"WAR AND PEACE\n\nBy Leo Tolstoy/Tolstoi\n\nBOOK ONE: 1805\n\nCHAPTER I\n\n\"Well, Prince, so Genoa and Lucca are now just family estates of the\nBuonapartes. But I warn you, if you don't tell me that this means war,\nif you still try to defend the infamies and horrors perpetrated by that\nAntichrist--I really believe he is Antichrist--I will have nothing more\nto do with you and you are no longer my friend, no longer my 'faithful\nslave,' as you call yourself! But how do you do? I see I have frightened\nyou--sit down and tell me all the news.\"\n\nIt was in July, 1805, and the speaker was the well-known Anna Pavlovna\nScherer, maid of honor and favorite of the Empress Marya Fedorovna. With\nthese words she greeted Prince Vasili Kuragin, a man of high rank and\nimportance, who was the first to arrive at her reception. Anna Pavlovna\nhad had a cough for some days. She was, as she said, suffering from la\ngrippe; grippe being then a new word in St. Petersburg, used only by the\nelite.\n\nAll her invitations without exception, written in French, and delivered\nby a scarlet-liveried footman that morning, ran as follows:\n\n\"If you have nothing better to do, Count (or Prince), and if the\nprospect of spending an evening with a poor invalid is not too terrible,\nI shall be very charmed to see you tonight between 7 and 10--Annette\nScherer.\"\n\n\"Heavens! what a virulent attack!\" replied the prince, not in the least\ndisconcerted by this reception. He had just entered, wearing an\nembroidered court uniform, knee breeches, and shoes, and had stars on\nhis breast and a serene expression on his flat face. He spoke in that\nrefined French in which our grandfathers not only spoke but thought, and\nwith the gentle, patronizing intonation natural to a man of importance\nwho had grown old in society and at court. He went up to Anna Pavlovna,\nkissed her hand, presenting to her his bald, scented, and shining head,\nand complacently seated himself on the sofa.\n\n\"First of all, dear friend, tell me how you are. Set your friend's mind\nat rest,\" said he without altering his tone, beneath the politeness and\naffected sympathy of which indifference and even irony could be\ndiscerned.\n\n\"Can one be well while suffering morally? Can one be calm in times like\nthese if one has any feeling?\" said Anna Pavlovna. \"You are staying the\nwhole evening, I hope?\"\n\n\"And the fete at the English ambassador's? Today is Wednesday. I must\nput in an appearance there,\" said the prince. \"My daughter is coming for\nme to take me there.\"\n\n\"I thought today's fete had been canceled. I confess all these\nfestivities and fireworks are becoming wearisome.\"\n\n\"If they had known that you wished it, the entertainment would have been\nput off,\" said the prince, who, like a wound-up clock, by force of habit\nsaid things he did not even wish to be believed.\n\n\"Don't tease! Well, and what has been decided about Novosiltsev's\ndispatch? You know everything.\"\n\n\"What can one say about it?\" replied the prince in a cold, listless\ntone. \"What has been decided? They have decided that Buonaparte has\nburnt his boats, and I believe that we are ready to burn ours.\"\n\nPrince Vasili always spoke languidly, like an actor repeating a stale\npart. Anna Pavlovna Scherer on the contrary, despite her forty years,\noverflowed with animation and impulsiveness. To be an enthusiast had\nbecome her social vocation and, sometimes even when she did not feel\nlike it, she became enthusiastic in order not to disappoint the\nexpectations of those who knew her. The subdued smile which, though it\ndid not suit her faded features, always played round her lips expressed,\nas in a spoiled child, a continual consciousness of her charming defect,\nwhich she neither wished, nor could, nor considered it necessary, to\ncorrect.\n\nIn the midst of a conversation on political matters Anna Pavlovna burst\nout:\n\n\"Oh, don't speak to me of Austria. Perhaps I don't understand things,\nbut Austria never has wished, and does not wish, for war. She is\nbetraying us! Russia alone must save Europe. Our gracious sovereign\nrecognizes his high vocation and will be true to it. That is the one\nthing I have faith in! Our good and wonderful sovereign has to perform\nthe noblest role on earth, and he is so virtuous and noble that God will\nnot forsake him. He will fulfill his vocation and crush the hydra of\nrevolution, which has become more terrible than ever in the person of\nthis murderer and villain! We alone must avenge the blood of the just\none.... Whom, I ask you, can we rely on?... England with her commercial\nspirit will not and cannot understand the Emperor Alexander's loftiness\nof soul. She has refused to evacuate Malta. She wanted to find, and\nstill seeks, some secret motive in our actions. What answer did\nNovosiltsev get? None. The English have not understood and cannot\nunderstand the self-abnegation of our Emperor who wants nothing for\nhimself, but only desires the good of mankind. And what have they\npromised? Nothing! And what little they have promised they will not\nperform! Prussia has always declared that Buonaparte is invincible, and\nthat all Europe is powerless before him.... And I don't believe a word\nthat Hardenburg says, or Haugwitz either. This famous Prussian\nneutrality is just a trap. I have faith only in God and the lofty\ndestiny of our adored monarch. He will save Europe!\"\n\nShe suddenly paused, smiling at her own impetuosity.\n\n\"I think,\" said the prince with a smile, \"that if you had been sent\ninstead of our dear Wintzingerode you would have captured the King of\nPrussia's consent by assault. You are so eloquent. Will you give me a\ncup of tea?\"\n\n\"In a moment. A propos,\" she added, becoming calm again, \"I am expecting\ntwo very interesting men tonight, le Vicomte de Mortemart, who is\nconnected with the Montmorencys through the Rohans, one of the best\nFrench families. He is one of the genuine emigres, the good ones. And\nalso the Abbe Morio. Do you know that profound thinker? He has been\nreceived by the Emperor. Had you heard?\"\n\n\"I shall be delighted to meet them,\" said the prince. \"But tell me,\" he\nadded with studied carelessness as if it had only just occurred to him,\nthough the question he was about to ask was the chief motive of his\nvisit, \"is it true that the Dowager Empress wants Baron Funke to be\nappointed first secretary at Vienna? The baron by all accounts is a poor\ncreature.\"\n\nPrince Vasili wished to obtain this post for his son, but others were\ntrying through the Dowager Empress Marya Fedorovna to secure it for the\nbaron.\n\nAnna Pavlovna almost closed her eyes to indicate that neither she nor\nanyone else had a right to criticize what the Empress desired or was\npleased with.\n\n\"Baron Funke has been recommended to the Dowager Empress by her sister,\"\nwas all she said, in a dry and mournful tone.\n\nAs she named the Empress, Anna Pavlovna's face suddenly assumed an\nexpression of profound and sincere devotion and respect mingled with\nsadness, and this occurred every time she mentioned her illustrious\npatroness. She added that Her Majesty had deigned to show Baron Funke\nbeaucoup d'estime, and again her face clouded over with sadness.\n\nThe prince was silent and looked indifferent. But, with the womanly and\ncourtierlike quickness and tact habitual to her, Anna Pavlovna wished\nboth to rebuke him (for daring to speak as he had done of a man\nrecommended to the Empress) and at the same time to console him, so she\nsaid:\n\n\"Now about your family. Do you know that since your daughter came out\neveryone has been enraptured by her? They say she is amazingly\nbeautiful.\"\n\nThe prince bowed to signify his respect and gratitude.\n\n\"I often think,\" she continued after a short pause, drawing nearer to\nthe prince and smiling amiably at him as if to show that political and\nsocial topics were ended and the time had come for intimate\nconversation--\"I often think how unfairly sometimes the joys of life are\ndistributed. Why has fate given you two such splendid children? I don't\nspeak of Anatole, your youngest. I don't like him,\" she added in a tone\nadmitting of no rejoinder and raising her eyebrows. \"Two such charming\nchildren. And really you appreciate them less than anyone, and so you\ndon't deserve to have them.\"\n\nAnd she smiled her ecstatic smile.\n\n\"I can't help it,\" said the prince. \"Lavater would have said I lack the\nbump of paternity.\"\n\n\"Don't joke; I mean to have a serious talk with you. Do you know I am\ndissatisfied with your younger son? Between ourselves\" (and her face\nassumed its melancholy expression), \"he was mentioned at Her Majesty's\nand you were pitied....\"\n\nThe prince answered nothing, but she looked at him significantly,\nawaiting a reply. He frowned.\n\n\"What would you have me do?\" he said at last. \"You know I did all a\nfather could for their education, and they have both turned out fools.\nHippolyte is at least a quiet fool, but Anatole is an active one. That\nis the only difference between them.\" He said this smiling in a way more\nnatural and animated than usual, so that the wrinkles round his mouth\nvery clearly revealed something unexpectedly coarse and unpleasant.\n\n\"And why are children born to such men as you? If you were not a father\nthere would be nothing I could reproach you with,\" said Anna Pavlovna,\nlooking up pensively.\n\n\"I am your faithful slave and to you alone I can confess that my\nchildren are the bane of my life. It is the cross I have to bear. That\nis how I explain it to myself. It can't be helped!\"\n\nHe said no more, but expressed his resignation to cruel fate by a\ngesture. Anna Pavlovna meditated.\n\n\"Have you never thought of marrying your prodigal son Anatole?\" she\nasked. \"They say old maids have a mania for matchmaking, and though I\ndon't feel that weakness in myself as yet, I know a little person who is\nvery unhappy with her father. She is a relation of yours, Princess Mary\nBolkonskaya.\"\n\nPrince Vasili did not reply, though, with the quickness of memory and\nperception befitting a man of the world, he indicated by a movement of\nthe head that he was considering this information.\n\n\"Do you know,\" he said at last, evidently unable to check the sad\ncurrent of his thoughts, \"that Anatole is costing me forty thousand\nrubles a year? And,\" he went on after a pause, \"what will it be in five\nyears, if he goes on like this?\" Presently he added: \"That's what we\nfathers have to put up with.... Is this princess of yours rich?\"\n\n\"Her father is very rich and stingy. He lives in the country. He is the\nwell-known Prince Bolkonski who had to retire from the army under the\nlate Emperor, and was nicknamed 'the King of Prussia.' He is very clever\nbut eccentric, and a bore. The poor girl is very unhappy. She has a\nbrother; I think you know him, he married Lise Meinen lately. He is an\naide-de-camp of Kutuzov's and will be here tonight.\"\n\n\"Listen, dear Annette,\" said the prince, suddenly taking Anna Pavlovna's\nhand and for some reason drawing it downwards. \"Arrange that affair for\nme and I shall always be your most devoted slave-slafe with an f, as a\nvillage elder of mine writes in his reports. She is rich and of good\nfamily and that's all I want.\"\n\nAnd with the familiarity and easy grace peculiar to him, he raised the\nmaid of honor's hand to his lips, kissed it, and swung it to and fro as\nhe lay back in his armchair, looking in another direction.\n\n\"Attendez,\" said Anna Pavlovna, reflecting, \"I'll speak to Lise, young\nBolkonski's wife, this very evening, and perhaps the thing can be\narranged. It shall be on your family's behalf that I'll start my\napprenticeship as old maid.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nAnna Pavlovna's drawing room was gradually filling. The highest\nPetersburg society was assembled there: people differing widely in age\nand character but alike in the social circle to which they belonged.\nPrince Vasili's daughter, the beautiful Helene, came to take her father\nto the ambassador's entertainment; she wore a ball dress and her badge\nas maid of honor. The youthful little Princess Bolkonskaya, known as la\nfemme la plus seduisante de Petersbourg, * was also there. She had been\nmarried during the previous winter, and being pregnant did not go to any\nlarge gatherings, but only to small receptions. Prince Vasili's son,\nHippolyte, had come with Mortemart, whom he introduced. The Abbe Morio\nand many others had also come.\n\n\n* The most fascinating woman in Petersburg.\n\nTo each new arrival Anna Pavlovna said, \"You have not yet seen my aunt,\"\nor \"You do not know my aunt?\" and very gravely conducted him or her to a\nlittle old lady, wearing large bows of ribbon in her cap, who had come\nsailing in from another room as soon as the guests began to arrive; and\nslowly turning her eyes from the visitor to her aunt, Anna Pavlovna\nmentioned each one's name and then left them.\n\nEach visitor performed the ceremony of greeting this old aunt whom not\none of them knew, not one of them wanted to know, and not one of them\ncared about; Anna Pavlovna observed these greetings with mournful and\nsolemn interest and silent approval. The aunt spoke to each of them in\nthe same words, about their health and her own, and the health of Her\nMajesty, \"who, thank God, was better today.\" And each visitor, though\npoliteness prevented his showing impatience, left the old woman with a\nsense of relief at having performed a vexatious duty and did not return\nto her the whole evening.\n\nThe young Princess Bolkonskaya had brought some work in a gold-\nembroidered velvet bag. Her pretty little upper lip, on which a delicate\ndark down was just perceptible, was too short for her teeth, but it\nlifted all the more sweetly, and was especially charming when she\noccasionally drew it down to meet the lower lip. As is always the case\nwith a thoroughly attractive woman, her defect--the shortness of her\nupper lip and her half-open mouth--seemed to be her own special and\npeculiar form of beauty. Everyone brightened at the sight of this pretty\nyoung woman, so soon to become a mother, so full of life and health, and\ncarrying her burden so lightly. Old men and dull dispirited young ones\nwho looked at her, after being in her company and talking to her a\nlittle while, felt as if they too were becoming, like her, full of life\nand health. All who talked to her, and at each word saw her bright smile\nand the constant gleam of her white teeth, thought that they were in a\nspecially amiable mood that day.\n\nThe little princess went round the table with quick, short, swaying\nsteps, her workbag on her arm, and gaily spreading out her dress sat\ndown on a sofa near the silver samovar, as if all she was doing was a\npleasure to herself and to all around her. \"I have brought my work,\"\nsaid she in French, displaying her bag and addressing all present.\n\"Mind, Annette, I hope you have not played a wicked trick on me,\" she\nadded, turning to her hostess. \"You wrote that it was to be quite a\nsmall reception, and just see how badly I am dressed.\" And she spread\nout her arms to show her short-waisted, lace-trimmed, dainty gray dress,\ngirdled with a broad ribbon just below the breast.\n\n\"Soyez tranquille, Lise, you will always be prettier than anyone else,\"\nreplied Anna Pavlovna.\n\n\"You know,\" said the princess in the same tone of voice and still in\nFrench, turning to a general, \"my husband is deserting me? He is going\nto get himself killed. Tell me what this wretched war is for?\" she\nadded, addressing Prince Vasili, and without waiting for an answer she\nturned to speak to his daughter, the beautiful Helene.\n\n\"What a delightful woman this little princess is!\" said Prince Vasili to\nAnna Pavlovna.\n\nOne of the next arrivals was a stout, heavily built young man with\nclose-cropped hair, spectacles, the light-colored breeches fashionable\nat that time, a very high ruffle, and a brown dress coat. This stout\nyoung man was an illegitimate son of Count Bezukhov, a well-known\ngrandee of Catherine's time who now lay dying in Moscow. The young man\nhad not yet entered either the military or civil service, as he had only\njust returned from abroad where he had been educated, and this was his\nfirst appearance in society. Anna Pavlovna greeted him with the nod she\naccorded to the lowest hierarchy in her drawing room. But in spite of\nthis lowest-grade greeting, a look of anxiety and fear, as at the sight\nof something too large and unsuited to the place, came over her face\nwhen she saw Pierre enter. Though he was certainly rather bigger than\nthe other men in the room, her anxiety could only have reference to the\nclever though shy, but observant and natural, expression which\ndistinguished him from everyone else in that drawing room.\n\n\"It is very good of you, Monsieur Pierre, to come and visit a poor\ninvalid,\" said Anna Pavlovna, exchanging an alarmed glance with her aunt\nas she conducted him to her.\n\nPierre murmured something unintelligible, and continued to look round as\nif in search of something. On his way to the aunt he bowed to the little\nprincess with a pleased smile, as to an intimate acquaintance.\n\nAnna Pavlovna's alarm was justified, for Pierre turned away from the\naunt without waiting to hear her speech about Her Majesty's health. Anna\nPavlovna in dismay detained him with the words: \"Do you know the Abbe\nMorio? He is a most interesting man.\"\n\n\"Yes, I have heard of his scheme for perpetual peace, and it is very\ninteresting but hardly feasible.\"\n\n\"You think so?\" rejoined Anna Pavlovna in order to say something and get\naway to attend to her duties as hostess. But Pierre now committed a\nreverse act of impoliteness. First he had left a lady before she had\nfinished speaking to him, and now he continued to speak to another who\nwished to get away. With his head bent, and his big feet spread apart,\nhe began explaining his reasons for thinking the abbe's plan chimerical.\n\n\"We will talk of it later,\" said Anna Pavlovna with a smile.\n\nAnd having got rid of this young man who did not know how to behave, she\nresumed her duties as hostess and continued to listen and watch, ready\nto help at any point where the conversation might happen to flag. As the\nforeman of a spinning mill, when he has set the hands to work, goes\nround and notices here a spindle that has stopped or there one that\ncreaks or makes more noise than it should, and hastens to check the\nmachine or set it in proper motion, so Anna Pavlovna moved about her\ndrawing room, approaching now a silent, now a too-noisy group, and by a\nword or slight rearrangement kept the conversational machine in steady,\nproper, and regular motion. But amid these cares her anxiety about\nPierre was evident. She kept an anxious watch on him when he approached\nthe group round Mortemart to listen to what was being said there, and\nagain when he passed to another group whose center was the abbe.\n\nPierre had been educated abroad, and this reception at Anna Pavlovna's\nwas the first he had attended in Russia. He knew that all the\nintellectual lights of Petersburg were gathered there and, like a child\nin a toyshop, did not know which way to look, afraid of missing any\nclever conversation that was to be heard. Seeing the self-confident and\nrefined expression on the faces of those present he was always expecting\nto hear something very profound. At last he came up to Morio. Here the\nconversation seemed interesting and he stood waiting for an opportunity\nto express his own views, as young people are fond of doing.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nAnna Pavlovna's reception was in full swing. The spindles hummed\nsteadily and ceaselessly on all sides. With the exception of the aunt,\nbeside whom sat only one elderly lady, who with her thin careworn face\nwas rather out of place in this brilliant society, the whole company had\nsettled into three groups. One, chiefly masculine, had formed round the\nabbe. Another, of young people, was grouped round the beautiful Princess\nHelene, Prince Vasili's daughter, and the little Princess Bolkonskaya,\nvery pretty and rosy, though rather too plump for her age. The third\ngroup was gathered round Mortemart and Anna Pavlovna.\n\nThe vicomte was a nice-looking young man with soft features and polished\nmanners, who evidently considered himself a celebrity but out of\npoliteness modestly placed himself at the disposal of the circle in\nwhich he found himself. Anna Pavlovna was obviously serving him up as a\ntreat to her guests. As a clever maitre d'hotel serves up as a specially\nchoice delicacy a piece of meat that no one who had seen it in the\nkitchen would have cared to eat, so Anna Pavlovna served up to her\nguests, first the vicomte and then the abbe, as peculiarly choice\nmorsels. The group about Mortemart immediately began discussing the\nmurder of the Duc d'Enghien. The vicomte said that the Duc d'Enghien had\nperished by his own magnanimity, and that there were particular reasons\nfor Buonaparte's hatred of him.\n\n\"Ah, yes! Do tell us all about it, Vicomte,\" said Anna Pavlovna, with a\npleasant feeling that there was something a la Louis XV in the sound of\nthat sentence: \"Contez nous cela, Vicomte.\"\n\nThe vicomte bowed and smiled courteously in token of his willingness to\ncomply. Anna Pavlovna arranged a group round him, inviting everyone to\nlisten to his tale.\n\n\"The vicomte knew the duc personally,\" whispered Anna Pavlovna to one of\nthe guests. \"The vicomte is a wonderful raconteur,\" said she to another.\n\"How evidently he belongs to the best society,\" said she to a third; and\nthe vicomte was served up to the company in the choicest and most\nadvantageous style, like a well-garnished joint of roast beef on a hot\ndish.\n\nThe vicomte wished to begin his story and gave a subtle smile.\n\n\"Come over here, Helene, dear,\" said Anna Pavlovna to the beautiful\nyoung princess who was sitting some way off, the center of another\ngroup.\n\nThe princess smiled. She rose with the same unchanging smile with which\nshe had first entered the room--the smile of a perfectly beautiful\nwoman. With a slight rustle of her white dress trimmed with moss and\nivy, with a gleam of white shoulders, glossy hair, and sparkling\ndiamonds, she passed between the men who made way for her, not looking\nat any of them but smiling on all, as if graciously allowing each the\nprivilege of admiring her beautiful figure and shapely shoulders, back,\nand bosom--which in the fashion of those days were very much exposed--\nand she seemed to bring the glamour of a ballroom with her as she moved\ntoward Anna Pavlovna. Helene was so lovely that not only did she not\nshow any trace of coquetry, but on the contrary she even appeared shy of\nher unquestionable and all too victorious beauty. She seemed to wish,\nbut to be unable, to diminish its effect.\n\n\"How lovely!\" said everyone who saw her; and the vicomte lifted his\nshoulders and dropped his eyes as if startled by something extraordinary\nwhen she took her seat opposite and beamed upon him also with her\nunchanging smile.\n\n\"Madame, I doubt my ability before such an audience,\" said he, smilingly\ninclining his head.\n\nThe princess rested her bare round arm on a little table and considered\na reply unnecessary. She smilingly waited. All the time the story was\nbeing told she sat upright, glancing now at her beautiful round arm,\naltered in shape by its pressure on the table, now at her still more\nbeautiful bosom, on which she readjusted a diamond necklace. From time\nto time she smoothed the folds of her dress, and whenever the story\nproduced an effect she glanced at Anna Pavlovna, at once adopted just\nthe expression she saw on the maid of honor's face, and again relapsed\ninto her radiant smile.\n\nThe little princess had also left the tea table and followed Helene.\n\n\"Wait a moment, I'll get my work.... Now then, what are you thinking\nof?\" she went on, turning to Prince Hippolyte. \"Fetch me my workbag.\"\n\nThere was a general movement as the princess, smiling and talking\nmerrily to everyone at once, sat down and gaily arranged herself in her\nseat.\n\n\"Now I am all right,\" she said, and asking the vicomte to begin, she\ntook up her work.\n\nPrince Hippolyte, having brought the workbag, joined the circle and\nmoving a chair close to hers seated himself beside her.\n\nLe charmant Hippolyte was surprising by his extraordinary resemblance to\nhis beautiful sister, but yet more by the fact that in spite of this\nresemblance he was exceedingly ugly. His features were like his\nsister's, but while in her case everything was lit up by a joyous, self-\nsatisfied, youthful, and constant smile of animation, and by the\nwonderful classic beauty of her figure, his face on the contrary was\ndulled by imbecility and a constant expression of sullen self-\nconfidence, while his body was thin and weak. His eyes, nose, and mouth\nall seemed puckered into a vacant, wearied grimace, and his arms and\nlegs always fell into unnatural positions.\n\n\"It's not going to be a ghost story?\" said he, sitting down beside the\nprincess and hastily adjusting his lorgnette, as if without this\ninstrument he could not begin to speak.\n\n\"Why no, my dear fellow,\" said the astonished narrator, shrugging his\nshoulders.\n\n\"Because I hate ghost stories,\" said Prince Hippolyte in a tone which\nshowed that he only understood the meaning of his words after he had\nuttered them.\n\nHe spoke with such self-confidence that his hearers could not be sure\nwhether what he said was very witty or very stupid. He was dressed in a\ndark-green dress coat, knee breeches of the color of cuisse de nymphe\neffrayee, as he called it, shoes, and silk stockings.\n\nThe vicomte told his tale very neatly. It was an anecdote, then current,\nto the effect that the Duc d'Enghien had gone secretly to Paris to visit\nMademoiselle George; that at her house he came upon Bonaparte, who also\nenjoyed the famous actress' favors, and that in his presence Napoleon\nhappened to fall into one of the fainting fits to which he was subject,\nand was thus at the duc's mercy. The latter spared him, and this\nmagnanimity Bonaparte subsequently repaid by death.\n\nThe story was very pretty and interesting, especially at the point where\nthe rivals suddenly recognized one another; and the ladies looked\nagitated.\n\n\"Charming!\" said Anna Pavlovna with an inquiring glance at the little\nprincess.\n\n\"Charming!\" whispered the little princess, sticking the needle into her\nwork as if to testify that the interest and fascination of the story\nprevented her from going on with it.\n\nThe vicomte appreciated this silent praise and smiling gratefully\nprepared to continue, but just then Anna Pavlovna, who had kept a\nwatchful eye on the young man who so alarmed her, noticed that he was\ntalking too loudly and vehemently with the abbe, so she hurried to the\nrescue. Pierre had managed to start a conversation with the abbe about\nthe balance of power, and the latter, evidently interested by the young\nman's simple-minded eagerness, was explaining his pet theory. Both were\ntalking and listening too eagerly and too naturally, which was why Anna\nPavlovna disapproved.\n\n\"The means are... the balance of power in Europe and the rights of the\npeople,\" the abbe was saying. \"It is only necessary for one powerful\nnation like Russia--barbaric as she is said to be--to place herself\ndisinterestedly at the head of an alliance having for its object the\nmaintenance of the balance of power of Europe, and it would save the\nworld!\"\n\n\"But how are you to get that balance?\" Pierre was beginning.\n\nAt that moment Anna Pavlovna came up and, looking severely at Pierre,\nasked the Italian how he stood Russian climate. The Italian's face\ninstantly changed and assumed an offensively affected, sugary\nexpression, evidently habitual to him when conversing with women.\n\n\"I am so enchanted by the brilliancy of the wit and culture of the\nsociety, more especially of the feminine society, in which I have had\nthe honor of being received, that I have not yet had time to think of\nthe climate,\" said he.\n\nNot letting the abbe and Pierre escape, Anna Pavlovna, the more\nconveniently to keep them under observation, brought them into the\nlarger circle.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nJust then another visitor entered the drawing room: Prince Andrew\nBolkonski, the little princess' husband. He was a very handsome young\nman, of medium height, with firm, clearcut features. Everything about\nhim, from his weary, bored expression to his quiet, measured step,\noffered a most striking contrast to his quiet, little wife. It was\nevident that he not only knew everyone in the drawing room, but had\nfound them to be so tiresome that it wearied him to look at or listen to\nthem. And among all these faces that he found so tedious, none seemed to\nbore him so much as that of his pretty wife. He turned away from her\nwith a grimace that distorted his handsome face, kissed Anna Pavlovna's\nhand, and screwing up his eyes scanned the whole company.\n\n\"You are off to the war, Prince?\" said Anna Pavlovna.\n\n\"General Kutuzov,\" said Bolkonski, speaking French and stressing the\nlast syllable of the general's name like a Frenchman, \"has been pleased\nto take me as an aide-de-camp....\"\n\n\"And Lise, your wife?\"\n\n\"She will go to the country.\"\n\n\"Are you not ashamed to deprive us of your charming wife?\"\n\n\"Andre,\" said his wife, addressing her husband in the same coquettish\nmanner in which she spoke to other men, \"the vicomte has been telling us\nsuch a tale about Mademoiselle George and Buonaparte!\"\n\nPrince Andrew screwed up his eyes and turned away. Pierre, who from the\nmoment Prince Andrew entered the room had watched him with glad,\naffectionate eyes, now came up and took his arm. Before he looked round\nPrince Andrew frowned again, expressing his annoyance with whoever was\ntouching his arm, but when he saw Pierre's beaming face he gave him an\nunexpectedly kind and pleasant smile.\n\n\"There now!... So you, too, are in the great world?\" said he to Pierre.\n\n\"I knew you would be here,\" replied Pierre. \"I will come to supper with\nyou. May I?\" he added in a low voice so as not to disturb the vicomte\nwho was continuing his story.\n\n\"No, impossible!\" said Prince Andrew, laughing and pressing Pierre's\nhand to show that there was no need to ask the question. He wished to\nsay something more, but at that moment Prince Vasili and his daughter\ngot up to go and the two young men rose to let them pass.\n\n\"You must excuse me, dear Vicomte,\" said Prince Vasili to the Frenchman,\nholding him down by the sleeve in a friendly way to prevent his rising.\n\"This unfortunate fete at the ambassador's deprives me of a pleasure,\nand obliges me to interrupt you. I am very sorry to leave your\nenchanting party,\" said he, turning to Anna Pavlovna.\n\nHis daughter, Princess Helene, passed between the chairs, lightly\nholding up the folds of her dress, and the smile shone still more\nradiantly on her beautiful face. Pierre gazed at her with rapturous,\nalmost frightened, eyes as she passed him.\n\n\"Very lovely,\" said Prince Andrew.\n\n\"Very,\" said Pierre.\n\nIn passing Prince Vasili seized Pierre's hand and said to Anna Pavlovna:\n\"Educate this bear for me! He has been staying with me a whole month and\nthis is the first time I have seen him in society. Nothing is so\nnecessary for a young man as the society of clever women.\"\n\nAnna Pavlovna smiled and promised to take Pierre in hand. She knew his\nfather to be a connection of Prince Vasili's. The elderly lady who had\nbeen sitting with the old aunt rose hurriedly and overtook Prince Vasili\nin the anteroom. All the affectation of interest she had assumed had\nleft her kindly and tear-worn face and it now expressed only anxiety and\nfear.\n\n\"How about my son Boris, Prince?\" said she, hurrying after him into the\nanteroom. \"I can't remain any longer in Petersburg. Tell me what news I\nmay take back to my poor boy.\"\n\nAlthough Prince Vasili listened reluctantly and not very politely to the\nelderly lady, even betraying some impatience, she gave him an\ningratiating and appealing smile, and took his hand that he might not go\naway.\n\n\"What would it cost you to say a word to the Emperor, and then he would\nbe transferred to the Guards at once?\" said she.\n\n\"Believe me, Princess, I am ready to do all I can,\" answered Prince\nVasili, \"but it is difficult for me to ask the Emperor. I should advise\nyou to appeal to Rumyantsev through Prince Golitsyn. That would be the\nbest way.\"\n\nThe elderly lady was a Princess Drubetskaya, belonging to one of the\nbest families in Russia, but she was poor, and having long been out of\nsociety had lost her former influential connections. She had now come to\nPetersburg to procure an appointment in the Guards for her only son. It\nwas, in fact, solely to meet Prince Vasili that she had obtained an\ninvitation to Anna Pavlovna's reception and had sat listening to the\nvicomte's story. Prince Vasili's words frightened her, an embittered\nlook clouded her once handsome face, but only for a moment; then she\nsmiled again and clutched Prince Vasili's arm more tightly.\n\n\"Listen to me, Prince,\" said she. \"I have never yet asked you for\nanything and I never will again, nor have I ever reminded you of my\nfather's friendship for you; but now I entreat you for God's sake to do\nthis for my son--and I shall always regard you as a benefactor,\" she\nadded hurriedly. \"No, don't be angry, but promise! I have asked Golitsyn\nand he has refused. Be the kindhearted man you always were,\" she said,\ntrying to smile though tears were in her eyes.\n\n\"Papa, we shall be late,\" said Princess Helene, turning her beautiful\nhead and looking over her classically molded shoulder as she stood\nwaiting by the door.\n\nInfluence in society, however, is a capital which has to be economized\nif it is to last. Prince Vasili knew this, and having once realized that\nif he asked on behalf of all who begged of him, he would soon be unable\nto ask for himself, he became chary of using his influence. But in\nPrincess Drubetskaya's case he felt, after her second appeal, something\nlike qualms of conscience. She had reminded him of what was quite true;\nhe had been indebted to her father for the first steps in his career.\nMoreover, he could see by her manners that she was one of those women--\nmostly mothers--who, having once made up their minds, will not rest\nuntil they have gained their end, and are prepared if necessary to go on\ninsisting day after day and hour after hour, and even to make scenes.\nThis last consideration moved him.\n\n\"My dear Anna Mikhaylovna,\" said he with his usual familiarity and\nweariness of tone, \"it is almost impossible for me to do what you ask;\nbut to prove my devotion to you and how I respect your father's memory,\nI will do the impossible--your son shall be transferred to the Guards.\nHere is my hand on it. Are you satisfied?\"\n\n\"My dear benefactor! This is what I expected from you--I knew your\nkindness!\" He turned to go.\n\n\"Wait--just a word! When he has been transferred to the Guards...\" she\nfaltered. \"You are on good terms with Michael Ilarionovich Kutuzov...\nrecommend Boris to him as adjutant! Then I shall be at rest, and\nthen...\"\n\nPrince Vasili smiled.\n\n\"No, I won't promise that. You don't know how Kutuzov is pestered since\nhis appointment as Commander in Chief. He told me himself that all the\nMoscow ladies have conspired to give him all their sons as adjutants.\"\n\n\"No, but do promise! I won't let you go! My dear benefactor...\"\n\n\"Papa,\" said his beautiful daughter in the same tone as before, \"we\nshall be late.\"\n\n\"Well, au revoir! Good-bye! You hear her?\"\n\n\"Then tomorrow you will speak to the Emperor?\"\n\n\"Certainly; but about Kutuzov, I don't promise.\"\n\n\"Do promise, do promise, Vasili!\" cried Anna Mikhaylovna as he went,\nwith the smile of a coquettish girl, which at one time probably came\nnaturally to her, but was now very ill-suited to her careworn face.\n\nApparently she had forgotten her age and by force of habit employed all\nthe old feminine arts. But as soon as the prince had gone her face\nresumed its former cold, artificial expression. She returned to the\ngroup where the vicomte was still talking, and again pretended to\nlisten, while waiting till it would be time to leave. Her task was\naccomplished.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\"And what do you think of this latest comedy, the coronation at Milan?\"\nasked Anna Pavlovna, \"and of the comedy of the people of Genoa and Lucca\nlaying their petitions before Monsieur Buonaparte, and Monsieur\nBuonaparte sitting on a throne and granting the petitions of the\nnations? Adorable! It is enough to make one's head whirl! It is as if\nthe whole world had gone crazy.\"\n\nPrince Andrew looked Anna Pavlovna straight in the face with a sarcastic\nsmile.\n\n\"'Dieu me la donne, gare a qui la touche!' * They say he was very fine\nwhen he said that,\" he remarked, repeating the words in Italian: \"'Dio\nmi l'ha dato. Guai a chi la tocchi!'\"\n\n\n* God has given it to me, let him who touches it beware!\n\n\"I hope this will prove the last drop that will make the glass run\nover,\" Anna Pavlovna continued. \"The sovereigns will not be able to\nendure this man who is a menace to everything.\"\n\n\"The sovereigns? I do not speak of Russia,\" said the vicomte, polite but\nhopeless: \"The sovereigns, madame... What have they done for Louis XVII,\nfor the Queen, or for Madame Elizabeth? Nothing!\" and he became more\nanimated. \"And believe me, they are reaping the reward of their betrayal\nof the Bourbon cause. The sovereigns! Why, they are sending ambassadors\nto compliment the usurper.\"\n\nAnd sighing disdainfully, he again changed his position.\n\nPrince Hippolyte, who had been gazing at the vicomte for some time\nthrough his lorgnette, suddenly turned completely round toward the\nlittle princess, and having asked for a needle began tracing the Conde\ncoat of arms on the table. He explained this to her with as much gravity\nas if she had asked him to do it.\n\n\"Baton de gueules, engrele de gueules d'azur--maison Conde,\" said he.\n\nThe princess listened, smiling.\n\n\"If Buonaparte remains on the throne of France a year longer,\" the\nvicomte continued, with the air of a man who, in a matter with which he\nis better acquainted than anyone else, does not listen to others but\nfollows the current of his own thoughts, \"things will have gone too far.\nBy intrigues, violence, exile, and executions, French society--I mean\ngood French society--will have been forever destroyed, and then...\"\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands. Pierre wished to\nmake a remark, for the conversation interested him, but Anna Pavlovna,\nwho had him under observation, interrupted:\n\n\"The Emperor Alexander,\" said she, with the melancholy which always\naccompanied any reference of hers to the Imperial family, \"has declared\nthat he will leave it to the French people themselves to choose their\nown form of government; and I believe that once free from the usurper,\nthe whole nation will certainly throw itself into the arms of its\nrightful king,\" she concluded, trying to be amiable to the royalist\nemigrant.\n\n\"That is doubtful,\" said Prince Andrew. \"Monsieur le Vicomte quite\nrightly supposes that matters have already gone too far. I think it will\nbe difficult to return to the old regime.\"\n\n\"From what I have heard,\" said Pierre, blushing and breaking into the\nconversation, \"almost all the aristocracy has already gone over to\nBonaparte's side.\"\n\n\"It is the Buonapartists who say that,\" replied the vicomte without\nlooking at Pierre. \"At the present time it is difficult to know the real\nstate of French public opinion.\"\n\n\"Bonaparte has said so,\" remarked Prince Andrew with a sarcastic smile.\n\nIt was evident that he did not like the vicomte and was aiming his\nremarks at him, though without looking at him.\n\n\"'I showed them the path to glory, but they did not follow it,'\" Prince\nAndrew continued after a short silence, again quoting Napoleon's words.\n\"'I opened my antechambers and they crowded in.' I do not know how far\nhe was justified in saying so.\"\n\n\"Not in the least,\" replied the vicomte. \"After the murder of the duc\neven the most partial ceased to regard him as a hero. If to some\npeople,\" he went on, turning to Anna Pavlovna, \"he ever was a hero,\nafter the murder of the duc there was one martyr more in heaven and one\nhero less on earth.\"\n\nBefore Anna Pavlovna and the others had time to smile their appreciation\nof the vicomte's epigram, Pierre again broke into the conversation, and\nthough Anna Pavlovna felt sure he would say something inappropriate, she\nwas unable to stop him.\n\n\"The execution of the Duc d'Enghien,\" declared Monsieur Pierre, \"was a\npolitical necessity, and it seems to me that Napoleon showed greatness\nof soul by not fearing to take on himself the whole responsibility of\nthat deed.\"\n\n\"Dieu! Mon Dieu!\" muttered Anna Pavlovna in a terrified whisper.\n\n\"What, Monsieur Pierre... Do you consider that assassination shows\ngreatness of soul?\" said the little princess, smiling and drawing her\nwork nearer to her.\n\n\"Oh! Oh!\" exclaimed several voices.\n\n\"Capital!\" said Prince Hippolyte in English, and began slapping his knee\nwith the palm of his hand.\n\nThe vicomte merely shrugged his shoulders. Pierre looked solemnly at his\naudience over his spectacles and continued.\n\n\"I say so,\" he continued desperately, \"because the Bourbons fled from\nthe Revolution leaving the people to anarchy, and Napoleon alone\nunderstood the Revolution and quelled it, and so for the general good,\nhe could not stop short for the sake of one man's life.\"\n\n\"Won't you come over to the other table?\" suggested Anna Pavlovna.\n\nBut Pierre continued his speech without heeding her.\n\n\"No,\" cried he, becoming more and more eager, \"Napoleon is great because\nhe rose superior to the Revolution, suppressed its abuses, preserved all\nthat was good in it--equality of citizenship and freedom of speech and\nof the press--and only for that reason did he obtain power.\"\n\n\"Yes, if having obtained power, without availing himself of it to commit\nmurder he had restored it to the rightful king, I should have called him\na great man,\" remarked the vicomte.\n\n\"He could not do that. The people only gave him power that he might rid\nthem of the Bourbons and because they saw that he was a great man. The\nRevolution was a grand thing!\" continued Monsieur Pierre, betraying by\nthis desperate and provocative proposition his extreme youth and his\nwish to express all that was in his mind.\n\n\"What? Revolution and regicide a grand thing?... Well, after that... But\nwon't you come to this other table?\" repeated Anna Pavlovna.\n\n\"Rousseau's Contrat Social,\" said the vicomte with a tolerant smile.\n\n\"I am not speaking of regicide, I am speaking about ideas.\"\n\n\"Yes: ideas of robbery, murder, and regicide,\" again interjected an\nironical voice.\n\n\"Those were extremes, no doubt, but they are not what is most important.\nWhat is important are the rights of man, emancipation from prejudices,\nand equality of citizenship, and all these ideas Napoleon has retained\nin full force.\"\n\n\"Liberty and equality,\" said the vicomte contemptuously, as if at last\ndeciding seriously to prove to this youth how foolish his words were,\n\"high-sounding words which have long been discredited. Who does not love\nliberty and equality? Even our Saviour preached liberty and equality.\nHave people since the Revolution become happier? On the contrary. We\nwanted liberty, but Buonaparte has destroyed it.\"\n\nPrince Andrew kept looking with an amused smile from Pierre to the\nvicomte and from the vicomte to their hostess. In the first moment of\nPierre's outburst Anna Pavlovna, despite her social experience, was\nhorror-struck. But when she saw that Pierre's sacrilegious words had not\nexasperated the vicomte, and had convinced herself that it was\nimpossible to stop him, she rallied her forces and joined the vicomte in\na vigorous attack on the orator.\n\n\"But, my dear Monsieur Pierre,\" said she, \"how do you explain the fact\nof a great man executing a duc--or even an ordinary man who--is innocent\nand untried?\"\n\n\"I should like,\" said the vicomte, \"to ask how monsieur explains the\n18th Brumaire; was not that an imposture? It was a swindle, and not at\nall like the conduct of a great man!\"\n\n\"And the prisoners he killed in Africa? That was horrible!\" said the\nlittle princess, shrugging her shoulders.\n\n\"He's a low fellow, say what you will,\" remarked Prince Hippolyte.\n\nPierre, not knowing whom to answer, looked at them all and smiled. His\nsmile was unlike the half-smile of other people. When he smiled, his\ngrave, even rather gloomy, look was instantaneously replaced by another-\n-a childlike, kindly, even rather silly look, which seemed to ask\nforgiveness.\n\nThe vicomte who was meeting him for the first time saw clearly that this\nyoung Jacobin was not so terrible as his words suggested. All were\nsilent.\n\n\"How do you expect him to answer you all at once?\" said Prince Andrew.\n\"Besides, in the actions of a statesman one has to distinguish between\nhis acts as a private person, as a general, and as an emperor. So it\nseems to me.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, of course!\" Pierre chimed in, pleased at the arrival of this\nreinforcement.\n\n\"One must admit,\" continued Prince Andrew, \"that Napoleon as a man was\ngreat on the bridge of Arcola, and in the hospital at Jaffa where he\ngave his hand to the plague-stricken; but... but there are other acts\nwhich it is difficult to justify.\"\n\nPrince Andrew, who had evidently wished to tone down the awkwardness of\nPierre's remarks, rose and made a sign to his wife that it was time to\ngo.\n\nSuddenly Prince Hippolyte started up making signs to everyone to attend,\nand asking them all to be seated began:\n\n\"I was told a charming Moscow story today and must treat you to it.\nExcuse me, Vicomte--I must tell it in Russian or the point will be\nlost....\" And Prince Hippolyte began to tell his story in such Russian\nas a Frenchman would speak after spending about a year in Russia.\nEveryone waited, so emphatically and eagerly did he demand their\nattention to his story.\n\n\"There is in Moscow a lady, une dame, and she is very stingy. She must\nhave two footmen behind her carriage, and very big ones. That was her\ntaste. And she had a lady's maid, also big. She said...\"\n\nHere Prince Hippolyte paused, evidently collecting his ideas with\ndifficulty.\n\n\"She said... Oh yes! She said, 'Girl,' to the maid, 'put on a livery,\nget up behind the carriage, and come with me while I make some calls.'\"\n\nHere Prince Hippolyte spluttered and burst out laughing long before his\naudience, which produced an effect unfavorable to the narrator. Several\npersons, among them the elderly lady and Anna Pavlovna, did however\nsmile.\n\n\"She went. Suddenly there was a great wind. The girl lost her hat and\nher long hair came down....\" Here he could contain himself no longer and\nwent on, between gasps of laughter: \"And the whole world knew....\"\n\nAnd so the anecdote ended. Though it was unintelligible why he had told\nit, or why it had to be told in Russian, still Anna Pavlovna and the\nothers appreciated Prince Hippolyte's social tact in so agreeably ending\nPierre's unpleasant and unamiable outburst. After the anecdote the\nconversation broke up into insignificant small talk about the last and\nnext balls, about theatricals, and who would meet whom, and when and\nwhere.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nHaving thanked Anna Pavlovna for her charming soiree, the guests began\nto take their leave.\n\nPierre was ungainly. Stout, about the average height, broad, with huge\nred hands; he did not know, as the saying is, how to enter a drawing\nroom and still less how to leave one; that is, how to say something\nparticularly agreeable before going away. Besides this he was absent-\nminded. When he rose to go, he took up instead of his own, the general's\nthree-cornered hat, and held it, pulling at the plume, till the general\nasked him to restore it. All his absent-mindedness and inability to\nenter a room and converse in it was, however, redeemed by his kindly,\nsimple, and modest expression. Anna Pavlovna turned toward him and, with\na Christian mildness that expressed forgiveness of his indiscretion,\nnodded and said: \"I hope to see you again, but I also hope you will\nchange your opinions, my dear Monsieur Pierre.\"\n\nWhen she said this, he did not reply and only bowed, but again everybody\nsaw his smile, which said nothing, unless perhaps, \"Opinions are\nopinions, but you see what a capital, good-natured fellow I am.\" And\neveryone, including Anna Pavlovna, felt this.\n\nPrince Andrew had gone out into the hall, and, turning his shoulders to\nthe footman who was helping him on with his cloak, listened\nindifferently to his wife's chatter with Prince Hippolyte who had also\ncome into the hall. Prince Hippolyte stood close to the pretty, pregnant\nprincess, and stared fixedly at her through his eyeglass.\n\n\"Go in, Annette, or you will catch cold,\" said the little princess,\ntaking leave of Anna Pavlovna. \"It is settled,\" she added in a low\nvoice.\n\nAnna Pavlovna had already managed to speak to Lise about the match she\ncontemplated between Anatole and the little princess' sister-in-law.\n\n\"I rely on you, my dear,\" said Anna Pavlovna, also in a low tone. \"Write\nto her and let me know how her father looks at the matter. Au revoir!\"--\nand she left the hall.\n\nPrince Hippolyte approached the little princess and, bending his face\nclose to her, began to whisper something.\n\nTwo footmen, the princess' and his own, stood holding a shawl and a\ncloak, waiting for the conversation to finish. They listened to the\nFrench sentences which to them were meaningless, with an air of\nunderstanding but not wishing to appear to do so. The princess as usual\nspoke smilingly and listened with a laugh.\n\n\"I am very glad I did not go to the ambassador's,\" said Prince Hippolyte\n\"-so dull-. It has been a delightful evening, has it not? Delightful!\"\n\n\"They say the ball will be very good,\" replied the princess, drawing up\nher downy little lip. \"All the pretty women in society will be there.\"\n\n\"Not all, for you will not be there; not all,\" said Prince Hippolyte\nsmiling joyfully; and snatching the shawl from the footman, whom he even\npushed aside, he began wrapping it round the princess. Either from\nawkwardness or intentionally (no one could have said which) after the\nshawl had been adjusted he kept his arm around her for a long time, as\nthough embracing her.\n\nStill smiling, she gracefully moved away, turning and glancing at her\nhusband. Prince Andrew's eyes were closed, so weary and sleepy did he\nseem.\n\n\"Are you ready?\" he asked his wife, looking past her.\n\nPrince Hippolyte hurriedly put on his cloak, which in the latest fashion\nreached to his very heels, and, stumbling in it, ran out into the porch\nfollowing the princess, whom a footman was helping into the carriage.\n\n\"Princesse, au revoir,\" cried he, stumbling with his tongue as well as\nwith his feet.\n\nThe princess, picking up her dress, was taking her seat in the dark\ncarriage, her husband was adjusting his saber; Prince Hippolyte, under\npretense of helping, was in everyone's way.\n\n\"Allow me, sir,\" said Prince Andrew in Russian in a cold, disagreeable\ntone to Prince Hippolyte who was blocking his path.\n\n\"I am expecting you, Pierre,\" said the same voice, but gently and\naffectionately.\n\nThe postilion started, the carriage wheels rattled. Prince Hippolyte\nlaughed spasmodically as he stood in the porch waiting for the vicomte\nwhom he had promised to take home.\n\n\"Well, mon cher,\" said the vicomte, having seated himself beside\nHippolyte in the carriage, \"your little princess is very nice, very nice\nindeed, quite French,\" and he kissed the tips of his fingers. Hippolyte\nburst out laughing.\n\n\"Do you know, you are a terrible chap for all your innocent airs,\"\ncontinued the vicomte. \"I pity the poor husband, that little officer who\ngives himself the airs of a monarch.\"\n\nHippolyte spluttered again, and amid his laughter said, \"And you were\nsaying that the Russian ladies are not equal to the French? One has to\nknow how to deal with them.\"\n\nPierre reaching the house first went into Prince Andrew's study like one\nquite at home, and from habit immediately lay down on the sofa, took\nfrom the shelf the first book that came to his hand (it was Caesar's\nCommentaries), and resting on his elbow, began reading it in the middle.\n\n\"What have you done to Mlle Scherer? She will be quite ill now,\" said\nPrince Andrew, as he entered the study, rubbing his small white hands.\n\nPierre turned his whole body, making the sofa creak. He lifted his eager\nface to Prince Andrew, smiled, and waved his hand.\n\n\"That abbe is very interesting but he does not see the thing in the\nright light.... In my opinion perpetual peace is possible but--I do not\nknow how to express it... not by a balance of political power....\"\n\nIt was evident that Prince Andrew was not interested in such abstract\nconversation.\n\n\"One can't everywhere say all one thinks, mon cher. Well, have you at\nlast decided on anything? Are you going to be a guardsman or a\ndiplomatist?\" asked Prince Andrew after a momentary silence.\n\nPierre sat up on the sofa, with his legs tucked under him.\n\n\"Really, I don't yet know. I don't like either the one or the other.\"\n\n\"But you must decide on something! Your father expects it.\"\n\nPierre at the age of ten had been sent abroad with an abbe as tutor, and\nhad remained away till he was twenty. When he returned to Moscow his\nfather dismissed the abbe and said to the young man, \"Now go to\nPetersburg, look round, and choose your profession. I will agree to\nanything. Here is a letter to Prince Vasili, and here is money. Write to\nme all about it, and I will help you in everything.\" Pierre had already\nbeen choosing a career for three months, and had not decided on\nanything. It was about this choice that Prince Andrew was speaking.\nPierre rubbed his forehead.\n\n\"But he must be a Freemason,\" said he, referring to the abbe whom he had\nmet that evening.\n\n\"That is all nonsense.\" Prince Andrew again interrupted him, \"let us\ntalk business. Have you been to the Horse Guards?\"\n\n\"No, I have not; but this is what I have been thinking and wanted to\ntell you. There is a war now against Napoleon. If it were a war for\nfreedom I could understand it and should be the first to enter the army;\nbut to help England and Austria against the greatest man in the world is\nnot right.\"\n\nPrince Andrew only shrugged his shoulders at Pierre's childish words. He\nput on the air of one who finds it impossible to reply to such nonsense,\nbut it would in fact have been difficult to give any other answer than\nthe one Prince Andrew gave to this naive question.\n\n\"If no one fought except on his own conviction, there would be no wars,\"\nhe said.\n\n\"And that would be splendid,\" said Pierre.\n\nPrince Andrew smiled ironically.\n\n\"Very likely it would be splendid, but it will never come about...\"\n\n\"Well, why are you going to the war?\" asked Pierre.\n\n\"What for? I don't know. I must. Besides that I am going...\" He paused.\n\"I am going because the life I am leading here does not suit me!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nThe rustle of a woman's dress was heard in the next room. Prince Andrew\nshook himself as if waking up, and his face assumed the look it had had\nin Anna Pavlovna's drawing room. Pierre removed his feet from the sofa.\nThe princess came in. She had changed her gown for a house dress as\nfresh and elegant as the other. Prince Andrew rose and politely placed a\nchair for her.\n\n\"How is it,\" she began, as usual in French, settling down briskly and\nfussily in the easy chair, \"how is it Annette never got married? How\nstupid you men all are not to have married her! Excuse me for saying so,\nbut you have no sense about women. What an argumentative fellow you are,\nMonsieur Pierre!\"\n\n\"And I am still arguing with your husband. I can't understand why he\nwants to go to the war,\" replied Pierre, addressing the princess with\nnone of the embarrassment so commonly shown by young men in their\nintercourse with young women.\n\nThe princess started. Evidently Pierre's words touched her to the quick.\n\n\"Ah, that is just what I tell him!\" said she. \"I don't understand it; I\ndon't in the least understand why men can't live without wars. How is it\nthat we women don't want anything of the kind, don't need it? Now you\nshall judge between us. I always tell him: Here he is Uncle's aide-de-\ncamp, a most brilliant position. He is so well known, so much\nappreciated by everyone. The other day at the Apraksins' I heard a lady\nasking, 'Is that the famous Prince Andrew?' I did indeed.\" She laughed.\n\"He is so well received everywhere. He might easily become aide-de-camp\nto the Emperor. You know the Emperor spoke to him most graciously.\nAnnette and I were speaking of how to arrange it. What do you think?\"\n\nPierre looked at his friend and, noticing that he did not like the\nconversation, gave no reply.\n\n\"When are you starting?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh, don't speak of his going, don't! I won't hear it spoken of,\" said\nthe princess in the same petulantly playful tone in which she had spoken\nto Hippolyte in the drawing room and which was so plainly ill-suited to\nthe family circle of which Pierre was almost a member. \"Today when I\nremembered that all these delightful associations must be broken off...\nand then you know, Andre...\" (she looked significantly at her husband)\n\"I'm afraid, I'm afraid!\" she whispered, and a shudder ran down her\nback.\n\nHer husband looked at her as if surprised to notice that someone besides\nPierre and himself was in the room, and addressed her in a tone of\nfrigid politeness.\n\n\"What is it you are afraid of, Lise? I don't understand,\" said he.\n\n\"There, what egotists men all are: all, all egotists! Just for a whim of\nhis own, goodness only knows why, he leaves me and locks me up alone in\nthe country.\"\n\n\"With my father and sister, remember,\" said Prince Andrew gently.\n\n\"Alone all the same, without my friends.... And he expects me not to be\nafraid.\"\n\nHer tone was now querulous and her lip drawn up, giving her not a\njoyful, but an animal, squirrel-like expression. She paused as if she\nfelt it indecorous to speak of her pregnancy before Pierre, though the\ngist of the matter lay in that.\n\n\"I still can't understand what you are afraid of,\" said Prince Andrew\nslowly, not taking his eyes off his wife.\n\nThe princess blushed, and raised her arms with a gesture of despair.\n\n\"No, Andrew, I must say you have changed. Oh, how you have...\"\n\n\"Your doctor tells you to go to bed earlier,\" said Prince Andrew. \"You\nhad better go.\"\n\nThe princess said nothing, but suddenly her short downy lip quivered.\nPrince Andrew rose, shrugged his shoulders, and walked about the room.\n\nPierre looked over his spectacles with naive surprise, now at him and\nnow at her, moved as if about to rise too, but changed his mind.\n\n\"Why should I mind Monsieur Pierre being here?\" exclaimed the little\nprincess suddenly, her pretty face all at once distorted by a tearful\ngrimace. \"I have long wanted to ask you, Andrew, why you have changed so\nto me? What have I done to you? You are going to the war and have no\npity for me. Why is it?\"\n\n\"Lise!\" was all Prince Andrew said. But that one word expressed an\nentreaty, a threat, and above all conviction that she would herself\nregret her words. But she went on hurriedly:\n\n\"You treat me like an invalid or a child. I see it all! Did you behave\nlike that six months ago?\"\n\n\"Lise, I beg you to desist,\" said Prince Andrew still more emphatically.\n\nPierre, who had been growing more and more agitated as he listened to\nall this, rose and approached the princess. He seemed unable to bear the\nsight of tears and was ready to cry himself.\n\n\"Calm yourself, Princess! It seems so to you because... I assure you I\nmyself have experienced... and so... because... No, excuse me! An\noutsider is out of place here... No, don't distress yourself... Good-\nbye!\"\n\nPrince Andrew caught him by the hand.\n\n\"No, wait, Pierre! The princess is too kind to wish to deprive me of the\npleasure of spending the evening with you.\"\n\n\"No, he thinks only of himself,\" muttered the princess without\nrestraining her angry tears.\n\n\"Lise!\" said Prince Andrew dryly, raising his voice to the pitch which\nindicates that patience is exhausted.\n\nSuddenly the angry, squirrel-like expression of the princess' pretty\nface changed into a winning and piteous look of fear. Her beautiful eyes\nglanced askance at her husband's face, and her own assumed the timid,\ndeprecating expression of a dog when it rapidly but feebly wags its\ndrooping tail.\n\n\"Mon Dieu, mon Dieu!\" she muttered, and lifting her dress with one hand\nshe went up to her husband and kissed him on the forehead.\n\n\"Good night, Lise,\" said he, rising and courteously kissing her hand as\nhe would have done to a stranger.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nThe friends were silent. Neither cared to begin talking. Pierre\ncontinually glanced at Prince Andrew; Prince Andrew rubbed his forehead\nwith his small hand.\n\n\"Let us go and have supper,\" he said with a sigh, going to the door.\n\nThey entered the elegant, newly decorated, and luxurious dining room.\nEverything from the table napkins to the silver, china, and glass bore\nthat imprint of newness found in the households of the newly married.\nHalfway through supper Prince Andrew leaned his elbows on the table and,\nwith a look of nervous agitation such as Pierre had never before seen on\nhis face, began to talk--as one who has long had something on his mind\nand suddenly determines to speak out.\n\n\"Never, never marry, my dear fellow! That's my advice: never marry till\nyou can say to yourself that you have done all you are capable of, and\nuntil you have ceased to love the woman of your choice and have seen her\nplainly as she is, or else you will make a cruel and irrevocable\nmistake. Marry when you are old and good for nothing--or all that is\ngood and noble in you will be lost. It will all be wasted on trifles.\nYes! Yes! Yes! Don't look at me with such surprise. If you marry\nexpecting anything from yourself in the future, you will feel at every\nstep that for you all is ended, all is closed except the drawing room,\nwhere you will be ranged side by side with a court lackey and an\nidiot!... But what's the good?...\" and he waved his arm.\n\nPierre took off his spectacles, which made his face seem different and\nthe good-natured expression still more apparent, and gazed at his friend\nin amazement.\n\n\"My wife,\" continued Prince Andrew, \"is an excellent woman, one of those\nrare women with whom a man's honor is safe; but, O God, what would I not\ngive now to be unmarried! You are the first and only one to whom I\nmention this, because I like you.\"\n\nAs he said this Prince Andrew was less than ever like that Bolkonski who\nhad lolled in Anna Pavlovna's easy chairs and with half-closed eyes had\nuttered French phrases between his teeth. Every muscle of his thin face\nwas now quivering with nervous excitement; his eyes, in which the fire\nof life had seemed extinguished, now flashed with brilliant light. It\nwas evident that the more lifeless he seemed at ordinary times, the more\nimpassioned he became in these moments of almost morbid irritation.\n\n\"You don't understand why I say this,\" he continued, \"but it is the\nwhole story of life. You talk of Bonaparte and his career,\" said he\n(though Pierre had not mentioned Bonaparte), \"but Bonaparte when he\nworked went step by step toward his goal. He was free, he had nothing\nbut his aim to consider, and he reached it. But tie yourself up with a\nwoman and, like a chained convict, you lose all freedom! And all you\nhave of hope and strength merely weighs you down and torments you with\nregret. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, and triviality--these are\nthe enchanted circle I cannot escape from. I am now going to the war,\nthe greatest war there ever was, and I know nothing and am fit for\nnothing. I am very amiable and have a caustic wit,\" continued Prince\nAndrew, \"and at Anna Pavlovna's they listen to me. And that stupid set\nwithout whom my wife cannot exist, and those women... If you only knew\nwhat those society women are, and women in general! My father is right.\nSelfish, vain, stupid, trivial in everything--that's what women are when\nyou see them in their true colors! When you meet them in society it\nseems as if there were something in them, but there's nothing, nothing,\nnothing! No, don't marry, my dear fellow; don't marry!\" concluded Prince\nAndrew.\n\n\"It seems funny to me,\" said Pierre, \"that you, you should consider\nyourself incapable and your life a spoiled life. You have everything\nbefore you, everything. And you...\"\n\nHe did not finish his sentence, but his tone showed how highly he\nthought of his friend and how much he expected of him in the future.\n\n\"How can he talk like that?\" thought Pierre. He considered his friend a\nmodel of perfection because Prince Andrew possessed in the highest\ndegree just the very qualities Pierre lacked, and which might be best\ndescribed as strength of will. Pierre was always astonished at Prince\nAndrew's calm manner of treating everybody, his extraordinary memory,\nhis extensive reading (he had read everything, knew everything, and had\nan opinion about everything), but above all at his capacity for work and\nstudy. And if Pierre was often struck by Andrew's lack of capacity for\nphilosophical meditation (to which he himself was particularly\naddicted), he regarded even this not as a defect but as a sign of\nstrength.\n\nEven in the best, most friendly and simplest relations of life, praise\nand commendation are essential, just as grease is necessary to wheels\nthat they may run smoothly.\n\n\"My part is played out,\" said Prince Andrew. \"What's the use of talking\nabout me? Let us talk about you,\" he added after a silence, smiling at\nhis reassuring thoughts.\n\nThat smile was immediately reflected on Pierre's face.\n\n\"But what is there to say about me?\" said Pierre, his face relaxing into\na careless, merry smile. \"What am I? An illegitimate son!\" He suddenly\nblushed crimson, and it was plain that he had made a great effort to say\nthis. \"Without a name and without means... And it really...\" But he did\nnot say what \"it really\" was. \"For the present I am free and am all\nright. Only I haven't the least idea what I am to do; I wanted to\nconsult you seriously.\"\n\nPrince Andrew looked kindly at him, yet his glance--friendly and\naffectionate as it was--expressed a sense of his own superiority.\n\n\"I am fond of you, especially as you are the one live man among our\nwhole set. Yes, you're all right! Choose what you will; it's all the\nsame. You'll be all right anywhere. But look here: give up visiting\nthose Kuragins and leading that sort of life. It suits you so badly--all\nthis debauchery, dissipation, and the rest of it!\"\n\n\"What would you have, my dear fellow?\" answered Pierre, shrugging his\nshoulders. \"Women, my dear fellow; women!\"\n\n\"I don't understand it,\" replied Prince Andrew. \"Women who are comme il\nfaut, that's a different matter; but the Kuragins' set of women, 'women\nand wine' I don't understand!\"\n\nPierre was staying at Prince Vasili Kuragin's and sharing the dissipated\nlife of his son Anatole, the son whom they were planning to reform by\nmarrying him to Prince Andrew's sister.\n\n\"Do you know?\" said Pierre, as if suddenly struck by a happy thought,\n\"seriously, I have long been thinking of it.... Leading such a life I\ncan't decide or think properly about anything. One's head aches, and one\nspends all one's money. He asked me for tonight, but I won't go.\"\n\n\"You give me your word of honor not to go?\"\n\n\"On my honor!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nIt was past one o'clock when Pierre left his friend. It was a cloudless,\nnorthern, summer night. Pierre took an open cab intending to drive\nstraight home. But the nearer he drew to the house the more he felt the\nimpossibility of going to sleep on such a night. It was light enough to\nsee a long way in the deserted street and it seemed more like morning or\nevening than night. On the way Pierre remembered that Anatole Kuragin\nwas expecting the usual set for cards that evening, after which there\nwas generally a drinking bout, finishing with visits of a kind Pierre\nwas very fond of.\n\n\"I should like to go to Kuragin's,\" thought he.\n\nBut he immediately recalled his promise to Prince Andrew not to go\nthere. Then, as happens to people of weak character, he desired so\npassionately once more to enjoy that dissipation he was so accustomed to\nthat he decided to go. The thought immediately occurred to him that his\npromise to Prince Andrew was of no account, because before he gave it he\nhad already promised Prince Anatole to come to his gathering; \"besides,\"\nthought he, \"all such 'words of honor' are conventional things with no\ndefinite meaning, especially if one considers that by tomorrow one may\nbe dead, or something so extraordinary may happen to one that honor and\ndishonor will be all the same!\" Pierre often indulged in reflections of\nthis sort, nullifying all his decisions and intentions. He went to\nKuragin's.\n\nReaching the large house near the Horse Guards' barracks, in which\nAnatole lived, Pierre entered the lighted porch, ascended the stairs,\nand went in at the open door. There was no one in the anteroom; empty\nbottles, cloaks, and overshoes were lying about; there was a smell of\nalcohol, and sounds of voices and shouting in the distance.\n\nCards and supper were over, but the visitors had not yet dispersed.\nPierre threw off his cloak and entered the first room, in which were the\nremains of supper. A footman, thinking no one saw him, was drinking on\nthe sly what was left in the glasses. From the third room came sounds of\nlaughter, the shouting of familiar voices, the growling of a bear, and\ngeneral commotion. Some eight or nine young men were crowding anxiously\nround an open window. Three others were romping with a young bear, one\npulling him by the chain and trying to set him at the others.\n\n\"I bet a hundred on Stevens!\" shouted one.\n\n\"Mind, no holding on!\" cried another.\n\n\"I bet on Dolokhov!\" cried a third. \"Kuragin, you part our hands.\"\n\n\"There, leave Bruin alone; here's a bet on.\"\n\n\"At one draught, or he loses!\" shouted a fourth.\n\n\"Jacob, bring a bottle!\" shouted the host, a tall, handsome fellow who\nstood in the midst of the group, without a coat, and with his fine linen\nshirt unfastened in front. \"Wait a bit, you fellows.... Here is Petya!\nGood man!\" cried he, addressing Pierre.\n\nAnother voice, from a man of medium height with clear blue eyes,\nparticularly striking among all these drunken voices by its sober ring,\ncried from the window: \"Come here; part the bets!\" This was Dolokhov, an\nofficer of the Semenov regiment, a notorious gambler and duelist, who\nwas living with Anatole. Pierre smiled, looking about him merrily.\n\n\"I don't understand. What's it all about?\"\n\n\"Wait a bit, he is not drunk yet! A bottle here,\" said Anatole, taking a\nglass from the table he went up to Pierre.\n\n\"First of all you must drink!\"\n\nPierre drank one glass after another, looking from under his brows at\nthe tipsy guests who were again crowding round the window, and listening\nto their chatter. Anatole kept on refilling Pierre's glass while\nexplaining that Dolokhov was betting with Stevens, an English naval\nofficer, that he would drink a bottle of rum sitting on the outer ledge\nof the third floor window with his legs hanging out.\n\n\"Go on, you must drink it all,\" said Anatole, giving Pierre the last\nglass, \"or I won't let you go!\"\n\n\"No, I won't,\" said Pierre, pushing Anatole aside, and he went up to the\nwindow.\n\nDolokhov was holding the Englishman's hand and clearly and distinctly\nrepeating the terms of the bet, addressing himself particularly to\nAnatole and Pierre.\n\nDolokhov was of medium height, with curly hair and light-blue eyes. He\nwas about twenty-five. Like all infantry officers he wore no mustache,\nso that his mouth, the most striking feature of his face, was clearly\nseen. The lines of that mouth were remarkably finely curved. The middle\nof the upper lip formed a sharp wedge and closed firmly on the firm\nlower one, and something like two distinct smiles played continually\nround the two corners of the mouth; this, together with the resolute,\ninsolent intelligence of his eyes, produced an effect which made it\nimpossible not to notice his face. Dolokhov was a man of small means and\nno connections. Yet, though Anatole spent tens of thousands of rubles,\nDolokhov lived with him and had placed himself on such a footing that\nall who knew them, including Anatole himself, respected him more than\nthey did Anatole. Dolokhov could play all games and nearly always won.\nHowever much he drank, he never lost his clearheadedness. Both Kuragin\nand Dolokhov were at that time notorious among the rakes and scapegraces\nof Petersburg.\n\nThe bottle of rum was brought. The window frame which prevented anyone\nfrom sitting on the outer sill was being forced out by two footmen, who\nwere evidently flurried and intimidated by the directions and shouts of\nthe gentlemen around.\n\nAnatole with his swaggering air strode up to the window. He wanted to\nsmash something. Pushing away the footmen he tugged at the frame, but\ncould not move it. He smashed a pane.\n\n\"You have a try, Hercules,\" said he, turning to Pierre.\n\nPierre seized the crossbeam, tugged, and wrenched the oak frame out with\na crash.\n\n\"Take it right out, or they'll think I'm holding on,\" said Dolokhov.\n\n\"Is the Englishman bragging?... Eh? Is it all right?\" said Anatole.\n\n\"First-rate,\" said Pierre, looking at Dolokhov, who with a bottle of rum\nin his hand was approaching the window, from which the light of the sky,\nthe dawn merging with the afterglow of sunset, was visible.\n\nDolokhov, the bottle of rum still in his hand, jumped onto the window\nsill. \"Listen!\" cried he, standing there and addressing those in the\nroom. All were silent.\n\n\"I bet fifty imperials\"--he spoke French that the Englishman might\nunderstand him, but he did not speak it very well--\"I bet fifty\nimperials... or do you wish to make it a hundred?\" added he, addressing\nthe Englishman.\n\n\"No, fifty,\" replied the latter.\n\n\"All right. Fifty imperials... that I will drink a whole bottle of rum\nwithout taking it from my mouth, sitting outside the window on this\nspot\" (he stooped and pointed to the sloping ledge outside the window)\n\"and without holding on to anything. Is that right?\"\n\n\"Quite right,\" said the Englishman.\n\nAnatole turned to the Englishman and taking him by one of the buttons of\nhis coat and looking down at him--the Englishman was short--began\nrepeating the terms of the wager to him in English.\n\n\"Wait!\" cried Dolokhov, hammering with the bottle on the window sill to\nattract attention. \"Wait a bit, Kuragin. Listen! If anyone else does the\nsame, I will pay him a hundred imperials. Do you understand?\"\n\nThe Englishman nodded, but gave no indication whether he intended to\naccept this challenge or not. Anatole did not release him, and though he\nkept nodding to show that he understood, Anatole went on translating\nDolokhov's words into English. A thin young lad, an hussar of the Life\nGuards, who had been losing that evening, climbed on the window sill,\nleaned over, and looked down.\n\n\"Oh! Oh! Oh!\" he muttered, looking down from the window at the stones of\nthe pavement.\n\n\"Shut up!\" cried Dolokhov, pushing him away from the window. The lad\njumped awkwardly back into the room, tripping over his spurs.\n\nPlacing the bottle on the window sill where he could reach it easily,\nDolokhov climbed carefully and slowly through the window and lowered his\nlegs. Pressing against both sides of the window, he adjusted himself on\nhis seat, lowered his hands, moved a little to the right and then to the\nleft, and took up the bottle. Anatole brought two candles and placed\nthem on the window sill, though it was already quite light. Dolokhov's\nback in his white shirt, and his curly head, were lit up from both\nsides. Everyone crowded to the window, the Englishman in front. Pierre\nstood smiling but silent. One man, older than the others present,\nsuddenly pushed forward with a scared and angry look and wanted to seize\nhold of Dolokhov's shirt.\n\n\"I say, this is folly! He'll be killed,\" said this more sensible man.\n\nAnatole stopped him.\n\n\"Don't touch him! You'll startle him and then he'll be killed. Eh?...\nWhat then?... Eh?\"\n\nDolokhov turned round and, again holding on with both hands, arranged\nhimself on his seat.\n\n\"If anyone comes meddling again,\" said he, emitting the words separately\nthrough his thin compressed lips, \"I will throw him down there. Now\nthen!\"\n\nSaying this he again turned round, dropped his hands, took the bottle\nand lifted it to his lips, threw back his head, and raised his free hand\nto balance himself. One of the footmen who had stooped to pick up some\nbroken glass remained in that position without taking his eyes from the\nwindow and from Dolokhov's back. Anatole stood erect with staring eyes.\nThe Englishman looked on sideways, pursing up his lips. The man who had\nwished to stop the affair ran to a corner of the room and threw himself\non a sofa with his face to the wall. Pierre hid his face, from which a\nfaint smile forgot to fade though his features now expressed horror and\nfear. All were still. Pierre took his hands from his eyes. Dolokhov\nstill sat in the same position, only his head was thrown further back\ntill his curly hair touched his shirt collar, and the hand holding the\nbottle was lifted higher and higher and trembled with the effort. The\nbottle was emptying perceptibly and rising still higher and his head\ntilting yet further back. \"Why is it so long?\" thought Pierre. It seemed\nto him that more than half an hour had elapsed. Suddenly Dolokhov made a\nbackward movement with his spine, and his arm trembled nervously; this\nwas sufficient to cause his whole body to slip as he sat on the sloping\nledge. As he began slipping down, his head and arm wavered still more\nwith the strain. One hand moved as if to clutch the window sill, but\nrefrained from touching it. Pierre again covered his eyes and thought he\nwould never open them again. Suddenly he was aware of a stir all around.\nHe looked up: Dolokhov was standing on the window sill, with a pale but\nradiant face.\n\n\"It's empty.\"\n\nHe threw the bottle to the Englishman, who caught it neatly. Dolokhov\njumped down. He smelt strongly of rum.\n\n\"Well done!... Fine fellow!... There's a bet for you!... Devil take\nyou!\" came from different sides.\n\nThe Englishman took out his purse and began counting out the money.\nDolokhov stood frowning and did not speak. Pierre jumped upon the window\nsill.\n\n\"Gentlemen, who wishes to bet with me? I'll do the same thing!\" he\nsuddenly cried. \"Even without a bet, there! Tell them to bring me a\nbottle. I'll do it.... Bring a bottle!\"\n\n\"Let him do it, let him do it,\" said Dolokhov, smiling.\n\n\"What next? Have you gone mad?... No one would let you!... Why, you go\ngiddy even on a staircase,\" exclaimed several voices.\n\n\"I'll drink it! Let's have a bottle of rum!\" shouted Pierre, banging the\ntable with a determined and drunken gesture and preparing to climb out\nof the window.\n\nThey seized him by his arms; but he was so strong that everyone who\ntouched him was sent flying.\n\n\"No, you'll never manage him that way,\" said Anatole. \"Wait a bit and\nI'll get round him.... Listen! I'll take your bet tomorrow, but now we\nare all going to ----'s.\"\n\n\"Come on then,\" cried Pierre. \"Come on!... And we'll take Bruin with\nus.\"\n\nAnd he caught the bear, took it in his arms, lifted it from the ground,\nand began dancing round the room with it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nPrince Vasili kept the promise he had given to Princess Drubetskaya who\nhad spoken to him on behalf of her only son Boris on the evening of Anna\nPavlovna's soiree. The matter was mentioned to the Emperor, an exception\nmade, and Boris transferred into the regiment of Semenov Guards with the\nrank of cornet. He received, however, no appointment to Kutuzov's staff\ndespite all Anna Mikhaylovna's endeavors and entreaties. Soon after Anna\nPavlovna's reception Anna Mikhaylovna returned to Moscow and went\nstraight to her rich relations, the Rostovs, with whom she stayed when\nin the town and where her darling Bory, who had only just entered a\nregiment of the line and was being at once transferred to the Guards as\na cornet, had been educated from childhood and lived for years at a\ntime. The Guards had already left Petersburg on the tenth of August, and\nher son, who had remained in Moscow for his equipment, was to join them\non the march to Radzivilov.\n\nIt was St. Natalia's day and the name day of two of the Rostovs--the\nmother and the youngest daughter--both named Nataly. Ever since the\nmorning, carriages with six horses had been coming and going\ncontinually, bringing visitors to the Countess Rostova's big house on\nthe Povarskaya, so well known to all Moscow. The countess herself and\nher handsome eldest daughter were in the drawing-room with the visitors\nwho came to congratulate, and who constantly succeeded one another in\nrelays.\n\nThe countess was a woman of about forty-five, with a thin Oriental type\nof face, evidently worn out with childbearing--she had had twelve. A\nlanguor of motion and speech, resulting from weakness, gave her a\ndistinguished air which inspired respect. Princess Anna Mikhaylovna\nDrubetskaya, who as a member of the household was also seated in the\ndrawing room, helped to receive and entertain the visitors. The young\npeople were in one of the inner rooms, not considering it necessary to\ntake part in receiving the visitors. The count met the guests and saw\nthem off, inviting them all to dinner.\n\n\"I am very, very grateful to you, mon cher,\" or \"ma chere\"--he called\neveryone without exception and without the slightest variation in his\ntone, \"my dear,\" whether they were above or below him in rank--\"I thank\nyou for myself and for our two dear ones whose name day we are keeping.\nBut mind you come to dinner or I shall be offended, ma chere! On behalf\nof the whole family I beg you to come, mon cher!\" These words he\nrepeated to everyone without exception or variation, and with the same\nexpression on his full, cheerful, clean-shaven face, the same firm\npressure of the hand and the same quick, repeated bows. As soon as he\nhad seen a visitor off he returned to one of those who were still in the\ndrawing room, drew a chair toward him or her, and jauntily spreading out\nhis legs and putting his hands on his knees with the air of a man who\nenjoys life and knows how to live, he swayed to and fro with dignity,\noffered surmises about the weather, or touched on questions of health,\nsometimes in Russian and sometimes in very bad but self-confident\nFrench; then again, like a man weary but unflinching in the fulfillment\nof duty, he rose to see some visitors off and, stroking his scanty gray\nhairs over his bald patch, also asked them to dinner. Sometimes on his\nway back from the anteroom he would pass through the conservatory and\npantry into the large marble dining hall, where tables were being set\nout for eighty people; and looking at the footmen, who were bringing in\nsilver and china, moving tables, and unfolding damask table linen, he\nwould call Dmitri Vasilevich, a man of good family and the manager of\nall his affairs, and while looking with pleasure at the enormous table\nwould say: \"Well, Dmitri, you'll see that things are all as they should\nbe? That's right! The great thing is the serving, that's it.\" And with a\ncomplacent sigh he would return to the drawing room.\n\n\"Marya Lvovna Karagina and her daughter!\" announced the countess'\ngigantic footman in his bass voice, entering the drawing room. The\ncountess reflected a moment and took a pinch from a gold snuffbox with\nher husband's portrait on it.\n\n\"I'm quite worn out by these callers. However, I'll see her and no more.\nShe is so affected. Ask her in,\" she said to the footman in a sad voice,\nas if saying: \"Very well, finish me off.\"\n\nA tall, stout, and proud-looking woman, with a round-faced smiling\ndaughter, entered the drawing room, their dresses rustling.\n\n\"Dear Countess, what an age... She has been laid up, poor child... at\nthe Razumovski's ball... and Countess Apraksina... I was so\ndelighted...\" came the sounds of animated feminine voices, interrupting\none another and mingling with the rustling of dresses and the scraping\nof chairs. Then one of those conversations began which last out until,\nat the first pause, the guests rise with a rustle of dresses and say, \"I\nam so delighted... Mamma's health... and Countess Apraksina...\" and\nthen, again rustling, pass into the anteroom, put on cloaks or mantles,\nand drive away. The conversation was on the chief topic of the day: the\nillness of the wealthy and celebrated beau of Catherine's day, Count\nBezukhov, and about his illegitimate son Pierre, the one who had behaved\nso improperly at Anna Pavlovna's reception.\n\n\"I am so sorry for the poor count,\" said the visitor. \"He is in such bad\nhealth, and now this vexation about his son is enough to kill him!\"\n\n\"What is that?\" asked the countess as if she did not know what the\nvisitor alluded to, though she had already heard about the cause of\nCount Bezukhov's distress some fifteen times.\n\n\"That's what comes of a modern education,\" exclaimed the visitor. \"It\nseems that while he was abroad this young man was allowed to do as he\nliked, now in Petersburg I hear he has been doing such terrible things\nthat he has been expelled by the police.\"\n\n\"You don't say so!\" replied the countess.\n\n\"He chose his friends badly,\" interposed Anna Mikhaylovna. \"Prince\nVasili's son, he, and a certain Dolokhov have, it is said, been up to\nheaven only knows what! And they have had to suffer for it. Dolokhov has\nbeen degraded to the ranks and Bezukhov's son sent back to Moscow.\nAnatole Kuragin's father managed somehow to get his son's affair hushed\nup, but even he was ordered out of Petersburg.\"\n\n\"But what have they been up to?\" asked the countess.\n\n\"They are regular brigands, especially Dolokhov,\" replied the visitor.\n\"He is a son of Marya Ivanovna Dolokhova, such a worthy woman, but\nthere, just fancy! Those three got hold of a bear somewhere, put it in a\ncarriage, and set off with it to visit some actresses! The police tried\nto interfere, and what did the young men do? They tied a policeman and\nthe bear back to back and put the bear into the Moyka Canal. And there\nwas the bear swimming about with the policeman on his back!\"\n\n\"What a nice figure the policeman must have cut, my dear!\" shouted the\ncount, dying with laughter.\n\n\"Oh, how dreadful! How can you laugh at it, Count?\"\n\nYet the ladies themselves could not help laughing.\n\n\"It was all they could do to rescue the poor man,\" continued the\nvisitor. \"And to think it is Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov's son who\namuses himself in this sensible manner! And he was said to be so well\neducated and clever. This is all that his foreign education has done for\nhim! I hope that here in Moscow no one will receive him, in spite of his\nmoney. They wanted to introduce him to me, but I quite declined: I have\nmy daughters to consider.\"\n\n\"Why do you say this young man is so rich?\" asked the countess, turning\naway from the girls, who at once assumed an air of inattention. \"His\nchildren are all illegitimate. I think Pierre also is illegitimate.\"\n\nThe visitor made a gesture with her hand.\n\n\"I should think he has a score of them.\"\n\nPrincess Anna Mikhaylovna intervened in the conversation, evidently\nwishing to show her connections and knowledge of what went on in\nsociety.\n\n\"The fact of the matter is,\" said she significantly, and also in a half\nwhisper, \"everyone knows Count Cyril's reputation.... He has lost count\nof his children, but this Pierre was his favorite.\"\n\n\"How handsome the old man still was only a year ago!\" remarked the\ncountess. \"I have never seen a handsomer man.\"\n\n\"He is very much altered now,\" said Anna Mikhaylovna. \"Well, as I was\nsaying, Prince Vasili is the next heir through his wife, but the count\nis very fond of Pierre, looked after his education, and wrote to the\nEmperor about him; so that in the case of his death--and he is so ill\nthat he may die at any moment, and Dr. Lorrain has come from Petersburg-\n-no one knows who will inherit his immense fortune, Pierre or Prince\nVasili. Forty thousand serfs and millions of rubles! I know it all very\nwell for Prince Vasili told me himself. Besides, Cyril Vladimirovich is\nmy mother's second cousin. He's also my Bory's godfather,\" she added, as\nif she attached no importance at all to the fact.\n\n\"Prince Vasili arrived in Moscow yesterday. I hear he has come on some\ninspection business,\" remarked the visitor.\n\n\"Yes, but between ourselves,\" said the princess, \"that is a pretext. The\nfact is he has come to see Count Cyril Vladimirovich, hearing how ill he\nis.\"\n\n\"But do you know, my dear, that was a capital joke,\" said the count; and\nseeing that the elder visitor was not listening, he turned to the young\nladies. \"I can just imagine what a funny figure that policeman cut!\"\n\nAnd as he waved his arms to impersonate the policeman, his portly form\nagain shook with a deep ringing laugh, the laugh of one who always eats\nwell and, in particular, drinks well. \"So do come and dine with us!\" he\nsaid.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nSilence ensued. The countess looked at her callers, smiling affably, but\nnot concealing the fact that she would not be distressed if they now\nrose and took their leave. The visitor's daughter was already smoothing\ndown her dress with an inquiring look at her mother, when suddenly from\nthe next room were heard the footsteps of boys and girls running to the\ndoor and the noise of a chair falling over, and a girl of thirteen,\nhiding something in the folds of her short muslin frock, darted in and\nstopped short in the middle of the room. It was evident that she had not\nintended her flight to bring her so far. Behind her in the doorway\nappeared a student with a crimson coat collar, an officer of the Guards,\na girl of fifteen, and a plump rosy-faced boy in a short jacket.\n\nThe count jumped up and, swaying from side to side, spread his arms wide\nand threw them round the little girl who had run in.\n\n\"Ah, here she is!\" he exclaimed laughing. \"My pet, whose name day it is.\nMy dear pet!\"\n\n\"Ma chere, there is a time for everything,\" said the countess with\nfeigned severity. \"You spoil her, Ilya,\" she added, turning to her\nhusband.\n\n\"How do you do, my dear? I wish you many happy returns of your name\nday,\" said the visitor. \"What a charming child,\" she added, addressing\nthe mother.\n\nThis black-eyed, wide-mouthed girl, not pretty but full of life--with\nchildish bare shoulders which after her run heaved and shook her bodice,\nwith black curls tossed backward, thin bare arms, little legs in lace-\nfrilled drawers, and feet in low slippers--was just at that charming age\nwhen a girl is no longer a child, though the child is not yet a young\nwoman. Escaping from her father she ran to hide her flushed face in the\nlace of her mother's mantilla--not paying the least attention to her\nsevere remark--and began to laugh. She laughed, and in fragmentary\nsentences tried to explain about a doll which she produced from the\nfolds of her frock.\n\n\"Do you see?... My doll... Mimi... You see...\" was all Natasha managed\nto utter (to her everything seemed funny). She leaned against her mother\nand burst into such a loud, ringing fit of laughter that even the prim\nvisitor could not help joining in.\n\n\"Now then, go away and take your monstrosity with you,\" said the mother,\npushing away her daughter with pretended sternness, and turning to the\nvisitor she added: \"She is my youngest girl.\"\n\nNatasha, raising her face for a moment from her mother's mantilla,\nglanced up at her through tears of laughter, and again hid her face.\n\nThe visitor, compelled to look on at this family scene, thought it\nnecessary to take some part in it.\n\n\"Tell me, my dear,\" said she to Natasha, \"is Mimi a relation of yours? A\ndaughter, I suppose?\"\n\nNatasha did not like the visitor's tone of condescension to childish\nthings. She did not reply, but looked at her seriously.\n\nMeanwhile the younger generation: Boris, the officer, Anna Mikhaylovna's\nson; Nicholas, the undergraduate, the count's eldest son; Sonya, the\ncount's fifteen-year-old niece, and little Petya, his youngest boy, had\nall settled down in the drawing room and were obviously trying to\nrestrain within the bounds of decorum the excitement and mirth that\nshone in all their faces. Evidently in the back rooms, from which they\nhad dashed out so impetuously, the conversation had been more amusing\nthan the drawing-room talk of society scandals, the weather, and\nCountess Apraksina. Now and then they glanced at one another, hardly\nable to suppress their laughter.\n\nThe two young men, the student and the officer, friends from childhood,\nwere of the same age and both handsome fellows, though not alike. Boris\nwas tall and fair, and his calm and handsome face had regular, delicate\nfeatures. Nicholas was short with curly hair and an open expression.\nDark hairs were already showing on his upper lip, and his whole face\nexpressed impetuosity and enthusiasm. Nicholas blushed when he entered\nthe drawing room. He evidently tried to find something to say, but\nfailed. Boris on the contrary at once found his footing, and related\nquietly and humorously how he had known that doll Mimi when she was\nstill quite a young lady, before her nose was broken; how she had aged\nduring the five years he had known her, and how her head had cracked\nright across the skull. Having said this he glanced at Natasha. She\nturned away from him and glanced at her younger brother, who was\nscrewing up his eyes and shaking with suppressed laughter, and unable to\ncontrol herself any longer, she jumped up and rushed from the room as\nfast as her nimble little feet would carry her. Boris did not laugh.\n\n\"You were meaning to go out, weren't you, Mamma? Do you want the\ncarriage?\" he asked his mother with a smile.\n\n\"Yes, yes, go and tell them to get it ready,\" she answered, returning\nhis smile.\n\nBoris quietly left the room and went in search of Natasha. The plump boy\nran after them angrily, as if vexed that their program had been\ndisturbed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nThe only young people remaining in the drawing room, not counting the\nyoung lady visitor and the countess' eldest daughter (who was four years\nolder than her sister and behaved already like a grown-up person), were\nNicholas and Sonya, the niece. Sonya was a slender little brunette with\na tender look in her eyes which were veiled by long lashes, thick black\nplaits coiling twice round her head, and a tawny tint in her complexion\nand especially in the color of her slender but graceful and muscular\narms and neck. By the grace of her movements, by the softness and\nflexibility of her small limbs, and by a certain coyness and reserve of\nmanner, she reminded one of a pretty, half-grown kitten which promises\nto become a beautiful little cat. She evidently considered it proper to\nshow an interest in the general conversation by smiling, but in spite of\nherself her eyes under their thick long lashes watched her cousin who\nwas going to join the army, with such passionate girlish adoration that\nher smile could not for a single instant impose upon anyone, and it was\nclear that the kitten had settled down only to spring up with more\nenergy and again play with her cousin as soon as they too could, like\nNatasha and Boris, escape from the drawing room.\n\n\"Ah yes, my dear,\" said the count, addressing the visitor and pointing\nto Nicholas, \"his friend Boris has become an officer, and so for\nfriendship's sake he is leaving the university and me, his old father,\nand entering the military service, my dear. And there was a place and\neverything waiting for him in the Archives Department! Isn't that\nfriendship?\" remarked the count in an inquiring tone.\n\n\"But they say that war has been declared,\" replied the visitor.\n\n\"They've been saying so a long while,\" said the count, \"and they'll say\nso again and again, and that will be the end of it. My dear, there's\nfriendship for you,\" he repeated. \"He's joining the hussars.\"\n\nThe visitor, not knowing what to say, shook her head.\n\n\"It's not at all from friendship,\" declared Nicholas, flaring up and\nturning away as if from a shameful aspersion. \"It is not from friendship\nat all; I simply feel that the army is my vocation.\"\n\nHe glanced at his cousin and the young lady visitor; and they were both\nregarding him with a smile of approbation.\n\n\"Schubert, the colonel of the Pavlograd Hussars, is dining with us\ntoday. He has been here on leave and is taking Nicholas back with him.\nIt can't be helped!\" said the count, shrugging his shoulders and\nspeaking playfully of a matter that evidently distressed him.\n\n\"I have already told you, Papa,\" said his son, \"that if you don't wish\nto let me go, I'll stay. But I know I am no use anywhere except in the\narmy; I am not a diplomat or a government clerk.--I don't know how to\nhide what I feel.\" As he spoke he kept glancing with the flirtatiousness\nof a handsome youth at Sonya and the young lady visitor.\n\nThe little kitten, feasting her eyes on him, seemed ready at any moment\nto start her gambols again and display her kittenish nature.\n\n\"All right, all right!\" said the old count. \"He always flares up! This\nBuonaparte has turned all their heads; they all think of how he rose\nfrom an ensign and became Emperor. Well, well, God grant it,\" he added,\nnot noticing his visitor's sarcastic smile.\n\nThe elders began talking about Bonaparte. Julie Karagina turned to young\nRostov.\n\n\"What a pity you weren't at the Arkharovs' on Thursday. It was so dull\nwithout you,\" said she, giving him a tender smile.\n\nThe young man, flattered, sat down nearer to her with a coquettish\nsmile, and engaged the smiling Julie in a confidential conversation\nwithout at all noticing that his involuntary smile had stabbed the heart\nof Sonya, who blushed and smiled unnaturally. In the midst of his talk\nhe glanced round at her. She gave him a passionately angry glance, and\nhardly able to restrain her tears and maintain the artificial smile on\nher lips, she got up and left the room. All Nicholas' animation\nvanished. He waited for the first pause in the conversation, and then\nwith a distressed face left the room to find Sonya.\n\n\"How plainly all these young people wear their hearts on their sleeves!\"\nsaid Anna Mikhaylovna, pointing to Nicholas as he went out. \"Cousinage--\ndangereux voisinage;\" * she added.\n\n\n* Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood.\n\n\"Yes,\" said the countess when the brightness these young people had\nbrought into the room had vanished; and as if answering a question no\none had put but which was always in her mind, \"and how much suffering,\nhow much anxiety one has had to go through that we might rejoice in them\nnow! And yet really the anxiety is greater now than the joy. One is\nalways, always anxious! Especially just at this age, so dangerous both\nfor girls and boys.\"\n\n\"It all depends on the bringing up,\" remarked the visitor.\n\n\"Yes, you're quite right,\" continued the countess. \"Till now I have\nalways, thank God, been my children's friend and had their full\nconfidence,\" said she, repeating the mistake of so many parents who\nimagine that their children have no secrets from them. \"I know I shall\nalways be my daughters' first confidante, and that if Nicholas, with his\nimpulsive nature, does get into mischief (a boy can't help it), he will\nall the same never be like those Petersburg young men.\"\n\n\"Yes, they are splendid, splendid youngsters,\" chimed in the count, who\nalways solved questions that seemed to him perplexing by deciding that\neverything was splendid. \"Just fancy: wants to be an hussar. What's one\nto do, my dear?\"\n\n\"What a charming creature your younger girl is,\" said the visitor; \"a\nlittle volcano!\"\n\n\"Yes, a regular volcano,\" said the count. \"Takes after me! And what a\nvoice she has; though she's my daughter, I tell the truth when I say\nshe'll be a singer, a second Salomoni! We have engaged an Italian to\ngive her lessons.\"\n\n\"Isn't she too young? I have heard that it harms the voice to train it\nat that age.\"\n\n\"Oh no, not at all too young!\" replied the count. \"Why, our mothers used\nto be married at twelve or thirteen.\"\n\n\"And she's in love with Boris already. Just fancy!\" said the countess\nwith a gentle smile, looking at Boris and went on, evidently concerned\nwith a thought that always occupied her: \"Now you see if I were to be\nsevere with her and to forbid it... goodness knows what they might be up\nto on the sly\" (she meant that they would be kissing), \"but as it is, I\nknow every word she utters. She will come running to me of her own\naccord in the evening and tell me everything. Perhaps I spoil her, but\nreally that seems the best plan. With her elder sister I was stricter.\"\n\n\"Yes, I was brought up quite differently,\" remarked the handsome elder\ndaughter, Countess Vera, with a smile.\n\nBut the smile did not enhance Vera's beauty as smiles generally do; on\nthe contrary it gave her an unnatural, and therefore unpleasant,\nexpression. Vera was good-looking, not at all stupid, quick at learning,\nwas well-brought up, and had a pleasant voice; what she said was true\nand appropriate, yet, strange to say, everyone--the visitors and\ncountess alike--turned to look at her as if wondering why she had said\nit, and they all felt awkward.\n\n\"People are always too clever with their eldest children and try to make\nsomething exceptional of them,\" said the visitor.\n\n\"What's the good of denying it, my dear? Our dear countess was too\nclever with Vera,\" said the count. \"Well, what of that? She's turned out\nsplendidly all the same,\" he added, winking at Vera.\n\nThe guests got up and took their leave, promising to return to dinner.\n\n\"What manners! I thought they would never go,\" said the countess, when\nshe had seen her guests out.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nWhen Natasha ran out of the drawing room she only went as far as the\nconservatory. There she paused and stood listening to the conversation\nin the drawing room, waiting for Boris to come out. She was already\ngrowing impatient, and stamped her foot, ready to cry at his not coming\nat once, when she heard the young man's discreet steps approaching\nneither quickly nor slowly. At this Natasha dashed swiftly among the\nflower tubs and hid there.\n\nBoris paused in the middle of the room, looked round, brushed a little\ndust from the sleeve of his uniform, and going up to a mirror examined\nhis handsome face. Natasha, very still, peered out from her ambush,\nwaiting to see what he would do. He stood a little while before the\nglass, smiled, and walked toward the other door. Natasha was about to\ncall him but changed her mind. \"Let him look for me,\" thought she.\nHardly had Boris gone than Sonya, flushed, in tears, and muttering\nangrily, came in at the other door. Natasha checked her first impulse to\nrun out to her, and remained in her hiding place, watching--as under an\ninvisible cap--to see what went on in the world. She was experiencing a\nnew and peculiar pleasure. Sonya, muttering to herself, kept looking\nround toward the drawing-room door. It opened and Nicholas came in.\n\n\"Sonya, what is the matter with you? How can you?\" said he, running up\nto her.\n\n\"It's nothing, nothing; leave me alone!\" sobbed Sonya.\n\n\"Ah, I know what it is.\"\n\n\"Well, if you do, so much the better, and you can go back to her!\"\n\n\"So-o-onya! Look here! How can you torture me and yourself like that,\nfor a mere fancy?\" said Nicholas taking her hand.\n\nSonya did not pull it away, and left off crying. Natasha, not stirring\nand scarcely breathing, watched from her ambush with sparkling eyes.\n\"What will happen now?\" thought she.\n\n\"Sonya! What is anyone in the world to me? You alone are everything!\"\nsaid Nicholas. \"And I will prove it to you.\"\n\n\"I don't like you to talk like that.\"\n\n\"Well, then, I won't; only forgive me, Sonya!\" He drew her to him and\nkissed her.\n\n\"Oh, how nice,\" thought Natasha; and when Sonya and Nicholas had gone\nout of the conservatory she followed and called Boris to her.\n\n\"Boris, come here,\" said she with a sly and significant look. \"I have\nsomething to tell you. Here, here!\" and she led him into the\nconservatory to the place among the tubs where she had been hiding.\n\nBoris followed her, smiling.\n\n\"What is the something?\" asked he.\n\nShe grew confused, glanced round, and, seeing the doll she had thrown\ndown on one of the tubs, picked it up.\n\n\"Kiss the doll,\" said she.\n\nBoris looked attentively and kindly at her eager face, but did not\nreply.\n\n\"Don't you want to? Well, then, come here,\" said she, and went further\nin among the plants and threw down the doll. \"Closer, closer!\" she\nwhispered.\n\nShe caught the young officer by his cuffs, and a look of solemnity and\nfear appeared on her flushed face.\n\n\"And me? Would you like to kiss me?\" she whispered almost inaudibly,\nglancing up at him from under her brows, smiling, and almost crying from\nexcitement.\n\nBoris blushed.\n\n\"How funny you are!\" he said, bending down to her and blushing still\nmore, but he waited and did nothing.\n\nSuddenly she jumped up onto a tub to be higher than he, embraced him so\nthat both her slender bare arms clasped him above his neck, and, tossing\nback her hair, kissed him full on the lips.\n\nThen she slipped down among the flowerpots on the other side of the tubs\nand stood, hanging her head.\n\n\"Natasha,\" he said, \"you know that I love you, but...\"\n\n\"You are in love with me?\" Natasha broke in.\n\n\"Yes, I am, but please don't let us do like that.... In another four\nyears... then I will ask for your hand.\"\n\nNatasha considered.\n\n\"Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen,\" she counted on her slender\nlittle fingers. \"All right! Then it's settled?\"\n\nA smile of joy and satisfaction lit up her eager face.\n\n\"Settled!\" replied Boris.\n\n\"Forever?\" said the little girl. \"Till death itself?\"\n\nShe took his arm and with a happy face went with him into the adjoining\nsitting room.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nAfter receiving her visitors, the countess was so tired that she gave\norders to admit no more, but the porter was told to be sure to invite to\ndinner all who came \"to congratulate.\" The countess wished to have a\ntête-à-tête talk with the friend of her childhood, Princess Anna\nMikhaylovna, whom she had not seen properly since she returned from\nPetersburg. Anna Mikhaylovna, with her tear-worn but pleasant face, drew\nher chair nearer to that of the countess.\n\n\"With you I will be quite frank,\" said Anna Mikhaylovna. \"There are not\nmany left of us old friends! That's why I so value your friendship.\"\n\nAnna Mikhaylovna looked at Vera and paused. The countess pressed her\nfriend's hand.\n\n\"Vera,\" she said to her eldest daughter who was evidently not a\nfavorite, \"how is it you have so little tact? Don't you see you are not\nwanted here? Go to the other girls, or...\"\n\nThe handsome Vera smiled contemptuously but did not seem at all hurt.\n\n\"If you had told me sooner, Mamma, I would have gone,\" she replied as\nshe rose to go to her own room.\n\nBut as she passed the sitting room she noticed two couples sitting, one\npair at each window. She stopped and smiled scornfully. Sonya was\nsitting close to Nicholas who was copying out some verses for her, the\nfirst he had ever written. Boris and Natasha were at the other window\nand ceased talking when Vera entered. Sonya and Natasha looked at Vera\nwith guilty, happy faces.\n\nIt was pleasant and touching to see these little girls in love; but\napparently the sight of them roused no pleasant feeling in Vera.\n\n\"How often have I asked you not to take my things?\" she said. \"You have\na room of your own,\" and she took the inkstand from Nicholas.\n\n\"In a minute, in a minute,\" he said, dipping his pen.\n\n\"You always manage to do things at the wrong time,\" continued Vera. \"You\ncame rushing into the drawing room so that everyone felt ashamed of\nyou.\"\n\nThough what she said was quite just, perhaps for that very reason no one\nreplied, and the four simply looked at one another. She lingered in the\nroom with the inkstand in her hand.\n\n\"And at your age what secrets can there be between Natasha and Boris, or\nbetween you two? It's all nonsense!\"\n\n\"Now, Vera, what does it matter to you?\" said Natasha in defense,\nspeaking very gently.\n\nShe seemed that day to be more than ever kind and affectionate to\neveryone.\n\n\"Very silly,\" said Vera. \"I am ashamed of you. Secrets indeed!\"\n\n\"All have secrets of their own,\" answered Natasha, getting warmer. \"We\ndon't interfere with you and Berg.\"\n\n\"I should think not,\" said Vera, \"because there can never be anything\nwrong in my behavior. But I'll just tell Mamma how you are behaving with\nBoris.\"\n\n\"Natalya Ilynichna behaves very well to me,\" remarked Boris. \"I have\nnothing to complain of.\"\n\n\"Don't, Boris! You are such a diplomat that it is really tiresome,\" said\nNatasha in a mortified voice that trembled slightly. (She used the word\n\"diplomat,\" which was just then much in vogue among the children, in the\nspecial sense they attached to it.) \"Why does she bother me?\" And she\nadded, turning to Vera, \"You'll never understand it, because you've\nnever loved anyone. You have no heart! You are a Madame de Genlis and\nnothing more\" (this nickname, bestowed on Vera by Nicholas, was\nconsidered very stinging), \"and your greatest pleasure is to be\nunpleasant to people! Go and flirt with Berg as much as you please,\" she\nfinished quickly.\n\n\"I shall at any rate not run after a young man before visitors...\"\n\n\"Well, now you've done what you wanted,\" put in Nicholas--\"said\nunpleasant things to everyone and upset them. Let's go to the nursery.\"\n\nAll four, like a flock of scared birds, got up and left the room.\n\n\"The unpleasant things were said to me,\" remarked Vera, \"I said none to\nanyone.\"\n\n\"Madame de Genlis! Madame de Genlis!\" shouted laughing voices through\nthe door.\n\nThe handsome Vera, who produced such an irritating and unpleasant effect\non everyone, smiled and, evidently unmoved by what had been said to her,\nwent to the looking glass and arranged her hair and scarf. Looking at\nher own handsome face she seemed to become still colder and calmer.\n\nIn the drawing room the conversation was still going on.\n\n\"Ah, my dear,\" said the countess, \"my life is not all roses either.\nDon't I know that at the rate we are living our means won't last long?\nIt's all the Club and his easygoing nature. Even in the country do we\nget any rest? Theatricals, hunting, and heaven knows what besides! But\ndon't let's talk about me; tell me how you managed everything. I often\nwonder at you, Annette--how at your age you can rush off alone in a\ncarriage to Moscow, to Petersburg, to those ministers and great people,\nand know how to deal with them all! It's quite astonishing. How did you\nget things settled? I couldn't possibly do it.\"\n\n\"Ah, my love,\" answered Anna Mikhaylovna, \"God grant you never know what\nit is to be left a widow without means and with a son you love to\ndistraction! One learns many things then,\" she added with a certain\npride. \"That lawsuit taught me much. When I want to see one of those big\npeople I write a note: 'Princess So-and-So desires an interview with So\nand-So,' and then I take a cab and go myself two, three, or four times--\ntill I get what I want. I don't mind what they think of me.\"\n\n\"Well, and to whom did you apply about Bory?\" asked the countess. \"You\nsee yours is already an officer in the Guards, while my Nicholas is\ngoing as a cadet. There's no one to interest himself for him. To whom\ndid you apply?\"\n\n\"To Prince Vasili. He was so kind. He at once agreed to everything, and\nput the matter before the Emperor,\" said Princess Anna Mikhaylovna\nenthusiastically, quite forgetting all the humiliation she had endured\nto gain her end.\n\n\"Has Prince Vasili aged much?\" asked the countess. \"I have not seen him\nsince we acted together at the Rumyantsovs' theatricals. I expect he has\nforgotten me. He paid me attentions in those days,\" said the countess,\nwith a smile.\n\n\"He is just the same as ever,\" replied Anna Mikhaylovna, \"overflowing\nwith amiability. His position has not turned his head at all. He said to\nme, 'I am sorry I can do so little for you, dear Princess. I am at your\ncommand.' Yes, he is a fine fellow and a very kind relation. But,\nNataly, you know my love for my son: I would do anything for his\nhappiness! And my affairs are in such a bad way that my position is now\na terrible one,\" continued Anna Mikhaylovna, sadly, dropping her voice.\n\"My wretched lawsuit takes all I have and makes no progress. Would you\nbelieve it, I have literally not a penny and don't know how to equip\nBoris.\" She took out her handkerchief and began to cry. \"I need five\nhundred rubles, and have only one twenty-five-ruble note. I am in such a\nstate.... My only hope now is in Count Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov. If\nhe will not assist his godson--you know he is Bory's godfather--and\nallow him something for his maintenance, all my trouble will have been\nthrown away.... I shall not be able to equip him.\"\n\nThe countess' eyes filled with tears and she pondered in silence.\n\n\"I often think, though, perhaps it's a sin,\" said the princess, \"that\nhere lives Count Cyril Vladimirovich Bezukhov so rich, all alone... that\ntremendous fortune... and what is his life worth? It's a burden to him,\nand Bory's life is only just beginning....\"\n\n\"Surely he will leave something to Boris,\" said the countess.\n\n\"Heaven only knows, my dear! These rich grandees are so selfish. Still,\nI will take Boris and go to see him at once, and I shall speak to him\nstraight out. Let people think what they will of me, it's really all the\nsame to me when my son's fate is at stake.\" The princess rose. \"It's now\ntwo o'clock and you dine at four. There will just be time.\"\n\nAnd like a practical Petersburg lady who knows how to make the most of\ntime, Anna Mikhaylovna sent someone to call her son, and went into the\nanteroom with him.\n\n\"Good-bye, my dear,\" said she to the countess who saw her to the door,\nand added in a whisper so that her son should not hear, \"Wish me good\nluck.\"\n\n\"Are you going to Count Cyril Vladimirovich, my dear?\" said the count\ncoming out from the dining hall into the anteroom, and he added: \"If he\nis better, ask Pierre to dine with us. He has been to the house, you\nknow, and danced with the children. Be sure to invite him, my dear. We\nwill see how Taras distinguishes himself today. He says Count Orlov\nnever gave such a dinner as ours will be!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\n\"My dear Boris,\" said Princess Anna Mikhaylovna to her son as Countess\nRostova's carriage in which they were seated drove over the straw\ncovered street and turned into the wide courtyard of Count Cyril\nVladimirovich Bezukhov's house. \"My dear Boris,\" said the mother,\ndrawing her hand from beneath her old mantle and laying it timidly and\ntenderly on her son's arm, \"be affectionate and attentive to him. Count\nCyril Vladimirovich is your godfather after all, your future depends on\nhim. Remember that, my dear, and be nice to him, as you so well know how\nto be.\"\n\n\"If only I knew that anything besides humiliation would come of it...\"\nanswered her son coldly. \"But I have promised and will do it for your\nsake.\"\n\nAlthough the hall porter saw someone's carriage standing at the\nentrance, after scrutinizing the mother and son (who without asking to\nbe announced had passed straight through the glass porch between the\nrows of statues in niches) and looking significantly at the lady's old\ncloak, he asked whether they wanted the count or the princesses, and,\nhearing that they wished to see the count, said his excellency was worse\ntoday, and that his excellency was not receiving anyone.\n\n\"We may as well go back,\" said the son in French.\n\n\"My dear!\" exclaimed his mother imploringly, again laying her hand on\nhis arm as if that touch might soothe or rouse him.\n\nBoris said no more, but looked inquiringly at his mother without taking\noff his cloak.\n\n\"My friend,\" said Anna Mikhaylovna in gentle tones, addressing the hall\nporter, \"I know Count Cyril Vladimirovich is very ill... that's why I\nhave come... I am a relation. I shall not disturb him, my friend... I\nonly need see Prince Vasili Sergeevich: he is staying here, is he not?\nPlease announce me.\"\n\nThe hall porter sullenly pulled a bell that rang upstairs, and turned\naway.\n\n\"Princess Drubetskaya to see Prince Vasili Sergeevich,\" he called to a\nfootman dressed in knee breeches, shoes, and a swallow-tail coat, who\nran downstairs and looked over from the halfway landing.\n\nThe mother smoothed the folds of her dyed silk dress before a large\nVenetian mirror in the wall, and in her trodden-down shoes briskly\nascended the carpeted stairs.\n\n\"My dear,\" she said to her son, once more stimulating him by a touch,\n\"you promised me!\"\n\nThe son, lowering his eyes, followed her quietly.\n\nThey entered the large hall, from which one of the doors led to the\napartments assigned to Prince Vasili.\n\nJust as the mother and son, having reached the middle of the hall, were\nabout to ask their way of an elderly footman who had sprung up as they\nentered, the bronze handle of one of the doors turned and Prince Vasili\ncame out--wearing a velvet coat with a single star on his breast, as was\nhis custom when at home--taking leave of a good-looking, dark-haired\nman. This was the celebrated Petersburg doctor, Lorrain.\n\n\"Then it is certain?\" said the prince.\n\n\"Prince, humanum est errare, * but...\" replied the doctor, swallowing\nhis r's, and pronouncing the Latin words with a French accent.\n\n\n* To err is human.\n\n\"Very well, very well...\"\n\nSeeing Anna Mikhaylovna and her son, Prince Vasili dismissed the doctor\nwith a bow and approached them silently and with a look of inquiry. The\nson noticed that an expression of profound sorrow suddenly clouded his\nmother's face, and he smiled slightly.\n\n\"Ah, Prince! In what sad circumstances we meet again! And how is our\ndear invalid?\" said she, as though unaware of the cold offensive look\nfixed on her.\n\nPrince Vasili stared at her and at Boris questioningly and perplexed.\nBoris bowed politely. Prince Vasili without acknowledging the bow turned\nto Anna Mikhaylovna, answering her query by a movement of the head and\nlips indicating very little hope for the patient.\n\n\"Is it possible?\" exclaimed Anna Mikhaylovna. \"Oh, how awful! It is\nterrible to think.... This is my son,\" she added, indicating Boris. \"He\nwanted to thank you himself.\"\n\nBoris bowed again politely.\n\n\"Believe me, Prince, a mother's heart will never forget what you have\ndone for us.\"\n\n\"I am glad I was able to do you a service, my dear Anna Mikhaylovna,\"\nsaid Prince Vasili, arranging his lace frill, and in tone and manner,\nhere in Moscow to Anna Mikhaylovna whom he had placed under an\nobligation, assuming an air of much greater importance than he had done\nin Petersburg at Anna Scherer's reception.\n\n\"Try to serve well and show yourself worthy,\" added he, addressing Boris\nwith severity. \"I am glad.... Are you here on leave?\" he went on in his\nusual tone of indifference.\n\n\"I am awaiting orders to join my new regiment, your excellency,\" replied\nBoris, betraying neither annoyance at the prince's brusque manner nor a\ndesire to enter into conversation, but speaking so quietly and\nrespectfully that the prince gave him a searching glance.\n\n\"Are you living with your mother?\"\n\n\"I am living at Countess Rostova's,\" replied Boris, again adding, \"your\nexcellency.\"\n\n\"That is, with Ilya Rostov who married Nataly Shinshina,\" said Anna\nMikhaylovna.\n\n\"I know, I know,\" answered Prince Vasili in his monotonous voice. \"I\nnever could understand how Nataly made up her mind to marry that\nunlicked bear! A perfectly absurd and stupid fellow, and a gambler too,\nI am told.\"\n\n\"But a very kind man, Prince,\" said Anna Mikhaylovna with a pathetic\nsmile, as though she too knew that Count Rostov deserved this censure,\nbut asked him not to be too hard on the poor old man. \"What do the\ndoctors say?\" asked the princess after a pause, her worn face again\nexpressing deep sorrow.\n\n\"They give little hope,\" replied the prince.\n\n\"And I should so like to thank Uncle once for all his kindness to me and\nBoris. He is his godson,\" she added, her tone suggesting that this fact\nought to give Prince Vasili much satisfaction.\n\nPrince Vasili became thoughtful and frowned. Anna Mikhaylovna saw that\nhe was afraid of finding in her a rival for Count Bezukhov's fortune,\nand hastened to reassure him.\n\n\"If it were not for my sincere affection and devotion to Uncle,\" said\nshe, uttering the word with peculiar assurance and unconcern, \"I know\nhis character: noble, upright... but you see he has no one with him\nexcept the young princesses.... They are still young....\" She bent her\nhead and continued in a whisper: \"Has he performed his final duty,\nPrince? How priceless are those last moments! It can make things no\nworse, and it is absolutely necessary to prepare him if he is so ill. We\nwomen, Prince,\" and she smiled tenderly, \"always know how to say these\nthings. I absolutely must see him, however painful it may be for me. I\nam used to suffering.\"\n\nEvidently the prince understood her, and also understood, as he had done\nat Anna Pavlovna's, that it would be difficult to get rid of Anna\nMikhaylovna.\n\n\"Would not such a meeting be too trying for him, dear Anna Mikhaylovna?\"\nsaid he. \"Let us wait until evening. The doctors are expecting a\ncrisis.\"\n\n\"But one cannot delay, Prince, at such a moment! Consider that the\nwelfare of his soul is at stake. Ah, it is awful: the duties of a\nChristian...\"\n\nA door of one of the inner rooms opened and one of the princesses, the\ncount's niece, entered with a cold, stern face. The length of her body\nwas strikingly out of proportion to her short legs. Prince Vasili turned\nto her.\n\n\"Well, how is he?\"\n\n\"Still the same; but what can you expect, this noise...\" said the\nprincess, looking at Anna Mikhaylovna as at a stranger.\n\n\"Ah, my dear, I hardly knew you,\" said Anna Mikhaylovna with a happy\nsmile, ambling lightly up to the count's niece. \"I have come, and am at\nyour service to help you nurse my uncle. I imagine what you have gone\nthrough,\" and she sympathetically turned up her eyes.\n\nThe princess gave no reply and did not even smile, but left the room as\nAnna Mikhaylovna took off her gloves and, occupying the position she had\nconquered, settled down in an armchair, inviting Prince Vasili to take a\nseat beside her.\n\n\"Boris,\" she said to her son with a smile, \"I shall go in to see the\ncount, my uncle; but you, my dear, had better go to Pierre meanwhile and\ndon't forget to give him the Rostovs' invitation. They ask him to\ndinner. I suppose he won't go?\" she continued, turning to the prince.\n\n\"On the contrary,\" replied the prince, who had plainly become depressed,\n\"I shall be only too glad if you relieve me of that young man.... Here\nhe is, and the count has not once asked for him.\"\n\nHe shrugged his shoulders. A footman conducted Boris down one flight of\nstairs and up another, to Pierre's rooms.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nPierre, after all, had not managed to choose a career for himself in\nPetersburg, and had been expelled from there for riotous conduct and\nsent to Moscow. The story told about him at Count Rostov's was true.\nPierre had taken part in tying a policeman to a bear. He had now been\nfor some days in Moscow and was staying as usual at his father's house.\nThough he expected that the story of his escapade would be already known\nin Moscow and that the ladies about his father--who were never favorably\ndisposed toward him--would have used it to turn the count against him,\nhe nevertheless on the day of his arrival went to his father's part of\nthe house. Entering the drawing room, where the princesses spent most of\ntheir time, he greeted the ladies, two of whom were sitting at\nembroidery frames while a third read aloud. It was the eldest who was\nreading--the one who had met Anna Mikhaylovna. The two younger ones were\nembroidering: both were rosy and pretty and they differed only in that\none had a little mole on her lip which made her much prettier. Pierre\nwas received as if he were a corpse or a leper. The eldest princess\npaused in her reading and silently stared at him with frightened eyes;\nthe second assumed precisely the same expression; while the youngest,\nthe one with the mole, who was of a cheerful and lively disposition,\nbent over her frame to hide a smile probably evoked by the amusing scene\nshe foresaw. She drew her wool down through the canvas and, scarcely\nable to refrain from laughing, stooped as if trying to make out the\npattern.\n\n\"How do you do, cousin?\" said Pierre. \"You don't recognize me?\"\n\n\"I recognize you only too well, too well.\"\n\n\"How is the count? Can I see him?\" asked Pierre, awkwardly as usual, but\nunabashed.\n\n\"The count is suffering physically and mentally, and apparently you have\ndone your best to increase his mental sufferings.\"\n\n\"Can I see the count?\" Pierre again asked.\n\n\"Hm.... If you wish to kill him, to kill him outright, you can see\nhim... Olga, go and see whether Uncle's beef tea is ready--it is almost\ntime,\" she added, giving Pierre to understand that they were busy, and\nbusy making his father comfortable, while evidently he, Pierre, was only\nbusy causing him annoyance.\n\nOlga went out. Pierre stood looking at the sisters; then he bowed and\nsaid: \"Then I will go to my rooms. You will let me know when I can see\nhim.\"\n\nAnd he left the room, followed by the low but ringing laughter of the\nsister with the mole.\n\nNext day Prince Vasili had arrived and settled in the count's house. He\nsent for Pierre and said to him: \"My dear fellow, if you are going to\nbehave here as you did in Petersburg, you will end very badly; that is\nall I have to say to you. The count is very, very ill, and you must not\nsee him at all.\"\n\nSince then Pierre had not been disturbed and had spent the whole time in\nhis rooms upstairs.\n\nWhen Boris appeared at his door Pierre was pacing up and down his room,\nstopping occasionally at a corner to make menacing gestures at the wall,\nas if running a sword through an invisible foe, and glaring savagely\nover his spectacles, and then again resuming his walk, muttering\nindistinct words, shrugging his shoulders and gesticulating.\n\n\"England is done for,\" said he, scowling and pointing his finger at\nsomeone unseen. \"Mr. Pitt, as a traitor to the nation and to the rights\nof man, is sentenced to...\" But before Pierre--who at that moment\nimagined himself to be Napoleon in person and to have just effected the\ndangerous crossing of the Straits of Dover and captured London--could\npronounce Pitt's sentence, he saw a well-built and handsome young\nofficer entering his room. Pierre paused. He had left Moscow when Boris\nwas a boy of fourteen, and had quite forgotten him, but in his usual\nimpulsive and hearty way he took Boris by the hand with a friendly\nsmile.\n\n\"Do you remember me?\" asked Boris quietly with a pleasant smile. \"I have\ncome with my mother to see the count, but it seems he is not well.\"\n\n\"Yes, it seems he is ill. People are always disturbing him,\" answered\nPierre, trying to remember who this young man was.\n\nBoris felt that Pierre did not recognize him but did not consider it\nnecessary to introduce himself, and without experiencing the least\nembarrassment looked Pierre straight in the face.\n\n\"Count Rostov asks you to come to dinner today,\" said he, after a\nconsiderable pause which made Pierre feel uncomfortable.\n\n\"Ah, Count Rostov!\" exclaimed Pierre joyfully. \"Then you are his son,\nIlya? Only fancy, I didn't know you at first. Do you remember how we\nwent to the Sparrow Hills with Madame Jacquot?... It's such an age...\"\n\n\"You are mistaken,\" said Boris deliberately, with a bold and slightly\nsarcastic smile. \"I am Boris, son of Princess Anna Mikhaylovna\nDrubetskaya. Rostov, the father, is Ilya, and his son is Nicholas. I\nnever knew any Madame Jacquot.\"\n\nPierre shook his head and arms as if attacked by mosquitoes or bees.\n\n\"Oh dear, what am I thinking about? I've mixed everything up. One has so\nmany relatives in Moscow! So you are Boris? Of course. Well, now we know\nwhere we are. And what do you think of the Boulogne expedition? The\nEnglish will come off badly, you know, if Napoleon gets across the\nChannel. I think the expedition is quite feasible. If only Villeneuve\ndoesn't make a mess of things!\"\n\nBoris knew nothing about the Boulogne expedition; he did not read the\npapers and it was the first time he had heard Villeneuve's name.\n\n\"We here in Moscow are more occupied with dinner parties and scandal\nthan with politics,\" said he in his quiet ironical tone. \"I know nothing\nabout it and have not thought about it. Moscow is chiefly busy with\ngossip,\" he continued. \"Just now they are talking about you and your\nfather.\"\n\nPierre smiled in his good-natured way as if afraid for his companion's\nsake that the latter might say something he would afterwards regret. But\nBoris spoke distinctly, clearly, and dryly, looking straight into\nPierre's eyes.\n\n\"Moscow has nothing else to do but gossip,\" Boris went on. \"Everybody is\nwondering to whom the count will leave his fortune, though he may\nperhaps outlive us all, as I sincerely hope he will...\"\n\n\"Yes, it is all very horrid,\" interrupted Pierre, \"very horrid.\"\n\nPierre was still afraid that this officer might inadvertently say\nsomething disconcerting to himself.\n\n\"And it must seem to you,\" said Boris flushing slightly, but not\nchanging his tone or attitude, \"it must seem to you that everyone is\ntrying to get something out of the rich man?\"\n\n\"So it does,\" thought Pierre.\n\n\"But I just wish to say, to avoid misunderstandings, that you are quite\nmistaken if you reckon me or my mother among such people. We are very\npoor, but for my own part at any rate, for the very reason that your\nfather is rich, I don't regard myself as a relation of his, and neither\nI nor my mother would ever ask or take anything from him.\"\n\nFor a long time Pierre could not understand, but when he did, he jumped\nup from the sofa, seized Boris under the elbow in his quick, clumsy way,\nand, blushing far more than Boris, began to speak with a feeling of\nmingled shame and vexation.\n\n\"Well, this is strange! Do you suppose I... who could think?... I know\nvery well...\"\n\nBut Boris again interrupted him.\n\n\"I am glad I have spoken out fully. Perhaps you did not like it? You\nmust excuse me,\" said he, putting Pierre at ease instead of being put at\nease by him, \"but I hope I have not offended you. I always make it a\nrule to speak out... Well, what answer am I to take? Will you come to\ndinner at the Rostovs'?\"\n\nAnd Boris, having apparently relieved himself of an onerous duty and\nextricated himself from an awkward situation and placed another in it,\nbecame quite pleasant again.\n\n\"No, but I say,\" said Pierre, calming down, \"you are a wonderful fellow!\nWhat you have just said is good, very good. Of course you don't know me.\nWe have not met for such a long time... not since we were children. You\nmight think that I... I understand, quite understand. I could not have\ndone it myself, I should not have had the courage, but it's splendid. I\nam very glad to have made your acquaintance. It's queer,\" he added after\na pause, \"that you should have suspected me!\" He began to laugh. \"Well,\nwhat of it! I hope we'll get better acquainted,\" and he pressed Boris'\nhand. \"Do you know, I have not once been in to see the count. He has not\nsent for me.... I am sorry for him as a man, but what can one do?\"\n\n\"And so you think Napoleon will manage to get an army across?\" asked\nBoris with a smile.\n\nPierre saw that Boris wished to change the subject, and being of the\nsame mind he began explaining the advantages and disadvantages of the\nBoulogne expedition.\n\nA footman came in to summon Boris--the princess was going. Pierre, in\norder to make Boris' better acquaintance, promised to come to dinner,\nand warmly pressing his hand looked affectionately over his spectacles\ninto Boris' eyes. After he had gone Pierre continued pacing up and down\nthe room for a long time, no longer piercing an imaginary foe with his\nimaginary sword, but smiling at the remembrance of that pleasant,\nintelligent, and resolute young man.\n\nAs often happens in early youth, especially to one who leads a lonely\nlife, he felt an unaccountable tenderness for this young man and made up\nhis mind that they would be friends.\n\nPrince Vasili saw the princess off. She held a handkerchief to her eyes\nand her face was tearful.\n\n\"It is dreadful, dreadful!\" she was saying, \"but cost me what it may I\nshall do my duty. I will come and spend the night. He must not be left\nlike this. Every moment is precious. I can't think why his nieces put it\noff. Perhaps God will help me to find a way to prepare him!... Adieu,\nPrince! May God support you...\"\n\n\"Adieu, ma bonne,\" answered Prince Vasili turning away from her.\n\n\"Oh, he is in a dreadful state,\" said the mother to her son when they\nwere in the carriage. \"He hardly recognizes anybody.\"\n\n\"I don't understand, Mamma--what is his attitude to Pierre?\" asked the\nson.\n\n\"The will will show that, my dear; our fate also depends on it.\"\n\n\"But why do you expect that he will leave us anything?\"\n\n\"Ah, my dear! He is so rich, and we are so poor!\"\n\n\"Well, that is hardly a sufficient reason, Mamma...\"\n\n\"Oh, Heaven! How ill he is!\" exclaimed the mother.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nAfter Anna Mikhaylovna had driven off with her son to visit Count Cyril\nVladimirovich Bezukhov, Countess Rostova sat for a long time all alone\napplying her handkerchief to her eyes. At last she rang.\n\n\"What is the matter with you, my dear?\" she said crossly to the maid who\nkept her waiting some minutes. \"Don't you wish to serve me? Then I'll\nfind you another place.\"\n\nThe countess was upset by her friend's sorrow and humiliating poverty,\nand was therefore out of sorts, a state of mind which with her always\nfound expression in calling her maid \"my dear\" and speaking to her with\nexaggerated politeness.\n\n\"I am very sorry, ma'am,\" answered the maid.\n\n\"Ask the count to come to me.\"\n\nThe count came waddling in to see his wife with a rather guilty look as\nusual.\n\n\"Well, little countess? What a saute of game au madere we are to have,\nmy dear! I tasted it. The thousand rubles I paid for Taras were not ill-\nspent. He is worth it!\"\n\nHe sat down by his wife, his elbows on his knees and his hands ruffling\nhis gray hair.\n\n\"What are your commands, little countess?\"\n\n\"You see, my dear... What's that mess?\" she said, pointing to his\nwaistcoat. \"It's the saute, most likely,\" she added with a smile. \"Well,\nyou see, Count, I want some money.\"\n\nHer face became sad.\n\n\"Oh, little countess!\"... and the count began bustling to get out his\npocketbook.\n\n\"I want a great deal, Count! I want five hundred rubles,\" and taking out\nher cambric handkerchief she began wiping her husband's waistcoat.\n\n\"Yes, immediately, immediately! Hey, who's there?\" he called out in a\ntone only used by persons who are certain that those they call will rush\nto obey the summons. \"Send Dmitri to me!\"\n\nDmitri, a man of good family who had been brought up in the count's\nhouse and now managed all his affairs, stepped softly into the room.\n\n\"This is what I want, my dear fellow,\" said the count to the deferential\nyoung man who had entered. \"Bring me...\" he reflected a moment, \"yes,\nbring me seven hundred rubles, yes! But mind, don't bring me such\ntattered and dirty notes as last time, but nice clean ones for the\ncountess.\"\n\n\"Yes, Dmitri, clean ones, please,\" said the countess, sighing deeply.\n\n\"When would you like them, your excellency?\" asked Dmitri. \"Allow me to\ninform you... But, don't be uneasy,\" he added, noticing that the count\nwas beginning to breathe heavily and quickly which was always a sign of\napproaching anger. \"I was forgetting... Do you wish it brought at once?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes; just so! Bring it. Give it to the countess.\"\n\n\"What a treasure that Dmitri is,\" added the count with a smile when the\nyoung man had departed. \"There is never any 'impossible' with him.\nThat's a thing I hate! Everything is possible.\"\n\n\"Ah, money, Count, money! How much sorrow it causes in the world,\" said\nthe countess. \"But I am in great need of this sum.\"\n\n\"You, my little countess, are a notorious spendthrift,\" said the count,\nand having kissed his wife's hand he went back to his study.\n\nWhen Anna Mikhaylovna returned from Count Bezukhov's the money, all in\nclean notes, was lying ready under a handkerchief on the countess'\nlittle table, and Anna Mikhaylovna noticed that something was agitating\nher.