, and, despite his

+preoccupation with state affairs, himself visited the theaters that were

+established by his order.

+

+In regard to philanthropy, the greatest virtue of crowned heads,

+Napoleon also did all in his power. He caused the words Maison de ma

+Mère to be inscribed on the charitable institutions, thereby combining

+tender filial affection with the majestic benevolence of a monarch. He

+visited the Foundling Hospital and, allowing the orphans saved by him

+to kiss his white hands, graciously conversed with Tutólmin. Then, as

+Thiers eloquently recounts, he ordered his soldiers to be paid in forged

+Russian money which he had prepared: “Raising the use of these means

+by an act worthy of himself and of the French army, he let relief

+be distributed to those who had been burned out. But as food was too

+precious to be given to foreigners, who were for the most part enemies,

+Napoleon preferred to supply them with money with which to purchase food

+from outside, and had paper rubles distributed to them.”

+

+With reference to army discipline, orders were continually being issued

+to inflict severe punishment for the nonperformance of military duties

+and to suppress robbery.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+But strange to say, all these measures, efforts, and plans—which were

+not at all worse than others issued in similar circumstances—did not

+affect the essence of the matter but, like the hands of a clock detached

+from the mechanism, swung about in an arbitrary and aimless way without

+engaging the cogwheels.

+

+With reference to the military side—the plan of campaign—that work of

+genius of which Thiers remarks that, “His genius never devised anything

+more profound, more skillful, or more admirable,” and enters into a

+polemic with M. Fain to prove that this work of genius must be referred

+not to the fourth but to the fifteenth of October—that plan never was or

+could be executed, for it was quite out of touch with the facts of the

+case. The fortifying of the Krémlin, for which la Mosquée (as Napoleon

+termed the church of Basil the Beatified) was to have been razed to

+the ground, proved quite useless. The mining of the Krémlin only helped

+toward fulfilling Napoleon’s wish that it should be blown up when he

+left Moscow—as a child wants the floor on which he has hurt himself to

+be beaten. The pursuit of the Russian army, about which Napoleon was so

+concerned, produced an unheard-of result. The French generals lost touch

+with the Russian army of sixty thousand men, and according to Thiers it

+was only eventually found, like a lost pin, by the skill—and apparently

+the genius—of Murat.

+

+With reference to diplomacy, all Napoleon’s arguments as to his

+magnanimity and justice, both to Tutólmin and to Yákovlev (whose chief

+concern was to obtain a greatcoat and a conveyance), proved useless;

+Alexander did not receive these envoys and did not reply to their

+embassage.

+

+With regard to legal matters, after the execution of the supposed

+incendiaries the rest of Moscow burned down.

+

+With regard to administrative matters, the establishment of a

+municipality did not stop the robberies and was only of use to certain

+people who formed part of that municipality and under pretext of

+preserving order looted Moscow or saved their own property from being

+looted.

+

+With regard to religion, as to which in Egypt matters had so easily been

+settled by Napoleon’s visit to a mosque, no results were achieved.

+Two or three priests who were found in Moscow did try to carry out

+Napoleon’s wish, but one of them was slapped in the face by a French

+soldier while conducting service, and a French official reported of

+another that: “The priest whom I found and invited to say Mass cleaned

+and locked up the church. That night the doors were again broken

+open, the padlocks smashed, the books mutilated, and other disorders

+perpetrated.”

+

+With reference to commerce, the proclamation to industrious workmen and

+to peasants evoked no response. There were no industrious workmen, and

+the peasants caught the commissaries who ventured too far out of town

+with the proclamation and killed them.

+

+As to the theaters for the entertainment of the people and the troops,

+these did not meet with success either. The theaters set up in the

+Krémlin and in Posnyákov’s house were closed again at once because the

+actors and actresses were robbed.

+

+Even philanthropy did not have the desired effect. The genuine as

+well as the false paper money which flooded Moscow lost its value. The

+French, collecting booty, cared only for gold. Not only was the

+paper money valueless which Napoleon so graciously distributed to the

+unfortunate, but even silver lost its value in relation to gold.

+

+But the most amazing example of the ineffectiveness of the orders given

+by the authorities at that time was Napoleon’s attempt to stop the

+looting and re-establish discipline.

+

+This is what the army authorities were reporting:

+

+“Looting continues in the city despite the decrees against it. Order

+is not yet restored and not a single merchant is carrying on trade in a

+lawful manner. The sutlers alone venture to trade, and they sell stolen

+goods.”

+

+“The neighborhood of my ward continues to be pillaged by soldiers of

+the 3rd Corps who, not satisfied with taking from the unfortunate

+inhabitants hiding in the cellars the little they have left, even have

+the ferocity to wound them with their sabers, as I have repeatedly

+witnessed.”

+

+“Nothing new, except that the soldiers are robbing and pillaging—October

+9.”

+

+“Robbery and pillaging continue. There is a band of thieves in our

+district who ought to be arrested by a strong force—October 11.”

+

+“The Emperor is extremely displeased that despite the strict orders to

+stop pillage, parties of marauding Guards are continually seen returning

+to the Krémlin. Among the Old Guard disorder and pillage were renewed

+more violently than ever yesterday evening, last night, and today. The

+Emperor sees with regret that the picked soldiers appointed to guard his

+person, who should set an example of discipline, carry disobedience to

+such a point that they break into the cellars and stores containing army

+supplies. Others have disgraced themselves to the extent of disobeying

+sentinels and officers, and have abused and beaten them.”

+

+“The Grand Marshal of the palace,” wrote the governor, “complains

+bitterly that in spite of repeated orders, the soldiers continue to

+commit nuisances in all the courtyards and even under the very windows

+of the Emperor.”

+

+That army, like a herd of cattle run wild and trampling underfoot the

+provender which might have saved it from starvation, disintegrated and

+perished with each additional day it remained in Moscow. But it did not

+go away.

+

+It began to run away only when suddenly seized by a panic caused by the

+capture of transport trains on the Smolénsk road, and by the battle of

+Tarútino. The news of that battle of Tarútino, unexpectedly received

+by Napoleon at a review, evoked in him a desire to punish the Russians

+(Thiers says), and he issued the order for departure which the whole

+army was demanding.

+

+Fleeing from Moscow the soldiers took with them everything they had

+stolen. Napoleon, too, carried away his own personal trésor, but on

+seeing the baggage trains that impeded the army, he was (Thiers says)

+horror-struck. And yet with his experience of war he did not order all

+the superfluous vehicles to be burned, as he had done with those of a

+certain marshal when approaching Moscow. He gazed at the calèches and

+carriages in which soldiers were riding and remarked that it was a very

+good thing, as those vehicles could be used to carry provisions, the

+sick, and the wounded.

+

+The plight of the whole army resembled that of a wounded animal which

+feels it is perishing and does not know what it is doing. To study the

+skillful tactics and aims of Napoleon and his army from the time it

+entered Moscow till it was destroyed is like studying the dying leaps

+and shudders of a mortally wounded animal. Very often a wounded animal,

+hearing a rustle, rushes straight at the hunter’s gun, runs forward and

+back again, and hastens its own end. Napoleon, under pressure from his

+whole army, did the same thing. The rustle of the battle of Tarútino

+frightened the beast, and it rushed forward onto the hunter’s gun,

+reached him, turned back, and finally—like any wild beast—ran back along

+the most disadvantageous and dangerous path, where the old scent was

+familiar.

+

+During the whole of that period Napoleon, who seems to us to have been

+the leader of all these movements—as the figurehead of a ship may seem

+to a savage to guide the vessel—acted like a child who, holding a couple

+of strings inside a carriage, thinks he is driving it.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+Early in the morning of the sixth of October Pierre went out of the

+shed, and on returning stopped by the door to play with a little

+blue-gray dog, with a long body and short bandy legs, that jumped about

+him. This little dog lived in their shed, sleeping beside Karatáev at

+night; it sometimes made excursions into the town but always returned

+again. Probably it had never had an owner, and it still belonged to

+nobody and had no name. The French called it Azor; the soldier who

+told stories called it Femgálka; Karatáev and others called it Gray, or

+sometimes Flabby. Its lack of a master, a name, or even of a breed or

+any definite color did not seem to trouble the blue-gray dog in the

+least. Its furry tail stood up firm and round as a plume, its bandy legs

+served it so well that it would often gracefully lift a hind leg and run

+very easily and quickly on three legs, as if disdaining to use all

+four. Everything pleased it. Now it would roll on its back, yelping with

+delight, now bask in the sun with a thoughtful air of importance, and

+now frolic about playing with a chip of wood or a straw.

+

+Pierre’s attire by now consisted of a dirty torn shirt (the only

+remnant of his former clothing), a pair of soldier’s trousers which by

+Karatáev’s advice he tied with string round the ankles for warmth, and

+a peasant coat and cap. Physically he had changed much during this

+time. He no longer seemed stout, though he still had the appearance of

+solidity and strength hereditary in his family. A beard and mustache

+covered the lower part of his face, and a tangle of hair, infested

+with lice, curled round his head like a cap. The look of his eyes

+was resolute, calm, and animatedly alert, as never before. The former

+slackness which had shown itself even in his eyes was now replaced by an

+energetic readiness for action and resistance. His feet were bare.

+

+Pierre first looked down the field across which vehicles and horsemen

+were passing that morning, then into the distance across the river, then

+at the dog who was pretending to be in earnest about biting him,

+and then at his bare feet which he placed with pleasure in various

+positions, moving his dirty thick big toes. Every time he looked at his

+bare feet a smile of animated self-satisfaction flitted across his face.

+The sight of them reminded him of all he had experienced and learned

+during these weeks and this recollection was pleasant to him.

+

+For some days the weather had been calm and clear with slight frosts in

+the mornings—what is called an “old wives’ summer.”

+

+In the sunshine the air was warm, and that warmth was particularly

+pleasant with the invigorating freshness of the morning frost still in

+the air.

+

+On everything—far and near—lay the magic crystal glitter seen only at

+that time of autumn. The Sparrow Hills were visible in the distance,

+with the village, the church, and the large white house. The bare trees,

+the sand, the bricks and roofs of the houses, the green church spire,

+and the corners of the white house in the distance, all stood out in the

+transparent air in most delicate outline and with unnatural clearness.

+Near by could be seen the familiar ruins of a half-burned mansion

+occupied by the French, with lilac bushes still showing dark green

+beside the fence. And even that ruined and befouled house—which in dull

+weather was repulsively ugly—seemed quietly beautiful now, in the clear,

+motionless brilliance.

+

+A French corporal, with coat unbuttoned in a homely way, a skullcap on

+his head, and a short pipe in his mouth, came from behind a corner of

+the shed and approached Pierre with a friendly wink.

+

+“What sunshine, Monsieur Kiril!” (Their name for Pierre.) “Eh? Just like

+spring!”

+

+And the corporal leaned against the door and offered Pierre his pipe,

+though whenever he offered it Pierre always declined it.

+

+“To be on the march in such weather...” he began.

+

+Pierre inquired what was being said about leaving, and the corporal told

+him that nearly all the troops were starting and there ought to be an

+order about the prisoners that day. Sokolóv, one of the soldiers in the

+shed with Pierre, was dying, and Pierre told the corporal that something

+should be done about him. The corporal replied that Pierre need not

+worry about that as they had an ambulance and a permanent hospital and

+arrangements would be made for the sick, and that in general everything

+that could happen had been foreseen by the authorities.

+

+“Besides, Monsieur Kiril, you have only to say a word to the captain,

+you know. He is a man who never forgets anything. Speak to the captain

+when he makes his round, he will do anything for you.”

+

+(The captain of whom the corporal spoke often had long chats with Pierre

+and showed him all sorts of favors.)

+

+“‘You see, St. Thomas,’ he said to me the other day. ‘Monsieur Kiril is

+a man of education, who speaks French. He is a Russian seigneur who has

+had misfortunes, but he is a man. He knows what’s what.... If he wants

+anything and asks me, he won’t get a refusal. When one has studied, you

+see, one likes education and well-bred people.’ It is for your sake I

+mention it, Monsieur Kiril. The other day if it had not been for you

+that affair would have ended ill.”

+

+And after chatting a while longer, the corporal went away. (The affair

+he had alluded to had happened a few days before—a fight between the

+prisoners and the French soldiers, in which Pierre had succeeded in

+pacifying his comrades.) Some of the prisoners who had heard Pierre

+talking to the corporal immediately asked what the Frenchman had said.

+While Pierre was repeating what he had been told about the army leaving

+Moscow, a thin, sallow, tattered French soldier came up to the door of

+the shed. Rapidly and timidly raising his fingers to his forehead by way

+of greeting, he asked Pierre whether the soldier Platoche to whom he had

+given a shirt to sew was in that shed.

+

+A week before the French had had boot leather and linen issued to them,

+which they had given out to the prisoners to make up into boots and

+shirts for them.

+

+“Ready, ready, dear fellow!” said Karatáev, coming out with a neatly

+folded shirt.

+

+Karatáev, on account of the warm weather and for convenience at work,

+was wearing only trousers and a tattered shirt as black as soot. His

+hair was bound round, workman fashion, with a wisp of lime-tree bast,

+and his round face seemed rounder and pleasanter than ever.

+

+“A promise is own brother to performance! I said Friday and here it is,

+ready,” said Platón, smiling and unfolding the shirt he had sewn.

+

+The Frenchman glanced around uneasily and then, as if overcoming his

+hesitation, rapidly threw off his uniform and put on the shirt. He had

+a long, greasy, flowered silk waistcoat next to his sallow, thin bare

+body, but no shirt. He was evidently afraid the prisoners looking on

+would laugh at him, and thrust his head into the shirt hurriedly. None

+of the prisoners said a word.

+

+“See, it fits well!” Platón kept repeating, pulling the shirt straight.

+

+The Frenchman, having pushed his head and hands through, without raising

+his eyes, looked down at the shirt and examined the seams.

+

+“You see, dear man, this is not a sewing shop, and I had no proper

+tools; and, as they say, one needs a tool even to kill a louse,” said

+Platón with one of his round smiles, obviously pleased with his work.

+

+“It’s good, quite good, thank you,” said the Frenchman, in French, “but

+there must be some linen left over.”

+

+“It will fit better still when it sets to your body,” said Karatáev,

+still admiring his handiwork. “You’ll be nice and comfortable....”

+

+“Thanks, thanks, old fellow.... But the bits left over?” said the

+Frenchman again and smiled. He took out an assignation ruble note and

+gave it to Karatáev. “But give me the pieces that are over.”

+

+Pierre saw that Platón did not want to understand what the Frenchman

+was saying, and he looked on without interfering. Karatáev thanked the

+Frenchman for the money and went on admiring his own work. The Frenchman

+insisted on having the pieces returned that were left over and asked

+Pierre to translate what he said.

+

+“What does he want the bits for?” said Karatáev. “They’d make fine leg

+bands for us. Well, never mind.”

+

+And Karatáev, with a suddenly changed and saddened expression, took

+a small bundle of scraps from inside his shirt and gave it to the

+Frenchman without looking at him. “Oh dear!” muttered Karatáev and went

+away. The Frenchman looked at the linen, considered for a moment, then

+looked inquiringly at Pierre and, as if Pierre’s look had told him

+something, suddenly blushed and shouted in a squeaky voice:

+

+“Platoche! Eh, Platoche! Keep them yourself!” And handing back the odd

+bits he turned and went out.

+

+“There, look at that,” said Karatáev, swaying his head. “People said

+they were not Christians, but they too have souls. It’s what the old

+folk used to say: ‘A sweating hand’s an open hand, a dry hand’s close.’

+He’s naked, but yet he’s given it back.”

+

+Karatáev smiled thoughtfully and was silent awhile looking at the

+pieces.

+

+“But they’ll make grand leg bands, dear friend,” he said, and went back

+into the shed.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+Four weeks had passed since Pierre had been taken prisoner and though

+the French had offered to move him from the men’s to the officers’ shed,

+he had stayed in the shed where he was first put.

+

+In burned and devastated Moscow Pierre experienced almost the extreme

+limits of privation a man can endure; but thanks to his physical

+strength and health, of which he had till then been unconscious, and

+thanks especially to the fact that the privations came so gradually that

+it was impossible to say when they began, he endured his position

+not only lightly but joyfully. And just at this time he obtained the

+tranquillity and ease of mind he had formerly striven in vain to reach.

+He had long sought in different ways that tranquillity of mind, that

+inner harmony which had so impressed him in the soldiers at the battle

+of Borodinó. He had sought it in philanthropy, in Freemasonry, in the

+dissipations of town life, in wine, in heroic feats of self-sacrifice,

+and in romantic love for Natásha; he had sought it by reasoning—and all

+these quests and experiments had failed him. And now without thinking

+about it he had found that peace and inner harmony only through the

+horror of death, through privation, and through what he recognized in

+Karatáev.

+

+Those dreadful moments he had lived through at the executions had as it

+were forever washed away from his imagination and memory the agitating

+thoughts and feelings that had formerly seemed so important. It did

+not now occur to him to think of Russia, or the war, or politics, or

+Napoleon. It was plain to him that all these things were no business

+of his, and that he was not called on to judge concerning them and

+therefore could not do so. “Russia and summer weather are not bound

+together,” he thought, repeating words of Karatáev’s which he found

+strangely consoling. His intention of killing Napoleon and his

+calculations of the cabalistic number of the beast of the Apocalypse now

+seemed to him meaningless and even ridiculous. His anger with his wife

+and anxiety that his name should not be smirched now seemed not merely

+trivial but even amusing. What concern was it of his that somewhere or

+other that woman was leading the life she preferred? What did it matter

+to anybody, and especially to him, whether or not they found out that

+their prisoner’s name was Count Bezúkhov?

+

+He now often remembered his conversation with Prince Andrew and quite

+agreed with him, though he understood Prince Andrew’s thoughts somewhat

+differently. Prince Andrew had thought and said that happiness could

+only be negative, but had said it with a shade of bitterness and irony

+as though he was really saying that all desire for positive happiness is

+implanted in us merely to torment us and never be satisfied. But Pierre

+believed it without any mental reservation. The absence of suffering,

+the satisfaction of one’s needs and consequent freedom in the choice of

+one’s occupation, that is, of one’s way of life, now seemed to Pierre to

+be indubitably man’s highest happiness. Here and now for the first time

+he fully appreciated the enjoyment of eating when he wanted to eat,

+drinking when he wanted to drink, sleeping when he wanted to sleep, of

+warmth when he was cold, of talking to a fellow man when he wished to

+talk and to hear a human voice. The satisfaction of one’s needs—good

+food, cleanliness, and freedom—now that he was deprived of all this,

+seemed to Pierre to constitute perfect happiness; and the choice

+of occupation, that is, of his way of life—now that that was so

+restricted—seemed to him such an easy matter that he forgot that a

+superfluity of the comforts of life destroys all joy in satisfying one’s

+needs, while great freedom in the choice of occupation—such freedom as

+his wealth, his education, and his social position had given him in his

+own life—is just what makes the choice of occupation insolubly difficult

+and destroys the desire and possibility of having an occupation.

+

+All Pierre’s daydreams now turned on the time when he would be free. Yet

+subsequently, and for the rest of his life, he thought and spoke with

+enthusiasm of that month of captivity, of those irrecoverable, strong,

+joyful sensations, and chiefly of the complete peace of mind and inner

+freedom which he experienced only during those weeks.

+

+When on the first day he got up early, went out of the shed at dawn, and

+saw the cupolas and crosses of the New Convent of the Virgin still dark

+at first, the hoarfrost on the dusty grass, the Sparrow Hills, and the

+wooded banks above the winding river vanishing in the purple distance,

+when he felt the contact of the fresh air and heard the noise of the

+crows flying from Moscow across the field, and when afterwards light

+gleamed from the east and the sun’s rim appeared solemnly from behind a

+cloud, and the cupolas and crosses, the hoarfrost, the distance and the

+river, all began to sparkle in the glad light—Pierre felt a new joy and

+strength in life such as he had never before known. And this not only

+stayed with him during the whole of his imprisonment, but even grew in

+strength as the hardships of his position increased.

+

+That feeling of alertness and of readiness for anything was still

+further strengthened in him by the high opinion his fellow prisoners

+formed of him soon after his arrival at the shed. With his knowledge

+of languages, the respect shown him by the French, his simplicity, his

+readiness to give anything asked of him (he received the allowance

+of three rubles a week made to officers); with his strength, which he

+showed to the soldiers by pressing nails into the walls of the hut; his

+gentleness to his companions, and his capacity for sitting still and

+thinking without doing anything (which seemed to them incomprehensible),

+he appeared to them a rather mysterious and superior being. The very

+qualities that had been a hindrance, if not actually harmful, to him in

+the world he had lived in—his strength, his disdain for the comforts of

+life, his absent-mindedness and simplicity—here among these people gave

+him almost the status of a hero. And Pierre felt that their opinion

+placed responsibilities upon him.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+The French evacuation began on the night between the sixth and seventh

+of October: kitchens and sheds were dismantled, carts loaded, and troops

+and baggage trains started.

+

+At seven in the morning a French convoy in marching trim, wearing shakos

+and carrying muskets, knapsacks, and enormous sacks, stood in front

+of the sheds, and animated French talk mingled with curses sounded all

+along the lines.

+

+In the shed everyone was ready, dressed, belted, shod, and only awaited

+the order to start. The sick soldier, Sokolóv, pale and thin with dark

+shadows round his eyes, alone sat in his place barefoot and not dressed.

+His eyes, prominent from the emaciation of his face, gazed inquiringly

+at his comrades who were paying no attention to him, and he moaned

+regularly and quietly. It was evidently not so much his sufferings that

+caused him to moan (he had dysentery) as his fear and grief at being

+left alone.

+

+Pierre, girt with a rope round his waist and wearing shoes Karatáev had

+made for him from some leather a French soldier had torn off a tea chest

+and brought to have his boots mended with, went up to the sick man and

+squatted down beside him.

+

+“You know, Sokolóv, they are not all going away! They have a hospital

+here. You may be better off than we others,” said Pierre.

+

+“O Lord! Oh, it will be the death of me! O Lord!” moaned the man in a

+louder voice.

+

+“I’ll go and ask them again directly,” said Pierre, rising and going to

+the door of the shed.

+

+Just as Pierre reached the door, the corporal who had offered him a

+pipe the day before came up to it with two soldiers. The corporal and

+soldiers were in marching kit with knapsacks and shakos that had metal

+straps, and these changed their familiar faces.

+

+The corporal came, according to orders, to shut the door. The prisoners

+had to be counted before being let out.

+

+“Corporal, what will they do with the sick man?...” Pierre began.

+

+But even as he spoke he began to doubt whether this was the corporal

+he knew or a stranger, so unlike himself did the corporal seem at that

+moment. Moreover, just as Pierre was speaking a sharp rattle of drums

+was suddenly heard from both sides. The corporal frowned at Pierre’s

+words and, uttering some meaningless oaths, slammed the door. The shed

+became semidark, and the sharp rattle of the drums on two sides drowned

+the sick man’s groans.

+

+“There it is!... It again!...” said Pierre to himself, and an

+involuntary shudder ran down his spine. In the corporal’s changed face,

+in the sound of his voice, in the stirring and deafening noise of the

+drums, he recognized that mysterious, callous force which compelled

+people against their will to kill their fellow men—that force the effect

+of which he had witnessed during the executions. To fear or to try to

+escape that force, to address entreaties or exhortations to those who

+served as its tools, was useless. Pierre knew this now. One had to wait

+and endure. He did not again go to the sick man, nor turn to look at

+him, but stood frowning by the door of the hut.

+

+When that door was opened and the prisoners, crowding against one

+another like a flock of sheep, squeezed into the exit, Pierre pushed

+his way forward and approached that very captain who as the corporal had

+assured him was ready to do anything for him. The captain was also in

+marching kit, and on his cold face appeared that same it which Pierre

+had recognized in the corporal’s words and in the roll of the drums.

+

+“Pass on, pass on!” the captain reiterated, frowning sternly, and

+looking at the prisoners who thronged past him.

+

+Pierre went up to him, though he knew his attempt would be vain.

+

+“What now?” the officer asked with a cold look as if not recognizing

+Pierre.

+

+Pierre told him about the sick man.

+

+“He’ll manage to walk, devil take him!” said the captain. “Pass on, pass

+on!” he continued without looking at Pierre.

+

+“But he is dying,” Pierre again began.

+

+“Be so good...” shouted the captain, frowning angrily.

+

+“Dram-da-da-dam, dam-dam...” rattled the drums, and Pierre understood

+that this mysterious force completely controlled these men and that it

+was now useless to say any more.

+

+The officer prisoners were separated from the soldiers and told to march

+in front. There were about thirty officers, with Pierre among them, and

+about three hundred men.

+

+The officers, who had come from the other sheds, were all strangers to

+Pierre and much better dressed than he. They looked at him and at his

+shoes mistrustfully, as at an alien. Not far from him walked a fat major

+with a sallow, bloated, angry face, who was wearing a Kazán dressing

+gown tied round with a towel, and who evidently enjoyed the respect of

+his fellow prisoners. He kept one hand, in which he clasped his tobacco

+pouch, inside the bosom of his dressing gown and held the stem of his

+pipe firmly with the other. Panting and puffing, the major grumbled and

+growled at everybody because he thought he was being pushed and that

+they were all hurrying when they had nowhere to hurry to and were

+all surprised at something when there was nothing to be surprised at.

+Another, a thin little officer, was speaking to everyone, conjecturing

+where they were now being taken and how far they would get that day. An

+official in felt boots and wearing a commissariat uniform ran round from

+side to side and gazed at the ruins of Moscow, loudly announcing his

+observations as to what had been burned down and what this or that part

+of the city was that they could see. A third officer, who by his accent

+was a Pole, disputed with the commissariat officer, arguing that he was

+mistaken in his identification of the different wards of Moscow.

+

+“What are you disputing about?” said the major angrily. “What does it

+matter whether it is St. Nicholas or St. Blasius? You see it’s burned

+down, and there’s an end of it.... What are you pushing for? Isn’t the

+road wide enough?” said he, turning to a man behind him who was not

+pushing him at all.

+

+“Oh, oh, oh! What have they done?” the prisoners on one side and another

+were heard saying as they gazed on the charred ruins. “All beyond the

+river, and Zúbova, and in the Krémlin.... Just look! There’s not half of

+it left. Yes, I told you—the whole quarter beyond the river, and so it

+is.”

+

+“Well, you know it’s burned, so what’s the use of talking?” said the

+major.

+

+As they passed near a church in the Khamóvniki (one of the few unburned

+quarters of Moscow) the whole mass of prisoners suddenly started to one

+side and exclamations of horror and disgust were heard.

+

+“Ah, the villains! What heathens! Yes; dead, dead, so he is... And

+smeared with something!”

+

+Pierre too drew near the church where the thing was that evoked these

+exclamations, and dimly made out something leaning against the palings

+surrounding the church. From the words of his comrades who saw better

+than he did, he found that this was the body of a man, set upright

+against the palings with its face smeared with soot.

+

+“Go on! What the devil... Go on! Thirty thousand devils!...” the convoy

+guards began cursing and the French soldiers, with fresh virulence,

+drove away with their swords the crowd of prisoners who were gazing at

+the dead man.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV

+

+Through the cross streets of the Khamóvniki quarter the prisoners

+marched, followed only by their escort and the vehicles and wagons

+belonging to that escort, but when they reached the supply stores they

+came among a huge and closely packed train of artillery mingled with

+private vehicles.

+

+At the bridge they all halted, waiting for those in front to get across.

+From the bridge they had a view of endless lines of moving baggage

+trains before and behind them. To the right, where the Kalúga road turns

+near Neskúchny, endless rows of troops and carts stretched away into

+the distance. These were troops of Beauharnais’ corps which had started

+before any of the others. Behind, along the riverside and across the

+Stone Bridge, were Ney’s troops and transport.

+

+Davout’s troops, in whose charge were the prisoners, were crossing the

+Crimean bridge and some were already debouching into the Kalúga road.

+But the baggage trains stretched out so that the last of Beauharnais’

+train had not yet got out of Moscow and reached the Kalúga road when

+the vanguard of Ney’s army was already emerging from the Great Ordýnka

+Street.

+

+When they had crossed the Crimean bridge the prisoners moved a few steps

+forward, halted, and again moved on, and from all sides vehicles and men

+crowded closer and closer together. They advanced the few hundred paces

+that separated the bridge from the Kalúga road, taking more than an

+hour to do so, and came out upon the square where the streets of the

+Transmoskvá ward and the Kalúga road converge, and the prisoners jammed

+close together had to stand for some hours at that crossway. From all

+sides, like the roar of the sea, were heard the rattle of wheels, the

+tramp of feet, and incessant shouts of anger and abuse. Pierre stood

+pressed against the wall of a charred house, listening to that noise

+which mingled in his imagination with the roll of the drums.

+

+To get a better view, several officer prisoners climbed onto the wall of

+the half-burned house against which Pierre was leaning.

+

+“What crowds! Just look at the crowds!... They’ve loaded goods even on

+the cannon! Look there, those are furs!” they exclaimed. “Just see what

+the blackguards have looted.... There! See what that one has behind

+in the cart.... Why, those are settings taken from some icons, by

+heaven!... Oh, the rascals!... See how that fellow has loaded

+himself up, he can hardly walk! Good lord, they’ve even grabbed those

+chaises!... See that fellow there sitting on the trunks.... Heavens!

+They’re fighting.”

+

+“That’s right, hit him on the snout—on his snout! Like this, we

+shan’t get away before evening. Look, look there.... Why, that must be

+Napoleon’s own. See what horses! And the monograms with a crown! It’s

+like a portable house.... That fellow’s dropped his sack and doesn’t see

+it. Fighting again... A woman with a baby, and not bad-looking either!

+Yes, I dare say, that’s the way they’ll let you pass.... Just look,

+there’s no end to it. Russian wenches, by heaven, so they are! In

+carriages—see how comfortably they’ve settled themselves!”

+

+Again, as at the church in Khamóvniki, a wave of general curiosity

+bore all the prisoners forward onto the road, and Pierre, thanks to

+his stature, saw over the heads of the others what so attracted their

+curiosity. In three carriages involved among the munition carts, closely

+squeezed together, sat women with rouged faces, dressed in glaring

+colors, who were shouting something in shrill voices.

+

+From the moment Pierre had recognized the appearance of the mysterious

+force nothing had seemed to him strange or dreadful: neither the corpse

+smeared with soot for fun nor these women hurrying away nor the burned

+ruins of Moscow. All that he now witnessed scarcely made an impression

+on him—as if his soul, making ready for a hard struggle, refused to

+receive impressions that might weaken it.

+

+The women’s vehicles drove by. Behind them came more carts, soldiers,

+wagons, soldiers, gun carriages, carriages, soldiers, ammunition carts,

+more soldiers, and now and then women.

+

+Pierre did not see the people as individuals but saw their movement.

+

+All these people and horses seemed driven forward by some invisible

+power. During the hour Pierre watched them they all came flowing from

+the different streets with one and the same desire to get on quickly;

+they all jostled one another, began to grow angry and to fight, white

+teeth gleamed, brows frowned, ever the same words of abuse flew from

+side to side, and all the faces bore the same swaggeringly resolute

+and coldly cruel expression that had struck Pierre that morning on the

+corporal’s face when the drums were beating.

+

+It was not till nearly evening that the officer commanding the escort

+collected his men and with shouts and quarrels forced his way in among

+the baggage trains, and the prisoners, hemmed in on all sides, emerged

+onto the Kalúga road.

+

+They marched very quickly, without resting, and halted only when the sun

+began to set. The baggage carts drew up close together and the men

+began to prepare for their night’s rest. They all appeared angry and

+dissatisfied. For a long time, oaths, angry shouts, and fighting could

+be heard from all sides. A carriage that followed the escort ran

+into one of the carts and knocked a hole in it with its pole. Several

+soldiers ran toward the cart from different sides: some beat the

+carriage horses on their heads, turning them aside, others fought among

+themselves, and Pierre saw that one German was badly wounded on the head

+by a sword.

+

+It seemed that all these men, now that they had stopped amid fields

+in the chill dusk of the autumn evening, experienced one and the same

+feeling of unpleasant awakening from the hurry and eagerness to push on

+that had seized them at the start. Once at a standstill they all seemed

+to understand that they did not yet know where they were going, and that

+much that was painful and difficult awaited them on this journey.

+

+During this halt the escort treated the prisoners even worse than they

+had done at the start. It was here that the prisoners for the first time

+received horseflesh for their meat ration.

+

+From the officer down to the lowest soldier they showed what seemed like

+personal spite against each of the prisoners, in unexpected contrast to

+their former friendly relations.

+

+This spite increased still more when, on calling over the roll of

+prisoners, it was found that in the bustle of leaving Moscow one Russian

+soldier, who had pretended to suffer from colic, had escaped. Pierre saw

+a Frenchman beat a Russian soldier cruelly for straying too far from

+the road, and heard his friend the captain reprimand and threaten to

+court-martial a noncommissioned officer on account of the escape of the

+Russian. To the noncommissioned officer’s excuse that the prisoner was

+ill and could not walk, the officer replied that the order was to shoot

+those who lagged behind. Pierre felt that that fatal force which had

+crushed him during the executions, but which he had not felt during his

+imprisonment, now again controlled his existence. It was terrible, but

+he felt that in proportion to the efforts of that fatal force to crush

+him, there grew and strengthened in his soul a power of life independent

+of it.

+

+He ate his supper of buckwheat soup with horseflesh and chatted with his

+comrades.

+

+Neither Pierre nor any of the others spoke of what they had seen in

+Moscow, or of the roughness of their treatment by the French, or of the

+order to shoot them which had been announced to them. As if in reaction

+against the worsening of their position they were all particularly

+animated and gay. They spoke of personal reminiscences, of amusing

+scenes they had witnessed during the campaign, and avoided all talk of

+their present situation.

+

+The sun had set long since. Bright stars shone out here and there in the

+sky. A red glow as of a conflagration spread above the horizon from the

+rising full moon, and that vast red ball swayed strangely in the gray

+haze. It grew light. The evening was ending, but the night had not yet

+come. Pierre got up and left his new companions, crossing between the

+campfires to the other side of the road where he had been told the

+common soldier prisoners were stationed. He wanted to talk to them. On

+the road he was stopped by a French sentinel who ordered him back.

+

+Pierre turned back, not to his companions by the campfire, but to an

+unharnessed cart where there was nobody. Tucking his legs under him and

+dropping his head he sat down on the cold ground by the wheel of the

+cart and remained motionless a long while sunk in thought. Suddenly he

+burst out into a fit of his broad, good-natured laughter, so loud that

+men from various sides turned with surprise to see what this strange and

+evidently solitary laughter could mean.

+

+“Ha-ha-ha!” laughed Pierre. And he said aloud to himself: “The soldier

+did not let me pass. They took me and shut me up. They hold me captive.

+What, me? Me? My immortal soul? Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!...” and he laughed

+till tears started to his eyes.

+

+A man got up and came to see what this queer big fellow was laughing at

+all by himself. Pierre stopped laughing, got up, went farther away from

+the inquisitive man, and looked around him.

+

+The huge, endless bivouac that had previously resounded with the

+crackling of campfires and the voices of many men had grown quiet, the

+red campfires were growing paler and dying down. High up in the light

+sky hung the full moon. Forests and fields beyond the camp, unseen

+before, were now visible in the distance. And farther still, beyond

+those forests and fields, the bright, oscillating, limitless distance

+lured one to itself. Pierre glanced up at the sky and the twinkling

+stars in its faraway depths. “And all that is me, all that is within me,

+and it is all I!” thought Pierre. “And they caught all that and put it

+into a shed boarded up with planks!” He smiled, and went and lay down to

+sleep beside his companions.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV

+

+In the early days of October another envoy came to Kutúzov with a letter

+from Napoleon proposing peace and falsely dated from Moscow, though

+Napoleon was already not far from Kutúzov on the old Kalúga road.

+Kutúzov replied to this letter as he had done to the one formerly

+brought by Lauriston, saying that there could be no question of peace.

+

+Soon after that a report was received from Dórokhov’s guerrilla

+detachment operating to the left of Tarútino that troops of Broussier’s

+division had been seen at Formínsk and that being separated from the

+rest of the French army they might easily be destroyed. The soldiers and

+officers again demanded action. Generals on the staff, excited by the

+memory of the easy victory at Tarútino, urged Kutúzov to carry out

+Dórokhov’s suggestion. Kutúzov did not consider any offensive necessary.

+The result was a compromise which was inevitable: a small detachment was

+sent to Formínsk to attack Broussier.

+

+By a strange coincidence, this task, which turned out to be a most

+difficult and important one, was entrusted to Dokhtúrov—that same modest

+little Dokhtúrov whom no one had described to us as drawing up plans

+of battles, dashing about in front of regiments, showering crosses on

+batteries, and so on, and who was thought to be and was spoken of as

+undecided and undiscerning—but whom we find commanding wherever the

+position was most difficult all through the Russo-French wars from

+Austerlitz to the year 1813. At Austerlitz he remained last at the

+Augezd dam, rallying the regiments, saving what was possible when all

+were flying and perishing and not a single general was left in the rear

+guard. Ill with fever he went to Smolénsk with twenty thousand men

+to defend the town against Napoleon’s whole army. In Smolénsk, at the

+Malákhov Gate, he had hardly dozed off in a paroxysm of fever before he

+was awakened by the bombardment of the town—and Smolénsk held out all

+day long. At the battle of Borodinó, when Bagratión was killed and nine

+tenths of the men of our left flank had fallen and the full force of the

+French artillery fire was directed against it, the man sent there was

+this same irresolute and undiscerning Dokhtúrov—Kutúzov hastening to

+rectify a mistake he had made by sending someone else there first.

+And the quiet little Dokhtúrov rode thither, and Borodinó became the

+greatest glory of the Russian army. Many heroes have been described to

+us in verse and prose, but of Dokhtúrov scarcely a word has been said.

+

+It was Dokhtúrov again whom they sent to Formínsk and from there to

+Málo-Yaroslávets, the place where the last battle with the French was

+fought and where the obvious disintegration of the French army began;

+and we are told of many geniuses and heroes of that period of the

+campaign, but of Dokhtúrov nothing or very little is said and that

+dubiously. And this silence about Dokhtúrov is the clearest testimony to

+his merit.

+

+It is natural for a man who does not understand the workings of a

+machine to imagine that a shaving that has fallen into it by chance

+and is interfering with its action and tossing about in it is its most

+important part. The man who does not understand the construction of

+the machine cannot conceive that the small connecting cogwheel which

+revolves quietly is one of the most essential parts of the machine, and

+not the shaving which merely harms and hinders the working.

+

+On the tenth of October when Dokhtúrov had gone halfway to Formínsk and

+stopped at the village of Aristóvo, preparing faithfully to execute the

+orders he had received, the whole French army having, in its convulsive

+movement, reached Murat’s position apparently in order to give

+battle—suddenly without any reason turned off to the left onto the new

+Kalúga road and began to enter Formínsk, where only Broussier had

+been till then. At that time Dokhtúrov had under his command, besides

+Dórokhov’s detachment, the two small guerrilla detachments of Figner and

+Seslávin.

+

+On the evening of October 11 Seslávin came to the Aristóvo headquarters

+with a French guardsman he had captured. The prisoner said that the

+troops that had entered Formínsk that day were the vanguard of the whole

+army, that Napoleon was there and the whole army had left Moscow four

+days previously. That same evening a house serf who had come from

+Bórovsk said he had seen an immense army entering the town. Some

+Cossacks of Dokhtúrov’s detachment reported having sighted the French

+Guards marching along the road to Bórovsk. From all these reports it was

+evident that where they had expected to meet a single division there

+was now the whole French army marching from Moscow in an unexpected

+direction—along the Kalúga road. Dokhtúrov was unwilling to undertake

+any action, as it was not clear to him now what he ought to do. He had

+been ordered to attack Formínsk. But only Broussier had been there at

+that time and now the whole French army was there. Ermólov wished to act

+on his own judgment, but Dokhtúrov insisted that he must have Kutúzov’s

+instructions. So it was decided to send a dispatch to the staff.

+

+For this purpose a capable officer, Bolkhovítinov, was chosen, who

+was to explain the whole affair by word of mouth, besides delivering

+a written report. Toward midnight Bolkhovítinov, having received the

+dispatch and verbal instructions, galloped off to the General Staff

+accompanied by a Cossack with spare horses.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI

+

+It was a warm, dark, autumn night. It had been raining for four days.

+Having changed horses twice and galloped twenty miles in an hour and a

+half over a sticky, muddy road, Bolkhovítinov reached Litashëvka after

+one o’clock at night. Dismounting at a cottage on whose wattle fence

+hung a signboard, GENERAL STAFF, and throwing down his reins, he entered

+a dark passage.

+

+“The general on duty, quick! It’s very important!” said he to someone

+who had risen and was sniffing in the dark passage.

+

+“He has been very unwell since the evening and this is the third night

+he has not slept,” said the orderly pleadingly in a whisper. “You should

+wake the captain first.”

+

+“But this is very important, from General Dokhtúrov,” said

+Bolkhovítinov, entering the open door which he had found by feeling in

+the dark.

+

+The orderly had gone in before him and began waking somebody.

+

+“Your honor, your honor! A courier.”

+

+“What? What’s that? From whom?” came a sleepy voice.

+

+“From Dokhtúrov and from Alexéy Petróvich. Napoleon is at Formínsk,”

+said Bolkhovítinov, unable to see in the dark who was speaking but

+guessing by the voice that it was not Konovnítsyn.

+

+The man who had wakened yawned and stretched himself.

+

+“I don’t like waking him,” he said, fumbling for something. “He is very

+ill. Perhaps this is only a rumor.”

+

+“Here is the dispatch,” said Bolkhovítinov. “My orders are to give it at

+once to the general on duty.”

+

+“Wait a moment, I’ll light a candle. You damned rascal, where do you

+always hide it?” said the voice of the man who was stretching himself,

+to the orderly. (This was Shcherbínin, Konovnítsyn’s adjutant.) “I’ve

+found it, I’ve found it!” he added.

+

+The orderly was striking a light and Shcherbínin was fumbling for

+something on the candlestick.

+

+“Oh, the nasty beasts!” said he with disgust.

+

+By the light of the sparks Bolkhovítinov saw Shcherbínin’s youthful face

+as he held the candle, and the face of another man who was still asleep.

+This was Konovnítsyn.

+

+When the flame of the sulphur splinters kindled by the tinder burned

+up, first blue and then red, Shcherbínin lit the tallow candle, from

+the candlestick of which the cockroaches that had been gnawing it were

+running away, and looked at the messenger. Bolkhovítinov was bespattered

+all over with mud and had smeared his face by wiping it with his sleeve.

+

+“Who gave the report?” inquired Shcherbínin, taking the envelope.

+

+“The news is reliable,” said Bolkhovítinov. “Prisoners, Cossacks, and

+the scouts all say the same thing.”

+

+“There’s nothing to be done, we’ll have to wake him,” said Shcherbínin,

+rising and going up to the man in the nightcap who lay covered by a

+greatcoat. “Peter Petróvich!” said he. (Konovnítsyn did not stir.) “To

+the General Staff!” he said with a smile, knowing that those words would

+be sure to arouse him.

+

+And in fact the head in the nightcap was lifted at once. On

+Konovnítsyn’s handsome, resolute face with cheeks flushed by fever,

+there still remained for an instant a faraway dreamy expression remote

+from present affairs, but then he suddenly started and his face assumed

+its habitual calm and firm appearance.

+

+“Well, what is it? From whom?” he asked immediately but without hurry,

+blinking at the light.

+

+While listening to the officer’s report Konovnítsyn broke the seal and

+read the dispatch. Hardly had he done so before he lowered his legs in

+their woolen stockings to the earthen floor and began putting on his

+boots. Then he took off his nightcap, combed his hair over his temples,

+and donned his cap.

+

+“Did you get here quickly? Let us go to his Highness.”

+

+Konovnítsyn had understood at once that the news brought was of great

+importance and that no time must be lost. He did not consider or ask

+himself whether the news was good or bad. That did not interest him. He

+regarded the whole business of the war not with his intelligence or his

+reason but by something else. There was within him a deep unexpressed

+conviction that all would be well, but that one must not trust to this

+and still less speak about it, but must only attend to one’s own work.

+And he did his work, giving his whole strength to the task.

+

+Peter Petróvich Konovnítsyn, like Dokhtúrov, seems to have been included

+merely for propriety’s sake in the list of the so-called heroes of

+1812—the Barclays, Raévskis, Ermólovs, Plátovs, and Milorádoviches. Like

+Dokhtúrov he had the reputation of being a man of very limited capacity

+and information, and like Dokhtúrov he never made plans of battle but

+was always found where the situation was most difficult. Since his

+appointment as general on duty he had always slept with his door open,

+giving orders that every messenger should be allowed to wake him up. In

+battle he was always under fire, so that Kutúzov reproved him for it and

+feared to send him to the front, and like Dokhtúrov he was one of those

+unnoticed cogwheels that, without clatter or noise, constitute the most

+essential part of the machine.

+

+Coming out of the hut into the damp, dark night Konovnítsyn

+frowned—partly from an increased pain in his head and partly at the

+unpleasant thought that occurred to him, of how all that nest of

+influential men on the staff would be stirred up by this news,

+especially Bennigsen, who ever since Tarútino had been at daggers

+drawn with Kutúzov; and how they would make suggestions, quarrel, issue

+orders, and rescind them. And this premonition was disagreeable to him

+though he knew it could not be helped.

+

+And in fact Toll, to whom he went to communicate the news, immediately

+began to expound his plans to a general sharing his quarters, until

+Konovnítsyn, who listened in weary silence, reminded him that they must

+go to see his Highness.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVII

+

+Kutúzov like all old people did not sleep much at night. He often fell

+asleep unexpectedly in the daytime, but at night, lying on his bed

+without undressing, he generally remained awake thinking.

+

+So he lay now on his bed, supporting his large, heavy, scarred head on

+his plump hand, with his one eye open, meditating and peering into the

+darkness.

+

+Since Bennigsen, who corresponded with the Emperor and had more

+influence than anyone else on the staff, had begun to avoid him, Kutúzov

+was more at ease as to the possibility of himself and his troops being

+obliged to take part in useless aggressive movements. The lesson of the

+Tarútino battle and of the day before it, which Kutúzov remembered with

+pain, must, he thought, have some effect on others too.

+

+“They must understand that we can only lose by taking the offensive.

+Patience and time are my warriors, my champions,” thought Kutúzov. He

+knew that an apple should not be plucked while it is green. It will fall

+of itself when ripe, but if picked unripe the apple is spoiled, the tree

+is harmed, and your teeth are set on edge. Like an experienced sportsman

+he knew that the beast was wounded, and wounded as only the whole

+strength of Russia could have wounded it, but whether it was mortally

+wounded or not was still an undecided question. Now by the fact of

+Lauriston and Barthélemi having been sent, and by the reports of the

+guerrillas, Kutúzov was almost sure that the wound was mortal. But he

+needed further proofs and it was necessary to wait.

+

+“They want to run to see how they have wounded it. Wait and we shall

+see! Continual maneuvers, continual advances!” thought he. “What for?

+Only to distinguish themselves! As if fighting were fun. They are

+like children from whom one can’t get any sensible account of what has

+happened because they all want to show how well they can fight. But

+that’s not what is needed now.

+

+“And what ingenious maneuvers they all propose to me! It seems to

+them that when they have thought of two or three contingencies” (he

+remembered the general plan sent him from Petersburg) “they have

+foreseen everything. But the contingencies are endless.”

+

+The undecided question as to whether the wound inflicted at Borodinó was

+mortal or not had hung over Kutúzov’s head for a whole month. On the one

+hand the French had occupied Moscow. On the other Kutúzov felt assured

+with all his being that the terrible blow into which he and all the

+Russians had put their whole strength must have been mortal. But in any

+case proofs were needed; he had waited a whole month for them and grew

+more impatient the longer he waited. Lying on his bed during those

+sleepless nights he did just what he reproached those younger generals

+for doing. He imagined all sorts of possible contingencies, just like

+the younger men, but with this difference, that he saw thousands of

+contingencies instead of two or three and based nothing on them. The

+longer he thought the more contingencies presented themselves. He

+imagined all sorts of movements of the Napoleonic army as a whole or

+in sections—against Petersburg, or against him, or to outflank him.

+He thought too of the possibility (which he feared most of all) that

+Napoleon might fight him with his own weapon and remain in Moscow

+awaiting him. Kutúzov even imagined that Napoleon’s army might turn back

+through Medýn and Yukhnóv, but the one thing he could not foresee was

+what happened—the insane, convulsive stampede of Napoleon’s army during

+its first eleven days after leaving Moscow: a stampede which made

+possible what Kutúzov had not yet even dared to think of—the complete

+extermination of the French. Dórokhov’s report about Broussier’s

+division, the guerrillas’ reports of distress in Napoleon’s army, rumors

+of preparations for leaving Moscow, all confirmed the supposition that

+the French army was beaten and preparing for flight. But these were

+only suppositions, which seemed important to the younger men but not to

+Kutúzov. With his sixty years’ experience he knew what value to attach

+to rumors, knew how apt people who desire anything are to group all news

+so that it appears to confirm what they desire, and he knew how readily

+in such cases they omit all that makes for the contrary. And the more

+he desired it the less he allowed himself to believe it. This question

+absorbed all his mental powers. All else was to him only life’s

+customary routine. To such customary routine belonged his conversations

+with the staff, the letters he wrote from Tarútino to Madame de Staël,

+the reading of novels, the distribution of awards, his correspondence

+with Petersburg, and so on. But the destruction of the French, which he

+alone foresaw, was his heart’s one desire.

+

+On the night of the eleventh of October he lay leaning on his arm and

+thinking of that.

+

+There was a stir in the next room and he heard the steps of Toll,

+Konovnítsyn, and Bolkhovítinov.

+

+“Eh, who’s there? Come in, come in! What news?” the field marshal called

+out to them.

+

+While a footman was lighting a candle, Toll communicated the substance

+of the news.

+

+“Who brought it?” asked Kutúzov with a look which, when the candle was

+lit, struck Toll by its cold severity.

+

+“There can be no doubt about it, your Highness.”

+

+“Call him in, call him here.”

+

+Kutúzov sat up with one leg hanging down from the bed and his big paunch

+resting against the other which was doubled under him. He screwed up his

+seeing eye to scrutinize the messenger more carefully, as if wishing to

+read in his face what preoccupied his own mind.

+

+“Tell me, tell me, friend,” said he to Bolkhovítinov in his low, aged

+voice, as he pulled together the shirt which gaped open on his chest,

+“come nearer—nearer. What news have you brought me? Eh? That Napoleon

+has left Moscow? Are you sure? Eh?”

+

+Bolkhovítinov gave a detailed account from the beginning of all he had

+been told to report.

+

+“Speak quicker, quicker! Don’t torture me!” Kutúzov interrupted him.

+

+Bolkhovítinov told him everything and was then silent, awaiting

+instructions. Toll was beginning to say something but Kutúzov checked

+him. He tried to say something, but his face suddenly puckered and

+wrinkled; he waved his arm at Toll and turned to the opposite side of

+the room, to the corner darkened by the icons that hung there.

+

+“O Lord, my Creator, Thou has heard our prayer...” said he in a

+tremulous voice with folded hands. “Russia is saved. I thank Thee, O

+Lord!” and he wept.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVIII

+

+From the time he received this news to the end of the campaign all

+Kutúzov’s activity was directed toward restraining his troops, by

+authority, by guile, and by entreaty, from useless attacks,

+maneuvers, or encounters with the perishing enemy. Dokhtúrov went to

+Málo-Yaroslávets, but Kutúzov lingered with the main army and gave

+orders for the evacuation of Kalúga—a retreat beyond which town seemed

+to him quite possible.

+

+Everywhere Kutúzov retreated, but the enemy without waiting for his

+retreat fled in the opposite direction.

+

+Napoleon’s historians describe to us his skilled maneuvers at Tarútino

+and Málo-Yaroslávets, and make conjectures as to what would have

+happened had Napoleon been in time to penetrate into the rich southern

+provinces.

+

+But not to speak of the fact that nothing prevented him from advancing

+into those southern provinces (for the Russian army did not bar his

+way), the historians forget that nothing could have saved his army, for

+then already it bore within itself the germs of inevitable ruin. How

+could that army—which had found abundant supplies in Moscow and had

+trampled them underfoot instead of keeping them, and on arriving at

+Smolénsk had looted provisions instead of storing them—how could that

+army recuperate in Kalúga province, which was inhabited by Russians such

+as those who lived in Moscow, and where fire had the same property of

+consuming what was set ablaze?

+

+That army could not recover anywhere. Since the battle of Borodinó

+and the pillage of Moscow it had borne within itself, as it were, the

+chemical elements of dissolution.

+

+The members of what had once been an army—Napoleon himself and all his

+soldiers fled—without knowing whither, each concerned only to make his

+escape as quickly as possible from this position, of the hopelessness of

+which they were all more or less vaguely conscious.

+

+So it came about that at the council at Málo-Yaroslávets, when the

+generals pretending to confer together expressed various opinions, all

+mouths were closed by the opinion uttered by the simple-minded soldier

+Mouton who, speaking last, said what they all felt: that the one thing

+needful was to get away as quickly as possible; and no one, not

+even Napoleon, could say anything against that truth which they all

+recognized.

+

+But though they all realized that it was necessary to get away, there

+still remained a feeling of shame at admitting that they must flee. An

+external shock was needed to overcome that shame, and this shock came in

+due time. It was what the French called “le hourra de l’Empereur.”

+

+The day after the council at Málo-Yaroslávets Napoleon rode out early in

+the morning amid the lines of his army with his suite of marshals and

+an escort, on the pretext of inspecting the army and the scene of the

+previous and of the impending battle. Some Cossacks on the prowl for

+booty fell in with the Emperor and very nearly captured him. If the

+Cossacks did not capture Napoleon then, what saved him was the very

+thing that was destroying the French army, the booty on which the

+Cossacks fell. Here as at Tarútino they went after plunder, leaving the

+men. Disregarding Napoleon they rushed after the plunder and Napoleon

+managed to escape.

+

+When les enfants du Don might so easily have taken the Emperor himself

+in the midst of his army, it was clear that there was nothing for it but

+to fly as fast as possible along the nearest, familiar road. Napoleon

+with his forty-year-old stomach understood that hint, not feeling his

+former agility and boldness, and under the influence of the fright

+the Cossacks had given him he at once agreed with Mouton and issued

+orders—as the historians tell us—to retreat by the Smolénsk road.

+

+That Napoleon agreed with Mouton, and that the army retreated, does

+not prove that Napoleon caused it to retreat, but that the forces which

+influenced the whole army and directed it along the Mozháysk (that is,

+the Smolénsk) road acted simultaneously on him also.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIX

+

+A man in motion always devises an aim for that motion. To be able to go

+a thousand miles he must imagine that something good awaits him at the

+end of those thousand miles. One must have the prospect of a promised

+land to have the strength to move.

+

+The promised land for the French during their advance had been Moscow,

+during their retreat it was their native land. But that native land

+was too far off, and for a man going a thousand miles it is absolutely

+necessary to set aside his final goal and to say to himself: “Today I

+shall get to a place twenty-five miles off where I shall rest and

+spend the night,” and during the first day’s journey that resting place

+eclipses his ultimate goal and attracts all his hopes and desires. And

+the impulses felt by a single person are always magnified in a crowd.

+

+For the French retreating along the old Smolénsk road, the final

+goal—their native land—was too remote, and their immediate goal

+was Smolénsk, toward which all their desires and hopes, enormously

+intensified in the mass, urged them on. It was not that they knew that

+much food and fresh troops awaited them in Smolénsk, nor that they were

+told so (on the contrary their superior officers, and Napoleon himself,

+knew that provisions were scarce there), but because this alone could

+give them strength to move on and endure their present privations. So

+both those who knew and those who did not know deceived themselves, and

+pushed on to Smolénsk as to a promised land.

+

+Coming out onto the highroad the French fled with surprising energy

+and unheard-of rapidity toward the goal they had fixed on. Besides the

+common impulse which bound the whole crowd of French into one mass and

+supplied them with a certain energy, there was another cause binding

+them together—their great numbers. As with the physical law of gravity,

+their enormous mass drew the individual human atoms to itself. In their

+hundreds of thousands they moved like a whole nation.

+

+Each of them desired nothing more than to give himself up as a prisoner

+to escape from all this horror and misery; but on the one hand the force

+of this common attraction to Smolénsk, their goal, drew each of them in

+the same direction; on the other hand an army corps could not surrender

+to a company, and though the French availed themselves of every

+convenient opportunity to detach themselves and to surrender on the

+slightest decent pretext, such pretexts did not always occur. Their

+very numbers and their crowded and swift movement deprived them of that

+possibility and rendered it not only difficult but impossible for the

+Russians to stop this movement, to which the French were directing all

+their energies. Beyond a certain limit no mechanical disruption of the

+body could hasten the process of decomposition.

+

+A lump of snow cannot be melted instantaneously. There is a certain

+limit of time in less than which no amount of heat can melt the snow. On

+the contrary the greater the heat the more solidified the remaining snow

+becomes.

+

+Of the Russian commanders Kutúzov alone understood this. When the flight

+of the French army along the Smolénsk road became well defined, what

+Konovnítsyn had foreseen on the night of the eleventh of October began

+to occur. The superior officers all wanted to distinguish themselves,

+to cut off, to seize, to capture, and to overthrow the French, and all

+clamored for action.

+

+Kutúzov alone used all his power (and such power is very limited in the

+case of any commander in chief) to prevent an attack.

+

+He could not tell them what we say now: “Why fight, why block the road,

+losing our own men and inhumanly slaughtering unfortunate wretches? What

+is the use of that, when a third of their army has melted away on the

+road from Moscow to Vyázma without any battle?” But drawing from his

+aged wisdom what they could understand, he told them of the golden

+bridge, and they laughed at and slandered him, flinging themselves on,

+rending and exulting over the dying beast.

+

+Ermólov, Milorádovich, Plátov, and others in proximity to the French

+near Vyázma could not resist their desire to cut off and break up two

+French corps, and by way of reporting their intention to Kutúzov they

+sent him a blank sheet of paper in an envelope.

+

+And try as Kutúzov might to restrain the troops, our men attacked,

+trying to bar the road. Infantry regiments, we are told, advanced to the

+attack with music and with drums beating, and killed and lost thousands

+of men.

+

+But they did not cut off or overthrow anybody and the French army,

+closing up more firmly at the danger, continued, while steadily melting

+away, to pursue its fatal path to Smolénsk.

+

+

+

+

+

+BOOK FOURTEEN: 1812

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+The Battle of Borodinó, with the occupation of Moscow that followed it

+and the flight of the French without further conflicts, is one of the

+most instructive phenomena in history.

+

+All historians agree that the external activity of states and nations

+in their conflicts with one another is expressed in wars, and that as a

+direct result of greater or less success in war the political strength

+of states and nations increases or decreases.

+

+Strange as may be the historical account of how some king or emperor,

+having quarreled with another, collects an army, fights his enemy’s

+army, gains a victory by killing three, five, or ten thousand men, and

+subjugates a kingdom and an entire nation of several millions, all

+the facts of history (as far as we know it) confirm the truth of the

+statement that the greater or lesser success of one army against another

+is the cause, or at least an essential indication, of an increase or

+decrease in the strength of the nation—even though it is unintelligible

+why the defeat of an army—a hundredth part of a nation—should oblige

+that whole nation to submit. An army gains a victory, and at once the

+rights of the conquering nation have increased to the detriment of the

+defeated. An army has suffered defeat, and at once a people loses its

+rights in proportion to the severity of the reverse, and if its army

+suffers a complete defeat the nation is quite subjugated.

+

+So according to history it has been found from the most ancient times,

+and so it is to our own day. All Napoleon’s wars serve to confirm this

+rule. In proportion to the defeat of the Austrian army Austria loses

+its rights, and the rights and the strength of France increase. The

+victories of the French at Jena and Auerstädt destroy the independent

+existence of Prussia.

+

+But then, in 1812, the French gain a victory near Moscow. Moscow is

+taken and after that, with no further battles, it is not Russia that

+ceases to exist, but the French army of six hundred thousand, and

+then Napoleonic France itself. To strain the facts to fit the rules of

+history: to say that the field of battle at Borodinó remained in the

+hands of the Russians, or that after Moscow there were other battles

+that destroyed Napoleon’s army, is impossible.

+

+After the French victory at Borodinó there was no general engagement nor

+any that were at all serious, yet the French army ceased to exist. What

+does this mean? If it were an example taken from the history of China,

+we might say that it was not an historic phenomenon (which is the

+historians’ usual expedient when anything does not fit their standards);

+if the matter concerned some brief conflict in which only a small number

+of troops took part, we might treat it as an exception; but this event

+occurred before our fathers’ eyes, and for them it was a question of the

+life or death of their fatherland, and it happened in the greatest of

+all known wars.

+

+The period of the campaign of 1812 from the battle of Borodinó to the

+expulsion of the French proved that the winning of a battle does not

+produce a conquest and is not even an invariable indication of conquest;

+it proved that the force which decides the fate of peoples lies not in

+the conquerors, nor even in armies and battles, but in something else.

+

+The French historians, describing the condition of the French army

+before it left Moscow, affirm that all was in order in the Grand Army,

+except the cavalry, the artillery, and the transport—there was no forage

+for the horses or the cattle. That was a misfortune no one could remedy,

+for the peasants of the district burned their hay rather than let the

+French have it.

+

+The victory gained did not bring the usual results because the peasants

+Karp and Vlas (who after the French had evacuated Moscow drove in their

+carts to pillage the town, and in general personally failed to manifest

+any heroic feelings), and the whole innumerable multitude of such

+peasants, did not bring their hay to Moscow for the high price offered

+them, but burned it instead.

