From 39cd2060dcc056f5fdd1733bc34fe5252e3b0b17 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: RossTheRoss Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2019 11:46:01 -0600 Subject: Start project --- csci1913/Java/project3/Words.java | 90 + csci1913/Java/project3/project3_strap012.java | 53 + csci1913/Java/project3/warAndPeace.txt | 66055 ++++++++++++++++++++++++ 3 files changed, 66198 insertions(+) create mode 100644 csci1913/Java/project3/Words.java create mode 100644 csci1913/Java/project3/project3_strap012.java create mode 100644 csci1913/Java/project3/warAndPeace.txt (limited to 'csci1913/Java/project3') 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..c8a4719 --- /dev/null +++ b/csci1913/Java/project3/project3_strap012.java @@ -0,0 +1,53 @@ +package project3; + +class AnagramTree { + private TreeNode head; + private class TreeNode { + private byte[] summary; + private WordNode words; + private TreeNode left, right; + private TreeNode(String word) { + summary = stringToSummary(word); + // words = new WordNode(word); + left = null; right = null; + } + } + + private class WordNode { + private String word; + private WordNode next; + private WordNode(String word) { + this.word = word; + next = null; + } + } + + public AnagramTree() { + head = new TreeNode("e"); + } + + public void add (String word) { + + } + + public void anagrams() { + + } + + private int compareSummaries(byte[] left, byte[] right) { + for (int i = 0; i < 25; i++) { + if (left[i] != right[i]) { + return left[i] - right[i]; + } + } + return 0; + } + + private byte[] stringToSummary(String word) { + byte[] temp = new byte[26]; + for (byte i = 0; i < word.length(); i++) { + temp[i] = (byte) (word.charAt(i) - ('a' + i)); + } + return temp; + } +} \ 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 + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WAR AND PEACE *** + +***** This file should be named 2600-0.txt or 2600-0.zip ***** This and +all associated files of various formats will be found in: http://www.gutenberg.org/2/6/0/2600/ + +An Anonymous Volunteer, and David Widger + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions will be +renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no one +owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation (and +you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without permission +and without paying copyright royalties. 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