\n\n\"Well, my dear?\" asked the countess.\n\n\"Oh, what a terrible state he is in! One would not know him, he is so\nill! I was only there a few moments and hardly said a word...\"\n\n\"Annette, for heaven's sake don't refuse me,\" the countess began, with a\nblush that looked very strange on her thin, dignified, elderly face, and\nshe took the money from under the handkerchief.\n\nAnna Mikhaylovna instantly guessed her intention and stooped to be ready\nto embrace the countess at the appropriate moment.\n\n\"This is for Boris from me, for his outfit.\"\n\nAnna Mikhaylovna was already embracing her and weeping. The countess\nwept too. They wept because they were friends, and because they were\nkindhearted, and because they--friends from childhood--had to think\nabout such a base thing as money, and because their youth was over....\nBut those tears were pleasant to them both.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nCountess Rostova, with her daughters and a large number of guests, was\nalready seated in the drawing room. The count took the gentlemen into\nhis study and showed them his choice collection of Turkish pipes. From\ntime to time he went out to ask: \"Hasn't she come yet?\" They were\nexpecting Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, known in society as le terrible\ndragon, a lady distinguished not for wealth or rank, but for common\nsense and frank plainness of speech. Marya Dmitrievna was known to the\nImperial family as well as to all Moscow and Petersburg, and both cities\nwondered at her, laughed privately at her rudenesses, and told good\nstories about her, while none the less all without exception respected\nand feared her.\n\nIn the count's room, which was full of tobacco smoke, they talked of war\nthat had been announced in a manifesto, and about the recruiting. None\nof them had yet seen the manifesto, but they all knew it had appeared.\nThe count sat on the sofa between two guests who were smoking and\ntalking. He neither smoked nor talked, but bending his head first to one\nside and then to the other watched the smokers with evident pleasure and\nlistened to the conversation of his two neighbors, whom he egged on\nagainst each other.\n\nOne of them was a sallow, clean-shaven civilian with a thin and wrinkled\nface, already growing old, though he was dressed like a most fashionable\nyoung man. He sat with his legs up on the sofa as if quite at home and,\nhaving stuck an amber mouthpiece far into his mouth, was inhaling the\nsmoke spasmodically and screwing up his eyes. This was an old bachelor,\nShinshin, a cousin of the countess', a man with \"a sharp tongue\" as they\nsaid in Moscow society. He seemed to be condescending to his companion.\nThe latter, a fresh, rosy officer of the Guards, irreproachably washed,\nbrushed, and buttoned, held his pipe in the middle of his mouth and with\nred lips gently inhaled the smoke, letting it escape from his handsome\nmouth in rings. This was Lieutenant Berg, an officer in the Semenov\nregiment with whom Boris was to travel to join the army, and about whom\nNatasha had teased her elder sister Vera, speaking of Berg as her\n\"intended.\" The count sat between them and listened attentively. His\nfavorite occupation when not playing boston, a card game he was very\nfond of, was that of listener, especially when he succeeded in setting\ntwo loquacious talkers at one another.\n\n\"Well, then, old chap, mon tres honorable Alphonse Karlovich,\" said\nShinshin, laughing ironically and mixing the most ordinary Russian\nexpressions with the choicest French phrases--which was a peculiarity of\nhis speech. \"Vous comptez vous faire des rentes sur l'etat; * you want\nto make something out of your company?\"\n\n\n* You expect to make an income out of the government.\n\n\"No, Peter Nikolaevich; I only want to show that in the cavalry the\nadvantages are far less than in the infantry. Just consider my own\nposition now, Peter Nikolaevich...\"\n\nBerg always spoke quietly, politely, and with great precision. His\nconversation always related entirely to himself; he would remain calm\nand silent when the talk related to any topic that had no direct bearing\non himself. He could remain silent for hours without being at all put\nout of countenance himself or making others uncomfortable, but as soon\nas the conversation concerned himself he would begin to talk\ncircumstantially and with evident satisfaction.\n\n\"Consider my position, Peter Nikolaevich. Were I in the cavalry I should\nget not more than two hundred rubles every four months, even with the\nrank of lieutenant; but as it is I receive two hundred and thirty,\" said\nhe, looking at Shinshin and the count with a joyful, pleasant smile, as\nif it were obvious to him that his success must always be the chief\ndesire of everyone else.\n\n\"Besides that, Peter Nikolaevich, by exchanging into the Guards I shall\nbe in a more prominent position,\" continued Berg, \"and vacancies occur\nmuch more frequently in the Foot Guards. Then just think what can be\ndone with two hundred and thirty rubles! I even manage to put a little\naside and to send something to my father,\" he went on, emitting a smoke\nring.\n\n\"La balance y est... * A German knows how to skin a flint, as the\nproverb says,\" remarked Shinshin, moving his pipe to the other side of\nhis mouth and winking at the count.\n\n\n* So that squares matters.\n\nThe count burst out laughing. The other guests seeing that Shinshin was\ntalking came up to listen. Berg, oblivious of irony or indifference,\ncontinued to explain how by exchanging into the Guards he had already\ngained a step on his old comrades of the Cadet Corps; how in wartime the\ncompany commander might get killed and he, as senior in the company,\nmight easily succeed to the post; how popular he was with everyone in\nthe regiment, and how satisfied his father was with him. Berg evidently\nenjoyed narrating all this, and did not seem to suspect that others,\ntoo, might have their own interests. But all he said was so prettily\nsedate, and the naivete of his youthful egotism was so obvious, that he\ndisarmed his hearers.\n\n\"Well, my boy, you'll get along wherever you go--foot or horse--that\nI'll warrant,\" said Shinshin, patting him on the shoulder and taking his\nfeet off the sofa.\n\nBerg smiled joyously. The count, by his guests, went into the drawing\nroom.\n\nIt was just the moment before a big dinner when the assembled guests,\nexpecting the summons to zakuska, * avoid engaging in any long\nconversation but think it necessary to move about and talk, in order to\nshow that they are not at all impatient for their food. The host and\nhostess look toward the door, and now and then glance at one another,\nand the visitors try to guess from these glances who, or what, they are\nwaiting for--some important relation who has not yet arrived, or a dish\nthat is not yet ready.\n\n\n* Hors d'oeuvres.\n\nPierre had come just at dinnertime and was sitting awkwardly in the\nmiddle of the drawing room on the first chair he had come across,\nblocking the way for everyone. The countess tried to make him talk, but\nhe went on naively looking around through his spectacles as if in search\nof somebody and answered all her questions in monosyllables. He was in\nthe way and was the only one who did not notice the fact. Most of the\nguests, knowing of the affair with the bear, looked with curiosity at\nthis big, stout, quiet man, wondering how such a clumsy, modest fellow\ncould have played such a prank on a policeman.\n\n\"You have only lately arrived?\" the countess asked him.\n\n\"Oui, madame,\" replied he, looking around him.\n\n\"You have not yet seen my husband?\"\n\n\"Non, madame.\" He smiled quite inappropriately.\n\n\"You have been in Paris recently, I believe? I suppose it's very\ninteresting.\"\n\n\"Very interesting.\"\n\nThe countess exchanged glances with Anna Mikhaylovna. The latter\nunderstood that she was being asked to entertain this young man, and\nsitting down beside him she began to speak about his father; but he\nanswered her, as he had the countess, only in monosyllables. The other\nguests were all conversing with one another. \"The Razumovskis... It was\ncharming... You are very kind... Countess Apraksina...\" was heard on all\nsides. The countess rose and went into the ballroom.\n\n\"Marya Dmitrievna?\" came her voice from there.\n\n\"Herself,\" came the answer in a rough voice, and Marya Dmitrievna\nentered the room.\n\nAll the unmarried ladies and even the married ones except the very\noldest rose. Marya Dmitrievna paused at the door. Tall and stout,\nholding high her fifty-year-old head with its gray curls, she stood\nsurveying the guests, and leisurely arranged her wide sleeves as if\nrolling them up. Marya Dmitrievna always spoke in Russian.\n\n\"Health and happiness to her whose name day we are keeping and to her\nchildren,\" she said, in her loud, full-toned voice which drowned all\nothers. \"Well, you old sinner,\" she went on, turning to the count who\nwas kissing her hand, \"you're feeling dull in Moscow, I daresay? Nowhere\nto hunt with your dogs? But what is to be done, old man? Just see how\nthese nestlings are growing up,\" and she pointed to the girls. \"You must\nlook for husbands for them whether you like it or not....\"\n\n\"Well,\" said she, \"how's my Cossack?\" (Marya Dmitrievna always called\nNatasha a Cossack) and she stroked the child's arm as she came up\nfearless and gay to kiss her hand. \"I know she's a scamp of a girl, but\nI like her.\"\n\nShe took a pair of pear-shaped ruby earrings from her huge reticule and,\nhaving given them to the rosy Natasha, who beamed with the pleasure of\nher saint's-day fete, turned away at once and addressed herself to\nPierre.\n\n\"Eh, eh, friend! Come here a bit,\" said she, assuming a soft high tone\nof voice. \"Come here, my friend...\" and she ominously tucked up her\nsleeves still higher. Pierre approached, looking at her in a childlike\nway through his spectacles.\n\n\"Come nearer, come nearer, friend! I used to be the only one to tell\nyour father the truth when he was in favor, and in your case it's my\nevident duty.\" She paused. All were silent, expectant of what was to\nfollow, for this was clearly only a prelude.\n\n\"A fine lad! My word! A fine lad!... His father lies on his deathbed and\nhe amuses himself setting a policeman astride a bear! For shame, sir,\nfor shame! It would be better if you went to the war.\"\n\nShe turned away and gave her hand to the count, who could hardly keep\nfrom laughing.\n\n\"Well, I suppose it is time we were at table?\" said Marya Dmitrievna.\n\nThe count went in first with Marya Dmitrievna, the countess followed on\nthe arm of a colonel of hussars, a man of importance to them because\nNicholas was to go with him to the regiment; then came Anna Mikhaylovna\nwith Shinshin. Berg gave his arm to Vera. The smiling Julie Karagina\nwent in with Nicholas. After them other couples followed, filling the\nwhole dining hall, and last of all the children, tutors, and governesses\nfollowed singly. The footmen began moving about, chairs scraped, the\nband struck up in the gallery, and the guests settled down in their\nplaces. Then the strains of the count's household band were replaced by\nthe clatter of knives and forks, the voices of visitors, and the soft\nsteps of the footmen. At one end of the table sat the countess with\nMarya Dmitrievna on her right and Anna Mikhaylovna on her left, the\nother lady visitors were farther down. At the other end sat the count,\nwith the hussar colonel on his left and Shinshin and the other male\nvisitors on his right. Midway down the long table on one side sat the\ngrownup young people: Vera beside Berg, and Pierre beside Boris; and on\nthe other side, the children, tutors, and governesses. From behind the\ncrystal decanters and fruit vases, the count kept glancing at his wife\nand her tall cap with its light-blue ribbons, and busily filled his\nneighbors' glasses, not neglecting his own. The countess in turn,\nwithout omitting her duties as hostess, threw significant glances from\nbehind the pineapples at her husband whose face and bald head seemed by\ntheir redness to contrast more than usual with his gray hair. At the\nladies' end an even chatter of voices was heard all the time, at the\nmen's end the voices sounded louder and louder, especially that of the\ncolonel of hussars who, growing more and more flushed, ate and drank so\nmuch that the count held him up as a pattern to the other guests. Berg\nwith tender smiles was saying to Vera that love is not an earthly but a\nheavenly feeling. Boris was telling his new friend Pierre who the guests\nwere and exchanging glances with Natasha, who was sitting opposite.\nPierre spoke little but examined the new faces, and ate a great deal. Of\nthe two soups he chose turtle with savory patties and went on to the\ngame without omitting a single dish or one of the wines. These latter\nthe butler thrust mysteriously forward, wrapped in a napkin, from behind\nthe next man's shoulders and whispered: \"Dry Madeira\"... \"Hungarian\"...\nor \"Rhine wine\" as the case might be. Of the four crystal glasses\nengraved with the count's monogram that stood before his plate, Pierre\nheld out one at random and drank with enjoyment, gazing with ever-\nincreasing amiability at the other guests. Natasha, who sat opposite,\nwas looking at Boris as girls of thirteen look at the boy they are in\nlove with and have just kissed for the first time. Sometimes that same\nlook fell on Pierre, and that funny lively little girl's look made him\ninclined to laugh without knowing why.\n\nNicholas sat at some distance from Sonya, beside Julie Karagina, to whom\nhe was again talking with the same involuntary smile. Sonya wore a\ncompany smile but was evidently tormented by jealousy; now she turned\npale, now blushed and strained every nerve to overhear what Nicholas and\nJulie were saying to one another. The governess kept looking round\nuneasily as if preparing to resent any slight that might be put upon the\nchildren. The German tutor was trying to remember all the dishes, wines,\nand kinds of dessert, in order to send a full description of the dinner\nto his people in Germany; and he felt greatly offended when the butler\nwith a bottle wrapped in a napkin passed him by. He frowned, trying to\nappear as if he did not want any of that wine, but was mortified because\nno one would understand that it was not to quench his thirst or from\ngreediness that he wanted it, but simply from a conscientious desire for\nknowledge.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nAt the men's end of the table the talk grew more and more animated. The\ncolonel told them that the declaration of war had already appeared in\nPetersburg and that a copy, which he had himself seen, had that day been\nforwarded by courier to the commander-in-chief.\n\n\"And why the deuce are we going to fight Bonaparte?\" remarked Shinshin.\n\"He has stopped Austria's cackle and I fear it will be our turn next.\"\n\nThe colonel was a stout, tall, plethoric German, evidently devoted to\nthe service and patriotically Russian. He resented Shinshin's remark.\n\n\"It is for the reasson, my goot sir,\" said he, speaking with a German\naccent, \"for the reasson zat ze Emperor knows zat. He declares in ze\nmanifessto zat he cannot fiew wiz indifference ze danger vreatening\nRussia and zat ze safety and dignity of ze Empire as vell as ze sanctity\nof its alliances...\" he spoke this last word with particular emphasis as\nif in it lay the gist of the matter.\n\nThen with the unerring official memory that characterized him he\nrepeated from the opening words of the manifesto:\n\n... and the wish, which constitutes the Emperor's sole and absolute aim-\n-to establish peace in Europe on firm foundations--has now decided him\nto despatch part of the army abroad and to create a new condition for\nthe attainment of that purpose.\n\n\"Zat, my dear sir, is vy...\" he concluded, drinking a tumbler of wine\nwith dignity and looking to the count for approval.\n\n\"Connaissez-vous le Proverbe: * 'Jerome, Jerome, do not roam, but turn\nspindles at home!'?\" said Shinshin, puckering his brows and smiling.\n\"Cela nous convient a merveille.*(2) Suvorov now--he knew what he was\nabout; yet they beat him a plate couture,*(3) and where are we to find\nSuvorovs now? Je vous demande un peu,\"*(4) said he, continually changing\nfrom French to Russian.\n\n\n*Do you know the proverb?\n\n*(2) That suits us down to the ground.\n\n*(3) Hollow.\n\n*(4) I just ask you that.\n\n\"Ve must vight to the last tr-r-op of our plood!\" said the colonel,\nthumping the table; \"and ve must tie for our Emperor, and zen all vill\npe vell. And ve must discuss it as little as po-o-ossible\"... he dwelt\nparticularly on the word possible... \"as po-o-ossible,\" he ended, again\nturning to the count. \"Zat is how ve old hussars look at it, and zere's\nan end of it! And how do you, a young man and a young hussar, how do you\njudge of it?\" he added, addressing Nicholas, who when he heard that the\nwar was being discussed had turned from his partner with eyes and ears\nintent on the colonel.\n\n\"I am quite of your opinion,\" replied Nicholas, flaming up, turning his\nplate round and moving his wineglasses about with as much decision and\ndesperation as though he were at that moment facing some great danger.\n\"I am convinced that we Russians must die or conquer,\" he concluded,\nconscious--as were others--after the words were uttered that his remarks\nwere too enthusiastic and emphatic for the occasion and were therefore\nawkward.\n\n\"What you said just now was splendid!\" said his partner Julie.\n\nSonya trembled all over and blushed to her ears and behind them and down\nto her neck and shoulders while Nicholas was speaking.\n\nPierre listened to the colonel's speech and nodded approvingly.\n\n\"That's fine,\" said he.\n\n\"The young man's a real hussar!\" shouted the colonel, again thumping the\ntable.\n\n\"What are you making such a noise about over there?\" Marya Dmitrievna's\ndeep voice suddenly inquired from the other end of the table. \"What are\nyou thumping the table for?\" she demanded of the hussar, \"and why are\nyou exciting yourself? Do you think the French are here?\"\n\n\"I am speaking ze truce,\" replied the hussar with a smile.\n\n\"It's all about the war,\" the count shouted down the table. \"You know my\nson's going, Marya Dmitrievna? My son is going.\"\n\n\"I have four sons in the army but still I don't fret. It is all in God's\nhands. You may die in your bed or God may spare you in a battle,\"\nreplied Marya Dmitrievna's deep voice, which easily carried the whole\nlength of the table.\n\n\"That's true!\"\n\nOnce more the conversations concentrated, the ladies' at the one end and\nthe men's at the other.\n\n\"You won't ask,\" Natasha's little brother was saying; \"I know you won't\nask!\"\n\n\"I will,\" replied Natasha.\n\nHer face suddenly flushed with reckless and joyous resolution. She half\nrose, by a glance inviting Pierre, who sat opposite, to listen to what\nwas coming, and turning to her mother:\n\n\"Mamma!\" rang out the clear contralto notes of her childish voice,\naudible the whole length of the table.\n\n\"What is it?\" asked the countess, startled; but seeing by her daughter's\nface that it was only mischief, she shook a finger at her sternly with a\nthreatening and forbidding movement of her head.\n\nThe conversation was hushed.\n\n\"Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?\" and Natasha's voice sounded\nstill more firm and resolute.\n\nThe countess tried to frown, but could not. Marya Dmitrievna shook her\nfat finger.\n\n\"Cossack!\" she said threateningly.\n\nMost of the guests, uncertain how to regard this sally, looked at the\nelders.\n\n\"You had better take care!\" said the countess.\n\n\"Mamma! What sweets are we going to have?\" Natasha again cried boldly,\nwith saucy gaiety, confident that her prank would be taken in good part.\n\nSonya and fat little Petya doubled up with laughter.\n\n\"You see! I have asked,\" whispered Natasha to her little brother and to\nPierre, glancing at him again.\n\n\"Ice pudding, but you won't get any,\" said Marya Dmitrievna.\n\nNatasha saw there was nothing to be afraid of and so she braved even\nMarya Dmitrievna.\n\n\"Marya Dmitrievna! What kind of ice pudding? I don't like ice cream.\"\n\n\"Carrot ices.\"\n\n\"No! What kind, Marya Dmitrievna? What kind?\" she almost screamed; \"I\nwant to know!\"\n\nMarya Dmitrievna and the countess burst out laughing, and all the guests\njoined in. Everyone laughed, not at Marya Dmitrievna's answer but at the\nincredible boldness and smartness of this little girl who had dared to\ntreat Marya Dmitrievna in this fashion.\n\nNatasha only desisted when she had been told that there would be\npineapple ice. Before the ices, champagne was served round. The band\nagain struck up, the count and countess kissed, and the guests, leaving\ntheir seats, went up to \"congratulate\" the countess, and reached across\nthe table to clink glasses with the count, with the children, and with\none another. Again the footmen rushed about, chairs scraped, and in the\nsame order in which they had entered but with redder faces, the guests\nreturned to the drawing room and to the count's study.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nThe card tables were drawn out, sets made up for boston, and the count's\nvisitors settled themselves, some in the two drawing rooms, some in the\nsitting room, some in the library.\n\nThe count, holding his cards fanwise, kept himself with difficulty from\ndropping into his usual after-dinner nap, and laughed at everything. The\nyoung people, at the countess' instigation, gathered round the\nclavichord and harp. Julie by general request played first. After she\nhad played a little air with variations on the harp, she joined the\nother young ladies in begging Natasha and Nicholas, who were noted for\ntheir musical talent, to sing something. Natasha, who was treated as\nthough she were grown up, was evidently very proud of this but at the\nsame time felt shy.\n\n\"What shall we sing?\" she said.\n\n\"'The Brook,'\" suggested Nicholas.\n\n\"Well, then, let's be quick. Boris, come here,\" said Natasha. \"But where\nis Sonya?\"\n\nShe looked round and seeing that her friend was not in the room ran to\nlook for her.\n\nRunning into Sonya's room and not finding her there, Natasha ran to the\nnursery, but Sonya was not there either. Natasha concluded that she must\nbe on the chest in the passage. The chest in the passage was the place\nof mourning for the younger female generation in the Rostov household.\nAnd there in fact was Sonya lying face downward on Nurse's dirty feather\nbed on the top of the chest, crumpling her gauzy pink dress under her,\nhiding her face with her slender fingers, and sobbing so convulsively\nthat her bare little shoulders shook. Natasha's face, which had been so\nradiantly happy all that saint's day, suddenly changed: her eyes became\nfixed, and then a shiver passed down her broad neck and the corners of\nher mouth drooped.\n\n\"Sonya! What is it? What is the matter?... Oo... Oo... Oo...!\" And\nNatasha's large mouth widened, making her look quite ugly, and she began\nto wail like a baby without knowing why, except that Sonya was crying.\nSonya tried to lift her head to answer but could not, and hid her face\nstill deeper in the bed. Natasha wept, sitting on the blue-striped\nfeather bed and hugging her friend. With an effort Sonya sat up and\nbegan wiping her eyes and explaining.\n\n\"Nicholas is going away in a week's time, his... papers... have come...\nhe told me himself... but still I should not cry,\" and she showed a\npaper she held in her hand--with the verses Nicholas had written,\n\"still, I should not cry, but you can't... no one can understand... what\na soul he has!\"\n\nAnd she began to cry again because he had such a noble soul.\n\n\"It's all very well for you... I am not envious... I love you and Boris\nalso,\" she went on, gaining a little strength; \"he is nice... there are\nno difficulties in your way.... But Nicholas is my cousin... one would\nhave to... the Metropolitan himself... and even then it can't be done.\nAnd besides, if she tells Mamma\" (Sonya looked upon the countess as her\nmother and called her so) \"that I am spoiling Nicholas' career and am\nheartless and ungrateful, while truly... God is my witness,\" and she\nmade the sign of the cross, \"I love her so much, and all of you, only\nVera... And what for? What have I done to her? I am so grateful to you\nthat I would willingly sacrifice everything, only I have nothing....\"\n\nSonya could not continue, and again hid her face in her hands and in the\nfeather bed. Natasha began consoling her, but her face showed that she\nunderstood all the gravity of her friend's trouble.\n\n\"Sonya,\" she suddenly exclaimed, as if she had guessed the true reason\nof her friend's sorrow, \"I'm sure Vera has said something to you since\ndinner? Hasn't she?\"\n\n\"Yes, these verses Nicholas wrote himself and I copied some others, and\nshe found them on my table and said she'd show them to Mamma, and that I\nwas ungrateful, and that Mamma would never allow him to marry me, but\nthat he'll marry Julie. You see how he's been with her all day...\nNatasha, what have I done to deserve it?...\"\n\nAnd again she began to sob, more bitterly than before. Natasha lifted\nher up, hugged her, and, smiling through her tears, began comforting\nher.\n\n\"Sonya, don't believe her, darling! Don't believe her! Do you remember\nhow we and Nicholas, all three of us, talked in the sitting room after\nsupper? Why, we settled how everything was to be. I don't quite remember\nhow, but don't you remember that it could all be arranged and how nice\nit all was? There's Uncle Shinshin's brother has married his first\ncousin. And we are only second cousins, you know. And Boris says it is\nquite possible. You know I have told him all about it. And he is so\nclever and so good!\" said Natasha. \"Don't you cry, Sonya, dear love,\ndarling Sonya!\" and she kissed her and laughed. \"Vera's spiteful; never\nmind her! And all will come right and she won't say anything to Mamma.\nNicholas will tell her himself, and he doesn't care at all for Julie.\"\n\nNatasha kissed her on the hair.\n\nSonya sat up. The little kitten brightened, its eyes shone, and it\nseemed ready to lift its tail, jump down on its soft paws, and begin\nplaying with the ball of worsted as a kitten should.\n\n\"Do you think so?... Really? Truly?\" she said, quickly smoothing her\nfrock and hair.\n\n\"Really, truly!\" answered Natasha, pushing in a crisp lock that had\nstrayed from under her friend's plaits.\n\nBoth laughed.\n\n\"Well, let's go and sing 'The Brook.'\"\n\n\"Come along!\"\n\n\"Do you know, that fat Pierre who sat opposite me is so funny!\" said\nNatasha, stopping suddenly. \"I feel so happy!\"\n\nAnd she set off at a run along the passage.\n\nSonya, shaking off some down which clung to her and tucking away the\nverses in the bosom of her dress close to her bony little chest, ran\nafter Natasha down the passage into the sitting room with flushed face\nand light, joyous steps. At the visitors' request the young people sang\nthe quartette, \"The Brook,\" with which everyone was delighted. Then\nNicholas sang a song he had just learned:\n\n\nAt nighttime in the moon's fair glow How sweet, as fancies wander free,\nTo feel that in this world there's one Who still is thinking but of\nthee!\n\nThat while her fingers touch the harp Wafting sweet music o'er the lea,\nIt is for thee thus swells her heart, Sighing its message out to thee...\n\nA day or two, then bliss unspoilt, But oh! till then I cannot live!...\n\nHe had not finished the last verse before the young people began to get\nready to dance in the large hall, and the sound of the feet and the\ncoughing of the musicians were heard from the gallery.\n\nPierre was sitting in the drawing-room where Shinshin had engaged him,\nas a man recently returned from abroad, in a political conversation in\nwhich several others joined but which bored Pierre. When the music began\nNatasha came in and walking straight up to Pierre said, laughing and\nblushing:\n\n\"Mamma told me to ask you to join the dancers.\"\n\n\"I am afraid of mixing the figures,\" Pierre replied; \"but if you will be\nmy teacher...\" And lowering his big arm he offered it to the slender\nlittle girl.\n\nWhile the couples were arranging themselves and the musicians tuning up,\nPierre sat down with his little partner. Natasha was perfectly happy;\nshe was dancing with a grown-up man, who had been abroad. She was\nsitting in a conspicuous place and talking to him like a grown-up lady.\nShe had a fan in her hand that one of the ladies had given her to hold.\nAssuming quite the pose of a society woman (heaven knows when and where\nshe had learned it) she talked with her partner, fanning herself and\nsmiling over the fan.\n\n\"Dear, dear! Just look at her!\" exclaimed the countess as she crossed\nthe ballroom, pointing to Natasha.\n\nNatasha blushed and laughed.\n\n\"Well, really, Mamma! Why should you? What is there to be surprised at?\"\n\nIn the midst of the third ecossaise there was a clatter of chairs being\npushed back in the sitting room where the count and Marya Dmitrievna had\nbeen playing cards with the majority of the more distinguished and older\nvisitors. They now, stretching themselves after sitting so long, and\nreplacing their purses and pocketbooks, entered the ballroom. First came\nMarya Dmitrievna and the count, both with merry countenances. The count,\nwith playful ceremony somewhat in ballet style, offered his bent arm to\nMarya Dmitrievna. He drew himself up, a smile of debonair gallantry lit\nup his face and as soon as the last figure of the ecossaise was ended,\nhe clapped his hands to the musicians and shouted up to their gallery,\naddressing the first violin:\n\n\"Semen! Do you know the Daniel Cooper?\"\n\nThis was the count's favorite dance, which he had danced in his youth.\n(Strictly speaking, Daniel Cooper was one figure of the anglaise.)\n\n\"Look at Papa!\" shouted Natasha to the whole company, and quite\nforgetting that she was dancing with a grown-up partner she bent her\ncurly head to her knees and made the whole room ring with her laughter.\n\nAnd indeed everybody in the room looked with a smile of pleasure at the\njovial old gentleman, who standing beside his tall and stout partner,\nMarya Dmitrievna, curved his arms, beat time, straightened his\nshoulders, turned out his toes, tapped gently with his foot, and, by a\nsmile that broadened his round face more and more, prepared the\nonlookers for what was to follow. As soon as the provocatively gay\nstrains of Daniel Cooper (somewhat resembling those of a merry peasant\ndance) began to sound, all the doorways of the ballroom were suddenly\nfilled by the domestic serfs--the men on one side and the women on the\nother--who with beaming faces had come to see their master making merry.\n\n\"Just look at the master! A regular eagle he is!\" loudly remarked the\nnurse, as she stood in one of the doorways.\n\nThe count danced well and knew it. But his partner could not and did not\nwant to dance well. Her enormous figure stood erect, her powerful arms\nhanging down (she had handed her reticule to the countess), and only her\nstern but handsome face really joined in the dance. What was expressed\nby the whole of the count's plump figure, in Marya Dmitrievna found\nexpression only in her more and more beaming face and quivering nose.\nBut if the count, getting more and more into the swing of it, charmed\nthe spectators by the unexpectedness of his adroit maneuvers and the\nagility with which he capered about on his light feet, Marya Dmitrievna\nproduced no less impression by slight exertions--the least effort to\nmove her shoulders or bend her arms when turning, or stamp her foot--\nwhich everyone appreciated in view of her size and habitual severity.\nThe dance grew livelier and livelier. The other couples could not\nattract a moment's attention to their own evolutions and did not even\ntry to do so. All were watching the count and Marya Dmitrievna. Natasha\nkept pulling everyone by sleeve or dress, urging them to \"look at Papa!\"\nthough as it was they never took their eyes off the couple. In the\nintervals of the dance the count, breathing deeply, waved and shouted to\nthe musicians to play faster. Faster, faster, and faster; lightly, more\nlightly, and yet more lightly whirled the count, flying round Marya\nDmitrievna, now on his toes, now on his heels; until, turning his\npartner round to her seat, he executed the final pas, raising his soft\nfoot backwards, bowing his perspiring head, smiling and making a wide\nsweep with his arm, amid a thunder of applause and laughter led by\nNatasha. Both partners stood still, breathing heavily and wiping their\nfaces with their cambric handkerchiefs.\n\n\"That's how we used to dance in our time, ma chere,\" said the count.\n\n\"That was a Daniel Cooper!\" exclaimed Marya Dmitrievna, tucking up her\nsleeves and puffing heavily.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nWhile in the Rostovs' ballroom the sixth anglaise was being danced, to a\ntune in which the weary musicians blundered, and while tired footmen and\ncooks were getting the supper, Count Bezukhov had a sixth stroke. The\ndoctors pronounced recovery impossible. After a mute confession,\ncommunion was administered to the dying man, preparations made for the\nsacrament of unction, and in his house there was the bustle and thrill\nof suspense usual at such moments. Outside the house, beyond the gates,\na group of undertakers, who hid whenever a carriage drove up, waited in\nexpectation of an important order for an expensive funeral. The Military\nGovernor of Moscow, who had been assiduous in sending aides-de-camp to\ninquire after the count's health, came himself that evening to bid a\nlast farewell to the celebrated grandee of Catherine's court, Count\nBezukhov.\n\nThe magnificent reception room was crowded. Everyone stood up\nrespectfully when the Military Governor, having stayed about half an\nhour alone with the dying man, passed out, slightly acknowledging their\nbows and trying to escape as quickly as possible from the glances fixed\non him by the doctors, clergy, and relatives of the family. Prince\nVasili, who had grown thinner and paler during the last few days,\nescorted him to the door, repeating something to him several times in\nlow tones.\n\nWhen the Military Governor had gone, Prince Vasili sat down all alone on\na chair in the ballroom, crossing one leg high over the other, leaning\nhis elbow on his knee and covering his face with his hand. After sitting\nso for a while he rose, and, looking about him with frightened eyes,\nwent with unusually hurried steps down the long corridor leading to the\nback of the house, to the room of the eldest princess.\n\nThose who were in the dimly lit reception room spoke in nervous\nwhispers, and, whenever anyone went into or came from the dying man's\nroom, grew silent and gazed with eyes full of curiosity or expectancy at\nhis door, which creaked slightly when opened.\n\n\"The limits of human life... are fixed and may not be o'erpassed,\" said\nan old priest to a lady who had taken a seat beside him and was\nlistening naively to his words.\n\n\"I wonder, is it not too late to administer unction?\" asked the lady,\nadding the priest's clerical title, as if she had no opinion of her own\non the subject.\n\n\"Ah, madam, it is a great sacrament,\" replied the priest, passing his\nhand over the thin grizzled strands of hair combed back across his bald\nhead.\n\n\"Who was that? The Military Governor himself?\" was being asked at the\nother side of the room. \"How young-looking he is!\"\n\n\"Yes, and he is over sixty. I hear the count no longer recognizes\nanyone. They wished to administer the sacrament of unction.\"\n\n\"I knew someone who received that sacrament seven times.\"\n\nThe second princess had just come from the sickroom with her eyes red\nfrom weeping and sat down beside Dr. Lorrain, who was sitting in a\ngraceful pose under a portrait of Catherine, leaning his elbow on a\ntable.\n\n\"Beautiful,\" said the doctor in answer to a remark about the weather.\n\"The weather is beautiful, Princess; and besides, in Moscow one feels as\nif one were in the country.\"\n\n\"Yes, indeed,\" replied the princess with a sigh. \"So he may have\nsomething to drink?\"\n\nLorrain considered.\n\n\"Has he taken his medicine?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\nThe doctor glanced at his watch.\n\n\"Take a glass of boiled water and put a pinch of cream of tartar,\" and\nhe indicated with his delicate fingers what he meant by a pinch.\n\n\"Dere has neffer been a gase,\" a German doctor was saying to an aide-de-\ncamp, \"dat one liffs after de sird stroke.\"\n\n\"And what a well-preserved man he was!\" remarked the aide-de-camp. \"And\nwho will inherit his wealth?\" he added in a whisper.\n\n\"It von't go begging,\" replied the German with a smile.\n\nEveryone again looked toward the door, which creaked as the second\nprincess went in with the drink she had prepared according to Lorrain's\ninstructions. The German doctor went up to Lorrain.\n\n\"Do you think he can last till morning?\" asked the German, addressing\nLorrain in French which he pronounced badly.\n\nLorrain, pursing up his lips, waved a severely negative finger before\nhis nose.\n\n\"Tonight, not later,\" said he in a low voice, and he moved away with a\ndecorous smile of self-satisfaction at being able clearly to understand\nand state the patient's condition.\n\nMeanwhile Prince Vasili had opened the door into the princess' room.\n\nIn this room it was almost dark; only two tiny lamps were burning before\nthe icons and there was a pleasant scent of flowers and burnt pastilles.\nThe room was crowded with small pieces of furniture, whatnots,\ncupboards, and little tables. The quilt of a high, white feather bed was\njust visible behind a screen. A small dog began to bark.\n\n\"Ah, is it you, cousin?\"\n\nShe rose and smoothed her hair, which was as usual so extremely smooth\nthat it seemed to be made of one piece with her head and covered with\nvarnish.\n\n\"Has anything happened?\" she asked. \"I am so terrified.\"\n\n\"No, there is no change. I only came to have a talk about business,\nCatiche,\" * muttered the prince, seating himself wearily on the chair\nshe had just vacated. \"You have made the place warm, I must say,\" he\nremarked. \"Well, sit down: let's have a talk.\"\n\n\n*Catherine.\n\n\"I thought perhaps something had happened,\" she said with her unchanging\nstonily severe expression; and, sitting down opposite the prince, she\nprepared to listen.\n\n\"I wished to get a nap, mon cousin, but I can't.\"\n\n\"Well, my dear?\" said Prince Vasili, taking her hand and bending it\ndownwards as was his habit.\n\nIt was plain that this \"well?\" referred to much that they both\nunderstood without naming.\n\nThe princess, who had a straight, rigid body, abnormally long for her\nlegs, looked directly at Prince Vasili with no sign of emotion in her\nprominent gray eyes. Then she shook her head and glanced up at the icons\nwith a sigh. This might have been taken as an expression of sorrow and\ndevotion, or of weariness and hope of resting before long. Prince Vasili\nunderstood it as an expression of weariness.\n\n\"And I?\" he said; \"do you think it is easier for me? I am as worn out as\na post horse, but still I must have a talk with you, Catiche, a very\nserious talk.\"\n\nPrince Vasili said no more and his cheeks began to twitch nervously, now\non one side, now on the other, giving his face an unpleasant expression\nwhich was never to be seen on it in a drawing room. His eyes too seemed\nstrange; at one moment they looked impudently sly and at the next\nglanced round in alarm.\n\nThe princess, holding her little dog on her lap with her thin bony\nhands, looked attentively into Prince Vasili's eyes evidently resolved\nnot to be the first to break silence, if she had to wait till morning.\n\n\"Well, you see, my dear princess and cousin, Catherine Semenovna,\"\ncontinued Prince Vasili, returning to his theme, apparently not without\nan inner struggle; \"at such a moment as this one must think of\neverything. One must think of the future, of all of you... I love you\nall, like children of my own, as you know.\"\n\nThe princess continued to look at him without moving, and with the same\ndull expression.\n\n\"And then of course my family has also to be considered,\" Prince Vasili\nwent on, testily pushing away a little table without looking at her.\n\"You know, Catiche, that we--you three sisters, Mamontov, and my wife--\nare the count's only direct heirs. I know, I know how hard it is for you\nto talk or think of such matters. It is no easier for me; but, my dear,\nI am getting on for sixty and must be prepared for anything. Do you know\nI have sent for Pierre? The count,\" pointing to his portrait,\n\"definitely demanded that he should be called.\"\n\nPrince Vasili looked questioningly at the princess, but could not make\nout whether she was considering what he had just said or whether she was\nsimply looking at him.\n\n\"There is one thing I constantly pray God to grant, mon cousin,\" she\nreplied, \"and it is that He would be merciful to him and would allow his\nnoble soul peacefully to leave this...\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, of course,\" interrupted Prince Vasili impatiently, rubbing\nhis bald head and angrily pulling back toward him the little table that\nhe had pushed away. \"But... in short, the fact is... you know yourself\nthat last winter the count made a will by which he left all his\nproperty, not to us his direct heirs, but to Pierre.\"\n\n\"He has made wills enough!\" quietly remarked the princess. \"But he\ncannot leave the estate to Pierre. Pierre is illegitimate.\"\n\n\"But, my dear,\" said Prince Vasili suddenly, clutching the little table\nand becoming more animated and talking more rapidly: \"what if a letter\nhas been written to the Emperor in which the count asks for Pierre's\nlegitimation? Do you understand that in consideration of the count's\nservices, his request would be granted?...\"\n\nThe princess smiled as people do who think they know more about the\nsubject under discussion than those they are talking with.\n\n\"I can tell you more,\" continued Prince Vasili, seizing her hand, \"that\nletter was written, though it was not sent, and the Emperor knew of it.\nThe only question is, has it been destroyed or not? If not, then as soon\nas all is over,\" and Prince Vasili sighed to intimate what he meant by\nthe words all is over, \"and the count's papers are opened, the will and\nletter will be delivered to the Emperor, and the petition will certainly\nbe granted. Pierre will get everything as the legitimate son.\"\n\n\"And our share?\" asked the princess smiling ironically, as if anything\nmight happen, only not that.\n\n\"But, my poor Catiche, it is as clear as daylight! He will then be the\nlegal heir to everything and you won't get anything. You must know, my\ndear, whether the will and letter were written, and whether they have\nbeen destroyed or not. And if they have somehow been overlooked, you\nought to know where they are, and must find them, because...\"\n\n\"What next?\" the princess interrupted, smiling sardonically and not\nchanging the expression of her eyes. \"I am a woman, and you think we are\nall stupid; but I know this: an illegitimate son cannot inherit... un\nbatard!\" * she added, as if supposing that this translation of the word\nwould effectively prove to Prince Vasili the invalidity of his\ncontention.\n\n\n* A bastard.\n\n\"Well, really, Catiche! Can't you understand! You are so intelligent,\nhow is it you don't see that if the count has written a letter to the\nEmperor begging him to recognize Pierre as legitimate, it follows that\nPierre will not be Pierre but will become Count Bezukhov, and will then\ninherit everything under the will? And if the will and letter are not\ndestroyed, then you will have nothing but the consolation of having been\ndutiful et tout ce qui s'ensuit! * That's certain.\"\n\n\n* And all that follows therefrom.\n\n\"I know the will was made, but I also know that it is invalid; and you,\nmon cousin, seem to consider me a perfect fool,\" said the princess with\nthe expression women assume when they suppose they are saying something\nwitty and stinging.\n\n\"My dear Princess Catherine Semenovna,\" began Prince Vasili impatiently,\n\"I came here not to wrangle with you, but to talk about your interests\nas with a kinswoman, a good, kind, true relation. And I tell you for the\ntenth time that if the letter to the Emperor and the will in Pierre's\nfavor are among the count's papers, then, my dear girl, you and your\nsisters are not heiresses! If you don't believe me, then believe an\nexpert. I have just been talking to Dmitri Onufrich\" (the family\nsolicitor) \"and he says the same.\"\n\nAt this a sudden change evidently took place in the princess' ideas; her\nthin lips grew white, though her eyes did not change, and her voice when\nshe began to speak passed through such transitions as she herself\nevidently did not expect.\n\n\"That would be a fine thing!\" said she. \"I never wanted anything and I\ndon't now.\"\n\nShe pushed the little dog off her lap and smoothed her dress.\n\n\"And this is gratitude--this is recognition for those who have\nsacrificed everything for his sake!\" she cried. \"It's splendid! Fine! I\ndon't want anything, Prince.\"\n\n\"Yes, but you are not the only one. There are your sisters...\" replied\nPrince Vasili.\n\nBut the princess did not listen to him.\n\n\"Yes, I knew it long ago but had forgotten. I knew that I could expect\nnothing but meanness, deceit, envy, intrigue, and ingratitude--the\nblackest ingratitude--in this house...\"\n\n\"Do you or do you not know where that will is?\" insisted Prince Vasili,\nhis cheeks twitching more than ever.\n\n\"Yes, I was a fool! I still believed in people, loved them, and\nsacrificed myself. But only the base, the vile succeed! I know who has\nbeen intriguing!\"\n\nThe princess wished to rise, but the prince held her by the hand. She\nhad the air of one who has suddenly lost faith in the whole human race.\nShe gave her companion an angry glance.\n\n\"There is still time, my dear. You must remember, Catiche, that it was\nall done casually in a moment of anger, of illness, and was afterwards\nforgotten. Our duty, my dear, is to rectify his mistake, to ease his\nlast moments by not letting him commit this injustice, and not to let\nhim die feeling that he is rendering unhappy those who...\"\n\n\"Who sacrificed everything for him,\" chimed in the princess, who would\nagain have risen had not the prince still held her fast, \"though he\nnever could appreciate it. No, mon cousin,\" she added with a sigh, \"I\nshall always remember that in this world one must expect no reward, that\nin this world there is neither honor nor justice. In this world one has\nto be cunning and cruel.\"\n\n\"Now come, come! Be reasonable. I know your excellent heart.\"\n\n\"No, I have a wicked heart.\"\n\n\"I know your heart,\" repeated the prince. \"I value your friendship and\nwish you to have as good an opinion of me. Don't upset yourself, and let\nus talk sensibly while there is still time, be it a day or be it but an\nhour.... Tell me all you know about the will, and above all where it is.\nYou must know. We will take it at once and show it to the count. He has,\nno doubt, forgotten it and will wish to destroy it. You understand that\nmy sole desire is conscientiously to carry out his wishes; that is my\nonly reason for being here. I came simply to help him and you.\"\n\n\"Now I see it all! I know who has been intriguing--I know!\" cried the\nprincess.\n\n\"That's not the point, my dear.\"\n\n\"It's that protege of yours, that sweet Princess Drubetskaya, that Anna\nMikhaylovna whom I would not take for a housemaid... the infamous, vile\nwoman!\"\n\n\"Do not let us lose any time...\"\n\n\"Ah, don't talk to me! Last winter she wheedled herself in here and told\nthe count such vile, disgraceful things about us, especially about\nSophie--I can't repeat them--that it made the count quite ill and he\nwould not see us for a whole fortnight. I know it was then he wrote this\nvile, infamous paper, but I thought the thing was invalid.\"\n\n\"We've got to it at last--why did you not tell me about it sooner?\"\n\n\"It's in the inlaid portfolio that he keeps under his pillow,\" said the\nprincess, ignoring his question. \"Now I know! Yes; if I have a sin, a\ngreat sin, it is hatred of that vile woman!\" almost shrieked the\nprincess, now quite changed. \"And what does she come worming herself in\nhere for? But I will give her a piece of my mind. The time will come!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nWhile these conversations were going on in the reception room and the\nprincess' room, a carriage containing Pierre (who had been sent for) and\nAnna Mikhaylovna (who found it necessary to accompany him) was driving\ninto the court of Count Bezukhov's house. As the wheels rolled softly\nover the straw beneath the windows, Anna Mikhaylovna, having turned with\nwords of comfort to her companion, realized that he was asleep in his\ncorner and woke him up. Rousing himself, Pierre followed Anna\nMikhaylovna out of the carriage, and only then began to think of the\ninterview with his dying father which awaited him. He noticed that they\nhad not come to the front entrance but to the back door. While he was\ngetting down from the carriage steps two men, who looked like\ntradespeople, ran hurriedly from the entrance and hid in the shadow of\nthe wall. Pausing for a moment, Pierre noticed several other men of the\nsame kind hiding in the shadow of the house on both sides. But neither\nAnna Mikhaylovna nor the footman nor the coachman, who could not help\nseeing these people, took any notice of them. \"It seems to be all\nright,\" Pierre concluded, and followed Anna Mikhaylovna. She hurriedly\nascended the narrow dimly lit stone staircase, calling to Pierre, who\nwas lagging behind, to follow. Though he did not see why it was\nnecessary for him to go to the count at all, still less why he had to go\nby the back stairs, yet judging by Anna Mikhaylovna's air of assurance\nand haste, Pierre concluded that it was all absolutely necessary.\nHalfway up the stairs they were almost knocked over by some men who,\ncarrying pails, came running downstairs, their boots clattering. These\nmen pressed close to the wall to let Pierre and Anna Mikhaylovna pass\nand did not evince the least surprise at seeing them there.\n\n\"Is this the way to the princesses' apartments?\" asked Anna Mikhaylovna\nof one of them.\n\n\"Yes,\" replied a footman in a bold loud voice, as if anything were now\npermissible; \"the door to the left, ma'am.\"\n\n\"Perhaps the count did not ask for me,\" said Pierre when he reached the\nlanding. \"I'd better go to my own room.\"\n\nAnna Mikhaylovna paused and waited for him to come up.\n\n\"Ah, my friend!\" she said, touching his arm as she had done her son's\nwhen speaking to him that afternoon, \"believe me I suffer no less than\nyou do, but be a man!\"\n\n\"But really, hadn't I better go away?\" he asked, looking kindly at her\nover his spectacles.\n\n\"Ah, my dear friend! Forget the wrongs that may have been done you.\nThink that he is your father... perhaps in the agony of death.\" She\nsighed. \"I have loved you like a son from the first. Trust yourself to\nme, Pierre. I shall not forget your interests.\"\n\nPierre did not understand a word, but the conviction that all this had\nto be grew stronger, and he meekly followed Anna Mikhaylovna who was\nalready opening a door.\n\nThis door led into a back anteroom. An old man, a servant of the\nprincesses, sat in a corner knitting a stocking. Pierre had never been\nin this part of the house and did not even know of the existence of\nthese rooms. Anna Mikhaylovna, addressing a maid who was hurrying past\nwith a decanter on a tray as \"my dear\" and \"my sweet,\" asked about the\nprincess' health and then led Pierre along a stone passage. The first\ndoor on the left led into the princesses' apartments. The maid with the\ndecanter in her haste had not closed the door (everything in the house\nwas done in haste at that time), and Pierre and Anna Mikhaylovna in\npassing instinctively glanced into the room, where Prince Vasili and the\neldest princess were sitting close together talking. Seeing them pass,\nPrince Vasili drew back with obvious impatience, while the princess\njumped up and with a gesture of desperation slammed the door with all\nher might.\n\nThis action was so unlike her usual composure and the fear depicted on\nPrince Vasili's face so out of keeping with his dignity that Pierre\nstopped and glanced inquiringly over his spectacles at his guide. Anna\nMikhaylovna evinced no surprise, she only smiled faintly and sighed, as\nif to say that this was no more than she had expected.\n\n\"Be a man, my friend. I will look after your interests,\" said she in\nreply to his look, and went still faster along the passage.\n\nPierre could not make out what it was all about, and still less what\n\"watching over his interests\" meant, but he decided that all these\nthings had to be. From the passage they went into a large, dimly lit\nroom adjoining the count's reception room. It was one of those sumptuous\nbut cold apartments known to Pierre only from the front approach, but\neven in this room there now stood an empty bath, and water had been\nspilled on the carpet. They were met by a deacon with a censer and by a\nservant who passed out on tiptoe without heeding them. They went into\nthe reception room familiar to Pierre, with two Italian windows opening\ninto the conservatory, with its large bust and full length portrait of\nCatherine the Great. The same people were still sitting here in almost\nthe same positions as before, whispering to one another. All became\nsilent and turned to look at the pale tear-worn Anna Mikhaylovna as she\nentered, and at the big stout figure of Pierre who, hanging his head,\nmeekly followed her.\n\nAnna Mikhaylovna's face expressed a consciousness that the decisive\nmoment had arrived. With the air of a practical Petersburg lady she now,\nkeeping Pierre close beside her, entered the room even more boldly than\nthat afternoon. She felt that as she brought with her the person the\ndying man wished to see, her own admission was assured. Casting a rapid\nglance at all those in the room and noticing the count's confessor\nthere, she glided up to him with a sort of amble, not exactly bowing yet\nseeming to grow suddenly smaller, and respectfully received the blessing\nfirst of one and then of another priest.\n\n\"God be thanked that you are in time,\" said she to one of the priests;\n\"all we relatives have been in such anxiety. This young man is the\ncount's son,\" she added more softly. \"What a terrible moment!\"\n\nHaving said this she went up to the doctor.\n\n\"Dear doctor,\" said she, \"this young man is the count's son. Is there\nany hope?\"\n\nThe doctor cast a rapid glance upwards and silently shrugged his\nshoulders. Anna Mikhaylovna with just the same movement raised her\nshoulders and eyes, almost closing the latter, sighed, and moved away\nfrom the doctor to Pierre. To him, in a particularly respectful and\ntenderly sad voice, she said:\n\n\"Trust in His mercy!\" and pointing out a small sofa for him to sit and\nwait for her, she went silently toward the door that everyone was\nwatching and it creaked very slightly as she disappeared behind it.\n\nPierre, having made up his mind to obey his monitress implicitly, moved\ntoward the sofa she had indicated. As soon as Anna Mikhaylovna had\ndisappeared he noticed that the eyes of all in the room turned to him\nwith something more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that they\nwhispered to one another, casting significant looks at him with a kind\nof awe and even servility. A deference such as he had never before\nreceived was shown him. A strange lady, the one who had been talking to\nthe priests, rose and offered him her seat; an aide-de-camp picked up\nand returned a glove Pierre had dropped; the doctors became respectfully\nsilent as he passed by, and moved to make way for him. At first Pierre\nwished to take another seat so as not to trouble the lady, and also to\npick up the glove himself and to pass round the doctors who were not\neven in his way; but all at once he felt that this would not do, and\nthat tonight he was a person obliged to perform some sort of awful rite\nwhich everyone expected of him, and that he was therefore bound to\naccept their services. He took the glove in silence from the aide-de-\ncamp, and sat down in the lady's chair, placing his huge hands\nsymmetrically on his knees in the naive attitude of an Egyptian statue,\nand decided in his own mind that all was as it should be, and that in\norder not to lose his head and do foolish things he must not act on his\nown ideas tonight, but must yield himself up entirely to the will of\nthose who were guiding him.\n\nNot two minutes had passed before Prince Vasili with head erect\nmajestically entered the room. He was wearing his long coat with three\nstars on his breast. He seemed to have grown thinner since the morning;\nhis eyes seemed larger than usual when he glanced round and noticed\nPierre. He went up to him, took his hand (a thing he never used to do),\nand drew it downwards as if wishing to ascertain whether it was firmly\nfixed on.\n\n\"Courage, courage, my friend! He has asked to see you. That is well!\"\nand he turned to go.\n\nBut Pierre thought it necessary to ask: \"How is...\" and hesitated, not\nknowing whether it would be proper to call the dying man \"the count,\"\nyet ashamed to call him \"father.\"\n\n\"He had another stroke about half an hour ago. Courage, my friend...\"\n\nPierre's mind was in such a confused state that the word \"stroke\"\nsuggested to him a blow from something. He looked at Prince Vasili in\nperplexity, and only later grasped that a stroke was an attack of\nillness. Prince Vasili said something to Lorrain in passing and went\nthrough the door on tiptoe. He could not walk well on tiptoe and his\nwhole body jerked at each step. The eldest princess followed him, and\nthe priests and deacons and some servants also went in at the door.\nThrough that door was heard a noise of things being moved about, and at\nlast Anna Mikhaylovna, still with the same expression, pale but resolute\nin the discharge of duty, ran out and touching Pierre lightly on the arm\nsaid:\n\n\"The divine mercy is inexhaustible! Unction is about to be administered.\nCome.\"\n\nPierre went in at the door, stepping on the soft carpet, and noticed\nthat the strange lady, the aide-de-camp, and some of the servants, all\nfollowed him in, as if there were now no further need for permission to\nenter that room.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\nPierre well knew this large room divided by columns and an arch, its\nwalls hung round with Persian carpets. The part of the room behind the\ncolumns, with a high silk-curtained mahogany bedstead on one side and on\nthe other an immense case containing icons, was brightly illuminated\nwith red light like a Russian church during evening service. Under the\ngleaming icons stood a long invalid chair, and in that chair on snowy-\nwhite smooth pillows, evidently freshly changed, Pierre saw--covered to\nthe waist by a bright green quilt--the familiar, majestic figure of his\nfather, Count Bezukhov, with that gray mane of hair above his broad\nforehead which reminded one of a lion, and the deep characteristically\nnoble wrinkles of his handsome, ruddy face. He lay just under the icons;\nhis large thick hands outside the quilt. Into the right hand, which was\nlying palm downwards, a wax taper had been thrust between forefinger and\nthumb, and an old servant, bending over from behind the chair, held it\nin position. By the chair stood the priests, their long hair falling\nover their magnificent glittering vestments, with lighted tapers in\ntheir hands, slowly and solemnly conducting the service. A little behind\nthem stood the two younger princesses holding handkerchiefs to their\neyes, and just in front of them their eldest sister, Catiche, with a\nvicious and determined look steadily fixed on the icons, as though\ndeclaring to all that she could not answer for herself should she glance\nround. Anna Mikhaylovna, with a meek, sorrowful, and all-forgiving\nexpression on her face, stood by the door near the strange lady. Prince\nVasili in front of the door, near the invalid chair, a wax taper in his\nleft hand, was leaning his left arm on the carved back of a velvet chair\nhe had turned round for the purpose, and was crossing himself with his\nright hand, turning his eyes upward each time he touched his forehead.\nHis face wore a calm look of piety and resignation to the will of God.\n\"If you do not understand these sentiments,\" he seemed to be saying, \"so\nmuch the worse for you!\"\n\nBehind him stood the aide-de-camp, the doctors, and the menservants; the\nmen and women had separated as in church. All were silently crossing\nthemselves, and the reading of the church service, the subdued chanting\nof deep bass voices, and in the intervals sighs and the shuffling of\nfeet were the only sounds that could be heard. Anna Mikhaylovna, with an\nair of importance that showed that she felt she quite knew what she was\nabout, went across the room to where Pierre was standing and gave him a\ntaper. He lit it and, distracted by observing those around him, began\ncrossing himself with the hand that held the taper.\n\nSophie, the rosy, laughter-loving, youngest princess with the mole,\nwatched him. She smiled, hid her face in her handkerchief, and remained\nwith it hidden for awhile; then looking up and seeing Pierre she again\nbegan to laugh. She evidently felt unable to look at him without\nlaughing, but could not resist looking at him: so to be out of\ntemptation she slipped quietly behind one of the columns. In the midst\nof the service the voices of the priests suddenly ceased, they whispered\nto one another, and the old servant who was holding the count's hand got\nup and said something to the ladies. Anna Mikhaylovna stepped forward\nand, stooping over the dying man, beckoned to Lorrain from behind her\nback. The French doctor held no taper; he was leaning against one of the\ncolumns in a respectful attitude implying that he, a foreigner, in spite\nof all differences of faith, understood the full importance of the rite\nnow being performed and even approved of it. He now approached the sick\nman with the noiseless step of one in full vigor of life, with his\ndelicate white fingers raised from the green quilt the hand that was\nfree, and turning sideways felt the pulse and reflected a moment. The\nsick man was given something to drink, there was a stir around him, then\nthe people resumed their places and the service continued. During this\ninterval Pierre noticed that Prince Vasili left the chair on which he\nhad been leaning, and--with an air which intimated that he knew what he\nwas about and if others did not understand him it was so much the worse\nfor them--did not go up to the dying man, but passed by him, joined the\neldest princess, and moved with her to the side of the room where stood\nthe high bedstead with its silken hangings. On leaving the bed both\nPrince Vasili and the princess passed out by a back door, but returned\nto their places one after the other before the service was concluded.\nPierre paid no more attention to this occurrence than to the rest of\nwhat went on, having made up his mind once for all that what he saw\nhappening around him that evening was in some way essential.\n\nThe chanting of the service ceased, and the voice of the priest was\nheard respectfully congratulating the dying man on having received the\nsacrament. The dying man lay as lifeless and immovable as before. Around\nhim everyone began to stir: steps were audible and whispers, among which\nAnna Mikhaylovna's was the most distinct.\n\nPierre heard her say:\n\n\"Certainly he must be moved onto the bed; here it will be impossible...\"\n\nThe sick man was so surrounded by doctors, princesses, and servants that\nPierre could no longer see the reddish-yellow face with its gray mane--\nwhich, though he saw other faces as well, he had not lost sight of for a\nsingle moment during the whole service. He judged by the cautious\nmovements of those who crowded round the invalid chair that they had\nlifted the dying man and were moving him.\n\n\"Catch hold of my arm or you'll drop him!\" he heard one of the servants\nsay in a frightened whisper. \"Catch hold from underneath. Here!\"\nexclaimed different voices; and the heavy breathing of the bearers and\nthe shuffling of their feet grew more hurried, as if the weight they\nwere carrying were too much for them.\n\nAs the bearers, among whom was Anna Mikhaylovna, passed the young man he\ncaught a momentary glimpse between their heads and backs of the dying\nman's high, stout, uncovered chest and powerful shoulders, raised by\nthose who were holding him under the armpits, and of his gray, curly,\nleonine head. This head, with its remarkably broad brow and cheekbones,\nits handsome, sensual mouth, and its cold, majestic expression, was not\ndisfigured by the approach of death. It was the same as Pierre\nremembered it three months before, when the count had sent him to\nPetersburg. But now this head was swaying helplessly with the uneven\nmovements of the bearers, and the cold listless gaze fixed itself upon\nnothing.\n\nAfter a few minutes' bustle beside the high bedstead, those who had\ncarried the sick man dispersed. Anna Mikhaylovna touched Pierre's hand\nand said, \"Come.\" Pierre went with her to the bed on which the sick man\nhad been laid in a stately pose in keeping with the ceremony just\ncompleted. He lay with his head propped high on the pillows. His hands\nwere symmetrically placed on the green silk quilt, the palms downward.\nWhen Pierre came up the count was gazing straight at him, but with a\nlook the significance of which could not be understood by mortal man.\nEither this look meant nothing but that as long as one has eyes they\nmust look somewhere, or it meant too much. Pierre hesitated, not knowing\nwhat to do, and glanced inquiringly at his guide. Anna Mikhaylovna made\na hurried sign with her eyes, glancing at the sick man's hand and moving\nher lips as if to send it a kiss. Pierre, carefully stretching his neck\nso as not to touch the quilt, followed her suggestion and pressed his\nlips to the large boned, fleshy hand. Neither the hand nor a single\nmuscle of the count's face stirred. Once more Pierre looked\nquestioningly at Anna Mikhaylovna to see what he was to do next. Anna\nMikhaylovna with her eyes indicated a chair that stood beside the bed.\nPierre obediently sat down, his eyes asking if he were doing right. Anna\nMikhaylovna nodded approvingly. Again Pierre fell into the naively\nsymmetrical pose of an Egyptian statue, evidently distressed that his\nstout and clumsy body took up so much room and doing his utmost to look\nas small as possible. He looked at the count, who still gazed at the\nspot where Pierre's face had been before he sat down. Anna Mikhaylovna\nindicated by her attitude her consciousness of the pathetic importance\nof these last moments of meeting between the father and son. This lasted\nabout two minutes, which to Pierre seemed an hour. Suddenly the broad\nmuscles and lines of the count's face began to twitch. The twitching\nincreased, the handsome mouth was drawn to one side (only now did Pierre\nrealize how near death his father was), and from that distorted mouth\nissued an indistinct, hoarse sound. Anna Mikhaylovna looked attentively\nat the sick man's eyes, trying to guess what he wanted; she pointed\nfirst to Pierre, then to some drink, then named Prince Vasili in an\ninquiring whisper, then pointed to the quilt. The eyes and face of the\nsick man showed impatience. He made an effort to look at the servant who\nstood constantly at the head of the bed.\n\n\"Wants to turn on the other side,\" whispered the servant, and got up to\nturn the count's heavy body toward the wall.\n\nPierre rose to help him.\n\nWhile the count was being turned over, one of his arms fell back\nhelplessly and he made a fruitless effort to pull it forward. Whether he\nnoticed the look of terror with which Pierre regarded that lifeless arm,\nor whether some other thought flitted across his dying brain, at any\nrate he glanced at the refractory arm, at Pierre's terror-stricken face,\nand again at the arm, and on his face a feeble, piteous smile appeared,\nquite out of keeping with his features, that seemed to deride his own\nhelplessness. At sight of this smile Pierre felt an unexpected quivering\nin his breast and a tickling in his nose, and tears dimmed his eyes. The\nsick man was turned on to his side with his face to the wall. He sighed.\n\n\"He is dozing,\" said Anna Mikhaylovna, observing that one of the\nprincesses was coming to take her turn at watching. \"Let us go.\"\n\nPierre went out.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\nThere was now no one in the reception room except Prince Vasili and the\neldest princess, who were sitting under the portrait of Catherine the\nGreat and talking eagerly. As soon as they saw Pierre and his companion\nthey became silent, and Pierre thought he saw the princess hide\nsomething as she whispered:\n\n\"I can't bear the sight of that woman.\"\n\n\"Catiche has had tea served in the small drawing room,\" said Prince\nVasili to Anna Mikhaylovna. \"Go and take something, my poor Anna\nMikhaylovna, or you will not hold out.\"\n\nTo Pierre he said nothing, merely giving his arm a sympathetic squeeze\nbelow the shoulder. Pierre went with Anna Mikhaylovna into the small\ndrawing room.\n\n\"There is nothing so refreshing after a sleepless night as a cup of this\ndelicious Russian tea,\" Lorrain was saying with an air of restrained\nanimation as he stood sipping tea from a delicate Chinese handleless cup\nbefore a table on which tea and a cold supper were laid in the small\ncircular room. Around the table all who were at Count Bezukhov's house\nthat night had gathered to fortify themselves. Pierre well remembered\nthis small circular drawing room with its mirrors and little tables.\nDuring balls given at the house Pierre, who did not know how to dance,\nhad liked sitting in this room to watch the ladies who, as they passed\nthrough in their ball dresses with diamonds and pearls on their bare\nshoulders, looked at themselves in the brilliantly lighted mirrors which\nrepeated their reflections several times. Now this same room was dimly\nlighted by two candles. On one small table tea things and supper dishes\nstood in disorder, and in the middle of the night a motley throng of\npeople sat there, not merrymaking, but somberly whispering, and\nbetraying by every word and movement that they none of them forgot what\nwas happening and what was about to happen in the bedroom. Pierre did\nnot eat anything though he would very much have liked to. He looked\ninquiringly at his monitress and saw that she was again going on tiptoe\nto the reception room where they had left Prince Vasili and the eldest\nprincess. Pierre concluded that this also was essential, and after a\nshort interval followed her. Anna Mikhaylovna was standing beside the\nprincess, and they were both speaking in excited whispers.\n\n\"Permit me, Princess, to know what is necessary and what is not\nnecessary,\" said the younger of the two speakers, evidently in the same\nstate of excitement as when she had slammed the door of her room.\n\n\"But, my dear princess,\" answered Anna Mikhaylovna blandly but\nimpressively, blocking the way to the bedroom and preventing the other\nfrom passing, \"won't this be too much for poor Uncle at a moment when he\nneeds repose? Worldly conversation at a moment when his soul is already\nprepared...\"\n\nPrince Vasili was seated in an easy chair in his familiar attitude, with\none leg crossed high above the other. His cheeks, which were so flabby\nthat they looked heavier below, were twitching violently; but he wore\nthe air of a man little concerned in what the two ladies were saying.\n\n\"Come, my dear Anna Mikhaylovna, let Catiche do as she pleases. You know\nhow fond the count is of her.\"\n\n\"I don't even know what is in this paper,\" said the younger of the two\nladies, addressing Prince Vasili and pointing to an inlaid portfolio she\nheld in her hand. \"All I know is that his real will is in his writing\ntable, and this is a paper he has forgotten....\"\n\nShe tried to pass Anna Mikhaylovna, but the latter sprang so as to bar\nher path.\n\n\"I know, my dear, kind princess,\" said Anna Mikhaylovna, seizing the\nportfolio so firmly that it was plain she would not let go easily. \"Dear\nprincess, I beg and implore you, have some pity on him! Je vous en\nconjure...\"\n\nThe princess did not reply. Their efforts in the struggle for the\nportfolio were the only sounds audible, but it was evident that if the\nprincess did speak, her words would not be flattering to Anna\nMikhaylovna. Though the latter held on tenaciously, her voice lost none\nof its honeyed firmness and softness.\n\n\"Pierre, my dear, come here. I think he will not be out of place in a\nfamily consultation; is it not so, Prince?\"\n\n\"Why don't you speak, cousin?\" suddenly shrieked the princess so loud\nthat those in the drawing room heard her and were startled. \"Why do you\nremain silent when heaven knows who permits herself to interfere, making\na scene on the very threshold of a dying man's room? Intriguer!\" she\nhissed viciously, and tugged with all her might at the portfolio.\n\nBut Anna Mikhaylovna went forward a step or two to keep her hold on the\nportfolio, and changed her grip.\n\nPrince Vasili rose. \"Oh!\" said he with reproach and surprise, \"this is\nabsurd! Come, let go I tell you.\"\n\nThe princess let go.\n\n\"And you too!\"\n\nBut Anna Mikhaylovna did not obey him.\n\n\"Let go, I tell you! I will take the responsibility. I myself will go\nand ask him, I!... does that satisfy you?\"\n\n\"But, Prince,\" said Anna Mikhaylovna, \"after such a solemn sacrament,\nallow him a moment's peace! Here, Pierre, tell them your opinion,\" said\nshe, turning to the young man who, having come quite close, was gazing\nwith astonishment at the angry face of the princess which had lost all\ndignity, and at the twitching cheeks of Prince Vasili.\n\n\"Remember that you will answer for the consequences,\" said Prince Vasili\nseverely. \"You don't know what you are doing.\"\n\n\"Vile woman!\" shouted the princess, darting unexpectedly at Anna\nMikhaylovna and snatching the portfolio from her.\n\nPrince Vasili bent his head and spread out his hands.\n\nAt this moment that terrible door, which Pierre had watched so long and\nwhich had always opened so quietly, burst noisily open and banged\nagainst the wall, and the second of the three sisters rushed out\nwringing her hands.\n\n\"What are you doing!\" she cried vehemently. \"He is dying and you leave\nme alone with him!\"\n\nHer sister dropped the portfolio. Anna Mikhaylovna, stooping, quickly\ncaught up the object of contention and ran into the bedroom. The eldest\nprincess and Prince Vasili, recovering themselves, followed her. A few\nminutes later the eldest sister came out with a pale hard face, again\nbiting her underlip. At sight of Pierre her expression showed an\nirrepressible hatred.\n\n\"Yes, now you may be glad!\" said she; \"this is what you have been\nwaiting for.\" And bursting into tears she hid her face in her\nhandkerchief and rushed from the room.\n\nPrince Vasili came next. He staggered to the sofa on which Pierre was\nsitting and dropped onto it, covering his face with his hand. Pierre\nnoticed that he was pale and that his jaw quivered and shook as if in an\nague.\n\n\"Ah, my friend!\" said he, taking Pierre by the elbow; and there was in\nhis voice a sincerity and weakness Pierre had never observed in it\nbefore. \"How often we sin, how much we deceive, and all for what? I am\nnear sixty, dear friend... I too... All will end in death, all! Death is\nawful...\" and he burst into tears.\n\nAnna Mikhaylovna came out last. She approached Pierre with slow, quiet\nsteps.\n\n\"Pierre!\" she said.\n\nPierre gave her an inquiring look. She kissed the young man on his\nforehead, wetting him with her tears. Then after a pause she said:\n\n\"He is no more....\"\n\nPierre looked at her over his spectacles.\n\n\"Come, I will go with you. Try to weep, nothing gives such relief as\ntears.\"\n\nShe led him into the dark drawing room and Pierre was glad no one could\nsee his face. Anna Mikhaylovna left him, and when she returned he was\nfast asleep with his head on his arm.\n\nIn the morning Anna Mikhaylovna said to Pierre:\n\n\"Yes, my dear, this is a great loss for us all, not to speak of you. But\nGod will support you: you are young, and are now, I hope, in command of\nan immense fortune. The will has not yet been opened. I know you well\nenough to be sure that this will not turn your head, but it imposes\nduties on you, and you must be a man.\"\n\nPierre was silent.\n\n\"Perhaps later on I may tell you, my dear boy, that if I had not been\nthere, God only knows what would have happened! You know, Uncle promised\nme only the day before yesterday not to forget Boris. But he had no\ntime. I hope, my dear friend, you will carry out your father's wish?\"\n\nPierre understood nothing of all this and coloring shyly looked in\nsilence at Princess Anna Mikhaylovna. After her talk with Pierre, Anna\nMikhaylovna returned to the Rostovs' and went to bed. On waking in the\nmorning she told the Rostovs and all her acquaintances the details of\nCount Bezukhov's death. She said the count had died as she would herself\nwish to die, that his end was not only touching but edifying. As to the\nlast meeting between father and son, it was so touching that she could\nnot think of it without tears, and did not know which had behaved better\nduring those awful moments--the father who so remembered everything and\neverybody at last and had spoken such pathetic words to the son, or\nPierre, whom it had been pitiful to see, so stricken was he with grief,\nthough he tried hard to hide it in order not to sadden his dying father.\n\"It is painful, but it does one good. It uplifts the soul to see such\nmen as the old count and his worthy son,\" said she. Of the behavior of\nthe eldest princess and Prince Vasili she spoke disapprovingly, but in\nwhispers and as a great secret.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\nAt Bald Hills, Prince Nicholas Andreevich Bolkonski's estate, the\narrival of young Prince Andrew and his wife was daily expected, but this\nexpectation did not upset the regular routine of life in the old\nprince's household. General in Chief Prince Nicholas Andreevich\n(nicknamed in society, \"the King of Prussia\") ever since the Emperor\nPaul had exiled him to his country estate had lived there continuously\nwith his daughter, Princess Mary, and her companion, Mademoiselle\nBourienne. Though in the new reign he was free to return to the\ncapitals, he still continued to live in the country, remarking that\nanyone who wanted to see him could come the hundred miles from Moscow to\nBald Hills, while he himself needed no one and nothing. He used to say\nthat there are only two sources of human vice--idleness and\nsuperstition, and only two virtues--activity and intelligence. He\nhimself undertook his daughter's education, and to develop these two\ncardinal virtues in her gave her lessons in algebra and geometry till\nshe was twenty, and arranged her life so that her whole time was\noccupied. He was himself always occupied: writing his memoirs, solving\nproblems in higher mathematics, turning snuffboxes on a lathe, working\nin the garden, or superintending the building that was always going on\nat his estate. As regularity is a prime condition facilitating activity,\nregularity in his household was carried to the highest point of\nexactitude. He always came to table under precisely the same conditions,\nand not only at the same hour but at the same minute. With those about\nhim, from his daughter to his serfs, the prince was sharp and invariably\nexacting, so that without being a hardhearted man he inspired such fear\nand respect as few hardhearted men would have aroused. Although he was\nin retirement and had now no influence in political affairs, every high\nofficial appointed to the province in which the prince's estate lay\nconsidered it his duty to visit him and waited in the lofty antechamber\njust as the architect, gardener, or Princess Mary did, till the prince\nappeared punctually to the appointed hour. Everyone sitting in this\nantechamber experienced the same feeling of respect and even fear when\nthe enormously high study door opened and showed the figure of a rather\nsmall old man, with powdered wig, small withered hands, and bushy gray\neyebrows which, when he frowned, sometimes hid the gleam of his shrewd,\nyouthfully glittering eyes.\n\nOn the morning of the day that the young couple were to arrive, Princess\nMary entered the antechamber as usual at the time appointed for the\nmorning greeting, crossing herself with trepidation and repeating a\nsilent prayer. Every morning she came in like that, and every morning\nprayed that the daily interview might pass off well.\n\nAn old powdered manservant who was sitting in the antechamber rose\nquietly and said in a whisper: \"Please walk in.\"\n\nThrough the door came the regular hum of a lathe. The princess timidly\nopened the door which moved noiselessly and easily. She paused at the\nentrance. The prince was working at the lathe and after glancing round\ncontinued his work.\n\nThe enormous study was full of things evidently in constant use. The\nlarge table covered with books and plans, the tall glass-fronted\nbookcases with keys in the locks, the high desk for writing while\nstanding up, on which lay an open exercise book, and the lathe with\ntools laid ready to hand and shavings scattered around--all indicated\ncontinuous, varied, and orderly activity. The motion of the small foot\nshod in a Tartar boot embroidered with silver, and the firm pressure of\nthe lean sinewy hand, showed that the prince still possessed the\ntenacious endurance and vigor of hardy old age. After a few more turns\nof the lathe he removed his foot from the pedal, wiped his chisel,\ndropped it into a leather pouch attached to the lathe, and, approaching\nthe table, summoned his daughter. He never gave his children a blessing,\nso he simply held out his bristly cheek (as yet unshaven) and, regarding\nher tenderly and attentively, said severely:\n\n\"Quite well? All right then, sit down.\" He took the exercise book\ncontaining lessons in geometry written by himself and drew up a chair\nwith his foot.\n\n\"For tomorrow!\" said he, quickly finding the page and making a scratch\nfrom one paragraph to another with his hard nail.\n\nThe princess bent over the exercise book on the table.\n\n\"Wait a bit, here's a letter for you,\" said the old man suddenly, taking\na letter addressed in a woman's hand from a bag hanging above the table,\nonto which he threw it.\n\nAt the sight of the letter red patches showed themselves on the\nprincess' face. She took it quickly and bent her head over it.\n\n\"From Heloise?\" asked the prince with a cold smile that showed his still\nsound, yellowish teeth.\n\n\"Yes, it's from Julie,\" replied the princess with a timid glance and a\ntimid smile.\n\n\"I'll let two more letters pass, but the third I'll read,\" said the\nprince sternly; \"I'm afraid you write much nonsense. I'll read the\nthird!\"\n\n\"Read this if you like, Father,\" said the princess, blushing still more\nand holding out the letter.\n\n\"The third, I said the third!\" cried the prince abruptly, pushing the\nletter away, and leaning his elbows on the table he drew toward him the\nexercise book containing geometrical figures.\n\n\"Well, madam,\" he began, stooping over the book close to his daughter\nand placing an arm on the back of the chair on which she sat, so that\nshe felt herself surrounded on all sides by the acrid scent of old age\nand tobacco, which she had known so long. \"Now, madam, these triangles\nare equal; please note that the angle ABC...\"\n\nThe princess looked in a scared way at her father's eyes glittering\nclose to her; the red patches on her face came and went, and it was\nplain that she understood nothing and was so frightened that her fear\nwould prevent her understanding any of her father's further\nexplanations, however clear they might be. Whether it was the teacher's\nfault or the pupil's, this same thing happened every day: the princess'\neyes grew dim, she could not see and could not hear anything, but was\nonly conscious of her stern father's withered face close to her, of his\nbreath and the smell of him, and could think only of how to get away\nquickly to her own room to make out the problem in peace. The old man\nwas beside himself: moved the chair on which he was sitting noisily\nbackward and forward, made efforts to control himself and not become\nvehement, but almost always did become vehement, scolded, and sometimes\nflung the exercise book away.\n\nThe princess gave a wrong answer.\n\n\"Well now, isn't she a fool!\" shouted the prince, pushing the book aside\nand turning sharply away; but rising immediately, he paced up and down,\nlightly touched his daughter's hair and sat down again.\n\nHe drew up his chair, and continued to explain.\n\n\"This won't do, Princess; it won't do,\" said he, when Princess Mary,\nhaving taken and closed the exercise book with the next day's lesson,\nwas about to leave: \"Mathematics are most important, madam! I don't want\nto have you like our silly ladies. Get used to it and you'll like it,\"\nand he patted her cheek. \"It will drive all the nonsense out of your\nhead.\"\n\nShe turned to go, but he stopped her with a gesture and took an uncut\nbook from the high desk.\n\n\"Here is some sort of Key to the Mysteries that your Heloise has sent\nyou. Religious! I don't interfere with anyone's belief... I have looked\nat it. Take it. Well, now go. Go.\"\n\nHe patted her on the shoulder and himself closed the door after her.\n\nPrincess Mary went back to her room with the sad, scared expression that\nrarely left her and which made her plain, sickly face yet plainer. She\nsat down at her writing table, on which stood miniature portraits and\nwhich was littered with books and papers. The princess was as untidy as\nher father was tidy. She put down the geometry book and eagerly broke\nthe seal of her letter. It was from her most intimate friend from\nchildhood; that same Julie Karagina who had been at the Rostovs' name-\nday party.\n\nJulie wrote in French:\n\nDear and precious Friend, How terrible and frightful a thing is\nseparation! Though I tell myself that half my life and half my happiness\nare wrapped up in you, and that in spite of the distance separating us\nour hearts are united by indissoluble bonds, my heart rebels against\nfate and in spite of the pleasures and distractions around me I cannot\novercome a certain secret sorrow that has been in my heart ever since we\nparted. Why are we not together as we were last summer, in your big\nstudy, on the blue sofa, the confidential sofa? Why cannot I now, as\nthree months ago, draw fresh moral strength from your look, so gentle,\ncalm, and penetrating, a look I loved so well and seem to see before me\nas I write?\n\nHaving read thus far, Princess Mary sighed and glanced into the mirror\nwhich stood on her right. It reflected a weak, ungraceful figure and\nthin face. Her eyes, always sad, now looked with particular hopelessness\nat her reflection in the glass. \"She flatters me,\" thought the princess,\nturning away and continuing to read. But Julie did not flatter her\nfriend, the princess' eyes--large, deep and luminous (it seemed as if at\ntimes there radiated from them shafts of warm light)--were so beautiful\nthat very often in spite of the plainness of her face they gave her an\nattraction more powerful than that of beauty. But the princess never saw\nthe beautiful expression of her own eyes--the look they had when she was\nnot thinking of herself. As with everyone, her face assumed a forced\nunnatural expression as soon as she looked in a glass. She went on\nreading:\n\nAll Moscow talks of nothing but war. One of my two brothers is already\nabroad, the other is with the Guards, who are starting on their march to\nthe frontier. Our dear Emperor has left Petersburg and it is thought\nintends to expose his precious person to the chances of war. God grant\nthat the Corsican monster who is destroying the peace of Europe may be\noverthrown by the angel whom it has pleased the Almighty, in His\ngoodness, to give us as sovereign! To say nothing of my brothers, this\nwar has deprived me of one of the associations nearest my heart. I mean\nyoung Nicholas Rostov, who with his enthusiasm could not bear to remain\ninactive and has left the university to join the army. I will confess to\nyou, dear Mary, that in spite of his extreme youth his departure for the\narmy was a great grief to me. This young man, of whom I spoke to you\nlast summer, is so noble-minded and full of that real youthfulness which\none seldom finds nowadays among our old men of twenty and, particularly,\nhe is so frank and has so much heart. He is so pure and poetic that my\nrelations with him, transient as they were, have been one of the\nsweetest comforts to my poor heart, which has already suffered so much.\nSomeday I will tell you about our parting and all that was said then.\nThat is still too fresh. Ah, dear friend, you are happy not to know\nthese poignant joys and sorrows. You are fortunate, for the latter are\ngenerally the stronger! I know very well that Count Nicholas is too\nyoung ever to be more to me than a friend, but this sweet friendship,\nthis poetic and pure intimacy, were what my heart needed. But enough of\nthis! The chief news, about which all Moscow gossips, is the death of\nold Count Bezukhov, and his inheritance. Fancy! The three princesses\nhave received very little, Prince Vasili nothing, and it is Monsieur\nPierre who has inherited all the property and has besides been\nrecognized as legitimate; so that he is now Count Bezukhov and possessor\nof the finest fortune in Russia. It is rumored that Prince Vasili played\na very despicable part in this affair and that he returned to Petersburg\nquite crestfallen.\n\nI confess I understand very little about all these matters of wills and\ninheritance; but I do know that since this young man, whom we all used\nto know as plain Monsieur Pierre, has become Count Bezukhov and the\nowner of one of the largest fortunes in Russia, I am much amused to\nwatch the change in the tone and manners of the mammas burdened by\nmarriageable daughters, and of the young ladies themselves, toward him,\nthough, between you and me, he always seemed to me a poor sort of\nfellow. As for the past two years people have amused themselves by\nfinding husbands for me (most of whom I don't even know), the\nmatchmaking chronicles of Moscow now speak of me as the future Countess\nBezukhova. But you will understand that I have no desire for the post. A\npropos of marriages: do you know that a while ago that universal auntie\nAnna Mikhaylovna told me, under the seal of strict secrecy, of a plan of\nmarriage for you. It is neither more nor less than with Prince Vasili's\nson Anatole, whom they wish to reform by marrying him to someone rich\nand distinguee, and it is on you that his relations' choice has fallen.\nI don't know what you will think of it, but I consider it my duty to let\nyou know of it. He is said to be very handsome and a terrible\nscapegrace. That is all I have been able to find out about him.\n\nBut enough of gossip. I am at the end of my second sheet of paper, and\nMamma has sent for me to go and dine at the Apraksins'. Read the\nmystical book I am sending you; it has an enormous success here. Though\nthere are things in it difficult for the feeble human mind to grasp, it\nis an admirable book which calms and elevates the soul. Adieu! Give my\nrespects to monsieur your father and my compliments to Mademoiselle\nBourienne. I embrace you as I love you.\n\nJULIE\n\nP.S. Let me have news of your brother and his charming little wife.\n\nThe princess pondered awhile with a thoughtful smile and her luminous\neyes lit up so that her face was entirely transformed. Then she suddenly\nrose and with her heavy tread went up to the table. She took a sheet of\npaper and her hand moved rapidly over it. This is the reply she wrote,\nalso in French:\n\nDear and precious Friend, Your letter of the 13th has given me great\ndelight. So you still love me, my romantic Julie? Separation, of which\nyou say so much that is bad, does not seem to have had its usual effect\non you. You complain of our separation. What then should I say, if I\ndared complain, I who am deprived of all who are dear to me? Ah, if we\nhad not religion to console us life would be very sad. Why do you\nsuppose that I should look severely on your affection for that young\nman? On such matters I am only severe with myself. I understand such\nfeelings in others, and if never having felt them I cannot approve of\nthem, neither do I condemn them. Only it seems to me that Christian\nlove, love of one's neighbor, love of one's enemy, is worthier, sweeter,\nand better than the feelings which the beautiful eyes of a young man can\ninspire in a romantic and loving young girl like yourself.\n\nThe news of Count Bezukhov's death reached us before your letter and my\nfather was much affected by it. He says the count was the last\nrepresentative but one of the great century, and that it is his own turn\nnow, but that he will do all he can to let his turn come as late as\npossible. God preserve us from that terrible misfortune!\n\nI cannot agree with you about Pierre, whom I knew as a child. He always\nseemed to me to have an excellent heart, and that is the quality I value\nmost in people. As to his inheritance and the part played by Prince\nVasili, it is very sad for both. Ah, my dear friend, our divine\nSaviour's words, that it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of\na needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of God, are terribly\ntrue. I pity Prince Vasili but am still more sorry for Pierre. So young,\nand burdened with such riches--to what temptations he will be exposed!\nIf I were asked what I desire most on earth, it would be to be poorer\nthan the poorest beggar. A thousand thanks, dear friend, for the volume\nyou have sent me and which has such success in Moscow. Yet since you\ntell me that among some good things it contains others which our weak\nhuman understanding cannot grasp, it seems to me rather useless to spend\ntime in reading what is unintelligible and can therefore bear no fruit.\nI never could understand the fondness some people have for confusing\ntheir minds by dwelling on mystical books that merely awaken their\ndoubts and excite their imagination, giving them a bent for exaggeration\nquite contrary to Christian simplicity. Let us rather read the Epistles\nand Gospels. Let us not seek to penetrate what mysteries they contain;\nfor how can we, miserable sinners that we are, know the terrible and\nholy secrets of Providence while we remain in this flesh which forms an\nimpenetrable veil between us and the Eternal? Let us rather confine\nourselves to studying those sublime rules which our divine Saviour has\nleft for our guidance here below. Let us try to conform to them and\nfollow them, and let us be persuaded that the less we let our feeble\nhuman minds roam, the better we shall please God, who rejects all\nknowledge that does not come from Him; and the less we seek to fathom\nwhat He has been pleased to conceal from us, the sooner will He\nvouchsafe its revelation to us through His divine Spirit.\n\nMy father has not spoken to me of a suitor, but has only told me that he\nhas received a letter and is expecting a visit from Prince Vasili. In\nregard to this project of marriage for me, I will tell you, dear sweet\nfriend, that I look on marriage as a divine institution to which we must\nconform. However painful it may be to me, should the Almighty lay the\nduties of wife and mother upon me I shall try to perform them as\nfaithfully as I can, without disquieting myself by examining my feelings\ntoward him whom He may give me for husband.\n\nI have had a letter from my brother, who announces his speedy arrival at\nBald Hills with his wife. This pleasure will be but a brief one,\nhowever, for he will leave us again to take part in this unhappy war\ninto which we have been drawn, God knows how or why. Not only where you\nare--at the heart of affairs and of the world--is the talk all of war,\neven here amid fieldwork and the calm of nature--which townsfolk\nconsider characteristic of the country--rumors of war are heard and\npainfully felt. My father talks of nothing but marches and\ncountermarches, things of which I understand nothing; and the day before\nyesterday during my daily walk through the village I witnessed a\nheartrending scene.... It was a convoy of conscripts enrolled from our\npeople and starting to join the army. You should have seen the state of\nthe mothers, wives, and children of the men who were going and should\nhave heard the sobs. It seems as though mankind has forgotten the laws\nof its divine Saviour, Who preached love and forgiveness of injuries--\nand that men attribute the greatest merit to skill in killing one\nanother.\n\nAdieu, dear and kind friend; may our divine Saviour and His most Holy\nMother keep you in their holy and all-powerful care!\n\nMARY\n\n\"Ah, you are sending off a letter, Princess? I have already dispatched\nmine. I have written to my poor mother,\" said the smiling Mademoiselle\nBourienne rapidly, in her pleasant mellow tones and with guttural r's.\nShe brought into Princess Mary's strenuous, mournful, and gloomy world a\nquite different atmosphere, careless, lighthearted, and self-satisfied.\n\n\"Princess, I must warn you,\" she added, lowering her voice and evidently\nlistening to herself with pleasure, and speaking with exaggerated\ngrasseyement, \"the prince has been scolding Michael Ivanovich. He is in\na very bad humor, very morose. Be prepared.\"\n\n\"Ah, dear friend,\" replied Princess Mary, \"I have asked you never to\nwarn me of the humor my father is in. I do not allow myself to judge him\nand would not have others do so.\"\n\nThe princess glanced at her watch and, seeing that she was five minutes\nlate in starting her practice on the clavichord, went into the sitting\nroom with a look of alarm. Between twelve and two o'clock, as the day\nwas mapped out, the prince rested and the princess played the\nclavichord.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\nThe gray-haired valet was sitting drowsily listening to the snoring of\nthe prince, who was in his large study. From the far side of the house\nthrough the closed doors came the sound of difficult passages--twenty\ntimes repeated--of a sonata by Dussek.\n\nJust then a closed carriage and another with a hood drove up to the\nporch. Prince Andrew got out of the carriage, helped his little wife to\nalight, and let her pass into the house before him. Old Tikhon, wearing\na wig, put his head out of the door of the antechamber, reported in a\nwhisper that the prince was sleeping, and hastily closed the door.\nTikhon knew that neither the son's arrival nor any other unusual event\nmust be allowed to disturb the appointed order of the day. Prince Andrew\napparently knew this as well as Tikhon; he looked at his watch as if to\nascertain whether his father's habits had changed since he was at home\nlast, and, having assured himself that they had not, he turned to his\nwife.\n\n\"He will get up in twenty minutes. Let us go across to Mary's room,\" he\nsaid.\n\nThe little princess had grown stouter during this time, but her eyes and\nher short, downy, smiling lip lifted when she began to speak just as\nmerrily and prettily as ever.\n\n\"Why, this is a palace!\" she said to her husband, looking around with\nthe expression with which people compliment their host at a ball. \"Let's\ncome, quick, quick!\" And with a glance round, she smiled at Tikhon, at\nher husband, and at the footman who accompanied them.\n\n\"Is that Mary practicing? Let's go quietly and take her by surprise.\"\n\nPrince Andrew followed her with a courteous but sad expression.\n\n\"You've grown older, Tikhon,\" he said in passing to the old man, who\nkissed his hand.\n\nBefore they reached the room from which the sounds of the clavichord\ncame, the pretty, fair haired Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Bourienne,\nrushed out apparently beside herself with delight.\n\n\"Ah! what joy for the princess!\" exclaimed she: \"At last! I must let her\nknow.\"\n\n\"No, no, please not... You are Mademoiselle Bourienne,\" said the little\nprincess, kissing her. \"I know you already through my sister-in-law's\nfriendship for you. She was not expecting us?\"\n\nThey went up to the door of the sitting room from which came the sound\nof the oft-repeated passage of the sonata. Prince Andrew stopped and\nmade a grimace, as if expecting something unpleasant.\n\nThe little princess entered the room. The passage broke off in the\nmiddle, a cry was heard, then Princess Mary's heavy tread and the sound\nof kissing. When Prince Andrew went in the two princesses, who had only\nmet once before for a short time at his wedding, were in each other's\narms warmly pressing their lips to whatever place they happened to\ntouch. Mademoiselle Bourienne stood near them pressing her hand to her\nheart, with a beatific smile and obviously equally ready to cry or to\nlaugh. Prince Andrew shrugged his shoulders and frowned, as lovers of\nmusic do when they hear a false note. The two women let go of one\nanother, and then, as if afraid of being too late, seized each other's\nhands, kissing them and pulling them away, and again began kissing each\nother on the face, and then to Prince Andrew's surprise both began to\ncry and kissed again. Mademoiselle Bourienne also began to cry. Prince\nAndrew evidently felt ill at ease, but to the two women it seemed quite\nnatural that they should cry, and apparently it never entered their\nheads that it could have been otherwise at this meeting.\n\n\"Ah! my dear!... Ah! Mary!\" they suddenly exclaimed, and then laughed.\n\"I dreamed last night...\"--\"You were not expecting us?...\" \"Ah! Mary,\nyou have got thinner?...\" \"And you have grown stouter!...\"\n\n\"I knew the princess at once,\" put in Mademoiselle Bourienne.\n\n\"And I had no idea!...\" exclaimed Princess Mary. \"Ah, Andrew, I did not\nsee you.\"\n\nPrince Andrew and his sister, hand in hand, kissed one another, and he\ntold her she was still the same crybaby as ever. Princess Mary had\nturned toward her brother, and through her tears the loving, warm,\ngentle look of her large luminous eyes, very beautiful at that moment,\nrested on Prince Andrew's face.\n\nThe little princess talked incessantly, her short, downy upper lip\ncontinually and rapidly touching her rosy nether lip when necessary and\ndrawing up again next moment when her face broke into a smile of\nglittering teeth and sparkling eyes. She told of an accident they had\nhad on the Spasski Hill which might have been serious for her in her\ncondition, and immediately after that informed them that she had left\nall her clothes in Petersburg and that heaven knew what she would have\nto dress in here; and that Andrew had quite changed, and that Kitty\nOdyntsova had married an old man, and that there was a suitor for Mary,\na real one, but that they would talk of that later. Princess Mary was\nstill looking silently at her brother and her beautiful eyes were full\nof love and sadness. It was plain that she was following a train of\nthought independent of her sister-in-law's words. In the midst of a\ndescription of the last Petersburg fete she addressed her brother:\n\n\"So you are really going to the war, Andrew?\" she said sighing.\n\nLise sighed too.\n\n\"Yes, and even tomorrow,\" replied her brother.\n\n\"He is leaving me here, God knows why, when he might have had\npromotion...\"\n\nPrincess Mary did not listen to the end, but continuing her train of\nthought turned to her sister-in-law with a tender glance at her figure.\n\n\"Is it certain?\" she said.\n\nThe face of the little princess changed. She sighed and said: \"Yes,\nquite certain. Ah! it is very dreadful...\"\n\nHer lip descended. She brought her face close to her sister-in-law's and\nunexpectedly again began to cry.\n\n\"She needs rest,\" said Prince Andrew with a frown. \"Don't you, Lise?\nTake her to your room and I'll go to Father. How is he? Just the same?\"\n\n\"Yes, just the same. Though I don't know what your opinion will be,\"\nanswered the princess joyfully.\n\n\"And are the hours the same? And the walks in the avenues? And the\nlathe?\" asked Prince Andrew with a scarcely perceptible smile which\nshowed that, in spite of all his love and respect for his father, he was\naware of his weaknesses.\n\n\"The hours are the same, and the lathe, and also the mathematics and my\ngeometry lessons,\" said Princess Mary gleefully, as if her lessons in\ngeometry were among the greatest delights of her life.\n\nWhen the twenty minutes had elapsed and the time had come for the old\nprince to get up, Tikhon came to call the young prince to his father.\nThe old man made a departure from his usual routine in honor of his\nson's arrival: he gave orders to admit him to his apartments while he\ndressed for dinner. The old prince always dressed in old-fashioned\nstyle, wearing an antique coat and powdered hair; and when Prince Andrew\nentered his father's dressing room (not with the contemptuous look and\nmanner he wore in drawing rooms, but with the animated face with which\nhe talked to Pierre), the old man was sitting on a large leather-covered\nchair, wrapped in a powdering mantle, entrusting his head to Tikhon.\n\n\"Ah! here's the warrior! Wants to vanquish Buonaparte?\" said the old\nman, shaking his powdered head as much as the tail, which Tikhon was\nholding fast to plait, would allow.\n\n\"You at least must tackle him properly, or else if he goes on like this\nhe'll soon have us, too, for his subjects! How are you?\" And he held out\nhis cheek.\n\nThe old man was in a good temper after his nap before dinner. (He used\nto say that a nap \"after dinner was silver--before dinner, golden.\") He\ncast happy, sidelong glances at his son from under his thick, bushy\neyebrows. Prince Andrew went up and kissed his father on the spot\nindicated to him. He made no reply on his father's favorite topic--\nmaking fun of the military men of the day, and more particularly of\nBonaparte.\n\n\"Yes, Father, I have come to you and brought my wife who is pregnant,\"\nsaid Prince Andrew, following every movement of his father's face with\nan eager and respectful look. \"How is your health?\"\n\n\"Only fools and rakes fall ill, my boy. You know me: I am busy from\nmorning till night and abstemious, so of course I am well.\"\n\n\"Thank God,\" said his son smiling.\n\n\"God has nothing to do with it! Well, go on,\" he continued, returning to\nhis hobby; \"tell me how the Germans have taught you to fight Bonaparte\nby this new science you call 'strategy.'\"\n\nPrince Andrew smiled.\n\n\"Give me time to collect my wits, Father,\" said he, with a smile that\nshowed that his father's foibles did not prevent his son from loving and\nhonoring him. \"Why, I have not yet had time to settle down!\"\n\n\"Nonsense, nonsense!\" cried the old man, shaking his pigtail to see\nwhether it was firmly plaited, and grasping his by the hand. \"The house\nfor your wife is ready. Princess Mary will take her there and show her\nover, and they'll talk nineteen to the dozen. That's their woman's way!\nI am glad to have her. Sit down and talk. About Mikhelson's army I\nunderstand--Tolstoy's too... a simultaneous expedition.... But what's\nthe southern army to do? Prussia is neutral... I know that. What about\nAustria?\" said he, rising from his chair and pacing up and down the room\nfollowed by Tikhon, who ran after him, handing him different articles of\nclothing. \"What of Sweden? How will they cross Pomerania?\"\n\nPrince Andrew, seeing that his father insisted, began--at first\nreluctantly, but gradually with more and more animation, and from habit\nchanging unconsciously from Russian to French as he went on--to explain\nthe plan of operation for the coming campaign. He explained how an army,\nninety thousand strong, was to threaten Prussia so as to bring her out\nof her neutrality and draw her into the war; how part of that army was\nto join some Swedish forces at Stralsund; how two hundred and twenty\nthousand Austrians, with a hundred thousand Russians, were to operate in\nItaly and on the Rhine; how fifty thousand Russians and as many English\nwere to land at Naples, and how a total force of five hundred thousand\nmen was to attack the French from different sides. The old prince did\nnot evince the least interest during this explanation, but as if he were\nnot listening to it continued to dress while walking about, and three\ntimes unexpectedly interrupted. Once he stopped it by shouting: \"The\nwhite one, the white one!\"\n\nThis meant that Tikhon was not handing him the waistcoat he wanted.\nAnother time he interrupted, saying:\n\n\"And will she soon be confined?\" and shaking his head reproachfully\nsaid: \"That's bad! Go on, go on.\"\n\nThe third interruption came when Prince Andrew was finishing his\ndescription. The old man began to sing, in the cracked voice of old age:\n\"Malbrook s'en va-t-en guerre. Dieu sait quand reviendra.\" *\n\n\n* \"Marlborough is going to the wars; God knows when he'll return.\"\n\nHis son only smiled.\n\n\"I don't say it's a plan I approve of,\" said the son; \"I am only telling\nyou what it is. Napoleon has also formed his plan by now, not worse than\nthis one.\"\n\n\"Well, you've told me nothing new,\" and the old man repeated,\nmeditatively and rapidly:\n\n\"Dieu sait quand reviendra. Go to the dining room.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII\n\nAt the appointed hour the prince, powdered and shaven, entered the\ndining room where his daughter-in-law, Princess Mary, and Mademoiselle\nBourienne were already awaiting him together with his architect, who by\na strange caprice of his employer's was admitted to table though the\nposition of that insignificant individual was such as could certainly\nnot have caused him to expect that honor. The prince, who generally kept\nvery strictly to social distinctions and rarely admitted even important\ngovernment officials to his table, had unexpectedly selected Michael\nIvanovich (who always went into a corner to blow his nose on his checked\nhandkerchief) to illustrate the theory that all men are equals, and had\nmore than once impressed on his daughter that Michael Ivanovich was \"not\na whit worse than you or I.\" At dinner the prince usually spoke to the\ntaciturn Michael Ivanovich more often than to anyone else.\n\nIn the dining room, which like all the rooms in the house was\nexceedingly lofty, the members of the household and the footmen--one\nbehind each chair--stood waiting for the prince to enter. The head\nbutler, napkin on arm, was scanning the setting of the table, making\nsigns to the footmen, and anxiously glancing from the clock to the door\nby which the prince was to enter. Prince Andrew was looking at a large\ngilt frame, new to him, containing the genealogical tree of the Princes\nBolkonski, opposite which hung another such frame with a badly painted\nportrait (evidently by the hand of the artist belonging to the estate)\nof a ruling prince, in a crown--an alleged descendant of Rurik and\nancestor of the Bolkonskis. Prince Andrew, looking again at that\ngenealogical tree, shook his head, laughing as a man laughs who looks at\na portrait so characteristic of the original as to be amusing.\n\n\"How thoroughly like him that is!\" he said to Princess Mary, who had\ncome up to him.\n\nPrincess Mary looked at her brother in surprise. She did not understand\nwhat he was laughing at. Everything her father did inspired her with\nreverence and was beyond question.\n\n\"Everyone has his Achilles' heel,\" continued Prince Andrew. \"Fancy, with\nhis powerful mind, indulging in such nonsense!\"\n\nPrincess Mary could not understand the boldness of her brother's\ncriticism and was about to reply, when the expected footsteps were heard\ncoming from the study. The prince walked in quickly and jauntily as was\nhis wont, as if intentionally contrasting the briskness of his manners\nwith the strict formality of his house. At that moment the great clock\nstruck two and another with a shrill tone joined in from the drawing\nroom. The prince stood still; his lively glittering eyes from under\ntheir thick, bushy eyebrows sternly scanned all present and rested on\nthe little princess. She felt, as courtiers do when the Tsar enters, the\nsensation of fear and respect which the old man inspired in all around\nhim. He stroked her hair and then patted her awkwardly on the back of\nher neck.\n\n\"I'm glad, glad, to see you,\" he said, looking attentively into her\neyes, and then quickly went to his place and sat down. \"Sit down, sit\ndown! Sit down, Michael Ianovich!\"\n\nHe indicated a place beside him to his daughter-in-law. A footman moved\nthe chair for her.\n\n\"Ho, ho!\" said the old man, casting his eyes on her rounded figure.\n\"You've been in a hurry. That's bad!\"\n\nHe laughed in his usual dry, cold, unpleasant way, with his lips only\nand not with his eyes.\n\n\"You must walk, walk as much as possible, as much as possible,\" he said.\n\nThe little princess did not, or did not wish to, hear his words. She was\nsilent and seemed confused. The prince asked her about her father, and\nshe began to smile and talk. He asked about mutual acquaintances, and\nshe became still more animated and chattered away giving him greetings\nfrom various people and retelling the town gossip.\n\n\"Countess Apraksina, poor thing, has lost her husband and she has cried\nher eyes out,\" she said, growing more and more lively.\n\nAs she became animated the prince looked at her more and more sternly,\nand suddenly, as if he had studied her sufficiently and had formed a\ndefinite idea of her, he turned away and addressed Michael Ivanovich.\n\n\"Well, Michael Ivanovich, our Bonaparte will be having a bad time of it.\nPrince Andrew\" (he always spoke thus of his son) \"has been telling me\nwhat forces are being collected against him! While you and I never\nthought much of him.\"\n\nMichael Ivanovich did not at all know when \"you and I\" had said such\nthings about Bonaparte, but understanding that he was wanted as a peg on\nwhich to hang the prince's favorite topic, he looked inquiringly at the\nyoung prince, wondering what would follow.\n\n\"He is a great tactician!\" said the prince to his son, pointing to the\narchitect.\n\nAnd the conversation again turned on the war, on Bonaparte, and the\ngenerals and statesmen of the day. The old prince seemed convinced not\nonly that all the men of the day were mere babies who did not know the A\nB C of war or of politics, and that Bonaparte was an insignificant\nlittle Frenchy, successful only because there were no longer any\nPotemkins or Suvorovs left to oppose him; but he was also convinced that\nthere were no political difficulties in Europe and no real war, but only\na sort of puppet show at which the men of the day were playing,\npretending to do something real. Prince Andrew gaily bore with his\nfather's ridicule of the new men, and drew him on and listened to him\nwith evident pleasure.\n\n\"The past always seems good,\" said he, \"but did not Suvorov himself fall\ninto a trap Moreau set him, and from which he did not know how to\nescape?\"\n\n\"Who told you that? Who?\" cried the prince. \"Suvorov!\" And he jerked\naway his plate, which Tikhon briskly caught. \"Suvorov!... Consider,\nPrince Andrew. Two... Frederick and Suvorov; Moreau!... Moreau would\nhave been a prisoner if Suvorov had had a free hand; but he had the\nHofs-kriegs-wurst-schnapps-Rath on his hands. It would have puzzled the\ndevil himself! When you get there you'll find out what those Hofs-\nkriegs-wurst-Raths are! Suvorov couldn't manage them so what chance has\nMichael Kutuzov? No, my dear boy,\" he continued, \"you and your generals\nwon't get on against Buonaparte; you'll have to call in the French, so\nthat birds of a feather may fight together. The German, Pahlen, has been\nsent to New York in America, to fetch the Frenchman, Moreau,\" he said,\nalluding to the invitation made that year to Moreau to enter the Russian\nservice.... \"Wonderful!... Were the Potemkins, Suvorovs, and Orlovs\nGermans? No, lad, either you fellows have all lost your wits, or I have\noutlived mine. May God help you, but we'll see what will happen.\nBuonaparte has become a great commander among them! Hm!...\"\n\n\"I don't at all say that all the plans are good,\" said Prince Andrew, \"I\nam only surprised at your opinion of Bonaparte. You may laugh as much as\nyou like, but all the same Bonaparte is a great general!\"\n\n\"Michael Ivanovich!\" cried the old prince to the architect who, busy\nwith his roast meat, hoped he had been forgotten: \"Didn't I tell you\nBuonaparte was a great tactician? Here, he says the same thing.\"\n\n\"To be sure, your excellency,\" replied the architect.\n\nThe prince again laughed his frigid laugh.\n\n\"Buonaparte was born with a silver spoon in his mouth. He has got\nsplendid soldiers. Besides he began by attacking Germans. And only\nidlers have failed to beat the Germans. Since the world began everybody\nhas beaten the Germans. They beat no one--except one another. He made\nhis reputation fighting them.\"\n\nAnd the prince began explaining all the blunders which, according to\nhim, Bonaparte had made in his campaigns and even in politics. His son\nmade no rejoinder, but it was evident that whatever arguments were\npresented he was as little able as his father to change his opinion. He\nlistened, refraining from a reply, and involuntarily wondered how this\nold man, living alone in the country for so many years, could know and\ndiscuss so minutely and acutely all the recent European military and\npolitical events.\n\n\"You think I'm an old man and don't understand the present state of\naffairs?\" concluded his father. \"But it troubles me. I don't sleep at\nnight. Come now, where has this great commander of yours shown his\nskill?\" he concluded.\n\n\"That would take too long to tell,\" answered the son.\n\n\"Well, then go to your Buonaparte! Mademoiselle Bourienne, here's\nanother admirer of that powder-monkey emperor of yours,\" he exclaimed in\nexcellent French.\n\n\"You know, Prince, I am not a Bonapartist!\"\n\n\"Dieu sait quand reviendra...\" hummed the prince out of tune and, with a\nlaugh still more so, he quitted the table.\n\nThe little princess during the whole discussion and the rest of the\ndinner sat silent, glancing with a frightened look now at her father-in-\nlaw and now at Princess Mary. When they left the table she took her\nsister-in-law's arm and drew her into another room.\n\n\"What a clever man your father is,\" said she; \"perhaps that is why I am\nafraid of him.\"\n\n\"Oh, he is so kind!\" answered Princess Mary.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII\n\nPrince Andrew was to leave next evening. The old prince, not altering\nhis routine, retired as usual after dinner. The little princess was in\nher sister-in-law's room. Prince Andrew in a traveling coat without\nepaulettes had been packing with his valet in the rooms assigned to him.\nAfter inspecting the carriage himself and seeing the trunks put in, he\nordered the horses to be harnessed. Only those things he always kept\nwith him remained in his room; a small box, a large canteen fitted with\nsilver plate, two Turkish pistols and a saber--a present from his father\nwho had brought it from the siege of Ochakov. All these traveling\neffects of Prince Andrew's were in very good order: new, clean, and in\ncloth covers carefully tied with tapes.\n\nWhen starting on a journey or changing their mode of life, men capable\nof reflection are generally in a serious frame of mind. At such moments\none reviews the past and plans for the future. Prince Andrew's face\nlooked very thoughtful and tender. With his hands behind him he paced\nbriskly from corner to corner of the room, looking straight before him\nand thoughtfully shaking his head. Did he fear going to the war, or was\nhe sad at leaving his wife?--perhaps both, but evidently he did not wish\nto be seen in that mood, for hearing footsteps in the passage he\nhurriedly unclasped his hands, stopped at a table as if tying the cover\nof the small box, and assumed his usual tranquil and impenetrable\nexpression. It was the heavy tread of Princess Mary that he heard.\n\n\"I hear you have given orders to harness,\" she cried, panting (she had\napparently been running), \"and I did so wish to have another talk with\nyou alone! God knows how long we may again be parted. You are not angry\nwith me for coming? You have changed so, Andrusha,\" she added, as if to\nexplain such a question.\n\nShe smiled as she uttered his pet name, \"Andrusha.\" It was obviously\nstrange to her to think that this stern handsome man should be Andrusha-\n-the slender mischievous boy who had been her playfellow in childhood.\n\n\"And where is Lise?\" he asked, answering her question only by a smile.\n\n\"She was so tired that she has fallen asleep on the sofa in my room. Oh,\nAndrew! What a treasure of a wife you have,\" said she, sitting down on\nthe sofa, facing her brother. \"She is quite a child: such a dear, merry\nchild. I have grown so fond of her.\"\n\nPrince Andrew was silent, but the princess noticed the ironical and\ncontemptuous look that showed itself on his face.\n\n\"One must be indulgent to little weaknesses; who is free from them,\nAndrew? Don't forget that she has grown up and been educated in society,\nand so her position now is not a rosy one. We should enter into\neveryone's situation. Tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner. * Think\nwhat it must be for her, poor thing, after what she has been used to, to\nbe parted from her husband and be left alone in the country, in her\ncondition! It's very hard.\"\n\n\n* To understand all is to forgive all.\n\nPrince Andrew smiled as he looked at his sister, as we smile at those we\nthink we thoroughly understand.\n\n\"You live in the country and don't think the life terrible,\" he replied.\n\n\"I... that's different. Why speak of me? I don't want any other life,\nand can't, for I know no other. But think, Andrew: for a young society\nwoman to be buried in the country during the best years of her life, all\nalone--for Papa is always busy, and I... well, you know what poor\nresources I have for entertaining a woman used to the best society.\nThere is only Mademoiselle Bourienne....\"\n\n\"I don't like your Mademoiselle Bourienne at all,\" said Prince Andrew.\n\n\"No? She is very nice and kind and, above all, she's much to be pitied.\nShe has no one, no one. To tell the truth, I don't need her, and she's\neven in my way. You know I always was a savage, and now am even more so.\nI like being alone.... Father likes her very much. She and Michael\nIvanovich are the two people to whom he is always gentle and kind,\nbecause he has been a benefactor to them both. As Sterne says: 'We don't\nlove people so much for the good they have done us, as for the good we\nhave done them.' Father took her when she was homeless after losing her\nown father. She is very good-natured, and my father likes her way of\nreading. She reads to him in the evenings and reads splendidly.\"\n\n\"To be quite frank, Mary, I expect Father's character sometimes makes\nthings trying for you, doesn't it?\" Prince Andrew asked suddenly.\n\nPrincess Mary was first surprised and then aghast at this question.\n\n\"For me? For me?... Trying for me!...\" said she.\n\n\"He always was rather harsh; and now I should think he's getting very\ntrying,\" said Prince Andrew, apparently speaking lightly of their father\nin order to puzzle or test his sister.\n\n\"You are good in every way, Andrew, but you have a kind of intellectual\npride,\" said the princess, following the train of her own thoughts\nrather than the trend of the conversation--\"and that's a great sin. How\ncan one judge Father? But even if one might, what feeling except\nveneration could such a man as my father evoke? And I am so contented\nand happy with him. I only wish you were all as happy as I am.\"\n\nHer brother shook his head incredulously.\n\n\"The only thing that is hard for me... I will tell you the truth,\nAndrew... is Father's way of treating religious subjects. I don't\nunderstand how a man of his immense intellect can fail to see what is as\nclear as day, and can go so far astray. That is the only thing that\nmakes me unhappy. But even in this I can see lately a shade of\nimprovement. His satire has been less bitter of late, and there was a\nmonk he received and had a long talk with.\"\n\n\"Ah! my dear, I am afraid you and your monk are wasting your powder,\"\nsaid Prince Andrew banteringly yet tenderly.\n\n\"Ah! mon ami, I only pray, and hope that God will hear me. Andrew...\"\nshe said timidly after a moment's silence, \"I have a great favor to ask\nof you.\"\n\n\"What is it, dear?\"\n\n\"No--promise that you will not refuse! It will give you no trouble and\nis nothing unworthy of you, but it will comfort me. Promise,\nAndrusha!...\" said she, putting her hand in her reticule but not yet\ntaking out what she was holding inside it, as if what she held were the\nsubject of her request and must not be shown before the request was\ngranted.\n\nShe looked timidly at her brother.\n\n\"Even if it were a great deal of trouble...\" answered Prince Andrew, as\nif guessing what it was about.\n\n\"Think what you please! I know you are just like Father. Think as you\nplease, but do this for my sake! Please do! Father's father, our\ngrandfather, wore it in all his wars.\" (She still did not take out what\nshe was holding in her reticule.) \"So you promise?\"\n\n\"Of course. What is it?\"\n\n\"Andrew, I bless you with this icon and you must promise me you will\nnever take it off. Do you promise?\"\n\n\"If it does not weigh a hundredweight and won't break my neck... To\nplease you...\" said Prince Andrew. But immediately, noticing the pained\nexpression his joke had brought to his sister's face, he repented and\nadded: \"I am glad; really, dear, I am very glad.\"\n\n\"Against your will He will save and have mercy on you and bring you to\nHimself, for in Him alone is truth and peace,\" said she in a voice\ntrembling with emotion, solemnly holding up in both hands before her\nbrother a small, oval, antique, dark-faced icon of the Saviour in a gold\nsetting, on a finely wrought silver chain.\n\nShe crossed herself, kissed the icon, and handed it to Andrew.\n\n\"Please, Andrew, for my sake!...\"\n\nRays of gentle light shone from her large, timid eyes. Those eyes lit up\nthe whole of her thin, sickly face and made it beautiful. Her brother\nwould have taken the icon, but she stopped him. Andrew understood,\ncrossed himself and kissed the icon. There was a look of tenderness, for\nhe was touched, but also a gleam of irony on his face.\n\n\"Thank you, my dear.\" She kissed him on the forehead and sat down again\non the sofa. They were silent for a while.\n\n\"As I was saying to you, Andrew, be kind and generous as you always used\nto be. Don't judge Lise harshly,\" she began. \"She is so sweet, so good-\nnatured, and her position now is a very hard one.\"\n\n\"I do not think I have complained of my wife to you, Masha, or blamed\nher. Why do you say all this to me?\"\n\nRed patches appeared on Princess Mary's face and she was silent as if\nshe felt guilty.\n\n\"I have said nothing to you, but you have already been talked to. And I\nam sorry for that,\" he went on.\n\nThe patches grew deeper on her forehead, neck, and cheeks. She tried to\nsay something but could not. Her brother had guessed right: the little\nprincess had been crying after dinner and had spoken of her forebodings\nabout her confinement, and how she dreaded it, and had complained of her\nfate, her father-in-law, and her husband. After crying she had fallen\nasleep. Prince Andrew felt sorry for his sister.\n\n\"Know this, Masha: I can't reproach, have not reproached, and never\nshall reproach my wife with anything, and I cannot reproach myself with\nanything in regard to her; and that always will be so in whatever\ncircumstances I may be placed. But if you want to know the truth... if\nyou want to know whether I am happy? No! Is she happy? No! But why this\nis so I don't know...\"\n\nAs he said this he rose, went to his sister, and, stooping, kissed her\nforehead. His fine eyes lit up with a thoughtful, kindly, and\nunaccustomed brightness, but he was looking not at his sister but over\nher head toward the darkness of the open doorway.\n\n\"Let us go to her, I must say good-by. Or--go and wake and I'll come in\na moment. Petrushka!\" he called to his valet: \"Come here, take these\naway. Put this on the seat and this to the right.\"\n\nPrincess Mary rose and moved to the door, then stopped and said:\n\"Andrew, if you had faith you would have turned to God and asked Him to\ngive you the love you do not feel, and your prayer would have been\nanswered.\"\n\n\"Well, may be!\" said Prince Andrew. \"Go, Masha; I'll come immediately.\"\n\nOn the way to his sister's room, in the passage which connected one wing\nwith the other, Prince Andrew met Mademoiselle Bourienne smiling\nsweetly. It was the third time that day that, with an ecstatic and\nartless smile, she had met him in secluded passages.\n\n\"Oh! I thought you were in your room,\" she said, for some reason\nblushing and dropping her eyes.\n\nPrince Andrew looked sternly at her and an expression of anger suddenly\ncame over his face. He said nothing to her but looked at her forehead\nand hair, without looking at her eyes, with such contempt that the\nFrenchwoman blushed and went away without a word. When he reached his\nsister's room his wife was already awake and her merry voice, hurrying\none word after another, came through the open door. She was speaking as\nusual in French, and as if after long self-restraint she wished to make\nup for lost time.\n\n\"No, but imagine the old Countess Zubova, with false curls and her mouth\nfull of false teeth, as if she were trying to cheat old age.... Ha, ha,\nha! Mary!\"\n\nThis very sentence about Countess Zubova and this same laugh Prince\nAndrew had already heard from his wife in the presence of others some\nfive times. He entered the room softly. The little princess, plump and\nrosy, was sitting in an easy chair with her work in her hands, talking\nincessantly, repeating Petersburg reminiscences and even phrases. Prince\nAndrew came up, stroked her hair, and asked if she felt rested after\ntheir journey. She answered him and continued her chatter.\n\nThe coach with six horses was waiting at the porch. It was an autumn\nnight, so dark that the coachman could not see the carriage pole.\nServants with lanterns were bustling about in the porch. The immense\nhouse was brilliant with lights shining through its lofty windows. The\ndomestic serfs were crowding in the hall, waiting to bid good-by to the\nyoung prince. The members of the household were all gathered in the\nreception hall: Michael Ivanovich, Mademoiselle Bourienne, Princess\nMary, and the little princess. Prince Andrew had been called to his\nfather's study as the latter wished to say good-by to him alone. All\nwere waiting for them to come out.\n\nWhen Prince Andrew entered the study the old man in his old-age\nspectacles and white dressing gown, in which he received no one but his\nson, sat at the table writing. He glanced round.\n\n\"Going?\" And he went on writing.\n\n\"I've come to say good-by.\"\n\n\"Kiss me here,\" and he touched his cheek: \"Thanks, thanks!\"\n\n\"What do you thank me for?\"\n\n\"For not dilly-dallying and not hanging to a woman's apron strings. The\nService before everything. Thanks, thanks!\" And he went on writing, so\nthat his quill spluttered and squeaked. \"If you have anything to say,\nsay it. These two things can be done together,\" he added.\n\n\"About my wife... I am ashamed as it is to leave her on your hands...\"\n\n\"Why talk nonsense? Say what you want.\"\n\n\"When her confinement is due, send to Moscow for an accoucheur.... Let\nhim be here....\"\n\nThe old prince stopped writing and, as if not understanding, fixed his\nstern eyes on his son.\n\n\"I know that no one can help if nature does not do her work,\" said\nPrince Andrew, evidently confused. \"I know that out of a million cases\nonly one goes wrong, but it is her fancy and mine. They have been\ntelling her things. She has had a dream and is frightened.\"\n\n\"Hm... Hm...\" muttered the old prince to himself, finishing what he was\nwriting. \"I'll do it.\"\n\nHe signed with a flourish and suddenly turning to his son began to\nlaugh.\n\n\"It's a bad business, eh?\"\n\n\"What is bad, Father?\"\n\n\"The wife!\" said the old prince, briefly and significantly.\n\n\"I don't understand!\" said Prince Andrew.\n\n\"No, it can't be helped, lad,\" said the prince. \"They're all like that;\none can't unmarry. Don't be afraid; I won't tell anyone, but you know it\nyourself.\"\n\nHe seized his son by the hand with small bony fingers, shook it, looked\nstraight into his son's face with keen eyes which seemed to see through\nhim, and again laughed his frigid laugh.\n\nThe son sighed, thus admitting that his father had understood him. The\nold man continued to fold and seal his letter, snatching up and throwing\ndown the wax, the seal, and the paper, with his accustomed rapidity.\n\n\"What's to be done? She's pretty! I will do everything. Make your mind\neasy,\" said he in abrupt sentences while sealing his letter.\n\nAndrew did not speak; he was both pleased and displeased that his father\nunderstood him. The old man got up and gave the letter to his son.\n\n\"Listen!\" said he; \"don't worry about your wife: what can be done shall\nbe. Now listen! Give this letter to Michael Ilarionovich. * I have\nwritten that he should make use of you in proper places and not keep you\nlong as an adjutant: a bad position! Tell him I remember and like him.\nWrite and tell me how he receives you. If he is all right--serve him.\nNicholas Bolkonski's son need not serve under anyone if he is in\ndisfavor. Now come here.\"\n\n\n*Kutuzov.\n\nHe spoke so rapidly that he did not finish half his words, but his son\nwas accustomed to understand him. He led him to the desk, raised the\nlid, drew out a drawer, and took out an exercise book filled with his\nbold, tall, close handwriting.\n\n\"I shall probably die before you. So remember, these are my memoirs;\nhand them to the Emperor after my death. Now here is a Lombard bond and\na letter; it is a premium for the man who writes a history of Suvorov's\nwars. Send it to the Academy. Here are some jottings for you to read\nwhen I am gone. You will find them useful.\"\n\nAndrew did not tell his father that he would no doubt live a long time\nyet. He felt that he must not say it.\n\n\"I will do it all, Father,\" he said.\n\n\"Well, now, good-by!\" He gave his son his hand to kiss, and embraced\nhim. \"Remember this, Prince Andrew, if they kill you it will hurt me,\nyour old father...\" he paused unexpectedly, and then in a querulous\nvoice suddenly shrieked: \"but if I hear that you have not behaved like a\nson of Nicholas Bolkonski, I shall be ashamed!\"\n\n\"You need not have said that to me, Father,\" said the son with a smile.\n\nThe old man was silent.\n\n\"I also wanted to ask you,\" continued Prince Andrew, \"if I'm killed and\nif I have a son, do not let him be taken away from you--as I said\nyesterday... let him grow up with you.... Please.\"\n\n\"Not let the wife have him?\" said the old man, and laughed.\n\nThey stood silent, facing one another. The old man's sharp eyes were\nfixed straight on his son's. Something twitched in the lower part of the\nold prince's face.\n\n\"We've said good-by. Go!\" he suddenly shouted in a loud, angry voice,\nopening his door.\n\n\"What is it? What?\" asked both princesses when they saw for a moment at\nthe door Prince Andrew and the figure of the old man in a white dressing\ngown, spectacled and wigless, shouting in an angry voice.\n\nPrince Andrew sighed and made no reply.\n\n\"Well!\" he said, turning to his wife.\n\nAnd this \"Well!\" sounded coldly ironic, as if he were saying,: \"Now go\nthrough your performance.\"\n\n\"Andrew, already!\" said the little princess, turning pale and looking\nwith dismay at her husband.\n\nHe embraced her. She screamed and fell unconscious on his shoulder.\n\nHe cautiously released the shoulder she leaned on, looked into her face,\nand carefully placed her in an easy chair.\n\n\"Adieu, Mary,\" said he gently to his sister, taking her by the hand and\nkissing her, and then he left the room with rapid steps.\n\nThe little princess lay in the armchair, Mademoiselle Bourienne chafing\nher temples. Princess Mary, supporting her sister-in-law, still looked\nwith her beautiful eyes full of tears at the door through which Prince\nAndrew had gone and made the sign of the cross in his direction. From\nthe study, like pistol shots, came the frequent sound of the old man\nangrily blowing his nose. Hardly had Prince Andrew gone when the study\ndoor opened quickly and the stern figure of the old man in the white\ndressing gown looked out.\n\n\"Gone? That's all right!\" said he; and looking angrily at the\nunconscious little princess, he shook his head reprovingly and slammed\nthe door.\n\nBOOK TWO: 1805\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nIn October, 1805, a Russian army was occupying the villages and towns of\nthe Archduchy of Austria, and yet other regiments freshly arriving from\nRussia were settling near the fortress of Braunau and burdening the\ninhabitants on whom they were quartered. Braunau was the headquarters of\nthe commander-in-chief, Kutuzov.\n\nOn October 11, 1805, one of the infantry regiments that had just reached\nBraunau had halted half a mile from the town, waiting to be inspected by\nthe commander-in-chief. Despite the un-Russian appearance of the\nlocality and surroundings--fruit gardens, stone fences, tiled roofs, and\nhills in the distance--and despite the fact that the inhabitants (who\ngazed with curiosity at the soldiers) were not Russians, the regiment\nhad just the appearance of any Russian regiment preparing for an\ninspection anywhere in the heart of Russia.