+

+Let us imagine two men who have come out to fight a duel with rapiers

+according to all the rules of the art of fencing. The fencing has

+gone on for some time; suddenly one of the combatants, feeling himself

+wounded and understanding that the matter is no joke but concerns his

+life, throws down his rapier, and seizing the first cudgel that comes to

+hand begins to brandish it. Then let us imagine that the combatant who

+so sensibly employed the best and simplest means to attain his end was

+at the same time influenced by traditions of chivalry and, desiring to

+conceal the facts of the case, insisted that he had gained his victory

+with the rapier according to all the rules of art. One can imagine what

+confusion and obscurity would result from such an account of the duel.

+

+The fencer who demanded a contest according to the rules of fencing was

+the French army; his opponent who threw away the rapier and snatched up

+the cudgel was the Russian people; those who try to explain the matter

+according to the rules of fencing are the historians who have described

+the event.

+

+After the burning of Smolénsk a war began which did not follow any

+previous traditions of war. The burning of towns and villages, the

+retreats after battles, the blow dealt at Borodinó and the renewed

+retreat, the burning of Moscow, the capture of marauders, the seizure of

+transports, and the guerrilla war were all departures from the rules.

+

+Napoleon felt this, and from the time he took up the correct fencing

+attitude in Moscow and instead of his opponent’s rapier saw a cudgel

+raised above his head, he did not cease to complain to Kutúzov and to

+the Emperor Alexander that the war was being carried on contrary to all

+the rules—as if there were any rules for killing people. In spite of the

+complaints of the French as to the nonobservance of the rules, in

+spite of the fact that to some highly placed Russians it seemed rather

+disgraceful to fight with a cudgel and they wanted to assume a pose en

+quarte or en tierce according to all the rules, and to make an adroit

+thrust en prime, and so on—the cudgel of the people’s war was lifted

+with all its menacing and majestic strength, and without consulting

+anyone’s tastes or rules and regardless of anything else, it rose and

+fell with stupid simplicity, but consistently, and belabored the French

+till the whole invasion had perished.

+

+And it is well for a people who do not—as the French did in 1813—salute

+according to all the rules of art, and, presenting the hilt of their

+rapier gracefully and politely, hand it to their magnanimous conqueror,

+but at the moment of trial, without asking what rules others have

+adopted in similar cases, simply and easily pick up the first cudgel

+that comes to hand and strike with it till the feeling of resentment and

+revenge in their soul yields to a feeling of contempt and compassion.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+One of the most obvious and advantageous departures from the so-called

+laws of war is the action of scattered groups against men pressed

+together in a mass. Such action always occurs in wars that take on a

+national character. In such actions, instead of two crowds opposing

+each other, the men disperse, attack singly, run away when attacked by

+stronger forces, but again attack when opportunity offers. This was done

+by the guerrillas in Spain, by the mountain tribes in the Caucasus, and

+by the Russians in 1812.

+

+People have called this kind of war “guerrilla warfare” and assume that

+by so calling it they have explained its meaning. But such a war does

+not fit in under any rule and is directly opposed to a well-known rule

+of tactics which is accepted as infallible. That rule says that an

+attacker should concentrate his forces in order to be stronger than his

+opponent at the moment of conflict.

+

+Guerrilla war (always successful, as history shows) directly infringes

+that rule.

+

+This contradiction arises from the fact that military science assumes

+the strength of an army to be identical with its numbers. Military

+science says that the more troops the greater the strength. Les gros

+bataillons ont toujours raison. *

+

+    * Large battalions are always victorious.

+

+For military science to say this is like defining momentum in mechanics

+by reference to the mass only: stating that momenta are equal or unequal

+to each other simply because the masses involved are equal or unequal.

+

+Momentum (quantity of motion) is the product of mass and velocity.

+

+In military affairs the strength of an army is the product of its mass

+and some unknown x.

+

+Military science, seeing in history innumerable instances of the fact

+that the size of any army does not coincide with its strength and that

+small detachments defeat larger ones, obscurely admits the existence

+of this unknown factor and tries to discover it—now in a geometric

+formation, now in the equipment employed, now, and most usually, in the

+genius of the commanders. But the assignment of these various meanings

+to the factor does not yield results which accord with the historic

+facts.

+

+Yet it is only necessary to abandon the false view (adopted to gratify

+the “heroes”) of the efficacy of the directions issued in wartime by

+commanders, in order to find this unknown quantity.

+

+That unknown quantity is the spirit of the army, that is to say, the

+greater or lesser readiness to fight and face danger felt by all the men

+composing an army, quite independently of whether they are, or are not,

+fighting under the command of a genius, in two—or three-line formation,

+with cudgels or with rifles that repeat thirty times a minute. Men

+who want to fight will always put themselves in the most advantageous

+conditions for fighting.

+

+The spirit of an army is the factor which multiplied by the mass gives

+the resulting force. To define and express the significance of this

+unknown factor—the spirit of an army—is a problem for science.

+

+This problem is only solvable if we cease arbitrarily to substitute

+for the unknown x itself the conditions under which that force becomes

+apparent—such as the commands of the general, the equipment employed,

+and so on—mistaking these for the real significance of the factor,

+and if we recognize this unknown quantity in its entirety as being

+the greater or lesser desire to fight and to face danger. Only then,

+expressing known historic facts by equations and comparing the relative

+significance of this factor, can we hope to define the unknown.

+

+Ten men, battalions, or divisions, fighting fifteen men, battalions, or

+divisions, conquer—that is, kill or take captive—all the others, while

+themselves losing four, so that on the one side four and on the other

+fifteen were lost. Consequently the four were equal to the fifteen, and

+therefore 4x = 15y. Consequently x/y = 15/4. This equation does not

+give us the value of the unknown factor but gives us a ratio between two

+unknowns. And by bringing variously selected historic units (battles,

+campaigns, periods of war) into such equations, a series of numbers

+could be obtained in which certain laws should exist and might be

+discovered.

+

+The tactical rule that an army should act in masses when attacking, and

+in smaller groups in retreat, unconsciously confirms the truth that the

+strength of an army depends on its spirit. To lead men forward under

+fire more discipline (obtainable only by movement in masses) is needed

+than is needed to resist attacks. But this rule which leaves out of

+account the spirit of the army continually proves incorrect and is in

+particularly striking contrast to the facts when some strong rise or

+fall in the spirit of the troops occurs, as in all national wars.

+

+The French, retreating in 1812—though according to tactics they should

+have separated into detachments to defend themselves—congregated into

+a mass because the spirit of the army had so fallen that only the mass

+held the army together. The Russians, on the contrary, ought according

+to tactics to have attacked in mass, but in fact they split up

+into small units, because their spirit had so risen that separate

+individuals, without orders, dealt blows at the French without needing

+any compulsion to induce them to expose themselves to hardships and

+dangers.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+The so-called partisan war began with the entry of the French into

+Smolénsk.

+

+Before partisan warfare had been officially recognized by the

+government, thousands of enemy stragglers, marauders, and foragers had

+been destroyed by the Cossacks and the peasants, who killed them off

+as instinctively as dogs worry a stray mad dog to death. Denís Davýdov,

+with his Russian instinct, was the first to recognize the value of

+this terrible cudgel which regardless of the rules of military science

+destroyed the French, and to him belongs the credit for taking the first

+step toward regularizing this method of warfare.

+

+On August 24 Davýdov’s first partisan detachment was formed and then

+others were recognized. The further the campaign progressed the more

+numerous these detachments became.

+

+The irregulars destroyed the great army piecemeal. They gathered the

+fallen leaves that dropped of themselves from that withered tree—the

+French army—and sometimes shook that tree itself. By October, when

+the French were fleeing toward Smolénsk, there were hundreds of such

+companies, of various sizes and characters. There were some that adopted

+all the army methods and had infantry, artillery, staffs, and the

+comforts of life. Others consisted solely of Cossack cavalry. There were

+also small scratch groups of foot and horse, and groups of peasants and

+landowners that remained unknown. A sacristan commanded one party which

+captured several hundred prisoners in the course of a month; and there

+was Vasílisa, the wife of a village elder, who slew hundreds of the

+French.

+

+The partisan warfare flamed up most fiercely in the latter days of

+October. Its first period had passed: when the partisans themselves,

+amazed at their own boldness, feared every minute to be surrounded

+and captured by the French, and hid in the forests without unsaddling,

+hardly daring to dismount and always expecting to be pursued. By the end

+of October this kind of warfare had taken definite shape: it had become

+clear to all what could be ventured against the French and what could

+not. Now only the commanders of detachments with staffs, and moving

+according to rules at a distance from the French, still regarded many

+things as impossible. The small bands that had started their activities

+long before and had already observed the French closely considered

+things possible which the commanders of the big detachments did not dare

+to contemplate. The Cossacks and peasants who crept in among the French

+now considered everything possible.

+

+On October 22, Denísov (who was one of the irregulars) was with his

+group at the height of the guerrilla enthusiasm. Since early morning he

+and his party had been on the move. All day long he had been watching

+from the forest that skirted the highroad a large French convoy of

+cavalry baggage and Russian prisoners separated from the rest of the

+army, which—as was learned from spies and prisoners—was moving under a

+strong escort to Smolénsk. Besides Denísov and Dólokhov (who also led

+a small party and moved in Denísov’s vicinity), the commanders of some

+large divisions with staffs also knew of this convoy and, as Denísov

+expressed it, were sharpening their teeth for it. Two of the commanders

+of large parties—one a Pole and the other a German—sent invitations

+to Denísov almost simultaneously, requesting him to join up with their

+divisions to attack the convoy.

+

+“No, bwother, I have gwown mustaches myself,” said Denísov on reading

+these documents, and he wrote to the German that, despite his heartfelt

+desire to serve under so valiant and renowned a general, he had to forgo

+that pleasure because he was already under the command of the Polish

+general. To the Polish general he replied to the same effect, informing

+him that he was already under the command of the German.

+

+Having arranged matters thus, Denísov and Dólokhov intended, without

+reporting matters to the higher command, to attack and seize that

+convoy with their own small forces. On October 22 it was moving from

+the village of Mikúlino to that of Shámshevo. To the left of the road

+between Mikúlino and Shámshevo there were large forests, extending in

+some places up to the road itself though in others a mile or more back

+from it. Through these forests Denísov and his party rode all day,

+sometimes keeping well back in them and sometimes coming to the very

+edge, but never losing sight of the moving French. That morning,

+Cossacks of Denísov’s party had seized and carried off into the forest

+two wagons loaded with cavalry saddles, which had stuck in the mud not

+far from Mikúlino where the forest ran close to the road. Since then,

+and until evening, the party had watched the movements of the French

+without attacking. It was necessary to let the French reach Shámshevo

+quietly without alarming them and then, after joining Dólokhov who was

+to come that evening to a consultation at a watchman’s hut in the forest

+less than a mile from Shámshevo, to surprise the French at dawn, falling

+like an avalanche on their heads from two sides, and rout and capture

+them all at one blow.

+

+In their rear, more than a mile from Mikúlino where the forest came

+right up to the road, six Cossacks were posted to report if any fresh

+columns of French should show themselves.

+

+Beyond Shámshevo, Dólokhov was to observe the road in the same way, to

+find out at what distance there were other French troops. They reckoned

+that the convoy had fifteen hundred men. Denísov had two hundred, and

+Dólokhov might have as many more, but the disparity of numbers did not

+deter Denísov. All that he now wanted to know was what troops these were

+and to learn that he had to capture a “tongue”—that is, a man from

+the enemy column. That morning’s attack on the wagons had been made so

+hastily that the Frenchmen with the wagons had all been killed; only a

+little drummer boy had been taken alive, and as he was a straggler he

+could tell them nothing definite about the troops in that column.

+

+Denísov considered it dangerous to make a second attack for fear of

+putting the whole column on the alert, so he sent Tíkhon Shcherbáty, a

+peasant of his party, to Shámshevo to try and seize at least one of the

+French quartermasters who had been sent on in advance.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+It was a warm rainy autumn day. The sky and the horizon were both

+the color of muddy water. At times a sort of mist descended, and then

+suddenly heavy slanting rain came down.

+

+Denísov in a felt cloak and a sheepskin cap from which the rain ran down

+was riding a thin thoroughbred horse with sunken sides. Like his horse,

+which turned its head and laid its ears back, he shrank from the driving

+rain and gazed anxiously before him. His thin face with its short, thick

+black beard looked angry.

+

+Beside Denísov rode an esaul, * Denísov’s fellow worker, also in felt

+cloak and sheepskin cap, and riding a large sleek Don horse.

+

+    * A captain of Cossacks.

+

+Esaul Lováyski the Third was a tall man as straight as an arrow,

+pale-faced, fair-haired, with narrow light eyes and with calm

+self-satisfaction in his face and bearing. Though it was impossible to

+say in what the peculiarity of the horse and rider lay, yet at first

+glance at the esaul and Denísov one saw that the latter was wet and

+uncomfortable and was a man mounted on a horse, while looking at the

+esaul one saw that he was as comfortable and as much at ease as always

+and that he was not a man who had mounted a horse, but a man who was one

+with his horse, a being consequently possessed of twofold strength.

+

+A little ahead of them walked a peasant guide, wet to the skin and

+wearing a gray peasant coat and a white knitted cap.

+

+A little behind, on a poor, small, lean Kirghíz mount with an enormous

+tail and mane and a bleeding mouth, rode a young officer in a blue

+French overcoat.

+

+Beside him rode an hussar, with a boy in a tattered French uniform and

+blue cap behind him on the crupper of his horse. The boy held on to the

+hussar with cold, red hands, and raising his eyebrows gazed about him

+with surprise. This was the French drummer boy captured that morning.

+

+Behind them along the narrow, sodden, cutup forest road came hussars in

+threes and fours, and then Cossacks: some in felt cloaks, some in French

+greatcoats, and some with horsecloths over their heads. The horses,

+being drenched by the rain, all looked black whether chestnut or bay.

+Their necks, with their wet, close-clinging manes, looked strangely

+thin. Steam rose from them. Clothes, saddles, reins, were all wet,

+slippery, and sodden, like the ground and the fallen leaves that strewed

+the road. The men sat huddled up trying not to stir, so as to warm the

+water that had trickled to their bodies and not admit the fresh cold

+water that was leaking in under their seats, their knees, and at the

+back of their necks. In the midst of the outspread line of Cossacks two

+wagons, drawn by French horses and by saddled Cossack horses that had

+been hitched on in front, rumbled over the tree stumps and branches and

+splashed through the water that lay in the ruts.

+

+Denísov’s horse swerved aside to avoid a pool in the track and bumped

+his rider’s knee against a tree.

+

+“Oh, the devil!” exclaimed Denísov angrily, and showing his teeth he

+struck his horse three times with his whip, splashing himself and his

+comrades with mud.

+

+Denísov was out of sorts both because of the rain and also from hunger

+(none of them had eaten anything since morning), and yet more because he

+still had no news from Dólokhov and the man sent to capture a “tongue”

+had not returned.

+

+“There’ll hardly be another such chance to fall on a transport as today.

+It’s too risky to attack them by oneself, and if we put it off till

+another day one of the big guerrilla detachments will snatch the prey

+from under our noses,” thought Denísov, continually peering forward,

+hoping to see a messenger from Dólokhov.

+

+On coming to a path in the forest along which he could see far to the

+right, Denísov stopped.

+

+“There’s someone coming,” said he.

+

+The esaul looked in the direction Denísov indicated.

+

+“There are two, an officer and a Cossack. But it is not presupposable

+that it is the lieutenant colonel himself,” said the esaul, who was fond

+of using words the Cossacks did not know.

+

+The approaching riders having descended a decline were no longer

+visible, but they reappeared a few minutes later. In front, at a weary

+gallop and using his leather whip, rode an officer, disheveled and

+drenched, whose trousers had worked up to above his knees. Behind him,

+standing in the stirrups, trotted a Cossack. The officer, a very young

+lad with a broad rosy face and keen merry eyes, galloped up to Denísov

+and handed him a sodden envelope.

+

+“From the general,” said the officer. “Please excuse its not being quite

+dry.”

+

+Denísov, frowning, took the envelope and opened it.

+

+“There, they kept telling us: ‘It’s dangerous, it’s dangerous,’”

+said the officer, addressing the esaul while Denísov was reading the

+dispatch. “But Komaróv and I”—he pointed to the Cossack—“were prepared.

+We have each of us two pistols.... But what’s this?” he asked, noticing

+the French drummer boy. “A prisoner? You’ve already been in action? May

+I speak to him?”

+

+“Wostóv! Pétya!” exclaimed Denísov, having run through the dispatch.

+“Why didn’t you say who you were?” and turning with a smile he held out

+his hand to the lad.

+

+The officer was Pétya Rostóv.

+

+All the way Pétya had been preparing himself to behave with Denísov as

+befitted a grown-up man and an officer—without hinting at their previous

+acquaintance. But as soon as Denísov smiled at him Pétya brightened

+up, blushed with pleasure, forgot the official manner he had been

+rehearsing, and began telling him how he had already been in a battle

+near Vyázma and how a certain hussar had distinguished himself there.

+

+“Well, I am glad to see you,” Denísov interrupted him, and his face

+again assumed its anxious expression.

+

+“Michael Feoklítych,” said he to the esaul, “this is again fwom that

+German, you know. He”—he indicated Pétya—“is serving under him.”

+

+And Denísov told the esaul that the dispatch just delivered was a

+repetition of the German general’s demand that he should join forces

+with him for an attack on the transport.

+

+“If we don’t take it tomowwow, he’ll snatch it fwom under our noses,” he

+added.

+

+While Denísov was talking to the esaul, Pétya—abashed by Denísov’s

+cold tone and supposing that it was due to the condition of his

+trousers—furtively tried to pull them down under his greatcoat so

+that no one should notice it, while maintaining as martial an air as

+possible.

+

+“Will there be any orders, your honor?” he asked Denísov, holding his

+hand at the salute and resuming the game of adjutant and general for

+which he had prepared himself, “or shall I remain with your honor?”

+

+“Orders?” Denísov repeated thoughtfully. “But can you stay till

+tomowwow?”

+

+“Oh, please... May I stay with you?” cried Pétya.

+

+“But, just what did the genewal tell you? To weturn at once?” asked

+Denísov.

+

+Pétya blushed.

+

+“He gave me no instructions. I think I could?” he returned, inquiringly.

+

+“Well, all wight,” said Denísov.

+

+And turning to his men he directed a party to go on to the halting place

+arranged near the watchman’s hut in the forest, and told the officer on

+the Kirghíz horse (who performed the duties of an adjutant) to go and

+find out where Dólokhov was and whether he would come that evening.

+Denísov himself intended going with the esaul and Pétya to the edge of

+the forest where it reached out to Shámshevo, to have a look at the part

+of the French bivouac they were to attack next day.

+

+“Well, old fellow,” said he to the peasant guide, “lead us to

+Shámshevo.”

+

+Denísov, Pétya, and the esaul, accompanied by some Cossacks and the

+hussar who had the prisoner, rode to the left across a ravine to the

+edge of the forest.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+The rain had stopped, and only the mist was falling and drops from

+the trees. Denísov, the esaul, and Pétya rode silently, following the

+peasant in the knitted cap who, stepping lightly with outturned toes

+and moving noiselessly in his bast shoes over the roots and wet leaves,

+silently led them to the edge of the forest.

+

+He ascended an incline, stopped, looked about him, and advanced to where

+the screen of trees was less dense. On reaching a large oak tree that

+had not yet shed its leaves, he stopped and beckoned mysteriously to

+them with his hand.

+

+Denísov and Pétya rode up to him. From the spot where the peasant was

+standing they could see the French. Immediately beyond the forest, on a

+downward slope, lay a field of spring rye. To the right, beyond a steep

+ravine, was a small village and a landowner’s house with a broken roof.

+In the village, in the house, in the garden, by the well, by the pond,

+over all the rising ground, and all along the road uphill from the

+bridge leading to the village, not more than five hundred yards

+away, crowds of men could be seen through the shimmering mist. Their

+un-Russian shouting at their horses which were straining uphill with the

+carts, and their calls to one another, could be clearly heard.

+

+“Bwing the prisoner here,” said Denísov in a low voice, not taking his

+eyes off the French.

+

+A Cossack dismounted, lifted the boy down, and took him to Denísov.

+Pointing to the French troops, Denísov asked him what these and those

+of them were. The boy, thrusting his cold hands into his pockets and

+lifting his eyebrows, looked at Denísov in affright, but in spite of

+an evident desire to say all he knew gave confused answers, merely

+assenting to everything Denísov asked him. Denísov turned away from him

+frowning and addressed the esaul, conveying his own conjectures to him.

+

+Pétya, rapidly turning his head, looked now at the drummer boy, now

+at Denísov, now at the esaul, and now at the French in the village and

+along the road, trying not to miss anything of importance.

+

+“Whether Dólokhov comes or not, we must seize it, eh?” said Denísov with

+a merry sparkle in his eyes.

+

+“It is a very suitable spot,” said the esaul.

+

+“We’ll send the infantwy down by the swamps,” Denísov continued.

+“They’ll cweep up to the garden; you’ll wide up fwom there with the

+Cossacks”—he pointed to a spot in the forest beyond the village—“and I

+with my hussars fwom here. And at the signal shot...”

+

+“The hollow is impassable—there’s a swamp there,” said the esaul. “The

+horses would sink. We must ride round more to the left....”

+

+While they were talking in undertones the crack of a shot sounded

+from the low ground by the pond, a puff of white smoke appeared, then

+another, and the sound of hundreds of seemingly merry French voices

+shouting together came up from the slope. For a moment Denísov and the

+esaul drew back. They were so near that they thought they were the cause

+of the firing and shouting. But the firing and shouting did not relate

+to them. Down below, a man wearing something red was running through the

+marsh. The French were evidently firing and shouting at him.

+

+“Why, that’s our Tíkhon,” said the esaul.

+

+“So it is! It is!”

+

+“The wascal!” said Denísov.

+

+“He’ll get away!” said the esaul, screwing up his eyes.

+

+The man whom they called Tíkhon, having run to the stream, plunged in

+so that the water splashed in the air, and, having disappeared for an

+instant, scrambled out on all fours, all black with the wet, and ran on.

+The French who had been pursuing him stopped.

+

+“Smart, that!” said the esaul.

+

+“What a beast!” said Denísov with his former look of vexation. “What has

+he been doing all this time?”

+

+“Who is he?” asked Pétya.

+

+“He’s our plastún. I sent him to capture a ‘tongue.’”

+

+“Oh, yes,” said Pétya, nodding at the first words Denísov uttered as if

+he understood it all, though he really did not understand anything of

+it.

+

+Tíkhon Shcherbáty was one of the most indispensable men in their band.

+He was a peasant from Pokróvsk, near the river Gzhat. When Denísov had

+come to Pokróvsk at the beginning of his operations and had as usual

+summoned the village elder and asked him what he knew about the French,

+the elder, as though shielding himself, had replied, as all village

+elders did, that he had neither seen nor heard anything of them. But

+when Denísov explained that his purpose was to kill the French, and

+asked if no French had strayed that way, the elder replied that some

+“more-orderers” had really been at their village, but that Tíkhon

+Shcherbáty was the only man who dealt with such matters. Denísov had

+Tíkhon called and, having praised him for his activity, said a few words

+in the elder’s presence about loyalty to the Tsar and the country and

+the hatred of the French that all sons of the fatherland should cherish.

+

+“We don’t do the French any harm,” said Tíkhon, evidently frightened by

+Denísov’s words. “We only fooled about with the lads for fun, you know!

+We killed a score or so of ‘more-orderers,’ but we did no harm else....”

+

+Next day when Denísov had left Pokróvsk, having quite forgotten about

+this peasant, it was reported to him that Tíkhon had attached himself

+to their party and asked to be allowed to remain with it. Denísov gave

+orders to let him do so.

+

+Tíkhon, who at first did rough work, laying campfires, fetching water,

+flaying dead horses, and so on, soon showed a great liking and aptitude

+for partisan warfare. At night he would go out for booty and always

+brought back French clothing and weapons, and when told to would bring

+in French captives also. Denísov then relieved him from drudgery and

+began taking him with him when he went out on expeditions and had him

+enrolled among the Cossacks.

+

+Tíkhon did not like riding, and always went on foot, never lagging

+behind the cavalry. He was armed with a musketoon (which he carried

+rather as a joke), a pike and an ax, which latter he used as a wolf uses

+its teeth, with equal ease picking fleas out of its fur or crunching

+thick bones. Tíkhon with equal accuracy would split logs with blows at

+arm’s length, or holding the head of the ax would cut thin little pegs

+or carve spoons. In Denísov’s party he held a peculiar and exceptional

+position. When anything particularly difficult or nasty had to be

+done—to push a cart out of the mud with one’s shoulders, pull a horse

+out of a swamp by its tail, skin it, slink in among the French, or walk

+more than thirty miles in a day—everybody pointed laughingly at Tíkhon.

+

+“It won’t hurt that devil—he’s as strong as a horse!” they said of him.

+

+Once a Frenchman Tíkhon was trying to capture fired a pistol at him

+and shot him in the fleshy part of the back. That wound (which Tíkhon

+treated only with internal and external applications of vodka) was the

+subject of the liveliest jokes by the whole detachment—jokes in which

+Tíkhon readily joined.

+

+“Hallo, mate! Never again? Gave you a twist?” the Cossacks would banter

+him. And Tíkhon, purposely writhing and making faces, pretended to be

+angry and swore at the French with the funniest curses. The only effect

+of this incident on Tíkhon was that after being wounded he seldom

+brought in prisoners.

+

+He was the bravest and most useful man in the party. No one found more

+opportunities for attacking, no one captured or killed more Frenchmen,

+and consequently he was made the buffoon of all the Cossacks and hussars

+and willingly accepted that role. Now he had been sent by Denísov

+overnight to Shámshevo to capture a “tongue.” But whether because he

+had not been content to take only one Frenchman or because he had slept

+through the night, he had crept by day into some bushes right among the

+French and, as Denísov had witnessed from above, had been detected by

+them.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+After talking for some time with the esaul about next day’s attack,

+which now, seeing how near they were to the French, he seemed to have

+definitely decided on, Denísov turned his horse and rode back.

+

+“Now, my lad, we’ll go and get dwy,” he said to Pétya.

+

+As they approached the watchhouse Denísov stopped, peering into the

+forest. Among the trees a man with long legs and long, swinging arms,

+wearing a short jacket, bast shoes, and a Kazán hat, was approaching

+with long, light steps. He had a musketoon over his shoulder and an ax

+stuck in his girdle. When he espied Denísov he hastily threw something

+into the bushes, removed his sodden hat by its floppy brim, and

+approached his commander. It was Tíkhon. His wrinkled and pockmarked

+face and narrow little eyes beamed with self-satisfied merriment. He

+lifted his head high and gazed at Denísov as if repressing a laugh.

+

+“Well, where did you disappear to?” inquired Denísov.

+

+“Where did I disappear to? I went to get Frenchmen,” answered Tíkhon

+boldly and hurriedly, in a husky but melodious bass voice.

+

+“Why did you push yourself in there by daylight? You ass! Well, why

+haven’t you taken one?”

+

+“Oh, I took one all right,” said Tíkhon.

+

+“Where is he?”

+

+“You see, I took him first thing at dawn,” Tíkhon continued, spreading

+out his flat feet with outturned toes in their bast shoes. “I took him

+into the forest. Then I see he’s no good and think I’ll go and fetch a

+likelier one.”

+

+“You see?... What a wogue—it’s just as I thought,” said Denísov to the

+esaul. “Why didn’t you bwing that one?”

+

+“What was the good of bringing him?” Tíkhon interrupted hastily and

+angrily—“that one wouldn’t have done for you. As if I don’t know what

+sort you want!”

+

+“What a bwute you are!... Well?”

+

+“I went for another one,” Tíkhon continued, “and I crept like this

+through the wood and lay down.” (He suddenly lay down on his stomach

+with a supple movement to show how he had done it.) “One turned up and

+I grabbed him, like this.” (He jumped up quickly and lightly.) “‘Come

+along to the colonel,’ I said. He starts yelling, and suddenly there

+were four of them. They rushed at me with their little swords. So I went

+for them with my ax, this way: ‘What are you up to?’ says I. ‘Christ

+be with you!’” shouted Tíkhon, waving his arms with an angry scowl and

+throwing out his chest.

+

+“Yes, we saw from the hill how you took to your heels through the

+puddles!” said the esaul, screwing up his glittering eyes.

+

+Pétya badly wanted to laugh, but noticed that they all refrained from

+laughing. He turned his eyes rapidly from Tíkhon’s face to the esaul’s

+and Denísov’s, unable to make out what it all meant.

+

+“Don’t play the fool!” said Denísov, coughing angrily. “Why didn’t you

+bwing the first one?”

+

+Tíkhon scratched his back with one hand and his head with the other,

+then suddenly his whole face expanded into a beaming, foolish grin,

+disclosing a gap where he had lost a tooth (that was why he was called

+Shcherbáty—the gap-toothed). Denísov smiled, and Pétya burst into a peal

+of merry laughter in which Tíkhon himself joined.

+

+“Oh, but he was a regular good-for-nothing,” said Tíkhon. “The clothes

+on him—poor stuff! How could I bring him? And so rude, your honor! Why,

+he says: ‘I’m a general’s son myself, I won’t go!’ he says.”

+

+“You are a bwute!” said Denísov. “I wanted to question...”

+

+“But I questioned him,” said Tíkhon. “He said he didn’t know much.

+‘There are a lot of us,’ he says, ‘but all poor stuff—only soldiers in

+name,’ he says. ‘Shout loud at them,’ he says, ‘and you’ll take

+them all,’” Tíkhon concluded, looking cheerfully and resolutely into

+Denísov’s eyes.

+

+“I’ll give you a hundwed sharp lashes—that’ll teach you to play the

+fool!” said Denísov severely.

+

+“But why are you angry?” remonstrated Tíkhon, “just as if I’d never seen

+your Frenchmen! Only wait till it gets dark and I’ll fetch you any of

+them you want—three if you like.”

+

+“Well, let’s go,” said Denísov, and rode all the way to the watchhouse

+in silence and frowning angrily.

+

+Tíkhon followed behind and Pétya heard the Cossacks laughing with him

+and at him, about some pair of boots he had thrown into the bushes.

+

+When the fit of laughter that had seized him at Tíkhon’s words and smile

+had passed and Pétya realized for a moment that this Tíkhon had killed a

+man, he felt uneasy. He looked round at the captive drummer boy and felt

+a pang in his heart. But this uneasiness lasted only a moment. He felt

+it necessary to hold his head higher, to brace himself, and to question

+the esaul with an air of importance about tomorrow’s undertaking, that

+he might not be unworthy of the company in which he found himself.

+

+The officer who had been sent to inquire met Denísov on the way with the

+news that Dólokhov was soon coming and that all was well with him.

+

+Denísov at once cheered up and, calling Pétya to him, said: “Well, tell

+me about yourself.”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+Pétya, having left his people after their departure from Moscow, joined

+his regiment and was soon taken as orderly by a general commanding a

+large guerrilla detachment. From the time he received his commission,

+and especially since he had joined the active army and taken part in

+the battle of Vyázma, Pétya had been in a constant state of blissful

+excitement at being grown-up and in a perpetual ecstatic hurry not to

+miss any chance to do something really heroic. He was highly delighted

+with what he saw and experienced in the army, but at the same time

+it always seemed to him that the really heroic exploits were being

+performed just where he did not happen to be. And he was always in a

+hurry to get where he was not.

+

+When on the twenty-first of October his general expressed a wish to send

+somebody to Denísov’s detachment, Pétya begged so piteously to be sent

+that the general could not refuse. But when dispatching him he recalled

+Pétya’s mad action at the battle of Vyázma, where instead of riding by

+the road to the place to which he had been sent, he had galloped to the

+advanced line under the fire of the French and had there twice fired

+his pistol. So now the general explicitly forbade his taking part in any

+action whatever of Denísov’s. That was why Pétya had blushed and grown

+confused when Denísov asked him whether he could stay. Before they had

+ridden to the outskirts of the forest Pétya had considered he must carry

+out his instructions strictly and return at once. But when he saw the

+French and saw Tíkhon and learned that there would certainly be an

+attack that night, he decided, with the rapidity with which young people

+change their views, that the general, whom he had greatly respected till

+then, was a rubbishy German, that Denísov was a hero, the esaul a hero,

+and Tíkhon a hero too, and that it would be shameful for him to leave

+them at a moment of difficulty.

+

+It was already growing dusk when Denísov, Pétya, and the esaul rode up

+to the watchhouse. In the twilight saddled horses could be seen, and

+Cossacks and hussars who had rigged up rough shelters in the glade and

+were kindling glowing fires in a hollow of the forest where the French

+could not see the smoke. In the passage of the small watchhouse a

+Cossack with sleeves rolled up was chopping some mutton. In the room

+three officers of Denísov’s band were converting a door into a tabletop.

+Pétya took off his wet clothes, gave them to be dried, and at once began

+helping the officers to fix up the dinner table.

+

+In ten minutes the table was ready and a napkin spread on it. On the

+table were vodka, a flask of rum, white bread, roast mutton, and salt.

+

+Sitting at table with the officers and tearing the fat savory mutton

+with his hands, down which the grease trickled, Pétya was in an ecstatic

+childish state of love for all men, and consequently of confidence that

+others loved him in the same way.

+

+“So then what do you think, Vasíli Dmítrich?” said he to Denísov. “It’s

+all right my staying a day with you?” And not waiting for a reply he

+answered his own question: “You see I was told to find out—well, I am

+finding out.... Only do let me into the very... into the chief... I

+don’t want a reward.... But I want...”

+

+Pétya clenched his teeth and looked around, throwing back his head and

+flourishing his arms.

+

+“Into the vewy chief...” Denísov repeated with a smile.

+

+“Only, please let me command something, so that I may really command...”

+Pétya went on. “What would it be to you?... Oh, you want a knife?” he

+said, turning to an officer who wished to cut himself a piece of mutton.

+

+And he handed him his clasp knife. The officer admired it.

+

+“Please keep it. I have several like it,” said Pétya, blushing.

+“Heavens! I was quite forgetting!” he suddenly cried. “I have some

+raisins, fine ones; you know, seedless ones. We have a new sutler and

+he has such capital things. I bought ten pounds. I am used to something

+sweet. Would you like some?...” and Pétya ran out into the passage to

+his Cossack and brought back some bags which contained about five pounds

+of raisins. “Have some, gentlemen, have some!”

+

+“You want a coffeepot, don’t you?” he asked the esaul. “I bought a

+capital one from our sutler! He has splendid things. And he’s very

+honest, that’s the chief thing. I’ll be sure to send it to you. Or

+perhaps your flints are giving out, or are worn out—that happens

+sometimes, you know. I have brought some with me, here they are”—and he

+showed a bag—“a hundred flints. I bought them very cheap. Please take as

+many as you want, or all if you like....”

+

+Then suddenly, dismayed lest he had said too much, Pétya stopped and

+blushed.

+

+He tried to remember whether he had not done anything else that was

+foolish. And running over the events of the day he remembered the French

+drummer boy. “It’s capital for us here, but what of him? Where have they

+put him? Have they fed him? Haven’t they hurt his feelings?” he thought.

+But having caught himself saying too much about the flints, he was now

+afraid to speak out.

+

+“I might ask,” he thought, “but they’ll say: ‘He’s a boy himself and so

+he pities the boy.’ I’ll show them tomorrow whether I’m a boy. Will it

+seem odd if I ask?” Pétya thought. “Well, never mind!” and immediately,

+blushing and looking anxiously at the officers to see if they appeared

+ironical, he said:

+

+“May I call in that boy who was taken prisoner and give him something to

+eat?... Perhaps...”

+

+“Yes, he’s a poor little fellow,” said Denísov, who evidently saw

+nothing shameful in this reminder. “Call him in. His name is Vincent

+Bosse. Have him fetched.”

+

+“I’ll call him,” said Pétya.

+

+“Yes, yes, call him. A poor little fellow,” Denísov repeated.

+

+Pétya was standing at the door when Denísov said this. He slipped in

+between the officers, came close to Denísov, and said:

+

+“Let me kiss you, dear old fellow! Oh, how fine, how splendid!”

+

+And having kissed Denísov he ran out of the hut.

+

+“Bosse! Vincent!” Pétya cried, stopping outside the door.

+

+“Who do you want, sir?” asked a voice in the darkness.

+

+Pétya replied that he wanted the French lad who had been captured that

+day.

+

+“Ah, Vesénny?” said a Cossack.

+

+Vincent, the boy’s name, had already been changed by the Cossacks into

+Vesénny (vernal) and into Vesénya by the peasants and soldiers. In both

+these adaptations the reference to spring (vesná) matched the impression

+made by the young lad.

+

+“He is warming himself there by the bonfire. Ho, Vesénya!

+Vesénya!—Vesénny!” laughing voices were heard calling to one another in

+the darkness.

+

+“He’s a smart lad,” said an hussar standing near Pétya. “We gave him

+something to eat a while ago. He was awfully hungry!”

+

+The sound of bare feet splashing through the mud was heard in the

+darkness, and the drummer boy came to the door.

+

+“Ah, c’est vous!” said Pétya. “Voulez-vous manger? N’ayez pas peur, on

+ne vous fera pas de mal,” * he added shyly and affectionately, touching

+the boy’s hand. “Entrez, entrez.” *(2)

+

+     * “Ah, it’s you! Do you want something to eat? Don’t be

+     afraid, they won’t hurt you.”

+

+     * (2) “Come in, come in.”

+

+

+“Merci, monsieur,” * said the drummer boy in a trembling almost childish

+voice, and he began scraping his dirty feet on the threshold.

+

+    * “Thank you, sir.”

+

+

+There were many things Pétya wanted to say to the drummer boy, but did

+not dare to. He stood irresolutely beside him in the passage. Then in

+the darkness he took the boy’s hand and pressed it.

+

+“Come in, come in!” he repeated in a gentle whisper. “Oh, what can I do

+for him?” he thought, and opening the door he let the boy pass in first.

+

+When the boy had entered the hut, Pétya sat down at a distance from

+him, considering it beneath his dignity to pay attention to him. But

+he fingered the money in his pocket and wondered whether it would seem

+ridiculous to give some to the drummer boy.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+The arrival of Dólokhov diverted Pétya’s attention from the drummer boy,

+to whom Denísov had had some mutton and vodka given, and whom he had had

+dressed in a Russian coat so that he might be kept with their band and

+not sent away with the other prisoners. Pétya had heard in the army many

+stories of Dólokhov’s extraordinary bravery and of his cruelty to the

+French, so from the moment he entered the hut Pétya did not take his

+eyes from him, but braced himself up more and more and held his head

+high, that he might not be unworthy even of such company.

+

+Dólokhov’s appearance amazed Pétya by its simplicity.

+

+Denísov wore a Cossack coat, had a beard, had an icon of Nicholas the

+Wonder-Worker on his breast, and his way of speaking and everything he

+did indicated his unusual position. But Dólokhov, who in Moscow had worn

+a Persian costume, had now the appearance of a most correct officer of

+the Guards. He was clean-shaven and wore a Guardsman’s padded coat with

+an Order of St. George at his buttonhole and a plain forage cap set

+straight on his head. He took off his wet felt cloak in a corner of

+the room, and without greeting anyone went up to Denísov and began

+questioning him about the matter in hand. Denísov told him of the

+designs the large detachments had on the transport, of the message Pétya

+had brought, and his own replies to both generals. Then he told him all

+he knew of the French detachment.

+

+“That’s so. But we must know what troops they are and their numbers,”

+said Dólokhov. “It will be necessary to go there. We can’t start the

+affair without knowing for certain how many there are. I like to work

+accurately. Here now—wouldn’t one of these gentlemen like to ride over

+to the French camp with me? I have brought a spare uniform.”

+

+“I, I... I’ll go with you!” cried Pétya.

+

+“There’s no need for you to go at all,” said Denísov, addressing

+Dólokhov, “and as for him, I won’t let him go on any account.”

+

+“I like that!” exclaimed Pétya. “Why shouldn’t I go?”

+

+“Because it’s useless.”

+

+“Well, you must excuse me, because... because... I shall go, and that’s

+all. You’ll take me, won’t you?” he said, turning to Dólokhov.

+

+“Why not?” Dólokhov answered absently, scrutinizing the face of the

+French drummer boy. “Have you had that youngster with you long?” he

+asked Denísov.

+

+“He was taken today but he knows nothing. I’m keeping him with me.”

+

+“Yes, and where do you put the others?” inquired Dólokhov.

+

+“Where? I send them away and take a weceipt for them,” shouted Denísov,

+suddenly flushing. “And I say boldly that I have not a single man’s life

+on my conscience. Would it be difficult for you to send thirty or

+thwee hundwed men to town under escort, instead of staining—I speak

+bluntly—staining the honor of a soldier?”

+

+“That kind of amiable talk would be suitable from this young count of

+sixteen,” said Dólokhov with cold irony, “but it’s time for you to drop

+it.”

+

+“Why, I’ve not said anything! I only say that I’ll certainly go with

+you,” said Pétya shyly.

+

+“But for you and me, old fellow, it’s time to drop these amenities,”

+continued Dólokhov, as if he found particular pleasure in speaking of

+this subject which irritated Denísov. “Now, why have you kept this lad?”

+he went on, swaying his head. “Because you are sorry for him! Don’t we

+know those ‘receipts’ of yours? You send a hundred men away, and thirty

+get there. The rest either starve or get killed. So isn’t it all the

+same not to send them?”

+

+The esaul, screwing up his light-colored eyes, nodded approvingly.

+

+“That’s not the point. I’m not going to discuss the matter. I do not

+wish to take it on my conscience. You say they’ll die. All wight. Only

+not by my fault!”

+

+Dólokhov began laughing.

+

+“Who has told them not to capture me these twenty times over? But if

+they did catch me they’d string me up to an aspen tree, and with all

+your chivalry just the same.” He paused. “However, we must get to work.

+Tell the Cossack to fetch my kit. I have two French uniforms in it.

+Well, are you coming with me?” he asked Pétya.

+

+“I? Yes, yes, certainly!” cried Pétya, blushing almost to tears and

+glancing at Denísov.

+

+While Dólokhov had been disputing with Denísov what should be done with

+prisoners, Pétya had once more felt awkward and restless; but again he

+had no time to grasp fully what they were talking about. “If grown-up,

+distinguished men think so, it must be necessary and right,” thought he.

+“But above all Denísov must not dare to imagine that I’ll obey him and

+that he can order me about. I will certainly go to the French camp with

+Dólokhov. If he can, so can I!”

+

+And to all Denísov’s persuasions, Pétya replied that he too was

+accustomed to do everything accurately and not just anyhow, and that he

+never considered personal danger.

+

+“For you’ll admit that if we don’t know for sure how many of them there

+are... hundreds of lives may depend on it, while there are only two

+of us. Besides, I want to go very much and certainly will go, so don’t

+hinder me,” said he. “It will only make things worse....”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+Having put on French greatcoats and shakos, Pétya and Dólokhov rode to

+the clearing from which Denísov had reconnoitered the French camp,

+and emerging from the forest in pitch darkness they descended into the

+hollow. On reaching the bottom, Dólokhov told the Cossacks accompanying

+him to await him there and rode on at a quick trot along the road to the

+bridge. Pétya, his heart in his mouth with excitement, rode by his side.

+

+“If we’re caught, I won’t be taken alive! I have a pistol,” whispered

+he.

+

+“Don’t talk Russian,” said Dólokhov in a hurried whisper, and at that

+very moment they heard through the darkness the challenge: “Qui vive?” *

+and the click of a musket.

+

+    * “Who goes there?”

+

+

+The blood rushed to Pétya’s face and he grasped his pistol.

+

+“Lanciers du 6-me,” * replied Dólokhov, neither hastening nor slackening

+his horse’s pace.

+

+    * “Lancers of the 6th Regiment.”

+

+

+The black figure of a sentinel stood on the bridge.

+

+“Mot d’ordre.” *

+

+    * “Password.”

+

+

+Dólokhov reined in his horse and advanced at a walk.

+

+“Dites donc, le colonel Gérard est ici?” * he asked.

+

+    * “Tell me, is Colonel Gérard here?”

+

+

+“Mot d’ordre,” repeated the sentinel, barring the way and not replying.

+

+“Quand un officier fait sa ronde, les sentinelles ne demandent pas le

+mot d’ordre...” cried Dólokhov suddenly flaring up and riding straight

+at the sentinel. “Je vous demande si le colonel est ici.” *

+

+     * “When an officer is making his round, sentinels don’t ask

+     him for the password.... I am asking you if the colonel is

+     here.”

+

+

+And without waiting for an answer from the sentinel, who had stepped

+aside, Dólokhov rode up the incline at a walk.

+

+Noticing the black outline of a man crossing the road, Dólokhov stopped

+him and inquired where the commander and officers were. The man,

+a soldier with a sack over his shoulder, stopped, came close up to

+Dólokhov’s horse, touched it with his hand, and explained simply and in

+a friendly way that the commander and the officers were higher up

+the hill to the right in the courtyard of the farm, as he called the

+landowner’s house.

+

+Having ridden up the road, on both sides of which French talk could be

+heard around the campfires, Dólokhov turned into the courtyard of the

+landowner’s house. Having ridden in, he dismounted and approached a

+big blazing campfire, around which sat several men talking noisily.

+Something was boiling in a small cauldron at the edge of the fire and

+a soldier in a peaked cap and blue overcoat, lit up by the fire, was

+kneeling beside it stirring its contents with a ramrod.

+

+“Oh, he’s a hard nut to crack,” said one of the officers who was sitting

+in the shadow at the other side of the fire.

+

+“He’ll make them get a move on, those fellows!” said another, laughing.

+

+Both fell silent, peering out through the darkness at the sound of

+Dólokhov’s and Pétya’s steps as they advanced to the fire leading their

+horses.

+

+“Bonjour, messieurs!” * said Dólokhov loudly and clearly.

+

+    * “Good day, gentlemen.”

+

+

+There was a stir among the officers in the shadow beyond the fire,

+and one tall, long-necked officer, walking round the fire, came up to

+Dólokhov.

+

+“Is that you, Clément?” he asked. “Where the devil...?” But, noticing

+his mistake, he broke off short and, with a frown, greeted Dólokhov as a

+stranger, asking what he could do for him.

+

+Dólokhov said that he and his companion were trying to overtake their

+regiment, and addressing the company in general asked whether they knew

+anything of the 6th Regiment. None of them knew anything, and Pétya

+thought the officers were beginning to look at him and Dólokhov with

+hostility and suspicion. For some seconds all were silent.

+

+“If you were counting on the evening soup, you have come too late,” said

+a voice from behind the fire with a repressed laugh.

+

+Dólokhov replied that they were not hungry and must push on farther that

+night.

+

+He handed the horses over to the soldier who was stirring the pot and

+squatted down on his heels by the fire beside the officer with the long

+neck. That officer did not take his eyes from Dólokhov and again asked

+to what regiment he belonged. Dólokhov, as if he had not heard the

+question, did not reply, but lighting a short French pipe which he took

+from his pocket began asking the officer in how far the road before them

+was safe from Cossacks.

+

+“Those brigands are everywhere,” replied an officer from behind the

+fire.

+

+Dólokhov remarked that the Cossacks were a danger only to stragglers

+such as his companion and himself, “but probably they would not dare to

+attack large detachments?” he added inquiringly. No one replied.

+

+“Well, now he’ll come away,” Pétya thought every moment as he stood by

+the campfire listening to the talk.

+

+But Dólokhov restarted the conversation which had dropped and began

+putting direct questions as to how many men there were in the battalion,

+how many battalions, and how many prisoners. Asking about the Russian

+prisoners with that detachment, Dólokhov said:

+

+“A horrid business dragging these corpses about with one! It would be

+better to shoot such rabble,” and burst into loud laughter, so strange

+that Pétya thought the French would immediately detect their disguise,

+and involuntarily took a step back from the campfire.

+

+No one replied a word to Dólokhov’s laughter, and a French officer whom

+they could not see (he lay wrapped in a greatcoat) rose and whispered

+something to a companion. Dólokhov got up and called to the soldier who

+was holding their horses.

+

+“Will they bring our horses or not?” thought Pétya, instinctively

+drawing nearer to Dólokhov.

+

+The horses were brought.

+

+“Good evening, gentlemen,” said Dólokhov.

+

+Pétya wished to say “Good night” but could not utter a word. The

+officers were whispering together. Dólokhov was a long time mounting

+his horse which would not stand still, then he rode out of the yard at a

+footpace. Pétya rode beside him, longing to look round to see whether or

+not the French were running after them, but not daring to.

+

+Coming out onto the road Dólokhov did not ride back across the open

+country, but through the village. At one spot he stopped and listened.

+“Do you hear?” he asked. Pétya recognized the sound of Russian voices

+and saw the dark figures of Russian prisoners round their campfires.

+When they had descended to the bridge Pétya and Dólokhov rode past the

+sentinel, who without saying a word paced morosely up and down it, then

+they descended into the hollow where the Cossacks awaited them.

+

+“Well now, good-by. Tell Denísov, ‘at the first shot at daybreak,’” said

+Dólokhov and was about to ride away, but Pétya seized hold of him.

+

+“Really!” he cried, “you are such a hero! Oh, how fine, how splendid!

+How I love you!”

+

+“All right, all right!” said Dólokhov. But Pétya did not let go of him

+and Dólokhov saw through the gloom that Pétya was bending toward him and

+wanted to kiss him. Dólokhov kissed him, laughed, turned his horse, and

+vanished into the darkness.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+Having returned to the watchman’s hut, Pétya found Denísov in the

+passage. He was awaiting Pétya’s return in a state of agitation,

+anxiety, and self-reproach for having let him go.

+

+“Thank God!” he exclaimed. “Yes, thank God!” he repeated, listening to

+Pétya’s rapturous account. “But, devil take you, I haven’t slept because

+of you! Well, thank God. Now lie down. We can still get a nap before

+morning.”

+

+“But... no,” said Pétya, “I don’t want to sleep yet. Besides I know

+myself, if I fall asleep it’s finished. And then I am used to not

+sleeping before a battle.”

+

+He sat awhile in the hut joyfully recalling the details of his

+expedition and vividly picturing to himself what would happen next day.

+

+Then, noticing that Denísov was asleep, he rose and went out of doors.

+

+It was still quite dark outside. The rain was over, but drops were still

+falling from the trees. Near the watchman’s hut the black shapes of the

+Cossacks’ shanties and of horses tethered together could be seen. Behind

+the hut the dark shapes of the two wagons with their horses beside them

+were discernible, and in the hollow the dying campfire gleamed red.

+Not all the Cossacks and hussars were asleep; here and there, amid the

+sounds of falling drops and the munching of the horses near by, could be

+heard low voices which seemed to be whispering.

+

+Pétya came out, peered into the darkness, and went up to the wagons.

+Someone was snoring under them, and around them stood saddled horses

+munching their oats. In the dark Pétya recognized his own horse, which

+he called “Karabákh” though it was of Ukranian breed, and went up to it.

+

+“Well, Karabákh! We’ll do some service tomorrow,” said he, sniffing its

+nostrils and kissing it.

+

+“Why aren’t you asleep, sir?” said a Cossack who was sitting under a

+wagon.

+

+“No, ah... Likhachëv—isn’t that your name? Do you know I have only just

+come back! We’ve been into the French camp.”

+

+And Pétya gave the Cossack a detailed account not only of his ride but

+also of his object, and why he considered it better to risk his life

+than to act “just anyhow.”

+

+“Well, you should get some sleep now,” said the Cossack.

+

+“No, I am used to this,” said Pétya. “I say, aren’t the flints in your

+pistols worn out? I brought some with me. Don’t you want any? You can

+have some.”

+

+The Cossack bent forward from under the wagon to get a closer look at

+Pétya.

+

+“Because I am accustomed to doing everything accurately,” said Pétya.

+“Some fellows do things just anyhow, without preparation, and then

+they’re sorry for it afterwards. I don’t like that.”

+

+“Just so,” said the Cossack.

+

+“Oh yes, another thing! Please, my dear fellow, will you sharpen my

+saber for me? It’s got bl...” (Pétya feared to tell a lie, and the saber

+never had been sharpened.) “Can you do it?”

+

+“Of course I can.”

+

+Likhachëv got up, rummaged in his pack, and soon Pétya heard the warlike

+sound of steel on whetstone. He climbed onto the wagon and sat on its

+edge. The Cossack was sharpening the saber under the wagon.

+

+“I say! Are the lads asleep?” asked Pétya.

+

+“Some are, and some aren’t—like us.”

+

+“Well, and that boy?”

+

+“Vesénny? Oh, he’s thrown himself down there in the passage. Fast asleep

+after his fright. He was that glad!”

+

+After that Pétya remained silent for a long time, listening to the

+sounds. He heard footsteps in the darkness and a black figure appeared.

+

+“What are you sharpening?” asked a man coming up to the wagon.

+

+“Why, this gentleman’s saber.”

+

+“That’s right,” said the man, whom Pétya took to be an hussar. “Was the

+cup left here?”

+

+“There, by the wheel!”

+

+The hussar took the cup.

+

+“It must be daylight soon,” said he, yawning, and went away.

+

+Pétya ought to have known that he was in a forest with Denísov’s

+guerrilla band, less than a mile from the road, sitting on a wagon

+captured from the French beside which horses were tethered, that under

+it Likhachëv was sitting sharpening a saber for him, that the big dark

+blotch to the right was the watchman’s hut, and the red blotch below to

+the left was the dying embers of a campfire, that the man who had come

+for the cup was an hussar who wanted a drink; but he neither knew nor

+waited to know anything of all this. He was in a fairy kingdom where

+nothing resembled reality. The big dark blotch might really be the

+watchman’s hut or it might be a cavern leading to the very depths of

+the earth. Perhaps the red spot was a fire, or it might be the eye of an

+enormous monster. Perhaps he was really sitting on a wagon, but it might

+very well be that he was not sitting on a wagon but on a terribly high

+tower from which, if he fell, he would have to fall for a whole day or a

+whole month, or go on falling and never reach the bottom. Perhaps it

+was just the Cossack, Likhachëv, who was sitting under the wagon, but it

+might be the kindest, bravest, most wonderful, most splendid man in the

+world, whom no one knew of. It might really have been that the hussar

+came for water and went back into the hollow, but perhaps he had simply

+vanished—disappeared altogether and dissolved into nothingness.

+

+Nothing Pétya could have seen now would have surprised him. He was in a

+fairy kingdom where everything was possible.

+

+He looked up at the sky. And the sky was a fairy realm like the earth.

+It was clearing, and over the tops of the trees clouds were swiftly

+sailing as if unveiling the stars. Sometimes it looked as if the clouds

+were passing, and a clear black sky appeared. Sometimes it seemed as

+if the black spaces were clouds. Sometimes the sky seemed to be rising

+high, high overhead, and then it seemed to sink so low that one could

+touch it with one’s hand.

+

+Pétya’s eyes began to close and he swayed a little.

+

+The trees were dripping. Quiet talking was heard. The horses neighed and

+jostled one another. Someone snored.

+

+“Ozheg-zheg, Ozheg-zheg...” hissed the saber against the whetstone,

+and suddenly Pétya heard an harmonious orchestra playing some unknown,

+sweetly solemn hymn. Pétya was as musical as Natásha and more so than

+Nicholas, but had never learned music or thought about it, and so the

+melody that unexpectedly came to his mind seemed to him particularly

+fresh and attractive. The music became more and more audible. The melody

+grew and passed from one instrument to another. And what was played was

+a fugue—though Pétya had not the least conception of what a fugue is.

+Each instrument—now resembling a violin and now a horn, but better

+and clearer than violin or horn—played its own part, and before it had

+finished the melody merged with another instrument that began almost the

+same air, and then with a third and a fourth; and they all blended into

+one and again became separate and again blended, now into solemn church

+music, now into something dazzlingly brilliant and triumphant.

+

+“Oh—why, that was in a dream!” Pétya said to himself, as he lurched

+forward. “It’s in my ears. But perhaps it’s music of my own. Well, go

+on, my music! Now!...”

+

+He closed his eyes, and, from all sides as if from a distance, sounds

+fluttered, grew into harmonies, separated, blended, and again all

+mingled into the same sweet and solemn hymn. “Oh, this is delightful!

+As much as I like and as I like!” said Pétya to himself. He tried to

+conduct that enormous orchestra.

+

+“Now softly, softly die away!” and the sounds obeyed him. “Now fuller,

+more joyful. Still more and more joyful!” And from an unknown depth rose

+increasingly triumphant sounds. “Now voices join in!” ordered Pétya. And

+at first from afar he heard men’s voices and then women’s. The voices

+grew in harmonious triumphant strength, and Pétya listened to their

+surpassing beauty in awe and joy.

+

+With a solemn triumphal march there mingled a song, the drip from the

+trees, and the hissing of the saber, “Ozheg-zheg-zheg...” and again the

+horses jostled one another and neighed, not disturbing the choir but

+joining in it.

+

+Pétya did not know how long this lasted: he enjoyed himself all the

+time, wondered at his enjoyment and regretted that there was no one to

+share it. He was awakened by Likhachëv’s kindly voice.

+

+“It’s ready, your honor; you can split a Frenchman in half with it!”

+

+Pétya woke up.

+

+“It’s getting light, it’s really getting light!” he exclaimed.

+

+The horses that had previously been invisible could now be seen to their

+very tails, and a watery light showed itself through the bare branches.

+Pétya shook himself, jumped up, took a ruble from his pocket and gave it

+to Likhachëv; then he flourished the saber, tested it, and sheathed

+it. The Cossacks were untying their horses and tightening their saddle

+girths.

+

+“And here’s the commander,” said Likhachëv.

+

+Denísov came out of the watchman’s hut and, having called Pétya, gave

+orders to get ready.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+The men rapidly picked out their horses in the semidarkness, tightened

+their saddle girths, and formed companies. Denísov stood by the

+watchman’s hut giving final orders. The infantry of the detachment

+passed along the road and quickly disappeared amid the trees in the mist

+of early dawn, hundreds of feet splashing through the mud. The esaul

+gave some orders to his men. Pétya held his horse by the bridle,

+impatiently awaiting the order to mount. His face, having been bathed

+in cold water, was all aglow, and his eyes were particularly brilliant.

+Cold shivers ran down his spine and his whole body pulsed rhythmically.

+

+“Well, is ev’wything weady?” asked Denísov. “Bwing the horses.”

+

+The horses were brought. Denísov was angry with the Cossack because the

+saddle girths were too slack, reproved him, and mounted. Pétya put his

+foot in the stirrup. His horse by habit made as if to nip his leg, but

+Pétya leaped quickly into the saddle unconscious of his own weight and,

+turning to look at the hussars starting in the darkness behind him, rode

+up to Denísov.

+

+“Vasíli Dmítrich, entrust me with some commission! Please... for God’s

+sake...!” said he.

+

+Denísov seemed to have forgotten Pétya’s very existence. He turned to

+glance at him.

+

+“I ask one thing of you,” he said sternly, “to obey me and not shove

+yourself forward anywhere.”

+

+He did not say another word to Pétya but rode in silence all the way.

+When they had come to the edge of the forest it was noticeably growing

+light over the field. Denísov talked in whispers with the esaul and

+the Cossacks rode past Pétya and Denísov. When they had all ridden by,

+Denísov touched his horse and rode down the hill. Slipping onto their

+haunches and sliding, the horses descended with their riders into the

+ravine. Pétya rode beside Denísov, the pulsation of his body constantly

+increasing. It was getting lighter and lighter, but the mist still hid

+distant objects. Having reached the valley, Denísov looked back and

+nodded to a Cossack beside him.

+

+“The signal!” said he.

+

+The Cossack raised his arm and a shot rang out. In an instant the tramp

+of horses galloping forward was heard, shouts came from various sides,

+and then more shots.

+

+At the first sound of trampling hoofs and shouting, Pétya lashed his

+horse and loosening his rein galloped forward, not heeding Denísov who

+shouted at him. It seemed to Pétya that at the moment the shot was

+fired it suddenly became as bright as noon. He galloped to the bridge.

+Cossacks were galloping along the road in front of him. On the bridge

+he collided with a Cossack who had fallen behind, but he galloped on.

+In front of him soldiers, probably Frenchmen, were running from right

+to left across the road. One of them fell in the mud under his horse’s

+feet.

+

+Cossacks were crowding about a hut, busy with something. From the midst

+of that crowd terrible screams arose. Pétya galloped up, and the

+first thing he saw was the pale face and trembling jaw of a Frenchman,

+clutching the handle of a lance that had been aimed at him.

+

+“Hurrah!... Lads!... ours!” shouted Pétya, and giving rein to his

+excited horse he galloped forward along the village street.

+

+He could hear shooting ahead of him. Cossacks, hussars, and ragged

+Russian prisoners, who had come running from both sides of the road,

+were shouting something loudly and incoherently. A gallant-looking

+Frenchman, in a blue overcoat, capless, and with a frowning red face,

+had been defending himself against the hussars. When Pétya galloped

+up the Frenchman had already fallen. “Too late again!” flashed through

+Pétya’s mind and he galloped on to the place from which the rapid firing

+could be heard. The shots came from the yard of the landowner’s house

+he had visited the night before with Dólokhov. The French were making

+a stand there behind a wattle fence in a garden thickly overgrown with

+bushes and were firing at the Cossacks who crowded at the gateway.

+Through the smoke, as he approached the gate, Pétya saw Dólokhov, whose

+face was of a pale-greenish tint, shouting to his men. “Go round! Wait

+for the infantry!” he exclaimed as Pétya rode up to him.