\n\nOn the evening of the last day's march an order had been received that\nthe commander-in-chief would inspect the regiment on the march. Though\nthe words of the order were not clear to the regimental commander, and\nthe question arose whether the troops were to be in marching order or\nnot, it was decided at a consultation between the battalion commanders\nto present the regiment in parade order, on the principle that it is\nalways better to \"bow too low than not bow low enough.\" So the soldiers,\nafter a twenty-mile march, were kept mending and cleaning all night long\nwithout closing their eyes, while the adjutants and company commanders\ncalculated and reckoned, and by morning the regiment--instead of the\nstraggling, disorderly crowd it had been on its last march the day\nbefore--presented a well-ordered array of two thousand men each of whom\nknew his place and his duty, had every button and every strap in place,\nand shone with cleanliness. And not only externally was all in order,\nbut had it pleased the commander-in-chief to look under the uniforms he\nwould have found on every man a clean shirt, and in every knapsack the\nappointed number of articles, \"awl, soap, and all,\" as the soldiers say.\nThere was only one circumstance concerning which no one could be at\nease. It was the state of the soldiers' boots. More than half the men's\nboots were in holes. But this defect was not due to any fault of the\nregimental commander, for in spite of repeated demands boots had not\nbeen issued by the Austrian commissariat, and the regiment had marched\nsome seven hundred miles.\n\nThe commander of the regiment was an elderly, choleric, stout, and\nthick-set general with grizzled eyebrows and whiskers, and wider from\nchest to back than across the shoulders. He had on a brand-new uniform\nshowing the creases where it had been folded and thick gold epaulettes\nwhich seemed to stand rather than lie down on his massive shoulders. He\nhad the air of a man happily performing one of the most solemn duties of\nhis life. He walked about in front of the line and at every step pulled\nhimself up, slightly arching his back. It was plain that the commander\nadmired his regiment, rejoiced in it, and that his whole mind was\nengrossed by it, yet his strut seemed to indicate that, besides military\nmatters, social interests and the fair sex occupied no small part of his\nthoughts.\n\n\"Well, Michael Mitrich, sir?\" he said, addressing one of the battalion\ncommanders who smilingly pressed forward (it was plain that they both\nfelt happy). \"We had our hands full last night. However, I think the\nregiment is not a bad one, eh?\"\n\nThe battalion commander perceived the jovial irony and laughed.\n\n\"It would not be turned off the field even on the Tsaritsin Meadow.\"\n\n\"What?\" asked the commander.\n\nAt that moment, on the road from the town on which signalers had been\nposted, two men appeared on horse back. They were an aide-de-camp\nfollowed by a Cossack.\n\nThe aide-de-camp was sent to confirm the order which had not been\nclearly worded the day before, namely, that the commander-in-chief\nwished to see the regiment just in the state in which it had been on the\nmarch: in their greatcoats, and packs, and without any preparation\nwhatever.\n\nA member of the Hofkriegsrath from Vienna had come to Kutuzov the day\nbefore with proposals and demands for him to join up with the army of\nthe Archduke Ferdinand and Mack, and Kutuzov, not considering this\njunction advisable, meant, among other arguments in support of his view,\nto show the Austrian general the wretched state in which the troops\narrived from Russia. With this object he intended to meet the regiment;\nso the worse the condition it was in, the better pleased the commander-\nin-chief would be. Though the aide-de-camp did not know these\ncircumstances, he nevertheless delivered the definite order that the men\nshould be in their greatcoats and in marching order, and that the\ncommander-in-chief would otherwise be dissatisfied. On hearing this the\nregimental commander hung his head, silently shrugged his shoulders, and\nspread out his arms with a choleric gesture.\n\n\"A fine mess we've made of it!\" he remarked.\n\n\"There now! Didn't I tell you, Michael Mitrich, that if it was said 'on\nthe march' it meant in greatcoats?\" said he reproachfully to the\nbattalion commander. \"Oh, my God!\" he added, stepping resolutely\nforward. \"Company commanders!\" he shouted in a voice accustomed to\ncommand. \"Sergeants major!... How soon will he be here?\" he asked the\naide-de-camp with a respectful politeness evidently relating to the\npersonage he was referring to.\n\n\"In an hour's time, I should say.\"\n\n\"Shall we have time to change clothes?\"\n\n\"I don't know, General....\"\n\nThe regimental commander, going up to the line himself, ordered the\nsoldiers to change into their greatcoats. The company commanders ran off\nto their companies, the sergeants major began bustling (the greatcoats\nwere not in very good condition), and instantly the squares that had up\nto then been in regular order and silent began to sway and stretch and\nhum with voices. On all sides soldiers were running to and fro, throwing\nup their knapsacks with a jerk of their shoulders and pulling the straps\nover their heads, unstrapping their overcoats and drawing the sleeves on\nwith upraised arms.\n\nIn half an hour all was again in order, only the squares had become gray\ninstead of black. The regimental commander walked with his jerky steps\nto the front of the regiment and examined it from a distance.\n\n\"Whatever is this? This!\" he shouted and stood still. \"Commander of the\nthird company!\"\n\n\"Commander of the third company wanted by the general!... commander to\nthe general... third company to the commander.\" The words passed along\nthe lines and an adjutant ran to look for the missing officer.\n\nWhen the eager but misrepeated words had reached their destination in a\ncry of: \"The general to the third company,\" the missing officer appeared\nfrom behind his company and, though he was a middle-aged man and not in\nthe habit of running, trotted awkwardly stumbling on his toes toward the\ngeneral. The captain's face showed the uneasiness of a schoolboy who is\ntold to repeat a lesson he has not learned. Spots appeared on his nose,\nthe redness of which was evidently due to intemperance, and his mouth\ntwitched nervously. The general looked the captain up and down as he\ncame up panting, slackening his pace as he approached.\n\n\"You will soon be dressing your men in petticoats! What is this?\"\nshouted the regimental commander, thrusting forward his jaw and pointing\nat a soldier in the ranks of the third company in a greatcoat of bluish\ncloth, which contrasted with the others. \"What have you been after? The\ncommander in chief is expected and you leave your place? Eh? I'll teach\nyou to dress the men in fancy coats for a parade.... Eh...?\"\n\nThe commander of the company, with his eyes fixed on his superior,\npressed two fingers more and more rigidly to his cap, as if in this\npressure lay his only hope of salvation.\n\n\"Well, why don't you speak? Whom have you got there dressed up as a\nHungarian?\" said the commander with an austere gibe.\n\n\"Your excellency...\"\n\n\"Well, your excellency, what? Your excellency! But what about your\nexcellency?... nobody knows.\"\n\n\"Your excellency, it's the officer Dolokhov, who has been reduced to the\nranks,\" said the captain softly.\n\n\"Well? Has he been degraded into a field marshal, or into a soldier? If\na soldier, he should be dressed in regulation uniform like the others.\"\n\n\"Your excellency, you gave him leave yourself, on the march.\"\n\n\"Gave him leave? Leave? That's just like you young men,\" said the\nregimental commander cooling down a little. \"Leave indeed.... One says a\nword to you and you... What?\" he added with renewed irritation, \"I beg\nyou to dress your men decently.\"\n\nAnd the commander, turning to look at the adjutant, directed his jerky\nsteps down the line. He was evidently pleased at his own display of\nanger and walking up to the regiment wished to find a further excuse for\nwrath. Having snapped at an officer for an unpolished badge, at another\nbecause his line was not straight, he reached the third company.\n\n\"H-o-o-w are you standing? Where's your leg? Your leg?\" shouted the\ncommander with a tone of suffering in his voice, while there were still\nfive men between him and Dolokhov with his bluish-gray uniform.\n\nDolokhov slowly straightened his bent knee, looking straight with his\nclear, insolent eyes in the general's face.\n\n\"Why a blue coat? Off with it... Sergeant major! Change his coat... the\nras...\" he did not finish.\n\n\"General, I must obey orders, but I am not bound to endure...\" Dolokhov\nhurriedly interrupted.\n\n\"No talking in the ranks!... No talking, no talking!\"\n\n\"Not bound to endure insults,\" Dolokhov concluded in loud, ringing\ntones.\n\nThe eyes of the general and the soldier met. The general became silent,\nangrily pulling down his tight scarf.\n\n\"I request you to have the goodness to change your coat,\" he said as he\nturned away.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\"He's coming!\" shouted the signaler at that moment.\n\nThe regimental commander, flushing, ran to his horse, seized the stirrup\nwith trembling hands, threw his body across the saddle, righted himself,\ndrew his saber, and with a happy and resolute countenance, opening his\nmouth awry, prepared to shout. The regiment fluttered like a bird\npreening its plumage and became motionless.\n\n\"Att-ention!\" shouted the regimental commander in a soul-shaking voice\nwhich expressed joy for himself, severity for the regiment, and welcome\nfor the approaching chief.\n\nAlong the broad country road, edged on both sides by trees, came a high,\nlight blue Viennese caleche, slightly creaking on its springs and drawn\nby six horses at a smart trot. Behind the caleche galloped the suite and\na convoy of Croats. Beside Kutuzov sat an Austrian general, in a white\nuniform that looked strange among the Russian black ones. The caleche\nstopped in front of the regiment. Kutuzov and the Austrian general were\ntalking in low voices and Kutuzov smiled slightly as treading heavily he\nstepped down from the carriage just as if those two thousand men\nbreathlessly gazing at him and the regimental commander did not exist.\n\nThe word of command rang out, and again the regiment quivered, as with a\njingling sound it presented arms. Then amidst a dead silence the feeble\nvoice of the commander-in-chief was heard. The regiment roared, \"Health\nto your ex... len... len... lency!\" and again all became silent. At\nfirst Kutuzov stood still while the regiment moved; then he and the\ngeneral in white, accompanied by the suite, walked between the ranks.\n\nFrom the way the regimental commander saluted the commander-in-chief and\ndevoured him with his eyes, drawing himself up obsequiously, and from\nthe way he walked through the ranks behind the generals, bending forward\nand hardly able to restrain his jerky movements, and from the way he\ndarted forward at every word or gesture of the commander-in-chief, it\nwas evident that he performed his duty as a subordinate with even\ngreater zeal than his duty as a commander. Thanks to the strictness and\nassiduity of its commander the regiment, in comparison with others that\nhad reached Braunau at the same time, was in splendid condition. There\nwere only 217 sick and stragglers. Everything was in good order except\nthe boots.\n\nKutuzov walked through the ranks, sometimes stopping to say a few\nfriendly words to officers he had known in the Turkish war, sometimes\nalso to the soldiers. Looking at their boots he several times shook his\nhead sadly, pointing them out to the Austrian general with an expression\nwhich seemed to say that he was not blaming anyone, but could not help\nnoticing what a bad state of things it was. The regimental commander ran\nforward on each such occasion, fearing to miss a single word of the\ncommander-in-chief's regarding the regiment. Behind Kutuzov, at a\ndistance that allowed every softly spoken word to be heard, followed\nsome twenty men of his suite. These gentlemen talked among themselves\nand sometimes laughed. Nearest of all to the commander-in-chief walked a\nhandsome adjutant. This was Prince Bolkonski. Beside him was his comrade\nNesvitski, a tall staff officer, extremely stout, with a kindly,\nsmiling, handsome face and moist eyes. Nesvitski could hardly keep from\nlaughter provoked by a swarthy hussar officer who walked beside him.\nThis hussar, with a grave face and without a smile or a change in the\nexpression of his fixed eyes, watched the regimental commander's back\nand mimicked his every movement. Each time the commander started and\nbent forward, the hussar started and bent forward in exactly the same\nmanner. Nesvitski laughed and nudged the others to make them look at the\nwag.\n\nKutuzov walked slowly and languidly past thousands of eyes which were\nstarting from their sockets to watch their chief. On reaching the third\ncompany he suddenly stopped. His suite, not having expected this,\ninvoluntarily came closer to him.\n\n\"Ah, Timokhin!\" said he, recognizing the red-nosed captain who had been\nreprimanded on account of the blue greatcoat.\n\nOne would have thought it impossible for a man to stretch himself more\nthan Timokhin had done when he was reprimanded by the regimental\ncommander, but now that the commander-in-chief addressed him he drew\nhimself up to such an extent that it seemed he could not have sustained\nit had the commander-in-chief continued to look at him, and so Kutuzov,\nwho evidently understood his case and wished him nothing but good,\nquickly turned away, a scarcely perceptible smile flitting over his\nscarred and puffy face.\n\n\"Another Ismail comrade,\" said he. \"A brave officer! Are you satisfied\nwith him?\" he asked the regimental commander.\n\nAnd the latter--unconscious that he was being reflected in the hussar\nofficer as in a looking glass--started, moved forward, and answered:\n\"Highly satisfied, your excellency!\"\n\n\"We all have our weaknesses,\" said Kutuzov smiling and walking away from\nhim. \"He used to have a predilection for Bacchus.\"\n\nThe regimental commander was afraid he might be blamed for this and did\nnot answer. The hussar at that moment noticed the face of the red-nosed\ncaptain and his drawn-in stomach, and mimicked his expression and pose\nwith such exactitude that Nesvitski could not help laughing. Kutuzov\nturned round. The officer evidently had complete control of his face,\nand while Kutuzov was turning managed to make a grimace and then assume\na most serious, deferential, and innocent expression.\n\nThe third company was the last, and Kutuzov pondered, apparently trying\nto recollect something. Prince Andrew stepped forward from among the\nsuite and said in French:\n\n\"You told me to remind you of the officer Dolokhov, reduced to the ranks\nin this regiment.\"\n\n\"Where is Dolokhov?\" asked Kutuzov.\n\nDolokhov, who had already changed into a soldier's gray greatcoat, did\nnot wait to be called. The shapely figure of the fair-haired soldier,\nwith his clear blue eyes, stepped forward from the ranks, went up to the\ncommander in chief, and presented arms.\n\n\"Have you a complaint to make?\" Kutuzov asked with a slight frown.\n\n\"This is Dolokhov,\" said Prince Andrew.\n\n\"Ah!\" said Kutuzov. \"I hope this will be a lesson to you. Do your duty.\nThe Emperor is gracious, and I shan't forget you if you deserve well.\"\n\nThe clear blue eyes looked at the commander-in-chief just as boldly as\nthey had looked at the regimental commander, seeming by their expression\nto tear open the veil of convention that separates a commander-in-chief\nso widely from a private.\n\n\"One thing I ask of your excellency,\" Dolokhov said in his firm,\nringing, deliberate voice. \"I ask an opportunity to atone for my fault\nand prove my devotion to His Majesty the Emperor and to Russia!\"\n\nKutuzov turned away. The same smile of the eyes with which he had turned\nfrom Captain Timokhin again flitted over his face. He turned away with a\ngrimace as if to say that everything Dolokhov had said to him and\neverything he could say had long been known to him, that he was weary of\nit and it was not at all what he wanted. He turned away and went to the\ncarriage.\n\nThe regiment broke up into companies, which went to their appointed\nquarters near Braunau, where they hoped to receive boots and clothes and\nto rest after their hard marches.\n\n\"You won't bear me a grudge, Prokhor Ignatych?\" said the regimental\ncommander, overtaking the third company on its way to its quarters and\nriding up to Captain Timokhin who was walking in front. (The regimental\ncommander's face now that the inspection was happily over beamed with\nirrepressible delight.) \"It's in the Emperor's service... it can't be\nhelped... one is sometimes a bit hasty on parade... I am the first to\napologize, you know me!... He was very pleased!\" And he held out his\nhand to the captain.\n\n\"Don't mention it, General, as if I'd be so bold!\" replied the captain,\nhis nose growing redder as he gave a smile which showed where two front\nteeth were missing that had been knocked out by the butt end of a gun at\nIsmail.\n\n\"And tell Mr. Dolokhov that I won't forget him--he may be quite easy.\nAnd tell me, please--I've been meaning to ask--how is he behaving\nhimself, and in general...\"\n\n\"As far as the service goes he is quite punctilious, your excellency;\nbut his character...\" said Timokhin.\n\n\"And what about his character?\" asked the regimental commander.\n\n\"It's different on different days,\" answered the captain. \"One day he is\nsensible, well educated, and good-natured, and the next he's a wild\nbeast.... In Poland, if you please, he nearly killed a Jew.\"\n\n\"Oh, well, well!\" remarked the regimental commander. \"Still, one must\nhave pity on a young man in misfortune. You know he has important\nconnections... Well, then, you just...\"\n\n\"I will, your excellency,\" said Timokhin, showing by his smile that he\nunderstood his commander's wish.\n\n\"Well, of course, of course!\"\n\nThe regimental commander sought out Dolokhov in the ranks and, reining\nin his horse, said to him:\n\n\"After the next affair... epaulettes.\"\n\nDolokhov looked round but did not say anything, nor did the mocking\nsmile on his lips change.\n\n\"Well, that's all right,\" continued the regimental commander. \"A cup of\nvodka for the men from me,\" he added so that the soldiers could hear. \"I\nthank you all! God be praised!\" and he rode past that company and\novertook the next one.\n\n\"Well, he's really a good fellow, one can serve under him,\" said\nTimokhin to the subaltern beside him.\n\n\"In a word, a hearty one...\" said the subaltern, laughing (the\nregimental commander was nicknamed King of Hearts).\n\nThe cheerful mood of their officers after the inspection infected the\nsoldiers. The company marched on gaily. The soldiers' voices could be\nheard on every side.\n\n\"And they said Kutuzov was blind of one eye?\"\n\n\"And so he is! Quite blind!\"\n\n\"No, friend, he is sharper-eyed than you are. Boots and leg bands... he\nnoticed everything...\"\n\n\"When he looked at my feet, friend... well, thinks I...\"\n\n\"And that other one with him, the Austrian, looked as if he were smeared\nwith chalk--as white as flour! I suppose they polish him up as they do\nthe guns.\"\n\n\"I say, Fedeshon!... Did he say when the battles are to begin? You were\nnear him. Everybody said that Buonaparte himself was at Braunau.\"\n\n\"Buonaparte himself!... Just listen to the fool, what he doesn't know!\nThe Prussians are up in arms now. The Austrians, you see, are putting\nthem down. When they've been put down, the war with Buonaparte will\nbegin. And he says Buonaparte is in Braunau! Shows you're a fool. You'd\nbetter listen more carefully!\"\n\n\"What devils these quartermasters are! See, the fifth company is turning\ninto the village already... they will have their buckwheat cooked before\nwe reach our quarters.\"\n\n\"Give me a biscuit, you devil!\"\n\n\"And did you give me tobacco yesterday? That's just it, friend! Ah,\nwell, never mind, here you are.\"\n\n\"They might call a halt here or we'll have to do another four miles\nwithout eating.\"\n\n\"Wasn't it fine when those Germans gave us lifts! You just sit still and\nare drawn along.\"\n\n\"And here, friend, the people are quite beggarly. There they all seemed\nto be Poles--all under the Russian crown--but here they're all regular\nGermans.\"\n\n\"Singers to the front\" came the captain's order.\n\nAnd from the different ranks some twenty men ran to the front. A\ndrummer, their leader, turned round facing the singers, and flourishing\nhis arm, began a long-drawn-out soldiers' song, commencing with the\nwords: \"Morning dawned, the sun was rising,\" and concluding: \"On then,\nbrothers, on to glory, led by Father Kamenski.\" This song had been\ncomposed in the Turkish campaign and now being sung in Austria, the only\nchange being that the words \"Father Kamenski\" were replaced by \"Father\nKutuzov.\"\n\nHaving jerked out these last words as soldiers do and waved his arms as\nif flinging something to the ground, the drummer--a lean, handsome\nsoldier of forty--looked sternly at the singers and screwed up his eyes.\nThen having satisfied himself that all eyes were fixed on him, he raised\nboth arms as if carefully lifting some invisible but precious object\nabove his head and, holding it there for some seconds, suddenly flung it\ndown and began:\n\n\"Oh, my bower, oh, my bower...!\"\n\n\"Oh, my bower new...!\" chimed in twenty voices, and the castanet player,\nin spite of the burden of his equipment, rushed out to the front and,\nwalking backwards before the company, jerked his shoulders and\nflourished his castanets as if threatening someone. The soldiers,\nswinging their arms and keeping time spontaneously, marched with long\nsteps. Behind the company the sound of wheels, the creaking of springs,\nand the tramp of horses' hoofs were heard. Kutuzov and his suite were\nreturning to the town. The commander-in-chief made a sign that the men\nshould continue to march at ease, and he and all his suite showed\npleasure at the sound of the singing and the sight of the dancing\nsoldier and the gay and smartly marching men. In the second file from\nthe right flank, beside which the carriage passed the company, a blue-\neyed soldier involuntarily attracted notice. It was Dolokhov marching\nwith particular grace and boldness in time to the song and looking at\nthose driving past as if he pitied all who were not at that moment\nmarching with the company. The hussar cornet of Kutuzov's suite who had\nmimicked the regimental commander, fell back from the carriage and rode\nup to Dolokhov.\n\nHussar cornet Zherkov had at one time, in Petersburg, belonged to the\nwild set led by Dolokhov. Zherkov had met Dolokhov abroad as a private\nand had not seen fit to recognize him. But now that Kutuzov had spoken\nto the gentleman ranker, he addressed him with the cordiality of an old\nfriend.\n\n\"My dear fellow, how are you?\" said he through the singing, making his\nhorse keep pace with the company.\n\n\"How am I?\" Dolokhov answered coldly. \"I am as you see.\"\n\nThe lively song gave a special flavor to the tone of free and easy\ngaiety with which Zherkov spoke, and to the intentional coldness of\nDolokhov's reply.\n\n\"And how do you get on with the officers?\" inquired Zherkov.\n\n\"All right. They are good fellows. And how have you wriggled onto the\nstaff?\"\n\n\"I was attached; I'm on duty.\"\n\nBoth were silent.\n\n\"She let the hawk fly upward from her wide right sleeve,\" went the song,\narousing an involuntary sensation of courage and cheerfulness. Their\nconversation would probably have been different but for the effect of\nthat song.\n\n\"Is it true that Austrians have been beaten?\" asked Dolokhov.\n\n\"The devil only knows! They say so.\"\n\n\"I'm glad,\" answered Dolokhov briefly and clearly, as the song demanded.\n\n\"I say, come round some evening and we'll have a game of faro!\" said\nZherkov.\n\n\"Why, have you too much money?\"\n\n\"Do come.\"\n\n\"I can't. I've sworn not to. I won't drink and won't play till I get\nreinstated.\"\n\n\"Well, that's only till the first engagement.\"\n\n\"We shall see.\"\n\nThey were again silent.\n\n\"Come if you need anything. One can at least be of use on the staff...\"\n\nDolokhov smiled. \"Don't trouble. If I want anything, I won't beg--I'll\ntake it!\"\n\n\"Well, never mind; I only...\"\n\n\"And I only...\"\n\n\"Good-bye.\"\n\n\"Good health...\"\n\n\n\"It's a long, long way. To my native land...\"\n\nZherkov touched his horse with the spurs; it pranced excitedly from foot\nto foot uncertain with which to start, then settled down, galloped past\nthe company, and overtook the carriage, still keeping time to the song.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nOn returning from the review, Kutuzov took the Austrian general into his\nprivate room and, calling his adjutant, asked for some papers relating\nto the condition of the troops on their arrival, and the letters that\nhad come from the Archduke Ferdinand, who was in command of the advanced\narmy. Prince Andrew Bolkonski came into the room with the required\npapers. Kutuzov and the Austrian member of the Hofkriegsrath were\nsitting at the table on which a plan was spread out.\n\n\"Ah!...\" said Kutuzov glancing at Bolkonski as if by this exclamation he\nwas asking the adjutant to wait, and he went on with the conversation in\nFrench.\n\n\"All I can say, General,\" said he with a pleasant elegance of expression\nand intonation that obliged one to listen to each deliberately spoken\nword. It was evident that Kutuzov himself listened with pleasure to his\nown voice. \"All I can say, General, is that if the matter depended on my\npersonal wishes, the will of His Majesty the Emperor Francis would have\nbeen fulfilled long ago. I should long ago have joined the archduke. And\nbelieve me on my honour that to me personally it would be a pleasure to\nhand over the supreme command of the army into the hands of a better\ninformed and more skillful general--of whom Austria has so many--and to\nlay down all this heavy responsibility. But circumstances are sometimes\ntoo strong for us, General.\"\n\nAnd Kutuzov smiled in a way that seemed to say, \"You are quite at\nliberty not to believe me and I don't even care whether you do or not,\nbut you have no grounds for telling me so. And that is the whole point.\"\n\nThe Austrian general looked dissatisfied, but had no option but to reply\nin the same tone.\n\n\"On the contrary,\" he said, in a querulous and angry tone that\ncontrasted with his flattering words, \"on the contrary, your\nexcellency's participation in the common action is highly valued by His\nMajesty; but we think the present delay is depriving the splendid\nRussian troops and their commander of the laurels they have been\naccustomed to win in their battles,\" he concluded his evidently\nprearranged sentence.\n\nKutuzov bowed with the same smile.\n\n\"But that is my conviction, and judging by the last letter with which\nHis Highness the Archduke Ferdinand has honored me, I imagine that the\nAustrian troops, under the direction of so skillful a leader as General\nMack, have by now already gained a decisive victory and no longer need\nour aid,\" said Kutuzov.\n\nThe general frowned. Though there was no definite news of an Austrian\ndefeat, there were many circumstances confirming the unfavorable rumors\nthat were afloat, and so Kutuzov's suggestion of an Austrian victory\nsounded much like irony. But Kutuzov went on blandly smiling with the\nsame expression, which seemed to say that he had a right to suppose so.\nAnd, in fact, the last letter he had received from Mack's army informed\nhim of a victory and stated strategically the position of the army was\nvery favorable.\n\n\"Give me that letter,\" said Kutuzov turning to Prince Andrew. \"Please\nhave a look at it\"--and Kutuzov with an ironical smile about the corners\nof his mouth read to the Austrian general the following passage, in\nGerman, from the Archduke Ferdinand's letter:\n\nWe have fully concentrated forces of nearly seventy thousand men with\nwhich to attack and defeat the enemy should he cross the Lech. Also, as\nwe are masters of Ulm, we cannot be deprived of the advantage of\ncommanding both sides of the Danube, so that should the enemy not cross\nthe Lech, we can cross the Danube, throw ourselves on his line of\ncommunications, recross the river lower down, and frustrate his\nintention should he try to direct his whole force against our faithful\nally. We shall therefore confidently await the moment when the Imperial\nRussian army will be fully equipped, and shall then, in conjunction with\nit, easily find a way to prepare for the enemy the fate he deserves.\n\nKutuzov sighed deeply on finishing this paragraph and looked at the\nmember of the Hofkriegsrath mildly and attentively.\n\n\"But you know the wise maxim your excellency, advising one to expect the\nworst,\" said the Austrian general, evidently wishing to have done with\njests and to come to business. He involuntarily looked round at the\naide-de-camp.\n\n\"Excuse me, General,\" interrupted Kutuzov, also turning to Prince\nAndrew. \"Look here, my dear fellow, get from Kozlovski all the reports\nfrom our scouts. Here are two letters from Count Nostitz and here is one\nfrom His Highness the Archduke Ferdinand and here are these,\" he said,\nhanding him several papers, \"make a neat memorandum in French out of all\nthis, showing all the news we have had of the movements of the Austrian\narmy, and then give it to his excellency.\"\n\nPrince Andrew bowed his head in token of having understood from the\nfirst not only what had been said but also what Kutuzov would have liked\nto tell him. He gathered up the papers and with a bow to both, stepped\nsoftly over the carpet and went out into the waiting room.\n\nThough not much time had passed since Prince Andrew had left Russia, he\nhad changed greatly during that period. In the expression of his face,\nin his movements, in his walk, scarcely a trace was left of his former\naffected languor and indolence. He now looked like a man who has time to\nthink of the impression he makes on others, but is occupied with\nagreeable and interesting work. His face expressed more satisfaction\nwith himself and those around him, his smile and glance were brighter\nand more attractive.\n\nKutuzov, whom he had overtaken in Poland, had received him very kindly,\npromised not to forget him, distinguished him above the other adjutants,\nand had taken him to Vienna and given him the more serious commissions.\nFrom Vienna Kutuzov wrote to his old comrade, Prince Andrew's father.\n\nYour son bids fair to become an officer distinguished by his industry,\nfirmness, and expedition. I consider myself fortunate to have such a\nsubordinate by me.\n\nOn Kutuzov's staff, among his fellow officers and in the army generally,\nPrince Andrew had, as he had had in Petersburg society, two quite\nopposite reputations. Some, a minority, acknowledged him to be different\nfrom themselves and from everyone else, expected great things of him,\nlistened to him, admired, and imitated him, and with them Prince Andrew\nwas natural and pleasant. Others, the majority, disliked him and\nconsidered him conceited, cold, and disagreeable. But among these people\nPrince Andrew knew how to take his stand so that they respected and even\nfeared him.\n\nComing out of Kutuzov's room into the waiting room with the papers in\nhis hand Prince Andrew came up to his comrade, the aide-de-camp on duty,\nKozlovski, who was sitting at the window with a book.\n\n\"Well, Prince?\" asked Kozlovski.\n\n\"I am ordered to write a memorandum explaining why we are not\nadvancing.\"\n\n\"And why is it?\"\n\nPrince Andrew shrugged his shoulders.\n\n\"Any news from Mack?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"If it were true that he has been beaten, news would have come.\"\n\n\"Probably,\" said Prince Andrew moving toward the outer door.\n\nBut at that instant a tall Austrian general in a greatcoat, with the\norder of Maria Theresa on his neck and a black bandage round his head,\nwho had evidently just arrived, entered quickly, slamming the door.\nPrince Andrew stopped short.\n\n\"Commander in Chief Kutuzov?\" said the newly arrived general speaking\nquickly with a harsh German accent, looking to both sides and advancing\nstraight toward the inner door.\n\n\"The commander-in-chief is engaged,\" said Kozlovski, going hurriedly up\nto the unknown general and blocking his way to the door. \"Whom shall I\nannounce?\"\n\nThe unknown general looked disdainfully down at Kozlovski, who was\nrather short, as if surprised that anyone should not know him.\n\n\"The commander-in-chief is engaged,\" repeated Kozlovski calmly.\n\nThe general's face clouded, his lips quivered and trembled. He took out\na notebook, hurriedly scribbled something in pencil, tore out the leaf,\ngave it to Kozlovski, stepped quickly to the window, and threw himself\ninto a chair, gazing at those in the room as if asking, \"Why do they\nlook at me?\" Then he lifted his head, stretched his neck as if he\nintended to say something, but immediately, with affected indifference,\nbegan to hum to himself, producing a queer sound which immediately broke\noff. The door of the private room opened and Kutuzov appeared in the\ndoorway. The general with the bandaged head bent forward as though\nrunning away from some danger, and, making long, quick strides with his\nthin legs, went up to Kutuzov.\n\n\"Vous voyez le malheureux Mack,\" he uttered in a broken voice.\n\nKutuzov's face as he stood in the open doorway remained perfectly\nimmobile for a few moments. Then wrinkles ran over his face like a wave\nand his forehead became smooth again, he bowed his head respectfully,\nclosed his eyes, silently let Mack enter his room before him, and closed\nthe door himself behind him.\n\nThe report which had been circulated that the Austrians had been beaten\nand that the whole army had surrendered at Ulm proved to be correct.\nWithin half an hour adjutants had been sent in various directions with\norders which showed that the Russian troops, who had hitherto been\ninactive, would also soon have to meet the enemy.\n\nPrince Andrew was one of those rare staff officers whose chief interest\nlay in the general progress of the war. When he saw Mack and heard the\ndetails of his disaster he understood that half the campaign was lost,\nunderstood all the difficulties of the Russian army's position, and\nvividly imagined what awaited it and the part he would have to play.\nInvoluntarily he felt a joyful agitation at the thought of the\nhumiliation of arrogant Austria and that in a week's time he might,\nperhaps, see and take part in the first Russian encounter with the\nFrench since Suvorov met them. He feared that Bonaparte's genius might\noutweigh all the courage of the Russian troops, and at the same time\ncould not admit the idea of his hero being disgraced.\n\nExcited and irritated by these thoughts Prince Andrew went toward his\nroom to write to his father, to whom he wrote every day. In the corridor\nhe met Nesvitski, with whom he shared a room, and the wag Zherkov; they\nwere as usual laughing.\n\n\"Why are you so glum?\" asked Nesvitski noticing Prince Andrew's pale\nface and glittering eyes.\n\n\"There's nothing to be gay about,\" answered Bolkonski.\n\nJust as Prince Andrew met Nesvitski and Zherkov, there came toward them\nfrom the other end of the corridor, Strauch, an Austrian general who on\nKutuzov's staff in charge of the provisioning of the Russian army, and\nthe member of the Hofkriegsrath who had arrived the previous evening.\nThere was room enough in the wide corridor for the generals to pass the\nthree officers quite easily, but Zherkov, pushing Nesvitski aside with\nhis arm, said in a breathless voice,\n\n\"They're coming!... they're coming!... Stand aside, make way, please\nmake way!\"\n\nThe generals were passing by, looking as if they wished to avoid\nembarrassing attentions. On the face of the wag Zherkov there suddenly\nappeared a stupid smile of glee which he seemed unable to suppress.\n\n\"Your excellency,\" said he in German, stepping forward and addressing\nthe Austrian general, \"I have the honor to congratulate you.\"\n\nHe bowed his head and scraped first with one foot and then with the\nother, awkwardly, like a child at a dancing lesson.\n\nThe member of the Hofkriegsrath looked at him severely but, seeing the\nseriousness of his stupid smile, could not but give him a moment's\nattention. He screwed up his eyes showing that he was listening.\n\n\"I have the honor to congratulate you. General Mack has arrived, quite\nwell, only a little bruised just here,\" he added, pointing with a\nbeaming smile to his head.\n\nThe general frowned, turned away, and went on.\n\n\"Gott, wie naiv!\" * said he angrily, after he had gone a few steps.\n\n\n* \"Good God, what simplicity!\"\n\nNesvitski with a laugh threw his arms round Prince Andrew, but\nBolkonski, turning still paler, pushed him away with an angry look and\nturned to Zherkov. The nervous irritation aroused by the appearance of\nMack, the news of his defeat, and the thought of what lay before the\nRussian army found vent in anger at Zherkov's untimely jest.\n\n\"If you, sir, choose to make a buffoon of yourself,\" he said sharply,\nwith a slight trembling of the lower jaw, \"I can't prevent your doing\nso; but I warn you that if you dare to play the fool in my presence, I\nwill teach you to behave yourself.\"\n\nNesvitski and Zherkov were so surprised by this outburst that they gazed\nat Bolkonski silently with wide-open eyes.\n\n\"What's the matter? I only congratulated them,\" said Zherkov.\n\n\"I am not jesting with you; please be silent!\" cried Bolkonski, and\ntaking Nesvitski's arm he left Zherkov, who did not know what to say.\n\n\"Come, what's the matter, old fellow?\" said Nesvitski trying to soothe\nhim.\n\n\"What's the matter?\" exclaimed Prince Andrew standing still in his\nexcitement. \"Don't you understand that either we are officers serving\nour Tsar and our country, rejoicing in the successes and grieving at the\nmisfortunes of our common cause, or we are merely lackeys who care\nnothing for their master's business. Quarante mille hommes massacres et\nl'armee de nos allies detruite, et vous trouvez la le mot pour rire,\" *\nhe said, as if strengthening his views by this French sentence. \"C'est\nbien pour un garcon de rien comme cet individu dont vous avez fait un\nami, mais pas pour vous, pas pour vous. *(2) Only a hobbledehoy could\namuse himself in this way,\" he added in Russian--but pronouncing the\nword with a French accent--having noticed that Zherkov could still hear\nhim.\n\n\n* \"Forty thousand men massacred and the army of our allies destroyed,\nand you find that a cause for jesting!\"\n\n* (2) \"It is all very well for that good-for-nothing fellow of whom you\nhave made a friend, but not for you, not for you.\"\n\nHe waited a moment to see whether the cornet would answer, but he turned\nand went out of the corridor.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nThe Pavlograd Hussars were stationed two miles from Braunau. The\nsquadron in which Nicholas Rostov served as a cadet was quartered in the\nGerman village of Salzeneck. The best quarters in the village were\nassigned to cavalry-captain Denisov, the squadron commander, known\nthroughout the whole cavalry division as Vaska Denisov. Cadet Rostov,\never since he had overtaken the regiment in Poland, had lived with the\nsquadron commander.\n\nOn October 11, the day when all was astir at headquarters over the news\nof Mack's defeat, the camp life of the officers of this squadron was\nproceeding as usual. Denisov, who had been losing at cards all night,\nhad not yet come home when Rostov rode back early in the morning from a\nforaging expedition. Rostov in his cadet uniform, with a jerk to his\nhorse, rode up to the porch, swung his leg over the saddle with a supple\nyouthful movement, stood for a moment in the stirrup as if loathe to\npart from his horse, and at last sprang down and called to his orderly.\n\n\"Ah, Bondarenko, dear friend!\" said he to the hussar who rushed up\nheadlong to the horse. \"Walk him up and down, my dear fellow,\" he\ncontinued, with that gay brotherly cordiality which goodhearted young\npeople show to everyone when they are happy.\n\n\"Yes, your excellency,\" answered the Ukrainian gaily, tossing his head.\n\n\"Mind, walk him up and down well!\"\n\nAnother hussar also rushed toward the horse, but Bondarenko had already\nthrown the reins of the snaffle bridle over the horse's head. It was\nevident that the cadet was liberal with his tips and that it paid to\nserve him. Rostov patted the horse's neck and then his flank, and\nlingered for a moment.\n\n\"Splendid! What a horse he will be!\" he thought with a smile, and\nholding up his saber, his spurs jingling, he ran up the steps of the\nporch. His landlord, who in a waistcoat and a pointed cap, pitchfork in\nhand, was clearing manure from the cowhouse, looked out, and his face\nimmediately brightened on seeing Rostov. \"Schon gut Morgen! Schon gut\nMorgen!\" * he said winking with a merry smile, evidently pleased to\ngreet the young man.\n\n\n* \"A very good morning! A very good morning!\"\n\n\"Schon fleissig?\" * said Rostov with the same gay brotherly smile which\ndid not leave his eager face. \"Hoch Oestreicher! Hoch Russen! Kaiser\nAlexander hoch!\" *(2) said he, quoting words often repeated by the\nGerman landlord.\n\n\n* \"Busy already?\"\n\n* (2) \"Hurrah for the Austrians! Hurrah for the Russians! Hurrah for\nEmperor Alexander!\"\n\nThe German laughed, came out of the cowshed, pulled off his cap, and\nwaving it above his head cried:\n\n\"Und die ganze Welt hoch!\" *\n\n\n* \"And hurrah for the whole world!\"\n\nRostov waved his cap above his head like the German and cried laughing,\n\"Und vivat die ganze Welt!\" Though neither the German cleaning his\ncowshed nor Rostov back with his platoon from foraging for hay had any\nreason for rejoicing, they looked at each other with joyful delight and\nbrotherly love, wagged their heads in token of their mutual affection,\nand parted smiling, the German returning to his cowshed and Rostov going\nto the cottage he occupied with Denisov.\n\n\"What about your master?\" he asked Lavrushka, Denisov's orderly, whom\nall the regiment knew for a rogue.\n\n\"Hasn't been in since the evening. Must have been losing,\" answered\nLavrushka. \"I know by now, if he wins he comes back early to brag about\nit, but if he stays out till morning it means he's lost and will come\nback in a rage. Will you have coffee?\"\n\n\"Yes, bring some.\"\n\nTen minutes later Lavrushka brought the coffee. \"He's coming!\" said he.\n\"Now for trouble!\" Rostov looked out of the window and saw Denisov\ncoming home. Denisov was a small man with a red face, sparkling black\neyes, and black tousled mustache and hair. He wore an unfastened cloak,\nwide breeches hanging down in creases, and a crumpled shako on the back\nof his head. He came up to the porch gloomily, hanging his head.\n\n\"Lavwuska!\" he shouted loudly and angrily, \"take it off, blockhead!\"\n\n\"Well, I am taking it off,\" replied Lavrushka's voice.\n\n\"Ah, you're up already,\" said Denisov, entering the room.\n\n\"Long ago,\" answered Rostov, \"I have already been for the hay, and have\nseen Fraulein Mathilde.\"\n\n\"Weally! And I've been losing, bwother. I lost yesterday like a damned\nfool!\" cried Denisov, not pronouncing his r's. \"Such ill luck! Such ill\nluck. As soon as you left, it began and went on. Hullo there! Tea!\"\n\nPuckering up his face though smiling, and showing his short strong\nteeth, he began with stubby fingers of both hands to ruffle up his thick\ntangled black hair.\n\n\"And what devil made me go to that wat?\" (an officer nicknamed \"the\nrat\") he said, rubbing his forehead and whole face with both hands.\n\"Just fancy, he didn't let me win a single cahd, not one cahd.\"\n\nHe took the lighted pipe that was offered to him, gripped it in his\nfist, and tapped it on the floor, making the sparks fly, while he\ncontinued to shout.\n\n\"He lets one win the singles and collahs it as soon as one doubles it;\ngives the singles and snatches the doubles!\"\n\nHe scattered the burning tobacco, smashed the pipe, and threw it away.\nThen he remained silent for a while, and all at once looked cheerfully\nwith his glittering, black eyes at Rostov.\n\n\"If at least we had some women here; but there's nothing foh one to do\nbut dwink. If we could only get to fighting soon. Hullo, who's there?\"\nhe said, turning to the door as he heard a tread of heavy boots and the\nclinking of spurs that came to a stop, and a respectful cough.\n\n\"The squadron quartermaster!\" said Lavrushka.\n\nDenisov's face puckered still more.\n\n\"Wetched!\" he muttered, throwing down a purse with some gold in it.\n\"Wostov, deah fellow, just see how much there is left and shove the\npurse undah the pillow,\" he said, and went out to the quartermaster.\n\nRostov took the money and, mechanically arranging the old and new coins\nin separate piles, began counting them.\n\n\"Ah! Telyanin! How d'ye do? They plucked me last night,\" came Denisov's\nvoice from the next room.\n\n\"Where? At Bykov's, at the rat's... I knew it,\" replied a piping voice,\nand Lieutenant Telyanin, a small officer of the same squadron, entered\nthe room.\n\nRostov thrust the purse under the pillow and shook the damp little hand\nwhich was offered him. Telyanin for some reason had been transferred\nfrom the Guards just before this campaign. He behaved very well in the\nregiment but was not liked; Rostov especially detested him and was\nunable to overcome or conceal his groundless antipathy to the man.\n\n\"Well, young cavalryman, how is my Rook behaving?\" he asked. (Rook was a\nyoung horse Telyanin had sold to Rostov.)\n\nThe lieutenant never looked the man he was speaking to straight in the\nface; his eyes continually wandered from one object to another.\n\n\"I saw you riding this morning...\" he added.\n\n\"Oh, he's all right, a good horse,\" answered Rostov, though the horse\nfor which he had paid seven hundred rubles was not worth half that sum.\n\"He's begun to go a little lame on the left foreleg,\" he added.\n\n\"The hoof's cracked! That's nothing. I'll teach you what to do and show\nyou what kind of rivet to use.\"\n\n\"Yes, please do,\" said Rostov.\n\n\"I'll show you, I'll show you! It's not a secret. And it's a horse\nyou'll thank me for.\"\n\n\"Then I'll have it brought round,\" said Rostov wishing to avoid\nTelyanin, and he went out to give the order.\n\nIn the passage Denisov, with a pipe, was squatting on the threshold\nfacing the quartermaster who was reporting to him. On seeing Rostov,\nDenisov screwed up his face and pointing over his shoulder with his\nthumb to the room where Telyanin was sitting, he frowned and gave a\nshudder of disgust.\n\n\"Ugh! I don't like that fellow,\" he said, regardless of the\nquartermaster's presence.\n\nRostov shrugged his shoulders as much as to say: \"Nor do I, but what's\none to do?\" and, having given his order, he returned to Telyanin.\n\nTelyanin was sitting in the same indolent pose in which Rostov had left\nhim, rubbing his small white hands.\n\n\"Well there certainly are disgusting people,\" thought Rostov as he\nentered.\n\n\"Have you told them to bring the horse?\" asked Telyanin, getting up and\nlooking carelessly about him.\n\n\"I have.\"\n\n\"Let us go ourselves. I only came round to ask Denisov about yesterday's\norder. Have you got it, Denisov?\"\n\n\"Not yet. But where are you off to?\"\n\n\"I want to teach this young man how to shoe a horse,\" said Telyanin.\n\nThey went through the porch and into the stable. The lieutenant\nexplained how to rivet the hoof and went away to his own quarters.\n\nWhen Rostov went back there was a bottle of vodka and a sausage on the\ntable. Denisov was sitting there scratching with his pen on a sheet of\npaper. He looked gloomily in Rostov's face and said: \"I am witing to\nher.\"\n\nHe leaned his elbows on the table with his pen in his hand and,\nevidently glad of a chance to say quicker in words what he wanted to\nwrite, told Rostov the contents of his letter.\n\n\"You see, my fwiend,\" he said, \"we sleep when we don't love. We are\nchildwen of the dust... but one falls in love and one is a God, one is\npua' as on the first day of cweation... Who's that now? Send him to the\ndevil, I'm busy!\" he shouted to Lavrushka, who went up to him not in the\nleast abashed.\n\n\"Who should it be? You yourself told him to come. It's the quartermaster\nfor the money.\"\n\nDenisov frowned and was about to shout some reply but stopped.\n\n\"Wetched business,\" he muttered to himself. \"How much is left in the\npuhse?\" he asked, turning to Rostov.\n\n\"Seven new and three old imperials.\"\n\n\"Oh, it's wetched! Well, what are you standing there for, you sca'cwow?\nCall the quahtehmasteh,\" he shouted to Lavrushka.\n\n\"Please, Denisov, let me lend you some: I have some, you know,\" said\nRostov, blushing.\n\n\"Don't like bowwowing from my own fellows, I don't,\" growled Denisov.\n\n\"But if you won't accept money from me like a comrade, you will offend\nme. Really I have some,\" Rostov repeated.\n\n\"No, I tell you.\"\n\nAnd Denisov went to the bed to get the purse from under the pillow.\n\n\"Where have you put it, Wostov?\"\n\n\"Under the lower pillow.\"\n\n\"It's not there.\"\n\nDenisov threw both pillows on the floor. The purse was not there.\n\n\"That's a miwacle.\"\n\n\"Wait, haven't you dropped it?\" said Rostov, picking up the pillows one\nat a time and shaking them.\n\nHe pulled off the quilt and shook it. The purse was not there.\n\n\"Dear me, can I have forgotten? No, I remember thinking that you kept it\nunder your head like a treasure,\" said Rostov. \"I put it just here.\nWhere is it?\" he asked, turning to Lavrushka.\n\n\"I haven't been in the room. It must be where you put it.\"\n\n\"But it isn't?...\"\n\n\"You're always like that; you thwow a thing down anywhere and forget it.\nFeel in your pockets.\"\n\n\"No, if I hadn't thought of it being a treasure,\" said Rostov, \"but I\nremember putting it there.\"\n\nLavrushka turned all the bedding over, looked under the bed and under\nthe table, searched everywhere, and stood still in the middle of the\nroom. Denisov silently watched Lavrushka's movements, and when the\nlatter threw up his arms in surprise saying it was nowhere to be found\nDenisov glanced at Rostov.\n\n\"Wostov, you've not been playing schoolboy twicks...\"\n\nRostov felt Denisov's gaze fixed on him, raised his eyes, and instantly\ndropped them again. All the blood which had seemed congested somewhere\nbelow his throat rushed to his face and eyes. He could not draw breath.\n\n\"And there hasn't been anyone in the room except the lieutenant and\nyourselves. It must be here somewhere,\" said Lavrushka.\n\n\"Now then, you devil's puppet, look alive and hunt for it!\" shouted\nDenisov, suddenly, turning purple and rushing at the man with a\nthreatening gesture. \"If the purse isn't found I'll flog you, I'll flog\nyou all.\"\n\nRostov, his eyes avoiding Denisov, began buttoning his coat, buckled on\nhis saber, and put on his cap.\n\n\"I must have that purse, I tell you,\" shouted Denisov, shaking his\norderly by the shoulders and knocking him against the wall.\n\n\"Denisov, let him alone, I know who has taken it,\" said Rostov, going\ntoward the door without raising his eyes. Denisov paused, thought a\nmoment, and, evidently understanding what Rostov hinted at, seized his\narm.\n\n\"Nonsense!\" he cried, and the veins on his forehead and neck stood out\nlike cords. \"You are mad, I tell you. I won't allow it. The purse is\nhere! I'll flay this scoundwel alive, and it will be found.\"\n\n\"I know who has taken it,\" repeated Rostov in an unsteady voice, and\nwent to the door.\n\n\"And I tell you, don't you dahe to do it!\" shouted Denisov, rushing at\nthe cadet to restrain him.\n\nBut Rostov pulled away his arm and, with as much anger as though Denisov\nwere his worst enemy, firmly fixed his eyes directly on his face.\n\n\"Do you understand what you're saying?\" he said in a trembling voice.\n\"There was no one else in the room except myself. So that if it is not\nso, then...\"\n\nHe could not finish, and ran out of the room.\n\n\"Ah, may the devil take you and evewybody,\" were the last words Rostov\nheard.\n\nRostov went to Telyanin's quarters.\n\n\"The master is not in, he's gone to headquarters,\" said Telyanin's\norderly. \"Has something happened?\" he added, surprised at the cadet's\ntroubled face.\n\n\"No, nothing.\"\n\n\"You've only just missed him,\" said the orderly.\n\nThe headquarters were situated two miles away from Salzeneck, and\nRostov, without returning home, took a horse and rode there. There was\nan inn in the village which the officers frequented. Rostov rode up to\nit and saw Telyanin's horse at the porch.\n\nIn the second room of the inn the lieutenant was sitting over a dish of\nsausages and a bottle of wine.\n\n\"Ah, you've come here too, young man!\" he said, smiling and raising his\neyebrows.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Rostov as if it cost him a great deal to utter the word; and\nhe sat down at the nearest table.\n\nBoth were silent. There were two Germans and a Russian officer in the\nroom. No one spoke and the only sounds heard were the clatter of knives\nand the munching of the lieutenant.\n\nWhen Telyanin had finished his lunch he took out of his pocket a double\npurse and, drawing its rings aside with his small, white, turned-up\nfingers, drew out a gold imperial, and lifting his eyebrows gave it to\nthe waiter.\n\n\"Please be quick,\" he said.\n\nThe coin was a new one. Rostov rose and went up to Telyanin.\n\n\"Allow me to look at your purse,\" he said in a low, almost inaudible,\nvoice.\n\nWith shifting eyes but eyebrows still raised, Telyanin handed him the\npurse.\n\n\"Yes, it's a nice purse. Yes, yes,\" he said, growing suddenly pale, and\nadded, \"Look at it, young man.\"\n\nRostov took the purse in his hand, examined it and the money in it, and\nlooked at Telyanin. The lieutenant was looking about in his usual way\nand suddenly seemed to grow very merry.\n\n\"If we get to Vienna I'll get rid of it there but in these wretched\nlittle towns there's nowhere to spend it,\" said he. \"Well, let me have\nit, young man, I'm going.\"\n\nRostov did not speak.\n\n\"And you? Are you going to have lunch too? They feed you quite decently\nhere,\" continued Telyanin. \"Now then, let me have it.\"\n\nHe stretched out his hand to take hold of the purse. Rostov let go of\nit. Telyanin took the purse and began carelessly slipping it into the\npocket of his riding breeches, with his eyebrows lifted and his mouth\nslightly open, as if to say, \"Yes, yes, I am putting my purse in my\npocket and that's quite simple and is no one else's business.\"\n\n\"Well, young man?\" he said with a sigh, and from under his lifted brows\nhe glanced into Rostov's eyes.\n\nSome flash as of an electric spark shot from Telyanin's eyes to Rostov's\nand back, and back again and again in an instant.\n\n\"Come here,\" said Rostov, catching hold of Telyanin's arm and almost\ndragging him to the window. \"That money is Denisov's; you took it...\" he\nwhispered just above Telyanin's ear.\n\n\"What? What? How dare you? What?\" said Telyanin.\n\nBut these words came like a piteous, despairing cry and an entreaty for\npardon. As soon as Rostov heard them, an enormous load of doubt fell\nfrom him. He was glad, and at the same instant began to pity the\nmiserable man who stood before him, but the task he had begun had to be\ncompleted.\n\n\"Heaven only knows what the people here may imagine,\" muttered Telyanin,\ntaking up his cap and moving toward a small empty room. \"We must have an\nexplanation...\"\n\n\"I know it and shall prove it,\" said Rostov.\n\n\"I...\"\n\nEvery muscle of Telyanin's pale, terrified face began to quiver, his\neyes still shifted from side to side but with a downward look not rising\nto Rostov's face, and his sobs were audible.\n\n\"Count!... Don't ruin a young fellow... here is this wretched money,\ntake it...\" He threw it on the table. \"I have an old father and\nmother!...\"\n\nRostov took the money, avoiding Telyanin's eyes, and went out of the\nroom without a word. But at the door he stopped and then retraced his\nsteps. \"O God,\" he said with tears in his eyes, \"how could you do it?\"\n\n\"Count...\" said Telyanin drawing nearer to him.\n\n\"Don't touch me,\" said Rostov, drawing back. \"If you need it, take the\nmoney,\" and he threw the purse to him and ran out of the inn.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nThat same evening there was an animated discussion among the squadron's\nofficers in Denisov's quarters.\n\n\"And I tell you, Rostov, that you must apologize to the colonel!\" said a\ntall, grizzly-haired staff captain, with enormous mustaches and many\nwrinkles on his large features, to Rostov who was crimson with\nexcitement.\n\nThe staff captain, Kirsten, had twice been reduced to the ranks for\naffairs of honor and had twice regained his commission.\n\n\"I will allow no one to call me a liar!\" cried Rostov. \"He told me I\nlied, and I told him he lied. And there it rests. He may keep me on duty\nevery day, or may place me under arrest, but no one can make me\napologize, because if he, as commander of this regiment, thinks it\nbeneath his dignity to give me satisfaction, then...\"\n\n\"You just wait a moment, my dear fellow, and listen,\" interrupted the\nstaff captain in his deep bass, calmly stroking his long mustache. \"You\ntell the colonel in the presence of other officers that an officer has\nstolen...\"\n\n\"I'm not to blame that the conversation began in the presence of other\nofficers. Perhaps I ought not to have spoken before them, but I am not a\ndiplomatist. That's why I joined the hussars, thinking that here one\nwould not need finesse; and he tells me that I am lying--so let him give\nme satisfaction...\"\n\n\"That's all right. No one thinks you a coward, but that's not the point.\nAsk Denisov whether it is not out of the question for a cadet to demand\nsatisfaction of his regimental commander?\"\n\nDenisov sat gloomily biting his mustache and listening to the\nconversation, evidently with no wish to take part in it. He answered the\nstaff captain's question by a disapproving shake of his head.\n\n\"You speak to the colonel about this nasty business before other\nofficers,\" continued the staff captain, \"and Bogdanich\" (the colonel was\ncalled Bogdanich) \"shuts you up.\"\n\n\"He did not shut me up, he said I was telling an untruth.\"\n\n\"Well, have it so, and you talked a lot of nonsense to him and must\napologize.\"\n\n\"Not on any account!\" exclaimed Rostov.\n\n\"I did not expect this of you,\" said the staff captain seriously and\nseverely. \"You don't wish to apologize, but, man, it's not only to him\nbut to the whole regiment--all of us--you're to blame all round. The\ncase is this: you ought to have thought the matter over and taken\nadvice; but no, you go and blurt it all straight out before the\nofficers. Now what was the colonel to do? Have the officer tried and\ndisgrace the whole regiment? Disgrace the whole regiment because of one\nscoundrel? Is that how you look at it? We don't see it like that. And\nBogdanich was a brick: he told you you were saying what was not true.\nIt's not pleasant, but what's to be done, my dear fellow? You landed\nyourself in it. And now, when one wants to smooth the thing over, some\nconceit prevents your apologizing, and you wish to make the whole affair\npublic. You are offended at being put on duty a bit, but why not\napologize to an old and honorable officer? Whatever Bogdanich may be,\nanyway he is an honorable and brave old colonel! You're quick at taking\noffense, but you don't mind disgracing the whole regiment!\" The staff\ncaptain's voice began to tremble. \"You have been in the regiment next to\nno time, my lad, you're here today and tomorrow you'll be appointed\nadjutant somewhere and can snap your fingers when it is said 'There are\nthieves among the Pavlograd officers!' But it's not all the same to us!\nAm I not right, Denisov? It's not the same!\"\n\nDenisov remained silent and did not move, but occasionally looked with\nhis glittering black eyes at Rostov.\n\n\"You value your own pride and don't wish to apologize,\" continued the\nstaff captain, \"but we old fellows, who have grown up in and, God\nwilling, are going to die in the regiment, we prize the honor of the\nregiment, and Bogdanich knows it. Oh, we do prize it, old fellow! And\nall this is not right, it's not right! You may take offense or not but I\nalways stick to mother truth. It's not right!\"\n\nAnd the staff captain rose and turned away from Rostov.\n\n\n\"That's twue, devil take it!\" shouted Denisov, jumping up. \"Now then,\nWostov, now then!\"\n\nRostov, growing red and pale alternately, looked first at one officer\nand then at the other.\n\n\"No, gentlemen, no... you mustn't think... I quite understand. You're\nwrong to think that of me... I... for me... for the honor of the\nregiment I'd... Ah well, I'll show that in action, and for me the honor\nof the flag... Well, never mind, it's true I'm to blame, to blame all\nround. Well, what else do you want?...\"\n\n\"Come, that's right, Count!\" cried the staff captain, turning round and\nclapping Rostov on the shoulder with his big hand.\n\n\"I tell you,\" shouted Denisov, \"he's a fine fellow.\"\n\n\"That's better, Count,\" said the staff captain, beginning to address\nRostov by his title, as if in recognition of his confession. \"Go and\napologize, your excellency. Yes, go!\"\n\n\"Gentlemen, I'll do anything. No one shall hear a word from me,\" said\nRostov in an imploring voice, \"but I can't apologize, by God I can't, do\nwhat you will! How can I go and apologize like a little boy asking\nforgiveness?\"\n\nDenisov began to laugh.\n\n\"It'll be worse for you. Bogdanich is vindictive and you'll pay for your\nobstinacy,\" said Kirsten.\n\n\"No, on my word it's not obstinacy! I can't describe the feeling. I\ncan't...\"\n\n\"Well, it's as you like,\" said the staff captain. \"And what has become\nof that scoundrel?\" he asked Denisov.\n\n\"He has weported himself sick, he's to be stwuck off the list tomowwow,\"\nmuttered Denisov.\n\n\"It is an illness, there's no other way of explaining it,\" said the\nstaff captain.\n\n\"Illness or not, he'd better not cwoss my path. I'd kill him!\" shouted\nDenisov in a bloodthirsty tone.\n\nJust then Zherkov entered the room.\n\n\"What brings you here?\" cried the officers turning to the newcomer.\n\n\"We're to go into action, gentlemen! Mack has surrendered with his whole\narmy.\"\n\n\"It's not true!\"\n\n\"I've seen him myself!\"\n\n\"What? Saw the real Mack? With hands and feet?\"\n\n\"Into action! Into action! Bring him a bottle for such news! But how did\nyou come here?\"\n\n\"I've been sent back to the regiment all on account of that devil, Mack.\nAn Austrian general complained of me. I congratulated him on Mack's\narrival... What's the matter, Rostov? You look as if you'd just come out\nof a hot bath.\"\n\n\"Oh, my dear fellow, we're in such a stew here these last two days.\"\n\nThe regimental adjutant came in and confirmed the news brought by\nZherkov. They were under orders to advance next day.\n\n\"We're going into action, gentlemen!\"\n\n\"Well, thank God! We've been sitting here too long!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nKutuzov fell back toward Vienna, destroying behind him the bridges over\nthe rivers Inn (at Braunau) and Traun (near Linz). On October 23 the\nRussian troops were crossing the river Enns. At midday the Russian\nbaggage train, the artillery, and columns of troops were defiling\nthrough the town of Enns on both sides of the bridge.\n\nIt was a warm, rainy, autumnal day. The wide expanse that opened out\nbefore the heights on which the Russian batteries stood guarding the\nbridge was at times veiled by a diaphanous curtain of slanting rain, and\nthen, suddenly spread out in the sunlight, far-distant objects could be\nclearly seen glittering as though freshly varnished. Down below, the\nlittle town could be seen with its white, red-roofed houses, its\ncathedral, and its bridge, on both sides of which streamed jostling\nmasses of Russian troops. At the bend of the Danube, vessels, an island,\nand a castle with a park surrounded by the waters of the confluence of\nthe Enns and the Danube became visible, and the rocky left bank of the\nDanube covered with pine forests, with a mystic background of green\ntreetops and bluish gorges. The turrets of a convent stood out beyond a\nwild virgin pine forest, and far away on the other side of the Enns the\nenemy's horse patrols could be discerned.\n\nAmong the field guns on the brow of the hill the general in command of\nthe rearguard stood with a staff officer, scanning the country through\nhis fieldglass. A little behind them Nesvitski, who had been sent to the\nrearguard by the commander-in-chief, was sitting on the trail of a gun\ncarriage. A Cossack who accompanied him had handed him a knapsack and a\nflask, and Nesvitski was treating some officers to pies and real\ndoppelkummel. The officers gladly gathered round him, some on their\nknees, some squatting Turkish fashion on the wet grass.\n\n\"Yes, the Austrian prince who built that castle was no fool. It's a fine\nplace! Why are you not eating anything, gentlemen?\" Nesvitski was\nsaying.\n\n\"Thank you very much, Prince,\" answered one of the officers, pleased to\nbe talking to a staff officer of such importance. \"It's a lovely place!\nWe passed close to the park and saw two deer... and what a splendid\nhouse!\"\n\n\"Look, Prince,\" said another, who would have dearly liked to take\nanother pie but felt shy, and therefore pretended to be examining the\ncountryside--\"See, our infantrymen have already got there. Look there in\nthe meadow behind the village, three of them are dragging something.\nThey'll ransack that castle,\" he remarked with evident approval.\n\n\"So they will,\" said Nesvitski. \"No, but what I should like,\" added he,\nmunching a pie in his moist-lipped handsome mouth, \"would be to slip in\nover there.\"\n\nHe pointed with a smile to a turreted nunnery, and his eyes narrowed and\ngleamed.\n\n\"That would be fine, gentlemen!\"\n\nThe officers laughed.\n\n\"Just to flutter the nuns a bit. They say there are Italian girls among\nthem. On my word I'd give five years of my life for it!\"\n\n\"They must be feeling dull, too,\" said one of the bolder officers,\nlaughing.\n\nMeanwhile the staff officer standing in front pointed out something to\nthe general, who looked through his field glass.\n\n\"Yes, so it is, so it is,\" said the general angrily, lowering the field\nglass and shrugging his shoulders, \"so it is! They'll be fired on at the\ncrossing. And why are they dawdling there?\"\n\nOn the opposite side the enemy could be seen by the naked eye, and from\ntheir battery a milk-white cloud arose. Then came the distant report of\na shot, and our troops could be seen hurrying to the crossing.\n\nNesvitski rose, puffing, and went up to the general, smiling.\n\n\"Would not your excellency like a little refreshment?\" he said.\n\n\"It's a bad business,\" said the general without answering him, \"our men\nhave been wasting time.\"\n\n\"Hadn't I better ride over, your excellency?\" asked Nesvitski.\n\n\"Yes, please do,\" answered the general, and he repeated the order that\nhad already once been given in detail: \"and tell the hussars that they\nare to cross last and to fire the bridge as I ordered; and the\ninflammable material on the bridge must be reinspected.\"\n\n\"Very good,\" answered Nesvitski.\n\nHe called the Cossack with his horse, told him to put away the knapsack\nand flask, and swung his heavy person easily into the saddle.\n\n\"I'll really call in on the nuns,\" he said to the officers who watched\nhim smilingly, and he rode off by the winding path down the hill.\n\n\"Now then, let's see how far it will carry, Captain. Just try!\" said the\ngeneral, turning to an artillery officer. \"Have a little fun to pass the\ntime.\"\n\n\"Crew, to your guns!\" commanded the officer.\n\nIn a moment the men came running gaily from their campfires and began\nloading.\n\n\"One!\" came the command.\n\nNumber one jumped briskly aside. The gun rang out with a deafening\nmetallic roar, and a whistling grenade flew above the heads of our\ntroops below the hill and fell far short of the enemy, a little smoke\nshowing the spot where it burst.\n\nThe faces of officers and men brightened up at the sound. Everyone got\nup and began watching the movements of our troops below, as plainly\nvisible as if but a stone's throw away, and the movements of the\napproaching enemy farther off. At the same instant the sun came fully\nout from behind the clouds, and the clear sound of the solitary shot and\nthe brilliance of the bright sunshine merged in a single joyous and\nspirited impression.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTwo of the enemy's shots had already flown across the bridge, where\nthere was a crush. Halfway across stood Prince Nesvitski, who had\nalighted from his horse and whose big body was jammed against the\nrailings. He looked back laughing to the Cossack who stood a few steps\nbehind him holding two horses by their bridles. Each time Prince\nNesvitski tried to move on, soldiers and carts pushed him back again and\npressed him against the railings, and all he could do was to smile.\n\n\"What a fine fellow you are, friend!\" said the Cossack to a convoy\nsoldier with a wagon, who was pressing onto the infantrymen who were\ncrowded together close to his wheels and his horses. \"What a fellow! You\ncan't wait a moment! Don't you see the general wants to pass?\"\n\nBut the convoyman took no notice of the word \"general\" and shouted at\nthe soldiers who were blocking his way. \"Hi there, boys! Keep to the\nleft! Wait a bit.\" But the soldiers, crowded together shoulder to\nshoulder, their bayonets interlocking, moved over the bridge in a dense\nmass. Looking down over the rails Prince Nesvitski saw the rapid, noisy\nlittle waves of the Enns, which rippling and eddying round the piles of\nthe bridge chased each other along. Looking on the bridge he saw equally\nuniform living waves of soldiers, shoulder straps, covered shakos,\nknapsacks, bayonets, long muskets, and, under the shakos, faces with\nbroad cheekbones, sunken cheeks, and listless tired expressions, and\nfeet that moved through the sticky mud that covered the planks of the\nbridge. Sometimes through the monotonous waves of men, like a fleck of\nwhite foam on the waves of the Enns, an officer, in a cloak and with a\ntype of face different from that of the men, squeezed his way along;\nsometimes like a chip of wood whirling in the river, an hussar on foot,\nan orderly, or a townsman was carried through the waves of infantry; and\nsometimes like a log floating down the river, an officers' or company's\nbaggage wagon, piled high, leather covered, and hemmed in on all sides,\nmoved across the bridge.\n\n\"It's as if a dam had burst,\" said the Cossack hopelessly. \"Are there\nmany more of you to come?\"\n\n\"A million all but one!\" replied a waggish soldier in a torn coat, with\na wink, and passed on followed by another, an old man.\n\n\"If he\" (he meant the enemy) \"begins popping at the bridge now,\" said\nthe old soldier dismally to a comrade, \"you'll forget to scratch\nyourself.\"\n\nThat soldier passed on, and after him came another sitting on a cart.\n\n\"Where the devil have the leg bands been shoved to?\" said an orderly,\nrunning behind the cart and fumbling in the back of it.\n\nAnd he also passed on with the wagon. Then came some merry soldiers who\nhad evidently been drinking.\n\n\"And then, old fellow, he gives him one in the teeth with the butt end\nof his gun...\" a soldier whose greatcoat was well tucked up said gaily,\nwith a wide swing of his arm.\n\n\"Yes, the ham was just delicious...\" answered another with a loud laugh.\nAnd they, too, passed on, so that Nesvitski did not learn who had been\nstruck on the teeth, or what the ham had to do with it.\n\n\"Bah! How they scurry. He just sends a ball and they think they'll all\nbe killed,\" a sergeant was saying angrily and reproachfully.\n\n\"As it flies past me, Daddy, the ball I mean,\" said a young soldier with\nan enormous mouth, hardly refraining from laughing, \"I felt like dying\nof fright. I did, 'pon my word, I got that frightened!\" said he, as if\nbragging of having been frightened.\n\nThat one also passed. Then followed a cart unlike any that had gone\nbefore. It was a German cart with a pair of horses led by a German, and\nseemed loaded with a whole houseful of effects. A fine brindled cow with\na large udder was attached to the cart behind. A woman with an unweaned\nbaby, an old woman, and a healthy German girl with bright red cheeks\nwere sitting on some feather beds. Evidently these fugitives were\nallowed to pass by special permission. The eyes of all the soldiers\nturned toward the women, and while the vehicle was passing at foot pace\nall the soldiers' remarks related to the two young ones. Every face bore\nalmost the same smile, expressing unseemly thoughts about the women.\n\n\"Just see, the German sausage is making tracks, too!\"\n\n\"Sell me the missis,\" said another soldier, addressing the German, who,\nangry and frightened, strode energetically along with downcast eyes.\n\n\"See how smart she's made herself! Oh, the devils!\"\n\n\"There, Fedotov, you should be quartered on them!\"\n\n\"I have seen as much before now, mate!\"\n\n\"Where are you going?\" asked an infantry officer who was eating an\napple, also half smiling as he looked at the handsome girl.\n\nThe German closed his eyes, signifying that he did not understand.\n\n\"Take it if you like,\" said the officer, giving the girl an apple.\n\nThe girl smiled and took it. Nesvitski like the rest of the men on the\nbridge did not take his eyes off the women till they had passed. When\nthey had gone by, the same stream of soldiers followed, with the same\nkind of talk, and at last all stopped. As often happens, the horses of a\nconvoy wagon became restive at the end of the bridge, and the whole\ncrowd had to wait.\n\n\"And why are they stopping? There's no proper order!\" said the soldiers.\n\"Where are you shoving to? Devil take you! Can't you wait? It'll be\nworse if he fires the bridge. See, here's an officer jammed in too\"--\ndifferent voices were saying in the crowd, as the men looked at one\nanother, and all pressed toward the exit from the bridge.\n\nLooking down at the waters of the Enns under the bridge, Nesvitski\nsuddenly heard a sound new to him, of something swiftly approaching...\nsomething big, that splashed into the water.\n\n\"Just see where it carries to!\" a soldier near by said sternly, looking\nround at the sound.\n\n\"Encouraging us to get along quicker,\" said another uneasily.\n\nThe crowd moved on again. Nesvitski realized that it was a cannon ball.\n\n\"Hey, Cossack, my horse!\" he said. \"Now, then, you there! get out of the\nway! Make way!\"\n\nWith great difficulty he managed to get to his horse, and shouting\ncontinually he moved on. The soldiers squeezed themselves to make way\nfor him, but again pressed on him so that they jammed his leg, and those\nnearest him were not to blame for they were themselves pressed still\nharder from behind.\n\n\"Nesvitski, Nesvitski! you numskull!\" came a hoarse voice from behind\nhim.\n\nNesvitski looked round and saw, some fifteen paces away but separated by\nthe living mass of moving infantry, Vaska Denisov, red and shaggy, with\nhis cap on the back of his black head and a cloak hanging jauntily over\nhis shoulder.\n\n\"Tell these devils, these fiends, to let me pass!\" shouted Denisov\nevidently in a fit of rage, his coal-black eyes with their bloodshot\nwhites glittering and rolling as he waved his sheathed saber in a small\nbare hand as red as his face.\n\n\"Ah, Vaska!\" joyfully replied Nesvitski. \"What's up with you?\"\n\n\"The squadwon can't pass,\" shouted Vaska Denisov, showing his white\nteeth fiercely and spurring his black thoroughbred Arab, which twitched\nits ears as the bayonets touched it, and snorted, spurting white foam\nfrom his bit, tramping the planks of the bridge with his hoofs, and\napparently ready to jump over the railings had his rider let him. \"What\nis this? They're like sheep! Just like sheep! Out of the way!... Let us\npass!... Stop there, you devil with the cart! I'll hack you with my\nsaber!\" he shouted, actually drawing his saber from its scabbard and\nflourishing it.\n\nThe soldiers crowded against one another with terrified faces, and\nDenisov joined Nesvitski.\n\n\"How's it you're not drunk today?\" said Nesvitski when the other had\nridden up to him.\n\n\"They don't even give one time to dwink!\" answered Vaska Denisov. \"They\nkeep dwagging the wegiment to and fwo all day. If they mean to fight,\nlet's fight. But the devil knows what this is.\"\n\n\"What a dandy you are today!\" said Nesvitski, looking at Denisov's new\ncloak and saddlecloth.\n\nDenisov smiled, took out of his sabretache a handkerchief that diffused\na smell of perfume, and put it to Nesvitski's nose.\n\n\"Of course. I'm going into action! I've shaved, bwushed my teeth, and\nscented myself.\"\n\nThe imposing figure of Nesvitski followed by his Cossack, and the\ndetermination of Denisov who flourished his sword and shouted\nfrantically, had such an effect that they managed to squeeze through to\nthe farther side of the bridge and stopped the infantry. Beside the\nbridge Nesvitski found the colonel to whom he had to deliver the order,\nand having done this he rode back.\n\nHaving cleared the way Denisov stopped at the end of the bridge.\nCarelessly holding in his stallion that was neighing and pawing the\nground, eager to rejoin its fellows, he watched his squadron draw\nnearer. Then the clang of hoofs, as of several horses galloping,\nresounded on the planks of the bridge, and the squadron, officers in\nfront and men four abreast, spread across the bridge and began to emerge\non his side of it.\n\nThe infantry who had been stopped crowded near the bridge in the\ntrampled mud and gazed with that particular feeling of ill-will,\nestrangement, and ridicule with which troops of different arms usually\nencounter one another at the clean, smart hussars who moved past them in\nregular order.\n\n\"Smart lads! Only fit for a fair!\" said one.\n\n\"What good are they? They're led about just for show!\" remarked another.\n\n\"Don't kick up the dust, you infantry!\" jested an hussar whose prancing\nhorse had splashed mud over some foot soldiers.\n\n\"I'd like to put you on a two days' march with a knapsack! Your fine\ncords would soon get a bit rubbed,\" said an infantryman, wiping the mud\noff his face with his sleeve. \"Perched up there, you're more like a bird\nthan a man.\"\n\n\"There now, Zikin, they ought to put you on a horse. You'd look fine,\"\nsaid a corporal, chaffing a thin little soldier who bent under the\nweight of his knapsack.\n\n\"Take a stick between your legs, that'll suit you for a horse!\" the\nhussar shouted back.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nThe last of the infantry hurriedly crossed the bridge, squeezing\ntogether as they approached it as if passing through a funnel. At last\nthe baggage wagons had all crossed, the crush was less, and the last\nbattalion came onto the bridge. Only Denisov's squadron of hussars\nremained on the farther side of the bridge facing the enemy, who could\nbe seen from the hill on the opposite bank but was not yet visible from\nthe bridge, for the horizon as seen from the valley through which the\nriver flowed was formed by the rising ground only half a mile away. At\nthe foot of the hill lay wasteland over which a few groups of our\nCossack scouts were moving. Suddenly on the road at the top of the high\nground, artillery and troops in blue uniform were seen. These were the\nFrench. A group of Cossack scouts retired down the hill at a trot. All\nthe officers and men of Denisov's squadron, though they tried to talk of\nother things and to look in other directions, thought only of what was\nthere on the hilltop, and kept constantly looking at the patches\nappearing on the skyline, which they knew to be the enemy's troops. The\nweather had cleared again since noon and the sun was descending brightly\nupon the Danube and the dark hills around it. It was calm, and at\nintervals the bugle calls and the shouts of the enemy could be heard\nfrom the hill. There was no one now between the squadron and the enemy\nexcept a few scattered skirmishers. An empty space of some seven hundred\nyards was all that separated them. The enemy ceased firing, and that\nstern, threatening, inaccessible, and intangible line which separates\ntwo hostile armies was all the more clearly felt.\n\n\"One step beyond that boundary line which resembles the line dividing\nthe living from the dead lies uncertainty, suffering, and death. And\nwhat is there? Who is there?--there beyond that field, that tree, that\nroof lit up by the sun? No one knows, but one wants to know. You fear\nand yet long to cross that line, and know that sooner or later it must\nbe crossed and you will have to find out what is there, just as you will\ninevitably have to learn what lies the other side of death. But you are\nstrong, healthy, cheerful, and excited, and are surrounded by other such\nexcitedly animated and healthy men.\" So thinks, or at any rate feels,\nanyone who comes in sight of the enemy, and that feeling gives a\nparticular glamour and glad keenness of impression to everything that\ntakes place at such moments.\n\nOn the high ground where the enemy was, the smoke of a cannon rose, and\na ball flew whistling over the heads of the hussar squadron. The\nofficers who had been standing together rode off to their places. The\nhussars began carefully aligning their horses. Silence fell on the whole\nsquadron. All were looking at the enemy in front and at the squadron\ncommander, awaiting the word of command. A second and a third cannon\nball flew past. Evidently they were firing at the hussars, but the balls\nwith rapid rhythmic whistle flew over the heads of the horsemen and fell\nsomewhere beyond them. The hussars did not look round, but at the sound\nof each shot, as at the word of command, the whole squadron with its\nrows of faces so alike yet so different, holding its breath while the\nball flew past, rose in the stirrups and sank back again. The soldiers\nwithout turning their heads glanced at one another, curious to see their\ncomrades' impression. Every face, from Denisov's to that of the bugler,\nshowed one common expression of conflict, irritation, and excitement,\naround chin and mouth. The quartermaster frowned, looking at the\nsoldiers as if threatening to punish them. Cadet Mironov ducked every\ntime a ball flew past. Rostov on the left flank, mounted on his Rook--a\nhandsome horse despite its game leg--had the happy air of a schoolboy\ncalled up before a large audience for an examination in which he feels\nsure he will distinguish himself. He was glancing at everyone with a\nclear, bright expression, as if asking them to notice how calmly he sat\nunder fire. But despite himself, on his face too that same indication of\nsomething new and stern showed round the mouth.\n\n\"Who's that curtseying there? Cadet Miwonov! That's not wight! Look at\nme,\" cried Denisov who, unable to keep still on one spot, kept turning\nhis horse in front of the squadron.\n\nThe black, hairy, snub-nosed face of Vaska Denisov, and his whole short\nsturdy figure with the sinewy hairy hand and stumpy fingers in which he\nheld the hilt of his naked saber, looked just as it usually did,\nespecially toward evening when he had emptied his second bottle; he was\nonly redder than usual. With his shaggy head thrown back like birds when\nthey drink, pressing his spurs mercilessly into the sides of his good\nhorse, Bedouin, and sitting as though falling backwards in the saddle,\nhe galloped to the other flank of the squadron and shouted in a hoarse\nvoice to the men to look to their pistols. He rode up to Kirsten. The\nstaff captain on his broad-backed, steady mare came at a walk to meet\nhim. His face with its long mustache was serious as always, only his\neyes were brighter than usual.\n\n\"Well, what about it?\" said he to Denisov. \"It won't come to a fight.\nYou'll see--we shall retire.\"\n\n\"The devil only knows what they're about!\" muttered Denisov. \"Ah,\nWostov,\" he cried noticing the cadet's bright face, \"you've got it at\nlast.\"\n\nAnd he smiled approvingly, evidently pleased with the cadet. Rostov felt\nperfectly happy. Just then the commander appeared on the bridge. Denisov\ngalloped up to him.\n\n\"Your excellency! Let us attack them! I'll dwive them off.\"\n\n\"Attack indeed!\" said the colonel in a bored voice, puckering up his\nface as if driving off a troublesome fly. \"And why are you stopping\nhere? Don't you see the skirmishers are retreating? Lead the squadron\nback.\"\n\nThe squadron crossed the bridge and drew out of range of fire without\nhaving lost a single man. The second squadron that had been in the front\nline followed them across and the last Cossacks quitted the farther side\nof the river.\n\nThe two Pavlograd squadrons, having crossed the bridge, retired up the\nhill one after the other. Their colonel, Karl Bogdanich Schubert, came\nup to Denisov's squadron and rode at a footpace not far from Rostov,\nwithout taking any notice of him although they were now meeting for the\nfirst time since their encounter concerning Telyanin. Rostov, feeling\nthat he was at the front and in the power of a man toward whom he now\nadmitted that he had been to blame, did not lift his eyes from the\ncolonel's athletic back, his nape covered with light hair, and his red\nneck. It seemed to Rostov that Bogdanich was only pretending not to\nnotice him, and that his whole aim now was to test the cadet's courage,\nso he drew himself up and looked around him merrily; then it seemed to\nhim that Bogdanich rode so near in order to show him his courage. Next\nhe thought that his enemy would send the squadron on a desperate attack\njust to punish him--Rostov. Then he imagined how, after the attack,\nBogdanich would come up to him as he lay wounded and would magnanimously\nextend the hand of reconciliation.\n\nThe high-shouldered figure of Zherkov, familiar to the Pavlograds as he\nhad but recently left their regiment, rode up to the colonel. After his\ndismissal from headquarters Zherkov had not remained in the regiment,\nsaying he was not such a fool as to slave at the front when he could get\nmore rewards by doing nothing on the staff, and had succeeded in\nattaching himself as an orderly officer to Prince Bagration. He now came\nto his former chief with an order from the commander of the rear guard.\n\n\"Colonel,\" he said, addressing Rostov's enemy with an air of gloomy\ngravity and glancing round at his comrades, \"there is an order to stop\nand fire the bridge.\"\n\n\"An order to who?\" asked the colonel morosely.\n\n\"I don't myself know 'to who,'\" replied the cornet in a serious tone,\n\"but the prince told me to 'go and tell the colonel that the hussars\nmust return quickly and fire the bridge.'\"\n\nZherkov was followed by an officer of the suite who rode up to the\ncolonel of hussars with the same order. After him the stout Nesvitski\ncame galloping up on a Cossack horse that could scarcely carry his\nweight.\n\n\"How's this, Colonel?\" he shouted as he approached. \"I told you to fire\nthe bridge, and now someone has gone and blundered; they are all beside\nthemselves over there and one can't make anything out.\"\n\nThe colonel deliberately stopped the regiment and turned to Nesvitski.\n\n\"You spoke to me of inflammable material,\" said he, \"but you said\nnothing about firing it.\"\n\n\"But, my dear sir,\" said Nesvitski as he drew up, taking off his cap and\nsmoothing his hair wet with perspiration with his plump hand, \"wasn't I\ntelling you to fire the bridge, when inflammable material had been put\nin position?\"\n\n\"I am not your 'dear sir,' Mr. Staff Officer, and you did not tell me to\nburn the bridge! I know the service, and it is my habit orders strictly\nto obey. You said the bridge would be burned, but who would it burn, I\ncould not know by the holy spirit!\"\n\n\"Ah, that's always the way!\" said Nesvitski with a wave of the hand.\n\"How did you get here?\" said he, turning to Zherkov.\n\n\"On the same business. But you are damp! Let me wring you out!\"\n\n\"You were saying, Mr. Staff Officer...\" continued the colonel in an\noffended tone.\n\n\"Colonel,\" interrupted the officer of the suite, \"You must be quick or\nthe enemy will bring up his guns to use grapeshot.\"\n\nThe colonel looked silently at the officer of the suite, at the stout\nstaff officer, and at Zherkov, and he frowned.\n\n\"I will the bridge fire,\" he said in a solemn tone as if to announce\nthat in spite of all the unpleasantness he had to endure he would still\ndo the right thing.\n\nStriking his horse with his long muscular legs as if it were to blame\nfor everything, the colonel moved forward and ordered the second\nsquadron, that in which Rostov was serving under Denisov, to return to\nthe bridge.\n\n\"There, it's just as I thought,\" said Rostov to himself. \"He wishes to\ntest me!\" His heart contracted and the blood rushed to his face. \"Let\nhim see whether I am a coward!\" he thought.\n\nAgain on all the bright faces of the squadron the serious expression\nappeared that they had worn when under fire. Rostov watched his enemy,\nthe colonel, closely--to find in his face confirmation of his own\nconjecture, but the colonel did not once glance at Rostov, and looked as\nhe always did when at the front, solemn and stern. Then came the word of\ncommand.\n\n\"Look sharp! Look sharp!\" several voices repeated around him.\n\nTheir sabers catching in the bridles and their spurs jingling, the\nhussars hastily dismounted, not knowing what they were to do. The men\nwere crossing themselves. Rostov no longer looked at the colonel, he had\nno time. He was afraid of falling behind the hussars, so much afraid\nthat his heart stood still. His hand trembled as he gave his horse into\nan orderly's charge, and he felt the blood rush to his heart with a\nthud. Denisov rode past him, leaning back and shouting something. Rostov\nsaw nothing but the hussars running all around him, their spurs catching\nand their sabers clattering.\n\n\"Stretchers!\" shouted someone behind him.\n\nRostov did not think what this call for stretchers meant; he ran on,\ntrying only to be ahead of the others; but just at the bridge, not\nlooking at the ground, he came on some sticky, trodden mud, stumbled,\nand fell on his hands. The others outstripped him.\n\n\"At boss zides, Captain,\" he heard the voice of the colonel, who, having\nridden ahead, had pulled up his horse near the bridge, with a\ntriumphant, cheerful face.\n\nRostov wiping his muddy hands on his breeches looked at his enemy and\nwas about to run on, thinking that the farther he went to the front the\nbetter. But Bogdanich, without looking at or recognizing Rostov, shouted\nto him:\n\n\"Who's that running on the middle of the bridge? To the right! Come\nback, Cadet!\" he cried angrily; and turning to Denisov, who, showing off\nhis courage, had ridden on to the planks of the bridge:\n\n\"Why run risks, Captain? You should dismount,\" he said.\n\n\"Oh, every bullet has its billet,\" answered Vaska Denisov, turning in\nhis saddle.\n\nMeanwhile Nesvitski, Zherkov, and the officer of the suite were standing\ntogether out of range of the shots, watching, now the small group of men\nwith yellow shakos, dark-green jackets braided with cord, and blue\nriding breeches, who were swarming near the bridge, and then at what was\napproaching in the distance from the opposite side--the blue uniforms\nand groups with horses, easily recognizable as artillery.\n\n\"Will they burn the bridge or not? Who'll get there first? Will they get\nthere and fire the bridge or will the French get within grapeshot range\nand wipe them out?\" These were the questions each man of the troops on\nthe high ground above the bridge involuntarily asked himself with a\nsinking heart--watching the bridge and the hussars in the bright evening\nlight and the blue tunics advancing from the other side with their\nbayonets and guns.\n\n\"Ugh. The hussars will get it hot!\" said Nesvitski; \"they are within\ngrapeshot range now.\"\n\n\"He shouldn't have taken so many men,\" said the officer of the suite.\n\n\"True enough,\" answered Nesvitski; \"two smart fellows could have done\nthe job just as well.\"\n\n\"Ah, your excellency,\" put in Zherkov, his eyes fixed on the hussars,\nbut still with that naive air that made it impossible to know whether he\nwas speaking in jest or in earnest. \"Ah, your excellency! How you look\nat things! Send two men? And who then would give us the Vladimir medal\nand ribbon? But now, even if they do get peppered, the squadron may be\nrecommended for honors and he may get a ribbon. Our Bogdanich knows how\nthings are done.\"\n\n\"There now!\" said the officer of the suite, \"that's grapeshot.\"\n\nHe pointed to the French guns, the limbers of which were being detached\nand hurriedly removed.\n\nOn the French side, amid the groups with cannon, a cloud of smoke\nappeared, then a second and a third almost simultaneously, and at the\nmoment when the first report was heard a fourth was seen. Then two\nreports one after another, and a third.\n\n\"Oh! Oh!\" groaned Nesvitski as if in fierce pain, seizing the officer of\nthe suite by the arm. \"Look! A man has fallen! Fallen, fallen!\"\n\n\"Two, I think.\"\n\n\"If I were Tsar I would never go to war,\" said Nesvitski, turning away.\n\nThe French guns were hastily reloaded. The infantry in their blue\nuniforms advanced toward the bridge at a run. Smoke appeared again but\nat irregular intervals, and grapeshot cracked and rattled onto the\nbridge. But this time Nesvitski could not see what was happening there,\nas a dense cloud of smoke arose from it. The hussars had succeeded in\nsetting it on fire and the French batteries were now firing at them, no\nlonger to hinder them but because the guns were trained and there was\nsomeone to fire at.\n\nThe French had time to fire three rounds of grapeshot before the hussars\ngot back to their horses. Two were misdirected and the shot went too\nhigh, but the last round fell in the midst of a group of hussars and\nknocked three of them over.\n\nRostov, absorbed by his relations with Bogdanich, had paused on the\nbridge not knowing what to do. There was no one to hew down (as he had\nalways imagined battles to himself), nor could he help to fire the\nbridge because he had not brought any burning straw with him like the\nother soldiers. He stood looking about him, when suddenly he heard a\nrattle on the bridge as if nuts were being spilt, and the hussar nearest\nto him fell against the rails with a groan. Rostov ran up to him with\nthe others. Again someone shouted, \"Stretchers!\" Four men seized the\nhussar and began lifting him.\n\n\"Oooh! For Christ's sake let me alone!\" cried the wounded man, but still\nhe was lifted and laid on the stretcher.\n\nNicholas Rostov turned away and, as if searching for something, gazed\ninto the distance, at the waters of the Danube, at the sky, and at the\nsun. How beautiful the sky looked; how blue, how calm, and how deep! How\nbright and glorious was the setting sun! With what soft glitter the\nwaters of the distant Danube shone. And fairer still were the faraway\nblue mountains beyond the river, the nunnery, the mysterious gorges, and\nthe pine forests veiled in the mist of their summits... There was peace\nand happiness... \"I should wish for nothing else, nothing, if only I\nwere there,\" thought Rostov. \"In myself alone and in that sunshine there\nis so much happiness; but here... groans, suffering, fear, and this\nuncertainty and hurry... There--they are shouting again, and again are\nall running back somewhere, and I shall run with them, and it, death, is\nhere above me and around... Another instant and I shall never again see\nthe sun, this water, that gorge!...\"\n\nAt that instant the sun began to hide behind the clouds, and other\nstretchers came into view before Rostov. And the fear of death and of\nthe stretchers, and love of the sun and of life, all merged into one\nfeeling of sickening agitation.\n\n\"O Lord God! Thou who art in that heaven, save, forgive, and protect\nme!\" Rostov whispered.\n\nThe hussars ran back to the men who held their horses; their voices\nsounded louder and calmer, the stretchers disappeared from sight.\n\n\"Well, fwiend? So you've smelt powdah!\" shouted Vaska Denisov just above\nhis ear.\n\n\"It's all over; but I am a coward--yes, a coward!\" thought Rostov, and\nsighing deeply he took Rook, his horse, which stood resting one foot,\nfrom the orderly and began to mount.\n\n\"Was that grapeshot?\" he asked Denisov.\n\n\"Yes and no mistake!\" cried Denisov. \"You worked like wegular bwicks and\nit's nasty work! An attack's pleasant work! Hacking away at the dogs!\nBut this sort of thing is the very devil, with them shooting at you like\na target.\"\n\nAnd Denisov rode up to a group that had stopped near Rostov, composed of\nthe colonel, Nesvitski, Zherkov, and the officer from the suite.\n\n\"Well, it seems that no one has noticed,\" thought Rostov. And this was\ntrue. No one had taken any notice, for everyone knew the sensation which\nthe cadet under fire for the first time had experienced.\n\n\"Here's something for you to report,\" said Zherkov. \"See if I don't get\npromoted to a sublieutenancy.\"\n\n\"Inform the prince that I the bridge fired!\" said the colonel\ntriumphantly and gaily.\n\n\"And if he asks about the losses?\"\n\n\"A trifle,\" said the colonel in his bass voice: \"two hussars wounded,\nand one knocked out,\" he added, unable to restrain a happy smile, and\npronouncing the phrase \"knocked out\" with ringing distinctness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nPursued by the French army of a hundred thousand men under the command\nof Bonaparte, encountering a population that was unfriendly to it,\nlosing confidence in its allies, suffering from shortness of supplies,\nand compelled to act under conditions of war unlike anything that had\nbeen foreseen, the Russian army of thirty-five thousand men commanded by\nKutuzov was hurriedly retreating along the Danube, stopping where\novertaken by the enemy and fighting rearguard actions only as far as\nnecessary to enable it to retreat without losing its heavy equipment.\nThere had been actions at Lambach, Amstetten, and Melk; but despite the\ncourage and endurance--acknowledged even by the enemy--with which the\nRussians fought, the only consequence of these actions was a yet more\nrapid retreat. Austrian troops that had escaped capture at Ulm and had\njoined Kutuzov at Braunau now separated from the Russian army, and\nKutuzov was left with only his own weak and exhausted forces. The\ndefense of Vienna was no longer to be thought of. Instead of an\noffensive, the plan of which, carefully prepared in accord with the\nmodern science of strategics, had been handed to Kutuzov when he was in\nVienna by the Austrian Hofkriegsrath, the sole and almost unattainable\naim remaining for him was to effect a junction with the forces that were\nadvancing from Russia, without losing his army as Mack had done at Ulm.\n\nOn the twenty-eighth of October Kutuzov with his army crossed to the\nleft bank of the Danube and took up a position for the first time with\nthe river between himself and the main body of the French. On the\nthirtieth he attacked Mortier's division, which was on the left bank,\nand broke it up. In this action for the first time trophies were taken:\nbanners, cannon, and two enemy generals. For the first time, after a\nfortnight's retreat, the Russian troops had halted and after a fight had\nnot only held the field but had repulsed the French. Though the troops\nwere ill-clad, exhausted, and had lost a third of their number in\nkilled, wounded, sick, and stragglers; though a number of sick and\nwounded had been abandoned on the other side of the Danube with a letter\nin which Kutuzov entrusted them to the humanity of the enemy; and though\nthe big hospitals and the houses in Krems converted into military\nhospitals could no longer accommodate all the sick and wounded, yet the\nstand made at Krems and the victory over Mortier raised the spirits of\nthe army considerably. Throughout the whole army and at headquarters\nmost joyful though erroneous rumors were rife of the imaginary approach\nof columns from Russia, of some victory gained by the Austrians, and of\nthe retreat of the frightened Bonaparte.\n\nPrince Andrew during the battle had been in attendance on the Austrian\nGeneral Schmidt, who was killed in the action. His horse had been\nwounded under him and his own arm slightly grazed by a bullet. As a mark\nof the commander-in-chief's special favor he was sent with the news of\nthis victory to the Austrian court, now no longer at Vienna (which was\nthreatened by the French) but at Brunn. Despite his apparently delicate\nbuild Prince Andrew could endure physical fatigue far better than many\nvery muscular men, and on the night of the battle, having arrived at\nKrems excited but not weary, with dispatches from Dokhturov to Kutuzov,\nhe was sent immediately with a special dispatch to Brunn. To be so sent\nmeant not only a reward but an important step toward promotion.\n\nThe night was dark but starry, the road showed black in the snow that\nhad fallen the previous day--the day of the battle. Reviewing his\nimpressions of the recent battle, picturing pleasantly to himself the\nimpression his news of a victory would create, or recalling the send-off\ngiven him by the commander-in-chief and his fellow officers, Prince\nAndrew was galloping along in a post chaise enjoying the feelings of a\nman who has at length begun to attain a long-desired happiness. As soon\nas he closed his eyes his ears seemed filled with the rattle of the\nwheels and the sensation of victory. Then he began to imagine that the\nRussians were running away and that he himself was killed, but he\nquickly roused himself with a feeling of joy, as if learning afresh that\nthis was not so but that on the contrary the French had run away. He\nagain recalled all the details of the victory and his own calm courage\nduring the battle, and feeling reassured he dozed off.... The dark\nstarry night was followed by a bright cheerful morning. The snow was\nthawing in the sunshine, the horses galloped quickly, and on both sides\nof the road were forests of different kinds, fields, and villages.\n\nAt one of the post stations he overtook a convoy of Russian wounded. The\nRussian officer in charge of the transport lolled back in the front\ncart, shouting and scolding a soldier with coarse abuse. In each of the\nlong German carts six or more pale, dirty, bandaged men were being\njolted over the stony road. Some of them were talking (he heard Russian\nwords), others were eating bread; the more severely wounded looked\nsilently, with the languid interest of sick children, at the envoy\nhurrying past them.\n\nPrince Andrew told his driver to stop, and asked a soldier in what\naction they had been wounded. \"Day before yesterday, on the Danube,\"\nanswered the soldier. Prince Andrew took out his purse and gave the\nsoldier three gold pieces.\n\n\"That's for them all,\" he said to the officer who came up.\n\n\"Get well soon, lads!\" he continued, turning to the soldiers. \"There's\nplenty to do still.\"\n\n\"What news, sir?\" asked the officer, evidently anxious to start a\nconversation.\n\n\"Good news!... Go on!\" he shouted to the driver, and they galloped on.\n\nIt was already quite dark when Prince Andrew rattled over the paved\nstreets of Brunn and found himself surrounded by high buildings, the\nlights of shops, houses, and street lamps, fine carriages, and all that\natmosphere of a large and active town which is always so attractive to a\nsoldier after camp life. Despite his rapid journey and sleepless night,\nPrince Andrew when he drove up to the palace felt even more vigorous and\nalert than he had done the day before. Only his eyes gleamed feverishly\nand his thoughts followed one another with extraordinary clearness and\nrapidity. He again vividly recalled the details of the battle, no longer\ndim, but definite and in the concise form in which he imagined himself\nstating them to the Emperor Francis. He vividly imagined the casual\nquestions that might be put to him and the answers he would give. He\nexpected to be at once presented to the Emperor. At the chief entrance\nto the palace, however, an official came running out to meet him, and\nlearning that he was a special messenger led him to another entrance.\n\n\"To the right from the corridor, Euer Hochgeboren! There you will find\nthe adjutant on duty,\" said the official. \"He will conduct you to the\nMinister of War.\"\n\nThe adjutant on duty, meeting Prince Andrew, asked him to wait, and went\nin to the Minister of War. Five minutes later he returned and bowing\nwith particular courtesy ushered Prince Andrew before him along a\ncorridor to the cabinet where the Minister of War was at work. The\nadjutant by his elaborate courtesy appeared to wish to ward off any\nattempt at familiarity on the part of the Russian messenger.\n\nPrince Andrew's joyous feeling was considerably weakened as he\napproached the door of the minister's room. He felt offended, and\nwithout his noticing it the feeling of offense immediately turned into\none of disdain which was quite uncalled for. His fertile mind instantly\nsuggested to him a point of view which gave him a right to despise the\nadjutant and the minister. \"Away from the smell of powder, they probably\nthink it easy to gain victories!\" he thought. His eyes narrowed\ndisdainfully, he entered the room of the Minister of War with peculiarly\ndeliberate steps. This feeling of disdain was heightened when he saw the\nminister seated at a large table reading some papers and making pencil\nnotes on them, and for the first two or three minutes taking no notice\nof his arrival. A wax candle stood at each side of the minister's bent\nbald head with its gray temples. He went on reading to the end, without\nraising his eyes at the opening of the door and the sound of footsteps.\n\n\"Take this and deliver it,\" said he to his adjutant, handing him the\npapers and still taking no notice of the special messenger.\n\nPrince Andrew felt that either the actions of Kutuzov's army interested\nthe Minister of War less than any of the other matters he was concerned\nwith, or he wanted to give the Russian special messenger that\nimpression. \"But that is a matter of perfect indifference to me,\" he\nthought. The minister drew the remaining papers together, arranged them\nevenly, and then raised his head. He had an intellectual and distinctive\nhead, but the instant he turned to Prince Andrew the firm, intelligent\nexpression on his face changed in a way evidently deliberate and\nhabitual to him. His face took on the stupid artificial smile (which\ndoes not even attempt to hide its artificiality) of a man who is\ncontinually receiving many petitioners one after another.\n\n\"From General Field Marshal Kutuzov?\" he asked. \"I hope it is good news?\nThere has been an encounter with Mortier? A victory? It was high time!\"\n\nHe took the dispatch which was addressed to him and began to read it\nwith a mournful expression.\n\n\"Oh, my God! My God! Schmidt!\" he exclaimed in German. \"What a calamity!\nWhat a calamity!\"\n\nHaving glanced through the dispatch he laid it on the table and looked\nat Prince Andrew, evidently considering something.\n\n\"Ah what a calamity! You say the affair was decisive? But Mortier is not\ncaptured.\" Again he pondered. \"I am very glad you have brought good\nnews, though Schmidt's death is a heavy price to pay for the victory.\nHis Majesty will no doubt wish to see you, but not today. I thank you!\nYou must have a rest. Be at the levee tomorrow after the parade.\nHowever, I will let you know.\"\n\nThe stupid smile, which had left his face while he was speaking,\nreappeared.\n\n\"Au revoir! Thank you very much. His Majesty will probably desire to see\nyou,\" he added, bowing his head.\n\nWhen Prince Andrew left the palace he felt that all the interest and\nhappiness the victory had afforded him had been now left in the\nindifferent hands of the Minister of War and the polite adjutant. The\nwhole tenor of his thoughts instantaneously changed; the battle seemed\nthe memory of a remote event long past.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nPrince Andrew stayed at Brunn with Bilibin, a Russian acquaintance of\nhis in the diplomatic service.\n\n\"Ah, my dear prince! I could not have a more welcome visitor,\" said\nBilibin as he came out to meet Prince Andrew. \"Franz, put the prince's\nthings in my bedroom,\" said he to the servant who was ushering Bolkonski\nin. \"So you're a messenger of victory, eh? Splendid! And I am sitting\nhere ill, as you see.\"\n\nAfter washing and dressing, Prince Andrew came into the diplomat's\nluxurious study and sat down to the dinner prepared for him. Bilibin\nsettled down comfortably beside the fire.\n\nAfter his journey and the campaign during which he had been deprived of\nall the comforts of cleanliness and all the refinements of life, Prince\nAndrew felt a pleasant sense of repose among luxurious surroundings such\nas he had been accustomed to from childhood. Besides it was pleasant,\nafter his reception by the Austrians, to speak if not in Russian (for\nthey were speaking French) at least with a Russian who would, he\nsupposed, share the general Russian antipathy to the Austrians which was\nthen particularly strong.\n\nBilibin was a man of thirty-five, a bachelor, and of the same circle as\nPrince Andrew. They had known each other previously in Petersburg, but\nhad become more intimate when Prince Andrew was in Vienna with Kutuzov.\nJust as Prince Andrew was a young man who gave promise of rising high in\nthe military profession, so to an even greater extent Bilibin gave\npromise of rising in his diplomatic career. He still a young man but no\nlonger a young diplomat, as he had entered the service at the age of\nsixteen, had been in Paris and Copenhagen, and now held a rather\nimportant post in Vienna. Both the foreign minister and our ambassador\nin Vienna knew him and valued him. He was not one of those many\ndiplomats who are esteemed because they have certain negative qualities,\navoid doing certain things, and speak French. He was one of those, who,\nliking work, knew how to do it, and despite his indolence would\nsometimes spend a whole night at his writing table. He worked well\nwhatever the import of his work. It was not the question \"What for?\" but\nthe question \"How?\" that interested him. What the diplomatic matter\nmight be he did not care, but it gave him great pleasure to prepare a\ncircular, memorandum, or report, skillfully, pointedly, and elegantly.\nBilibin's services were valued not only for what he wrote, but also for\nhis skill in dealing and conversing with those in the highest spheres.\n\nBilibin liked conversation as he liked work, only when it could be made\nelegantly witty. In society he always awaited an opportunity to say\nsomething striking and took part in a conversation only when that was\npossible. His conversation was always sprinkled with wittily original,\nfinished phrases of general interest. These sayings were prepared in the\ninner laboratory of his mind in a portable form as if intentionally, so\nthat insignificant society people might carry them from drawing room to\ndrawing room. And, in fact, Bilibin's witticisms were hawked about in\nthe Viennese drawing rooms and often had an influence on matters\nconsidered important.\n\nHis thin, worn, sallow face was covered with deep wrinkles, which always\nlooked as clean and well washed as the tips of one's fingers after a\nRussian bath. The movement of these wrinkles formed the principal play\nof expression on his face. Now his forehead would pucker into deep folds\nand his eyebrows were lifted, then his eyebrows would descend and deep\nwrinkles would crease his cheeks. His small, deep-set eyes always\ntwinkled and looked out straight.\n\n\"Well, now tell me about your exploits,\" said he.\n\nBolkonski, very modestly without once mentioning himself, described the\nengagement and his reception by the Minister of War.\n\n\"They received me and my news as one receives a dog in a game of\nskittles,\" said he in conclusion.\n\nBilibin smiled and the wrinkles on his face disappeared.\n\n\"Cependant, mon cher,\" he remarked, examining his nails from a distance\nand puckering the skin above his left eye, \"malgre la haute estime que\nje professe pour the Orthodox Russian army, j'avoue que votre victoire\nn'est pas des plus victorieuses.\" *\n\n\n* \"But my dear fellow, with all my respect for the Orthodox Russian\narmy, I must say that your victory was not particularly victorious.\"\n\nHe went on talking in this way in French, uttering only those words in\nRussian on which he wished to put a contemptuous emphasis.\n\n\"Come now! You with all your forces fall on the unfortunate Mortier and\nhis one division, and even then Mortier slips through your fingers!\nWhere's the victory?\"\n\n\"But seriously,\" said Prince Andrew, \"we can at any rate say without\nboasting that it was a little better than at Ulm...\"\n\n\"Why didn't you capture one, just one, marshal for us?\"\n\n\"Because not everything happens as one expects or with the smoothness of\na parade. We had expected, as I told you, to get at their rear by seven\nin the morning but had not reached it by five in the afternoon.\"\n\n\"And why didn't you do it at seven in the morning? You ought to have\nbeen there at seven in the morning,\" returned Bilibin with a smile. \"You\nought to have been there at seven in the morning.\"\n\n\"Why did you not succeed in impressing on Bonaparte by diplomatic\nmethods that he had better leave Genoa alone?\" retorted Prince Andrew in\nthe same tone.\n\n\"I know,\" interrupted Bilibin, \"you're thinking it's very easy to take\nmarshals, sitting on a sofa by the fire! That is true, but still why\ndidn't you capture him? So don't be surprised if not only the Minister\nof War but also his Most August Majesty the Emperor and King Francis is\nnot much delighted by your victory. Even I, a poor secretary of the\nRussian Embassy, do not feel any need in token of my joy to give my\nFranz a thaler, or let him go with his Liebchen to the Prater... True,\nwe have no Prater here...\"\n\nHe looked straight at Prince Andrew and suddenly unwrinkled his\nforehead.\n\n\"It is now my turn to ask you 'why?' mon cher,\" said Bolkonski. \"I\nconfess I do not understand: perhaps there are diplomatic subtleties\nhere beyond my feeble intelligence, but I can't make it out. Mack loses\na whole army, the Archduke Ferdinand and the Archduke Karl give no signs\nof life and make blunder after blunder. Kutuzov alone at last gains a\nreal victory, destroying the spell of the invincibility of the French,\nand the Minister of War does not even care to hear the details.\"\n\n\"That's just it, my dear fellow. You see it's hurrah for the Tsar, for\nRussia, for the Orthodox Greek faith! All that is beautiful, but what do\nwe, I mean the Austrian court, care for your victories? Bring us nice\nnews of a victory by the Archduke Karl or Ferdinand (one archduke's as\ngood as another, as you know) and even if it is only over a fire brigade\nof Bonaparte's, that will be another story and we'll fire off some\ncannon! But this sort of thing seems done on purpose to vex us. The\nArchduke Karl does nothing, the Archduke Ferdinand disgraces himself.\nYou abandon Vienna, give up its defense--as much as to say: 'Heaven is\nwith us, but heaven help you and your capital!' The one general whom we\nall loved, Schmidt, you expose to a bullet, and then you congratulate us\non the victory! Admit that more irritating news than yours could not\nhave been conceived. It's as if it had been done on purpose, on purpose.\nBesides, suppose you did gain a brilliant victory, if even the Archduke\nKarl gained a victory, what effect would that have on the general course\nof events? It's too late now when Vienna is occupied by the French\narmy!\"\n\n\"What? Occupied? Vienna occupied?\"\n\n\"Not only occupied, but Bonaparte is at Schonbrunn, and the count, our\ndear Count Vrbna, goes to him for orders.\"\n\nAfter the fatigues and impressions of the journey, his reception, and\nespecially after having dined, Bolkonski felt that he could not take in\nthe full significance of the words he heard.\n\n\"Count Lichtenfels was here this morning,\" Bilibin continued, \"and\nshowed me a letter in which the parade of the French in Vienna was fully\ndescribed: Prince Murat et tout le tremblement... You see that your\nvictory is not a matter for great rejoicing and that you can't be\nreceived as a savior.\"\n\n\"Really I don't care about that, I don't care at all,\" said Prince\nAndrew, beginning to understand that his news of the battle before Krems\nwas really of small importance in view of such events as the fall of\nAustria's capital. \"How is it Vienna was taken? What of the bridge and\nits celebrated bridgehead and Prince Auersperg? We heard reports that\nPrince Auersperg was defending Vienna?\" he said.\n\n\"Prince Auersperg is on this, on our side of the river, and is defending\nus--doing it very badly, I think, but still he is defending us. But\nVienna is on the other side. No, the bridge has not yet been taken and I\nhope it will not be, for it is mined and orders have been given to blow\nit up. Otherwise we should long ago have been in the mountains of\nBohemia, and you and your army would have spent a bad quarter of an hour\nbetween two fires.\"\n\n\"But still this does not mean that the campaign is over,\" said Prince\nAndrew.\n\n\"Well, I think it is. The bigwigs here think so too, but they daren't\nsay so. It will be as I said at the beginning of the campaign, it won't\nbe your skirmishing at Durrenstein, or gunpowder at all, that will\ndecide the matter, but those who devised it,\" said Bilibin quoting one\nof his own mots, releasing the wrinkles on his forehead, and pausing.\n\"The only question is what will come of the meeting between the Emperor\nAlexander and the King of Prussia in Berlin? If Prussia joins the\nAllies, Austria's hand will be forced and there will be war. If not it\nis merely a question of settling where the preliminaries of the new\nCampo Formio are to be drawn up.\"\n\n\"What an extraordinary genius!\" Prince Andrew suddenly exclaimed,\nclenching his small hand and striking the table with it, \"and what luck\nthe man has!\"\n\n\"Buonaparte?\" said Bilibin inquiringly, puckering up his forehead to\nindicate that he was about to say something witty. \"Buonaparte?\" he\nrepeated, accentuating the u: \"I think, however, now that he lays down\nlaws for Austria at Schonbrunn, il faut lui faire grace de l'u! * I\nshall certainly adopt an innovation and call him simply Bonaparte!\"\n\n\n* \"We must let him off the u!\"\n\n\"But joking apart,\" said Prince Andrew, \"do you really think the\ncampaign is over?\"\n\n\"This is what I think. Austria has been made a fool of, and she is not\nused to it. She will retaliate. And she has been fooled in the first\nplace because her provinces have been pillaged--they say the Holy\nRussian army loots terribly--her army is destroyed, her capital taken,\nand all this for the beaux yeux * of His Sardinian Majesty. And\ntherefore--this is between ourselves--I instinctively feel that we are\nbeing deceived, my instinct tells me of negotiations with France and\nprojects for peace, a secret peace concluded separately.\"\n\n\n* Fine eyes.\n\n\"Impossible!\" cried Prince Andrew. \"That would be too base.\"\n\n\"If we live we shall see,\" replied Bilibin, his face again becoming\nsmooth as a sign that the conversation was at an end.\n\nWhen Prince Andrew reached the room prepared for him and lay down in a\nclean shirt on the feather bed with its warmed and fragrant pillows, he\nfelt that the battle of which he had brought tidings was far, far away\nfrom him. The alliance with Prussia, Austria's treachery, Bonaparte's\nnew triumph, tomorrow's levee and parade, and the audience with the\nEmperor Francis occupied his thoughts.\n\nHe closed his eyes, and immediately a sound of cannonading, of musketry\nand the rattling of carriage wheels seemed to fill his ears, and now\nagain drawn out in a thin line the musketeers were descending the hill,\nthe French were firing, and he felt his heart palpitating as he rode\nforward beside Schmidt with the bullets merrily whistling all around,\nand he experienced tenfold the joy of living, as he had not done since\nchildhood.\n\nHe woke up...\n\n\"Yes, that all happened!\" he said, and, smiling happily to himself like\na child, he fell into a deep, youthful slumber.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nNext day he woke late. Recalling his recent impressions, the first\nthought that came into his mind was that today he had to be presented to\nthe Emperor Francis; he remembered the Minister of War, the polite\nAustrian adjutant, Bilibin, and last night's conversation. Having\ndressed for his attendance at court in full parade uniform, which he had\nnot worn for a long time, he went into Bilibin's study fresh, animated,\nand handsome, with his hand bandaged. In the study were four gentlemen\nof the diplomatic corps. With Prince Hippolyte Kuragin, who was a\nsecretary to the embassy, Bolkonski was already acquainted. Bilibin\nintroduced him to the others.\n\nThe gentlemen assembled at Bilibin's were young, wealthy, gay society\nmen, who here, as in Vienna, formed a special set which Bilibin, their\nleader, called les notres. * This set, consisting almost exclusively of\ndiplomats, evidently had its own interests which had nothing to do with\nwar or politics but related to high society, to certain women, and to\nthe official side of the service. These gentlemen received Prince Andrew\nas one of themselves, an honor they did not extend to many. From\npoliteness and to start conversation, they asked him a few questions\nabout the army and the battle, and then the talk went off into merry\njests and gossip.\n\n\n* Ours.\n\n\"But the best of it was,\" said one, telling of the misfortune of a\nfellow diplomat, \"that the Chancellor told him flatly that his\nappointment to London was a promotion and that he was so to regard it.\nCan you fancy the figure he cut?...\"\n\n\"But the worst of it, gentlemen--I am giving Kuragin away to you--is\nthat that man suffers, and this Don Juan, wicked fellow, is taking\nadvantage of it!\"\n\nPrince Hippolyte was lolling in a lounge chair with his legs over its\narm. He began to laugh.\n\n\"Tell me about that!\" he said.\n\n\"Oh, you Don Juan! You serpent!\" cried several voices.\n\n\"You, Bolkonski, don't know,\" said Bilibin turning to Prince Andrew,\n\"that all the atrocities of the French army (I nearly said of the\nRussian army) are nothing compared to what this man has been doing among\nthe women!\"\n\n\"La femme est la compagne de l'homme,\" * announced Prince Hippolyte, and\nbegan looking through a lorgnette at his elevated legs.\n\n\n* \"Woman is man's companion.\"\n\nBilibin and the rest of \"ours\" burst out laughing in Hippolyte's face,\nand Prince Andrew saw that Hippolyte, of whom--he had to admit--he had\nalmost been jealous on his wife's account, was the butt of this set.\n\n\"Oh, I must give you a treat,\" Bilibin whispered to Bolkonski. \"Kuragin\nis exquisite when he discusses politics--you should see his gravity!\"\n\nHe sat down beside Hippolyte and wrinkling his forehead began talking to\nhim about politics. Prince Andrew and the others gathered round these\ntwo.\n\n\"The Berlin cabinet cannot express a feeling of alliance,\" began\nHippolyte gazing round with importance at the others, \"without\nexpressing... as in its last note... you understand... Besides, unless\nHis Majesty the Emperor derogates from the principle of our alliance...\n\n\"Wait, I have not finished...\" he said to Prince Andrew, seizing him by\nthe arm, \"I believe that intervention will be stronger than\nnonintervention. And...\" he paused. \"Finally one cannot impute the\nnonreceipt of our dispatch of November 18. That is how it will end.\" And\nhe released Bolkonski's arm to indicate that he had now quite finished.\n\n\"Demosthenes, I know thee by the pebble thou secretest in thy golden\nmouth!\" said Bilibin, and the mop of hair on his head moved with\nsatisfaction.\n\nEverybody laughed, and Hippolyte louder than anyone. He was evidently\ndistressed, and breathed painfully, but could not restrain the wild\nlaughter that convulsed his usually impassive features.\n\n\"Well now, gentlemen,\" said Bilibin, \"Bolkonski is my guest in this\nhouse and in Brunn itself. I want to entertain him as far as I can, with\nall the pleasures of life here. If we were in Vienna it would be easy,\nbut here, in this wretched Moravian hole, it is more difficult, and I\nbeg you all to help me. Brunn's attractions must be shown him. You can\nundertake the theater, I society, and you, Hippolyte, of course the\nwomen.\"\n\n\"We must let him see Amelie, she's exquisite!\" said one of \"ours,\"\nkissing his finger tips.\n\n\"In general we must turn this bloodthirsty soldier to more humane\ninterests,\" said Bilibin.\n\n\"I shall scarcely be able to avail myself of your hospitality,\ngentlemen, it is already time for me to go,\" replied Prince Andrew\nlooking at his watch.\n\n\"Where to?\"\n\n\"To the Emperor.\"\n\n\"Oh! Oh! Oh! Well, au revoir, Bolkonski! Au revoir, Prince! Come back\nearly to dinner,\" cried several voices. \"We'll take you in hand.\"\n\n\"When speaking to the Emperor, try as far as you can to praise the way\nthat provisions are supplied and the routes indicated,\" said Bilibin,\naccompanying him to the hall.\n\n\"I should like to speak well of them, but as far as I know the facts, I\ncan't,\" replied Bolkonski, smiling.\n\n\"Well, talk as much as you can, anyway. He has a passion for giving\naudiences, but he does not like talking himself and can't do it, as you\nwill see.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nAt the levee Prince Andrew stood among the Austrian officers as he had\nbeen told to, and the Emperor Francis merely looked fixedly into his\nface and just nodded to him with his long head. But after it was over,\nthe adjutant he had seen the previous day ceremoniously informed\nBolkonski that the Emperor desired to give him an audience. The Emperor\nFrancis received him standing in the middle of the room. Before the\nconversation began Prince Andrew was struck by the fact that the Emperor\nseemed confused and blushed as if not knowing what to say.\n\n\"Tell me, when did the battle begin?\" he asked hurriedly.\n\nPrince Andrew replied. Then followed other questions just as simple:\n\"Was Kutuzov well? When had he left Krems?\" and so on. The Emperor spoke\nas if his sole aim were to put a given number of questions--the answers\nto these questions, as was only too evident, did not interest him.\n\n\"At what o'clock did the battle begin?\" asked the Emperor.\n\n\"I cannot inform Your Majesty at what o'clock the battle began at the\nfront, but at Durrenstein, where I was, our attack began after five in\nthe afternoon,\" replied Bolkonski growing more animated and expecting\nthat he would have a chance to give a reliable account, which he had\nready in his mind, of all he knew and had seen. But the Emperor smiled\nand interrupted him.\n\n\"How many miles?\"\n\n\"From where to where, Your Majesty?\"\n\n\"From Durrenstein to Krems.\"\n\n\"Three and a half miles, Your Majesty.\"\n\n\"The French have abandoned the left bank?\"\n\n\"According to the scouts the last of them crossed on rafts during the\nnight.\"\n\n\"Is there sufficient forage in Krems?\"\n\n\"Forage has not been supplied to the extent...\"\n\nThe Emperor interrupted him.\n\n\"At what o'clock was General Schmidt killed?\"\n\n\"At seven o'clock, I believe.\"\n\n\"At seven o'clock? It's very sad, very sad!\"\n\nThe Emperor thanked Prince Andrew and bowed. Prince Andrew withdrew and\nwas immediately surrounded by courtiers on all sides. Everywhere he saw\nfriendly looks and heard friendly words. Yesterday's adjutant reproached\nhim for not having stayed at the palace, and offered him his own house.\nThe Minister of War came up and congratulated him on the Maria Theresa\nOrder of the third grade, which the Emperor was conferring on him. The\nEmpress' chamberlain invited him to see Her Majesty. The archduchess\nalso wished to see him. He did not know whom to answer, and for a few\nseconds collected his thoughts. Then the Russian ambassador took him by\nthe shoulder, led him to the window, and began to talk to him.\n\nContrary to Bilibin's forecast the news he had brought was joyfully\nreceived. A thanksgiving service was arranged, Kutuzov was awarded the\nGrand Cross of Maria Theresa, and the whole army received rewards.\nBolkonski was invited everywhere, and had to spend the whole morning\ncalling on the principal Austrian dignitaries. Between four and five in\nthe afternoon, having made all his calls, he was returning to Bilibin's\nhouse thinking out a letter to his father about the battle and his visit\nto Brunn. At the door he found a vehicle half full of luggage. Franz,\nBilibin's man, was dragging a portmanteau with some difficulty out of\nthe front door.\n\nBefore returning to Bilibin's Prince Andrew had gone to a bookshop to\nprovide himself with some books for the campaign, and had spent some\ntime in the shop.\n\n\"What is it?\" he asked.\n\n\"Oh, your excellency!\" said Franz, with difficulty rolling the\nportmanteau into the vehicle, \"we are to move on still farther. The\nscoundrel is again at our heels!\"\n\n\"Eh? What?\" asked Prince Andrew.\n\nBilibin came out to meet him. His usually calm face showed excitement.\n\n\"There now! Confess that this is delightful,\" said he. \"This affair of\nthe Thabor Bridge, at Vienna.... They have crossed without striking a\nblow!\"\n\nPrince Andrew could not understand.\n\n\"But where do you come from not to know what every coachman in the town\nknows?\"\n\n\"I come from the archduchess'. I heard nothing there.\"\n\n\"And you didn't see that everybody is packing up?\"\n\n\"I did not... What is it all about?\" inquired Prince Andrew impatiently.\n\n\"What's it all about? Why, the French have crossed the bridge that\nAuersperg was defending, and the bridge was not blown up: so Murat is\nnow rushing along the road to Brunn and will be here in a day or two.\"\n\n\"What? Here? But why did they not blow up the bridge, if it was mined?\"\n\n\"That is what I ask you. No one, not even Bonaparte, knows why.\"\n\nBolkonski shrugged his shoulders.\n\n\"But if the bridge is crossed it means that the army too is lost? It\nwill be cut off,\" said he.\n\n\"That's just it,\" answered Bilibin. \"Listen! The French entered Vienna\nas I told you. Very well. Next day, which was yesterday, those\ngentlemen, messieurs les marechaux, * Murat, Lannes, and Belliard, mount\nand ride to the bridge. (Observe that all three are Gascons.)\n'Gentlemen,' says one of them, 'you know the Thabor Bridge is mined and\ndoubly mined and that there are menacing fortifications at its head and\nan army of fifteen thousand men has been ordered to blow up the bridge\nand not let us cross? But it will please our sovereign the Emperor\nNapoleon if we take this bridge, so let us three go and take it!' 'Yes,\nlet's!' say the others. And off they go and take the bridge, cross it,\nand now with their whole army are on this side of the Danube, marching\non us, you, and your lines of communication.\"\n\n\n* The marshalls.\n\n\"Stop jesting,\" said Prince Andrew sadly and seriously. This news\ngrieved him and yet he was pleased.\n\nAs soon as he learned that the Russian army was in such a hopeless\nsituation it occurred to him that it was he who was destined to lead it\nout of this position; that here was the Toulon that would lift him from\nthe ranks of obscure officers and offer him the first step to fame!\nListening to Bilibin he was already imagining how on reaching the army\nhe would give an opinion at the war council which would be the only one\nthat could save the army, and how he alone would be entrusted with the\nexecuting of the plan.\n\n\"Stop this jesting,\" he said.\n\n\"I am not jesting,\" Bilibin went on. \"Nothing is truer or sadder. These\ngentlemen ride onto the bridge alone and wave white handkerchiefs; they\nassure the officer on duty that they, the marshals, are on their way to\nnegotiate with Prince Auersperg. He lets them enter the tête-de-pont. *\nThey spin him a thousand gasconades, saying that the war is over, that\nthe Emperor Francis is arranging a meeting with Bonaparte, that they\ndesire to see Prince Auersperg, and so on. The officer sends for\nAuersperg; these gentlemen embrace the officers, crack jokes, sit on the\ncannon, and meanwhile a French battalion gets to the bridge unobserved,\nflings the bags of incendiary material into the water, and approaches\nthe tête-de-pont. At length appears the lieutenant general, our dear\nPrince Auersperg von Mautern himself. 'Dearest foe! Flower of the\nAustrian army, hero of the Turkish wars Hostilities are ended, we can\nshake one another's hand.... The Emperor Napoleon burns with impatience\nto make Prince Auersperg's acquaintance.' In a word, those gentlemen,\nGascons indeed, so bewildered him with fine words, and he is so\nflattered by his rapidly established intimacy with the French marshals,\nand so dazzled by the sight of Murat's mantle and ostrich plumes, qu'il\nn'y voit que du feu, et oublie celui qu'il devait faire faire sur\nl'ennemi!\" *(2) In spite of the animation of his speech, Bilibin did not\nforget to pause after this mot to give time for its due appreciation.\n\"The French battalion rushes to the bridgehead, spikes the guns, and the\nbridge is taken! But what is best of all,\" he went on, his excitement\nsubsiding under the delightful interest of his own story, \"is that the\nsergeant in charge of the cannon which was to give the signal to fire\nthe mines and blow up the bridge, this sergeant, seeing that the French\ntroops were running onto the bridge, was about to fire, but Lannes\nstayed his hand. The sergeant, who was evidently wiser than his general,\ngoes up to Auersperg and says: 'Prince, you are being deceived, here are\nthe French!' Murat, seeing that all is lost if the sergeant is allowed\nto speak, turns to Auersperg with feigned astonishment (he is a true\nGascon) and says: 'I don't recognize the world-famous Austrian\ndiscipline, if you allow a subordinate to address you like that!' It was\na stroke of genius. Prince Auersperg feels his dignity at stake and\norders the sergeant to be arrested. Come, you must own that this affair\nof the Thabor Bridge is delightful! It is not exactly stupidity, nor\nrascality....\"\n\n\n* Bridgehead.\n\n* (2) That their fire gets into his eyes and he forgets that he ought to\nbe firing at the enemy.\n\n\"It may be treachery,\" said Prince Andrew, vividly imagining the gray\novercoats, wounds, the smoke of gunpowder, the sounds of firing, and the\nglory that awaited him.\n\n\"Not that either. That puts the court in too bad a light,\" replied\nBilibin. \"It's not treachery nor rascality nor stupidity: it is just as\nat Ulm... it is...\"--he seemed to be trying to find the right\nexpression. \"C'est... c'est du Mack. Nous sommes mackes (It is... it is\na bit of Mack. We are Macked),\" he concluded, feeling that he had\nproduced a good epigram, a fresh one that would be repeated. His\nhitherto puckered brow became smooth as a sign of pleasure, and with a\nslight smile he began to examine his nails.\n\n\"Where are you off to?\" he said suddenly to Prince Andrew who had risen\nand was going toward his room.\n\n\"I am going away.\"\n\n\"Where to?\"\n\n\"To the army.\"\n\n\"But you meant to stay another two days?\"\n\n\"But now I am off at once.\"\n\nAnd Prince Andrew after giving directions about his departure went to\nhis room.\n\n\"Do you know, mon cher,\" said Bilibin following him, \"I have been\nthinking about you. Why are you going?\"\n\nAnd in proof of the conclusiveness of his opinion all the wrinkles\nvanished from his face.\n\nPrince Andrew looked inquiringly at him and gave no reply.\n\n\"Why are you going? I know you think it your duty to gallop back to the\narmy now that it is in danger. I understand that. Mon cher, it is\nheroism!\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" said Prince Andrew.\n\n\"But as you are a philosopher, be a consistent one, look at the other\nside of the question and you will see that your duty, on the contrary,\nis to take care of yourself. Leave it to those who are no longer fit for\nanything else.... You have not been ordered to return and have not been\ndismissed from here; therefore, you can stay and go with us wherever our\nill luck takes us. They say we are going to Olmutz, and Olmutz is a very\ndecent town. You and I will travel comfortably in my caleche.\"\n\n\"Do stop joking, Bilibin,\" cried Bolkonski.\n\n\"I am speaking sincerely as a friend! Consider! Where and why are you\ngoing, when you might remain here? You are faced by one of two things,\"\nand the skin over his left temple puckered, \"either you will not reach\nyour regiment before peace is concluded, or you will share defeat and\ndisgrace with Kutuzov's whole army.\"\n\nAnd Bilibin unwrinkled his temple, feeling that the dilemma was\ninsoluble.\n\n\"I cannot argue about it,\" replied Prince Andrew coldly, but he thought:\n\"I am going to save the army.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow, you are a hero!\" said Bilibin.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nThat same night, having taken leave of the Minister of War, Bolkonski\nset off to rejoin the army, not knowing where he would find it and\nfearing to be captured by the French on the way to Krems.\n\nIn Brunn everybody attached to the court was packing up, and the heavy\nbaggage was already being dispatched to Olmutz. Near Hetzelsdorf Prince\nAndrew struck the high road along which the Russian army was moving with\ngreat haste and in the greatest disorder. The road was so obstructed\nwith carts that it was impossible to get by in a carriage. Prince Andrew\ntook a horse and a Cossack from a Cossack commander, and hungry and\nweary, making his way past the baggage wagons, rode in search of the\ncommander-in-chief and of his own luggage. Very sinister reports of the\nposition of the army reached him as he went along, and the appearance of\nthe troops in their disorderly flight confirmed these rumors.\n\n\"Cette armee russe que l'or de l'Angleterre a transportee des extremites\nde l'univers, nous allons lui faire eprouver le meme sort--(le sort de\nl'armee d'Ulm).\" * He remembered these words in Bonaparte's address to\nhis army at the beginning of the campaign, and they awoke in him\nastonishment at the genius of his hero, a feeling of wounded pride, and\na hope of glory. \"And should there be nothing left but to die?\" he\nthought. \"Well, if need be, I shall do it no worse than others.\"\n\n\n* \"That Russian army which has been brought from the ends of the earth\nby English gold, we shall cause to share the same fate--(the fate of the\narmy at Ulm).\"\n\nHe looked with disdain at the endless confused mass of detachments,\ncarts, guns, artillery, and again baggage wagons and vehicles of all\nkinds overtaking one another and blocking the muddy road, three and\nsometimes four abreast. From all sides, behind and before, as far as ear\ncould reach, there were the rattle of wheels, the creaking of carts and\ngun carriages, the tramp of horses, the crack of whips, shouts, the\nurging of horses, and the swearing of soldiers, orderlies, and officers.\nAll along the sides of the road fallen horses were to be seen, some\nflayed, some not, and broken-down carts beside which solitary soldiers\nsat waiting for something, and again soldiers straggling from their\ncompanies, crowds of whom set off to the neighboring villages, or\nreturned from them dragging sheep, fowls, hay, and bulging sacks. At\neach ascent or descent of the road the crowds were yet denser and the\ndin of shouting more incessant. Soldiers floundering knee-deep in mud\npushed the guns and wagons themselves. Whips cracked, hoofs slipped,\ntraces broke, and lungs were strained with shouting. The officers\ndirecting the march rode backward and forward between the carts. Their\nvoices were but feebly heard amid the uproar and one saw by their faces\nthat they despaired of the possibility of checking this disorder.\n\n\"Here is our dear Orthodox Russian army,\" thought Bolkonski, recalling\nBilibin's words.\n\nWishing to find out where the commander-in-chief was, he rode up to a\nconvoy. Directly opposite to him came a strange one-horse vehicle,\nevidently rigged up by soldiers out of any available materials and\nlooking like something between a cart, a cabriolet, and a caleche. A\nsoldier was driving, and a woman enveloped in shawls sat behind the\napron under the leather hood of the vehicle. Prince Andrew rode up and\nwas just putting his question to a soldier when his attention was\ndiverted by the desperate shrieks of the woman in the vehicle. An\nofficer in charge of transport was beating the soldier who was driving\nthe woman's vehicle for trying to get ahead of others, and the strokes\nof his whip fell on the apron of the equipage. The woman screamed\npiercingly. Seeing Prince Andrew she leaned out from behind the apron\nand, waving her thin arms from under the woolen shawl, cried:\n\n\"Mr. Aide-de-camp! Mr. Aide-de-camp!... For heaven's sake... Protect me!\nWhat will become of us? I am the wife of the doctor of the Seventh\nChasseurs.... They won't let us pass, we are left behind and have lost\nour people...\"\n\n\"I'll flatten you into a pancake!\" shouted the angry officer to the\nsoldier. \"Turn back with your slut!\"\n\n\"Mr. Aide-de-camp! Help me!... What does it all mean?\" screamed the\ndoctor's wife.\n\n\"Kindly let this cart pass. Don't you see it's a woman?\" said Prince\nAndrew riding up to the officer.\n\nThe officer glanced at him, and without replying turned again to the\nsoldier. \"I'll teach you to push on!... Back!\"\n\n\"Let them pass, I tell you!\" repeated Prince Andrew, compressing his\nlips.\n\n\"And who are you?\" cried the officer, turning on him with tipsy rage,\n\"who are you? Are you in command here? Eh? I am commander here, not you!\nGo back or I'll flatten you into a pancake,\" repeated he. This\nexpression evidently pleased him.\n\n\"That was a nice snub for the little aide-de-camp,\" came a voice from\nbehind.\n\nPrince Andrew saw that the officer was in that state of senseless, tipsy\nrage when a man does not know what he is saying. He saw that his\nchampionship of the doctor's wife in her queer trap might expose him to\nwhat he dreaded more than anything in the world--to ridicule; but his\ninstinct urged him on. Before the officer finished his sentence Prince\nAndrew, his face distorted with fury, rode up to him and raised his\nriding whip.\n\n\"Kind...ly let--them--pass!\"\n\nThe officer flourished his arm and hastily rode away.\n\n\"It's all the fault of these fellows on the staff that there's this\ndisorder,\" he muttered. \"Do as you like.\"\n\nPrince Andrew without lifting his eyes rode hastily away from the\ndoctor's wife, who was calling him her deliverer, and recalling with a\nsense of disgust the minutest details of this humiliating scene he\ngalloped on to the village where he was told that the commander-in-chief\nwas.\n\nOn reaching the village he dismounted and went to the nearest house,\nintending to rest if but for a moment, eat something, and try to sort\nout the stinging and tormenting thoughts that confused his mind. \"This\nis a mob of scoundrels and not an army,\" he was thinking as he went up\nto the window of the first house, when a familiar voice called him by\nname.\n\nHe turned round. Nesvitski's handsome face looked out of the little\nwindow. Nesvitski, moving his moist lips as he chewed something, and\nflourishing his arm, called him to enter.\n\n\"Bolkonski! Bolkonski!... Don't you hear? Eh? Come quick...\" he shouted.\n\nEntering the house, Prince Andrew saw Nesvitski and another adjutant\nhaving something to eat. They hastily turned round to him asking if he\nhad any news. On their familiar faces he read agitation and alarm. This\nwas particularly noticeable on Nesvitski's usually laughing countenance.\n\n\"Where is the commander-in-chief?\" asked Bolkonski.\n\n\"Here, in that house,\" answered the adjutant.\n\n\"Well, is it true that it's peace and capitulation?\" asked Nesvitski.\n\n\"I was going to ask you. I know nothing except that it was all I could\ndo to get here.\"\n\n\"And we, my dear boy! It's terrible! I was wrong to laugh at Mack, we're\ngetting it still worse,\" said Nesvitski. \"But sit down and have\nsomething to eat.\"\n\n\"You won't be able to find either your baggage or anything else now,\nPrince. And God only knows where your man Peter is,\" said the other\nadjutant.\n\n\"Where are headquarters?\"\n\n\"We are to spend the night in Znaim.\"\n\n\"Well, I have got all I need into packs for two horses,\" said Nesvitski.\n\"They've made up splendid packs for me--fit to cross the Bohemian\nmountains with. It's a bad lookout, old fellow! But what's the matter\nwith you? You must be ill to shiver like that,\" he added, noticing that\nPrince Andrew winced as at an electric shock.\n\n\"It's nothing,\" replied Prince Andrew.\n\nHe had just remembered his recent encounter with the doctor's wife and\nthe convoy officer.\n\n\"What is the commander-in-chief doing here?\" he asked.\n\n\"I can't make out at all,\" said Nesvitski.\n\n\"Well, all I can make out is that everything is abominable, abominable,\nquite abominable!\" said Prince Andrew, and he went off to the house\nwhere the commander-in-chief was.\n\nPassing by Kutuzov's carriage and the exhausted saddle horses of his\nsuite, with their Cossacks who were talking loudly together, Prince\nAndrew entered the passage. Kutuzov himself, he was told, was in the\nhouse with Prince Bagration and Weyrother. Weyrother was the Austrian\ngeneral who had succeeded Schmidt. In the passage little Kozlovski was\nsquatting on his heels in front of a clerk. The clerk, with cuffs turned\nup, was hastily writing at a tub turned bottom upwards. Kozlovski's face\nlooked worn--he too had evidently not slept all night. He glanced at\nPrince Andrew and did not even nod to him.\n\n\"Second line... have you written it?\" he continued dictating to the\nclerk. \"The Kiev Grenadiers, Podolian...\"\n\n\"One can't write so fast, your honor,\" said the clerk, glancing angrily\nand disrespectfully at Kozlovski.\n\nThrough the door came the sounds of Kutuzov's voice, excited and\ndissatisfied, interrupted by another, an unfamiliar voice. From the\nsound of these voices, the inattentive way Kozlovski looked at him, the\ndisrespectful manner of the exhausted clerk, the fact that the clerk and\nKozlovski were squatting on the floor by a tub so near to the commander\nin chief, and from the noisy laughter of the Cossacks holding the horses\nnear the window, Prince Andrew felt that something important and\ndisastrous was about to happen.\n\nHe turned to Kozlovski with urgent questions.\n\n\"Immediately, Prince,\" said Kozlovski. \"Dispositions for Bagration.\"\n\n\"What about capitulation?\"\n\n\"Nothing of the sort. Orders are issued for a battle.\"\n\nPrince Andrew moved toward the door from whence voices were heard. Just\nas he was going to open it the sounds ceased, the door opened, and\nKutuzov with his eagle nose and puffy face appeared in the doorway.\nPrince Andrew stood right in front of Kutuzov but the expression of the\ncommander in chief's one sound eye showed him to be so preoccupied with\nthoughts and anxieties as to be oblivious of his presence. He looked\nstraight at his adjutant's face without recognizing him.\n\n\"Well, have you finished?\" said he to Kozlovski.\n\n\"One moment, your excellency.\"\n\nBagration, a gaunt middle-aged man of medium height with a firm,\nimpassive face of Oriental type, came out after the commander-in-chief.\n\n\"I have the honor to present myself,\" repeated Prince Andrew rather\nloudly, handing Kutuzov an envelope.\n\n\"Ah, from Vienna? Very good. Later, later!\"\n\nKutuzov went out into the porch with Bagration.\n\n\"Well, good-by, Prince,\" said he to Bagration. \"My blessing, and may\nChrist be with you in your great endeavor!\"\n\nHis face suddenly softened and tears came into his eyes. With his left\nhand he drew Bagration toward him, and with his right, on which he wore\na ring, he made the sign of the cross over him with a gesture evidently\nhabitual, offering his puffy cheek, but Bagration kissed him on the neck\ninstead.\n\n\"Christ be with you!\" Kutuzov repeated and went toward his carriage.\n\"Get in with me,\" said he to Bolkonski.\n\n\"Your excellency, I should like to be of use here. Allow me to remain\nwith Prince Bagration's detachment.\"\n\n\"Get in,\" said Kutuzov, and noticing that Bolkonski still delayed, he\nadded: \"I need good officers myself, need them myself!\"\n\nThey got into the carriage and drove for a few minutes in silence.\n\n\"There is still much, much before us,\" he said, as if with an old man's\npenetration he understood all that was passing in Bolkonski's mind. \"If\na tenth part of his detachment returns I shall thank God,\" he added as\nif speaking to himself.\n\nPrince Andrew glanced at Kutuzov's face only a foot distant from him and\ninvoluntarily noticed the carefully washed seams of the scar near his\ntemple, where an Ismail bullet had pierced his skull, and the empty eye\nsocket. \"Yes, he has a right to speak so calmly of those men's death,\"\nthought Bolkonski.\n\n\"That is why I beg to be sent to that detachment,\" he said.\n\nKutuzov did not reply. He seemed to have forgotten what he had been\nsaying, and sat plunged in thought. Five minutes later, gently swaying\non the soft springs of the carriage, he turned to Prince Andrew. There\nwas not a trace of agitation on his face. With delicate irony he\nquestioned Prince Andrew about the details of his interview with the\nEmperor, about the remarks he had heard at court concerning the Krems\naffair, and about some ladies they both knew.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nOn November 1 Kutuzov had received, through a spy, news that the army he\ncommanded was in an almost hopeless position. The spy reported that the\nFrench, after crossing the bridge at Vienna, were advancing in immense\nforce upon Kutuzov's line of communication with the troops that were\narriving from Russia. If Kutuzov decided to remain at Krems, Napoleon's\narmy of one hundred and fifty thousand men would cut him off completely\nand surround his exhausted army of forty thousand, and he would find\nhimself in the position of Mack at Ulm. If Kutuzov decided to abandon\nthe road connecting him with the troops arriving from Russia, he would\nhave to march with no road into unknown parts of the Bohemian mountains,\ndefending himself against superior forces of the enemy and abandoning\nall hope of a junction with Buxhowden. If Kutuzov decided to retreat\nalong the road from Krems to Olmutz, to unite with the troops arriving\nfrom Russia, he risked being forestalled on that road by the French who\nhad crossed the Vienna bridge, and encumbered by his baggage and\ntransport, having to accept battle on the march against an enemy three\ntimes as strong, who would hem him in from two sides.\n\nKutuzov chose this latter course.\n\nThe French, the spy reported, having crossed the Vienna bridge, were\nadvancing by forced marches toward Znaim, which lay sixty-six miles off\non the line of Kutuzov's retreat. If he reached Znaim before the French,\nthere would be great hope of saving the army; to let the French\nforestall him at Znaim meant the exposure of his whole army to a\ndisgrace such as that of Ulm, or to utter destruction. But to forestall\nthe French with his whole army was impossible. The road for the French\nfrom Vienna to Znaim was shorter and better than the road for the\nRussians from Krems to Znaim.\n\nThe night he received the news, Kutuzov sent Bagration's vanguard, four\nthousand strong, to the right across the hills from the Krems-Znaim to\nthe Vienna-Znaim road. Bagration was to make this march without resting,\nand to halt facing Vienna with Znaim to his rear, and if he succeeded in\nforestalling the French he was to delay them as long as possible.\nKutuzov himself with all his transport took the road to Znaim.\n\nMarching thirty miles that stormy night across roadless hills, with his\nhungry, ill-shod soldiers, and losing a third of his men as stragglers\nby the way, Bagration came out on the Vienna-Znaim road at Hollabrunn a\nfew hours ahead of the French who were approaching Hollabrunn from\nVienna. Kutuzov with his transport had still to march for some days\nbefore he could reach Znaim. Hence Bagration with his four thousand\nhungry, exhausted men would have to detain for days the whole enemy army\nthat came upon him at Hollabrunn, which was clearly impossible. But a\nfreak of fate made the impossible possible. The success of the trick\nthat had placed the Vienna bridge in the hands of the French without a\nfight led Murat to try to deceive Kutuzov in a similar way. Meeting\nBagration's weak detachment on the Znaim road he supposed it to be\nKutuzov's whole army. To be able to crush it absolutely he awaited the\narrival of the rest of the troops who were on their way from Vienna, and\nwith this object offered a three days' truce on condition that both\narmies should remain in position without moving. Murat declared that\nnegotiations for peace were already proceeding, and that he therefore\noffered this truce to avoid unnecessary bloodshed. Count Nostitz, the\nAustrian general occupying the advanced posts, believed Murat's emissary\nand retired, leaving Bagration's division exposed. Another emissary rode\nto the Russian line to announce the peace negotiations and to offer the\nRussian army the three days' truce. Bagration replied that he was not\nauthorized either to accept or refuse a truce and sent his adjutant to\nKutuzov to report the offer he had received.\n\nA truce was Kutuzov's sole chance of gaining time, giving Bagration's\nexhausted troops some rest, and letting the transport and heavy convoys\n(whose movements were concealed from the French) advance if but one\nstage nearer Znaim. The offer of a truce gave the only, and a quite\nunexpected, chance of saving the army. On receiving the news he\nimmediately dispatched Adjutant General Wintzingerode, who was in\nattendance on him, to the enemy camp. Wintzingerode was not merely to\nagree to the truce but also to offer terms of capitulation, and\nmeanwhile Kutuzov sent his adjutants back to hasten to the utmost the\nmovements of the baggage trains of the entire army along the Krems-Znaim\nroad. Bagration's exhausted and hungry detachment, which alone covered\nthis movement of the transport and of the whole army, had to remain\nstationary in face of an enemy eight times as strong as itself.\n\nKutuzov's expectations that the proposals of capitulation (which were in\nno way binding) might give time for part of the transport to pass, and\nalso that Murat's mistake would very soon be discovered, proved correct.\nAs soon as Bonaparte (who was at Schonbrunn, sixteen miles from\nHollabrunn) received Murat's dispatch with the proposal of a truce and a\ncapitulation, he detected a ruse and wrote the following letter to\nMurat:\n\nSchonbrunn, 25th Brumaire, 1805,\n\nat eight o'clock in the morning\n\nTo PRINCE MURAT,\n\nI cannot find words to express to you my displeasure. You command only\nmy advance guard, and have no right to arrange an armistice without my\norder. You are causing me to lose the fruits of a campaign. Break the\narmistice immediately and march on the enemy. Inform him that the\ngeneral who signed that capitulation had no right to do so, and that no\none but the Emperor of Russia has that right.\n\nIf, however, the Emperor of Russia ratifies that convention, I will\nratify it; but it is only a trick. March on, destroy the Russian\narmy.... You are in a position to seize its baggage and artillery.\n\nThe Russian Emperor's aide-de-camp is an impostor. Officers are nothing\nwhen they have no powers; this one had none.... The Austrians let\nthemselves be tricked at the crossing of the Vienna bridge, you are\nletting yourself be tricked by an aide-de-camp of the Emperor.\n\nNAPOLEON\n\nBonaparte's adjutant rode full gallop with this menacing letter to\nMurat. Bonaparte himself, not trusting to his generals, moved with all\nthe Guards to the field of battle, afraid of letting a ready victim\nescape, and Bagration's four thousand men merrily lighted campfires,\ndried and warmed themselves, cooked their porridge for the first time\nfor three days, and not one of them knew or imagined what was in store\nfor him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nBetween three and four o'clock in the afternoon Prince Andrew, who had\npersisted in his request to Kutuzov, arrived at Grunth and reported\nhimself to Bagration. Bonaparte's adjutant had not yet reached Murat's\ndetachment and the battle had not yet begun. In Bagration's detachment\nno one knew anything of the general position of affairs. They talked of\npeace but did not believe in its possibility; others talked of a battle\nbut also disbelieved in the nearness of an engagement. Bagration,\nknowing Bolkonski to be a favorite and trusted adjutant, received him\nwith distinction and special marks of favor, explaining to him that\nthere would probably be an engagement that day or the next, and giving\nhim full liberty to remain with him during the battle or to join the\nrearguard and have an eye on the order of retreat, \"which is also very\nimportant.\"\n\n\"However, there will hardly be an engagement today,\" said Bagration as\nif to reassure Prince Andrew.\n\n\"If he is one of the ordinary little staff dandies sent to earn a medal\nhe can get his reward just as well in the rearguard, but if he wishes to\nstay with me, let him... he'll be of use here if he's a brave officer,\"\nthought Bagration. Prince Andrew, without replying, asked the prince's\npermission to ride round the position to see the disposition of the\nforces, so as to know his bearings should he be sent to execute an\norder. The officer on duty, a handsome, elegantly dressed man with a\ndiamond ring on his forefinger, who was fond of speaking French though\nhe spoke it badly, offered to conduct Prince Andrew.\n\nOn all sides they saw rain-soaked officers with dejected faces who\nseemed to be seeking something, and soldiers dragging doors, benches,\nand fencing from the village.\n\n\"There now, Prince! We can't stop those fellows,\" said the staff officer\npointing to the soldiers. \"The officers don't keep them in hand. And\nthere,\" he pointed to a sutler's tent, \"they crowd in and sit. This\nmorning I turned them all out and now look, it's full again. I must go\nthere, Prince, and scare them a bit. It won't take a moment.\"\n\n\"Yes, let's go in and I will get myself a roll and some cheese,\" said\nPrince Andrew who had not yet had time to eat anything.\n\n\"Why didn't you mention it, Prince? I would have offered you something.\"\n\nThey dismounted and entered the tent. Several officers, with flushed and\nweary faces, were sitting at the table eating and drinking.\n\n\"Now what does this mean, gentlemen?\" said the staff officer, in the\nreproachful tone of a man who has repeated the same thing more than\nonce. \"You know it won't do to leave your posts like this. The prince\ngave orders that no one should leave his post. Now you, Captain,\" and he\nturned to a thin, dirty little artillery officer who without his boots\n(he had given them to the canteen keeper to dry), in only his stockings,\nrose when they entered, smiling not altogether comfortably.\n\n\"Well, aren't you ashamed of yourself, Captain Tushin?\" he continued.\n\"One would think that as an artillery officer you would set a good\nexample, yet here you are without your boots! The alarm will be sounded\nand you'll be in a pretty position without your boots!\" (The staff\nofficer smiled.) \"Kindly return to your posts, gentlemen, all of you,\nall!\" he added in a tone of command.\n\nPrince Andrew smiled involuntarily as he looked at the artillery officer\nTushin, who silent and smiling, shifting from one stockinged foot to the\nother, glanced inquiringly with his large, intelligent, kindly eyes from\nPrince Andrew to the staff officer.\n\n\"The soldiers say it feels easier without boots,\" said Captain Tushin\nsmiling shyly in his uncomfortable position, evidently wishing to adopt\na jocular tone. But before he had finished he felt that his jest was\nunacceptable and had not come off. He grew confused.\n\n\"Kindly return to your posts,\" said the staff officer trying to preserve\nhis gravity.\n\nPrince Andrew glanced again at the artillery officer's small figure.\nThere was something peculiar about it, quite unsoldierly, rather comic,\nbut extremely attractive.\n\nThe staff officer and Prince Andrew mounted their horses and rode on.\n\nHaving ridden beyond the village, continually meeting and overtaking\nsoldiers and officers of various regiments, they saw on their left some\nentrenchments being thrown up, the freshly dug clay of which showed up\nred. Several battalions of soldiers, in their shirt sleeves despite the\ncold wind, swarmed in these earthworks like a host of white ants;\nspadefuls of red clay were continually being thrown up from behind the\nbank by unseen hands. Prince Andrew and the officer rode up, looked at\nthe entrenchment, and went on again. Just behind it they came upon some\ndozens of soldiers, continually replaced by others, who ran from the\nentrenchment. They had to hold their noses and put their horses to a\ntrot to escape from the poisoned atmosphere of these latrines.\n\n\"Voila l'agrement des camps, monsieur le Prince,\" * said the staff\nofficer.\n\n\n* \"This is a pleasure one gets in camp, Prince.\"\n\nThey rode up the opposite hill. From there the French could already be\nseen. Prince Andrew stopped and began examining the position.\n\n\"That's our battery,\" said the staff officer indicating the highest\npoint. \"It's in charge of the queer fellow we saw without his boots. You\ncan see everything from there; let's go there, Prince.\"\n\n\"Thank you very much, I will go on alone,\" said Prince Andrew, wishing\nto rid himself of this staff officer's company, \"please don't trouble\nyourself further.\"\n\nThe staff officer remained behind and Prince Andrew rode on alone.\n\nThe farther forward and nearer the enemy he went, the more orderly and\ncheerful were the troops. The greatest disorder and depression had been\nin the baggage train he had passed that morning on the Znaim road seven\nmiles away from the French. At Grunth also some apprehension and alarm\ncould be felt, but the nearer Prince Andrew came to the French lines the\nmore confident was the appearance of our troops. The soldiers in their\ngreatcoats were ranged in lines, the sergeants major and company\nofficers were counting the men, poking the last man in each section in\nthe ribs and telling him to hold his hand up. Soldiers scattered over\nthe whole place were dragging logs and brushwood and were building\nshelters with merry chatter and laughter; around the fires sat others,\ndressed and undressed, drying their shirts and leg bands or mending\nboots or overcoats and crowding round the boilers and porridge cookers.\nIn one company dinner was ready, and the soldiers were gazing eagerly at\nthe steaming boiler, waiting till the sample, which a quartermaster\nsergeant was carrying in a wooden bowl to an officer who sat on a log\nbefore his shelter, had been tasted.\n\nAnother company, a lucky one for not all the companies had vodka,\ncrowded round a pockmarked, broad-shouldered sergeant major who, tilting\na keg, filled one after another the canteen lids held out to him. The\nsoldiers lifted the canteen lids to their lips with reverential faces,\nemptied them, rolling the vodka in their mouths, and walked away from\nthe sergeant major with brightened expressions, licking their lips and\nwiping them on the sleeves of their greatcoats. All their faces were as\nserene as if all this were happening at home awaiting peaceful\nencampment, and not within sight of the enemy before an action in which\nat least half of them would be left on the field. After passing a\nchasseur regiment and in the lines of the Kiev grenadiers--fine fellows\nbusy with similar peaceful affairs--near the shelter of the regimental\ncommander, higher than and different from the others, Prince Andrew came\nout in front of a platoon of grenadiers before whom lay a naked man. Two\nsoldiers held him while two others were flourishing their switches and\nstriking him regularly on his bare back. The man shrieked unnaturally. A\nstout major was pacing up and down the line, and regardless of the\nscreams kept repeating:\n\n\"It's a shame for a soldier to steal; a soldier must be honest,\nhonorable, and brave, but if he robs his fellows there is no honor in\nhim, he's a scoundrel. Go on! Go on!\"\n\nSo the swishing sound of the strokes, and the desperate but unnatural\nscreams, continued.\n\n\"Go on, go on!\" said the major.\n\nA young officer with a bewildered and pained expression on his face\nstepped away from the man and looked round inquiringly at the adjutant\nas he rode by.\n\nPrince Andrew, having reached the front line, rode along it. Our front\nline and that of the enemy were far apart on the right and left flanks,\nbut in the center where the men with a flag of truce had passed that\nmorning, the lines were so near together that the men could see one\nanother's faces and speak to one another. Besides the soldiers who\nformed the picket line on either side, there were many curious onlookers\nwho, jesting and laughing, stared at their strange foreign enemies.\n\nSince early morning--despite an injunction not to approach the picket\nline--the officers had been unable to keep sight-seers away. The\nsoldiers forming the picket line, like showmen exhibiting a curiosity,\nno longer looked at the French but paid attention to the sight-seers and\ngrew weary waiting to be relieved. Prince Andrew halted to have a look\nat the French.\n\n\"Look! Look there!\" one soldier was saying to another, pointing to a\nRussian musketeer who had gone up to the picket line with an officer and\nwas rapidly and excitedly talking to a French grenadier. \"Hark to him\njabbering! Fine, isn't it? It's all the Frenchy can do to keep up with\nhim. There now, Sidorov!\"\n\n\"Wait a bit and listen. It's fine!\" answered Sidorov, who was considered\nan adept at French.\n\nThe soldier to whom the laughers referred was Dolokhov. Prince Andrew\nrecognized him and stopped to listen to what he was saying. Dolokhov had\ncome from the left flank where their regiment was stationed, with his\ncaptain.\n\n\"Now then, go on, go on!\" incited the officer, bending forward and\ntrying not to lose a word of the speech which was incomprehensible to\nhim. \"More, please: more! What's he saying?\"\n\nDolokhov did not answer the captain; he had been drawn into a hot\ndispute with the French grenadier. They were naturally talking about the\ncampaign. The Frenchman, confusing the Austrians with the Russians, was\ntrying to prove that the Russians had surrendered and had fled all the\nway from Ulm, while Dolokhov maintained that the Russians had not\nsurrendered but had beaten the French.\n\n\"We have orders to drive you off here, and we shall drive you off,\" said\nDolokhov.\n\n\"Only take care you and your Cossacks are not all captured!\" said the\nFrench grenadier.\n\nThe French onlookers and listeners laughed.\n\n\"We'll make you dance as we did under Suvorov...,\" * said Dolokhov.\n\n\n* \"On vous fera danser.\"\n\n\"Qu' est-ce qu'il chante?\" * asked a Frenchman.\n\n\n* \"What's he singing about?\"\n\n\"It's ancient history,\" said another, guessing that it referred to a\nformer war. \"The Emperor will teach your Suvara as he has taught the\nothers...\"\n\n\"Bonaparte...\" began Dolokhov, but the Frenchman interrupted him.\n\n\"Not Bonaparte. He is the Emperor! Sacre nom...!\" cried he angrily.\n\n\"The devil skin your Emperor.\"\n\nAnd Dolokhov swore at him in coarse soldier's Russian and shouldering\nhis musket walked away.\n\n\"Let us go, Ivan Lukich,\" he said to the captain.\n\n\"Ah, that's the way to talk French,\" said the picket soldiers. \"Now,\nSidorov, you have a try!\"\n\nSidorov, turning to the French, winked, and began to jabber meaningless\nsounds very fast: \"Kari, mala, tafa, safi, muter, Kaska,\" he said,\ntrying to give an expressive intonation to his voice.\n\n\"Ho! ho! ho! Ha! ha! ha! ha! Ouh! ouh!\" came peals of such healthy and\ngood-humored laughter from the soldiers that it infected the French\ninvoluntarily, so much so that the only thing left to do seemed to be to\nunload the muskets, explode the ammunition, and all return home as\nquickly as possible.\n\nBut the guns remained loaded, the loopholes in blockhouses and\nentrenchments looked out just as menacingly, and the unlimbered cannon\nconfronted one another as before.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nHaving ridden round the whole line from right flank to left, Prince\nAndrew made his way up to the battery from which the staff officer had\ntold him the whole field could be seen. Here he dismounted, and stopped\nbeside the farthest of the four unlimbered cannon. Before the guns an\nartillery sentry was pacing up and down; he stood at attention when the\nofficer arrived, but at a sign resumed his measured, monotonous pacing.\nBehind the guns were their limbers and still farther back picket ropes\nand artillerymen's bonfires. To the left, not far from the farthest\ncannon, was a small, newly constructed wattle shed from which came the\nsound of officers' voices in eager conversation.\n\nIt was true that a view over nearly the whole Russian position and the\ngreater part of the enemy's opened out from this battery. Just facing\nit, on the crest of the opposite hill, the village of Schon Grabern\ncould be seen, and in three places to left and right the French troops\namid the smoke of their campfires, the greater part of whom were\nevidently in the village itself and behind the hill. To the left from\nthat village, amid the smoke, was something resembling a battery, but it\nwas impossible to see it clearly with the naked eye. Our right flank was\nposted on a rather steep incline which dominated the French position.\nOur infantry were stationed there, and at the farthest point the\ndragoons. In the center, where Tushin's battery stood and from which\nPrince Andrew was surveying the position, was the easiest and most\ndirect descent and ascent to the brook separating us from Schon Grabern.\nOn the left our troops were close to a copse, in which smoked the\nbonfires of our infantry who were felling wood. The French line was\nwider than ours, and it was plain that they could easily outflank us on\nboth sides. Behind our position was a steep and deep dip, making it\ndifficult for artillery and cavalry to retire. Prince Andrew took out\nhis notebook and, leaning on the cannon, sketched a plan of the\nposition. He made some notes on two points, intending to mention them to\nBagration. His idea was, first, to concentrate all the artillery in the\ncenter, and secondly, to withdraw the cavalry to the other side of the\ndip. Prince Andrew, being always near the commander in chief, closely\nfollowing the mass movements and general orders, and constantly studying\nhistorical accounts of battles, involuntarily pictured to himself the\ncourse of events in the forthcoming action in broad outline. He imagined\nonly important possibilities: \"If the enemy attacks the right flank,\" he\nsaid to himself, \"the Kiev grenadiers and the Podolsk chasseurs must\nhold their position till reserves from the center come up. In that case\nthe dragoons could successfully make a flank counterattack. If they\nattack our center we, having the center battery on this high ground,\nshall withdraw the left flank under its cover, and retreat to the dip by\nechelons.\" So he reasoned.... All the time he had been beside the gun,\nhe had heard the voices of the officers distinctly, but as often happens\nhad not understood a word of what they were saying. Suddenly, however,\nhe was struck by a voice coming from the shed, and its tone was so\nsincere that he could not but listen.\n\n\"No, friend,\" said a pleasant and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, a\nfamiliar voice, \"what I say is that if it were possible to know what is\nbeyond death, none of us would be afraid of it. That's so, friend.\"\n\nAnother, a younger voice, interrupted him: \"Afraid or not, you can't\nescape it anyhow.\"\n\n\"All the same, one is afraid! Oh, you clever people,\" said a third manly\nvoice interrupting them both. \"Of course you artillery men are very\nwise, because you can take everything along with you--vodka and snacks.\"\n\nAnd the owner of the manly voice, evidently an infantry officer,\nlaughed.\n\n\"Yes, one is afraid,\" continued the first speaker, he of the familiar\nvoice. \"One is afraid of the unknown, that's what it is. Whatever we may\nsay about the soul going to the sky... we know there is no sky but only\nan atmosphere.\"\n\nThe manly voice again interrupted the artillery officer.\n\n\"Well, stand us some of your herb vodka, Tushin,\" it said.\n\n\"Why,\" thought Prince Andrew, \"that's the captain who stood up in the\nsutler's hut without his boots.\" He recognized the agreeable,\nphilosophizing voice with pleasure.\n\n\"Some herb vodka? Certainly!\" said Tushin. \"But still, to conceive a\nfuture life...\"\n\nHe did not finish. Just then there was a whistle in the air; nearer and\nnearer, faster and louder, louder and faster, a cannon ball, as if it\nhad not finished saying what was necessary, thudded into the ground near\nthe shed with super human force, throwing up a mass of earth. The ground\nseemed to groan at the terrible impact.\n\nAnd immediately Tushin, with a short pipe in the corner of his mouth and\nhis kind, intelligent face rather pale, rushed out of the shed followed\nby the owner of the manly voice, a dashing infantry officer who hurried\noff to his company, buttoning up his coat as he ran.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nMounting his horse again Prince Andrew lingered with the battery,\nlooking at the puff from the gun that had sent the ball. His eyes ran\nrapidly over the wide space, but he only saw that the hitherto\nmotionless masses of the French now swayed and that there really was a\nbattery to their left. The smoke above it had not yet dispersed. Two\nmounted Frenchmen, probably adjutants, were galloping up the hill. A\nsmall but distinctly visible enemy column was moving down the hill,\nprobably to strengthen the front line. The smoke of the first shot had\nnot yet dispersed before another puff appeared, followed by a report.\nThe battle had begun! Prince Andrew turned his horse and galloped back\nto Grunth to find Prince Bagration. He heard the cannonade behind him\ngrowing louder and more frequent. Evidently our guns had begun to reply.\nFrom the bottom of the slope, where the parleys had taken place, came\nthe report of musketry.\n\nLemarrois had just arrived at a gallop with Bonaparte's stern letter,\nand Murat, humiliated and anxious to expiate his fault, had at once\nmoved his forces to attack the center and outflank both the Russian\nwings, hoping before evening and before the arrival of the Emperor to\ncrush the contemptible detachment that stood before him.\n\n\"It has begun. Here it is!\" thought Prince Andrew, feeling the blood\nrush to his heart. \"But where and how will my Toulon present itself?\"\n\nPassing between the companies that had been eating porridge and drinking\nvodka a quarter of an hour before, he saw everywhere the same rapid\nmovement of soldiers forming ranks and getting their muskets ready, and\non all their faces he recognized the same eagerness that filled his\nheart. \"It has begun! Here it is, dreadful but enjoyable!\" was what the\nface of each soldier and each officer seemed to say.\n\nBefore he had reached the embankments that were being thrown up, he saw,\nin the light of the dull autumn evening, mounted men coming toward him.\nThe foremost, wearing a Cossack cloak and lambskin cap and riding a\nwhite horse, was Prince Bagration. Prince Andrew stopped, waiting for\nhim to come up; Prince Bagration reined in his horse and recognizing\nPrince Andrew nodded to him. He still looked ahead while Prince Andrew\ntold him what he had seen.\n\nThe feeling, \"It has begun! Here it is!\" was seen even on Prince\nBagration's hard brown face with its half-closed, dull, sleepy eyes.\nPrince Andrew gazed with anxious curiosity at that impassive face and\nwished he could tell what, if anything, this man was thinking and\nfeeling at that moment. \"Is there anything at all behind that impassive\nface?\" Prince Andrew asked himself as he looked. Prince Bagration bent\nhis head in sign of agreement with what Prince Andrew told him, and\nsaid, \"Very good!\" in a tone that seemed to imply that everything that\ntook place and was reported to him was exactly what he had foreseen.\nPrince Andrew, out of breath with his rapid ride, spoke quickly. Prince\nBagration, uttering his words with an Oriental accent, spoke\nparticularly slowly, as if to impress the fact that there was no need to\nhurry. However, he put his horse to a trot in the direction of Tushin's\nbattery. Prince Andrew followed with the suite. Behind Prince Bagration\nrode an officer of the suite, the prince's personal adjutant, Zherkov,\nan orderly officer, the staff officer on duty, riding a fine bobtailed\nhorse, and a civilian--an accountant who had asked permission to be\npresent at the battle out of curiosity. The accountant, a stout, full-\nfaced man, looked around him with a naive smile of satisfaction and\npresented a strange appearance among the hussars, Cossacks, and\nadjutants, in his camlet coat, as he jolted on his horse with a convoy\nofficer's saddle.\n\n\"He wants to see a battle,\" said Zherkov to Bolkonski, pointing to the\naccountant, \"but he feels a pain in the pit of his stomach already.\"\n\n\"Oh, leave off!\" said the accountant with a beaming but rather cunning\nsmile, as if flattered at being made the subject of Zherkov's joke, and\npurposely trying to appear stupider than he really was.\n\n\"It is very strange, mon Monsieur Prince,\" said the staff officer. (He\nremembered that in French there is some peculiar way of addressing a\nprince, but could not get it quite right.)\n\nBy this time they were all approaching Tushin's battery, and a ball\nstruck the ground in front of them.\n\n\"What's that that has fallen?\" asked the accountant with a naive smile.\n\n\"A French pancake,\" answered Zherkov.\n\n\"So that's what they hit with?\" asked the accountant. \"How awful!\"\n\nHe seemed to swell with satisfaction. He had hardly finished speaking\nwhen they again heard an unexpectedly violent whistling which suddenly\nended with a thud into something soft... f-f-flop! and a Cossack, riding\na little to their right and behind the accountant, crashed to earth with\nhis horse. Zherkov and the staff officer bent over their saddles and\nturned their horses away. The accountant stopped, facing the Cossack,\nand examined him with attentive curiosity. The Cossack was dead, but the\nhorse still struggled.\n\nPrince Bagration screwed up his eyes, looked round, and, seeing the\ncause of the confusion, turned away with indifference, as if to say, \"Is\nit worth while noticing trifles?\" He reined in his horse with the care\nof a skillful rider and, slightly bending over, disengaged his saber\nwhich had caught in his cloak. It was an old-fashioned saber of a kind\nno longer in general use. Prince Andrew remembered the story of Suvorov\ngiving his saber to Bagration in Italy, and the recollection was\nparticularly pleasant at that moment. They had reached the battery at\nwhich Prince Andrew had been when he examined the battlefield.\n\n\"Whose company?\" asked Prince Bagration of an artilleryman standing by\nthe ammunition wagon.\n\nHe asked, \"Whose company?\" but he really meant, \"Are you frightened\nhere?\" and the artilleryman understood him.\n\n\"Captain Tushin's, your excellency!\" shouted the red-haired, freckled\ngunner in a merry voice, standing to attention.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" muttered Bagration as if considering something, and he rode\npast the limbers to the farthest cannon.\n\nAs he approached, a ringing shot issued from it deafening him and his\nsuite, and in the smoke that suddenly surrounded the gun they could see\nthe gunners who had seized it straining to roll it quickly back to its\nformer position. A huge, broad-shouldered gunner, Number One, holding a\nmop, his legs far apart, sprang to the wheel; while Number Two with a\ntrembling hand placed a charge in the cannon's mouth. The short, round-\nshouldered Captain Tushin, stumbling over the tail of the gun carriage,\nmoved forward and, not noticing the general, looked out shading his eyes\nwith his small hand.\n\n\"Lift it two lines more and it will be just right,\" cried he in a feeble\nvoice to which he tried to impart a dashing note, ill-suited to his weak\nfigure. \"Number Two!\" he squeaked. \"Fire, Medvedev!\"\n\nBagration called to him, and Tushin, raising three fingers to his cap\nwith a bashful and awkward gesture not at all like a military salute but\nlike a priest's benediction, approached the general. Though Tushin's\nguns had been intended to cannonade the valley, he was firing incendiary\nballs at the village of Schon Grabern visible just opposite, in front of\nwhich large masses of French were advancing.\n\nNo one had given Tushin orders where and at what to fire, but after\nconsulting his sergeant major, Zakharchenko, for whom he had great\nrespect, he had decided that it would be a good thing to set fire to the\nvillage. \"Very good!\" said Bagration in reply to the officer's report,\nand began deliberately to examine the whole battlefield extended before\nhim. The French had advanced nearest on our right. Below the height on\nwhich the Kiev regiment was stationed, in the hollow where the rivulet\nflowed, the soul-stirring rolling and crackling of musketry was heard,\nand much farther to the right beyond the dragoons, the officer of the\nsuite pointed out to Bagration a French column that was outflanking us.\nTo the left the horizon bounded by the adjacent wood. Prince Bagration\nordered two battalions from the center to be sent to reinforce the right\nflank. The officer of the suite ventured to remark to the prince that if\nthese battalions went away, the guns would remain without support.\nPrince Bagration turned to the officer and with his dull eyes looked at\nhim in silence. It seemed to Prince Andrew that the officer's remark was\njust and that really no answer could be made to it. But at that moment\nan adjutant galloped up with a message from the commander of the\nregiment in the hollow and news that immense masses of the French were\ncoming down upon them and that his regiment was in disorder and was\nretreating upon the Kiev grenadiers. Prince Bagration bowed his head in\nsign of assent and approval. He rode off at a walk to the right and sent\nan adjutant to the dragoons with orders to attack the French. But this\nadjutant returned half an hour later with the news that the commander of\nthe dragoons had already retreated beyond the dip in the ground, as a\nheavy fire had been opened on him and he was losing men uselessly, and\nso had hastened to throw some sharpshooters into the wood.\n\n\"Very good!\" said Bagration.\n\nAs he was leaving the battery, firing was heard on the left also, and as\nit was too far to the left flank for him to have time to go there\nhimself, Prince Bagration sent Zherkov to tell the general in command\n(the one who had paraded his regiment before Kutuzov at Braunau) that he\nmust retreat as quickly as possible behind the hollow in the rear, as\nthe right flank would probably not be able to withstand the enemy's\nattack very long. About Tushin and the battalion that had been in\nsupport of his battery all was forgotten. Prince Andrew listened\nattentively to Bagration's colloquies with the commanding officers and\nthe orders he gave them and, to his surprise, found that no orders were\nreally given, but that Prince Bagration tried to make it appear that\neverything done by necessity, by accident, or by the will of subordinate\ncommanders was done, if not by his direct command, at least in accord\nwith his intentions. Prince Andrew noticed, however, that though what\nhappened was due to chance and was independent of the commander's will,\nowing to the tact Bagration showed, his presence was very valuable.\nOfficers who approached him with disturbed countenances became calm;\nsoldiers and officers greeted him gaily, grew more cheerful in his\npresence, and were evidently anxious to display their courage before\nhim.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nPrince Bagration, having reached the highest point of our right flank,\nbegan riding downhill to where the roll of musketry was heard but where\non account of the smoke nothing could be seen. The nearer they got to\nthe hollow the less they could see but the more they felt the nearness\nof the actual battlefield. They began to meet wounded men. One with a\nbleeding head and no cap was being dragged along by two soldiers who\nsupported him under the arms. There was a gurgle in his throat and he\nwas spitting blood. A bullet had evidently hit him in the throat or\nmouth. Another was walking sturdily by himself but without his musket,\ngroaning aloud and swinging his arm which had just been hurt, while\nblood from it was streaming over his greatcoat as from a bottle. He had\nthat moment been wounded and his face showed fear rather than suffering.\nCrossing a road they descended a steep incline and saw several men lying\non the ground; they also met a crowd of soldiers some of whom were\nunwounded. The soldiers were ascending the hill breathing heavily, and\ndespite the general's presence were talking loudly and gesticulating. In\nfront of them rows of gray cloaks were already visible through the\nsmoke, and an officer catching sight of Bagration rushed shouting after\nthe crowd of retreating soldiers, ordering them back. Bagration rode up\nto the ranks along which shots crackled now here and now there, drowning\nthe sound of voices and the shouts of command. The whole air reeked with\nsmoke. The excited faces of the soldiers were blackened with it. Some\nwere using their ramrods, others putting powder on the touchpans or\ntaking charges from their pouches, while others were firing, though who\nthey were firing at could not be seen for the smoke which there was no\nwind to carry away. A pleasant humming and whistling of bullets were\noften heard. \"What is this?\" thought Prince Andrew approaching the crowd\nof soldiers. \"It can't be an attack, for they are not moving; it can't\nbe a square--for they are not drawn up for that.\"\n\nThe commander of the regiment, a thin, feeble-looking old man with a\npleasant smile--his eyelids drooping more than half over his old eyes,\ngiving him a mild expression, rode up to Bagration and welcomed him as a\nhost welcomes an honored guest. He reported that his regiment had been\nattacked by French cavalry and that, though the attack had been\nrepulsed, he had lost more than half his men. He said the attack had\nbeen repulsed, employing this military term to describe what had\noccurred to his regiment, but in reality he did not himself know what\nhad happened during that half-hour to the troops entrusted to him, and\ncould not say with certainty whether the attack had been repulsed or his\nregiment had been broken up. All he knew was that at the commencement of\nthe action balls and shells began flying all over his regiment and\nhitting men and that afterwards someone had shouted \"Cavalry!\" and our\nmen had begun firing. They were still firing, not at the cavalry which\nhad disappeared, but at French infantry who had come into the hollow and\nwere firing at our men. Prince Bagration bowed his head as a sign that\nthis was exactly what he had desired and expected. Turning to his\nadjutant he ordered him to bring down the two battalions of the Sixth\nChasseurs whom they had just passed. Prince Andrew was struck by the\nchanged expression on Prince Bagration's face at this moment. It\nexpressed the concentrated and happy resolution you see on the face of a\nman who on a hot day takes a final run before plunging into the water.\nThe dull, sleepy expression was no longer there, nor the affectation of\nprofound thought. The round, steady, hawk's eyes looked before him\neagerly and rather disdainfully, not resting on anything although his\nmovements were still slow and measured.\n\nThe commander of the regiment turned to Prince Bagration, entreating him\nto go back as it was too dangerous to remain where they were. \"Please,\nyour excellency, for God's sake!\" he kept saying, glancing for support\nat an officer of the suite who turned away from him. \"There, you see!\"\nand he drew attention to the bullets whistling, singing, and hissing\ncontinually around them. He spoke in the tone of entreaty and reproach\nthat a carpenter uses to a gentleman who has picked up an ax: \"We are\nused to it, but you, sir, will blister your hands.\" He spoke as if those\nbullets could not kill him, and his half-closed eyes gave still more\npersuasiveness to his words. The staff officer joined in the colonel's\nappeals, but Bagration did not reply; he only gave an order to cease\nfiring and re-form, so as to give room for the two approaching\nbattalions. While he was speaking, the curtain of smoke that had\nconcealed the hollow, driven by a rising wind, began to move from right\nto left as if drawn by an invisible hand, and the hill opposite, with\nthe French moving about on it, opened out before them. All eyes fastened\ninvoluntarily on this French column advancing against them and winding\ndown over the uneven ground. One could already see the soldiers' shaggy\ncaps, distinguish the officers from the men, and see the standard\nflapping against its staff.\n\n\"They march splendidly,\" remarked someone in Bagration's suite.\n\nThe head of the column had already descended into the hollow. The clash\nwould take place on this side of it...\n\nThe remains of our regiment which had been in action rapidly formed up\nand moved to the right; from behind it, dispersing the laggards, came\ntwo battalions of the Sixth Chasseurs in fine order. Before they had\nreached Bagration, the weighty tread of the mass of men marching in step\ncould be heard. On their left flank, nearest to Bagration, marched a\ncompany commander, a fine round-faced man, with a stupid and happy\nexpression--the same man who had rushed out of the wattle shed. At that\nmoment he was clearly thinking of nothing but how dashing a fellow he\nwould appear as he passed the commander.\n\nWith the self-satisfaction of a man on parade, he stepped lightly with\nhis muscular legs as if sailing along, stretching himself to his full\nheight without the smallest effort, his ease contrasting with the heavy\ntread of the soldiers who were keeping step with him. He carried close\nto his leg a narrow unsheathed sword (small, curved, and not like a real\nweapon) and looked now at the superior officers and now back at the men\nwithout losing step, his whole powerful body turning flexibly. It was as\nif all the powers of his soul were concentrated on passing the commander\nin the best possible manner, and feeling that he was doing it well he\nwas happy. \"Left... left... left...\" he seemed to repeat to himself at\neach alternate step; and in time to this, with stern but varied faces,\nthe wall of soldiers burdened with knapsacks and muskets marched in\nstep, and each one of these hundreds of soldiers seemed to be repeating\nto himself at each alternate step, \"Left... left... left...\" A fat major\nskirted a bush, puffing and falling out of step; a soldier who had\nfallen behind, his face showing alarm at his defection, ran at a trot,\npanting to catch up with his company. A cannon ball, cleaving the air,\nflew over the heads of Bagration and his suite, and fell into the column\nto the measure of \"Left... left!\" \"Close up!\" came the company\ncommander's voice in jaunty tones. The soldiers passed in a semicircle\nround something where the ball had fallen, and an old trooper on the\nflank, a noncommissioned officer who had stopped beside the dead men,\nran to catch up his line and, falling into step with a hop, looked back\nangrily, and through the ominous silence and the regular tramp of feet\nbeating the ground in unison, one seemed to hear left... left... left.\n\n\"Well done, lads!\" said Prince Bagration.\n\n\"Glad to do our best, your ex'len-lency!\" came a confused shout from the\nranks. A morose soldier marching on the left turned his eyes on\nBagration as he shouted, with an expression that seemed to say: \"We know\nthat ourselves!\" Another, without looking round, as though fearing to\nrelax, shouted with his mouth wide open and passed on.\n\nThe order was given to halt and down knapsacks.\n\nBagration rode round the ranks that had marched past him and dismounted.\nHe gave the reins to a Cossack, took off and handed over his felt coat,\nstretched his legs, and set his cap straight. The head of the French\ncolumn, with its officers leading, appeared from below the hill.\n\n\"Forward, with God!\" said Bagration, in a resolute, sonorous voice,\nturning for a moment to the front line, and slightly swinging his arms,\nhe went forward uneasily over the rough field with the awkward gait of a\ncavalryman. Prince Andrew felt that an invisible power was leading him\nforward, and experienced great happiness.\n\nThe French were already near. Prince Andrew, walking beside Bagration,\ncould clearly distinguish their bandoliers, red epaulets, and even their\nfaces. (He distinctly saw an old French officer who, with gaitered legs\nand turned-out toes, climbed the hill with difficulty.) Prince Bagration\ngave no further orders and silently continued to walk on in front of the\nranks. Suddenly one shot after another rang out from the French, smoke\nappeared all along their uneven ranks, and musket shots sounded. Several\nof our men fell, among them the round-faced officer who had marched so\ngaily and complacently. But at the moment the first report was heard,\nBagration looked round and shouted, \"Hurrah!\"\n\n\"Hurrah--ah!--ah!\" rang a long-drawn shout from our ranks, and passing\nBagration and racing one another they rushed in an irregular but joyous\nand eager crowd down the hill at their disordered foe.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nThe attack of the Sixth Chasseurs secured the retreat of our right\nflank. In the center Tushin's forgotten battery, which had managed to\nset fire to the Schon Grabern village, delayed the French advance. The\nFrench were putting out the fire which the wind was spreading, and thus\ngave us time to retreat. The retirement of the center to the other side\nof the dip in the ground at the rear was hurried and noisy, but the\ndifferent companies did not get mixed. But our left--which consisted of\nthe Azov and Podolsk infantry and the Pavlograd hussars--was\nsimultaneously attacked and outflanked by superior French forces under\nLannes and was thrown into confusion. Bagration had sent Zherkov to the\ngeneral commanding that left flank with orders to retreat immediately.\n\nZherkov, not removing his hand from his cap, turned his horse about and\ngalloped off. But no sooner had he left Bagration than his courage\nfailed him. He was seized by panic and could not go where it was\ndangerous.\n\nHaving reached the left flank, instead of going to the front where the\nfiring was, he began to look for the general and his staff where they\ncould not possibly be, and so did not deliver the order.\n\nThe command of the left flank belonged by seniority to the commander of\nthe regiment Kutuzov had reviewed at Braunau and in which Dolokhov was\nserving as a private. But the command of the extreme left flank had been\nassigned to the commander of the Pavlograd regiment in which Rostov was\nserving, and a misunderstanding arose. The two commanders were much\nexasperated with one another and, long after the action had begun on the\nright flank and the French were already advancing, were engaged in\ndiscussion with the sole object of offending one another. But the\nregiments, both cavalry and infantry, were by no means ready for the\nimpending action. From privates to general they were not expecting a\nbattle and were engaged in peaceful occupations, the cavalry feeding the\nhorses and the infantry collecting wood.\n\n\"He higher iss dan I in rank,\" said the German colonel of the hussars,\nflushing and addressing an adjutant who had ridden up, \"so let him do\nwhat he vill, but I cannot sacrifice my hussars... Bugler, sount ze\nretreat!\"\n\nBut haste was becoming imperative. Cannon and musketry, mingling\ntogether, thundered on the right and in the center, while the capotes of\nLannes' sharpshooters were already seen crossing the milldam and forming\nup within twice the range of a musket shot. The general in command of\nthe infantry went toward his horse with jerky steps, and having mounted\ndrew himself up very straight and tall and rode to the Pavlograd\ncommander. The commanders met with polite bows but with secret\nmalevolence in their hearts.\n\n\"Once again, Colonel,\" said the general, \"I can't leave half my men in\nthe wood. I beg of you, I beg of you,\" he repeated, \"to occupy the\nposition and prepare for an attack.\"\n\n\"I peg of you yourself not to mix in vot is not your business!\" suddenly\nreplied the irate colonel. \"If you vere in the cavalry...\"\n\n\"I am not in the cavalry, Colonel, but I am a Russian general and if you\nare not aware of the fact...\"\n\n\"Quite avare, your excellency,\" suddenly shouted the colonel, touching\nhis horse and turning purple in the face. \"Vill you be so goot to come\nto ze front and see dat zis position iss no goot? I don't vish to\ndestroy my men for your pleasure!\"\n\n\"You forget yourself, Colonel. I am not considering my own pleasure and\nI won't allow it to be said!\"\n\nTaking the colonel's outburst as a challenge to his courage, the general\nexpanded his chest and rode, frowning, beside him to the front line, as\nif their differences would be settled there amongst the bullets. They\nreached the front, several bullets sped over them, and they halted in\nsilence. There was nothing fresh to be seen from the line, for from\nwhere they had been before it had been evident that it was impossible\nfor cavalry to act among the bushes and broken ground, as well as that\nthe French were outflanking our left. The general and colonel looked\nsternly and significantly at one another like two fighting cocks\npreparing for battle, each vainly trying to detect signs of cowardice in\nthe other. Both passed the examination successfully. As there was\nnothing to be said, and neither wished to give occasion for it to be\nalleged that he had been the first to leave the range of fire, they\nwould have remained there for a long time testing each other's courage\nhad it not been that just then they heard the rattle of musketry and a\nmuffled shout almost behind them in the wood. The French had attacked\nthe men collecting wood in the copse. It was no longer possible for the\nhussars to retreat with the infantry. They were cut off from the line of\nretreat on the left by the French. However inconvenient the position, it\nwas now necessary to attack in order to cut a way through for\nthemselves.\n\nThe squadron in which Rostov was serving had scarcely time to mount\nbefore it was halted facing the enemy. Again, as at the Enns bridge,\nthere was nothing between the squadron and the enemy, and again that\nterrible dividing line of uncertainty and fear--resembling the line\nseparating the living from the dead--lay between them. All were\nconscious of this unseen line, and the question whether they would cross\nit or not, and how they would cross it, agitated them all.\n\nThe colonel rode to the front, angrily gave some reply to questions put\nto him by the officers, and, like a man desperately insisting on having\nhis own way, gave an order. No one said anything definite, but the rumor\nof an attack spread through the squadron. The command to form up rang\nout and the sabers whizzed as they were drawn from their scabbards.\nStill no one moved. The troops of the left flank, infantry and hussars\nalike, felt that the commander did not himself know what to do, and this\nirresolution communicated itself to the men.\n\n\"If only they would be quick!\" thought Rostov, feeling that at last the\ntime had come to experience the joy of an attack of which he had so\noften heard from his fellow hussars.\n\n\"Fo'ward, with God, lads!\" rang out Denisov's voice. \"At a twot\nfo'ward!\"\n\nThe horses' croups began to sway in the front line. Rook pulled at the\nreins and started of his own accord.\n\nBefore him, on the right, Rostov saw the front lines of his hussars and\nstill farther ahead a dark line which he could not see distinctly but\ntook to be the enemy. Shots could be heard, but some way off.\n\n\"Faster!\" came the word of command, and Rostov felt Rook's flanks\ndrooping as he broke into a gallop.\n\nRostov anticipated his horse's movements and became more and more\nelated. He had noticed a solitary tree ahead of him. This tree had been\nin the middle of the line that had seemed so terrible--and now he had\ncrossed that line and not only was there nothing terrible, but\neverything was becoming more and more happy and animated. \"Oh, how I\nwill slash at him!\" thought Rostov, gripping the hilt of his saber.\n\n\"Hur-a-a-a-ah!\" came a roar of voices. \"Let anyone come my way now,\"\nthought Rostov driving his spurs into Rook and letting him go at a full\ngallop so that he outstripped the others. Ahead, the enemy was already\nvisible. Suddenly something like a birch broom seemed to sweep over the\nsquadron. Rostov raised his saber, ready to strike, but at that instant\nthe trooper Nikitenko, who was galloping ahead, shot away from him, and\nRostov felt as in a dream that he continued to be carried forward with\nunnatural speed but yet stayed on the same spot. From behind him\nBondarchuk, an hussar he knew, jolted against him and looked angrily at\nhim. Bondarchuk's horse swerved and galloped past.\n\n\"How is it I am not moving? I have fallen, I am killed!\" Rostov asked\nand answered at the same instant. He was alone in the middle of a field.\nInstead of the moving horses and hussars' backs, he saw nothing before\nhim but the motionless earth and the stubble around him. There was warm\nblood under his arm. \"No, I am wounded and the horse is killed.\" Rook\ntried to rise on his forelegs but fell back, pinning his rider's leg.\nBlood was flowing from his head; he struggled but could not rise. Rostov\nalso tried to rise but fell back, his sabretache having become entangled\nin the saddle. Where our men were, and where the French, he did not\nknow. There was no one near.\n\nHaving disentangled his leg, he rose. \"Where, on which side, was now the\nline that had so sharply divided the two armies?\" he asked himself and\ncould not answer. \"Can something bad have happened to me?\" he wondered\nas he got up: and at that moment he felt that something superfluous was\nhanging on his benumbed left arm. The wrist felt as if it were not his.\nHe examined his hand carefully, vainly trying to find blood on it. \"Ah,\nhere are people coming,\" he thought joyfully, seeing some men running\ntoward him. \"They will help me!\" In front came a man wearing a strange\nshako and a blue cloak, swarthy, sunburned, and with a hooked nose. Then\ncame two more, and many more running behind. One of them said something\nstrange, not in Russian. In among the hindmost of these men wearing\nsimilar shakos was a Russian hussar. He was being held by the arms and\nhis horse was being led behind him.\n\n\"It must be one of ours, a prisoner. Yes. Can it be that they will take\nme too? Who are these men?\" thought Rostov, scarcely believing his eyes.\n\"Can they be French?\" He looked at the approaching Frenchmen, and though\nbut a moment before he had been galloping to get at them and hack them\nto pieces, their proximity now seemed so awful that he could not believe\nhis eyes. \"Who are they? Why are they running? Can they be coming at me?\nAnd why? To kill me? Me whom everyone is so fond of?\" He remembered his\nmother's love for him, and his family's, and his friends', and the\nenemy's intention to kill him seemed impossible. \"But perhaps they may\ndo it!\" For more than ten seconds he stood not moving from the spot or\nrealizing the situation. The foremost Frenchman, the one with the hooked\nnose, was already so close that the expression of his face could be\nseen. And the excited, alien face of that man, his bayonet hanging down,\nholding his breath, and running so lightly, frightened Rostov. He seized\nhis pistol and, instead of firing it, flung it at the Frenchman and ran\nwith all his might toward the bushes. He did not now run with the\nfeeling of doubt and conflict with which he had trodden the Enns bridge,\nbut with the feeling of a hare fleeing from the hounds. One single\nsentiment, that of fear for his young and happy life, possessed his\nwhole being. Rapidly leaping the furrows, he fled across the field with\nthe impetuosity he used to show at catchplay, now and then turning his\ngood-natured, pale, young face to look back. A shudder of terror went\nthrough him: \"No, better not look,\" he thought, but having reached the\nbushes he glanced round once more. The French had fallen behind, and\njust as he looked round the first man changed his run to a walk and,\nturning, shouted something loudly to a comrade farther back. Rostov\npaused. \"No, there's some mistake,\" thought he. \"They can't have wanted\nto kill me.\" But at the same time, his left arm felt as heavy as if a\nseventy-pound weight were tied to it. He could run no more. The\nFrenchman also stopped and took aim. Rostov closed his eyes and stooped\ndown. One bullet and then another whistled past him. He mustered his\nlast remaining strength, took hold of his left hand with his right, and\nreached the bushes. Behind these were some Russian sharpshooters.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nThe infantry regiments that had been caught unawares in the outskirts of\nthe wood ran out of it, the different companies getting mixed, and\nretreated as a disorderly crowd. One soldier, in his fear, uttered the\nsenseless cry, \"Cut off!\" that is so terrible in battle, and that word\ninfected the whole crowd with a feeling of panic.\n\n\"Surrounded! Cut off? We're lost!\" shouted the fugitives.\n\nThe moment he heard the firing and the cry from behind, the general\nrealized that something dreadful had happened to his regiment, and the\nthought that he, an exemplary officer of many years' service who had\nnever been to blame, might be held responsible at headquarters for\nnegligence or inefficiency so staggered him that, forgetting the\nrecalcitrant cavalry colonel, his own dignity as a general, and above\nall quite forgetting the danger and all regard for self-preservation, he\nclutched the crupper of his saddle and, spurring his horse, galloped to\nthe regiment under a hail of bullets which fell around, but fortunately\nmissed him. His one desire was to know what was happening and at any\ncost correct, or remedy, the mistake if he had made one, so that he, an\nexemplary officer of twenty-two years' service, who had never been\ncensured, should not be held to blame.\n\nHaving galloped safely through the French, he reached a field behind the\ncopse across which our men, regardless of orders, were running and\ndescending the valley. That moment of moral hesitation which decides the\nfate of battles had arrived. Would this disorderly crowd of soldiers\nattend to the voice of their commander, or would they, disregarding him,\ncontinue their flight? Despite his desperate shouts that used to seem so\nterrible to the soldiers, despite his furious purple countenance\ndistorted out of all likeness to his former self, and the flourishing of\nhis saber, the soldiers all continued to run, talking, firing into the\nair, and disobeying orders. The moral hesitation which decided the fate\nof battles was evidently culminating in a panic.\n\nThe general had a fit of coughing as a result of shouting and of the\npowder smoke and stopped in despair. Everything seemed lost. But at that\nmoment the French who were attacking, suddenly and without any apparent\nreason, ran back and disappeared from the outskirts, and Russian\nsharpshooters showed themselves in the copse. It was Timokhin's company,\nwhich alone had maintained its order in the wood and, having lain in\nambush in a ditch, now attacked the French unexpectedly. Timokhin, armed\nonly with a sword, had rushed at the enemy with such a desperate cry and\nsuch mad, drunken determination that, taken by surprise, the French had\nthrown down their muskets and run. Dolokhov, running beside Timokhin,\nkilled a Frenchman at close quarters and was the first to seize the\nsurrendering French officer by his collar. Our fugitives returned, the\nbattalions re-formed, and the French who had nearly cut our left flank\nin half were for the moment repulsed. Our reserve units were able to\njoin up, and the fight was at an end. The regimental commander and Major\nEkonomov had stopped beside a bridge, letting the retreating companies\npass by them, when a soldier came up and took hold of the commander's\nstirrup, almost leaning against him. The man was wearing a bluish coat\nof broadcloth, he had no knapsack or cap, his head was bandaged, and\nover his shoulder a French munition pouch was slung. He had an officer's\nsword in his hand. The soldier was pale, his blue eyes looked impudently\ninto the commander's face, and his lips were smiling. Though the\ncommander was occupied in giving instructions to Major Ekonomov, he\ncould not help taking notice of the soldier.\n\n\"Your excellency, here are two trophies,\" said Dolokhov, pointing to the\nFrench sword and pouch. \"I have taken an officer prisoner. I stopped the\ncompany.\" Dolokhov breathed heavily from weariness and spoke in abrupt\nsentences. \"The whole company can bear witness. I beg you will remember\nthis, your excellency!\"\n\n\"All right, all right,\" replied the commander, and turned to Major\nEkonomov.\n\nBut Dolokhov did not go away; he untied the handkerchief around his\nhead, pulled it off, and showed the blood congealed on his hair.\n\n\"A bayonet wound. I remained at the front. Remember, your excellency!\"\n\nTushin's battery had been forgotten and only at the very end of the\naction did Prince Bagration, still hearing the cannonade in the center,\nsend his orderly staff officer, and later Prince Andrew also, to order\nthe battery to retire as quickly as possible. When the supports attached\nto Tushin's battery had been moved away in the middle of the action by\nsomeone's order, the battery had continued firing and was only not\ncaptured by the French because the enemy could not surmise that anyone\ncould have the effrontery to continue firing from four quite undefended\nguns. On the contrary, the energetic action of that battery led the\nFrench to suppose that here--in the center--the main Russian forces were\nconcentrated. Twice they had attempted to attack this point, but on each\noccasion had been driven back by grapeshot from the four isolated guns\non the hillock.\n\nSoon after Prince Bagration had left him, Tushin had succeeded in\nsetting fire to Schon Grabern.\n\n\"Look at them scurrying! It's burning! Just see the smoke! Fine! Grand!\nLook at the smoke, the smoke!\" exclaimed the artillerymen, brightening\nup.\n\nAll the guns, without waiting for orders, were being fired in the\ndirection of the conflagration. As if urging each other on, the soldiers\ncried at each shot: \"Fine! That's good! Look at it... Grand!\" The fire,\nfanned by the breeze, was rapidly spreading. The French columns that had\nadvanced beyond the village went back; but as though in revenge for this\nfailure, the enemy placed ten guns to the right of the village and began\nfiring them at Tushin's battery.\n\nIn their childlike glee, aroused by the fire and their luck in\nsuccessfully cannonading the French, our artillerymen only noticed this\nbattery when two balls, and then four more, fell among our guns, one\nknocking over two horses and another tearing off a munition-wagon\ndriver's leg. Their spirits once roused were, however, not diminished,\nbut only changed character. The horses were replaced by others from a\nreserve gun carriage, the wounded were carried away, and the four guns\nwere turned against the ten-gun battery. Tushin's companion officer had\nbeen killed at the beginning of the engagement and within an hour\nseventeen of the forty men of the guns' crews had been disabled, but the\nartillerymen were still as merry and lively as ever. Twice they noticed\nthe French appearing below them, and then they fired grapeshot at them.\n\nLittle Tushin, moving feebly and awkwardly, kept telling his orderly to\n\"refill my pipe for that one!\" and then, scattering sparks from it, ran\nforward shading his eyes with his small hand to look at the French.\n\n\"Smack at 'em, lads!\" he kept saying, seizing the guns by the wheels and\nworking the screws himself.\n\nAmid the smoke, deafened by the incessant reports which always made him\njump, Tushin not taking his pipe from his mouth ran from gun to gun, now\naiming, now counting the charges, now giving orders about replacing dead\nor wounded horses and harnessing fresh ones, and shouting in his feeble\nvoice, so high pitched and irresolute. His face grew more and more\nanimated. Only when a man was killed or wounded did he frown and turn\naway from the sight, shouting angrily at the men who, as is always the\ncase, hesitated about lifting the injured or dead. The soldiers, for the\nmost part handsome fellows and, as is always the case in an artillery\ncompany, a head and shoulders taller and twice as broad as their\nofficer--all looked at their commander like children in an embarrassing\nsituation, and the expression on his face was invariably reflected on\ntheirs.\n\nOwing to the terrible uproar and the necessity for concentration and\nactivity, Tushin did not experience the slightest unpleasant sense of\nfear, and the thought that he might be killed or badly wounded never\noccurred to him. On the contrary, he became more and more elated. It\nseemed to him that it was a very long time ago, almost a day, since he\nhad first seen the enemy and fired the first shot, and that the corner\nof the field he stood on was well-known and familiar ground. Though he\nthought of everything, considered everything, and did everything the\nbest of officers could do in his position, he was in a state akin to\nfeverish delirium or drunkenness.\n\nFrom the deafening sounds of his own guns around him, the whistle and\nthud of the enemy's cannon balls, from the flushed and perspiring faces\nof the crew bustling round the guns, from the sight of the blood of men\nand horses, from the little puffs of smoke on the enemy's side (always\nfollowed by a ball flying past and striking the earth, a man, a gun, a\nhorse), from the sight of all these things a fantastic world of his own\nhad taken possession of his brain and at that moment afforded him\npleasure. The enemy's guns were in his fancy not guns but pipes from\nwhich occasional puffs were blown by an invisible smoker.\n\n\"There... he's puffing again,\" muttered Tushin to himself, as a small\ncloud rose from the hill and was borne in a streak to the left by the\nwind.\n\n\"Now look out for the ball... we'll throw it back.\"\n\n\"What do you want, your honor?\" asked an artilleryman, standing close\nby, who heard him muttering.\n\n\"Nothing... only a shell...\" he answered.\n\n\"Come along, our Matvevna!\" he said to himself. \"Matvevna\" * was the\nname his fancy gave to the farthest gun of the battery, which was large\nand of an old pattern. The French swarming round their guns seemed to\nhim like ants. In that world, the handsome drunkard Number One of the\nsecond gun's crew was \"uncle\"; Tushin looked at him more often than at\nanyone else and took delight in his every movement. The sound of\nmusketry at the foot of the hill, now diminishing, now increasing,\nseemed like someone's breathing. He listened intently to the ebb and\nflow of these sounds.\n\n\n* Daughter of Matthew.\n\n\"Ah! Breathing again, breathing!\" he muttered to himself.\n\nHe imagined himself as an enormously tall, powerful man who was throwing\ncannon balls at the French with both hands.\n\n\"Now then, Matvevna, dear old lady, don't let me down!\" he was saying as\nhe moved from the gun, when a strange, unfamiliar voice called above his\nhead: \"Captain Tushin! Captain!\"\n\nTushin turned round in dismay. It was the staff officer who had turned\nhim out of the booth at Grunth. He was shouting in a gasping voice:\n\n\"Are you mad? You have twice been ordered to retreat, and you...\"\n\n\"Why are they down on me?\" thought Tushin, looking in alarm at his\nsuperior.\n\n\"I... don't...\" he muttered, holding up two fingers to his cap. \"I...\"\n\nBut the staff officer did not finish what he wanted to say. A cannon\nball, flying close to him, caused him to duck and bend over his horse.\nHe paused, and just as he was about to say something more, another ball\nstopped him. He turned his horse and galloped off.\n\n\"Retire! All to retire!\" he shouted from a distance.\n\nThe soldiers laughed. A moment later, an adjutant arrived with the same\norder.\n\nIt was Prince Andrew. The first thing he saw on riding up to the space\nwhere Tushin's guns were stationed was an unharnessed horse with a\nbroken leg, that lay screaming piteously beside the harnessed horses.\nBlood was gushing from its leg as from a spring. Among the limbers lay\nseveral dead men. One ball after another passed over as he approached\nand he felt a nervous shudder run down his spine. But the mere thought\nof being afraid roused him again. \"I cannot be afraid,\" thought he, and\ndismounted slowly among the guns. He delivered the order and did not\nleave the battery. He decided to have the guns removed from their\npositions and withdrawn in his presence. Together with Tushin, stepping\nacross the bodies and under a terrible fire from the French, he attended\nto the removal of the guns.\n\n\"A staff officer was here a minute ago, but skipped off,\" said an\nartilleryman to Prince Andrew. \"Not like your honor!\"\n\nPrince Andrew said nothing to Tushin. They were both so busy as to seem\nnot to notice one another. When having limbered up the only two cannon\nthat remained uninjured out of the four, they began moving down the hill\n(one shattered gun and one unicorn were left behind), Prince Andrew rode\nup to Tushin.\n\n\"Well, till we meet again...\" he said, holding out his hand to Tushin.\n\n\"Good-bye, my dear fellow,\" said Tushin. \"Dear soul! Good-bye, my dear\nfellow!\" and for some unknown reason tears suddenly filled his eyes.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nThe wind had fallen and black clouds, merging with the powder smoke,\nhung low over the field of battle on the horizon. It was growing dark\nand the glow of two conflagrations was the more conspicuous. The\ncannonade was dying down, but the rattle of musketry behind and on the\nright sounded oftener and nearer. As soon as Tushin with his guns,\ncontinually driving round or coming upon wounded men, was out of range\nof fire and had descended into the dip, he was met by some of the staff,\namong them the staff officer and Zherkov, who had been twice sent to\nTushin's battery but had never reached it. Interrupting one another,\nthey all gave, and transmitted, orders as to how to proceed,\nreprimanding and reproaching him. Tushin gave no orders, and, silently--\nfearing to speak because at every word he felt ready to weep without\nknowing why--rode behind on his artillery nag. Though the orders were to\nabandon the wounded, many of them dragged themselves after troops and\nbegged for seats on the gun carriages. The jaunty infantry officer who\njust before the battle had rushed out of Tushin's wattle shed was laid,\nwith a bullet in his stomach, on \"Matvevna's\" carriage. At the foot of\nthe hill, a pale hussar cadet, supporting one hand with the other, came\nup to Tushin and asked for a seat.\n\n\"Captain, for God's sake! I've hurt my arm,\" he said timidly. \"For God's\nsake... I can't walk. For God's sake!\"\n\nIt was plain that this cadet had already repeatedly asked for a lift and\nbeen refused. He asked in a hesitating, piteous voice.\n\n\"Tell them to give me a seat, for God's sake!\"\n\n\"Give him a seat,\" said Tushin. \"Lay a cloak for him to sit on, lad,\" he\nsaid, addressing his favorite soldier. \"And where is the wounded\nofficer?\"\n\n\"He has been set down. He died,\" replied someone.\n\n\"Help him up. Sit down, dear fellow, sit down! Spread out the cloak,\nAntonov.\"\n\nThe cadet was Rostov. With one hand he supported the other; he was pale\nand his jaw trembled, shivering feverishly. He was placed on \"Matvevna,\"\nthe gun from which they had removed the dead officer. The cloak they\nspread under him was wet with blood which stained his breeches and arm.\n\n\"What, are you wounded, my lad?\" said Tushin, approaching the gun on\nwhich Rostov sat.\n\n\"No, it's a sprain.\"\n\n\"Then what is this blood on the gun carriage?\" inquired Tushin.\n\n\"It was the officer, your honor, stained it,\" answered the artilleryman,\nwiping away the blood with his coat sleeve, as if apologizing for the\nstate of his gun.\n\nIt was all that they could do to get the guns up the rise aided by the\ninfantry, and having reached the village of Gruntersdorf they halted. It\nhad grown so dark that one could not distinguish the uniforms ten paces\noff, and the firing had begun to subside. Suddenly, near by on the\nright, shouting and firing were again heard. Flashes of shot gleamed in\nthe darkness. This was the last French attack and was met by soldiers\nwho had sheltered in the village houses. They all rushed out of the\nvillage again, but Tushin's guns could not move, and the artillerymen,\nTushin, and the cadet exchanged silent glances as they awaited their\nfate. The firing died down and soldiers, talking eagerly, streamed out\nof a side street.\n\n\"Not hurt, Petrov?\" asked one.\n\n\"We've given it 'em hot, mate! They won't make another push now,\" said\nanother.\n\n\"You couldn't see a thing. How they shot at their own fellows! Nothing\ncould be seen. Pitch-dark, brother! Isn't there something to drink?\"\n\nThe French had been repulsed for the last time. And again and again in\nthe complete darkness Tushin's guns moved forward, surrounded by the\nhumming infantry as by a frame.\n\nIn the darkness, it seemed as though a gloomy unseen river was flowing\nalways in one direction, humming with whispers and talk and the sound of\nhoofs and wheels. Amid the general rumble, the groans and voices of the\nwounded were more distinctly heard than any other sound in the darkness\nof the night. The gloom that enveloped the army was filled with their\ngroans, which seemed to melt into one with the darkness of the night.\nAfter a while the moving mass became agitated, someone rode past on a\nwhite horse followed by his suite, and said something in passing: \"What\ndid he say? Where to, now? Halt, is it? Did he thank us?\" came eager\nquestions from all sides. The whole moving mass began pressing closer\ntogether and a report spread that they were ordered to halt: evidently\nthose in front had halted. All remained where they were in the middle of\nthe muddy road.\n\nFires were lighted and the talk became more audible. Captain Tushin,\nhaving given orders to his company, sent a soldier to find a dressing\nstation or a doctor for the cadet, and sat down by a bonfire the\nsoldiers had kindled on the road. Rostov, too, dragged himself to the\nfire. From pain, cold, and damp, a feverish shivering shook his whole\nbody. Drowsiness was irresistibly mastering him, but he kept awake by an\nexcruciating pain in his arm, for which he could find no satisfactory\nposition. He kept closing his eyes and then again looking at the fire,\nwhich seemed to him dazzlingly red, and at the feeble, round-shouldered\nfigure of Tushin who was sitting cross-legged like a Turk beside him.\nTushin's large, kind, intelligent eyes were fixed with sympathy and\ncommiseration on Rostov, who saw that Tushin with his whole heart wished\nto help him but could not.\n\nFrom all sides were heard the footsteps and talk of the infantry, who\nwere walking, driving past, and settling down all around. The sound of\nvoices, the tramping feet, the horses' hoofs moving in mud, the\ncrackling of wood fires near and afar, merged into one tremulous rumble.\n\nIt was no longer, as before, a dark, unseen river flowing through the\ngloom, but a dark sea swelling and gradually subsiding after a storm.\nRostov looked at and listened listlessly to what passed before and\naround him. An infantryman came to the fire, squatted on his heels, held\nhis hands to the blaze, and turned away his face.\n\n\"You don't mind your honor?\" he asked Tushin. \"I've lost my company,\nyour honor. I don't know where... such bad luck!\"\n\nWith the soldier, an infantry officer with a bandaged cheek came up to\nthe bonfire, and addressing Tushin asked him to have the guns moved a\ntrifle to let a wagon go past. After he had gone, two soldiers rushed to\nthe campfire. They were quarreling and fighting desperately, each trying\nto snatch from the other a boot they were both holding on to.\n\n\"You picked it up?... I dare say! You're very smart!\" one of them\nshouted hoarsely.\n\nThen a thin, pale soldier, his neck bandaged with a bloodstained leg\nband, came up and in angry tones asked the artillerymen for water.\n\n\"Must one die like a dog?\" said he.\n\nTushin told them to give the man some water. Then a cheerful soldier ran\nup, begging a little fire for the infantry.\n\n\"A nice little hot torch for the infantry! Good luck to you, fellow\ncountrymen. Thanks for the fire--we'll return it with interest,\" said\nhe, carrying away into the darkness a glowing stick.\n\nNext came four soldiers, carrying something heavy on a cloak, and passed\nby the fire. One of them stumbled.\n\n\"Who the devil has put the logs on the road?\" snarled he.\n\n\"He's dead--why carry him?\" said another.\n\n\"Shut up!\"\n\nAnd they disappeared into the darkness with their load.\n\n\"Still aching?\" Tushin asked Rostov in a whisper.\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"Your honor, you're wanted by the general. He is in the hut here,\" said\na gunner, coming up to Tushin.\n\n\"Coming, friend.\"\n\nTushin rose and, buttoning his greatcoat and pulling it straight, walked\naway from the fire.\n\nNot far from the artillery campfire, in a hut that had been prepared for\nhim, Prince Bagration sat at dinner, talking with some commanding\nofficers who had gathered at his quarters. The little old man with the\nhalf-closed eyes was there greedily gnawing a mutton bone, and the\ngeneral who had served blamelessly for twenty-two years, flushed by a\nglass of vodka and the dinner; and the staff officer with the signet\nring, and Zherkov, uneasily glancing at them all, and Prince Andrew,\npale, with compressed lips and feverishly glittering eyes.\n\nIn a corner of the hut stood a standard captured from the French, and\nthe accountant with the naive face was feeling its texture, shaking his\nhead in perplexity--perhaps because the banner really interested him,\nperhaps because it was hard for him, hungry as he was, to look on at a\ndinner where there was no place for him. In the next hut there was a\nFrench colonel who had been taken prisoner by our dragoons. Our officers\nwere flocking in to look at him. Prince Bagration was thanking the\nindividual commanders and inquiring into details of the action and our\nlosses. The general whose regiment had been inspected at Braunau was\ninforming the prince that as soon as the action began he had withdrawn\nfrom the wood, mustered the men who were woodcutting, and, allowing the\nFrench to pass him, had made a bayonet charge with two battalions and\nhad broken up the French troops.\n\n\"When I saw, your excellency, that their first battalion was\ndisorganized, I stopped in the road and thought: 'I'll let them come on\nand will meet them with the fire of the whole battalion'--and that's\nwhat I did.\"\n\nThe general had so wished to do this and was so sorry he had not managed\nto do it that it seemed to him as if it had really happened. Perhaps it\nmight really have been so? Could one possibly make out amid all that\nconfusion what did or did not happen?\n\n\"By the way, your excellency, I should inform you,\" he continued--\nremembering Dolokhov's conversation with Kutuzov and his last interview\nwith the gentleman-ranker--\"that Private Dolokhov, who was reduced to\nthe ranks, took a French officer prisoner in my presence and\nparticularly distinguished himself.\"\n\n\"I saw the Pavlograd hussars attack there, your excellency,\" chimed in\nZherkov, looking uneasily around. He had not seen the hussars all that\nday, but had heard about them from an infantry officer. \"They broke up\ntwo squares, your excellency.\"\n\nSeveral of those present smiled at Zherkov's words, expecting one of his\nusual jokes, but noticing that what he was saying redounded to the glory\nof our arms and of the day's work, they assumed a serious expression,\nthough many of them knew that what he was saying was a lie devoid of any\nfoundation. Prince Bagration turned to the old colonel:\n\n\"Gentlemen, I thank you all; all arms have behaved heroically: infantry,\ncavalry, and artillery. How was it that two guns were abandoned in the\ncenter?\" he inquired, searching with his eyes for someone. (Prince\nBagration did not ask about the guns on the left flank; he knew that all\nthe guns there had been abandoned at the very beginning of the action.)\n\"I think I sent you?\" he added, turning to the staff officer on duty.\n\n\"One was damaged,\" answered the staff officer, \"and the other I can't\nunderstand. I was there all the time giving orders and had only just\nleft.... It is true that it was hot there,\" he added, modestly.\n\nSomeone mentioned that Captain Tushin was bivouacking close to the\nvillage and had already been sent for.\n\n\"Oh, but you were there?\" said Prince Bagration, addressing Prince\nAndrew.\n\n\"Of course, we only just missed one another,\" said the staff officer,\nwith a smile to Bolkonski.\n\n\"I had not the pleasure of seeing you,\" said Prince Andrew, coldly and\nabruptly.\n\nAll were silent. Tushin appeared at the threshold and made his way\ntimidly from behind the backs of the generals. As he stepped past the\ngenerals in the crowded hut, feeling embarrassed as he always was by the\nsight of his superiors, he did not notice the staff of the banner and\nstumbled over it. Several of those present laughed.\n\n\"How was it a gun was abandoned?\" asked Bagration, frowning, not so much\nat the captain as at those who were laughing, among whom Zherkov laughed\nloudest.\n\nOnly now, when he was confronted by the stern authorities, did his guilt\nand the disgrace of having lost two guns and yet remaining alive present\nthemselves to Tushin in all their horror. He had been so excited that he\nhad not thought about it until that moment. The officers' laughter\nconfused him still more. He stood before Bagration with his lower jaw\ntrembling and was hardly able to mutter: \"I don't know... your\nexcellency... I had no men... your excellency.\"\n\n\"You might have taken some from the covering troops.\"\n\nTushin did not say that there were no covering troops, though that was\nperfectly true. He was afraid of getting some other officer into\ntrouble, and silently fixed his eyes on Bagration as a schoolboy who has\nblundered looks at an examiner.\n\nThe silence lasted some time. Prince Bagration, apparently not wishing\nto be severe, found nothing to say; the others did not venture to\nintervene. Prince Andrew looked at Tushin from under his brows and his\nfingers twitched nervously.\n\n\"Your excellency!\" Prince Andrew broke the silence with his abrupt\nvoice, \"you were pleased to send me to Captain Tushin's battery. I went\nthere and found two thirds of the men and horses knocked out, two guns\nsmashed, and no supports at all.\"\n\nPrince Bagration and Tushin looked with equal intentness at Bolkonski,\nwho spoke with suppressed agitation.\n\n\"And, if your excellency will allow me to express my opinion,\" he\ncontinued, \"we owe today's success chiefly to the action of that battery\nand the heroic endurance of Captain Tushin and his company,\" and without\nawaiting a reply, Prince Andrew rose and left the table.\n\nPrince Bagration looked at Tushin, evidently reluctant to show distrust\nin Bolkonski's emphatic opinion yet not feeling able fully to credit it,\nbent his head, and told Tushin that he could go. Prince Andrew went out\nwith him.\n\n\"Thank you; you saved me, my dear fellow!\" said Tushin.\n\nPrince Andrew gave him a look, but said nothing and went away. He felt\nsad and depressed. It was all so strange, so unlike what he had hoped.\n\n\"Who are they? Why are they here? What do they want? And when will all\nthis end?\" thought Rostov, looking at the changing shadows before him.\nThe pain in his arm became more and more intense. Irresistible\ndrowsiness overpowered him, red rings danced before his eyes, and the\nimpression of those voices and faces and a sense of loneliness merged\nwith the physical pain. It was they, these soldiers--wounded and\nunwounded--it was they who were crushing, weighing down, and twisting\nthe sinews and scorching the flesh of his sprained arm and shoulder. To\nrid himself of them he closed his eyes.\n\nFor a moment he dozed, but in that short interval innumerable things\nappeared to him in a dream: his mother and her large white hand, Sonya's\nthin little shoulders, Natasha's eyes and laughter, Denisov with his\nvoice and mustache, and Telyanin and all that affair with Telyanin and\nBogdanich. That affair was the same thing as this soldier with the harsh\nvoice, and it was that affair and this soldier that were so agonizingly,\nincessantly pulling and pressing his arm and always dragging it in one\ndirection. He tried to get away from them, but they would not for an\ninstant let his shoulder move a hair's breadth. It would not ache--it\nwould be well--if only they did not pull it, but it was impossible to\nget rid of them.\n\nHe opened his eyes and looked up. The black canopy of night hung less\nthan a yard above the glow of the charcoal. Flakes of falling snow were\nfluttering in that light. Tushin had not returned, the doctor had not\ncome. He was alone now, except for a soldier who was sitting naked at\nthe other side of the fire, warming his thin yellow body.\n\n\"Nobody wants me!\" thought Rostov. \"There is no one to help me or pity\nme. Yet I was once at home, strong, happy, and loved.\" He sighed and,\ndoing so, groaned involuntarily.\n\n\"Eh, is anything hurting you?\" asked the soldier, shaking his shirt out\nover the fire, and not waiting for an answer he gave a grunt and added:\n\"What a lot of men have been crippled today--frightful!\"\n\nRostov did not listen to the soldier. He looked at the snowflakes\nfluttering above the fire and remembered a Russian winter at his warm,\nbright home, his fluffy fur coat, his quickly gliding sleigh, his\nhealthy body, and all the affection and care of his family. \"And why did\nI come here?\" he wondered.\n\nNext day the French army did not renew their attack, and the remnant of\nBagration's detachment was reunited to Kutuzov's army.\n\nBOOK THREE: 1805\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nPrince Vasili was not a man who deliberately thought out his plans.\nStill less did he think of injuring anyone for his own advantage. He was\nmerely a man of the world who had got on and to whom getting on had\nbecome a habit. Schemes and devices for which he never rightly accounted\nto himself, but which formed the whole interest of his life, were\nconstantly shaping themselves in his mind, arising from the\ncircumstances and persons he met. Of these plans he had not merely one\nor two in his head but dozens, some only beginning to form themselves,\nsome approaching achievement, and some in course of disintegration. He\ndid not, for instance, say to himself: \"This man now has influence, I\nmust gain his confidence and friendship and through him obtain a special\ngrant.\" Nor did he say to himself: \"Pierre is a rich man, I must entice\nhim to marry my daughter and lend me the forty thousand rubles I need.\"\nBut when he came across a man of position his instinct immediately told\nhim that this man could be useful, and without any premeditation Prince\nVasili took the first opportunity to gain his confidence, flatter him,\nbecome intimate with him, and finally make his request.\n\nHe had Pierre at hand in Moscow and procured for him an appointment as\nGentleman of the Bedchamber, which at that time conferred the status of\nCouncilor of State, and insisted on the young man accompanying him to\nPetersburg and staying at his house. With apparent absent-mindedness,\nyet with unhesitating assurance that he was doing the right thing,\nPrince Vasili did everything to get Pierre to marry his daughter. Had he\nthought out his plans beforehand he could not have been so natural and\nshown such unaffected familiarity in intercourse with everybody both\nabove and below him in social standing. Something always drew him toward\nthose richer and more powerful than himself and he had rare skill in\nseizing the most opportune moment for making use of people.\n\nPierre, on unexpectedly becoming Count Bezukhov and a rich man, felt\nhimself after his recent loneliness and freedom from cares so beset and\npreoccupied that only in bed was he able to be by himself. He had to\nsign papers, to present himself at government offices, the purpose of\nwhich was not clear to him, to question his chief steward, to visit his\nestate near Moscow, and to receive many people who formerly did not even\nwish to know of his existence but would now have been offended and\ngrieved had he chosen not to see them. These different people--\nbusinessmen, relations, and acquaintances alike--were all disposed to\ntreat the young heir in the most friendly and flattering manner: they\nwere all evidently firmly convinced of Pierre's noble qualities. He was\nalways hearing such words as: \"With your remarkable kindness,\" or, \"With\nyour excellent heart,\" \"You are yourself so honorable Count,\" or, \"Were\nhe as clever as you,\" and so on, till he began sincerely to believe in\nhis own exceptional kindness and extraordinary intelligence, the more so\nas in the depth of his heart it had always seemed to him that he really\nwas very kind and intelligent. Even people who had formerly been\nspiteful toward him and evidently unfriendly now became gentle and\naffectionate. The angry eldest princess, with the long waist and hair\nplastered down like a doll's, had come into Pierre's room after the\nfuneral. With drooping eyes and frequent blushes she told him she was\nvery sorry about their past misunderstandings and did not now feel she\nhad a right to ask him for anything, except only for permission, after\nthe blow she had received, to remain for a few weeks longer in the house\nshe so loved and where she had sacrificed so much. She could not refrain\nfrom weeping at these words. Touched that this statuesque princess could\nso change, Pierre took her hand and begged her forgiveness, without\nknowing what for. From that day the eldest princess quite changed toward\nPierre and began knitting a striped scarf for him.\n\n\"Do this for my sake, mon cher; after all, she had to put up with a\ngreat deal from the deceased,\" said Prince Vasili to him, handing him a\ndeed to sign for the princess' benefit.\n\nPrince Vasili had come to the conclusion that it was necessary to throw\nthis bone--a bill for thirty thousand rubles--to the poor princess that\nit might not occur to her to speak of his share in the affair of the\ninlaid portfolio. Pierre signed the deed and after that the princess\ngrew still kinder. The younger sisters also became affectionate to him,\nespecially the youngest, the pretty one with the mole, who often made\nhim feel confused by her smiles and her own confusion when meeting him.\n\nIt seemed so natural to Pierre that everyone should like him, and it\nwould have seemed so unnatural had anyone disliked him, that he could\nnot but believe in the sincerity of those around him. Besides, he had no\ntime to ask himself whether these people were sincere or not. He was\nalways busy and always felt in a state of mild and cheerful\nintoxication. He felt as though he were the center of some important and\ngeneral movement; that something was constantly expected of him, that if\nhe did not do it he would grieve and disappoint many people, but if he\ndid this and that, all would be well; and he did what was demanded of\nhim, but still that happy result always remained in the future.\n\nMore than anyone else, Prince Vasili took possession of Pierre's affairs\nand of Pierre himself in those early days. From the death of Count\nBezukhov he did not let go his hold of the lad. He had the air of a man\noppressed by business, weary and suffering, who yet would not, for\npity's sake, leave this helpless youth who, after all, was the son of\nhis old friend and the possessor of such enormous wealth, to the caprice\nof fate and the designs of rogues. During the few days he spent in\nMoscow after the death of Count Bezukhov, he would call Pierre, or go to\nhim himself, and tell him what ought to be done in a tone of weariness\nand assurance, as if he were adding every time: \"You know I am\noverwhelmed with business and it is purely out of charity that I trouble\nmyself about you, and you also know quite well that what I propose is\nthe only thing possible.\"\n\n\"Well, my dear fellow, tomorrow we are off at last,\" said Prince Vasili\none day, closing his eyes and fingering Pierre's elbow, speaking as if\nhe were saying something which had long since been agreed upon and could\nnot now be altered. \"We start tomorrow and I'm giving you a place in my\ncarriage. I am very glad. All our important business here is now\nsettled, and I ought to have been off long ago. Here is something I have\nreceived from the chancellor. I asked him for you, and you have been\nentered in the diplomatic corps and made a Gentleman of the Bedchamber.\nThe diplomatic career now lies open before you.\"\n\nNotwithstanding the tone of wearied assurance with which these words\nwere pronounced, Pierre, who had so long been considering his career,\nwished to make some suggestion. But Prince Vasili interrupted him in the\nspecial deep cooing tone, precluding the possibility of interrupting his\nspeech, which he used in extreme cases when special persuasion was\nneeded.\n\n\"Mais, mon cher, I did this for my own sake, to satisfy my conscience,\nand there is nothing to thank me for. No one has ever complained yet of\nbeing too much loved; and besides, you are free, you could throw it up\ntomorrow. But you will see everything for yourself when you get to\nPetersburg. It is high time for you to get away from these terrible\nrecollections.\" Prince Vasili sighed. \"Yes, yes, my boy. And my valet\ncan go in your carriage. Ah! I was nearly forgetting,\" he added. \"You\nknow, mon cher, your father and I had some accounts to settle, so I have\nreceived what was due from the Ryazan estate and will keep it; you won't\nrequire it. We'll go into the accounts later.\"\n\nBy \"what was due from the Ryazan estate\" Prince Vasili meant several\nthousand rubles quitrent received from Pierre's peasants, which the\nprince had retained for himself.\n\nIn Petersburg, as in Moscow, Pierre found the same atmosphere of\ngentleness and affection. He could not refuse the post, or rather the\nrank (for he did nothing), that Prince Vasili had procured for him, and\nacquaintances, invitations, and social occupations were so numerous\nthat, even more than in Moscow, he felt a sense of bewilderment, bustle,\nand continual expectation of some good, always in front of him but never\nattained.\n\nOf his former bachelor acquaintances many were no longer in Petersburg.\nThe Guards had gone to the front; Dolokhov had been reduced to the\nranks; Anatole was in the army somewhere in the provinces; Prince Andrew\nwas abroad; so Pierre had not the opportunity to spend his nights as he\nused to like to spend them, or to open his mind by intimate talks with a\nfriend older than himself and whom he respected. His whole time was\ntaken up with dinners and balls and was spent chiefly at Prince Vasili's\nhouse in the company of the stout princess, his wife, and his beautiful\ndaughter Helene.\n\nLike the others, Anna Pavlovna Scherer showed Pierre the change of\nattitude toward him that had taken place in society.\n\nFormerly in Anna Pavlovna's presence, Pierre had always felt that what\nhe was saying was out of place, tactless and unsuitable, that remarks\nwhich seemed to him clever while they formed in his mind became foolish\nas soon as he uttered them, while on the contrary Hippolyte's stupidest\nremarks came out clever and apt. Now everything Pierre said was\ncharmant. Even if Anna Pavlovna did not say so, he could see that she\nwished to and only refrained out of regard for his modesty.\n\nIn the beginning of the winter of 1805-6 Pierre received one of Anna\nPavlovna's usual pink notes with an invitation to which was added: \"You\nwill find the beautiful Helene here, whom it is always delightful to\nsee.\"\n\nWhen he read that sentence, Pierre felt for the first time that some\nlink which other people recognized had grown up between himself and\nHelene, and that thought both alarmed him, as if some obligation were\nbeing imposed on him which he could not fulfill, and pleased him as an\nentertaining supposition.\n\nAnna Pavlovna's \"At Home\" was like the former one, only the novelty she\noffered her guests this time was not Mortemart, but a diplomatist fresh\nfrom Berlin with the very latest details of the Emperor Alexander's\nvisit to Potsdam, and of how the two august friends had pledged\nthemselves in an indissoluble alliance to uphold the cause of justice\nagainst the enemy of the human race. Anna Pavlovna received Pierre with\na shade of melancholy, evidently relating to the young man's recent loss\nby the death of Count Bezukhov (everyone constantly considered it a duty\nto assure Pierre that he was greatly afflicted by the death of the\nfather he had hardly known), and her melancholy was just like the august\nmelancholy she showed at the mention of her most august Majesty the\nEmpress Marya Fedorovna. Pierre felt flattered by this. Anna Pavlovna\narranged the different groups in her drawing room with her habitual\nskill. The large group, in which were Prince Vasili and the generals,\nhad the benefit of the diplomat. Another group was at the tea table.\nPierre wished to join the former, but Anna Pavlovna--who was in the\nexcited condition of a commander on a battlefield to whom thousands of\nnew and brilliant ideas occur which there is hardly time to put in\naction--seeing Pierre, touched his sleeve with her finger, saying:\n\n\"Wait a bit, I have something in view for you this evening.\" (She\nglanced at Helene and smiled at her.) \"My dear Helene, be charitable to\nmy poor aunt who adores you. Go and keep her company for ten minutes.\nAnd that it will not be too dull, here is the dear count who will not\nrefuse to accompany you.\"\n\nThe beauty went to the aunt, but Anna Pavlovna detained Pierre, looking\nas if she had to give some final necessary instructions.\n\n\"Isn't she exquisite?\" she said to Pierre, pointing to the stately\nbeauty as she glided away. \"And how she carries herself! For so young a\ngirl, such tact, such masterly perfection of manner! It comes from her\nheart. Happy the man who wins her! With her the least worldly of men\nwould occupy a most brilliant position in society. Don't you think so? I\nonly wanted to know your opinion,\" and Anna Pavlovna let Pierre go.\n\nPierre, in reply, sincerely agreed with her as to Helene's perfection of\nmanner. If he ever thought of Helene, it was just of her beauty and her\nremarkable skill in appearing silently dignified in society.\n\nThe old aunt received the two young people in her corner, but seemed\ndesirous of hiding her adoration for Helene and inclined rather to show\nher fear of Anna Pavlovna. She looked at her niece, as if inquiring what\nshe was to do with these people. On leaving them, Anna Pavlovna again\ntouched Pierre's sleeve, saying: \"I hope you won't say that it is dull\nin my house again,\" and she glanced at Helene.\n\nHelene smiled, with a look implying that she did not admit the\npossibility of anyone seeing her without being enchanted. The aunt\ncoughed, swallowed, and said in French that she was very pleased to see\nHelene, then she turned to Pierre with the same words of welcome and the\nsame look. In the middle of a dull and halting conversation, Helene\nturned to Pierre with the beautiful bright smile that she gave to\neveryone. Pierre was so used to that smile, and it had so little meaning\nfor him, that he paid no attention to it. The aunt was just speaking of\na collection of snuffboxes that had belonged to Pierre's father, Count\nBezukhov, and showed them her own box. Princess Helene asked to see the\nportrait of the aunt's husband on the box lid.\n\n\"That is probably the work of Vinesse,\" said Pierre, mentioning a\ncelebrated miniaturist, and he leaned over the table to take the\nsnuffbox while trying to hear what was being said at the other table.\n\nHe half rose, meaning to go round, but the aunt handed him the snuffbox,\npassing it across Helene's back. Helene stooped forward to make room,\nand looked round with a smile. She was, as always at evening parties,\nwearing a dress such as was then fashionable, cut very low at front and\nback. Her bust, which had always seemed like marble to Pierre, was so\nclose to him that his shortsighted eyes could not but perceive the\nliving charm of her neck and shoulders, so near to his lips that he need\nonly have bent his head a little to have touched them. He was conscious\nof the warmth of her body, the scent of perfume, and the creaking of her\ncorset as she moved. He did not see her marble beauty forming a complete\nwhole with her dress, but all the charm of her body only covered by her\ngarments. And having once seen this he could not help being aware of it,\njust as we cannot renew an illusion we have once seen through.\n\n\"So you have never noticed before how beautiful I am?\" Helene seemed to\nsay. \"You had not noticed that I am a woman? Yes, I am a woman who may\nbelong to anyone--to you too,\" said her glance. And at that moment\nPierre felt that Helene not only could, but must, be his wife, and that\nit could not be otherwise.\n\nHe knew this at that moment as surely as if he had been standing at the\naltar with her. How and when this would be he did not know, he did not\neven know if it would be a good thing (he even felt, he knew not why,\nthat it would be a bad thing), but he knew it would happen.\n\nPierre dropped his eyes, lifted them again, and wished once more to see\nher as a distant beauty far removed from him, as he had seen her every\nday until then, but he could no longer do it. He could not, any more\nthan a man who has been looking at a tuft of steppe grass through the\nmist and taking it for a tree can again take it for a tree after he has\nonce recognized it to be a tuft of grass. She was terribly close to him.\nShe already had power over him, and between them there was no longer any\nbarrier except the barrier of his own will.\n\n\"Well, I will leave you in your little corner,\" came Anna Pavlovna's\nvoice, \"I see you are all right there.\"\n\nAnd Pierre, anxiously trying to remember whether he had done anything\nreprehensible, looked round with a blush. It seemed to him that everyone\nknew what had happened to him as he knew it himself.\n\nA little later when he went up to the large circle, Anna Pavlovna said\nto him: \"I hear you are refitting your Petersburg house?\"\n\nThis was true. The architect had told him that it was necessary, and\nPierre, without knowing why, was having his enormous Petersburg house\ndone up.\n\n\"That's a good thing, but don't move from Prince Vasili's. It is good to\nhave a friend like the prince,\" she said, smiling at Prince Vasili. \"I\nknow something about that. Don't I? And you are still so young. You need\nadvice. Don't be angry with me for exercising an old woman's privilege.\"\n\nShe paused, as women always do, expecting something after they have\nmentioned their age. \"If you marry it will be a different thing,\" she\ncontinued, uniting them both in one glance. Pierre did not look at\nHelene nor she at him. But she was just as terribly close to him. He\nmuttered something and colored.\n\nWhen he got home he could not sleep for a long time for thinking of what\nhad happened. What had happened? Nothing. He had merely understood that\nthe woman he had known as a child, of whom when her beauty was mentioned\nhe had said absent-mindedly: \"Yes, she's good looking,\" he had\nunderstood that this woman might belong to him.\n\n\"But she's stupid. I have myself said she is stupid,\" he thought. \"There\nis something nasty, something wrong, in the feeling she excites in me. I\nhave been told that her brother Anatole was in love with her and she\nwith him, that there was quite a scandal and that that's why he was sent\naway. Hippolyte is her brother... Prince Vasili is her father... It's\nbad....\" he reflected, but while he was thinking this (the reflection\nwas still incomplete), he caught himself smiling and was conscious that\nanother line of thought had sprung up, and while thinking of her\nworthlessness he was also dreaming of how she would be his wife, how she\nwould love him become quite different, and how all he had thought and\nheard of her might be false. And he again saw her not as the daughter of\nPrince Vasili, but visualized her whole body only veiled by its gray\ndress. \"But no! Why did this thought never occur to me before?\" and\nagain he told himself that it was impossible, that there would be\nsomething unnatural, and as it seemed to him dishonorable, in this\nmarriage. He recalled her former words and looks and the words and looks\nof those who had seen them together. He recalled Anna Pavlovna's words\nand looks when she spoke to him about his house, recalled thousands of\nsuch hints from Prince Vasili and others, and was seized by terror lest\nhe had already, in some way, bound himself to do something that was\nevidently wrong and that he ought not to do. But at the very time he was\nexpressing this conviction to himself, in another part of his mind her\nimage rose in all its womanly beauty.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nIn November, 1805, Prince Vasili had to go on a tour of inspection in\nfour different provinces. He had arranged this for himself so as to\nvisit his neglected estates at the same time and pick up his son Anatole\nwhere his regiment was stationed, and take him to visit Prince Nicholas\nBolkonski in order to arrange a match for him with the daughter of that\nrich old man. But before leaving home and undertaking these new affairs,\nPrince Vasili had to settle matters with Pierre, who, it is true, had\nlatterly spent whole days at home, that is, in Prince Vasili's house\nwhere he was staying, and had been absurd, excited, and foolish in\nHelene's presence (as a lover should be), but had not yet proposed to\nher.\n\n\"This is all very fine, but things must be settled,\" said Prince Vasili\nto himself, with a sorrowful sigh, one morning, feeling that Pierre who\nwas under such obligations to him (\"But never mind that\") was not\nbehaving very well in this matter. \"Youth, frivolity... well, God be\nwith him,\" thought he, relishing his own goodness of heart, \"but it must\nbe brought to a head. The day after tomorrow will be Lelya's name day. I\nwill invite two or three people, and if he does not understand what he\nought to do then it will be my affair--yes, my affair. I am her father.\"\n\nSix weeks after Anna Pavlovna's \"At Home\" and after the sleepless night\nwhen he had decided that to marry Helene would be a calamity and that he\nought to avoid her and go away, Pierre, despite that decision, had not\nleft Prince Vasili's and felt with terror that in people's eyes he was\nevery day more and more connected with her, that it was impossible for\nhim to return to his former conception of her, that he could not break\naway from her, and that though it would be a terrible thing he would\nhave to unite his fate with hers. He might perhaps have been able to\nfree himself but that Prince Vasili (who had rarely before given\nreceptions) now hardly let a day go by without having an evening party\nat which Pierre had to be present unless he wished to spoil the general\npleasure and disappoint everyone's expectation. Prince Vasili, in the\nrare moments when he was at home, would take Pierre's hand in passing\nand draw it downwards, or absent-mindedly hold out his wrinkled, clean-\nshaven cheek for Pierre to kiss and would say: \"Till tomorrow,\" or, \"Be\nin to dinner or I shall not see you,\" or, \"I am staying in for your\nsake,\" and so on. And though Prince Vasili, when he stayed in (as he\nsaid) for Pierre's sake, hardly exchanged a couple of words with him,\nPierre felt unable to disappoint him. Every day he said to himself one\nand the same thing: \"It is time I understood her and made up my mind\nwhat she really is. Was I mistaken before, or am I mistaken now? No, she\nis not stupid, she is an excellent girl,\" he sometimes said to himself\n\"she never makes a mistake, never says anything stupid. She says little,\nbut what she does say is always clear and simple, so she is not stupid.\nShe never was abashed and is not abashed now, so she cannot be a bad\nwoman!\" He had often begun to make reflections or think aloud in her\ncompany, and she had always answered him either by a brief but\nappropriate remark--showing that it did not interest her--or by a silent\nlook and smile which more palpably than anything else showed Pierre her\nsuperiority. She was right in regarding all arguments as nonsense in\ncomparison with that smile.\n\nShe always addressed him with a radiantly confiding smile meant for him\nalone, in which there was something more significant than in the general\nsmile that usually brightened her face. Pierre knew that everyone was\nwaiting for him to say a word and cross a certain line, and he knew that\nsooner or later he would step across it, but an incomprehensible terror\nseized him at the thought of that dreadful step. A thousand times during\nthat month and a half while he felt himself drawn nearer and nearer to\nthat dreadful abyss, Pierre said to himself: \"What am I doing? I need\nresolution. Can it be that I have none?\"\n\nHe wished to take a decision, but felt with dismay that in this matter\nhe lacked that strength of will which he had known in himself and really\npossessed. Pierre was one of those who are only strong when they feel\nthemselves quite innocent, and since that day when he was overpowered by\na feeling of desire while stooping over the snuffbox at Anna Pavlovna's,\nan unacknowledged sense of the guilt of that desire paralyzed his will.\n\nOn Helene's name day, a small party of just their own people--as his\nwife said--met for supper at Prince Vasili's. All these friends and\nrelations had been given to understand that the fate of the young girl\nwould be decided that evening. The visitors were seated at supper.\nPrincess Kuragina, a portly imposing woman who had once been handsome,\nwas sitting at the head of the table. On either side of her sat the more\nimportant guests--an old general and his wife, and Anna Pavlovna\nScherer. At the other end sat the younger and less important guests, and\nthere too sat the members of the family, and Pierre and Helene, side by\nside. Prince Vasili was not having any supper: he went round the table\nin a merry mood, sitting down now by one, now by another, of the guests.\nTo each of them he made some careless and agreeable remark except to\nPierre and Helene, whose presence he seemed not to notice. He enlivened\nthe whole party. The wax candles burned brightly, the silver and crystal\ngleamed, so did the ladies' toilets and the gold and silver of the men's\nepaulets; servants in scarlet liveries moved round the table, the\nclatter of plates, knives, and glasses mingled with the animated hum of\nseveral conversations. At one end of the table, the old chamberlain was\nheard assuring an old baroness that he loved her passionately, at which\nshe laughed; at the other could be heard the story of the misfortunes of\nsome Mary Viktorovna or other. At the center of the table, Prince Vasili\nattracted everybody's attention. With a facetious smile on his face, he\nwas telling the ladies about last Wednesday's meeting of the Imperial\nCouncil, at which Sergey Kuzmich Vyazmitinov, the new military governor\ngeneral of Petersburg, had received and read the then famous rescript of\nthe Emperor Alexander from the army to Sergey Kuzmich, in which the\nEmperor said that he was receiving from all sides declarations of the\npeople's loyalty, that the declaration from Petersburg gave him\nparticular pleasure, and that he was proud to be at the head of such a\nnation and would endeavor to be worthy of it. This rescript began with\nthe words: \"Sergey Kuzmich, From all sides reports reach me,\" etc.\n\n\"Well, and so he never got farther than: 'Sergey Kuzmich'?\" asked one of\nthe ladies.\n\n\"Exactly, not a hair's breadth farther,\" answered Prince Vasili,\nlaughing, \"'Sergey Kuzmich... From all sides... From all sides... Sergey\nKuzmich...' Poor Vyazmitinov could not get any farther! He began the\nrescript again and again, but as soon as he uttered 'Sergey' he sobbed,\n'Kuz-mi-ch,' tears, and 'From all sides' was smothered in sobs and he\ncould get no farther. And again his handkerchief, and again: 'Sergey\nKuzmich, From all sides,'... and tears, till at last somebody else was\nasked to read it.\"\n\n\"Kuzmich... From all sides... and then tears,\" someone repeated\nlaughing.\n\n\"Don't be unkind,\" cried Anna Pavlovna from her end of the table holding\nup a threatening finger. \"He is such a worthy and excellent man, our\ndear Vyazmitinov....\"\n\nEverybody laughed a great deal. At the head of the table, where the\nhonored guests sat, everyone seemed to be in high spirits and under the\ninfluence of a variety of exciting sensations. Only Pierre and Helene\nsat silently side by side almost at the bottom of the table, a\nsuppressed smile brightening both their faces, a smile that had nothing\nto do with Sergey Kuzmich--a smile of bashfulness at their own feelings.\nBut much as all the rest laughed, talked, and joked, much as they\nenjoyed their Rhine wine, saute, and ices, and however they avoided\nlooking at the young couple, and heedless and unobservant as they seemed\nof them, one could feel by the occasional glances they gave that the\nstory about Sergey Kuzmich, the laughter, and the food were all a\npretense, and that the whole attention of that company was directed to--\nPierre and Helene. Prince Vasili mimicked the sobbing of Sergey Kuzmich\nand at the same time his eyes glanced toward his daughter, and while he\nlaughed the expression on his face clearly said: \"Yes... it's getting\non, it will all be settled today.\" Anna Pavlovna threatened him on\nbehalf of \"our dear Vyazmitinov,\" and in her eyes, which, for an\ninstant, glanced at Pierre, Prince Vasili read a congratulation on his\nfuture son-in-law and on his daughter's happiness. The old princess\nsighed sadly as she offered some wine to the old lady next to her and\nglanced angrily at her daughter, and her sigh seemed to say: \"Yes,\nthere's nothing left for you and me but to sip sweet wine, my dear, now\nthat the time has come for these young ones to be thus boldly,\nprovocatively happy.\" \"And what nonsense all this is that I am saying!\"\nthought a diplomatist, glancing at the happy faces of the lovers.\n\"That's happiness!\"\n\nInto the insignificant, trifling, and artificial interests uniting that\nsociety had entered the simple feeling of the attraction of a healthy\nand handsome young man and woman for one another. And this human feeling\ndominated everything else and soared above all their affected chatter.\nJests fell flat, news was not interesting, and the animation was\nevidently forced. Not only the guests but even the footmen waiting at\ntable seemed to feel this, and they forgot their duties as they looked\nat the beautiful Helene with her radiant face and at the red, broad, and\nhappy though uneasy face of Pierre. It seemed as if the very light of\nthe candles was focused on those two happy faces alone.\n\nPierre felt that he was the center of it all, and this both pleased and\nembarrassed him. He was like a man entirely absorbed in some occupation.\nHe did not see, hear, or understand anything clearly. Only now and then\ndetached ideas and impressions from the world of reality shot\nunexpectedly through his mind.\n\n\"So it is all finished!\" he thought. \"And how has it all happened? How\nquickly! Now I know that not because of her alone, nor of myself alone,\nbut because of everyone, it must inevitably come about. They are all\nexpecting it, they are so sure that it will happen that I cannot, I\ncannot, disappoint them. But how will it be? I do not know, but it will\ncertainly happen!\" thought Pierre, glancing at those dazzling shoulders\nclose to his eyes.\n\nOr he would suddenly feel ashamed of he knew not what. He felt it\nawkward to attract everyone's attention and to be considered a lucky man\nand, with his plain face, to be looked on as a sort of Paris possessed\nof a Helen. \"But no doubt it always is and must be so!\" he consoled\nhimself. \"And besides, what have I done to bring it about? How did it\nbegin? I traveled from Moscow with Prince Vasili. Then there was\nnothing. So why should I not stay at his house? Then I played cards with\nher and picked up her reticule and drove out with her. How did it begin,\nwhen did it all come about?\" And here he was sitting by her side as her\nbetrothed, seeing, hearing, feeling her nearness, her breathing, her\nmovements, her beauty. Then it would suddenly seem to him that it was\nnot she but he was so unusually beautiful, and that that was why they\nall looked so at him, and flattered by this general admiration he would\nexpand his chest, raise his head, and rejoice at his good fortune.\nSuddenly he heard a familiar voice repeating something to him a second\ntime. But Pierre was so absorbed that he did not understand what was\nsaid.\n\n\"I am asking you when you last heard from Bolkonski,\" repeated Prince\nVasili a third time. \"How absent-minded you are, my dear fellow.\"\n\nPrince Vasili smiled, and Pierre noticed that everyone was smiling at\nhim and Helene. \"Well, what of it, if you all know it?\" thought Pierre.\n\"What of it? It's the truth!\" and he himself smiled his gentle childlike\nsmile, and Helene smiled too.\n\n\"When did you get the letter? Was it from Olmutz?\" repeated Prince\nVasili, who pretended to want to know this in order to settle a dispute.\n\n\"How can one talk or think of such trifles?\" thought Pierre.\n\n\"Yes, from Olmutz,\" he answered, with a sigh.\n\nAfter supper Pierre with his partner followed the others into the\ndrawing room. The guests began to disperse, some without taking leave of\nHelene. Some, as if unwilling to distract her from an important\noccupation, came up to her for a moment and made haste to go away,\nrefusing to let her see them off. The diplomatist preserved a mournful\nsilence as he left the drawing room. He pictured the vanity of his\ndiplomatic career in comparison with Pierre's happiness. The old general\ngrumbled at his wife when she asked how his leg was. \"Oh, the old fool,\"\nhe thought. \"That Princess Helene will be beautiful still when she's\nfifty.\"\n\n\"I think I may congratulate you,\" whispered Anna Pavlovna to the old\nprincess, kissing her soundly. \"If I hadn't this headache I'd have\nstayed longer.\"\n\nThe old princess did not reply, she was tormented by jealousy of her\ndaughter's happiness.\n\nWhile the guests were taking their leave Pierre remained for a long time\nalone with Helene in the little drawing room where they were sitting. He\nhad often before, during the last six weeks, remained alone with her,\nbut had never spoken to her of love. Now he felt that it was inevitable,\nbut he could not make up his mind to take the final step. He felt\nashamed; he felt that he was occupying someone else's place here beside\nHelene. \"This happiness is not for you,\" some inner voice whispered to\nhim. \"This happiness is for those who have not in them what there is in\nyou.\"\n\nBut, as he had to say something, he began by asking her whether she was\nsatisfied with the party. She replied in her usual simple manner that\nthis name day of hers had been one of the pleasantest she had ever had.\n\nSome of the nearest relatives had not yet left. They were sitting in the\nlarge drawing room. Prince Vasili came up to Pierre with languid\nfootsteps. Pierre rose and said it was getting late. Prince Vasili gave\nhim a look of stern inquiry, as though what Pierre had just said was so\nstrange that one could not take it in. But then the expression of\nseverity changed, and he drew Pierre's hand downwards, made him sit\ndown, and smiled affectionately.\n\n\"Well, Lelya?\" he asked, turning instantly to his daughter and\naddressing her with the careless tone of habitual tenderness natural to\nparents who have petted their children from babyhood, but which Prince\nVasili had only acquired by imitating other parents.\n\nAnd he again turned to Pierre.\n\n\"Sergey Kuzmich--From all sides-\" he said, unbuttoning the top button of\nhis waistcoat.\n\nPierre smiled, but his smile showed that he knew it was not the story\nabout Sergey Kuzmich that interested Prince Vasili just then, and Prince\nVasili saw that Pierre knew this. He suddenly muttered something and\nwent away. It seemed to Pierre that even the prince was disconcerted.\nThe sight of the discomposure of that old man of the world touched\nPierre: he looked at Helene and she too seemed disconcerted, and her\nlook seemed to say: \"Well, it is your own fault.\"\n\n\"The step must be taken but I cannot, I cannot!\" thought Pierre, and he\nagain began speaking about indifferent matters, about Sergey Kuzmich,\nasking what the point of the story was as he had not heard it properly.\nHelene answered with a smile that she too had missed it.\n\nWhen Prince Vasili returned to the drawing room, the princess, his wife,\nwas talking in low tones to the elderly lady about Pierre.\n\n\"Of course, it is a very brilliant match, but happiness, my dear...\"\n\n\"Marriages are made in heaven,\" replied the elderly lady.\n\nPrince Vasili passed by, seeming not to hear the ladies, and sat down on\na sofa in a far corner of the room. He closed his eyes and seemed to be\ndozing. His head sank forward and then he roused himself.\n\n\"Aline,\" he said to his wife, \"go and see what they are about.\"\n\nThe princess went up to the door, passed by it with a dignified and\nindifferent air, and glanced into the little drawing room. Pierre and\nHelene still sat talking just as before.\n\n\"Still the same,\" she said to her husband.\n\nPrince Vasili frowned, twisting his mouth, his cheeks quivered and his\nface assumed the coarse, unpleasant expression peculiar to him. Shaking\nhimself, he rose, threw back his head, and with resolute steps went past\nthe ladies into the little drawing room. With quick steps he went\njoyfully up to Pierre. His face was so unusually triumphant that Pierre\nrose in alarm on seeing it.\n\n\"Thank God!\" said Prince Vasili. \"My wife has told me everything!\" (He\nput one arm around Pierre and the other around his daughter.)--\"My dear\nboy... Lelya... I am very pleased.\" (His voice trembled.) \"I loved your\nfather... and she will make you a good wife... God bless you!...\"\n\nHe embraced his daughter, and then again Pierre, and kissed him with his\nmalodorous mouth. Tears actually moistened his cheeks.\n\n\"Princess, come here!\" he shouted.\n\nThe old princess came in and also wept. The elderly lady was using her\nhandkerchief too. Pierre was kissed, and he kissed the beautiful\nHelene's hand several times. After a while they were left alone again.\n\n\"All this had to be and could not be otherwise,\" thought Pierre, \"so it\nis useless to ask whether it is good or bad. It is good because it's\ndefinite and one is rid of the old tormenting doubt.\" Pierre held the\nhand of his betrothed in silence, looking at her beautiful bosom as it\nrose and fell.\n\n\"Helene!\" he said aloud and paused.\n\n\"Something special is always said in such cases,\" he thought, but could\nnot remember what it was that people say. He looked at her face. She\ndrew nearer to him. Her face flushed.\n\n\"Oh, take those off... those...\" she said, pointing to his spectacles.\n\nPierre took them off, and his eyes, besides the strange look eyes have\nfrom which spectacles have just been removed, had also a frightened and\ninquiring look. He was about to stoop over her hand and kiss it, but\nwith a rapid, almost brutal movement of her head, she intercepted his\nlips and met them with her own. Her face struck Pierre, by its altered,\nunpleasantly excited expression.\n\n\"It is too late now, it's done; besides I love her,\" thought Pierre.\n\n\"Je vous aime!\" * he said, remembering what has to be said at such\nmoments: but his words sounded so weak that he felt ashamed of himself.\n\n\n* \"I love you.\"\n\nSix weeks later he was married, and settled in Count Bezukhov's large,\nnewly furnished Petersburg house, the happy possessor, as people said,\nof a wife who was a celebrated beauty and of millions of money.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nOld Prince Nicholas Bolkonski received a letter from Prince Vasili in\nNovember, 1805, announcing that he and his son would be paying him a\nvisit. \"I am starting on a journey of inspection, and of course I shall\nthink nothing of an extra seventy miles to come and see you at the same\ntime, my honored benefactor,\" wrote Prince Vasili. \"My son Anatole is\naccompanying me on his way to the army, so I hope you will allow him\npersonally to express the deep respect that, emulating his father, he\nfeels for you.\"\n\n\"It seems that there will be no need to bring Mary out, suitors are\ncoming to us of their own accord,\" incautiously remarked the little\nprincess on hearing the news.\n\nPrince Nicholas frowned, but said nothing.\n\nA fortnight after the letter Prince Vasili's servants came one evening\nin advance of him, and he and his son arrived next day.\n\nOld Bolkonski had always had a poor opinion of Prince Vasili's\ncharacter, but more so recently, since in the new reigns of Paul and\nAlexander Prince Vasili had risen to high position and honors. And now,\nfrom the hints contained in his letter and given by the little princess,\nhe saw which way the wind was blowing, and his low opinion changed into\na feeling of contemptuous ill will. He snorted whenever he mentioned\nhim. On the day of Prince Vasili's arrival, Prince Bolkonski was\nparticularly discontented and out of temper. Whether he was in a bad\ntemper because Prince Vasili was coming, or whether his being in a bad\ntemper made him specially annoyed at Prince Vasili's visit, he was in a\nbad temper, and in the morning Tikhon had already advised the architect\nnot to go to the prince with his report.\n\n\"Do you hear how he's walking?\" said Tikhon, drawing the architect's\nattention to the sound of the prince's footsteps. \"Stepping flat on his\nheels--we know what that means....\"\n\nHowever, at nine o'clock the prince, in his velvet coat with a sable\ncollar and cap, went out for his usual walk. It had snowed the day\nbefore and the path to the hothouse, along which the prince was in the\nhabit of walking, had been swept: the marks of the broom were still\nvisible in the snow and a shovel had been left sticking in one of the\nsoft snowbanks that bordered both sides of the path. The prince went\nthrough the conservatories, the serfs' quarters, and the outbuildings,\nfrowning and silent.\n\n\"Can a sleigh pass?\" he asked his overseer, a venerable man, resembling\nhis master in manners and looks, who was accompanying him back to the\nhouse.