+

+“Wait?... Hurrah-ah-ah!” shouted Pétya, and without pausing a moment

+galloped to the place whence came the sounds of firing and where the

+smoke was thickest.

+

+A volley was heard, and some bullets whistled past, while others plashed

+against something. The Cossacks and Dólokhov galloped after Pétya into

+the gateway of the courtyard. In the dense wavering smoke some of the

+French threw down their arms and ran out of the bushes to meet the

+Cossacks, while others ran down the hill toward the pond. Pétya was

+galloping along the courtyard, but instead of holding the reins he waved

+both his arms about rapidly and strangely, slipping farther and farther

+to one side in his saddle. His horse, having galloped up to a campfire

+that was smoldering in the morning light, stopped suddenly, and Pétya

+fell heavily on to the wet ground. The Cossacks saw that his arms and

+legs jerked rapidly though his head was quite motionless. A bullet had

+pierced his skull.

+

+After speaking to the senior French officer, who came out of the house

+with a white handkerchief tied to his sword and announced that

+they surrendered, Dólokhov dismounted and went up to Pétya, who lay

+motionless with outstretched arms.

+

+“Done for!” he said with a frown, and went to the gate to meet Denísov

+who was riding toward him.

+

+“Killed?” cried Denísov, recognizing from a distance the unmistakably

+lifeless attitude—very familiar to him—in which Pétya’s body was lying.

+

+“Done for!” repeated Dólokhov as if the utterance of these words

+afforded him pleasure, and he went quickly up to the prisoners, who

+were surrounded by Cossacks who had hurried up. “We won’t take them!” he

+called out to Denísov.

+

+Denísov did not reply; he rode up to Pétya, dismounted, and with

+trembling hands turned toward himself the bloodstained, mud-bespattered

+face which had already gone white.

+

+“I am used to something sweet. Raisins, fine ones... take them all!” he

+recalled Pétya’s words. And the Cossacks looked round in surprise at the

+sound, like the yelp of a dog, with which Denísov turned away, walked to

+the wattle fence, and seized hold of it.

+

+Among the Russian prisoners rescued by Denísov and Dólokhov was Pierre

+Bezúkhov.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+During the whole of their march from Moscow no fresh orders had been

+issued by the French authorities concerning the party of prisoners

+among whom was Pierre. On the twenty-second of October that party was

+no longer with the same troops and baggage trains with which it had left

+Moscow. Half the wagons laden with hardtack that had traveled the first

+stages with them had been captured by Cossacks, the other half had gone

+on ahead. Not one of those dismounted cavalrymen who had marched in

+front of the prisoners was left; they had all disappeared. The artillery

+the prisoners had seen in front of them during the first days was

+now replaced by Marshal Junot’s enormous baggage train, convoyed by

+Westphalians. Behind the prisoners came a cavalry baggage train.

+

+From Vyázma onwards the French army, which had till then moved in three

+columns, went on as a single group. The symptoms of disorder that Pierre

+had noticed at their first halting place after leaving Moscow had now

+reached the utmost limit.

+

+The road along which they moved was bordered on both sides by dead

+horses; ragged men who had fallen behind from various regiments

+continually changed about, now joining the moving column, now again

+lagging behind it.

+

+Several times during the march false alarms had been given and the

+soldiers of the escort had raised their muskets, fired, and run

+headlong, crushing one another, but had afterwards reassembled and

+abused each other for their causeless panic.

+

+These three groups traveling together—the cavalry stores, the convoy of

+prisoners, and Junot’s baggage train—still constituted a separate and

+united whole, though each of the groups was rapidly melting away.

+

+Of the artillery baggage train which had consisted of a hundred and

+twenty wagons, not more than sixty now remained; the rest had been

+captured or left behind. Some of Junot’s wagons also had been captured

+or abandoned. Three wagons had been raided and robbed by stragglers

+from Davout’s corps. From the talk of the Germans Pierre learned that

+a larger guard had been allotted to that baggage train than to the

+prisoners, and that one of their comrades, a German soldier, had been

+shot by the marshal’s own order because a silver spoon belonging to the

+marshal had been found in his possession.

+

+The group of prisoners had melted away most of all. Of the three hundred

+and thirty men who had set out from Moscow fewer than a hundred now

+remained. The prisoners were more burdensome to the escort than even the

+cavalry saddles or Junot’s baggage. They understood that the saddles and

+Junot’s spoon might be of some use, but that cold and hungry soldiers

+should have to stand and guard equally cold and hungry Russians who

+froze and lagged behind on the road (in which case the order was to

+shoot them) was not merely incomprehensible but revolting. And the

+escort, as if afraid, in the grievous condition they themselves were in,

+of giving way to the pity they felt for the prisoners and so rendering

+their own plight still worse, treated them with particular moroseness

+and severity.

+

+At Dorogobúzh while the soldiers of the convoy, after locking the

+prisoners in a stable, had gone off to pillage their own stores, several

+of the soldier prisoners tunneled under the wall and ran away, but were

+recaptured by the French and shot.

+

+The arrangement adopted when they started, that the officer prisoners

+should be kept separate from the rest, had long since been abandoned.

+All who could walk went together, and after the third stage Pierre had

+rejoined Karatáev and the gray-blue bandy-legged dog that had chosen

+Karatáev for its master.

+

+On the third day after leaving Moscow Karatáev again fell ill with the

+fever he had suffered from in the hospital in Moscow, and as he grew

+gradually weaker Pierre kept away from him. Pierre did not know why, but

+since Karatáev had begun to grow weaker it had cost him an effort to

+go near him. When he did so and heard the subdued moaning with which

+Karatáev generally lay down at the halting places, and when he smelled

+the odor emanating from him which was now stronger than before, Pierre

+moved farther away and did not think about him.

+

+While imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect

+but with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for

+happiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple

+human needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from

+superfluity. And now during these last three weeks of the march he had

+learned still another new, consolatory truth—that nothing in this world

+is terrible. He had learned that as there is no condition in which man

+can be happy and entirely free, so there is no condition in which he

+need be unhappy and lack freedom. He learned that suffering and freedom

+have their limits and that those limits are very near together; that the

+person in a bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as keenly as

+he now, sleeping on the bare damp earth with one side growing chilled

+while the other was warming; and that when he had put on tight dancing

+shoes he had suffered just as he did now when he walked with bare feet

+that were covered with sores—his footgear having long since fallen to

+pieces. He discovered that when he had married his wife—of his own free

+will as it had seemed to him—he had been no more free than now when they

+locked him up at night in a stable. Of all that he himself subsequently

+termed his sufferings, but which at the time he scarcely felt, the worst

+was the state of his bare, raw, and scab-covered feet. (The horseflesh

+was appetizing and nourishing, the saltpeter flavor of the gunpowder

+they used instead of salt was even pleasant; there was no great cold,

+it was always warm walking in the daytime, and at night there were the

+campfires; the lice that devoured him warmed his body.) The one thing

+that was at first hard to bear was his feet.

+

+After the second day’s march Pierre, having examined his feet by the

+campfire, thought it would be impossible to walk on them; but when

+everybody got up he went along, limping, and, when he had warmed up,

+walked without feeling the pain, though at night his feet were more

+terrible to look at than before. However, he did not look at them now,

+but thought of other things.

+

+Only now did Pierre realize the full strength of life in man and the

+saving power he has of transferring his attention from one thing

+to another, which is like the safety valve of a boiler that allows

+superfluous steam to blow off when the pressure exceeds a certain limit.

+

+He did not see and did not hear how they shot the prisoners who lagged

+behind, though more than a hundred perished in that way. He did not

+think of Karatáev who grew weaker every day and evidently would soon

+have to share that fate. Still less did Pierre think about himself. The

+harder his position became and the more terrible the future, the more

+independent of that position in which he found himself were the joyful

+and comforting thoughts, memories, and imaginings that came to him.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+At midday on the twenty-second of October Pierre was going uphill along

+the muddy, slippery road, looking at his feet and at the roughness of

+the way. Occasionally he glanced at the familiar crowd around him and

+then again at his feet. The former and the latter were alike familiar

+and his own. The blue-gray bandy legged dog ran merrily along the side

+of the road, sometimes in proof of its agility and self-satisfaction

+lifting one hind leg and hopping along on three, and then again going on

+all four and rushing to bark at the crows that sat on the carrion. The

+dog was merrier and sleeker than it had been in Moscow. All around lay

+the flesh of different animals—from men to horses—in various stages of

+decomposition; and as the wolves were kept off by the passing men the

+dog could eat all it wanted.

+

+It had been raining since morning and had seemed as if at any moment it

+might cease and the sky clear, but after a short break it began raining

+harder than before. The saturated road no longer absorbed the water,

+which ran along the ruts in streams.

+

+Pierre walked along, looking from side to side, counting his steps in

+threes, and reckoning them off on his fingers. Mentally addressing the

+rain, he repeated: “Now then, now then, go on! Pelt harder!”

+

+It seemed to him that he was thinking of nothing, but far down and

+deep within him his soul was occupied with something important and

+comforting. This something was a most subtle spiritual deduction from a

+conversation with Karatáev the day before.

+

+At their yesterday’s halting place, feeling chilly by a dying campfire,

+Pierre had got up and gone to the next one, which was burning better.

+There Platón Karatáev was sitting covered up—head and all—with his

+greatcoat as if it were a vestment, telling the soldiers in his

+effective and pleasant though now feeble voice a story Pierre knew. It

+was already past midnight, the hour when Karatáev was usually free of

+his fever and particularly lively. When Pierre reached the fire and

+heard Platón’s voice enfeebled by illness, and saw his pathetic face

+brightly lit up by the blaze, he felt a painful prick at his heart. His

+feeling of pity for this man frightened him and he wished to go away,

+but there was no other fire, and Pierre sat down, trying not to look at

+Platón.

+

+“Well, how are you?” he asked.

+

+“How am I? If we grumble at sickness, God won’t grant us death,” replied

+Platón, and at once resumed the story he had begun.

+

+“And so, brother,” he continued, with a smile on his pale emaciated face

+and a particularly happy light in his eyes, “you see, brother...”

+

+Pierre had long been familiar with that story. Karatáev had told it

+to him alone some half-dozen times and always with a specially joyful

+emotion. But well as he knew it, Pierre now listened to that tale as to

+something new, and the quiet rapture Karatáev evidently felt as he told

+it communicated itself also to Pierre. The story was of an old merchant

+who lived a good and God-fearing life with his family, and who went once

+to the Nízhni fair with a companion—a rich merchant.

+

+Having put up at an inn they both went to sleep, and next morning his

+companion was found robbed and with his throat cut. A bloodstained knife

+was found under the old merchant’s pillow. He was tried, knouted, and

+his nostrils having been torn off, “all in due form” as Karatáev put it,

+he was sent to hard labor in Siberia.

+

+“And so, brother” (it was at this point that Pierre came up), “ten years

+or more passed by. The old man was living as a convict, submitting as

+he should and doing no wrong. Only he prayed to God for death. Well, one

+night the convicts were gathered just as we are, with the old man among

+them. And they began telling what each was suffering for, and how they

+had sinned against God. One told how he had taken a life, another had

+taken two, a third had set a house on fire, while another had simply

+been a vagrant and had done nothing. So they asked the old man: ‘What

+are you being punished for, Daddy?’—‘I, my dear brothers,’ said he, ‘am

+being punished for my own and other men’s sins. But I have not killed

+anyone or taken anything that was not mine, but have only helped my

+poorer brothers. I was a merchant, my dear brothers, and had much

+property. ‘And he went on to tell them all about it in due order. ‘I

+don’t grieve for myself,’ he says, ‘God, it seems, has chastened me.

+Only I am sorry for my old wife and the children,’ and the old man began

+to weep. Now it happened that in the group was the very man who had

+killed the other merchant. ‘Where did it happen, Daddy?’ he said. ‘When,

+and in what month?’ He asked all about it and his heart began to ache.

+So he comes up to the old man like this, and falls down at his feet!

+‘You are perishing because of me, Daddy,’ he says. ‘It’s quite true,

+lads, that this man,’ he says, ‘is being tortured innocently and for

+nothing! I,’ he says, ‘did that deed, and I put the knife under your

+head while you were asleep. Forgive me, Daddy,’ he says, ‘for Christ’s

+sake!’”

+

+Karatáev paused, smiling joyously as he gazed into the fire, and he drew

+the logs together.

+

+“And the old man said, ‘God will forgive you, we are all sinners in His

+sight. I suffer for my own sins,’ and he wept bitter tears. Well,

+and what do you think, dear friends?” Karatáev continued, his face

+brightening more and more with a rapturous smile as if what he now had

+to tell contained the chief charm and the whole meaning of his story:

+“What do you think, dear fellows? That murderer confessed to the

+authorities. ‘I have taken six lives,’ he says (he was a great sinner),

+‘but what I am most sorry for is this old man. Don’t let him suffer

+because of me.’ So he confessed and it was all written down and the

+papers sent off in due form. The place was a long way off, and while

+they were judging, what with one thing and another, filling in the

+papers all in due form—the authorities I mean—time passed. The affair

+reached the Tsar. After a while the Tsar’s decree came: to set the

+merchant free and give him a compensation that had been awarded. The

+paper arrived and they began to look for the old man. ‘Where is the old

+man who has been suffering innocently and in vain? A paper has come from

+the Tsar!’ so they began looking for him,” here Karatáev’s lower jaw

+trembled, “but God had already forgiven him—he was dead! That’s how it

+was, dear fellows!” Karatáev concluded and sat for a long time silent,

+gazing before him with a smile.

+

+And Pierre’s soul was dimly but joyfully filled not by the story itself

+but by its mysterious significance: by the rapturous joy that lit up

+Karatáev’s face as he told it, and the mystic significance of that joy.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV

+

+“À vos places!” * suddenly cried a voice.

+

+    * “To your places.”

+

+

+A pleasant feeling of excitement and an expectation of something

+joyful and solemn was aroused among the soldiers of the convoy and the

+prisoners. From all sides came shouts of command, and from the left came

+smartly dressed cavalrymen on good horses, passing the prisoners at a

+trot. The expression on all faces showed the tension people feel at the

+approach of those in authority. The prisoners thronged together and were

+pushed off the road. The convoy formed up.

+

+“The Emperor! The Emperor! The Marshal! The Duke!” and hardly had the

+sleek cavalry passed, before a carriage drawn by six gray horses rattled

+by. Pierre caught a glimpse of a man in a three-cornered hat with a

+tranquil look on his handsome, plump, white face. It was one of the

+marshals. His eye fell on Pierre’s large and striking figure, and in

+the expression with which he frowned and looked away Pierre thought he

+detected sympathy and a desire to conceal that sympathy.

+

+The general in charge of the stores galloped after the carriage with a

+red and frightened face, whipping up his skinny horse. Several officers

+formed a group and some soldiers crowded round them. Their faces all

+looked excited and worried.

+

+“What did he say? What did he say?” Pierre heard them ask.

+

+While the marshal was passing, the prisoners had huddled together in a

+crowd, and Pierre saw Karatáev whom he had not yet seen that morning.

+He sat in his short overcoat leaning against a birch tree. On his face,

+besides the look of joyful emotion it had worn yesterday while telling

+the tale of the merchant who suffered innocently, there was now an

+expression of quiet solemnity.

+

+Karatáev looked at Pierre with his kindly round eyes now filled with

+tears, evidently wishing him to come near that he might say something to

+him. But Pierre was not sufficiently sure of himself. He made as if he

+did not notice that look and moved hastily away.

+

+When the prisoners again went forward Pierre looked round. Karatáev

+was still sitting at the side of the road under the birch tree and two

+Frenchmen were talking over his head. Pierre did not look round again

+but went limping up the hill.

+

+From behind, where Karatáev had been sitting, came the sound of a shot.

+Pierre heard it plainly, but at that moment he remembered that he

+had not yet finished reckoning up how many stages still remained to

+Smolénsk—a calculation he had begun before the marshal went by. And he

+again started reckoning. Two French soldiers ran past Pierre, one of

+whom carried a lowered and smoking gun. They both looked pale, and

+in the expression on their faces—one of them glanced timidly at

+Pierre—there was something resembling what he had seen on the face of

+the young soldier at the execution. Pierre looked at the soldier and

+remembered that, two days before, that man had burned his shirt while

+drying it at the fire and how they had laughed at him.

+

+Behind him, where Karatáev had been sitting, the dog began to howl.

+“What a stupid beast! Why is it howling?” thought Pierre.

+

+His comrades, the prisoner soldiers walking beside him, avoided looking

+back at the place where the shot had been fired and the dog was howling,

+just as Pierre did, but there was a set look on all their faces.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV

+

+The stores, the prisoners, and the marshal’s baggage train stopped at

+the village of Shámshevo. The men crowded together round the campfires.

+Pierre went up to the fire, ate some roast horseflesh, lay down with his

+back to the fire, and immediately fell asleep. He again slept as he had

+done at Mozháysk after the battle of Borodinó.

+

+Again real events mingled with dreams and again someone, he or another,

+gave expression to his thoughts, and even to the same thoughts that had

+been expressed in his dream at Mozháysk.

+

+“Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves and that

+movement is God. And while there is life there is joy in consciousness

+of the divine. To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed

+than all else is to love this life in one’s sufferings, in innocent

+sufferings.”

+

+“Karatáev!” came to Pierre’s mind.

+

+And suddenly he saw vividly before him a long-forgotten, kindly old man

+who had given him geography lessons in Switzerland. “Wait a bit,” said

+the old man, and showed Pierre a globe. This globe was alive—a vibrating

+ball without fixed dimensions. Its whole surface consisted of drops

+closely pressed together, and all these drops moved and changed places,

+sometimes several of them merging into one, sometimes one dividing

+into many. Each drop tried to spread out and occupy as much space as

+possible, but others striving to do the same compressed it, sometimes

+destroyed it, and sometimes merged with it.

+

+“That is life,” said the old teacher.

+

+“How simple and clear it is,” thought Pierre. “How is it I did not know

+it before?”

+

+“God is in the midst, and each drop tries to expand so as to reflect

+Him to the greatest extent. And it grows, merges, disappears from the

+surface, sinks to the depths, and again emerges. There now, Karatáev

+has spread out and disappeared. Do you understand, my child?” said the

+teacher.

+

+“Do you understand, damn you?” shouted a voice, and Pierre woke up.

+

+He lifted himself and sat up. A Frenchman who had just pushed a Russian

+soldier away was squatting by the fire, engaged in roasting a piece

+of meat stuck on a ramrod. His sleeves were rolled up and his sinewy,

+hairy, red hands with their short fingers deftly turned the ramrod. His

+brown morose face with frowning brows was clearly visible by the glow of

+the charcoal.

+

+“It’s all the same to him,” he muttered, turning quickly to a soldier

+who stood behind him. “Brigand! Get away!”

+

+And twisting the ramrod he looked gloomily at Pierre, who turned

+away and gazed into the darkness. A prisoner, the Russian soldier the

+Frenchman had pushed away, was sitting near the fire patting something

+with his hand. Looking more closely Pierre recognized the blue-gray dog,

+sitting beside the soldier, wagging its tail.

+

+“Ah, he’s come?” said Pierre. “And Plat—” he began, but did not finish.

+

+Suddenly and simultaneously a crowd of memories awoke in his fancy—of

+the look Platón had given him as he sat under the tree, of the shot

+heard from that spot, of the dog’s howl, of the guilty faces of the two

+Frenchmen as they ran past him, of the lowered and smoking gun, and of

+Karatáev’s absence at this halt—and he was on the point of realizing

+that Karatáev had been killed, but just at that instant, he knew not

+why, the recollection came to his mind of a summer evening he had spent

+with a beautiful Polish lady on the veranda of his house in Kiev. And

+without linking up the events of the day or drawing a conclusion

+from them, Pierre closed his eyes, seeing a vision of the country in

+summertime mingled with memories of bathing and of the liquid, vibrating

+globe, and he sank into water so that it closed over his head.

+

+Before sunrise he was awakened by shouts and loud and rapid firing.

+French soldiers were running past him.

+

+“The Cossacks!” one of them shouted, and a moment later a crowd of

+Russians surrounded Pierre.

+

+For a long time he could not understand what was happening to him. All

+around he heard his comrades sobbing with joy.

+

+“Brothers! Dear fellows! Darlings!” old soldiers exclaimed, weeping, as

+they embraced Cossacks and hussars.

+

+The hussars and Cossacks crowded round the prisoners; one offered them

+clothes, another boots, and a third bread. Pierre sobbed as he sat

+among them and could not utter a word. He hugged the first soldier who

+approached him, and kissed him, weeping.

+

+Dólokhov stood at the gate of the ruined house, letting a crowd

+of disarmed Frenchmen pass by. The French, excited by all that had

+happened, were talking loudly among themselves, but as they passed

+Dólokhov who gently switched his boots with his whip and watched them

+with cold glassy eyes that boded no good, they became silent. On the

+opposite side stood Dólokhov’s Cossack, counting the prisoners and

+marking off each hundred with a chalk line on the gate.

+

+“How many?” Dólokhov asked the Cossack.

+

+“The second hundred,” replied the Cossack.

+

+“Filez, filez!” * Dólokhov kept saying, having adopted this expression

+from the French, and when his eyes met those of the prisoners they

+flashed with a cruel light.

+

+    * “Get along, get along!”

+

+

+Denísov, bareheaded and with a gloomy face, walked behind some Cossacks

+who were carrying the body of Pétya Rostóv to a hole that had been dug

+in the garden.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI

+

+After the twenty-eighth of October when the frosts began, the flight of

+the French assumed a still more tragic character, with men freezing,

+or roasting themselves to death at the campfires, while carriages

+with people dressed in furs continued to drive past, carrying away the

+property that had been stolen by the Emperor, kings, and dukes; but

+the process of the flight and disintegration of the French army went on

+essentially as before.

+

+From Moscow to Vyázma the French army of seventy-three thousand men not

+reckoning the Guards (who did nothing during the whole war but pillage)

+was reduced to thirty-six thousand, though not more than five thousand

+had fallen in battle. From this beginning the succeeding terms of the

+progression could be determined mathematically. The French army melted

+away and perished at the same rate from Moscow to Vyázma, from Vyázma

+to Smolénsk, from Smolénsk to the Berëzina, and from the Berëzina to

+Vílna—independently of the greater or lesser intensity of the cold, the

+pursuit, the barring of the way, or any other particular conditions.

+Beyond Vyázma the French army instead of moving in three columns huddled

+together into one mass, and so went on to the end. Berthier wrote to his

+Emperor (we know how far commanding officers allow themselves to diverge

+from the truth in describing the condition of an army) and this is what

+he said:

+

+

+I deem it my duty to report to Your Majesty the condition of the various

+corps I have had occasion to observe during different stages of the last

+two or three days’ march. They are almost disbanded. Scarcely a quarter

+of the soldiers remain with the standards of their regiments, the others

+go off by themselves in different directions hoping to find food and

+escape discipline. In general they regard Smolénsk as the place where

+they hope to recover. During the last few days many of the men have been

+seen to throw away their cartridges and their arms. In such a state

+of affairs, whatever your ultimate plans may be, the interest of Your

+Majesty’s service demands that the army should be rallied at Smolénsk

+and should first of all be freed from ineffectives, such as dismounted

+cavalry, unnecessary baggage, and artillery material that is no longer

+in proportion to the present forces. The soldiers, who are worn out with

+hunger and fatigue, need these supplies as well as a few days’ rest.

+Many have died these last days on the road or at the bivouacs. This

+state of things is continually becoming worse and makes one fear that

+unless a prompt remedy is applied the troops will no longer be under

+control in case of an engagement.

+

+November 9: twenty miles from Smolénsk.

+

+

+After staggering into Smolénsk which seemed to them a promised land, the

+French, searching for food, killed one another, sacked their own stores,

+and when everything had been plundered fled farther.

+

+They all went without knowing whither or why they were going. Still less

+did that genius, Napoleon, know it, for no one issued any orders to

+him. But still he and those about him retained their old habits: wrote

+commands, letters, reports, and orders of the day; called one another

+sire, mon cousin, prince d’Eckmühl, roi de Naples, and so on. But these

+orders and reports were only on paper, nothing in them was acted upon

+for they could not be carried out, and though they entitled one

+another Majesties, Highnesses, or Cousins, they all felt that they were

+miserable wretches who had done much evil for which they had now to

+pay. And though they pretended to be concerned about the army, each

+was thinking only of himself and of how to get away quickly and save

+himself.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVII

+

+The movements of the Russian and French armies during the campaign

+from Moscow back to the Niemen were like those in a game of Russian

+blindman’s bluff, in which two players are blindfolded and one of

+them occasionally rings a little bell to inform the catcher of his

+whereabouts. First he rings his bell fearlessly, but when he gets into

+a tight place he runs away as quietly as he can, and often thinking to

+escape runs straight into his opponent’s arms.

+

+At first while they were still moving along the Kalúga road, Napoleon’s

+armies made their presence known, but later when they reached the

+Smolénsk road they ran holding the clapper of their bell tight—and often

+thinking they were escaping ran right into the Russians.

+

+Owing to the rapidity of the French flight and the Russian pursuit

+and the consequent exhaustion of the horses, the chief means of

+approximately ascertaining the enemy’s position—by cavalry scouting—was

+not available. Besides, as a result of the frequent and rapid change of

+position by each army, even what information was obtained could not be

+delivered in time. If news was received one day that the enemy had been

+in a certain position the day before, by the third day when something

+could have been done, that army was already two days’ march farther on

+and in quite another position.

+

+One army fled and the other pursued. Beyond Smolénsk there were several

+different roads available for the French, and one would have thought

+that during their stay of four days they might have learned where

+the enemy was, might have arranged some more advantageous plan and

+undertaken something new. But after a four days’ halt the mob, with no

+maneuvers or plans, again began running along the beaten track, neither

+to the right nor to the left but along the old—the worst—road, through

+Krásnoe and Orshá.

+

+Expecting the enemy from behind and not in front, the French separated

+in their flight and spread out over a distance of twenty-four hours. In

+front of them all fled the Emperor, then the kings, then the dukes. The

+Russian army, expecting Napoleon to take the road to the right beyond

+the Dnieper—which was the only reasonable thing for him to do—themselves

+turned to the right and came out onto the highroad at Krásnoe. And here

+as in a game of blindman’s buff the French ran into our vanguard. Seeing

+their enemy unexpectedly the French fell into confusion and stopped

+short from the sudden fright, but then they resumed their flight,

+abandoning their comrades who were farther behind. Then for three days

+separate portions of the French army—first Murat’s (the vice-king’s),

+then Davout’s, and then Ney’s—ran, as it were, the gauntlet of the

+Russian army. They abandoned one another, abandoned all their heavy

+baggage, their artillery, and half their men, and fled, getting past the

+Russians by night by making semicircles to the right.

+

+Ney, who came last, had been busying himself blowing up the walls of

+Smolénsk which were in nobody’s way, because despite the unfortunate

+plight of the French or because of it, they wished to punish the floor

+against which they had hurt themselves. Ney, who had had a corps of ten

+thousand men, reached Napoleon at Orshá with only one thousand men left,

+having abandoned all the rest and all his cannon, and having crossed the

+Dnieper at night by stealth at a wooded spot.

+

+From Orshá they fled farther along the road to Vílna, still playing

+at blindman’s buff with the pursuing army. At the Berëzina they again

+became disorganized, many were drowned and many surrendered, but those

+who got across the river fled farther. Their supreme chief donned a

+fur coat and, having seated himself in a sleigh, galloped on alone,

+abandoning his companions. The others who could do so drove away too,

+leaving those who could not to surrender or die.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVIII

+

+This campaign consisted in a flight of the French during which they did

+all they could to destroy themselves. From the time they turned onto

+the Kalúga road to the day their leader fled from the army, none of the

+movements of the crowd had any sense. So one might have thought that

+regarding this period of the campaign the historians, who attributed

+the actions of the mass to the will of one man, would have found it

+impossible to make the story of the retreat fit their theory. But

+no! Mountains of books have been written by the historians about this

+campaign, and everywhere are described Napoleon’s arrangements, the

+maneuvers, and his profound plans which guided the army, as well as the

+military genius shown by his marshals.

+

+The retreat from Málo-Yaroslávets when he had a free road into a

+well-supplied district and the parallel road was open to him along

+which Kutúzov afterwards pursued him—this unnecessary retreat along

+a devastated road—is explained to us as being due to profound

+considerations. Similarly profound considerations are given for

+his retreat from Smolénsk to Orshá. Then his heroism at Krásnoe is

+described, where he is reported to have been prepared to accept battle

+and take personal command, and to have walked about with a birch stick

+and said:

+

+“J’ai assez fait l’empereur; il est temps de faire le général,” * but

+nevertheless immediately ran away again, abandoning to its fate the

+scattered fragments of the army he left behind.

+

+     * “I have acted the Emperor long enough; it is time to act

+     the general.”

+

+

+Then we are told of the greatness of soul of the marshals, especially

+of Ney—a greatness of soul consisting in this: that he made his way by

+night around through the forest and across the Dnieper and escaped to

+Orshá, abandoning standards, artillery, and nine tenths of his men.

+

+And lastly, the final departure of the great Emperor from his heroic

+army is presented to us by the historians as something great and

+characteristic of genius. Even that final running away, described in

+ordinary language as the lowest depth of baseness which every child

+is taught to be ashamed of—even that act finds justification in the

+historians’ language.

+

+When it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical

+ratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all

+that humanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving

+conception of “greatness.” “Greatness,” it seems, excludes the standards

+of right and wrong. For the “great” man nothing is wrong, there is no

+atrocity for which a “great” man can be blamed.

+

+“C’est grand!” * say the historians, and there no longer exists either

+good or evil but only “grand” and “not grand.” Grand is good, not

+grand is bad. Grand is the characteristic, in their conception, of some

+special animals called “heroes.” And Napoleon, escaping home in a warm

+fur coat and leaving to perish those who were not merely his comrades

+but were (in his opinion) men he had brought there, feels que c’est

+grand, *(2) and his soul is tranquil.

+

+     * “It is great.”

+

+     * (2) That it is great.

+

+“Du sublime (he saw something sublime in himself) au ridicule il n’y

+a qu’un pas,” * said he. And the whole world for fifty years has been

+repeating: “Sublime! Grand! Napoléon le Grand!” Du sublime au ridicule

+il n’y a qu’un pas.

+

+    * “From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.”

+

+

+And it occurs to no one that to admit a greatness not commensurable with

+the standard of right and wrong is merely to admit one’s own nothingness

+and immeasurable meanness.

+

+For us with the standard of good and evil given us by Christ, no human

+actions are incommensurable. And there is no greatness where simplicity,

+goodness, and truth are absent.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIX

+

+What Russian, reading the account of the last part of the campaign

+of 1812, has not experienced an uncomfortable feeling of regret,

+dissatisfaction, and perplexity? Who has not asked himself how it is

+that the French were not all captured or destroyed when our three armies

+surrounded them in superior numbers, when the disordered French, hungry

+and freezing, surrendered in crowds, and when (as the historians relate)

+the aim of the Russians was to stop the French, to cut them off, and

+capture them all?

+

+How was it that the Russian army, which when numerically weaker than the

+French had given battle at Borodinó, did not achieve its purpose when it

+had surrounded the French on three sides and when its aim was to capture

+them? Can the French be so enormously superior to us that when we had

+surrounded them with superior forces we could not beat them? How could

+that happen?

+

+History (or what is called by that name) replying to these questions

+says that this occurred because Kutúzov and Tormásov and Chichagóv, and

+this man and that man, did not execute such and such maneuvers....

+

+But why did they not execute those maneuvers? And why if they were

+guilty of not carrying out a prearranged plan were they not tried and

+punished? But even if we admitted that Kutúzov, Chichagóv, and others

+were the cause of the Russian failures, it is still incomprehensible

+why, the position of the Russian army being what it was at Krásnoe and

+at the Berëzina (in both cases we had superior forces), the French army

+with its marshals, kings, and Emperor was not captured, if that was what

+the Russians aimed at.

+

+The explanation of this strange fact given by Russian military

+historians (to the effect that Kutúzov hindered an attack) is unfounded,

+for we know that he could not restrain the troops from attacking at

+Vyázma and Tarútino.

+

+Why was the Russian army—which with inferior forces had withstood the

+enemy in full strength at Borodinó—defeated at Krásnoe and the Berëzina

+by the disorganized crowds of the French when it was numerically

+superior?

+

+If the aim of the Russians consisted in cutting off and capturing

+Napoleon and his marshals—and that aim was not merely frustrated but all

+attempts to attain it were most shamefully baffled—then this last period

+of the campaign is quite rightly considered by the French to be a

+series of victories, and quite wrongly considered victorious by Russian

+historians.

+

+The Russian military historians in so far as they submit to claims

+of logic must admit that conclusion, and in spite of their lyrical

+rhapsodies about valor, devotion, and so forth, must reluctantly admit

+that the French retreat from Moscow was a series of victories for

+Napoleon and defeats for Kutúzov.

+

+But putting national vanity entirely aside one feels that such a

+conclusion involves a contradiction, since the series of French

+victories brought the French complete destruction, while the series

+of Russian defeats led to the total destruction of their enemy and the

+liberation of their country.

+

+The source of this contradiction lies in the fact that the historians

+studying the events from the letters of the sovereigns and the generals,

+from memoirs, reports, projects, and so forth, have attributed to this

+last period of the war of 1812 an aim that never existed, namely that of

+cutting off and capturing Napoleon with his marshals and his army.

+

+There never was or could have been such an aim, for it would have been

+senseless and its attainment quite impossible.

+

+It would have been senseless, first because Napoleon’s disorganized

+army was flying from Russia with all possible speed, that is to say, was

+doing just what every Russian desired. So what was the use of performing

+various operations on the French who were running away as fast as they

+possibly could?

+

+Secondly, it would have been senseless to block the passage of men whose

+whole energy was directed to flight.

+

+Thirdly, it would have been senseless to sacrifice one’s own troops in

+order to destroy the French army, which without external interference

+was destroying itself at such a rate that, though its path was not

+blocked, it could not carry across the frontier more than it actually

+did in December, namely a hundredth part of the original army.

+

+Fourthly, it would have been senseless to wish to take captive the

+Emperor, kings, and dukes—whose capture would have been in the highest

+degree embarrassing for the Russians, as the most adroit diplomatists of

+the time (Joseph de Maistre and others) recognized. Still more senseless

+would have been the wish to capture army corps of the French, when our

+own army had melted away to half before reaching Krásnoe and a whole

+division would have been needed to convoy the corps of prisoners, and

+when our men were not always getting full rations and the prisoners

+already taken were perishing of hunger.

+

+All the profound plans about cutting off and capturing Napoleon and his

+army were like the plan of a market gardener who, when driving out of

+his garden a cow that had trampled down the beds he had planted, should

+run to the gate and hit the cow on the head. The only thing to be said

+in excuse of that gardener would be that he was very angry. But not even

+that could be said for those who drew up this project, for it was not

+they who had suffered from the trampled beds.

+

+But besides the fact that cutting off Napoleon with his army would have

+been senseless, it was impossible.

+

+It was impossible first because—as experience shows that a three-mile

+movement of columns on a battlefield never coincides with the plans—the

+probability of Chichagóv, Kutúzov, and Wittgenstein effecting a junction

+on time at an appointed place was so remote as to be tantamount to

+impossibility, as in fact thought Kutúzov, who when he received the plan

+remarked that diversions planned over great distances do not yield the

+desired results.

+

+Secondly it was impossible, because to paralyze the momentum with which

+Napoleon’s army was retiring, incomparably greater forces than the

+Russians possessed would have been required.

+

+Thirdly it was impossible, because the military term “to cut off” has no

+meaning. One can cut off a slice of bread, but not an army. To cut off

+an army—to bar its road—is quite impossible, for there is always plenty

+of room to avoid capture and there is the night when nothing can be

+seen, as the military scientists might convince themselves by the

+example of Krásnoe and of the Berëzina. It is only possible to capture

+prisoners if they agree to be captured, just as it is only possible

+to catch a swallow if it settles on one’s hand. Men can only be taken

+prisoners if they surrender according to the rules of strategy and

+tactics, as the Germans did. But the French troops quite rightly did not

+consider that this suited them, since death by hunger and cold awaited

+them in flight or captivity alike.

+

+Fourthly and chiefly it was impossible, because never since the world

+began has a war been fought under such conditions as those that obtained

+in 1812, and the Russian army in its pursuit of the French strained its

+strength to the utmost and could not have done more without destroying

+itself.

+

+During the movement of the Russian army from Tarútino to Krásnoe it

+lost fifty thousand sick or stragglers, that is a number equal to the

+population of a large provincial town. Half the men fell out of the army

+without a battle.

+

+And it is of this period of the campaign—when the army lacked boots

+and sheepskin coats, was short of provisions and without vodka, and

+was camping out at night for months in the snow with fifteen degrees

+of frost, when there were only seven or eight hours of daylight and

+the rest was night in which the influence of discipline cannot be

+maintained, when men were taken into that region of death where

+discipline fails, not for a few hours only as in a battle, but for

+months, where they were every moment fighting death from hunger and

+cold, when half the army perished in a single month—it is of this period

+of the campaign that the historians tell us how Milorádovich should have

+made a flank march to such and such a place, Tormásov to another place,

+and Chichagóv should have crossed (more than knee-deep in snow) to

+somewhere else, and how so-and-so “routed” and “cut off” the French and

+so on and so on.

+

+The Russians, half of whom died, did all that could and should have been

+done to attain an end worthy of the nation, and they are not to blame

+because other Russians, sitting in warm rooms, proposed that they should

+do what was impossible.

+

+All that strange contradiction now difficult to understand between the

+facts and the historical accounts only arises because the historians

+dealing with the matter have written the history of the beautiful words

+and sentiments of various generals, and not the history of the events.

+

+To them the words of Milorádovich seem very interesting, and so do their

+surmises and the rewards this or that general received; but the question

+of those fifty thousand men who were left in hospitals and in graves

+does not even interest them, for it does not come within the range of

+their investigation.

+

+Yet one need only discard the study of the reports and general plans and

+consider the movement of those hundreds of thousands of men who took a

+direct part in the events, and all the questions that seemed insoluble

+easily and simply receive an immediate and certain solution.

+

+The aim of cutting off Napoleon and his army never existed except in

+the imaginations of a dozen people. It could not exist because it was

+senseless and unattainable.

+

+The people had a single aim: to free their land from invasion. That aim

+was attained in the first place of itself, as the French ran away,

+and so it was only necessary not to stop their flight. Secondly it was

+attained by the guerrilla warfare which was destroying the French, and

+thirdly by the fact that a large Russian army was following the French,

+ready to use its strength in case their movement stopped.

+

+The Russian army had to act like a whip to a running animal. And the

+experienced driver knew it was better to hold the whip raised as a

+menace than to strike the running animal on the head.

+

+

+

+

+

+BOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+When seeing a dying animal a man feels a sense of horror: substance

+similar to his own is perishing before his eyes. But when it is a

+beloved and intimate human being that is dying, besides this horror at

+the extinction of life there is a severance, a spiritual wound, which

+like a physical wound is sometimes fatal and sometimes heals, but always

+aches and shrinks at any external irritating touch.

+

+After Prince Andrew’s death Natásha and Princess Mary alike felt this.

+Drooping in spirit and closing their eyes before the menacing cloud of

+death that overhung them, they dared not look life in the face. They

+carefully guarded their open wounds from any rough and painful contact.

+Everything: a carriage passing rapidly in the street, a summons to

+dinner, the maid’s inquiry what dress to prepare, or worse still any

+word of insincere or feeble sympathy, seemed an insult, painfully

+irritated the wound, interrupting that necessary quiet in which

+they both tried to listen to the stern and dreadful choir that still

+resounded in their imagination, and hindered their gazing into those

+mysterious limitless vistas that for an instant had opened out before

+them.

+

+Only when alone together were they free from such outrage and pain.

+They spoke little even to one another, and when they did it was of very

+unimportant matters.

+

+Both avoided any allusion to the future. To admit the possibility of

+a future seemed to them to insult his memory. Still more carefully did

+they avoid anything relating to him who was dead. It seemed to them that

+what they had lived through and experienced could not be expressed in

+words, and that any reference to the details of his life infringed the

+majesty and sacredness of the mystery that had been accomplished before

+their eyes.

+

+Continued abstention from speech, and constant avoidance of everything

+that might lead up to the subject—this halting on all sides at the

+boundary of what they might not mention—brought before their minds with

+still greater purity and clearness what they were both feeling.

+

+But pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.

+Princess Mary, in her position as absolute and independent arbiter of

+her own fate and guardian and instructor of her nephew, was the first to

+be called back to life from that realm of sorrow in which she had dwelt

+for the first fortnight. She received letters from her relations to

+which she had to reply; the room in which little Nicholas had been put

+was damp and he began to cough; Alpátych came to Yaroslávl with reports

+on the state of their affairs and with advice and suggestions that they

+should return to Moscow to the house on the Vozdvízhenka Street, which

+had remained uninjured and needed only slight repairs. Life did not

+stand still and it was necessary to live. Hard as it was for Princess

+Mary to emerge from the realm of secluded contemplation in which she

+had lived till then, and sorry and almost ashamed as she felt to leave

+Natásha alone, yet the cares of life demanded her attention and she

+involuntarily yielded to them. She went through the accounts with

+Alpátych, conferred with Dessalles about her nephew, and gave orders and

+made preparations for the journey to Moscow.

+

+Natásha remained alone and, from the time Princess Mary began making

+preparations for departure, held aloof from her too.

+

+Princess Mary asked the countess to let Natásha go with her to Moscow,

+and both parents gladly accepted this offer, for they saw their daughter

+losing strength every day and thought that a change of scene and the

+advice of Moscow doctors would be good for her.

+

+“I am not going anywhere,” Natásha replied when this was proposed to

+her. “Do please just leave me alone!” And she ran out of the room, with

+difficulty refraining from tears of vexation and irritation rather than

+of sorrow.

+

+After she felt herself deserted by Princes Mary and alone in her grief,

+Natásha spent most of the time in her room by herself, sitting huddled

+up feet and all in the corner of the sofa, tearing and twisting

+something with her slender nervous fingers and gazing intently and

+fixedly at whatever her eyes chanced to fall on. This solitude exhausted

+and tormented her but she was in absolute need of it. As soon as anyone

+entered she got up quickly, changed her position and expression, and

+picked up a book or some sewing, evidently waiting impatiently for the

+intruder to go.

+

+She felt all the time as if she might at any moment penetrate that

+on which—with a terrible questioning too great for her strength—her

+spiritual gaze was fixed.

+

+One day toward the end of December Natásha, pale and thin, dressed in a

+black woolen gown, her plaited hair negligently twisted into a knot, was

+crouched feet and all in the corner of her sofa, nervously crumpling and

+smoothing out the end of her sash while she looked at a corner of the

+door.

+

+She was gazing in the direction in which he had gone—to the other side

+of life. And that other side of life, of which she had never before

+thought and which had formerly seemed to her so far away and improbable,

+was now nearer and more akin and more comprehensible than this side of

+life, where everything was either emptiness and desolation or suffering

+and indignity.

+

+She was gazing where she knew him to be; but she could not imagine him

+otherwise than as he had been here. She now saw him again as he had been

+at Mytíshchi, at Tróitsa, and at Yaroslávl.

+

+She saw his face, heard his voice, repeated his words and her own, and

+sometimes devised other words they might have spoken.

+

+There he is lying back in an armchair in his velvet cloak, leaning

+his head on his thin pale hand. His chest is dreadfully hollow and his

+shoulders raised. His lips are firmly closed, his eyes glitter, and a

+wrinkle comes and goes on his pale forehead. One of his legs twitches

+just perceptibly, but rapidly. Natásha knows that he is struggling with

+terrible pain. “What is that pain like? Why does he have that pain? What

+does he feel? How does it hurt him?” thought Natásha. He noticed her

+watching him, raised his eyes, and began to speak seriously:

+

+“One thing would be terrible,” said he: “to bind oneself forever to a

+suffering man. It would be continual torture.” And he looked searchingly

+at her. Natásha as usual answered before she had time to think what she

+would say. She said: “This can’t go on—it won’t. You will get well—quite

+well.”

+

+She now saw him from the commencement of that scene and relived what she

+had then felt. She recalled his long sad and severe look at those words

+and understood the meaning of the rebuke and despair in that protracted

+gaze.

+

+“I agreed,” Natásha now said to herself, “that it would be dreadful if

+he always continued to suffer. I said it then only because it would have

+been dreadful for him, but he understood it differently. He thought it

+would be dreadful for me. He then still wished to live and feared death.

+And I said it so awkwardly and stupidly! I did not say what I meant.

+I thought quite differently. Had I said what I thought, I should have

+said: even if he had to go on dying, to die continually before my eyes,

+I should have been happy compared with what I am now. Now there is

+nothing... nobody. Did he know that? No, he did not and never will know

+it. And now it will never, never be possible to put it right.” And

+now he again seemed to be saying the same words to her, only in her

+imagination Natásha this time gave him a different answer. She stopped

+him and said: “Terrible for you, but not for me! You know that for me

+there is nothing in life but you, and to suffer with you is the greatest

+happiness for me,” and he took her hand and pressed it as he had

+pressed it that terrible evening four days before his death. And in her

+imagination she said other tender and loving words which she might have

+said then but only spoke now: “I love thee!... thee! I love, love...”

+she said, convulsively pressing her hands and setting her teeth with a

+desperate effort....

+

+She was overcome by sweet sorrow and tears were already rising in her

+eyes; then she suddenly asked herself to whom she was saying this.

+Again everything was shrouded in hard, dry perplexity, and again with a

+strained frown she peered toward the world where he was. And now, now

+it seemed to her she was penetrating the mystery.... But at the instant

+when it seemed that the incomprehensible was revealing itself to her a

+loud rattle of the door handle struck painfully on her ears. Dunyásha,

+her maid, entered the room quickly and abruptly with a frightened look

+on her face and showing no concern for her mistress.

+

+“Come to your Papa at once, please!” said she with a strange, excited

+look. “A misfortune... about Peter Ilýnich... a letter,” she finished

+with a sob.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+Besides a feeling of aloofness from everybody Natásha was feeling a

+special estrangement from the members of her own family. All of

+them—her father, mother, and Sónya—were so near to her, so familiar, so

+commonplace, that all their words and feelings seemed an insult to the

+world in which she had been living of late, and she felt not merely

+indifferent to them but regarded them with hostility. She heard

+Dunyásha’s words about Peter Ilýnich and a misfortune, but did not grasp

+them.

+

+“What misfortune? What misfortune can happen to them? They just live

+their own old, quiet, and commonplace life,” thought Natásha.

+

+As she entered the ballroom her father was hurriedly coming out of

+her mother’s room. His face was puckered up and wet with tears. He

+had evidently run out of that room to give vent to the sobs that were

+choking him. When he saw Natásha he waved his arms despairingly and

+burst into convulsively painful sobs that distorted his soft round face.

+

+“Pe... Pétya... Go, go, she... is calling...” and weeping like a child

+and quickly shuffling on his feeble legs to a chair, he almost fell into

+it, covering his face with his hands.

+

+Suddenly an electric shock seemed to run through Natásha’s whole being.

+Terrible anguish struck her heart, she felt a dreadful ache as if

+something was being torn inside her and she were dying. But the pain

+was immediately followed by a feeling of release from the oppressive

+constraint that had prevented her taking part in life. The sight of her

+father, the terribly wild cries of her mother that she heard through the

+door, made her immediately forget herself and her own grief.

+

+She ran to her father, but he feebly waved his arm, pointing to her

+mother’s door. Princess Mary, pale and with quivering chin, came out

+from that room and taking Natásha by the arm said something to her.

+Natásha neither saw nor heard her. She went in with rapid steps, pausing

+at the door for an instant as if struggling with herself, and then ran

+to her mother.

+

+The countess was lying in an armchair in a strange and awkward position,

+stretching out and beating her head against the wall. Sónya and the

+maids were holding her arms.

+

+“Natásha! Natásha!...” cried the countess. “It’s not true... it’s not

+true... He’s lying... Natásha!” she shrieked, pushing those around her

+away. “Go away, all of you; it’s not true! Killed!... ha, ha, ha!...

+It’s not true!”

+

+Natásha put one knee on the armchair, stooped over her mother, embraced

+her, and with unexpected strength raised her, turned her face toward

+herself, and clung to her.

+

+“Mummy!... darling!... I am here, my dearest Mummy,” she kept on

+whispering, not pausing an instant.

+

+She did not let go of her mother but struggled tenderly with her,

+demanded a pillow and hot water, and unfastened and tore open her

+mother’s dress.

+

+“My dearest darling... Mummy, my precious!...” she whispered

+incessantly, kissing her head, her hands, her face, and feeling her own

+irrepressible and streaming tears tickling her nose and cheeks.

+

+The countess pressed her daughter’s hand, closed her eyes, and became

+quiet for a moment. Suddenly she sat up with unaccustomed swiftness,

+glanced vacantly around her, and seeing Natásha began to press her

+daughter’s head with all her strength. Then she turned toward her

+daughter’s face which was wincing with pain and gazed long at it.

+

+“Natásha, you love me?” she said in a soft trustful whisper. “Natásha,

+you would not deceive me? You’ll tell me the whole truth?”

+

+Natásha looked at her with eyes full of tears and in her look there was

+nothing but love and an entreaty for forgiveness.

+

+“My darling Mummy!” she repeated, straining all the power of her love to

+find some way of taking on herself the excess of grief that crushed her

+mother.

+

+And again in a futile struggle with reality her mother, refusing to

+believe that she could live when her beloved boy was killed in the bloom

+of life, escaped from reality into a world of delirium.

+

+Natásha did not remember how that day passed nor that night, nor the

+next day and night. She did not sleep and did not leave her mother. Her

+persevering and patient love seemed completely to surround the countess

+every moment, not explaining or consoling, but recalling her to life.

+

+During the third night the countess kept very quiet for a few minutes,

+and Natásha rested her head on the arm of her chair and closed her eyes,

+but opened them again on hearing the bedstead creak. The countess was

+sitting up in bed and speaking softly.

+

+“How glad I am you have come. You are tired. Won’t you have some tea?”

+Natásha went up to her. “You have improved in looks and grown more

+manly,” continued the countess, taking her daughter’s hand.

+

+“Mamma! What are you saying...”

+

+“Natásha, he is no more, no more!”

+

+And embracing her daughter, the countess began to weep for the first

+time.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+Princess Mary postponed her departure. Sónya and the count tried to

+replace Natásha but could not. They saw that she alone was able to

+restrain her mother from unreasoning despair. For three weeks Natásha

+remained constantly at her mother’s side, sleeping on a lounge chair

+in her room, making her eat and drink, and talking to her incessantly

+because the mere sound of her tender, caressing tones soothed her

+mother.

+

+The mother’s wounded spirit could not heal. Pétya’s death had torn from

+her half her life. When the news of Pétya’s death had come she had been

+a fresh and vigorous woman of fifty, but a month later she left her room

+a listless old woman taking no interest in life. But the same blow that

+almost killed the countess, this second blow, restored Natásha to life.

+

+A spiritual wound produced by a rending of the spiritual body is like

+a physical wound and, strange as it may seem, just as a deep wound may

+heal and its edges join, physical and spiritual wounds alike can yet

+heal completely only as the result of a vital force from within.

+

+Natásha’s wound healed in that way. She thought her life was ended,

+but her love for her mother unexpectedly showed her that the essence of

+life—love—was still active within her. Love awoke and so did life.

+

+Prince Andrew’s last days had bound Princess Mary and Natásha together;

+this new sorrow brought them still closer to one another. Princess Mary

+put off her departure, and for three weeks looked after Natásha as if

+she had been a sick child. The last weeks passed in her mother’s bedroom

+had strained Natásha’s physical strength.

+

+One afternoon noticing Natásha shivering with fever, Princess Mary took

+her to her own room and made her lie down on the bed. Natásha lay down,

+but when Princess Mary had drawn the blinds and was going away she

+called her back.

+

+“I don’t want to sleep, Mary, sit by me a little.”

+

+“You are tired—try to sleep.”

+

+“No, no. Why did you bring me away? She will be asking for me.”

+

+“She is much better. She spoke so well today,” said Princess Mary.

+

+Natásha lay on the bed and in the semidarkness of the room scanned

+Princess Mary’s face.

+

+“Is she like him?” thought Natásha. “Yes, like and yet not like. But she

+is quite original, strange, new, and unknown. And she loves me. What

+is in her heart? All that is good. But how? What is her mind like? What

+does she think about me? Yes, she is splendid!”

+

+“Mary,” she said timidly, drawing Princess Mary’s hand to herself,

+“Mary, you mustn’t think me wicked. No? Mary darling, how I love you!

+Let us be quite, quite friends.”

+

+And Natásha, embracing her, began kissing her face and hands, making

+Princess Mary feel shy but happy by this demonstration of her feelings.

+

+From that day a tender and passionate friendship such as exists only

+between women was established between Princess Mary and Natásha. They

+were continually kissing and saying tender things to one another and

+spent most of their time together. When one went out the other became

+restless and hastened to rejoin her. Together they felt more in harmony

+with one another than either of them felt with herself when alone. A

+feeling stronger than friendship sprang up between them; an exclusive

+feeling of life being possible only in each other’s presence.

+

+Sometimes they were silent for hours; sometimes after they were already

+in bed they would begin talking and go on till morning. They spoke most

+of what was long past. Princess Mary spoke of her childhood, of her

+mother, her father, and her daydreams; and Natásha, who with a passive

+lack of understanding had formerly turned away from that life of

+devotion, submission, and the poetry of Christian self-sacrifice, now

+feeling herself bound to Princess Mary by affection, learned to love her

+past too and to understand a side of life previously incomprehensible to

+her. She did not think of applying submission and self-abnegation to her

+own life, for she was accustomed to seek other joys, but she understood

+and loved in another those previously incomprehensible virtues. For

+Princess Mary, listening to Natásha’s tales of childhood and early

+youth, there also opened out a new and hitherto uncomprehended side of

+life: belief in life and its enjoyment.

+

+Just as before, they never mentioned him so as not to lower (as they

+thought) their exalted feelings by words; but this silence about him had

+the effect of making them gradually begin to forget him without being

+conscious of it.

+

+Natásha had grown thin and pale and physically so weak that they all

+talked about her health, and this pleased her. But sometimes she was

+suddenly overcome by fear not only of death but of sickness, weakness,

+and loss of good looks, and involuntarily she examined her bare arm

+carefully, surprised at its thinness, and in the morning noticed her

+drawn and, as it seemed to her, piteous face in her glass. It seemed to

+her that things must be so, and yet it was dreadfully sad.

+

+One day she went quickly upstairs and found herself out of breath.

+Unconsciously she immediately invented a reason for going down, and

+then, testing her strength, ran upstairs again, observing the result.

+

+Another time when she called Dunyásha her voice trembled, so she called

+again—though she could hear Dunyásha coming—called her in the deep chest

+tones in which she had been wont to sing, and listened attentively to

+herself.

+

+She did not know and would not have believed it, but beneath the layer

+of slime that covered her soul and seemed to her impenetrable, delicate

+young shoots of grass were already sprouting, which taking root would so

+cover with their living verdure the grief that weighed her down that

+it would soon no longer be seen or noticed. The wound had begun to heal

+from within.

+

+At the end of January Princess Mary left for Moscow, and the count

+insisted on Natásha’s going with her to consult the doctors.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+After the encounter at Vyázma, where Kutúzov had been unable to hold

+back his troops in their anxiety to overwhelm and cut off the enemy and

+so on, the farther movement of the fleeing French, and of the Russians

+who pursued them, continued as far as Krásnoe without a battle. The

+flight was so rapid that the Russian army pursuing the French could

+not keep up with them; cavalry and artillery horses broke down, and the

+information received of the movements of the French was never reliable.

+

+The men in the Russian army were so worn out by this continuous marching

+at the rate of twenty-seven miles a day that they could not go any

+faster.

+

+To realize the degree of exhaustion of the Russian army it is only

+necessary to grasp clearly the meaning of the fact that, while not

+losing more than five thousand killed and wounded after Tarútino and

+less than a hundred prisoners, the Russian army which left that place a

+hundred thousand strong reached Krásnoe with only fifty thousand.

+

+The rapidity of the Russian pursuit was just as destructive to our army

+as the flight of the French was to theirs. The only difference was that

+the Russian army moved voluntarily, with no such threat of destruction

+as hung over the French, and that the sick Frenchmen were left behind

+in enemy hands while the sick Russians left behind were among their

+own people. The chief cause of the wastage of Napoleon’s army was

+the rapidity of its movement, and a convincing proof of this is the

+corresponding decrease of the Russian army.

+

+Kutúzov as far as was in his power, instead of trying to check the

+movement of the French as was desired in Petersburg and by the Russian

+army generals, directed his whole activity here, as he had done at

+Tarútino and Vyázma, to hastening it on while easing the movement of our

+army.

+

+But besides this, since the exhaustion and enormous diminution of the

+army caused by the rapidity of the advance had become evident, another

+reason for slackening the pace and delaying presented itself to Kutúzov.

+The aim of the Russian army was to pursue the French. The road the

+French would take was unknown, and so the closer our troops trod on

+their heels the greater distance they had to cover. Only by following

+at some distance could one cut across the zigzag path of the French. All

+the artful maneuvers suggested by our generals meant fresh movements of

+the army and a lengthening of its marches, whereas the only reasonable

+aim was to shorten those marches. To that end Kutúzov’s activity was

+directed during the whole campaign from Moscow to Vílna—not casually or

+intermittently but so consistently that he never once deviated from it.

+

+Kutúzov felt and knew—not by reasoning or science but with the whole of

+his Russian being—what every Russian soldier felt: that the French were

+beaten, that the enemy was flying and must be driven out; but at the

+same time he like the soldiers realized all the hardship of this march,

+the rapidity of which was unparalleled for such a time of the year.

+

+But to the generals, especially the foreign ones in the Russian army,

+who wished to distinguish themselves, to astonish somebody, and for some

+reason to capture a king or a duke—it seemed that now—when any battle

+must be horrible and senseless—was the very time to fight and conquer

+somebody. Kutúzov merely shrugged his shoulders when one after

+another they presented projects of maneuvers to be made with those

+soldiers—ill-shod, insufficiently clad, and half starved—who within a

+month and without fighting a battle had dwindled to half their number,

+and who at the best if the flight continued would have to go a greater

+distance than they had already traversed, before they reached the

+frontier.

+

+This longing to distinguish themselves, to maneuver, to overthrow, and

+to cut off showed itself particularly whenever the Russians stumbled on

+the French army.

+

+So it was at Krásnoe, where they expected to find one of the three

+French columns and stumbled instead on Napoleon himself with sixteen

+thousand men. Despite all Kutúzov’s efforts to avoid that ruinous

+encounter and to preserve his troops, the massacre of the broken mob

+of French soldiers by worn-out Russians continued at Krásnoe for three

+days.

+

+Toll wrote a disposition: “The first column will march to so and so,”

+etc. And as usual nothing happened in accord with the disposition.

+Prince Eugène of Württemberg fired from a hill over the French crowds

+that were running past, and demanded reinforcements which did not

+arrive. The French, avoiding the Russians, dispersed and hid themselves

+in the forest by night, making their way round as best they could, and

+continued their flight.

+

+Milorádovich, who said he did not want to know anything about the

+commissariat affairs of his detachment, and could never be found when

+he was wanted—that chevalier sans peur et sans reproche * as he styled

+himself—who was fond of parleys with the French, sent envoys demanding

+their surrender, wasted time, and did not do what he was ordered to do.

+

+    * Knight without fear and without reproach.

+

+“I give you that column, lads,” he said, riding up to the troops and

+pointing out the French to the cavalry.

+

+And the cavalry, with spurs and sabers urging on horses that could

+scarcely move, trotted with much effort to the column presented

+to them—that is to say, to a crowd of Frenchmen stark with cold,

+frost-bitten, and starving—and the column that had been presented to

+them threw down its arms and surrendered as it had long been anxious to

+do.

+

+At Krásnoe they took twenty-six thousand prisoners, several hundred

+cannon, and a stick called a “marshal’s staff,” and disputed as to who

+had distinguished himself and were pleased with their achievement—though

+they much regretted not having taken Napoleon, or at least a marshal or

+a hero of some sort, and reproached one another and especially Kutúzov

+for having failed to do so.

+

+These men, carried away by their passions, were but blind tools of the

+most melancholy law of necessity, but considered themselves heroes and

+imagined that they were accomplishing a most noble and honorable

+deed. They blamed Kutúzov and said that from the very beginning of the

+campaign he had prevented their vanquishing Napoleon, that he thought of

+nothing but satisfying his passions and would not advance from the Linen

+Factories because he was comfortable there, that at Krásnoe he checked

+the advance because on learning that Napoleon was there he had quite

+lost his head, and that it was probable that he had an understanding

+with Napoleon and had been bribed by him, and so on, and so on.

+

+Not only did his contemporaries, carried away by their passions, talk

+in this way, but posterity and history have acclaimed Napoleon as grand,

+while Kutúzov is described by foreigners as a crafty, dissolute, weak

+old courtier, and by Russians as something indefinite—a sort of puppet

+useful only because he had a Russian name.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+In 1812 and 1813 Kutúzov was openly accused of blundering. The Emperor

+was dissatisfied with him. And in a history recently written by order

+of the Highest Authorities it is said that Kutúzov was a cunning court

+liar, frightened of the name of Napoleon, and that by his blunders at

+Krásnoe and the Berëzina he deprived the Russian army of the glory of

+complete victory over the French. *

+

+     * History of the year 1812. The character of Kutúzov and

+     reflections on the unsatisfactory results of the battles at

+     Krásnoe, by Bogdánovich.