\n\n\"The snow is deep. I am having the avenue swept, your honor.\"\n\nThe prince bowed his head and went up to the porch. \"God be thanked,\"\nthought the overseer, \"the storm has blown over!\"\n\n\"It would have been hard to drive up, your honor,\" he added. \"I heard,\nyour honor, that a minister is coming to visit your honor.\"\n\nThe prince turned round to the overseer and fixed his eyes on him,\nfrowning.\n\n\"What? A minister? What minister? Who gave orders?\" he said in his\nshrill, harsh voice. \"The road is not swept for the princess my\ndaughter, but for a minister! For me, there are no ministers!\"\n\n\"Your honor, I thought...\"\n\n\"You thought!\" shouted the prince, his words coming more and more\nrapidly and indistinctly. \"You thought!... Rascals! Blackguards!... I'll\nteach you to think!\" and lifting his stick he swung it and would have\nhit Alpatych, the overseer, had not the latter instinctively avoided the\nblow. \"Thought... Blackguards...\" shouted the prince rapidly.\n\nBut although Alpatych, frightened at his own temerity in avoiding the\nstroke, came up to the prince, bowing his bald head resignedly before\nhim, or perhaps for that very reason, the prince, though he continued to\nshout: \"Blackguards!... Throw the snow back on the road!\" did not lift\nhis stick again but hurried into the house.\n\nBefore dinner, Princess Mary and Mademoiselle Bourienne, who knew that\nthe prince was in a bad humor, stood awaiting him; Mademoiselle\nBourienne with a radiant face that said: \"I know nothing, I am the same\nas usual,\" and Princess Mary pale, frightened, and with downcast eyes.\nWhat she found hardest to bear was to know that on such occasions she\nought to behave like Mademoiselle Bourienne, but could not. She thought:\n\"If I seem not to notice he will think that I do not sympathize with\nhim; if I seem sad and out of spirits myself, he will say (as he has\ndone before) that I'm in the dumps.\"\n\nThe prince looked at his daughter's frightened face and snorted.\n\n\"Fool... or dummy!\" he muttered.\n\n\"And the other one is not here. They've been telling tales,\" he thought-\n-referring to the little princess who was not in the dining room.\n\n\"Where is the princess?\" he asked. \"Hiding?\"\n\n\"She is not very well,\" answered Mademoiselle Bourienne with a bright\nsmile, \"so she won't come down. It is natural in her state.\"\n\n\"Hm! Hm!\" muttered the prince, sitting down.\n\nHis plate seemed to him not quite clean, and pointing to a spot he flung\nit away. Tikhon caught it and handed it to a footman. The little\nprincess was not unwell, but had such an overpowering fear of the prince\nthat, hearing he was in a bad humor, she had decided not to appear.\n\n\"I am afraid for the baby,\" she said to Mademoiselle Bourienne: \"Heaven\nknows what a fright might do.\"\n\nIn general at Bald Hills the little princess lived in constant fear, and\nwith a sense of antipathy to the old prince which she did not realize\nbecause the fear was so much the stronger feeling. The prince\nreciprocated this antipathy, but it was overpowered by his contempt for\nher. When the little princess had grown accustomed to life at Bald\nHills, she took a special fancy to Mademoiselle Bourienne, spent whole\ndays with her, asked her to sleep in her room, and often talked with her\nabout the old prince and criticized him.\n\n\"So we are to have visitors, mon prince?\" remarked Mademoiselle\nBourienne, unfolding her white napkin with her rosy fingers. \"His\nExcellency Prince Vasili Kuragin and his son, I understand?\" she said\ninquiringly.\n\n\"Hm!--his excellency is a puppy.... I got him his appointment in the\nservice,\" said the prince disdainfully. \"Why his son is coming I don't\nunderstand. Perhaps Princess Elizabeth and Princess Mary know. I don't\nwant him.\" (He looked at his blushing daughter.) \"Are you unwell today?\nEh? Afraid of the 'minister' as that idiot Alpatych called him this\nmorning?\"\n\n\"No, mon pere.\"\n\nThough Mademoiselle Bourienne had been so unsuccessful in her choice of\na subject, she did not stop talking, but chattered about the\nconservatories and the beauty of a flower that had just opened, and\nafter the soup the prince became more genial.\n\nAfter dinner, he went to see his daughter-in-law. The little princess\nwas sitting at a small table, chattering with Masha, her maid. She grew\npale on seeing her father-in-law.\n\nShe was much altered. She was now plain rather than pretty. Her cheeks\nhad sunk, her lip was drawn up, and her eyes drawn down.\n\n\"Yes, I feel a kind of oppression,\" she said in reply to the prince's\nquestion as to how she felt.\n\n\"Do you want anything?\"\n\n\"No, merci, mon pere.\"\n\n\"Well, all right, all right.\"\n\nHe left the room and went to the waiting room where Alpatych stood with\nbowed head.\n\n\"Has the snow been shoveled back?\"\n\n\"Yes, your excellency. Forgive me for heaven's sake... It was only my\nstupidity.\"\n\n\"All right, all right,\" interrupted the prince, and laughing his\nunnatural way, he stretched out his hand for Alpatych to kiss, and then\nproceeded to his study.\n\nPrince Vasili arrived that evening. He was met in the avenue by coachmen\nand footmen, who, with loud shouts, dragged his sleighs up to one of the\nlodges over the road purposely laden with snow.\n\nPrince Vasili and Anatole had separate rooms assigned to them.\n\nAnatole, having taken off his overcoat, sat with arms akimbo before a\ntable on a corner of which he smilingly and absent-mindedly fixed his\nlarge and handsome eyes. He regarded his whole life as a continual round\nof amusement which someone for some reason had to provide for him. And\nhe looked on this visit to a churlish old man and a rich and ugly\nheiress in the same way. All this might, he thought, turn out very well\nand amusingly. \"And why not marry her if she really has so much money?\nThat never does any harm,\" thought Anatole.\n\nHe shaved and scented himself with the care and elegance which had\nbecome habitual to him and, his handsome head held high, entered his\nfather's room with the good-humored and victorious air natural to him.\nPrince Vasili's two valets were busy dressing him, and he looked round\nwith much animation and cheerfully nodded to his son as the latter\nentered, as if to say: \"Yes, that's how I want you to look.\"\n\n\"I say, Father, joking apart, is she very hideous?\" Anatole asked, as if\ncontinuing a conversation the subject of which had often been mentioned\nduring the journey.\n\n\"Enough! What nonsense! Above all, try to be respectful and cautious\nwith the old prince.\"\n\n\"If he starts a row I'll go away,\" said Prince Anatole. \"I can't bear\nthose old men! Eh?\"\n\n\"Remember, for you everything depends on this.\"\n\nIn the meantime, not only was it known in the maidservants' rooms that\nthe minister and his son had arrived, but the appearance of both had\nbeen minutely described. Princess Mary was sitting alone in her room,\nvainly trying to master her agitation.\n\n\"Why did they write, why did Lise tell me about it? It can never\nhappen!\" she said, looking at herself in the glass. \"How shall I enter\nthe drawing room? Even if I like him I can't now be myself with him.\"\nThe mere thought of her father's look filled her with terror. The little\nprincess and Mademoiselle Bourienne had already received from Masha, the\nlady's maid, the necessary report of how handsome the minister's son\nwas, with his rosy cheeks and dark eyebrows, and with what difficulty\nthe father had dragged his legs upstairs while the son had followed him\nlike an eagle, three steps at a time. Having received this information,\nthe little princess and Mademoiselle Bourienne, whose chattering voices\nhad reached her from the corridor, went into Princess Mary's room.\n\n\"You know they've come, Marie?\" said the little princess, waddling in,\nand sinking heavily into an armchair.\n\nShe was no longer in the loose gown she generally wore in the morning,\nbut had on one of her best dresses. Her hair was carefully done and her\nface was animated, which, however, did not conceal its sunken and faded\noutlines. Dressed as she used to be in Petersburg society, it was still\nmore noticeable how much plainer she had become. Some unobtrusive touch\nhad been added to Mademoiselle Bourienne's toilet which rendered her\nfresh and pretty face yet more attractive.\n\n\"What! Are you going to remain as you are, dear princess?\" she began.\n\"They'll be announcing that the gentlemen are in the drawing room and we\nshall have to go down, and you have not smartened yourself up at all!\"\n\nThe little princess got up, rang for the maid, and hurriedly and merrily\nbegan to devise and carry out a plan of how Princess Mary should be\ndressed. Princess Mary's self-esteem was wounded by the fact that the\narrival of a suitor agitated her, and still more so by both her\ncompanions' not having the least conception that it could be otherwise.\nTo tell them that she felt ashamed for herself and for them would be to\nbetray her agitation, while to decline their offers to dress her would\nprolong their banter and insistence. She flushed, her beautiful eyes\ngrew dim, red blotches came on her face, and it took on the unattractive\nmartyrlike expression it so often wore, as she submitted herself to\nMademoiselle Bourienne and Lise. Both these women quite sincerely tried\nto make her look pretty. She was so plain that neither of them could\nthink of her as a rival, so they began dressing her with perfect\nsincerity, and with the naive and firm conviction women have that dress\ncan make a face pretty.\n\n\"No really, my dear, this dress is not pretty,\" said Lise, looking\nsideways at Princess Mary from a little distance. \"You have a maroon\ndress, have it fetched. Really! You know the fate of your whole life may\nbe at stake. But this one is too light, it's not becoming!\"\n\nIt was not the dress, but the face and whole figure of Princess Mary\nthat was not pretty, but neither Mademoiselle Bourienne nor the little\nprincess felt this; they still thought that if a blue ribbon were placed\nin the hair, the hair combed up, and the blue scarf arranged lower on\nthe best maroon dress, and so on, all would be well. They forgot that\nthe frightened face and the figure could not be altered, and that\nhowever they might change the setting and adornment of that face, it\nwould still remain piteous and plain. After two or three changes to\nwhich Princess Mary meekly submitted, just as her hair had been arranged\non the top of her head (a style that quite altered and spoiled her\nlooks) and she had put on a maroon dress with a pale-blue scarf, the\nlittle princess walked twice round her, now adjusting a fold of the\ndress with her little hand, now arranging the scarf and looking at her\nwith her head bent first on one side and then on the other.\n\n\"No, it will not do,\" she said decidedly, clasping her hands. \"No, Mary,\nreally this dress does not suit you. I prefer you in your little gray\neveryday dress. Now please, do it for my sake. Katie,\" she said to the\nmaid, \"bring the princess her gray dress, and you'll see, Mademoiselle\nBourienne, how I shall arrange it,\" she added, smiling with a foretaste\nof artistic pleasure.\n\nBut when Katie brought the required dress, Princess Mary remained\nsitting motionless before the glass, looking at her face, and saw in the\nmirror her eyes full of tears and her mouth quivering, ready to burst\ninto sobs.\n\n\"Come, dear princess,\" said Mademoiselle Bourienne, \"just one more\nlittle effort.\"\n\nThe little princess, taking the dress from the maid, came up to Princess\nMary.\n\n\"Well, now we'll arrange something quite simple and becoming,\" she said.\n\nThe three voices, hers, Mademoiselle Bourienne's, and Katie's, who was\nlaughing at something, mingled in a merry sound, like the chirping of\nbirds.\n\n\"No, leave me alone,\" said Princess Mary.\n\nHer voice sounded so serious and so sad that the chirping of the birds\nwas silenced at once. They looked at the beautiful, large, thoughtful\neyes full of tears and of thoughts, gazing shiningly and imploringly at\nthem, and understood that it was useless and even cruel to insist.\n\n\"At least, change your coiffure,\" said the little princess. \"Didn't I\ntell you,\" she went on, turning reproachfully to Mademoiselle Bourienne,\n\"Mary's is a face which such a coiffure does not suit in the least. Not\nin the least! Please change it.\"\n\n\"Leave me alone, please leave me alone! It is all quite the same to me,\"\nanswered a voice struggling with tears.\n\nMademoiselle Bourienne and the little princess had to own to themselves\nthat Princess Mary in this guise looked very plain, worse than usual,\nbut it was too late. She was looking at them with an expression they\nboth knew, an expression thoughtful and sad. This expression in Princess\nMary did not frighten them (she never inspired fear in anyone), but they\nknew that when it appeared on her face, she became mute and was not to\nbe shaken in her determination.\n\n\"You will change it, won't you?\" said Lise. And as Princess Mary gave no\nanswer, she left the room.\n\nPrincess Mary was left alone. She did not comply with Lise's request,\nshe not only left her hair as it was, but did not even look in her\nglass. Letting her arms fall helplessly, she sat with downcast eyes and\npondered. A husband, a man, a strong dominant and strangely attractive\nbeing rose in her imagination, and carried her into a totally different\nhappy world of his own. She fancied a child, her own--such as she had\nseen the day before in the arms of her nurse's daughter--at her own\nbreast, the husband standing by and gazing tenderly at her and the\nchild. \"But no, it is impossible, I am too ugly,\" she thought.\n\n\"Please come to tea. The prince will be out in a moment,\" came the\nmaid's voice at the door.\n\nShe roused herself, and felt appalled at what she had been thinking, and\nbefore going down she went into the room where the icons hung and, her\neyes fixed on the dark face of a large icon of the Saviour lit by a\nlamp, she stood before it with folded hands for a few moments. A painful\ndoubt filled her soul. Could the joy of love, of earthly love for a man,\nbe for her? In her thoughts of marriage Princess Mary dreamed of\nhappiness and of children, but her strongest, most deeply hidden longing\nwas for earthly love. The more she tried to hide this feeling from\nothers and even from herself, the stronger it grew. \"O God,\" she said,\n\"how am I to stifle in my heart these temptations of the devil? How am I\nto renounce forever these vile fancies, so as peacefully to fulfill Thy\nwill?\" And scarcely had she put that question than God gave her the\nanswer in her own heart. \"Desire nothing for thyself, seek nothing, be\nnot anxious or envious. Man's future and thy own fate must remain hidden\nfrom thee, but live so that thou mayest be ready for anything. If it be\nGod's will to prove thee in the duties of marriage, be ready to fulfill\nHis will.\" With this consoling thought (but yet with a hope for the\nfulfillment of her forbidden earthly longing) Princess Mary sighed, and\nhaving crossed herself went down, thinking neither of her gown and\ncoiffure nor of how she would go in nor of what she would say. What\ncould all that matter in comparison with the will of God, without Whose\ncare not a hair of man's head can fall?\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nWhen Princess Mary came down, Prince Vasili and his son were already in\nthe drawing room, talking to the little princess and Mademoiselle\nBourienne. When she entered with her heavy step, treading on her heels,\nthe gentlemen and Mademoiselle Bourienne rose and the little princess,\nindicating her to the gentlemen, said: \"Voila Marie!\" Princess Mary saw\nthem all and saw them in detail. She saw Prince Vasili's face, serious\nfor an instant at the sight of her, but immediately smiling again, and\nthe little princess curiously noting the impression \"Marie\" produced on\nthe visitors. And she saw Mademoiselle Bourienne, with her ribbon and\npretty face, and her unusually animated look which was fixed on him, but\nhim she could not see, she only saw something large, brilliant, and\nhandsome moving toward her as she entered the room. Prince Vasili\napproached first, and she kissed the bold forehead that bent over her\nhand and answered his question by saying that, on the contrary, she\nremembered him quite well. Then Anatole came up to her. She still could\nnot see him. She only felt a soft hand taking hers firmly, and she\ntouched with her lips a white forehead, over which was beautiful light-\nbrown hair smelling of pomade. When she looked up at him she was struck\nby his beauty. Anatole stood with his right thumb under a button of his\nuniform, his chest expanded and his back drawn in, slightly swinging one\nfoot, and, with his head a little bent, looked with beaming face at the\nprincess without speaking and evidently not thinking about her at all.\nAnatole was not quick-witted, nor ready or eloquent in conversation, but\nhe had the faculty, so invaluable in society, of composure and\nimperturbable self-possession. If a man lacking in self-confidence\nremains dumb on a first introduction and betrays a consciousness of the\nimpropriety of such silence and an anxiety to find something to say, the\neffect is bad. But Anatole was dumb, swung his foot, and smilingly\nexamined the princess' hair. It was evident that he could be silent in\nthis way for a very long time. \"If anyone finds this silence\ninconvenient, let him talk, but I don't want to,\" he seemed to say.\nBesides this, in his behavior to women Anatole had a manner which\nparticularly inspires in them curiosity, awe, and even love--a\nsupercilious consciousness of his own superiority. It was as if he said\nto them: \"I know you, I know you, but why should I bother about you?\nYou'd be only too glad, of course.\" Perhaps he did not really think this\nwhen he met women--even probably he did not, for in general he thought\nvery little--but his looks and manner gave that impression. The princess\nfelt this, and as if wishing to show him that she did not even dare\nexpect to interest him, she turned to his father. The conversation was\ngeneral and animated, thanks to Princess Lise's voice and little downy\nlip that lifted over her white teeth. She met Prince Vasili with that\nplayful manner often employed by lively chatty people, and consisting in\nthe assumption that between the person they so address and themselves\nthere are some semi-private, long-established jokes and amusing\nreminiscences, though no such reminiscences really exist--just as none\nexisted in this case. Prince Vasili readily adopted her tone and the\nlittle princess also drew Anatole, whom she hardly knew, into these\namusing recollections of things that had never occurred. Mademoiselle\nBourienne also shared them and even Princess Mary felt herself\npleasantly made to share in these merry reminiscences.\n\n\"Here at least we shall have the benefit of your company all to\nourselves, dear prince,\" said the little princess (of course, in French)\nto Prince Vasili. \"It's not as at Annette's * receptions where you\nalways ran away; you remember cette chere Annette!\"\n\n\n* Anna Pavlovna.\n\n\"Ah, but you won't talk politics to me like Annette!\"\n\n\"And our little tea table?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!\"\n\n\"Why is it you were never at Annette's?\" the little princess asked\nAnatole. \"Ah, I know, I know,\" she said with a sly glance, \"your brother\nHippolyte told me about your goings on. Oh!\" and she shook her finger at\nhim, \"I have even heard of your doings in Paris!\"\n\n\"And didn't Hippolyte tell you?\" asked Prince Vasili, turning to his son\nand seizing the little princess' arm as if she would have run away and\nhe had just managed to catch her, \"didn't he tell you how he himself was\npining for the dear princess, and how she showed him the door? Oh, she\nis a pearl among women, Princess,\" he added, turning to Princess Mary.\n\nWhen Paris was mentioned, Mademoiselle Bourienne for her part seized the\nopportunity of joining in the general current of recollections.\n\nShe took the liberty of inquiring whether it was long since Anatole had\nleft Paris and how he had liked that city. Anatole answered the\nFrenchwoman very readily and, looking at her with a smile, talked to her\nabout her native land. When he saw the pretty little Bourienne, Anatole\ncame to the conclusion that he would not find Bald Hills dull either.\n\"Not at all bad!\" he thought, examining her, \"not at all bad, that\nlittle companion! I hope she will bring her along with her when we're\nmarried, la petite est gentille.\" *\n\n\n* The little one is charming.\n\nThe old prince dressed leisurely in his study, frowning and considering\nwhat he was to do. The coming of these visitors annoyed him. \"What are\nPrince Vasili and that son of his to me? Prince Vasili is a shallow\nbraggart and his son, no doubt, is a fine specimen,\" he grumbled to\nhimself. What angered him was that the coming of these visitors revived\nin his mind an unsettled question he always tried to stifle, one about\nwhich he always deceived himself. The question was whether he could ever\nbring himself to part from his daughter and give her to a husband. The\nprince never directly asked himself that question, knowing beforehand\nthat he would have to answer it justly, and justice clashed not only\nwith his feelings but with the very possibility of life. Life without\nPrincess Mary, little as he seemed to value her, was unthinkable to him.\n\"And why should she marry?\" he thought. \"To be unhappy for certain.\nThere's Lise, married to Andrew--a better husband one would think could\nhardly be found nowadays--but is she contented with her lot? And who\nwould marry Marie for love? Plain and awkward! They'll take her for her\nconnections and wealth. Are there no women living unmarried, and even\nthe happier for it?\" So thought Prince Bolkonski while dressing, and yet\nthe question he was always putting off demanded an immediate answer.\nPrince Vasili had brought his son with the evident intention of\nproposing, and today or tomorrow he would probably ask for an answer.\nHis birth and position in society were not bad. \"Well, I've nothing\nagainst it,\" the prince said to himself, \"but he must be worthy of her.\nAnd that is what we shall see.\"\n\n\"That is what we shall see! That is what we shall see!\" he added aloud.\n\nHe entered the drawing room with his usual alert step, glancing rapidly\nround the company. He noticed the change in the little princess' dress,\nMademoiselle Bourienne's ribbon, Princess Mary's unbecoming coiffure,\nMademoiselle Bourienne's and Anatole's smiles, and the loneliness of his\ndaughter amid the general conversation. \"Got herself up like a fool!\" he\nthought, looking irritably at her. \"She is shameless, and he ignores\nher!\"\n\nHe went straight up to Prince Vasili.\n\n\"Well! How d'ye do? How d'ye do? Glad to see you!\"\n\n\"Friendship laughs at distance,\" began Prince Vasili in his usual rapid,\nself-confident, familiar tone. \"Here is my second son; please love and\nbefriend him.\"\n\nPrince Bolkonski surveyed Anatole.\n\n\"Fine young fellow! Fine young fellow!\" he said. \"Well, come and kiss\nme,\" and he offered his cheek.\n\nAnatole kissed the old man, and looked at him with curiosity and perfect\ncomposure, waiting for a display of the eccentricities his father had\ntold him to expect.\n\nPrince Bolkonski sat down in his usual place in the corner of the sofa\nand, drawing up an armchair for Prince Vasili, pointed to it and began\nquestioning him about political affairs and news. He seemed to listen\nattentively to what Prince Vasili said, but kept glancing at Princess\nMary.\n\n\"And so they are writing from Potsdam already?\" he said, repeating\nPrince Vasili's last words. Then rising, he suddenly went up to his\ndaughter.\n\n\"Is it for visitors you've got yourself up like that, eh?\" said he.\n\"Fine, very fine! You have done up your hair in this new way for the\nvisitors, and before the visitors I tell you that in future you are\nnever to dare to change your way of dress without my consent.\"\n\n\"It was my fault, mon pere,\" interceded the little princess, with a\nblush.\n\n\"You must do as you please,\" said Prince Bolkonski, bowing to his\ndaughter-in-law, \"but she need not make a fool of herself, she's plain\nenough as it is.\"\n\nAnd he sat down again, paying no more attention to his daughter, who was\nreduced to tears.\n\n\"On the contrary, that coiffure suits the princess very well,\" said\nPrince Vasili.\n\n\"Now you, young prince, what's your name?\" said Prince Bolkonski,\nturning to Anatole, \"come here, let us talk and get acquainted.\"\n\n\"Now the fun begins,\" thought Anatole, sitting down with a smile beside\nthe old prince.\n\n\"Well, my dear boy, I hear you've been educated abroad, not taught to\nread and write by the deacon, like your father and me. Now tell me, my\ndear boy, are you serving in the Horse Guards?\" asked the old man,\nscrutinizing Anatole closely and intently.\n\n\"No, I have been transferred to the line,\" said Anatole, hardly able to\nrestrain his laughter.\n\n\"Ah! That's a good thing. So, my dear boy, you wish to serve the Tsar\nand the country? It is wartime. Such a fine fellow must serve. Well, are\nyou off to the front?\"\n\n\"No, Prince, our regiment has gone to the front, but I am attached...\nwhat is it I am attached to, Papa?\" said Anatole, turning to his father\nwith a laugh.\n\n\"A splendid soldier, splendid! 'What am I attached to!' Ha, ha, ha!\"\nlaughed Prince Bolkonski, and Anatole laughed still louder. Suddenly\nPrince Bolkonski frowned.\n\n\"You may go,\" he said to Anatole.\n\nAnatole returned smiling to the ladies.\n\n\"And so you've had him educated abroad, Prince Vasili, haven't you?\"\nsaid the old prince to Prince Vasili.\n\n\"I have done my best for him, and I can assure you the education there\nis much better than ours.\"\n\n\"Yes, everything is different nowadays, everything is changed. The lad's\na fine fellow, a fine fellow! Well, come with me now.\" He took Prince\nVasili's arm and led him to his study. As soon as they were alone\ntogether, Prince Vasili announced his hopes and wishes to the old\nprince.\n\n\"Well, do you think I shall prevent her, that I can't part from her?\"\nsaid the old prince angrily. \"What an idea! I'm ready for it tomorrow!\nOnly let me tell you, I want to know my son-in-law better. You know my\nprinciples--everything aboveboard? I will ask her tomorrow in your\npresence; if she is willing, then he can stay on. He can stay and I'll\nsee.\" The old prince snorted. \"Let her marry, it's all the same to me!\"\nhe screamed in the same piercing tone as when parting from his son.\n\n\"I will tell you frankly,\" said Prince Vasili in the tone of a crafty\nman convinced of the futility of being cunning with so keen-sighted a\ncompanion. \"You know, you see right through people. Anatole is no\ngenius, but he is an honest, goodhearted lad; an excellent son or\nkinsman.\"\n\n\"All right, all right, we'll see!\"\n\nAs always happens when women lead lonely lives for any length of time\nwithout male society, on Anatole's appearance all the three women of\nPrince Bolkonski's household felt that their life had not been real till\nthen. Their powers of reasoning, feeling, and observing immediately\nincreased tenfold, and their life, which seemed to have been passed in\ndarkness, was suddenly lit up by a new brightness, full of significance.\n\nPrincess Mary grew quite unconscious of her face and coiffure. The\nhandsome open face of the man who might perhaps be her husband absorbed\nall her attention. He seemed to her kind, brave, determined, manly, and\nmagnanimous. She felt convinced of that. Thousands of dreams of a future\nfamily life continually rose in her imagination. She drove them away and\ntried to conceal them.\n\n\"But am I not too cold with him?\" thought the princess. \"I try to be\nreserved because in the depth of my soul I feel too near to him already,\nbut then he cannot know what I think of him and may imagine that I do\nnot like him.\"\n\nAnd Princess Mary tried, but could not manage, to be cordial to her new\nguest. \"Poor girl, she's devilish ugly!\" thought Anatole.\n\nMademoiselle Bourienne, also roused to great excitement by Anatole's\narrival, thought in another way. Of course, she, a handsome young woman\nwithout any definite position, without relations or even a country, did\nnot intend to devote her life to serving Prince Bolkonski, to reading\naloud to him and being friends with Princess Mary. Mademoiselle\nBourienne had long been waiting for a Russian prince who, able to\nappreciate at a glance her superiority to the plain, badly dressed,\nungainly Russian princesses, would fall in love with her and carry her\noff; and here at last was a Russian prince. Mademoiselle Bourienne knew\na story, heard from her aunt but finished in her own way, which she\nliked to repeat to herself. It was the story of a girl who had been\nseduced, and to whom her poor mother (sa pauvre mere) appeared, and\nreproached her for yielding to a man without being married. Mademoiselle\nBourienne was often touched to tears as in imagination she told this\nstory to him, her seducer. And now he, a real Russian prince, had\nappeared. He would carry her away and then sa pauvre mere would appear\nand he would marry her. So her future shaped itself in Mademoiselle\nBourienne's head at the very time she was talking to Anatole about\nParis. It was not calculation that guided her (she did not even for a\nmoment consider what she should do), but all this had long been familiar\nto her, and now that Anatole had appeared it just grouped itself around\nhim and she wished and tried to please him as much as possible.\n\nThe little princess, like an old war horse that hears the trumpet,\nunconsciously and quite forgetting her condition, prepared for the\nfamiliar gallop of coquetry, without any ulterior motive or any\nstruggle, but with naive and lighthearted gaiety.\n\nAlthough in female society Anatole usually assumed the role of a man\ntired of being run after by women, his vanity was flattered by the\nspectacle of his power over these three women. Besides that, he was\nbeginning to feel for the pretty and provocative Mademoiselle Bourienne\nthat passionate animal feeling which was apt to master him with great\nsuddenness and prompt him to the coarsest and most reckless actions.\n\nAfter tea, the company went into the sitting room and Princess Mary was\nasked to play on the clavichord. Anatole, laughing and in high spirits,\ncame and leaned on his elbows, facing her and beside Mademoiselle\nBourienne. Princess Mary felt his look with a painfully joyous emotion.\nHer favorite sonata bore her into a most intimately poetic world and the\nlook she felt upon her made that world still more poetic. But Anatole's\nexpression, though his eyes were fixed on her, referred not to her but\nto the movements of Mademoiselle Bourienne's little foot, which he was\nthen touching with his own under the clavichord. Mademoiselle Bourienne\nwas also looking at Princess Mary, and in her lovely eyes there was a\nlook of fearful joy and hope that was also new to the princess.\n\n\"How she loves me!\" thought Princess Mary. \"How happy I am now, and how\nhappy I may be with such a friend and such a husband! Husband? Can it be\npossible?\" she thought, not daring to look at his face, but still\nfeeling his eyes gazing at her.\n\nIn the evening, after supper, when all were about to retire, Anatole\nkissed Princess Mary's hand. She did not know how she found the courage,\nbut she looked straight into his handsome face as it came near to her\nshortsighted eyes. Turning from Princess Mary he went up and kissed\nMademoiselle Bourienne's hand. (This was not etiquette, but then he did\neverything so simply and with such assurance!) Mademoiselle Bourienne\nflushed, and gave the princess a frightened look.\n\n\"What delicacy!\" thought the princess. \"Is it possible that Amelie\"\n(Mademoiselle Bourienne) \"thinks I could be jealous of her, and not\nvalue her pure affection and devotion to me?\" She went up to her and\nkissed her warmly. Anatole went up to kiss the little princess' hand.\n\n\"No! No! No! When your father writes to tell me that you are behaving\nwell I will give you my hand to kiss. Not till then!\" she said. And\nsmilingly raising a finger at him, she left the room.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nThey all separated, but, except Anatole who fell asleep as soon as he\ngot into bed, all kept awake a long time that night.\n\n\"Is he really to be my husband, this stranger who is so kind--yes, kind,\nthat is the chief thing,\" thought Princess Mary; and fear, which she had\nseldom experienced, came upon her. She feared to look round, it seemed\nto her that someone was there standing behind the screen in the dark\ncorner. And this someone was he--the devil--and he was also this man\nwith the white forehead, black eyebrows, and red lips.\n\nShe rang for her maid and asked her to sleep in her room.\n\nMademoiselle Bourienne walked up and down the conservatory for a long\ntime that evening, vainly expecting someone, now smiling at someone, now\nworking herself up to tears with the imaginary words of her pauvre mere\nrebuking her for her fall.\n\nThe little princess grumbled to her maid that her bed was badly made.\nShe could not lie either on her face or on her side. Every position was\nawkward and uncomfortable, and her burden oppressed her now more than\never because Anatole's presence had vividly recalled to her the time\nwhen she was not like that and when everything was light and gay. She\nsat in an armchair in her dressing jacket and nightcap and Katie, sleepy\nand disheveled, beat and turned the heavy feather bed for the third\ntime, muttering to herself.\n\n\"I told you it was all lumps and holes!\" the little princess repeated.\n\"I should be glad enough to fall asleep, so it's not my fault!\" and her\nvoice quivered like that of a child about to cry.\n\nThe old prince did not sleep either. Tikhon, half asleep, heard him\npacing angrily about and snorting. The old prince felt as though he had\nbeen insulted through his daughter. The insult was the more pointed\nbecause it concerned not himself but another, his daughter, whom he\nloved more than himself. He kept telling himself that he would consider\nthe whole matter and decide what was right and how he should act, but\ninstead of that he only excited himself more and more.\n\n\"The first man that turns up--she forgets her father and everything\nelse, runs upstairs and does up her hair and wags her tail and is unlike\nherself! Glad to throw her father over! And she knew I should notice it.\nFr... fr... fr! And don't I see that that idiot had eyes only for\nBourienne--I shall have to get rid of her. And how is it she has not\npride enough to see it? If she has no pride for herself she might at\nleast have some for my sake! She must be shown that the blockhead thinks\nnothing of her and looks only at Bourienne. No, she has no pride... but\nI'll let her see....\"\n\nThe old prince knew that if he told his daughter she was making a\nmistake and that Anatole meant to flirt with Mademoiselle Bourienne,\nPrincess Mary's self-esteem would be wounded and his point (not to be\nparted from her) would be gained, so pacifying himself with this\nthought, he called Tikhon and began to undress.\n\n\"What devil brought them here?\" thought he, while Tikhon was putting the\nnightshirt over his dried-up old body and gray-haired chest. \"I never\ninvited them. They came to disturb my life--and there is not much of it\nleft.\"\n\n\"Devil take 'em!\" he muttered, while his head was still covered by the\nshirt.\n\nTikhon knew his master's habit of sometimes thinking aloud, and\ntherefore met with unaltered looks the angrily inquisitive expression of\nthe face that emerged from the shirt.\n\n\"Gone to bed?\" asked the prince.\n\nTikhon, like all good valets, instinctively knew the direction of his\nmaster's thoughts. He guessed that the question referred to Prince\nVasili and his son.\n\n\"They have gone to bed and put out their lights, your excellency.\"\n\n\"No good... no good...\" said the prince rapidly, and thrusting his feet\ninto his slippers and his arms into the sleeves of his dressing gown, he\nwent to the couch on which he slept.\n\nThough no words had passed between Anatole and Mademoiselle Bourienne,\nthey quite understood one another as to the first part of their romance,\nup to the appearance of the pauvre mere; they understood that they had\nmuch to say to one another in private and so they had been seeking an\nopportunity since morning to meet one another alone. When Princess Mary\nwent to her father's room at the usual hour, Mademoiselle Bourienne and\nAnatole met in the conservatory.\n\nPrincess Mary went to the door of the study with special trepidation. It\nseemed to her that not only did everybody know that her fate would be\ndecided that day, but that they also knew what she thought about it. She\nread this in Tikhon's face and in that of Prince Vasili's valet, who\nmade her a low bow when she met him in the corridor carrying hot water.\n\nThe old prince was very affectionate and careful in his treatment of his\ndaughter that morning. Princess Mary well knew this painstaking\nexpression of her father's. His face wore that expression when his dry\nhands clenched with vexation at her not understanding a sum in\narithmetic, when rising from his chair he would walk away from her,\nrepeating in a low voice the same words several times over.\n\nHe came to the point at once, treating her ceremoniously.\n\n\"I have had a proposition made me concerning you,\" he said with an\nunnatural smile. \"I expect you have guessed that Prince Vasili has not\ncome and brought his pupil with him\" (for some reason Prince Bolkonski\nreferred to Anatole as a \"pupil\") \"for the sake of my beautiful eyes.\nLast night a proposition was made me on your account and, as you know my\nprinciples, I refer it to you.\"\n\n\"How am I to understand you, mon pere?\" said the princess, growing pale\nand then blushing.\n\n\"How understand me!\" cried her father angrily. \"Prince Vasili finds you\nto his taste as a daughter-in-law and makes a proposal to you on his\npupil's behalf. That's how it's to be understood! 'How understand\nit'!... And I ask you!\"\n\n\"I do not know what you think, Father,\" whispered the princess.\n\n\"I? I? What of me? Leave me out of the question. I'm not going to get\nmarried. What about you? That's what I want to know.\"\n\nThe princess saw that her father regarded the matter with disapproval,\nbut at that moment the thought occurred to her that her fate would be\ndecided now or never. She lowered her eyes so as not to see the gaze\nunder which she felt that she could not think, but would only be able to\nsubmit from habit, and she said: \"I wish only to do your will, but if I\nhad to express my own desire...\" She had no time to finish. The old\nprince interrupted her.\n\n\"That's admirable!\" he shouted. \"He will take you with your dowry and\ntake Mademoiselle Bourienne into the bargain. She'll be the wife, while\nyou...\"\n\nThe prince stopped. He saw the effect these words had produced on his\ndaughter. She lowered her head and was ready to burst into tears.\n\n\"Now then, now then, I'm only joking!\" he said. \"Remember this,\nPrincess, I hold to the principle that a maiden has a full right to\nchoose. I give you freedom. Only remember that your life's happiness\ndepends on your decision. Never mind me!\"\n\n\"But I do not know, Father!\"\n\n\"There's no need to talk! He receives his orders and will marry you or\nanybody; but you are free to choose.... Go to your room, think it over,\nand come back in an hour and tell me in his presence: yes or no. I know\nyou will pray over it. Well, pray if you like, but you had better think\nit over. Go! Yes or no, yes or no, yes or no!\" he still shouted when the\nprincess, as if lost in a fog, had already staggered out of the study.\n\nHer fate was decided and happily decided. But what her father had said\nabout Mademoiselle Bourienne was dreadful. It was untrue to be sure, but\nstill it was terrible, and she could not help thinking of it. She was\ngoing straight on through the conservatory, neither seeing nor hearing\nanything, when suddenly the well-known whispering of Mademoiselle\nBourienne aroused her. She raised her eyes, and two steps away saw\nAnatole embracing the Frenchwoman and whispering something to her. With\na horrified expression on his handsome face, Anatole looked at Princess\nMary, but did not at once take his arm from the waist of Mademoiselle\nBourienne who had not yet seen her.\n\n\"Who's that? Why? Wait a moment!\" Anatole's face seemed to say. Princess\nMary looked at them in silence. She could not understand it. At last\nMademoiselle Bourienne gave a scream and ran away. Anatole bowed to\nPrincess Mary with a gay smile, as if inviting her to join in a laugh at\nthis strange incident, and then shrugging his shoulders went to the door\nthat led to his own apartments.\n\nAn hour later, Tikhon came to call Princess Mary to the old prince; he\nadded that Prince Vasili was also there. When Tikhon came to her\nPrincess Mary was sitting on the sofa in her room, holding the weeping\nMademoiselle Bourienne in her arms and gently stroking her hair. The\nprincess' beautiful eyes with all their former calm radiance were\nlooking with tender affection and pity at Mademoiselle Bourienne's\npretty face.\n\n\"No, Princess, I have lost your affection forever!\" said Mademoiselle\nBourienne.\n\n\"Why? I love you more than ever,\" said Princess Mary, \"and I will try to\ndo all I can for your happiness.\"\n\n\"But you despise me. You who are so pure can never understand being so\ncarried away by passion. Oh, only my poor mother...\"\n\n\"I quite understand,\" answered Princess Mary, with a sad smile. \"Calm\nyourself, my dear. I will go to my father,\" she said, and went out.\n\nPrince Vasili, with one leg thrown high over the other and a snuffbox in\nhis hand, was sitting there with a smile of deep emotion on his face, as\nif stirred to his heart's core and himself regretting and laughing at\nhis own sensibility, when Princess Mary entered. He hurriedly took a\npinch of snuff.\n\n\"Ah, my dear, my dear!\" he began, rising and taking her by both hands.\nThen, sighing, he added: \"My son's fate is in your hands. Decide, my\ndear, good, gentle Marie, whom I have always loved as a daughter!\"\n\nHe drew back and a real tear appeared in his eye.\n\n\"Fr... fr...\" snorted Prince Bolkonski. \"The prince is making a\nproposition to you in his pupil's--I mean, his son's--name. Do you wish\nor not to be Prince Anatole Kuragin's wife? Reply: yes or no,\" he\nshouted, \"and then I shall reserve the right to state my opinion also.\nYes, my opinion, and only my opinion,\" added Prince Bolkonski, turning\nto Prince Vasili and answering his imploring look. \"Yes, or no?\"\n\n\"My desire is never to leave you, Father, never to separate my life from\nyours. I don't wish to marry,\" she answered positively, glancing at\nPrince Vasili and at her father with her beautiful eyes.\n\n\"Humbug! Nonsense! Humbug, humbug, humbug!\" cried Prince Bolkonski,\nfrowning and taking his daughter's hand; he did not kiss her, but only\nbending his forehead to hers just touched it, and pressed her hand so\nthat she winced and uttered a cry.\n\nPrince Vasili rose.\n\n\"My dear, I must tell you that this is a moment I shall never, never\nforget. But, my dear, will you not give us a little hope of touching\nthis heart, so kind and generous? Say 'perhaps'... The future is so\nlong. Say 'perhaps.'\"\n\n\"Prince, what I have said is all there is in my heart. I thank you for\nthe honor, but I shall never be your son's wife.\"\n\n\"Well, so that's finished, my dear fellow! I am very glad to have seen\nyou. Very glad! Go back to your rooms, Princess. Go!\" said the old\nprince. \"Very, very glad to have seen you,\" repeated he, embracing\nPrince Vasili.\n\n\"My vocation is a different one,\" thought Princess Mary. \"My vocation is\nto be happy with another kind of happiness, the happiness of love and\nself-sacrifice. And cost what it may, I will arrange poor Amelie's\nhappiness, she loves him so passionately, and so passionately repents. I\nwill do all I can to arrange the match between them. If he is not rich I\nwill give her the means; I will ask my father and Andrew. I shall be so\nhappy when she is his wife. She is so unfortunate, a stranger, alone,\nhelpless! And, oh God, how passionately she must love him if she could\nso far forget herself! Perhaps I might have done the same!...\" thought\nPrincess Mary.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nIt was long since the Rostovs had news of Nicholas. Not till midwinter\nwas the count at last handed a letter addressed in his son's\nhandwriting. On receiving it, he ran on tiptoe to his study in alarm and\nhaste, trying to escape notice, closed the door, and began to read the\nletter.\n\nAnna Mikhaylovna, who always knew everything that passed in the house,\non hearing of the arrival of the letter went softly into the room and\nfound the count with it in his hand, sobbing and laughing at the same\ntime.\n\nAnna Mikhaylovna, though her circumstances had improved, was still\nliving with the Rostovs.\n\n\"My dear friend?\" said she, in a tone of pathetic inquiry, prepared to\nsympathize in any way.\n\nThe count sobbed yet more.\n\n\"Nikolenka... a letter... wa... a... s... wounded... my darling boy...\nthe countess... promoted to be an officer... thank God... How tell the\nlittle countess!\"\n\nAnna Mikhaylovna sat down beside him, with her own handkerchief wiped\nthe tears from his eyes and from the letter, then having dried her own\neyes she comforted the count, and decided that at dinner and till\nteatime she would prepare the countess, and after tea, with God's help,\nwould inform her.\n\nAt dinner Anna Mikhaylovna talked the whole time about the war news and\nabout Nikolenka, twice asked when the last letter had been received from\nhim, though she knew that already, and remarked that they might very\nlikely be getting a letter from him that day. Each time that these hints\nbegan to make the countess anxious and she glanced uneasily at the count\nand at Anna Mikhaylovna, the latter very adroitly turned the\nconversation to insignificant matters. Natasha, who, of the whole\nfamily, was the most gifted with a capacity to feel any shades of\nintonation, look, and expression, pricked up her ears from the beginning\nof the meal and was certain that there was some secret between her\nfather and Anna Mikhaylovna, that it had something to do with her\nbrother, and that Anna Mikhaylovna was preparing them for it. Bold as\nshe was, Natasha, who knew how sensitive her mother was to anything\nrelating to Nikolenka, did not venture to ask any questions at dinner,\nbut she was too excited to eat anything and kept wriggling about on her\nchair regardless of her governess' remarks. After dinner, she rushed\nhead long after Anna Mikhaylovna and, dashing at her, flung herself on\nher neck as soon as she overtook her in the sitting room.\n\n\"Auntie, darling, do tell me what it is!\"\n\n\"Nothing, my dear.\"\n\n\"No, dearest, sweet one, honey, I won't give up--I know you know\nsomething.\"\n\nAnna Mikhaylovna shook her head.\n\n\"You are a little slyboots,\" she said.\n\n\"A letter from Nikolenka! I'm sure of it!\" exclaimed Natasha, reading\nconfirmation in Anna Mikhaylovna's face.\n\n\"But for God's sake, be careful, you know how it may affect your mamma.\"\n\n\"I will, I will, only tell me! You won't? Then I will go and tell at\nonce.\"\n\nAnna Mikhaylovna, in a few words, told her the contents of the letter,\non condition that she should tell no one.\n\n\"No, on my true word of honor,\" said Natasha, crossing herself, \"I won't\ntell anyone!\" and she ran off at once to Sonya.\n\n\"Nikolenka... wounded... a letter,\" she announced in gleeful triumph.\n\n\"Nicholas!\" was all Sonya said, instantly turning white.\n\nNatasha, seeing the impression the news of her brother's wound produced\non Sonya, felt for the first time the sorrowful side of the news.\n\nShe rushed to Sonya, hugged her, and began to cry.\n\n\"A little wound, but he has been made an officer; he is well now, he\nwrote himself,\" said she through her tears.\n\n\"There now! It's true that all you women are crybabies,\" remarked Petya,\npacing the room with large, resolute strides. \"Now I'm very glad, very\nglad indeed, that my brother has distinguished himself so. You are all\nblubberers and understand nothing.\"\n\nNatasha smiled through her tears.\n\n\"You haven't read the letter?\" asked Sonya.\n\n\"No, but she said that it was all over and that he's now an officer.\"\n\n\"Thank God!\" said Sonya, crossing herself. \"But perhaps she deceived\nyou. Let us go to Mamma.\"\n\nPetya paced the room in silence for a time.\n\n\"If I'd been in Nikolenka's place I would have killed even more of those\nFrenchmen,\" he said. \"What nasty brutes they are! I'd have killed so\nmany that there'd have been a heap of them.\"\n\n\"Hold your tongue, Petya, what a goose you are!\"\n\n\"I'm not a goose, but they are who cry about trifles,\" said Petya.\n\n\"Do you remember him?\" Natasha suddenly asked, after a moment's silence.\n\nSonya smiled.\n\n\"Do I remember Nicholas?\"\n\n\"No, Sonya, but do you remember so that you remember him perfectly,\nremember everything?\" said Natasha, with an expressive gesture,\nevidently wishing to give her words a very definite meaning. \"I remember\nNikolenka too, I remember him well,\" she said. \"But I don't remember\nBoris. I don't remember him a bit.\"\n\n\"What! You don't remember Boris?\" asked Sonya in surprise.\n\n\"It's not that I don't remember--I know what he is like, but not as I\nremember Nikolenka. Him--I just shut my eyes and remember, but Boris...\nNo!\" (She shut her eyes.) \"No! there's nothing at all.\"\n\n\"Oh, Natasha!\" said Sonya, looking ecstatically and earnestly at her\nfriend as if she did not consider her worthy to hear what she meant to\nsay and as if she were saying it to someone else, with whom joking was\nout of the question, \"I am in love with your brother once for all and,\nwhatever may happen to him or to me, shall never cease to love him as\nlong as I live.\"\n\nNatasha looked at Sonya with wondering and inquisitive eyes, and said\nnothing. She felt that Sonya was speaking the truth, that there was such\nlove as Sonya was speaking of. But Natasha had not yet felt anything\nlike it. She believed it could be, but did not understand it.\n\n\"Shall you write to him?\" she asked.\n\nSonya became thoughtful. The question of how to write to Nicholas, and\nwhether she ought to write, tormented her. Now that he was already an\nofficer and a wounded hero, would it be right to remind him of herself\nand, as it might seem, of the obligations to her he had taken on\nhimself?\n\n\"I don't know. I think if he writes, I will write too,\" she said,\nblushing.\n\n\"And you won't feel ashamed to write to him?\"\n\nSonya smiled.\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"And I should be ashamed to write to Boris. I'm not going to.\"\n\n\"Why should you be ashamed?\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know. It's awkward and would make me ashamed.\"\n\n\"And I know why she'd be ashamed,\" said Petya, offended by Natasha's\nprevious remark. \"It's because she was in love with that fat one in\nspectacles\" (that was how Petya described his namesake, the new Count\nBezukhov) \"and now she's in love with that singer\" (he meant Natasha's\nItalian singing master), \"that's why she's ashamed!\"\n\n\"Petya, you're a stupid!\" said Natasha.\n\n\"Not more stupid than you, madam,\" said the nine-year-old Petya, with\nthe air of an old brigadier.\n\nThe countess had been prepared by Anna Mikhaylovna's hints at dinner. On\nretiring to her own room, she sat in an armchair, her eyes fixed on a\nminiature portrait of her son on the lid of a snuffbox, while the tears\nkept coming into her eyes. Anna Mikhaylovna, with the letter, came on\ntiptoe to the countess' door and paused.\n\n\"Don't come in,\" she said to the old count who was following her. \"Come\nlater.\" And she went in, closing the door behind her.\n\nThe count put his ear to the keyhole and listened.\n\nAt first he heard the sound of indifferent voices, then Anna\nMikhaylovna's voice alone in a long speech, then a cry, then silence,\nthen both voices together with glad intonations, and then footsteps.\nAnna Mikhaylovna opened the door. Her face wore the proud expression of\na surgeon who has just performed a difficult operation and admits the\npublic to appreciate his skill.\n\n\"It is done!\" she said to the count, pointing triumphantly to the\ncountess, who sat holding in one hand the snuffbox with its portrait and\nin the other the letter, and pressing them alternately to her lips.\n\nWhen she saw the count, she stretched out her arms to him, embraced his\nbald head, over which she again looked at the letter and the portrait,\nand in order to press them again to her lips, she slightly pushed away\nthe bald head. Vera, Natasha, Sonya, and Petya now entered the room, and\nthe reading of the letter began. After a brief description of the\ncampaign and the two battles in which he had taken part, and his\npromotion, Nicholas said that he kissed his father's and mother's hands\nasking for their blessing, and that he kissed Vera, Natasha, and Petya.\nBesides that, he sent greetings to Monsieur Schelling, Madame Schoss,\nand his old nurse, and asked them to kiss for him \"dear Sonya, whom he\nloved and thought of just the same as ever.\" When she heard this Sonya\nblushed so that tears came into her eyes and, unable to bear the looks\nturned upon her, ran away into the dancing hall, whirled round it at\nfull speed with her dress puffed out like a balloon, and, flushed and\nsmiling, plumped down on the floor. The countess was crying.\n\n\"Why are you crying, Mamma?\" asked Vera. \"From all he says one should be\nglad and not cry.\"\n\nThis was quite true, but the count, the countess, and Natasha looked at\nher reproachfully. \"And who is it she takes after?\" thought the\ncountess.\n\nNicholas' letter was read over hundreds of times, and those who were\nconsidered worthy to hear it had to come to the countess, for she did\nnot let it out of her hands. The tutors came, and the nurses, and\nDmitri, and several acquaintances, and the countess reread the letter\neach time with fresh pleasure and each time discovered in it fresh\nproofs of Nikolenka's virtues. How strange, how extraordinary, how\njoyful it seemed, that her son, the scarcely perceptible motion of whose\ntiny limbs she had felt twenty years ago within her, that son about whom\nshe used to have quarrels with the too indulgent count, that son who had\nfirst learned to say \"pear\" and then \"granny,\" that this son should now\nbe away in a foreign land amid strange surroundings, a manly warrior\ndoing some kind of man's work of his own, without help or guidance. The\nuniversal experience of ages, showing that children do grow\nimperceptibly from the cradle to manhood, did not exist for the\ncountess. Her son's growth toward manhood, at each of its stages, had\nseemed as extraordinary to her as if there had never existed the\nmillions of human beings who grew up in the same way. As twenty years\nbefore, it seemed impossible that the little creature who lived\nsomewhere under her heart would ever cry, suck her breast, and begin to\nspeak, so now she could not believe that that little creature could be\nthis strong, brave man, this model son and officer that, judging by this\nletter, he now was.\n\n\"What a style! How charmingly he describes!\" said she, reading the\ndescriptive part of the letter. \"And what a soul! Not a word about\nhimself.... Not a word! About some Denisov or other, though he himself,\nI dare say, is braver than any of them. He says nothing about his\nsufferings. What a heart! How like him it is! And how he has remembered\neverybody! Not forgetting anyone. I always said when he was only so\nhigh--I always said....\"\n\nFor more than a week preparations were being made, rough drafts of\nletters to Nicholas from all the household were written and copied out,\nwhile under the supervision of the countess and the solicitude of the\ncount, money and all things necessary for the uniform and equipment of\nthe newly commissioned officer were collected. Anna Mikhaylovna,\npractical woman that she was, had even managed by favor with army\nauthorities to secure advantageous means of communication for herself\nand her son. She had opportunities of sending her letters to the Grand\nDuke Constantine Pavlovich, who commanded the Guards. The Rostovs\nsupposed that The Russian Guards, Abroad, was quite a definite address,\nand that if a letter reached the Grand Duke in command of the Guards\nthere was no reason why it should not reach the Pavlograd regiment,\nwhich was presumably somewhere in the same neighborhood. And so it was\ndecided to send the letters and money by the Grand Duke's courier to\nBoris and Boris was to forward them to Nicholas. The letters were from\nthe old count, the countess, Petya, Vera, Natasha, and Sonya, and\nfinally there were six thousand rubles for his outfit and various other\nthings the old count sent to his son.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nOn the twelfth of November, Kutuzov's active army, in camp before\nOlmutz, was preparing to be reviewed next day by the two Emperors--the\nRussian and the Austrian. The Guards, just arrived from Russia, spent\nthe night ten miles from Olmutz and next morning were to come straight\nto the review, reaching the field at Olmutz by ten o'clock.\n\nThat day Nicholas Rostov received a letter from Boris, telling him that\nthe Ismaylov regiment was quartered for the night ten miles from Olmutz\nand that he wanted to see him as he had a letter and money for him.\nRostov was particularly in need of money now that the troops, after\ntheir active service, were stationed near Olmutz and the camp swarmed\nwith well-provisioned sutlers and Austrian Jews offering all sorts of\ntempting wares. The Pavlograds held feast after feast, celebrating\nawards they had received for the campaign, and made expeditions to\nOlmutz to visit a certain Caroline the Hungarian, who had recently\nopened a restaurant there with girls as waitresses. Rostov, who had just\ncelebrated his promotion to a cornetcy and bought Denisov's horse,\nBedouin, was in debt all round, to his comrades and the sutlers. On\nreceiving Boris' letter he rode with a fellow officer to Olmutz, dined\nthere, drank a bottle of wine, and then set off alone to the Guards'\ncamp to find his old playmate. Rostov had not yet had time to get his\nuniform. He had on a shabby cadet jacket, decorated with a soldier's\ncross, equally shabby cadet's riding breeches lined with worn leather,\nand an officer's saber with a sword knot. The Don horse he was riding\nwas one he had bought from a Cossack during the campaign, and he wore a\ncrumpled hussar cap stuck jauntily back on one side of his head. As he\nrode up to the camp he thought how he would impress Boris and all his\ncomrades of the Guards by his appearance--that of a fighting hussar who\nhad been under fire.\n\nThe Guards had made their whole march as if on a pleasure trip, parading\ntheir cleanliness and discipline. They had come by easy stages, their\nknapsacks conveyed on carts, and the Austrian authorities had provided\nexcellent dinners for the officers at every halting place. The regiments\nhad entered and left the town with their bands playing, and by the Grand\nDuke's orders the men had marched all the way in step (a practice on\nwhich the Guards prided themselves), the officers on foot and at their\nproper posts. Boris had been quartered, and had marched all the way,\nwith Berg who was already in command of a company. Berg, who had\nobtained his captaincy during the campaign, had gained the confidence of\nhis superiors by his promptitude and accuracy and had arranged his money\nmatters very satisfactorily. Boris, during the campaign, had made the\nacquaintance of many persons who might prove useful to him, and by a\nletter of recommendation he had brought from Pierre had become\nacquainted with Prince Andrew Bolkonski, through whom he hoped to obtain\na post on the commander-in-chief's staff. Berg and Boris, having rested\nafter yesterday's march, were sitting, clean and neatly dressed, at a\nround table in the clean quarters allotted to them, playing chess. Berg\nheld a smoking pipe between his knees. Boris, in the accurate way\ncharacteristic of him, was building a little pyramid of chessmen with\nhis delicate white fingers while awaiting Berg's move, and watched his\nopponent's face, evidently thinking about the game as he always thought\nonly of whatever he was engaged on.\n\n\"Well, how are you going to get out of that?\" he remarked.\n\n\"We'll try to,\" replied Berg, touching a pawn and then removing his\nhand.\n\nAt that moment the door opened.\n\n\"Here he is at last!\" shouted Rostov. \"And Berg too! Oh, you\npetisenfans, allay cushay dormir!\" he exclaimed, imitating his Russian\nnurse's French, at which he and Boris used to laugh long ago.\n\n\"Dear me, how you have changed!\"\n\nBoris rose to meet Rostov, but in doing so did not omit to steady and\nreplace some chessmen that were falling. He was about to embrace his\nfriend, but Nicholas avoided him. With that peculiar feeling of youth,\nthat dread of beaten tracks, and wish to express itself in a manner\ndifferent from that of its elders which is often insincere, Nicholas\nwished to do something special on meeting his friend. He wanted to pinch\nhim, push him, do anything but kiss him--a thing everybody did. But\nnotwithstanding this, Boris embraced him in a quiet, friendly way and\nkissed him three times.\n\nThey had not met for nearly half a year and, being at the age when young\nmen take their first steps on life's road, each saw immense changes in\nthe other, quite a new reflection of the society in which they had taken\nthose first steps. Both had changed greatly since they last met and both\nwere in a hurry to show the changes that had taken place in them.\n\n\"Oh, you damned dandies! Clean and fresh as if you'd been to a fete, not\nlike us sinners of the line,\" cried Rostov, with martial swagger and\nwith baritone notes in his voice, new to Boris, pointing to his own mud-\nbespattered breeches. The German landlady, hearing Rostov's loud voice,\npopped her head in at the door.\n\n\"Eh, is she pretty?\" he asked with a wink.\n\n\"Why do you shout so? You'll frighten them!\" said Boris. \"I did not\nexpect you today,\" he added. \"I only sent you the note yesterday by\nBolkonski--an adjutant of Kutuzov's, who's a friend of mine. I did not\nthink he would get it to you so quickly.... Well, how are you? Been\nunder fire already?\" asked Boris.\n\nWithout answering, Rostov shook the soldier's Cross of St. George\nfastened to the cording of his uniform and, indicating a bandaged arm,\nglanced at Berg with a smile.\n\n\"As you see,\" he said.\n\n\"Indeed? Yes, yes!\" said Boris, with a smile. \"And we too have had a\nsplendid march. You know, of course, that His Imperial Highness rode\nwith our regiment all the time, so that we had every comfort and every\nadvantage. What receptions we had in Poland! What dinners and balls! I\ncan't tell you. And the Tsarevich was very gracious to all our\nofficers.\"\n\nAnd the two friends told each other of their doings, the one of his\nhussar revels and life in the fighting line, the other of the pleasures\nand advantages of service under members of the Imperial family.\n\n\"Oh, you Guards!\" said Rostov. \"I say, send for some wine.\"\n\nBoris made a grimace.\n\n\"If you really want it,\" said he.\n\nHe went to his bed, drew a purse from under the clean pillow, and sent\nfor wine.\n\n\"Yes, and I have some money and a letter to give you,\" he added.\n\nRostov took the letter and, throwing the money on the sofa, put both\narms on the table and began to read. After reading a few lines, he\nglanced angrily at Berg, then, meeting his eyes, hid his face behind the\nletter.\n\n\"Well, they've sent you a tidy sum,\" said Berg, eying the heavy purse\nthat sank into the sofa. \"As for us, Count, we get along on our pay. I\ncan tell you for myself...\"\n\n\"I say, Berg, my dear fellow,\" said Rostov, \"when you get a letter from\nhome and meet one of your own people whom you want to talk everything\nover with, and I happen to be there, I'll go at once, to be out of your\nway! Do go somewhere, anywhere... to the devil!\" he exclaimed, and\nimmediately seizing him by the shoulder and looking amiably into his\nface, evidently wishing to soften the rudeness of his words, he added,\n\"Don't be hurt, my dear fellow; you know I speak from my heart as to an\nold acquaintance.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't mention it, Count! I quite understand,\" said Berg, getting up\nand speaking in a muffled and guttural voice.\n\n\"Go across to our hosts: they invited you,\" added Boris.\n\nBerg put on the cleanest of coats, without a spot or speck of dust,\nstood before a looking glass and brushed the hair on his temples\nupwards, in the way affected by the Emperor Alexander, and, having\nassured himself from the way Rostov looked at it that his coat had been\nnoticed, left the room with a pleasant smile.\n\n\"Oh dear, what a beast I am!\" muttered Rostov, as he read the letter.\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Oh, what a pig I am, not to have written and to have given them such a\nfright! Oh, what a pig I am!\" he repeated, flushing suddenly. \"Well,\nhave you sent Gabriel for some wine? All right let's have some!\"\n\nIn the letter from his parents was enclosed a letter of recommendation\nto Bagration which the old countess at Anna Mikhaylovna's advice had\nobtained through an acquaintance and sent to her son, asking him to take\nit to its destination and make use of it.\n\n\"What nonsense! Much I need it!\" said Rostov, throwing the letter under\nthe table.\n\n\"Why have you thrown that away?\" asked Boris.\n\n\"It is some letter of recommendation... what the devil do I want it\nfor!\"\n\n\"Why 'What the devil'?\" said Boris, picking it up and reading the\naddress. \"This letter would be of great use to you.\"\n\n\"I want nothing, and I won't be anyone's adjutant.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" inquired Boris.\n\n\"It's a lackey's job!\"\n\n\"You are still the same dreamer, I see,\" remarked Boris, shaking his\nhead.\n\n\"And you're still the same diplomatist! But that's not the point...\nCome, how are you?\" asked Rostov.\n\n\"Well, as you see. So far everything's all right, but I confess I should\nmuch like to be an adjutant and not remain at the front.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"Because when once a man starts on military service, he should try to\nmake as successful a career of it as possible.\"\n\n\"Oh, that's it!\" said Rostov, evidently thinking of something else.\n\nHe looked intently and inquiringly into his friend's eyes, evidently\ntrying in vain to find the answer to some question.\n\nOld Gabriel brought in the wine.\n\n\"Shouldn't we now send for Berg?\" asked Boris. \"He would drink with you.\nI can't.\"\n\n\"Well, send for him... and how do you get on with that German?\" asked\nRostov, with a contemptuous smile.\n\n\"He is a very, very nice, honest, and pleasant fellow,\" answered Boris.\n\nAgain Rostov looked intently into Boris' eyes and sighed. Berg returned,\nand over the bottle of wine conversation between the three officers\nbecame animated. The Guardsmen told Rostov of their march and how they\nhad been made much of in Russia, Poland, and abroad. They spoke of the\nsayings and doings of their commander, the Grand Duke, and told stories\nof his kindness and irascibility. Berg, as usual, kept silent when the\nsubject did not relate to himself, but in connection with the stories of\nthe Grand Duke's quick temper he related with gusto how in Galicia he\nhad managed to deal with the Grand Duke when the latter made a tour of\nthe regiments and was annoyed at the irregularity of a movement. With a\npleasant smile Berg related how the Grand Duke had ridden up to him in a\nviolent passion, shouting: \"Arnauts!\" (\"Arnauts\" was the Tsarevich's\nfavorite expression when he was in a rage) and called for the company\ncommander.\n\n\"Would you believe it, Count, I was not at all alarmed, because I knew I\nwas right. Without boasting, you know, I may say that I know the Army\nOrders by heart and know the Regulations as well as I do the Lord's\nPrayer. So, Count, there never is any negligence in my company, and so\nmy conscience was at ease. I came forward....\" (Berg stood up and showed\nhow he presented himself, with his hand to his cap, and really it would\nhave been difficult for a face to express greater respect and self-\ncomplacency than his did.) \"Well, he stormed at me, as the saying is,\nstormed and stormed and stormed! It was not a matter of life but rather\nof death, as the saying is. 'Albanians!' and 'devils!' and 'To\nSiberia!'\" said Berg with a sagacious smile. \"I knew I was in the right\nso I kept silent; was not that best, Count?... 'Hey, are you dumb?' he\nshouted. Still I remained silent. And what do you think, Count? The next\nday it was not even mentioned in the Orders of the Day. That's what\nkeeping one's head means. That's the way, Count,\" said Berg, lighting\nhis pipe and emitting rings of smoke.\n\n\"Yes, that was fine,\" said Rostov, smiling.\n\nBut Boris noticed that he was preparing to make fun of Berg, and\nskillfully changed the subject. He asked him to tell them how and where\nhe got his wound. This pleased Rostov and he began talking about it, and\nas he went on became more and more animated. He told them of his Schon\nGrabern affair, just as those who have taken part in a battle generally\ndo describe it, that is, as they would like it to have been, as they\nhave heard it described by others, and as sounds well, but not at all as\nit really was. Rostov was a truthful young man and would on no account\nhave told a deliberate lie. He began his story meaning to tell\neverything just as it happened, but imperceptibly, involuntarily, and\ninevitably he lapsed into falsehood. If he had told the truth to his\nhearers--who like himself had often heard stories of attacks and had\nformed a definite idea of what an attack was and were expecting to hear\njust such a story--they would either not have believed him or, still\nworse, would have thought that Rostov was himself to blame since what\ngenerally happens to the narrators of cavalry attacks had not happened\nto him. He could not tell them simply that everyone went at a trot and\nthat he fell off his horse and sprained his arm and then ran as hard as\nhe could from a Frenchman into the wood. Besides, to tell everything as\nit really happened, it would have been necessary to make an effort of\nwill to tell only what happened. It is very difficult to tell the truth,\nand young people are rarely capable of it. His hearers expected a story\nof how beside himself and all aflame with excitement, he had flown like\na storm at the square, cut his way in, slashed right and left, how his\nsaber had tasted flesh and he had fallen exhausted, and so on. And so he\ntold them all that.\n\nIn the middle of his story, just as he was saying: \"You cannot imagine\nwhat a strange frenzy one experiences during an attack,\" Prince Andrew,\nwhom Boris was expecting, entered the room. Prince Andrew, who liked to\nhelp young men, was flattered by being asked for his assistance and\nbeing well disposed toward Boris, who had managed to please him the day\nbefore, he wished to do what the young man wanted. Having been sent with\npapers from Kutuzov to the Tsarevich, he looked in on Boris, hoping to\nfind him alone. When he came in and saw an hussar of the line recounting\nhis military exploits (Prince Andrew could not endure that sort of man),\nhe gave Boris a pleasant smile, frowned as with half-closed eyes he\nlooked at Rostov, bowed slightly and wearily, and sat down languidly on\nthe sofa: he felt it unpleasant to have dropped in on bad company.\nRostov flushed up on noticing this, but he did not care, this was a mere\nstranger. Glancing, however, at Boris, he saw that he too seemed ashamed\nof the hussar of the line.\n\nIn spite of Prince Andrew's disagreeable, ironical tone, in spite of the\ncontempt with which Rostov, from his fighting army point of view,\nregarded all these little adjutants on the staff of whom the newcomer\nwas evidently one, Rostov felt confused, blushed, and became silent.\nBoris inquired what news there might be on the staff, and what, without\nindiscretion, one might ask about our plans.\n\n\"We shall probably advance,\" replied Bolkonski, evidently reluctant to\nsay more in the presence of a stranger.\n\nBerg took the opportunity to ask, with great politeness, whether, as was\nrumored, the allowance of forage money to captains of companies would be\ndoubled. To this Prince Andrew answered with a smile that he could give\nno opinion on such an important government order, and Berg laughed\ngaily.\n\n\"As to your business,\" Prince Andrew continued, addressing Boris, \"we\nwill talk of it later\" (and he looked round at Rostov). \"Come to me\nafter the review and we will do what is possible.\"\n\nAnd, having glanced round the room, Prince Andrew turned to Rostov,\nwhose state of unconquerable childish embarrassment now changing to\nanger he did not condescend to notice, and said: \"I think you were\ntalking of the Schon Grabern affair? Were you there?\"\n\n\"I was there,\" said Rostov angrily, as if intending to insult the aide-\nde-camp.\n\nBolkonski noticed the hussar's state of mind, and it amused him. With a\nslightly contemptuous smile, he said: \"Yes, there are many stories now\ntold about that affair!\"\n\n\"Yes, stories!\" repeated Rostov loudly, looking with eyes suddenly grown\nfurious, now at Boris, now at Bolkonski. \"Yes, many stories! But our\nstories are the stories of men who have been under the enemy's fire! Our\nstories have some weight, not like the stories of those fellows on the\nstaff who get rewards without doing anything!\"\n\n\"Of whom you imagine me to be one?\" said Prince Andrew, with a quiet and\nparticularly amiable smile.\n\nA strange feeling of exasperation and yet of respect for this man's\nself-possession mingled at that moment in Rostov's soul.\n\n\"I am not talking about you,\" he said, \"I don't know you and, frankly, I\ndon't want to. I am speaking of the staff in general.\"\n\n\"And I will tell you this,\" Prince Andrew interrupted in a tone of quiet\nauthority, \"you wish to insult me, and I am ready to agree with you that\nit would be very easy to do so if you haven't sufficient self-respect,\nbut admit that the time and place are very badly chosen. In a day or two\nwe shall all have to take part in a greater and more serious duel, and\nbesides, Drubetskoy, who says he is an old friend of yours, is not at\nall to blame that my face has the misfortune to displease you. However,\"\nhe added rising, \"you know my name and where to find me, but don't\nforget that I do not regard either myself or you as having been at all\ninsulted, and as a man older than you, my advice is to let the matter\ndrop. Well then, on Friday after the review I shall expect you,\nDrubetskoy. Au revoir!\" exclaimed Prince Andrew, and with a bow to them\nboth he went out.\n\nOnly when Prince Andrew was gone did Rostov think of what he ought to\nhave said. And he was still more angry at having omitted to say it. He\nordered his horse at once and, coldly taking leave of Boris, rode home.\nShould he go to headquarters next day and challenge that affected\nadjutant, or really let the matter drop, was the question that worried\nhim all the way. He thought angrily of the pleasure he would have at\nseeing the fright of that small and frail but proud man when covered by\nhis pistol, and then he felt with surprise that of all the men he knew\nthere was none he would so much like to have for a friend as that very\nadjutant whom he so hated.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nThe day after Rostov had been to see Boris, a review was held of the\nAustrian and Russian troops, both those freshly arrived from Russia and\nthose who had been campaigning under Kutuzov. The two Emperors, the\nRussian with his heir the Tsarevich, and the Austrian with the Archduke,\ninspected the allied army of eighty thousand men.\n\nFrom early morning the smart clean troops were on the move, forming up\non the field before the fortress. Now thousands of feet and bayonets\nmoved and halted at the officers' command, turned with banners flying,\nformed up at intervals, and wheeled round other similar masses of\ninfantry in different uniforms; now was heard the rhythmic beat of hoofs\nand the jingling of showy cavalry in blue, red, and green braided\nuniforms, with smartly dressed bandsmen in front mounted on black, roan,\nor gray horses; then again, spreading out with the brazen clatter of the\npolished shining cannon that quivered on the gun carriages and with the\nsmell of linstocks, came the artillery which crawled between the\ninfantry and cavalry and took up its appointed position. Not only the\ngenerals in full parade uniforms, with their thin or thick waists drawn\nin to the utmost, their red necks squeezed into their stiff collars, and\nwearing scarves and all their decorations, not only the elegant, pomaded\nofficers, but every soldier with his freshly washed and shaven face and\nhis weapons clean and polished to the utmost, and every horse groomed\ntill its coat shone like satin and every hair of its wetted mane lay\nsmooth--felt that no small matter was happening, but an important and\nsolemn affair. Every general and every soldier was conscious of his own\ninsignificance, aware of being but a drop in that ocean of men, and yet\nat the same time was conscious of his strength as a part of that\nenormous whole.\n\nFrom early morning strenuous activities and efforts had begun and by ten\no'clock all had been brought into due order. The ranks were drawn up on\nthe vast field. The whole army was extended in three lines: the cavalry\nin front, behind it the artillery, and behind that again the infantry.\n\nA space like a street was left between each two lines of troops. The\nthree parts of that army were sharply distinguished: Kutuzov's fighting\narmy (with the Pavlograds on the right flank of the front); those\nrecently arrived from Russia, both Guards and regiments of the line; and\nthe Austrian troops. But they all stood in the same lines, under one\ncommand, and in a like order.\n\nLike wind over leaves ran an excited whisper: \"They're coming! They're\ncoming!\" Alarmed voices were heard, and a stir of final preparation\nswept over all the troops.\n\nFrom the direction of Olmutz in front of them, a group was seen\napproaching. And at that moment, though the day was still, a light gust\nof wind blowing over the army slightly stirred the streamers on the\nlances and the unfolded standards fluttered against their staffs. It\nlooked as if by that slight motion the army itself was expressing its\njoy at the approach of the Emperors. One voice was heard shouting: \"Eyes\nfront!\" Then, like the crowing of cocks at sunrise, this was repeated by\nothers from various sides and all became silent.\n\nIn the deathlike stillness only the tramp of horses was heard. This was\nthe Emperors' suites. The Emperors rode up to the flank, and the\ntrumpets of the first cavalry regiment played the general march. It\nseemed as though not the trumpeters were playing, but as if the army\nitself, rejoicing at the Emperors' approach, had naturally burst into\nmusic. Amid these sounds, only the youthful kindly voice of the Emperor\nAlexander was clearly heard. He gave the words of greeting, and the\nfirst regiment roared \"Hurrah!\" so deafeningly, continuously, and\njoyfully that the men themselves were awed by their multitude and the\nimmensity of the power they constituted.\n\nRostov, standing in the front lines of Kutuzov's army which the Tsar\napproached first, experienced the same feeling as every other man in\nthat army: a feeling of self-forgetfulness, a proud consciousness of\nmight, and a passionate attraction to him who was the cause of this\ntriumph.\n\nHe felt that at a single word from that man all this vast mass (and he\nhimself an insignificant atom in it) would go through fire and water,\ncommit crime, die, or perform deeds of highest heroism, and so he could\nnot but tremble and his heart stand still at the imminence of that word.\n\n\"Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!\" thundered from all sides, one regiment after\nanother greeting the Tsar with the strains of the march, and then\n\"Hurrah!\"... Then the general march, and again \"Hurrah! Hurrah!\" growing\never stronger and fuller and merging into a deafening roar.\n\nTill the Tsar reached it, each regiment in its silence and immobility\nseemed like a lifeless body, but as soon as he came up it became alive,\nits thunder joining the roar of the whole line along which he had\nalready passed. Through the terrible and deafening roar of those voices,\namid the square masses of troops standing motionless as if turned to\nstone, hundreds of riders composing the suites moved carelessly but\nsymmetrically and above all freely, and in front of them two men--the\nEmperors. Upon them the undivided, tensely passionate attention of that\nwhole mass of men was concentrated.\n\nThe handsome young Emperor Alexander, in the uniform of the Horse\nGuards, wearing a cocked hat with its peaks front and back, with his\npleasant face and resonant though not loud voice, attracted everyone's\nattention.\n\nRostov was not far from the trumpeters, and with his keen sight had\nrecognized the Tsar and watched his approach. When he was within twenty\npaces, and Nicholas could clearly distinguish every detail of his\nhandsome, happy young face, he experienced a feeling of tenderness and\necstasy such as he had never before known. Every trait and every\nmovement of the Tsar's seemed to him enchanting.\n\nStopping in front of the Pavlograds, the Tsar said something in French\nto the Austrian Emperor and smiled.\n\nSeeing that smile, Rostov involuntarily smiled himself and felt a still\nstronger flow of love for his sovereign. He longed to show that love in\nsome way and knowing that this was impossible was ready to cry. The Tsar\ncalled the colonel of the regiment and said a few words to him.\n\n\"Oh God, what would happen to me if the Emperor spoke to me?\" thought\nRostov. \"I should die of happiness!\"\n\nThe Tsar addressed the officers also: \"I thank you all, gentlemen, I\nthank you with my whole heart.\" To Rostov every word sounded like a\nvoice from heaven. How gladly would he have died at once for his Tsar!\n\n\"You have earned the St. George's standards and will be worthy of them.\"\n\n\"Oh, to die, to die for him,\" thought Rostov.\n\nThe Tsar said something more which Rostov did not hear, and the\nsoldiers, straining their lungs, shouted \"Hurrah!\"\n\nRostov too, bending over his saddle, shouted \"Hurrah!\" with all his\nmight, feeling that he would like to injure himself by that shout, if\nonly to express his rapture fully.\n\nThe Tsar stopped a few minutes in front of the hussars as if undecided.\n\n\"How can the Emperor be undecided?\" thought Rostov, but then even this\nindecision appeared to him majestic and enchanting, like everything else\nthe Tsar did.\n\nThat hesitation lasted only an instant. The Tsar's foot, in the narrow\npointed boot then fashionable, touched the groin of the bobtailed bay\nmare he rode, his hand in a white glove gathered up the reins, and he\nmoved off accompanied by an irregularly swaying sea of aides-de-camp.\nFarther and farther he rode away, stopping at other regiments, till at\nlast only his white plumes were visible to Rostov from amid the suites\nthat surrounded the Emperors.\n\nAmong the gentlemen of the suite, Rostov noticed Bolkonski, sitting his\nhorse indolently and carelessly. Rostov recalled their quarrel of\nyesterday and the question presented itself whether he ought or ought\nnot to challenge Bolkonski. \"Of course not!\" he now thought. \"Is it\nworth thinking or speaking of it at such a moment? At a time of such\nlove, such rapture, and such self-sacrifice, what do any of our quarrels\nand affronts matter? I love and forgive everybody now.\"\n\nWhen the Emperor had passed nearly all the regiments, the troops began a\nceremonial march past him, and Rostov on Bedouin, recently purchased\nfrom Denisov, rode past too, at the rear of his squadron--that is, alone\nand in full view of the Emperor.\n\nBefore he reached him, Rostov, who was a splendid horseman, spurred\nBedouin twice and successfully put him to the showy trot in which the\nanimal went when excited. Bending his foaming muzzle to his chest, his\ntail extended, Bedouin, as if also conscious of the Emperor's eye upon\nhim, passed splendidly, lifting his feet with a high and graceful\naction, as if flying through the air without touching the ground.\n\nRostov himself, his legs well back and his stomach drawn in and feeling\nhimself one with his horse, rode past the Emperor with a frowning but\nblissful face \"like a vewy devil,\" as Denisov expressed it.\n\n\"Fine fellows, the Pavlograds!\" remarked the Emperor.\n\n\"My God, how happy I should be if he ordered me to leap into the fire\nthis instant!\" thought Rostov.\n\nWhen the review was over, the newly arrived officers, and also\nKutuzov's, collected in groups and began to talk about the awards, about\nthe Austrians and their uniforms, about their lines, about Bonaparte,\nand how badly the latter would fare now, especially if the Essen corps\narrived and Prussia took our side.\n\nBut the talk in every group was chiefly about the Emperor Alexander. His\nevery word and movement was described with ecstasy.\n\nThey all had but one wish: to advance as soon as possible against the\nenemy under the Emperor's command. Commanded by the Emperor himself they\ncould not fail to vanquish anyone, be it whom it might: so thought\nRostov and most of the officers after the review.\n\nAll were then more confident of victory than the winning of two battles\nwould have made them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nThe day after the review, Boris, in his best uniform and with his\ncomrade Berg's best wishes for success, rode to Olmutz to see Bolkonski,\nwishing to profit by his friendliness and obtain for himself the best\npost he could--preferably that of adjutant to some important personage,\na position in the army which seemed to him most attractive. \"It is all\nvery well for Rostov, whose father sends him ten thousand rubles at a\ntime, to talk about not wishing to cringe to anybody and not be anyone's\nlackey, but I who have nothing but my brains have to make a career and\nmust not miss opportunities, but must avail myself of them!\" he\nreflected.\n\nHe did not find Prince Andrew in Olmutz that day, but the appearance of\nthe town where the headquarters and the diplomatic corps were stationed\nand the two Emperors were living with their suites, households, and\ncourts only strengthened his desire to belong to that higher world.\n\nHe knew no one, and despite his smart Guardsman's uniform, all these\nexalted personages passing in the streets in their elegant carriages\nwith their plumes, ribbons, and medals, both courtiers and military men,\nseemed so immeasurably above him, an insignificant officer of the\nGuards, that they not only did not wish to, but simply could not, be\naware of his existence. At the quarters of the commander-in-chief,\nKutuzov, where he inquired for Bolkonski, all the adjutants and even the\norderlies looked at him as if they wished to impress on him that a great\nmany officers like him were always coming there and that everybody was\nheartily sick of them. In spite of this, or rather because of it, next\nday, November 15, after dinner he again went to Olmutz and, entering the\nhouse occupied by Kutuzov, asked for Bolkonski. Prince Andrew was in and\nBoris was shown into a large hall probably formerly used for dancing,\nbut in which five beds now stood, and furniture of various kinds: a\ntable, chairs, and a clavichord. One adjutant, nearest the door, was\nsitting at the table in a Persian dressing gown, writing. Another, the\nred, stout Nesvitski, lay on a bed with his arms under his head,\nlaughing with an officer who had sat down beside him. A third was\nplaying a Viennese waltz on the clavichord, while a fourth, lying on the\nclavichord, sang the tune. Bolkonski was not there. None of these\ngentlemen changed his position on seeing Boris. The one who was writing\nand whom Boris addressed turned round crossly and told him Bolkonski was\non duty and that he should go through the door on the left into the\nreception room if he wished to see him. Boris thanked him and went to\nthe reception room, where he found some ten officers and generals.\n\nWhen he entered, Prince Andrew, his eyes drooping contemptuously (with\nthat peculiar expression of polite weariness which plainly says, \"If it\nwere not my duty I would not talk to you for a moment\"), was listening\nto an old Russian general with decorations, who stood very erect, almost\non tiptoe, with a soldier's obsequious expression on his purple face,\nreporting something.\n\n\"Very well, then, be so good as to wait,\" said Prince Andrew to the\ngeneral, in Russian, speaking with the French intonation he affected\nwhen he wished to speak contemptuously, and noticing Boris, Prince\nAndrew, paying no more heed to the general who ran after him imploring\nhim to hear something more, nodded and turned to him with a cheerful\nsmile.\n\nAt that moment Boris clearly realized what he had before surmised, that\nin the army, besides the subordination and discipline prescribed in the\nmilitary code, which he and the others knew in the regiment, there was\nanother, more important, subordination, which made this tight-laced,\npurple-faced general wait respectfully while Captain Prince Andrew, for\nhis own pleasure, chose to chat with Lieutenant Drubetskoy. More than\never was Boris resolved to serve in future not according to the written\ncode, but under this unwritten law. He felt now that merely by having\nbeen recommended to Prince Andrew he had already risen above the general\nwho at the front had the power to annihilate him, a lieutenant of the\nGuards. Prince Andrew came up to him and took his hand.\n\n\"I am very sorry you did not find me in yesterday. I was fussing about\nwith Germans all day. We went with Weyrother to survey the dispositions.\nWhen Germans start being accurate, there's no end to it!\"\n\nBoris smiled, as if he understood what Prince Andrew was alluding to as\nsomething generally known. But it was the first time he had heard\nWeyrother's name, or even the term \"dispositions.\"\n\n\"Well, my dear fellow, so you still want to be an adjutant? I have been\nthinking about you.\"\n\n\"Yes, I was thinking\"--for some reason Boris could not help blushing--\n\"of asking the commander-in-chief. He has had a letter from Prince\nKuragin about me. I only wanted to ask because I fear the Guards won't\nbe in action,\" he added as if in apology.\n\n\"All right, all right. We'll talk it over,\" replied Prince Andrew. \"Only\nlet me report this gentleman's business, and I shall be at your\ndisposal.\"\n\nWhile Prince Andrew went to report about the purple-faced general, that\ngentleman--evidently not sharing Boris' conception of the advantages of\nthe unwritten code of subordination--looked so fixedly at the\npresumptuous lieutenant who had prevented his finishing what he had to\nsay to the adjutant that Boris felt uncomfortable. He turned away and\nwaited impatiently for Prince Andrew's return from the commander-in-\nchief's room.\n\n\"You see, my dear fellow, I have been thinking about you,\" said Prince\nAndrew when they had gone into the large room where the clavichord was.\n\"It's no use your going to the commander-in-chief. He would say a lot of\npleasant things, ask you to dinner\" (\"That would not be bad as regards\nthe unwritten code,\" thought Boris), \"but nothing more would come of it.\nThere will soon be a battalion of us aides-de-camp and adjutants! But\nthis is what we'll do: I have a good friend, an adjutant general and an\nexcellent fellow, Prince Dolgorukov; and though you may not know it, the\nfact is that now Kutuzov with his staff and all of us count for nothing.\nEverything is now centered round the Emperor. So we will go to\nDolgorukov; I have to go there anyhow and I have already spoken to him\nabout you. We shall see whether he cannot attach you to himself or find\na place for you somewhere nearer the sun.\"\n\nPrince Andrew always became specially keen when he had to guide a young\nman and help him to worldly success. Under cover of obtaining help of\nthis kind for another, which from pride he would never accept for\nhimself, he kept in touch with the circle which confers success and\nwhich attracted him. He very readily took up Boris' cause and went with\nhim to Dolgorukov.\n\nIt was late in the evening when they entered the palace at Olmutz\noccupied by the Emperors and their retinues.\n\nThat same day a council of war had been held in which all the members of\nthe Hofkriegsrath and both Emperors took part. At that council, contrary\nto the views of the old generals Kutuzov and Prince Schwartzenberg, it\nhad been decided to advance immediately and give battle to Bonaparte.\nThe council of war was just over when Prince Andrew accompanied by Boris\narrived at the palace to find Dolgorukov. Everyone at headquarters was\nstill under the spell of the day's council, at which the party of the\nyoung had triumphed. The voices of those who counseled delay and advised\nwaiting for something else before advancing had been so completely\nsilenced and their arguments confuted by such conclusive evidence of the\nadvantages of attacking that what had been discussed at the council--the\ncoming battle and the victory that would certainly result from it--no\nlonger seemed to be in the future but in the past. All the advantages\nwere on our side. Our enormous forces, undoubtedly superior to\nNapoleon's, were concentrated in one place, the troops inspired by the\nEmperors' presence were eager for action. The strategic position where\nthe operations would take place was familiar in all its details to the\nAustrian General Weyrother: a lucky accident had ordained that the\nAustrian army should maneuver the previous year on the very fields where\nthe French had now to be fought; the adjacent locality was known and\nshown in every detail on the maps, and Bonaparte, evidently weakened,\nwas undertaking nothing.\n\nDolgorukov, one of the warmest advocates of an attack, had just returned\nfrom the council, tired and exhausted but eager and proud of the victory\nthat had been gained. Prince Andrew introduced his protege, but Prince\nDolgorukov politely and firmly pressing his hand said nothing to Boris\nand, evidently unable to suppress the thoughts which were uppermost in\nhis mind at that moment, addressed Prince Andrew in French.\n\n\"Ah, my dear fellow, what a battle we have gained! God grant that the\none that will result from it will be as victorious! However, dear\nfellow,\" he said abruptly and eagerly, \"I must confess to having been\nunjust to the Austrians and especially to Weyrother. What exactitude,\nwhat minuteness, what knowledge of the locality, what foresight for\nevery eventuality, every possibility even to the smallest detail! No, my\ndear fellow, no conditions better than our present ones could have been\ndevised. This combination of Austrian precision with Russian valor--what\nmore could be wished for?\"\n\n\"So the attack is definitely resolved on?\" asked Bolkonski.\n\n\"And do you know, my dear fellow, it seems to me that Bonaparte has\ndecidedly lost bearings, you know that a letter was received from him\ntoday for the Emperor.\" Dolgorukov smiled significantly.\n\n\"Is that so? And what did he say?\" inquired Bolkonski.\n\n\"What can he say? Tra-di-ri-di-ra and so on... merely to gain time. I\ntell you he is in our hands, that's certain! But what was most amusing,\"\nhe continued, with a sudden, good-natured laugh, \"was that we could not\nthink how to address the reply! If not as 'Consul' and of course not as\n'Emperor,' it seemed to me it should be to 'General Bonaparte.'\"\n\n\"But between not recognizing him as Emperor and calling him General\nBonaparte, there is a difference,\" remarked Bolkonski.\n\n\"That's just it,\" interrupted Dolgorukov quickly, laughing. \"You know\nBilibin--he's a very clever fellow. He suggested addressing him as\n'Usurper and Enemy of Mankind.'\"\n\nDolgorukov laughed merrily.\n\n\"Only that?\" said Bolkonski.\n\n\"All the same, it was Bilibin who found a suitable form for the address.\nHe is a wise and clever fellow.\"\n\n\"What was it?\"\n\n\"To the Head of the French Government... Au chef du gouvernement\nfrancais,\" said Dolgorukov, with grave satisfaction. \"Good, wasn't it?\"\n\n\"Yes, but he will dislike it extremely,\" said Bolkonski.\n\n\"Oh yes, very much! My brother knows him, he's dined with him--the\npresent Emperor--more than once in Paris, and tells me he never met a\nmore cunning or subtle diplomatist--you know, a combination of French\nadroitness and Italian play-acting! Do you know the tale about him and\nCount Markov? Count Markov was the only man who knew how to handle him.\nYou know the story of the handkerchief? It is delightful!\"\n\nAnd the talkative Dolgorukov, turning now to Boris, now to Prince\nAndrew, told how Bonaparte wishing to test Markov, our ambassador,\npurposely dropped a handkerchief in front of him and stood looking at\nMarkov, probably expecting Markov to pick it up for him, and how Markov\nimmediately dropped his own beside it and picked it up without touching\nBonaparte's.\n\n\"Delightful!\" said Bolkonski. \"But I have come to you, Prince, as a\npetitioner on behalf of this young man. You see...\" but before Prince\nAndrew could finish, an aide-de-camp came in to summon Dolgorukov to the\nEmperor.\n\n\"Oh, what a nuisance,\" said Dolgorukov, getting up hurriedly and\npressing the hands of Prince Andrew and Boris. \"You know I should be\nvery glad to do all in my power both for you and for this dear young\nman.\" Again he pressed the hand of the latter with an expression of\ngood-natured, sincere, and animated levity. \"But you see... another\ntime!\"\n\nBoris was excited by the thought of being so close to the higher powers\nas he felt himself to be at that moment. He was conscious that here he\nwas in contact with the springs that set in motion the enormous\nmovements of the mass of which in his regiment he felt himself a tiny,\nobedient, and insignificant atom. They followed Prince Dolgorukov out\ninto the corridor and met--coming out of the door of the Emperor's room\nby which Dolgorukov had entered--a short man in civilian clothes with a\nclever face and sharply projecting jaw which, without spoiling his face,\ngave him a peculiar vivacity and shiftiness of expression. This short\nman nodded to Dolgorukov as to an intimate friend and stared at Prince\nAndrew with cool intensity, walking straight toward him and evidently\nexpecting him to bow or to step out of his way. Prince Andrew did\nneither: a look of animosity appeared on his face and the other turned\naway and went down the side of the corridor.\n\n\"Who was that?\" asked Boris.\n\n\"He is one of the most remarkable, but to me most unpleasant of men--the\nMinister of Foreign Affairs, Prince Adam Czartoryski.... It is such men\nas he who decide the fate of nations,\" added Bolkonski with a sigh he\ncould not suppress, as they passed out of the palace.\n\nNext day, the army began its campaign, and up to the very battle of\nAusterlitz, Boris was unable to see either Prince Andrew or Dolgorukov\nagain and remained for a while with the Ismaylov regiment.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nAt dawn on the sixteenth of November, Denisov's squadron, in which\nNicholas Rostov served and which was in Prince Bagration's detachment,\nmoved from the place where it had spent the night, advancing into action\nas arranged, and after going behind other columns for about two thirds\nof a mile was stopped on the highroad. Rostov saw the Cossacks and then\nthe first and second squadrons of hussars and infantry battalions and\nartillery pass by and go forward and then Generals Bagration and\nDolgorukov ride past with their adjutants. All the fear before action\nwhich he had experienced as previously, all the inner struggle to\nconquer that fear, all his dreams of distinguishing himself as a true\nhussar in this battle, had been wasted. Their squadron remained in\nreserve and Nicholas Rostov spent that day in a dull and wretched mood.\nAt nine in the morning, he heard firing in front and shouts of hurrah,\nand saw wounded being brought back (there were not many of them), and at\nlast he saw how a whole detachment of French cavalry was brought in,\nconvoyed by a sotnya of Cossacks. Evidently the affair was over and,\nthough not big, had been a successful engagement. The men and officers\nreturning spoke of a brilliant victory, of the occupation of the town of\nWischau and the capture of a whole French squadron. The day was bright\nand sunny after a sharp night frost, and the cheerful glitter of that\nautumn day was in keeping with the news of victory which was conveyed,\nnot only by the tales of those who had taken part in it, but also by the\njoyful expression on the faces of soldiers, officers, generals, and\nadjutants, as they passed Rostov going or coming. And Nicholas, who had\nvainly suffered all the dread that precedes a battle and had spent that\nhappy day in inactivity, was all the more depressed.\n\n\"Come here, Wostov. Let's dwink to dwown our gwief!\" shouted Denisov,\nwho had settled down by the roadside with a flask and some food.\n\nThe officers gathered round Denisov's canteen, eating and talking.\n\n\"There! They are bringing another!\" cried one of the officers,\nindicating a captive French dragoon who was being brought in on foot by\ntwo Cossacks.\n\nOne of them was leading by the bridle a fine large French horse he had\ntaken from the prisoner.\n\n\"Sell us that horse!\" Denisov called out to the Cossacks.\n\n\"If you like, your honor!\"\n\nThe officers got up and stood round the Cossacks and their prisoner. The\nFrench dragoon was a young Alsatian who spoke French with a German\naccent. He was breathless with agitation, his face was red, and when he\nheard some French spoken he at once began speaking to the officers,\naddressing first one, then another. He said he would not have been\ntaken, it was not his fault but the corporal's who had sent him to seize\nsome horsecloths, though he had told him the Russians were there. And at\nevery word he added: \"But don't hurt my little horse!\" and stroked the\nanimal. It was plain that he did not quite grasp where he was. Now he\nexcused himself for having been taken prisoner and now, imagining\nhimself before his own officers, insisted on his soldierly discipline\nand zeal in the service. He brought with him into our rearguard all the\nfreshness of atmosphere of the French army, which was so alien to us.\n\nThe Cossacks sold the horse for two gold pieces, and Rostov, being the\nrichest of the officers now that he had received his money, bought it.\n\n\"But don't hurt my little horse!\" said the Alsatian good-naturedly to\nRostov when the animal was handed over to the hussar.\n\nRostov smilingly reassured the dragoon and gave him money.\n\n\"Alley! Alley!\" said the Cossack, touching the prisoner's arm to make\nhim go on.\n\n\"The Emperor! The Emperor!\" was suddenly heard among the hussars.\n\nAll began to run and bustle, and Rostov saw coming up the road behind\nhim several riders with white plumes in their hats. In a moment everyone\nwas in his place, waiting.\n\nRostov did not know or remember how he ran to his place and mounted.\nInstantly his regret at not having been in action and his dejected mood\namid people of whom he was weary had gone, instantly every thought of\nhimself had vanished. He was filled with happiness at his nearness to\nthe Emperor. He felt that this nearness by itself made up to him for the\nday he had lost. He was happy as a lover when the longed-for moment of\nmeeting arrives. Not daring to look round and without looking round, he\nwas ecstatically conscious of his approach. He felt it not only from the\nsound of the hoofs of the approaching cavalcade, but because as he drew\nnear everything grew brighter, more joyful, more significant, and more\nfestive around him. Nearer and nearer to Rostov came that sun shedding\nbeams of mild and majestic light around, and already he felt himself\nenveloped in those beams, he heard his voice, that kindly, calm, and\nmajestic voice that was yet so simple! And as if in accord with Rostov's\nfeeling, there was a deathly stillness amid which was heard the\nEmperor's voice.\n\n\"The Pavlograd hussars?\" he inquired.\n\n\"The reserves, sire!\" replied a voice, a very human one compared to that\nwhich had said: \"The Pavlograd hussars?\"\n\nThe Emperor drew level with Rostov and halted. Alexander's face was even\nmore beautiful than it had been three days before at the review. It\nshone with such gaiety and youth, such innocent youth, that it suggested\nthe liveliness of a fourteen-year-old boy, and yet it was the face of\nthe majestic Emperor. Casually, while surveying the squadron, the\nEmperor's eyes met Rostov's and rested on them for not more than two\nseconds. Whether or no the Emperor understood what was going on in\nRostov's soul (it seemed to Rostov that he understood everything), at\nany rate his light-blue eyes gazed for about two seconds into Rostov's\nface. A gentle, mild light poured from them. Then all at once he raised\nhis eyebrows, abruptly touched his horse with his left foot, and\ngalloped on.\n\nThe younger Emperor could not restrain his wish to be present at the\nbattle and, in spite of the remonstrances of his courtiers, at twelve\no'clock left the third column with which he had been and galloped toward\nthe vanguard. Before he came up with the hussars, several adjutants met\nhim with news of the successful result of the action.\n\nThis battle, which consisted in the capture of a French squadron, was\nrepresented as a brilliant victory over the French, and so the Emperor\nand the whole army, especially while the smoke hung over the\nbattlefield, believed that the French had been defeated and were\nretreating against their will. A few minutes after the Emperor had\npassed, the Pavlograd division was ordered to advance. In Wischau\nitself, a petty German town, Rostov saw the Emperor again. In the market\nplace, where there had been some rather heavy firing before the\nEmperor's arrival, lay several killed and wounded soldiers whom there\nhad not been time to move. The Emperor, surrounded by his suite of\nofficers and courtiers, was riding a bobtailed chestnut mare, a\ndifferent one from that which he had ridden at the review, and bending\nto one side he gracefully held a gold lorgnette to his eyes and looked\nat a soldier who lay prone, with blood on his uncovered head. The\nwounded soldier was so dirty, coarse, and revolting that his proximity\nto the Emperor shocked Rostov. Rostov saw how the Emperor's rather round\nshoulders shuddered as if a cold shiver had run down them, how his left\nfoot began convulsively tapping the horse's side with the spur, and how\nthe well-trained horse looked round unconcerned and did not stir. An\nadjutant, dismounting, lifted the soldier under the arms to place him on\na stretcher that had been brought. The soldier groaned.\n\n\"Gently, gently! Can't you do it more gently?\" said the Emperor\napparently suffering more than the dying soldier, and he rode away.\n\nRostov saw tears filling the Emperor's eyes and heard him, as he was\nriding away, say to Czartoryski: \"What a terrible thing war is: what a\nterrible thing! Quelle terrible chose que la guerre!\"\n\nThe troops of the vanguard were stationed before Wischau, within sight\nof the enemy's lines, which all day long had yielded ground to us at the\nleast firing. The Emperor's gratitude was announced to the vanguard,\nrewards were promised, and the men received a double ration of vodka.\nThe campfires crackled and the soldiers' songs resounded even more\nmerrily than on the previous night. Denisov celebrated his promotion to\nthe rank of major, and Rostov, who had already drunk enough, at the end\nof the feast proposed the Emperor's health. \"Not 'our Sovereign, the\nEmperor,' as they say at official dinners,\" said he, \"but the health of\nour Sovereign, that good, enchanting, and great man! Let us drink to his\nhealth and to the certain defeat of the French!\"\n\n\"If we fought before,\" he said, \"not letting the French pass, as at\nSchon Grabern, what shall we not do now when he is at the front? We will\nall die for him gladly! Is it not so, gentlemen? Perhaps I am not saying\nit right, I have drunk a good deal--but that is how I feel, and so do\nyou too! To the health of Alexander the First! Hurrah!\"\n\n\"Hurrah!\" rang the enthusiastic voices of the officers.\n\nAnd the old cavalry captain, Kirsten, shouted enthusiastically and no\nless sincerely than the twenty-year-old Rostov.\n\nWhen the officers had emptied and smashed their glasses, Kirsten filled\nothers and, in shirt sleeves and breeches, went glass in hand to the\nsoldiers' bonfires and with his long gray mustache, his white chest\nshowing under his open shirt, he stood in a majestic pose in the light\nof the campfire, waving his uplifted arm.\n\n\"Lads! here's to our Sovereign, the Emperor, and victory over our\nenemies! Hurrah!\" he exclaimed in his dashing, old, hussar's baritone.\n\nThe hussars crowded round and responded heartily with loud shouts.\n\nLate that night, when all had separated, Denisov with his short hand\npatted his favorite, Rostov, on the shoulder.\n\n\"As there's no one to fall in love with on campaign, he's fallen in love\nwith the Tsar,\" he said.\n\n\"Denisov, don't make fun of it!\" cried Rostov. \"It is such a lofty,\nbeautiful feeling, such a...\"\n\n\"I believe it, I believe it, fwiend, and I share and appwove...\"\n\n\"No, you don't understand!\"\n\nAnd Rostov got up and went wandering among the campfires, dreaming of\nwhat happiness it would be to die--not in saving the Emperor's life (he\ndid not even dare to dream of that), but simply to die before his eyes.\nHe really was in love with the Tsar and the glory of the Russian arms\nand the hope of future triumph. And he was not the only man to\nexperience that feeling during those memorable days preceding the battle\nof Austerlitz: nine tenths of the men in the Russian army were then in\nlove, though less ecstatically, with their Tsar and the glory of the\nRussian arms.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nThe next day the Emperor stopped at Wischau, and Villier, his physician,\nwas repeatedly summoned to see him. At headquarters and among the troops\nnear by the news spread that the Emperor was unwell. He ate nothing and\nhad slept badly that night, those around him reported. The cause of this\nindisposition was the strong impression made on his sensitive mind by\nthe sight of the killed and wounded.\n\nAt daybreak on the seventeenth, a French officer who had come with a\nflag of truce, demanding an audience with the Russian Emperor, was\nbrought into Wischau from our outposts. This officer was Savary. The\nEmperor had only just fallen asleep and so Savary had to wait. At midday\nhe was admitted to the Emperor, and an hour later he rode off with\nPrince Dolgorukov to the advanced post of the French army.\n\nIt was rumored that Savary had been sent to propose to Alexander a\nmeeting with Napoleon. To the joy and pride of the whole army, a\npersonal interview was refused, and instead of the Sovereign, Prince\nDolgorukov, the victor at Wischau, was sent with Savary to negotiate\nwith Napoleon if, contrary to expectations, these negotiations were\nactuated by a real desire for peace.\n\nToward evening Dolgorukov came back, went straight to the Tsar, and\nremained alone with him for a long time.\n\nOn the eighteenth and nineteenth of November, the army advanced two\ndays' march and the enemy's outposts after a brief interchange of shots\nretreated. In the highest army circles from midday on the nineteenth, a\ngreat, excitedly bustling activity began which lasted till the morning\nof the twentieth, when the memorable battle of Austerlitz was fought.\n\nTill midday on the nineteenth, the activity--the eager talk, running to\nand fro, and dispatching of adjutants--was confined to the Emperor's\nheadquarters. But on the afternoon of that day, this activity reached\nKutuzov's headquarters and the staffs of the commanders of columns. By\nevening, the adjutants had spread it to all ends and parts of the army,\nand in the night from the nineteenth to the twentieth, the whole eighty\nthousand allied troops rose from their bivouacs to the hum of voices,\nand the army swayed and started in one enormous mass six miles long.\n\nThe concentrated activity which had begun at the Emperor's headquarters\nin the morning and had started the whole movement that followed was like\nthe first movement of the main wheel of a large tower clock. One wheel\nslowly moved, another was set in motion, and a third, and wheels began\nto revolve faster and faster, levers and cogwheels to work, chimes to\nplay, figures to pop out, and the hands to advance with regular motion\nas a result of all that activity.\n\nJust as in the mechanism of a clock, so in the mechanism of the military\nmachine, an impulse once given leads to the final result; and just as\nindifferently quiescent till the moment when motion is transmitted to\nthem are the parts of the mechanism which the impulse has not yet\nreached. Wheels creak on their axles as the cogs engage one another and\nthe revolving pulleys whirr with the rapidity of their movement, but a\nneighboring wheel is as quiet and motionless as though it were prepared\nto remain so for a hundred years; but the moment comes when the lever\ncatches it and obeying the impulse that wheel begins to creak and joins\nin the common motion the result and aim of which are beyond its ken.\n\nJust as in a clock, the result of the complicated motion of innumerable\nwheels and pulleys is merely a slow and regular movement of the hands\nwhich show the time, so the result of all the complicated human\nactivities of 160,000 Russians and French--all their passions, desires,\nremorse, humiliations, sufferings, outbursts of pride, fear, and\nenthusiasm--was only the loss of the battle of Austerlitz, the so-called\nbattle of the three Emperors--that is to say, a slow movement of the\nhand on the dial of human history.\n\nPrince Andrew was on duty that day and in constant attendance on the\ncommander-in-chief.\n\nAt six in the evening, Kutuzov went to the Emperor's headquarters and\nafter staying but a short time with the Tsar went to see the grand\nmarshal of the court, Count Tolstoy.\n\nBolkonski took the opportunity to go in to get some details of the\ncoming action from Dolgorukov. He felt that Kutuzov was upset and\ndissatisfied about something and that at headquarters they were\ndissatisfied with him, and also that at the Emperor's headquarters\neveryone adopted toward him the tone of men who know something others do\nnot know: he therefore wished to speak to Dolgorukov.\n\n\"Well, how d'you do, my dear fellow?\" said Dolgorukov, who was sitting\nat tea with Bilibin. \"The fete is for tomorrow. How is your old fellow?\nOut of sorts?\"\n\n\"I won't say he is out of sorts, but I fancy he would like to be heard.\"\n\n\"But they heard him at the council of war and will hear him when he\ntalks sense, but to temporize and wait for something now when Bonaparte\nfears nothing so much as a general battle is impossible.\"\n\n\"Yes, you have seen him?\" said Prince Andrew. \"Well, what is Bonaparte\nlike? How did he impress you?\"\n\n\"Yes, I saw him, and am convinced that he fears nothing so much as a\ngeneral engagement,\" repeated Dolgorukov, evidently prizing this general\nconclusion which he had arrived at from his interview with Napoleon. \"If\nhe weren't afraid of a battle why did he ask for that interview? Why\nnegotiate, and above all why retreat, when to retreat is so contrary to\nhis method of conducting war? Believe me, he is afraid, afraid of a\ngeneral battle. His hour has come! Mark my words!\"\n\n\"But tell me, what is he like, eh?\" said Prince Andrew again.\n\n\"He is a man in a gray overcoat, very anxious that I should call him\n'Your Majesty,' but who, to his chagrin, got no title from me! That's\nthe sort of man he is, and nothing more,\" replied Dolgorukov, looking\nround at Bilibin with a smile.\n\n\"Despite my great respect for old Kutuzov,\" he continued, \"we should be\na nice set of fellows if we were to wait about and so give him a chance\nto escape, or to trick us, now that we certainly have him in our hands!\nNo, we mustn't forget Suvorov and his rule--not to put yourself in a\nposition to be attacked, but yourself to attack. Believe me in war the\nenergy of young men often shows the way better than all the experience\nof old Cunctators.\"\n\n\"But in what position are we going to attack him? I have been at the\noutposts today and it is impossible to say where his chief forces are\nsituated,\" said Prince Andrew.\n\nHe wished to explain to Dolgorukov a plan of attack he had himself\nformed.\n\n\"Oh, that is all the same,\" Dolgorukov said quickly, and getting up he\nspread a map on the table. \"All eventualities have been foreseen. If he\nis standing before Brunn...\"\n\nAnd Prince Dolgorukov rapidly but indistinctly explained Weyrother's\nplan of a flanking movement.\n\nPrince Andrew began to reply and to state his own plan, which might have\nbeen as good as Weyrother's, but for the disadvantage that Weyrother's\nhad already been approved. As soon as Prince Andrew began to demonstrate\nthe defects of the latter and the merits of his own plan, Prince\nDolgorukov ceased to listen to him and gazed absent-mindedly not at the\nmap, but at Prince Andrew's face.\n\n\"There will be a council of war at Kutuzov's tonight, though; you can\nsay all this there,\" remarked Dolgorukov.\n\n\"I will do so,\" said Prince Andrew, moving away from the map.\n\n\"Whatever are you bothering about, gentlemen?\" said Bilibin, who, till\nthen, had listened with an amused smile to their conversation and now\nwas evidently ready with a joke. \"Whether tomorrow brings victory or\ndefeat, the glory of our Russian arms is secure. Except your Kutuzov,\nthere is not a single Russian in command of a column! The commanders\nare: Herr General Wimpfen, le Comte de Langeron, le Prince de\nLichtenstein, le Prince, de Hohenlohe, and finally Prishprish, and so on\nlike all those Polish names.\"\n\n\"Be quiet, backbiter!\" said Dolgorukov. \"It is not true; there are now\ntwo Russians, Miloradovich, and Dokhturov, and there would be a third,\nCount Arakcheev, if his nerves were not too weak.\"\n\n\"However, I think General Kutuzov has come out,\" said Prince Andrew. \"I\nwish you good luck and success, gentlemen!\" he added and went out after\nshaking hands with Dolgorukov and Bilibin.\n\nOn the way home, Prince Andrew could not refrain from asking Kutuzov,\nwho was sitting silently beside him, what he thought of tomorrow's\nbattle.\n\nKutuzov looked sternly at his adjutant and, after a pause, replied: \"I\nthink the battle will be lost, and so I told Count Tolstoy and asked him\nto tell the Emperor. What do you think he replied? 'But, my dear\ngeneral, I am engaged with rice and cutlets, look after military matters\nyourself!' Yes... That was the answer I got!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nShortly after nine o'clock that evening, Weyrother drove with his plans\nto Kutuzov's quarters where the council of war was to be held. All the\ncommanders of columns were summoned to the commander-in-chief's and with\nthe exception of Prince Bagration, who declined to come, were all there\nat the appointed time.\n\nWeyrother, who was in full control of the proposed battle, by his\neagerness and briskness presented a marked contrast to the dissatisfied\nand drowsy Kutuzov, who reluctantly played the part of chairman and\npresident of the council of war. Weyrother evidently felt himself to be\nat the head of a movement that had already become unrestrainable. He was\nlike a horse running downhill harnessed to a heavy cart. Whether he was\npulling it or being pushed by it he did not know, but rushed along at\nheadlong speed with no time to consider what this movement might lead\nto. Weyrother had been twice that evening to the enemy's picket line to\nreconnoiter personally, and twice to the Emperors, Russian and Austrian,\nto report and explain, and to his headquarters where he had dictated the\ndispositions in German, and now, much exhausted, he arrived at\nKutuzov's.\n\nHe was evidently so busy that he even forgot to be polite to the\ncommander in chief. He interrupted him, talked rapidly and indistinctly,\nwithout looking at the man he was addressing, and did not reply to\nquestions put to him. He was bespattered with mud and had a pitiful,\nweary, and distracted air, though at the same time he was haughty and\nself-confident.\n\nKutuzov was occupying a nobleman's castle of modest dimensions near\nOstralitz. In the large drawing room which had become the commander in\nchief's office were gathered Kutuzov himself, Weyrother, and the members\nof the council of war. They were drinking tea, and only awaited Prince\nBagration to begin the council. At last Bagration's orderly came with\nthe news that the prince could not attend. Prince Andrew came in to\ninform the commander-in-chief of this and, availing himself of\npermission previously given him by Kutuzov to be present at the council,\nhe remained in the room.\n\n\"Since Prince Bagration is not coming, we may begin,\" said Weyrother,\nhurriedly rising from his seat and going up to the table on which an\nenormous map of the environs of Brunn was spread out.\n\nKutuzov, with his uniform unbuttoned so that his fat neck bulged over\nhis collar as if escaping, was sitting almost asleep in a low chair,\nwith his podgy old hands resting symmetrically on its arms. At the sound\nof Weyrother's voice, he opened his one eye with an effort.\n\n\"Yes, yes, if you please! It is already late,\" said he, and nodding his\nhead he let it droop and again closed his eye.\n\nIf at first the members of the council thought that Kutuzov was\npretending to sleep, the sounds his nose emitted during the reading that\nfollowed proved that the commander-in-chief at that moment was absorbed\nby a far more serious matter than a desire to show his contempt for the\ndispositions or anything else--he was engaged in satisfying the\nirresistible human need for sleep. He really was asleep. Weyrother, with\nthe gesture of a man too busy to lose a moment, glanced at Kutuzov and,\nhaving convinced himself that he was asleep, took up a paper and in a\nloud, monotonous voice began to read out the dispositions for the\nimpending battle, under a heading which he also read out:\n\n\"Dispositions for an attack on the enemy position behind Kobelnitz and\nSokolnitz, November 30, 1805.\"\n\nThe dispositions were very complicated and difficult. They began as\nfollows:\n\n\"As the enemy's left wing rests on wooded hills and his right extends\nalong Kobelnitz and Sokolnitz behind the ponds that are there, while we,\non the other hand, with our left wing by far outflank his right, it is\nadvantageous to attack the enemy's latter wing especially if we occupy\nthe villages of Sokolnitz and Kobelnitz, whereby we can both fall on his\nflank and pursue him over the plain between Schlappanitz and the\nThuerassa forest, avoiding the defiles of Schlappanitz and Bellowitz\nwhich cover the enemy's front. For this object it is necessary that...\nThe first column marches... The second column marches... The third\ncolumn marches...\" and so on, read Weyrother.\n\nThe generals seemed to listen reluctantly to the difficult dispositions.\nThe tall, fair-haired General Buxhowden stood, leaning his back against\nthe wall, his eyes fixed on a burning candle, and seemed not to listen\nor even to wish to be thought to listen. Exactly opposite Weyrother,\nwith his glistening wide-open eyes fixed upon him and his mustache\ntwisted upwards, sat the ruddy Miloradovich in a military pose, his\nelbows turned outwards, his hands on his knees, and his shoulders\nraised. He remained stubbornly silent, gazing at Weyrother's face, and\nonly turned away his eyes when the Austrian chief of staff finished\nreading. Then Miloradovich looked round significantly at the other\ngenerals. But one could not tell from that significant look whether he\nagreed or disagreed and was satisfied or not with the arrangements. Next\nto Weyrother sat Count Langeron who, with a subtle smile that never left\nhis typically southern French face during the whole time of the reading,\ngazed at his delicate fingers which rapidly twirled by its corners a\ngold snuffbox on which was a portrait. In the middle of one of the\nlongest sentences, he stopped the rotary motion of the snuffbox, raised\nhis head, and with inimical politeness lurking in the corners of his\nthin lips interrupted Weyrother, wishing to say something. But the\nAustrian general, continuing to read, frowned angrily and jerked his\nelbows, as if to say: \"You can tell me your views later, but now be so\ngood as to look at the map and listen.\" Langeron lifted his eyes with an\nexpression of perplexity, turned round to Miloradovich as if seeking an\nexplanation, but meeting the latter's impressive but meaningless gaze\ndrooped his eyes sadly and again took to twirling his snuffbox.\n\n\"A geography lesson!\" he muttered as if to himself, but loud enough to\nbe heard.\n\nPrzebyszewski, with respectful but dignified politeness, held his hand\nto his ear toward Weyrother, with the air of a man absorbed in\nattention. Dohkturov, a little man, sat opposite Weyrother, with an\nassiduous and modest mien, and stooping over the outspread map\nconscientiously studied the dispositions and the unfamiliar locality. He\nasked Weyrother several times to repeat words he had not clearly heard\nand the difficult names of villages. Weyrother complied and Dohkturov\nnoted them down.\n\nWhen the reading which lasted more than an hour was over, Langeron again\nbrought his snuffbox to rest and, without looking at Weyrother or at\nanyone in particular, began to say how difficult it was to carry out\nsuch a plan in which the enemy's position was assumed to be known,\nwhereas it was perhaps not known, since the enemy was in movement.\nLangeron's objections were valid but it was obvious that their chief aim\nwas to show General Weyrother--who had read his dispositions with as\nmuch self-confidence as if he were addressing school children--that he\nhad to do, not with fools, but with men who could teach him something in\nmilitary matters.\n\nWhen the monotonous sound of Weyrother's voice ceased, Kutuzov opened\nhis eye as a miller wakes up when the soporific drone of the mill wheel\nis interrupted. He listened to what Langeron said, as if remarking, \"So\nyou are still at that silly business!\" quickly closed his eye again, and\nlet his head sink still lower.\n\nLangeron, trying as virulently as possible to sting Weyrother's vanity\nas author of the military plan, argued that Bonaparte might easily\nattack instead of being attacked, and so render the whole of this plan\nperfectly worthless. Weyrother met all objections with a firm and\ncontemptuous smile, evidently prepared beforehand to meet all objections\nbe they what they might.\n\n\"If he could attack us, he would have done so today,\" said he.\n\n\"So you think he is powerless?\" said Langeron.\n\n\"He has forty thousand men at most,\" replied Weyrother, with the smile\nof a doctor to whom an old wife wishes to explain the treatment of a\ncase.\n\n\"In that case he is inviting his doom by awaiting our attack,\" said\nLangeron, with a subtly ironical smile, again glancing round for support\nto Miloradovich who was near him.\n\nBut Miloradovich was at that moment evidently thinking of anything\nrather than of what the generals were disputing about.\n\n\"Ma foi!\" said he, \"tomorrow we shall see all that on the battlefield.\"\n\nWeyrother again gave that smile which seemed to say that to him it was\nstrange and ridiculous to meet objections from Russian generals and to\nhave to prove to them what he had not merely convinced himself of, but\nhad also convinced the sovereign Emperors of.\n\n\"The enemy has quenched his fires and a continual noise is heard from\nhis camp,\" said he. \"What does that mean? Either he is retreating, which\nis the only thing we need fear, or he is changing his position.\" (He\nsmiled ironically.) \"But even if he also took up a position in the\nThuerassa, he merely saves us a great deal of trouble and all our\narrangements to the minutest detail remain the same.\"\n\n\"How is that?...\" began Prince Andrew, who had for long been waiting an\nopportunity to express his doubts.\n\nKutuzov here woke up, coughed heavily, and looked round at the generals.\n\n\"Gentlemen, the dispositions for tomorrow--or rather for today, for it\nis past midnight--cannot now be altered,\" said he. \"You have heard them,\nand we shall all do our duty. But before a battle, there is nothing more\nimportant...\" he paused, \"than to have a good sleep.\"\n\nHe moved as if to rise. The generals bowed and retired. It was past\nmidnight. Prince Andrew went out.\n\nThe council of war, at which Prince Andrew had not been able to express\nhis opinion as he had hoped to, left on him a vague and uneasy\nimpression. Whether Dolgorukov and Weyrother, or Kutuzov, Langeron, and\nthe others who did not approve of the plan of attack, were right--he did\nnot know. \"But was it really not possible for Kutuzov to state his views\nplainly to the Emperor? Is it possible that on account of court and\npersonal considerations tens of thousands of lives, and my life, my\nlife,\" he thought, \"must be risked?\"\n\n\"Yes, it is very likely that I shall be killed tomorrow,\" he thought.\nAnd suddenly, at this thought of death, a whole series of most distant,\nmost intimate, memories rose in his imagination: he remembered his last\nparting from his father and his wife; he remembered the days when he\nfirst loved her. He thought of her pregnancy and felt sorry for her and\nfor himself, and in a nervously emotional and softened mood he went out\nof the hut in which he was billeted with Nesvitski and began to walk up\nand down before it.\n\nThe night was foggy and through the fog the moonlight gleamed\nmysteriously. \"Yes, tomorrow, tomorrow!\" he thought. \"Tomorrow\neverything may be over for me! All these memories will be no more, none\nof them will have any meaning for me. Tomorrow perhaps, even certainly,\nI have a presentiment that for the first time I shall have to show all I\ncan do.\" And his fancy pictured the battle, its loss, the concentration\nof fighting at one point, and the hesitation of all the commanders. And\nthen that happy moment, that Toulon for which he had so long waited,\npresents itself to him at last. He firmly and clearly expresses his\nopinion to Kutuzov, to Weyrother, and to the Emperors. All are struck by\nthe justness of his views, but no one undertakes to carry them out, so\nhe takes a regiment, a division-stipulates that no one is to interfere\nwith his arrangements--leads his division to the decisive point, and\ngains the victory alone. \"But death and suffering?\" suggested another\nvoice. Prince Andrew, however, did not answer that voice and went on\ndreaming of his triumphs. The dispositions for the next battle are\nplanned by him alone. Nominally he is only an adjutant on Kutuzov's\nstaff, but he does everything alone. The next battle is won by him\nalone. Kutuzov is removed and he is appointed... \"Well and then?\" asked\nthe other voice. \"If before that you are not ten times wounded, killed,\nor betrayed, well... what then?...\" \"Well then,\" Prince Andrew answered\nhimself, \"I don't know what will happen and don't want to know, and\ncan't, but if I want this--want glory, want to be known to men, want to\nbe loved by them, it is not my fault that I want it and want nothing but\nthat and live only for that. Yes, for that alone! I shall never tell\nanyone, but, oh God! what am I to do if I love nothing but fame and\nmen's esteem? Death, wounds, the loss of family--I fear nothing. And\nprecious and dear as many persons are to me--father, sister, wife--those\ndearest to me--yet dreadful and unnatural as it seems, I would give them\nall at once for a moment of glory, of triumph over men, of love from men\nI don't know and never shall know, for the love of these men here,\" he\nthought, as he listened to voices in Kutuzov's courtyard. The voices\nwere those of the orderlies who were packing up; one voice, probably a\ncoachman's, was teasing Kutuzov's old cook whom Prince Andrew knew, and\nwho was called Tit. He was saying, \"Tit, I say, Tit!\"\n\n\"Well?\" returned the old man.\n\n\"Go, Tit, thresh a bit!\" said the wag.\n\n\"Oh, go to the devil!\" called out a voice, drowned by the laughter of\nthe orderlies and servants.\n\n\"All the same, I love and value nothing but triumph over them all, I\nvalue this mystic power and glory that is floating here above me in this\nmist!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nThat same night, Rostov was with a platoon on skirmishing duty in front\nof Bagration's detachment. His hussars were placed along the line in\ncouples and he himself rode along the line trying to master the\nsleepiness that kept coming over him. An enormous space, with our army's\ncampfires dimly glowing in the fog, could be seen behind him; in front\nof him was misty darkness. Rostov could see nothing, peer as he would\ninto that foggy distance: now something gleamed gray, now there was\nsomething black, now little lights seemed to glimmer where the enemy\nought to be, now he fancied it was only something in his own eyes. His\neyes kept closing, and in his fancy appeared--now the Emperor, now\nDenisov, and now Moscow memories--and he again hurriedly opened his eyes\nand saw close before him the head and ears of the horse he was riding,\nand sometimes, when he came within six paces of them, the black figures\nof hussars, but in the distance was still the same misty darkness. \"Why\nnot?... It might easily happen,\" thought Rostov, \"that the Emperor will\nmeet me and give me an order as he would to any other officer; he'll\nsay: 'Go and find out what's there.' There are many stories of his\ngetting to know an officer in just such a chance way and attaching him\nto himself! What if he gave me a place near him? Oh, how I would guard\nhim, how I would tell him the truth, how I would unmask his deceivers!\"\nAnd in order to realize vividly his love devotion to the sovereign,\nRostov pictured to himself an enemy or a deceitful German, whom he would\nnot only kill with pleasure but whom he would slap in the face before\nthe Emperor. Suddenly a distant shout aroused him. He started and opened\nhis eyes.\n\n\"Where am I? Oh yes, in the skirmishing line... pass and watchword--\nshaft, Olmutz. What a nuisance that our squadron will be in reserve\ntomorrow,\" he thought. \"I'll ask leave to go to the front, this may be\nmy only chance of seeing the Emperor. It won't be long now before I am\noff duty. I'll take another turn and when I get back I'll go to the\ngeneral and ask him.\" He readjusted himself in the saddle and touched up\nhis horse to ride once more round his hussars. It seemed to him that it\nwas getting lighter. To the left he saw a sloping descent lit up, and\nfacing it a black knoll that seemed as steep as a wall. On this knoll\nthere was a white patch that Rostov could not at all make out: was it a\nglade in the wood lit up by the moon, or some unmelted snow, or some\nwhite houses? He even thought something moved on that white spot. \"I\nexpect it's snow... that spot... a spot--une tache,\" he thought. \"There\nnow... it's not a tache... Natasha... sister, black eyes... Na...\ntasha... (Won't she be surprised when I tell her how I've seen the\nEmperor?) Natasha... take my sabretache...\"--\"Keep to the right, your\nhonor, there are bushes here,\" came the voice of an hussar, past whom\nRostov was riding in the act of falling asleep. Rostov lifted his head\nthat had sunk almost to his horse's mane and pulled up beside the\nhussar. He was succumbing to irresistible, youthful, childish\ndrowsiness. \"But what was I thinking? I mustn't forget. How shall I\nspeak to the Emperor? No, that's not it--that's tomorrow. Oh yes!\nNatasha... sabretache... saber them... Whom? The hussars... Ah, the\nhussars with mustaches. Along the Tverskaya Street rode the hussar with\nmustaches... I thought about him too, just opposite Guryev's house...\nOld Guryev.... Oh, but Denisov's a fine fellow. But that's all nonsense.\nThe chief thing is that the Emperor is here. How he looked at me and\nwished to say something, but dared not.... No, it was I who dared not.\nBut that's nonsense, the chief thing is not to forget the important\nthing I was thinking of. Yes, Na-tasha, sabretache, oh, yes, yes! That's\nright!\" And his head once more sank to his horse's neck. All at once it\nseemed to him that he was being fired at. \"What? What? What?... Cut them\ndown! What?...\" said Rostov, waking up. At the moment he opened his eyes\nhe heard in front of him, where the enemy was, the long-drawn shouts of\nthousands of voices. His horse and the horse of the hussar near him\npricked their ears at these shouts. Over there, where the shouting came\nfrom, a fire flared up and went out again, then another, and all along\nthe French line on the hill fires flared up and the shouting grew louder\nand louder. Rostov could hear the sound of French words but could not\ndistinguish them. The din of many voices was too great; all he could\nhear was: \"ahahah!\" and \"rrrr!\"\n\n\"What's that? What do you make of it?\" said Rostov to the hussar beside\nhim. \"That must be the enemy's camp!\"\n\nThe hussar did not reply.\n\n\"Why, don't you hear it?\" Rostov asked again, after waiting for a reply.\n\n\"Who can tell, your honor?\" replied the hussar reluctantly.\n\n\"From the direction, it must be the enemy,\" repeated Rostov.\n\n\"It may be he or it may be nothing,\" muttered the hussar. \"It's dark...\nSteady!\" he cried to his fidgeting horse.\n\nRostov's horse was also getting restive: it pawed the frozen ground,\npricking its ears at the noise and looking at the lights. The shouting\ngrew still louder and merged into a general roar that only an army of\nseveral thousand men could produce. The lights spread farther and\nfarther, probably along the line of the French camp. Rostov no longer\nwanted to sleep. The gay triumphant shouting of the enemy army had a\nstimulating effect on him. \"Vive l'Empereur! L'Empereur!\" he now heard\ndistinctly.\n\n\"They can't be far off, probably just beyond the stream,\" he said to the\nhussar beside him.\n\nThe hussar only sighed without replying and coughed angrily. The sound\nof horse's hoofs approaching at a trot along the line of hussars was\nheard, and out of the foggy darkness the figure of a sergeant of hussars\nsuddenly appeared, looming huge as an elephant.\n\n\"Your honor, the generals!\" said the sergeant, riding up to Rostov.\n\nRostov, still looking round toward the fires and the shouts, rode with\nthe sergeant to meet some mounted men who were riding along the line.\nOne was on a white horse. Prince Bagration and Prince Dolgorukov with\ntheir adjutants had come to witness the curious phenomenon of the lights\nand shouts in the enemy's camp. Rostov rode up to Bagration, reported to\nhim, and then joined the adjutants listening to what the generals were\nsaying.\n\n\"Believe me,\" said Prince Dolgorukov, addressing Bagration, \"it is\nnothing but a trick! He has retreated and ordered the rearguard to\nkindle fires and make a noise to deceive us.\"\n\n\"Hardly,\" said Bagration. \"I saw them this evening on that knoll; if\nthey had retreated they would have withdrawn from that too.... Officer!\"\nsaid Bagration to Rostov, \"are the enemy's skirmishers still there?\"\n\n\"They were there this evening, but now I don't know, your excellency.\nShall I go with some of my hussars to see?\" replied Rostov.\n\nBagration stopped and, before replying, tried to see Rostov's face in\nthe mist.\n\n\"Well, go and see,\" he said, after a pause.\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nRostov spurred his horse, called to Sergeant Fedchenko and two other\nhussars, told them to follow him, and trotted downhill in the direction\nfrom which the shouting came. He felt both frightened and pleased to be\nriding alone with three hussars into that mysterious and dangerous misty\ndistance where no one had been before him. Bagration called to him from\nthe hill not to go beyond the stream, but Rostov pretended not to hear\nhim and did not stop but rode on and on, continually mistaking bushes\nfor trees and gullies for men and continually discovering his mistakes.\nHaving descended the hill at a trot, he no longer saw either our own or\nthe enemy's fires, but heard the shouting of the French more loudly and\ndistinctly. In the valley he saw before him something like a river, but\nwhen he reached it he found it was a road. Having come out onto the road\nhe reined in his horse, hesitating whether to ride along it or cross it\nand ride over the black field up the hillside. To keep to the road which\ngleamed white in the mist would have been safer because it would be\neasier to see people coming along it. \"Follow me!\" said he, crossed the\nroad, and began riding up the hill at a gallop toward the point where\nthe French pickets had been standing that evening.\n\n\"Your honor, there he is!\" cried one of the hussars behind him. And\nbefore Rostov had time to make out what the black thing was that had\nsuddenly appeared in the fog, there was a flash, followed by a report,\nand a bullet whizzing high up in the mist with a plaintive sound passed\nout of hearing. Another musket missed fire but flashed in the pan.\nRostov turned his horse and galloped back. Four more reports followed at\nintervals, and the bullets passed somewhere in the fog singing in\ndifferent tones. Rostov reined in his horse, whose spirits had risen,\nlike his own, at the firing, and went back at a footpace. \"Well, some\nmore! Some more!\" a merry voice was saying in his soul. But no more\nshots came.\n\nOnly when approaching Bagration did Rostov let his horse gallop again,\nand with his hand at the salute rode up to the general.\n\nDolgorukov was still insisting that the French had retreated and had\nonly lit fires to deceive us.\n\n\"What does that prove?\" he was saying as Rostov rode up. \"They might\nretreat and leave the pickets.\"\n\n\"It's plain that they have not all gone yet, Prince,\" said Bagration.\n\"Wait till tomorrow morning, we'll find out everything tomorrow.\"\n\n\"The picket is still on the hill, your excellency, just where it was in\nthe evening,\" reported Rostov, stooping forward with his hand at the\nsalute and unable to repress the smile of delight induced by his ride\nand especially by the sound of the bullets.\n\n\"Very good, very good,\" said Bagration. \"Thank you, officer.\"\n\n\"Your excellency,\" said Rostov, \"may I ask a favor?\"\n\n\"What is it?\"\n\n\"Tomorrow our squadron is to be in reserve. May I ask to be attached to\nthe first squadron?\"\n\n\"What's your name?\"\n\n\"Count Rostov.\"\n\n\"Oh, very well, you may stay in attendance on me.\"\n\n\"Count Ilya Rostov's son?\" asked Dolgorukov.\n\nBut Rostov did not reply.\n\n\"Then I may reckon on it, your excellency?\"\n\n\"I will give the order.\"\n\n\"Tomorrow very likely I may be sent with some message to the Emperor,\"\nthought Rostov.\n\n\"Thank God!\"\n\nThe fires and shouting in the enemy's army were occasioned by the fact\nthat while Napoleon's proclamation was being read to the troops the\nEmperor himself rode round his bivouacs. The soldiers, on seeing him,\nlit wisps of straw and ran after him, shouting, \"Vive l'Empereur!\"\nNapoleon's proclamation was as follows:\n\nSoldiers! The Russian army is advancing against you to avenge the\nAustrian army of Ulm. They are the same battalions you broke at\nHollabrunn and have pursued ever since to this place. The position we\noccupy is a strong one, and while they are marching to go round me on\nthe right they will expose a flank to me. Soldiers! I will myself direct\nyour battalions. I will keep out of fire if you with your habitual valor\ncarry disorder and confusion into the enemy's ranks, but should victory\nbe in doubt, even for a moment, you will see your Emperor exposing\nhimself to the first blows of the enemy, for there must be no doubt of\nvictory, especially on this day when what is at stake is the honor of\nthe French infantry, so necessary to the honor of our nation.\n\nDo not break your ranks on the plea of removing the wounded! Let every\nman be fully imbued with the thought that we must defeat these hirelings\nof England, inspired by such hatred of our nation! This victory will\nconclude our campaign and we can return to winter quarters, where fresh\nFrench troops who are being raised in France will join us, and the peace\nI shall conclude will be worthy of my people, of you, and of myself.\n\nNAPOLEON\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nAt five in the morning it was still quite dark. The troops of the\ncenter, the reserves, and Bagration's right flank had not yet moved, but\non the left flank the columns of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, which\nwere to be the first to descend the heights to attack the French right\nflank and drive it into the Bohemian mountains according to plan, were\nalready up and astir. The smoke of the campfires, into which they were\nthrowing everything superfluous, made the eyes smart. It was cold and\ndark. The officers were hurriedly drinking tea and breakfasting, the\nsoldiers, munching biscuit and beating a tattoo with their feet to warm\nthemselves, gathering round the fires throwing into the flames the\nremains of sheds, chairs, tables, wheels, tubs, and everything that they\ndid not want or could not carry away with them. Austrian column guides\nwere moving in and out among the Russian troops and served as heralds of\nthe advance. As soon as an Austrian officer showed himself near a\ncommanding officer's quarters, the regiment began to move: the soldiers\nran from the fires, thrust their pipes into their boots, their bags into\nthe carts, got their muskets ready, and formed rank. The officers\nbuttoned up their coats, buckled on their swords and pouches, and moved\nalong the ranks shouting. The train drivers and orderlies harnessed and\npacked the wagons and tied on the loads. The adjutants and battalion and\nregimental commanders mounted, crossed themselves, gave final\ninstructions, orders, and commissions to the baggage men who remained\nbehind, and the monotonous tramp of thousands of feet resounded. The\ncolumn moved forward without knowing where and unable, from the masses\naround them, the smoke and the increasing fog, to see either the place\nthey were leaving or that to which they were going.\n\nA soldier on the march is hemmed in and borne along by his regiment as\nmuch as a sailor is by his ship. However far he has walked, whatever\nstrange, unknown, and dangerous places he reaches, just as a sailor is\nalways surrounded by the same decks, masts, and rigging of his ship, so\nthe soldier always has around him the same comrades, the same ranks, the\nsame sergeant major Ivan Mitrich, the same company dog Jack, and the\nsame commanders. The sailor rarely cares to know the latitude in which\nhis ship is sailing, but on the day of battle--heaven knows how and\nwhence--a stern note of which all are conscious sounds in the moral\natmosphere of an army, announcing the approach of something decisive and\nsolemn, and awakening in the men an unusual curiosity. On the day of\nbattle the soldiers excitedly try to get beyond the interests of their\nregiment, they listen intently, look about, and eagerly ask concerning\nwhat is going on around them.\n\nThe fog had grown so dense that though it was growing light they could\nnot see ten paces ahead. Bushes looked like gigantic trees and level\nground like cliffs and slopes. Anywhere, on any side, one might\nencounter an enemy invisible ten paces off. But the columns advanced for\na long time, always in the same fog, descending and ascending hills,\navoiding gardens and enclosures, going over new and unknown ground, and\nnowhere encountering the enemy. On the contrary, the soldiers became\naware that in front, behind, and on all sides, other Russian columns\nwere moving in the same direction. Every soldier felt glad to know that\nto the unknown place where he was going, many more of our men were going\ntoo.\n\n\"There now, the Kurskies have also gone past,\" was being said in the\nranks.\n\n\"It's wonderful what a lot of our troops have gathered, lads! Last night\nI looked at the campfires and there was no end of them. A regular\nMoscow!\"\n\nThough none of the column commanders rode up to the ranks or talked to\nthe men (the commanders, as we saw at the council of war, were out of\nhumor and dissatisfied with the affair, and so did not exert themselves\nto cheer the men but merely carried out the orders), yet the troops\nmarched gaily, as they always do when going into action, especially to\nan attack. But when they had marched for about an hour in the dense fog,\nthe greater part of the men had to halt and an unpleasant consciousness\nof some dislocation and blunder spread through the ranks. How such a\nconsciousness is communicated is very difficult to define, but it\ncertainly is communicated very surely, and flows rapidly, imperceptibly,\nand irrepressibly, as water does in a creek. Had the Russian army been\nalone without any allies, it might perhaps have been a long time before\nthis consciousness of mismanagement became a general conviction, but as\nit was, the disorder was readily and naturally attributed to the stupid\nGermans, and everyone was convinced that a dangerous muddle had been\noccasioned by the sausage eaters.\n\n\"Why have we stopped? Is the way blocked? Or have we already come up\nagainst the French?\"\n\n\"No, one can't hear them. They'd be firing if we had.\"\n\n\"They were in a hurry enough to start us, and now here we stand in the\nmiddle of a field without rhyme or reason. It's all those damned\nGermans' muddling! What stupid devils!\"\n\n\"Yes, I'd send them on in front, but no fear, they're crowding up\nbehind. And now here we stand hungry.\"\n\n\"I say, shall we soon be clear? They say the cavalry are blocking the\nway,\" said an officer.\n\n\"Ah, those damned Germans! They don't know their own country!\" said\nanother.\n\n\"What division are you?\" shouted an adjutant, riding up.\n\n\"The Eighteenth.\"\n\n\"Then why are you here? You should have gone on long ago, now you won't\nget there till evening.\"\n\n\"What stupid orders! They don't themselves know what they are doing!\"\nsaid the officer and rode off.\n\nThen a general rode past shouting something angrily, not in Russian.\n\n\"Tafa-lafa! But what he's jabbering no one can make out,\" said a\nsoldier, mimicking the general who had ridden away. \"I'd shoot them, the\nscoundrels!\"\n\n\"We were ordered to be at the place before nine, but we haven't got\nhalfway. Fine orders!\" was being repeated on different sides.\n\nAnd the feeling of energy with which the troops had started began to\nturn into vexation and anger at the stupid arrangements and at the\nGermans.\n\nThe cause of the confusion was that while the Austrian cavalry was\nmoving toward our left flank, the higher command found that our center\nwas too far separated from our right flank and the cavalry were all\nordered to turn back to the right. Several thousand cavalry crossed in\nfront of the infantry, who had to wait.\n\nAt the front an altercation occurred between an Austrian guide and a\nRussian general. The general shouted a demand that the cavalry should be\nhalted, the Austrian argued that not he, but the higher command, was to\nblame. The troops meanwhile stood growing listless and dispirited. After\nan hour's delay they at last moved on, descending the hill. The fog that\nwas dispersing on the hill lay still more densely below, where they were\ndescending. In front in the fog a shot was heard and then another, at\nfirst irregularly at varying intervals--trata... tat--and then more and\nmore regularly and rapidly, and the action at the Goldbach Stream began.\n\nNot expecting to come on the enemy down by the stream, and having\nstumbled on him in the fog, hearing no encouraging word from their\ncommanders, and with a consciousness of being too late spreading through\nthe ranks, and above all being unable to see anything in front or around\nthem in the thick fog, the Russians exchanged shots with the enemy\nlazily and advanced and again halted, receiving no timely orders from\nthe officers or adjutants who wandered about in the fog in those unknown\nsurroundings unable to find their own regiments. In this way the action\nbegan for the first, second, and third columns, which had gone down into\nthe valley. The fourth column, with which Kutuzov was, stood on the\nPratzen Heights.\n\nBelow, where the fight was beginning, there was still thick fog; on the\nhigher ground it was clearing, but nothing could be seen of what was\ngoing on in front. Whether all the enemy forces were, as we supposed,\nsix miles away, or whether they were near by in that sea of mist, no one\nknew till after eight o'clock.\n\nIt was nine o'clock in the morning. The fog lay unbroken like a sea down\nbelow, but higher up at the village of Schlappanitz where Napoleon stood\nwith his marshals around him, it was quite light. Above him was a clear\nblue sky, and the sun's vast orb quivered like a huge hollow, crimson\nfloat on the surface of that milky sea of mist. The whole French army,\nand even Napoleon himself with his staff, were not on the far side of\nthe streams and hollows of Sokolnitz and Schlappanitz beyond which we\nintended to take up our position and begin the action, but were on this\nside, so close to our own forces that Napoleon with the naked eye could\ndistinguish a mounted man from one on foot. Napoleon, in the blue cloak\nwhich he had worn on his Italian campaign, sat on his small gray Arab\nhorse a little in front of his marshals. He gazed silently at the hills\nwhich seemed to rise out of the sea of mist and on which the Russian\ntroops were moving in the distance, and he listened to the sounds of\nfiring in the valley. Not a single muscle of his face--which in those\ndays was still thin--moved. His gleaming eyes were fixed intently on one\nspot. His predictions were being justified. Part of the Russian force\nhad already descended into the valley toward the ponds and lakes and\npart were leaving these Pratzen Heights which he intended to attack and\nregarded as the key to the position. He saw over the mist that in a\nhollow between two hills near the village of Pratzen, the Russian\ncolumns, their bayonets glittering, were moving continuously in one\ndirection toward the valley and disappearing one after another into the\nmist. From information he had received the evening before, from the\nsound of wheels and footsteps heard by the outposts during the night, by\nthe disorderly movement of the Russian columns, and from all\nindications, he saw clearly that the allies believed him to be far away\nin front of them, and that the columns moving near Pratzen constituted\nthe center of the Russian army, and that that center was already\nsufficiently weakened to be successfully attacked. But still he did not\nbegin the engagement.\n\nToday was a great day for him--the anniversary of his coronation. Before\ndawn he had slept for a few hours, and refreshed, vigorous, and in good\nspirits, he mounted his horse and rode out into the field in that happy\nmood in which everything seems possible and everything succeeds. He sat\nmotionless, looking at the heights visible above the mist, and his cold\nface wore that special look of confident, self-complacent happiness that\none sees on the face of a boy happily in love. The marshals stood behind\nhim not venturing to distract his attention. He looked now at the\nPratzen Heights, now at the sun floating up out of the mist.\n\nWhen the sun had entirely emerged from the fog, and fields and mist were\naglow with dazzling light--as if he had only awaited this to begin the\naction--he drew the glove from his shapely white hand, made a sign with\nit to the marshals, and ordered the action to begin. The marshals,\naccompanied by adjutants, galloped off in different directions, and a\nfew minutes later the chief forces of the French army moved rapidly\ntoward those Pratzen Heights which were being more and more denuded by\nRussian troops moving down the valley to their left.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nAt eight o'clock Kutuzov rode to Pratzen at the head of the fourth\ncolumn, Miloradovich's, the one that was to take the place of\nPrzebyszewski's and Langeron's columns which had already gone down into\nthe valley. He greeted the men of the foremost regiment and gave them\nthe order to march, thereby indicating that he intended to lead that\ncolumn himself. When he had reached the village of Pratzen he halted.\nPrince Andrew was behind, among the immense number forming the\ncommander-in-chief's suite. He was in a state of suppressed excitement\nand irritation, though controlledly calm as a man is at the approach of\na long-awaited moment. He was firmly convinced that this was the day of\nhis Toulon, or his bridge of Arcola. How it would come about he did not\nknow, but he felt sure it would do so. The locality and the position of\nour troops were known to him as far as they could be known to anyone in\nour army. His own strategic plan, which obviously could not now be\ncarried out, was forgotten. Now, entering into Weyrother's plan, Prince\nAndrew considered possible contingencies and formed new projects such as\nmight call for his rapidity of perception and decision.\n\nTo the left down below in the mist, the musketry fire of unseen forces\ncould be heard. It was there Prince Andrew thought the fight would\nconcentrate. \"There we shall encounter difficulties, and there,\" thought\nhe, \"I shall be sent with a brigade or division, and there, standard in\nhand, I shall go forward and break whatever is in front of me.\"\n\nHe could not look calmly at the standards of the passing battalions.\nSeeing them he kept thinking, \"That may be the very standard with which\nI shall lead the army.\"\n\nIn the morning all that was left of the night mist on the heights was a\nhoar frost now turning to dew, but in the valleys it still lay like a\nmilk-white sea. Nothing was visible in the valley to the left into which\nour troops had descended and from whence came the sounds of firing.\nAbove the heights was the dark clear sky, and to the right the vast orb\nof the sun. In front, far off on the farther shore of that sea of mist,\nsome wooded hills were discernible, and it was there the enemy probably\nwas, for something could be descried. On the right the Guards were\nentering the misty region with a sound of hoofs and wheels and now and\nthen a gleam of bayonets; to the left beyond the village similar masses\nof cavalry came up and disappeared in the sea of mist. In front and\nbehind moved infantry. The commander-in-chief was standing at the end of\nthe village letting the troops pass by him. That morning Kutuzov seemed\nworn and irritable. The infantry passing before him came to a halt\nwithout any command being given, apparently obstructed by something in\nfront.\n\n\"Do order them to form into battalion columns and go round the village!\"\nhe said angrily to a general who had ridden up. \"Don't you understand,\nyour excellency, my dear sir, that you must not defile through narrow\nvillage streets when we are marching against the enemy?\"\n\n\"I intended to re-form them beyond the village, your excellency,\"\nanswered the general.\n\nKutuzov laughed bitterly.\n\n\"You'll make a fine thing of it, deploying in sight of the enemy! Very\nfine!\"\n\n\"The enemy is still far away, your excellency. According to the\ndispositions...\"\n\n\"The dispositions!\" exclaimed Kutuzov bitterly. \"Who told you that?...\nKindly do as you are ordered.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\n\"My dear fellow,\" Nesvitski whispered to Prince Andrew, \"the old man is\nas surly as a dog.\"\n\nAn Austrian officer in a white uniform with green plumes in his hat\ngalloped up to Kutuzov and asked in the Emperor's name had the fourth\ncolumn advanced into action.\n\nKutuzov turned round without answering and his eye happened to fall upon\nPrince Andrew, who was beside him. Seeing him, Kutuzov's malevolent and\ncaustic expression softened, as if admitting that what was being done\nwas not his adjutant's fault, and still not answering the Austrian\nadjutant, he addressed Bolkonski.\n\n\"Go, my dear fellow, and see whether the third division has passed the\nvillage. Tell it to stop and await my orders.\"\n\nHardly had Prince Andrew started than he stopped him.\n\n\"And ask whether sharpshooters have been posted,\" he added. \"What are\nthey doing? What are they doing?\" he murmured to himself, still not\nreplying to the Austrian.\n\nPrince Andrew galloped off to execute the order.\n\nOvertaking the battalions that continued to advance, he stopped the\nthird division and convinced himself that there really were no\nsharpshooters in front of our columns. The colonel at the head of the\nregiment was much surprised at the commander-in-chief's order to throw\nout skirmishers. He had felt perfectly sure that there were other troops\nin front of him and that the enemy must be at least six miles away.\nThere was really nothing to be seen in front except a barren descent\nhidden by dense mist. Having given orders in the commander-in-chief's\nname to rectify this omission, Prince Andrew galloped back. Kutuzov\nstill in the same place, his stout body resting heavily in the saddle\nwith the lassitude of age, sat yawning wearily with closed eyes. The\ntroops were no longer moving, but stood with the butts of their muskets\non the ground.\n\n\"All right, all right!\" he said to Prince Andrew, and turned to a\ngeneral who, watch in hand, was saying it was time they started as all\nthe left-flank columns had already descended.\n\n\"Plenty of time, your excellency,\" muttered Kutuzov in the midst of a\nyawn. \"Plenty of time,\" he repeated.\n\nJust then at a distance behind Kutuzov was heard the sound of regiments\nsaluting, and this sound rapidly came nearer along the whole extended\nline of the advancing Russian columns. Evidently the person they were\ngreeting was riding quickly. When the soldiers of the regiment in front\nof which Kutuzov was standing began to shout, he rode a little to one\nside and looked round with a frown. Along the road from Pratzen galloped\nwhat looked like a squadron of horsemen in various uniforms. Two of them\nrode side by side in front, at full gallop. One in a black uniform with\nwhite plumes in his hat rode a bobtailed chestnut horse, the other who\nwas in a white uniform rode a black one. These were the two Emperors\nfollowed by their suites. Kutuzov, affecting the manners of an old\nsoldier at the front, gave the command \"Attention!\" and rode up to the\nEmperors with a salute. His whole appearance and manner were suddenly\ntransformed. He put on the air of a subordinate who obeys without\nreasoning. With an affectation of respect which evidently struck\nAlexander unpleasantly, he rode up and saluted.\n\nThis unpleasant impression merely flitted over the young and happy face\nof the Emperor like a cloud of haze across a clear sky and vanished.\nAfter his illness he looked rather thinner that day than on the field of\nOlmutz where Bolkonski had seen him for the first time abroad, but there\nwas still the same bewitching combination of majesty and mildness in his\nfine gray eyes, and on his delicate lips the same capacity for varying\nexpression and the same prevalent appearance of goodhearted innocent\nyouth.\n\nAt the Olmutz review he had seemed more majestic; here he seemed\nbrighter and more energetic. He was slightly flushed after galloping two\nmiles, and reining in his horse he sighed restfully and looked round at\nthe faces of his suite, young and animated as his own. Czartoryski,\nNovosiltsev, Prince Volkonsky, Strogonov, and the others, all richly\ndressed gay young men on splendid, well-groomed, fresh, only slightly\nheated horses, exchanging remarks and smiling, had stopped behind the\nEmperor. The Emperor Francis, a rosy, long faced young man, sat very\nerect on his handsome black horse, looking about him in a leisurely and\npreoccupied manner. He beckoned to one of his white adjutants and asked\nsome question--\"Most likely he is asking at what o'clock they started,\"\nthought Prince Andrew, watching his old acquaintance with a smile he\ncould not repress as he recalled his reception at Brunn. In the\nEmperors' suite were the picked young orderly officers of the Guard and\nline regiments, Russian and Austrian. Among them were grooms leading the\nTsar's beautiful relay horses covered with embroidered cloths.\n\nAs when a window is opened a whiff of fresh air from the fields enters a\nstuffy room, so a whiff of youthfulness, energy, and confidence of\nsuccess reached Kutuzov's cheerless staff with the galloping advent of\nall these brilliant young men.\n\n\"Why aren't you beginning, Michael Ilarionovich?\" said the Emperor\nAlexander hurriedly to Kutuzov, glancing courteously at the same time at\nthe Emperor Francis.\n\n\"I am waiting, Your Majesty,\" answered Kutuzov, bending forward\nrespectfully.\n\nThe Emperor, frowning slightly, bent his ear forward as if he had not\nquite heard.\n\n\"Waiting, Your Majesty,\" repeated Kutuzov. (Prince Andrew noted that\nKutuzov's upper lip twitched unnaturally as he said the word \"waiting.\")\n\"Not all the columns have formed up yet, Your Majesty.\"\n\nThe Tsar heard but obviously did not like the reply; he shrugged his\nrather round shoulders and glanced at Novosiltsev who was near him, as\nif complaining of Kutuzov.\n\n\"You know, Michael Ilarionovich, we are not on the Empress' Field where\na parade does not begin till all the troops are assembled,\" said the\nTsar with another glance at the Emperor Francis, as if inviting him if\nnot to join in at least to listen to what he was saying. But the Emperor\nFrancis continued to look about him and did not listen.\n\n\"That is just why I do not begin, sire,\" said Kutuzov in a resounding\nvoice, apparently to preclude the possibility of not being heard, and\nagain something in his face twitched--\"That is just why I do not begin,\nsire, because we are not on parade and not on the Empress' Field,\" said\nclearly and distinctly.\n\nIn the Emperor's suite all exchanged rapid looks that expressed\ndissatisfaction and reproach. \"Old though he may be, he should not, he\ncertainly should not, speak like that,\" their glances seemed to say.\n\nThe Tsar looked intently and observantly into Kutuzov's eye waiting to\nhear whether he would say anything more. But Kutuzov, with respectfully\nbowed head, seemed also to be waiting. The silence lasted for about a\nminute.\n\n\"However, if you command it, Your Majesty,\" said Kutuzov, lifting his\nhead and again assuming his former tone of a dull, unreasoning, but\nsubmissive general.\n\nHe touched his horse and having called Miloradovich, the commander of\nthe column, gave him the order to advance.\n\nThe troops again began to move, and two battalions of the Novgorod and\none of the Apsheron regiment went forward past the Emperor.\n\nAs this Apsheron battalion marched by, the red-faced Miloradovich,\nwithout his greatcoat, with his Orders on his breast and an enormous\ntuft of plumes in his cocked hat worn on one side with its corners front\nand back, galloped strenuously forward, and with a dashing salute reined\nin his horse before the Emperor.\n\n\"God be with you, general!\" said the Emperor.\n\n\"Ma foi, sire, nous ferons ce qui sera dans notre possibilite, sire,\" *\nhe answered gaily, raising nevertheless ironic smiles among the\ngentlemen of the Tsar's suite by his poor French.\n\n\n* \"Indeed, Sire, we shall do everything it is possible to do, Sire.\"\n\nMiloradovich wheeled his horse sharply and stationed himself a little\nbehind the Emperor. The Apsheron men, excited by the Tsar's presence,\npassed in step before the Emperors and their suites at a bold, brisk\npace.\n\n\"Lads!\" shouted Miloradovich in a loud, self-confident, and cheery\nvoice, obviously so elated by the sound of firing, by the prospect of\nbattle, and by the sight of the gallant Apsherons, his comrades in\nSuvorov's time, now passing so gallantly before the Emperors, that he\nforgot the sovereigns' presence. \"Lads, it's not the first village\nyou've had to take,\" cried he.\n\n\"Glad to do our best!\" shouted the soldiers.\n\nThe Emperor's horse started at the sudden cry. This horse that had\ncarried the sovereign at reviews in Russia bore him also here on the\nfield of Austerlitz, enduring the heedless blows of his left foot and\npricking its ears at the sound of shots just as it had done on the\nEmpress' Field, not understanding the significance of the firing, nor of\nthe nearness of the Emperor Francis' black cob, nor of all that was\nbeing said, thought, and felt that day by its rider.\n\nThe Emperor turned with a smile to one of his followers and made a\nremark to him, pointing to the gallant Apsherons.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nKutuzov accompanied by his adjutants rode at a walking pace behind the\ncarabineers.\n\nWhen he had gone less than half a mile in the rear of the column he\nstopped at a solitary, deserted house that had probably once been an\ninn, where two roads parted. Both of them led downhill and troops were\nmarching along both.\n\nThe fog had begun to clear and enemy troops were already dimly visible\nabout a mile and a half off on the opposite heights. Down below, on the\nleft, the firing became more distinct. Kutuzov had stopped and was\nspeaking to an Austrian general. Prince Andrew, who was a little behind\nlooking at them, turned to an adjutant to ask him for a field glass.\n\n\"Look, look!\" said this adjutant, looking not at the troops in the\ndistance, but down the hill before him. \"It's the French!\"\n\nThe two generals and the adjutant took hold of the field glass, trying\nto snatch it from one another. The expression on all their faces\nsuddenly changed to one of horror. The French were supposed to be a mile\nand a half away, but had suddenly and unexpectedly appeared just in\nfront of us.\n\n\"It's the enemy?... No!... Yes, see it is!... for certain.... But how is\nthat?\" said different voices.\n\nWith the naked eye Prince Andrew saw below them to the right, not more\nthan five hundred paces from where Kutuzov was standing, a dense French\ncolumn coming up to meet the Apsherons.\n\n\"Here it is! The decisive moment has arrived. My turn has come,\" thought\nPrince Andrew, and striking his horse he rode up to Kutuzov.\n\n\"The Apsherons must be stopped, your excellency,\" cried he. But at that\nvery instant a cloud of smoke spread all round, firing was heard quite\nclose at hand, and a voice of naive terror barely two steps from Prince\nAndrew shouted, \"Brothers! All's lost!\" And at this as if at a command,\neveryone began to run.\n\nConfused and ever-increasing crowds were running back to where five\nminutes before the troops had passed the Emperors. Not only would it\nhave been difficult to stop that crowd, it was even impossible not to be\ncarried back with it oneself. Bolkonski only tried not to lose touch\nwith it, and looked around bewildered and unable to grasp what was\nhappening in front of him. Nesvitski with an angry face, red and unlike\nhimself, was shouting to Kutuzov that if he did not ride away at once he\nwould certainly be taken prisoner. Kutuzov remained in the same place\nand without answering drew out a handkerchief. Blood was flowing from\nhis cheek. Prince Andrew forced his way to him.\n\n\"You are wounded?\" he asked, hardly able to master the trembling of his\nlower jaw.\n\n\"The wound is not here, it is there!\" said Kutuzov, pressing the\nhandkerchief to his wounded cheek and pointing to the fleeing soldiers.\n\"Stop them!\" he shouted, and at the same moment, probably realizing that\nit was impossible to stop them, spurred his horse and rode to the right.\n\nA fresh wave of the flying mob caught him and bore him back with it.\n\nThe troops were running in such a dense mass that once surrounded by\nthem it was difficult to get out again. One was shouting, \"Get on! Why\nare you hindering us?\" Another in the same place turned round and fired\nin the air; a third was striking the horse Kutuzov himself rode. Having\nby a great effort got away to the left from that flood of men, Kutuzov,\nwith his suite diminished by more than half, rode toward a sound of\nartillery fire near by. Having forced his way out of the crowd of\nfugitives, Prince Andrew, trying to keep near Kutuzov, saw on the slope\nof the hill amid the smoke a Russian battery that was still firing and\nFrenchmen running toward it. Higher up stood some Russian infantry,\nneither moving forward to protect the battery nor backward with the\nfleeing crowd. A mounted general separated himself from the infantry and\napproached Kutuzov. Of Kutuzov's suite only four remained. They were all\npale and exchanged looks in silence.\n\n\"Stop those wretches!\" gasped Kutuzov to the regimental commander,\npointing to the flying soldiers; but at that instant, as if to punish\nhim for those words, bullets flew hissing across the regiment and across\nKutuzov's suite like a flock of little birds.\n\nThe French had attacked the battery and, seeing Kutuzov, were firing at\nhim. After this volley the regimental commander clutched at his leg;\nseveral soldiers fell, and a second lieutenant who was holding the flag\nlet it fall from his hands. It swayed and fell, but caught on the\nmuskets of the nearest soldiers. The soldiers started firing without\norders.\n\n\"Oh! Oh! Oh!\" groaned Kutuzov despairingly and looked around....\n\"Bolkonski!\" he whispered, his voice trembling from a consciousness of\nthe feebleness of age, \"Bolkonski!\" he whispered, pointing to the\ndisordered battalion and at the enemy, \"what's that?\"\n\nBut before he had finished speaking, Prince Andrew, feeling tears of\nshame and anger choking him, had already leapt from his horse and run to\nthe standard.\n\n\"Forward, lads!\" he shouted in a voice piercing as a child's.\n\n\"Here it is!\" thought he, seizing the staff of the standard and hearing\nwith pleasure the whistle of bullets evidently aimed at him. Several\nsoldiers fell.\n\n\"Hurrah!\" shouted Prince Andrew, and, scarcely able to hold up the heavy\nstandard, he ran forward with full confidence that the whole battalion\nwould follow him.\n\nAnd really he only ran a few steps alone. One soldier moved and then\nanother and soon the whole battalion ran forward shouting \"Hurrah!\" and\novertook him. A sergeant of the battalion ran up and took the flag that\nwas swaying from its weight in Prince Andrew's hands, but he was\nimmediately killed. Prince Andrew again seized the standard and,\ndragging it by the staff, ran on with the battalion. In front he saw our\nartillerymen, some of whom were fighting, while others, having abandoned\ntheir guns, were running toward him. He also saw French infantry\nsoldiers who were seizing the artillery horses and turning the guns\nround. Prince Andrew and the battalion were already within twenty paces\nof the cannon. He heard the whistle of bullets above him unceasingly and\nto right and left of him soldiers continually groaned and dropped. But\nhe did not look at them: he looked only at what was going on in front of\nhim--at the battery. He now saw clearly the figure of a red-haired\ngunner with his shako knocked awry, pulling one end of a mop while a\nFrench soldier tugged at the other. He could distinctly see the\ndistraught yet angry expression on the faces of these two men, who\nevidently did not realize what they were doing.\n\n\"What are they about?\" thought Prince Andrew as he gazed at them. \"Why\ndoesn't the red-haired gunner run away as he is unarmed? Why doesn't the\nFrenchman stab him? He will not get away before the Frenchman remembers\nhis bayonet and stabs him....\"\n\nAnd really another French soldier, trailing his musket, ran up to the\nstruggling men, and the fate of the red-haired gunner, who had\ntriumphantly secured the mop and still did not realize what awaited him,\nwas about to be decided. But Prince Andrew did not see how it ended. It\nseemed to him as though one of the soldiers near him hit him on the head\nwith the full swing of a bludgeon. It hurt a little, but the worst of it\nwas that the pain distracted him and prevented his seeing what he had\nbeen looking at.\n\n\"What's this? Am I falling? My legs are giving way,\" thought he, and\nfell on his back. He opened his eyes, hoping to see how the struggle of\nthe Frenchmen with the gunners ended, whether the red-haired gunner had\nbeen killed or not and whether the cannon had been captured or saved.\nBut he saw nothing. Above him there was now nothing but the sky--the\nlofty sky, not clear yet still immeasurably lofty, with gray clouds\ngliding slowly across it. \"How quiet, peaceful, and solemn; not at all\nas I ran,\" thought Prince Andrew--\"not as we ran, shouting and fighting,\nnot at all as the gunner and the Frenchman with frightened and angry\nfaces struggled for the mop: how differently do those clouds glide\nacross that lofty infinite sky! How was it I did not see that lofty sky\nbefore? And how happy I am to have found it at last! Yes! All is vanity,\nall falsehood, except that infinite sky. There is nothing, nothing, but\nthat. But even it does not exist, there is nothing but quiet and peace.\nThank God!...\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nOn our right flank commanded by Bagration, at nine o'clock the battle\nhad not yet begun. Not wishing to agree to Dolgorukov's demand to\ncommence the action, and wishing to avert responsibility from himself,\nPrince Bagration proposed to Dolgorukov to send to inquire of the\ncommander-in-chief. Bagration knew that as the distance between the two\nflanks was more than six miles, even if the messenger were not killed\n(which he very likely would be), and found the commander-in-chief (which\nwould be very difficult), he would not be able to get back before\nevening.\n\nBagration cast his large, expressionless, sleepy eyes round his suite,\nand the boyish face Rostov, breathless with excitement and hope, was the\nfirst to catch his eye. He sent him.\n\n\"And if I should meet His Majesty before I meet the commander-in-chief,\nyour excellency?\" said Rostov, with his hand to his cap.\n\n\"You can give the message to His Majesty,\" said Dolgorukov, hurriedly\ninterrupting Bagration.\n\nOn being relieved from picket duty Rostov had managed to get a few\nhours' sleep before morning and felt cheerful, bold, and resolute, with\nelasticity of movement, faith in his good fortune, and generally in that\nstate of mind which makes everything seem possible, pleasant, and easy.\n\nAll his wishes were being fulfilled that morning: there was to be a\ngeneral engagement in which he was taking part, more than that, he was\norderly to the bravest general, and still more, he was going with a\nmessage to Kutuzov, perhaps even to the sovereign himself. The morning\nwas bright, he had a good horse under him, and his heart was full of joy\nand happiness. On receiving the order he gave his horse the rein and\ngalloped along the line. At first he rode along the line of Bagration's\ntroops, which had not yet advanced into action but were standing\nmotionless; then he came to the region occupied by Uvarov's cavalry and\nhere he noticed a stir and signs of preparation for battle; having\npassed Uvarov's cavalry he clearly heard the sound of cannon and\nmusketry ahead of him. The firing grew louder and louder.\n\nIn the fresh morning air were now heard, not two or three musket shots\nat irregular intervals as before, followed by one or two cannon shots,\nbut a roll of volleys of musketry from the slopes of the hill before\nPratzen, interrupted by such frequent reports of cannon that sometimes\nseveral of them were not separated from one another but merged into a\ngeneral roar.\n\nHe could see puffs of musketry smoke that seemed to chase one another\ndown the hillsides, and clouds of cannon smoke rolling, spreading, and\nmingling with one another. He could also, by the gleam of bayonets\nvisible through the smoke, make out moving masses of infantry and narrow\nlines of artillery with green caissons.\n\nRostov stopped his horse for a moment on a hillock to see what was going\non, but strain his attention as he would he could not understand or make\nout anything of what was happening: there in the smoke men of some sort\nwere moving about, in front and behind moved lines of troops; but why,\nwhither, and who they were, it was impossible to make out. These sights\nand sounds had no depressing or intimidating effect on him; on the\ncontrary, they stimulated his energy and determination.\n\n\"Go on! Go on! Give it them!\" he mentally exclaimed at these sounds, and\nagain proceeded to gallop along the line, penetrating farther and\nfarther into the region where the army was already in action.\n\n\"How it will be there I don't know, but all will be well!\" thought\nRostov.\n\nAfter passing some Austrian troops he noticed that the next part of the\nline (the Guards) was already in action.\n\n\"So much the better! I shall see it close,\" he thought.\n\nHe was riding almost along the front line. A handful of men came\ngalloping toward him. They were our uhlans who with disordered ranks\nwere returning from the attack. Rostov got out of their way,\ninvoluntarily noticed that one of them was bleeding, and galloped on.\n\n\"That is no business of mine,\" he thought. He had not ridden many\nhundred yards after that before he saw to his left, across the whole\nwidth of the field, an enormous mass of cavalry in brilliant white\nuniforms, mounted on black horses, trotting straight toward him and\nacross his path. Rostov put his horse to full gallop to get out of the\nway of these men, and he would have got clear had they continued at the\nsame speed, but they kept increasing their pace, so that some of the\nhorses were already galloping. Rostov heard the thud of their hoofs and\nthe jingle of their weapons and saw their horses, their figures, and\neven their faces, more and more distinctly. They were our Horse Guards,\nadvancing to attack the French cavalry that was coming to meet them.\n\nThe Horse Guards were galloping, but still holding in their horses.\nRostov could already see their faces and heard the command: \"Charge!\"\nshouted by an officer who was urging his thoroughbred to full speed.\nRostov, fearing to be crushed or swept into the attack on the French,\ngalloped along the front as hard as his horse could go, but still was\nnot in time to avoid them.\n\nThe last of the Horse Guards, a huge pockmarked fellow, frowned angrily\non seeing Rostov before him, with whom he would inevitably collide. This\nGuardsman would certainly have bowled Rostov and his Bedouin over\n(Rostov felt himself quite tiny and weak compared to these gigantic men\nand horses) had it not occurred to Rostov to flourish his whip before\nthe eyes of the Guardsman's horse. The heavy black horse, sixteen hands\nhigh, shied, throwing back its ears; but the pockmarked Guardsman drove\nhis huge spurs in violently, and the horse, flourishing its tail and\nextending its neck, galloped on yet faster. Hardly had the Horse Guards\npassed Rostov before he heard them shout, \"Hurrah!\" and looking back saw\nthat their foremost ranks were mixed up with some foreign cavalry with\nred epaulets, probably French. He could see nothing more, for\nimmediately afterwards cannon began firing from somewhere and smoke\nenveloped everything.\n\nAt that moment, as the Horse Guards, having passed him, disappeared in\nthe smoke, Rostov hesitated whether to gallop after them or to go where\nhe was sent. This was the brilliant charge of the Horse Guards that\namazed the French themselves. Rostov was horrified to hear later that of\nall that mass of huge and handsome men, of all those brilliant, rich\nyouths, officers and cadets, who had galloped past him on their\nthousand-ruble horses, only eighteen were left after the charge.\n\n\"Why should I envy them? My chance is not lost, and maybe I shall see\nthe Emperor immediately!\" thought Rostov and galloped on.\n\nWhen he came level with the Foot Guards he noticed that about them and\naround them cannon balls were flying, of which he was aware not so much\nbecause he heard their sound as because he saw uneasiness on the\nsoldiers' faces and unnatural warlike solemnity on those of the\nofficers.\n\nPassing behind one of the lines of a regiment of Foot Guards he heard a\nvoice calling him by name.\n\n\"Rostov!\"\n\n\"What?\" he answered, not recognizing Boris.\n\n\"I say, we've been in the front line! Our regiment attacked!\" said Boris\nwith the happy smile seen on the faces of young men who have been under\nfire for the first time.\n\nRostov stopped.\n\n\"Have you?\" he said. \"Well, how did it go?\"\n\n\"We drove them back!\" said Boris with animation, growing talkative. \"Can\nyou imagine it?\" and he began describing how the Guards, having taken up\ntheir position and seeing troops before them, thought they were\nAustrians, and all at once discovered from the cannon balls discharged\nby those troops that they were themselves in the front line and had\nunexpectedly to go into action. Rostov without hearing Boris to the end\nspurred his horse.\n\n\"Where are you off to?\" asked Boris.\n\n\"With a message to His Majesty.\"\n\n\"There he is!\" said Boris, thinking Rostov had said \"His Highness,\" and\npointing to the Grand Duke who with his high shoulders and frowning\nbrows stood a hundred paces away from them in his helmet and Horse\nGuards' jacket, shouting something to a pale, white uniformed Austrian\nofficer.\n\n\"But that's the Grand Duke, and I want the commander-in-chief or the\nEmperor,\" said Rostov, and was about to spur his horse.\n\n\"Count! Count!\" shouted Berg who ran up from the other side as eager as\nBoris. \"Count! I am wounded in my right hand\" (and he showed his\nbleeding hand with a handkerchief tied round it) \"and I remained at the\nfront. I held my sword in my left hand, Count. All our family--the von\nBergs--have been knights!\"\n\nHe said something more, but Rostov did not wait to hear it and rode\naway.\n\nHaving passed the Guards and traversed an empty space, Rostov, to avoid\nagain getting in front of the first line as he had done when the Horse\nGuards charged, followed the line of reserves, going far round the place\nwhere the hottest musket fire and cannonade were heard. Suddenly he\nheard musket fire quite close in front of him and behind our troops,\nwhere he could never have expected the enemy to be.\n\n\"What can it be?\" he thought. \"The enemy in the rear of our army?\nImpossible!\" And suddenly he was seized by a panic of fear for himself\nand for the issue of the whole battle. \"But be that what it may,\" he\nreflected, \"there is no riding round it now. I must look for the\ncommander in chief here, and if all is lost it is for me to perish with\nthe rest.\"\n\nThe foreboding of evil that had suddenly come over Rostov was more and\nmore confirmed the farther he rode into the region behind the village of\nPratzen, which was full of troops of all kinds.\n\n\"What does it mean? What is it? Whom are they firing at? Who is firing?\"\nRostov kept asking as he came up to Russian and Austrian soldiers\nrunning in confused crowds across his path.\n\n\"The devil knows! They've killed everybody! It's all up now!\" he was\ntold in Russian, German, and Czech by the crowd of fugitives who\nunderstood what was happening as little as he did.\n\n\"Kill the Germans!\" shouted one.\n\n\"May the devil take them--the traitors!\"\n\n\"Zum Henker diese Russen!\" * muttered a German.\n\n\n* \"Hang these Russians!\"\n\nSeveral wounded men passed along the road, and words of abuse, screams,\nand groans mingled in a general hubbub, then the firing died down.\nRostov learned later that Russian and Austrian soldiers had been firing\nat one another.\n\n\"My God! What does it all mean?\" thought he. \"And here, where at any\nmoment the Emperor may see them.... But no, these must be only a handful\nof scoundrels. It will soon be over, it can't be that, it can't be! Only\nto get past them quicker, quicker!\"\n\nThe idea of defeat and flight could not enter Rostov's head. Though he\nsaw French cannon and French troops on the Pratzen Heights just where he\nhad been ordered to look for the commander-in-chief, he could not, did\nnot wish to, believe that.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nRostov had been ordered to look for Kutuzov and the Emperor near the\nvillage of Pratzen. But neither they nor a single commanding officer\nwere there, only disorganized crowds of troops of various kinds. He\nurged on his already weary horse to get quickly past these crowds, but\nthe farther he went the more disorganized they were. The highroad on\nwhich he had come out was thronged with caleches, carriages of all\nsorts, and Russian and Austrian soldiers of all arms, some wounded and\nsome not. This whole mass droned and jostled in confusion under the\ndismal influence of cannon balls flying from the French batteries\nstationed on the Pratzen Heights.\n\n\"Where is the Emperor? Where is Kutuzov?\" Rostov kept asking everyone he\ncould stop, but got no answer from anyone.\n\nAt last seizing a soldier by his collar he forced him to answer.\n\n\"Eh, brother! They've all bolted long ago!\" said the soldier, laughing\nfor some reason and shaking himself free.\n\nHaving left that soldier who was evidently drunk, Rostov stopped the\nhorse of a batman or groom of some important personage and began to\nquestion him. The man announced that the Tsar had been driven in a\ncarriage at full speed about an hour before along that very road and\nthat he was dangerously wounded.\n\n\"It can't be!\" said Rostov. \"It must have been someone else.\"\n\n\"I saw him myself,\" replied the man with a self-confident smile of\nderision. \"I ought to know the Emperor by now, after the times I've seen\nhim in Petersburg. I saw him just as I see you.... There he sat in the\ncarriage as pale as anything. How they made the four black horses fly!\nGracious me, they did rattle past! It's time I knew the Imperial horses\nand Ilya Ivanych. I don't think Ilya drives anyone except the Tsar!\"\n\nRostov let go of the horse and was about to ride on, when a wounded\nofficer passing by addressed him:\n\n\"Who is it you want?\" he asked. \"The commander-in-chief? He was killed\nby a cannon ball--struck in the breast before our regiment.\"\n\n\"Not killed--wounded!\" another officer corrected him.\n\n\"Who? Kutuzov?\" asked Rostov.\n\n\"Not Kutuzov, but what's his name--well, never mind... there are not\nmany left alive. Go that way, to that village, all the commanders are\nthere,\" said the officer, pointing to the village of Hosjeradek, and he\nwalked on.\n\nRostov rode on at a footpace not knowing why or to whom he was now\ngoing. The Emperor was wounded, the battle lost. It was impossible to\ndoubt it now. Rostov rode in the direction pointed out to him, in which\nhe saw turrets and a church. What need to hurry? What was he now to say\nto the Tsar or to Kutuzov, even if they were alive and unwounded?\n\n\"Take this road, your honor, that way you will be killed at once!\" a\nsoldier shouted to him. \"They'd kill you there!\"\n\n\"Oh, what are you talking about?\" said another. \"Where is he to go? That\nway is nearer.\"\n\nRostov considered, and then went in the direction where they said he\nwould be killed.\n\n\"It's all the same now. If the Emperor is wounded, am I to try to save\nmyself?\" he thought. He rode on to the region where the greatest number\nof men had perished in fleeing from Pratzen. The French had not yet\noccupied that region, and the Russians--the uninjured and slightly\nwounded--had left it long ago. All about the field, like heaps of manure\non well-kept plowland, lay from ten to fifteen dead and wounded to each\ncouple of acres. The wounded crept together in twos and threes and one\ncould hear their distressing screams and groans, sometimes feigned--or\nso it seemed to Rostov. He put his horse to a trot to avoid seeing all\nthese suffering men, and he felt afraid--afraid not for his life, but\nfor the courage he needed and which he knew would not stand the sight of\nthese unfortunates.\n\nThe French, who had ceased firing at this field strewn with dead and\nwounded where there was no one left to fire at, on seeing an adjutant\nriding over it trained a gun on him and fired several shots. The\nsensation of those terrible whistling sounds and of the corpses around\nhim merged in Rostov's mind into a single feeling of terror and pity for\nhimself. He remembered his mother's last letter. \"What would she feel,\"\nthought he, \"if she saw me here now on this field with the cannon aimed\nat me?\"\n\nIn the village of Hosjeradek there were Russian troops retiring from the\nfield of battle, who though still in some confusion were less\ndisordered. The French cannon did not reach there and the musketry fire\nsounded far away. Here everyone clearly saw and said that the battle was\nlost. No one whom Rostov asked could tell him where the Emperor or\nKutuzov was. Some said the report that the Emperor was wounded was\ncorrect, others that it was not, and explained the false rumor that had\nspread by the fact that the Emperor's carriage had really galloped from\nthe field of battle with the pale and terrified Ober-Hofmarschal Count\nTolstoy, who had ridden out to the battlefield with others in the\nEmperor's suite. One officer told Rostov that he had seen someone from\nheadquarters behind the village to the left, and thither Rostov rode,\nnot hoping to find anyone but merely to ease his conscience. When he had\nridden about two miles and had passed the last of the Russian troops, he\nsaw, near a kitchen garden with a ditch round it, two men on horseback\nfacing the ditch. One with a white plume in his hat seemed familiar to\nRostov; the other on a beautiful chestnut horse (which Rostov fancied he\nhad seen before) rode up to the ditch, struck his horse with his spurs,\nand giving it the rein leaped lightly over. Only a little earth crumbled\nfrom the bank under the horse's hind hoofs. Turning the horse sharply,\nhe again jumped the ditch, and deferentially addressed the horseman with\nthe white plumes, evidently suggesting that he should do the same. The\nrider, whose figure seemed familiar to Rostov and involuntarily riveted\nhis attention, made a gesture of refusal with his head and hand and by\nthat gesture Rostov instantly recognized his lamented and adored\nmonarch.\n\n\"But it can't be he, alone in the midst of this empty field!\" thought\nRostov. At that moment Alexander turned his head and Rostov saw the\nbeloved features that were so deeply engraved on his memory. The Emperor\nwas pale, his cheeks sunken and his eyes hollow, but the charm, the\nmildness of his features, was all the greater. Rostov was happy in the\nassurance that the rumors about the Emperor being wounded were false. He\nwas happy to be seeing him. He knew that he might and even ought to go\nstraight to him and give the message Dolgorukov had ordered him to\ndeliver.\n\nBut as a youth in love trembles, is unnerved, and dares not utter the\nthoughts he has dreamed of for nights, but looks around for help or a\nchance of delay and flight when the longed-for moment comes and he is\nalone with her, so Rostov, now that he had attained what he had longed\nfor more than anything else in the world, did not know how to approach\nthe Emperor, and a thousand reasons occurred to him why it would be\ninconvenient, unseemly, and impossible to do so.\n\n\"What! It is as if I were glad of a chance to take advantage of his\nbeing alone and despondent! A strange face may seem unpleasant or\npainful to him at this moment of sorrow; besides, what can I say to him\nnow, when my heart fails me and my mouth feels dry at the mere sight of\nhim?\" Not one of the innumerable speeches addressed to the Emperor that\nhe had composed in his imagination could he now recall. Those speeches\nwere intended for quite other conditions, they were for the most part to\nbe spoken at a moment of victory and triumph, generally when he was\ndying of wounds and the sovereign had thanked him for heroic deeds, and\nwhile dying he expressed the love his actions had proved.\n\n\"Besides how can I ask the Emperor for his instructions for the right\nflank now that it is nearly four o'clock and the battle is lost? No,\ncertainly I must not approach him, I must not intrude on his\nreflections. Better die a thousand times than risk receiving an unkind\nlook or bad opinion from him,\" Rostov decided; and sorrowfully and with\na heart full despair he rode away, continually looking back at the Tsar,\nwho still remained in the same attitude of indecision.\n\nWhile Rostov was thus arguing with himself and riding sadly away,\nCaptain von Toll chanced to ride to the same spot, and seeing the\nEmperor at once rode up to him, offered his services, and assisted him\nto cross the ditch on foot. The Emperor, wishing to rest and feeling\nunwell, sat down under an apple tree and von Toll remained beside him.\nRostov from a distance saw with envy and remorse how von Toll spoke long\nand warmly to the Emperor and how the Emperor, evidently weeping,\ncovered his eyes with his hand and pressed von Toll's hand.\n\n\"And I might have been in his place!\" thought Rostov, and hardly\nrestraining his tears of pity for the Emperor, he rode on in utter\ndespair, not knowing where to or why he was now riding.\n\nHis despair was all the greater from feeling that his own weakness was\nthe cause of his grief.\n\nHe might... not only might but should, have gone up to the sovereign. It\nwas a unique chance to show his devotion to the Emperor and he had not\nmade use of it.... \"What have I done?\" thought he. And he turned round\nand galloped back to the place where he had seen the Emperor, but there\nwas no one beyond the ditch now. Only some carts and carriages were\npassing by. From one of the drivers he learned that Kutuzov's staff were\nnot far off, in the village the vehicles were going to. Rostov followed\nthem. In front of him walked Kutuzov's groom leading horses in\nhorsecloths. Then came a cart, and behind that walked an old, bandy-\nlegged domestic serf in a peaked cap and sheepskin coat.\n\n\"Tit! I say, Tit!\" said the groom.\n\n\"What?\" answered the old man absent-mindedly.\n\n\"Go, Tit! Thresh a bit!\"\n\n\"Oh, you fool!\" said the old man, spitting angrily. Some time passed in\nsilence, and then the same joke was repeated.\n\nBefore five in the evening the battle had been lost at all points. More\nthan a hundred cannon were already in the hands of the French.\n\nPrzebyszewski and his corps had laid down their arms. Other columns\nafter losing half their men were retreating in disorderly confused\nmasses.\n\nThe remains of Langeron's and Dokhturov's mingled forces were crowding\naround the dams and banks of the ponds near the village of Augesd.\n\nAfter five o'clock it was only at the Augesd Dam that a hot cannonade\n(delivered by the French alone) was still to be heard from numerous\nbatteries ranged on the slopes of the Pratzen Heights, directed at our\nretreating forces.\n\nIn the rearguard, Dokhturov and others rallying some battalions kept up\na musketry fire at the French cavalry that was pursuing our troops. It\nwas growing dusk. On the narrow Augesd Dam where for so many years the\nold miller had been accustomed to sit in his tasseled cap peacefully\nangling, while his grandson, with shirt sleeves rolled up, handled the\nfloundering silvery fish in the watering can, on that dam over which for\nso many years Moravians in shaggy caps and blue jackets had peacefully\ndriven their two-horse carts loaded with wheat and had returned dusty\nwith flour whitening their carts--on that narrow dam amid the wagons and\nthe cannon, under the horses' hoofs and between the wagon wheels, men\ndisfigured by fear of death now crowded together, crushing one another,\ndying, stepping over the dying and killing one another, only to move on\na few steps and be killed themselves in the same way.\n\nEvery ten seconds a cannon ball flew compressing the air around, or a\nshell burst in the midst of that dense throng, killing some and\nsplashing with blood those near them.\n\nDolokhov--now an officer--wounded in the arm, and on foot, with the\nregimental commander on horseback and some ten men of his company,\nrepresented all that was left of that whole regiment. Impelled by the\ncrowd, they had got wedged in at the approach to the dam and, jammed in\non all sides, had stopped because a horse in front had fallen under a\ncannon and the crowd were dragging it out. A cannon ball killed someone\nbehind them, another fell in front and splashed Dolokhov with blood. The\ncrowd, pushing forward desperately, squeezed together, moved a few\nsteps, and again stopped.\n\n\"Move on a hundred yards and we are certainly saved, remain here another\ntwo minutes and it is certain death,\" thought each one.\n\nDolokhov who was in the midst of the crowd forced his way to the edge of\nthe dam, throwing two soldiers off their feet, and ran onto the slippery\nice that covered the millpool.\n\n\"Turn this way!\" he shouted, jumping over the ice which creaked under\nhim; \"turn this way!\" he shouted to those with the gun. \"It bears!...\"\n\nThe ice bore him but it swayed and creaked, and it was plain that it\nwould give way not only under a cannon or a crowd, but very soon even\nunder his weight alone. The men looked at him and pressed to the bank,\nhesitating to step onto the ice. The general on horseback at the\nentrance to the dam raised his hand and opened his mouth to address\nDolokhov. Suddenly a cannon ball hissed so low above the crowd that\neveryone ducked. It flopped into something moist, and the general fell\nfrom his horse in a pool of blood. Nobody gave him a look or thought of\nraising him.\n\n\"Get onto the ice, over the ice! Go on! Turn! Don't you hear? Go on!\"\ninnumerable voices suddenly shouted after the ball had struck the\ngeneral, the men themselves not knowing what, or why, they were\nshouting.\n\nOne of the hindmost guns that was going onto the dam turned off onto the\nice. Crowds of soldiers from the dam began running onto the frozen pond.\nThe ice gave way under one of the foremost soldiers, and one leg slipped\ninto the water. He tried to right himself but fell in up to his waist.\nThe nearest soldiers shrank back, the gun driver stopped his horse, but\nfrom behind still came the shouts: \"Onto the ice, why do you stop? Go\non! Go on!\" And cries of horror were heard in the crowd. The soldiers\nnear the gun waved their arms and beat the horses to make them turn and\nmove on. The horses moved off the bank. The ice, that had held under\nthose on foot, collapsed in a great mass, and some forty men who were on\nit dashed, some forward and some back, drowning one another.\n\nStill the cannon balls continued regularly to whistle and flop onto the\nice and into the water and oftenest of all among the crowd that covered\nthe dam, the pond, and the bank.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nOn the Pratzen Heights, where he had fallen with the flagstaff in his\nhand, lay Prince Andrew Bolkonski bleeding profusely and unconsciously\nuttering a gentle, piteous, and childlike moan.\n\nToward evening he ceased moaning and became quite still. He did not know\nhow long his unconsciousness lasted. Suddenly he again felt that he was\nalive and suffering from a burning, lacerating pain in his head.\n\n\"Where is it, that lofty sky that I did not know till now, but saw\ntoday?\" was his first thought. \"And I did not know this suffering\neither,\" he thought. \"Yes, I did not know anything, anything at all till\nnow. But where am I?\"\n\nHe listened and heard the sound of approaching horses, and voices\nspeaking French. He opened his eyes. Above him again was the same lofty\nsky with clouds that had risen and were floating still higher, and\nbetween them gleamed blue infinity. He did not turn his head and did not\nsee those who, judging by the sound of hoofs and voices, had ridden up\nand stopped near him.\n\nIt was Napoleon accompanied by two aides-de-camp. Bonaparte riding over\nthe battlefield had given final orders to strengthen the batteries\nfiring at the Augesd Dam and was looking at the killed and wounded left\non the field.\n\n\"Fine men!\" remarked Napoleon, looking at a dead Russian grenadier, who,\nwith his face buried in the ground and a blackened nape, lay on his\nstomach with an already stiffened arm flung wide.\n\n\"The ammunition for the guns in position is exhausted, Your Majesty,\"\nsaid an adjutant who had come from the batteries that were firing at\nAugesd.\n\n\"Have some brought from the reserve,\" said Napoleon, and having gone on\na few steps he stopped before Prince Andrew, who lay on his back with\nthe flagstaff that had been dropped beside him. (The flag had already\nbeen taken by the French as a trophy.)\n\n\"That's a fine death!\" said Napoleon as he gazed at Bolkonski.\n\nPrince Andrew understood that this was said of him and that it was\nNapoleon who said it. He heard the speaker addressed as Sire. But he\nheard the words as he might have heard the buzzing of a fly. Not only\ndid they not interest him, but he took no notice of them and at once\nforgot them. His head was burning, he felt himself bleeding to death,\nand he saw above him the remote, lofty, and everlasting sky. He knew it\nwas Napoleon--his hero--but at that moment Napoleon seemed to him such a\nsmall, insignificant creature compared with what was passing now between\nhimself and that lofty infinite sky with the clouds flying over it. At\nthat moment it meant nothing to him who might be standing over him, or\nwhat was said of him; he was only glad that people were standing near\nhim and only wished that they would help him and bring him back to life,\nwhich seemed to him so beautiful now that he had today learned to\nunderstand it so differently. He collected all his strength, to stir and\nutter a sound. He feebly moved his leg and uttered a weak, sickly groan\nwhich aroused his own pity.\n\n\"Ah! He is alive,\" said Napoleon. \"Lift this young man up and carry him\nto the dressing station.\"\n\nHaving said this, Napoleon rode on to meet Marshal Lannes, who, hat in\nhand, rode up smiling to the Emperor to congratulate him on the victory.\n\nPrince Andrew remembered nothing more: he lost consciousness from the\nterrible pain of being lifted onto the stretcher, the jolting while\nbeing moved, and the probing of his wound at the dressing station. He\ndid not regain consciousness till late in the day, when with other\nwounded and captured Russian officers he was carried to the hospital.\nDuring this transfer he felt a little stronger and was able to look\nabout him and even speak.\n\nThe first words he heard on coming to his senses were those of a French\nconvoy officer, who said rapidly: \"We must halt here: the Emperor will\npass here immediately; it will please him to see these gentlemen\nprisoners.\"\n\n\"There are so many prisoners today, nearly the whole Russian army, that\nhe is probably tired of them,\" said another officer.\n\n\"All the same! They say this one is the commander of all the Emperor\nAlexander's Guards,\" said the first one, indicating a Russian officer in\nthe white uniform of the Horse Guards.\n\nBolkonski recognized Prince Repnin whom he had met in Petersburg\nsociety. Beside him stood a lad of nineteen, also a wounded officer of\nthe Horse Guards.\n\nBonaparte, having come up at a gallop, stopped his horse.\n\n\"Which is the senior?\" he asked, on seeing the prisoners.\n\nThey named the colonel, Prince Repnin.\n\n\"You are the commander of the Emperor Alexander's regiment of Horse\nGuards?\" asked Napoleon.\n\n\"I commanded a squadron,\" replied Repnin.\n\n\"Your regiment fulfilled its duty honorably,\" said Napoleon.\n\n\"The praise of a great commander is a soldier's highest reward,\" said\nRepnin.\n\n\"I bestow it with pleasure,\" said Napoleon. \"And who is that young man\nbeside you?\"\n\nPrince Repnin named Lieutenant Sukhtelen.\n\nAfter looking at him Napoleon smiled.\n\n\"He's very young to come to meddle with us.\"\n\n\"Youth is no hindrance to courage,\" muttered Sukhtelen in a failing\nvoice.\n\n\"A splendid reply!\" said Napoleon. \"Young man, you will go far!\"\n\nPrince Andrew, who had also been brought forward before the Emperor's\neyes to complete the show of prisoners, could not fail to attract his\nattention. Napoleon apparently remembered seeing him on the battlefield\nand, addressing him, again used the epithet \"young man\" that was\nconnected in his memory with Prince Andrew.\n\n\"Well, and you, young man,\" said he. \"How do you feel, mon brave?\"\n\nThough five minutes before, Prince Andrew had been able to say a few\nwords to the soldiers who were carrying him, now with his eyes fixed\nstraight on Napoleon, he was silent.... So insignificant at that moment\nseemed to him all the interests that engrossed Napoleon, so mean did his\nhero himself with his paltry vanity and joy in victory appear, compared\nto the lofty, equitable, and kindly sky which he had seen and\nunderstood, that he could not answer him.\n\nEverything seemed so futile and insignificant in comparison with the\nstern and solemn train of thought that weakness from loss of blood,\nsuffering, and the nearness of death aroused in him. Looking into\nNapoleon's eyes Prince Andrew thought of the insignificance of\ngreatness, the unimportance of life which no one could understand, and\nthe still greater unimportance of death, the meaning of which no one\nalive could understand or explain.\n\nThe Emperor without waiting for an answer turned away and said to one of\nthe officers as he went: \"Have these gentlemen attended to and taken to\nmy bivouac; let my doctor, Larrey, examine their wounds. Au revoir,\nPrince Repnin!\" and he spurred his horse and galloped away.\n\nHis face shone with self-satisfaction and pleasure.\n\nThe soldiers who had carried Prince Andrew had noticed and taken the\nlittle gold icon Princess Mary had hung round her brother's neck, but\nseeing the favor the Emperor showed the prisoners, they now hastened to\nreturn the holy image.\n\nPrince Andrew did not see how and by whom it was replaced, but the\nlittle icon with its thin gold chain suddenly appeared upon his chest\noutside his uniform.\n\n\"It would be good,\" thought Prince Andrew, glancing at the icon his\nsister had hung round his neck with such emotion and reverence, \"it\nwould be good if everything were as clear and simple as it seems to\nMary. How good it would be to know where to seek for help in this life,\nand what to expect after it beyond the grave! How happy and calm I\nshould be if I could now say: 'Lord, have mercy on me!'... But to whom\nshould I say that? Either to a Power indefinable, incomprehensible,\nwhich I not only cannot address but which I cannot even express in\nwords--the Great All or Nothing-\" said he to himself, \"or to that God\nwho has been sewn into this amulet by Mary! There is nothing certain,\nnothing at all except the unimportance of everything I understand, and\nthe greatness of something incomprehensible but all-important.\"\n\nThe stretchers moved on. At every jolt he again felt unendurable pain;\nhis feverishness increased and he grew delirious. Visions of his father,\nwife, sister, and future son, and the tenderness he had felt the night\nbefore the battle, the figure of the insignificant little Napoleon, and\nabove all this the lofty sky, formed the chief subjects of his delirious\nfancies.\n\nThe quiet home life and peaceful happiness of Bald Hills presented\nitself to him. He was already enjoying that happiness when that little\nNapoleon had suddenly appeared with his unsympathizing look of\nshortsighted delight at the misery of others, and doubts and torments\nhad followed, and only the heavens promised peace. Toward morning all\nthese dreams melted and merged into the chaos and darkness of\nunconciousness and oblivion which in the opinion of Napoleon's doctor,\nLarrey, was much more likely to end in death than in convalescence.\n\n\"He is a nervous, bilious subject,\" said Larrey, \"and will not recover.\"\n\nAnd Prince Andrew, with others fatally wounded, was left to the care of\nthe inhabitants of the district.\n\nBOOK FOUR: 1806\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nEarly in the year 1806 Nicholas Rostov returned home on leave. Denisov\nwas going home to Voronezh and Rostov persuaded him to travel with him\nas far as Moscow and to stay with him there. Meeting a comrade at the\nlast post station but one before Moscow, Denisov had drunk three bottles\nof wine with him and, despite the jolting ruts across the snow-covered\nroad, did not once wake up on the way to Moscow, but lay at the bottom\nof the sleigh beside Rostov, who grew more and more impatient the nearer\nthey got to Moscow.\n\n\"How much longer? How much longer? Oh, these insufferable streets,\nshops, bakers' signboards, street lamps, and sleighs!\" thought Rostov,\nwhen their leave permits had been passed at the town gate and they had\nentered Moscow.\n\n\"Denisov! We're here! He's asleep,\" he added, leaning forward with his\nwhole body as if in that position he hoped to hasten the speed of the\nsleigh.\n\nDenisov gave no answer.\n\n\"There's the corner at the crossroads, where the cabman, Zakhar, has his\nstand, and there's Zakhar himself and still the same horse! And here's\nthe little shop where we used to buy gingerbread! Can't you hurry up?\nNow then!\"\n\n\"Which house is it?\" asked the driver.\n\n\"Why, that one, right at the end, the big one. Don't you see? That's our\nhouse,\" said Rostov. \"Of course, it's our house! Denisov, Denisov! We're\nalmost there!\"\n\nDenisov raised his head, coughed, and made no answer.\n\n\"Dmitri,\" said Rostov to his valet on the box, \"those lights are in our\nhouse, aren't they?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir, and there's a light in your father's study.\"\n\n\"Then they've not gone to bed yet? What do you think? Mind now, don't\nforget to put out my new coat,\" added Rostov, fingering his new\nmustache. \"Now then, get on,\" he shouted to the driver. \"Do wake up,\nVaska!\" he went on, turning to Denisov, whose head was again nodding.\n\"Come, get on! You shall have three rubles for vodka--get on!\" Rostov\nshouted, when the sleigh was only three houses from his door. It seemed\nto him the horses were not moving at all. At last the sleigh bore to the\nright, drew up at an entrance, and Rostov saw overhead the old familiar\ncornice with a bit of plaster broken off, the porch, and the post by the\nside of the pavement. He sprang out before the sleigh stopped, and ran\ninto the hall. The house stood cold and silent, as if quite regardless\nof who had come to it. There was no one in the hall. \"Oh God! Is\neveryone all right?\" he thought, stopping for a moment with a sinking\nheart, and then immediately starting to run along the hall and up the\nwarped steps of the familiar staircase. The well-known old door handle,\nwhich always angered the countess when it was not properly cleaned,\nturned as loosely as ever. A solitary tallow candle burned in the\nanteroom.\n\nOld Michael was asleep on the chest. Prokofy, the footman, who was so\nstrong that he could lift the back of the carriage from behind, sat\nplaiting slippers out of cloth selvedges. He looked up at the opening\ndoor and his expression of sleepy indifference suddenly changed to one\nof delighted amazement.\n\n\"Gracious heavens! The young count!\" he cried, recognizing his young\nmaster. \"Can it be? My treasure!\" and Prokofy, trembling with\nexcitement, rushed toward the drawing-room door, probably in order to\nannounce him, but, changing his mind, came back and stooped to kiss the\nyoung man's shoulder.\n\n\"All well?\" asked Rostov, drawing away his arm.\n\n\"Yes, God be thanked! Yes! They've just finished supper. Let me have a\nlook at you, your excellency.\"\n\n\"Is everything quite all right?\"\n\n\"The Lord be thanked, yes!\"\n\nRostov, who had completely forgotten Denisov, not wishing anyone to\nforestall him, threw off his fur coat and ran on tiptoe through the\nlarge dark ballroom. All was the same: there were the same old card\ntables and the same chandelier with a cover over it; but someone had\nalready seen the young master, and, before he had reached the drawing\nroom, something flew out from a side door like a tornado and began\nhugging and kissing him. Another and yet another creature of the same\nkind sprang from a second door and a third; more hugging, more kissing,\nmore outcries, and tears of joy. He could not distinguish which was\nPapa, which Natasha, and which Petya. Everyone shouted, talked, and\nkissed him at the same time. Only his mother was not there, he noticed\nthat.\n\n\"And I did not know... Nicholas... My darling!...\"\n\n\"Here he is... our own... Kolya, * dear fellow... How he has changed!...\nWhere are the candles?... Tea!...\"\n\n\n* Nicholas.\n\n\"And me, kiss me!\"\n\n\"Dearest... and me!\"\n\nSonya, Natasha, Petya, Anna Mikhaylovna, Vera, and the old count were\nall hugging him, and the serfs, men and maids, flocked into the room,\nexclaiming and oh-ing and ah-ing.\n\nPetya, clinging to his legs, kept shouting, \"And me too!\"\n\nNatasha, after she had pulled him down toward her and covered his face\nwith kisses, holding him tight by the skirt of his coat, sprang away and\npranced up and down in one place like a goat and shrieked piercingly.\n\nAll around were loving eyes glistening with tears of joy, and all around\nwere lips seeking a kiss.\n\nSonya too, all rosy red, clung to his arm and, radiant with bliss,\nlooked eagerly toward his eyes, waiting for the look for which she\nlonged. Sonya now was sixteen and she was very pretty, especially at\nthis moment of happy, rapturous excitement. She gazed at him, not taking\nher eyes off him, and smiling and holding her breath. He gave her a\ngrateful look, but was still expectant and looking for someone. The old\ncountess had not yet come. But now steps were heard at the door, steps\nso rapid that they could hardly be his mother's.\n\nYet it was she, dressed in a new gown which he did not know, made since\nhe had left. All the others let him go, and he ran to her. When they\nmet, she fell on his breast, sobbing. She could not lift her face, but\nonly pressed it to the cold braiding of his hussar's jacket. Denisov,\nwho had come into the room unnoticed by anyone, stood there and wiped\nhis eyes at the sight.\n\n\"Vasili Denisov, your son's friend,\" he said, introducing himself to the\ncount, who was looking inquiringly at him.\n\n\"You are most welcome! I know, I know,\" said the count, kissing and\nembracing Denisov. \"Nicholas wrote us... Natasha, Vera, look! Here is\nDenisov!\"\n\nThe same happy, rapturous faces turned to the shaggy figure of Denisov.\n\n\"Darling Denisov!\" screamed Natasha, beside herself with rapture,\nspringing to him, putting her arms round him, and kissing him. This\nescapade made everybody feel confused. Denisov blushed too, but smiled\nand, taking Natasha's hand, kissed it.\n\nDenisov was shown to the room prepared for him, and the Rostovs all\ngathered round Nicholas in the sitting room.\n\nThe old countess, not letting go of his hand and kissing it every\nmoment, sat beside him: the rest, crowding round him, watched every\nmovement, word, or look of his, never taking their blissfully adoring\neyes off him. His brother and sisters struggled for the places nearest\nto him and disputed with one another who should bring him his tea,\nhandkerchief, and pipe.\n\nRostov was very happy in the love they showed him; but the first moment\nof meeting had been so beatific that his present joy seemed\ninsufficient, and he kept expecting something more, more and yet more.\n\nNext morning, after the fatigues of their journey, the travelers slept\ntill ten o'clock.\n\nIn the room next their bedroom there was a confusion of sabers,\nsatchels, sabretaches, open portmanteaus, and dirty boots. Two freshly\ncleaned pairs with spurs had just been placed by the wall. The servants\nwere bringing in jugs and basins, hot water for shaving, and their well-\nbrushed clothes. There was a masculine odor and a smell of tobacco.\n\n\"Hallo, Gwiska--my pipe!\" came Vasili Denisov's husky voice. \"Wostov,\nget up!\"\n\nRostov, rubbing his eyes that seemed glued together, raised his\ndisheveled head from the hot pillow.\n\n\"Why, is it late?\"\n\n\"Late! It's nearly ten o'clock,\" answered Natasha's voice. A rustle of\nstarched petticoats and the whispering and laughter of girls' voices\ncame from the adjoining room. The door was opened a crack and there was\na glimpse of something blue, of ribbons, black hair, and merry faces. It\nwas Natasha, Sonya, and Petya, who had come to see whether they were\ngetting up.\n\n\"Nicholas! Get up!\" Natasha's voice was again heard at the door.\n\n\"Directly!\"\n\nMeanwhile, Petya, having found and seized the sabers in the outer room,\nwith the delight boys feel at the sight of a military elder brother, and\nforgetting that it was unbecoming for the girls to see men undressed,\nopened the bedroom door.\n\n\"Is this your saber?\" he shouted.\n\nThe girls sprang aside. Denisov hid his hairy legs under the blanket,\nlooking with a scared face at his comrade for help. The door, having let\nPetya in, closed again. A sound of laughter came from behind it.\n\n\"Nicholas! Come out in your dressing gown!\" said Natasha's voice.\n\n\"Is this your saber?\" asked Petya. \"Or is it yours?\" he said, addressing\nthe black-mustached Denisov with servile deference.\n\nRostov hurriedly put something on his feet, drew on his dressing gown,\nand went out. Natasha had put on one spurred boot and was just getting\nher foot into the other. Sonya, when he came in, was twirling round and\nwas about to expand her dresses into a balloon and sit down. They were\ndressed alike, in new pale-blue frocks, and were both fresh, rosy, and\nbright. Sonya ran away, but Natasha, taking her brother's arm, led him\ninto the sitting room, where they began talking. They hardly gave one\nanother time to ask questions and give replies concerning a thousand\nlittle matters which could not interest anyone but themselves. Natasha\nlaughed at every word he said or that she said herself, not because what\nthey were saying was amusing, but because she felt happy and was unable\nto control her joy which expressed itself by laughter.\n\n\"Oh, how nice, how splendid!\" she said to everything.\n\nRostov felt that, under the influence of the warm rays of love, that\nchildlike smile which had not once appeared on his face since he left\nhome now for the first time after eighteen months again brightened his\nsoul and his face.\n\n\"No, but listen,\" she said, \"now you are quite a man, aren't you? I'm\nawfully glad you're my brother.\" She touched his mustache. \"I want to\nknow what you men are like. Are you the same as we? No?\"\n\n\"Why did Sonya run away?\" asked Rostov.\n\n\"Ah, yes! That's a whole long story! How are you going to speak to her--\nthou or you?\"\n\n\"As may happen,\" said Rostov.\n\n\"No, call her you, please! I'll tell you all about it some other time.\nNo, I'll tell you now. You know Sonya's my dearest friend. Such a friend\nthat I burned my arm for her sake. Look here!\"\n\nShe pulled up her muslin sleeve and showed him a red scar on her long,\nslender, delicate arm, high above the elbow on that part that is covered\neven by a ball dress.\n\n\"I burned this to prove my love for her. I just heated a ruler in the\nfire and pressed it there!\"\n\nSitting on the sofa with the little cushions on its arms, in what used\nto be his old schoolroom, and looking into Natasha's wildly bright eyes,\nRostov re-entered that world of home and childhood which had no meaning\nfor anyone else, but gave him some of the best joys of his life; and the\nburning of an arm with a ruler as a proof of love did not seem to him\nsenseless, he understood and was not surprised at it.\n\n\"Well, and is that all?\" he asked.\n\n\"We are such friends, such friends! All that ruler business was just\nnonsense, but we are friends forever. She, if she loves anyone, does it\nfor life, but I don't understand that, I forget quickly.\"\n\n\"Well, what then?\"\n\n\"Well, she loves me and you like that.\"\n\nNatasha suddenly flushed.\n\n\"Why, you remember before you went away?... Well, she says you are to\nforget all that.... She says: 'I shall love him always, but let him be\nfree.' Isn't that lovely and noble! Yes, very noble? Isn't it?\" asked\nNatasha, so seriously and excitedly that it was evident that what she\nwas now saying she had talked of before, with tears.\n\nRostov became thoughtful.\n\n\"I never go back on my word,\" he said. \"Besides, Sonya is so charming\nthat only a fool would renounce such happiness.\"\n\n\"No, no!\" cried Natasha, \"she and I have already talked it over. We knew\nyou'd say so. But it won't do, because you see, if you say that--if you\nconsider yourself bound by your promise--it will seem as if she had not\nmeant it seriously. It makes it as if you were marrying her because you\nmust, and that wouldn't do at all.\"\n\nRostov saw that it had been well considered by them. Sonya had already\nstruck him by her beauty on the preceding day. Today, when he had caught\na glimpse of her, she seemed still more lovely. She was a charming girl\nof sixteen, evidently passionately in love with him (he did not doubt\nthat for an instant). Why should he not love her now, and even marry\nher, Rostov thought, but just now there were so many other pleasures and\ninterests before him! \"Yes, they have taken a wise decision,\" he\nthought, \"I must remain free.\"\n\n\"Well then, that's excellent,\" said he. \"We'll talk it over later on.\nOh, how glad I am to have you!\"\n\n\"Well, and are you still true to Boris?\" he continued.\n\n\"Oh, what nonsense!\" cried Natasha, laughing. \"I don't think about him\nor anyone else, and I don't want anything of the kind.\"\n\n\"Dear me! Then what are you up to now?\"\n\n\"Now?\" repeated Natasha, and a happy smile lit up her face. \"Have you\nseen Duport?\"\n\n\"No.\"\n\n\"Not seen Duport--the famous dancer? Well then, you won't understand.\nThat's what I'm up to.\"\n\nCurving her arms, Natasha held out her skirts as dancers do, ran back a\nfew steps, turned, cut a caper, brought her little feet sharply\ntogether, and made some steps on the very tips of her toes.\n\n\"See, I'm standing! See!\" she said, but could not maintain herself on\nher toes any longer. \"So that's what I'm up to! I'll never marry anyone,\nbut will be a dancer. Only don't tell anyone.\"\n\nRostov laughed so loud and merrily that Denisov, in his bedroom, felt\nenvious and Natasha could not help joining in.\n\n\"No, but don't you think it's nice?\" she kept repeating.\n\n\"Nice! And so you no longer wish to marry Boris?\"\n\nNatasha flared up. \"I don't want to marry anyone. And I'll tell him so\nwhen I see him!\"\n\n\"Dear me!\" said Rostov.\n\n\"But that's all rubbish,\" Natasha chattered on. \"And is Denisov nice?\"\nshe asked.\n\n\"Yes, indeed!\"\n\n\"Oh, well then, good-by: go and dress. Is he very terrible, Denisov?\"\n\n\"Why terrible?\" asked Nicholas. \"No, Vaska is a splendid fellow.\"\n\n\"You call him Vaska? That's funny! And is he very nice?\"\n\n\"Very.\"\n\n\"Well then, be quick. We'll all have breakfast together.\"\n\nAnd Natasha rose and went out of the room on tiptoe, like a ballet\ndancer, but smiling as only happy girls of fifteen can smile. When\nRostov met Sonya in the drawing room, he reddened. He did not know how\nto behave with her. The evening before, in the first happy moment of\nmeeting, they had kissed each other, but today they felt it could not be\ndone; he felt that everybody, including his mother and sisters, was\nlooking inquiringly at him and watching to see how he would behave with\nher. He kissed her hand and addressed her not as thou but as you--Sonya.\nBut their eyes met and said thou, and exchanged tender kisses. Her looks\nasked him to forgive her for having dared, by Natasha's intermediacy, to\nremind him of his promise, and then thanked him for his love. His looks\nthanked her for offering him his freedom and told her that one way or\nanother he would never cease to love her, for that would be impossible.\n\n\"How strange it is,\" said Vera, selecting a moment when all were silent,\n\"that Sonya and Nicholas now say you to one another and meet like\nstrangers.\"\n\nVera's remark was correct, as her remarks always were, but, like most of\nher observations, it made everyone feel uncomfortable, not only Sonya,\nNicholas, and Natasha, but even the old countess, who--dreading this\nlove affair which might hinder Nicholas from making a brilliant match--\nblushed like a girl.\n\nDenisov, to Rostov's surprise, appeared in the drawing room with pomaded\nhair, perfumed, and in a new uniform, looking just as smart as he made\nhimself when going into battle, and he was more amiable to the ladies\nand gentlemen than Rostov had ever expected to see him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nOn his return to Moscow from the army, Nicholas Rostov was welcomed by\nhis home circle as the best of sons, a hero, and their darling\nNikolenka; by his relations as a charming, attractive, and polite young\nman; by his acquaintances as a handsome lieutenant of hussars, a good\ndancer, and one of the best matches in the city.\n\nThe Rostovs knew everybody in Moscow. The old count had money enough\nthat year, as all his estates had been remortgaged, and so Nicholas,\nacquiring a trotter of his own, very stylish riding breeches of the\nlatest cut, such as no one else yet had in Moscow, and boots of the\nlatest fashion, with extremely pointed toes and small silver spurs,\npassed his time very gaily. After a short period of adapting himself to\nthe old conditions of life, Nicholas found it very pleasant to be at\nhome again. He felt that he had grown up and matured very much. His\ndespair at failing in a Scripture examination, his borrowing money from\nGavril to pay a sleigh driver, his kissing Sonya on the sly--he now\nrecalled all this as childishness he had left immeasurably behind. Now\nhe was a lieutenant of hussars, in a jacket laced with silver, and\nwearing the Cross of St. George, awarded to soldiers for bravery in\naction, and in the company of well-known, elderly, and respected racing\nmen was training a trotter of his own for a race. He knew a lady on one\nof the boulevards whom he visited of an evening. He led the mazurka at\nthe Arkharovs' ball, talked about the war with Field Marshal Kamenski,\nvisited the English Club, and was on intimate terms with a colonel of\nforty to whom Denisov had introduced him.\n\nHis passion for the Emperor had cooled somewhat in Moscow. But still, as\nhe did not see him and had no opportunity of seeing him, he often spoke\nabout him and about his love for him, letting it be understood that he\nhad not told all and that there was something in his feelings for the\nEmperor not everyone could understand, and with his whole soul he shared\nthe adoration then common in Moscow for the Emperor, who was spoken of\nas the \"angel incarnate.\"\n\nDuring Rostov's short stay in Moscow, before rejoining the army, he did\nnot draw closer to Sonya, but rather drifted away from her. She was very\npretty and sweet, and evidently deeply in love with him, but he was at\nthe period of youth when there seems so much to do that there is no time\nfor that sort of thing and a young man fears to bind himself and prizes\nhis freedom which he needs for so many other things. When he thought of\nSonya, during this stay in Moscow, he said to himself, \"Ah, there will\nbe, and there are, many more such girls somewhere whom I do not yet\nknow. There will be time enough to think about love when I want to, but\nnow I have no time.\" Besides, it seemed to him that the society of women\nwas rather derogatory to his manhood. He went to balls and into ladies'\nsociety with an affectation of doing so against his will. The races, the\nEnglish Club, sprees with Denisov, and visits to a certain house--that\nwas another matter and quite the thing for a dashing young hussar!\n\nAt the beginning of March, old Count Ilya Rostov was very busy arranging\na dinner in honor of Prince Bagration at the English Club.\n\nThe count walked up and down the hall in his dressing gown, giving\norders to the club steward and to the famous Feoktist, the club's head\ncook, about asparagus, fresh cucumbers, strawberries, veal, and fish for\nthis dinner. The count had been a member and on the committee of the\nclub from the day it was founded. To him the club entrusted the\narrangement of the festival in honor of Bagration, for few men knew so\nwell how to arrange a feast on an open-handed, hospitable scale, and\nstill fewer men would be so well able and willing to make up out of\ntheir own resources what might be needed for the success of the fete.\nThe club cook and the steward listened to the count's orders with\npleased faces, for they knew that under no other management could they\nso easily extract a good profit for themselves from a dinner costing\nseveral thousand rubles.\n\n\"Well then, mind and have cocks' comb in the turtle soup, you know!\"\n\n\"Shall we have three cold dishes then?\" asked the cook.\n\nThe count considered.\n\n\"We can't have less--yes, three... the mayonnaise, that's one,\" said he,\nbending down a finger.\n\n\"Then am I to order those large sterlets?\" asked the steward.\n\n\"Yes, it can't be helped if they won't take less. Ah, dear me! I was\nforgetting. We must have another entree. Ah, goodness gracious!\" he\nclutched at his head. \"Who is going to get me the flowers? Dmitri! Eh,\nDmitri! Gallop off to our Moscow estate,\" he said to the factotum who\nappeared at his call. \"Hurry off and tell Maksim, the gardener, to set\nthe serfs to work. Say that everything out of the hothouses must be\nbrought here well wrapped up in felt. I must have two hundred pots here\non Friday.\"\n\nHaving given several more orders, he was about to go to his \"little\ncountess\" to have a rest, but remembering something else of importance,\nhe returned again, called back the cook and the club steward, and again\nbegan giving orders. A light footstep and the clinking of spurs were\nheard at the door, and the young count, handsome, rosy, with a dark\nlittle mustache, evidently rested and made sleeker by his easy life in\nMoscow, entered the room.\n\n\"Ah, my boy, my head's in a whirl!\" said the old man with a smile, as if\nhe felt a little confused before his son. \"Now, if you would only help a\nbit! I must have singers too. I shall have my own orchestra, but\nshouldn't we get the gypsy singers as well? You military men like that\nsort of thing.\"\n\n\"Really, Papa, I believe Prince Bagration worried himself less before\nthe battle of Schon Grabern than you do now,\" said his son with a smile.\n\nThe old count pretended to be angry.\n\n\"Yes, you talk, but try it yourself!\"\n\nAnd the count turned to the cook, who, with a shrewd and respectful\nexpression, looked observantly and sympathetically at the father and\nson.\n\n\"What have the young people come to nowadays, eh, Feoktist?\" said he.\n\"Laughing at us old fellows!\"\n\n\"That's so, your excellency, all they have to do is to eat a good\ndinner, but providing it and serving it all up, that's not their\nbusiness!\"\n\n\"That's it, that's it!\" exclaimed the count, and gaily seizing his son\nby both hands, he cried, \"Now I've got you, so take the sleigh and pair\nat once, and go to Bezukhov's, and tell him 'Count Ilya has sent you to\nask for strawberries and fresh pineapples.' We can't get them from\nanyone else. He's not there himself, so you'll have to go in and ask the\nprincesses; and from there go on to the Rasgulyay--the coachman Ipatka\nknows--and look up the gypsy Ilyushka, the one who danced at Count\nOrlov's, you remember, in a white Cossack coat, and bring him along to\nme.\"\n\n\"And am I to bring the gypsy girls along with him?\" asked Nicholas,\nlaughing. \"Dear, dear!...\"\n\nAt that moment, with noiseless footsteps and with the businesslike,\npreoccupied, yet meekly Christian look which never left her face, Anna\nMikhaylovna entered the hall. Though she came upon the count in his\ndressing gown every day, he invariably became confused and begged her to\nexcuse his costume.\n\n\"No matter at all, my dear count,\" she said, meekly closing her eyes.\n\"But I'll go to Bezukhov's myself. Pierre has arrived, and now we shall\nget anything we want from his hothouses. I have to see him in any case.\nHe has forwarded me a letter from Boris. Thank God, Boris is now on the\nstaff.\"\n\nThe count was delighted at Anna Mikhaylovna's taking upon herself one of\nhis commissions and ordered the small closed carriage for her.\n\n\"Tell Bezukhov to come. I'll put his name down. Is his wife with him?\"\nhe asked.\n\nAnna Mikhaylovna turned up her eyes, and profound sadness was depicted\non her face.\n\n\"Ah, my dear friend, he is very unfortunate,\" she said. \"If what we hear\nis true, it is dreadful. How little we dreamed of such a thing when we\nwere rejoicing at his happiness! And such a lofty angelic soul as young\nBezukhov! Yes, I pity him from my heart, and shall try to give him what\nconsolation I can.\"\n\n\"Wh-what is the matter?\" asked both the young and old Rostov.\n\nAnna Mikhaylovna sighed deeply.\n\n\"Dolokhov, Mary Ivanovna's son,\" she said in a mysterious whisper, \"has\ncompromised her completely, they say. Pierre took him up, invited him to\nhis house in Petersburg, and now... she has come here and that daredevil\nafter her!\" said Anna Mikhaylovna, wishing to show her sympathy for\nPierre, but by involuntary intonations and a half smile betraying her\nsympathy for the \"daredevil,\" as she called Dolokhov. \"They say Pierre\nis quite broken by his misfortune.\"\n\n\"Dear, dear! But still tell him to come to the club--it will all blow\nover. It will be a tremendous banquet.\"\n\nNext day, the third of March, soon after one o'clock, two hundred and\nfifty members of the English Club and fifty guests were awaiting the\nguest of honor and hero of the Austrian campaign, Prince Bagration, to\ndinner.\n\nOn the first arrival of the news of the battle of Austerlitz, Moscow had\nbeen bewildered. At that time, the Russians were so used to victories\nthat on receiving news of the defeat some would simply not believe it,\nwhile others sought some extraordinary explanation of so strange an\nevent. In the English Club, where all who were distinguished, important,\nand well informed foregathered when the news began to arrive in\nDecember, nothing was said about the war and the last battle, as though\nall were in a conspiracy of silence. The men who set the tone in\nconversation--Count Rostopchin, Prince Yuri Dolgorukov, Valuev, Count\nMarkov, and Prince Vyazemski--did not show themselves at the club, but\nmet in private houses in intimate circles, and the Moscovites who took\ntheir opinions from others--Ilya Rostov among them--remained for a while\nwithout any definite opinion on the subject of the war and without\nleaders. The Moscovites felt that something was wrong and that to\ndiscuss the bad news was difficult, and so it was best to be silent. But\nafter a while, just as a jury comes out of its room, the bigwigs who\nguided the club's opinion reappeared, and everybody began speaking\nclearly and definitely. Reasons were found for the incredible, unheard-\nof, and impossible event of a Russian defeat, everything became clear,\nand in all corners of Moscow the same things began to be said. These\nreasons were the treachery of the Austrians, a defective commissariat,\nthe treachery of the Pole Przebyszewski and of the Frenchman Langeron,\nKutuzov's incapacity, and (it was whispered) the youth and inexperience\nof the sovereign, who had trusted worthless and insignificant people.\nBut the army, the Russian army, everyone declared, was extraordinary and\nhad achieved miracles of valor. The soldiers, officers, and generals\nwere heroes. But the hero of heroes was Prince Bagration, distinguished\nby his Schon Grabern affair and by the retreat from Austerlitz, where he\nalone had withdrawn his column unbroken and had all day beaten back an\nenemy force twice as numerous as his own. What also conduced to\nBagration's being selected as Moscow's hero was the fact that he had no\nconnections in the city and was a stranger there. In his person, honor\nwas shown to a simple fighting Russian soldier without connections and\nintrigues, and to one who was associated by memories of the Italian\ncampaign with the name of Suvorov. Moreover, paying such honor to\nBagration was the best way of expressing disapproval and dislike of\nKutuzov.\n\n\"Had there been no Bagration, it would have been necessary to invent\nhim,\" said the wit Shinshin, parodying the words of Voltaire. Kutuzov no\none spoke of, except some who abused him in whispers, calling him a\ncourt weathercock and an old satyr.\n\nAll Moscow repeated Prince Dolgorukov's saying: \"If you go on modeling\nand modeling you must get smeared with clay,\" suggesting consolation for\nour defeat by the memory of former victories; and the words of\nRostopchin, that French soldiers have to be incited to battle by\nhighfalutin words, and Germans by logical arguments to show them that it\nis more dangerous to run away than to advance, but that Russian soldiers\nonly need to be restrained and held back! On all sides, new and fresh\nanecdotes were heard of individual examples of heroism shown by our\nofficers and men at Austerlitz. One had saved a standard, another had\nkilled five Frenchmen, a third had loaded five cannon singlehanded. Berg\nwas mentioned, by those who did not know him, as having, when wounded in\nthe right hand, taken his sword in the left, and gone forward. Of\nBolkonski, nothing was said, and only those who knew him intimately\nregretted that he had died so young, leaving a pregnant wife with his\neccentric father.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nOn that third of March, all the rooms in the English Club were filled\nwith a hum of conversation, like the hum of bees swarming in springtime.\nThe members and guests of the club wandered hither and thither, sat,\nstood, met, and separated, some in uniform and some in evening dress,\nand a few here and there with powdered hair and in Russian kaftans.\nPowdered footmen, in livery with buckled shoes and smart stockings,\nstood at every door anxiously noting visitors' every movement in order\nto offer their services. Most of those present were elderly, respected\nmen with broad, self-confident faces, fat fingers, and resolute gestures\nand voices. This class of guests and members sat in certain habitual\nplaces and met in certain habitual groups. A minority of those present\nwere casual guests--chiefly young men, among whom were Denisov, Rostov,\nand Dolokhov--who was now again an officer in the Semenov regiment. The\nfaces of these young people, especially those who were military men,\nbore that expression of condescending respect for their elders which\nseems to say to the older generation, \"We are prepared to respect and\nhonor you, but all the same remember that the future belongs to us.\"\n\nNesvitski was there as an old member of the club. Pierre, who at his\nwife's command had let his hair grow and abandoned his spectacles, went\nabout the rooms fashionably dressed but looking sad and dull. Here, as\nelsewhere, he was surrounded by an atmosphere of subservience to his\nwealth, and being in the habit of lording it over these people, he\ntreated them with absent-minded contempt.\n\nBy his age he should have belonged to the younger men, but by his wealth\nand connections he belonged to the groups of old and honored guests, and\nso he went from one group to another. Some of the most important old men\nwere the center of groups which even strangers approached respectfully\nto hear the voices of well-known men. The largest circles formed round\nCount Rostopchin, Valuev, and Naryshkin. Rostopchin was describing how\nthe Russians had been overwhelmed by flying Austrians and had had to\nforce their way through them with bayonets.\n\nValuev was confidentially telling that Uvarov had been sent from\nPetersburg to ascertain what Moscow was thinking about Austerlitz.\n\nIn the third circle, Naryshkin was speaking of the meeting of the\nAustrian Council of War at which Suvorov crowed like a cock in reply to\nthe nonsense talked by the Austrian generals. Shinshin, standing close\nby, tried to make a joke, saying that Kutuzov had evidently failed to\nlearn from Suvorov even so simple a thing as the art of crowing like a\ncock, but the elder members glanced severely at the wit, making him feel\nthat in that place and on that day, it was improper to speak so of\nKutuzov.\n\nCount Ilya Rostov, hurried and preoccupied, went about in his soft boots\nbetween the dining and drawing rooms, hastily greeting the important and\nunimportant, all of whom he knew, as if they were all equals, while his\neyes occasionally sought out his fine well-set-up young son, resting on\nhim and winking joyfully at him. Young Rostov stood at a window with\nDolokhov, whose acquaintance he had lately made and highly valued. The\nold count came up to them and pressed Dolokhov's hand.\n\n\"Please come and visit us... you know my brave boy... been together out\nthere... both playing the hero... Ah, Vasili Ignatovich... How d'ye do,\nold fellow?\" he said, turning to an old man who was passing, but before\nhe had finished his greeting there was a general stir, and a footman who\nhad run in announced, with a frightened face: \"He's arrived!\"\n\nBells rang, the stewards rushed forward, and--like rye shaken together\nin a shovel--the guests who had been scattered about in different rooms\ncame together and crowded in the large drawing room by the door of the\nballroom.\n\nBagration appeared in the doorway of the anteroom without hat or sword,\nwhich, in accord with the club custom, he had given up to the hall\nporter. He had no lambskin cap on his head, nor had he a loaded whip\nover his shoulder, as when Rostov had seen him on the eve of the battle\nof Austerlitz, but wore a tight new uniform with Russian and foreign\nOrders, and the Star of St. George on his left breast. Evidently just\nbefore coming to the dinner he had had his hair and whiskers trimmed,\nwhich changed his appearance for the worse. There was something naively\nfestive in his air, which, in conjunction with his firm and virile\nfeatures, gave him a rather comical expression. Bekleshev and Theodore\nUvarov, who had arrived with him, paused at the doorway to allow him, as\nthe guest of honor, to enter first. Bagration was embarrassed, not\nwishing to avail himself of their courtesy, and this caused some delay\nat the doors, but after all he did at last enter first. He walked shyly\nand awkwardly over the parquet floor of the reception room, not knowing\nwhat to do with his hands; he was more accustomed to walk over a plowed\nfield under fire, as he had done at the head of the Kursk regiment at\nSchon Grabern--and he would have found that easier. The committeemen met\nhim at the first door and, expressing their delight at seeing such a\nhighly honored guest, took possession of him as it were, without waiting\nfor his reply, surrounded him, and led him to the drawing room. It was\nat first impossible to enter the drawing-room door for the crowd of\nmembers and guests jostling one another and trying to get a good look at\nBagration over each other's shoulders, as if he were some rare animal.\nCount Ilya Rostov, laughing and repeating the words, \"Make way, dear\nboy! Make way, make way!\" pushed through the crowd more energetically\nthan anyone, led the guests into the drawing room, and seated them on\nthe center sofa. The bigwigs, the most respected members of the club,\nbeset the new arrivals. Count Ilya, again thrusting his way through the\ncrowd, went out of the drawing room and reappeared a minute later with\nanother committeeman, carrying a large silver salver which he presented\nto Prince Bagration. On the salver lay some verses composed and printed\nin the hero's honor. Bagration, on seeing the salver, glanced around in\ndismay, as though seeking help. But all eyes demanded that he should\nsubmit. Feeling himself in their power, he resolutely took the salver\nwith both hands and looked sternly and reproachfully at the count who\nhad presented it to him. Someone obligingly took the dish from Bagration\n(or he would, it seemed, have held it till evening and have gone in to\ndinner with it) and drew his attention to the verses.\n\n\"Well, I will read them, then!\" Bagration seemed to say, and, fixing his\nweary eyes on the paper, began to read them with a fixed and serious\nexpression. But the author himself took the verses and began reading\nthem aloud. Bagration bowed his head and listened:\n\n\nBring glory then to Alexander's reign And on the throne our Titus\nshield. A dreaded foe be thou, kindhearted as a man, A Rhipheus at home,\na Caesar in the field! E'en fortunate Napoleon Knows by experience, now,\nBagration, And dare not Herculean Russians trouble...\n\nBut before he had finished reading, a stentorian major-domo announced\nthat dinner was ready! The door opened, and from the dining room came\nthe resounding strains of the polonaise:\n\n\nConquest's joyful thunder waken, Triumph, valiant Russians, now!...\n\nand Count Rostov, glancing angrily at the author who went on reading his\nverses, bowed to Bagration. Everyone rose, feeling that dinner was more\nimportant than verses, and Bagration, again preceding all the rest, went\nin to dinner. He was seated in the place of honor between two\nAlexanders--Bekleshev and Naryshkin--which was a significant allusion to\nthe name of the sovereign. Three hundred persons took their seats in the\ndining room, according to their rank and importance: the more important\nnearer to the honored guest, as naturally as water flows deepest where\nthe land lies lowest.\n\nJust before dinner, Count Ilya Rostov presented his son to Bagration,\nwho recognized him and said a few words to him, disjointed and awkward,\nas were all the words he spoke that day, and Count Ilya looked joyfully\nand proudly around while Bagration spoke to his son.\n\nNicholas Rostov, with Denisov and his new acquaintance, Dolokhov, sat\nalmost at the middle of the table. Facing them sat Pierre, beside Prince\nNesvitski. Count Ilya Rostov with the other members of the committee sat\nfacing Bagration and, as the very personification of Moscow hospitality,\ndid the honors to the prince.\n\nHis efforts had not been in vain. The dinner, both the Lenten and the\nother fare, was splendid, yet he could not feel quite at ease till the\nend of the meal. He winked at the butler, whispered directions to the\nfootmen, and awaited each expected dish with some anxiety. Everything\nwas excellent. With the second course, a gigantic sterlet (at sight of\nwhich Ilya Rostov blushed with self-conscious pleasure), the footmen\nbegan popping corks and filling the champagne glasses. After the fish,\nwhich made a certain sensation, the count exchanged glances with the\nother committeemen. \"There will be many toasts, it's time to begin,\" he\nwhispered, and taking up his glass, he rose. All were silent, waiting\nfor what he would say.\n\n\"To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!\" he cried, and at the same\nmoment his kindly eyes grew moist with tears of joy and enthusiasm. The\nband immediately struck up \"Conquest's joyful thunder waken...\" All rose\nand cried \"Hurrah!\" Bagration also rose and shouted \"Hurrah!\" in exactly\nthe same voice in which he had shouted it on the field at Schon Grabern.\nYoung Rostov's ecstatic voice could be heard above the three hundred\nothers. He nearly wept. \"To the health of our Sovereign, the Emperor!\"\nhe roared, \"Hurrah!\" and emptying his glass at one gulp he dashed it to\nthe floor. Many followed his example, and the loud shouting continued\nfor a long time. When the voices subsided, the footmen cleared away the\nbroken glass and everybody sat down again, smiling at the noise they had\nmade and exchanging remarks. The old count rose once more, glanced at a\nnote lying beside his plate, and proposed a toast, \"To the health of the\nhero of our last campaign, Prince Peter Ivanovich Bagration!\" and again\nhis blue eyes grew moist. \"Hurrah!\" cried the three hundred voices\nagain, but instead of the band a choir began singing a cantata composed\nby Paul Ivanovich Kutuzov:\n\n\nRussians! O'er all barriers on! Courage conquest guarantees; Have we not\nBagration? He brings foe men to their knees,... etc.\n\nAs soon as the singing was over, another and another toast was proposed\nand Count Ilya Rostov became more and more moved, more glass was\nsmashed, and the shouting grew louder. They drank to Bekleshev,\nNaryshkin, Uvarov, Dolgorukov, Apraksin, Valuev, to the committee, to\nall the club members and to all the club guests, and finally to Count\nIlya Rostov separately, as the organizer of the banquet. At that toast,\nthe count took out his handkerchief and, covering his face, wept\noutright.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nPierre sat opposite Dolokhov and Nicholas Rostov. As usual, he ate and\ndrank much, and eagerly. But those who knew him intimately noticed that\nsome great change had come over him that day. He was silent all through\ndinner and looked about, blinking and scowling, or, with fixed eyes and\na look of complete absent-mindedness, kept rubbing the bridge of his\nnose. His face was depressed and gloomy. He seemed to see and hear\nnothing of what was going on around him and to be absorbed by some\ndepressing and unsolved problem.\n\nThe unsolved problem that tormented him was caused by hints given by the\nprincess, his cousin, at Moscow, concerning Dolokhov's intimacy with his\nwife, and by an anonymous letter he had received that morning, which in\nthe mean jocular way common to anonymous letters said that he saw badly\nthrough his spectacles, but that his wife's connection with Dolokhov was\na secret to no one but himself. Pierre absolutely disbelieved both the\nprincess' hints and the letter, but he feared now to look at Dolokhov,\nwho was sitting opposite him. Every time he chanced to meet Dolokhov's\nhandsome insolent eyes, Pierre felt something terrible and monstrous\nrising in his soul and turned quickly away. Involuntarily recalling his\nwife's past and her relations with Dolokhov, Pierre saw clearly that\nwhat was said in the letter might be true, or might at least seem to be\ntrue had it not referred to his wife. He involuntarily remembered how\nDolokhov, who had fully recovered his former position after the\ncampaign, had returned to Petersburg and come to him. Availing himself\nof his friendly relations with Pierre as a boon companion, Dolokhov had\ncome straight to his house, and Pierre had put him up and lent him\nmoney. Pierre recalled how Helene had smilingly expressed disapproval of\nDolokhov's living at their house, and how cynically Dolokhov had praised\nhis wife's beauty to him and from that time till they came to Moscow had\nnot left them for a day.\n\n\"Yes, he is very handsome,\" thought Pierre, \"and I know him. It would be\nparticularly pleasant to him to dishonor my name and ridicule me, just\nbecause I have exerted myself on his behalf, befriended him, and helped\nhim. I know and understand what a spice that would add to the pleasure\nof deceiving me, if it really were true. Yes, if it were true, but I do\nnot believe it. I have no right to, and can't, believe it.\" He\nremembered the expression Dolokhov's face assumed in his moments of\ncruelty, as when tying the policeman to the bear and dropping them into\nthe water, or when he challenged a man to a duel without any reason, or\nshot a post-boy's horse with a pistol. That expression was often on\nDolokhov's face when looking at him. \"Yes, he is a bully,\" thought\nPierre, \"to kill a man means nothing to him. It must seem to him that\neveryone is afraid of him, and that must please him. He must think that\nI, too, am afraid of him--and in fact I am afraid of him,\" he thought,\nand again he felt something terrible and monstrous rising in his soul.\nDolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov were now sitting opposite Pierre and\nseemed very gay. Rostov was talking merrily to his two friends, one of\nwhom was a dashing hussar and the other a notorious duelist and rake,\nand every now and then he glanced ironically at Pierre, whose\npreoccupied, absent-minded, and massive figure was a very noticeable one\nat the dinner. Rostov looked inimically at Pierre, first because Pierre\nappeared to his hussar eyes as a rich civilian, the husband of a beauty,\nand in a word--an old woman; and secondly because Pierre in his\npreoccupation and absent-mindedness had not recognized Rostov and had\nnot responded to his greeting. When the Emperor's health was drunk,\nPierre, lost in thought, did not rise or lift his glass.\n\n\"What are you about?\" shouted Rostov, looking at him in an ecstasy of\nexasperation. \"Don't you hear it's His Majesty the Emperor's health?\"\n\nPierre sighed, rose submissively, emptied his glass, and, waiting till\nall were seated again, turned with his kindly smile to Rostov.\n\n\"Why, I didn't recognize you!\" he said. But Rostov was otherwise\nengaged; he was shouting \"Hurrah!\"\n\n\"Why don't you renew the acquaintance?\" said Dolokhov to Rostov.\n\n\"Confound him, he's a fool!\" said Rostov.\n\n\"One should make up to the husbands of pretty women,\" said Denisov.\n\nPierre did not catch what they were saying, but knew they were talking\nabout him. He reddened and turned away.\n\n\"Well, now to the health of handsome women!\" said Dolokhov, and with a\nserious expression, but with a smile lurking at the corners of his\nmouth, he turned with his glass to Pierre.\n\n\"Here's to the health of lovely women, Peterkin--and their lovers!\" he\nadded.\n\nPierre, with downcast eyes, drank out of his glass without looking at\nDolokhov or answering him. The footman, who was distributing leaflets\nwith Kutuzov's cantata, laid one before Pierre as one of the principal\nguests. He was just going to take it when Dolokhov, leaning across,\nsnatched it from his hand and began reading it. Pierre looked at\nDolokhov and his eyes dropped, the something terrible and monstrous that\nhad tormented him all dinnertime rose and took possession of him. He\nleaned his whole massive body across the table.\n\n\"How dare you take it?\" he shouted.\n\nHearing that cry and seeing to whom it was addressed, Nesvitski and the\nneighbor on his right quickly turned in alarm to Bezukhov.\n\n\"Don't! Don't! What are you about?\" whispered their frightened voices.\n\nDolokhov looked at Pierre with clear, mirthful, cruel eyes, and that\nsmile of his which seemed to say, \"Ah! This is what I like!\"\n\n\"You shan't have it!\" he said distinctly.\n\nPale, with quivering lips, Pierre snatched the copy.\n\n\"You...! you... scoundrel! I challenge you!\" he ejaculated, and, pushing\nback his chair, he rose from the table.\n\nAt the very instant he did this and uttered those words, Pierre felt\nthat the question of his wife's guilt which had been tormenting him the\nwhole day was finally and indubitably answered in the affirmative. He\nhated her and was forever sundered from her. Despite Denisov's request\nthat he would take no part in the matter, Rostov agreed to be Dolokhov's\nsecond, and after dinner he discussed the arrangements for the duel with\nNesvitski, Bezukhov's second. Pierre went home, but Rostov with Dolokhov\nand Denisov stayed on at the club till late, listening to the gypsies\nand other singers.\n\n\"Well then, till tomorrow at Sokolniki,\" said Dolokhov, as he took leave\nof Rostov in the club porch.\n\n\"And do you feel quite calm?\" Rostov asked.\n\nDolokhov paused.\n\n\"Well, you see, I'll tell you the whole secret of dueling in two words.\nIf you are going to fight a duel, and you make a will and write\naffectionate letters to your parents, and if you think you may be\nkilled, you are a fool and are lost for certain. But go with the firm\nintention of killing your man as quickly and surely as possible, and\nthen all will be right, as our bear huntsman at Kostroma used to tell\nme. 'Everyone fears a bear,' he says, 'but when you see one your fear's\nall gone, and your only thought is not to let him get away!' And that's\nhow it is with me. A demain, mon cher.\" *\n\n\n* Till tomorrow, my dear fellow.\n\nNext day, at eight in the morning, Pierre and Nesvitski drove to the\nSokolniki forest and found Dolokhov, Denisov, and Rostov already there.\nPierre had the air of a man preoccupied with considerations which had no\nconnection with the matter in hand. His haggard face was yellow. He had\nevidently not slept that night. He looked about distractedly and screwed\nup his eyes as if dazzled by the sun. He was entirely absorbed by two\nconsiderations: his wife's guilt, of which after his sleepless night he\nhad not the slightest doubt, and the guiltlessness of Dolokhov, who had\nno reason to preserve the honor of a man who was nothing to him.... \"I\nshould perhaps have done the same thing in his place,\" thought Pierre.\n\"It's even certain that I should have done the same, then why this duel,\nthis murder? Either I shall kill him, or he will hit me in the head, or\nelbow, or knee. Can't I go away from here, run away, bury myself\nsomewhere?\" passed through his mind. But just at moments when such\nthoughts occurred to him, he would ask in a particularly calm and\nabsent-minded way, which inspired the respect of the onlookers, \"Will it\nbe long? Are things ready?\"\n\nWhen all was ready, the sabers stuck in the snow to mark the barriers,\nand the pistols loaded, Nesvitski went up to Pierre.\n\n\"I should not be doing my duty, Count,\" he said in timid tones, \"and\nshould not justify your confidence and the honor you have done me in\nchoosing me for your second, if at this grave, this very grave, moment I\ndid not tell you the whole truth. I think there is no sufficient ground\nfor this affair, or for blood to be shed over it.... You were not right,\nnot quite in the right, you were impetuous...\"\n\n\"Oh yes, it is horribly stupid,\" said Pierre.\n\n\"Then allow me to express your regrets, and I am sure your opponent will\naccept them,\" said Nesvitski (who like the others concerned in the\naffair, and like everyone in similar cases, did not yet believe that the\naffair had come to an actual duel). \"You know, Count, it is much more\nhonorable to admit one's mistake than to let matters become irreparable.\nThere was no insult on either side. Allow me to convey....\"\n\n\"No! What is there to talk about?\" said Pierre. \"It's all the same....\nIs everything ready?\" he added. \"Only tell me where to go and where to\nshoot,\" he said with an unnaturally gentle smile.\n\nHe took the pistol in his hand and began asking about the working of the\ntrigger, as he had not before held a pistol in his hand--a fact that he\ndid not wish to confess.\n\n\"Oh yes, like that, I know, I only forgot,\" said he.\n\n\"No apologies, none whatever,\" said Dolokhov to Denisov (who on his side\nhad been attempting a reconciliation), and he also went up to the\nappointed place.\n\nThe spot chosen for the duel was some eighty paces from the road, where\nthe sleighs had been left, in a small clearing in the pine forest\ncovered with melting snow, the frost having begun to break up during the\nlast few days. The antagonists stood forty paces apart at the farther\nedge of the clearing. The seconds, measuring the paces, left tracks in\nthe deep wet snow between the place where they had been standing and\nNesvitski's and Dolokhov's sabers, which were stuck into the ground ten\npaces apart to mark the barrier. It was thawing and misty; at forty\npaces' distance nothing could be seen. For three minutes all had been\nready, but they still delayed and all were silent.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\n\"Well begin!\" said Dolokhov.\n\n\"All right,\" said Pierre, still smiling in the same way. A feeling of\ndread was in the air. It was evident that the affair so lightly begun\ncould no longer be averted but was taking its course independently of\nmen's will.\n\nDenisov first went to the barrier and announced: \"As the adve'sawies\nhave wefused a weconciliation, please pwoceed. Take your pistols, and at\nthe word thwee begin to advance.\n\n\"O-ne! T-wo! Thwee!\" he shouted angrily and stepped aside.\n\nThe combatants advanced along the trodden tracks, nearer and nearer to\none another, beginning to see one another through the mist. They had the\nright to fire when they liked as they approached the barrier. Dolokhov\nwalked slowly without raising his pistol, looking intently with his\nbright, sparkling blue eyes into his antagonist's face. His mouth wore\nits usual semblance of a smile.\n\n\"So I can fire when I like!\" said Pierre, and at the word \"three,\" he\nwent quickly forward, missing the trodden path and stepping into the\ndeep snow. He held the pistol in his right hand at arm's length,\napparently afraid of shooting himself with it. His left hand he held\ncarefully back, because he wished to support his right hand with it and\nknew he must not do so. Having advanced six paces and strayed off the\ntrack into the snow, Pierre looked down at his feet, then quickly\nglanced at Dolokhov and, bending his finger as he had been shown, fired.\nNot at all expecting so loud a report, Pierre shuddered at the sound and\nthen, smiling at his own sensations, stood still. The smoke, rendered\ndenser by the mist, prevented him from seeing anything for an instant,\nbut there was no second report as he had expected. He only heard\nDolokhov's hurried steps, and his figure came in view through the smoke.\nHe was pressing one hand to his left side, while the other clutched his\ndrooping pistol. His face was pale. Rostov ran toward him and said\nsomething.\n\n\"No-o-o!\" muttered Dolokhov through his teeth, \"no, it's not over.\" And\nafter stumbling a few staggering steps right up to the saber, he sank on\nthe snow beside it. His left hand was bloody; he wiped it on his coat\nand supported himself with it. His frowning face was pallid and\nquivered.\n\n\"Plea...\" began Dolokhov, but could not at first pronounce the word.\n\n\"Please,\" he uttered with an effort.\n\nPierre, hardly restraining his sobs, began running toward Dolokhov and\nwas about to cross the space between the barriers, when Dolokhov cried:\n\n\"To your barrier!\" and Pierre, grasping what was meant, stopped by his\nsaber. Only ten paces divided them. Dolokhov lowered his head to the\nsnow, greedily bit at it, again raised his head, adjusted himself, drew\nin his legs and sat up, seeking a firm center of gravity. He sucked and\nswallowed the cold snow, his lips quivered but his eyes, still smiling,\nglittered with effort and exasperation as he mustered his remaining\nstrength. He raised his pistol and aimed.\n\n\"Sideways! Cover yourself with your pistol!\" ejaculated Nesvitski.\n\n\"Cover yourself!\" even Denisov cried to his adversary.\n\nPierre, with a gentle smile of pity and remorse, his arms and legs\nhelplessly spread out, stood with his broad chest directly facing\nDolokhov looked sorrowfully at him. Denisov, Rostov, and Nesvitski\nclosed their eyes. At the same instant they heard a report and\nDolokhov's angry cry.\n\n\"Missed!\" shouted Dolokhov, and he lay helplessly, face downwards on the\nsnow.\n\nPierre clutched his temples, and turning round went into the forest,\ntrampling through the deep snow, and muttering incoherent words:\n\n\"Folly... folly! Death... lies...\" he repeated, puckering his face.\n\nNesvitski stopped him and took him home.\n\nRostov and Denisov drove away with the wounded Dolokhov.\n\nThe latter lay silent in the sleigh with closed eyes and did not answer\na word to the questions addressed to him. But on entering Moscow he\nsuddenly came to and, lifting his head with an effort, took Rostov, who\nwas sitting beside him, by the hand. Rostov was struck by the totally\naltered and unexpectedly rapturous and tender expression on Dolokhov's\nface.\n\n\"Well? How do you feel?\" he asked.\n\n\"Bad! But it's not that, my friend-\" said Dolokhov with a gasping voice.\n\"Where are we? In Moscow, I know. I don't matter, but I have killed her,\nkilled... She won't get over it! She won't survive....\"\n\n\"Who?\" asked Rostov.\n\n\"My mother! My mother, my angel, my adored angel mother,\" and Dolokhov\npressed Rostov's hand and burst into tears.\n\nWhen he had become a little quieter, he explained to Rostov that he was\nliving with his mother, who, if she saw him dying, would not survive it.\nHe implored Rostov to go on and prepare her.\n\nRostov went on ahead to do what was asked, and to his great surprise\nlearned that Dolokhov the brawler, Dolokhov the bully, lived in Moscow\nwith an old mother and a hunchback sister, and was the most affectionate\nof sons and brothers.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nPierre had of late rarely seen his wife alone. Both in Petersburg and in\nMoscow their house was always full of visitors. The night after the duel\nhe did not go to his bedroom but, as he often did, remained in his\nfather's room, that huge room in which Count Bezukhov had died.\n\nHe lay down on the sofa meaning to fall asleep and forget all that had\nhappened to him, but could not do so. Such a storm of feelings,\nthoughts, and memories suddenly arose within him that he could not fall\nasleep, nor even remain in one place, but had to jump up and pace the\nroom with rapid steps. Now he seemed to see her in the early days of\ntheir marriage, with bare shoulders and a languid, passionate look on\nher face, and then immediately he saw beside her Dolokhov's handsome,\ninsolent, hard, and mocking face as he had seen it at the banquet, and\nthen that same face pale, quivering, and suffering, as it had been when\nhe reeled and sank on the snow.\n\n\"What has happened?\" he asked himself. \"I have killed her lover, yes,\nkilled my wife's lover. Yes, that was it! And why? How did I come to do\nit?\"--\"Because you married her,\" answered an inner voice.\n\n\"But in what was I to blame?\" he asked. \"In marrying her without loving\nher; in deceiving yourself and her.\" And he vividly recalled that moment\nafter supper at Prince Vasili's, when he spoke those words he had found\nso difficult to utter: \"I love you.\" \"It all comes from that! Even then\nI felt it,\" he thought. \"I felt then that it was not so, that I had no\nright to do it. And so it turns out.\"\n\nHe remembered his honeymoon and blushed at the recollection.\nParticularly vivid, humiliating, and shameful was the recollection of\nhow one day soon after his marriage he came out of the bedroom into his\nstudy a little before noon in his silk dressing gown and found his head\nsteward there, who, bowing respectfully, looked into his face and at his\ndressing gown and smiled slightly, as if expressing respectful\nunderstanding of his employer's happiness.\n\n\"But how often I have felt proud of her, proud of her majestic beauty\nand social tact,\" thought he; \"been proud of my house, in which she\nreceived all Petersburg, proud of her unapproachability and beauty. So\nthis is what I was proud of! I then thought that I did not understand\nher. How often when considering her character I have told myself that I\nwas to blame for not understanding her, for not understanding that\nconstant composure and complacency and lack of all interests or desires,\nand the whole secret lies in the terrible truth that she is a depraved\nwoman. Now I have spoken that terrible word to myself all has become\nclear.\n\n\"Anatole used to come to borrow money from her and used to kiss her\nnaked shoulders. She did not give him the money, but let herself be\nkissed. Her father in jest tried to rouse her jealousy, and she replied\nwith a calm smile that she was not so stupid as to be jealous: 'Let him\ndo what he pleases,' she used to say of me. One day I asked her if she\nfelt any symptoms of pregnancy. She laughed contemptuously and said she\nwas not a fool to want to have children, and that she was not going to\nhave any children by me.\"\n\nThen he recalled the coarseness and bluntness of her thoughts and the\nvulgarity of the expressions that were natural to her, though she had\nbeen brought up in the most aristocratic circles.\n\n\"I'm not such a fool.... Just you try it on.... Allez-vous promener,\" *\nshe used to say. Often seeing the success she had with young and old men\nand women Pierre could not understand why he did not love her.\n\n\n* \"You clear out of this.\"\n\n\"Yes, I never loved her,\" said he to himself; \"I knew she was a depraved\nwoman,\" he repeated, \"but dared not admit it to myself. And now there's\nDolokhov sitting in the snow with a forced smile and perhaps dying,\nwhile meeting my remorse with some forced bravado!\"\n\nPierre was one of those people who, in spite of an appearance of what is\ncalled weak character, do not seek a confidant in their troubles. He\ndigested his sufferings alone.\n\n\"It is all, all her fault,\" he said to himself; \"but what of that? Why\ndid I bind myself to her? Why did I say 'Je vous aime' * to her, which\nwas a lie, and worse than a lie? I am guilty and must endure... what? A\nslur on my name? A misfortune for life? Oh, that's nonsense,\" he\nthought. \"The slur on my name and honor--that's all apart from myself.\"\n\n\n* I love you.\n\n\"Louis XVI was executed because they said he was dishonorable and a\ncriminal,\" came into Pierre's head, \"and from their point of view they\nwere right, as were those too who canonized him and died a martyr's\ndeath for his sake. Then Robespierre was beheaded for being a despot.\nWho is right and who is wrong? No one! But if you are alive--live:\ntomorrow you'll die as I might have died an hour ago. And is it worth\ntormenting oneself, when one has only a moment of life in comparison\nwith eternity?\"\n\nBut at the moment when he imagined himself calmed by such reflections,\nshe suddenly came into his mind as she was at the moments when he had\nmost strongly expressed his insincere love for her, and he felt the\nblood rush to his heart and had again to get up and move about and break\nand tear whatever came to his hand. \"Why did I tell her that 'Je vous\naime'?\" he kept repeating to himself. And when he had said it for the\ntenth time, Moliere's words: \"Mais que diable allait-il faire dans cette\ngalere?\"* occurred to him, and he began to laugh at himself.\n\n\n* \"But what the devil was he doing in that galley?\"\n\nIn the night he called his valet and told him to pack up to go to\nPetersburg. He could not imagine how he could speak to her now. He\nresolved to go away next day and leave a letter informing her of his\nintention to part from her forever.\n\nNext morning when the valet came into the room with his coffee, Pierre\nwas lying asleep on the ottoman with an open book in his hand.\n\nHe woke up and looked round for a while with a startled expression,\nunable to realize where he was.\n\n\"The countess told me to inquire whether your excellency was at home,\"\nsaid the valet.\n\nBut before Pierre could decide what answer he would send, the countess\nherself in a white satin dressing gown embroidered with silver and with\nsimply dressed hair (two immense plaits twice round her lovely head like\na coronet) entered the room, calm and majestic, except that there was a\nwrathful wrinkle on her rather prominent marble brow. With her\nimperturbable calm she did not begin to speak in front of the valet. She\nknew of the duel and had come to speak about it. She waited till the\nvalet had set down the coffee things and left the room. Pierre looked at\nher timidly over his spectacles, and like a hare surrounded by hounds\nwho lays back her ears and continues to crouch motionless before her\nenemies, he tried to continue reading. But feeling this to be senseless\nand impossible, he again glanced timidly at her. She did not sit down\nbut looked at him with a contemptuous smile, waiting for the valet to\ngo.\n\n\"Well, what's this now? What have you been up to now, I should like to\nknow?\" she asked sternly.\n\n\"I? What have I...?\" stammered Pierre.\n\n\"So it seems you're a hero, eh? Come now, what was this duel about? What\nis it meant to prove? What? I ask you.\"\n\nPierre turned over heavily on the ottoman and opened his mouth, but\ncould not reply.