+

+Such is the fate not of great men (grands hommes) whom the Russian mind

+does not acknowledge, but of those rare and always solitary individuals

+who, discerning the will of Providence, submit their personal will to

+it. The hatred and contempt of the crowd punish such men for discerning

+the higher laws.

+

+For Russian historians, strange and terrible to say, Napoleon—that most

+insignificant tool of history who never anywhere, even in exile, showed

+human dignity—Napoleon is the object of adulation and enthusiasm; he

+is grand. But Kutúzov—the man who from the beginning to the end of his

+activity in 1812, never once swerving by word or deed from Borodinó to

+Vílna, presented an example exceptional in history of self-sacrifice

+and a present consciousness of the future importance of what was

+happening—Kutúzov seems to them something indefinite and pitiful, and

+when speaking of him and of the year 1812 they always seem a little

+ashamed.

+

+And yet it is difficult to imagine an historical character whose

+activity was so unswervingly directed to a single aim; and it would be

+difficult to imagine any aim more worthy or more consonant with the

+will of the whole people. Still more difficult would it be to find

+an instance in history of the aim of an historical personage being so

+completely accomplished as that to which all Kutúzov’s efforts were

+directed in 1812.

+

+Kutúzov never talked of “forty centuries looking down from the

+Pyramids,” of the sacrifices he offered for the fatherland, or of

+what he intended to accomplish or had accomplished; in general he

+said nothing about himself, adopted no pose, always appeared to be

+the simplest and most ordinary of men, and said the simplest and most

+ordinary things. He wrote letters to his daughters and to Madame de

+Staël, read novels, liked the society of pretty women, jested with

+generals, officers, and soldiers, and never contradicted those who tried

+to prove anything to him. When Count Rostopchín at the Yaúza bridge

+galloped up to Kutúzov with personal reproaches for having caused the

+destruction of Moscow, and said: “How was it you promised not to abandon

+Moscow without a battle?” Kutúzov replied: “And I shall not abandon

+Moscow without a battle,” though Moscow was then already abandoned. When

+Arakchéev, coming to him from the Emperor, said that Ermólov ought to

+be appointed chief of the artillery, Kutúzov replied: “Yes, I was

+just saying so myself,” though a moment before he had said quite the

+contrary. What did it matter to him—who then alone amid a senseless

+crowd understood the whole tremendous significance of what was

+happening—what did it matter to him whether Rostopchín attributed the

+calamities of Moscow to him or to himself? Still less could it matter to

+him who was appointed chief of the artillery.

+

+Not merely in these cases but continually did that old man—who by

+experience of life had reached the conviction that thoughts and the

+words serving as their expression are not what move people—use quite

+meaningless words that happened to enter his head.

+

+But that man, so heedless of his words, did not once during the whole

+time of his activity utter one word inconsistent with the single aim

+toward which he moved throughout the whole war. Obviously in spite of

+himself, in very diverse circumstances, he repeatedly expressed his real

+thoughts with the bitter conviction that he would not be understood.

+Beginning with the battle of Borodinó, from which time his disagreement

+with those about him began, he alone said that the battle of Borodinó

+was a victory, and repeated this both verbally and in his dispatches

+and reports up to the time of his death. He alone said that the loss of

+Moscow is not the loss of Russia. In reply to Lauriston’s proposal of

+peace, he said: There can be no peace, for such is the people’s will. He

+alone during the retreat of the French said that all our maneuvers are

+useless, everything is being accomplished of itself better than we could

+desire; that the enemy must be offered “a golden bridge”; that neither

+the Tarútino, the Vyázma, nor the Krásnoe battles were necessary; that

+we must keep some force to reach the frontier with, and that he would

+not sacrifice a single Russian for ten Frenchmen.

+

+And this courtier, as he is described to us, who lies to Arakchéev

+to please the Emperor, he alone—incurring thereby the Emperor’s

+displeasure—said in Vílna that to carry the war beyond the frontier is

+useless and harmful.

+

+Nor do words alone prove that only he understood the meaning of the

+events. His actions—without the smallest deviation—were all directed

+to one and the same threefold end: (1) to brace all his strength for

+conflict with the French, (2) to defeat them, and (3) to drive them out

+of Russia, minimizing as far as possible the sufferings of our people

+and of our army.

+

+This procrastinator Kutúzov, whose motto was “Patience and Time,”

+this enemy of decisive action, gave battle at Borodinó, investing the

+preparations for it with unparalleled solemnity. This Kutúzov who before

+the battle of Austerlitz began said that it would be lost, he alone, in

+contradiction to everyone else, declared till his death that Borodinó

+was a victory, despite the assurance of generals that the battle was

+lost and despite the fact that for an army to have to retire after

+winning a battle was unprecedented. He alone during the whole retreat

+insisted that battles, which were useless then, should not be fought,

+and that a new war should not be begun nor the frontiers of Russia

+crossed.

+

+It is easy now to understand the significance of these events—if only we

+abstain from attributing to the activity of the mass aims that existed

+only in the heads of a dozen individuals—for the events and results now

+lie before us.

+

+But how did that old man, alone, in opposition to the general opinion,

+so truly discern the importance of the people’s view of the events that

+in all his activity he was never once untrue to it?

+

+The source of that extraordinary power of penetrating the meaning of the

+events then occuring lay in the national feeling which he possessed in

+full purity and strength.

+

+Only the recognition of the fact that he possessed this feeling caused

+the people in so strange a manner, contrary to the Tsar’s wish, to

+select him—an old man in disfavor—to be their representative in the

+national war. And only that feeling placed him on that highest human

+pedestal from which he, the commander in chief, devoted all his powers

+not to slaying and destroying men but to saving and showing pity on

+them.

+

+That simple, modest, and therefore truly great, figure could not be

+cast in the false mold of a European hero—the supposed ruler of men—that

+history has invented.

+

+To a lackey no man can be great, for a lackey has his own conception of

+greatness.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+The fifth of November was the first day of what is called the battle of

+Krásnoe. Toward evening—after much disputing and many mistakes made by

+generals who did not go to their proper places, and after adjutants had

+been sent about with counterorders—when it had become plain that the

+enemy was everywhere in flight and that there could and would be no

+battle, Kutúzov left Krásnoe and went to Dóbroe whither his headquarters

+had that day been transferred.

+

+The day was clear and frosty. Kutúzov rode to Dóbroe on his plump little

+white horse, followed by an enormous suite of discontented generals who

+whispered among themselves behind his back. All along the road groups of

+French prisoners captured that day (there were seven thousand of them)

+were crowding to warm themselves at campfires. Near Dóbroe an immense

+crowd of tattered prisoners, buzzing with talk and wrapped and bandaged

+in anything they had been able to get hold of, were standing in the road

+beside a long row of unharnessed French guns. At the approach of the

+commander in chief the buzz of talk ceased and all eyes were fixed on

+Kutúzov who, wearing a white cap with a red band and a padded overcoat

+that bulged on his round shoulders, moved slowly along the road on his

+white horse. One of the generals was reporting to him where the guns and

+prisoners had been captured.

+

+Kutúzov seemed preoccupied and did not listen to what the general was

+saying. He screwed up his eyes with a dissatisfied look as he gazed

+attentively and fixedly at these prisoners, who presented a specially

+wretched appearance. Most of them were disfigured by frost-bitten noses

+and cheeks, and nearly all had red, swollen and festering eyes.

+

+One group of the French stood close to the road, and two of them, one of

+whom had his face covered with sores, were tearing a piece of raw

+flesh with their hands. There was something horrible and bestial in

+the fleeting glance they threw at the riders and in the malevolent

+expression with which, after a glance at Kutúzov, the soldier with the

+sores immediately turned away and went on with what he was doing.

+

+Kutúzov looked long and intently at these two soldiers. He puckered his

+face, screwed up his eyes, and pensively swayed his head. At another

+spot he noticed a Russian soldier laughingly patting a Frenchman on the

+shoulder, saying something to him in a friendly manner, and Kutúzov with

+the same expression on his face again swayed his head.

+

+“What were you saying?” he asked the general, who continuing his report

+directed the commander in chief’s attention to some standards captured

+from the French and standing in front of the Preobrazhénsk regiment.

+

+“Ah, the standards!” said Kutúzov, evidently detaching himself with

+difficulty from the thoughts that preoccupied him.

+

+He looked about him absently. Thousands of eyes were looking at him from

+all sides awaiting a word from him.

+

+He stopped in front of the Preobrazhénsk regiment, sighed deeply, and

+closed his eyes. One of his suite beckoned to the soldiers carrying

+the standards to advance and surround the commander in chief with them.

+Kutúzov was silent for a few seconds and then, submitting with evident

+reluctance to the duty imposed by his position, raised his head

+and began to speak. A throng of officers surrounded him. He looked

+attentively around at the circle of officers, recognizing several of

+them.

+

+“I thank you all!” he said, addressing the soldiers and then again the

+officers. In the stillness around him his slowly uttered words were

+distinctly heard. “I thank you all for your hard and faithful service.

+The victory is complete and Russia will not forget you! Honor to you

+forever.”

+

+He paused and looked around.

+

+“Lower its head, lower it!” he said to a soldier who had accidentally

+lowered the French eagle he was holding before the Preobrazhénsk

+standards. “Lower, lower, that’s it. Hurrah lads!” he added, addressing

+the men with a rapid movement of his chin.

+

+“Hur-r-rah!” roared thousands of voices.

+

+While the soldiers were shouting Kutúzov leaned forward in his saddle

+and bowed his head, and his eye lit up with a mild and apparently ironic

+gleam.

+

+“You see, brothers...” said he when the shouts had ceased... and all at

+once his voice and the expression of his face changed. It was no longer

+the commander in chief speaking but an ordinary old man who wanted to

+tell his comrades something very important.

+

+There was a stir among the throng of officers and in the ranks of the

+soldiers, who moved that they might hear better what he was going to

+say.

+

+“You see, brothers, I know it’s hard for you, but it can’t be helped!

+Bear up; it won’t be for long now! We’ll see our visitors off and then

+we’ll rest. The Tsar won’t forget your service. It is hard for you, but

+still you are at home while they—you see what they have come to,” said

+he, pointing to the prisoners. “Worse off than our poorest beggars.

+While they were strong we didn’t spare ourselves, but now we may even

+pity them. They are human beings too. Isn’t it so, lads?”

+

+He looked around, and in the direct, respectful, wondering gaze fixed

+upon him he read sympathy with what he had said. His face grew brighter

+and brighter with an old man’s mild smile, which drew the corners of his

+lips and eyes into a cluster of wrinkles. He ceased speaking and bowed

+his head as if in perplexity.

+

+“But after all who asked them here? Serves them right, the bloody

+bastards!” he cried, suddenly lifting his head.

+

+And flourishing his whip he rode off at a gallop for the first time

+during the whole campaign, and left the broken ranks of the soldiers

+laughing joyfully and shouting “Hurrah!”

+

+Kutúzov’s words were hardly understood by the troops. No one could have

+repeated the field marshal’s address, begun solemnly and then changing

+into an old man’s simplehearted talk; but the hearty sincerity of that

+speech, the feeling of majestic triumph combined with pity for the foe

+and consciousness of the justice of our cause, exactly expressed by that

+old man’s good-natured expletives, was not merely understood but lay

+in the soul of every soldier and found expression in their joyous and

+long-sustained shouts. Afterwards when one of the generals addressed

+Kutúzov asking whether he wished his calèche to be sent for, Kutúzov in

+answering unexpectedly gave a sob, being evidently greatly moved.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+When the troops reached their night’s halting place on the eighth of

+November, the last day of the Krásnoe battles, it was already growing

+dusk. All day it had been calm and frosty with occasional lightly

+falling snow and toward evening it began to clear. Through the falling

+snow a purple-black and starry sky showed itself and the frost grew

+keener.

+

+An infantry regiment which had left Tarútino three thousand strong but

+now numbered only nine hundred was one of the first to arrive that night

+at its halting place—a village on the highroad. The quartermasters who

+met the regiment announced that all the huts were full of sick and dead

+Frenchmen, cavalrymen, and members of the staff. There was only one hut

+available for the regimental commander.

+

+The commander rode up to his hut. The regiment passed through the

+village and stacked its arms in front of the last huts.

+

+Like some huge many-limbed animal, the regiment began to prepare its

+lair and its food. One part of it dispersed and waded knee-deep

+through the snow into a birch forest to the right of the village, and

+immediately the sound of axes and swords, the crashing of branches,

+and merry voices could be heard from there. Another section amid the

+regimental wagons and horses which were standing in a group was busy

+getting out caldrons and rye biscuit, and feeding the horses. A third

+section scattered through the village arranging quarters for the staff

+officers, carrying out the French corpses that were in the huts, and

+dragging away boards, dry wood, and thatch from the roofs, for the

+campfires, or wattle fences to serve for shelter.

+

+Some fifteen men with merry shouts were shaking down the high wattle

+wall of a shed, the roof of which had already been removed.

+

+“Now then, all together—shove!” cried the voices, and the huge surface

+of the wall, sprinkled with snow and creaking with frost, was seen

+swaying in the gloom of the night. The lower stakes cracked more and

+more and at last the wall fell, and with it the men who had been pushing

+it. Loud, coarse laughter and joyous shouts ensued.

+

+“Now then, catch hold in twos! Hand up the lever! That’s it.... Where

+are you shoving to?”

+

+“Now, all together! But wait a moment, boys... With a song!”

+

+All stood silent, and a soft, pleasant velvety voice began to sing. At

+the end of the third verse as the last note died away, twenty voices

+roared out at once: “Oo-oo-oo-oo! That’s it. All together! Heave away,

+boys!...” but despite their united efforts the wattle hardly moved, and

+in the silence that followed the heavy breathing of the men was audible.

+

+“Here, you of the Sixth Company! Devils that you are! Lend a hand...

+will you? You may want us one of these days.”

+

+Some twenty men of the Sixth Company who were on their way into the

+village joined the haulers, and the wattle wall, which was about

+thirty-five feet long and seven feet high, moved forward along the

+village street, swaying, pressing upon and cutting the shoulders of the

+gasping men.

+

+“Get along... Falling? What are you stopping for? There now....”

+

+Merry senseless words of abuse flowed freely.

+

+“What are you up to?” suddenly came the authoritative voice of a

+sergeant major who came upon the men who were hauling their burden.

+“There are gentry here; the general himself is in that hut, and you

+foul-mouthed devils, you brutes, I’ll give it to you!” shouted he,

+hitting the first man who came in his way a swinging blow on the back.

+“Can’t you make less noise?”

+

+The men became silent. The soldier who had been struck groaned and wiped

+his face, which had been scratched till it bled by his falling against

+the wattle.

+

+“There, how that devil hits out! He’s made my face all bloody,” said he

+in a frightened whisper when the sergeant major had passed on.

+

+“Don’t you like it?” said a laughing voice, and moderating their tones

+the men moved forward.

+

+When they were out of the village they began talking again as loud as

+before, interlarding their talk with the same aimless expletives.

+

+In the hut which the men had passed, the chief officers had gathered and

+were in animated talk over their tea about the events of the day and the

+maneuvers suggested for tomorrow. It was proposed to make a flank march

+to the left, cut off the Vice-King (Murat) and capture him.

+

+By the time the soldiers had dragged the wattle fence to its place

+the campfires were blazing on all sides ready for cooking, the wood

+crackled, the snow was melting, and black shadows of soldiers flitted

+to and fro all over the occupied space where the snow had been trodden

+down.

+

+Axes and choppers were plied all around. Everything was done without any

+orders being given. Stores of wood were brought for the night, shelters

+were rigged up for the officers, caldrons were being boiled, and muskets

+and accouterments put in order.

+

+The wattle wall the men had brought was set up in a semicircle by the

+Eighth Company as a shelter from the north, propped up by musket rests,

+and a campfire was built before it. They beat the tattoo, called the

+roll, had supper, and settled down round the fires for the night—some

+repairing their footgear, some smoking pipes, and some stripping

+themselves naked to steam the lice out of their shirts.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+One would have thought that under the almost incredibly wretched

+conditions the Russian soldiers were in at that time—lacking warm boots

+and sheepskin coats, without a roof over their heads, in the snow

+with eighteen degrees of frost, and without even full rations (the

+commissariat did not always keep up with the troops)—they would have

+presented a very sad and depressing spectacle.

+

+On the contrary, the army had never under the best material conditions

+presented a more cheerful and animated aspect. This was because all who

+began to grow depressed or who lost strength were sifted out of the army

+day by day. All the physically or morally weak had long since been left

+behind and only the flower of the army—physically and mentally—remained.

+

+More men collected behind the wattle fence of the Eighth Company than

+anywhere else. Two sergeants major were sitting with them and their

+campfire blazed brighter than others. For leave to sit by their wattle

+they demanded contributions of fuel.

+

+“Eh, Makéev! What has become of you, you son of a bitch? Are you lost or

+have the wolves eaten you? Fetch some more wood!” shouted a red-haired

+and red-faced man, screwing up his eyes and blinking because of the

+smoke but not moving back from the fire. “And you, Jackdaw, go and fetch

+some wood!” said he to another soldier.

+

+This red-haired man was neither a sergeant nor a corporal, but being

+robust he ordered about those weaker than himself. The soldier

+they called “Jackdaw,” a thin little fellow with a sharp nose, rose

+obediently and was about to go but at that instant there came into

+the light of the fire the slender, handsome figure of a young soldier

+carrying a load of wood.

+

+“Bring it here—that’s fine!”

+

+They split up the wood, pressed it down on the fire, blew at it with

+their mouths, and fanned it with the skirts of their greatcoats, making

+the flames hiss and crackle. The men drew nearer and lit their pipes.

+The handsome young soldier who had brought the wood, setting his arms

+akimbo, began stamping his cold feet rapidly and deftly on the spot

+where he stood.

+

+“Mother! The dew is cold but clear.... It’s well that I’m a

+musketeer...” he sang, pretending to hiccough after each syllable.

+

+“Look out, your soles will fly off!” shouted the red-haired man,

+noticing that the sole of the dancer’s boot was hanging loose. “What a

+fellow you are for dancing!”

+

+The dancer stopped, pulled off the loose piece of leather, and threw it

+on the fire.

+

+“Right enough, friend,” said he, and, having sat down, took out of his

+knapsack a scrap of blue French cloth, and wrapped it round his foot.

+“It’s the steam that spoils them,” he added, stretching out his feet

+toward the fire.

+

+“They’ll soon be issuing us new ones. They say that when we’ve finished

+hammering them, we’re to receive double kits!”

+

+“And that son of a bitch Petróv has lagged behind after all, it seems,”

+said one sergeant major.

+

+“I’ve had an eye on him this long while,” said the other.

+

+“Well, he’s a poor sort of soldier....”

+

+“But in the Third Company they say nine men were missing yesterday.”

+

+“Yes, it’s all very well, but when a man’s feet are frozen how can he

+walk?”

+

+“Eh? Don’t talk nonsense!” said a sergeant major.

+

+“Do you want to be doing the same?” said an old soldier, turning

+reproachfully to the man who had spoken of frozen feet.

+

+“Well, you know,” said the sharp-nosed man they called Jackdaw in a

+squeaky and unsteady voice, raising himself at the other side of the

+fire, “a plump man gets thin, but for a thin one it’s death. Take

+me, now! I’ve got no strength left,” he added, with sudden resolution

+turning to the sergeant major. “Tell them to send me to hospital; I’m

+aching all over; anyway I shan’t be able to keep up.”

+

+“That’ll do, that’ll do!” replied the sergeant major quietly.

+

+The soldier said no more and the talk went on.

+

+“What a lot of those Frenchies were taken today, and the fact is that

+not one of them had what you might call real boots on,” said a soldier,

+starting a new theme. “They were no more than make-believes.”

+

+“The Cossacks have taken their boots. They were clearing the hut for the

+colonel and carried them out. It was pitiful to see them, boys,” put in

+the dancer. “As they turned them over one seemed still alive and, would

+you believe it, he jabbered something in their lingo.”

+

+“But they’re a clean folk, lads,” the first man went on; “he was

+white—as white as birchbark—and some of them are such fine fellows, you

+might think they were nobles.”

+

+“Well, what do you think? They make soldiers of all classes there.”

+

+“But they don’t understand our talk at all,” said the dancer with a

+puzzled smile. “I asked him whose subject he was, and he jabbered in his

+own way. A queer lot!”

+

+“But it’s strange, friends,” continued the man who had wondered at their

+whiteness, “the peasants at Mozháysk were saying that when they began

+burying the dead—where the battle was you know—well, those dead had been

+lying there for nearly a month, and says the peasant, ‘they lie as white

+as paper, clean, and not as much smell as a puff of powder smoke.’”

+

+“Was it from the cold?” asked someone.

+

+“You’re a clever fellow! From the cold indeed! Why, it was hot. If it

+had been from the cold, ours would not have rotted either. ‘But,’ he

+says, ‘go up to ours and they are all rotten and maggoty. So,’ he says,

+‘we tie our faces up with kerchiefs and turn our heads away as we drag

+them off: we can hardly do it. But theirs,’ he says, ‘are white as paper

+and not so much smell as a whiff of gunpowder.’”

+

+All were silent.

+

+“It must be from their food,” said the sergeant major. “They used to

+gobble the same food as the gentry.”

+

+No one contradicted him.

+

+“That peasant near Mozháysk where the battle was said the men were all

+called up from ten villages around and they carted for twenty days and

+still didn’t finish carting the dead away. And as for the wolves, he

+says...”

+

+“That was a real battle,” said an old soldier. “It’s the only one worth

+remembering; but since that... it’s only been tormenting folk.”

+

+“And do you know, Daddy, the day before yesterday we ran at them and,

+my word, they didn’t let us get near before they just threw down their

+muskets and went on their knees. ‘Pardon!’ they say. That’s only one

+case. They say Plátov took ‘Poleon himself twice. But he didn’t know

+the right charm. He catches him and catches him—no good! He turns into

+a bird in his hands and flies away. And there’s no way of killing him

+either.”

+

+“You’re a first-class liar, Kiselëv, when I come to look at you!”

+

+“Liar, indeed! It’s the real truth.”

+

+“If he fell into my hands, when I’d caught him I’d bury him in the

+ground with an aspen stake to fix him down. What a lot of men he’s

+ruined!”

+

+“Well, anyhow we’re going to end it. He won’t come here again,” remarked

+the old soldier, yawning.

+

+The conversation flagged, and the soldiers began settling down to sleep.

+

+“Look at the stars. It’s wonderful how they shine! You would think the

+women had spread out their linen,” said one of the men, gazing with

+admiration at the Milky Way.

+

+“That’s a sign of a good harvest next year.”

+

+“We shall want some more wood.”

+

+“You warm your back and your belly gets frozen. That’s queer.”

+

+“O Lord!”

+

+“What are you pushing for? Is the fire only for you? Look how he’s

+sprawling!”

+

+In the silence that ensued, the snoring of those who had fallen asleep

+could be heard. Others turned over and warmed themselves, now and again

+exchanging a few words. From a campfire a hundred paces off came a sound

+of general, merry laughter.

+

+“Hark at them roaring there in the Fifth Company!” said one of the

+soldiers, “and what a lot of them there are!”

+

+One of the men got up and went over to the Fifth Company.

+

+“They’re having such fun,” said he, coming back. “Two Frenchies have

+turned up. One’s quite frozen and the other’s an awful swaggerer. He’s

+singing songs....”

+

+“Oh, I’ll go across and have a look....”

+

+And several of the men went over to the Fifth Company.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+The fifth company was bivouacking at the very edge of the forest. A huge

+campfire was blazing brightly in the midst of the snow, lighting up the

+branches of trees heavy with hoarfrost.

+

+About midnight they heard the sound of steps in the snow of the forest,

+and the crackling of dry branches.

+

+“A bear, lads,” said one of the men.

+

+They all raised their heads to listen, and out of the forest into the

+bright firelight stepped two strangely clad human figures clinging to

+one another.

+

+These were two Frenchmen who had been hiding in the forest. They came up

+to the fire, hoarsely uttering something in a language our soldiers did

+not understand. One was taller than the other; he wore an officer’s hat

+and seemed quite exhausted. On approaching the fire he had been going to

+sit down, but fell. The other, a short sturdy soldier with a shawl

+tied round his head, was stronger. He raised his companion and said

+something, pointing to his mouth. The soldiers surrounded the Frenchmen,

+spread a greatcoat on the ground for the sick man, and brought some

+buckwheat porridge and vodka for both of them.

+

+The exhausted French officer was Ramballe and the man with his head

+wrapped in the shawl was Morel, his orderly.

+

+When Morel had drunk some vodka and finished his bowl of porridge he

+suddenly became unnaturally merry and chattered incessantly to the

+soldiers, who could not understand him. Ramballe refused food and

+resting his head on his elbow lay silent beside the campfire, looking at

+the Russian soldiers with red and vacant eyes. Occasionally he emitted

+a long-drawn groan and then again became silent. Morel, pointing to his

+shoulders, tried to impress on the soldiers the fact that Ramballe was

+an officer and ought to be warmed. A Russian officer who had come up

+to the fire sent to ask his colonel whether he would not take a French

+officer into his hut to warm him, and when the messenger returned and

+said that the colonel wished the officer to be brought to him, Ramballe

+was told to go. He rose and tried to walk, but staggered and would have

+fallen had not a soldier standing by held him up.

+

+“You won’t do it again, eh?” said one of the soldiers, winking and

+turning mockingly to Ramballe.

+

+“Oh, you fool! Why talk rubbish, lout that you are—a real peasant!” came

+rebukes from all sides addressed to the jesting soldier.

+

+They surrounded Ramballe, lifted him on the crossed arms of two

+soldiers, and carried him to the hut. Ramballe put his arms around their

+necks while they carried him and began wailing plaintively:

+

+“Oh, you fine fellows, my kind, kind friends! These are men! Oh, my

+brave, kind friends,” and he leaned his head against the shoulder of one

+of the men like a child.

+

+Meanwhile Morel was sitting in the best place by the fire, surrounded by

+the soldiers.

+

+Morel, a short sturdy Frenchman with inflamed and streaming eyes, was

+wearing a woman’s cloak and had a shawl tied woman fashion round his

+head over his cap. He was evidently tipsy, and was singing a French song

+in a hoarse broken voice, with an arm thrown round the nearest soldier.

+The soldiers simply held their sides as they watched him.

+

+“Now then, now then, teach us how it goes! I’ll soon pick it up. How is

+it?” said the man—a singer and a wag—whom Morel was embracing.

+

+“Vive Henri Quatre! Vive ce roi valiant!” sang Morel, winking. “Ce

+diable à quatre...” *

+

+     * “Long live Henry the Fourth, that valiant king! That rowdy

+     devil.”

+

+

+“Vivarika! Vif-seruvaru! Sedyablyaka!” repeated the soldier, flourishing

+his arm and really catching the tune.

+

+“Bravo! Ha, ha, ha!” rose their rough, joyous laughter from all sides.

+

+Morel, wrinkling up his face, laughed too.

+

+“Well, go on, go on!”

+

+    “Qui eut le triple talent,

+    De boire, de battre,

+    Et d’être un vert galant.” *

+

+      * Who had a triple talent

+      For drinking, for fighting,

+      And for being a gallant old boy...

+

+“It goes smoothly, too. Well, now, Zaletáev!”

+

+“Ke...” Zaletáev, brought out with effort: “ke-e-e-e,” he drawled,

+laboriously pursing his lips, “le-trip-ta-la-de-bu-de-ba, e

+de-tra-va-ga-la” he sang.

+

+“Fine! Just like the Frenchie! Oh, ho ho! Do you want some more to eat?”

+

+“Give him some porridge: it takes a long time to get filled up after

+starving.”

+

+They gave him some more porridge and Morel with a laugh set to work on

+his third bowl. All the young soldiers smiled gaily as they watched him.

+The older men, who thought it undignified to amuse themselves with such

+nonsense, continued to lie at the opposite side of the fire, but one

+would occasionally raise himself on an elbow and glance at Morel with a

+smile.

+

+“They are men too,” said one of them as he wrapped himself up in his

+coat. “Even wormwood grows on its own root.”

+

+“O Lord, O Lord! How starry it is! Tremendous! That means a hard

+frost....”

+

+They all grew silent. The stars, as if knowing that no one was looking

+at them, began to disport themselves in the dark sky: now flaring

+up, now vanishing, now trembling, they were busy whispering something

+gladsome and mysterious to one another.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+The French army melted away at the uniform rate of a mathematical

+progression; and that crossing of the Berëzina about which so much has

+been written was only one intermediate stage in its destruction, and

+not at all the decisive episode of the campaign. If so much has been

+and still is written about the Berëzina, on the French side this is only

+because at the broken bridge across that river the calamities their army

+had been previously enduring were suddenly concentrated at one moment

+into a tragic spectacle that remained in every memory, and on the

+Russian side merely because in Petersburg—far from the seat of war—a

+plan (again one of Pfuel’s) had been devised to catch Napoleon in a

+strategic trap at the Berëzina River. Everyone assured himself that all

+would happen according to plan, and therefore insisted that it was just

+the crossing of the Berëzina that destroyed the French army. In reality

+the results of the crossing were much less disastrous to the French—in

+guns and men lost—than Krásnoe had been, as the figures show.

+

+The sole importance of the crossing of the Berëzina lies in the fact

+that it plainly and indubitably proved the fallacy of all the plans for

+cutting off the enemy’s retreat and the soundness of the only possible

+line of action—the one Kutúzov and the general mass of the army

+demanded—namely, simply to follow the enemy up. The French crowd fled

+at a continually increasing speed and all its energy was directed to

+reaching its goal. It fled like a wounded animal and it was impossible

+to block its path. This was shown not so much by the arrangements it

+made for crossing as by what took place at the bridges. When the bridges

+broke down, unarmed soldiers, people from Moscow and women with

+children who were with the French transport, all—carried on by vis

+inertiæ—pressed forward into boats and into the ice-covered water and

+did not, surrender.

+

+That impulse was reasonable. The condition of fugitives and of pursuers

+was equally bad. As long as they remained with their own people each

+might hope for help from his fellows and the definite place he held

+among them. But those who surrendered, while remaining in the same

+pitiful plight, would be on a lower level to claim a share in the

+necessities of life. The French did not need to be informed of the fact

+that half the prisoners—with whom the Russians did not know what to

+do—perished of cold and hunger despite their captors’ desire to save

+them; they felt that it could not be otherwise. The most compassionate

+Russian commanders, those favorable to the French—and even the Frenchmen

+in the Russian service—could do nothing for the prisoners. The French

+perished from the conditions to which the Russian army was itself

+exposed. It was impossible to take bread and clothes from our hungry and

+indispensable soldiers to give to the French who, though not harmful, or

+hated, or guilty, were simply unnecessary. Some Russians even did that,

+but they were exceptions.

+

+Certain destruction lay behind the French but in front there was hope.

+Their ships had been burned, there was no salvation save in collective

+flight, and on that the whole strength of the French was concentrated.

+

+The farther they fled the more wretched became the plight of the

+remnant, especially after the Berëzina, on which (in consequence of the

+Petersburg plan) special hopes had been placed by the Russians, and

+the keener grew the passions of the Russian commanders, who blamed one

+another and Kutúzov most of all. Anticipation that the failure of

+the Petersburg Berëzina plan would be attributed to Kutúzov led

+to dissatisfaction, contempt, and ridicule, more and more strongly

+expressed. The ridicule and contempt were of course expressed in a

+respectful form, making it impossible for him to ask wherein he was

+to blame. They did not talk seriously to him; when reporting to him or

+asking for his sanction they appeared to be fulfilling a regrettable

+formality, but they winked behind his back and tried to mislead him at

+every turn.

+

+Because they could not understand him all these people assumed that

+it was useless to talk to the old man; that he would never grasp the

+profundity of their plans, that he would answer with his phrases (which

+they thought were mere phrases) about a “golden bridge,” about the

+impossibility of crossing the frontier with a crowd of tatterdemalions,

+and so forth. They had heard all that before. And all he said—that it

+was necessary to await provisions, or that the men had no boots—was so

+simple, while what they proposed was so complicated and clever, that

+it was evident that he was old and stupid and that they, though not in

+power, were commanders of genius.

+

+After the junction with the army of the brilliant admiral and Petersburg

+hero Wittgenstein, this mood and the gossip of the staff reached their

+maximum. Kutúzov saw this and merely sighed and shrugged his shoulders.

+Only once, after the affair of the Berëzina, did he get angry and write

+to Bennigsen (who reported separately to the Emperor) the following

+letter:

+

+“On account of your spells of ill health, will your excellency please

+be so good as to set off for Kalúga on receipt of this, and there await

+further commands and appointments from His Imperial Majesty.”

+

+But after Bennigsen’s departure, the Grand Duke Tsarévich Constantine

+Pávlovich joined the army. He had taken part in the beginning of the

+campaign but had subsequently been removed from the army by Kutúzov.

+Now having come to the army, he informed Kutúzov of the Emperor’s

+displeasure at the poor success of our forces and the slowness of their

+advance. The Emperor intended to join the army personally in a few days’

+time.

+

+The old man, experienced in court as well as in military affairs—this

+same Kutúzov who in August had been chosen commander in chief

+against the sovereign’s wishes and who had removed the Grand Duke and

+heir—apparent from the army—who on his own authority and contrary to the

+Emperor’s will had decided on the abandonment of Moscow, now realized at

+once that his day was over, that his part was played, and that the power

+he was supposed to hold was no longer his. And he understood this not

+merely from the attitude of the court. He saw on the one hand that the

+military business in which he had played his part was ended and felt

+that his mission was accomplished; and at the same time he began to

+be conscious of the physical weariness of his aged body and of the

+necessity of physical rest.

+

+On the twenty-ninth of November Kutúzov entered Vílna—his “dear Vílna”

+as he called it. Twice during his career Kutúzov had been governor of

+Vílna. In that wealthy town, which had not been injured, he found old

+friends and associations, besides the comforts of life of which he had

+so long been deprived. And he suddenly turned from the cares of army

+and state and, as far as the passions that seethed around him allowed,

+immersed himself in the quiet life to which he had formerly been

+accustomed, as if all that was taking place and all that had still to be

+done in the realm of history did not concern him at all.

+

+Chichagóv, one of the most zealous “cutters-off” and “breakers-up,” who

+had first wanted to effect a diversion in Greece and then in Warsaw but

+never wished to go where he was sent: Chichagóv, noted for the boldness

+with which he spoke to the Emperor, and who considered Kutúzov to be

+under an obligation to him because when he was sent to make peace

+with Turkey in 1811 independently of Kutúzov, and found that peace had

+already been concluded, he admitted to the Emperor that the merit of

+securing that peace was really Kutúzov’s; this Chichagóv was the first

+to meet Kutúzov at the castle where the latter was to stay. In undress

+naval uniform, with a dirk, and holding his cap under his arm, he handed

+Kutúzov a garrison report and the keys of the town. The contemptuously

+respectful attitude of the younger men to the old man in his dotage was

+expressed in the highest degree by the behavior of Chichagóv, who knew

+of the accusations that were being directed against Kutúzov.

+

+When speaking to Chichagóv, Kutúzov incidentally mentioned that the

+vehicles packed with china that had been captured from him at Borísov

+had been recovered and would be restored to him.

+

+“You mean to imply that I have nothing to eat out of.... On the

+contrary, I can supply you with everything even if you want to give

+dinner parties,” warmly replied Chichagóv, who tried by every word he

+spoke to prove his own rectitude and therefore imagined Kutúzov to be

+animated by the same desire.

+

+Kutúzov, shrugging his shoulders, replied with his subtle penetrating

+smile: “I meant merely to say what I said.”

+

+Contrary to the Emperor’s wish Kutúzov detained the greater part of the

+army at Vílna. Those about him said that he became extraordinarily slack

+and physically feeble during his stay in that town. He attended to army

+affairs reluctantly, left everything to his generals, and while awaiting

+the Emperor’s arrival led a dissipated life.

+

+Having left Petersburg on the seventh of December with his suite—Count

+Tolstóy, Prince Volkónski, Arakchéev, and others—the Emperor reached

+Vílna on the eleventh, and in his traveling sleigh drove straight to

+the castle. In spite of the severe frost some hundred generals and staff

+officers in full parade uniform stood in front of the castle, as well as

+a guard of honor of the Semënov regiment.

+

+A courier who galloped to the castle in advance, in a troyka with three

+foam-flecked horses, shouted “Coming!” and Konovnítsyn rushed into the

+vestibule to inform Kutúzov, who was waiting in the hall porter’s little

+lodge.

+

+A minute later the old man’s large stout figure in full-dress uniform,

+his chest covered with orders and a scarf drawn round his stomach,

+waddled out into the porch. He put on his hat with its peaks to the

+sides and, holding his gloves in his hand and walking with an effort

+sideways down the steps to the level of the street, took in his hand the

+report he had prepared for the Emperor.

+

+There was running to and fro and whispering; another troyka flew

+furiously up, and then all eyes were turned on an approaching sleigh

+in which the figures of the Emperor and Volkónski could already be

+descried.

+

+From the habit of fifty years all this had a physically agitating effect

+on the old general. He carefully and hastily felt himself all over,

+readjusted his hat, and pulling himself together drew himself up and,

+at the very moment when the Emperor, having alighted from the sleigh,

+lifted his eyes to him, handed him the report and began speaking in his

+smooth, ingratiating voice.

+

+The Emperor with a rapid glance scanned Kutúzov from head to foot,

+frowned for an instant, but immediately mastering himself went up to the

+old man, extended his arms and embraced him. And this embrace too, owing

+to a long-standing impression related to his innermost feelings, had its

+usual effect on Kutúzov and he gave a sob.

+

+The Emperor greeted the officers and the Semënov guard, and again

+pressing the old man’s hand went with him into the castle.

+

+When alone with the field marshal the Emperor expressed his

+dissatisfaction at the slowness of the pursuit and at the mistakes made

+at Krásnoe and the Berëzina, and informed him of his intentions for a

+future campaign abroad. Kutúzov made no rejoinder or remark. The same

+submissive, expressionless look with which he had listened to the

+Emperor’s commands on the field of Austerlitz seven years before settled

+on his face now.

+

+When Kutúzov came out of the study and with lowered head was crossing

+the ballroom with his heavy waddling gait, he was arrested by someone’s

+voice saying:

+

+“Your Serene Highness!”

+

+Kutúzov raised his head and looked for a long while into the eyes of

+Count Tolstóy, who stood before him holding a silver salver on which lay

+a small object. Kutúzov seemed not to understand what was expected of

+him.

+

+Suddenly he seemed to remember; a scarcely perceptible smile flashed

+across his puffy face, and bowing low and respectfully he took the

+object that lay on the salver. It was the Order of St. George of the

+First Class.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+Next day the field marshal gave a dinner and ball which the Emperor

+honored by his presence. Kutúzov had received the Order of St. George

+of the First Class and the Emperor showed him the highest honors, but

+everyone knew of the imperial dissatisfaction with him. The proprieties

+were observed and the Emperor was the first to set that example,

+but everybody understood that the old man was blameworthy and

+good-for-nothing. When Kutúzov, conforming to a custom of Catherine’s

+day, ordered the standards that had been captured to be lowered at the

+Emperor’s feet on his entering the ballroom, the Emperor made a wry face

+and muttered something in which some people caught the words, “the old

+comedian.”

+

+The Emperor’s displeasure with Kutúzov was specially increased at Vílna

+by the fact that Kutúzov evidently could not or would not understand the

+importance of the coming campaign.

+

+When on the following morning the Emperor said to the officers assembled

+about him: “You have not only saved Russia, you have saved Europe!” they

+all understood that the war was not ended.

+

+Kutúzov alone would not see this and openly expressed his opinion that

+no fresh war could improve the position or add to the glory of Russia,

+but could only spoil and lower the glorious position that Russia had

+gained. He tried to prove to the Emperor the impossibility of levying

+fresh troops, spoke of the hardships already endured by the people, of

+the possibility of failure and so forth.

+

+This being the field marshal’s frame of mind he was naturally regarded

+as merely a hindrance and obstacle to the impending war.

+

+To avoid unpleasant encounters with the old man, the natural method was

+to do what had been done with him at Austerlitz and with Barclay at

+the beginning of the Russian campaign—to transfer the authority to the

+Emperor himself, thus cutting the ground from under the commander in

+chief’s feet without upsetting the old man by informing him of the

+change.

+

+With this object his staff was gradually reconstructed and its real

+strength removed and transferred to the Emperor. Toll, Konovnítsyn, and

+Ermólov received fresh appointments. Everyone spoke loudly of the field

+marshal’s great weakness and failing health.

+

+His health had to be bad for his place to be taken away and given to

+another. And in fact his health was poor.

+

+So naturally, simply, and gradually—just as he had come from Turkey to

+the Treasury in Petersburg to recruit the militia, and then to the army

+when he was needed there—now when his part was played out, Kutúzov’s

+place was taken by a new and necessary performer.

+

+The war of 1812, besides its national significance dear to every Russian

+heart, was now to assume another, a European, significance.

+

+The movement of peoples from west to east was to be succeeded by a

+movement of peoples from east to west, and for this fresh war another

+leader was necessary, having qualities and views differing from

+Kutúzov’s and animated by different motives.

+

+Alexander I was as necessary for the movement of the peoples from east

+to west and for the refixing of national frontiers as Kutúzov had been

+for the salvation and glory of Russia.

+

+Kutúzov did not understand what Europe, the balance of power, or

+Napoleon meant. He could not understand it. For the representative of

+the Russian people, after the enemy had been destroyed and Russia had

+been liberated and raised to the summit of her glory, there was nothing

+left to do as a Russian. Nothing remained for the representative of the

+national war but to die, and Kutúzov died.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+As generally happens, Pierre did not feel the full effects of the

+physical privation and strain he had suffered as prisoner until after

+they were over. After his liberation he reached Orël, and on the third

+day there, when preparing to go to Kiev, he fell ill and was laid up

+for three months. He had what the doctors termed “bilious fever.” But

+despite the fact that the doctors treated him, bled him, and gave him

+medicines to drink, he recovered.

+

+Scarcely any impression was left on Pierre’s mind by all that happened

+to him from the time of his rescue till his illness. He remembered

+only the dull gray weather now rainy and now snowy, internal physical

+distress, and pains in his feet and side. He remembered a general

+impression of the misfortunes and sufferings of people and of being

+worried by the curiosity of officers and generals who questioned him, he

+also remembered his difficulty in procuring a conveyance and horses, and

+above all he remembered his incapacity to think and feel all that time.

+On the day of his rescue he had seen the body of Pétya Rostóv. That same

+day he had learned that Prince Andrew, after surviving the battle of

+Borodinó for more than a month had recently died in the Rostóvs’ house

+at Yaroslávl, and Denísov who told him this news also mentioned Hélène’s

+death, supposing that Pierre had heard of it long before. All this at

+the time seemed merely strange to Pierre: he felt he could not grasp its

+significance. Just then he was only anxious to get away as quickly as

+possible from places where people were killing one another, to some

+peaceful refuge where he could recover himself, rest, and think over

+all the strange new facts he had learned; but on reaching Orël he

+immediately fell ill. When he came to himself after his illness he saw

+in attendance on him two of his servants, Terénty and Váska, who had

+come from Moscow; and also his cousin the eldest princess, who had been

+living on his estate at Eléts and hearing of his rescue and illness had

+come to look after him.

+

+It was only gradually during his convalescence that Pierre lost the

+impressions he had become accustomed to during the last few months

+and got used to the idea that no one would oblige him to go anywhere

+tomorrow, that no one would deprive him of his warm bed, and that he

+would be sure to get his dinner, tea, and supper. But for a long time in

+his dreams he still saw himself in the conditions of captivity. In the

+same way little by little he came to understand the news he had been

+told after his rescue, about the death of Prince Andrew, the death of

+his wife, and the destruction of the French.

+

+A joyous feeling of freedom—that complete inalienable freedom natural

+to man which he had first experienced at the first halt outside

+Moscow—filled Pierre’s soul during his convalescence. He was surprised

+to find that this inner freedom, which was independent of external

+conditions, now had as it were an additional setting of external

+liberty. He was alone in a strange town, without acquaintances. No one

+demanded anything of him or sent him anywhere. He had all he wanted:

+the thought of his wife which had been a continual torment to him was no

+longer there, since she was no more.

+

+“Oh, how good! How splendid!” said he to himself when a cleanly laid

+table was moved up to him with savory beef tea, or when he lay down for

+the night on a soft clean bed, or when he remembered that the French had

+gone and that his wife was no more. “Oh, how good, how splendid!”

+

+And by old habit he asked himself the question: “Well, and what then?

+What am I going to do?” And he immediately gave himself the answer:

+“Well, I shall live. Ah, how splendid!”

+

+The very question that had formerly tormented him, the thing he had

+continually sought to find—the aim of life—no longer existed for

+him now. That search for the aim of life had not merely disappeared

+temporarily—he felt that it no longer existed for him and could not

+present itself again. And this very absence of an aim gave him the

+complete, joyous sense of freedom which constituted his happiness at

+this time.

+

+He could not see an aim, for he now had faith—not faith in any kind of

+rule, or words, or ideas, but faith in an ever-living, ever-manifest

+God. Formerly he had sought Him in aims he set himself. That search for

+an aim had been simply a search for God, and suddenly in his captivity

+he had learned not by words or reasoning but by direct feeling what his

+nurse had told him long ago: that God is here and everywhere. In his

+captivity he had learned that in Karatáev God was greater, more infinite

+and unfathomable than in the Architect of the Universe recognized by the

+Freemasons. He felt like a man who after straining his eyes to see into

+the far distance finds what he sought at his very feet. All his life

+he had looked over the heads of the men around him, when he should have

+merely looked in front of him without straining his eyes.

+

+In the past he had never been able to find that great inscrutable

+infinite something. He had only felt that it must exist somewhere and

+had looked for it. In everything near and comprehensible he had seen

+only what was limited, petty, commonplace, and senseless. He had

+equipped himself with a mental telescope and looked into remote space,

+where petty worldliness hiding itself in misty distance had seemed to

+him great and infinite merely because it was not clearly seen. And such

+had European life, politics, Freemasonry, philosophy, and philanthropy

+seemed to him. But even then, at moments of weakness as he had accounted

+them, his mind had penetrated to those distances and he had there seen

+the same pettiness, worldliness, and senselessness. Now, however, he

+had learned to see the great, eternal, and infinite in everything, and

+therefore—to see it and enjoy its contemplation—he naturally threw away

+the telescope through which he had till now gazed over men’s heads, and

+gladly regarded the ever-changing, eternally great, unfathomable, and

+infinite life around him. And the closer he looked the more tranquil and

+happy he became. That dreadful question, “What for?” which had formerly

+destroyed all his mental edifices, no longer existed for him. To that

+question, “What for?” a simple answer was now always ready in his soul:

+“Because there is a God, that God without whose will not one hair falls

+from a man’s head.”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+In external ways Pierre had hardly changed at all. In appearance he

+was just what he used to be. As before he was absent-minded and seemed

+occupied not with what was before his eyes but with something special

+of his own. The difference between his former and present self was that

+formerly when he did not grasp what lay before him or was said to

+him, he had puckered his forehead painfully as if vainly seeking to

+distinguish something at a distance. At present he still forgot what was

+said to him and still did not see what was before his eyes, but he now

+looked with a scarcely perceptible and seemingly ironic smile at what

+was before him and listened to what was said, though evidently seeing

+and hearing something quite different. Formerly he had appeared to be

+a kindhearted but unhappy man, and so people had been inclined to avoid

+him. Now a smile at the joy of life always played round his lips, and

+sympathy for others, shone in his eyes with a questioning look as to

+whether they were as contented as he was, and people felt pleased by his

+presence.

+

+Previously he had talked a great deal, grew excited when he talked, and

+seldom listened; now he was seldom carried away in conversation and

+knew how to listen so that people readily told him their most intimate

+secrets.

+

+The princess, who had never liked Pierre and had been particularly

+hostile to him since she had felt herself under obligations to him after

+the old count’s death, now after staying a short time in Orël—where she

+had come intending to show Pierre that in spite of his ingratitude she

+considered it her duty to nurse him—felt to her surprise and vexation

+that she had become fond of him. Pierre did not in any way seek her

+approval, he merely studied her with interest. Formerly she had felt

+that he regarded her with indifference and irony, and so had shrunk into

+herself as she did with others and had shown him only the combative side

+of her nature; but now he seemed to be trying to understand the most

+intimate places of her heart, and, mistrustfully at first but afterwards

+gratefully, she let him see the hidden, kindly sides of her character.

+

+The most cunning man could not have crept into her confidence more

+successfully, evoking memories of the best times of her youth and

+showing sympathy with them. Yet Pierre’s cunning consisted simply in

+finding pleasure in drawing out the human qualities of the embittered,

+hard, and (in her own way) proud princess.

+

+“Yes, he is a very, very kind man when he is not under the influence of

+bad people but of people such as myself,” thought she.

+

+His servants too—Terénty and Váska—in their own way noticed the change

+that had taken place in Pierre. They considered that he had become much

+“simpler.” Terénty, when he had helped him undress and wished him good

+night, often lingered with his master’s boots in his hands and clothes

+over his arm, to see whether he would not start a talk. And Pierre,

+noticing that Terénty wanted a chat, generally kept him there.

+

+“Well, tell me... now, how did you get food?” he would ask.

+

+And Terénty would begin talking of the destruction of Moscow, and of

+the old count, and would stand for a long time holding the clothes and

+talking, or sometimes listening to Pierre’s stories, and then would go

+out into the hall with a pleasant sense of intimacy with his master and

+affection for him.

+

+The doctor who attended Pierre and visited him every day, though he

+considered it his duty as a doctor to pose as a man whose every moment

+was of value to suffering humanity, would sit for hours with Pierre

+telling him his favorite anecdotes and his observations on the

+characters of his patients in general, and especially of the ladies.

+

+“It’s a pleasure to talk to a man like that; he is not like our

+provincials,” he would say.

+

+There were several prisoners from the French army in Orël, and the

+doctor brought one of them, a young Italian, to see Pierre.

+

+This officer began visiting Pierre, and the princess used to make fun of

+the tenderness the Italian expressed for him.

+

+The Italian seemed happy only when he could come to see Pierre, talk

+with him, tell him about his past, his life at home, and his love,

+and pour out to him his indignation against the French and especially

+against Napoleon.

+

+“If all Russians are in the least like you, it is sacrilege to fight

+such a nation,” he said to Pierre. “You, who have suffered so from the

+French, do not even feel animosity toward them.”

+

+Pierre had evoked the passionate affection of the Italian merely by

+evoking the best side of his nature and taking a pleasure in so doing.

+

+During the last days of Pierre’s stay in Orël his old Masonic

+acquaintance Count Willarski, who had introduced him to the lodge in

+1807, came to see him. Willarski was married to a Russian heiress who

+had a large estate in Orël province, and he occupied a temporary post in

+the commissariat department in that town.

+

+Hearing that Bezúkhov was in Orël, Willarski, though they had never been

+intimate, came to him with the professions of friendship and intimacy

+that people who meet in a desert generally express for one another.

+Willarski felt dull in Orël and was pleased to meet a man of his own

+circle and, as he supposed, of similar interests.

+

+But to his surprise Willarski soon noticed that Pierre had lagged much

+behind the times, and had sunk, as he expressed it to himself, into

+apathy and egotism.

+

+“You are letting yourself go, my dear fellow,” he said.

+

+But for all that Willarski found it pleasanter now than it had been

+formerly to be with Pierre, and came to see him every day. To Pierre as

+he looked at and listened to Willarski, it seemed strange to think that

+he had been like that himself but a short time before.

+

+Willarski was a married man with a family, busy with his family affairs,

+his wife’s affairs, and his official duties. He regarded all these

+occupations as hindrances to life, and considered that they were all

+contemptible because their aim was the welfare of himself and his

+family. Military, administrative, political, and Masonic interests

+continually absorbed his attention. And Pierre, without trying to

+change the other’s views and without condemning him, but with the quiet,

+joyful, and amused smile now habitual to him, was interested in this

+strange though very familiar phenomenon.

+

+There was a new feature in Pierre’s relations with Willarski, with the

+princess, with the doctor, and with all the people he now met, which

+gained for him the general good will. This was his acknowledgment of

+the impossibility of changing a man’s convictions by words, and his

+recognition of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing

+things each from his own point of view. This legitimate peculiarity of

+each individual which used to excite and irritate Pierre now became a

+basis of the sympathy he felt for, and the interest he took in, other

+people. The difference, and sometimes complete contradiction, between

+men’s opinions and their lives, and between one man and another, pleased

+him and drew from him an amused and gentle smile.

+

+In practical matters Pierre unexpectedly felt within himself a center

+of gravity he had previously lacked. Formerly all pecuniary questions,

+especially requests for money to which, as an extremely wealthy man,

+he was very exposed, produced in him a state of hopeless agitation and

+perplexity. “To give or not to give?” he had asked himself. “I have

+it and he needs it. But someone else needs it still more. Who needs it

+most? And perhaps they are both impostors?” In the old days he had been

+unable to find a way out of all these surmises and had given to all

+who asked as long as he had anything to give. Formerly he had been in a

+similar state of perplexity with regard to every question concerning his

+property, when one person advised one thing and another something else.

+

+Now to his surprise he found that he no longer felt either doubt or

+perplexity about these questions. There was now within him a judge who

+by some rule unknown to him decided what should or should not be done.

+

+He was as indifferent as heretofore to money matters, but now he felt

+certain of what ought and what ought not to be done. The first time he

+had recourse to his new judge was when a French prisoner, a colonel,

+came to him and, after talking a great deal about his exploits,

+concluded by making what amounted to a demand that Pierre should give

+him four thousand francs to send to his wife and children. Pierre

+refused without the least difficulty or effort, and was afterwards

+surprised how simple and easy had been what used to appear so

+insurmountably difficult. At the same time that he refused the colonel’s

+demand he made up his mind that he must have recourse to artifice when

+leaving Orël, to induce the Italian officer to accept some money of

+which he was evidently in need. A further proof to Pierre of his own

+more settled outlook on practical matters was furnished by his decision

+with regard to his wife’s debts and to the rebuilding of his houses in

+and near Moscow.

+

+His head steward came to him at Orël and Pierre reckoned up with him his

+diminished income. The burning of Moscow had cost him, according to the

+head steward’s calculation, about two million rubles.

+

+To console Pierre for these losses the head steward gave him an estimate

+showing that despite these losses his income would not be diminished but

+would even be increased if he refused to pay his wife’s debts which he

+was under no obligation to meet, and did not rebuild his Moscow house

+and the country house on his Moscow estate, which had cost him eighty

+thousand rubles a year and brought in nothing.

+

+“Yes, of course that’s true,” said Pierre with a cheerful smile. “I

+don’t need all that at all. By being ruined I have become much richer.”

+

+But in January Savélich came from Moscow and gave him an account of the

+state of things there, and spoke of the estimate an architect had made

+of the cost of rebuilding the town and country houses, speaking of this

+as of a settled matter. About the same time he received letters from

+Prince Vasíli and other Petersburg acquaintances speaking of his wife’s

+debts. And Pierre decided that the steward’s proposals which had so

+pleased him were wrong and that he must go to Petersburg and settle his

+wife’s affairs and must rebuild in Moscow. Why this was necessary he

+did not know, but he knew for certain that it was necessary. His income

+would be reduced by three fourths, but he felt it must be done.

+

+Willarski was going to Moscow and they agreed to travel together.

+

+During the whole time of his convalescence in Orël Pierre had

+experienced a feeling of joy, freedom, and life; but when during his

+journey he found himself in the open world and saw hundreds of new

+faces, that feeling was intensified. Throughout his journey he felt like

+a schoolboy on holiday. Everyone—the stagecoach driver, the post-house

+overseers, the peasants on the roads and in the villages—had a new

+significance for him. The presence and remarks of Willarski who

+continually deplored the ignorance and poverty of Russia and its

+backwardness compared with Europe only heightened Pierre’s pleasure.

+Where Willarski saw deadness Pierre saw an extraordinary strength and

+vitality—the strength which in that vast space amid the snows maintained

+the life of this original, peculiar, and unique people. He did not

+contradict Willarski and even seemed to agree with him—an apparent

+agreement being the simplest way to avoid discussions that could lead to

+nothing—and he smiled joyfully as he listened to him.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV

+

+It would be difficult to explain why and whither ants whose heap

+has been destroyed are hurrying: some from the heap dragging bits of

+rubbish, larvae, and corpses, others back to the heap, or why they

+jostle, overtake one another, and fight, and it would be equally

+difficult to explain what caused the Russians after the departure of the

+French to throng to the place that had formerly been Moscow. But when

+we watch the ants round their ruined heap, the tenacity, energy, and

+immense number of the delving insects prove that despite the destruction

+of the heap, something indestructible, which though intangible is the

+real strength of the colony, still exists; and similarly, though in

+Moscow in the month of October there was no government and no churches,

+shrines, riches, or houses—it was still the Moscow it had been in

+August. All was destroyed, except something intangible yet powerful and

+indestructible.

+

+The motives of those who thronged from all sides to Moscow after it had

+been cleared of the enemy were most diverse and personal, and at first

+for the most part savage and brutal. One motive only they all had in

+common: a desire to get to the place that had been called Moscow, to

+apply their activities there.

+

+Within a week Moscow already had fifteen thousand inhabitants, in a

+fortnight twenty-five thousand, and so on. By the autumn of 1813 the

+number, ever increasing and increasing, exceeded what it had been in

+1812.

+

+The first Russians to enter Moscow were the Cossacks of Wintzingerode’s

+detachment, peasants from the adjacent villages, and residents who had

+fled from Moscow and had been hiding in its vicinity. The Russians who

+entered Moscow, finding it plundered, plundered it in their turn. They

+continued what the French had begun. Trains of peasant carts came to

+Moscow to carry off to the villages what had been abandoned in the

+ruined houses and the streets. The Cossacks carried off what they could

+to their camps, and the householders seized all they could find in other

+houses and moved it to their own, pretending that it was their property.

+

+But the first plunderers were followed by a second and a third

+contingent, and with increasing numbers plundering became more and more

+difficult and assumed more definite forms.

+

+The French found Moscow abandoned but with all the organizations of

+regular life, with diverse branches of commerce and craftsmanship, with

+luxury, and governmental and religious institutions. These forms were

+lifeless but still existed. There were bazaars, shops, warehouses,

+market stalls, granaries—for the most part still stocked with goods—and

+there were factories and workshops, palaces and wealthy houses filled

+with luxuries, hospitals, prisons, government offices, churches, and

+cathedrals. The longer the French remained the more these forms of town

+life perished, until finally all was merged into one confused, lifeless

+scene of plunder.

+

+The more the plundering by the French continued, the more both the

+wealth of Moscow and the strength of its plunderers was destroyed. But

+plundering by the Russians, with which the reoccupation of the city

+began, had an opposite effect: the longer it continued and the greater

+the number of people taking part in it the more rapidly was the wealth

+of the city and its regular life restored.

+

+Besides the plunderers, very various people, some drawn by curiosity,

+some by official duties, some by self-interest—house owners, clergy,

+officials of all kinds, tradesmen, artisans, and peasants—streamed into

+Moscow as blood flows to the heart.

+

+Within a week the peasants who came with empty carts to carry off

+plunder were stopped by the authorities and made to cart the corpses

+out of the town. Other peasants, having heard of their comrades’

+discomfiture, came to town bringing rye, oats, and hay, and beat down

+one another’s prices to below what they had been in former days. Gangs

+of carpenters hoping for high pay arrived in Moscow every day, and on

+all sides logs were being hewn, new houses built, and old, charred ones

+repaired. Tradesmen began trading in booths. Cookshops and taverns were

+opened in partially burned houses. The clergy resumed the services

+in many churches that had not been burned. Donors contributed

+Church property that had been stolen. Government clerks set up their

+baize-covered tables and their pigeonholes of documents in small rooms.

+The higher authorities and the police organized the distribution of

+goods left behind by the French. The owners of houses in which much

+property had been left, brought there from other houses, complained of

+the injustice of taking everything to the Faceted Palace in the Krémlin;

+others insisted that as the French had gathered things from different

+houses into this or that house, it would be unfair to allow its owner to

+keep all that was found there. They abused the police and bribed them,

+made out estimates at ten times their value for government stores that

+had perished in the fire, and demanded relief. And Count Rostopchín

+wrote proclamations.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV

+

+At the end of January Pierre went to Moscow and stayed in an annex of

+his house which had not been burned. He called on Count Rostopchín and

+on some acquaintances who were back in Moscow, and he intended to leave

+for Petersburg two days later. Everybody was celebrating the victory,

+everything was bubbling with life in the ruined but reviving city.

+Everyone was pleased to see Pierre, everyone wished to meet him, and

+everyone questioned him about what he had seen. Pierre felt particularly

+well disposed toward them all, but was now instinctively on his

+guard for fear of binding himself in any way. To all questions put to

+him—whether important or quite trifling—such as: Where would he live?

+Was he going to rebuild? When was he going to Petersburg and would he

+mind taking a parcel for someone?—he replied: “Yes, perhaps,” or, “I

+think so,” and so on.

+

+He had heard that the Rostóvs were at Kostromá but the thought of

+Natásha seldom occurred to him. If it did it was only as a pleasant

+memory of the distant past. He felt himself not only free from social

+obligations but also from that feeling which, it seemed to him, he had

+aroused in himself.

+

+On the third day after his arrival he heard from the Drubetskóys that

+Princess Mary was in Moscow. The death, sufferings, and last days of

+Prince Andrew had often occupied Pierre’s thoughts and now recurred to

+him with fresh vividness. Having heard at dinner that Princess Mary

+was in Moscow and living in her house—which had not been burned—in

+Vozdvízhenka Street, he drove that same evening to see her.