\n\n\"If you won't answer, I'll tell you...\" Helene went on. \"You believe\neverything you're told. You were told...\" Helene laughed, \"that Dolokhov\nwas my lover,\" she said in French with her coarse plainness of speech,\nuttering the word amant as casually as any other word, \"and you believed\nit! Well, what have you proved? What does this duel prove? That you're a\nfool, que vous etes un sot, but everybody knew that. What will be the\nresult? That I shall be the laughingstock of all Moscow, that everyone\nwill say that you, drunk and not knowing what you were about, challenged\na man you are jealous of without cause.\" Helene raised her voice and\nbecame more and more excited, \"A man who's a better man than you in\nevery way...\"\n\n\"Hm... Hm...!\" growled Pierre, frowning without looking at her, and not\nmoving a muscle.\n\n\"And how could you believe he was my lover? Why? Because I like his\ncompany? If you were cleverer and more agreeable, I should prefer\nyours.\"\n\n\"Don't speak to me... I beg you,\" muttered Pierre hoarsely.\n\n\"Why shouldn't I speak? I can speak as I like, and I tell you plainly\nthat there are not many wives with husbands such as you who would not\nhave taken lovers (des amants), but I have not done so,\" said she.\n\nPierre wished to say something, looked at her with eyes whose strange\nexpression she did not understand, and lay down again. He was suffering\nphysically at that moment, there was a weight on his chest and he could\nnot breathe. He knew that he must do something to put an end to this\nsuffering, but what he wanted to do was too terrible.\n\n\"We had better separate,\" he muttered in a broken voice.\n\n\"Separate? Very well, but only if you give me a fortune,\" said Helene.\n\"Separate! That's a thing to frighten me with!\"\n\nPierre leaped up from the sofa and rushed staggering toward her.\n\n\"I'll kill you!\" he shouted, and seizing the marble top of a table with\na strength he had never before felt, he made a step toward her\nbrandishing the slab.\n\nHelene's face became terrible, she shrieked and sprang aside. His\nfather's nature showed itself in Pierre. He felt the fascination and\ndelight of frenzy. He flung down the slab, broke it, and swooping down\non her with outstretched hands shouted, \"Get out!\" in such a terrible\nvoice that the whole house heard it with horror. God knows what he would\nhave done at that moment had Helene not fled from the room.\n\nA week later Pierre gave his wife full power to control all his estates\nin Great Russia, which formed the larger part of his property, and left\nfor Petersburg alone.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nTwo months had elapsed since the news of the battle of Austerlitz and\nthe loss of Prince Andrew had reached Bald Hills, and in spite of the\nletters sent through the embassy and all the searches made, his body had\nnot been found nor was he on the list of prisoners. What was worst of\nall for his relations was the fact that there was still a possibility of\nhis having been picked up on the battlefield by the people of the place\nand that he might now be lying, recovering or dying, alone among\nstrangers and unable to send news of himself. The gazettes from which\nthe old prince first heard of the defeat at Austerlitz stated, as usual\nvery briefly and vaguely, that after brilliant engagements the Russians\nhad had to retreat and had made their withdrawal in perfect order. The\nold prince understood from this official report that our army had been\ndefeated. A week after the gazette report of the battle of Austerlitz\ncame a letter from Kutuzov informing the prince of the fate that had\nbefallen his son.\n\n\"Your son,\" wrote Kutuzov, \"fell before my eyes, a standard in his hand\nand at the head of a regiment--he fell as a hero, worthy of his father\nand his fatherland. To the great regret of myself and of the whole army\nit is still uncertain whether he is alive or not. I comfort myself and\nyou with the hope that your son is alive, for otherwise he would have\nbeen mentioned among the officers found on the field of battle, a list\nof whom has been sent me under flag of truce.\"\n\nAfter receiving this news late in the evening, when he was alone in his\nstudy, the old prince went for his walk as usual next morning, but he\nwas silent with his steward, the gardener, and the architect, and though\nhe looked very grim he said nothing to anyone.\n\nWhen Princess Mary went to him at the usual hour he was working at his\nlathe and, as usual, did not look round at her.\n\n\"Ah, Princess Mary!\" he said suddenly in an unnatural voice, throwing\ndown his chisel. (The wheel continued to revolve by its own impetus, and\nPrincess Mary long remembered the dying creak of that wheel, which\nmerged in her memory with what followed.)\n\nShe approached him, saw his face, and something gave way within her. Her\neyes grew dim. By the expression of her father's face, not sad, not\ncrushed, but angry and working unnaturally, she saw that hanging over\nher and about to crush her was some terrible misfortune, the worst in\nlife, one she had not yet experienced, irreparable and incomprehensible-\n-the death of one she loved.\n\n\"Father! Andrew!\"--said the ungraceful, awkward princess with such an\nindescribable charm of sorrow and self-forgetfulness that her father\ncould not bear her look but turned away with a sob.\n\n\"Bad news! He's not among the prisoners nor among the killed! Kutuzov\nwrites...\" and he screamed as piercingly as if he wished to drive the\nprincess away by that scream... \"Killed!\"\n\nThe princess did not fall down or faint. She was already pale, but on\nhearing these words her face changed and something brightened in her\nbeautiful, radiant eyes. It was as if joy--a supreme joy apart from the\njoys and sorrows of this world--overflowed the great grief within her.\nShe forgot all fear of her father, went up to him, took his hand, and\ndrawing him down put her arm round his thin, scraggy neck.\n\n\"Father,\" she said, \"do not turn away from me, let us weep together.\"\n\n\"Scoundrels! Blackguards!\" shrieked the old man, turning his face away\nfrom her. \"Destroying the army, destroying the men! And why? Go, go and\ntell Lise.\"\n\nThe princess sank helplessly into an armchair beside her father and\nwept. She saw her brother now as he had been at the moment when he took\nleave of her and of Lise, his look tender yet proud. She saw him tender\nand amused as he was when he put on the little icon. \"Did he believe?\nHad he repented of his unbelief? Was he now there? There in the realms\nof eternal peace and blessedness?\" she thought.\n\n\"Father, tell me how it happened,\" she asked through her tears.\n\n\"Go! Go! Killed in battle, where the best of Russian men and Russia's\nglory were led to destruction. Go, Princess Mary. Go and tell Lise. I\nwill follow.\"\n\nWhen Princess Mary returned from her father, the little princess sat\nworking and looked up with that curious expression of inner, happy calm\npeculiar to pregnant women. It was evident that her eyes did not see\nPrincess Mary but were looking within... into herself... at something\njoyful and mysterious taking place within her.\n\n\"Mary,\" she said, moving away from the embroidery frame and lying back,\n\"give me your hand.\" She took her sister-in-law's hand and held it below\nher waist.\n\nHer eyes were smiling expectantly, her downy lip rose and remained\nlifted in childlike happiness.\n\nPrincess Mary knelt down before her and hid her face in the folds of her\nsister-in-law's dress.\n\n\"There, there! Do you feel it? I feel so strange. And do you know, Mary,\nI am going to love him very much,\" said Lise, looking with bright and\nhappy eyes at her sister-in-law.\n\nPrincess Mary could not lift her head, she was weeping.\n\n\"What is the matter, Mary?\"\n\n\"Nothing... only I feel sad... sad about Andrew,\" she said, wiping away\nher tears on her sister-in-law's knee.\n\nSeveral times in the course of the morning Princess Mary began trying to\nprepare her sister-in-law, and every time began to cry. Unobservant as\nwas the little princess, these tears, the cause of which she did not\nunderstand, agitated her. She said nothing but looked about uneasily as\nif in search of something. Before dinner the old prince, of whom she was\nalways afraid, came into her room with a peculiarly restless and malign\nexpression and went out again without saying a word. She looked at\nPrincess Mary, then sat thinking for a while with that expression of\nattention to something within her that is only seen in pregnant women,\nand suddenly began to cry.\n\n\"Has anything come from Andrew?\" she asked.\n\n\"No, you know it's too soon for news. But my father is anxious and I\nfeel afraid.\"\n\n\"So there's nothing?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" answered Princess Mary, looking firmly with her radiant eyes\nat her sister-in-law.\n\nShe had determined not to tell her and persuaded her father to hide the\nterrible news from her till after her confinement, which was expected\nwithin a few days. Princess Mary and the old prince each bore and hid\ntheir grief in their own way. The old prince would not cherish any hope:\nhe made up his mind that Prince Andrew had been killed, and though he\nsent an official to Austria to seek for traces of his son, he ordered a\nmonument from Moscow which he intended to erect in his own garden to his\nmemory, and he told everybody that his son had been killed. He tried not\nto change his former way of life, but his strength failed him. He walked\nless, ate less, slept less, and became weaker every day. Princess Mary\nhoped. She prayed for her brother as living and was always awaiting news\nof his return.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\n\"Dearest,\" said the little princess after breakfast on the morning of\nthe nineteenth March, and her downy little lip rose from old habit, but\nas sorrow was manifest in every smile, the sound of every word, and even\nevery footstep in that house since the terrible news had come, so now\nthe smile of the little princess--influenced by the general mood though\nwithout knowing its cause--was such as to remind one still more of the\ngeneral sorrow.\n\n\"Dearest, I'm afraid this morning's fruschtique *--as Foka the cook\ncalls it--has disagreed with me.\"\n\n\n* Fruhstuck: breakfast.\n\n\"What is the matter with you, my darling? You look pale. Oh, you are\nvery pale!\" said Princess Mary in alarm, running with her soft,\nponderous steps up to her sister-in-law.\n\n\"Your excellency, should not Mary Bogdanovna be sent for?\" said one of\nthe maids who was present. (Mary Bogdanovna was a midwife from the\nneighboring town, who had been at Bald Hills for the last fortnight.)\n\n\"Oh yes,\" assented Princess Mary, \"perhaps that's it. I'll go. Courage,\nmy angel.\" She kissed Lise and was about to leave the room.\n\n\"Oh, no, no!\" And besides the pallor and the physical suffering on the\nlittle princess' face, an expression of childish fear of inevitable pain\nshowed itself.\n\n\"No, it's only indigestion?... Say it's only indigestion, say so, Mary!\nSay...\" And the little princess began to cry capriciously like a\nsuffering child and to wring her little hands even with some\naffectation. Princess Mary ran out of the room to fetch Mary Bogdanovna.\n\n\"Mon Dieu! Mon Dieu! Oh!\" she heard as she left the room.\n\nThe midwife was already on her way to meet her, rubbing her small, plump\nwhite hands with an air of calm importance.\n\n\"Mary Bogdanovna, I think it's beginning!\" said Princess Mary looking at\nthe midwife with wide-open eyes of alarm.\n\n\"Well, the Lord be thanked, Princess,\" said Mary Bogdanovna, not\nhastening her steps. \"You young ladies should not know anything about\nit.\"\n\n\"But how is it the doctor from Moscow is not here yet?\" said the\nprincess. (In accordance with Lise's and Prince Andrew's wishes they had\nsent in good time to Moscow for a doctor and were expecting him at any\nmoment.)\n\n\"No matter, Princess, don't be alarmed,\" said Mary Bogdanovna. \"We'll\nmanage very well without a doctor.\"\n\nFive minutes later Princess Mary from her room heard something heavy\nbeing carried by. She looked out. The men servants were carrying the\nlarge leather sofa from Prince Andrew's study into the bedroom. On their\nfaces was a quiet and solemn look.\n\nPrincess Mary sat alone in her room listening to the sounds in the\nhouse, now and then opening her door when someone passed and watching\nwhat was going on in the passage. Some women passing with quiet steps in\nand out of the bedroom glanced at the princess and turned away. She did\nnot venture to ask any questions, and shut the door again, now sitting\ndown in her easy chair, now taking her prayer book, now kneeling before\nthe icon stand. To her surprise and distress she found that her prayers\ndid not calm her excitement. Suddenly her door opened softly and her old\nnurse, Praskovya Savishna, who hardly ever came to that room as the old\nprince had forbidden it, appeared on the threshold with a shawl round\nher head.\n\n\"I've come to sit with you a bit, Masha,\" said the nurse, \"and here I've\nbrought the prince's wedding candles to light before his saint, my\nangel,\" she said with a sigh.\n\n\"Oh, nurse, I'm so glad!\"\n\n\"God is merciful, birdie.\"\n\nThe nurse lit the gilt candles before the icons and sat down by the door\nwith her knitting. Princess Mary took a book and began reading. Only\nwhen footsteps or voices were heard did they look at one another, the\nprincess anxious and inquiring, the nurse encouraging. Everyone in the\nhouse was dominated by the same feeling that Princess Mary experienced\nas she sat in her room. But owing to the superstition that the fewer the\npeople who know of it the less a woman in travail suffers, everyone\ntried to pretend not to know; no one spoke of it, but apart from the\nordinary staid and respectful good manners habitual in the prince's\nhousehold, a common anxiety, a softening of the heart, and a\nconsciousness that something great and mysterious was being accomplished\nat that moment made itself felt.\n\nThere was no laughter in the maids' large hall. In the men servants'\nhall all sat waiting, silently and alert. In the outlying serfs'\nquarters torches and candles were burning and no one slept. The old\nprince, stepping on his heels, paced up and down his study and sent\nTikhon to ask Mary Bogdanovna what news.--\"Say only that 'the prince\ntold me to ask,' and come and tell me her answer.\"\n\n\"Inform the prince that labor has begun,\" said Mary Bogdanovna, giving\nthe messenger a significant look.\n\nTikhon went and told the prince.\n\n\"Very good!\" said the prince closing the door behind him, and Tikhon did\nnot hear the slightest sound from the study after that.\n\nAfter a while he re-entered it as if to snuff the candles, and, seeing\nthe prince was lying on the sofa, looked at him, noticed his perturbed\nface, shook his head, and going up to him silently kissed him on the\nshoulder and left the room without snuffing the candles or saying why he\nhad entered. The most solemn mystery in the world continued its course.\nEvening passed, night came, and the feeling of suspense and softening of\nheart in the presence of the unfathomable did not lessen but increased.\nNo one slept.\n\nIt was one of those March nights when winter seems to wish to resume its\nsway and scatters its last snows and storms with desperate fury. A relay\nof horses had been sent up the highroad to meet the German doctor from\nMoscow who was expected every moment, and men on horseback with lanterns\nwere sent to the crossroads to guide him over the country road with its\nhollows and snow-covered pools of water.\n\nPrincess Mary had long since put aside her book: she sat silent, her\nluminous eyes fixed on her nurse's wrinkled face (every line of which\nshe knew so well), on the lock of gray hair that escaped from under the\nkerchief, and the loose skin that hung under her chin.\n\nNurse Savishna, knitting in hand, was telling in low tones, scarcely\nhearing or understanding her own words, what she had told hundreds of\ntimes before: how the late princess had given birth to Princess Mary in\nKishenev with only a Moldavian peasant woman to help instead of a\nmidwife.\n\n\"God is merciful, doctors are never needed,\" she said.\n\nSuddenly a gust of wind beat violently against the casement of the\nwindow, from which the double frame had been removed (by order of the\nprince, one window frame was removed in each room as soon as the larks\nreturned), and, forcing open a loosely closed latch, set the damask\ncurtain flapping and blew out the candle with its chill, snowy draft.\nPrincess Mary shuddered; her nurse, putting down the stocking she was\nknitting, went to the window and leaning out tried to catch the open\ncasement. The cold wind flapped the ends of her kerchief and her loose\nlocks of gray hair.\n\n\"Princess, my dear, there's someone driving up the avenue!\" she said,\nholding the casement and not closing it. \"With lanterns. Most likely the\ndoctor.\"\n\n\"Oh, my God! thank God!\" said Princess Mary. \"I must go and meet him, he\ndoes not know Russian.\"\n\nPrincess Mary threw a shawl over her head and ran to meet the newcomer.\nAs she was crossing the anteroom she saw through the window a carriage\nwith lanterns, standing at the entrance. She went out on the stairs. On\na banister post stood a tallow candle which guttered in the draft. On\nthe landing below, Philip, the footman, stood looking scared and holding\nanother candle. Still lower, beyond the turn of the staircase, one could\nhear the footstep of someone in thick felt boots, and a voice that\nseemed familiar to Princess Mary was saying something.\n\n\"Thank God!\" said the voice. \"And Father?\"\n\n\"Gone to bed,\" replied the voice of Demyan the house steward, who was\ndownstairs.\n\nThen the voice said something more, Demyan replied, and the steps in the\nfelt boots approached the unseen bend of the staircase more rapidly.\n\n\"It's Andrew!\" thought Princess Mary. \"No it can't be, that would be too\nextraordinary,\" and at the very moment she thought this, the face and\nfigure of Prince Andrew, in a fur cloak the deep collar of which covered\nwith snow, appeared on the landing where the footman stood with the\ncandle. Yes, it was he, pale, thin, with a changed and strangely\nsoftened but agitated expression on his face. He came up the stairs and\nembraced his sister.\n\n\"You did not get my letter?\" he asked, and not waiting for a reply--\nwhich he would not have received, for the princess was unable to speak--\nhe turned back, rapidly mounted the stairs again with the doctor who had\nentered the hall after him (they had met at the last post station), and\nagain embraced his sister.\n\n\"What a strange fate, Masha darling!\" And having taken off his cloak and\nfelt boots, he went to the little princess' apartment.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nThe little princess lay supported by pillows, with a white cap on her\nhead (the pains had just left her). Strands of her black hair lay round\nher inflamed and perspiring cheeks, her charming rosy mouth with its\ndowny lip was open and she was smiling joyfully. Prince Andrew entered\nand paused facing her at the foot of the sofa on which she was lying.\nHer glittering eyes, filled with childlike fear and excitement, rested\non him without changing their expression. \"I love you all and have done\nno harm to anyone; why must I suffer so? Help me!\" her look seemed to\nsay. She saw her husband, but did not realize the significance of his\nappearance before her now. Prince Andrew went round the sofa and kissed\nher forehead.\n\n\"My darling!\" he said--a word he had never used to her before. \"God is\nmerciful....\"\n\nShe looked at him inquiringly and with childlike reproach.\n\n\"I expected help from you and I get none, none from you either!\" said\nher eyes. She was not surprised at his having come; she did not realize\nthat he had come. His coming had nothing to do with her sufferings or\nwith their relief. The pangs began again and Mary Bogdanovna advised\nPrince Andrew to leave the room.\n\nThe doctor entered. Prince Andrew went out and, meeting Princess Mary,\nagain joined her. They began talking in whispers, but their talk broke\noff at every moment. They waited and listened.\n\n\"Go, dear,\" said Princess Mary.\n\nPrince Andrew went again to his wife and sat waiting in the room next to\nhers. A woman came from the bedroom with a frightened face and became\nconfused when she saw Prince Andrew. He covered his face with his hands\nand remained so for some minutes. Piteous, helpless, animal moans came\nthrough the door. Prince Andrew got up, went to the door, and tried to\nopen it. Someone was holding it shut.\n\n\"You can't come in! You can't!\" said a terrified voice from within.\n\nHe began pacing the room. The screaming ceased, and a few more seconds\nwent by. Then suddenly a terrible shriek--it could not be hers, she\ncould not scream like that--came from the bedroom. Prince Andrew ran to\nthe door; the scream ceased and he heard the wail of an infant.\n\n\"What have they taken a baby in there for?\" thought Prince Andrew in the\nfirst second. \"A baby? What baby...? Why is there a baby there? Or is\nthe baby born?\"\n\nThen suddenly he realized the joyful significance of that wail; tears\nchoked him, and leaning his elbows on the window sill be began to cry,\nsobbing like a child. The door opened. The doctor with his shirt sleeves\ntucked up, without a coat, pale and with a trembling jaw, came out of\nthe room. Prince Andrew turned to him, but the doctor gave him a\nbewildered look and passed by without a word. A woman rushed out and\nseeing Prince Andrew stopped, hesitating on the threshold. He went into\nhis wife's room. She was lying dead, in the same position he had seen\nher in five minutes before and, despite the fixed eyes and the pallor of\nthe cheeks, the same expression was on her charming childlike face with\nits upper lip covered with tiny black hair.\n\n\"I love you all, and have done no harm to anyone; and what have you done\nto me?\"--said her charming, pathetic, dead face.\n\nIn a corner of the room something red and tiny gave a grunt and squealed\nin Mary Bogdanovna's trembling white hands.\n\nTwo hours later Prince Andrew, stepping softly, went into his father's\nroom. The old man already knew everything. He was standing close to the\ndoor and as soon as it opened his rough old arms closed like a vise\nround his son's neck, and without a word he began to sob like a child.\n\nThree days later the little princess was buried, and Prince Andrew went\nup the steps to where the coffin stood, to give her the farewell kiss.\nAnd there in the coffin was the same face, though with closed eyes. \"Ah,\nwhat have you done to me?\" it still seemed to say, and Prince Andrew\nfelt that something gave way in his soul and that he was guilty of a sin\nhe could neither remedy nor forget. He could not weep. The old man too\ncame up and kissed the waxen little hands that lay quietly crossed one\non the other on her breast, and to him, too, her face seemed to say:\n\"Ah, what have you done to me, and why?\" And at the sight the old man\nturned angrily away.\n\nAnother five days passed, and then the young Prince Nicholas Andreevich\nwas baptized. The wet nurse supported the coverlet with her chin, while\nthe priest with a goose feather anointed the boy's little red and\nwrinkled soles and palms.\n\nHis grandfather, who was his godfather, trembling and afraid of dropping\nhim, carried the infant round the battered tin font and handed him over\nto the godmother, Princess Mary. Prince Andrew sat in another room,\nfaint with fear lest the baby should be drowned in the font, and awaited\nthe termination of the ceremony. He looked up joyfully at the baby when\nthe nurse brought it to him and nodded approval when she told him that\nthe wax with the baby's hair had not sunk in the font but had floated.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nRostov's share in Dolokhov's duel with Bezukhov was hushed up by the\nefforts of the old count, and instead of being degraded to the ranks as\nhe expected he was appointed an adjutant to the governor general of\nMoscow. As a result he could not go to the country with the rest of the\nfamily, but was kept all summer in Moscow by his new duties. Dolokhov\nrecovered, and Rostov became very friendly with him during his\nconvalescence. Dolokhov lay ill at his mother's who loved him\npassionately and tenderly, and old Mary Ivanovna, who had grown fond of\nRostov for his friendship to her Fedya, often talked to him about her\nson.\n\n\"Yes, Count,\" she would say, \"he is too noble and pure-souled for our\npresent, depraved world. No one now loves virtue; it seems like a\nreproach to everyone. Now tell me, Count, was it right, was it\nhonorable, of Bezukhov? And Fedya, with his noble spirit, loved him and\neven now never says a word against him. Those pranks in Petersburg when\nthey played some tricks on a policeman, didn't they do it together? And\nthere! Bezukhov got off scotfree, while Fedya had to bear the whole\nburden on his shoulders. Fancy what he had to go through! It's true he\nhas been reinstated, but how could they fail to do that? I think there\nwere not many such gallant sons of the fatherland out there as he. And\nnow--this duel! Have these people no feeling, or honor? Knowing him to\nbe an only son, to challenge him and shoot so straight! It's well God\nhad mercy on us. And what was it for? Who doesn't have intrigues\nnowadays? Why, if he was so jealous, as I see things he should have\nshown it sooner, but he lets it go on for months. And then to call him\nout, reckoning on Fedya not fighting because he owed him money! What\nbaseness! What meanness! I know you understand Fedya, my dear count;\nthat, believe me, is why I am so fond of you. Few people do understand\nhim. He is such a lofty, heavenly soul!\"\n\nDolokhov himself during his convalescence spoke to Rostov in a way no\none would have expected of him.\n\n\"I know people consider me a bad man!\" he said. \"Let them! I don't care\na straw about anyone but those I love; but those I love, I love so that\nI would give my life for them, and the others I'd throttle if they stood\nin my way. I have an adored, a priceless mother, and two or three\nfriends--you among them--and as for the rest I only care about them in\nso far as they are harmful or useful. And most of them are harmful,\nespecially the women. Yes, dear boy,\" he continued, \"I have met loving,\nnoble, high-minded men, but I have not yet met any women--countesses or\ncooks--who were not venal. I have not yet met that divine purity and\ndevotion I look for in women. If I found such a one I'd give my life for\nher! But those!...\" and he made a gesture of contempt. \"And believe me,\nif I still value my life it is only because I still hope to meet such a\ndivine creature, who will regenerate, purify, and elevate me. But you\ndon't understand it.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, I quite understand,\" answered Rostov, who was under his new\nfriend's influence.\n\nIn the autumn the Rostovs returned to Moscow. Early in the winter\nDenisov also came back and stayed with them. The first half of the\nwinter of 1806, which Nicholas Rostov spent in Moscow, was one of the\nhappiest, merriest times for him and the whole family. Nicholas brought\nmany young men to his parents' house. Vera was a handsome girl of\ntwenty; Sonya a girl of sixteen with all the charm of an opening flower;\nNatasha, half grown up and half child, was now childishly amusing, now\ngirlishly enchanting.\n\nAt that time in the Rostovs' house there prevailed an amorous atmosphere\ncharacteristic of homes where there are very young and very charming\ngirls. Every young man who came to the house--seeing those\nimpressionable, smiling young faces (smiling probably at their own\nhappiness), feeling the eager bustle around him, and hearing the fitful\nbursts of song and music and the inconsequent but friendly prattle of\nyoung girls ready for anything and full of hope--experienced the same\nfeeling; sharing with the young folk of the Rostovs' household a\nreadiness to fall in love and an expectation of happiness.\n\nAmong the young men introduced by Rostov one of the first was Dolokhov,\nwhom everyone in the house liked except Natasha. She almost quarreled\nwith her brother about him. She insisted that he was a bad man, and that\nin the duel with Bezukhov, Pierre was right and Dolokhov wrong, and\nfurther that he was disagreeable and unnatural.\n\n\"There's nothing for me to understand,\" she cried out with resolute\nself-will, \"he is wicked and heartless. There now, I like your Denisov\nthough he is a rake and all that, still I like him; so you see I do\nunderstand. I don't know how to put it... with this one everything is\ncalculated, and I don't like that. But Denisov...\"\n\n\"Oh, Denisov is quite different,\" replied Nicholas, implying that even\nDenisov was nothing compared to Dolokhov--\"you must understand what a\nsoul there is in Dolokhov, you should see him with his mother. What a\nheart!\"\n\n\"Well, I don't know about that, but I am uncomfortable with him. And do\nyou know he has fallen in love with Sonya?\"\n\n\"What nonsense...\"\n\n\"I'm certain of it; you'll see.\"\n\nNatasha's prediction proved true. Dolokhov, who did not usually care for\nthe society of ladies, began to come often to the house, and the\nquestion for whose sake he came (though no one spoke of it) was soon\nsettled. He came because of Sonya. And Sonya, though she would never\nhave dared to say so, knew it and blushed scarlet every time Dolokhov\nappeared.\n\nDolokhov often dined at the Rostovs', never missed a performance at\nwhich they were present, and went to Iogel's balls for young people\nwhich the Rostovs always attended. He was pointedly attentive to Sonya\nand looked at her in such a way that not only could she not bear his\nglances without coloring, but even the old countess and Natasha blushed\nwhen they saw his looks.\n\nIt was evident that this strange, strong man was under the irresistible\ninfluence of the dark, graceful girl who loved another.\n\nRostov noticed something new in Dolokhov's relations with Sonya, but he\ndid not explain to himself what these new relations were. \"They're\nalways in love with someone,\" he thought of Sonya and Natasha. But he\nwas not as much at ease with Sonya and Dolokhov as before and was less\nfrequently at home.\n\nIn the autumn of 1806 everybody had again begun talking of the war with\nNapoleon with even greater warmth than the year before. Orders were\ngiven to raise recruits, ten men in every thousand for the regular army,\nand besides this, nine men in every thousand for the militia. Everywhere\nBonaparte was anathematized and in Moscow nothing but the coming war was\ntalked of. For the Rostov family the whole interest of these\npreparations for war lay in the fact that Nicholas would not hear of\nremaining in Moscow, and only awaited the termination of Denisov's\nfurlough after Christmas to return with him to their regiment. His\napproaching departure did not prevent his amusing himself, but rather\ngave zest to his pleasures. He spent the greater part of his time away\nfrom home, at dinners, parties, and balls.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nOn the third day after Christmas Nicholas dined at home, a thing he had\nrarely done of late. It was a grand farewell dinner, as he and Denisov\nwere leaving to join their regiment after Epiphany. About twenty people\nwere present, including Dolokhov and Denisov.\n\nNever had love been so much in the air, and never had the amorous\natmosphere made itself so strongly felt in the Rostovs' house as at this\nholiday time. \"Seize the moments of happiness, love and be loved! That\nis the only reality in the world, all else is folly. It is the one thing\nwe are interested in here,\" said the spirit of the place.\n\nNicholas, having as usual exhausted two pairs of horses, without\nvisiting all the places he meant to go to and where he had been invited,\nreturned home just before dinner. As soon as he entered he noticed and\nfelt the tension of the amorous air in the house, and also noticed a\ncurious embarrassment among some of those present. Sonya, Dolokhov, and\nthe old countess were especially disturbed, and to a lesser degree\nNatasha. Nicholas understood that something must have happened between\nSonya and Dolokhov before dinner, and with the kindly sensitiveness\nnatural to him was very gentle and wary with them both at dinner. On\nthat same evening there was to be one of the balls that Iogel (the\ndancing master) gave for his pupils during the holidays.\n\n\"Nicholas, will you come to Iogel's? Please do!\" said Natasha. \"He asked\nyou, and Vasili Dmitrich * is also going.\"\n\n\n* Denisov.\n\n\"Where would I not go at the countess' command!\" said Denisov, who at\nthe Rostovs' had jocularly assumed the role of Natasha's knight. \"I'm\neven weady to dance the pas de chale.\"\n\n\"If I have time,\" answered Nicholas. \"But I promised the Arkharovs; they\nhave a party.\"\n\n\"And you?\" he asked Dolokhov, but as soon as he had asked the question\nhe noticed that it should not have been put.\n\n\"Perhaps,\" coldly and angrily replied Dolokhov, glancing at Sonya, and,\nscowling, he gave Nicholas just such a look as he had given Pierre at\nthe club dinner.\n\n\"There is something up,\" thought Nicholas, and he was further confirmed\nin this conclusion by the fact that Dolokhov left immediately after\ndinner. He called Natasha and asked her what was the matter.\n\n\"And I was looking for you,\" said Natasha running out to him. \"I told\nyou, but you would not believe it,\" she said triumphantly. \"He has\nproposed to Sonya!\"\n\nLittle as Nicholas had occupied himself with Sonya of late, something\nseemed to give way within him at this news. Dolokhov was a suitable and\nin some respects a brilliant match for the dowerless, orphan girl. From\nthe point of view of the old countess and of society it was out of the\nquestion for her to refuse him. And therefore Nicholas' first feeling on\nhearing the news was one of anger with Sonya.... He tried to say,\n\"That's capital; of course she'll forget her childish promises and\naccept the offer,\" but before he had time to say it Natasha began again.\n\n\"And fancy! she refused him quite definitely!\" adding, after a pause,\n\"she told him she loved another.\"\n\n\"Yes, my Sonya could not have done otherwise!\" thought Nicholas.\n\n\"Much as Mamma pressed her, she refused, and I know she won't change\nonce she has said...\"\n\n\"And Mamma pressed her!\" said Nicholas reproachfully.\n\n\"Yes,\" said Natasha. \"Do you know, Nicholas--don't be angry--but I know\nyou will not marry her. I know, heaven knows how, but I know for certain\nthat you won't marry her.\"\n\n\"Now you don't know that at all!\" said Nicholas. \"But I must talk to\nher. What a darling Sonya is!\" he added with a smile.\n\n\"Ah, she is indeed a darling! I'll send her to you.\"\n\nAnd Natasha kissed her brother and ran away.\n\nA minute later Sonya came in with a frightened, guilty, and scared look.\nNicholas went up to her and kissed her hand. This was the first time\nsince his return that they had talked alone and about their love.\n\n\"Sophie,\" he began, timidly at first and then more and more boldly, \"if\nyou wish to refuse one who is not only a brilliant and advantageous\nmatch but a splendid, noble fellow... he is my friend...\"\n\nSonya interrupted him.\n\n\"I have already refused,\" she said hurriedly.\n\n\"If you are refusing for my sake, I am afraid that I...\"\n\nSonya again interrupted. She gave him an imploring, frightened look.\n\n\"Nicholas, don't tell me that!\" she said.\n\n\"No, but I must. It may be arrogant of me, but still it is best to say\nit. If you refuse him on my account, I must tell you the whole truth. I\nlove you, and I think I love you more than anyone else....\"\n\n\"That is enough for me,\" said Sonya, blushing.\n\n\"No, but I have been in love a thousand times and shall fall in love\nagain, though for no one have I such a feeling of friendship,\nconfidence, and love as I have for you. Then I am young. Mamma does not\nwish it. In a word, I make no promise. And I beg you to consider\nDolokhov's offer,\" he said, articulating his friend's name with\ndifficulty.\n\n\"Don't say that to me! I want nothing. I love you as a brother and\nalways shall, and I want nothing more.\"\n\n\"You are an angel: I am not worthy of you, but I am afraid of misleading\nyou.\"\n\nAnd Nicholas again kissed her hand.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nIogel's were the most enjoyable balls in Moscow. So said the mothers as\nthey watched their young people executing their newly learned steps, and\nso said the youths and maidens themselves as they danced till they were\nready to drop, and so said the grown-up young men and women who came to\nthese balls with an air of condescension and found them most enjoyable.\nThat year two marriages had come of these balls. The two pretty young\nPrincesses Gorchakov met suitors there and were married and so further\nincreased the fame of these dances. What distinguished them from others\nwas the absence of host or hostess and the presence of the good-natured\nIogel, flying about like a feather and bowing according to the rules of\nhis art, as he collected the tickets from all his visitors. There was\nthe fact that only those came who wished to dance and amuse themselves\nas girls of thirteen and fourteen do who are wearing long dresses for\nthe first time. With scarcely any exceptions they all were, or seemed to\nbe, pretty--so rapturous were their smiles and so sparkling their eyes.\nSometimes the best of the pupils, of whom Natasha, who was exceptionally\ngraceful, was first, even danced the pas de chale, but at this last ball\nonly the ecossaise, the anglaise, and the mazurka, which was just coming\ninto fashion, were danced. Iogel had taken a ballroom in Bezukhov's\nhouse, and the ball, as everyone said, was a great success. There were\nmany pretty girls and the Rostov girls were among the prettiest. They\nwere both particularly happy and gay. That evening, proud of Dolokhov's\nproposal, her refusal, and her explanation with Nicholas, Sonya twirled\nabout before she left home so that the maid could hardly get her hair\nplaited, and she was transparently radiant with impulsive joy.\n\nNatasha no less proud of her first long dress and of being at a real\nball was even happier. They were both dressed in white muslin with pink\nribbons.\n\nNatasha fell in love the very moment she entered the ballroom. She was\nnot in love with anyone in particular, but with everyone. Whatever\nperson she happened to look at she was in love with for that moment.\n\n\"Oh, how delightful it is!\" she kept saying, running up to Sonya.\n\nNicholas and Denisov were walking up and down, looking with kindly\npatronage at the dancers.\n\n\"How sweet she is--she will be a weal beauty!\" said Denisov.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Countess Natasha,\" answered Denisov.\n\n\"And how she dances! What gwace!\" he said again after a pause.\n\n\"Who are you talking about?\"\n\n\"About your sister,\" ejaculated Denisov testily.\n\nRostov smiled.\n\n\"My dear count, you were one of my best pupils--you must dance,\" said\nlittle Iogel coming up to Nicholas. \"Look how many charming young\nladies-\" He turned with the same request to Denisov who was also a\nformer pupil of his.\n\n\"No, my dear fellow, I'll be a wallflower,\" said Denisov. \"Don't you\nwecollect what bad use I made of your lessons?\"\n\n\n\"Oh no!\" said Iogel, hastening to reassure him. \"You were only\ninattentive, but you had talent--oh yes, you had talent!\"\n\nThe band struck up the newly introduced mazurka. Nicholas could not\nrefuse Iogel and asked Sonya to dance. Denisov sat down by the old\nladies and, leaning on his saber and beating time with his foot, told\nthem something funny and kept them amused, while he watched the young\npeople dancing, Iogel with Natasha, his pride and his best pupil, were\nthe first couple. Noiselessly, skillfully stepping with his little feet\nin low shoes, Iogel flew first across the hall with Natasha, who, though\nshy, went on carefully executing her steps. Denisov did not take his\neyes off her and beat time with his saber in a way that clearly\nindicated that if he was not dancing it was because he would not and not\nbecause he could not. In the middle of a figure he beckoned to Rostov\nwho was passing:\n\n\"This is not at all the thing,\" he said. \"What sort of Polish mazuwka is\nthis? But she does dance splendidly.\"\n\nKnowing that Denisov had a reputation even in Poland for the masterly\nway in which he danced the mazurka, Nicholas ran up to Natasha:\n\n\"Go and choose Denisov. He is a real dancer, a wonder!\" he said.\n\nWhen it came to Natasha's turn to choose a partner, she rose and,\ntripping rapidly across in her little shoes trimmed with bows, ran\ntimidly to the corner where Denisov sat. She saw that everybody was\nlooking at her and waiting. Nicholas saw that Denisov was refusing\nthough he smiled delightedly. He ran up to them.\n\n\"Please, Vasili Dmitrich,\" Natasha was saying, \"do come!\"\n\n\"Oh no, let me off, Countess,\" Denisov replied.\n\n\"Now then, Vaska,\" said Nicholas.\n\n\"They coax me as if I were Vaska the cat!\" said Denisov jokingly.\n\n\"I'll sing for you a whole evening,\" said Natasha.\n\n\"Oh, the faiwy! She can do anything with me!\" said Denisov, and he\nunhooked his saber. He came out from behind the chairs, clasped his\npartner's hand firmly, threw back his head, and advanced his foot,\nwaiting for the beat. Only on horse back and in the mazurka was\nDenisov's short stature not noticeable and he looked the fine fellow he\nfelt himself to be. At the right beat of the music he looked sideways at\nhis partner with a merry and triumphant air, suddenly stamped with one\nfoot, bounded from the floor like a ball, and flew round the room taking\nhis partner with him. He glided silently on one foot half across the\nroom, and seeming not to notice the chairs was dashing straight at them,\nwhen suddenly, clinking his spurs and spreading out his legs, he stopped\nshort on his heels, stood so a second, stamped on the spot clanking his\nspurs, whirled rapidly round, and, striking his left heel against his\nright, flew round again in a circle. Natasha guessed what he meant to\ndo, and abandoning herself to him followed his lead hardly knowing how.\nFirst he spun her round, holding her now with his left, now with his\nright hand, then falling on one knee he twirled her round him, and again\njumping up, dashed so impetuously forward that it seemed as if he would\nrush through the whole suite of rooms without drawing breath, and then\nhe suddenly stopped and performed some new and unexpected steps. When at\nlast, smartly whirling his partner round in front of her chair, he drew\nup with a click of his spurs and bowed to her, Natasha did not even make\nhim a curtsy. She fixed her eyes on him in amazement, smiling as if she\ndid not recognize him.\n\n\"What does this mean?\" she brought out.\n\nAlthough Iogel did not acknowledge this to be the real mazurka, everyone\nwas delighted with Denisov's skill, he was asked again and again as a\npartner, and the old men began smilingly to talk about Poland and the\ngood old days. Denisov, flushed after the mazurka and mopping himself\nwith his handkerchief, sat down by Natasha and did not leave her for the\nrest of the evening.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nFor two days after that Rostov did not see Dolokhov at his own or at\nDolokhov's home: on the third day he received a note from him:\n\nAs I do not intend to be at your house again for reasons you know of,\nand am going to rejoin my regiment, I am giving a farewell supper\ntonight to my friends--come to the English Hotel.\n\nAbout ten o'clock Rostov went to the English Hotel straight from the\ntheater, where he had been with his family and Denisov. He was at once\nshown to the best room, which Dolokhov had taken for that evening. Some\ntwenty men were gathered round a table at which Dolokhov sat between two\ncandles. On the table was a pile of gold and paper money, and he was\nkeeping the bank. Rostov had not seen him since his proposal and Sonya's\nrefusal and felt uncomfortable at the thought of how they would meet.\n\nDolokhov's clear, cold glance met Rostov as soon as he entered the door,\nas though he had long expected him.\n\n\"It's a long time since we met,\" he said. \"Thanks for coming. I'll just\nfinish dealing, and then Ilyushka will come with his chorus.\"\n\n\"I called once or twice at your house,\" said Rostov, reddening.\n\nDolokhov made no reply.\n\n\"You may punt,\" he said.\n\nRostov recalled at that moment a strange conversation he had once had\nwith Dolokhov. \"None but fools trust to luck in play,\" Dolokhov had then\nsaid.\n\n\"Or are you afraid to play with me?\" Dolokhov now asked as if guessing\nRostov's thought.\n\nBeneath his smile Rostov saw in him the mood he had shown at the club\ndinner and at other times, when as if tired of everyday life he had felt\na need to escape from it by some strange, and usually cruel, action.\n\nRostov felt ill at ease. He tried, but failed, to find some joke with\nwhich to reply to Dolokhov's words. But before he had thought of\nanything, Dolokhov, looking straight in his face, said slowly and\ndeliberately so that everyone could hear:\n\n\"Do you remember we had a talk about cards... 'He's a fool who trusts to\nluck, one should make certain,' and I want to try.\"\n\n\"To try his luck or the certainty?\" Rostov asked himself.\n\n\"Well, you'd better not play,\" Dolokhov added, and springing a new pack\nof cards said: \"Bank, gentlemen!\"\n\nMoving the money forward he prepared to deal. Rostov sat down by his\nside and at first did not play. Dolokhov kept glancing at him.\n\n\"Why don't you play?\" he asked.\n\nAnd strange to say Nicholas felt that he could not help taking up a\ncard, putting a small stake on it, and beginning to play.\n\n\"I have no money with me,\" he said.\n\n\"I'll trust you.\"\n\nRostov staked five rubles on a card and lost, staked again, and again\nlost. Dolokhov \"killed,\" that is, beat, ten cards of Rostov's running.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" said Dolokhov after he had dealt for some time. \"Please\nplace your money on the cards or I may get muddled in the reckoning.\"\n\nOne of the players said he hoped he might be trusted.\n\n\"Yes, you might, but I am afraid of getting the accounts mixed. So I ask\nyou to put the money on your cards,\" replied Dolokhov. \"Don't stint\nyourself, we'll settle afterwards,\" he added, turning to Rostov.\n\nThe game continued; a waiter kept handing round champagne.\n\nAll Rostov's cards were beaten and he had eight hundred rubles scored up\nagainst him. He wrote \"800 rubles\" on a card, but while the waiter\nfilled his glass he changed his mind and altered it to his usual stake\nof twenty rubles.\n\n\"Leave it,\" said Dolokhov, though he did not seem to be even looking at\nRostov, \"you'll win it back all the sooner. I lose to the others but win\nfrom you. Or are you afraid of me?\" he asked again.\n\nRostov submitted. He let the eight hundred remain and laid down a seven\nof hearts with a torn corner, which he had picked up from the floor. He\nwell remembered that seven afterwards. He laid down the seven of hearts,\non which with a broken bit of chalk he had written \"800 rubles\" in clear\nupright figures; he emptied the glass of warm champagne that was handed\nhim, smiled at Dolokhov's words, and with a sinking heart, waiting for a\nseven to turn up, gazed at Dolokhov's hands which held the pack. Much\ndepended on Rostov's winning or losing on that seven of hearts. On the\nprevious Sunday the old count had given his son two thousand rubles, and\nthough he always disliked speaking of money difficulties had told\nNicholas that this was all he could let him have till May, and asked him\nto be more economical this time. Nicholas had replied that it would be\nmore than enough for him and that he gave his word of honor not to take\nanything more till the spring. Now only twelve hundred rubles was left\nof that money, so that this seven of hearts meant for him not only the\nloss of sixteen hundred rubles, but the necessity of going back on his\nword. With a sinking heart he watched Dolokhov's hands and thought, \"Now\nthen, make haste and let me have this card and I'll take my cap and\ndrive home to supper with Denisov, Natasha, and Sonya, and will\ncertainly never touch a card again.\" At that moment his home life, jokes\nwith Petya, talks with Sonya, duets with Natasha, piquet with his\nfather, and even his comfortable bed in the house on the Povarskaya rose\nbefore him with such vividness, clearness, and charm that it seemed as\nif it were all a lost and unappreciated bliss, long past. He could not\nconceive that a stupid chance, letting the seven be dealt to the right\nrather than to the left, might deprive him of all this happiness, newly\nappreciated and newly illumined, and plunge him into the depths of\nunknown and undefined misery. That could not be, yet he awaited with a\nsinking heart the movement of Dolokhov's hands. Those broad, reddish\nhands, with hairy wrists visible from under the shirt cuffs, laid down\nthe pack and took up a glass and a pipe that were handed him.\n\n\"So you are not afraid to play with me?\" repeated Dolokhov, and as if\nabout to tell a good story he put down the cards, leaned back in his\nchair, and began deliberately with a smile:\n\n\"Yes, gentlemen, I've been told there's a rumor going about Moscow that\nI'm a sharper, so I advise you to be careful.\"\n\n\"Come now, deal!\" exclaimed Rostov.\n\n\"Oh, those Moscow gossips!\" said Dolokhov, and he took up the cards with\na smile.\n\n\"Aah!\" Rostov almost screamed lifting both hands to his head. The seven\nhe needed was lying uppermost, the first card in the pack. He had lost\nmore than he could pay.\n\n\"Still, don't ruin yourself!\" said Dolokhov with a side glance at Rostov\nas he continued to deal.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nAn hour and a half later most of the players were but little interested\nin their own play.\n\nThe whole interest was concentrated on Rostov. Instead of sixteen\nhundred rubles he had a long column of figures scored against him, which\nhe had reckoned up to ten thousand, but that now, as he vaguely\nsupposed, must have risen to fifteen thousand. In reality it already\nexceeded twenty thousand rubles. Dolokhov was no longer listening to\nstories or telling them, but followed every movement of Rostov's hands\nand occasionally ran his eyes over the score against him. He had decided\nto play until that score reached forty-three thousand. He had fixed on\nthat number because forty-three was the sum of his and Sonya's joint\nages. Rostov, leaning his head on both hands, sat at the table which was\nscrawled over with figures, wet with spilled wine, and littered with\ncards. One tormenting impression did not leave him: that those broad-\nboned reddish hands with hairy wrists visible from under the shirt\nsleeves, those hands which he loved and hated, held him in their power.\n\n\"Six hundred rubles, ace, a corner, a nine... winning it back's\nimpossible... Oh, how pleasant it was at home!... The knave, double or\nquits... it can't be!... And why is he doing this to me?\" Rostov\npondered. Sometimes he staked a large sum, but Dolokhov refused to\naccept it and fixed the stake himself. Nicholas submitted to him, and at\none moment prayed to God as he had done on the battlefield at the bridge\nover the Enns, and then guessed that the card that came first to hand\nfrom the crumpled heap under the table would save him, now counted the\ncords on his coat and took a card with that number and tried staking the\ntotal of his losses on it, then he looked round for aid from the other\nplayers, or peered at the now cold face of Dolokhov and tried to read\nwhat was passing in his mind.\n\n\"He knows of course what this loss means to me. He can't want my ruin.\nWasn't he my friend? Wasn't I fond of him? But it's not his fault.\nWhat's he to do if he has such luck?... And it's not my fault either,\"\nhe thought to himself, \"I have done nothing wrong. Have I killed anyone,\nor insulted or wished harm to anyone? Why such a terrible misfortune?\nAnd when did it begin? Such a little while ago I came to this table with\nthe thought of winning a hundred rubles to buy that casket for Mamma's\nname day and then going home. I was so happy, so free, so lighthearted!\nAnd I did not realize how happy I was! When did that end and when did\nthis new, terrible state of things begin? What marked the change? I sat\nall the time in this same place at this table, chose and placed cards,\nand watched those broad-boned agile hands in the same way. When did it\nhappen and what has happened? I am well and strong and still the same\nand in the same place. No, it can't be! Surely it will all end in\nnothing!\"\n\nHe was flushed and bathed in perspiration, though the room was not hot.\nHis face was terrible and piteous to see, especially from its helpless\nefforts to seem calm.\n\nThe score against him reached the fateful sum of forty-three thousand.\nRostov had just prepared a card, by bending the corner of which he meant\nto double the three thousand just put down to his score, when Dolokhov,\nslamming down the pack of cards, put it aside and began rapidly adding\nup the total of Rostov's debt, breaking the chalk as he marked the\nfigures in his clear, bold hand.\n\n\"Supper, it's time for supper! And here are the gypsies!\"\n\nSome swarthy men and women were really entering from the cold outside\nand saying something in their gypsy accents. Nicholas understood that it\nwas all over; but he said in an indifferent tone:\n\n\"Well, won't you go on? I had a splendid card all ready,\" as if it were\nthe fun of the game which interested him most.\n\n\"It's all up! I'm lost!\" thought he. \"Now a bullet through my brain--\nthat's all that's left me!\" And at the same time he said in a cheerful\nvoice:\n\n\"Come now, just this one more little card!\"\n\n\"All right!\" said Dolokhov, having finished the addition. \"All right!\nTwenty-one rubles,\" he said, pointing to the figure twenty-one by which\nthe total exceeded the round sum of forty-three thousand; and taking up\na pack he prepared to deal. Rostov submissively unbent the corner of his\ncard and, instead of the six thousand he had intended, carefully wrote\ntwenty-one.\n\n\"It's all the same to me,\" he said. \"I only want to see whether you will\nlet me win this ten, or beat it.\"\n\nDolokhov began to deal seriously. Oh, how Rostov detested at that moment\nthose hands with their short reddish fingers and hairy wrists, which\nheld him in their power.... The ten fell to him.\n\n\"You owe forty-three thousand, Count,\" said Dolokhov, and stretching\nhimself he rose from the table. \"One does get tired sitting so long,\" he\nadded.\n\n\"Yes, I'm tired too,\" said Rostov.\n\nDolokhov cut him short, as if to remind him that it was not for him to\njest.\n\n\"When am I to receive the money, Count?\"\n\nRostov, flushing, drew Dolokhov into the next room.\n\n\"I cannot pay it all immediately. Will you take an I.O.U.?\" he said.\n\n\"I say, Rostov,\" said Dolokhov clearly, smiling and looking Nicholas\nstraight in the eyes, \"you know the saying, 'Lucky in love, unlucky at\ncards.' Your cousin is in love with you, I know.\"\n\n\"Oh, it's terrible to feel oneself so in this man's power,\" thought\nRostov. He knew what a shock he would inflict on his father and mother\nby the news of this loss, he knew what a relief it would be to escape it\nall, and felt that Dolokhov knew that he could save him from all this\nshame and sorrow, but wanted now to play with him as a cat does with a\nmouse.\n\n\"Your cousin...\" Dolokhov started to say, but Nicholas interrupted him.\n\n\"My cousin has nothing to do with this and it's not necessary to mention\nher!\" he exclaimed fiercely.\n\n\"Then when am I to have it?\"\n\n\"Tomorrow,\" replied Rostov and left the room.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nTo say \"tomorrow\" and keep up a dignified tone was not difficult, but to\ngo home alone, see his sisters, brother, mother, and father, confess and\nask for money he had no right to after giving his word of honor, was\nterrible.\n\nAt home, they had not yet gone to bed. The young people, after returning\nfrom the theater, had had supper and were grouped round the clavichord.\nAs soon as Nicholas entered, he was enfolded in that poetic atmosphere\nof love which pervaded the Rostov household that winter and, now after\nDolokhov's proposal and Iogel's ball, seemed to have grown thicker round\nSonya and Natasha as the air does before a thunderstorm. Sonya and\nNatasha, in the light-blue dresses they had worn at the theater, looking\npretty and conscious of it, were standing by the clavichord, happy and\nsmiling. Vera was playing chess with Shinshin in the drawing room. The\nold countess, waiting for the return of her husband and son, sat playing\npatience with the old gentlewoman who lived in their house. Denisov,\nwith sparkling eyes and ruffled hair, sat at the clavichord striking\nchords with his short fingers, his legs thrown back and his eyes rolling\nas he sang, with his small, husky, but true voice, some verses called\n\"Enchantress,\" which he had composed, and to which he was trying to fit\nmusic:\n\n\nEnchantress, say, to my forsaken lyre What magic power is this recalls\nme still? What spark has set my inmost soul on fire, What is this bliss\nthat makes my fingers thrill?\n\nHe was singing in passionate tones, gazing with his sparkling black-\nagate eyes at the frightened and happy Natasha.\n\n\"Splendid! Excellent!\" exclaimed Natasha. \"Another verse,\" she said,\nwithout noticing Nicholas.\n\n\"Everything's still the same with them,\" thought Nicholas, glancing into\nthe drawing room, where he saw Vera and his mother with the old lady.\n\n\"Ah, and here's Nicholas!\" cried Natasha, running up to him.\n\n\"Is Papa at home?\" he asked.\n\n\"I am so glad you've come!\" said Natasha, without answering him. \"We are\nenjoying ourselves! Vasili Dmitrich is staying a day longer for my sake!\nDid you know?\"\n\n\"No, Papa is not back yet,\" said Sonya.\n\n\"Nicholas, have you come? Come here, dear!\" called the old countess from\nthe drawing room.\n\nNicholas went to her, kissed her hand, and sitting down silently at her\ntable began to watch her hands arranging the cards. From the dancing\nroom, they still heard the laughter and merry voices trying to persuade\nNatasha to sing.\n\n\"All wight! All wight!\" shouted Denisov. \"It's no good making excuses\nnow! It's your turn to sing the ba'cawolla--I entweat you!\"\n\nThe countess glanced at her silent son.\n\n\"What is the matter?\" she asked.\n\n\"Oh, nothing,\" said he, as if weary of being continually asked the same\nquestion. \"Will Papa be back soon?\"\n\n\"I expect so.\"\n\n\"Everything's the same with them. They know nothing about it! Where am I\nto go?\" thought Nicholas, and went again into the dancing room where the\nclavichord stood.\n\nSonya was sitting at the clavichord, playing the prelude to Denisov's\nfavorite barcarolle. Natasha was preparing to sing. Denisov was looking\nat her with enraptured eyes.\n\nNicholas began pacing up and down the room.\n\n\"Why do they want to make her sing? How can she sing? There's nothing to\nbe happy about!\" thought he.\n\nSonya struck the first chord of the prelude.\n\n\"My God, I'm a ruined and dishonored man! A bullet through my brain is\nthe only thing left me--not singing!\" his thoughts ran on. \"Go away? But\nwhere to? It's one--let them sing!\"\n\nHe continued to pace the room, looking gloomily at Denisov and the girls\nand avoiding their eyes.\n\n\"Nikolenka, what is the matter?\" Sonya's eyes fixed on him seemed to\nask. She noticed at once that something had happened to him.\n\nNicholas turned away from her. Natasha too, with her quick instinct, had\ninstantly noticed her brother's condition. But, though she noticed it,\nshe was herself in such high spirits at that moment, so far from sorrow,\nsadness, or self-reproach, that she purposely deceived herself as young\npeople often do. \"No, I am too happy now to spoil my enjoyment by\nsympathy with anyone's sorrow,\" she felt, and she said to herself: \"No,\nI must be mistaken, he must be feeling happy, just as I am.\"\n\n\"Now, Sonya!\" she said, going to the very middle of the room, where she\nconsidered the resonance was best.\n\nHaving lifted her head and let her arms droop lifelessly, as ballet\ndancers do, Natasha, rising energetically from her heels to her toes,\nstepped to the middle of the room and stood still.\n\n\"Yes, that's me!\" she seemed to say, answering the rapt gaze with which\nDenisov followed her.\n\n\"And what is she so pleased about?\" thought Nicholas, looking at his\nsister. \"Why isn't she dull and ashamed?\"\n\nNatasha took the first note, her throat swelled, her chest rose, her\neyes became serious. At that moment she was oblivious of her\nsurroundings, and from her smiling lips flowed sounds which anyone may\nproduce at the same intervals and hold for the same time, but which\nleave you cold a thousand times and the thousand and first time thrill\nyou and make you weep.\n\nNatasha, that winter, had for the first time begun to sing seriously,\nmainly because Denisov so delighted in her singing. She no longer sang\nas a child, there was no longer in her singing that comical, childish,\npainstaking effect that had been in it before; but she did not yet sing\nwell, as all the connoisseurs who heard her said: \"It is not trained,\nbut it is a beautiful voice that must be trained.\" Only they generally\nsaid this some time after she had finished singing. While that untrained\nvoice, with its incorrect breathing and labored transitions, was\nsounding, even the connoisseurs said nothing, but only delighted in it\nand wished to hear it again. In her voice there was a virginal\nfreshness, an unconsciousness of her own powers, and an as yet untrained\nvelvety softness, which so mingled with her lack of art in singing that\nit seemed as if nothing in that voice could be altered without spoiling\nit.\n\n\"What is this?\" thought Nicholas, listening to her with widely opened\neyes. \"What has happened to her? How she is singing today!\" And suddenly\nthe whole world centered for him on anticipation of the next note, the\nnext phrase, and everything in the world was divided into three beats:\n\"Oh mio crudele affetto.\"... One, two, three... one, two, three...\nOne... \"Oh mio crudele affetto.\"... One, two, three... One. \"Oh, this\nsenseless life of ours!\" thought Nicholas. \"All this misery, and money,\nand Dolokhov, and anger, and honor--it's all nonsense... but this is\nreal.... Now then, Natasha, now then, dearest! Now then, darling! How\nwill she take that si? She's taken it! Thank God!\" And without noticing\nthat he was singing, to strengthen the si he sung a second, a third\nbelow the high note. \"Ah, God! How fine! Did I really take it? How\nfortunate!\" he thought.\n\nOh, how that chord vibrated, and how moved was something that was finest\nin Rostov's soul! And this something was apart from everything else in\nthe world and above everything in the world. \"What were losses, and\nDolokhov, and words of honor?... All nonsense! One might kill and rob\nand yet be happy...\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nIt was long since Rostov had felt such enjoyment from music as he did\nthat day. But no sooner had Natasha finished her barcarolle than reality\nagain presented itself. He got up without saying a word and went\ndownstairs to his own room. A quarter of an hour later the old count\ncame in from his club, cheerful and contented. Nicholas, hearing him\ndrive up, went to meet him.\n\n\"Well--had a good time?\" said the old count, smiling gaily and proudly\nat his son.\n\nNicholas tried to say \"Yes,\" but could not: and he nearly burst into\nsobs. The count was lighting his pipe and did not notice his son's\ncondition.\n\n\"Ah, it can't be avoided!\" thought Nicholas, for the first and last\ntime. And suddenly, in the most casual tone, which made him feel ashamed\nof himself, he said, as if merely asking his father to let him have the\ncarriage to drive to town:\n\n\"Papa, I have come on a matter of business. I was nearly forgetting. I\nneed some money.\"\n\n\"Dear me!\" said his father, who was in a specially good humor. \"I told\nyou it would not be enough. How much?\"\n\n\"Very much,\" said Nicholas flushing, and with a stupid careless smile,\nfor which he was long unable to forgive himself, \"I have lost a little,\nI mean a good deal, a great deal--forty three thousand.\"\n\n\"What! To whom?... Nonsense!\" cried the count, suddenly reddening with\nan apoplectic flush over neck and nape as old people do.\n\n\"I promised to pay tomorrow,\" said Nicholas.\n\n\"Well!...\" said the old count, spreading out his arms and sinking\nhelplessly on the sofa.\n\n\"It can't be helped It happens to everyone!\" said the son, with a bold,\nfree, and easy tone, while in his soul he regarded himself as a\nworthless scoundrel whose whole life could not atone for his crime. He\nlonged to kiss his father's hands and kneel to beg his forgiveness, but\nsaid, in a careless and even rude voice, that it happens to everyone!\n\nThe old count cast down his eyes on hearing his son's words and began\nbustlingly searching for something.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" he muttered, \"it will be difficult, I fear, difficult to\nraise... happens to everybody! Yes, who has not done it?\"\n\nAnd with a furtive glance at his son's face, the count went out of the\nroom.... Nicholas had been prepared for resistance, but had not at all\nexpected this.\n\n\"Papa! Pa-pa!\" he called after him, sobbing, \"forgive me!\" And seizing\nhis father's hand, he pressed it to his lips and burst into tears.\n\nWhile father and son were having their explanation, the mother and\ndaughter were having one not less important. Natasha came running to her\nmother, quite excited.\n\n\"Mamma!... Mamma!... He has made me...\"\n\n\"Made what?\"\n\n\"Made, made me an offer, Mamma! Mamma!\" she exclaimed.\n\nThe countess did not believe her ears. Denisov had proposed. To whom? To\nthis chit of a girl, Natasha, who not so long ago was playing with dolls\nand who was still having lessons.\n\n\"Don't, Natasha! What nonsense!\" she said, hoping it was a joke.\n\n\"Nonsense, indeed! I am telling you the fact,\" said Natasha indignantly.\n\"I come to ask you what to do, and you call it 'nonsense!'\"\n\nThe countess shrugged her shoulders.\n\n\"If it is true that Monsieur Denisov has made you a proposal, tell him\nhe is a fool, that's all!\"\n\n\"No, he's not a fool!\" replied Natasha indignantly and seriously.\n\n\"Well then, what do you want? You're all in love nowadays. Well, if you\nare in love, marry him!\" said the countess, with a laugh of annoyance.\n\"Good luck to you!\"\n\n\"No, Mamma, I'm not in love with him, I suppose I'm not in love with\nhim.\"\n\n\"Well then, tell him so.\"\n\n\"Mamma, are you cross? Don't be cross, dear! Is it my fault?\"\n\n\"No, but what is it, my dear? Do you want me to go and tell him?\" said\nthe countess smiling.\n\n\"No, I will do it myself, only tell me what to say. It's all very well\nfor you,\" said Natasha, with a responsive smile. \"You should have seen\nhow he said it! I know he did not mean to say it, but it came out\naccidently.\"\n\n\"Well, all the same, you must refuse him.\"\n\n\"No, I mustn't. I am so sorry for him! He's so nice.\"\n\n\"Well then, accept his offer. It's high time for you to be married,\"\nanswered the countess sharply and sarcastically.\n\n\"No, Mamma, but I'm so sorry for him. I don't know how I'm to say it.\"\n\n\"And there's nothing for you to say. I shall speak to him myself,\" said\nthe countess, indignant that they should have dared to treat this little\nNatasha as grown up.\n\n\"No, not on any account! I will tell him myself, and you'll listen at\nthe door,\" and Natasha ran across the drawing room to the dancing hall,\nwhere Denisov was sitting on the same chair by the clavichord with his\nface in his hands.\n\nHe jumped up at the sound of her light step.\n\n\"Nataly,\" he said, moving with rapid steps toward her, \"decide my fate.\nIt is in your hands.\"\n\n\"Vasili Dmitrich, I'm so sorry for you!... No, but you are so nice...\nbut it won't do...not that... but as a friend, I shall always love you.\"\n\nDenisov bent over her hand and she heard strange sounds she did not\nunderstand. She kissed his rough curly black head. At this instant, they\nheard the quick rustle of the countess' dress. She came up to them.\n\n\"Vasili Dmitrich, I thank you for the honor,\" she said, with an\nembarrassed voice, though it sounded severe to Denisov--\"but my daughter\nis so young, and I thought that, as my son's friend, you would have\naddressed yourself first to me. In that case you would not have obliged\nme to give this refusal.\"\n\n\"Countess...\" said Denisov, with downcast eyes and a guilty face. He\ntried to say more, but faltered.\n\nNatasha could not remain calm, seeing him in such a plight. She began to\nsob aloud.\n\n\"Countess, I have done w'ong,\" Denisov went on in an unsteady voice,\n\"but believe me, I so adore your daughter and all your family that I\nwould give my life twice over...\" He looked at the countess, and seeing\nher severe face said: \"Well, good-by, Countess,\" and kissing her hand,\nhe left the room with quick resolute strides, without looking at\nNatasha.\n\nNext day Rostov saw Denisov off. He did not wish to stay another day in\nMoscow. All Denisov's Moscow friends gave him a farewell entertainment\nat the gypsies', with the result that he had no recollection of how he\nwas put in the sleigh or of the first three stages of his journey.\n\nAfter Denisov's departure, Rostov spent another fortnight in Moscow,\nwithout going out of the house, waiting for the money his father could\nnot at once raise, and he spent most of his time in the girls' room.\n\nSonya was more tender and devoted to him than ever. It was as if she\nwanted to show him that his losses were an achievement that made her\nlove him all the more, but Nicholas now considered himself unworthy of\nher.\n\nHe filled the girls' albums with verses and music, and having at last\nsent Dolokhov the whole forty-three thousand rubles and received his\nreceipt, he left at the end of November, without taking leave of any of\nhis acquaintances, to overtake his regiment which was already in Poland.\n\nBOOK FIVE: 1806 - 07\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nAfter his interview with his wife Pierre left for Petersburg. At the\nTorzhok post station, either there were no horses or the postmaster\nwould not supply them. Pierre was obliged to wait. Without undressing,\nhe lay down on the leather sofa in front of a round table, put his big\nfeet in their overboots on the table, and began to reflect.\n\n\"Will you have the portmanteaus brought in? And a bed got ready, and\ntea?\" asked his valet.\n\nPierre gave no answer, for he neither heard nor saw anything. He had\nbegun to think of the last station and was still pondering on the same\nquestion--one so important that he took no notice of what went on around\nhim. Not only was he indifferent as to whether he got to Petersburg\nearlier or later, or whether he secured accommodation at this station,\nbut compared to the thoughts that now occupied him it was a matter of\nindifference whether he remained there for a few hours or for the rest\nof his life.\n\nThe postmaster, his wife, the valet, and a peasant woman selling Torzhok\nembroidery came into the room offering their services. Without changing\nhis careless attitude, Pierre looked at them over his spectacles unable\nto understand what they wanted or how they could go on living without\nhaving solved the problems that so absorbed him. He had been engrossed\nby the same thoughts ever since the day he returned from Sokolniki after\nthe duel and had spent that first agonizing, sleepless night. But now,\nin the solitude of the journey, they seized him with special force. No\nmatter what he thought about, he always returned to these same questions\nwhich he could not solve and yet could not cease to ask himself. It was\nas if the thread of the chief screw which held his life together were\nstripped, so that the screw could not get in or out, but went on turning\nuselessly in the same place.\n\nThe postmaster came in and began obsequiously to beg his excellency to\nwait only two hours, when, come what might, he would let his excellency\nhave the courier horses. It was plain that he was lying and only wanted\nto get more money from the traveler.\n\n\"Is this good or bad?\" Pierre asked himself. \"It is good for me, bad for\nanother traveler, and for himself it's unavoidable, because he needs\nmoney for food; the man said an officer had once given him a thrashing\nfor letting a private traveler have the courier horses. But the officer\nthrashed him because he had to get on as quickly as possible. And I,\"\ncontinued Pierre, \"shot Dolokhov because I considered myself injured,\nand Louis XVI was executed because they considered him a criminal, and a\nyear later they executed those who executed him--also for some reason.\nWhat is bad? What is good? What should one love and what hate? What does\none live for? And what am I? What is life, and what is death? What power\ngoverns all?\"\n\nThere was no answer to any of these questions, except one, and that not\na logical answer and not at all a reply to them. The answer was: \"You'll\ndie and all will end. You'll die and know all, or cease asking.\" But\ndying was also dreadful.\n\nThe Torzhok peddler woman, in a whining voice, went on offering her\nwares, especially a pair of goatskin slippers. \"I have hundreds of\nrubles I don't know what to do with, and she stands in her tattered\ncloak looking timidly at me,\" he thought. \"And what does she want the\nmoney for? As if that money could add a hair's breadth to happiness or\npeace of mind. Can anything in the world make her or me less a prey to\nevil and death?--death which ends all and must come today or tomorrow--\nat any rate, in an instant as compared with eternity.\" And again he\ntwisted the screw with the stripped thread, and again it turned\nuselessly in the same place.\n\nHis servant handed him a half-cut novel, in the form of letters, by\nMadame de Souza. He began reading about the sufferings and virtuous\nstruggles of a certain Emilie de Mansfeld. \"And why did she resist her\nseducer when she loved him?\" he thought. \"God could not have put into\nher heart an impulse that was against His will. My wife--as she once\nwas--did not struggle, and perhaps she was right. Nothing has been found\nout, nothing discovered,\" Pierre again said to himself. \"All we can know\nis that we know nothing. And that's the height of human wisdom.\"\n\nEverything within and around him seemed confused, senseless, and\nrepellent. Yet in this very repugnance to all his circumstances Pierre\nfound a kind of tantalizing satisfaction.\n\n\"I make bold to ask your excellency to move a little for this\ngentleman,\" said the postmaster, entering the room followed by another\ntraveler, also detained for lack of horses.\n\nThe newcomer was a short, large-boned, yellow-faced, wrinkled old man,\nwith gray bushy eyebrows overhanging bright eyes of an indefinite\ngrayish color.\n\nPierre took his feet off the table, stood up, and lay down on a bed that\nhad been got ready for him, glancing now and then at the newcomer, who,\nwith a gloomy and tired face, was wearily taking off his wraps with the\naid of his servant, and not looking at Pierre. With a pair of felt boots\non his thin bony legs, and keeping on a worn, nankeen-covered, sheepskin\ncoat, the traveler sat down on the sofa, leaned back his big head with\nits broad temples and close-cropped hair, and looked at Bezukhov. The\nstern, shrewd, and penetrating expression of that look struck Pierre. He\nfelt a wish to speak to the stranger, but by the time he had made up his\nmind to ask him a question about the roads, the traveler had closed his\neyes. His shriveled old hands were folded and on the finger of one of\nthem Pierre noticed a large cast iron ring with a seal representing a\ndeath's head. The stranger sat without stirring, either resting or, as\nit seemed to Pierre, sunk in profound and calm meditation. His servant\nwas also a yellow, wrinkled old man, without beard or mustache,\nevidently not because he was shaven but because they had never grown.\nThis active old servant was unpacking the traveler's canteen and\npreparing tea. He brought in a boiling samovar. When everything was\nready, the stranger opened his eyes, moved to the table, filled a\ntumbler with tea for himself and one for the beardless old man to whom\nhe passed it. Pierre began to feel a sense of uneasiness, and the need,\neven the inevitability, of entering into conversation with this\nstranger.\n\nThe servant brought back his tumbler turned upside down, * with an\nunfinished bit of nibbled sugar, and asked if anything more would be\nwanted.\n\n\n* To indicate he did not want more tea.\n\n\"No. Give me the book,\" said the stranger.\n\nThe servant handed him a book which Pierre took to be a devotional work,\nand the traveler became absorbed in it. Pierre looked at him. All at\nonce the stranger closed the book, putting in a marker, and again,\nleaning with his arms on the back of the sofa, sat in his former\nposition with his eyes shut. Pierre looked at him and had not time to\nturn away when the old man, opening his eyes, fixed his steady and\nsevere gaze straight on Pierre's face.\n\nPierre felt confused and wished to avoid that look, but the bright old\neyes attracted him irresistibly.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\n\"I have the pleasure of addressing Count Bezukhov, if I am not\nmistaken,\" said the stranger in a deliberate and loud voice.\n\nPierre looked silently and inquiringly at him over his spectacles.\n\n\"I have heard of you, my dear sir,\" continued the stranger, \"and of your\nmisfortune.\" He seemed to emphasize the last word, as if to say--\"Yes,\nmisfortune! Call it what you please, I know that what happened to you in\nMoscow was a misfortune.\"--\"I regret it very much, my dear sir.\"\n\nPierre flushed and, hurriedly putting his legs down from the bed, bent\nforward toward the old man with a forced and timid smile.\n\n\"I have not referred to this out of curiosity, my dear sir, but for\ngreater reasons.\"\n\nHe paused, his gaze still on Pierre, and moved aside on the sofa by way\nof inviting the other to take a seat beside him. Pierre felt reluctant\nto enter into conversation with this old man, but, submitting to him\ninvoluntarily, came up and sat down beside him.\n\n\"You are unhappy, my dear sir,\" the stranger continued. \"You are young\nand I am old. I should like to help you as far as lies in my power.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!\" said Pierre, with a forced smile. \"I am very grateful to you.\nWhere are you traveling from?\"\n\nThe stranger's face was not genial, it was even cold and severe, but in\nspite of this, both the face and words of his new acquaintance were\nirresistibly attractive to Pierre.\n\n\"But if for reason you don't feel inclined to talk to me,\" said the old\nman, \"say so, my dear sir.\" And he suddenly smiled, in an unexpected and\ntenderly paternal way.\n\n\"Oh no, not at all! On the contrary, I am very glad to make your\nacquaintance,\" said Pierre. And again, glancing at the stranger's hands,\nhe looked more closely at the ring, with its skull--a masonic sign.\n\n\"Allow me to ask,\" he said, \"are you a Mason?\"\n\n\"Yes, I belong to the Brotherhood of the Freemasons,\" said the stranger,\nlooking deeper and deeper into Pierre's eyes. \"And in their name and my\nown I hold out a brotherly hand to you.\"\n\n\"I am afraid,\" said Pierre, smiling, and wavering between the confidence\nthe personality of the Freemason inspired in him and his own habit of\nridiculing the masonic beliefs--\"I am afraid I am very far from\nunderstanding--how am I to put it?--I am afraid my way of looking at the\nworld is so opposed to yours that we shall not understand one another.\"\n\n\"I know your outlook,\" said the Mason, \"and the view of life you\nmention, and which you think is the result of your own mental efforts,\nis the one held by the majority of people, and is the invariable fruit\nof pride, indolence, and ignorance. Forgive me, my dear sir, but if I\nhad not known it I should not have addressed you. Your view of life is a\nregrettable delusion.\"\n\n\"Just as I may suppose you to be deluded,\" said Pierre, with a faint\nsmile.\n\n\"I should never dare to say that I know the truth,\" said the Mason,\nwhose words struck Pierre more and more by their precision and firmness.\n\"No one can attain to truth by himself. Only by laying stone on stone\nwith the cooperation of all, by the millions of generations from our\nforefather Adam to our own times, is that temple reared which is to be a\nworthy dwelling place of the Great God,\" he added, and closed his eyes.\n\n\"I ought to tell you that I do not believe... do not believe in God,\"\nsaid Pierre, regretfully and with an effort, feeling it essential to\nspeak the whole truth.\n\nThe Mason looked intently at Pierre and smiled as a rich man with\nmillions in hand might smile at a poor fellow who told him that he, poor\nman, had not the five rubles that would make him happy.\n\n\"Yes, you do not know Him, my dear sir,\" said the Mason. \"You cannot\nknow Him. You do not know Him and that is why you are unhappy.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, I am unhappy,\" assented Pierre. \"But what am I to do?\"\n\n\"You know Him not, my dear sir, and so you are very unhappy. You do not\nknow Him, but He is here, He is in me, He is in my words, He is in thee,\nand even in those blasphemous words thou hast just uttered!\" pronounced\nthe Mason in a stern and tremulous voice.\n\nHe paused and sighed, evidently trying to calm himself.\n\n\"If He were not,\" he said quietly, \"you and I would not be speaking of\nHim, my dear sir. Of what, of whom, are we speaking? Whom hast thou\ndenied?\" he suddenly asked with exulting austerity and authority in his\nvoice. \"Who invented Him, if He did not exist? Whence came thy\nconception of the existence of such an incomprehensible Being? didst\nthou, and why did the whole world, conceive the idea of the existence of\nsuch an incomprehensible Being, a Being all-powerful, eternal, and\ninfinite in all His attributes?...\"\n\nHe stopped and remained silent for a long time.\n\nPierre could not and did not wish to break this silence.\n\n\"He exists, but to understand Him is hard,\" the Mason began again,\nlooking not at Pierre but straight before him, and turning the leaves of\nhis book with his old hands which from excitement he could not keep\nstill. \"If it were a man whose existence thou didst doubt I could bring\nhim to thee, could take him by the hand and show him to thee. But how\ncan I, an insignificant mortal, show His omnipotence, His infinity, and\nall His mercy to one who is blind, or who shuts his eyes that he may not\nsee or understand Him and may not see or understand his own vileness and\nsinfulness?\" He paused again. \"Who art thou? Thou dreamest that thou art\nwise because thou couldst utter those blasphemous words,\" he went on,\nwith a somber and scornful smile. \"And thou art more foolish and\nunreasonable than a little child, who, playing with the parts of a\nskillfully made watch, dares to say that, as he does not understand its\nuse, he does not believe in the master who made it. To know Him is\nhard.... For ages, from our forefather Adam to our own day, we labor to\nattain that knowledge and are still infinitely far from our aim; but in\nour lack of understanding we see only our weakness and His\ngreatness....\"\n\nPierre listened with swelling heart, gazing into the Mason's face with\nshining eyes, not interrupting or questioning him, but believing with\nhis whole soul what the stranger said. Whether he accepted the wise\nreasoning contained in the Mason's words, or believed as a child\nbelieves, in the speaker's tone of conviction and earnestness, or the\ntremor of the speaker's voice--which sometimes almost broke--or those\nbrilliant aged eyes grown old in this conviction, or the calm firmness\nand certainty of his vocation, which radiated from his whole being (and\nwhich struck Pierre especially by contrast with his own dejection and\nhopelessness)--at any rate, Pierre longed with his whole soul to believe\nand he did believe, and felt a joyful sense of comfort, regeneration,\nand return to life.\n\n\"He is not to be apprehended by reason, but by life,\" said the Mason.\n\n\"I do not understand,\" said Pierre, feeling with dismay doubts\nreawakening. He was afraid of any want of clearness, any weakness, in\nthe Mason's arguments; he dreaded not to be able to believe in him. \"I\ndon't understand,\" he said, \"how it is that the mind of man cannot\nattain the knowledge of which you speak.\"\n\nThe Mason smiled with his gentle fatherly smile.\n\n\"The highest wisdom and truth are like the purest liquid we may wish to\nimbibe,\" he said. \"Can I receive that pure liquid into an impure vessel\nand judge of its purity? Only by the inner purification of myself can I\nretain in some degree of purity the liquid I receive.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, that is so,\" said Pierre joyfully.\n\n\"The highest wisdom is not founded on reason alone, not on those worldly\nsciences of physics, history, chemistry, and the like, into which\nintellectual knowledge is divided. The highest wisdom is one. The\nhighest wisdom has but one science--the science of the whole--the\nscience explaining the whole creation and man's place in it. To receive\nthat science it is necessary to purify and renew one's inner self, and\nso before one can know, it is necessary to believe and to perfect one's\nself. And to attain this end, we have the light called conscience that\nGod has implanted in our souls.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" assented Pierre.\n\n\"Look then at thy inner self with the eyes of the spirit, and ask\nthyself whether thou art content with thyself. What hast thou attained\nrelying on reason only? What art thou? You are young, you are rich, you\nare clever, you are well educated. And what have you done with all these\ngood gifts? Are you content with yourself and with your life?\"\n\n\"No, I hate my life,\" Pierre muttered, wincing.\n\n\"Thou hatest it. Then change it, purify thyself; and as thou art\npurified, thou wilt gain wisdom. Look at your life, my dear sir. How\nhave you spent it? In riotous orgies and debauchery, receiving\neverything from society and giving nothing in return. You have become\nthe possessor of wealth. How have you used it? What have you done for\nyour neighbor? Have you ever thought of your tens of thousands of\nslaves? Have you helped them physically and morally? No! You have\nprofited by their toil to lead a profligate life. That is what you have\ndone. Have you chosen a post in which you might be of service to your\nneighbor? No! You have spent your life in idleness. Then you married, my\ndear sir--took on yourself responsibility for the guidance of a young\nwoman; and what have you done? You have not helped her to find the way\nof truth, my dear sir, but have thrust her into an abyss of deceit and\nmisery. A man offended you and you shot him, and you say you do not know\nGod and hate your life. There is nothing strange in that, my dear sir!\"\n\nAfter these words, the Mason, as if tired by his long discourse, again\nleaned his arms on the back of the sofa and closed his eyes. Pierre\nlooked at that aged, stern, motionless, almost lifeless face and moved\nhis lips without uttering a sound. He wished to say, \"Yes, a vile, idle,\nvicious life!\" but dared not break the silence.\n\nThe Mason cleared his throat huskily, as old men do, and called his\nservant.\n\n\"How about the horses?\" he asked, without looking at Pierre.\n\n\"The exchange horses have just come,\" answered the servant. \"Will you\nnot rest here?\"\n\n\"No, tell them to harness.\"\n\n\"Can he really be going away leaving me alone without having told me\nall, and without promising to help me?\" thought Pierre, rising with\ndowncast head; and he began to pace the room, glancing occasionally at\nthe Mason. \"Yes, I never thought of it, but I have led a contemptible\nand profligate life, though I did not like it and did not want to,\"\nthought Pierre. \"But this man knows the truth and, if he wished to,\ncould disclose it to me.\"\n\nPierre wished to say this to the Mason, but did not dare to. The\ntraveler, having packed his things with his practiced hands, began\nfastening his coat. When he had finished, he turned to Bezukhov, and\nsaid in a tone of indifferent politeness:\n\n\"Where are you going to now, my dear sir?\"\n\n\"I?... I'm going to Petersburg,\" answered Pierre, in a childlike,\nhesitating voice. \"I thank you. I agree with all you have said. But do\nnot suppose me to be so bad. With my whole soul I wish to be what you\nwould have me be, but I have never had help from anyone.... But it is I,\nabove all, who am to blame for everything. Help me, teach me, and\nperhaps I may...\"\n\nPierre could not go on. He gulped and turned away.\n\nThe Mason remained silent for a long time, evidently considering.\n\n\"Help comes from God alone,\" he said, \"but such measure of help as our\nOrder can bestow it will render you, my dear sir. You are going to\nPetersburg. Hand this to Count Willarski\" (he took out his notebook and\nwrote a few words on a large sheet of paper folded in four). \"Allow me\nto give you a piece of advice. When you reach the capital, first of all\ndevote some time to solitude and self-examination and do not resume your\nformer way of life. And now I wish you a good journey, my dear sir,\" he\nadded, seeing that his servant had entered... \"and success.\"\n\nThe traveler was Joseph Alexeevich Bazdeev, as Pierre saw from the\npostmaster's book. Bazdeev had been one of the best-known Freemasons and\nMartinists, even in Novikov's time. For a long while after he had gone,\nPierre did not go to bed or order horses but paced up and down the room,\npondering over his vicious past, and with a rapturous sense of beginning\nanew pictured to himself the blissful, irreproachable, virtuous future\nthat seemed to him so easy. It seemed to him that he had been vicious\nonly because he had somehow forgotten how good it is to be virtuous. Not\na trace of his former doubts remained in his soul. He firmly believed in\nthe possibility of the brotherhood of men united in the aim of\nsupporting one another in the path of virtue, and that is how\nFreemasonry presented itself to him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nOn reaching Petersburg Pierre did not let anyone know of his arrival, he\nwent nowhere and spent whole days in reading Thomas a Kempis, whose book\nhad been sent him by someone unknown. One thing he continually realized\nas he read that book: the joy, hitherto unknown to him, of believing in\nthe possibility of attaining perfection, and in the possibility of\nactive brotherly love among men, which Joseph Alexeevich had revealed to\nhim. A week after his arrival, the young Polish count, Willarski, whom\nPierre had known slightly in Petersburg society, came into his room one\nevening in the official and ceremonious manner in which Dolokhov's\nsecond had called on him, and, having closed the door behind him and\nsatisfied himself that there was nobody else in the room, addressed\nPierre.\n\n\"I have come to you with a message and an offer, Count,\" he said without\nsitting down. \"A person of very high standing in our Brotherhood has\nmade application for you to be received into our Order before the usual\nterm and has proposed to me to be your sponsor. I consider it a sacred\nduty to fulfill that person's wishes. Do you wish to enter the\nBrotherhood of Freemasons under my sponsorship?\"\n\nThe cold, austere tone of this man, whom he had almost always before met\nat balls, amiably smiling in the society of the most brilliant women,\nsurprised Pierre.\n\n\"Yes, I do wish it,\" said he.\n\nWillarski bowed his head.\n\n\"One more question, Count,\" he said, \"which I beg you to answer in all\nsincerity--not as a future Mason but as an honest man: have you\nrenounced your former convictions--do you believe in God?\"\n\nPierre considered.\n\n\"Yes... yes, I believe in God,\" he said.\n\n\"In that case...\" began Willarski, but Pierre interrupted him.\n\n\"Yes, I do believe in God,\" he repeated.\n\n\"In that case we can go,\" said Willarski. \"My carriage is at your\nservice.\"\n\nWillarski was silent throughout the drive. To Pierre's inquiries as to\nwhat he must do and how he should answer, Willarski only replied that\nbrothers more worthy than he would test him and that Pierre had only to\ntell the truth.\n\nHaving entered the courtyard of a large house where the Lodge had its\nheadquarters, and having ascended a dark staircase, they entered a small\nwell-lit anteroom where they took off their cloaks without the aid of a\nservant. From there they passed into another room. A man in strange\nattire appeared at the door. Willarski, stepping toward him, said\nsomething to him in French in an undertone and then went up to a small\nwardrobe in which Pierre noticed garments such as he had never seen\nbefore. Having taken a kerchief from the cupboard, Willarski bound\nPierre's eyes with it and tied it in a knot behind, catching some hairs\npainfully in the knot. Then he drew his face down, kissed him, and\ntaking him by the hand led him forward. The hairs tied in the knot hurt\nPierre and there were lines of pain on his face and a shamefaced smile.\nHis huge figure, with arms hanging down and with a puckered, though\nsmiling face, moved after Willarski with uncertain, timid steps.\n\nHaving led him about ten paces, Willarski stopped.\n\n\"Whatever happens to you,\" he said, \"you must bear it all manfully if\nyou have firmly resolved to join our Brotherhood.\" (Pierre nodded\naffirmatively.) \"When you hear a knock at the door, you will uncover\nyour eyes,\" added Willarski. \"I wish you courage and success,\" and,\npressing Pierre's hand, he went out.\n\nLeft alone, Pierre went on smiling in the same way. Once or twice he\nshrugged his shoulders and raised his hand to the kerchief, as if\nwishing to take it off, but let it drop again. The five minutes spent\nwith his eyes bandaged seemed to him an hour. His arms felt numb, his\nlegs almost gave way, it seemed to him that he was tired out. He\nexperienced a variety of most complex sensations. He felt afraid of what\nwould happen to him and still more afraid of showing his fear. He felt\ncurious to know what was going to happen and what would be revealed to\nhim; but most of all, he felt joyful that the moment had come when he\nwould at last start on that path of regeneration and on the actively\nvirtuous life of which he had been dreaming since he met Joseph\nAlexeevich. Loud knocks were heard at the door. Pierre took the bandage\noff his eyes and glanced around him. The room was in black darkness,\nonly a small lamp was burning inside something white. Pierre went nearer\nand saw that the lamp stood on a black table on which lay an open book.\nThe book was the Gospel, and the white thing with the lamp inside was a\nhuman skull with its cavities and teeth. After reading the first words\nof the Gospel: \"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with\nGod,\" Pierre went round the table and saw a large open box filled with\nsomething. It was a coffin with bones inside. He was not at all\nsurprised by what he saw. Hoping to enter on an entirely new life quite\nunlike the old one, he expected everything to be unusual, even more\nunusual than what he was seeing. A skull, a coffin, the Gospel--it\nseemed to him that he had expected all this and even more. Trying to\nstimulate his emotions he looked around. \"God, death, love, the\nbrotherhood of man,\" he kept saying to himself, associating these words\nwith vague yet joyful ideas. The door opened and someone came in.\n\nBy the dim light, to which Pierre had already become accustomed, he saw\na rather short man. Having evidently come from the light into the\ndarkness, the man paused, then moved with cautious steps toward the\ntable and placed on it his small leather-gloved hands.\n\nThis short man had on a white leather apron which covered his chest and\npart of his legs; he had on a kind of necklace above which rose a high\nwhite ruffle, outlining his rather long face which was lit up from\nbelow.\n\n\"For what have you come hither?\" asked the newcomer, turning in Pierre's\ndirection at a slight rustle made by the latter. \"Why have you, who do\nnot believe in the truth of the light and who have not seen the light,\ncome here? What do you seek from us? Wisdom, virtue, enlightenment?\"\n\nAt the moment the door opened and the stranger came in, Pierre felt a\nsense of awe and veneration such as he had experienced in his boyhood at\nconfession; he felt himself in the presence of one socially a complete\nstranger, yet nearer to him through the brotherhood of man. With bated\nbreath and beating heart he moved toward the Rhetor (by which name the\nbrother who prepared a seeker for entrance into the Brotherhood was\nknown). Drawing nearer, he recognized in the Rhetor a man he knew,\nSmolyaninov, and it mortified him to think that the newcomer was an\nacquaintance--he wished him simply a brother and a virtuous instructor.\nFor a long time he could not utter a word, so that the Rhetor had to\nrepeat his question.\n\n\"Yes... I... I... desire regeneration,\" Pierre uttered with difficulty.\n\n\"Very well,\" said Smolyaninov, and went on at once: \"Have you any idea\nof the means by which our holy Order will help you to reach your aim?\"\nsaid he quietly and quickly.\n\n\"I... hope... for guidance... help... in regeneration,\" said Pierre,\nwith a trembling voice and some difficulty in utterance due to his\nexcitement and to being unaccustomed to speak of abstract matters in\nRussian.\n\n\"What is your conception of Freemasonry?\"\n\n\"I imagine that Freemasonry is the fraternity and equality of men who\nhave virtuous aims,\" said Pierre, feeling ashamed of the inadequacy of\nhis words for the solemnity of the moment, as he spoke. \"I imagine...\"\n\n\"Good!\" said the Rhetor quickly, apparently satisfied with this answer.\n\"Have you sought for means of attaining your aim in religion?\"\n\n\"No, I considered it erroneous and did not follow it,\" said Pierre, so\nsoftly that the Rhetor did not hear him and asked him what he was\nsaying. \"I have been an atheist,\" answered Pierre.\n\n\"You are seeking for truth in order to follow its laws in your life,\ntherefore you seek wisdom and virtue. Is that not so?\" said the Rhetor,\nafter a moment's pause.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" assented Pierre.\n\nThe Rhetor cleared his throat, crossed his gloved hands on his breast,\nand began to speak.\n\n\"Now I must disclose to you the chief aim of our Order,\" he said, \"and\nif this aim coincides with yours, you may enter our Brotherhood with\nprofit. The first and chief object of our Order, the foundation on which\nit rests and which no human power can destroy, is the preservation and\nhanding on to posterity of a certain important mystery... which has come\ndown to us from the remotest ages, even from the first man--a mystery on\nwhich perhaps the fate of mankind depends. But since this mystery is of\nsuch a nature that nobody can know or use it unless he be prepared by\nlong and diligent self-purification, not everyone can hope to attain it\nquickly. Hence we have a secondary aim, that of preparing our members as\nmuch as possible to reform their hearts, to purify and enlighten their\nminds, by means handed on to us by tradition from those who have striven\nto attain this mystery, and thereby to render them capable of receiving\nit.\n\n\"By purifying and regenerating our members we try, thirdly, to improve\nthe whole human race, offering it in our members an example of piety and\nvirtue, and thereby try with all our might to combat the evil which\nsways the world. Think this over and I will come to you again.\"\n\n\"To combat the evil which sways the world...\" Pierre repeated, and a\nmental image of his future activity in this direction rose in his mind.\nHe imagined men such as he had himself been a fortnight ago, and he\naddressed an edifying exhortation to them. He imagined to himself\nvicious and unfortunate people whom he would assist by word and deed,\nimagined oppressors whose victims he would rescue. Of the three objects\nmentioned by the Rhetor, this last, that of improving mankind,\nespecially appealed to Pierre. The important mystery mentioned by the\nRhetor, though it aroused his curiosity, did not seem to him essential,\nand the second aim, that of purifying and regenerating himself, did not\nmuch interest him because at that moment he felt with delight that he\nwas already perfectly cured of his former faults and was ready for all\nthat was good.\n\nHalf an hour later, the Rhetor returned to inform the seeker of the\nseven virtues, corresponding to the seven steps of Solomon's temple,\nwhich every Freemason should cultivate in himself. These virtues were:\n1. Discretion, the keeping of the secrets of the Order. 2. Obedience to\nthose of higher ranks in the Order. 3. Morality. 4. Love of mankind. 5.\nCourage. 6. Generosity. 7. The love of death.\n\n\"In the seventh place, try, by the frequent thought of death,\" the\nRhetor said, \"to bring yourself to regard it not as a dreaded foe, but\nas a friend that frees the soul grown weary in the labors of virtue from\nthis distressful life, and leads it to its place of recompense and\npeace.\"\n\n\"Yes, that must be so,\" thought Pierre, when after these words the\nRhetor went away, leaving him to solitary meditation. \"It must be so,\nbut I am still so weak that I love my life, the meaning of which is only\nnow gradually opening before me.\" But five of the other virtues which\nPierre recalled, counting them on his fingers, he felt already in his\nsoul: courage, generosity, morality, love of mankind, and especially\nobedience--which did not even seem to him a virtue, but a joy. (He now\nfelt so glad to be free from his own lawlessness and to submit his will\nto those who knew the indubitable truth.) He forgot what the seventh\nvirtue was and could not recall it.\n\nThe third time the Rhetor came back more quickly and asked Pierre\nwhether he was still firm in his intention and determined to submit to\nall that would be required of him.\n\n\"I am ready for everything,\" said Pierre.\n\n\"I must also inform you,\" said the Rhetor, \"that our Order delivers its\nteaching not in words only but also by other means, which may perhaps\nhave a stronger effect on the sincere seeker after wisdom and virtue\nthan mere words. This chamber with what you see therein should already\nhave suggested to your heart, if it is sincere, more than words could\ndo. You will perhaps also see in your further initiation a like method\nof enlightenment. Our Order imitates the ancient societies that\nexplained their teaching by hieroglyphics. A hieroglyph,\" said the\nRhetor, \"is an emblem of something not cognizable by the senses but\nwhich possesses qualities resembling those of the symbol.\"\n\nPierre knew very well what a hieroglyph was, but dared not speak. He\nlistened to the Rhetor in silence, feeling from all he said that his\nordeal was about to begin.\n\n\"If you are resolved, I must begin your initiation,\" said the Rhetor\ncoming closer to Pierre. \"In token of generosity I ask you to give me\nall your valuables.\"\n\n\"But I have nothing here,\" replied Pierre, supposing that he was asked\nto give up all he possessed.\n\n\"What you have with you: watch, money, rings....\"\n\nPierre quickly took out his purse and watch, but could not manage for\nsome time to get the wedding ring off his fat finger. When that had been\ndone, the Rhetor said:\n\n\"In token of obedience, I ask you to undress.\"\n\nPierre took off his coat, waistcoat, and left boot according to the\nRhetor's instructions. The Mason drew the shirt back from Pierre's left\nbreast, and stooping down pulled up the left leg of his trousers to\nabove the knee. Pierre hurriedly began taking off his right boot also\nand was going to tuck up the other trouser leg to save this stranger the\ntrouble, but the Mason told him that was not necessary and gave him a\nslipper for his left foot. With a childlike smile of embarrassment,\ndoubt, and self-derision, which appeared on his face against his will,\nPierre stood with his arms hanging down and legs apart, before his\nbrother Rhetor, and awaited his further commands.\n\n\"And now, in token of candor, I ask you to reveal to me your chief\npassion,\" said the latter.\n\n\"My passion! I have had so many,\" replied Pierre.\n\n\"That passion which more than all others caused you to waver on the path\nof virtue,\" said the Mason.\n\nPierre paused, seeking a reply.\n\n\"Wine? Gluttony? Idleness? Laziness? Irritability? Anger? Women?\" He\nwent over his vices in his mind, not knowing to which of them to give\nthe pre-eminence.\n\n\"Women,\" he said in a low, scarcely audible voice.\n\nThe Mason did not move and for a long time said nothing after this\nanswer. At last he moved up to Pierre and, taking the kerchief that lay\non the table, again bound his eyes.\n\n\"For the last time I say to you--turn all your attention upon yourself,\nput a bridle on your senses, and seek blessedness, not in passion but in\nyour own heart. The source of blessedness is not without us but\nwithin....\"\n\nPierre had already long been feeling in himself that refreshing source\nof blessedness which now flooded his heart with glad emotion.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nSoon after this there came into the dark chamber to fetch Pierre, not\nthe Rhetor but Pierre's sponsor, Willarski, whom he recognized by his\nvoice. To fresh questions as to the firmness of his resolution Pierre\nreplied: \"Yes, yes, I agree,\" and with a beaming, childlike smile, his\nfat chest uncovered, stepping unevenly and timidly in one slippered and\none booted foot, he advanced, while Willarski held a sword to his bare\nchest. He was conducted from that room along passages that turned\nbackwards and forwards and was at last brought to the doors of the\nLodge. Willarski coughed, he was answered by the masonic knock with\nmallets, the doors opened before them. A bass voice (Pierre was still\nblindfolded) questioned him as to who he was, when and where he was\nborn, and so on. Then he was again led somewhere still blindfolded, and\nas they went along he was told allegories of the toils of his\npilgrimage, of holy friendship, of the Eternal Architect of the\nuniverse, and of the courage with which he should endure toils and\ndangers. During these wanderings, Pierre noticed that he was spoken of\nnow as the \"Seeker,\" now as the \"Sufferer,\" and now as the \"Postulant,\"\nto the accompaniment of various knockings with mallets and swords. As he\nwas being led up to some object he noticed a hesitation and uncertainty\namong his conductors. He heard those around him disputing in whispers\nand one of them insisting that he should be led along a certain carpet.\nAfter that they took his right hand, placed it on something, and told\nhim to hold a pair of compasses to his left breast with the other hand\nand to repeat after someone who read aloud an oath of fidelity to the\nlaws of the Order. The candles were then extinguished and some spirit\nlighted, as Pierre knew by the smell, and he was told that he would now\nsee the lesser light. The bandage was taken off his eyes and, by the\nfaint light of the burning spirit, Pierre, as in a dream, saw several\nmen standing before him, wearing aprons like the Rhetor's and holding\nswords in their hands pointed at his breast. Among them stood a man\nwhose white shirt was stained with blood. On seeing this, Pierre moved\nforward with his breast toward the swords, meaning them to pierce it.\nBut the swords were drawn back from him and he was at once blindfolded\nagain.\n\n\"Now thou hast seen the lesser light,\" uttered a voice. Then the candles\nwere relit and he was told that he would see the full light; the bandage\nwas again removed and more than ten voices said together: \"Sic transit\ngloria mundi.\"\n\nPierre gradually began to recover himself and looked about at the room\nand at the people in it. Round a long table covered with black sat some\ntwelve men in garments like those he had already seen. Some of them\nPierre had met in Petersburg society. In the President's chair sat a\nyoung man he did not know, with a peculiar cross hanging from his neck.\nOn his right sat the Italian abbe whom Pierre had met at Anna Pavlovna's\ntwo years before. There were also present a very distinguished dignitary\nand a Swiss who had formerly been tutor at the Kuragins'. All maintained\na solemn silence, listening to the words of the President, who held a\nmallet in his hand. Let into the wall was a star-shaped light. At one\nside of the table was a small carpet with various figures worked upon\nit, at the other was something resembling an altar on which lay a\nTestament and a skull. Round it stood seven large candlesticks like\nthose used in churches. Two of the brothers led Pierre up to the altar,\nplaced his feet at right angles, and bade him lie down, saying that he\nmust prostrate himself at the Gates of the Temple.\n\n\"He must first receive the trowel,\" whispered one of the brothers.\n\n\"Oh, hush, please!\" said another.\n\nPierre, perplexed, looked round with his shortsighted eyes without\nobeying, and suddenly doubts arose in his mind. \"Where am I? What am I\ndoing? Aren't they laughing at me? Shan't I be ashamed to remember\nthis?\" But these doubts only lasted a moment. Pierre glanced at the\nserious faces of those around, remembered all he had already gone\nthrough, and realized that he could not stop halfway. He was aghast at\nhis hesitation and, trying to arouse his former devotional feeling,\nprostrated himself before the Gates of the Temple. And really, the\nfeeling of devotion returned to him even more strongly than before. When\nhe had lain there some time, he was told to get up, and a white leather\napron, such as the others wore, was put on him: he was given a trowel\nand three pairs of gloves, and then the Grand Master addressed him. He\ntold him that he should try to do nothing to stain the whiteness of that\napron, which symbolized strength and purity; then of the unexplained\ntrowel, he told him to toil with it to cleanse his own heart from vice,\nand indulgently to smooth with it the heart of his neighbor. As to the\nfirst pair of gloves, a man's, he said that Pierre could not know their\nmeaning but must keep them. The second pair of man's gloves he was to\nwear at the meetings, and finally of the third, a pair of women's\ngloves, he said: \"Dear brother, these woman's gloves are intended for\nyou too. Give them to the woman whom you shall honor most of all. This\ngift will be a pledge of your purity of heart to her whom you select to\nbe your worthy helpmeet in Masonry.\" And after a pause, he added: \"But\nbeware, dear brother, that these gloves do not deck hands that are\nunclean.\" While the Grand Master said these last words it seemed to\nPierre that he grew embarrassed. Pierre himself grew still more\nconfused, blushed like a child till tears came to his eyes, began\nlooking about him uneasily, and an awkward pause followed.\n\nThis silence was broken by one of the brethren, who led Pierre up to the\nrug and began reading to him from a manuscript book an explanation of\nall the figures on it: the sun, the moon, a hammer, a plumb line, a\ntrowel, a rough stone and a squared stone, a pillar, three windows, and\nso on. Then a place was assigned to Pierre, he was shown the signs of\nthe Lodge, told the password, and at last was permitted to sit down. The\nGrand Master began reading the statutes. They were very long, and\nPierre, from joy, agitation, and embarrassment, was not in a state to\nunderstand what was being read. He managed to follow only the last words\nof the statutes and these remained in his mind.\n\n\"In our temples we recognize no other distinctions,\" read the Grand\nMaster, \"but those between virtue and vice. Beware of making any\ndistinctions which may infringe equality. Fly to a brother's aid whoever\nhe may be, exhort him who goeth astray, raise him that falleth, never\nbear malice or enmity toward thy brother. Be kindly and courteous.\nKindle in all hearts the flame of virtue. Share thy happiness with thy\nneighbor, and may envy never dim the purity of that bliss. Forgive thy\nenemy, do not avenge thyself except by doing him good. Thus fulfilling\nthe highest law thou shalt regain traces of the ancient dignity which\nthou hast lost.\"\n\nHe finished and, getting up, embraced and kissed Pierre, who, with tears\nof joy in his eyes, looked round him, not knowing how to answer the\ncongratulations and greetings from acquaintances that met him on all\nsides. He acknowledged no acquaintances but saw in all these men only\nbrothers, and burned with impatience to set to work with them.\n\nThe Grand Master rapped with his mallet. All the Masons sat down in\ntheir places, and one of them read an exhortation on the necessity of\nhumility.\n\nThe Grand Master proposed that the last duty should be performed, and\nthe distinguished dignitary who bore the title of \"Collector of Alms\"\nwent round to all the brothers. Pierre would have liked to subscribe all\nhe had, but fearing that it might look like pride subscribed the same\namount as the others.\n\nThe meeting was at an end, and on reaching home Pierre felt as if he had\nreturned from a long journey on which he had spent dozens of years, had\nbecome completely changed, and had quite left behind his former habits\nand way of life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nThe day after he had been received into the Lodge, Pierre was sitting at\nhome reading a book and trying to fathom the significance of the Square,\none side of which symbolized God, another moral things, a third physical\nthings, and the fourth a combination of these. Now and then his\nattention wandered from the book and the Square and he formed in\nimagination a new plan of life. On the previous evening at the Lodge, he\nhad heard that a rumor of his duel had reached the Emperor and that it\nwould be wiser for him to leave Petersburg. Pierre proposed going to his\nestates in the south and there attending to the welfare of his serfs. He\nwas joyfully planning this new life, when Prince Vasili suddenly entered\nthe room.\n\n\"My dear fellow, what have you been up to in Moscow? Why have you\nquarreled with Helene, mon cher? You are under a delusion,\" said Prince\nVasili, as he entered. \"I know all about it, and I can tell you\npositively that Helene is as innocent before you as Christ was before\nthe Jews.\"\n\nPierre was about to reply, but Prince Vasili interrupted him.\n\n\"And why didn't you simply come straight to me as to a friend? I know\nall about it and understand it all,\" he said. \"You behaved as becomes a\nman who values his honor, perhaps too hastily, but we won't go into\nthat. But consider the position in which you are placing her and me in\nthe eyes of society, and even of the court,\" he added, lowering his\nvoice. \"She is living in Moscow and you are here. Remember, dear boy,\"\nand he drew Pierre's arm downwards, \"it is simply a misunderstanding. I\nexpect you feel it so yourself. Let us write her a letter at once, and\nshe'll come here and all will be explained, or else, my dear boy, let me\ntell you it's quite likely you'll have to suffer for it.\"\n\nPrince Vasili gave Pierre a significant look.\n\n\"I know from reliable sources that the Dowager Empress is taking a keen\ninterest in the whole affair. You know she is very gracious to Helene.\"\n\nPierre tried several times to speak, but, on one hand, Prince Vasili did\nnot let him and, on the other, Pierre himself feared to begin to speak\nin the tone of decided refusal and disagreement in which he had firmly\nresolved to answer his father-in-law. Moreover, the words of the masonic\nstatutes, \"be kindly and courteous,\" recurred to him. He blinked, went\nred, got up and sat down again, struggling with himself to do what was\nfor him the most difficult thing in life--to say an unpleasant thing to\na man's face, to say what the other, whoever he might be, did not\nexpect. He was so used to submitting to Prince Vasili's tone of careless\nself-assurance that he felt he would be unable to withstand it now, but\nhe also felt that on what he said now his future depended--whether he\nwould follow the same old road, or that new path so attractively shown\nhim by the Masons, on which he firmly believed he would be reborn to a\nnew life.\n\n\"Now, dear boy,\" said Prince Vasili playfully, \"say 'yes,' and I'll\nwrite to her myself, and we will kill the fatted calf.\"\n\nBut before Prince Vasili had finished his playful speech, Pierre,\nwithout looking at him, and with a kind of fury that made him like his\nfather, muttered in a whisper:\n\n\"Prince, I did not ask you here. Go, please go!\" And he jumped up and\nopened the door for him.\n\n\"Go!\" he repeated, amazed at himself and glad to see the look of\nconfusion and fear that showed itself on Prince Vasili's face.\n\n\"What's the matter with you? Are you ill?\"\n\n\"Go!\" the quivering voice repeated. And Prince Vasili had to go without\nreceiving any explanation.\n\nA week later, Pierre, having taken leave of his new friends, the Masons,\nand leaving large sums of money with them for alms, went away to his\nestates. His new brethren gave him letters to the Kiev and Odessa Masons\nand promised to write to him and guide him in his new activity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nThe duel between Pierre and Dolokhov was hushed up and, in spite of the\nEmperor's severity regarding duels at that time, neither the principals\nnor their seconds suffered for it. But the story of the duel, confirmed\nby Pierre's rupture with his wife, was the talk of society. Pierre who\nhad been regarded with patronizing condescension when he was an\nillegitimate son, and petted and extolled when he was the best match in\nRussia, had sunk greatly in the esteem of society after his marriage--\nwhen the marriageable daughters and their mothers had nothing to hope\nfrom him--especially as he did not know how, and did not wish, to court\nsociety's favor. Now he alone was blamed for what had happened, he was\nsaid to be insanely jealous and subject like his father to fits of\nbloodthirsty rage. And when after Pierre's departure Helene returned to\nPetersburg, she was received by all her acquaintances not only\ncordially, but even with a shade of deference due to her misfortune.\nWhen conversation turned on her husband Helene assumed a dignified\nexpression, which with characteristic tact she had acquired though she\ndid not understand its significance. This expression suggested that she\nhad resolved to endure her troubles uncomplainingly and that her husband\nwas a cross laid upon her by God. Prince Vasili expressed his opinion\nmore openly. He shrugged his shoulders when Pierre was mentioned and,\npointing to his forehead, remarked:\n\n\"A bit touched--I always said so.\"\n\n\"I said from the first,\" declared Anna Pavlovna referring to Pierre, \"I\nsaid at the time and before anyone else\" (she insisted on her priority)\n\"that that senseless young man was spoiled by the depraved ideas of\nthese days. I said so even at the time when everybody was in raptures\nabout him, when he had just returned from abroad, and when, if you\nremember, he posed as a sort of Marat at one of my soirees. And how has\nit ended? I was against this marriage even then and foretold all that\nhas happened.\"\n\nAnna Pavlovna continued to give on free evenings the same kind of\nsoirees as before--such as she alone had the gift of arranging--at which\nwas to be found \"the cream of really good society, the bloom of the\nintellectual essence of Petersburg,\" as she herself put it. Besides this\nrefined selection of society Anna Pavlovna's receptions were also\ndistinguished by the fact that she always presented some new and\ninteresting person to the visitors and that nowhere else was the state\nof the political thermometer of legitimate Petersburg court society so\ndearly and distinctly indicated.\n\nToward the end of 1806, when all the sad details of Napoleon's\ndestruction of the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstadt and the surrender\nof most of the Prussian fortresses had been received, when our troops\nhad already entered Prussia and our second war with Napoleon was\nbeginning, Anna Pavlovna gave one of her soirees. The \"cream of really\ngood society\" consisted of the fascinating Helene, forsaken by her\nhusband, Mortemart, the delightful Prince Hippolyte who had just\nreturned from Vienna, two diplomatists, the old aunt, a young man\nreferred to in that drawing room as \"a man of great merit\" (un homme de\nbeaucoup de merite), a newly appointed maid of honor and her mother, and\nseveral other less noteworthy persons.\n\nThe novelty Anna Pavlovna was setting before her guests that evening was\nBoris Drubetskoy, who had just arrived as a special messenger from the\nPrussian army and was aide-de-camp to a very important personage.\n\nThe temperature shown by the political thermometer to the company that\nevening was this:\n\n\"Whatever the European sovereigns and commanders may do to countenance\nBonaparte, and to cause me, and us in general, annoyance and\nmortification, our opinion of Bonaparte cannot alter. We shall not cease\nto express our sincere views on that subject, and can only say to the\nKing of Prussia and others: 'So much the worse for you. Tu l'as voulu,\nGeorge Dandin,' that's all we have to say about it!\"\n\nWhen Boris, who was to be served up to the guests, entered the drawing\nroom, almost all the company had assembled, and the conversation, guided\nby Anna Pavlovna, was about our diplomatic relations with Austria and\nthe hope of an alliance with her.\n\nBoris, grown more manly and looking fresh, rosy and self-possessed,\nentered the drawing room elegantly dressed in the uniform of an aide-de-\ncamp and was duly conducted to pay his respects to the aunt and then\nbrought back to the general circle.\n\nAnna Pavlovna gave him her shriveled hand to kiss and introduced him to\nseveral persons whom he did not know, giving him a whispered description\nof each.\n\n\"Prince Hippolyte Kuragin, M. Krug, the charge d'affaires from\nCopenhagen--a profound intellect,\" and simply, \"Mr. Shitov--a man of\ngreat merit\"--this of the man usually so described.\n\nThanks to Anna Mikhaylovna's efforts, his own tastes, and the\npeculiarities of his reserved nature, Boris had managed during his\nservice to place himself very advantageously. He was aide-de-camp to a\nvery important personage, had been sent on a very important mission to\nPrussia, and had just returned from there as a special messenger. He had\nbecome thoroughly conversant with that unwritten code with which he had\nbeen so pleased at Olmutz and according to which an ensign might rank\nincomparably higher than a general, and according to which what was\nneeded for success in the service was not effort or work, or courage, or\nperseverance, but only the knowledge of how to get on with those who can\ngrant rewards, and he was himself often surprised at the rapidity of his\nsuccess and at the inability of others to understand these things. In\nconsequence of this discovery his whole manner of life, all his\nrelations with old friends, all his plans for his future, were\ncompletely altered. He was not rich, but would spend his last groat to\nbe better dressed than others, and would rather deprive himself of many\npleasures than allow himself to be seen in a shabby equipage or appear\nin the streets of Petersburg in an old uniform. He made friends with and\nsought the acquaintance of only those above him in position and who\ncould therefore be of use to him. He liked Petersburg and despised\nMoscow. The remembrance of the Rostovs' house and of his childish love\nfor Natasha was unpleasant to him and he had not once been to see the\nRostovs since the day of his departure for the army. To be in Anna\nPavlovna's drawing room he considered an important step up in the\nservice, and he at once understood his role, letting his hostess make\nuse of whatever interest he had to offer. He himself carefully scanned\neach face, appraising the possibilities of establishing intimacy with\neach of those present, and the advantages that might accrue. He took the\nseat indicated to him beside the fair Helene and listened to the general\nconversation.\n\n\"Vienna considers the bases of the proposed treaty so unattainable that\nnot even a continuity of most brilliant successes would secure them, and\nshe doubts the means we have of gaining them. That is the actual phrase\nused by the Vienna cabinet,\" said the Danish charge d'affaires.\n\n\"The doubt is flattering,\" said \"the man of profound intellect,\" with a\nsubtle smile.\n\n\"We must distinguish between the Vienna cabinet and the Emperor of\nAustria,\" said Mortemart. \"The Emperor of Austria can never have thought\nof such a thing, it is only the cabinet that says it.\"\n\n\"Ah, my dear vicomte,\" put in Anna Pavlovna, \"L'Urope\" (for some reason\nshe called it Urope as if that were a specially refined French\npronunciation which she could allow herself when conversing with a\nFrenchman), \"L'Urope ne sera jamais notre alliee sincere.\" *\n\n\n* \"Europe will never be our sincere ally.\"\n\nAfter that Anna Pavlovna led up to the courage and firmness of the King\nof Prussia, in order to draw Boris into the conversation.\n\nBoris listened attentively to each of the speakers, awaiting his turn,\nbut managed meanwhile to look round repeatedly at his neighbor, the\nbeautiful Helene, whose eyes several times met those of the handsome\nyoung aide-de-camp with a smile.\n\nSpeaking of the position of Prussia, Anna Pavlovna very naturally asked\nBoris to tell them about his journey to Glogau and in what state he\nfound the Prussian army. Boris, speaking with deliberation, told them in\npure, correct French many interesting details about the armies and the\ncourt, carefully abstaining from expressing an opinion of his own about\nthe facts he was recounting. For some time he engrossed the general\nattention, and Anna Pavlovna felt that the novelty she had served up was\nreceived with pleasure by all her visitors. The greatest attention of\nall to Boris' narrative was shown by Helene. She asked him several\nquestions about his journey and seemed greatly interested in the state\nof the Prussian army. As soon as he had finished she turned to him with\nher usual smile.\n\n\"You absolutely must come and see me,\" she said in a tone that implied\nthat, for certain considerations he could not know of, this was\nabsolutely necessary.\n\n\"On Tuesday between eight and nine. It will give me great pleasure.\"\n\nBoris promised to fulfill her wish and was about to begin a conversation\nwith her, when Anna Pavlovna called him away on the pretext that her\naunt wished to hear him.\n\n\"You know her husband, of course?\" said Anna Pavlovna, closing her eyes\nand indicating Helene with a sorrowful gesture. \"Ah, she is such an\nunfortunate and charming woman! Don't mention him before her--please\ndon't! It is too painful for her!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nWhen Boris and Anna Pavlovna returned to the others Prince Hippolyte had\nthe ear of the company.\n\nBending forward in his armchair he said: \"Le Roi de Prusse!\" and having\nsaid this laughed. Everyone turned toward him.\n\n\"Le Roi de Prusse?\" Hippolyte said interrogatively, again laughing, and\nthen calmly and seriously sat back in his chair. Anna Pavlovna waited\nfor him to go on, but as he seemed quite decided to say no more she\nbegan to tell of how at Potsdam the impious Bonaparte had stolen the\nsword of Frederick the Great.\n\n\"It is the sword of Frederick the Great which I...\" she began, but\nHippolyte interrupted her with the words: \"Le Roi de Prusse...\" and\nagain, as soon as all turned toward him, excused himself and said no\nmore.\n\nAnna Pavlovna frowned. Mortemart, Hippolyte's friend, addressed him\nfirmly.\n\n\"Come now, what about your Roi de Prusse?\"\n\nHippolyte laughed as if ashamed of laughing.\n\n\"Oh, it's nothing. I only wished to say...\" (he wanted to repeat a joke\nhe had heard in Vienna and which he had been trying all that evening to\nget in) \"I only wished to say that we are wrong to fight pour le Roi de\nPrusse!\"\n\nBoris smiled circumspectly, so that it might be taken as ironical or\nappreciative according to the way the joke was received. Everybody\nlaughed.\n\n\"Your joke is too bad, it's witty but unjust,\" said Anna Pavlovna,\nshaking her little shriveled finger at him.\n\n\"We are not fighting pour le Roi de Prusse, but for right principles.\nOh, that wicked Prince Hippolyte!\" she said.\n\nThe conversation did not flag all evening and turned chiefly on the\npolitical news. It became particularly animated toward the end of the\nevening when the rewards bestowed by the Emperor were mentioned.\n\n\"You know N-- N-- received a snuffbox with the portrait last year?\" said\n\"the man of profound intellect.\" \"Why shouldn't S-- S-- get the same\ndistinction?\"\n\n\"Pardon me! A snuffbox with the Emperor's portrait is a reward but not a\ndistinction,\" said the diplomatist--\"a gift, rather.\"\n\n\"There are precedents, I may mention Schwarzenberg.\"\n\n\"It's impossible,\" replied another.\n\n\"Will you bet? The ribbon of the order is a different matter....\"\n\nWhen everybody rose to go, Helene who had spoken very little all the\nevening again turned to Boris, asking him in a tone of caressing\nsignificant command to come to her on Tuesday.\n\n\"It is of great importance to me,\" she said, turning with a smile toward\nAnna Pavlovna, and Anna Pavlovna, with the same sad smile with which she\nspoke of her exalted patroness, supported Helene's wish.\n\nIt seemed as if from some words Boris had spoken that evening about the\nPrussian army, Helene had suddenly found it necessary to see him. She\nseemed to promise to explain that necessity to him when he came on\nTuesday.\n\nBut on Tuesday evening, having come to Helene's splendid salon, Boris\nreceived no clear explanation of why it had been necessary for him to\ncome. There were other guests and the countess talked little to him, and\nonly as he kissed her hand on taking leave said unexpectedly and in a\nwhisper, with a strangely unsmiling face: \"Come to dinner tomorrow... in\nthe evening. You must come.... Come!\"\n\nDuring that stay in Petersburg, Boris became an intimate in the\ncountess' house.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nThe war was flaming up and nearing the Russian frontier. Everywhere one\nheard curses on Bonaparte, \"the enemy of mankind.\" Militiamen and\nrecruits were being enrolled in the villages, and from the seat of war\ncame contradictory news, false as usual and therefore variously\ninterpreted. The life of old Prince Bolkonski, Prince Andrew, and\nPrincess Mary had greatly changed since 1805.\n\nIn 1806 the old prince was made one of the eight commanders in chief\nthen appointed to supervise the enrollment decreed throughout Russia.\nDespite the weakness of age, which had become particularly noticeable\nsince the time when he thought his son had been killed, he did not think\nit right to refuse a duty to which he had been appointed by the Emperor\nhimself, and this fresh opportunity for action gave him new energy and\nstrength. He was continually traveling through the three provinces\nentrusted to him, was pedantic in the fulfillment of his duties, severe\nto cruel with his subordinates, and went into everything down to the\nminutest details himself. Princess Mary had ceased taking lessons in\nmathematics from her father, and when the old prince was at home went to\nhis study with the wet nurse and little Prince Nicholas (as his\ngrandfather called him). The baby Prince Nicholas lived with his wet\nnurse and nurse Savishna in the late princess' rooms and Princess Mary\nspent most of the day in the nursery, taking a mother's place to her\nlittle nephew as best she could. Mademoiselle Bourienne, too, seemed\npassionately fond of the boy, and Princess Mary often deprived herself\nto give her friend the pleasure of dandling the little angel--as she\ncalled her nephew--and playing with him.\n\nNear the altar of the church at Bald Hills there was a chapel over the\ntomb of the little princess, and in this chapel was a marble monument\nbrought from Italy, representing an angel with outspread wings ready to\nfly upwards. The angel's upper lip was slightly raised as though about\nto smile, and once on coming out of the chapel Prince Andrew and\nPrincess Mary admitted to one another that the angel's face reminded\nthem strangely of the little princess. But what was still stranger,\nthough of this Prince Andrew said nothing to his sister, was that in the\nexpression the sculptor had happened to give the angel's face, Prince\nAndrew read the same mild reproach he had read on the face of his dead\nwife: \"Ah, why have you done this to me?\"\n\nSoon after Prince Andrew's return the old prince made over to him a\nlarge estate, Bogucharovo, about twenty-five miles from Bald Hills.\nPartly because of the depressing memories associated with Bald Hills,\npartly because Prince Andrew did not always feel equal to bearing with\nhis father's peculiarities, and partly because he needed solitude,\nPrince Andrew made use of Bogucharovo, began building and spent most of\nhis time there.\n\nAfter the Austerlitz campaign Prince Andrew had firmly resolved not to\ncontinue his military service, and when the war recommenced and\neverybody had to serve, he took a post under his father in the\nrecruitment so as to avoid active service. The old prince and his son\nseemed to have changed roles since the campaign of 1805. The old man,\nroused by activity, expected the best results from the new campaign,\nwhile Prince Andrew on the contrary, taking no part in the war and\nsecretly regretting this, saw only the dark side.\n\nOn February 26, 1807, the old prince set off on one of his circuits.\nPrince Andrew remained at Bald Hills as usual during his father's\nabsence. Little Nicholas had been unwell for four days. The coachman who\nhad driven the old prince to town returned bringing papers and letters\nfor Prince Andrew.\n\nNot finding the young prince in his study the valet went with the\nletters to Princess Mary's apartments, but did not find him there. He\nwas told that the prince had gone to the nursery.\n\n\"If you please, your excellency, Petrusha has brought some papers,\" said\none of the nursemaids to Prince Andrew who was sitting on a child's\nlittle chair while, frowning and with trembling hands, he poured drops\nfrom a medicine bottle into a wineglass half full of water.\n\n\"What is it?\" he said crossly, and, his hand shaking unintentionally, he\npoured too many drops into the glass. He threw the mixture onto the\nfloor and asked for some more water. The maid brought it.\n\nThere were in the room a child's cot, two boxes, two armchairs, a table,\na child's table, and the little chair on which Prince Andrew was\nsitting. The curtains were drawn, and a single candle was burning on the\ntable, screened by a bound music book so that the light did not fall on\nthe cot.\n\n\"My dear,\" said Princess Mary, addressing her brother from beside the\ncot where she was standing, \"better wait a bit... later...\"\n\n\"Oh, leave off, you always talk nonsense and keep putting things off--\nand this is what comes of it!\" said Prince Andrew in an exasperated\nwhisper, evidently meaning to wound his sister.\n\n\"My dear, really... it's better not to wake him... he's asleep,\" said\nthe princess in a tone of entreaty.\n\nPrince Andrew got up and went on tiptoe up to the little bed, wineglass\nin hand.\n\n\"Perhaps we'd really better not wake him,\" he said hesitating.\n\n\"As you please... really... I think so... but as you please,\" said\nPrincess Mary, evidently intimidated and confused that her opinion had\nprevailed. She drew her brother's attention to the maid who was calling\nhim in a whisper.\n\nIt was the second night that neither of them had slept, watching the boy\nwho was in a high fever. These last days, mistrusting their household\ndoctor and expecting another for whom they had sent to town, they had\nbeen trying first one remedy and then another. Worn out by sleeplessness\nand anxiety they threw their burden of sorrow on one another and\nreproached and disputed with each other.\n\n\"Petrusha has come with papers from your father,\" whispered the maid.\n\nPrince Andrew went out.\n\n\"Devil take them!\" he muttered, and after listening to the verbal\ninstructions his father had sent and taking the correspondence and his\nfather's letter, he returned to the nursery.\n\n\"Well?\" he asked.\n\n\"Still the same. Wait, for heaven's sake. Karl Ivanich always says that\nsleep is more important than anything,\" whispered Princess Mary with a\nsigh.\n\nPrince Andrew went up to the child and felt him. He was burning hot.\n\n\"Confound you and your Karl Ivanich!\" He took the glass with the drops\nand again went up to the cot.\n\n\"Andrew, don't!\" said Princess Mary.\n\nBut he scowled at her angrily though also with suffering in his eyes,\nand stooped glass in hand over the infant.\n\n\"But I wish it,\" he said. \"I beg you--give it him!\"\n\nPrincess Mary shrugged her shoulders but took the glass submissively and\ncalling the nurse began giving the medicine. The child screamed\nhoarsely. Prince Andrew winced and, clutching his head, went out and sat\ndown on a sofa in the next room.\n\nHe still had all the letters in his hand. Opening them mechanically he\nbegan reading. The old prince, now and then using abbreviations, wrote\nin his large elongated hand on blue paper as follows:\n\nHave just this moment received by special messenger very joyful news--if\nit's not false. Bennigsen seems to have obtained a complete victory over\nBuonaparte at Eylau. In Petersburg everyone is rejoicing, and the\nrewards sent to the army are innumerable. Though he is a German--I\ncongratulate him! I can't make out what the commander at Korchevo--a\ncertain Khandrikov--is up to; till now the additional men and provisions\nhave not arrived. Gallop off to him at once and say I'll have his head\noff if everything is not here in a week. Have received another letter\nabout the Preussisch-Eylau battle from Petenka--he took part in it--and\nit's all true. When mischief-makers don't meddle even a German beats\nBuonaparte. He is said to be fleeing in great disorder. Mind you gallop\noff to Korchevo without delay and carry out instructions!