+

+On his way to the house Pierre kept thinking of Prince Andrew, of their

+friendship, of his various meetings with him, and especially of the last

+one at Borodinó.

+

+“Is it possible that he died in the bitter frame of mind he was then in?

+Is it possible that the meaning of life was not disclosed to him

+before he died?” thought Pierre. He recalled Karatáev and his death and

+involuntarily began to compare these two men, so different, and yet so

+similar in that they had both lived and both died and in the love he

+felt for both of them.

+

+Pierre drove up to the house of the old prince in a most serious mood.

+The house had escaped the fire; it showed signs of damage but its

+general aspect was unchanged. The old footman, who met Pierre with a

+stern face as if wishing to make the visitor feel that the absence

+of the old prince had not disturbed the order of things in the house,

+informed him that the princess had gone to her own apartments, and that

+she received on Sundays.

+

+“Announce me. Perhaps she will see me,” said Pierre.

+

+“Yes, sir,” said the man. “Please step into the portrait gallery.”

+

+A few minutes later the footman returned with Dessalles, who brought

+word from the princess that she would be very glad to see Pierre if he

+would excuse her want of ceremony and come upstairs to her apartment.

+

+In a rather low room lit by one candle sat the princess and with her

+another person dressed in black. Pierre remembered that the princess

+always had lady companions, but who they were and what they were like

+he never knew or remembered. “This must be one of her companions,” he

+thought, glancing at the lady in the black dress.

+

+The princess rose quickly to meet him and held out her hand.

+

+“Yes,” she said, looking at his altered face after he had kissed her

+hand, “so this is how we meet again. He spoke of you even at the very

+last,” she went on, turning her eyes from Pierre to her companion with a

+shyness that surprised him for an instant.

+

+“I was so glad to hear of your safety. It was the first piece of good

+news we had received for a long time.”

+

+Again the princess glanced round at her companion with even more

+uneasiness in her manner and was about to add something, but Pierre

+interrupted her.

+

+“Just imagine—I knew nothing about him!” said he. “I thought he had been

+killed. All I know I heard at second hand from others. I only know that

+he fell in with the Rostóvs.... What a strange coincidence!”

+

+Pierre spoke rapidly and with animation. He glanced once at the

+companion’s face, saw her attentive and kindly gaze fixed on him, and,

+as often happens when one is talking, felt somehow that this companion

+in the black dress was a good, kind, excellent creature who would not

+hinder his conversing freely with Princess Mary.

+

+But when he mentioned the Rostóvs, Princess Mary’s face expressed still

+greater embarrassment. She again glanced rapidly from Pierre’s face to

+that of the lady in the black dress and said:

+

+“Do you really not recognize her?”

+

+Pierre looked again at the companion’s pale, delicate face with its

+black eyes and peculiar mouth, and something near to him, long forgotten

+and more than sweet, looked at him from those attentive eyes.

+

+“But no, it can’t be!” he thought. “This stern, thin, pale face that

+looks so much older! It cannot be she. It merely reminds me of her.”

+But at that moment Princess Mary said, “Natásha!” And with difficulty,

+effort, and stress, like the opening of a door grown rusty on its

+hinges, a smile appeared on the face with the attentive eyes, and from

+that opening door came a breath of fragrance which suffused Pierre with

+a happiness he had long forgotten and of which he had not even been

+thinking—especially at that moment. It suffused him, seized him, and

+enveloped him completely. When she smiled doubt was no longer possible,

+it was Natásha and he loved her.

+

+At that moment Pierre involuntarily betrayed to her, to Princess Mary,

+and above all to himself, a secret of which he himself had been unaware.

+He flushed joyfully yet with painful distress. He tried to hide his

+agitation. But the more he tried to hide it the more clearly—clearer

+than any words could have done—did he betray to himself, to her, and to

+Princess Mary that he loved her.

+

+“No, it’s only the unexpectedness of it,” thought Pierre. But as soon as

+he tried to continue the conversation he had begun with Princess Mary he

+again glanced at Natásha, and a still-deeper flush suffused his face and

+a still-stronger agitation of mingled joy and fear seized his soul. He

+became confused in his speech and stopped in the middle of what he was

+saying.

+

+Pierre had failed to notice Natásha because he did not at all expect to

+see her there, but he had failed to recognize her because the change in

+her since he last saw her was immense. She had grown thin and pale, but

+that was not what made her unrecognizable; she was unrecognizable at the

+moment he entered because on that face whose eyes had always shone with

+a suppressed smile of the joy of life, now when he first entered and

+glanced at her there was not the least shadow of a smile: only her eyes

+were kindly attentive and sadly interrogative.

+

+Pierre’s confusion was not reflected by any confusion on Natásha’s part,

+but only by the pleasure that just perceptibly lit up her whole face.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI

+

+“She has come to stay with me,” said Princess Mary. “The count and

+countess will be here in a few days. The countess is in a dreadful

+state; but it was necessary for Natásha herself to see a doctor. They

+insisted on her coming with me.”

+

+“Yes, is there a family free from sorrow now?” said Pierre, addressing

+Natásha. “You know it happened the very day we were rescued. I saw him.

+What a delightful boy he was!”

+

+Natásha looked at him, and by way of answer to his words her eyes

+widened and lit up.

+

+“What can one say or think of as a consolation?” said Pierre. “Nothing!

+Why had such a splendid boy, so full of life, to die?”

+

+“Yes, in these days it would be hard to live without faith...” remarked

+Princess Mary.

+

+“Yes, yes, that is really true,” Pierre hastily interrupted her.

+

+“Why is it true?” Natásha asked, looking attentively into Pierre’s eyes.

+

+“How can you ask why?” said Princess Mary. “The thought alone of what

+awaits...”

+

+Natásha without waiting for Princess Mary to finish again looked

+inquiringly at Pierre.

+

+“And because,” Pierre continued, “only one who believes that there is a

+God ruling us can bear a loss such as hers and... yours.”

+

+Natásha had already opened her mouth to speak but suddenly stopped.

+Pierre hurriedly turned away from her and again addressed Princess Mary,

+asking about his friend’s last days.

+

+Pierre’s confusion had now almost vanished, but at the same time he felt

+that his freedom had also completely gone. He felt that there was now a

+judge of his every word and action whose judgment mattered more to

+him than that of all the rest of the world. As he spoke now he was

+considering what impression his words would make on Natásha. He did

+not purposely say things to please her, but whatever he was saying he

+regarded from her standpoint.

+

+Princess Mary—reluctantly as is usual in such cases—began telling of

+the condition in which she had found Prince Andrew. But Pierre’s face

+quivering with emotion, his questions and his eager restless expression,

+gradually compelled her to go into details which she feared to recall

+for her own sake.

+

+“Yes, yes, and so...?” Pierre kept saying as he leaned toward her with

+his whole body and eagerly listened to her story. “Yes, yes... so he

+grew tranquil and softened? With all his soul he had always sought

+one thing—to be perfectly good—so he could not be afraid of death. The

+faults he had—if he had any—were not of his making. So he did soften?...

+What a happy thing that he saw you again,” he added, suddenly turning to

+Natásha and looking at her with eyes full of tears.

+

+Natásha’s face twitched. She frowned and lowered her eyes for a moment.

+She hesitated for an instant whether to speak or not.

+

+“Yes, that was happiness,” she then said in her quiet voice with its

+deep chest notes. “For me it certainly was happiness.” She paused. “And

+he... he... he said he was wishing for it at the very moment I entered

+the room....”

+

+Natásha’s voice broke. She blushed, pressed her clasped hands on her

+knees, and then controlling herself with an evident effort lifted her

+head and began to speak rapidly.

+

+“We knew nothing of it when we started from Moscow. I did not dare to

+ask about him. Then suddenly Sónya told me he was traveling with us. I

+had no idea and could not imagine what state he was in, all I wanted was

+to see him and be with him,” she said, trembling, and breathing quickly.

+

+And not letting them interrupt her she went on to tell what she had

+never yet mentioned to anyone—all she had lived through during those

+three weeks of their journey and life at Yaroslávl.

+

+Pierre listened to her with lips parted and eyes fixed upon her full of

+tears. As he listened he did not think of Prince Andrew, nor of death,

+nor of what she was telling. He listened to her and felt only pity for

+her, for what she was suffering now while she was speaking.

+

+Princess Mary, frowning in her effort to hold back her tears, sat beside

+Natásha, and heard for the first time the story of those last days of

+her brother’s and Natásha’s love.

+

+Evidently Natásha needed to tell that painful yet joyful tale.

+

+She spoke, mingling most trifling details with the intimate secrets of

+her soul, and it seemed as if she could never finish. Several times she

+repeated the same thing twice.

+

+Dessalles’ voice was heard outside the door asking whether little

+Nicholas might come in to say good night.

+

+“Well, that’s all—everything,” said Natásha.

+

+She got up quickly just as Nicholas entered, almost ran to the door

+which was hidden by curtains, struck her head against it, and rushed

+from the room with a moan either of pain or sorrow.

+

+Pierre gazed at the door through which she had disappeared and did not

+understand why he suddenly felt all alone in the world.

+

+Princess Mary roused him from his abstraction by drawing his attention

+to her nephew who had entered the room.

+

+At that moment of emotional tenderness young Nicholas’ face, which

+resembled his father’s, affected Pierre so much that when he had kissed

+the boy he got up quickly, took out his handkerchief, and went to the

+window. He wished to take leave of Princess Mary, but she would not let

+him go.

+

+“No, Natásha and I sometimes don’t go to sleep till after two, so please

+don’t go. I will order supper. Go downstairs, we will come immediately.”

+

+Before Pierre left the room Princess Mary told him: “This is the first

+time she has talked of him like that.”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVII

+

+Pierre was shown into the large, brightly lit dining room; a few minutes

+later he heard footsteps and Princess Mary entered with Natásha. Natásha

+was calm, though a severe and grave expression had again settled on her

+face. They all three of them now experienced that feeling of awkwardness

+which usually follows after a serious and heartfelt talk. It is

+impossible to go back to the same conversation, to talk of trifles is

+awkward, and yet the desire to speak is there and silence seems like

+affectation. They went silently to table. The footmen drew back the

+chairs and pushed them up again. Pierre unfolded his cold table napkin

+and, resolving to break the silence, looked at Natásha and at Princess

+Mary. They had evidently both formed the same resolution; the eyes of

+both shone with satisfaction and a confession that besides sorrow life

+also has joy.

+

+“Do you take vodka, Count?” asked Princess Mary, and those words

+suddenly banished the shadows of the past. “Now tell us about yourself,”

+said she. “One hears such improbable wonders about you.”

+

+“Yes,” replied Pierre with the smile of mild irony now habitual to him.

+“They even tell me wonders I myself never dreamed of! Mary Abrámovna

+invited me to her house and kept telling me what had happened, or ought

+to have happened, to me. Stepán Stepánych also instructed me how I ought

+to tell of my experiences. In general I have noticed that it is very

+easy to be an interesting man (I am an interesting man now); people

+invite me out and tell me all about myself.”

+

+Natásha smiled and was on the point of speaking.

+

+“We have been told,” Princess Mary interrupted her, “that you lost two

+millions in Moscow. Is that true?”

+

+“But I am three times as rich as before,” returned Pierre.

+

+Though the position was now altered by his decision to pay his wife’s

+debts and to rebuild his houses, Pierre still maintained that he had

+become three times as rich as before.

+

+“What I have certainly gained is freedom,” he began seriously, but did

+not continue, noticing that this theme was too egotistic.

+

+“And are you building?”

+

+“Yes. Savélich says I must!”

+

+“Tell me, you did not know of the countess’ death when you decided to

+remain in Moscow?” asked Princess Mary and immediately blushed, noticing

+that her question, following his mention of freedom, ascribed to his

+words a meaning he had perhaps not intended.

+

+“No,” answered Pierre, evidently not considering awkward the meaning

+Princess Mary had given to his words. “I heard of it in Orël and you

+cannot imagine how it shocked me. We were not an exemplary couple,” he

+added quickly, glancing at Natásha and noticing on her face curiosity as

+to how he would speak of his wife, “but her death shocked me terribly.

+When two people quarrel they are always both in fault, and one’s own

+guilt suddenly becomes terribly serious when the other is no longer

+alive. And then such a death... without friends and without consolation!

+I am very, very sorry for her,” he concluded, and was pleased to notice

+a look of glad approval on Natásha’s face.

+

+“Yes, and so you are once more an eligible bachelor,” said Princess

+Mary.

+

+Pierre suddenly flushed crimson and for a long time tried not to look

+at Natásha. When he ventured to glance her way again her face was cold,

+stern, and he fancied even contemptuous.

+

+“And did you really see and speak to Napoleon, as we have been told?”

+said Princess Mary.

+

+Pierre laughed.

+

+“No, not once! Everybody seems to imagine that being taken prisoner

+means being Napoleon’s guest. Not only did I never see him but I heard

+nothing about him—I was in much lower company!”

+

+Supper was over, and Pierre who at first declined to speak about his

+captivity was gradually led on to do so.

+

+“But it’s true that you remained in Moscow to kill Napoleon?” Natásha

+asked with a slight smile. “I guessed it then when we met at the

+Súkharev tower, do you remember?”

+

+Pierre admitted that it was true, and from that was gradually led by

+Princess Mary’s questions and especially by Natásha’s into giving a

+detailed account of his adventures.

+

+At first he spoke with the amused and mild irony now customary with

+him toward everybody and especially toward himself, but when he came

+to describe the horrors and sufferings he had witnessed he was

+unconsciously carried away and began speaking with the suppressed

+emotion of a man re-experiencing in recollection strong impressions he

+has lived through.

+

+Princess Mary with a gentle smile looked now at Pierre and now at

+Natásha. In the whole narrative she saw only Pierre and his goodness.

+Natásha, leaning on her elbow, the expression of her face constantly

+changing with the narrative, watched Pierre with an attention that never

+wandered—evidently herself experiencing all that he described. Not only

+her look, but her exclamations and the brief questions she put, showed

+Pierre that she understood just what he wished to convey. It was clear

+that she understood not only what he said but also what he wished to,

+but could not, express in words. The account Pierre gave of the incident

+with the child and the woman for protecting whom he was arrested was

+this: “It was an awful sight—children abandoned, some in the flames...

+One was snatched out before my eyes... and there were women who had

+their things snatched off and their earrings torn out...” he flushed and

+grew confused. “Then a patrol arrived and all the men—all those who were

+not looting, that is—were arrested, and I among them.”

+

+“I am sure you’re not telling us everything; I am sure you did

+something...” said Natásha and pausing added, “something fine?”

+

+Pierre continued. When he spoke of the execution he wanted to pass

+over the horrible details, but Natásha insisted that he should not omit

+anything.

+

+Pierre began to tell about Karatáev, but paused. By this time he had

+risen from the table and was pacing the room, Natásha following him with

+her eyes. Then he added:

+

+“No, you can’t understand what I learned from that illiterate man—that

+simple fellow.”

+

+“Yes, yes, go on!” said Natásha. “Where is he?”

+

+“They killed him almost before my eyes.”

+

+And Pierre, his voice trembling continually, went on to tell of the last

+days of their retreat, of Karatáev’s illness and his death.

+

+He told of his adventures as he had never yet recalled them. He now, as

+it were, saw a new meaning in all he had gone through. Now that he was

+telling it all to Natásha he experienced that pleasure which a man has

+when women listen to him—not clever women who when listening either try

+to remember what they hear to enrich their minds and when opportunity

+offers to retell it, or who wish to adopt it to some thought of their

+own and promptly contribute their own clever comments prepared in their

+little mental workshop—but the pleasure given by real women gifted with

+a capacity to select and absorb the very best a man shows of himself.

+Natásha without knowing it was all attention: she did not lose a word,

+no single quiver in Pierre’s voice, no look, no twitch of a muscle in

+his face, nor a single gesture. She caught the unfinished word in its

+flight and took it straight into her open heart, divining the secret

+meaning of all Pierre’s mental travail.

+

+Princess Mary understood his story and sympathized with him, but she

+now saw something else that absorbed all her attention. She saw the

+possibility of love and happiness between Natásha and Pierre, and the

+first thought of this filled her heart with gladness.

+

+It was three o’clock in the morning. The footmen came in with sad and

+stern faces to change the candles, but no one noticed them.

+

+Pierre finished his story. Natásha continued to look at him intently

+with bright, attentive, and animated eyes, as if trying to understand

+something more which he had perhaps left untold. Pierre in shamefaced

+and happy confusion glanced occasionally at her, and tried to think what

+to say next to introduce a fresh subject. Princess Mary was silent. It

+occurred to none of them that it was three o’clock and time to go to

+bed.

+

+“People speak of misfortunes and sufferings,” remarked Pierre, “but if

+at this moment I were asked: ‘Would you rather be what you were before

+you were taken prisoner, or go through all this again?’ then for

+heaven’s sake let me again have captivity and horseflesh! We imagine

+that when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is

+only then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is

+happiness. There is much, much before us. I say this to you,” he added,

+turning to Natásha.

+

+“Yes, yes,” she said, answering something quite different. “I too should

+wish nothing but to relive it all from the beginning.”

+

+Pierre looked intently at her.

+

+“Yes, and nothing more,” said Natásha.

+

+“It’s not true, not true!” cried Pierre. “I am not to blame for being

+alive and wishing to live—nor you either.”

+

+Suddenly Natásha bent her head, covered her face with her hands, and

+began to cry.

+

+“What is it, Natásha?” said Princess Mary.

+

+“Nothing, nothing.” She smiled at Pierre through her tears. “Good night!

+It is time for bed.”

+

+Pierre rose and took his leave.

+

+

+Princess Mary and Natásha met as usual in the bedroom. They talked of

+what Pierre had told them. Princess Mary did not express her opinion of

+Pierre nor did Natásha speak of him.

+

+“Well, good night, Mary!” said Natásha. “Do you know, I am often afraid

+that by not speaking of him” (she meant Prince Andrew) “for fear of not

+doing justice to our feelings, we forget him.”

+

+Princess Mary sighed deeply and thereby acknowledged the justice of

+Natásha’s remark, but she did not express agreement in words.

+

+“Is it possible to forget?” said she.

+

+“It did me so much good to tell all about it today. It was hard and

+painful, but good, very good!” said Natásha. “I am sure he really loved

+him. That is why I told him... Was it all right?” she added, suddenly

+blushing.

+

+“To tell Pierre? Oh, yes. What a splendid man he is!” said Princess

+Mary.

+

+“Do you know, Mary...” Natásha suddenly said with a mischievous smile

+such as Princess Mary had not seen on her face for a long time, “he has

+somehow grown so clean, smooth, and fresh—as if he had just come out of

+a Russian bath; do you understand? Out of a moral bath. Isn’t it true?”

+

+“Yes,” replied Princess Mary. “He has greatly improved.”

+

+“With a short coat and his hair cropped; just as if, well, just as if he

+had come straight from the bath... Papa used to...”

+

+“I understand why he” (Prince Andrew) “liked no one so much as him,”

+said Princess Mary.

+

+“Yes, and yet he is quite different. They say men are friends when they

+are quite different. That must be true. Really he is quite unlike him—in

+everything.”

+

+“Yes, but he’s wonderful.”

+

+“Well, good night,” said Natásha.

+

+And the same mischievous smile lingered for a long time on her face as

+if it had been forgotten there.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVIII

+

+It was a long time before Pierre could fall asleep that night. He paced

+up and down his room, now turning his thoughts on a difficult problem

+and frowning, now suddenly shrugging his shoulders and wincing, and now

+smiling happily.

+

+He was thinking of Prince Andrew, of Natásha, and of their love, at one

+moment jealous of her past, then reproaching himself for that feeling.

+It was already six in the morning and he still paced up and down the

+room.

+

+“Well, what’s to be done if it cannot be avoided? What’s to be done?

+Evidently it has to be so,” said he to himself, and hastily undressing

+he got into bed, happy and agitated but free from hesitation or

+indecision.

+

+“Strange and impossible as such happiness seems, I must do everything

+that she and I may be man and wife,” he told himself.

+

+A few days previously Pierre had decided to go to Petersburg on the

+Friday. When he awoke on the Thursday, Savélich came to ask him about

+packing for the journey.

+

+“What, to Petersburg? What is Petersburg? Who is there in Petersburg?”

+he asked involuntarily, though only to himself. “Oh, yes, long ago

+before this happened I did for some reason mean to go to Petersburg,”

+he reflected. “Why? But perhaps I shall go. What a good fellow he is and

+how attentive, and how he remembers everything,” he thought, looking at

+Savélich’s old face, “and what a pleasant smile he has!”

+

+“Well, Savélich, do you still not wish to accept your freedom?” Pierre

+asked him.

+

+“What’s the good of freedom to me, your excellency? We lived under the

+late count—the kingdom of heaven be his!—and we have lived under you

+too, without ever being wronged.”

+

+“And your children?”

+

+“The children will live just the same. With such masters one can live.”

+

+“But what about my heirs?” said Pierre. “Supposing I suddenly marry...

+it might happen,” he added with an involuntary smile.

+

+“If I may take the liberty, your excellency, it would be a good thing.”

+

+“How easy he thinks it,” thought Pierre. “He doesn’t know how terrible

+it is and how dangerous. Too soon or too late... it is terrible!”

+

+“So what are your orders? Are you starting tomorrow?” asked Savélich.

+

+“No, I’ll put it off for a bit. I’ll tell you later. You must forgive

+the trouble I have put you to,” said Pierre, and seeing Savélich smile,

+he thought: “But how strange it is that he should not know that now

+there is no Petersburg for me, and that that must be settled first of

+all! But probably he knows it well enough and is only pretending. Shall

+I have a talk with him and see what he thinks?” Pierre reflected. “No,

+another time.”

+

+At breakfast Pierre told the princess, his cousin, that he had been to

+see Princess Mary the day before and had there met—“Whom do you think?

+Natásha Rostóva!”

+

+The princess seemed to see nothing more extraordinary in that than if he

+had seen Anna Semënovna.

+

+“Do you know her?” asked Pierre.

+

+“I have seen the princess,” she replied. “I heard that they were

+arranging a match for her with young Rostóv. It would be a very good

+thing for the Rostóvs, they are said to be utterly ruined.”

+

+“No; I mean do you know Natásha Rostóva?”

+

+“I heard about that affair of hers at the time. It was a great pity.”

+

+“No, she either doesn’t understand or is pretending,” thought Pierre.

+“Better not say anything to her either.”

+

+The princess too had prepared provisions for Pierre’s journey.

+

+“How kind they all are,” thought Pierre. “What is surprising is that

+they should trouble about these things now when it can no longer be of

+interest to them. And all for me!”

+

+On the same day the Chief of Police came to Pierre, inviting him to send

+a representative to the Faceted Palace to recover things that were to be

+returned to their owners that day.

+

+“And this man too,” thought Pierre, looking into the face of the Chief

+of Police. “What a fine, good-looking officer and how kind. Fancy

+bothering about such trifles now! And they actually say he is not honest

+and takes bribes. What nonsense! Besides, why shouldn’t he take bribes?

+That’s the way he was brought up, and everybody does it. But what a

+kind, pleasant face and how he smiles as he looks at me.”

+

+Pierre went to Princess Mary’s to dinner.

+

+As he drove through the streets past the houses that had been burned

+down, he was surprised by the beauty of those ruins. The picturesqueness

+of the chimney stacks and tumble-down walls of the burned-out quarters

+of the town, stretching out and concealing one another, reminded him of

+the Rhine and the Colosseum. The cabmen he met and their passengers,

+the carpenters cutting the timber for new houses with axes, the women

+hawkers, and the shopkeepers, all looked at him with cheerful beaming

+eyes that seemed to say: “Ah, there he is! Let’s see what will come of

+it!”

+

+At the entrance to Princess Mary’s house Pierre felt doubtful whether

+he had really been there the night before and really seen Natásha and

+talked to her. “Perhaps I imagined it; perhaps I shall go in and find

+no one there.” But he had hardly entered the room before he felt her

+presence with his whole being by the loss of his sense of freedom. She

+was in the same black dress with soft folds and her hair was done the

+same way as the day before, yet she was quite different. Had she been

+like this when he entered the day before he could not for a moment have

+failed to recognize her.

+

+She was as he had known her almost as a child and later on as Prince

+Andrew’s fiancée. A bright questioning light shone in her eyes, and on

+her face was a friendly and strangely roguish expression.

+

+Pierre dined with them and would have spent the whole evening there, but

+Princess Mary was going to vespers and Pierre left the house with her.

+

+Next day he came early, dined, and stayed the whole evening. Though

+Princess Mary and Natásha were evidently glad to see their visitor and

+though all Pierre’s interest was now centered in that house, by the

+evening they had talked over everything and the conversation passed from

+one trivial topic to another and repeatedly broke off. He stayed so long

+that Princess Mary and Natásha exchanged glances, evidently wondering

+when he would go. Pierre noticed this but could not go. He felt uneasy

+and embarrassed, but sat on because he simply could not get up and take

+his leave.

+

+Princess Mary, foreseeing no end to this, rose first, and complaining of

+a headache began to say good night.

+

+“So you are going to Petersburg tomorrow?” she asked.

+

+“No, I am not going,” Pierre replied hastily, in a surprised tone and as

+though offended. “Yes... no... to Petersburg? Tomorrow—but I won’t say

+good-by yet. I will call round in case you have any commissions for me,”

+said he, standing before Princess Mary and turning red, but not taking

+his departure.

+

+Natásha gave him her hand and went out. Princess Mary on the other hand

+instead of going away sank into an armchair, and looked sternly and

+intently at him with her deep, radiant eyes. The weariness she

+had plainly shown before had now quite passed off. With a deep and

+long-drawn sigh she seemed to be prepared for a lengthy talk.

+

+When Natásha left the room Pierre’s confusion and awkwardness

+immediately vanished and were replaced by eager excitement. He quickly

+moved an armchair toward Princess Mary.

+

+“Yes, I wanted to tell you,” said he, answering her look as if she had

+spoken. “Princess, help me! What am I to do? Can I hope? Princess, my

+dear friend, listen! I know it all. I know I am not worthy of her, I

+know it’s impossible to speak of it now. But I want to be a brother to

+her. No, not that, I don’t, I can’t...”

+

+He paused and rubbed his face and eyes with his hands.

+

+“Well,” he went on with an evident effort at self-control and coherence.

+“I don’t know when I began to love her, but I have loved her and her

+alone all my life, and I love her so that I cannot imagine life without

+her. I cannot propose to her at present, but the thought that

+perhaps she might someday be my wife and that I may be missing that

+possibility... that possibility... is terrible. Tell me, can I hope?

+Tell me what I am to do, dear princess!” he added after a pause, and

+touched her hand as she did not reply.

+

+“I am thinking of what you have told me,” answered Princess Mary.

+“This is what I will say. You are right that to speak to her of love at

+present...”

+

+Princess Mary stopped. She was going to say that to speak of love was

+impossible, but she stopped because she had seen by the sudden change

+in Natásha two days before that she would not only not be hurt if Pierre

+spoke of his love, but that it was the very thing she wished for.

+

+“To speak to her now wouldn’t do,” said the princess all the same.

+

+“But what am I to do?”

+

+“Leave it to me,” said Princess Mary. “I know...”

+

+Pierre was looking into Princess Mary’s eyes.

+

+“Well?... Well?...” he said.

+

+“I know that she loves... will love you,” Princess Mary corrected

+herself.

+

+Before her words were out, Pierre had sprung up and with a frightened

+expression seized Princess Mary’s hand.

+

+“What makes you think so? You think I may hope? You think...?”

+

+“Yes, I think so,” said Princess Mary with a smile. “Write to her

+parents, and leave it to me. I will tell her when I can. I wish it to

+happen and my heart tells me it will.”

+

+“No, it cannot be! How happy I am! But it can’t be.... How happy I am!

+No, it can’t be!” Pierre kept saying as he kissed Princess Mary’s hands.

+

+“Go to Petersburg, that will be best. And I will write to you,” she

+said.

+

+“To Petersburg? Go there? Very well, I’ll go. But I may come again

+tomorrow?”

+

+Next day Pierre came to say good-by. Natásha was less animated than

+she had been the day before; but that day as he looked at her Pierre

+sometimes felt as if he was vanishing and that neither he nor she

+existed any longer, that nothing existed but happiness. “Is it possible?

+No, it can’t be,” he told himself at every look, gesture, and word that

+filled his soul with joy.

+

+When on saying good-by he took her thin, slender hand, he could not help

+holding it a little longer in his own.

+

+“Is it possible that this hand, that face, those eyes, all this treasure

+of feminine charm so strange to me now, is it possible that it will one

+day be mine forever, as familiar to me as I am to myself?... No, that’s

+impossible!...”

+

+“Good-by, Count,” she said aloud. “I shall look forward very much to

+your return,” she added in a whisper.

+

+And these simple words, her look, and the expression on her face which

+accompanied them, formed for two months the subject of inexhaustible

+memories, interpretations, and happy meditations for Pierre. “‘I shall

+look forward very much to your return....’ Yes, yes, how did she say it?

+Yes, ‘I shall look forward very much to your return.’ Oh, how happy I

+am! What is happening to me? How happy I am!” said Pierre to himself.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIX

+

+There was nothing in Pierre’s soul now at all like what had troubled it

+during his courtship of Hélène.

+

+He did not repeat to himself with a sickening feeling of shame the words

+he had spoken, or say: “Oh, why did I not say that?” and, “Whatever made

+me say ‘Je vous aime’?” On the contrary, he now repeated in imagination

+every word that he or Natásha had spoken and pictured every detail of

+her face and smile, and did not wish to diminish or add anything, but

+only to repeat it again and again. There was now not a shadow of doubt

+in his mind as to whether what he had undertaken was right or wrong.

+Only one terrible doubt sometimes crossed his mind: “Wasn’t it all

+a dream? Isn’t Princess Mary mistaken? Am I not too conceited and

+self-confident? I believe all this—and suddenly Princess Mary will tell

+her, and she will be sure to smile and say: ‘How strange! He must be

+deluding himself. Doesn’t he know that he is a man, just a man, while

+I...? I am something altogether different and higher.’”

+

+That was the only doubt often troubling Pierre. He did not now make any

+plans. The happiness before him appeared so inconceivable that if only

+he could attain it, it would be the end of all things. Everything ended

+with that.

+

+A joyful, unexpected frenzy, of which he had thought himself incapable,

+possessed him. The whole meaning of life—not for him alone but for the

+whole world—seemed to him centered in his love and the possibility of

+being loved by her. At times everybody seemed to him to be occupied with

+one thing only—his future happiness. Sometimes it seemed to him that

+other people were all as pleased as he was himself and merely tried to

+hide that pleasure by pretending to be busy with other interests. In

+every word and gesture he saw allusions to his happiness. He often

+surprised those he met by his significantly happy looks and smiles which

+seemed to express a secret understanding between him and them. And when

+he realized that people might not be aware of his happiness, he pitied

+them with his whole heart and felt a desire somehow to explain to them

+that all that occupied them was a mere frivolous trifle unworthy of

+attention.

+

+When it was suggested to him that he should enter the civil service,

+or when the war or any general political affairs were discussed on the

+assumption that everybody’s welfare depended on this or that issue

+of events, he would listen with a mild and pitying smile and surprise

+people by his strange comments. But at this time he saw everybody—both

+those who, as he imagined, understood the real meaning of life (that

+is, what he was feeling) and those unfortunates who evidently did not

+understand it—in the bright light of the emotion that shone within

+himself, and at once without any effort saw in everyone he met

+everything that was good and worthy of being loved.

+

+When dealing with the affairs and papers of his dead wife, her memory

+aroused in him no feeling but pity that she had not known the bliss he

+now knew. Prince Vasíli, who having obtained a new post and some

+fresh decorations was particularly proud at this time, seemed to him a

+pathetic, kindly old man much to be pitied.

+

+Often in afterlife Pierre recalled this period of blissful insanity. All

+the views he formed of men and circumstances at this time remained true

+for him always. He not only did not renounce them subsequently, but when

+he was in doubt or inwardly at variance, he referred to the views he had

+held at this time of his madness and they always proved correct.

+

+“I may have appeared strange and queer then,” he thought, “but I was

+not so mad as I seemed. On the contrary I was then wiser and had

+more insight than at any other time, and understood all that is worth

+understanding in life, because... because I was happy.”

+

+Pierre’s insanity consisted in not waiting, as he used to do, to

+discover personal attributes which he termed “good qualities” in people

+before loving them; his heart was now overflowing with love, and by

+loving people without cause he discovered indubitable causes for loving

+them.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XX

+

+After Pierre’s departure that first evening, when Natásha had said to

+Princess Mary with a gaily mocking smile: “He looks just, yes, just as

+if he had come out of a Russian bath—in a short coat and with his hair

+cropped,” something hidden and unknown to herself, but irrepressible,

+awoke in Natásha’s soul.

+

+Everything: her face, walk, look, and voice, was suddenly altered.

+To her own surprise a power of life and hope of happiness rose to the

+surface and demanded satisfaction. From that evening she seemed to have

+forgotten all that had happened to her. She no longer complained of her

+position, did not say a word about the past, and no longer feared to

+make happy plans for the future. She spoke little of Pierre, but when

+Princess Mary mentioned him a long-extinguished light once more kindled

+in her eyes and her lips curved with a strange smile.

+

+The change that took place in Natásha at first surprised Princess Mary;

+but when she understood its meaning it grieved her. “Can she have loved

+my brother so little as to be able to forget him so soon?” she thought

+when she reflected on the change. But when she was with Natásha she was

+not vexed with her and did not reproach her. The reawakened power

+of life that had seized Natásha was so evidently irrepressible and

+unexpected by her that in her presence Princess Mary felt that she had

+no right to reproach her even in her heart.

+

+Natásha gave herself up so fully and frankly to this new feeling that

+she did not try to hide the fact that she was no longer sad, but bright

+and cheerful.

+

+When Princess Mary returned to her room after her nocturnal talk with

+Pierre, Natásha met her on the threshold.

+

+“He has spoken? Yes? He has spoken?” she repeated.

+

+And a joyful yet pathetic expression which seemed to beg forgiveness for

+her joy settled on Natásha’s face.

+

+“I wanted to listen at the door, but I knew you would tell me.”

+

+Understandable and touching as the look with which Natásha gazed at

+her seemed to Princess Mary, and sorry as she was to see her agitation,

+these words pained her for a moment. She remembered her brother and his

+love.

+

+“But what’s to be done? She can’t help it,” thought the princess.

+

+And with a sad and rather stern look she told Natásha all that Pierre

+had said. On hearing that he was going to Petersburg Natásha was

+astounded.

+

+“To Petersburg!” she repeated as if unable to understand.

+

+But noticing the grieved expression on Princess Mary’s face she guessed

+the reason of that sadness and suddenly began to cry.

+

+“Mary,” said she, “tell me what I should do! I am afraid of being bad.

+Whatever you tell me, I will do. Tell me....”

+

+“You love him?”

+

+“Yes,” whispered Natásha.

+

+“Then why are you crying? I am happy for your sake,” said Princess Mary,

+who because of those tears quite forgave Natásha’s joy.

+

+“It won’t be just yet—someday. Think what fun it will be when I am his

+wife and you marry Nicholas!”

+

+“Natásha, I have asked you not to speak of that. Let us talk about you.”

+

+They were silent awhile.

+

+“But why go to Petersburg?” Natásha suddenly asked, and hastily replied

+to her own question. “But no, no, he must... Yes, Mary, He must....”

+

+

+

+

+

+FIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+Seven years had passed. The storm-tossed sea of European history had

+subsided within its shores and seemed to have become calm. But the

+mysterious forces that move humanity (mysterious because the laws of

+their motion are unknown to us) continued to operate.

+

+Though the surface of the sea of history seemed motionless, the movement

+of humanity went on as unceasingly as the flow of time. Various groups

+of people formed and dissolved, the coming formation and dissolution of

+kingdoms and displacement of peoples was in course of preparation.

+

+The sea of history was not driven spasmodically from shore to shore as

+previously. It was seething in its depths. Historic figures were not

+borne by the waves from one shore to another as before. They now seemed

+to rotate on one spot. The historical figures at the head of armies,

+who formerly reflected the movement of the masses by ordering wars,

+campaigns, and battles, now reflected the restless movement by political

+and diplomatic combinations, laws, and treaties.

+

+The historians call this activity of the historical figures “the

+reaction.”

+

+In dealing with this period they sternly condemn the historical

+personages who, in their opinion, caused what they describe as the

+reaction. All the well-known people of that period, from Alexander and

+Napoleon to Madame de Staël, Photius, Schelling, Fichte, Chateaubriand,

+and the rest, pass before their stern judgment seat and are acquitted or

+condemned according to whether they conduced to progress or to reaction.

+

+According to their accounts a reaction took place at that time in Russia

+also, and the chief culprit was Alexander I, the same man who according

+to them was the chief cause of the liberal movement at the commencement

+of his reign, being the savior of Russia.

+

+There is no one in Russian literature now, from schoolboy essayist to

+learned historian, who does not throw his little stone at Alexander for

+things he did wrong at this period of his reign.

+

+“He ought to have acted in this way and in that way. In this case he did

+well and in that case badly. He behaved admirably at the beginning of

+his reign and during 1812, but acted badly by giving a constitution

+to Poland, forming the Holy Alliance, entrusting power to Arakchéev,

+favoring Golítsyn and mysticism, and afterwards Shishkóv and Photius.

+He also acted badly by concerning himself with the active army and

+disbanding the Semënov regiment.”

+

+It would take a dozen pages to enumerate all the reproaches the

+historians address to him, based on their knowledge of what is good for

+humanity.

+

+What do these reproaches mean?

+

+Do not the very actions for which the historians praise Alexander I

+(the liberal attempts at the beginning of his reign, his struggle with

+Napoleon, the firmness he displayed in 1812 and the campaign of 1813)

+flow from the same sources—the circumstances of his birth, education,

+and life—that made his personality what it was and from which the

+actions for which they blame him (the Holy Alliance, the restoration of

+Poland, and the reaction of 1820 and later) also flowed?

+

+In what does the substance of those reproaches lie?

+

+It lies in the fact that an historic character like Alexander I,

+standing on the highest possible pinnacle of human power with the

+blinding light of history focused upon him; a character exposed to those

+strongest of all influences: the intrigues, flattery, and self-deception

+inseparable from power; a character who at every moment of his life

+felt a responsibility for all that was happening in Europe; and not

+a fictitious but a live character who like every man had his personal

+habits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth—that

+this character—though not lacking in virtue (the historians do not

+accuse him of that)—had not the same conception of the welfare of

+humanity fifty years ago as a present-day professor who from his

+youth upwards has been occupied with learning: that is, with books and

+lectures and with taking notes from them.

+

+But even if we assume that fifty years ago Alexander I was mistaken in

+his view of what was good for the people, we must inevitably assume that

+the historian who judges Alexander will also after the lapse of some

+time turn out to be mistaken in his view of what is good for humanity.

+This assumption is all the more natural and inevitable because, watching

+the movement of history, we see that every year and with each new

+writer, opinion as to what is good for mankind changes; so that what

+once seemed good, ten years later seems bad, and vice versa. And what is

+more, we find at one and the same time quite contradictory views as to

+what is bad and what is good in history: some people regard giving a

+constitution to Poland and forming the Holy Alliance as praiseworthy in

+Alexander, while others regard it as blameworthy.

+

+The activity of Alexander or of Napoleon cannot be called useful or

+harmful, for it is impossible to say for what it was useful or harmful.

+If that activity displeases somebody, this is only because it does

+not agree with his limited understanding of what is good. Whether the

+preservation of my father’s house in Moscow, or the glory of the Russian

+arms, or the prosperity of the Petersburg and other universities, or the

+freedom of Poland or the greatness of Russia, or the balance of power in

+Europe, or a certain kind of European culture called “progress” appear

+to me to be good or bad, I must admit that besides these things the

+action of every historic character has other more general purposes

+inaccessible to me.

+

+But let us assume that what is called science can harmonize all

+contradictions and possesses an unchanging standard of good and bad by

+which to try historic characters and events; let us say that Alexander

+could have done everything differently; let us say that with guidance

+from those who blame him and who profess to know the ultimate aim of the

+movement of humanity, he might have arranged matters according to

+the program his present accusers would have given him—of nationality,

+freedom, equality, and progress (these, I think, cover the ground). Let

+us assume that this program was possible and had then been formulated,

+and that Alexander had acted on it. What would then have become of the

+activity of all those who opposed the tendency that then prevailed in

+the government—an activity that in the opinion of the historians was

+good and beneficent? Their activity would not have existed: there would

+have been no life, there would have been nothing.

+

+If we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of

+life is destroyed.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+If we assume as the historians do that great men lead humanity to the

+attainment of certain ends—the greatness of Russia or of France,

+the balance of power in Europe, the diffusion of the ideas of the

+Revolution, general progress, or anything else—then it is impossible

+to explain the facts of history without introducing the conceptions of

+chance and genius.

+

+If the aim of the European wars at the beginning of the nineteenth

+century had been the aggrandizement of Russia, that aim might have been

+accomplished without all the preceding wars and without the invasion. If

+the aim was the aggrandizement of France, that might have been attained

+without the Revolution and without the Empire. If the aim was the

+dissemination of ideas, the printing press could have accomplished that

+much better than warfare. If the aim was the progress of civilization,

+it is easy to see that there are other ways of diffusing civilization

+more expedient than by the destruction of wealth and of human lives.

+

+Why did it happen in this and not in some other way?

+

+Because it happened so! “Chance created the situation; genius utilized

+it,” says history.

+

+But what is chance? What is genius?

+

+The words chance and genius do not denote any really existing thing and

+therefore cannot be defined. Those words only denote a certain stage of

+understanding of phenomena. I do not know why a certain event occurs; I

+think that I cannot know it; so I do not try to know it and I talk about

+chance. I see a force producing effects beyond the scope of ordinary

+human agencies; I do not understand why this occurs and I talk of

+genius.

+

+To a herd of rams, the ram the herdsman drives each evening into a

+special enclosure to feed and that becomes twice as fat as the others

+must seem to be a genius. And it must appear an astonishing conjunction

+of genius with a whole series of extraordinary chances that this ram,

+who instead of getting into the general fold every evening goes into a

+special enclosure where there are oats—that this very ram, swelling with

+fat, is killed for meat.

+

+But the rams need only cease to suppose that all that happens to them

+happens solely for the attainment of their sheepish aims; they need only

+admit that what happens to them may also have purposes beyond their ken,

+and they will at once perceive a unity and coherence in what happened

+to the ram that was fattened. Even if they do not know for what purpose

+they are fattened, they will at least know that all that happened to the

+ram did not happen accidentally, and will no longer need the conceptions

+of chance or genius.

+

+Only by renouncing our claim to discern a purpose immediately

+intelligible to us, and admitting the ultimate purpose to be beyond our

+ken, may we discern the sequence of experiences in the lives of

+historic characters and perceive the cause of the effect they produce

+(incommensurable with ordinary human capabilities), and then the words

+chance and genius become superfluous.

+

+We need only confess that we do not know the purpose of the European

+convulsions and that we know only the facts—that is, the murders, first

+in France, then in Italy, in Africa, in Prussia, in Austria, in Spain,

+and in Russia—and that the movements from the west to the east and from

+the east to the west form the essence and purpose of these events, and

+not only shall we have no need to see exceptional ability and genius in

+Napoleon and Alexander, but we shall be unable to consider them to

+be anything but like other men, and we shall not be obliged to have

+recourse to chance for an explanation of those small events which made

+these people what they were, but it will be clear that all those small

+events were inevitable.

+

+By discarding a claim to knowledge of the ultimate purpose, we shall

+clearly perceive that just as one cannot imagine a blossom or seed for

+any single plant better suited to it than those it produces, so it is

+impossible to imagine any two people more completely adapted down to the

+smallest detail for the purpose they had to fulfill, than Napoleon and

+Alexander with all their antecedents.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+The fundamental and essential significance of the European events of the

+beginning of the nineteenth century lies in the movement of the mass of

+the European peoples from west to east and afterwards from east to west.

+The commencement of that movement was the movement from west to east.

+For the peoples of the west to be able to make their warlike movement

+to Moscow it was necessary: (1) that they should form themselves into

+a military group of a size able to endure a collision with the warlike

+military group of the east, (2) that they should abandon all established

+traditions and customs, and (3) that during their military movement they

+should have at their head a man who could justify to himself and to them

+the deceptions, robberies, and murders which would have to be committed

+during that movement.

+

+And beginning with the French Revolution the old inadequately large

+group was destroyed, as well as the old habits and traditions, and step

+by step a group was formed of larger dimensions with new customs and

+traditions, and a man was produced who would stand at the head of the

+coming movement and bear the responsibility for all that had to be done.

+

+A man without convictions, without habits, without traditions, without

+a name, and not even a Frenchman, emerges—by what seem the strangest

+chances—from among all the seething French parties, and without joining

+anyone of them is borne forward to a prominent position.

+

+The ignorance of his colleagues, the weakness and insignificance of

+his opponents, the frankness of his falsehoods, and the dazzling and

+self-confident limitations of this man raise him to the head of the

+army. The brilliant qualities of the soldiers of the army sent to Italy,

+his opponents’ reluctance to fight, and his own childish audacity and

+self-confidence secure him military fame. Innumerable so-called chances

+accompany him everywhere. The disfavor into which he falls with the

+rulers of France turns to his advantage. His attempts to avoid his

+predestined path are unsuccessful: he is not received into the Russian

+service, and the appointment he seeks in Turkey comes to nothing. During

+the war in Italy he is several times on the verge of destruction and

+each time is saved in an unexpected manner. Owing to various diplomatic

+considerations the Russian armies—just those which might have destroyed

+his prestige—do not appear upon the scene till he is no longer there.

+

+On his return from Italy he finds the government in Paris in a process

+of dissolution in which all those who are in it are inevitably wiped

+out and destroyed. And by chance an escape from this dangerous position

+presents itself in the form of an aimless and senseless expedition

+to Africa. Again so-called chance accompanies him. Impregnable Malta

+surrenders without a shot; his most reckless schemes are crowned with

+success. The enemy’s fleet, which subsequently did not let a single boat

+pass, allows his entire army to elude it. In Africa a whole series of

+outrages are committed against the almost unarmed inhabitants. And the

+men who commit these crimes, especially their leader, assure themselves

+that this is admirable, this is glory—it resembles Caesar and Alexander

+the Great and is therefore good.

+

+This ideal of glory and grandeur—which consists not merely in

+considering nothing wrong that one does but in priding oneself on every

+crime one commits, ascribing to it an incomprehensible supernatural

+significance—that ideal, destined to guide this man and his associates,

+had scope for its development in Africa. Whatever he does succeeds. The

+plague does not touch him. The cruelty of murdering prisoners is not

+imputed to him as a fault. His childishly rash, uncalled-for, and

+ignoble departure from Africa, leaving his comrades in distress, is

+set down to his credit, and again the enemy’s fleet twice lets him slip

+past. When, intoxicated by the crimes he has committed so successfully,

+he reaches Paris, the dissolution of the republican government, which a

+year earlier might have ruined him, has reached its extreme limit, and

+his presence there now as a newcomer free from party entanglements can

+only serve to exalt him—and though he himself has no plan, he is quite

+ready for his new rôle.

+

+He had no plan, he was afraid of everything, but the parties snatched at

+him and demanded his participation.

+

+He alone—with his ideal of glory and grandeur developed in Italy and

+Egypt, his insane self-adulation, his boldness in crime and frankness in

+lying—he alone could justify what had to be done.

+

+He is needed for the place that awaits him, and so almost apart from

+his will and despite his indecision, his lack of a plan, and all his

+mistakes, he is drawn into a conspiracy that aims at seizing power and

+the conspiracy is crowned with success.

+

+He is pushed into a meeting of the legislature. In alarm he wishes to

+flee, considering himself lost. He pretends to fall into a swoon and

+says senseless things that should have ruined him. But the once proud

+and shrewd rulers of France, feeling that their part is played out, are

+even more bewildered than he, and do not say the words they should have

+said to destroy him and retain their power.

+

+Chance, millions of chances, give him power, and all men as if by

+agreement co-operate to confirm that power. Chance forms the characters

+of the rulers of France, who submit to him; chance forms the character

+of Paul I of Russia who recognizes his government; chance contrives

+a plot against him which not only fails to harm him but confirms his

+power. Chance puts the Duc d’Enghien in his hands and unexpectedly

+causes him to kill him—thereby convincing the mob more forcibly than

+in any other way that he had the right, since he had the might.

+Chance contrives that though he directs all his efforts to prepare an

+expedition against England (which would inevitably have ruined him) he

+never carries out that intention, but unexpectedly falls upon Mack and

+the Austrians, who surrender without a battle. Chance and genius give

+him the victory at Austerlitz; and by chance all men, not only the

+French but all Europe—except England which does not take part in the

+events about to happen—despite their former horror and detestation of

+his crimes, now recognize his authority, the title he has given

+himself, and his ideal of grandeur and glory, which seems excellent and

+reasonable to them all.

+

+As if measuring themselves and preparing for the coming movement, the

+western forces push toward the east several times in 1805, 1806, 1807,

+and 1809, gaining strength and growing. In 1811 the group of people that

+had formed in France unites into one group with the peoples of Central

+Europe. The strength of the justification of the man who stands at the

+head of the movement grows with the increased size of the group. During

+the ten-year preparatory period this man had formed relations with all

+the crowned heads of Europe. The discredited rulers of the world can

+oppose no reasonable ideal to the insensate Napoleonic ideal of

+glory and grandeur. One after another they hasten to display their

+insignificance before him. The King of Prussia sends his wife to seek

+the great man’s mercy; the Emperor of Austria considers it a favor that

+this man receives a daughter of the Caesars into his bed; the Pope, the

+guardian of all that the nations hold sacred, utilizes religion for the

+aggrandizement of the great man. It is not Napoleon who prepares himself

+for the accomplishment of his role, so much as all those round him who

+prepare him to take on himself the whole responsibility for what is

+happening and has to happen. There is no step, no crime or petty fraud

+he commits, which in the mouths of those around him is not at once

+represented as a great deed. The most suitable fête the Germans can

+devise for him is a celebration of Jena and Auerstädt. Not only is he

+great, but so are his ancestors, his brothers, his stepsons, and his

+brothers-in-law. Everything is done to deprive him of the remains of his

+reason and to prepare him for his terrible part. And when he is ready so

+too are the forces.

+

+The invasion pushes eastward and reaches its final goal—Moscow. That

+city is taken; the Russian army suffers heavier losses than the opposing

+armies had suffered in the former war from Austerlitz to Wagram. But

+suddenly instead of those chances and that genius which hitherto had

+so consistently led him by an uninterrupted series of successes to the

+predestined goal, an innumerable sequence of inverse chances occur—from

+the cold in his head at Borodinó to the sparks which set Moscow on

+fire, and the frosts—and instead of genius, stupidity and immeasurable

+baseness become evident.

+

+The invaders flee, turn back, flee again, and all the chances are now

+not for Napoleon but always against him.

+

+A countermovement is then accomplished from east to west with a

+remarkable resemblance to the preceding movement from west to east.

+Attempted drives from east to west—similar to the contrary movements of

+1805, 1807, and 1809—precede the great westward movement; there is the

+same coalescence into a group of enormous dimensions; the same adhesion

+of the people of Central Europe to the movement; the same hesitation

+midway, and the same increasing rapidity as the goal is approached.

+

+Paris, the ultimate goal, is reached. The Napoleonic government and army

+are destroyed. Napoleon himself is no longer of any account; all his

+actions are evidently pitiful and mean, but again an inexplicable chance

+occurs. The allies detest Napoleon whom they regard as the cause of

+their sufferings. Deprived of power and authority, his crimes and his

+craft exposed, he should have appeared to them what he appeared ten

+years previously and one year later—an outlawed brigand. But by some

+strange chance no one perceives this. His part is not yet ended. The man

+who ten years before and a year later was considered an outlawed brigand

+is sent to an island two days’ sail from France, which for some reason

+is presented to him as his dominion, and guards are given to him and

+millions of money are paid him.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+The flood of nations begins to subside into its normal channels. The

+waves of the great movement abate, and on the calm surface eddies are

+formed in which float the diplomatists, who imagine that they have

+caused the floods to abate.

+

+But the smooth sea again suddenly becomes disturbed. The diplomatists

+think that their disagreements are the cause of this fresh pressure

+of natural forces; they anticipate war between their sovereigns; the

+position seems to them insoluble. But the wave they feel to be rising

+does not come from the quarter they expect. It rises again from the same

+point as before—Paris. The last backwash of the movement from the west

+occurs: a backwash which serves to solve the apparently insuperable

+diplomatic difficulties and ends the military movement of that period of

+history.

+

+The man who had devastated France returns to France alone, without any

+conspiracy and without soldiers. Any guard might arrest him, but by

+strange chance no one does so and all rapturously greet the man they

+cursed the day before and will curse again a month later.

+

+This man is still needed to justify the final collective act.

+

+That act is performed.

+

+The last rôle is played. The actor is bidden to disrobe and wash off his

+powder and paint: he will not be wanted any more.

+

+And some years pass during which he plays a pitiful comedy to himself

+in solitude on his island, justifying his actions by intrigues and lies

+when the justification is no longer needed, and displaying to the whole

+world what it was that people had mistaken for strength as long as an

+unseen hand directed his actions.

+

+The manager having brought the drama to a close and stripped the actor

+shows him to us.

+

+“See what you believed in! This is he! Do you now see that it was not he

+but I who moved you?”

+

+But dazed by the force of the movement, it was long before people

+understood this.

+

+Still greater coherence and inevitability is seen in the life of

+Alexander I, the man who stood at the head of the countermovement from

+east to west.

+

+What was needed for him who, overshadowing others, stood at the head of

+that movement from east to west?

+

+What was needed was a sense of justice and a sympathy with European

+affairs, but a remote sympathy not dulled by petty interests; a moral

+superiority over those sovereigns of the day who co-operated with him;

+a mild and attractive personality; and a personal grievance against

+Napoleon. And all this was found in Alexander I; all this had been

+prepared by innumerable so-called chances in his life: his education,

+his early liberalism, the advisers who surrounded him, and by

+Austerlitz, and Tilsit, and Erfurt.

+

+During the national war he was inactive because he was not needed. But

+as soon as the necessity for a general European war presented itself he

+appeared in his place at the given moment and, uniting the nations of

+Europe, led them to the goal.

+

+The goal is reached. After the final war of 1815 Alexander possesses all

+possible power. How does he use it?

+

+Alexander I—the pacifier of Europe, the man who from his early years

+had striven only for his people’s welfare, the originator of the liberal

+innovations in his fatherland—now that he seemed to possess the utmost

+power and therefore to have the possibility of bringing about the

+welfare of his peoples—at the time when Napoleon in exile was drawing

+up childish and mendacious plans of how he would have made mankind happy

+had he retained power—Alexander I, having fulfilled his mission and

+feeling the hand of God upon him, suddenly recognizes the insignificance

+of that supposed power, turns away from it, and gives it into the hands

+of contemptible men whom he despises, saying only:

+

+“Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy Name!... I too am a man like the

+rest of you. Let me live like a man and think of my soul and of God.”

+

+As the sun and each atom of ether is a sphere complete in itself, and

+yet at the same time only a part of a whole too immense for man to

+comprehend, so each individual has within himself his own aims and yet

+has them to serve a general purpose incomprehensible to man.

+

+A bee settling on a flower has stung a child. And the child is afraid

+of bees and declares that bees exist to sting people. A poet admires the

+bee sucking from the chalice of a flower and says it exists to suck the

+fragrance of flowers. A beekeeper, seeing the bee collect pollen from

+flowers and carry it to the hive, says that it exists to gather honey.

+Another beekeeper who has studied the life of the hive more closely

+says that the bee gathers pollen dust to feed the young bees and rear

+a queen, and that it exists to perpetuate its race. A botanist notices

+that the bee flying with the pollen of a male flower to a pistil

+fertilizes the latter, and sees in this the purpose of the bee’s

+existence. Another, observing the migration of plants, notices that the

+bee helps in this work, and may say that in this lies the purpose of the

+bee. But the ultimate purpose of the bee is not exhausted by the first,

+the second, or any of the processes the human mind can discern. The

+higher the human intellect rises in the discovery of these purposes,

+the more obvious it becomes, that the ultimate purpose is beyond our

+comprehension.

+

+All that is accessible to man is the relation of the life of the bee to

+other manifestations of life. And so it is with the purpose of historic

+characters and nations.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+Natásha’s wedding to Bezúkhov, which took place in 1813, was the last

+happy event in the family of the old Rostóvs. Count Ilyá Rostóv died

+that same year and, as always happens, after the father’s death the

+family group broke up.

+

+The events of the previous year: the burning of Moscow and the flight

+from it, the death of Prince Andrew, Natásha’s despair, Pétya’s death,

+and the old countess’ grief fell blow after blow on the old count’s

+head. He seemed to be unable to understand the meaning of all these

+events, and bowed his old head in a spiritual sense as if expecting and

+inviting further blows which would finish him. He seemed now frightened

+and distraught and now unnaturally animated and enterprising.

+

+The arrangements for Natásha’s marriage occupied him for a while. He

+ordered dinners and suppers and obviously tried to appear cheerful, but

+his cheerfulness was not infectious as it used to be: on the contrary it

+evoked the compassion of those who knew and liked him.

+

+When Pierre and his wife had left, he grew very quiet and began to

+complain of depression. A few days later he fell ill and took to his

+bed. He realized from the first that he would not get up again, despite

+the doctor’s encouragement. The countess passed a fortnight in an

+armchair by his pillow without undressing. Every time she gave him

+his medicine he sobbed and silently kissed her hand. On his last day,

+sobbing, he asked her and his absent son to forgive him for having

+dissipated their property—that being the chief fault of which he was

+conscious. After receiving communion and unction he quietly died; and

+next day a throng of acquaintances who came to pay their last respects

+to the deceased filled the house rented by the Rostóvs. All these

+acquaintances, who had so often dined and danced at his house and had so

+often laughed at him, now said, with a common feeling of self-reproach

+and emotion, as if justifying themselves: “Well, whatever he may have

+been he was a most worthy man. You don’t meet such men nowadays.... And

+which of us has not weaknesses of his own?”

+

+It was just when the count’s affairs had become so involved that it was

+impossible to say what would happen if he lived another year that he

+unexpectedly died.

+

+Nicholas was with the Russian army in Paris when the news of his

+father’s death reached him. He at once resigned his commission, and

+without waiting for it to be accepted took leave of absence and went to

+Moscow. The state of the count’s affairs became quite obvious a month

+after his death, surprising everyone by the immense total of small

+debts the existence of which no one had suspected. The debts amounted to

+double the value of the property.

+

+Friends and relations advised Nicholas to decline the inheritance. But

+he regarded such a refusal as a slur on his father’s memory, which he

+held sacred, and therefore would not hear of refusing and accepted the

+inheritance together with the obligation to pay the debts.

+

+The creditors who had so long been silent, restrained by a vague

+but powerful influence exerted on them while he lived by the count’s

+careless good nature, all proceeded to enforce their claims at once. As

+always happens in such cases rivalry sprang up as to which should get

+paid first, and those who like Mítenka held promissory notes given them

+as presents now became the most exacting of the creditors. Nicholas was

+allowed no respite and no peace, and those who had seemed to pity

+the old man—the cause of their losses (if they were losses)—now

+remorselessly pursued the young heir who had voluntarily undertaken the

+debts and was obviously not guilty of contracting them.

+

+Not one of the plans Nicholas tried succeeded; the estate was sold by

+auction for half its value, and half the debts still remained

+unpaid. Nicholas accepted thirty thousand rubles offered him by his

+brother-in-law Bezúkhov to pay off debts he regarded as genuinely due

+for value received. And to avoid being imprisoned for the remainder, as

+the creditors threatened, he re-entered the government service.

+

+He could not rejoin the army where he would have been made colonel at

+the next vacancy, for his mother now clung to him as her one hold on

+life; and so despite his reluctance to remain in Moscow among people who

+had known him before, and despite his abhorrence of the civil service,

+he accepted a post in Moscow in that service, doffed the uniform of

+which he was so fond, and moved with his mother and Sónya to a small

+house on the Sívtsev Vrazhók.

+

+Natásha and Pierre were living in Petersburg at the time and had no

+clear idea of Nicholas’ circumstances. Having borrowed money from his

+brother-in-law, Nicholas tried to hide his wretched condition from him.

+His position was the more difficult because with his salary of twelve

+hundred rubles he had not only to keep himself, his mother, and Sónya,

+but had to shield his mother from knowledge of their poverty. The

+countess could not conceive of life without the luxurious conditions she

+had been used to from childhood and, unable to realize how hard it was

+for her son, kept demanding now a carriage (which they did not keep) to

+send for a friend, now some expensive article of food for herself, or

+wine for her son, or money to buy a present as a surprise for Natásha or

+Sónya, or for Nicholas himself.

+

+Sónya kept house, attended on her aunt, read to her, put up with her

+whims and secret ill-will, and helped Nicholas to conceal their poverty

+from the old countess. Nicholas felt himself irredeemably indebted

+to Sónya for all she was doing for his mother and greatly admired her

+patience and devotion, but tried to keep aloof from her.

+

+He seemed in his heart to reproach her for being too perfect, and

+because there was nothing to reproach her with. She had all that people

+are valued for, but little that could have made him love her. He felt

+that the more he valued her the less he loved her. He had taken her at

+her word when she wrote giving him his freedom and now behaved as if all

+that had passed between them had been long forgotten and could never in

+any case be renewed.

+

+Nicholas’ position became worse and worse. The idea of putting something

+aside out of his salary proved a dream. Not only did he not save

+anything, but to comply with his mother’s demands he even incurred some

+small debts. He could see no way out of this situation. The idea of

+marrying some rich woman, which was suggested to him by his female

+relations, was repugnant to him. The other way out—his mother’s

+death—never entered his head. He wished for nothing and hoped

+for nothing, and deep in his heart experienced a gloomy and stern

+satisfaction in an uncomplaining endurance of his position. He tried

+to avoid his old acquaintances with their commiseration and offensive

+offers of assistance; he avoided all distraction and recreation, and

+even at home did nothing but play cards with his mother, pace silently

+up and down the room, and smoke one pipe after another. He seemed

+carefully to cherish within himself the gloomy mood which alone enabled

+him to endure his position.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+At the beginning of winter Princess Mary came to Moscow. From reports

+current in town she learned how the Rostóvs were situated, and how “the

+son has sacrificed himself for his mother,” as people were saying.

+

+“I never expected anything else of him,” said Princess Mary to herself,

+feeling a joyous sense of her love for him. Remembering her friendly

+relations with all the Rostóvs which had made her almost a member of the

+family, she thought it her duty to go to see them. But remembering her

+relations with Nicholas in Vorónezh she was shy about doing so. Making

+a great effort she did however go to call on them a few weeks after her

+arrival in Moscow.

+

+Nicholas was the first to meet her, as the countess’ room could only be

+reached through his. But instead of being greeted with pleasure as she

+had expected, at his first glance at her his face assumed a cold, stiff,

+proud expression she had not seen on it before. He inquired about her

+health, led the way to his mother, and having sat there for five minutes

+left the room.

+

+When the princess came out of the countess’ room Nicholas met her again,

+and with marked solemnity and stiffness accompanied her to the anteroom.

+To her remarks about his mother’s health he made no reply. “What’s that

+to you? Leave me in peace,” his looks seemed to say.

+

+“Why does she come prowling here? What does she want? I can’t bear these

+ladies and all these civilities!” said he aloud in Sónya’s presence,

+evidently unable to repress his vexation, after the princess’ carriage

+had disappeared.

+

+“Oh, Nicholas, how can you talk like that?” cried Sónya, hardly able to

+conceal her delight. “She is so kind and Mamma is so fond of her!”

+

+Nicholas did not reply and tried to avoid speaking of the princess any

+more. But after her visit the old countess spoke of her several times a

+day.

+

+She sang her praises, insisted that her son must call on her, expressed

+a wish to see her often, but yet always became ill-humored when she

+began to talk about her.

+

+Nicholas tried to keep silence when his mother spoke of the princess,

+but his silence irritated her.

+

+“She is a very admirable and excellent young woman,” said she, “and you

+must go and call on her. You would at least be seeing somebody, and I

+think it must be dull for you only seeing us.”

+

+“But I don’t in the least want to, Mamma.”

+

+“You used to want to, and now you don’t. Really I don’t understand you,

+my dear. One day you are dull, and the next you refuse to see anyone.”

+

+“But I never said I was dull.”

+

+“Why, you said yourself you don’t want even to see her. She is a very

+admirable young woman and you always liked her, but now suddenly you

+have got some notion or other in your head. You hide everything from

+me.”

+

+“Not at all, Mamma.”

+

+“If I were asking you to do something disagreeable now—but I only ask

+you to return a call. One would think mere politeness required it....

+Well, I have asked you, and now I won’t interfere any more since you

+have secrets from your mother.”

+

+“Well, then, I’ll go if you wish it.”

+

+“It doesn’t matter to me. I only wish it for your sake.”

+

+Nicholas sighed, bit his mustache, and laid out the cards for a

+patience, trying to divert his mother’s attention to another topic.

+

+The same conversation was repeated next day and the day after, and the

+day after that.

+

+After her visit to the Rostóvs and her unexpectedly chilly reception by

+Nicholas, Princess Mary confessed to herself that she had been right in

+not wishing to be the first to call.

+

+“I expected nothing else,” she told herself, calling her pride to her

+aid. “I have nothing to do with him and I only wanted to see the

+old lady, who was always kind to me and to whom I am under many

+obligations.”

+

+But she could not pacify herself with these reflections; a feeling akin

+to remorse troubled her when she thought of her visit. Though she had

+firmly resolved not to call on the Rostóvs again and to forget the whole

+matter, she felt herself all the time in an awkward position. And when

+she asked herself what distressed her, she had to admit that it was her

+relation to Rostóv. His cold, polite manner did not express his feeling

+for her (she knew that) but it concealed something, and until she could

+discover what that something was, she felt that she could not be at

+ease.

+

+One day in midwinter when sitting in the schoolroom attending to her

+nephew’s lessons, she was informed that Rostóv had called. With a firm

+resolution not to betray herself and not show her agitation, she sent

+for Mademoiselle Bourienne and went with her to the drawing room.

+

+Her first glance at Nicholas’ face told her that he had only come to

+fulfill the demands of politeness, and she firmly resolved to maintain

+the tone in which he addressed her.

+

+They spoke of the countess’ health, of their mutual friends, of the

+latest war news, and when the ten minutes required by propriety had

+elapsed after which a visitor may rise, Nicholas got up to say good-by.

+

+With Mademoiselle Bourienne’s help the princess had maintained the

+conversation very well, but at the very last moment, just when he rose,

+she was so tired of talking of what did not interest her, and her

+mind was so full of the question why she alone was granted so little

+happiness in life, that in a fit of absent-mindedness she sat still, her

+luminous eyes gazing fixedly before her, not noticing that he had risen.

+

+Nicholas glanced at her and, wishing to appear not to notice her

+abstraction, made some remark to Mademoiselle Bourienne and then

+again looked at the princess. She still sat motionless with a look of

+suffering on her gentle face. He suddenly felt sorry for her and was

+vaguely conscious that he might be the cause of the sadness her face

+expressed. He wished to help her and say something pleasant, but could

+think of nothing to say.

+

+“Good-by, Princess!” said he.

+

+She started, flushed, and sighed deeply.

+

+“Oh, I beg your pardon,” she said as if waking up. “Are you going

+already, Count? Well then, good-by! Oh, but the cushion for the

+countess!”

+

+“Wait a moment, I’ll fetch it,” said Mademoiselle Bourienne, and she

+left the room.

+

+They both sat silent, with an occasional glance at one another.

+

+“Yes, Princess,” said Nicholas at last with a sad smile, “it doesn’t

+seem long ago since we first met at Boguchárovo, but how much water

+has flowed since then! In what distress we all seemed to be then, yet

+I would give much to bring back that time... but there’s no bringing it

+back.”

+

+Princess Mary gazed intently into his eyes with her own luminous ones

+as he said this. She seemed to be trying to fathom the hidden meaning of

+his words which would explain his feeling for her.

+

+“Yes, yes,” said she, “but you have no reason to regret the past, Count.

+As I understand your present life, I think you will always recall it

+with satisfaction, because the self-sacrifice that fills it now...”

+

+“I cannot accept your praise,” he interrupted her hurriedly. “On the

+contrary I continually reproach myself.... But this is not at all an

+interesting or cheerful subject.”

+

+His face again resumed its former stiff and cold expression. But the

+princess had caught a glimpse of the man she had known and loved, and it

+was to him that she now spoke.

+

+“I thought you would allow me to tell you this,” she said. “I had come

+so near to you... and to all your family that I thought you would not

+consider my sympathy misplaced, but I was mistaken,” and suddenly her

+voice trembled. “I don’t know why,” she continued, recovering herself,

+“but you used to be different, and...”

+

+“There are a thousand reasons why,” laying special emphasis on the why.

+“Thank you, Princess,” he added softly. “Sometimes it is hard.”

+

+“So that’s why! That’s why!” a voice whispered in Princess Mary’s soul.

+“No, it was not only that gay, kind, and frank look, not only that

+handsome exterior, that I loved in him. I divined his noble, resolute,

+self-sacrificing spirit too,” she said to herself. “Yes, he is poor now

+and I am rich.... Yes, that’s the only reason.... Yes, were it not for

+that...” And remembering his former tenderness, and looking now at his

+kind, sorrowful face, she suddenly understood the cause of his coldness.

+

+“But why, Count, why?” she almost cried, unconsciously moving closer to

+him. “Why? Tell me. You must tell me!”

+

+He was silent.

+

+“I don’t understand your why, Count,” she continued, “but it’s hard for

+me... I confess it. For some reason you wish to deprive me of our former

+friendship. And that hurts me.” There were tears in her eyes and in her

+voice. “I have had so little happiness in life that every loss is hard

+for me to bear.... Excuse me, good-by!” and suddenly she began to cry

+and was hurrying from the room.

+

+“Princess, for God’s sake!” he exclaimed, trying to stop her.

+“Princess!”

+

+She turned round. For a few seconds they gazed silently into one

+another’s eyes—and what had seemed impossible and remote suddenly became

+possible, inevitable, and very near.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+In the winter of 1813 Nicholas married Princess Mary and moved to Bald

+Hills with his wife, his mother, and Sónya.

+

+Within four years he had paid off all his remaining debts without

+selling any of his wife’s property, and having received a small

+inheritance on the death of a cousin he paid his debt to Pierre as well.

+

+In another three years, by 1820, he had so managed his affairs that he

+was able to buy a small estate adjoining Bald Hills and was negotiating

+to buy back Otrádnoe—that being his pet dream.

+

+Having started farming from necessity, he soon grew so devoted to it

+that it became his favorite and almost his sole occupation. Nicholas was

+a plain farmer: he did not like innovations, especially the English ones

+then coming into vogue. He laughed at theoretical treatises on estate

+management, disliked factories, the raising of expensive products,

+and the buying of expensive seed corn, and did not make a hobby of any

+particular part of the work on his estate. He always had before his

+mind’s eye the estate as a whole and not any particular part of it. The

+chief thing in his eyes was not the nitrogen in the soil, nor the oxygen

+in the air, nor manures, nor special plows, but that most important

+agent by which nitrogen, oxygen, manure, and plow were made

+effective—the peasant laborer. When Nicholas first began farming

+and began to understand its different branches, it was the serf who

+especially attracted his attention. The peasant seemed to him not merely

+a tool, but also a judge of farming and an end in himself. At first

+he watched the serfs, trying to understand their aims and what they

+considered good and bad, and only pretended to direct them and give

+orders while in reality learning from them their methods, their manner

+of speech, and their judgment of what was good and bad. Only when he

+had understood the peasants’ tastes and aspirations, had learned to talk

+their language, to grasp the hidden meaning of their words, and felt

+akin to them did he begin boldly to manage his serfs, that is, to

+perform toward them the duties demanded of him. And Nicholas’ management

+produced very brilliant results.

+

+Guided by some gift of insight, on taking up the management of the

+estates he at once unerringly appointed as bailiff, village elder, and

+delegate, the very men the serfs would themselves have chosen had they

+had the right to choose, and these posts never changed hands. Before

+analyzing the properties of manure, before entering into the debit and

+credit (as he ironically called it), he found out how many cattle the

+peasants had and increased the number by all possible means. He kept the

+peasant families together in the largest groups possible, not allowing

+the family groups to divide into separate households. He was hard alike

+on the lazy, the depraved, and the weak, and tried to get them expelled

+from the commune.

+

+He was as careful of the sowing and reaping of the peasants’ hay

+and corn as of his own, and few landowners had their crops sown

+and harvested so early and so well, or got so good a return, as did

+Nicholas.

+

+He disliked having anything to do with the domestic serfs—the “drones”

+as he called them—and everyone said he spoiled them by his laxity. When

+a decision had to be taken regarding a domestic serf, especially if one

+had to be punished, he always felt undecided and consulted everybody in

+the house; but when it was possible to have a domestic serf conscripted

+instead of a land worker he did so without the least hesitation. He

+never felt any hesitation in dealing with the peasants. He knew that his

+every decision would be approved by them all with very few exceptions.

+

+He did not allow himself either to be hard on or punish a man, or to

+make things easy for or reward anyone, merely because he felt inclined

+to do so. He could not have said by what standard he judged what he

+should or should not do, but the standard was quite firm and definite in

+his own mind.

+

+Often, speaking with vexation of some failure or irregularity, he would

+say: “What can one do with our Russian peasants?” and imagined that he

+could not bear them.

+

+Yet he loved “our Russian peasants” and their way of life with his whole

+soul, and for that very reason had understood and assimilated the one

+way and manner of farming which produced good results.

+

+Countess Mary was jealous of this passion of her husband’s and regretted

+that she could not share it; but she could not understand the joys and

+vexations he derived from that world, to her so remote and alien. She

+could not understand why he was so particularly animated and happy

+when, after getting up at daybreak and spending the whole morning in the

+fields or on the threshing floor, he returned from the sowing or mowing

+or reaping to have tea with her. She did not understand why he spoke

+with such admiration and delight of the farming of the thrifty and

+well-to-do peasant Matthew Ermíshin, who with his family had carted

+corn all night; or of the fact that his (Nicholas’) sheaves were already

+stacked before anyone else had his harvest in. She did not understand

+why he stepped out from the window to the veranda and smiled under his

+mustache and winked so joyfully, when warm steady rain began to fall

+on the dry and thirsty shoots of the young oats, or why when the wind

+carried away a threatening cloud during the hay harvest he would return

+from the barn, flushed, sunburned, and perspiring, with a smell of

+wormwood and gentian in his hair and, gleefully rubbing his hands, would

+say: “Well, one more day and my grain and the peasants’ will all be

+under cover.”

+

+Still less did she understand why he, kindhearted and always ready to

+anticipate her wishes, should become almost desperate when she brought

+him a petition from some peasant men or women who had appealed to her

+to be excused some work; why he, that kind Nicholas, should obstinately

+refuse her, angrily asking her not to interfere in what was not her

+business. She felt he had a world apart, which he loved passionately and

+which had laws she had not fathomed.

+

+Sometimes when, trying to understand him, she spoke of the good work he

+was doing for his serfs, he would be vexed and reply: “Not in the least;

+it never entered my head and I wouldn’t do that for their good! That’s

+all poetry and old wives’ talk—all that doing good to one’s neighbor!

+What I want is that our children should not have to go begging. I must

+put our affairs in order while I am alive, that’s all. And to do that,

+order and strictness are essential.... That’s all about it!” said he,

+clenching his vigorous fist. “And fairness, of course,” he added, “for

+if the peasant is naked and hungry and has only one miserable horse, he

+can do no good either for himself or for me.”

+

+And all Nicholas did was fruitful—probably just because he refused to

+allow himself to think that he was doing good to others for virtue’s

+sake. His means increased rapidly; serfs from neighboring estates came

+to beg him to buy them, and long after his death the memory of his

+administration was devoutly preserved among the serfs. “He was a

+master... the peasants’ affairs first and then his own. Of course he was

+not to be trifled with either—in a word, he was a real master!”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+One matter connected with his management sometimes worried Nicholas, and

+that was his quick temper together with his old hussar habit of making

+free use of his fists. At first he saw nothing reprehensible in

+this, but in the second year of his marriage his view of that form of

+punishment suddenly changed.

+

+Once in summer he had sent for the village elder from Boguchárovo, a

+man who had succeeded to the post when Dron died and who was accused of

+dishonesty and various irregularities. Nicholas went out into the porch

+to question him, and immediately after the elder had given a few replies

+the sound of cries and blows were heard. On returning to lunch Nicholas

+went up to his wife, who sat with her head bent low over her embroidery

+frame, and as usual began to tell her what he had been doing that

+morning. Among other things he spoke of the Boguchárovo elder. Countess

+Mary turned red and then pale, but continued to sit with head bowed and

+lips compressed and gave her husband no reply.

+

+“Such an insolent scoundrel!” he cried, growing hot again at the mere

+recollection of him. “If he had told me he was drunk and did not see...

+But what is the matter with you, Mary?” he suddenly asked.

+

+Countess Mary raised her head and tried to speak, but hastily looked

+down again and her lips puckered.

+

+“Why, whatever is the matter, my dearest?”

+

+The looks of the plain Countess Mary always improved when she was in

+tears. She never cried from pain or vexation, but always from sorrow or

+pity, and when she wept her radiant eyes acquired an irresistible charm.

+

+The moment Nicholas took her hand she could no longer restrain herself

+and began to cry.

+

+“Nicholas, I saw it... he was to blame, but why do you... Nicholas!” and

+she covered her face with her hands.

+

+Nicholas said nothing. He flushed crimson, left her side, and paced up

+and down the room. He understood what she was weeping about, but could

+not in his heart at once agree with her that what he had regarded

+from childhood as quite an everyday event was wrong. “Is it just

+sentimentality, old wives’ tales, or is she right?” he asked himself.

+Before he had solved that point he glanced again at her face filled with

+love and pain, and he suddenly realized that she was right and that he

+had long been sinning against himself.

+

+“Mary,” he said softly, going up to her, “it will never happen again;

+I give you my word. Never,” he repeated in a trembling voice like a boy

+asking for forgiveness.

+

+The tears flowed faster still from the countess’ eyes. She took his hand

+and kissed it.

+

+“Nicholas, when did you break your cameo?” she asked to change the

+subject, looking at his finger on which he wore a ring with a cameo of

+Laocoön’s head.

+

+“Today—it was the same affair. Oh, Mary, don’t remind me of it!” and

+again he flushed. “I give you my word of honor it shan’t occur again,

+and let this always be a reminder to me,” and he pointed to the broken

+ring.

+

+After that, when in discussions with his village elders or stewards the

+blood rushed to his face and his fists began to clench, Nicholas would

+turn the broken ring on his finger and would drop his eyes before the

+man who was making him angry. But he did forget himself once or twice

+within a twelvemonth, and then he would go and confess to his wife, and

+would again promise that this should really be the very last time.

+

+“Mary, you must despise me!” he would say. “I deserve it.”

+

+“You should go, go away at once, if you don’t feel strong enough to

+control yourself,” she would reply sadly, trying to comfort her husband.

+

+Among the gentry of the province Nicholas was respected but not liked.

+He did not concern himself with the interests of his own class, and

+consequently some thought him proud and others thought him stupid. The

+whole summer, from spring sowing to harvest, he was busy with the work

+on his farm. In autumn he gave himself up to hunting with the same

+business-like seriousness—leaving home for a month, or even two, with

+his hunt. In winter he visited his other villages or spent his time

+reading. The books he read were chiefly historical, and on these he

+spent a certain sum every year. He was collecting, as he said, a serious

+library, and he made it a rule to read through all the books he bought.

+He would sit in his study with a grave air, reading—a task he first

+imposed upon himself as a duty, but which afterwards became a habit

+affording him a special kind of pleasure and a consciousness of

+being occupied with serious matters. In winter, except for business

+excursions, he spent most of his time at home making himself one with

+his family and entering into all the details of his children’s relations

+with their mother. The harmony between him and his wife grew closer and

+closer and he daily discovered fresh spiritual treasures in her.

+

+From the time of his marriage Sónya had lived in his house. Before

+that, Nicholas had told his wife all that had passed between himself and

+Sónya, blaming himself and commending her. He had asked Princess Mary to

+be gentle and kind to his cousin. She thoroughly realized the wrong he

+had done Sónya, felt herself to blame toward her, and imagined that her

+wealth had influenced Nicholas’ choice. She could not find fault with

+Sónya in any way and tried to be fond of her, but often felt ill-will

+toward her which she could not overcome.

+

+Once she had a talk with her friend Natásha about Sónya and about her

+own injustice toward her.

+

+“You know,” said Natásha, “you have read the Gospels a great deal—there

+is a passage in them that just fits Sónya.”

+

+“What?” asked Countess Mary, surprised.

+

+“‘To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be

+taken away.’ You remember? She is one that hath not; why, I don’t know.

+Perhaps she lacks egotism, I don’t know, but from her is taken away, and

+everything has been taken away. Sometimes I am dreadfully sorry for her.

+Formerly I very much wanted Nicholas to marry her, but I always had

+a sort of presentiment that it would not come off. She is a sterile

+flower, you know—like some strawberry blossoms. Sometimes I am sorry for

+her, and sometimes I think she doesn’t feel it as you or I would.”

+

+Though Countess Mary told Natásha that those words in the Gospel must be

+understood differently, yet looking at Sónya she agreed with Natásha’s

+explanation. It really seemed that Sónya did not feel her position

+trying, and had grown quite reconciled to her lot as a sterile flower.

+She seemed to be fond not so much of individuals as of the family as a

+whole. Like a cat, she had attached herself not to the people but to the

+home. She waited on the old countess, petted and spoiled the children,

+was always ready to render the small services for which she had a gift,

+and all this was unconsciously accepted from her with insufficient

+gratitude.

+

+The country seat at Bald Hills had been rebuilt, though not on the same

+scale as under the old prince.

+

+The buildings, begun under straitened circumstances, were more than

+simple. The immense house on the old stone foundations was of wood,

+plastered only inside. It had bare deal floors and was furnished with

+very simple hard sofas, armchairs, tables, and chairs made by their own

+serf carpenters out of their own birchwood. The house was spacious

+and had rooms for the house serfs and apartments for visitors. Whole

+families of the Rostóvs’ and Bolkónskis’ relations sometimes came to

+Bald Hills with sixteen horses and dozens of servants and stayed for

+months. Besides that, four times a year, on the name days and birthdays

+of the hosts, as many as a hundred visitors would gather there for a day

+or two. The rest of the year life pursued its unbroken routine with its

+ordinary occupations, and its breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and suppers,

+provided out of the produce of the estate.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+It was the eve of St. Nicholas, the fifth of December, 1820. Natásha had

+been staying at her brother’s with her husband and children since early

+autumn. Pierre had gone to Petersburg on business of his own for three

+weeks as he said, but had remained there nearly seven weeks and was

+expected back every minute.

+

+Besides the Bezúkhov family, Nicholas’ old friend the retired General

+Vasíli Dmítrich Denísov was staying with the Rostóvs this fifth of

+December.

+

+On the sixth, which was his name day when the house would be full of

+visitors, Nicholas knew he would have to exchange his Tartar tunic for

+a tail coat, and put on narrow boots with pointed toes, and drive to

+the new church he had built, and then receive visitors who would come to

+congratulate him, offer them refreshments, and talk about the elections

+of the nobility; but he considered himself entitled to spend the eve

+of that day in his usual way. He examined the bailiff’s accounts of

+the village in Ryazán which belonged to his wife’s nephew, wrote two

+business letters, and walked over to the granaries, cattle yards and

+stables before dinner. Having taken precautions against the general

+drunkenness to be expected on the morrow because it was a great saint’s

+day, he returned to dinner, and without having time for a private talk

+with his wife sat down at the long table laid for twenty persons, at

+which the whole household had assembled. At that table were his mother,

+his mother’s old lady companion Belóva, his wife, their three children

+with their governess and tutor, his wife’s nephew with his tutor, Sónya,

+Denísov, Natásha, her three children, their governess, and old Michael

+Ivánovich, the late prince’s architect, who was living on in retirement

+at Bald Hills.

+

+Countess Mary sat at the other end of the table. When her husband took

+his place she concluded, from the rapid manner in which after taking

+up his table napkin he pushed back the tumbler and wineglass standing

+before him, that he was out of humor, as was sometimes the case when

+he came in to dinner straight from the farm—especially before the soup.

+Countess Mary well knew that mood of his, and when she herself was in

+a good frame of mind quietly waited till he had had his soup and then

+began to talk to him and make him admit that there was no cause for his

+ill-humor. But today she quite forgot that and was hurt that he should

+be angry with her without any reason, and she felt unhappy. She asked

+him where he had been. He replied. She again inquired whether

+everything was going well on the farm. Her unnatural tone made him wince

+unpleasantly and he replied hastily.

+

+“Then I’m not mistaken,” thought Countess Mary. “Why is he cross with

+me?” She concluded from his tone that he was vexed with her and wished

+to end the conversation. She knew her remarks sounded unnatural, but

+could not refrain from asking some more questions.

+

+Thanks to Denísov the conversation at table soon became general and

+lively, and she did not talk to her husband. When they left the table

+and went as usual to thank the old countess, Countess Mary held out her

+hand and kissed her husband, and asked him why he was angry with her.

+

+“You always have such strange fancies! I didn’t even think of being

+angry,” he replied.

+

+But the word always seemed to her to imply: “Yes, I am angry but I won’t

+tell you why.”

+

+Nicholas and his wife lived together so happily that even Sónya and the

+old countess, who felt jealous and would have liked them to disagree,

+could find nothing to reproach them with; but even they had their

+moments of antagonism. Occasionally, and it was always just after they

+had been happiest together, they suddenly had a feeling of estrangement

+and hostility, which occurred most frequently during Countess Mary’s

+pregnancies, and this was such a time.

+

+“Well, messieurs et mesdames,” said Nicholas loudly and with apparent

+cheerfulness (it seemed to Countess Mary that he did it on purpose to

+vex her), “I have been on my feet since six this morning. Tomorrow I

+shall have to suffer, so today I’ll go and rest.”

+

+And without a word to his wife he went to the little sitting room and

+lay down on the sofa.

+

+“That’s always the way,” thought Countess Mary. “He talks to everyone

+except me. I see... I see that I am repulsive to him, especially when I

+am in this condition.” She looked down at her expanded figure and in the

+glass at her pale, sallow, emaciated face in which her eyes now looked

+larger than ever.

+

+And everything annoyed her—Denísov’s shouting and laughter, Natásha’s

+talk, and especially a quick glance Sónya gave her.

+

+Sónya was always the first excuse Countess Mary found for feeling

+irritated.

+

+Having sat awhile with her visitors without understanding anything of

+what they were saying, she softly left the room and went to the nursery.

+

+The children were playing at “going to Moscow” in a carriage made of

+chairs and invited her to go with them. She sat down and played with

+them a little, but the thought of her husband and his unreasonable

+crossness worried her. She got up and, walking on tiptoe with

+difficulty, went to the small sitting room.

+

+“Perhaps he is not asleep; I’ll have an explanation with him,” she

+said to herself. Little Andrew, her eldest boy, imitating his mother,

+followed her on tiptoe. She did not notice him.

+

+“Mary, dear, I think he is asleep—he was so tired,” said Sónya, meeting

+her in the large sitting room (it seemed to Countess Mary that she

+crossed her path everywhere). “Andrew may wake him.”

+

+Countess Mary looked round, saw little Andrew following her, felt that

+Sónya was right, and for that very reason flushed and with evident

+difficulty refrained from saying something harsh. She made no reply, but

+to avoid obeying Sónya beckoned to Andrew to follow her quietly and went

+to the door. Sónya went away by another door. From the room in which

+Nicholas was sleeping came the sound of his even breathing, every

+slightest tone of which was familiar to his wife. As she listened to it

+she saw before her his smooth handsome forehead, his mustache, and his

+whole face, as she had so often seen it in the stillness of the night

+when he slept. Nicholas suddenly moved and cleared his throat. And at

+that moment little Andrew shouted from outside the door: “Papa! Mamma’s

+standing here!” Countess Mary turned pale with fright and made signs

+to the boy. He grew silent, and quiet ensued for a moment, terrible to

+Countess Mary. She knew how Nicholas disliked being waked. Then through

+the door she heard Nicholas clearing his throat again and stirring, and

+his voice said crossly:

+

+“I can’t get a moment’s peace.... Mary, is that you? Why did you bring

+him here?”

+

+“I only came in to look and did not notice... forgive me....”

+

+Nicholas coughed and said no more. Countess Mary moved away from the

+door and took the boy back to the nursery. Five minutes later little

+black-eyed three-year-old Natásha, her father’s pet, having learned from

+her brother that Papa was asleep and Mamma was in the sitting room, ran

+to her father unobserved by her mother. The dark-eyed little girl boldly

+opened the creaking door, went up to the sofa with energetic steps of

+her sturdy little legs, and having examined the position of her father,

+who was asleep with his back to her, rose on tiptoe and kissed the hand

+which lay under his head. Nicholas turned with a tender smile on his

+face.

+

+“Natásha, Natásha!” came Countess Mary’s frightened whisper from the

+door. “Papa wants to sleep.”

+

+“No, Mamma, he doesn’t want to sleep,” said little Natásha with

+conviction. “He’s laughing.”

+

+Nicholas lowered his legs, rose, and took his daughter in his arms.

+

+“Come in, Mary,” he said to his wife.

+

+She went in and sat down by her husband.

+

+“I did not notice him following me,” she said timidly. “I just looked

+in.”

+

+Holding his little girl with one arm, Nicholas glanced at his wife and,

+seeing her guilty expression, put his other arm around her and kissed

+her hair.

+

+“May I kiss Mamma?” he asked Natásha.

+

+Natásha smiled bashfully.

+

+“Again!” she commanded, pointing with a peremptory gesture to the spot

+where Nicholas had placed the kiss.

+

+“I don’t know why you think I am cross,” said Nicholas, replying to the

+question he knew was in his wife’s mind.

+

+“You have no idea how unhappy, how lonely, I feel when you are like

+that. It always seems to me...”

+

+“Mary, don’t talk nonsense. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!” he

+said gaily.

+

+“It seems to be that you can’t love me, that I am so plain... always...

+and now... in this cond...”

+

+“Oh, how absurd you are! It is not beauty that endears, it’s love that

+makes us see beauty. It is only Malvínas and women of that kind who are

+loved for their beauty. But do I love my wife? I don’t love her, but...

+I don’t know how to put it. Without you, or when something comes between

+us like this, I seem lost and can’t do anything. Now do I love my

+finger? I don’t love it, but just try to cut it off!”

+

+“I’m not like that myself, but I understand. So you’re not angry with

+me?”

+

+“Awfully angry!” he said, smiling and getting up. And smoothing his hair

+he began to pace the room.

+

+“Do you know, Mary, what I’ve been thinking?” he began, immediately

+thinking aloud in his wife’s presence now that they had made it up.

+

+He did not ask if she was ready to listen to him. He did not care. A

+thought had occurred to him and so it belonged to her also. And he told

+her of his intention to persuade Pierre to stay with them till spring.

+

+Countess Mary listened till he had finished, made some remark, and in

+her turn began thinking aloud. Her thoughts were about the children.

+

+“You can see the woman in her already,” she said in French, pointing to

+little Natásha. “You reproach us women with being illogical. Here is our

+logic. I say: ‘Papa wants to sleep!’ but she says, ‘No, he’s laughing.’

+And she was right,” said Countess Mary with a happy smile.

+

+“Yes, yes.” And Nicholas, taking his little daughter in his strong hand,

+lifted her high, placed her on his shoulder, held her by the legs, and

+paced the room with her. There was an expression of carefree happiness

+on the faces of both father and daughter.

+

+“But you know you may be unfair. You are too fond of this one,” his wife

+whispered in French.

+

+“Yes, but what am I to do?... I try not to show...”

+

+At that moment they heard the sound of the door pulley and footsteps in

+the hall and anteroom, as if someone had arrived.

+

+“Somebody has come.”

+

+“I am sure it is Pierre. I will go and see,” said Countess Mary and left

+the room.

+

+In her absence Nicholas allowed himself to give his little daughter a

+gallop round the room. Out of breath, he took the laughing child quickly

+from his shoulder and pressed her to his heart. His capers reminded

+him of dancing, and looking at the child’s round happy little face he

+thought of what she would be like when he was an old man, taking her

+into society and dancing the mazurka with her as his old father had

+danced Daniel Cooper with his daughter.

+

+“It is he, it is he, Nicholas!” said Countess Mary, re-entering the room

+a few minutes later. “Now our Natásha has come to life. You should have

+seen her ecstasy, and how he caught it for having stayed away so long.

+Well, come along now, quick, quick! It’s time you two were parted,” she

+added, looking smilingly at the little girl who clung to her father.

+

+Nicholas went out holding the child by the hand.

+

+Countess Mary remained in the sitting room.

+

+“I should never, never have believed that one could be so happy,” she

+whispered to herself. A smile lit up her face but at the same time she

+sighed, and her deep eyes expressed a quiet sadness as though she

+felt, through her happiness, that there is another sort of happiness

+unattainable in this life and of which she involuntarily thought at that

+instant.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+Natásha had married in the early spring of 1813, and in 1820 already had

+three daughters besides a son for whom she had longed and whom she was

+now nursing. She had grown stouter and broader, so that it was difficult

+to recognize in this robust, motherly woman the slim, lively Natásha of

+former days. Her features were more defined and had a calm, soft,

+and serene expression. In her face there was none of the ever-glowing

+animation that had formerly burned there and constituted its charm.

+Now her face and body were often all that one saw, and her soul was

+not visible at all. All that struck the eye was a strong, handsome, and

+fertile woman. The old fire very rarely kindled in her face now. That

+happened only when, as was the case that day, her husband returned home,

+or a sick child was convalescent, or when she and Countess Mary spoke of

+Prince Andrew (she never mentioned him to her husband, who she imagined

+was jealous of Prince Andrew’s memory), or on the rare occasions when

+something happened to induce her to sing, a practice she had quite

+abandoned since her marriage. At the rare moments when the old fire

+did kindle in her handsome, fully developed body she was even more

+attractive than in former days.

+

+Since their marriage Natásha and her husband had lived in Moscow, in

+Petersburg, on their estate near Moscow, or with her mother, that is to

+say, in Nicholas’ house. The young Countess Bezúkhova was not often seen

+in society, and those who met her there were not pleased with her

+and found her neither attractive nor amiable. Not that Natásha liked

+solitude—she did not know whether she liked it or not, she even thought

+that she did not—but with her pregnancies, her confinements, the nursing

+of her children, and sharing every moment of her husband’s life, she had

+demands on her time which could be satisfied only by renouncing society.

+All who had known Natásha before her marriage wondered at the change

+in her as at something extraordinary. Only the old countess with her

+maternal instinct had realized that all Natásha’s outbursts had been due

+to her need of children and a husband—as she herself had once exclaimed

+at Otrádnoe not so much in fun as in earnest—and her mother was now

+surprised at the surprise expressed by those who had never understood

+Natásha, and she kept saying that she had always known that Natásha

+would make an exemplary wife and mother.

+

+“Only she lets her love of her husband and children overflow all

+bounds,” said the countess, “so that it even becomes absurd.”

+

+Natásha did not follow the golden rule advocated by clever folk,

+especially by the French, which says that a girl should not let herself

+go when she marries, should not neglect her accomplishments, should be

+even more careful of her appearance than when she was unmarried, and

+should fascinate her husband as much as she did before he became her

+husband. Natásha on the contrary had at once abandoned all her witchery,

+of which her singing had been an unusually powerful part. She gave it up

+just because it was so powerfully seductive. She took no pains with

+her manners or with delicacy of speech, or with her toilet, or to show

+herself to her husband in her most becoming attitudes, or to avoid

+inconveniencing him by being too exacting. She acted in contradiction

+to all those rules. She felt that the allurements instinct had formerly

+taught her to use would now be merely ridiculous in the eyes of

+her husband, to whom she had from the first moment given herself up

+entirely—that is, with her whole soul, leaving no corner of it hidden

+from him. She felt that her unity with her husband was not maintained

+by the poetic feelings that had attracted him to her, but by something

+else—indefinite but firm as the bond between her own body and soul.

+

+To fluff out her curls, put on fashionable dresses, and sing romantic

+songs to fascinate her husband would have seemed as strange as to adorn

+herself to attract herself. To adorn herself for others might perhaps

+have been agreeable—she did not know—but she had no time at all for it.

+The chief reason for devoting no time either to singing, to dress, or

+to choosing her words was that she really had no time to spare for these

+things.

+

+We know that man has the faculty of becoming completely absorbed in

+a subject however trivial it may be, and that there is no subject so

+trivial that it will not grow to infinite proportions if one’s entire

+attention is devoted to it.

+

+The subject which wholly engrossed Natásha’s attention was her family:

+that is, her husband whom she had to keep so that he should belong

+entirely to her and to the home, and the children whom she had to bear,

+bring into the world, nurse, and bring up.

+

+And the deeper she penetrated, not with her mind only but with her whole

+soul, her whole being, into the subject that absorbed her, the larger

+did that subject grow and the weaker and more inadequate did her powers

+appear, so that she concentrated them wholly on that one thing and yet

+was unable to accomplish all that she considered necessary.

+

+There were then as now conversations and discussions about women’s

+rights, the relations of husband and wife and their freedom and rights,

+though these themes were not yet termed questions as they are now; but

+these topics were not merely uninteresting to Natásha, she positively

+did not understand them.

+

+These questions, then as now, existed only for those who see nothing in

+marriage but the pleasure married people get from one another, that is,

+only the beginnings of marriage and not its whole significance, which

+lies in the family.

+

+Discussions and questions of that kind, which are like the question of

+how to get the greatest gratification from one’s dinner, did not then

+and do not now exist for those for whom the purpose of a dinner is the

+nourishment it affords; and the purpose of marriage is the family.

+

+If the purpose of dinner is to nourish the body, a man who eats two

+dinners at once may perhaps get more enjoyment but will not attain his

+purpose, for his stomach will not digest the two dinners.

+

+If the purpose of marriage is the family, the person who wishes to have

+many wives or husbands may perhaps obtain much pleasure, but in that

+case will not have a family.

+

+If the purpose of food is nourishment and the purpose of marriage is the

+family, the whole question resolves itself into not eating more than one

+can digest, and not having more wives or husbands than are needed for

+the family—that is, one wife or one husband. Natásha needed a husband. A

+husband was given her and he gave her a family. And she not only saw no

+need of any other or better husband, but as all the powers of her soul

+were intent on serving that husband and family, she could not imagine

+and saw no interest in imagining how it would be if things were

+different.

+

+Natásha did not care for society in general, but prized the more the

+society of her relatives—Countess Mary, and her brother, her mother, and

+Sónya. She valued the company of those to whom she could come striding

+disheveled from the nursery in her dressing gown, and with joyful face

+show a yellow instead of a green stain on baby’s napkin, and from whom

+she could hear reassuring words to the effect that baby was much better.

+

+To such an extent had Natásha let herself go that the way she dressed

+and did her hair, her ill-chosen words, and her jealousy—she was jealous

+of Sónya, of the governess, and of every woman, pretty or plain—were

+habitual subjects of jest to those about her. The general opinion was

+that Pierre was under his wife’s thumb, which was really true. From the

+very first days of their married life Natásha had announced her demands.

+Pierre was greatly surprised by his wife’s view, to him a perfectly

+novel one, that every moment of his life belonged to her and to the

+family. His wife’s demands astonished him, but they also flattered him,

+and he submitted to them.

+

+Pierre’s subjection consisted in the fact that he not only dared not

+flirt with, but dared not even speak smilingly to, any other woman; did

+not dare dine at the Club as a pastime, did not dare spend money on a

+whim, and did not dare absent himself for any length of time, except on

+business—in which his wife included his intellectual pursuits, which

+she did not in the least understand but to which she attributed great

+importance. To make up for this, at home Pierre had the right to

+regulate his life and that of the whole family exactly as he chose. At

+home Natásha placed herself in the position of a slave to her husband,

+and the whole household went on tiptoe when he was occupied—that is, was

+reading or writing in his study. Pierre had but to show a partiality for

+anything to get just what he liked done always. He had only to express a

+wish and Natásha would jump up and run to fulfill it.

+

+The entire household was governed according to Pierre’s supposed orders,

+that is, by his wishes which Natásha tried to guess. Their way of

+life and place of residence, their acquaintances and ties, Natásha’s

+occupations, the children’s upbringing, were all selected not merely

+with regard to Pierre’s expressed wishes, but to what Natásha from the

+thoughts he expressed in conversation supposed his wishes to be. And she

+deduced the essentials of his wishes quite correctly, and having once

+arrived at them clung to them tenaciously. When Pierre himself wanted to

+change his mind she would fight him with his own weapons.

+

+Thus in a time of trouble ever memorable to him after the birth of their

+first child who was delicate, when they had to change the wet nurse

+three times and Natásha fell ill from despair, Pierre one day told her

+of Rousseau’s view, with which he quite agreed, that to have a wet

+nurse is unnatural and harmful. When her next baby was born, despite

+the opposition of her mother, the doctors, and even of her husband

+himself—who were all vigorously opposed to her nursing her baby herself,

+a thing then unheard of and considered injurious—she insisted on having

+her own way, and after that nursed all her babies herself.

+

+It very often happened that in a moment of irritation husband and wife

+would have a dispute, but long afterwards Pierre to his surprise and

+delight would find in his wife’s ideas and actions the very thought

+against which she had argued, but divested of everything superfluous

+that in the excitement of the dispute he had added when expressing his

+opinion.

+

+After seven years of marriage Pierre had the joyous and firm

+consciousness that he was not a bad man, and he felt this because he saw

+himself reflected in his wife. He felt the good and bad within himself

+inextricably mingled and overlapping. But only what was really good in

+him was reflected in his wife, all that was not quite good was rejected.

+And this was not the result of logical reasoning but was a direct and

+mysterious reflection.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+Two months previously when Pierre was already staying with the Rostóvs

+he had received a letter from Prince Theodore, asking him to come

+to Petersburg to confer on some important questions that were being

+discussed there by a society of which Pierre was one of the principal

+founders.

+

+On reading that letter (she always read her husband’s letters) Natásha

+herself suggested that he should go to Petersburg, though she would feel

+his absence very acutely. She attributed immense importance to all

+her husband’s intellectual and abstract interests though she did not

+understand them, and she always dreaded being a hindrance to him in such

+matters. To Pierre’s timid look of inquiry after reading the letter she

+replied by asking him to go, but to fix a definite date for his return.

+He was given four weeks’ leave of absence.

+

+Ever since that leave of absence had expired, more than a fortnight

+before, Natásha had been in a constant state of alarm, depression, and

+irritability.

+

+Denísov, now a general on the retired list and much dissatisfied with

+the present state of affairs, had arrived during that fortnight. He

+looked at Natásha with sorrow and surprise as at a bad likeness of a

+person once dear. A dull, dejected look, random replies, and talk about

+the nursery was all he saw and heard from his former enchantress.

+

+Natásha was sad and irritable all that time, especially when her mother,

+her brother, Sónya, or Countess Mary in their efforts to console her

+tried to excuse Pierre and suggested reasons for his delay in returning.

+

+“It’s all nonsense, all rubbish—those discussions which lead to nothing

+and all those idiotic societies!” Natásha declared of the very affairs

+in the immense importance of which she firmly believed.

+

+And she would go to the nursery to nurse Pétya, her only boy. No one

+else could tell her anything so comforting or so reasonable as this

+little three-month-old creature when he lay at her breast and she was

+conscious of the movement of his lips and the snuffling of his little

+nose. That creature said: “You are angry, you are jealous, you would

+like to pay him out, you are afraid—but here am I! And I am he...” and

+that was unanswerable. It was more than true.

+

+During that fortnight of anxiety Natásha resorted to the baby for

+comfort so often, and fussed over him so much, that she overfed him and

+he fell ill. She was terrified by his illness, and yet that was just

+what she needed. While attending to him she bore the anxiety about her

+husband more easily.

+

+She was nursing her boy when the sound of Pierre’s sleigh was heard

+at the front door, and the old nurse—knowing how to please her

+mistress—entered the room inaudibly but hurriedly and with a beaming

+face.

+

+“Has he come?” Natásha asked quickly in a whisper, afraid to move lest

+she should rouse the dozing baby.

+

+“He’s come, ma’am,” whispered the nurse.

+

+The blood rushed to Natásha’s face and her feet involuntarily moved, but

+she could not jump up and run out. The baby again opened his eyes and

+looked at her. “You’re here?” he seemed to be saying, and again lazily

+smacked his lips.

+

+Cautiously withdrawing her breast, Natásha rocked him a little, handed

+him to the nurse, and went with rapid steps toward the door. But at the

+door she stopped as if her conscience reproached her for having in

+her joy left the child too soon, and she glanced round. The nurse with

+raised elbows was lifting the infant over the rail of his cot.

+

+“Go, ma’am! Don’t worry, go!” she whispered, smiling, with the kind of

+familiarity that grows up between a nurse and her mistress.

+

+Natásha ran with light footsteps to the anteroom.

+

+Denísov, who had come out of the study into the dancing room with his

+pipe, now for the first time recognized the old Natásha. A flood of

+brilliant, joyful light poured from her transfigured face.

+

+“He’s come!” she exclaimed as she ran past, and Denísov felt that he too

+was delighted that Pierre, whom he did not much care for, had returned.

+

+On reaching the vestibule Natásha saw a tall figure in a fur coat

+unwinding his scarf. “It’s he! It’s really he! He has come!” she said

+to herself, and rushing at him embraced him, pressed his head to her

+breast, and then pushed him back and gazed at his ruddy, happy face,

+covered with hoarfrost. “Yes, it is he, happy and contented....”

+

+Then all at once she remembered the tortures of suspense she had

+experienced for the last fortnight, and the joy that had lit up her

+face vanished; she frowned and overwhelmed Pierre with a torrent of

+reproaches and angry words.

+

+“Yes, it’s all very well for you. You are pleased, you’ve had a good

+time.... But what about me? You might at least have shown consideration

+for the children. I am nursing and my milk was spoiled.... Pétya was at

+death’s door. But you were enjoying yourself. Yes, enjoying...”

+

+Pierre knew he was not to blame, for he could not have come sooner; he

+knew this outburst was unseemly and would blow over in a minute or two;

+above all he knew that he himself was bright and happy. He wanted

+to smile but dared not even think of doing so. He made a piteous,

+frightened face and bent down.

+

+“I could not, on my honor. But how is Pétya?”

+

+“All right now. Come along! I wonder you’re not ashamed! If only you

+could see what I was like without you, how I suffered!”

+

+“You are well?”

+

+“Come, come!” she said, not letting go of his arm. And they went to

+their rooms.

+

+When Nicholas and his wife came to look for Pierre he was in the nursery

+holding his baby son, who was again awake, on his huge right palm and

+dandling him. A blissful bright smile was fixed on the baby’s broad face

+with its toothless open mouth. The storm was long since over and there

+was bright, joyous sunshine on Natásha’s face as she gazed tenderly at

+her husband and child.

+

+“And have you talked everything well over with Prince Theodore?” she

+asked.

+

+“Yes, capitally.”

+

+“You see, he holds it up.” (She meant the baby’s head.) “But how he did

+frighten me... You’ve seen the princess? Is it true she’s in love with

+that...”

+

+“Yes, just fancy...”

+

+At that moment Nicholas and Countess Mary came in. Pierre with the baby

+on his hand stooped, kissed them, and replied to their inquiries. But

+in spite of much that was interesting and had to be discussed, the baby

+with the little cap on its unsteady head evidently absorbed all his

+attention.

+

+“How sweet!” said Countess Mary, looking at and playing with the baby.

+“Now, Nicholas,” she added, turning to her husband, “I can’t understand

+how it is you don’t see the charm of these delicious marvels.”

+

+“I don’t and can’t,” replied Nicholas, looking coldly at the baby. “A

+lump of flesh. Come along, Pierre!”

+

+“And yet he’s such an affectionate father,” said Countess Mary,

+vindicating her husband, “but only after they are a year old or so...”

+

+“Now, Pierre nurses them splendidly,” said Natásha. “He says his hand is

+just made for a baby’s seat. Just look!”

+

+“Only not for this...” Pierre suddenly exclaimed with a laugh, and

+shifting the baby he gave him to the nurse.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+As in every large household, there were at Bald Hills several perfectly

+distinct worlds which merged into one harmonious whole, though each

+retained its own peculiarities and made concessions to the others. Every

+event, joyful or sad, that took place in that house was important to all

+these worlds, but each had its own special reasons to rejoice or grieve

+over that occurrence independently of the others.

+

+For instance, Pierre’s return was a joyful and important event and they

+all felt it to be so.

+

+The servants—the most reliable judges of their masters because they

+judge not by their conversation or expressions of feeling but by their

+acts and way of life—were glad of Pierre’s return because they knew that

+when he was there Count Nicholas would cease going every day to attend

+to the estate, and would be in better spirits and temper, and also

+because they would all receive handsome presents for the holidays.

+

+The children and their governesses were glad of Pierre’s return because

+no one else drew them into the social life of the household as he did.

+He alone could play on the clavichord that écossaise (his only piece)

+to which, as he said, all possible dances could be danced, and they felt

+sure he had brought presents for them all.

+

+Young Nicholas, now a slim lad of fifteen, delicate and intelligent,

+with curly light-brown hair and beautiful eyes, was delighted because

+Uncle Pierre as he called him was the object of his rapturous and

+passionate affection. No one had instilled into him this love for Pierre

+whom he saw only occasionally. Countess Mary who had brought him up

+had done her utmost to make him love her husband as she loved him, and

+little Nicholas did love his uncle, but loved him with just a shade of

+contempt. Pierre, however, he adored. He did not want to be an hussar or

+a Knight of St. George like his uncle Nicholas; he wanted to be learned,

+wise, and kind like Pierre. In Pierre’s presence his face always shone

+with pleasure and he flushed and was breathless when Pierre spoke to

+him. He did not miss a single word he uttered, and would afterwards,

+with Dessalles or by himself, recall and reconsider the meaning of

+everything Pierre had said. Pierre’s past life and his unhappiness prior

+to 1812 (of which young Nicholas had formed a vague poetic picture from

+some words he had overheard), his adventures in Moscow, his captivity,

+Platón Karatáev (of whom he had heard from Pierre), his love for Natásha

+(of whom the lad was also particularly fond), and especially Pierre’s

+friendship with the father whom Nicholas could not remember—all this

+made Pierre in his eyes a hero and a saint.

+

+From broken remarks about Natásha and his father, from the emotion with

+which Pierre spoke of that dead father, and from the careful, reverent

+tenderness with which Natásha spoke of him, the boy, who was only just

+beginning to guess what love is, derived the notion that his father had

+loved Natásha and when dying had left her to his friend. But the father

+whom the boy did not remember appeared to him a divinity who could not

+be pictured, and of whom he never thought without a swelling heart and

+tears of sadness and rapture. So the boy also was happy that Pierre had

+arrived.

+

+The guests welcomed Pierre because he always helped to enliven and unite

+any company he was in.

+

+The grown-up members of the family, not to mention his wife, were

+pleased to have back a friend whose presence made life run more smoothly

+and peacefully.

+

+The old ladies were pleased with the presents he brought them, and

+especially that Natásha would now be herself again.

+

+Pierre felt the different outlooks of these various worlds and made

+haste to satisfy all their expectations.

+

+Though the most absent-minded and forgetful of men, Pierre, with the aid

+of a list his wife drew up, had now bought everything, not forgetting

+his mother—and brother-in-law’s commissions, nor the dress material for

+a present to Belóva, nor toys for his wife’s nephews. In the early days

+of his marriage it had seemed strange to him that his wife should expect

+him not to forget to procure all the things he undertook to buy, and he

+had been taken aback by her serious annoyance when on his first trip he

+forgot everything. But in time he grew used to this demand. Knowing that

+Natásha asked nothing for herself, and gave him commissions for others

+only when he himself had offered to undertake them, he now found an

+unexpected and childlike pleasure in this purchase of presents for

+everyone in the house, and never forgot anything. If he now incurred

+Natásha’s censure it was only for buying too many and too expensive

+things. To her other defects (as most people thought them, but which

+to Pierre were qualities) of untidiness and neglect of herself, she now

+added stinginess.

+

+From the time that Pierre began life as a family man on a footing

+entailing heavy expenditure, he had noticed to his surprise that he

+spent only half as much as before, and that his affairs—which had been

+in disorder of late, chiefly because of his first wife’s debts—had begun

+to improve.

+

+Life was cheaper because it was circumscribed: that most expensive

+luxury, the kind of life that can be changed at any moment, was no

+longer his nor did he wish for it. He felt that his way of life had now

+been settled once for all till death and that to change it was not in

+his power, and so that way of life proved economical.

+

+With a merry, smiling face Pierre was sorting his purchases.

+

+“What do you think of this?” said he, unrolling a piece of stuff like a

+shopman.

+

+Natásha, who was sitting opposite to him with her eldest daughter on her

+lap, turned her sparkling eyes swiftly from her husband to the things he

+showed her.

+

+“That’s for Belóva? Excellent!” She felt the quality of the material.

+“It was a ruble an arshin, I suppose?”

+

+Pierre told her the price.

+

+“Too dear!” Natásha remarked. “How pleased the children will be and

+Mamma too! Only you need not have bought me this,” she added, unable to

+suppress a smile as she gazed admiringly at a gold comb set with pearls,

+of a kind then just coming into fashion.

+

+“Adèle tempted me: she kept on telling me to buy it,” returned Pierre.

+

+“When am I to wear it?” and Natásha stuck it in her coil of hair. “When

+I take little Másha into society? Perhaps they will be fashionable again

+by then. Well, let’s go now.”

+

+And collecting the presents they went first to the nursery and then to

+the old countess’ rooms.

+

+The countess was sitting with her companion Belóva, playing

+grand-patience as usual, when Pierre and Natásha came into the drawing

+room with parcels under their arms.

+

+The countess was now over sixty, was quite gray, and wore a cap with a

+frill that surrounded her face. Her face had shriveled, her upper lip

+had sunk in, and her eyes were dim.

+

+After the deaths of her son and husband in such rapid succession, she

+felt herself a being accidentally forgotten in this world and left

+without aim or object for her existence. She ate, drank, slept, or kept

+awake, but did not live. Life gave her no new impressions. She wanted

+nothing from life but tranquillity, and that tranquillity only death

+could give her. But until death came she had to go on living, that is,

+to use her vital forces. A peculiarity one sees in very young children

+and very old people was particularly evident in her. Her life had

+no external aims—only a need to exercise her various functions and

+inclinations was apparent. She had to eat, sleep, think, speak, weep,

+work, give vent to her anger, and so on, merely because she had a

+stomach, a brain, muscles, nerves, and a liver. She did these things not

+under any external impulse as people in the full vigor of life do,

+when behind the purpose for which they strive that of exercising their

+functions remains unnoticed. She talked only because she physically

+needed to exercise her tongue and lungs. She cried as a child does,

+because her nose had to be cleared, and so on. What for people in their

+full vigor is an aim was for her evidently merely a pretext.

+

+Thus in the morning—especially if she had eaten anything rich the day

+before—she felt a need of being angry and would choose as the handiest

+pretext Belóva’s deafness.

+

+She would begin to say something to her in a low tone from the other end

+of the room.

+

+“It seems a little warmer today, my dear,” she would murmur.

+

+And when Belóva replied: “Oh yes, they’ve come,” she would mutter

+angrily: “O Lord! How stupid and deaf she is!”

+

+Another pretext would be her snuff, which would seem too dry or too damp

+or not rubbed fine enough. After these fits of irritability her face

+would grow yellow, and her maids knew by infallible symptoms when Belóva

+would again be deaf, the snuff damp, and the countess’ face yellow. Just

+as she needed to work off her spleen so she had sometimes to exercise

+her still-existing faculty of thinking—and the pretext for that was a

+game of patience. When she needed to cry, the deceased count would be

+the pretext. When she wanted to be agitated, Nicholas and his health

+would be the pretext, and when she felt a need to speak spitefully, the

+pretext would be Countess Mary. When her vocal organs needed exercise,

+which was usually toward seven o’clock when she had had an after-dinner

+rest in a darkened room, the pretext would be the retelling of the same

+stories over and over again to the same audience.

+

+The old lady’s condition was understood by the whole household though no

+one ever spoke of it, and they all made every possible effort to satisfy

+her needs. Only by a rare glance exchanged with a sad smile

+between Nicholas, Pierre, Natásha, and Countess Mary was the common

+understanding of her condition expressed.

+

+But those glances expressed something more: they said that she had

+played her part in life, that what they now saw was not her whole self,

+that we must all become like her, and that they were glad to yield to

+her, to restrain themselves for this once precious being formerly as

+full of life as themselves, but now so much to be pitied. “Memento

+mori,” said these glances.

+

+Only the really heartless, the stupid ones of that household, and the

+little children failed to understand this and avoided her.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIII

+

+When Pierre and his wife entered the drawing room the countess was in

+one of her customary states in which she needed the mental exertion of

+playing patience, and so—though by force of habit she greeted him with

+the words she always used when Pierre or her son returned after an

+absence: “High time, my dear, high time! We were all weary of waiting

+for you. Well, thank God!” and received her presents with another

+customary remark: “It’s not the gift that’s precious, my dear, but that

+you give it to me, an old woman...”—yet it was evident that she was

+not pleased by Pierre’s arrival at that moment when it diverted her

+attention from the unfinished game.

+

+She finished her game of patience and only then examined the presents.

+They consisted of a box for cards, of splendid workmanship, a

+bright-blue Sèvres tea cup with shepherdesses depicted on it and with

+a lid, and a gold snuffbox with the count’s portrait on the lid which

+Pierre had had done by a miniaturist in Petersburg. The countess had

+long wished for such a box, but as she did not want to cry just then she

+glanced indifferently at the portrait and gave her attention chiefly to

+the box for cards.

+

+“Thank you, my dear, you have cheered me up,” said she as she always

+did. “But best of all you have brought yourself back—for I never saw

+anything like it, you ought to give your wife a scolding! What are we

+to do with her? She is like a mad woman when you are away. Doesn’t see

+anything, doesn’t remember anything,” she went on, repeating her usual

+phrases. “Look, Anna Timoféevna,” she added to her companion, “see what

+a box for cards my son has brought us!”

+

+Belóva admired the presents and was delighted with her dress material.

+

+Though Pierre, Natásha, Nicholas, Countess Mary, and Denísov had much to

+talk about that they could not discuss before the old countess—not

+that anything was hidden from her, but because she had dropped so

+far behindhand in many things that had they begun to converse in her

+presence they would have had to answer inopportune questions and to

+repeat what they had already told her many times: that so-and-so was

+dead and so-and-so was married, which she would again be unable to

+remember—yet they sat at tea round the samovar in the drawing room from

+habit, and Pierre answered the countess’ questions as to whether Prince

+Vasíli had aged and whether Countess Mary Alexéevna had sent greetings

+and still thought of them, and other matters that interested no one and

+to which she herself was indifferent.

+

+Conversation of this kind, interesting to no one yet unavoidable,

+continued all through teatime. All the grown-up members of the family

+were assembled near the round tea table at which Sónya presided beside

+the samovar. The children with their tutors and governesses had had

+tea and their voices were audible from the next room. At tea all sat

+in their accustomed places: Nicholas beside the stove at a small table

+where his tea was handed to him; Mílka, the old gray borzoi bitch

+(daughter of the first Mílka), with a quite gray face and large black

+eyes that seemed more prominent than ever, lay on the armchair beside

+him; Denísov, whose curly hair, mustache, and whiskers had turned half

+gray, sat beside countess Mary with his general’s tunic unbuttoned;

+Pierre sat between his wife and the old countess. He spoke of what he

+knew might interest the old lady and that she could understand. He

+told her of external social events and of the people who had formed

+the circle of her contemporaries and had once been a real, living, and

+distinct group, but who were now for the most part scattered about the

+world and like herself were garnering the last ears of the harvests they

+had sown in earlier years. But to the old countess those contemporaries

+of hers seemed to be the only serious and real society. Natásha saw by

+Pierre’s animation that his visit had been interesting and that he had

+much to tell them but dare not say it before the old countess. Denísov,

+not being a member of the family, did not understand Pierre’s caution

+and being, as a malcontent, much interested in what was occurring in

+Petersburg, kept urging Pierre to tell them about what had happened in

+the Semënovsk regiment, then about Arakchéev, and then about the Bible

+Society. Once or twice Pierre was carried away and began to speak of

+these things, but Nicholas and Natásha always brought him back to the

+health of Prince Iván and Countess Mary Alexéevna.

+

+“Well, and all this idiocy—Gossner and Tatáwinova?” Denísov asked. “Is

+that weally still going on?”

+

+“Going on?” Pierre exclaimed. “Why more than ever! The Bible Society is

+the whole government now!”

+

+“What is that, mon cher ami?” asked the countess, who had finished her

+tea and evidently needed a pretext for being angry after her meal. “What

+are you saying about the government? I don’t understand.”

+

+“Well, you know, Maman,” Nicholas interposed, knowing how to translate

+things into his mother’s language, “Prince Alexander Golítsyn has

+founded a society and in consequence has great influence, they say.”

+

+“Arakchéev and Golítsyn,” incautiously remarked Pierre, “are now the

+whole government! And what a government! They see treason everywhere and

+are afraid of everything.”

+

+“Well, and how is Prince Alexander to blame? He is a most estimable

+man. I used to meet him at Mary Antónovna’s,” said the countess in an

+offended tone; and still more offended that they all remained silent,

+she went on: “Nowadays everyone finds fault. A Gospel Society! Well, and

+what harm is there in that?” and she rose (everybody else got up too)

+and with a severe expression sailed back to her table in the sitting

+room.

+

+The melancholy silence that followed was broken by the sounds of the

+children’s voices and laughter from the next room. Evidently some jolly

+excitement was going on there.

+

+“Finished, finished!” little Natásha’s gleeful yell rose above them all.

+

+Pierre exchanged glances with Countess Mary and Nicholas (Natásha he

+never lost sight of) and smiled happily.

+

+“That’s delightful music!” said he.

+

+“It means that Anna Makárovna has finished her stocking,” said Countess

+Mary.

+

+“Oh, I’ll go and see,” said Pierre, jumping up. “You know,” he added,

+stopping at the door, “why I’m especially fond of that music? It is

+always the first thing that tells me all is well. When I was driving

+here today, the nearer I got to the house the more anxious I grew. As I

+entered the anteroom I heard Andrúsha’s peals of laughter and that meant

+that all was well.”

+

+“I know! I know that feeling,” said Nicholas. “But I mustn’t go

+there—those stockings are to be a surprise for me.”

+

+Pierre went to the children, and the shouting and laughter grew still

+louder.

+

+“Come, Anna Makárovna,” Pierre’s voice was heard saying, “come here into

+the middle of the room and at the word of command, ‘One, two,’ and

+when I say ‘three’... You stand here, and you in my arms—well now! One,

+two!...” said Pierre, and a silence followed: “three!” and a rapturously

+breathless cry of children’s voices filled the room. “Two, two!” they

+shouted.

+

+This meant two stockings, which by a secret process known only to

+herself Anna Makárovna used to knit at the same time on the same

+needles, and which, when they were ready, she always triumphantly drew,

+one out of the other, in the children’s presence.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XIV

+

+Soon after this the children came in to say good night. They kissed

+everyone, the tutors and governesses made their bows, and they went out.

+Only young Nicholas and his tutor remained. Dessalles whispered to the

+boy to come downstairs.

+

+“No, Monsieur Dessalles, I will ask my aunt to let me stay,” replied

+Nicholas Bolkónski also in a whisper.

+

+“Ma tante, please let me stay,” said he, going up to his aunt.

+

+His face expressed entreaty, agitation, and ecstasy. Countess Mary

+glanced at him and turned to Pierre.

+

+“When you are here he can’t tear himself away,” she said.

+

+“I will bring him to you directly, Monsieur Dessalles. Good night!”

+said Pierre, giving his hand to the Swiss tutor, and he turned to young

+Nicholas with a smile. “You and I haven’t seen anything of one another

+yet.... How like he is growing, Mary!” he added, addressing Countess

+Mary.

+

+“Like my father?” asked the boy, flushing crimson and looking up at

+Pierre with bright, ecstatic eyes.

+

+Pierre nodded, and went on with what he had been saying when the

+children had interrupted. Countess Mary sat down doing woolwork; Natásha

+did not take her eyes off her husband. Nicholas and Denísov rose, asked

+for their pipes, smoked, went to fetch more tea from Sónya—who sat weary

+but resolute at the samovar—and questioned Pierre. The curly-headed,

+delicate boy sat with shining eyes unnoticed in a corner, starting

+every now and then and muttering something to himself, and evidently

+experiencing a new and powerful emotion as he turned his curly head,

+with his thin neck exposed by his turn-down collar, toward the place

+where Pierre sat.

+

+The conversation turned on the contemporary gossip about those in power,

+in which most people see the chief interest of home politics. Denísov,

+dissatisfied with the government on account of his own disappointments

+in the service, heard with pleasure of the things done in Petersburg

+which seemed to him stupid, and made forcible and sharp comments on what

+Pierre told them.

+

+“One used to have to be a German—now one must dance with Tatáwinova

+and Madame Kwüdener, and wead Ecka’tshausen and the bwethwen. Oh, they

+should let that fine fellow Bonaparte loose—he’d knock all this nonsense

+out of them! Fancy giving the command of the Semënov wegiment to a

+fellow like that Schwa’tz!” he cried.

+

+Nicholas, though free from Denísov’s readiness to find fault with

+everything, also thought that discussion of the government was a very

+serious and weighty matter, and the fact that A had been appointed

+Minister of This and B Governor General of That, and that the Emperor

+had said so-and-so and this minister so-and-so, seemed to him very

+important. And so he thought it necessary to take an interest in these

+things and to question Pierre. The questions put by these two kept the

+conversation from changing its ordinary character of gossip about the

+higher government circles.

+

+But Natásha, knowing all her husband’s ways and ideas, saw that he had

+long been wishing but had been unable to divert the conversation to

+another channel and express his own deeply felt idea for the sake of

+which he had gone to Petersburg to consult with his new friend Prince

+Theodore, and she helped him by asking how his affairs with Prince

+Theodore had gone.

+

+“What was it about?” asked Nicholas.

+

+“Always the same thing,” said Pierre, looking round at his listeners.

+“Everybody sees that things are going so badly that they cannot be

+allowed to go on so and that it is the duty of all decent men to

+counteract it as far as they can.”

+

+“What can decent men do?” Nicholas inquired, frowning slightly. “What

+can be done?”

+

+“Why, this...”

+

+“Come into my study,” said Nicholas.

+

+Natásha, who had long expected to be fetched to nurse her baby, now

+heard the nurse calling her and went to the nursery. Countess Mary

+followed her. The men went into the study and little Nicholas Bolkónski

+followed them unnoticed by his uncle and sat down at the writing table

+in a shady corner by the window.

+

+“Well, what would you do?” asked Denísov.

+

+“Always some fantastic schemes,” said Nicholas.

+

+“Why this,” began Pierre, not sitting down but pacing the room,

+sometimes stopping short, gesticulating, and lisping: “the position

+in Petersburg is this: the Emperor does not look into anything. He

+has abandoned himself altogether to this mysticism” (Pierre could not

+tolerate mysticism in anyone now). “He seeks only for peace, and only

+these people sans foi ni loi * can give it him—people who recklessly

+hack at and strangle everything—Magnítski, Arakchéev, and tutti

+quanti.... You will agree that if you did not look after your estates

+yourself but only wanted a quiet life, the harsher your steward was the

+more readily your object might be attained,” he said to Nicholas.

+

+    * Without faith or law.

+

+“Well, what does that lead up to?” said Nicholas.

+

+“Well, everything is going to ruin! Robbery in the law courts, in the

+army nothing but flogging, drilling, and Military Settlements; the

+people are tortured, enlightenment is suppressed. All that is young and

+honest is crushed! Everyone sees that this cannot go on. Everything is

+strained to such a degree that it will certainly break,” said Pierre (as

+those who examine the actions of any government have always said since

+governments began). “I told them just one thing in Petersburg.”

+

+“Told whom?”

+

+“Well, you know whom,” said Pierre, with a meaning glance from under

+his brows. “Prince Theodore and all those. To encourage culture and

+philanthropy is all very well of course. The aim is excellent but in the

+present circumstances something else is needed.”

+

+At that moment Nicholas noticed the presence of his nephew. His face

+darkened and he went up to the boy.

+

+“Why are you here?”

+

+“Why? Let him be,” said Pierre, taking Nicholas by the arm and

+continuing. “That is not enough, I told them. Something else is needed.

+When you stand expecting the overstrained string to snap at any moment,

+when everyone is expecting the inevitable catastrophe, as many as

+possible must join hands as closely as they can to withstand the general

+calamity. Everything that is young and strong is being enticed away and

+depraved. One is lured by women, another by honors, a third by ambition

+or money, and they go over to that camp. No independent men, such as you

+or I, are left. What I say is widen the scope of our society, let the

+mot d’ordre be not virtue alone but independence and action as well!”

+

+Nicholas, who had left his nephew, irritably pushed up an armchair, sat

+down in it, and listened to Pierre, coughing discontentedly and frowning

+more and more.

+

+“But action with what aim?” he cried. “And what position will you adopt

+toward the government?”

+

+“Why, the position of assistants. The society need not be secret if the

+government allows it. Not merely is it not hostile to government, but

+it is a society of true conservatives—a society of gentlemen in the full

+meaning of that word. It is only to prevent some Pugachëv or other from

+killing my children and yours, and Arakchéev from sending me off to some

+Military Settlement. We join hands only for the public welfare and the

+general safety.”

+

+“Yes, but it’s a secret society and therefore a hostile and harmful one

+which can only cause harm.”

+

+“Why? Did the Tugendbund which saved Europe” (they did not then venture

+to suggest that Russia had saved Europe) “do any harm? The Tugendbund

+is an alliance of virtue: it is love, mutual help... it is what Christ

+preached on the Cross.”

+

+Natásha, who had come in during the conversation, looked joyfully at

+her husband. It was not what he was saying that pleased her—that did not

+even interest her, for it seemed to her that was all extremely simple

+and that she had known it a long time (it seemed so to her because she

+knew that it sprang from Pierre’s whole soul), but it was his animated

+and enthusiastic appearance that made her glad.

+

+The boy with the thin neck stretching out from the turn-down collar—whom

+everyone had forgotten—gazed at Pierre with even greater and more

+rapturous joy. Every word of Pierre’s burned into his heart, and with a

+nervous movement of his fingers he unconsciously broke the sealing wax

+and quill pens his hands came upon on his uncle’s table.

+

+“It is not at all what you suppose; but that is what the German

+Tugendbund was, and what I am proposing.”

+

+“No, my fwiend! The Tugendbund is all vewy well for the sausage eaters,

+but I don’t understand it and can’t even pwonounce it,” interposed

+Denísov in a loud and resolute voice. “I agwee that evewything here is

+wotten and howwible, but the Tugendbund I don’t understand. If we’re

+not satisfied, let us have a bunt of our own. That’s all wight. Je suis

+vot’e homme!” *

+

+    * “I’m your man.”

+

+

+Pierre smiled, Natásha began to laugh, but Nicholas knitted his brows

+still more and began proving to Pierre that there was no prospect of

+any great change and that all the danger he spoke of existed only in his

+imagination. Pierre maintained the contrary, and as his mental faculties

+were greater and more resourceful, Nicholas felt himself cornered. This

+made him still angrier, for he was fully convinced, not by reasoning

+but by something within him stronger than reason, of the justice of his

+opinion.

+

+“I will tell you this,” he said, rising and trying with nervously

+twitching fingers to prop up his pipe in a corner, but finally

+abandoning the attempt. “I can’t prove it to you. You say that

+everything here is rotten and that an overthrow is coming: I don’t

+see it. But you also say that our oath of allegiance is a conditional

+matter, and to that I reply: ‘You are my best friend, as you know,

+but if you formed a secret society and began working against the

+government—be it what it may—I know it is my duty to obey the

+government. And if Arakchéev ordered me to lead a squadron against you

+and cut you down, I should not hesitate an instant, but should do it.’

+And you may argue about that as you like!”

+

+An awkward silence followed these words. Natásha was the first to speak,

+defending her husband and attacking her brother. Her defense was weak

+and inapt but she attained her object. The conversation was resumed, and

+no longer in the unpleasantly hostile tone of Nicholas’ last remark.

+

+When they all got up to go in to supper, little Nicholas Bolkónski went

+up to Pierre, pale and with shining, radiant eyes.

+

+“Uncle Pierre, you... no... If Papa were alive... would he agree with

+you?” he asked.

+

+And Pierre suddenly realized what a special, independent, complex, and

+powerful process of thought and feeling must have been going on in

+this boy during that conversation, and remembering all he had said he

+regretted that the lad should have heard him. He had, however, to give

+him an answer.

+

+“Yes, I think so,” he said reluctantly, and left the study.

+

+The lad looked down and seemed now for the first time to notice what he

+had done to the things on the table. He flushed and went up to Nicholas.

+

+“Uncle, forgive me, I did that... unintentionally,” he said, pointing to

+the broken sealing wax and pens.

+

+Nicholas started angrily.

+

+“All right, all right,” he said, throwing the bits under the table.

+

+And evidently suppressing his vexation with difficulty, he turned away

+from the boy.

+

+“You ought not to have been here at all,” he said.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XV

+

+The conversation at supper was not about politics or societies, but

+turned on the subject Nicholas liked best—recollections of 1812. Denísov

+started these and Pierre was particularly agreeable and amusing about

+them. The family separated on the most friendly terms.

+

+After supper Nicholas, having undressed in his study and given

+instructions to the steward who had been waiting for him, went to the

+bedroom in his dressing gown, where he found his wife still at her

+table, writing.

+

+“What are you writing, Mary?” Nicholas asked.

+

+Countess Mary blushed. She was afraid that what she was writing would

+not be understood or approved by her husband.

+

+She had wanted to conceal what she was writing from him, but at the same

+time was glad he had surprised her at it and that she would now have to

+tell him.

+

+“A diary, Nicholas,” she replied, handing him a blue exercise book

+filled with her firm, bold writing.

+

+“A diary?” Nicholas repeated with a shade of irony, and he took up the

+book.

+

+It was in French.

+

+

+December 4. Today when Andrúsha (her eldest boy) woke up he did not

+wish to dress and Mademoiselle Louise sent for me. He was naughty and

+obstinate. I tried threats, but he only grew angrier. Then I took the

+matter in hand: I left him alone and began with nurse’s help to get the

+other children up, telling him that I did not love him. For a long time

+he was silent, as if astonished, then he jumped out of bed, ran to me in

+his shirt, and sobbed so that I could not calm him for a long time.

+It was plain that what troubled him most was that he had grieved me.

+Afterwards in the evening when I gave him his ticket, he again began

+crying piteously and kissing me. One can do anything with him by

+tenderness.

+

+

+“What is a ‘ticket’?” Nicholas inquired.

+

+“I have begun giving the elder ones marks every evening, showing how

+they have behaved.”

+

+Nicholas looked into the radiant eyes that were gazing at him, and

+continued to turn over the pages and read. In the diary was set down

+everything in the children’s lives that seemed noteworthy to their

+mother as showing their characters or suggesting general reflections

+on educational methods. They were for the most part quite insignificant

+trifles, but did not seem so to the mother or to the father either, now

+that he read this diary about his children for the first time.

+

+Under the date “5” was entered:

+

+

+Mítya was naughty at table. Papa said he was to have no pudding. He had

+none, but looked so unhappily and greedily at the others while they were

+eating! I think that punishment by depriving children of sweets only

+develops their greediness. Must tell Nicholas this.

+

+Nicholas put down the book and looked at his wife. The radiant eyes

+gazed at him questioningly: would he approve or disapprove of her

+diary? There could be no doubt not only of his approval but also of his

+admiration for his wife.

+

+Perhaps it need not be done so pedantically, thought Nicholas, or even

+done at all, but this untiring, continual spiritual effort of which the

+sole aim was the children’s moral welfare delighted him. Had Nicholas

+been able to analyze his feelings he would have found that his steady,

+tender, and proud love of his wife rested on his feeling of wonder at

+her spirituality and at the lofty moral world, almost beyond his reach,

+in which she had her being.

+

+He was proud of her intelligence and goodness, recognized his own

+insignificance beside her in the spiritual world, and rejoiced all the

+more that she with such a soul not only belonged to him but was part of

+himself.

+

+“I quite, quite approve, my dearest!” said he with a significant look,

+and after a short pause he added: “And I behaved badly today. You

+weren’t in the study. We began disputing—Pierre and I—and I lost my

+temper. But he is impossible: such a child! I don’t know what would

+become of him if Natásha didn’t keep him in hand.... Have you any idea

+why he went to Petersburg? They have formed...”

+

+“Yes, I know,” said Countess Mary. “Natásha told me.”

+

+“Well, then, you know,” Nicholas went on, growing hot at the mere

+recollection of their discussion, “he wanted to convince me that it is

+every honest man’s duty to go against the government, and that the oath

+of allegiance and duty... I am sorry you weren’t there. They all fell on

+me—Denísov and Natásha... Natásha is absurd. How she rules over him! And

+yet there need only be a discussion and she has no words of her own

+but only repeats his sayings...” added Nicholas, yielding to that

+irresistible inclination which tempts us to judge those nearest and

+dearest to us. He forgot that what he was saying about Natásha could

+have been applied word for word to himself in relation to his wife.

+

+“Yes, I have noticed that,” said Countess Mary.

+

+“When I told him that duty and the oath were above everything, he

+started proving goodness knows what! A pity you were not there—what

+would you have said?”

+

+“As I see it you were quite right, and I told Natásha so. Pierre says

+everybody is suffering, tortured, and being corrupted, and that it

+is our duty to help our neighbor. Of course he is right there,” said

+Countess Mary, “but he forgets that we have other duties nearer to us,

+duties indicated to us by God Himself, and that though we might expose

+ourselves to risks we must not risk our children.”

+

+“Yes, that’s it! That’s just what I said to him,” put in Nicholas, who

+fancied he really had said it. “But they insisted on their own view:

+love of one’s neighbor and Christianity—and all this in the presence of

+young Nicholas, who had gone into my study and broke all my things.”

+

+“Ah, Nicholas, do you know I am often troubled about little Nicholas,”

+said Countess Mary. “He is such an exceptional boy. I am afraid I

+neglect him in favor of my own: we all have children and relations while

+he has no one. He is constantly alone with his thoughts.”

+

+“Well, I don’t think you need reproach yourself on his account. All that

+the fondest mother could do for her son you have done and are doing for

+him, and of course I am glad of it. He is a fine lad, a fine lad! This

+evening he listened to Pierre in a sort of trance, and fancy—as we were

+going in to supper I looked and he had broken everything on my table to

+bits, and he told me of it himself at once! I never knew him to tell an

+untruth. A fine lad, a fine lad!” repeated Nicholas, who at heart was

+not fond of Nicholas Bolkónski but was always anxious to recognize that

+he was a fine lad.

+

+“Still, I am not the same as his own mother,” said Countess Mary. “I

+feel I am not the same and it troubles me. A wonderful boy, but I am

+dreadfully afraid for him. It would be good for him to have companions.”

+

+“Well it won’t be for long. Next summer I’ll take him to Petersburg,”

+said Nicholas. “Yes, Pierre always was a dreamer and always will be,”

+he continued, returning to the talk in the study which had evidently

+disturbed him. “Well, what business is it of mine what goes on

+there—whether Arakchéev is bad, and all that? What business was it of

+mine when I married and was so deep in debt that I was threatened with

+prison, and had a mother who could not see or understand it? And

+then there are you and the children and our affairs. Is it for my own

+pleasure that I am at the farm or in the office from morning to night?

+No, but I know I must work to comfort my mother, to repay you, and not

+to leave the children such beggars as I was.”

+

+Countess Mary wanted to tell him that man does not live by bread alone

+and that he attached too much importance to these matters. But she knew

+she must not say this and that it would be useless to do so. She only

+took his hand and kissed it. He took this as a sign of approval and

+a confirmation of his thoughts, and after a few minutes’ reflection

+continued to think aloud.

+

+“You know, Mary, today Elias Mitrofánych” (this was his overseer) “came

+back from the Tambóv estate and told me they are already offering eighty

+thousand rubles for the forest.”

+

+And with an eager face Nicholas began to speak of the possibility of

+repurchasing Otrádnoe before long, and added: “Another ten years of life

+and I shall leave the children... in an excellent position.”

+

+Countess Mary listened to her husband and understood all that he told

+her. She knew that when he thought aloud in this way he would sometimes

+ask her what he had been saying, and be vexed if he noticed that she

+had been thinking about something else. But she had to force herself to

+attend, for what he was saying did not interest her at all. She looked

+at him and did not think, but felt, about something different. She felt

+a submissive tender love for this man who would never understand all

+that she understood, and this seemed to make her love for him still

+stronger and added a touch of passionate tenderness. Besides this

+feeling which absorbed her altogether and hindered her from following

+the details of her husband’s plans, thoughts that had no connection with

+what he was saying flitted through her mind. She thought of her nephew.

+Her husband’s account of the boy’s agitation while Pierre was speaking

+struck her forcibly, and various traits of his gentle, sensitive

+character recurred to her mind; and while thinking of her nephew she

+thought also of her own children. She did not compare them with him, but

+compared her feeling for them with her feeling for him, and felt

+with regret that there was something lacking in her feeling for young

+Nicholas.

+

+Sometimes it seemed to her that this difference arose from the

+difference in their ages, but she felt herself to blame toward him and

+promised in her heart to do better and to accomplish the impossible—in

+this life to love her husband, her children, little Nicholas, and all

+her neighbors, as Christ loved mankind. Countess Mary’s soul always

+strove toward the infinite, the eternal, and the absolute, and could

+therefore never be at peace. A stern expression of the lofty, secret

+suffering of a soul burdened by the body appeared on her face. Nicholas

+gazed at her. “O God! What will become of us if she dies, as I always

+fear when her face is like that?” thought he, and placing himself before

+the icon he began to say his evening prayers.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XVI

+

+Natásha and Pierre, left alone, also began to talk as only a husband

+and wife can talk, that is, with extraordinary clearness and rapidity,

+understanding and expressing each other’s thoughts in ways contrary to

+all rules of logic, without premises, deductions, or conclusions, and in

+a quite peculiar way. Natásha was so used to this kind of talk with her

+husband that for her it was the surest sign of something being wrong

+between them if Pierre followed a line of logical reasoning. When he

+began proving anything, or talking argumentatively and calmly and she,

+led on by his example, began to do the same, she knew that they were on

+the verge of a quarrel.

+

+From the moment they were alone and Natásha came up to him with

+wide-open happy eyes, and quickly seizing his head pressed it to her

+bosom, saying: “Now you are all mine, mine! You won’t escape!”—from that

+moment this conversation began, contrary to all the laws of logic and

+contrary to them because quite different subjects were talked about at

+one and the same time. This simultaneous discussion of many topics did

+not prevent a clear understanding but on the contrary was the surest

+sign that they fully understood one another.

+

+Just as in a dream when all is uncertain, unreasoning, and

+contradictory, except the feeling that guides the dream, so in this

+intercourse contrary to all laws of reason, the words themselves were

+not consecutive and clear but only the feeling that prompted them.

+

+Natásha spoke to Pierre about her brother’s life and doings, of how she

+had suffered and lacked life during his own absence, and of how she

+was fonder than ever of Mary, and how Mary was in every way better than

+herself. In saying this Natásha was sincere in acknowledging Mary’s

+superiority, but at the same time by saying it she made a demand on

+Pierre that he should, all the same, prefer her to Mary and to all

+other women, and that now, especially after having seen many women in

+Petersburg, he should tell her so afresh.

+

+Pierre, answering Natásha’s words, told her how intolerable it had been

+for him to meet ladies at dinners and balls in Petersburg.

+

+“I have quite lost the knack of talking to ladies,” he said. “It was

+simply dull. Besides, I was very busy.”

+

+Natásha looked intently at him and went on:

+

+“Mary is so splendid,” she said. “How she understands children! It is as

+if she saw straight into their souls. Yesterday, for instance, Mítya was

+naughty...”

+

+“How like his father he is,” Pierre interjected.

+

+Natásha knew why he mentioned Mítya’s likeness to Nicholas: the

+recollection of his dispute with his brother-in-law was unpleasant and

+he wanted to know what Natásha thought of it.

+

+“Nicholas has the weakness of never agreeing with anything not generally

+accepted. But I understand that you value what opens up a fresh line,”

+said she, repeating words Pierre had once uttered.

+

+“No, the chief point is that to Nicholas ideas and discussions are

+an amusement—almost a pastime,” said Pierre. “For instance, he is

+collecting a library and has made it a rule not to buy a new book

+till he has read what he had already bought—Sismondi and Rousseau and

+Montesquieu,” he added with a smile. “You know how much I...” he began

+to soften down what he had said; but Natásha interrupted him to show

+that this was unnecessary.

+

+“So you say ideas are an amusement to him....”

+

+“Yes, and for me nothing else is serious. All the time in Petersburg I

+saw everyone as in a dream. When I am taken up by a thought, all else is

+mere amusement.”

+

+“Ah, I’m so sorry I wasn’t there when you met the children,” said

+Natásha. “Which was most delighted? Lisa, I’m sure.”

+

+“Yes,” Pierre replied, and went on with what was in his mind. “Nicholas

+says we ought not to think. But I can’t help it. Besides, when I was in

+Petersburg I felt (I can say this to you) that the whole affair would go

+to pieces without me—everyone was pulling his own way. But I succeeded

+in uniting them all; and then my idea is so clear and simple. You see,

+I don’t say that we ought to oppose this and that. We may be mistaken.

+What I say is: ‘Join hands, you who love the right, and let there be but

+one banner—that of active virtue.’ Prince Sergéy is a fine fellow and

+clever.”

+

+Natásha would have had no doubt as to the greatness of Pierre’s idea,

+but one thing disconcerted her. “Can a man so important and necessary to

+society be also my husband? How did this happen?” She wished to express

+this doubt to him. “Now who could decide whether he is really cleverer

+than all the others?” she asked herself, and passed in review all those

+whom Pierre most respected. Judging by what he had said there was no one

+he had respected so highly as Platón Karatáev.

+

+“Do you know what I am thinking about?” she asked. “About Platón

+Karatáev. Would he have approved of you now, do you think?”

+

+Pierre was not at all surprised at this question. He understood his

+wife’s line of thought.

+

+“Platón Karatáev?” he repeated, and pondered, evidently sincerely

+trying to imagine Karatáev’s opinion on the subject. “He would not have

+understood... yet perhaps he would.”

+

+“I love you awfully!” Natásha suddenly said. “Awfully, awfully!”

+

+“No, he would not have approved,” said Pierre, after reflection. “What

+he would have approved of is our family life. He was always so anxious

+to find seemliness, happiness, and peace in everything, and I should

+have been proud to let him see us. There now—you talk of my absence,

+but you wouldn’t believe what a special feeling I have for you after a

+separation....”

+

+“Yes, I should think...” Natásha began.

+

+“No, it’s not that. I never leave off loving you. And one couldn’t love

+more, but this is something special.... Yes, of course—” he did not

+finish because their eyes meeting said the rest.

+

+“What nonsense it is,” Natásha suddenly exclaimed, “about honeymoons,

+and that the greatest happiness is at first! On the contrary, now is

+the best of all. If only you did not go away! Do you remember how

+we quarreled? And it was always my fault. Always mine. And what we

+quarreled about—I don’t even remember!”

+

+“Always about the same thing,” said Pierre with a smile. “Jealo...”

+

+“Don’t say it! I can’t bear it!” Natásha cried, and her eyes glittered

+coldly and vindictively. “Did you see her?” she added, after a pause.

+

+“No, and if I had I shouldn’t have recognized her.”

+

+They were silent for a while.

+

+“Oh, do you know? While you were talking in the study I was looking at

+you,” Natásha began, evidently anxious to disperse the cloud that had

+come over them. “You are as like him as two peas—like the boy.” (She

+meant her little son.) “Oh, it’s time to go to him.... The milk’s

+come.... But I’m sorry to leave you.”

+

+They were silent for a few seconds. Then suddenly turning to one

+another at the same time they both began to speak. Pierre began with

+self-satisfaction and enthusiasm, Natásha with a quiet, happy smile.

+Having interrupted one another they both stopped to let the other

+continue.

+

+“No. What did you say? Go on, go on.”

+

+“No, you go on, I was talking nonsense,” said Natásha.

+

+Pierre finished what he had begun. It was the sequel to his complacent

+reflections on his success in Petersburg. At that moment it seemed to

+him that he was chosen to give a new direction to the whole of Russian

+society and to the whole world.

+

+“I only wished to say that ideas that have great results are always

+simple ones. My whole idea is that if vicious people are united and

+constitute a power, then honest folk must do the same. Now that’s simple

+enough.”

+

+“Yes.”

+

+“And what were you going to say?”

+

+“I? Only nonsense.”

+

+“But all the same?”

+

+“Oh nothing, only a trifle,” said Natásha, smiling still more brightly.

+“I only wanted to tell you about Pétya: today nurse was coming to take

+him from me, and he laughed, shut his eyes, and clung to me. I’m sure

+he thought he was hiding. Awfully sweet! There, now he’s crying. Well,

+good-by!” and she left the room.

+

+

+Meanwhile downstairs in young Nicholas Bolkónski’s bedroom a little lamp

+was burning as usual. (The boy was afraid of the dark and they could

+not cure him of it.) Dessalles slept propped up on four pillows and his

+Roman nose emitted sounds of rhythmic snoring. Little Nicholas, who had

+just waked up in a cold perspiration, sat up in bed and gazed before him

+with wide-open eyes. He had awaked from a terrible dream. He had dreamed

+that he and Uncle Pierre, wearing helmets such as were depicted in

+his Plutarch, were leading a huge army. The army was made up of white

+slanting lines that filled the air like the cobwebs that float about in

+autumn and which Dessalles called les fils de la Vièrge. In front was

+Glory, which was similar to those threads but rather thicker. He and

+Pierre were borne along lightly and joyously, nearer and nearer to their

+goal. Suddenly the threads that moved them began to slacken and become

+entangled and it grew difficult to move. And Uncle Nicholas stood before

+them in a stern and threatening attitude.

+

+“Have you done this?” he said, pointing to some broken sealing wax and

+pens. “I loved you, but I have orders from Arakchéev and will kill

+the first of you who moves forward.” Little Nicholas turned to look

+at Pierre but Pierre was no longer there. In his place was his

+father—Prince Andrew—and his father had neither shape nor form, but he

+existed, and when little Nicholas perceived him he grew faint with love:

+he felt himself powerless, limp, and formless. His father caressed and

+pitied him. But Uncle Nicholas came nearer and nearer to them. Terror

+seized young Nicholas and he awoke.

+

+“My father!” he thought. (Though there were two good portraits of Prince

+Andrew in the house, Nicholas never imagined him in human form.) “My

+father has been with me and caressed me. He approved of me and of Uncle

+Pierre. Whatever he may tell me, I will do it. Mucius Scaevola burned

+his hand. Why should not the same sort of thing happen to me? I know

+they want me to learn. And I will learn. But someday I shall have

+finished learning, and then I will do something. I only pray God that

+something may happen to me such as happened to Plutarch’s men, and I

+will act as they did. I will do better. Everyone shall know me, love me,

+and be delighted with me!” And suddenly his bosom heaved with sobs and

+he began to cry.

+

+“Are you ill?” he heard Dessalles’ voice asking.

+

+“No,” answered Nicholas, and lay back on his pillow.

+

+“He is good and kind and I am fond of him!” he thought of Dessalles.

+“But Uncle Pierre! Oh, what a wonderful man he is! And my father? Oh,

+Father, Father! Yes, I will do something with which even he would be

+satisfied....”

+

+

+

+

+

+SECOND EPILOGUE

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER I

+

+History is the life of nations and of humanity. To seize and put into

+words, to describe directly the life of humanity or even of a single

+nation, appears impossible.

+

+The ancient historians all employed one and the same method to describe

+and seize the apparently elusive—the life of a people. They described

+the activity of individuals who ruled the people, and regarded the

+activity of those men as representing the activity of the whole nation.

+

+The question: how did individuals make nations act as they wished and by

+what was the will of these individuals themselves guided? the ancients

+met by recognizing a divinity which subjected the nations to the will of

+a chosen man, and guided the will of that chosen man so as to accomplish

+ends that were predestined.

+

+For the ancients these questions were solved by a belief in the direct

+participation of the Deity in human affairs.

+

+Modern history, in theory, rejects both these principles.

+

+It would seem that having rejected the belief of the ancients in man’s

+subjection to the Deity and in a predetermined aim toward which nations

+are led, modern history should study not the manifestations of power but

+the causes that produce it. But modern history has not done this. Having

+in theory rejected the view held by the ancients, it still follows them

+in practice.

+

+Instead of men endowed with divine authority and directly guided by

+the will of God, modern history has given us either heroes endowed with

+extraordinary, superhuman capacities, or simply men of very various

+kinds, from monarchs to journalists, who lead the masses. Instead of the

+former divinely appointed aims of the Jewish, Greek, or Roman nations,

+which ancient historians regarded as representing the progress of

+humanity, modern history has postulated its own aims—the welfare of the

+French, German, or English people, or, in its highest abstraction, the

+welfare and civilization of humanity in general, by which is usually

+meant that of the peoples occupying a small northwesterly portion of a

+large continent.

+

+Modern history has rejected the beliefs of the ancients without

+replacing them by a new conception, and the logic of the situation has

+obliged the historians, after they had apparently rejected the divine

+authority of the kings and the “fate” of the ancients, to reach the same

+conclusion by another road, that is, to recognize (1) nations guided

+by individual men, and (2) the existence of a known aim to which these

+nations and humanity at large are tending.

+

+At the basis of the works of all the modern historians from Gibbon to

+Buckle, despite their seeming disagreements and the apparent novelty of

+their outlooks, lie those two old, unavoidable assumptions.

+

+In the first place the historian describes the activity of individuals

+who in his opinion have directed humanity (one historian considers

+only monarchs, generals, and ministers as being such men, while another

+includes also orators, learned men, reformers, philosophers, and poets).

+Secondly, it is assumed that the goal toward which humanity is being led

+is known to the historians: to one of them this goal is the greatness of

+the Roman, Spanish, or French realm; to another it is liberty, equality,

+and a certain kind of civilization of a small corner of the world called

+Europe.

+

+In 1789 a ferment arises in Paris; it grows, spreads, and is expressed

+by a movement of peoples from west to east. Several times it moves

+eastward and collides with a countermovement from the east westward.

+In 1812 it reaches its extreme limit, Moscow, and then, with remarkable

+symmetry, a countermovement occurs from east to west, attracting to

+it, as the first movement had done, the nations of middle Europe. The

+counter movement reaches the starting point of the first movement in the

+west—Paris—and subsides.

+

+During that twenty-year period an immense number of fields were left

+untilled, houses were burned, trade changed its direction, millions

+of men migrated, were impoverished, or were enriched, and millions

+of Christian men professing the law of love of their fellows slew one

+another.

+

+What does all this mean? Why did it happen? What made those people burn

+houses and slay their fellow men? What were the causes of these events?

+What force made men act so? These are the instinctive, plain, and

+most legitimate questions humanity asks itself when it encounters the

+monuments and tradition of that period.

+

+For a reply to these questions the common sense of mankind turns to the

+science of history, whose aim is to enable nations and humanity to know

+themselves.

+

+If history had retained the conception of the ancients it would have

+said that God, to reward or punish his people, gave Napoleon power and

+directed his will to the fulfillment of the divine ends, and that reply

+would have been clear and complete. One might believe or disbelieve

+in the divine significance of Napoleon, but for anyone believing in

+it there would have been nothing unintelligible in the history of that

+period, nor would there have been any contradictions.

+

+But modern history cannot give that reply. Science does not admit the

+conception of the ancients as to the direct participation of the Deity

+in human affairs, and therefore history ought to give other answers.

+

+Modern history replying to these questions says: you want to know what

+this movement means, what caused it, and what force produced these

+events? Then listen:

+

+“Louis XIV was a very proud and self-confident man; he had such and such

+mistresses and such and such ministers and he ruled France badly. His

+descendants were weak men and they too ruled France badly. And they had

+such and such favorites and such and such mistresses. Moreover, certain

+men wrote some books at that time. At the end of the eighteenth century

+there were a couple of dozen men in Paris who began to talk about all

+men being free and equal. This caused people all over France to begin

+to slash at and drown one another. They killed the king and many other

+people. At that time there was in France a man of genius—Napoleon. He

+conquered everybody everywhere—that is, he killed many people because

+he was a great genius. And for some reason he went to kill Africans, and

+killed them so well and was so cunning and wise that when he returned to

+France he ordered everybody to obey him, and they all obeyed him. Having

+become an Emperor he again went out to kill people in Italy, Austria,

+and Prussia. And there too he killed a great many. In Russia there

+was an Emperor, Alexander, who decided to restore order in Europe and

+therefore fought against Napoleon. In 1807 he suddenly made friends

+with him, but in 1811 they again quarreled and again began killing many

+people. Napoleon led six hundred thousand men into Russia and captured

+Moscow; then he suddenly ran away from Moscow, and the Emperor

+Alexander, helped by the advice of Stein and others, united Europe to

+arm against the disturber of its peace. All Napoleon’s allies suddenly

+became his enemies and their forces advanced against the fresh forces he

+raised. The Allies defeated Napoleon, entered Paris, forced Napoleon to

+abdicate, and sent him to the island of Elba, not depriving him of the

+title of Emperor and showing him every respect, though five years before

+and one year later they all regarded him as an outlaw and a brigand.

+Then Louis XVIII, who till then had been the laughingstock both of the

+French and the Allies, began to reign. And Napoleon, shedding tears

+before his Old Guards, renounced the throne and went into exile. Then

+the skillful statesmen and diplomatists (especially Talleyrand, who

+managed to sit down in a particular chair before anyone else and

+thereby extended the frontiers of France) talked in Vienna and by

+these conversations made the nations happy or unhappy. Suddenly the

+diplomatists and monarchs nearly quarreled and were on the point of

+again ordering their armies to kill one another, but just then Napoleon

+arrived in France with a battalion, and the French, who had been hating

+him, immediately all submitted to him. But the Allied monarchs were

+angry at this and went to fight the French once more. And they defeated

+the genius Napoleon and, suddenly recognizing him as a brigand, sent him

+to the island of St. Helena. And the exile, separated from the beloved

+France so dear to his heart, died a lingering death on that rock and

+bequeathed his great deeds to posterity. But in Europe a reaction

+occurred and the sovereigns once again all began to oppress their

+subjects.”

+

+It would be a mistake to think that this is ironic—a caricature of the

+historical accounts. On the contrary it is a very mild expression of

+the contradictory replies, not meeting the questions, which all the

+historians give, from the compilers of memoirs and the histories

+of separate states to the writers of general histories and the new

+histories of the culture of that period.

+

+The strangeness and absurdity of these replies arise from the fact that

+modern history, like a deaf man, answers questions no one has asked.

+

+If the purpose of history be to give a description of the movement of

+humanity and of the peoples, the first question—in the absence of a

+reply to which all the rest will be incomprehensible—is: what is the

+power that moves peoples? To this, modern history laboriously replies

+either that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very

+proud, or that certain writers wrote certain books.

+

+All that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not

+what was asked. All that would be interesting if we recognized a divine

+power based on itself and always consistently directing its nations

+through Napoleons, Louis-es, and writers; but we do not acknowledge such

+a power, and therefore before speaking about Napoleons, Louis-es, and

+authors, we ought to be shown the connection existing between these men

+and the movement of the nations.

+

+If instead of a divine power some other force has appeared, it should

+be explained in what this new force consists, for the whole interest of

+history lies precisely in that force.

+

+History seems to assume that this force is self-evident and known to

+everyone. But in spite of every desire to regard it as known, anyone

+reading many historical works cannot help doubting whether this new

+force, so variously understood by the historians themselves, is really

+quite well known to everybody.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER II

+

+What force moves the nations?

+

+Biographical historians and historians of separate nations understand

+this force as a power inherent in heroes and rulers. In their narration

+events occur solely by the will of a Napoleon, and Alexander, or in

+general of the persons they describe. The answers given by this kind

+of historian to the question of what force causes events to happen are

+satisfactory only as long as there is but one historian to each event.

+As soon as historians of different nationalities and tendencies begin

+to describe the same event, the replies they give immediately lose all

+meaning, for this force is understood by them all not only differently

+but often in quite contradictory ways. One historian says that an

+event was produced by Napoleon’s power, another that it was produced by

+Alexander’s, a third that it was due to the power of some other person.

+Besides this, historians of that kind contradict each other even

+in their statement as to the force on which the authority of some

+particular person was based. Thiers, a Bonapartist, says that Napoleon’s

+power was based on his virtue and genius. Lanfrey, a Republican, says it

+was based on his trickery and deception of the people. So the historians

+of this class, by mutually destroying one another’s positions, destroy

+the understanding of the force which produces events, and furnish no

+reply to history’s essential question.

+

+Writers of universal history who deal with all the nations seem to

+recognize how erroneous is the specialist historians’ view of the force

+which produces events. They do not recognize it as a power inherent in

+heroes and rulers, but as the resultant of a multiplicity of variously

+directed forces. In describing a war or the subjugation of a people, a

+general historian looks for the cause of the event not in the power

+of one man, but in the interaction of many persons connected with the

+event.

+

+According to this view the power of historical personages, represented

+as the product of many forces, can no longer, it would seem, be regarded

+as a force that itself produces events. Yet in most cases universal

+historians still employ the conception of power as a force that itself

+produces events, and treat it as their cause. In their exposition, an

+historic character is first the product of his time, and his power only

+the resultant of various forces, and then his power is itself a force

+producing events. Gervinus, Schlosser, and others, for instance, at one

+time prove Napoleon to be a product of the Revolution, of the ideas of

+1789 and so forth, and at another plainly say that the campaign of 1812

+and other things they do not like were simply the product of Napoleon’s

+misdirected will, and that the very ideas of 1789 were arrested in their

+development by Napoleon’s caprice. The ideas of the Revolution and the

+general temper of the age produced Napoleon’s power. But Napoleon’s

+power suppressed the ideas of the Revolution and the general temper of

+the age.

+

+This curious contradiction is not accidental. Not only does it occur at

+every step, but the universal historians’ accounts are all made up of

+a chain of such contradictions. This contradiction occurs because after

+entering the field of analysis the universal historians stop halfway.

+

+To find component forces equal to the composite or resultant force, the

+sum of the components must equal the resultant. This condition is never

+observed by the universal historians, and so to explain the resultant

+forces they are obliged to admit, in addition to the insufficient

+components, another unexplained force affecting the resultant action.

+

+Specialist historians describing the campaign of 1813 or the restoration

+of the Bourbons plainly assert that these events were produced by the

+will of Alexander. But the universal historian Gervinus, refuting this

+opinion of the specialist historian, tries to prove that the campaign of

+1813 and the restoration of the Bourbons were due to other things beside

+Alexander’s will—such as the activity of Stein, Metternich, Madame de

+Staël, Talleyrand, Fichte, Chateaubriand, and others. The historian

+evidently decomposes Alexander’s power into the components: Talleyrand,

+Chateaubriand, and the rest—but the sum of the components, that is,

+the interactions of Chateaubriand, Talleyrand, Madame de Staël, and the

+others, evidently does not equal the resultant, namely the phenomenon

+of millions of Frenchmen submitting to the Bourbons. That Chateaubriand,

+Madame de Staël, and others spoke certain words to one another only

+affected their mutual relations but does not account for the submission

+of millions. And therefore to explain how from these relations of theirs

+the submission of millions of people resulted—that is, how component

+forces equal to one A gave a resultant equal to a thousand times A—the

+historian is again obliged to fall back on power—the force he had

+denied—and to recognize it as the resultant of the forces, that is, he

+has to admit an unexplained force acting on the resultant. And that is

+just what the universal historians do, and consequently they not only

+contradict the specialist historians but contradict themselves.

+

+Peasants having no clear idea of the cause of rain, say, according to

+whether they want rain or fine weather: “The wind has blown the clouds

+away,” or, “The wind has brought up the clouds.” And in the same way the

+universal historians sometimes, when it pleases them and fits in with

+their theory, say that power is the result of events, and sometimes,

+when they want to prove something else, say that power produces events.

+

+A third class of historians—the so-called historians of

+culture—following the path laid down by the universal historians who

+sometimes accept writers and ladies as forces producing events—again

+take that force to be something quite different. They see it in what is

+called culture—in mental activity.

+

+The historians of culture are quite consistent in regard to their

+progenitors, the writers of universal histories, for if historical

+events may be explained by the fact that certain persons treated one

+another in such and such ways, why not explain them by the fact that

+such and such people wrote such and such books? Of the immense number of

+indications accompanying every vital phenomenon, these historians select

+the indication of intellectual activity and say that this indication is

+the cause. But despite their endeavors to prove that the cause of events

+lies in intellectual activity, only by a great stretch can one admit

+that there is any connection between intellectual activity and the

+movement of peoples, and in no case can one admit that intellectual

+activity controls people’s actions, for that view is not confirmed by

+such facts as the very cruel murders of the French Revolution resulting

+from the doctrine of the equality of man, or the very cruel wars and

+executions resulting from the preaching of love.

+

+But even admitting as correct all the cunningly devised arguments with

+which these histories are filled—admitting that nations are governed by

+some undefined force called an idea—history’s essential question still

+remains unanswered, and to the former power of monarchs and to the

+influence of advisers and other people introduced by the universal

+historians, another, newer force—the idea—is added, the connection of

+which with the masses needs explanation. It is possible to understand

+that Napoleon had power and so events occurred; with some effort one may

+even conceive that Napoleon together with other influences was the cause

+of an event; but how a book, Le Contrat Social, had the effect of making

+Frenchmen begin to drown one another cannot be understood without an

+explanation of the causal nexus of this new force with the event.

+

+Undoubtedly some relation exists between all who live contemporaneously,

+and so it is possible to find some connection between the intellectual

+activity of men and their historical movements, just as such a

+connection may be found between the movements of humanity and commerce,

+handicraft, gardening, or anything else you please. But why intellectual

+activity is considered by the historians of culture to be the cause or

+expression of the whole historical movement is hard to understand.

+Only the following considerations can have led the historians to such

+a conclusion: (1) that history is written by learned men, and so it is

+natural and agreeable for them to think that the activity of their class

+supplies the basis of the movement of all humanity, just as a similar

+belief is natural and agreeable to traders, agriculturists, and soldiers

+(if they do not express it, that is merely because traders and soldiers

+do not write history), and (2) that spiritual activity, enlightenment,

+civilization, culture, ideas, are all indistinct, indefinite conceptions

+under whose banner it is very easy to use words having a still less

+definite meaning, and which can therefore be readily introduced into any

+theory.

+

+But not to speak of the intrinsic quality of histories of this kind

+(which may possibly even be of use to someone for something) the

+histories of culture, to which all general histories tend more and more

+to approximate, are significant from the fact that after seriously

+and minutely examining various religious, philosophic, and political

+doctrines as causes of events, as soon as they have to describe an

+actual historic event such as the campaign of 1812 for instance, they

+involuntarily describe it as resulting from an exercise of power—and say

+plainly that that was the result of Napoleon’s will. Speaking so, the

+historians of culture involuntarily contradict themselves, and show that

+the new force they have devised does not account for what happens in

+history, and that history can only be explained by introducing a power

+which they apparently do not recognize.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER III

+

+A locomotive is moving. Someone asks: “What moves it?” A peasant says

+the devil moves it. Another man says the locomotive moves because its

+wheels go round. A third asserts that the cause of its movement lies in

+the smoke which the wind carries away.

+

+The peasant is irrefutable. He has devised a complete explanation. To

+refute him someone would have to prove to him that there is no devil,

+or another peasant would have to explain to him that it is not the devil

+but a German, who moves the locomotive. Only then, as a result of the

+contradiction, will they see that they are both wrong. But the man who

+says that the movement of the wheels is the cause refutes himself, for

+having once begun to analyze he ought to go on and explain further why

+the wheels go round; and till he has reached the ultimate cause of the

+movement of the locomotive in the pressure of steam in the boiler, he

+has no right to stop in his search for the cause. The man who explains

+the movement of the locomotive by the smoke that is carried back has

+noticed that the wheels do not supply an explanation and has taken the

+first sign that occurs to him and in his turn has offered that as an

+explanation.

+

+The only conception that can explain the movement of the locomotive is

+that of a force commensurate with the movement observed.

+

+The only conception that can explain the movement of the peoples is that

+of some force commensurate with the whole movement of the peoples.

+

+Yet to supply this conception various historians take forces of

+different kinds, all of which are incommensurate with the movement

+observed. Some see it as a force directly inherent in heroes, as the

+peasant sees the devil in the locomotive; others as a force resulting

+from several other forces, like the movement of the wheels; others again

+as an intellectual influence, like the smoke that is blown away.

+

+So long as histories are written of separate individuals, whether

+Caesars, Alexanders, Luthers, or Voltaires, and not the histories

+of all, absolutely all those who take part in an event, it is quite

+impossible to describe the movement of humanity without the conception

+of a force compelling men to direct their activity toward a certain end.

+And the only such conception known to historians is that of power.

+

+This conception is the one handle by means of which the material of

+history, as at present expounded, can be dealt with, and anyone who

+breaks that handle off, as Buckle did, without finding some other method

+of treating historical material, merely deprives himself of the one

+possible way of dealing with it. The necessity of the conception of

+power as an explanation of historical events is best demonstrated by

+the universal historians and historians of culture themselves, for they

+professedly reject that conception but inevitably have recourse to it at

+every step.

+

+In dealing with humanity’s inquiry, the science of history up to now

+is like money in circulation—paper money and coin. The biographies and

+special national histories are like paper money. They can be used and

+can circulate and fulfill their purpose without harm to anyone and even

+advantageously, as long as no one asks what is the security behind them.

+You need only forget to ask how the will of heroes produces events, and

+such histories as Thiers’ will be interesting and instructive and may

+perhaps even possess a tinge of poetry. But just as doubts of the real

+value of paper money arise either because, being easy to make, too much

+of it gets made or because people try to exchange it for gold, so also

+doubts concerning the real value of such histories arise either because

+too many of them are written or because in his simplicity of heart

+someone inquires: by what force did Napoleon do this?—that is, wants

+to exchange the current paper money for the real gold of actual

+comprehension.

+

+The writers of universal histories and of the history of culture are

+like people who, recognizing the defects of paper money, decide to

+substitute for it money made of metal that has not the specific gravity

+of gold. It may indeed make jingling coin, but will do no more than

+that. Paper money may deceive the ignorant, but nobody is deceived by

+tokens of base metal that have no value but merely jingle. As gold is

+gold only if it is serviceable not merely for exchange but also for use,

+so universal historians will be valuable only when they can reply to

+history’s essential question: what is power? The universal historians

+give contradictory replies to that question, while the historians of

+culture evade it and answer something quite different. And as counters

+of imitation gold can be used only among a group of people who agree to

+accept them as gold, or among those who do not know the nature of

+gold, so universal historians and historians of culture, not answering

+humanity’s essential question, serve as currency for some purposes of

+their own, only in universities and among the mass of readers who have a

+taste for what they call “serious reading.”

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IV

+

+Having abandoned the conception of the ancients as to the divine

+subjection of the will of a nation to some chosen man and the subjection

+of that man’s will to the Deity, history cannot without contradictions

+take a single step till it has chosen one of two things: either a return

+to the former belief in the direct intervention of the Deity in human

+affairs or a definite explanation of the meaning of the force producing

+historical events and termed “power.”

+

+A return to the first is impossible, the belief has been destroyed; and

+so it is essential to explain what is meant by power.

+

+Napoleon ordered an army to be raised and go to war. We are so

+accustomed to that idea and have become so used to it that the question:

+why did six hundred thousand men go to fight when Napoleon uttered

+certain words, seems to us senseless. He had the power and so what he

+ordered was done.

+

+This reply is quite satisfactory if we believe that the power was given

+him by God. But as soon as we do not admit that, it becomes essential to

+determine what is this power of one man over others.

+

+It cannot be the direct physical power of a strong man over a weak one—a

+domination based on the application or threat of physical force, like

+the power of Hercules; nor can it be based on the effect of moral force,

+as in their simplicity some historians think who say that the leading

+figures in history are heroes, that is, men gifted with a special

+strength of soul and mind called genius. This power cannot be based on

+the predominance of moral strength, for, not to mention heroes such as

+Napoleon about whose moral qualities opinions differ widely, history

+shows us that neither a Louis XI nor a Metternich, who ruled over

+millions of people, had any particular moral qualities, but on the

+contrary were generally morally weaker than any of the millions they

+ruled over.

+

+If the source of power lies neither in the physical nor in the moral

+qualities of him who possesses it, it must evidently be looked for

+elsewhere—in the relation to the people of the man who wields the power.

+

+And that is how power is understood by the science of jurisprudence,

+that exchange bank of history which offers to exchange history’s

+understanding of power for true gold.

+

+Power is the collective will of the people transferred, by expressed or

+tacit consent, to their chosen rulers.

+

+In the domain of jurisprudence, which consists of discussions of how a

+state and power might be arranged were it possible for all that to

+be arranged, it is all very clear; but when applied to history that

+definition of power needs explanation.

+

+The science of jurisprudence regards the state and power as the ancients

+regarded fire—namely, as something existing absolutely. But for history,

+the state and power are merely phenomena, just as for modern physics

+fire is not an element but a phenomenon.

+

+From this fundamental difference between the view held by history and

+that held by jurisprudence, it follows that jurisprudence can tell

+minutely how in its opinion power should be constituted and what

+power—existing immutably outside time—is, but to history’s questions

+about the meaning of the mutations of power in time it can answer

+nothing.

+

+If power be the collective will of the people transferred to their

+ruler, was Pugachëv a representative of the will of the people? If not,

+then why was Napoleon I? Why was Napoleon III a criminal when he was

+taken prisoner at Boulogne, and why, later on, were those criminals whom

+he arrested?

+

+Do palace revolutions—in which sometimes only two or three people take

+part—transfer the will of the people to a new ruler? In international

+relations, is the will of the people also transferred to their

+conqueror? Was the will of the Confederation of the Rhine transferred

+to Napoleon in 1806? Was the will of the Russian people transferred

+to Napoleon in 1809, when our army in alliance with the French went to

+fight the Austrians?

+

+To these questions three answers are possible:

+

+Either to assume (1) that the will of the people is always

+unconditionally transferred to the ruler or rulers they have chosen, and

+that therefore every emergence of a new power, every struggle

+against the power once appointed, should be absolutely regarded as an

+infringement of the real power; or (2) that the will of the people

+is transferred to the rulers conditionally, under definite and known

+conditions, and to show that all limitations, conflicts, and even

+destructions of power result from a nonobservance by the rulers of the

+conditions under which their power was entrusted to them; or (3) that

+the will of the people is delegated to the rulers conditionally, but

+that the conditions are unknown and indefinite, and that the appearance

+of several authorities, their struggles and their falls, result solely

+from the greater or lesser fulfillment by the rulers of these unknown

+conditions on which the will of the people is transferred from some

+people to others.

+

+And these are the three ways in which the historians do explain the

+relation of the people to their rulers.

+

+Some historians—those biographical and specialist historians already

+referred to—in their simplicity failing to understand the question of

+the meaning of power, seem to consider that the collective will of

+the people is unconditionally transferred to historical persons, and

+therefore when describing some single state they assume that particular

+power to be the one absolute and real power, and that any other force

+opposing this is not a power but a violation of power—mere violence.

+

+Their theory, suitable for primitive and peaceful periods of history,

+has the inconvenience—in application to complex and stormy periods in

+the life of nations during which various powers arise simultaneously and

+struggle with one another—that a Legitimist historian will prove

+that the National Convention, the Directory, and Bonaparte were mere

+infringers of the true power, while a Republican and a Bonapartist will

+prove: the one that the Convention and the other that the Empire was the

+real power, and that all the others were violations of power.

+Evidently the explanations furnished by these historians being mutually

+contradictory can only satisfy young children.

+

+Recognizing the falsity of this view of history, another set of

+historians say that power rests on a conditional delegation of the will

+of the people to their rulers, and that historical leaders have power

+only conditionally on carrying out the program that the will of the

+people has by tacit agreement prescribed to them. But what this program

+consists in these historians do not say, or if they do they continually

+contradict one another.

+

+Each historian, according to his view of what constitutes a nation’s

+progress, looks for these conditions in the greatness, wealth, freedom,

+or enlightenment of citizens of France or some other country. But not

+to mention the historians’ contradictions as to the nature of this

+program—or even admitting that some one general program of these

+conditions exists—the facts of history almost always contradict that

+theory. If the conditions under which power is entrusted consist in the

+wealth, freedom, and enlightenment of the people, how is it that Louis

+XIV and Iván the Terrible end their reigns tranquilly, while Louis XVI

+and Charles I are executed by their people? To this question historians

+reply that Louis XIV’s activity, contrary to the program, reacted on

+Louis XVI. But why did it not react on Louis XIV or on Louis XV—why

+should it react just on Louis XVI? And what is the time limit for such

+reactions? To these questions there are and can be no answers. Equally

+little does this view explain why for several centuries the collective

+will is not withdrawn from certain rulers and their heirs, and

+then suddenly during a period of fifty years is transferred to the

+Convention, to the Directory, to Napoleon, to Alexander, to Louis XVIII,

+to Napoleon again, to Charles X, to Louis Philippe, to a Republican

+government, and to Napoleon III. When explaining these rapid transfers

+of the people’s will from one individual to another, especially in view

+of international relations, conquests, and alliances, the historians are

+obliged to admit that some of these transfers are not normal delegations

+of the people’s will but are accidents dependent on cunning, on

+mistakes, on craft, or on the weakness of a diplomatist, a ruler, or a

+party leader. So that the greater part of the events of history—civil

+wars, revolutions, and conquests—are presented by these historians

+not as the results of free transferences of the people’s will, but as

+results of the ill-directed will of one or more individuals, that is,

+once again, as usurpations of power. And so these historians also see

+and admit historical events which are exceptions to the theory.

+

+These historians resemble a botanist who, having noticed that some

+plants grow from seeds producing two cotyledons, should insist that all

+that grows does so by sprouting into two leaves, and that the palm, the

+mushroom, and even the oak, which blossom into full growth and no longer

+resemble two leaves, are deviations from the theory.

+

+Historians of the third class assume that the will of the people

+is transferred to historic personages conditionally, but that the

+conditions are unknown to us. They say that historical personages have

+power only because they fulfill the will of the people which has been

+delegated to them.

+

+But in that case, if the force that moves nations lies not in the

+historic leaders but in the nations themselves, what significance have

+those leaders?

+

+The leaders, these historians tell us, express the will of the people:

+the activity of the leaders represents the activity of the people.

+

+But in that case the question arises whether all the activity of the

+leaders serves as an expression of the people’s will or only some part

+of it. If the whole activity of the leaders serves as the expression of

+the people’s will, as some historians suppose, then all the details

+of the court scandals contained in the biographies of a Napoleon or

+a Catherine serve to express the life of the nation, which is evident

+nonsense; but if it is only some particular side of the activity of an

+historical leader which serves to express the people’s life, as other

+so-called “philosophical” historians believe, then to determine which

+side of the activity of a leader expresses the nation’s life, we have

+first of all to know in what the nation’s life consists.

+

+Met by this difficulty historians of that class devise some most

+obscure, impalpable, and general abstraction which can cover all

+conceivable occurrences, and declare this abstraction to be the aim of

+humanity’s movement. The most usual generalizations adopted by almost

+all the historians are: freedom, equality, enlightenment, progress,

+civilization, and culture. Postulating some generalization as the goal

+of the movement of humanity, the historians study the men of whom the

+greatest number of monuments have remained: kings, ministers, generals,

+authors, reformers, popes, and journalists, to the extent to which in

+their opinion these persons have promoted or hindered that abstraction.

+But as it is in no way proved that the aim of humanity does consist in

+freedom, equality, enlightenment, or civilization, and as the connection

+of the people with the rulers and enlighteners of humanity is only based

+on the arbitrary assumption that the collective will of the people is

+always transferred to the men whom we have noticed, it happens that the

+activity of the millions who migrate, burn houses, abandon agriculture,

+and destroy one another never is expressed in the account of the

+activity of some dozen people who did not burn houses, practice

+agriculture, or slay their fellow creatures.

+

+History proves this at every turn. Is the ferment of the peoples of

+the west at the end of the eighteenth century and their drive eastward

+explained by the activity of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI, their mistresses

+and ministers, and by the lives of Napoleon, Rousseau, Diderot,

+Beaumarchais, and others?

+

+Is the movement of the Russian people eastward to Kazán and Siberia

+expressed by details of the morbid character of Iván the Terrible and by

+his correspondence with Kúrbski?

+

+Is the movement of the peoples at the time of the Crusades explained by

+the life and activity of the Godfreys and the Louis-es and their ladies?

+For us that movement of the peoples from west to east, without

+leaders, with a crowd of vagrants, and with Peter the Hermit, remains

+incomprehensible. And yet more incomprehensible is the cessation of that

+movement when a rational and sacred aim for the Crusade—the deliverance

+of Jerusalem—had been clearly defined by historic leaders. Popes, kings,

+and knights incited the peoples to free the Holy Land; but the people

+did not go, for the unknown cause which had previously impelled them to

+go no longer existed. The history of the Godfreys and the Minnesingers

+can evidently not cover the life of the peoples. And the history of the

+Godfreys and the Minnesingers has remained the history of Godfreys

+and Minnesingers, but the history of the life of the peoples and their

+impulses has remained unknown.

+

+Still less does the history of authors and reformers explain to us the

+life of the peoples.

+

+The history of culture explains to us the impulses and conditions of

+life and thought of a writer or a reformer. We learn that Luther had

+a hot temper and said such and such things; we learn that Rousseau was

+suspicious and wrote such and such books; but we do not learn why after

+the Reformation the peoples massacred one another, nor why during the

+French Revolution they guillotined one another.

+

+If we unite both these kinds of history, as is done by the newest

+historians, we shall have the history of monarchs and writers, but not

+the history of the life of the peoples.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER V

+

+The life of the nations is not contained in the lives of a few men, for

+the connection between those men and the nations has not been found.

+The theory that this connection is based on the transference of the

+collective will of a people to certain historical personages is an

+hypothesis unconfirmed by the experience of history.

+

+The theory of the transference of the collective will of the people to

+historic persons may perhaps explain much in the domain of jurisprudence

+and be essential for its purposes, but in its application to history, as

+soon as revolutions, conquests, or civil wars occur—that is, as soon as

+history begins—that theory explains nothing.

+

+The theory seems irrefutable just because the act of transference of the

+people’s will cannot be verified, for it never occurred.

+

+Whatever happens and whoever may stand at the head of affairs, the

+theory can always say that such and such a person took the lead because

+the collective will was transferred to him.

+

+The replies this theory gives to historical questions are like the

+replies of a man who, watching the movements of a herd of cattle and

+paying no attention to the varying quality of the pasturage in different

+parts of the field, or to the driving of the herdsman, should attribute

+the direction the herd takes to what animal happens to be at its head.

+

+“The herd goes in that direction because the animal in front leads

+it and the collective will of all the other animals is vested in that

+leader.” This is what historians of the first class say—those who assume

+the unconditional transference of the people’s will.

+

+“If the animals leading the herd change, this happens because the

+collective will of all the animals is transferred from one leader to

+another, according to whether the animal is or is not leading them in

+the direction selected by the whole herd.” Such is the reply historians

+who assume that the collective will of the people is delegated to

+rulers under conditions which they regard as known. (With this method

+of observation it often happens that the observer, influenced by the

+direction he himself prefers, regards those as leaders who, owing to the

+people’s change of direction, are no longer in front, but on one side,

+or even in the rear.)

+

+“If the animals in front are continually changing and the direction of

+the whole herd is constantly altered, this is because in order to follow

+a given direction the animals transfer their will to the animals that

+have attracted our attention, and to study the movements of the herd

+we must watch the movements of all the prominent animals moving on all

+sides of the herd.” So say the third class of historians who regard all

+historical persons, from monarchs to journalists, as the expression of

+their age.

+

+The theory of the transference of the will of the people to historic

+persons is merely a paraphrase—a restatement of the question in other

+words.

+

+What causes historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the

+collective will of the people transferred to one person. Under what

+condition is the will of the people delegated to one person? On

+condition that that person expresses the will of the whole people. That

+is, power is power: in other words, power is a word the meaning of which

+we do not understand.

+

+If the realm of human knowledge were confined to abstract reasoning,

+then having subjected to criticism the explanation of “power” that

+juridical science gives us, humanity would conclude that power is merely

+a word and has no real existence. But to understand phenomena man

+has, besides abstract reasoning, experience by which he verifies his

+reflections. And experience tells us that power is not merely a word but

+an actually existing phenomenon.

+

+Not to speak of the fact that no description of the collective activity

+of men can do without the conception of power, the existence of power is

+proved both by history and by observing contemporary events.

+

+Whenever an event occurs a man appears or men appear, by whose will the

+event seems to have taken place. Napoleon III issues a decree and the

+French go to Mexico. The King of Prussia and Bismarck issue decrees and

+an army enters Bohemia. Napoleon I issues a decree and an army enters

+Russia. Alexander I gives a command and the French submit to the

+Bourbons. Experience shows us that whatever event occurs it is always

+related to the will of one or of several men who have decreed it.

+

+The historians, in accord with the old habit of acknowledging divine

+intervention in human affairs, want to see the cause of events in

+the expression of the will of someone endowed with power, but that

+supposition is not confirmed either by reason or by experience.

+

+On the one side reflection shows that the expression of a man’s will—his

+words—are only part of the general activity expressed in an event,

+as for instance in a war or a revolution, and so without assuming an

+incomprehensible, supernatural force—a miracle—one cannot admit that

+words can be the immediate cause of the movements of millions of men.

+On the other hand, even if we admitted that words could be the cause

+of events, history shows that the expression of the will of historical

+personages does not in most cases produce any effect, that is to say,

+their commands are often not executed, and sometimes the very opposite

+of what they order occurs.

+

+Without admitting divine intervention in the affairs of humanity we

+cannot regard “power” as the cause of events.

+

+Power, from the standpoint of experience, is merely the relation that

+exists between the expression of someone’s will and the execution of

+that will by others.

+

+To explain the conditions of that relationship we must first establish a

+conception of the expression of will, referring it to man and not to the

+Deity.

+

+If the Deity issues a command, expresses His will, as ancient history

+tells us, the expression of that will is independent of time and is not

+caused by anything, for the Divinity is not controlled by an event. But

+speaking of commands that are the expression of the will of men acting

+in time and in relation to one another, to explain the connection of

+commands with events we must restore: (1) the condition of all that

+takes place: the continuity of movement in time both of the events and

+of the person who commands, and (2) the inevitability of the connection

+between the person commanding and those who execute his command.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VI

+

+Only the expression of the will of the Deity, not dependent on time, can

+relate to a whole series of events occurring over a period of years or

+centuries, and only the Deity, independent of everything, can by His

+sole will determine the direction of humanity’s movement; but man acts

+in time and himself takes part in what occurs.

+

+Reinstating the first condition omitted, that of time, we see that no

+command can be executed without some preceding order having been given

+rendering the execution of the last command possible.

+

+No command ever appears spontaneously, or itself covers a whole series

+of occurrences; but each command follows from another, and never refers

+to a whole series of events but always to one moment only of an event.

+

+When, for instance, we say that Napoleon ordered armies to go to war,

+we combine in one simultaneous expression a whole series of consecutive

+commands dependent one on another. Napoleon could not have commanded

+an invasion of Russia and never did so. Today he ordered such and such

+papers to be written to Vienna, to Berlin, and to Petersburg;

+tomorrow such and such decrees and orders to the army, the fleet, the

+commissariat, and so on and so on—millions of commands, which formed

+a whole series corresponding to a series of events which brought the

+French armies into Russia.

+

+If throughout his reign Napoleon gave commands concerning an invasion

+of England and expended on no other undertaking so much time and effort,

+and yet during his whole reign never once attempted to execute that

+design but undertook an expedition into Russia, with which country he

+considered it desirable to be in alliance (a conviction he repeatedly

+expressed)—this came about because his commands did not correspond to

+the course of events in the first case, but did so correspond in the

+latter.

+

+For an order to be certainly executed, it is necessary that a man should

+order what can be executed. But to know what can and what cannot be

+executed is impossible, not only in the case of Napoleon’s invasion of

+Russia in which millions participated, but even in the simplest event,

+for in either case millions of obstacles may arise to prevent its

+execution. Every order executed is always one of an immense number

+unexecuted. All the impossible orders inconsistent with the course of

+events remain unexecuted. Only the possible ones get linked up with a

+consecutive series of commands corresponding to a series of events, and

+are executed.

+

+Our false conception that an event is caused by a command which precedes

+it is due to the fact that when the event has taken place and out of

+thousands of others those few commands which were consistent with that

+event have been executed, we forget about the others that were not

+executed because they could not be. Apart from that, the chief source

+of our error in this matter is due to the fact that in the historical

+accounts a whole series of innumerable, diverse, and petty events, such

+for instance as all those which led the French armies to Russia, is

+generalized into one event in accord with the result produced by that

+series of events, and corresponding with this generalization the whole

+series of commands is also generalized into a single expression of will.

+

+We say that Napoleon wished to invade Russia and invaded it. In

+reality in all Napoleon’s activity we never find anything resembling an

+expression of that wish, but find a series of orders, or expressions of

+his will, very variously and indefinitely directed. Amid a long series

+of unexecuted orders of Napoleon’s one series, for the campaign of 1812,

+was carried out—not because those orders differed in any way from the

+other, unexecuted orders but because they coincided with the course of

+events that led the French army into Russia; just as in stencil work

+this or that figure comes out not because the color was laid on from

+this side or in that way, but because it was laid on from all sides over

+the figure cut in the stencil.

+

+So that examining the relation in time of the commands to the events,

+we find that a command can never be the cause of the event, but that a

+certain definite dependence exists between the two.

+

+To understand in what this dependence consists it is necessary to

+reinstate another omitted condition of every command proceeding not from

+the Deity but from a man, which is, that the man who gives the command

+himself takes part in the event.

+

+This relation of the commander to those he commands is just what is

+called power. This relation consists in the following:

+

+For common action people always unite in certain combinations, in which

+regardless of the difference of the aims set for the common action, the

+relation between those taking part in it is always the same.

+

+Men uniting in these combinations always assume such relations toward

+one another that the larger number take a more direct share, and the

+smaller number a less direct share, in the collective action for which

+they have combined.

+

+Of all the combinations in which men unite for collective action one of

+the most striking and definite examples is an army.

+

+Every army is composed of lower grades of the service—the rank and

+file—of whom there are always the greatest number; of the next higher

+military rank—corporals and noncommissioned officers of whom there are

+fewer, and of still-higher officers of whom there are still fewer,

+and so on to the highest military command which is concentrated in one

+person.

+

+A military organization may be quite correctly compared to a cone, of

+which the base with the largest diameter consists of the rank and file;

+the next higher and smaller section of the cone consists of the next

+higher grades of the army, and so on to the apex, the point of which

+will represent the commander in chief.

+

+The soldiers, of whom there are the most, form the lower section of

+the cone and its base. The soldier himself does the stabbing, hacking,

+burning, and pillaging, and always receives orders for these actions

+from men above him; he himself never gives an order. The noncommissioned

+officers (of whom there are fewer) perform the action itself less

+frequently than the soldiers, but they already give commands. An

+officer still less often acts directly himself, but commands still more

+frequently. A general does nothing but command the troops, indicates the

+objective, and hardly ever uses a weapon himself. The commander in chief

+never takes direct part in the action itself, but only gives general

+orders concerning the movement of the mass of the troops. A similar

+relation of people to one another is seen in every combination of men

+for common activity—in agriculture, trade, and every administration.

+

+And so without particularly analyzing all the contiguous sections of

+a cone and of the ranks of an army, or the ranks and positions in

+any administrative or public business whatever from the lowest to the

+highest, we see a law by which men, to take associated action, combine

+in such relations that the more directly they participate in performing

+the action the less they can command and the more numerous they are,

+while the less their direct participation in the action itself, the more

+they command and the fewer of them there are; rising in this way from

+the lowest ranks to the man at the top, who takes the least direct share

+in the action and directs his activity chiefly to commanding.

+

+This relation of the men who command to those they command is what

+constitutes the essence of the conception called power.

+

+Having restored the condition of time under which all events occur,

+we find that a command is executed only when it is related to a

+corresponding series of events. Restoring the essential condition of

+relation between those who command and those who execute, we find that

+by the very nature of the case those who command take the smallest part

+in the action itself and that their activity is exclusively directed to

+commanding.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VII

+

+When an event is taking place people express their opinions and wishes

+about it, and as the event results from the collective activity of

+many people, some one of the opinions or wishes expressed is sure to be

+fulfilled if but approximately. When one of the opinions expressed

+is fulfilled, that opinion gets connected with the event as a command

+preceding it.

+

+Men are hauling a log. Each of them expresses his opinion as to how and

+where to haul it. They haul the log away, and it happens that this is

+done as one of them said. He ordered it. There we have command and power

+in their primary form. The man who worked most with his hands could not

+think so much about what he was doing, or reflect on or command what

+would result from the common activity; while the man who commanded

+more would evidently work less with his hands on account of his greater

+verbal activity.

+

+When some larger concourse of men direct their activity to a common aim

+there is a yet sharper division of those who, because their activity is

+given to directing and commanding, take less part in the direct work.

+

+When a man works alone he always has a certain set of reflections which

+as it seems to him directed his past activity, justify his present

+activity, and guide him in planning his future actions. Just the same is

+done by a concourse of people, allowing those who do not take a direct

+part in the activity to devise considerations, justifications, and

+surmises concerning their collective activity.

+

+For reasons known or unknown to us the French began to drown and kill

+one another. And corresponding to the event its justification appears in

+people’s belief that this was necessary for the welfare of France, for

+liberty, and for equality. People ceased to kill one another, and

+this event was accompanied by its justification in the necessity for a

+centralization of power, resistance to Europe, and so on. Men went

+from the west to the east killing their fellow men, and the event

+was accompanied by phrases about the glory of France, the baseness of

+England, and so on. History shows us that these justifications of the

+events have no common sense and are all contradictory, as in the case of

+killing a man as the result of recognizing his rights, and the killing

+of millions in Russia for the humiliation of England. But these

+justifications have a very necessary significance in their own day.

+

+These justifications release those who produce the events from moral

+responsibility. These temporary aims are like the broom fixed in front

+of a locomotive to clear the snow from the rails in front: they clear

+men’s moral responsibilities from their path.

+

+Without such justification there would be no reply to the simplest

+question that presents itself when examining each historical event. How

+is it that millions of men commit collective crimes—make war, commit

+murder, and so on?

+

+With the present complex forms of political and social life in Europe

+can any event that is not prescribed, decreed, or ordered by monarchs,

+ministers, parliaments, or newspapers be imagined? Is there any

+collective action which cannot find its justification in political

+unity, in patriotism, in the balance of power, or in civilization? So

+that every event that occurs inevitably coincides with some expressed

+wish and, receiving a justification, presents itself as the result of

+the will of one man or of several men.

+

+In whatever direction a ship moves, the flow of the waves it cuts

+will always be noticeable ahead of it. To those on board the ship the

+movement of those waves will be the only perceptible motion.

+

+Only by watching closely moment by moment the movement of that flow and

+comparing it with the movement of the ship do we convince ourselves that

+every bit of it is occasioned by the forward movement of the ship,

+and that we were led into error by the fact that we ourselves were

+imperceptibly moving.

+

+We see the same if we watch moment by moment the movement of historical

+characters (that is, re-establish the inevitable condition of all that

+occurs—the continuity of movement in time) and do not lose sight of the

+essential connection of historical persons with the masses.

+

+When the ship moves in one direction there is one and the same wave

+ahead of it, when it turns frequently the wave ahead of it also turns

+frequently. But wherever it may turn there always will be the wave

+anticipating its movement.

+

+Whatever happens it always appears that just that event was foreseen

+and decreed. Wherever the ship may go, the rush of water which neither

+directs nor increases its movement foams ahead of it, and at a distance

+seems to us not merely to move of itself but to govern the ship’s

+movement also.

+

+Examining only those expressions of the will of historical persons

+which, as commands, were related to events, historians have assumed

+that the events depended on those commands. But examining the events

+themselves and the connection in which the historical persons stood to

+the people, we have found that they and their orders were dependent on

+events. The incontestable proof of this deduction is that, however many

+commands were issued, the event does not take place unless there are

+other causes for it, but as soon as an event occurs—be it what it

+may—then out of all the continually expressed wishes of different people

+some will always be found which by their meaning and their time of

+utterance are related as commands to the events.

+

+Arriving at this conclusion we can reply directly and positively to

+these two essential questions of history:

+

+(1) What is power?

+

+(2) What force produces the movement of the nations?

+

+(1) Power is the relation of a given person to other individuals,

+in which the more this person expresses opinions, predictions, and

+justifications of the collective action that is performed, the less is

+his participation in that action.

+

+(2) The movement of nations is caused not by power, nor by intellectual

+activity, nor even by a combination of the two as historians have

+supposed, but by the activity of all the people who participate in

+the events, and who always combine in such a way that those taking

+the largest direct share in the event take on themselves the least

+responsibility and vice versa.

+

+Morally the wielder of power appears to cause the event; physically

+it is those who submit to the power. But as the moral activity is

+inconceivable without the physical, the cause of the event is neither in

+the one nor in the other but in the union of the two.

+

+Or in other words, the conception of a cause is inapplicable to the

+phenomena we are examining.

+

+In the last analysis we reach the circle of infinity—that final limit

+to which in every domain of thought man’s reason arrives if it is not

+playing with the subject. Electricity produces heat, heat produces

+electricity. Atoms attract each other and atoms repel one another.

+

+Speaking of the interaction of heat and electricity and of atoms, we

+cannot say why this occurs, and we say that it is so because it is

+inconceivable otherwise, because it must be so and that it is a law. The

+same applies to historical events. Why war and revolution occur we do

+not know. We only know that to produce the one or the other action,

+people combine in a certain formation in which they all take part, and

+we say that this is so because it is unthinkable otherwise, or in other

+words that it is a law.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER VIII

+

+If history dealt only with external phenomena, the establishment of this

+simple and obvious law would suffice and we should have finished our

+argument. But the law of history relates to man. A particle of matter

+cannot tell us that it does not feel the law of attraction or repulsion

+and that that law is untrue, but man, who is the subject of history,

+says plainly: I am free and am therefore not subject to the law.

+

+The presence of the problem of man’s free will, though unexpressed, is

+felt at every step of history.

+

+All seriously thinking historians have involuntarily encountered this

+question. All the contradictions and obscurities of history and the

+false path historical science has followed are due solely to the lack of

+a solution of that question.

+

+If the will of every man were free, that is, if each man could act as he

+pleased, all history would be a series of disconnected incidents.

+

+If in a thousand years even one man in a million could act freely, that

+is, as he chose, it is evident that one single free act of that man’s

+in violation of the laws governing human action would destroy the

+possibility of the existence of any laws for the whole of humanity.

+

+If there be a single law governing the actions of men, free will cannot

+exist, for then man’s will is subject to that law.

+

+In this contradiction lies the problem of free will, which from most

+ancient times has occupied the best human minds and from most ancient

+times has been presented in its whole tremendous significance.

+

+The problem is that regarding man as a subject of observation

+from whatever point of view—theological, historical, ethical, or

+philosophic—we find a general law of necessity to which he (like all

+that exists) is subject. But regarding him from within ourselves as what

+we are conscious of, we feel ourselves to be free.

+

+This consciousness is a source of self-cognition quite apart from and

+independent of reason. Through his reason man observes himself, but only

+through consciousness does he know himself.

+

+Apart from consciousness of self no observation or application of reason

+is conceivable.

+

+To understand, observe, and draw conclusions, man must first of all be

+conscious of himself as living. A man is only conscious of himself as

+a living being by the fact that he wills, that is, is conscious of

+his volition. But his will—which forms the essence of his life—man

+recognizes (and can but recognize) as free.

+

+If, observing himself, man sees that his will is always directed by

+one and the same law (whether he observes the necessity of taking

+food, using his brain, or anything else) he cannot recognize this

+never-varying direction of his will otherwise than as a limitation of

+it. Were it not free it could not be limited. A man’s will seems to him

+to be limited just because he is not conscious of it except as free.

+

+You say: I am not free. But I have lifted my hand and let it fall.

+Everyone understands that this illogical reply is an irrefutable

+demonstration of freedom.

+

+That reply is the expression of a consciousness that is not subject to

+reason.

+

+If the consciousness of freedom were not a separate and independent

+source of self-consciousness it would be subject to reasoning and

+to experience, but in fact such subjection does not exist and is

+inconceivable.

+

+A series of experiments and arguments proves to every man that he, as

+an object of observation, is subject to certain laws, and man submits to

+them and never resists the laws of gravity or impermeability once he

+has become acquainted with them. But the same series of experiments

+and arguments proves to him that the complete freedom of which he is

+conscious in himself is impossible, and that his every action depends

+on his organization, his character, and the motives acting upon him; yet

+man never submits to the deductions of these experiments and arguments.

+Having learned from experiment and argument that a stone falls

+downwards, a man indubitably believes this and always expects the law

+that he has learned to be fulfilled.

+

+But learning just as certainly that his will is subject to laws, he does

+not and cannot believe this.

+

+However often experiment and reasoning may show a man that under the

+same conditions and with the same character he will do the same thing as

+before, yet when under the same conditions and with the same character

+he approaches for the thousandth time the action that always ends in the

+same way, he feels as certainly convinced as before the experiment

+that he can act as he pleases. Every man, savage or sage, however

+incontestably reason and experiment may prove to him that it is

+impossible to imagine two different courses of action in precisely the

+same conditions, feels that without this irrational conception (which

+constitutes the essence of freedom) he cannot imagine life. He feels

+that however impossible it may be, it is so, for without this conception

+of freedom not only would he be unable to understand life, but he would

+be unable to live for a single moment.

+

+He could not live, because all man’s efforts, all his impulses to life,

+are only efforts to increase freedom. Wealth and poverty, fame and

+obscurity, power and subordination, strength and weakness, health and

+disease, culture and ignorance, work and leisure, repletion and hunger,

+virtue and vice, are only greater or lesser degrees of freedom.

+

+A man having no freedom cannot be conceived of except as deprived of

+life.

+

+If the conception of freedom appears to reason to be a senseless

+contradiction like the possibility of performing two actions at one and

+the same instant of time, or of an effect without a cause, that only

+proves that consciousness is not subject to reason.

+

+This unshakable, irrefutable consciousness of freedom, uncontrolled by

+experiment or argument, recognized by all thinkers and felt by everyone

+without exception, this consciousness without which no conception of man

+is possible constitutes the other side of the question.

+

+Man is the creation of an all-powerful, all-good, and all-seeing God.

+What is sin, the conception of which arises from the consciousness of

+man’s freedom? That is a question for theology.

+

+The actions of men are subject to general immutable laws expressed in

+statistics. What is man’s responsibility to society, the conception of

+which results from the conception of freedom? That is a question for

+jurisprudence.

+

+Man’s actions proceed from his innate character and the motives acting

+upon him. What is conscience and the perception of right and wrong

+in actions that follows from the consciousness of freedom? That is a

+question for ethics.

+

+Man in connection with the general life of humanity appears subject

+to laws which determine that life. But the same man apart from that

+connection appears to be free. How should the past life of nations and

+of humanity be regarded—as the result of the free, or as the result of

+the constrained, activity of man? That is a question for history.

+

+Only in our self-confident day of the popularization of knowledge—thanks

+to that most powerful engine of ignorance, the diffusion of printed

+matter—has the question of the freedom of will been put on a level on

+which the question itself cannot exist. In our time the majority of

+so-called advanced people—that is, the crowd of ignoramuses—have taken

+the work of the naturalists who deal with one side of the question for a

+solution of the whole problem.

+

+They say and write and print that the soul and freedom do not exist,

+for the life of man is expressed by muscular movements and muscular

+movements are conditioned by the activity of the nerves; the soul and

+free will do not exist because at an unknown period of time we sprang

+from the apes. They say this, not at all suspecting that thousands of

+years ago that same law of necessity which with such ardor they are now

+trying to prove by physiology and comparative zoology was not merely

+acknowledged by all the religions and all the thinkers, but has never

+been denied. They do not see that the role of the natural sciences in

+this matter is merely to serve as an instrument for the illumination

+of one side of it. For the fact that, from the point of view of

+observation, reason and the will are merely secretions of the brain, and

+that man following the general law may have developed from lower animals

+at some unknown period of time, only explains from a fresh side

+the truth admitted thousands of years ago by all the religious and

+philosophic theories—that from the point of view of reason man is

+subject to the law of necessity; but it does not advance by a hair’s

+breadth the solution of the question, which has another, opposite, side,

+based on the consciousness of freedom.

+

+If men descended from the apes at an unknown period of time, that is

+as comprehensible as that they were made from a handful of earth at a

+certain period of time (in the first case the unknown quantity is the

+time, in the second case it is the origin); and the question of how

+man’s consciousness of freedom is to be reconciled with the law of

+necessity to which he is subject cannot be solved by comparative

+physiology and zoology, for in a frog, a rabbit, or an ape, we can

+observe only the muscular nervous activity, but in man we observe

+consciousness as well as the muscular and nervous activity.

+

+The naturalists and their followers, thinking they can solve this

+question, are like plasterers set to plaster one side of the walls of

+a church who, availing themselves of the absence of the chief

+superintendent of the work, should in an access of zeal plaster over the

+windows, icons, woodwork, and still unbuttressed walls, and should be

+delighted that from their point of view as plasterers, everything is now

+so smooth and regular.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER IX

+

+For the solution of the question of free will or inevitability, history

+has this advantage over other branches of knowledge in which the

+question is dealt with, that for history this question does not refer

+to the essence of man’s free will but its manifestation in the past and

+under certain conditions.

+

+In regard to this question, history stands to the other sciences as

+experimental science stands to abstract science.

+

+The subject for history is not man’s will itself but our presentation of

+it.

+

+And so for history, the insoluble mystery presented by the

+incompatibility of free will and inevitability does not exist as it does

+for theology, ethics, and philosophy. History surveys a presentation of

+man’s life in which the union of these two contradictions has already

+taken place.

+

+In actual life each historic event, each human action, is very clearly

+and definitely understood without any sense of contradiction, although

+each event presents itself as partly free and partly compulsory.

+

+To solve the question of how freedom and necessity are combined and

+what constitutes the essence of these two conceptions, the philosophy

+of history can and should follow a path contrary to that taken by other

+sciences. Instead of first defining the conceptions of freedom and

+inevitability in themselves, and then ranging the phenomena of life

+under those definitions, history should deduce a definition of the

+conception of freedom and inevitability themselves from the immense

+quantity of phenomena of which it is cognizant and that always appear

+dependent on these two elements.

+

+Whatever presentation of the activity of many men or of an individual

+we may consider, we always regard it as the result partly of man’s free

+will and partly of the law of inevitability.

+

+Whether we speak of the migration of the peoples and the incursions

+of the barbarians, or of the decrees of Napoleon III, or of someone’s

+action an hour ago in choosing one direction out of several for his

+walk, we are unconscious of any contradiction. The degree of freedom and

+inevitability governing the actions of these people is clearly defined

+for us.

+

+Our conception of the degree of freedom often varies according to

+differences in the point of view from which we regard the event, but

+every human action appears to us as a certain combination of freedom and

+inevitability. In every action we examine we see a certain measure of

+freedom and a certain measure of inevitability. And always the more

+freedom we see in any action the less inevitability do we perceive, and

+the more inevitability the less freedom.

+

+The proportion of freedom to inevitability decreases and increases

+according to the point of view from which the action is regarded, but

+their relation is always one of inverse proportion.

+

+A sinking man who clutches at another and drowns him; or a hungry mother

+exhausted by feeding her baby, who steals some food; or a man trained

+to discipline who on duty at the word of command kills a defenseless

+man—seem less guilty, that is, less free and more subject to the law of

+necessity, to one who knows the circumstances in which these people were

+placed, and more free to one who does not know that the man was himself

+drowning, that the mother was hungry, that the soldier was in the ranks,

+and so on. Similarly a man who committed a murder twenty years ago and

+has since lived peaceably and harmlessly in society seems less guilty

+and his action more due to the law of inevitability, to someone who

+considers his action after twenty years have elapsed than to one who

+examined it the day after it was committed. And in the same way every

+action of an insane, intoxicated, or highly excited man appears less

+free and more inevitable to one who knows the mental condition of him

+who committed the action, and seems more free and less inevitable to one

+who does not know it. In all these cases the conception of freedom

+is increased or diminished and the conception of compulsion is

+correspondingly decreased or increased, according to the point of view

+from which the action is regarded. So that the greater the conception of

+necessity the smaller the conception of freedom and vice versa.

+

+Religion, the common sense of mankind, the science of jurisprudence,

+and history itself understand alike this relation between necessity and

+freedom.

+

+All cases without exception in which our conception of freedom and

+necessity is increased and diminished depend on three considerations:

+

+(1) The relation to the external world of the man who commits the deeds.

+

+(2) His relation to time.

+

+(3) His relation to the causes leading to the action.

+

+The first consideration is the clearness of our perception of the man’s

+relation to the external world and the greater or lesser clearness

+of our understanding of the definite position occupied by the man

+in relation to everything coexisting with him. This is what makes it

+evident that a drowning man is less free and more subject to necessity

+than one standing on dry ground, and that makes the actions of a man

+closely connected with others in a thickly populated district, or of one

+bound by family, official, or business duties, seem certainly less free

+and more subject to necessity than those of a man living in solitude and

+seclusion.

+

+If we consider a man alone, apart from his relation to everything around

+him, each action of his seems to us free. But if we see his relation

+to anything around him, if we see his connection with anything

+whatever—with a man who speaks to him, a book he reads, the work on

+which he is engaged, even with the air he breathes or the light that

+falls on the things about him—we see that each of these circumstances

+has an influence on him and controls at least some side of his activity.

+And the more we perceive of these influences the more our conception of

+his freedom diminishes and the more our conception of the necessity that

+weighs on him increases.

+

+The second consideration is the more or less evident time relation of

+the man to the world and the clearness of our perception of the place

+the man’s action occupies in time. That is the ground which makes the

+fall of the first man, resulting in the production of the human race,

+appear evidently less free than a man’s entry into marriage today. It is

+the reason why the life and activity of people who lived centuries ago

+and are connected with me in time cannot seem to me as free as the life

+of a contemporary, the consequences of which are still unknown to me.

+

+The degree of our conception of freedom or inevitability depends in this

+respect on the greater or lesser lapse of time between the performance

+of the action and our judgment of it.

+

+If I examine an act I performed a moment ago in approximately the same

+circumstances as those I am in now, my action appears to me undoubtedly

+free. But if I examine an act performed a month ago, then being in

+different circumstances, I cannot help recognizing that if that act had

+not been committed much that resulted from it—good, agreeable, and even

+essential—would not have taken place. If I reflect on an action still

+more remote, ten years ago or more, then the consequences of my action

+are still plainer to me and I find it hard to imagine what would have

+happened had that action not been performed. The farther I go back

+in memory, or what is the same thing the farther I go forward in my

+judgment, the more doubtful becomes my belief in the freedom of my

+action.

+

+In history we find a very similar progress of conviction concerning

+the part played by free will in the general affairs of humanity. A

+contemporary event seems to us to be indubitably the doing of all the

+known participants, but with a more remote event we already see its

+inevitable results which prevent our considering anything else possible.

+And the farther we go back in examining events the less arbitrary do

+they appear.

+

+The Austro-Prussian war appears to us undoubtedly the result of the

+crafty conduct of Bismarck, and so on. The Napoleonic wars still seem

+to us, though already questionably, to be the outcome of their heroes’

+will. But in the Crusades we already see an event occupying its definite

+place in history and without which we cannot imagine the modern history

+of Europe, though to the chroniclers of the Crusades that event appeared

+as merely due to the will of certain people. In regard to the migration

+of the peoples it does not enter anyone’s head today to suppose that

+the renovation of the European world depended on Attila’s caprice. The

+farther back in history the object of our observation lies, the more

+doubtful does the free will of those concerned in the event become and

+the more manifest the law of inevitability.

+

+The third consideration is the degree to which we apprehend that

+endless chain of causation inevitably demanded by reason, in which each

+phenomenon comprehended, and therefore man’s every action, must have

+its definite place as a result of what has gone before and as a cause of

+what will follow.

+

+The better we are acquainted with the physiological, psychological, and

+historical laws deduced by observation and by which man is controlled,

+and the more correctly we perceive the physiological, psychological,

+and historical causes of the action, and the simpler the action we are

+observing and the less complex the character and mind of the man in

+question, the more subject to inevitability and the less free do our

+actions and those of others appear.

+

+When we do not at all understand the cause of an action, whether a

+crime, a good action, or even one that is simply nonmoral, we ascribe a

+greater amount of freedom to it. In the case of a crime we most urgently

+demand the punishment for such an act; in the case of a virtuous act we

+rate its merit most highly. In an indifferent case we recognize in it

+more individuality, originality, and independence. But if even one of

+the innumerable causes of the act is known to us we recognize a certain

+element of necessity and are less insistent on punishment for the crime,

+or the acknowledgment of the merit of the virtuous act, or the freedom

+of the apparently original action. That a criminal was reared among male

+factors mitigates his fault in our eyes. The self-sacrifice of a father

+or mother, or self-sacrifice with the possibility of a reward, is more

+comprehensible than gratuitous self-sacrifice, and therefore seems less

+deserving of sympathy and less the result of free will. The founder of a

+sect or party, or an inventor, impresses us less when we know how or by

+what the way was prepared for his activity. If we have a large range

+of examples, if our observation is constantly directed to seeking the

+correlation of cause and effect in people’s actions, their actions

+appear to us more under compulsion and less free the more correctly we

+connect the effects with the causes. If we examined simple actions and

+had a vast number of such actions under observation, our conception of

+their inevitability would be still greater. The dishonest conduct of the

+son of a dishonest father, the misconduct of a woman who had fallen

+into bad company, a drunkard’s relapse into drunkenness, and so on are

+actions that seem to us less free the better we understand their cause.

+If the man whose actions we are considering is on a very low stage of

+mental development, like a child, a madman, or a simpleton—then,

+knowing the causes of the act and the simplicity of the character and

+intelligence in question, we see so large an element of necessity and so

+little free will that as soon as we know the cause prompting the action

+we can foretell the result.

+

+On these three considerations alone is based the conception of

+irresponsibility for crimes and the extenuating circumstances admitted

+by all legislative codes. The responsibility appears greater or less

+according to our greater or lesser knowledge of the circumstances in

+which the man was placed whose action is being judged, and according

+to the greater or lesser interval of time between the commission of the

+action and its investigation, and according to the greater or lesser

+understanding of the causes that led to the action.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER X

+

+Thus our conception of free will and inevitability gradually diminishes

+or increases according to the greater or lesser connection with the

+external world, the greater or lesser remoteness of time, and the

+greater or lesser dependence on the causes in relation to which we

+contemplate a man’s life.

+

+So that if we examine the case of a man whose connection with the

+external world is well known, where the time between the action and

+its examination is great, and where the causes of the action are most

+accessible, we get the conception of a maximum of inevitability and a

+minimum of free will. If we examine a man little dependent on external

+conditions, whose action was performed very recently, and the causes of

+whose action are beyond our ken, we get the conception of a minimum of

+inevitability and a maximum of freedom.

+

+In neither case—however we may change our point of view, however plain

+we may make to ourselves the connection between the man and the external

+world, however inaccessible it may be to us, however long or short the

+period of time, however intelligible or incomprehensible the causes

+of the action may be—can we ever conceive either complete freedom or

+complete necessity.

+

+(1) To whatever degree we may imagine a man to be exempt from the

+influence of the external world, we never get a conception of freedom

+in space. Every human action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds

+him and by his own body. I lift my arm and let it fall. My action seems

+to me free; but asking myself whether I could raise my arm in every

+direction, I see that I raised it in the direction in which there was

+least obstruction to that action either from things around me or from

+the construction of my own body. I chose one out of all the possible

+directions because in it there were fewest obstacles. For my action

+to be free it was necessary that it should encounter no obstacles. To

+conceive of a man being free we must imagine him outside space, which is

+evidently impossible.

+

+(2) However much we approximate the time of judgment to the time of the

+deed, we never get a conception of freedom in time. For if I examine

+an action committed a second ago I must still recognize it as not

+being free, for it is irrevocably linked to the moment at which it was

+committed. Can I lift my arm? I lift it, but ask myself: could I have

+abstained from lifting my arm at the moment that has already passed? To

+convince myself of this I do not lift it the next moment. But I am

+not now abstaining from doing so at the first moment when I asked the

+question. Time has gone by which I could not detain, the arm I then

+lifted is no longer the same as the arm I now refrain from lifting,

+nor is the air in which I lifted it the same that now surrounds me. The

+moment in which the first movement was made is irrevocable, and at that

+moment I could make only one movement, and whatever movement I made

+would be the only one. That I did not lift my arm a moment later does

+not prove that I could have abstained from lifting it then. And since I

+could make only one movement at that single moment of time, it could not

+have been any other. To imagine it as free, it is necessary to imagine

+it in the present, on the boundary between the past and the future—that

+is, outside time, which is impossible.

+

+(3) However much the difficulty of understanding the causes may be

+increased, we never reach a conception of complete freedom, that is,

+an absence of cause. However inaccessible to us may be the cause of the

+expression of will in any action, our own or another’s, the first demand

+of reason is the assumption of and search for a cause, for without a

+cause no phenomenon is conceivable. I raise my arm to perform an action

+independently of any cause, but my wish to perform an action without a

+cause is the cause of my action.

+

+But even if—imagining a man quite exempt from all influences, examining

+only his momentary action in the present, unevoked by any cause—we were

+to admit so infinitely small a remainder of inevitability as equaled

+zero, we should even then not have arrived at the conception of complete

+freedom in man, for a being uninfluenced by the external world, standing

+outside of time and independent of cause, is no longer a man.

+

+In the same way we can never imagine the action of a man quite devoid of

+freedom and entirely subject to the law of inevitability.

+

+(1) However we may increase our knowledge of the conditions of space

+in which man is situated, that knowledge can never be complete, for the

+number of those conditions is as infinite as the infinity of space. And

+therefore so long as not all the conditions influencing men are defined,

+there is no complete inevitability but a certain measure of freedom

+remains.

+

+(2) However we may prolong the period of time between the action we are

+examining and the judgment upon it, that period will be finite, while

+time is infinite, and so in this respect too there can never be absolute

+inevitability.

+

+(3) However accessible may be the chain of causation of any action, we

+shall never know the whole chain since it is endless, and so again we

+never reach absolute inevitability.

+

+But besides this, even if, admitting the remaining minimum of freedom to

+equal zero, we assumed in some given case—as for instance in that of a

+dying man, an unborn babe, or an idiot—complete absence of freedom, by

+so doing we should destroy the very conception of man in the case we are

+examining, for as soon as there is no freedom there is also no man. And

+so the conception of the action of a man subject solely to the law of

+inevitability without any element of freedom is just as impossible as

+the conception of a man’s completely free action.

+

+And so to imagine the action of a man entirely subject to the law of

+inevitability without any freedom, we must assume the knowledge of an

+infinite number of space relations, an infinitely long period of time,

+and an infinite series of causes.

+

+To imagine a man perfectly free and not subject to the law of

+inevitability, we must imagine him all alone, beyond space, beyond time,

+and free from dependence on cause.

+

+In the first case, if inevitability were possible without freedom

+we should have reached a definition of inevitability by the laws of

+inevitability itself, that is, a mere form without content.

+

+In the second case, if freedom were possible without inevitability we

+should have arrived at unconditioned freedom beyond space, time, and

+cause, which by the fact of its being unconditioned and unlimited would

+be nothing, or mere content without form.

+

+We should in fact have reached those two fundamentals of which man’s

+whole outlook on the universe is constructed—the incomprehensible

+essence of life, and the laws defining that essence.

+

+Reason says: (1) space with all the forms of matter that give it

+visibility is infinite, and cannot be imagined otherwise. (2) Time is

+infinite motion without a moment of rest and is unthinkable otherwise.

+(3) The connection between cause and effect has no beginning and can

+have no end.

+

+Consciousness says: (1) I alone am, and all that exists is but me,

+consequently I include space. (2) I measure flowing time by the fixed

+moment of the present in which alone I am conscious of myself as living,

+consequently I am outside time. (3) I am beyond cause, for I feel myself

+to be the cause of every manifestation of my life.

+

+Reason gives expression to the laws of inevitability. Consciousness

+gives expression to the essence of freedom.

+

+Freedom not limited by anything is the essence of life, in man’s

+consciousness. Inevitability without content is man’s reason in its

+three forms.

+

+Freedom is the thing examined. Inevitability is what examines. Freedom

+is the content. Inevitability is the form.

+

+Only by separating the two sources of cognition, related to one another

+as form to content, do we get the mutually exclusive and separately

+incomprehensible conceptions of freedom and inevitability.

+

+Only by uniting them do we get a clear conception of man’s life.

+

+Apart from these two concepts which in their union mutually define one

+another as form and content, no conception of life is possible.

+

+All that we know of the life of man is merely a certain relation of free

+will to inevitability, that is, of consciousness to the laws of reason.

+

+All that we know of the external world of nature is only a certain

+relation of the forces of nature to inevitability, or of the essence of

+life to the laws of reason.

+

+The great natural forces lie outside us and we are not conscious of

+them; we call those forces gravitation, inertia, electricity, animal

+force, and so on, but we are conscious of the force of life in man and

+we call that freedom.

+

+But just as the force of gravitation, incomprehensible in itself but

+felt by every man, is understood by us only to the extent to which we

+know the laws of inevitability to which it is subject (from the first

+knowledge that all bodies have weight, up to Newton’s law), so too the

+force of free will, incomprehensible in itself but of which everyone is

+conscious, is intelligible to us only in as far as we know the laws of

+inevitability to which it is subject (from the fact that every man dies,

+up to the knowledge of the most complex economic and historic laws).

+

+All knowledge is merely a bringing of this essence of life under the

+laws of reason.

+

+Man’s free will differs from every other force in that man is directly

+conscious of it, but in the eyes of reason it in no way differs from

+any other force. The forces of gravitation, electricity, or chemical

+affinity are only distinguished from one another in that they are

+differently defined by reason. Just so the force of man’s free will

+is distinguished by reason from the other forces of nature only by the

+definition reason gives it. Freedom, apart from necessity, that is,

+apart from the laws of reason that define it, differs in no way from

+gravitation, or heat, or the force that makes things grow; for reason,

+it is only a momentary undefinable sensation of life.

+

+And as the undefinable essence of the force moving the heavenly bodies,

+the undefinable essence of the forces of heat and electricity, or

+of chemical affinity, or of the vital force, forms the content of

+astronomy, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and so on, just in the

+same way does the force of free will form the content of history.

+But just as the subject of every science is the manifestation of this

+unknown essence of life while that essence itself can only be the

+subject of metaphysics, even the manifestation of the force of free will

+in human beings in space, in time, and in dependence on cause forms

+the subject of history, while free will itself is the subject of

+metaphysics.

+

+In the experimental sciences what we know we call the laws of

+inevitability, what is unknown to us we call vital force. Vital force is

+only an expression for the unknown remainder over and above what we know

+of the essence of life.

+

+So also in history what is known to us we call laws of inevitability,

+what is unknown we call free will. Free will is for history only an

+expression for the unknown remainder of what we know about the laws of

+human life.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XI

+

+History examines the manifestations of man’s free will in connection

+with the external world in time and in dependence on cause, that is, it

+defines this freedom by the laws of reason, and so history is a science

+only in so far as this free will is defined by those laws.

+

+The recognition of man’s free will as something capable of influencing

+historical events, that is, as not subject to laws, is the same for

+history as the recognition of a free force moving the heavenly bodies

+would be for astronomy.

+

+That assumption would destroy the possibility of the existence of laws,

+that is, of any science whatever. If there is even a single body

+moving freely, then the laws of Kepler and Newton are negatived and no

+conception of the movement of the heavenly bodies any longer exists. If

+any single action is due to free will, then not a single historical law

+can exist, nor any conception of historical events.

+

+For history, lines exist of the movement of human wills, one end

+of which is hidden in the unknown but at the other end of which a

+consciousness of man’s will in the present moves in space, time, and

+dependence on cause.

+

+The more this field of motion spreads out before our eyes, the more

+evident are the laws of that movement. To discover and define those laws

+is the problem of history.

+

+From the standpoint from which the science of history now regards its

+subject on the path it now follows, seeking the causes of events in

+man’s free will, a scientific enunciation of those laws is impossible,

+for however man’s free will may be restricted, as soon as we recognize

+it as a force not subject to law, the existence of law becomes

+impossible.

+

+Only by reducing this element of free will to the infinitesimal, that

+is, by regarding it as an infinitely small quantity, can we convince

+ourselves of the absolute inaccessibility of the causes, and then

+instead of seeking causes, history will take the discovery of laws as

+its problem.

+

+The search for these laws has long been begun and the new methods of

+thought which history must adopt are being worked out simultaneously

+with the self-destruction toward which—ever dissecting and dissecting

+the causes of phenomena—the old method of history is moving.

+

+All human sciences have traveled along that path. Arriving at

+infinitesimals, mathematics, the most exact of sciences, abandons the

+process of analysis and enters on the new process of the integration

+of unknown, infinitely small, quantities. Abandoning the conception

+of cause, mathematics seeks law, that is, the property common to all

+unknown, infinitely small, elements.

+

+In another form but along the same path of reflection the other sciences

+have proceeded. When Newton enunciated the law of gravity he did not say

+that the sun or the earth had a property of attraction; he said that all

+bodies from the largest to the smallest have the property of attracting

+one another, that is, leaving aside the question of the cause of the

+movement of the bodies, he expressed the property common to all bodies

+from the infinitely large to the infinitely small. The same is done by

+the natural sciences: leaving aside the question of cause, they seek for

+laws. History stands on the same path. And if history has for its object

+the study of the movement of the nations and of humanity and not the

+narration of episodes in the lives of individuals, it too, setting

+aside the conception of cause, should seek the laws common to all the

+inseparably interconnected infinitesimal elements of free will.

+

+

+

+

+

+CHAPTER XII

+

+From the time the law of Copernicus was discovered and proved, the mere

+recognition of the fact that it was not the sun but the earth that moves

+sufficed to destroy the whole cosmography of the ancients. By disproving

+that law it might have been possible to retain the old conception of

+the movements of the bodies, but without disproving it, it would seem

+impossible to continue studying the Ptolemaic worlds. But even after

+the discovery of the law of Copernicus the Ptolemaic worlds were still

+studied for a long time.

+

+From the time the first person said and proved that the number of births

+or of crimes is subject to mathematical laws, and that this or that

+mode of government is determined by certain geographical and economic

+conditions, and that certain relations of population to soil produce

+migrations of peoples, the foundations on which history had been built

+were destroyed in their essence.

+

+By refuting these new laws the former view of history might have been

+retained; but without refuting them it would seem impossible to continue

+studying historic events as the results of man’s free will. For if a

+certain mode of government was established or certain migrations

+of peoples took place in consequence of such and such geographic,

+ethnographic, or economic conditions, then the free will of those

+individuals who appear to us to have established that mode of government

+or occasioned the migrations can no longer be regarded as the cause.

+

+And yet the former history continues to be studied side by side with the

+laws of statistics, geography, political economy, comparative philology,

+and geology, which directly contradict its assumptions.

+

+The struggle between the old views and the new was long and stubbornly

+fought out in physical philosophy. Theology stood on guard for the

+old views and accused the new of violating revelation. But when truth

+conquered, theology established itself just as firmly on the new

+foundation.

+

+Just as prolonged and stubborn is the struggle now proceeding between

+the old and the new conception of history, and theology in the same way

+stands on guard for the old view, and accuses the new view of subverting

+revelation.

+

+In the one case as in the other, on both sides the struggle provokes

+passion and stifles truth. On the one hand there is fear and regret for

+the loss of the whole edifice constructed through the ages, on the other

+is the passion for destruction.

+

+To the men who fought against the rising truths of physical philosophy,

+it seemed that if they admitted that truth it would destroy faith in

+God, in the creation of the firmament, and in the miracle of Joshua the

+son of Nun. To the defenders of the laws of Copernicus and Newton, to

+Voltaire for example, it seemed that the laws of astronomy destroyed

+religion, and he utilized the law of gravitation as a weapon against

+religion.

+

+Just so it now seems as if we have only to admit the law of

+inevitability, to destroy the conception of the soul, of good and evil,

+and all the institutions of state and church that have been built up on

+those conceptions.

+

+So too, like Voltaire in his time, uninvited defenders of the law of

+inevitability today use that law as a weapon against religion, though

+the law of inevitability in history, like the law of Copernicus in

+astronomy, far from destroying, even strengthens the foundation on which

+the institutions of state and church are erected.

+

+As in the question of astronomy then, so in the question of history

+now, the whole difference of opinion is based on the recognition or

+nonrecognition of something absolute, serving as the measure of visible

+phenomena. In astronomy it was the immovability of the earth, in history

+it is the independence of personality—free will.

+

+As with astronomy the difficulty of recognizing the motion of the earth

+lay in abandoning the immediate sensation of the earth’s fixity and of

+the motion of the planets, so in history the difficulty of recognizing

+the subjection of personality to the laws of space, time, and cause

+lies in renouncing the direct feeling of the independence of one’s own

+personality. But as in astronomy the new view said: “It is true that we

+do not feel the movement of the earth, but by admitting its immobility

+we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting its motion (which we do not

+feel) we arrive at laws,” so also in history the new view says: “It is

+true that we are not conscious of our dependence, but by admitting our

+free will we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting our dependence on

+the external world, on time, and on cause, we arrive at laws.”

+

+In the first case it was necessary to renounce the consciousness of an

+unreal immobility in space and to recognize a motion we did not feel;

+in the present case it is similarly necessary to renounce a freedom

+that does not exist, and to recognize a dependence of which we are not

+conscious.

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+

+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of War and Peace, by Leo Tolstoy

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diff --git a/csci1913/Python/lab1_strap012.py b/csci1913/Python/lab1_strap012.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..396fda9
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Python/lab1_strap012.py
@@ -0,0 +1,115 @@
+#Matthew Strapp
+#5449340
+#Lab 1
+
+def left(exp):
+	return exp[0]
+def op(exp):
+	return exp[1]
+def right(exp):
+	return exp[2]
+
+
+def isInside(var, e):
+	if type(e) is tuple:
+		return isInside(var, left(e)) or isInside(var, right(e))
+	elif type(e) is str:
+		return var==e
+	else:
+	    return -1
+
+def solve(v, e):
+	if isInside(v, left(e)):
+		return solving(v, e)
+	elif isInside(v,right(e)):
+		newE=(right(e),op(e),left(e))
+		return solving(v,newE)
+	    #Solving defined on line 52
+	else:
+		return None
+
+#Four major solving means
+def solvingAdd(v,q):
+	if isInside(v, left(left(q))):
+		return left(left(q)), '=', (right(q), '-', right(left(q)))
+	else:
+		return right(left(q)), '=', (right(q), '-', left(left(q)))
+def solvingSubtract(v,q):
+	if isInside(v, left(left(q))):
+		return left(left(q)), '=', (right(q), '+', right(left(q)))
+	else:
+		return right(left(q)), '=', (left(left(q)), '-', right(q))
+def solvingMultiply(v,q):
+	if isInside(v, left(left(q))):
+		return left(left(q)), '=', (right(q), '/', right(left(q)))
+	else:
+		return right(left(q)), '=', (right(q), '/', left(left(q)))
+def solvingDivide(v,q):
+	if isInside(v, left(left(q))):
+		return left(left(q)), '=', (right(q), '*', right(left(q)))
+	else:
+		return right(left(q)), '=', (left(left(q)), '/', right(q))
+
+#Dict based off of lecture 13th Sept. 2019
+dispatcher={'+':solvingAdd,'-':solvingSubtract,'*':solvingMultiply,'/':solvingDivide}
+
+def solving(v,q):
+    if left(q) is v:
+        return q
+    else:
+        if op(left(q)) in dispatcher:
+            newQ=dispatcher[op(left(q))](v,q)
+        else:
+            raise ValueError
+    return solving(v,newQ)
+
+#
+#  TESTS. Test the equation solver for CSci 1913 Lab 1.
+#
+#    James Moen
+#    10 Sep 18
+#
+#  Every test is followed by a comment which shows what must be printed if your
+#  code works correctly. It also shows how many points the test is worth, for a
+#  total of 35 possible points.
+#
+
+print(isInside('x', 'x'))                          #  True   1 point
+print(isInside('x', 'y'))                          #  False  1 point
+print(isInside('x', ('x', '+', 'y')))              #  True   2 points
+print(isInside('x', ('a', '+', 'b')))              #  False  2 points
+print(isInside('+', ('a', '+', 'b')))              #  False  2 points
+print(isInside('x', (('m', '*', 'x'), '+', 'b')))  #  True   2 points
+
+print(solve('x', (('a', '+', 'x'), '=', 'c')))
+#  ('x', '=', ('c', '-', 'a'))  2 points
+
+print(solve('x', (('x', '+', 'b'), '=', 'c')))
+#  ('x', '=', ('c', '-', 'b'))  2 points
+
+print(solve('x', (('a', '-', 'x'), '=', 'c')))
+#  ('x', '=', ('a', '-', 'c'))  2 points
+
+print(solve('x', (('x', '-', 'b'), '=', 'c')))
+#  ('x', '=', ('c', '+', 'b'))  2 points
+
+print(solve('x', (('a', '*', 'x'), '=', 'c')))
+#  ('x', '=', ('c', '/', 'a'))  2 points
+
+print(solve('x', (('x', '*', 'b'), '=', 'c')))
+#  ('x', '=', ('c', '/', 'b'))  2 points
+
+print(solve('x', (('a', '/', 'x'), '=', 'c')))
+#  ('x', '=', ('a', '/', 'c'))  2 points
+
+print(solve('x', (('x', '/', 'b'), '=', 'c')))
+#  ('x', '=', ('c', '*', 'b'))  2 points
+
+print(solve('y', ('y', '=', (('m', '*', 'x'), '+', 'b'))))
+# ('y', '=', (('m', '*', 'x'), '+', 'b'))  2 points
+
+print(solve('x', ('y', '=', (('m', '*', 'x'), '+', 'b'))))
+# ('x', '=', (('y', '-', 'b'), '/', 'm'))  2 points
+
+print(solve('a', (('b', '+', 'c'), '=', ('d', '*', (('a', '/', 'e'), '-', 'f')))))
+# ('a', '=', (((('b', '+', 'c'), '/', 'd'), '+', 'f'), '*', 'e'))  5 points
\ No newline at end of file
diff --git a/csci1913/Python/lab2_strap012.py b/csci1913/Python/lab2_strap012.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..511e6bf
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Python/lab2_strap012.py
@@ -0,0 +1,137 @@
+class Zillion:
+  def __init__(self,digits):
+    self.digits = digits
+    self.List = []
+    self.toList()
+
+  def toList(self):
+    badBoolean=False           #Kludge
+    if len(self.digits) == 0 :
+      raise RuntimeError       #Cannot make a list of nothing
+    for n in range (0,len(self.digits)):
+      if self.digits[n] is not ',':
+        if self.digits[n] is not ' ':
+          try:
+            self.List+=[int(self.digits[n])]
+            badBoolean=True
+          except ValueError:   #Non-comma character in string
+            raise RuntimeError
+    if badBoolean is False:    #No numbers in string
+      raise RuntimeError
+    else:
+      return self.List
+
+
+  def increment(self):
+    length = len(self.List) - 1
+    newList = self.List
+    newList[length] += 1
+    if newList[length]>=10:     #Loop to increment all 10s to 0s with carry
+      for n in range (0,length):
+        newList[length-n]=0
+        newList[length-n-1]+=1
+
+  def isZero(self):
+    for p in range (0,len(self.List)-1):
+      if self.List[p] is not 0:
+        return False
+    return True
+
+  def toString(self):
+    string=''
+    for q in range (0,len(self.List)):
+      string+=str(self.List[q])    #Make string by concatenation
+    return string
+
+
+
+#
+#  TESTS. Test the class Zillion for CSci 1913 Lab 2.
+#
+#    James Moen
+#    18 Sep 17
+#
+#  Every test is followed by a comment which shows what must be printed if your
+#  code works correctly. It also shows how many points the test is worth.
+#
+
+try:
+  z = Zillion('')
+except RuntimeError:
+  print('Empty string')
+
+# It must print 'Empty string' without apostrophes. 2 points.
+
+try:
+  z = Zillion(' , ')
+except RuntimeError:
+  print('No digits in the string')
+
+# It must print 'No digits in the string' without apostrophes. 2 points.
+
+try:
+  z = Zillion('1+0')
+except RuntimeError:
+  print('Non-digit in the string')
+
+# It must print 'Non-digit in the string' without apostrophes. 2 points.
+
+try:
+  z = Zillion('0')
+except RuntimeError:
+  print('This must not be printed')
+
+#  It must print nothing. 2 points.
+
+print(z.isZero())    #  It must print True. 2 points.
+
+try:
+  z = Zillion('000000000')
+except RuntimeError:
+  print('This must not be printed')
+
+#  It must print nothing. 2 points.
+
+print(z.isZero())    #  It must print True. 2 points.
+
+try:
+  z = Zillion('000 000 000')
+except RuntimeError:
+  print('This must not be printed')
+
+#  It must print nothing. 2 points.
+
+print(z.isZero())    #  It must print True. 2 points.
+
+try:
+  z = Zillion('997')
+except RuntimeError:
+  print('This must not be printed')
+
+#  It must print nothing.  2 points.
+
+print(z.isZero())    #  It must print False. 2 points.
+
+print(z.toString())  #  It must print 997. 2 points.
+
+z.increment()
+
+print(z.toString())  #  It must print 998. 2 points.
+
+z.increment()
+
+print(z.toString())  #  It must print 999. 2 points.
+
+z.increment()
+
+print(z.toString())  #  It must print 1000. 2 points.
+
+try:
+  z = Zillion('0 9,9 9')
+except:
+  print('This must not be printed')
+
+#  It must print nothing.  3 points.
+
+z.increment()
+print(z.toString())  #  It must print 1000. 2 points.
diff --git a/csci1913/Python/lab3_strap012.py b/csci1913/Python/lab3_strap012.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..f9df918
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Python/lab3_strap012.py
@@ -0,0 +1,63 @@
+#"New" functions
+def Reduce(F,S):
+    if len(S)==0:
+        return -255
+    else:
+        return F(Reduce(F,S[:-1]),S[-1])
+def returnGreater(a,b):
+    if a > b:
+        return a
+    else:
+        return b
+
+#Implementation from Lab
+def Sort(T):
+    if len(T)==0:
+        return ()
+    else:
+        return (Sort(Remove(T,Maximum(T))))+(Maximum(T),)
+def Maximum(T):
+    return Reduce(returnGreater,T)
+def Remove(T,E):
+    if len(T)==0:
+        return ()
+    elif T[0] is E:
+        return T[1:]
+    else:
+        return (T[0],)+Remove(T[1:],E)
+
+
+#
+#  TESTS. Tests for CSci 1913 Lab 3.
+#
+#    James Moen
+#    11 Feb 19
+#
+#  Each test is worth 2 points, for 40 points total. Comments show what must be
+#  printed to receive credit. Note that your function SORT must work for tuples
+#  with negative elements.
+#
+
+print(Maximum((1,)))                      #  1                            2 pt.
+print(Maximum((-2, -1)))                  # -1                            2 pt.
+print(Maximum((1, 1)))                    #  1                            2 pt.
+print(Maximum((1, 2, 3)))                 #  3                            2 pt.
+
+print(Remove((), 1))                      #  ()                           2 pt.
+print(Remove((1,), 1))                    #  ()                           2 pt.
+print(Remove((0, 1), 0))                  #  (1,)                         2 pt.
+print(Remove((0, 1, 2, 1, 3), 1))         #  (0, 2, 1, 3)                 2 pt.
+print(Remove((0, 1, 2, 1, 3), 2))         #  (0, 1, 1, 3)                 2 pt.
+print(Remove((1, 2, 3), 3))               #  (1, 2)                       2 pt.
+
+print(Sort(()))                           #  ()                           2 pt.
+print(Sort((0,)))                         #  (0,)                         2 pt.
+print(Sort((0, -1)))                      #  (-1, 0)                      2 pt.
+print(Sort((1, 0)))                       #  (0, 1)                       2 pt.
+print(Sort((0, 0, 1)))                    #  (0, 0, 1)                    2 pt.
+print(Sort((0, -1, 0)))                   #  (-1, 0, 0)                   2 pt.
+print(Sort((0, 0, 1)))                    #  (0, 0, 1)                    2 pt.
+
+print(Sort((9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1)))  #  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)  2 pt.
+print(Sort((1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)))  #  (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)  2 pt.
+print(Sort((1, 2, 1, 4, 2, 5, 4, 5, 3)))  #  (1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 5)  2 pt.
diff --git a/csci1913/Python/project1_strap012.py b/csci1913/Python/project1_strap012.py
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..c825359
--- /dev/null
+++ b/csci1913/Python/project1_strap012.py
@@ -0,0 +1,134 @@
+class Random:    
+    def __init__(self, seed):
+        self.sevenFive = 16807
+        self.twoThirtyone = 2147483647
+        self.newNum = seed
+
+    def next(self):
+        self.newNum = self.sevenFive*self.newNum % self.twoThirtyone
+        return self.newNum
+
+    def choose(self, limit):
+        return self.next()%limit
+
+
+
+class Rule:
+    def __init__(self, left, right):
+        self.left = left
+        self.right = right
+        self.count = 1
+
+    def __repr__(self):
+        string = str(self.count)
+        string += " "
+        string += str(self.left)
+        string += " -> "
+        for n in range (0, len(self.right)):
+            string += self.right[n]
+            string += " "
+        return string
+
+
+
+class Grammar:
+    def __init__(self, seed):
+        self.r = Random(seed)
+        self.dictionary = {}
+
+    def rule(self, left, right):
+        if left not in self.dictionary:
+            self.dictionary[left] = (Rule(left,right),)
+        else:
+            self.dictionary[left] += (Rule(left, right),)
+
+    def generate(self):
+        if 'Start' in self.dictionary:
+           return self.generating(('Start',))
+        else:
+            raise RuntimeError
+
+    def select(self, left):
+        rules = self.dictionary[left]
+        total = 0
+        c = 0
+        #Some of the loops are probably not needed
+        for m in range (0, len(rules)):
+            total += rules[m].count
+        index = self.r.choose(total)
+        for c in range (0, len(rules)):
+            index -= rules[c].count
+            if index <= 0:
+                break
+        chosen = rules[c]
+        for n in range (0, len(rules)):
+            if rules[n] is not chosen:
+                rules[n].count += 1
+        return chosen.right
+
+    def generating(self,strings):
+        result=''
+        for n in range (0, len(strings)):
+            if strings[n] not in self.dictionary:
+                result += strings[n]
+                result += " "
+            else:
+                result += self.generating(self.select(strings[n]))
+        return result
+
+
+
+
+G = Grammar(101)
+G.rule('Noun',   ('cat',))  # 01
+G.rule('Noun',   ('boy',))  # 02
+G.rule('Noun',   ('dog',))  # 03
+G.rule('Noun',   ('girl',))  # 04
+G.rule('Verb',   ('bit',))  # 05
+G.rule('Verb',   ('chased',))  # 06
+G.rule('Verb',   ('kissed',))  # 07
+G.rule('Phrase', ('the', 'Noun', 'Verb', 'the', 'Noun'))  # 08
+G.rule('Story',  ('Phrase',))  # 09
+G.rule('Story',  ('Phrase', 'and', 'Story'))  # 10
+G.rule('Story',  ('Phrase', 'but', 'Story'))  # 11
+G.rule('Start',  ('Story', '.'))  # 12
+for _ in range (0, 5):
+    print(G.generate())
+
+# the cat bit the boy .
+# the cat kissed the dog and the boy chased the boy .
+# the cat chased the dog and the girl bit the boy but the girl chased the cat .
+# the girl chased the dog .
+# the boy kissed the girl and the cat kissed the girl .
+
+print()
+print()
+
+# 
+# 
+
+J = Grammar(1453)
+J.rule('Noun',   ('sentence',))
+J.rule('Noun',   ('walrus',))
+J.rule('Noun',   ('sky',))
+J.rule('Noun',   ('diamond',))
+J.rule('Noun',   ('Ottoman Empire',))
+J.rule('Verb',   ('is',))
+J.rule('Verb',   ('fanned',))
+J.rule('Verb',   ('generated',))
+J.rule('Verb',   ('hit',))
+J.rule('Phrase', ('the', 'Noun', 'Verb', 'the', 'Noun'))  # 08
+J.rule('Phrase', ('Noun', 'Verb', 'the', 'Noun'))
+J.rule('Story',  ('Phrase',))  # 09
+J.rule('Story',  ('Phrase', 'and', 'Story'))  # 10
+J.rule('Story',  ('Phrase', 'but', 'Story'))  # 11
+J.rule('Start',  ('Story', '.'))  # 12
+
+for _ in range(0, 5):
+    print(J.generate())
+
+# the walrus is the sentence and the diamond generated the walrus .
+# the walrus generated the walrus and the walrus generated the sentence but diamond hit the sentence .
+# sentence fanned the Ottoman Empire .
+# the sky hit the diamond and sky is the sentence but the sky fanned the diamond .
+# the walrus generated the diamond and the diamond generated the Ottoman Empire but the sky generated the sentence .