\n\nPrince Andrew sighed and broke the seal of another envelope. It was a\nclosely written letter of two sheets from Bilibin. He folded it up\nwithout reading it and reread his father's letter, ending with the\nwords: \"Gallop off to Korchevo and carry out instructions!\"\n\n\"No, pardon me, I won't go now till the child is better,\" thought he,\ngoing to the door and looking into the nursery.\n\nPrincess Mary was still standing by the cot, gently rocking the baby.\n\n\"Ah yes, and what else did he say that's unpleasant?\" thought Prince\nAndrew, recalling his father's letter. \"Yes, we have gained a victory\nover Bonaparte, just when I'm not serving. Yes, yes, he's always poking\nfun at me.... Ah, well! Let him!\" And he began reading Bilibin's letter\nwhich was written in French. He read without understanding half of it,\nread only to forget, if but for a moment, what he had too long been\nthinking of so painfully to the exclusion of all else.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nBilibin was now at army headquarters in a diplomatic capacity, and\nthough he wrote in French and used French jests and French idioms, he\ndescribed the whole campaign with a fearless self-censure and self-\nderision genuinely Russian. Bilibin wrote that the obligation of\ndiplomatic discretion tormented him, and he was happy to have in Prince\nAndrew a reliable correspondent to whom he could pour out the bile he\nhad accumulated at the sight of all that was being done in the army. The\nletter was old, having been written before the battle at Preussisch-\nEylau.\n\n\"Since the day of our brilliant success at Austerlitz,\" wrote Bilibin,\n\"as you know, my dear prince, I never leave headquarters. I have\ncertainly acquired a taste for war, and it is just as well for me; what\nI have seen during these last three months is incredible.\n\n\"I begin ab ovo. 'The enemy of the human race,' as you know, attacks the\nPrussians. The Prussians are our faithful allies who have only betrayed\nus three times in three years. We take up their cause, but it turns out\nthat 'the enemy of the human race' pays no heed to our fine speeches and\nin his rude and savage way throws himself on the Prussians without\ngiving them time to finish the parade they had begun, and in two twists\nof the hand he breaks them to smithereens and installs himself in the\npalace at Potsdam.\n\n\"'I most ardently desire,' writes the King of Prussia to Bonaparte,\n'that Your Majesty should be received and treated in my palace in a\nmanner agreeable to yourself, and in so far as circumstances allowed, I\nhave hastened to take all steps to that end. May I have succeeded!' The\nPrussian generals pride themselves on being polite to the French and lay\ndown their arms at the first demand.\n\n\"The head of the garrison at Glogau, with ten thousand men, asks the\nKing of Prussia what he is to do if he is summoned to surrender.... All\nthis is absolutely true.\n\n\"In short, hoping to settle matters by taking up a warlike attitude, it\nturns out that we have landed ourselves in war, and what is more, in war\non our own frontiers, with and for the King of Prussia. We have\neverything in perfect order, only one little thing is lacking, namely, a\ncommander in chief. As it was considered that the Austerlitz success\nmight have been more decisive had the commander-in-chief not been so\nyoung, all our octogenarians were reviewed, and of Prozorovski and\nKamenski the latter was preferred. The general comes to us, Suvorov-\nlike, in a kibitka, and is received with acclamations of joy and\ntriumph.\n\n\"On the 4th, the first courier arrives from Petersburg. The mails are\ntaken to the field marshal's room, for he likes to do everything\nhimself. I am called in to help sort the letters and take those meant\nfor us. The field marshal looks on and waits for letters addressed to\nhim. We search, but none are to be found. The field marshal grows\nimpatient and sets to work himself and finds letters from the Emperor to\nCount T., Prince V., and others. Then he bursts into one of his wild\nfuries and rages at everyone and everything, seizes the letters, opens\nthem, and reads those from the Emperor addressed to others. 'Ah! So\nthat's the way they treat me! No confidence in me! Ah, ordered to keep\nan eye on me! Very well then! Get along with you!' So he writes the\nfamous order of the day to General Bennigsen:\n\n'I am wounded and cannot ride and consequently cannot command the army.\nYou have brought your army corps to Pultusk, routed: here it is exposed,\nand without fuel or forage, so something must be done, and, as you\nyourself reported to Count Buxhowden yesterday, you must think of\nretreating to our frontier--which do today.'\n\n\"'From all my riding,' he writes to the Emperor, 'I have got a saddle\nsore which, coming after all my previous journeys, quite prevents my\nriding and commanding so vast an army, so I have passed on the command\nto the general next in seniority, Count Buxhowden, having sent him my\nwhole staff and all that belongs to it, advising him if there is a lack\nof bread, to move farther into the interior of Prussia, for only one\nday's ration of bread remains, and in some regiments none at all, as\nreported by the division commanders, Ostermann and Sedmoretzki, and all\nthat the peasants had has been eaten up. I myself will remain in\nhospital at Ostrolenka till I recover. In regard to which I humbly\nsubmit my report, with the information that if the army remains in its\npresent bivouac another fortnight there will not be a healthy man left\nin it by spring.\n\n\"'Grant leave to retire to his country seat to an old man who is already\nin any case dishonored by being unable to fulfill the great and glorious\ntask for which he was chosen. I shall await your most gracious\npermission here in hospital, that I may not have to play the part of a\nsecretary rather than commander in the army. My removal from the army\ndoes not produce the slightest stir--a blind man has left it. There are\nthousands such as I in Russia.'\n\n\"The field marshal is angry with the Emperor and he punishes us all,\nisn't it logical?\n\n\"This is the first act. Those that follow are naturally increasingly\ninteresting and entertaining. After the field marshal's departure it\nappears that we are within sight of the enemy and must give battle.\nBuxhowden is commander-in-chief by seniority, but General Bennigsen does\nnot quite see it; more particularly as it is he and his corps who are\nwithin sight of the enemy and he wishes to profit by the opportunity to\nfight a battle 'on his own hand' as the Germans say. He does so. This is\nthe battle of Pultusk, which is considered a great victory but in my\nopinion was nothing of the kind. We civilians, as you know, have a very\nbad way of deciding whether a battle was won or lost. Those who retreat\nafter a battle have lost it is what we say; and according to that it is\nwe who lost the battle of Pultusk. In short, we retreat after the battle\nbut send a courier to Petersburg with news of a victory, and General\nBennigsen, hoping to receive from Petersburg the post of commander in\nchief as a reward for his victory, does not give up the command of the\narmy to General Buxhowden. During this interregnum we begin a very\noriginal and interesting series of maneuvers. Our aim is no longer, as\nit should be, to avoid or attack the enemy, but solely to avoid General\nBuxhowden who by right of seniority should be our chief. So\nenergetically do we pursue this aim that after crossing an unfordable\nriver we burn the bridges to separate ourselves from our enemy, who at\nthe moment is not Bonaparte but Buxhowden. General Buxhowden was all but\nattacked and captured by a superior enemy force as a result of one of\nthese maneuvers that enabled us to escape him. Buxhowden pursues us--we\nscuttle. He hardly crosses the river to our side before we recross to\nthe other. At last our enemy, Buxhowden, catches us and attacks. Both\ngenerals are angry, and the result is a challenge on Buxhowden's part\nand an epileptic fit on Bennigsen's. But at the critical moment the\ncourier who carried the news of our victory at Pultusk to Petersburg\nreturns bringing our appointment as commander-in-chief, and our first\nfoe, Buxhowden, is vanquished; we can now turn our thoughts to the\nsecond, Bonaparte. But as it turns out, just at that moment a third\nenemy rises before us--namely the Orthodox Russian soldiers, loudly\ndemanding bread, meat, biscuits, fodder, and whatnot! The stores are\nempty, the roads impassable. The Orthodox begin looting, and in a way of\nwhich our last campaign can give you no idea. Half the regiments form\nbands and scour the countryside and put everything to fire and sword.\nThe inhabitants are totally ruined, the hospitals overflow with sick,\nand famine is everywhere. Twice the marauders even attack our\nheadquarters, and the commander-in-chief has to ask for a battalion to\ndisperse them. During one of these attacks they carried off my empty\nportmanteau and my dressing gown. The Emperor proposes to give all\ncommanders of divisions the right to shoot marauders, but I much fear\nthis will oblige one half the army to shoot the other.\"\n\nAt first Prince Andrew read with his eyes only, but after a while, in\nspite of himself (although he knew how far it was safe to trust\nBilibin), what he had read began to interest him more and more. When he\nhad read thus far, he crumpled the letter up and threw it away. It was\nnot what he had read that vexed him, but the fact that the life out\nthere in which he had now no part could perturb him. He shut his eyes,\nrubbed his forehead as if to rid himself of all interest in what he had\nread, and listened to what was passing in the nursery. Suddenly he\nthought he heard a strange noise through the door. He was seized with\nalarm lest something should have happened to the child while he was\nreading the letter. He went on tiptoe to the nursery door and opened it.\n\nJust as he went in he saw that the nurse was hiding something from him\nwith a scared look and that Princess Mary was no longer by the cot.\n\n\"My dear,\" he heard what seemed to him her despairing whisper behind\nhim.\n\nAs often happens after long sleeplessness and long anxiety, he was\nseized by an unreasoning panic--it occurred to him that the child was\ndead. All that he saw and heard seemed to confirm this terror.\n\n\"All is over,\" he thought, and a cold sweat broke out on his forehead.\nHe went to the cot in confusion, sure that he would find it empty and\nthat the nurse had been hiding the dead baby. He drew the curtain aside\nand for some time his frightened, restless eyes could not find the baby.\nAt last he saw him: the rosy boy had tossed about till he lay across the\nbed with his head lower than the pillow, and was smacking his lips in\nhis sleep and breathing evenly.\n\nPrince Andrew was as glad to find the boy like that, as if he had\nalready lost him. He bent over him and, as his sister had taught him,\ntried with his lips whether the child was still feverish. The soft\nforehead was moist. Prince Andrew touched the head with his hand; even\nthe hair was wet, so profusely had the child perspired. He was not dead,\nbut evidently the crisis was over and he was convalescent. Prince Andrew\nlonged to snatch up, to squeeze, to hold to his heart, this helpless\nlittle creature, but dared not do so. He stood over him, gazing at his\nhead and at the little arms and legs which showed under the blanket. He\nheard a rustle behind him and a shadow appeared under the curtain of the\ncot. He did not look round, but still gazing at the infant's face\nlistened to his regular breathing. The dark shadow was Princess Mary,\nwho had come up to the cot with noiseless steps, lifted the curtain, and\ndropped it again behind her. Prince Andrew recognized her without\nlooking and held out his hand to her. She pressed it.\n\n\"He has perspired,\" said Prince Andrew.\n\n\"I was coming to tell you so.\"\n\nThe child moved slightly in his sleep, smiled, and rubbed his forehead\nagainst the pillow.\n\nPrince Andrew looked at his sister. In the dim shadow of the curtain her\nluminous eyes shone more brightly than usual from the tears of joy that\nwere in them. She leaned over to her brother and kissed him, slightly\ncatching the curtain of the cot. Each made the other a warning gesture\nand stood still in the dim light beneath the curtain as if not wishing\nto leave that seclusion where they three were shut off from all the\nworld. Prince Andrew was the first to move away, ruffling his hair\nagainst the muslin of the curtain.\n\n\"Yes, this is the one thing left me now,\" he said with a sigh.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nSoon after his admission to the masonic Brotherhood, Pierre went to the\nKiev province, where he had the greatest number of serfs, taking with\nhim full directions which he had written down for his own guidance as to\nwhat he should do on his estates.\n\nWhen he reached Kiev he sent for all his stewards to the head office and\nexplained to them his intentions and wishes. He told them that steps\nwould be taken immediately to free his serfs--and that till then they\nwere not to be overburdened with labor, women while nursing their babies\nwere not to be sent to work, assistance was to be given to the serfs,\npunishments were to be admonitory and not corporal, and hospitals,\nasylums, and schools were to be established on all the estates. Some of\nthe stewards (there were semiliterate foremen among them) listened with\nalarm, supposing these words to mean that the young count was displeased\nwith their management and embezzlement of money, some after their first\nfright were amused by Pierre's lisp and the new words they had not heard\nbefore, others simply enjoyed hearing how the master talked, while the\ncleverest among them, including the chief steward, understood from this\nspeech how they could best handle the master for their own ends.\n\nThe chief steward expressed great sympathy with Pierre's intentions, but\nremarked that besides these changes it would be necessary to go into the\ngeneral state of affairs which was far from satisfactory.\n\nDespite Count Bezukhov's enormous wealth, since he had come into an\nincome which was said to amount to five hundred thousand rubles a year,\nPierre felt himself far poorer than when his father had made him an\nallowance of ten thousand rubles. He had a dim perception of the\nfollowing budget:\n\nAbout 80,000 went in payments on all the estates to the Land Bank, about\n30,000 went for the upkeep of the estate near Moscow, the town house,\nand the allowance to the three princesses; about 15,000 was given in\npensions and the same amount for asylums; 150,000 alimony was sent to\nthe countess; about 70,000 went for interest on debts. The building of a\nnew church, previously begun, had cost about 10,000 in each of the last\ntwo years, and he did not know how the rest, about 100,000 rubles, was\nspent, and almost every year he was obliged to borrow. Besides this the\nchief steward wrote every year telling him of fires and bad harvests, or\nof the necessity of rebuilding factories and workshops. So the first\ntask Pierre had to face was one for which he had very little aptitude or\ninclination--practical business.\n\nHe discussed estate affairs every day with his chief steward. But he\nfelt that this did not forward matters at all. He felt that these\nconsultations were detached from real affairs and did not link up with\nthem or make them move. On the one hand, the chief steward put the state\nof things to him in the very worst light, pointing out the necessity of\npaying off the debts and undertaking new activities with serf labor, to\nwhich Pierre did not agree. On the other hand, Pierre demanded that\nsteps should be taken to liberate the serfs, which the steward met by\nshowing the necessity of first paying off the loans from the Land Bank,\nand the consequent impossibility of a speedy emancipation.\n\nThe steward did not say it was quite impossible, but suggested selling\nthe forests in the province of Kostroma, the land lower down the river,\nand the Crimean estate, in order to make it possible: all of which\noperations according to him were connected with such complicated\nmeasures--the removal of injunctions, petitions, permits, and so on--\nthat Pierre became quite bewildered and only replied:\n\n\"Yes, yes, do so.\"\n\nPierre had none of the practical persistence that would have enabled him\nto attend to the business himself and so he disliked it and only tried\nto pretend to the steward that he was attending to it. The steward for\nhis part tried to pretend to the count that he considered these\nconsultations very valuable for the proprietor and troublesome to\nhimself.\n\nIn Kiev Pierre found some people he knew, and strangers hastened to make\nhis acquaintance and joyfully welcomed the rich newcomer, the largest\nlandowner of the province. Temptations to Pierre's greatest weakness--\nthe one to which he had confessed when admitted to the Lodge--were so\nstrong that he could not resist them. Again whole days, weeks, and\nmonths of his life passed in as great a rush and were as much occupied\nwith evening parties, dinners, lunches, and balls, giving him no time\nfor reflection, as in Petersburg. Instead of the new life he had hoped\nto lead he still lived the old life, only in new surroundings.\n\nOf the three precepts of Freemasonry Pierre realized that he did not\nfulfill the one which enjoined every Mason to set an example of moral\nlife, and that of the seven virtues he lacked two--morality and the love\nof death. He consoled himself with the thought that he fulfilled another\nof the precepts--that of reforming the human race--and had other\nvirtues--love of his neighbor, and especially generosity.\n\nIn the spring of 1807 he decided to return to Petersburg. On the way he\nintended to visit all his estates and see for himself how far his orders\nhad been carried out and in what state were the serfs whom God had\nentrusted to his care and whom he intended to benefit.\n\nThe chief steward, who considered the young count's attempts almost\ninsane--unprofitable to himself, to the count, and to the serfs--made\nsome concessions. Continuing to represent the liberation of the serfs as\nimpracticable, he arranged for the erection of large buildings--schools,\nhospitals, and asylums--on all the estates before the master arrived.\nEverywhere preparations were made not for ceremonious welcomes (which he\nknew Pierre would not like), but for just such gratefully religious\nones, with offerings of icons and the bread and salt of hospitality, as,\naccording to his understanding of his master, would touch and delude\nhim.\n\nThe southern spring, the comfortable rapid traveling in a Vienna\ncarriage, and the solitude of the road, all had a gladdening effect on\nPierre. The estates he had not before visited were each more picturesque\nthan the other; the serfs everywhere seemed thriving and touchingly\ngrateful for the benefits conferred on them. Everywhere were receptions,\nwhich though they embarrassed Pierre awakened a joyful feeling in the\ndepth of his heart. In one place the peasants presented him with bread\nand salt and an icon of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, asking permission,\nas a mark of their gratitude for the benefits he had conferred on them,\nto build a new chantry to the church at their own expense in honor of\nPeter and Paul, his patron saints. In another place the women with\ninfants in arms met him to thank him for releasing them from hard work.\nOn a third estate the priest, bearing a cross, came to meet him\nsurrounded by children whom, by the count's generosity, he was\ninstructing in reading, writing, and religion. On all his estates Pierre\nsaw with his own eyes brick buildings erected or in course of erection,\nall on one plan, for hospitals, schools, and almshouses, which were soon\nto be opened. Everywhere he saw the stewards' accounts, according to\nwhich the serfs' manorial labor had been diminished, and heard the\ntouching thanks of deputations of serfs in their full-skirted blue\ncoats.\n\nWhat Pierre did not know was that the place where they presented him\nwith bread and salt and wished to build a chantry in honor of Peter and\nPaul was a market village where a fair was held on St. Peter's day, and\nthat the richest peasants (who formed the deputation) had begun the\nchantry long before, but that nine tenths of the peasants in that\nvillages were in a state of the greatest poverty. He did not know that\nsince the nursing mothers were no longer sent to work on his land, they\ndid still harder work on their own land. He did not know that the priest\nwho met him with the cross oppressed the peasants by his exactions, and\nthat the pupils' parents wept at having to let him take their children\nand secured their release by heavy payments. He did not know that the\nbrick buildings, built to plan, were being built by serfs whose manorial\nlabor was thus increased, though lessened on paper. He did not know that\nwhere the steward had shown him in the accounts that the serfs' payments\nhad been diminished by a third, their obligatory manorial work had been\nincreased by a half. And so Pierre was delighted with his visit to his\nestates and quite recovered the philanthropic mood in which he had left\nPetersburg, and wrote enthusiastic letters to his \"brother-instructor\"\nas he called the Grand Master.\n\n\"How easy it is, how little effort it needs, to do so much good,\"\nthought Pierre, \"and how little attention we pay to it!\"\n\nHe was pleased at the gratitude he received, but felt abashed at\nreceiving it. This gratitude reminded him of how much more he might do\nfor these simple, kindly people.\n\nThe chief steward, a very stupid but cunning man who saw perfectly\nthrough the naive and intelligent count and played with him as with a\ntoy, seeing the effect these prearranged receptions had on Pierre,\npressed him still harder with proofs of the impossibility and above all\nthe uselessness of freeing the serfs, who were quite happy as it was.\n\nPierre in his secret soul agreed with the steward that it would be\ndifficult to imagine happier people, and that God only knew what would\nhappen to them when they were free, but he insisted, though reluctantly,\non what he thought right. The steward promised to do all in his power to\ncarry out the count's wishes, seeing clearly that not only would the\ncount never be able to find out whether all measures had been taken for\nthe sale of the land and forests and to release them from the Land Bank,\nbut would probably never even inquire and would never know that the\nnewly erected buildings were standing empty and that the serfs continued\nto give in money and work all that other people's serfs gave--that is to\nsay, all that could be got out of them.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nReturning from his journey through South Russia in the happiest state of\nmind, Pierre carried out an intention he had long had of visiting his\nfriend Bolkonski, whom he had not seen for two years.\n\nBogucharovo lay in a flat uninteresting part of the country among fields\nand forests of fir and birch, which were partly cut down. The house lay\nbehind a newly dug pond filled with water to the brink and with banks\nstill bare of grass. It was at the end of a village that stretched along\nthe highroad in the midst of a young copse in which were a few fir\ntrees.\n\nThe homestead consisted of a threshing floor, outhouses, stables, a\nbathhouse, a lodge, and a large brick house with semicircular facade\nstill in course of construction. Round the house was a garden newly laid\nout. The fences and gates were new and solid; two fire pumps and a water\ncart, painted green, stood in a shed; the paths were straight, the\nbridges were strong and had handrails. Everything bore an impress of\ntidiness and good management. Some domestic serfs Pierre met, in reply\nto inquiries as to where the prince lived, pointed out a small newly\nbuilt lodge close to the pond. Anton, a man who had looked after Prince\nAndrew in his boyhood, helped Pierre out of his carriage, said that the\nprince was at home, and showed him into a clean little anteroom.\n\nPierre was struck by the modesty of the small though clean house after\nthe brilliant surroundings in which he had last met his friend in\nPetersburg.\n\nHe quickly entered the small reception room with its still-unplastered\nwooden walls redolent of pine, and would have gone farther, but Anton\nran ahead on tiptoe and knocked at a door.\n\n\"Well, what is it?\" came a sharp, unpleasant voice.\n\n\"A visitor,\" answered Anton.\n\n\"Ask him to wait,\" and the sound was heard of a chair being pushed back.\n\nPierre went with rapid steps to the door and suddenly came face to face\nwith Prince Andrew, who came out frowning and looking old. Pierre\nembraced him and lifting his spectacles kissed his friend on the cheek\nand looked at him closely.\n\n\"Well, I did not expect you, I am very glad,\" said Prince Andrew.\n\nPierre said nothing; he looked fixedly at his friend with surprise. He\nwas struck by the change in him. His words were kindly and there was a\nsmile on his lips and face, but his eyes were dull and lifeless and in\nspite of his evident wish to do so he could not give them a joyous and\nglad sparkle. Prince Andrew had grown thinner, paler, and more manly-\nlooking, but what amazed and estranged Pierre till he got used to it\nwere his inertia and a wrinkle on his brow indicating prolonged\nconcentration on some one thought.\n\nAs is usually the case with people meeting after a prolonged separation,\nit was long before their conversation could settle on anything. They put\nquestions and gave brief replies about things they knew ought to be\ntalked over at length. At last the conversation gradually settled on\nsome of the topics at first lightly touched on: their past life, plans\nfor the future, Pierre's journeys and occupations, the war, and so on.\nThe preoccupation and despondency which Pierre had noticed in his\nfriend's look was now still more clearly expressed in the smile with\nwhich he listened to Pierre, especially when he spoke with joyful\nanimation of the past or the future. It was as if Prince Andrew would\nhave liked to sympathize with what Pierre was saying, but could not. The\nlatter began to feel that it was in bad taste to speak of his\nenthusiasms, dreams, and hopes of happiness or goodness, in Prince\nAndrew's presence. He was ashamed to express his new masonic views,\nwhich had been particularly revived and strengthened by his late tour.\nHe checked himself, fearing to seem naive, yet he felt an irresistible\ndesire to show his friend as soon as possible that he was now a quite\ndifferent, and better, Pierre than he had been in Petersburg.\n\n\"I can't tell you how much I have lived through since then. I hardly\nknow myself again.\"\n\n\"Yes, we have altered much, very much, since then,\" said Prince Andrew.\n\n\"Well, and you? What are your plans?\"\n\n\"Plans!\" repeated Prince Andrew ironically. \"My plans?\" he said, as if\nastonished at the word. \"Well, you see, I'm building. I mean to settle\nhere altogether next year....\"\n\nPierre looked silently and searchingly into Prince Andrew's face, which\nhad grown much older.\n\n\"No, I meant to ask...\" Pierre began, but Prince Andrew interrupted him.\n\n\"But why talk of me?... Talk to me, yes, tell me about your travels and\nall you have been doing on your estates.\"\n\nPierre began describing what he had done on his estates, trying as far\nas possible to conceal his own part in the improvements that had been\nmade. Prince Andrew several times prompted Pierre's story of what he had\nbeen doing, as though it were all an old-time story, and he listened not\nonly without interest but even as if ashamed of what Pierre was telling\nhim.\n\nPierre felt uncomfortable and even depressed in his friend's company and\nat last became silent.\n\n\"I'll tell you what, my dear fellow,\" said Prince Andrew, who evidently\nalso felt depressed and constrained with his visitor, \"I am only\nbivouacking here and have just come to look round. I am going back to my\nsister today. I will introduce you to her. But of course you know her\nalready,\" he said, evidently trying to entertain a visitor with whom he\nnow found nothing in common. \"We will go after dinner. And would you now\nlike to look round my place?\"\n\nThey went out and walked about till dinnertime, talking of the political\nnews and common acquaintances like people who do not know each other\nintimately. Prince Andrew spoke with some animation and interest only of\nthe new homestead he was constructing and its buildings, but even here,\nwhile on the scaffolding, in the midst of a talk explaining the future\narrangements of the house, he interrupted himself:\n\n\"However, this is not at all interesting. Let us have dinner, and then\nwe'll set off.\"\n\nAt dinner, conversation turned on Pierre's marriage.\n\n\"I was very much surprised when I heard of it,\" said Prince Andrew.\n\nPierre blushed, as he always did when it was mentioned, and said\nhurriedly: \"I will tell you some time how it all happened. But you know\nit is all over, and forever.\"\n\n\"Forever?\" said Prince Andrew. \"Nothing's forever.\"\n\n\"But you know how it all ended, don't you? You heard of the duel?\"\n\n\"And so you had to go through that too!\"\n\n\"One thing I thank God for is that I did not kill that man,\" said\nPierre.\n\n\"Why so?\" asked Prince Andrew. \"To kill a vicious dog is a very good\nthing really.\"\n\n\"No, to kill a man is bad--wrong.\"\n\n\"Why is it wrong?\" urged Prince Andrew. \"It is not given to man to know\nwhat is right and what is wrong. Men always did and always will err, and\nin nothing more than in what they consider right and wrong.\"\n\n\"What does harm to another is wrong,\" said Pierre, feeling with pleasure\nthat for the first time since his arrival Prince Andrew was roused, had\nbegun to talk, and wanted to express what had brought him to his present\nstate.\n\n\"And who has told you what is bad for another man?\" he asked.\n\n\"Bad! Bad!\" exclaimed Pierre. \"We all know what is bad for ourselves.\"\n\n\"Yes, we know that, but the harm I am conscious of in myself is\nsomething I cannot inflict on others,\" said Prince Andrew, growing more\nand more animated and evidently wishing to express his new outlook to\nPierre. He spoke in French. \"I only know two very real evils in life:\nremorse and illness. The only good is the absence of those evils. To\nlive for myself avoiding those two evils is my whole philosophy now.\"\n\n\"And love of one's neighbor, and self-sacrifice?\" began Pierre. \"No, I\ncan't agree with you! To live only so as not to do evil and not to have\nto repent is not enough. I lived like that, I lived for myself and\nruined my life. And only now when I am living, or at least trying\"\n(Pierre's modesty made him correct himself) \"to live for others, only\nnow have I understood all the happiness of life. No, I shall not agree\nwith you, and you do not really believe what you are saying.\" Prince\nAndrew looked silently at Pierre with an ironic smile.\n\n\"When you see my sister, Princess Mary, you'll get on with her,\" he\nsaid. \"Perhaps you are right for yourself,\" he added after a short\npause, \"but everyone lives in his own way. You lived for yourself and\nsay you nearly ruined your life and only found happiness when you began\nliving for others. I experienced just the reverse. I lived for glory.--\nAnd after all what is glory? The same love of others, a desire to do\nsomething for them, a desire for their approval.--So I lived for others,\nand not almost, but quite, ruined my life. And I have become calmer\nsince I began to live only for myself.\"\n\n\"But what do you mean by living only for yourself?\" asked Pierre,\ngrowing excited. \"What about your son, your sister, and your father?\"\n\n\"But that's just the same as myself--they are not others,\" explained\nPrince Andrew. \"The others, one's neighbors, le prochain, as you and\nPrincess Mary call it, are the chief source of all error and evil. Le\nprochain--your Kiev peasants to whom you want to do good.\"\n\nAnd he looked at Pierre with a mocking, challenging expression. He\nevidently wished to draw him on.\n\n\"You are joking,\" replied Pierre, growing more and more excited. \"What\nerror or evil can there be in my wishing to do good, and even doing a\nlittle--though I did very little and did it very badly? What evil can\nthere be in it if unfortunate people, our serfs, people like ourselves,\nwere growing up and dying with no idea of God and truth beyond\nceremonies and meaningless prayers and are now instructed in a\ncomforting belief in future life, retribution, recompense, and\nconsolation? What evil and error are there in it, if people were dying\nof disease without help while material assistance could so easily be\nrendered, and I supplied them with a doctor, a hospital, and an asylum\nfor the aged? And is it not a palpable, unquestionable good if a\npeasant, or a woman with a baby, has no rest day or night and I give\nthem rest and leisure?\" said Pierre, hurrying and lisping. \"And I have\ndone that though badly and to a small extent; but I have done something\ntoward it and you cannot persuade me that it was not a good action, and\nmore than that, you can't make me believe that you do not think so\nyourself. And the main thing is,\" he continued, \"that I know, and know\nfor certain, that the enjoyment of doing this good is the only sure\nhappiness in life.\"\n\n\"Yes, if you put it like that it's quite a different matter,\" said\nPrince Andrew. \"I build a house and lay out a garden, and you build\nhospitals. The one and the other may serve as a pastime. But what's\nright and what's good must be judged by one who knows all, but not by\nus. Well, you want an argument,\" he added, \"come on then.\"\n\nThey rose from the table and sat down in the entrance porch which served\nas a veranda.\n\n\"Come, let's argue then,\" said Prince Andrew, \"You talk of schools,\" he\nwent on, crooking a finger, \"education and so forth; that is, you want\nto raise him\" (pointing to a peasant who passed by them taking off his\ncap) \"from his animal condition and awaken in him spiritual needs, while\nit seems to me that animal happiness is the only happiness possible, and\nthat is just what you want to deprive him of. I envy him, but you want\nto make him what I am, without giving him my means. Then you say,\n'lighten his toil.' But as I see it, physical labor is as essential to\nhim, as much a condition of his existence, as mental activity is to you\nor me. You can't help thinking. I go to bed after two in the morning,\nthoughts come and I can't sleep but toss about till dawn, because I\nthink and can't help thinking, just as he can't help plowing and mowing;\nif he didn't, he would go to the drink shop or fall ill. Just as I could\nnot stand his terrible physical labor but should die of it in a week, so\nhe could not stand my physical idleness, but would grow fat and die. The\nthird thing--what else was it you talked about?\" and Prince Andrew\ncrooked a third finger. \"Ah, yes, hospitals, medicine. He has a fit, he\nis dying, and you come and bleed him and patch him up. He will drag\nabout as a cripple, a burden to everybody, for another ten years. It\nwould be far easier and simpler for him to die. Others are being born\nand there are plenty of them as it is. It would be different if you\ngrudged losing a laborer--that's how I regard him--but you want to cure\nhim from love of him. And he does not want that. And besides, what a\nnotion that medicine ever cured anyone! Killed them, yes!\" said he,\nfrowning angrily and turning away from Pierre.\n\nPrince Andrew expressed his ideas so clearly and distinctly that it was\nevident he had reflected on this subject more than once, and he spoke\nreadily and rapidly like a man who has not talked for a long time. His\nglance became more animated as his conclusions became more hopeless.\n\n\"Oh, that is dreadful, dreadful!\" said Pierre. \"I don't understand how\none can live with such ideas. I had such moments myself not long ago, in\nMoscow and when traveling, but at such times I collapsed so that I don't\nlive at all--everything seems hateful to me... myself most of all. Then\nI don't eat, don't wash... and how is it with you?...\"\n\n\"Why not wash? That is not cleanly,\" said Prince Andrew; \"on the\ncontrary one must try to make one's life as pleasant as possible. I'm\nalive, that is not my fault, so I must live out my life as best I can\nwithout hurting others.\"\n\n\"But with such ideas what motive have you for living? One would sit\nwithout moving, undertaking nothing....\"\n\n\"Life as it is leaves one no peace. I should be thankful to do nothing,\nbut here on the one hand the local nobility have done me the honor to\nchoose me to be their marshal; it was all I could do to get out of it.\nThey could not understand that I have not the necessary qualifications\nfor it--the kind of good-natured, fussy shallowness necessary for the\nposition. Then there's this house, which must be built in order to have\na nook of one's own in which to be quiet. And now there's this\nrecruiting.\"\n\n\"Why aren't you serving in the army?\"\n\n\"After Austerlitz!\" said Prince Andrew gloomily. \"No, thank you very\nmuch! I have promised myself not to serve again in the active Russian\narmy. And I won't--not even if Bonaparte were here at Smolensk\nthreatening Bald Hills--even then I wouldn't serve in the Russian army!\nWell, as I was saying,\" he continued, recovering his composure, \"now\nthere's this recruiting. My father is chief in command of the Third\nDistrict, and my only way of avoiding active service is to serve under\nhim.\"\n\n\"Then you are serving?\"\n\n\"I am.\"\n\nHe paused a little while.\n\n\"And why do you serve?\"\n\n\"Why, for this reason! My father is one of the most remarkable men of\nhis time. But he is growing old, and though not exactly cruel he has too\nenergetic a character. He is so accustomed to unlimited power that he is\nterrible, and now he has this authority of a commander-in-chief of the\nrecruiting, granted by the Emperor. If I had been two hours late a\nfortnight ago he would have had a paymaster's clerk at Yukhnovna\nhanged,\" said Prince Andrew with a smile. \"So I am serving because I\nalone have any influence with my father, and now and then can save him\nfrom actions which would torment him afterwards.\"\n\n\"Well, there you see!\"\n\n\"Yes, but it is not as you imagine,\" Prince Andrew continued. \"I did\nnot, and do not, in the least care about that scoundrel of a clerk who\nhad stolen some boots from the recruits; I should even have been very\nglad to see him hanged, but I was sorry for my father--that again is for\nmyself.\"\n\nPrince Andrew grew more and more animated. His eyes glittered feverishly\nwhile he tried to prove to Pierre that in his actions there was no\ndesire to do good to his neighbor.\n\n\"There now, you wish to liberate your serfs,\" he continued; \"that is a\nvery good thing, but not for you--I don't suppose you ever had anyone\nflogged or sent to Siberia--and still less for your serfs. If they are\nbeaten, flogged, or sent to Siberia, I don't suppose they are any the\nworse off. In Siberia they lead the same animal life, and the stripes on\ntheir bodies heal, and they are happy as before. But it is a good thing\nfor proprietors who perish morally, bring remorse upon themselves,\nstifle this remorse and grow callous, as a result of being able to\ninflict punishments justly and unjustly. It is those people I pity, and\nfor their sake I should like to liberate the serfs. You may not have\nseen, but I have seen, how good men brought up in those traditions of\nunlimited power, in time when they grow more irritable, become cruel and\nharsh, are conscious of it, but cannot restrain themselves and grow more\nand more miserable.\"\n\nPrince Andrew spoke so earnestly that Pierre could not help thinking\nthat these thoughts had been suggested to Prince Andrew by his father's\ncase.\n\nHe did not reply.\n\n\"So that's what I'm sorry for--human dignity, peace of mind, purity, and\nnot the serfs' backs and foreheads, which, beat and shave as you may,\nalways remain the same backs and foreheads.\"\n\n\"No, no! A thousand times no! I shall never agree with you,\" said\nPierre.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nIn the evening Andrew and Pierre got into the open carriage and drove to\nBald Hills. Prince Andrew, glancing at Pierre, broke the silence now and\nthen with remarks which showed that he was in a good temper.\n\nPointing to the fields, he spoke of the improvements he was making in\nhis husbandry.\n\nPierre remained gloomily silent, answering in monosyllables and\napparently immersed in his own thoughts.\n\nHe was thinking that Prince Andrew was unhappy, had gone astray, did not\nsee the true light, and that he, Pierre, ought to aid, enlighten, and\nraise him. But as soon as he thought of what he should say, he felt that\nPrince Andrew with one word, one argument, would upset all his teaching,\nand he shrank from beginning, afraid of exposing to possible ridicule\nwhat to him was precious and sacred.\n\n\"No, but why do you think so?\" Pierre suddenly began, lowering his head\nand looking like a bull about to charge, \"why do you think so? You\nshould not think so.\"\n\n\"Think? What about?\" asked Prince Andrew with surprise.\n\n\"About life, about man's destiny. It can't be so. I myself thought like\nthat, and do you know what saved me? Freemasonry! No, don't smile.\nFreemasonry is not a religious ceremonial sect, as I thought it was:\nFreemasonry is the best expression of the best, the eternal, aspects of\nhumanity.\"\n\nAnd he began to explain Freemasonry as he understood it to Prince\nAndrew. He said that Freemasonry is the teaching of Christianity freed\nfrom the bonds of State and Church, a teaching of equality, brotherhood,\nand love.\n\n\"Only our holy brotherhood has the real meaning of life, all the rest is\na dream,\" said Pierre. \"Understand, my dear fellow, that outside this\nunion all is filled with deceit and falsehood and I agree with you that\nnothing is left for an intelligent and good man but to live out his\nlife, like you, merely trying not to harm others. But make our\nfundamental convictions your own, join our brotherhood, give yourself up\nto us, let yourself be guided, and you will at once feel yourself, as I\nhave felt myself, a part of that vast invisible chain the beginning of\nwhich is hidden in heaven,\" said Pierre.\n\nPrince Andrew, looking straight in front of him, listened in silence to\nPierre's words. More than once, when the noise of the wheels prevented\nhis catching what Pierre said, he asked him to repeat it, and by the\npeculiar glow that came into Prince Andrew's eyes and by his silence,\nPierre saw that his words were not in vain and that Prince Andrew would\nnot interrupt him or laugh at what he said.\n\nThey reached a river that had overflowed its banks and which they had to\ncross by ferry. While the carriage and horses were being placed on it,\nthey also stepped on the raft.\n\nPrince Andrew, leaning his arms on the raft railing, gazed silently at\nthe flooding waters glittering in the setting sun.\n\n\"Well, what do you think about it?\" Pierre asked. \"Why are you silent?\"\n\n\"What do I think about it? I am listening to you. It's all very well....\nYou say: join our brotherhood and we will show you the aim of life, the\ndestiny of man, and the laws which govern the world. But who are we?\nMen. How is it you know everything? Why do I alone not see what you see?\nYou see a reign of goodness and truth on earth, but I don't see it.\"\n\nPierre interrupted him.\n\n\"Do you believe in a future life?\" he asked.\n\n\"A future life?\" Prince Andrew repeated, but Pierre, giving him no time\nto reply, took the repetition for a denial, the more readily as he knew\nPrince Andrew's former atheistic convictions.\n\n\"You say you can't see a reign of goodness and truth on earth. Nor could\nI, and it cannot be seen if one looks on our life here as the end of\neverything. On earth, here on this earth\" (Pierre pointed to the\nfields), \"there is no truth, all is false and evil; but in the universe,\nin the whole universe there is a kingdom of truth, and we who are now\nthe children of earth are--eternally--children of the whole universe.\nDon't I feel in my soul that I am part of this vast harmonious whole?\nDon't I feel that I form one link, one step, between the lower and\nhigher beings, in this vast harmonious multitude of beings in whom the\nDeity--the Supreme Power if you prefer the term--is manifest? If I see,\nclearly see, that ladder leading from plant to man, why should I suppose\nit breaks off at me and does not go farther and farther? I feel that I\ncannot vanish, since nothing vanishes in this world, but that I shall\nalways exist and always have existed. I feel that beyond me and above me\nthere are spirits, and that in this world there is truth.\"\n\n\"Yes, that is Herder's theory,\" said Prince Andrew, \"but it is not that\nwhich can convince me, dear friend--life and death are what convince.\nWhat convinces is when one sees a being dear to one, bound up with one's\nown life, before whom one was to blame and had hoped to make it right\"\n(Prince Andrew's voice trembled and he turned away), \"and suddenly that\nbeing is seized with pain, suffers, and ceases to exist.... Why? It\ncannot be that there is no answer. And I believe there is.... That's\nwhat convinces, that is what has convinced me,\" said Prince Andrew.\n\n\"Yes, yes, of course,\" said Pierre, \"isn't that what I'm saying?\"\n\n\"No. All I say is that it is not argument that convinces me of the\nnecessity of a future life, but this: when you go hand in hand with\nsomeone and all at once that person vanishes there, into nowhere, and\nyou yourself are left facing that abyss, and look in. And I have looked\nin....\"\n\n\"Well, that's it then! You know that there is a there and there is a\nSomeone? There is the future life. The Someone is--God.\"\n\nPrince Andrew did not reply. The carriage and horses had long since been\ntaken off, onto the farther bank, and reharnessed. The sun had sunk half\nbelow the horizon and an evening frost was starring the puddles near the\nferry, but Pierre and Andrew, to the astonishment of the footmen,\ncoachmen, and ferrymen, still stood on the raft and talked.\n\n\"If there is a God and future life, there is truth and good, and man's\nhighest happiness consists in striving to attain them. We must live, we\nmust love, and we must believe that we live not only today on this scrap\nof earth, but have lived and shall live forever, there, in the Whole,\"\nsaid Pierre, and he pointed to the sky.\n\nPrince Andrew stood leaning on the railing of the raft listening to\nPierre, and he gazed with his eyes fixed on the red reflection of the\nsun gleaming on the blue waters. There was perfect stillness. Pierre\nbecame silent. The raft had long since stopped and only the waves of the\ncurrent beat softly against it below. Prince Andrew felt as if the sound\nof the waves kept up a refrain to Pierre's words, whispering:\n\n\"It is true, believe it.\"\n\nHe sighed, and glanced with a radiant, childlike, tender look at\nPierre's face, flushed and rapturous, but yet shy before his superior\nfriend.\n\n\"Yes, if it only were so!\" said Prince Andrew. \"However, it is time to\nget on,\" he added, and, stepping off the raft, he looked up at the sky\nto which Pierre had pointed, and for the first time since Austerlitz saw\nthat high, everlasting sky he had seen while lying on that battlefield;\nand something that had long been slumbering, something that was best\nwithin him, suddenly awoke, joyful and youthful, in his soul. It\nvanished as soon as he returned to the customary conditions of his life,\nbut he knew that this feeling which he did not know how to develop\nexisted within him. His meeting with Pierre formed an epoch in Prince\nAndrew's life. Though outwardly he continued to live in the same old\nway, inwardly he began a new life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nIt was getting dusk when Prince Andrew and Pierre drove up to the front\nentrance of the house at Bald Hills. As they approached the house,\nPrince Andrew with a smile drew Pierre's attention to a commotion going\non at the back porch. A woman, bent with age, with a wallet on her back,\nand a short, long-haired, young man in a black garment had rushed back\nto the gate on seeing the carriage driving up. Two women ran out after\nthem, and all four, looking round at the carriage, ran in dismay up the\nsteps of the back porch.\n\n\"Those are Mary's 'God's folk,'\" said Prince Andrew. \"They have mistaken\nus for my father. This is the one matter in which she disobeys him. He\norders these pilgrims to be driven away, but she receives them.\"\n\n\"But what are 'God's folk'?\" asked Pierre.\n\nPrince Andrew had no time to answer. The servants came out to meet them,\nand he asked where the old prince was and whether he was expected back\nsoon.\n\nThe old prince had gone to the town and was expected back any minute.\n\nPrince Andrew led Pierre to his own apartments, which were always kept\nin perfect order and readiness for him in his father's house; he himself\nwent to the nursery.\n\n\"Let us go and see my sister,\" he said to Pierre when he returned. \"I\nhave not found her yet, she is hiding now, sitting with her 'God's\nfolk.' It will serve her right, she will be confused, but you will see\nher 'God's folk.' It's really very curious.\"\n\n\"What are 'God's folk'?\" asked Pierre.\n\n\"Come, and you'll see for yourself.\"\n\nPrincess Mary really was disconcerted and red patches came on her face\nwhen they went in. In her snug room, with lamps burning before the icon\nstand, a young lad with a long nose and long hair, wearing a monk's\ncassock, sat on the sofa beside her, behind a samovar. Near them, in an\narmchair, sat a thin, shriveled, old woman, with a meek expression on\nher childlike face.\n\n\"Andrew, why didn't you warn me?\" said the princess, with mild reproach,\nas she stood before her pilgrims like a hen before her chickens.\n\n\"Charmee de vous voir. Je suis tres contente de vous voir,\" * she said\nto Pierre as he kissed her hand. She had known him as a child, and now\nhis friendship with Andrew, his misfortune with his wife, and above all\nhis kindly, simple face disposed her favorably toward him. She looked at\nhim with her beautiful radiant eyes and seemed to say, \"I like you very\nmuch, but please don't laugh at my people.\" After exchanging the first\ngreetings, they sat down.\n\n\n* \"Delighted to see you. I am very glad to see you.\"\n\n\"Ah, and Ivanushka is here too!\" said Prince Andrew, glancing with a\nsmile at the young pilgrim.\n\n\"Andrew!\" said Princess Mary, imploringly. \"Il faut que vous sachiez que\nc'est une femme,\" * said Prince Andrew to Pierre.\n\n\"Andrew, au nom de Dieu!\" *(2) Princess Mary repeated.\n\n\n* \"You must know that this is a woman.\"\n\n* (2) \"For heaven's sake.\"\n\nIt was evident that Prince Andrew's ironical tone toward the pilgrims\nand Princess Mary's helpless attempts to protect them were their\ncustomary long-established relations on the matter.\n\n\"Mais, ma bonne amie,\" said Prince Andrew, \"vous devriez au contraire\nm'être reconnaissante de ce que j'explique a Pierre votre intimité avec\nce jeune homme.\" *\n\n\n* \"But, my dear, you ought on the contrary to be grateful to me for\nexplaining to Pierre your intimacy with this young man.\"\n\n\"Really?\" said Pierre, gazing over his spectacles with curiosity and\nseriousness (for which Princess Mary was specially grateful to him) into\nIvanushka's face, who, seeing that she was being spoken about, looked\nround at them all with crafty eyes.\n\nPrincess Mary's embarrassment on her people's account was quite\nunnecessary. They were not in the least abashed. The old woman, lowering\nher eyes but casting side glances at the newcomers, had turned her cup\nupside down and placed a nibbled bit of sugar beside it, and sat quietly\nin her armchair, though hoping to be offered another cup of tea.\nIvanushka, sipping out of her saucer, looked with sly womanish eyes from\nunder her brows at the young men.\n\n\"Where have you been? To Kiev?\" Prince Andrew asked the old woman.\n\n\"I have, good sir,\" she answered garrulously. \"Just at Christmastime I\nwas deemed worthy to partake of the holy and heavenly sacrament at the\nshrine of the saint. And now I'm from Kolyazin, master, where a great\nand wonderful blessing has been revealed.\"\n\n\"And was Ivanushka with you?\"\n\n\"I go by myself, benefactor,\" said Ivanushka, trying to speak in a bass\nvoice. \"I only came across Pelageya in Yukhnovo...\"\n\nPelageya interrupted her companion; she evidently wished to tell what\nshe had seen.\n\n\"In Kolyazin, master, a wonderful blessing has been revealed.\"\n\n\"What is it? Some new relics?\" asked Prince Andrew.\n\n\"Andrew, do leave off,\" said Princess Mary. \"Don't tell him, Pelageya.\"\n\n\"No... why not, my dear, why shouldn't I? I like him. He is kind, he is\none of God's chosen, he's a benefactor, he once gave me ten rubles, I\nremember. When I was in Kiev, Crazy Cyril says to me (he's one of God's\nown and goes barefoot summer and winter), he says, 'Why are you not\ngoing to the right place? Go to Kolyazin where a wonder-working icon of\nthe Holy Mother of God has been revealed.' On hearing those words I said\ngood-by to the holy folk and went.\"\n\nAll were silent, only the pilgrim woman went on in measured tones,\ndrawing in her breath.\n\n\"So I come, master, and the people say to me: 'A great blessing has been\nrevealed, holy oil trickles from the cheeks of our blessed Mother, the\nHoly Virgin Mother of God'....\"\n\n\"All right, all right, you can tell us afterwards,\" said Princess Mary,\nflushing.\n\n\"Let me ask her,\" said Pierre. \"Did you see it yourselves?\" he inquired.\n\n\"Oh, yes, master, I was found worthy. Such a brightness on the face like\nthe light of heaven, and from the blessed Mother's cheek it drops and\ndrops....\"\n\n\"But, dear me, that must be a fraud!\" said Pierre, naively, who had\nlistened attentively to the pilgrim.\n\n\"Oh, master, what are you saying?\" exclaimed the horrified Pelageya,\nturning to Princess Mary for support.\n\n\"They impose on the people,\" he repeated.\n\n\"Lord Jesus Christ!\" exclaimed the pilgrim woman, crossing herself. \"Oh,\ndon't speak so, master! There was a general who did not believe, and\nsaid, 'The monks cheat,' and as soon as he'd said it he went blind. And\nhe dreamed that the Holy Virgin Mother of the Kiev catacombs came to him\nand said, 'Believe in me and I will make you whole.' So he begged: 'Take\nme to her, take me to her.' It's the real truth I'm telling you, I saw\nit myself. So he was brought, quite blind, straight to her, and he goes\nup to her and falls down and says, 'Make me whole,' says he, 'and I'll\ngive thee what the Tsar bestowed on me.' I saw it myself, master, the\nstar is fixed into the icon. Well, and what do you think? He received\nhis sight! It's a sin to speak so. God will punish you,\" she said\nadmonishingly, turning to Pierre.\n\n\"How did the star get into the icon?\" Pierre asked.\n\n\"And was the Holy Mother promoted to the rank of general?\" said Prince\nAndrew, with a smile.\n\nPelageya suddenly grew quite pale and clasped her hands.\n\n\"Oh, master, master, what a sin! And you who have a son!\" she began, her\npallor suddenly turning to a vivid red. \"Master, what have you said? God\nforgive you!\" And she crossed herself. \"Lord forgive him! My dear, what\ndoes it mean?...\" she asked, turning to Princess Mary. She got up and,\nalmost crying, began to arrange her wallet. She evidently felt\nfrightened and ashamed to have accepted charity in a house where such\nthings could be said, and was at the same time sorry to have now to\nforgo the charity of this house.\n\n\"Now, why need you do it?\" said Princess Mary. \"Why did you come to\nme?...\"\n\n\"Come, Pelageya, I was joking,\" said Pierre. \"Princesse, ma parole, je\nn'ai pas voulu l'offenser. * I did not mean anything, I was only\njoking,\" he said, smiling shyly and trying to efface his offense. \"It\nwas all my fault, and Andrew was only joking.\"\n\n\n* \"Princess, on my word, I did not wish to offend her.\"\n\nPelageya stopped doubtfully, but in Pierre's face there was such a look\nof sincere penitence, and Prince Andrew glanced so meekly now at her and\nnow at Pierre, that she was gradually reassured.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nThe pilgrim woman was appeased and, being encouraged to talk, gave a\nlong account of Father Amphilochus, who led so holy a life that his\nhands smelled of incense, and how on her last visit to Kiev some monks\nshe knew let her have the keys of the catacombs, and how she, taking\nsome dried bread with her, had spent two days in the catacombs with the\nsaints. \"I'd pray awhile to one, ponder awhile, then go on to another.\nI'd sleep a bit and then again go and kiss the relics, and there was\nsuch peace all around, such blessedness, that one don't want to come\nout, even into the light of heaven again.\"\n\nPierre listened to her attentively and seriously. Prince Andrew went out\nof the room, and then, leaving \"God's folk\" to finish their tea,\nPrincess Mary took Pierre into the drawing room.\n\n\"You are very kind,\" she said to him.\n\n\"Oh, I really did not mean to hurt her feelings. I understand them so\nwell and have the greatest respect for them.\"\n\nPrincess Mary looked at him silently and smiled affectionately.\n\n\"I have known you a long time, you see, and am as fond of you as of a\nbrother,\" she said. \"How do you find Andrew?\" she added hurriedly, not\ngiving him time to reply to her affectionate words. \"I am very anxious\nabout him. His health was better in the winter, but last spring his\nwound reopened and the doctor said he ought to go away for a cure. And I\nam also very much afraid for him spiritually. He has not a character\nlike us women who, when we suffer, can weep away our sorrows. He keeps\nit all within him. Today he is cheerful and in good spirits, but that is\nthe effect of your visit--he is not often like that. If you could\npersuade him to go abroad. He needs activity, and this quiet regular\nlife is very bad for him. Others don't notice it, but I see it.\"\n\nToward ten o'clock the men servants rushed to the front door, hearing\nthe bells of the old prince's carriage approaching. Prince Andrew and\nPierre also went out into the porch.\n\n\"Who's that?\" asked the old prince, noticing Pierre as he got out of the\ncarriage.\n\n\"Ah! Very glad! Kiss me,\" he said, having learned who the young stranger\nwas.\n\nThe old prince was in a good temper and very gracious to Pierre.\n\nBefore supper, Prince Andrew, coming back to his father's study, found\nhim disputing hotly with his visitor. Pierre was maintaining that a time\nwould come when there would be no more wars. The old prince disputed it\nchaffingly, but without getting angry.\n\n\"Drain the blood from men's veins and put in water instead, then there\nwill be no more war! Old women's nonsense--old women's nonsense!\" he\nrepeated, but still he patted Pierre affectionately on the shoulder, and\nthen went up to the table where Prince Andrew, evidently not wishing to\njoin in the conversation, was looking over the papers his father had\nbrought from town. The old prince went up to him and began to talk\nbusiness.\n\n\"The marshal, a Count Rostov, hasn't sent half his contingent. He came\nto town and wanted to invite me to dinner--I gave him a pretty\ndinner!... And there, look at this.... Well, my boy,\" the old prince\nwent on, addressing his son and patting Pierre on the shoulder. \"A fine\nfellow--your friend--I like him! He stirs me up. Another says clever\nthings and one doesn't care to listen, but this one talks rubbish yet\nstirs an old fellow up. Well, go! Get along! Perhaps I'll come and sit\nwith you at supper. We'll have another dispute. Make friends with my\nlittle fool, Princess Mary,\" he shouted after Pierre, through the door.\n\nOnly now, on his visit to Bald Hills, did Pierre fully realize the\nstrength and charm of his friendship with Prince Andrew. That charm was\nnot expressed so much in his relations with him as with all his family\nand with the household. With the stern old prince and the gentle, timid\nPrincess Mary, though he had scarcely known them, Pierre at once felt\nlike an old friend. They were all fond of him already. Not only Princess\nMary, who had been won by his gentleness with the pilgrims, gave him her\nmost radiant looks, but even the one-year-old \"Prince Nicholas\" (as his\ngrandfather called him) smiled at Pierre and let himself be taken in his\narms, and Michael Ivanovich and Mademoiselle Bourienne looked at him\nwith pleasant smiles when he talked to the old prince.\n\nThe old prince came in to supper; this was evidently on Pierre's\naccount. And during the two days of the young man's visit he was\nextremely kind to him and told him to visit them again.\n\nWhen Pierre had gone and the members of the household met together, they\nbegan to express their opinions of him as people always do after a new\nacquaintance has left, but as seldom happens, no one said anything but\nwhat was good of him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nWhen returning from his leave, Rostov felt, for the first time, how\nclose was the bond that united him to Denisov and the whole regiment.\n\nOn approaching it, Rostov felt as he had done when approaching his home\nin Moscow. When he saw the first hussar with the unbuttoned uniform of\nhis regiment, when he recognized red-haired Dementyev and saw the picket\nropes of the roan horses, when Lavrushka gleefully shouted to his\nmaster, \"The count has come!\" and Denisov, who had been asleep on his\nbed, ran all disheveled out of the mud hut to embrace him, and the\nofficers collected round to greet the new arrival, Rostov experienced\nthe same feeling as when his mother, his father, and his sister had\nembraced him, and tears of joy choked him so that he could not speak.\nThe regiment was also a home, and as unalterably dear and precious as\nhis parents' house.\n\nWhen he had reported himself to the commander of the regiment and had\nbeen reassigned to his former squadron, had been on duty and had gone\nout foraging, when he had again entered into all the little interests of\nthe regiment and felt himself deprived of liberty and bound in one\nnarrow, unchanging frame, he experienced the same sense of peace, of\nmoral support, and the same sense of being at home here in his own\nplace, as he had felt under the parental roof. But here was none of all\nthat turmoil of the world at large, where he did not know his right\nplace and took mistaken decisions; here was no Sonya with whom he ought,\nor ought not, to have an explanation; here was no possibility of going\nthere or not going there; here there were not twenty-four hours in the\nday which could be spent in such a variety of ways; there was not that\ninnumerable crowd of people of whom not one was nearer to him or farther\nfrom him than another; there were none of those uncertain and undefined\nmoney relations with his father, and nothing to recall that terrible\nloss to Dolokhov. Here, in the regiment, all was clear and simple. The\nwhole world was divided into two unequal parts: one, our Pavlograd\nregiment; the other, all the rest. And the rest was no concern of his.\nIn the regiment, everything was definite: who was lieutenant, who\ncaptain, who was a good fellow, who a bad one, and most of all, who was\na comrade. The canteenkeeper gave one credit, one's pay came every four\nmonths, there was nothing to think out or decide, you had only to do\nnothing that was considered bad in the Pavlograd regiment and, when\ngiven an order, to do what was clearly, distinctly, and definitely\nordered--and all would be well.\n\nHaving once more entered into the definite conditions of this regimental\nlife, Rostov felt the joy and relief a tired man feels on lying down to\nrest. Life in the regiment, during this campaign, was all the pleasanter\nfor him, because, after his loss to Dolokhov (for which, in spite of all\nhis family's efforts to console him, he could not forgive himself), he\nhad made up his mind to atone for his fault by serving, not as he had\ndone before, but really well, and by being a perfectly first-rate\ncomrade and officer--in a word, a splendid man altogether, a thing which\nseemed so difficult out in the world, but so possible in the regiment.\n\nAfter his losses, he had determined to pay back his debt to his parents\nin five years. He received ten thousand rubles a year, but now resolved\nto take only two thousand and leave the rest to repay the debt to his\nparents.\n\nOur army, after repeated retreats and advances and battles at Pultusk\nand Preussisch-Eylau, was concentrated near Bartenstein. It was awaiting\nthe Emperor's arrival and the beginning of a new campaign.\n\nThe Pavlograd regiment, belonging to that part of the army which had\nserved in the 1805 campaign, had been recruiting up to strength in\nRussia, and arrived too late to take part in the first actions of the\ncampaign. It had been neither at Pultusk nor at Preussisch-Eylau and,\nwhen it joined the army in the field in the second half of the campaign,\nwas attached to Platov's division.\n\nPlatov's division was acting independently of the main army. Several\ntimes parts of the Pavlograd regiment had exchanged shots with the\nenemy, had taken prisoners, and once had even captured Marshal Oudinot's\ncarriages. In April the Pavlograds were stationed immovably for some\nweeks near a totally ruined and deserted German village.\n\nA thaw had set in, it was muddy and cold, the ice on the river broke,\nand the roads became impassable. For days neither provisions for the men\nnor fodder for the horses had been issued. As no transports could\narrive, the men dispersed about the abandoned and deserted villages,\nsearching for potatoes, but found few even of these.\n\nEverything had been eaten up and the inhabitants had all fled--if any\nremained, they were worse than beggars and nothing more could be taken\nfrom them; even the soldiers, usually pitiless enough, instead of taking\nanything from them, often gave them the last of their rations.\n\nThe Pavlograd regiment had had only two men wounded in action, but had\nlost nearly half its men from hunger and sickness. In the hospitals,\ndeath was so certain that soldiers suffering from fever, or the swelling\nthat came from bad food, preferred to remain on duty, and hardly able to\ndrag their legs went to the front rather than to the hospitals. When\nspring came on, the soldiers found a plant just showing out of the\nground that looked like asparagus, which, for some reason, they called\n\"Mashka's sweet root.\" It was very bitter, but they wandered about the\nfields seeking it and dug it out with their sabers and ate it, though\nthey were ordered not to do so, as it was a noxious plant. That spring a\nnew disease broke out among the soldiers, a swelling of the arms, legs,\nand face, which the doctors attributed to eating this root. But in spite\nof all this, the soldiers of Denisov's squadron fed chiefly on \"Mashka's\nsweet root,\" because it was the second week that the last of the\nbiscuits were being doled out at the rate of half a pound a man and the\nlast potatoes received had sprouted and frozen.\n\nThe horses also had been fed for a fortnight on straw from the thatched\nroofs and had become terribly thin, though still covered with tufts of\nfelty winter hair.\n\nDespite this destitution, the soldiers and officers went on living just\nas usual. Despite their pale swollen faces and tattered uniforms, the\nhussars formed line for roll call, kept things in order, groomed their\nhorses, polished their arms, brought in straw from the thatched roofs in\nplace of fodder, and sat down to dine round the caldrons from which they\nrose up hungry, joking about their nasty food and their hunger. As\nusual, in their spare time, they lit bonfires, steamed themselves before\nthem naked; smoked, picked out and baked sprouting rotten potatoes, told\nand listened to stories of Potemkin's and Suvorov's campaigns, or to\nlegends of Alesha the Sly, or the priest's laborer Mikolka.\n\nThe officers, as usual, lived in twos and threes in the roofless, half-\nruined houses. The seniors tried to collect straw and potatoes and, in\ngeneral, food for the men. The younger ones occupied themselves as\nbefore, some playing cards (there was plenty of money, though there was\nno food), some with more innocent games, such as quoits and skittles.\nThe general trend of the campaign was rarely spoken of, partly because\nnothing certain was known about it, partly because there was a vague\nfeeling that in the main it was going badly.\n\nRostov lived, as before, with Denisov, and since their furlough they had\nbecome more friendly than ever. Denisov never spoke of Rostov's family,\nbut by the tender friendship his commander showed him, Rostov felt that\nthe elder hussar's luckless love for Natasha played a part in\nstrengthening their friendship. Denisov evidently tried to expose Rostov\nto danger as seldom as possible, and after an action greeted his safe\nreturn with evident joy. On one of his foraging expeditions, in a\ndeserted and ruined village to which he had come in search of\nprovisions, Rostov found a family consisting of an old Pole and his\ndaughter with an infant in arms. They were half clad, hungry, too weak\nto get away on foot and had no means of obtaining a conveyance. Rostov\nbrought them to his quarters, placed them in his own lodging, and kept\nthem for some weeks while the old man was recovering. One of his\ncomrades, talking of women, began chaffing Rostov, saying that he was\nmore wily than any of them and that it would not be a bad thing if he\nintroduced to them the pretty Polish girl he had saved. Rostov took the\njoke as an insult, flared up, and said such unpleasant things to the\nofficer that it was all Denisov could do to prevent a duel. When the\nofficer had gone away, Denisov, who did not himself know what Rostov's\nrelations with the Polish girl might be, began to upbraid him for his\nquickness of temper, and Rostov replied:\n\n\"Say what you like.... She is like a sister to me, and I can't tell you\nhow it offended me... because... well, for that reason....\"\n\nDenisov patted him on the shoulder and began rapidly pacing the room\nwithout looking at Rostov, as was his way at moments of deep feeling.\n\n\"Ah, what a mad bweed you Wostovs are!\" he muttered, and Rostov noticed\ntears in his eyes.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nIn April the troops were enlivened by news of the Emperor's arrival, but\nRostov had no chance of being present at the review he held at\nBartenstein, as the Pavlograds were at the outposts far beyond that\nplace.\n\nThey were bivouacking. Denisov and Rostov were living in an earth hut,\ndug out for them by the soldiers and roofed with branches and turf. The\nhut was made in the following manner, which had then come into vogue. A\ntrench was dug three and a half feet wide, four feet eight inches deep,\nand eight feet long. At one end of the trench, steps were cut out and\nthese formed the entrance and vestibule. The trench itself was the room,\nin which the lucky ones, such as the squadron commander, had a board,\nlying on piles at the end opposite the entrance, to serve as a table. On\neach side of the trench, the earth was cut out to a breadth of about two\nand a half feet, and this did duty for bedsteads and couches. The roof\nwas so constructed that one could stand up in the middle of the trench\nand could even sit up on the beds if one drew close to the table.\nDenisov, who was living luxuriously because the soldiers of his squadron\nliked him, had also a board in the roof at the farther end, with a piece\nof (broken but mended) glass in it for a window. When it was very cold,\nembers from the soldiers' campfire were placed on a bent sheet of iron\non the steps in the \"reception room\"--as Denisov called that part of the\nhut--and it was then so warm that the officers, of whom there were\nalways some with Denisov and Rostov, sat in their shirt sleeves.\n\nIn April, Rostov was on orderly duty. One morning, between seven and\neight, returning after a sleepless night, he sent for embers, changed\nhis rain-soaked underclothes, said his prayers, drank tea, got warm,\nthen tidied up the things on the table and in his own corner, and, his\nface glowing from exposure to the wind and with nothing on but his\nshirt, lay down on his back, putting his arms under his head. He was\npleasantly considering the probability of being promoted in a few days\nfor his last reconnoitering expedition, and was awaiting Denisov, who\nhad gone out somewhere and with whom he wanted a talk.\n\nSuddenly he heard Denisov shouting in a vibrating voice behind the hut,\nevidently much excited. Rostov moved to the window to see whom he was\nspeaking to, and saw the quartermaster, Topcheenko.\n\n\"I ordered you not to let them eat that Mashka woot stuff!\" Denisov was\nshouting. \"And I saw with my own eyes how Lazarchuk bwought some fwom\nthe fields.\"\n\n\"I have given the order again and again, your honor, but they don't\nobey,\" answered the quartermaster.\n\nRostov lay down again on his bed and thought complacently: \"Let him fuss\nand bustle now, my job's done and I'm lying down--capitally!\" He could\nhear that Lavrushka--that sly, bold orderly of Denisov's--was talking,\nas well as the quartermaster. Lavrushka was saying something about\nloaded wagons, biscuits, and oxen he had seen when he had gone out for\nprovisions.\n\nThen Denisov's voice was heard shouting farther and farther away.\n\"Saddle! Second platoon!\"\n\n\"Where are they off to now?\" thought Rostov.\n\nFive minutes later, Denisov came into the hut, climbed with muddy boots\non the bed, lit his pipe, furiously scattered his things about, took his\nleaded whip, buckled on his saber, and went out again. In answer to\nRostov's inquiry where he was going, he answered vaguely and crossly\nthat he had some business.\n\n\"Let God and our gweat monarch judge me afterwards!\" said Denisov going\nout, and Rostov heard the hoofs of several horses splashing through the\nmud. He did not even trouble to find out where Denisov had gone. Having\ngot warm in his corner, he fell asleep and did not leave the hut till\ntoward evening. Denisov had not yet returned. The weather had cleared\nup, and near the next hut two officers and a cadet were playing svayka,\nlaughing as they threw their missiles which buried themselves in the\nsoft mud. Rostov joined them. In the middle of the game, the officers\nsaw some wagons approaching with fifteen hussars on their skinny horses\nbehind them. The wagons escorted by the hussars drew up to the picket\nropes and a crowd of hussars surrounded them.\n\n\"There now, Denisov has been worrying,\" said Rostov, \"and here are the\nprovisions.\"\n\n\"So they are!\" said the officers. \"Won't the soldiers be glad!\"\n\nA little behind the hussars came Denisov, accompanied by two infantry\nofficers with whom he was talking.\n\nRostov went to meet them.\n\n\"I warn you, Captain,\" one of the officers, a short thin man, evidently\nvery angry, was saying.\n\n\"Haven't I told you I won't give them up?\" replied Denisov.\n\n\"You will answer for it, Captain. It is mutiny--seizing the transport of\none's own army. Our men have had nothing to eat for two days.\"\n\n\"And mine have had nothing for two weeks,\" said Denisov.\n\n\"It is robbery! You'll answer for it, sir!\" said the infantry officer,\nraising his voice.\n\n\"Now, what are you pestewing me for?\" cried Denisov, suddenly losing his\ntemper. \"I shall answer for it and not you, and you'd better not buzz\nabout here till you get hurt. Be off! Go!\" he shouted at the officers.\n\n\"Very well, then!\" shouted the little officer, undaunted and not riding\naway. \"If you are determined to rob, I'll...\"\n\n\"Go to the devil! quick ma'ch, while you're safe and sound!\" and Denisov\nturned his horse on the officer.\n\n\"Very well, very well!\" muttered the officer, threateningly, and turning\nhis horse he trotted away, jolting in his saddle.\n\n\"A dog astwide a fence! A weal dog astwide a fence!\" shouted Denisov\nafter him (the most insulting expression a cavalryman can address to a\nmounted infantryman) and riding up to Rostov, he burst out laughing.\n\n\"I've taken twansports from the infantwy by force!\" he said. \"After all,\ncan't let our men starve.\"\n\nThe wagons that had reached the hussars had been consigned to an\ninfantry regiment, but learning from Lavrushka that the transport was\nunescorted, Denisov with his hussars had seized it by force. The\nsoldiers had biscuits dealt out to them freely, and they even shared\nthem with the other squadrons.\n\nThe next day the regimental commander sent for Denisov, and holding his\nfingers spread out before his eyes said:\n\n\"This is how I look at this affair: I know nothing about it and won't\nbegin proceedings, but I advise you to ride over to the staff and settle\nthe business there in the commissariat department and if possible sign a\nreceipt for such and such stores received. If not, as the demand was\nbooked against an infantry regiment, there will be a row and the affair\nmay end badly.\"\n\nFrom the regimental commander's, Denisov rode straight to the staff with\na sincere desire to act on this advice. In the evening he came back to\nhis dugout in a state such as Rostov had never yet seen him in. Denisov\ncould not speak and gasped for breath. When Rostov asked what was the\nmatter, he only uttered some incoherent oaths and threats in a hoarse,\nfeeble voice.\n\nAlarmed at Denisov's condition, Rostov suggested that he should undress,\ndrink some water, and send for the doctor.\n\n\"Twy me for wobbewy... oh! Some more water... Let them twy me, but I'll\nalways thwash scoundwels... and I'll tell the Empewo'... Ice...\" he\nmuttered.\n\nThe regimental doctor, when he came, said it was absolutely necessary to\nbleed Denisov. A deep saucer of black blood was taken from his hairy arm\nand only then was he able to relate what had happened to him.\n\n\"I get there,\" began Denisov. \"'Now then, where's your chief's\nquarters?' They were pointed out. 'Please to wait.' 'I've widden twenty\nmiles and have duties to attend to and no time to wait. Announce me.'\nVewy well, so out comes their head chief--also took it into his head to\nlecture me: 'It's wobbewy!'--'Wobbewy,' I say, 'is not done by man who\nseizes pwovisions to feed his soldiers, but by him who takes them to\nfill his own pockets!' 'Will you please be silent?' 'Vewy good!' Then he\nsays: 'Go and give a weceipt to the commissioner, but your affair will\nbe passed on to headquarters.' I go to the commissioner. I enter, and at\nthe table... who do you think? No, but wait a bit!... Who is it that's\nstarving us?\" shouted Denisov, hitting the table with the fist of his\nnewly bled arm so violently that the table nearly broke down and the\ntumblers on it jumped about. \"Telyanin! 'What? So it's you who's\nstarving us to death! Is it? Take this and this!' and I hit him so pat,\nstwaight on his snout... 'Ah, what a... what a...!' and I sta'ted\nfwashing him... Well, I've had a bit of fun I can tell you!\" cried\nDenisov, gleeful and yet angry, his white teeth showing under his black\nmustache. \"I'd have killed him if they hadn't taken him away!\"\n\n\"But what are you shouting for? Calm yourself,\" said Rostov. \"You've set\nyour arm bleeding afresh. Wait, we must tie it up again.\"\n\nDenisov was bandaged up again and put to bed. Next day he woke calm and\ncheerful.\n\nBut at noon the adjutant of the regiment came into Rostov's and\nDenisov's dugout with a grave and serious face and regretfully showed\nthem a paper addressed to Major Denisov from the regimental commander in\nwhich inquiries were made about yesterday's occurrence. The adjutant\ntold them that the affair was likely to take a very bad turn: that a\ncourt-martial had been appointed, and that in view of the severity with\nwhich marauding and insubordination were now regarded, degradation to\nthe ranks would be the best that could be hoped for.\n\nThe case, as represented by the offended parties, was that, after\nseizing the transports, Major Denisov, being drunk, went to the chief\nquartermaster and without any provocation called him a thief, threatened\nto strike him, and on being led out had rushed into the office and given\ntwo officials a thrashing, and dislocated the arm of one of them.\n\nIn answer to Rostov's renewed questions, Denisov said, laughing, that he\nthought he remembered that some other fellow had got mixed up in it, but\nthat it was all nonsense and rubbish, and he did not in the least fear\nany kind of trial, and that if those scoundrels dared attack him he\nwould give them an answer that they would not easily forget.\n\nDenisov spoke contemptuously of the whole matter, but Rostov knew him\ntoo well not to detect that (while hiding it from others) at heart he\nfeared a court-martial and was worried over the affair, which was\nevidently taking a bad turn. Every day, letters of inquiry and notices\nfrom the court arrived, and on the first of May, Denisov was ordered to\nhand the squadron over to the next in seniority and appear before the\nstaff of his division to explain his violence at the commissariat\noffice. On the previous day Platov reconnoitered with two Cossack\nregiments and two squadrons of hussars. Denisov, as was his wont, rode\nout in front of the outposts, parading his courage. A bullet fired by a\nFrench sharpshooter hit him in the fleshy part of his leg. Perhaps at\nanother time Denisov would not have left the regiment for so slight a\nwound, but now he took advantage of it to excuse himself from appearing\nat the staff and went into hospital.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nIn June the battle of Friedland was fought, in which the Pavlograds did\nnot take part, and after that an armistice was proclaimed. Rostov, who\nfelt his friend's absence very much, having no news of him since he left\nand feeling very anxious about his wound and the progress of his\naffairs, took advantage of the armistice to get leave to visit Denisov\nin hospital.\n\nThe hospital was in a small Prussian town that had been twice devastated\nby Russian and French troops. Because it was summer, when it is so\nbeautiful out in the fields, the little town presented a particularly\ndismal appearance with its broken roofs and fences, its foul streets,\ntattered inhabitants, and the sick and drunken soldiers wandering about.\n\nThe hospital was in a brick building with some of the window frames and\npanes broken and a courtyard surrounded by the remains of a wooden fence\nthat had been pulled to pieces. Several bandaged soldiers, with pale\nswollen faces, were sitting or walking about in the sunshine in the\nyard.\n\nDirectly Rostov entered the door he was enveloped by a smell of\nputrefaction and hospital air. On the stairs he met a Russian army\ndoctor smoking a cigar. The doctor was followed by a Russian assistant.\n\n\"I can't tear myself to pieces,\" the doctor was saying. \"Come to Makar\nAlexeevich in the evening. I shall be there.\"\n\nThe assistant asked some further questions.\n\n\"Oh, do the best you can! Isn't it all the same?\" The doctor noticed\nRostov coming upstairs.\n\n\"What do you want, sir?\" said the doctor. \"What do you want? The bullets\nhaving spared you, do you want to try typhus? This is a pesthouse, sir.\"\n\n\"How so?\" asked Rostov.\n\n\"Typhus, sir. It's death to go in. Only we two, Makeev and I\" (he\npointed to the assistant), \"keep on here. Some five of us doctors have\ndied in this place.... When a new one comes he is done for in a week,\"\nsaid the doctor with evident satisfaction. \"Prussian doctors have been\ninvited here, but our allies don't like it at all.\"\n\nRostov explained that he wanted to see Major Denisov of the hussars, who\nwas wounded.\n\n\"I don't know. I can't tell you, sir. Only think! I am alone in charge\nof three hospitals with more than four hundred patients! It's well that\nthe charitable Prussian ladies send us two pounds of coffee and some\nlint each month or we should be lost!\" he laughed. \"Four hundred, sir,\nand they're always sending me fresh ones. There are four hundred? Eh?\"\nhe asked, turning to the assistant.\n\nThe assistant looked fagged out. He was evidently vexed and impatient\nfor the talkative doctor to go.\n\n\"Major Denisov,\" Rostov said again. \"He was wounded at Molliten.\"\n\n\"Dead, I fancy. Eh, Makeev?\" queried the doctor, in a tone of\nindifference.\n\nThe assistant, however, did not confirm the doctor's words.\n\n\"Is he tall and with reddish hair?\" asked the doctor.\n\nRostov described Denisov's appearance.\n\n\"There was one like that,\" said the doctor, as if pleased. \"That one is\ndead, I fancy. However, I'll look up our list. We had a list. Have you\ngot it, Makeev?\"\n\n\"Makar Alexeevich has the list,\" answered the assistant. \"But if you'll\nstep into the officers' wards you'll see for yourself,\" he added,\nturning to Rostov.\n\n\"Ah, you'd better not go, sir,\" said the doctor, \"or you may have to\nstay here yourself.\"\n\nBut Rostov bowed himself away from the doctor and asked the assistant to\nshow him the way.\n\n\"Only don't blame me!\" the doctor shouted up after him.\n\nRostov and the assistant went into the dark corridor. The smell was so\nstrong there that Rostov held his nose and had to pause and collect his\nstrength before he could go on. A door opened to the right, and an\nemaciated sallow man on crutches, barefoot and in underclothing, limped\nout and, leaning against the doorpost, looked with glittering envious\neyes at those who were passing. Glancing in at the door, Rostov saw that\nthe sick and wounded were lying on the floor on straw and overcoats.\n\n\"May I go in and look?\"\n\n\"What is there to see?\" said the assistant.\n\nBut, just because the assistant evidently did not want him to go in,\nRostov entered the soldiers' ward. The foul air, to which he had already\nbegun to get used in the corridor, was still stronger here. It was a\nlittle different, more pungent, and one felt that this was where it\noriginated.\n\nIn the long room, brightly lit up by the sun through the large windows,\nthe sick and wounded lay in two rows with their heads to the walls, and\nleaving a passage in the middle. Most of them were unconscious and paid\nno attention to the newcomers. Those who were conscious raised\nthemselves or lifted their thin yellow faces, and all looked intently at\nRostov with the same expression of hope, of relief, reproach, and envy\nof another's health. Rostov went to the middle of the room and looking\nthrough the open doors into the two adjoining rooms saw the same thing\nthere. He stood still, looking silently around. He had not at all\nexpected such a sight. Just before him, almost across the middle of the\npassage on the bare floor, lay a sick man, probably a Cossack to judge\nby the cut of his hair. The man lay on his back, his huge arms and legs\noutstretched. His face was purple, his eyes were rolled back so that\nonly the whites were seen, and on his bare legs and arms which were\nstill red, the veins stood out like cords. He was knocking the back of\nhis head against the floor, hoarsely uttering some word which he kept\nrepeating. Rostov listened and made out the word. It was \"drink, drink,\na drink!\" Rostov glanced round, looking for someone who would put this\nman back in his place and bring him water.\n\n\"Who looks after the sick here?\" he asked the assistant.\n\nJust then a commissariat soldier, a hospital orderly, came in from the\nnext room, marching stiffly, and drew up in front of Rostov.\n\n\"Good day, your honor!\" he shouted, rolling his eyes at Rostov and\nevidently mistaking him for one of the hospital authorities.\n\n\"Get him to his place and give him some water,\" said Rostov, pointing to\nthe Cossack.\n\n\"Yes, your honor,\" the soldier replied complacently, and rolling his\neyes more than ever he drew himself up still straighter, but did not\nmove.\n\n\"No, it's impossible to do anything here,\" thought Rostov, lowering his\neyes, and he was going out, but became aware of an intense look fixed on\nhim on his right, and he turned. Close to the corner, on an overcoat,\nsat an old, unshaven, gray-bearded soldier as thin as a skeleton, with a\nstern sallow face and eyes intently fixed on Rostov. The man's neighbor\non one side whispered something to him, pointing at Rostov, who noticed\nthat the old man wanted to speak to him. He drew nearer and saw that the\nold man had only one leg bent under him, the other had been amputated\nabove the knee. His neighbor on the other side, who lay motionless some\ndistance from him with his head thrown back, was a young soldier with a\nsnub nose. His pale waxen face was still freckled and his eyes were\nrolled back. Rostov looked at the young soldier and a cold chill ran\ndown his back.\n\n\"Why, this one seems...\" he began, turning to the assistant.\n\n\"And how we've been begging, your honor,\" said the old soldier, his jaw\nquivering. \"He's been dead since morning. After all we're men, not\ndogs.\"\n\n\"I'll send someone at once. He shall be taken away--taken away at once,\"\nsaid the assistant hurriedly. \"Let us go, your honor.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, let us go,\" said Rostov hastily, and lowering his eyes and\nshrinking, he tried to pass unnoticed between the rows of reproachful\nenvious eyes that were fixed upon him, and went out of the room.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nGoing along the corridor, the assistant led Rostov to the officers'\nwards, consisting of three rooms, the doors of which stood open. There\nwere beds in these rooms and the sick and wounded officers were lying or\nsitting on them. Some were walking about the rooms in hospital dressing\ngowns. The first person Rostov met in the officers' ward was a thin\nlittle man with one arm, who was walking about the first room in a\nnightcap and hospital dressing gown, with a pipe between his teeth.\nRostov looked at him, trying to remember where he had seen him before.\n\n\"See where we've met again!\" said the little man. \"Tushin, Tushin, don't\nyou remember, who gave you a lift at Schon Grabern? And I've had a bit\ncut off, you see...\" he went on with a smile, pointing to the empty\nsleeve of his dressing gown. \"Looking for Vasili Dmitrich Denisov? My\nneighbor,\" he added, when he heard who Rostov wanted. \"Here, here,\" and\nTushin led him into the next room, from whence came sounds of several\nlaughing voices.\n\n\"How can they laugh, or even live at all here?\" thought Rostov, still\naware of that smell of decomposing flesh that had been so strong in the\nsoldiers' ward, and still seeming to see fixed on him those envious\nlooks which had followed him out from both sides, and the face of that\nyoung soldier with eyes rolled back.\n\nDenisov lay asleep on his bed with his head under the blanket, though it\nwas nearly noon.\n\n\"Ah, Wostov? How are you, how are you?\" he called out, still in the same\nvoice as in the regiment, but Rostov noticed sadly that under this\nhabitual ease and animation some new, sinister, hidden feeling showed\nitself in the expression of Denisov's face and the intonations of his\nvoice.\n\nHis wound, though a slight one, had not yet healed even now, six weeks\nafter he had been hit. His face had the same swollen pallor as the faces\nof the other hospital patients, but it was not this that struck Rostov.\nWhat struck him was that Denisov did not seem glad to see him, and\nsmiled at him unnaturally. He did not ask about the regiment, nor about\nthe general state of affairs, and when Rostov spoke of these matters did\nnot listen.\n\nRostov even noticed that Denisov did not like to be reminded of the\nregiment, or in general of that other free life which was going on\noutside the hospital. He seemed to try to forget that old life and was\nonly interested in the affair with the commissariat officers. On\nRostov's inquiry as to how the matter stood, he at once produced from\nunder his pillow a paper he had received from the commission and the\nrough draft of his answer to it. He became animated when he began\nreading his paper and specially drew Rostov's attention to the stinging\nrejoinders he made to his enemies. His hospital companions, who had\ngathered round Rostov--a fresh arrival from the world outside--gradually\nbegan to disperse as soon as Denisov began reading his answer. Rostov\nnoticed by their faces that all those gentlemen had already heard that\nstory more than once and were tired of it. Only the man who had the next\nbed, a stout Uhlan, continued to sit on his bed, gloomily frowning and\nsmoking a pipe, and little one-armed Tushin still listened, shaking his\nhead disapprovingly. In the middle of the reading, the Uhlan interrupted\nDenisov.\n\n\"But what I say is,\" he said, turning to Rostov, \"it would be best\nsimply to petition the Emperor for pardon. They say great rewards will\nnow be distributed, and surely a pardon would be granted....\"\n\n\"Me petition the Empewo'!\" exclaimed Denisov, in a voice to which he\ntried hard to give the old energy and fire, but which sounded like an\nexpression of irritable impotence. \"What for? If I were a wobber I would\nask mercy, but I'm being court-martialed for bwinging wobbers to book.\nLet them twy me, I'm not afwaid of anyone. I've served the Tsar and my\ncountwy honowably and have not stolen! And am I to be degwaded?...\nListen, I'm w'iting to them stwaight. This is what I say: 'If I had\nwobbed the Tweasuwy...'\"\n\n\"It's certainly well written,\" said Tushin, \"but that's not the point,\nVasili Dmitrich,\" and he also turned to Rostov. \"One has to submit, and\nVasili Dmitrich doesn't want to. You know the auditor told you it was a\nbad business.\"\n\n\"Well, let it be bad,\" said Denisov.\n\n\"The auditor wrote out a petition for you,\" continued Tushin, \"and you\nought to sign it and ask this gentleman to take it. No doubt he\"\n(indicating Rostov) \"has connections on the staff. You won't find a\nbetter opportunity.\"\n\n\"Haven't I said I'm not going to gwovel?\" Denisov interrupted him, went\non reading his paper.\n\nRostov had not the courage to persuade Denisov, though he instinctively\nfelt that the way advised by Tushin and the other officers was the\nsafest, and though he would have been glad to be of service to Denisov.\nHe knew his stubborn will and straightforward hasty temper.\n\nWhen the reading of Denisov's virulent reply, which took more than an\nhour, was over, Rostov said nothing, and he spent the rest of the day in\na most dejected state of mind amid Denisov's hospital comrades, who had\ngathered round him, telling them what he knew and listening to their\nstories. Denisov was moodily silent all the evening.\n\nLate in the evening, when Rostov was about to leave, he asked Denisov\nwhether he had no commission for him.\n\n\"Yes, wait a bit,\" said Denisov, glancing round at the officers, and\ntaking his papers from under his pillow he went to the window, where he\nhad an inkpot, and sat down to write.\n\n\"It seems it's no use knocking one's head against a wall!\" he said,\ncoming from the window and giving Rostov a large envelope. In it was the\npetition to the Emperor drawn up by the auditor, in which Denisov,\nwithout alluding to the offenses of the commissariat officials, simply\nasked for pardon.\n\n\"Hand it in. It seems...\"\n\nHe did not finish, but gave a painfully unnatural smile.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nHaving returned to the regiment and told the commander the state of\nDenisov's affairs, Rostov rode to Tilsit with the letter to the Emperor.\n\nOn the thirteenth of June the French and Russian Emperors arrived in\nTilsit. Boris Drubetskoy had asked the important personage on whom he\nwas in attendance, to include him in the suite appointed for the stay at\nTilsit.\n\n\"I should like to see the great man,\" he said, alluding to Napoleon,\nwhom hitherto he, like everyone else, had always called Buonaparte.\n\n\"You are speaking of Buonaparte?\" asked the general, smiling.\n\nBoris looked at his general inquiringly and immediately saw that he was\nbeing tested.\n\n\"I am speaking, Prince, of the Emperor Napoleon,\" he replied. The\ngeneral patted him on the shoulder, with a smile.\n\n\"You will go far,\" he said, and took him to Tilsit with him.\n\nBoris was among the few present at the Niemen on the day the two\nEmperors met. He saw the raft, decorated with monograms, saw Napoleon\npass before the French Guards on the farther bank of the river, saw the\npensive face of the Emperor Alexander as he sat in silence in a tavern\non the bank of the Niemen awaiting Napoleon's arrival, saw both Emperors\nget into boats, and saw how Napoleon--reaching the raft first--stepped\nquickly forward to meet Alexander and held out his hand to him, and how\nthey both retired into the pavilion. Since he had begun to move in the\nhighest circles Boris had made it his habit to watch attentively all\nthat went on around him and to note it down. At the time of the meeting\nat Tilsit he asked the names of those who had come with Napoleon and\nabout the uniforms they wore, and listened attentively to words spoken\nby important personages. At the moment the Emperors went into the\npavilion he looked at his watch, and did not forget to look at it again\nwhen Alexander came out. The interview had lasted an hour and fifty-\nthree minutes. He noted this down that same evening, among other facts\nhe felt to be of historic importance. As the Emperor's suite was a very\nsmall one, it was a matter of great importance, for a man who valued his\nsuccess in the service, to be at Tilsit on the occasion of this\ninterview between the two Emperors, and having succeeded in this, Boris\nfelt that henceforth his position was fully assured. He had not only\nbecome known, but people had grown accustomed to him and accepted him.\nTwice he had executed commissions to the Emperor himself, so that the\nlatter knew his face, and all those at court, far from cold-shouldering\nhim as at first when they considered him a newcomer, would now have been\nsurprised had he been absent.\n\nBoris lodged with another adjutant, the Polish Count Zhilinski.\nZhilinski, a Pole brought up in Paris, was rich, and passionately fond\nof the French, and almost every day of the stay at Tilsit, French\nofficers of the Guard and from French headquarters were dining and\nlunching with him and Boris.\n\nOn the evening of the twenty-fourth of June, Count Zhilinski arranged a\nsupper for his French friends. The guest of honor was an aide-de-camp of\nNapoleon's, there were also several French officers of the Guard, and a\npage of Napoleon's, a young lad of an old aristocratic French family.\nThat same day, Rostov, profiting by the darkness to avoid being\nrecognized in civilian dress, came to Tilsit and went to the lodging\noccupied by Boris and Zhilinski.\n\nRostov, in common with the whole army from which he came, was far from\nhaving experienced the change of feeling toward Napoleon and the French-\n-who from being foes had suddenly become friends--that had taken place\nat headquarters and in Boris. In the army, Bonaparte and the French were\nstill regarded with mingled feelings of anger, contempt, and fear. Only\nrecently, talking with one of Platov's Cossack officers, Rostov had\nargued that if Napoleon were taken prisoner he would be treated not as a\nsovereign, but as a criminal. Quite lately, happening to meet a wounded\nFrench colonel on the road, Rostov had maintained with heat that peace\nwas impossible between a legitimate sovereign and the criminal\nBonaparte. Rostov was therefore unpleasantly struck by the presence of\nFrench officers in Boris' lodging, dressed in uniforms he had been\naccustomed to see from quite a different point of view from the outposts\nof the flank. As soon as he noticed a French officer, who thrust his\nhead out of the door, that warlike feeling of hostility which he always\nexperienced at the sight of the enemy suddenly seized him. He stopped at\nthe threshold and asked in Russian whether Drubetskoy lived there.\nBoris, hearing a strange voice in the anteroom, came out to meet him. An\nexpression of annoyance showed itself for a moment on his face on first\nrecognizing Rostov.\n\n\"Ah, it's you? Very glad, very glad to see you,\" he said, however,\ncoming toward him with a smile. But Rostov had noticed his first\nimpulse.\n\n\"I've come at a bad time I think. I should not have come, but I have\nbusiness,\" he said coldly.\n\n\"No, I only wonder how you managed to get away from your regiment. Dans\nun moment je suis a vous,\" * he said, answering someone who called him.\n\n\n* \"In a minute I shall be at your disposal.\"\n\n\"I see I'm intruding,\" Rostov repeated.\n\nThe look of annoyance had already disappeared from Boris' face: having\nevidently reflected and decided how to act, he very quietly took both\nRostov's hands and led him into the next room. His eyes, looking\nserenely and steadily at Rostov, seemed to be veiled by something, as if\nscreened by blue spectacles of conventionality. So it seemed to Rostov.\n\n\"Oh, come now! As if you could come at a wrong time!\" said Boris, and he\nled him into the room where the supper table was laid and introduced him\nto his guests, explaining that he was not a civilian, but an hussar\nofficer, and an old friend of his.\n\n\"Count Zhilinski--le Comte N. N.--le Capitaine S. S.,\" said he, naming\nhis guests. Rostov looked frowningly at the Frenchmen, bowed\nreluctantly, and remained silent.\n\nZhilinski evidently did not receive this new Russian person very\nwillingly into his circle and did not speak to Rostov. Boris did not\nappear to notice the constraint the newcomer produced and, with the same\npleasant composure and the same veiled look in his eyes with which he\nhad met Rostov, tried to enliven the conversation. One of the Frenchmen,\nwith the politeness characteristic of his countrymen, addressed the\nobstinately taciturn Rostov, saying that the latter had probably come to\nTilsit to see the Emperor.\n\n\"No, I came on business,\" replied Rostov, briefly.\n\nRostov had been out of humor from the moment he noticed the look of\ndissatisfaction on Boris' face, and as always happens to those in a bad\nhumor, it seemed to him that everyone regarded him with aversion and\nthat he was in everybody's way. He really was in their way, for he alone\ntook no part in the conversation which again became general. The looks\nthe visitors cast on him seemed to say: \"And what is he sitting here\nfor?\" He rose and went up to Boris.\n\n\"Anyhow, I'm in your way,\" he said in a low tone. \"Come and talk over my\nbusiness and I'll go away.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, not at all,\" said Boris. \"But if you are tired, come and lie\ndown in my room and have a rest.\"\n\n\"Yes, really...\"\n\nThey went into the little room where Boris slept. Rostov, without\nsitting down, began at once, irritably (as if Boris were to blame in\nsome way) telling him about Denisov's affair, asking him whether,\nthrough his general, he could and would intercede with the Emperor on\nDenisov's behalf and get Denisov's petition handed in. When he and Boris\nwere alone, Rostov felt for the first time that he could not look Boris\nin the face without a sense of awkwardness. Boris, with one leg crossed\nover the other and stroking his left hand with the slender fingers of\nhis right, listened to Rostov as a general listens to the report of a\nsubordinate, now looking aside and now gazing straight into Rostov's\neyes with the same veiled look. Each time this happened Rostov felt\nuncomfortable and cast down his eyes.\n\n\"I have heard of such cases and know that His Majesty is very severe in\nsuch affairs. I think it would be best not to bring it before the\nEmperor, but to apply to the commander of the corps.... But in general,\nI think...\"\n\n\"So you don't want to do anything? Well then, say so!\" Rostov almost\nshouted, not looking Boris in the face.\n\nBoris smiled.\n\n\"On the contrary, I will do what I can. Only I thought...\"\n\nAt that moment Zhilinski's voice was heard calling Boris.\n\n\"Well then, go, go, go...\" said Rostov, and refusing supper and\nremaining alone in the little room, he walked up and down for a long\ntime, hearing the lighthearted French conversation from the next room.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nRostov had come to Tilsit the day least suitable for a petition on\nDenisov's behalf. He could not himself go to the general in attendance\nas he was in mufti and had come to Tilsit without permission to do so,\nand Boris, even had he wished to, could not have done so on the\nfollowing day. On that day, June 27, the preliminaries of peace were\nsigned. The Emperors exchanged decorations: Alexander received the Cross\nof the Legion of Honor and Napoleon the Order of St. Andrew of the First\nDegree, and a dinner had been arranged for the evening, given by a\nbattalion of the French Guards to the Preobrazhensk battalion. The\nEmperors were to be present at that banquet.\n\nRostov felt so ill at ease and uncomfortable with Boris that, when the\nlatter looked in after supper, he pretended to be asleep, and early next\nmorning went away, avoiding Boris. In his civilian clothes and a round\nhat, he wandered about the town, staring at the French and their\nuniforms and at the streets and houses where the Russian and French\nEmperors were staying. In a square he saw tables being set up and\npreparations made for the dinner; he saw the Russian and French colors\ndraped from side to side of the streets, with huge monograms A and N. In\nthe windows of the houses also flags and bunting were displayed.\n\n\"Boris doesn't want to help me and I don't want to ask him. That's\nsettled,\" thought Nicholas. \"All is over between us, but I won't leave\nhere without having done all I can for Denisov and certainly not without\ngetting his letter to the Emperor. The Emperor!... He is here!\" thought\nRostov, who had unconsciously returned to the house where Alexander\nlodged.\n\nSaddled horses were standing before the house and the suite were\nassembling, evidently preparing for the Emperor to come out.\n\n\"I may see him at any moment,\" thought Rostov. \"If only I were to hand\nthe letter direct to him and tell him all... could they really arrest me\nfor my civilian clothes? Surely not! He would understand on whose side\njustice lies. He understands everything, knows everything. Who can be\nmore just, more magnanimous than he? And even if they did arrest me for\nbeing here, what would it matter?\" thought he, looking at an officer who\nwas entering the house the Emperor occupied. \"After all, people do go\nin.... It's all nonsense! I'll go in and hand the letter to the Emperor\nmyself so much the worse for Drubetskoy who drives me to it!\" And\nsuddenly with a determination he himself did not expect, Rostov felt for\nthe letter in his pocket and went straight to the house.\n\n\"No, I won't miss my opportunity now, as I did after Austerlitz,\" he\nthought, expecting every moment to meet the monarch, and conscious of\nthe blood that rushed to his heart at the thought. \"I will fall at his\nfeet and beseech him. He will lift me up, will listen, and will even\nthank me. 'I am happy when I can do good, but to remedy injustice is the\ngreatest happiness,'\" Rostov fancied the sovereign saying. And passing\npeople who looked after him with curiosity, he entered the porch of the\nEmperor's house.\n\nA broad staircase led straight up from the entry, and to the right he\nsaw a closed door. Below, under the staircase, was a door leading to the\nlower floor.\n\n\"Whom do you want?\" someone inquired.\n\n\"To hand in a letter, a petition, to His Majesty,\" said Nicholas, with a\ntremor in his voice.\n\n\"A petition? This way, to the officer on duty\" (he was shown the door\nleading downstairs), \"only it won't be accepted.\"\n\nOn hearing this indifferent voice, Rostov grew frightened at what he was\ndoing; the thought of meeting the Emperor at any moment was so\nfascinating and consequently so alarming that he was ready to run away,\nbut the official who had questioned him opened the door, and Rostov\nentered.\n\nA short stout man of about thirty, in white breeches and high boots and\na batiste shirt that he had evidently only just put on, standing in that\nroom, and his valet was buttoning on to the back of his breeches a new\npair of handsome silk-embroidered braces that, for some reason,\nattracted Rostov's attention. This man was speaking to someone in the\nadjoining room.\n\n\"A good figure and in her first bloom,\" he was saying, but on seeing\nRostov, he stopped short and frowned.\n\n\"What is it? A petition?\"\n\n\"What is it?\" asked the person in the other room.\n\n\"Another petitioner,\" answered the man with the braces.\n\n\"Tell him to come later. He'll be coming out directly, we must go.\"\n\n\"Later... later! Tomorrow. It's too late...\"\n\nRostov turned and was about to go, but the man in the braces stopped\nhim.\n\n\"Whom have you come from? Who are you?\"\n\n\"I come from Major Denisov,\" answered Rostov.\n\n\"Are you an officer?\"\n\n\"Lieutenant Count Rostov.\"\n\n\"What audacity! Hand it in through your commander. And go along with\nyou... go,\" and he continued to put on the uniform the valet handed him.\n\nRostov went back into the hall and noticed that in the porch there were\nmany officers and generals in full parade uniform, whom he had to pass.\n\nCursing his temerity, his heart sinking at the thought of finding\nhimself at any moment face to face with the Emperor and being put to\nshame and arrested in his presence, fully alive now to the impropriety\nof his conduct and repenting of it, Rostov, with downcast eyes, was\nmaking his way out of the house through the brilliant suite when a\nfamiliar voice called him and a hand detained him.\n\n\"What are you doing here, sir, in civilian dress?\" asked a deep voice.\n\nIt was a cavalry general who had obtained the Emperor's special favor\nduring this campaign, and who had formerly commanded the division in\nwhich Rostov was serving.\n\nRostov, in dismay, began justifying himself, but seeing the kindly,\njocular face of the general, he took him aside and in an excited voice\ntold him the whole affair, asking him to intercede for Denisov, whom the\ngeneral knew. Having heard Rostov to the end, the general shook his head\ngravely.\n\n\"I'm sorry, sorry for that fine fellow. Give me the letter.\"\n\nHardly had Rostov handed him the letter and finished explaining\nDenisov's case, when hasty steps and the jingling of spurs were heard on\nthe stairs, and the general, leaving him, went to the porch. The\ngentlemen of the Emperor's suite ran down the stairs and went to their\nhorses. Hayne, the same groom who had been at Austerlitz, led up the\nEmperor's horse, and the faint creak of a footstep Rostov knew at once\nwas heard on the stairs. Forgetting the danger of being recognized,\nRostov went close to the porch, together with some inquisitive\ncivilians, and again, after two years, saw those features he adored:\nthat same face and same look and step, and the same union of majesty and\nmildness.... And the feeling of enthusiasm and love for his sovereign\nrose again in Rostov's soul in all its old force. In the uniform of the\nPreobrazhensk regiment--white chamois-leather breeches and high boots--\nand wearing a star Rostov did not know (it was that of the Legion\nd'honneur), the monarch came out into the porch, putting on his gloves\nand carrying his hat under his arm. He stopped and looked about him,\nbrightening everything around by his glance. He spoke a few words to\nsome of the generals, and, recognizing the former commander of Rostov's\ndivision, smiled and beckoned to him.\n\nAll the suite drew back and Rostov saw the general talking for some time\nto the Emperor.\n\nThe Emperor said a few words to him and took a step toward his horse.\nAgain the crowd of members of the suite and street gazers (among whom\nwas Rostov) moved nearer to the Emperor. Stopping beside his horse, with\nhis hand on the saddle, the Emperor turned to the cavalry general and\nsaid in a loud voice, evidently wishing to be heard by all:\n\n\"I cannot do it, General. I cannot, because the law is stronger than I,\"\nand he raised his foot to the stirrup.\n\nThe general bowed his head respectfully, and the monarch mounted and\nrode down the street at a gallop. Beside himself with enthusiasm, Rostov\nran after him with the crowd.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nThe Emperor rode to the square where, facing one another, a battalion of\nthe Preobrazhensk regiment stood on the right and a battalion of the\nFrench Guards in their bearskin caps on the left.\n\nAs the Tsar rode up to one flank of the battalions, which presented\narms, another group of horsemen galloped up to the opposite flank, and\nat the head of them Rostov recognized Napoleon. It could be no one else.\nHe came at a gallop, wearing a small hat, a blue uniform open over a\nwhite vest, and the St. Andrew ribbon over his shoulder. He was riding a\nvery fine thoroughbred gray Arab horse with a crimson gold-embroidered\nsaddlecloth. On approaching Alexander he raised his hat, and as he did\nso, Rostov, with his cavalryman's eye, could not help noticing that\nNapoleon did not sit well or firmly in the saddle. The battalions\nshouted \"Hurrah!\" and \"Vive l'Empereur!\" Napoleon said something to\nAlexander, and both Emperors dismounted and took each other's hands.\nNapoleon's face wore an unpleasant and artificial smile. Alexander was\nsaying something affable to him.\n\nIn spite of the trampling of the French gendarmes' horses, which were\npushing back the crowd, Rostov kept his eyes on every movement of\nAlexander and Bonaparte. It struck him as a surprise that Alexander\ntreated Bonaparte as an equal and that the latter was quite at ease with\nthe Tsar, as if such relations with an Emperor were an everyday matter\nto him.\n\nAlexander and Napoleon, with the long train of their suites, approached\nthe right flank of the Preobrazhensk battalion and came straight up to\nthe crowd standing there. The crowd unexpectedly found itself so close\nto the Emperors that Rostov, standing in the front row, was afraid he\nmight be recognized.\n\n\"Sire, I ask your permission to present the Legion of Honor to the\nbravest of your soldiers,\" said a sharp, precise voice, articulating\nevery letter.\n\nThis was said by the undersized Napoleon, looking up straight into\nAlexander's eyes. Alexander listened attentively to what was said to him\nand, bending his head, smiled pleasantly.\n\n\"To him who has borne himself most bravely in this last war,\" added\nNapoleon, accentuating each syllable, as with a composure and assurance\nexasperating to Rostov, he ran his eyes over the Russian ranks drawn up\nbefore him, who all presented arms with their eyes fixed on their\nEmperor.\n\n\"Will Your Majesty allow me to consult the colonel?\" said Alexander and\ntook a few hasty steps toward Prince Kozlovski, the commander of the\nbattalion.\n\nBonaparte meanwhile began taking the glove off his small white hand,\ntore it in doing so, and threw it away. An aide-de-camp behind him\nrushed forward and picked it up.\n\n\"To whom shall it be given?\" the Emperor Alexander asked Koslovski, in\nRussian in a low voice.\n\n\"To whomever Your Majesty commands.\"\n\nThe Emperor knit his brows with dissatisfaction and, glancing back,\nremarked:\n\n\"But we must give him an answer.\"\n\nKozlovski scanned the ranks resolutely and included Rostov in his\nscrutiny.\n\n\"Can it be me?\" thought Rostov.\n\n\"Lazarev!\" the colonel called, with a frown, and Lazarev, the first\nsoldier in the rank, stepped briskly forward.\n\n\"Where are you off to? Stop here!\" voices whispered to Lazarev who did\nnot know where to go. Lazarev stopped, casting a sidelong look at his\ncolonel in alarm. His face twitched, as often happens to soldiers called\nbefore the ranks.\n\nNapoleon slightly turned his head, and put his plump little hand out\nbehind him as if to take something. The members of his suite, guessing\nat once what he wanted, moved about and whispered as they passed\nsomething from one to another, and a page--the same one Rostov had seen\nthe previous evening at Boris'--ran forward and, bowing respectfully\nover the outstretched hand and not keeping it waiting a moment, laid in\nit an Order on a red ribbon. Napoleon, without looking, pressed two\nfingers together and the badge was between them. Then he approached\nLazarev (who rolled his eyes and persistently gazed at his own monarch),\nlooked round at the Emperor Alexander to imply that what he was now\ndoing was done for the sake of his ally, and the small white hand\nholding the Order touched one of Lazarev's buttons. It was as if\nNapoleon knew that it was only necessary for his hand to deign to touch\nthat soldier's breast for the soldier to be forever happy, rewarded, and\ndistinguished from everyone else in the world. Napoleon merely laid the\ncross on Lazarev's breast and, dropping his hand, turned toward\nAlexander as though sure that the cross would adhere there. And it\nreally did.\n\nOfficious hands, Russian and French, immediately seized the cross and\nfastened it to the uniform. Lazarev glanced morosely at the little man\nwith white hands who was doing something to him and, still standing\nmotionless presenting arms, looked again straight into Alexander's eyes,\nas if asking whether he should stand there, or go away, or do something\nelse. But receiving no orders, he remained for some time in that rigid\nposition.\n\nThe Emperors remounted and rode away. The Preobrazhensk battalion,\nbreaking rank, mingled with the French Guards and sat down at the tables\nprepared for them.\n\nLazarev sat in the place of honor. Russian and French officers embraced\nhim, congratulated him, and pressed his hands. Crowds of officers and\ncivilians drew near merely to see him. A rumble of Russian and French\nvoices and laughter filled the air round the tables in the square. Two\nofficers with flushed faces, looking cheerful and happy, passed by\nRostov.\n\n\"What d'you think of the treat? All on silver plate,\" one of them was\nsaying. \"Have you seen Lazarev?\"\n\n\"I have.\"\n\n\"Tomorrow, I hear, the Preobrazhenskis will give them a dinner.\"\n\n\"Yes, but what luck for Lazarev! Twelve hundred francs' pension for\nlife.\"\n\n\"Here's a cap, lads!\" shouted a Preobrazhensk soldier, donning a shaggy\nFrench cap.\n\n\"It's a fine thing! First-rate!\"\n\n\"Have you heard the password?\" asked one Guards' officer of another.\n\"The day before yesterday it was 'Napoleon, France, bravoure';\nyesterday, 'Alexandre, Russie, grandeur.' One day our Emperor gives it\nand next day Napoleon. Tomorrow our Emperor will send a St. George's\nCross to the bravest of the French Guards. It has to be done. He must\nrespond in kind.\"\n\nBoris, too, with his friend Zhilinski, came to see the Preobrazhensk\nbanquet. On his way back, he noticed Rostov standing by the corner of a\nhouse.\n\n\"Rostov! How d'you do? We missed one another,\" he said, and could not\nrefrain from asking what was the matter, so strangely dismal and\ntroubled was Rostov's face.\n\n\"Nothing, nothing,\" replied Rostov.\n\n\"You'll call round?\"\n\n\"Yes, I will.\"\n\nRostov stood at that corner for a long time, watching the feast from a\ndistance. In his mind, a painful process was going on which he could not\nbring to a conclusion. Terrible doubts rose in his soul. Now he\nremembered Denisov with his changed expression, his submission, and the\nwhole hospital, with arms and legs torn off and its dirt and disease. So\nvividly did he recall that hospital stench of dead flesh that he looked\nround to see where the smell came from. Next he thought of that self-\nsatisfied Bonaparte, with his small white hand, who was now an Emperor,\nliked and respected by Alexander. Then why those severed arms and legs\nand those dead men?... Then again he thought of Lazarev rewarded and\nDenisov punished and unpardoned. He caught himself harboring such\nstrange thoughts that he was frightened.\n\nThe smell of the food the Preobrazhenskis were eating and a sense of\nhunger recalled him from these reflections; he had to get something to\neat before going away. He went to a hotel he had noticed that morning.\nThere he found so many people, among them officers who, like himself,\nhad come in civilian clothes, that he had difficulty in getting a\ndinner. Two officers of his own division joined him. The conversation\nnaturally turned on the peace. The officers, his comrades, like most of\nthe army, were dissatisfied with the peace concluded after the battle of\nFriedland. They said that had we held out a little longer Napoleon would\nhave been done for, as his troops had neither provisions nor ammunition.\nNicholas ate and drank (chiefly the latter) in silence. He finished a\ncouple of bottles of wine by himself. The process in his mind went on\ntormenting him without reaching a conclusion. He feared to give way to\nhis thoughts, yet could not get rid of them. Suddenly, on one of the\nofficers' saying that it was humiliating to look at the French, Rostov\nbegan shouting with uncalled-for wrath, and therefore much to the\nsurprise of the officers:\n\n\"How can you judge what's best?\" he cried, the blood suddenly rushing to\nhis face. \"How can you judge the Emperor's actions? What right have we\nto argue? We cannot comprehend either the Emperor's aims or his\nactions!\"\n\n\"But I never said a word about the Emperor!\" said the officer,\njustifying himself, and unable to understand Rostov's outburst, except\non the supposition that he was drunk.\n\nBut Rostov did not listen to him.\n\n\"We are not diplomatic officials, we are soldiers and nothing more,\" he\nwent on. \"If we are ordered to die, we must die. If we're punished, it\nmeans that we have deserved it, it's not for us to judge. If the Emperor\npleases to recognize Bonaparte as Emperor and to conclude an alliance\nwith him, it means that that is the right thing to do. If once we begin\njudging and arguing about everything, nothing sacred will be left! That\nway we shall be saying there is no God--nothing!\" shouted Nicholas,\nbanging the table--very little to the point as it seemed to his\nlisteners, but quite relevantly to the course of his own thoughts.\n\n\"Our business is to do our duty, to fight and not to think! That's\nall....\" said he.\n\n\"And to drink,\" said one of the officers, not wishing to quarrel.\n\n\"Yes, and to drink,\" assented Nicholas. \"Hullo there! Another bottle!\"\nhe shouted.\n\nIn 1808 the Emperor Alexander went to Erfurt for a fresh interview with\nthe Emperor Napoleon, and in the upper circles of Petersburg there was\nmuch talk of the grandeur of this important meeting.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nIn 1809 the intimacy between \"the world's two arbiters,\" as Napoleon and\nAlexander were called, was such that when Napoleon declared war on\nAustria a Russian corps crossed the frontier to co-operate with our old\nenemy Bonaparte against our old ally the Emperor of Austria, and in\ncourt circles the possibility of marriage between Napoleon and one of\nAlexander's sisters was spoken of. But besides considerations of foreign\npolicy, the attention of Russian society was at that time keenly\ndirected on the internal changes that were being undertaken in all the\ndepartments of government.\n\nLife meanwhile--real life, with its essential interests of health and\nsickness, toil and rest, and its intellectual interests in thought,\nscience, poetry, music, love, friendship, hatred, and passions--went on\nas usual, independently of and apart from political friendship or enmity\nwith Napoleon Bonaparte and from all the schemes of reconstruction.\n\nBOOK SIX: 1808 - 10\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nPrince Andrew had spent two years continuously in the country.\n\nAll the plans Pierre had attempted on his estates--and constantly\nchanging from one thing to another had never accomplished--were carried\nout by Prince Andrew without display and without perceptible difficulty.\n\nHe had in the highest degree a practical tenacity which Pierre lacked,\nand without fuss or strain on his part this set things going.\n\nOn one of his estates the three hundred serfs were liberated and became\nfree agricultural laborers--this being one of the first examples of the\nkind in Russia. On other estates the serfs' compulsory labor was\ncommuted for a quitrent. A trained midwife was engaged for Bogucharovo\nat his expense, and a priest was paid to teach reading and writing to\nthe children of the peasants and household serfs.\n\nPrince Andrew spent half his time at Bald Hills with his father and his\nson, who was still in the care of nurses. The other half he spent in\n\"Bogucharovo Cloister,\" as his father called Prince Andrew's estate.\nDespite the indifference to the affairs of the world he had expressed to\nPierre, he diligently followed all that went on, received many books,\nand to his surprise noticed that when he or his father had visitors from\nPetersburg, the very vortex of life, these people lagged behind himself-\n-who never left the country--in knowledge of what was happening in home\nand foreign affairs.\n\nBesides being occupied with his estates and reading a great variety of\nbooks, Prince Andrew was at this time busy with a critical survey of our\nlast two unfortunate campaigns, and with drawing up a proposal for a\nreform of the army rules and regulations.\n\nIn the spring of 1809 he went to visit the Ryazan estates which had been\ninherited by his son, whose guardian he was.\n\nWarmed by the spring sunshine he sat in the caleche looking at the new\ngrass, the first leaves on the birches, and the first puffs of white\nspring clouds floating across the clear blue sky. He was not thinking of\nanything, but looked absent-mindedly and cheerfully from side to side.\n\nThey crossed the ferry where he had talked with Pierre the year before.\nThey went through the muddy village, past threshing floors and green\nfields of winter rye, downhill where snow still lodged near the bridge,\nuphill where the clay had been liquefied by the rain, past strips of\nstubble land and bushes touched with green here and there, and into a\nbirch forest growing on both sides of the road. In the forest it was\nalmost hot, no wind could be felt. The birches with their sticky green\nleaves were motionless, and lilac-colored flowers and the first blades\nof green grass were pushing up and lifting last year's leaves. The\ncoarse evergreen color of the small fir trees scattered here and there\namong the birches was an unpleasant reminder of winter. On entering the\nforest the horses began to snort and sweated visibly.\n\nPeter the footman made some remark to the coachman; the latter assented.\nBut apparently the coachman's sympathy was not enough for Peter, and he\nturned on the box toward his master.\n\n\"How pleasant it is, your excellency!\" he said with a respectful smile.\n\n\"What?\"\n\n\"It's pleasant, your excellency!\"\n\n\n\"What is he talking about?\" thought Prince Andrew. \"Oh, the spring, I\nsuppose,\" he thought as he turned round. \"Yes, really everything is\ngreen already.... How early! The birches and cherry and alders too are\ncoming out.... But the oaks show no sign yet. Ah, here is one oak!\"\n\nAt the edge of the road stood an oak. Probably ten times the age of the\nbirches that formed the forest, it was ten times as thick and twice as\ntall as they. It was an enormous tree, its girth twice as great as a man\ncould embrace, and evidently long ago some of its branches had been\nbroken off and its bark scarred. With its huge ungainly limbs sprawling\nunsymmetrically, and its gnarled hands and fingers, it stood an aged,\nstern, and scornful monster among the smiling birch trees. Only the\ndead-looking evergreen firs dotted about in the forest, and this oak,\nrefused to yield to the charm of spring or notice either the spring or\nthe sunshine.\n\n\"Spring, love, happiness!\" this oak seemed to say. \"Are you not weary of\nthat stupid, meaningless, constantly repeated fraud? Always the same and\nalways a fraud? There is no spring, no sun, no happiness! Look at those\ncramped dead firs, ever the same, and at me too, sticking out my broken\nand barked fingers just where they have grown, whether from my back or\nmy sides: as they have grown so I stand, and I do not believe in your\nhopes and your lies.\"\n\nAs he passed through the forest Prince Andrew turned several times to\nlook at that oak, as if expecting something from it. Under the oak, too,\nwere flowers and grass, but it stood among them scowling, rigid,\nmisshapen, and grim as ever.\n\n\"Yes, the oak is right, a thousand times right,\" thought Prince Andrew.\n\"Let others--the young--yield afresh to that fraud, but we know life,\nour life is finished!\"\n\nA whole sequence of new thoughts, hopeless but mournfully pleasant, rose\nin his soul in connection with that tree. During this journey he, as it\nwere, considered his life afresh and arrived at his old conclusion,\nrestful in its hopelessness: that it was not for him to begin anything\nanew--but that he must live out his life, content to do no harm, and not\ndisturbing himself or desiring anything.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nPrince Andrew had to see the Marshal of the Nobility for the district in\nconnection with the affairs of the Ryazan estate of which he was\ntrustee. This Marshal was Count Ilya Rostov, and in the middle of May\nPrince Andrew went to visit him.\n\nIt was now hot spring weather. The whole forest was already clothed in\ngreen. It was dusty and so hot that on passing near water one longed to\nbathe.\n\nPrince Andrew, depressed and preoccupied with the business about which\nhe had to speak to the Marshal, was driving up the avenue in the grounds\nof the Rostovs' house at Otradnoe. He heard merry girlish cries behind\nsome trees on the right and saw a group of girls running to cross the\npath of his caleche. Ahead of the rest and nearer to him ran a dark-\nhaired, remarkably slim, pretty girl in a yellow chintz dress, with a\nwhite handkerchief on her head from under which loose locks of hair\nescaped. The girl was shouting something but, seeing that he was a\nstranger, ran back laughing without looking at him.\n\nSuddenly, he did not know why, he felt a pang. The day was so beautiful,\nthe sun so bright, everything around so gay, but that slim pretty girl\ndid not know, or wish to know, of his existence and was contented and\ncheerful in her own separate--probably foolish--but bright and happy\nlife. \"What is she so glad about? What is she thinking of? Not of the\nmilitary regulations or of the arrangement of the Ryazan serfs'\nquitrents. Of what is she thinking? Why is she so happy?\" Prince Andrew\nasked himself with instinctive curiosity.\n\nIn 1809 Count Ilya Rostov was living at Otradnoe just as he had done in\nformer years, that is, entertaining almost the whole province with\nhunts, theatricals, dinners, and music. He was glad to see Prince\nAndrew, as he was to see any new visitor, and insisted on his staying\nthe night.\n\nDuring the dull day, in the course of which he was entertained by his\nelderly hosts and by the more important of the visitors (the old count's\nhouse was crowded on account of an approaching name day), Prince Andrew\nrepeatedly glanced at Natasha, gay and laughing among the younger\nmembers of the company, and asked himself each time, \"What is she\nthinking about? Why is she so glad?\"\n\nThat night, alone in new surroundings, he was long unable to sleep. He\nread awhile and then put out his candle, but relit it. It was hot in the\nroom, the inside shutters of which were closed. He was cross with the\nstupid old man (as he called Rostov), who had made him stay by assuring\nhim that some necessary documents had not yet arrived from town, and he\nwas vexed with himself for having stayed.\n\nHe got up and went to the window to open it. As soon as he opened the\nshutters the moonlight, as if it had long been watching for this, burst\ninto the room. He opened the casement. The night was fresh, bright, and\nvery still. Just before the window was a row of pollard trees, looking\nblack on one side and with a silvery light on the other. Beneath the\ntrees grew some kind of lush, wet, bushy vegetation with silver-lit\nleaves and stems here and there. Farther back beyond the dark trees a\nroof glittered with dew, to the right was a leafy tree with brilliantly\nwhite trunk and branches, and above it shone the moon, nearly at its\nfull, in a pale, almost starless, spring sky. Prince Andrew leaned his\nelbows on the window ledge and his eyes rested on that sky.\n\nHis room was on the first floor. Those in the rooms above were also\nawake. He heard female voices overhead.\n\n\"Just once more,\" said a girlish voice above him which Prince Andrew\nrecognized at once.\n\n\"But when are you coming to bed?\" replied another voice.\n\n\"I won't, I can't sleep, what's the use? Come now for the last time.\"\n\n\nTwo girlish voices sang a musical passage--the end of some song.\n\n\"Oh, how lovely! Now go to sleep, and there's an end of it.\"\n\n\"You go to sleep, but I can't,\" said the first voice, coming nearer to\nthe window. She was evidently leaning right out, for the rustle of her\ndress and even her breathing could be heard. Everything was stone-still,\nlike the moon and its light and the shadows. Prince Andrew, too, dared\nnot stir, for fear of betraying his unintentional presence.\n\n\"Sonya! Sonya!\" he again heard the first speaker. \"Oh, how can you\nsleep? Only look how glorious it is! Ah, how glorious! Do wake up,\nSonya!\" she said almost with tears in her voice. \"There never, never was\nsuch a lovely night before!\"\n\nSonya made some reluctant reply.\n\n\"Do just come and see what a moon!... Oh, how lovely! Come here....\nDarling, sweetheart, come here! There, you see? I feel like sitting down\non my heels, putting my arms round my knees like this, straining tight,\nas tight as possible, and flying away! Like this....\"\n\n\"Take care, you'll fall out.\"\n\nHe heard the sound of a scuffle and Sonya's disapproving voice: \"It's\npast one o'clock.\"\n\n\"Oh, you only spoil things for me. All right, go, go!\"\n\nAgain all was silent, but Prince Andrew knew she was still sitting\nthere. From time to time he heard a soft rustle and at times a sigh.\n\n\"O God, O God! What does it mean?\" she suddenly exclaimed. \"To bed then,\nif it must be!\" and she slammed the casement.\n\n\"For her I might as well not exist!\" thought Prince Andrew while he\nlistened to her voice, for some reason expecting yet fearing that she\nmight say something about him. \"There she is again! As if it were on\npurpose,\" thought he.\n\nIn his soul there suddenly arose such an unexpected turmoil of youthful\nthoughts and hopes, contrary to the whole tenor of his life, that unable\nto explain his condition to himself he lay down and fell asleep at once.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nNext morning, having taken leave of no one but the count, and not\nwaiting for the ladies to appear, Prince Andrew set off for home.\n\nIt was already the beginning of June when on his return journey he drove\ninto the birch forest where the gnarled old oak had made so strange and\nmemorable an impression on him. In the forest the harness bells sounded\nyet more muffled than they had done six weeks before, for now all was\nthick, shady, and dense, and the young firs dotted about in the forest\ndid not jar on the general beauty but, lending themselves to the mood\naround, were delicately green with fluffy young shoots.\n\nThe whole day had been hot. Somewhere a storm was gathering, but only a\nsmall cloud had scattered some raindrops lightly, sprinkling the road\nand the sappy leaves. The left side of the forest was dark in the shade,\nthe right side glittered in the sunlight, wet and shiny and scarcely\nswayed by the breeze. Everything was in blossom, the nightingales\ntrilled, and their voices reverberated now near, now far away.\n\n\"Yes, here in this forest was that oak with which I agreed,\" thought\nPrince Andrew. \"But where is it?\" he again wondered, gazing at the left\nside of the road, and without recognizing it he looked with admiration\nat the very oak he sought. The old oak, quite transfigured, spreading\nout a canopy of sappy dark-green foliage, stood rapt and slightly\ntrembling in the rays of the evening sun. Neither gnarled fingers nor\nold scars nor old doubts and sorrows were any of them in evidence now.\nThrough the hard century-old bark, even where there were no twigs,\nleaves had sprouted such as one could hardly believe the old veteran\ncould have produced.\n\n\"Yes, it is the same oak,\" thought Prince Andrew, and all at once he was\nseized by an unreasoning springtime feeling of joy and renewal. All the\nbest moments of his life suddenly rose to his memory. Austerlitz with\nthe lofty heavens, his wife's dead reproachful face, Pierre at the\nferry, that girl thrilled by the beauty of the night, and that night\nitself and the moon, and.... all this rushed suddenly to his mind.\n\n\"No, life is not over at thirty-one!\" Prince Andrew suddenly decided\nfinally and decisively. \"It is not enough for me to know what I have in\nme--everyone must know it: Pierre, and that young girl who wanted to fly\naway into the sky, everyone must know me, so that my life may not be\nlived for myself alone while others live so apart from it, but so that\nit may be reflected in them all, and they and I may live in harmony!\"\n\nOn reaching home Prince Andrew decided to go to Petersburg that autumn\nand found all sorts of reasons for this decision. A whole series of\nsensible and logical considerations showing it to be essential for him\nto go to Petersburg, and even to re-enter the service, kept springing up\nin his mind. He could not now understand how he could ever even have\ndoubted the necessity of taking an active share in life, just as a month\nbefore he had not understood how the idea of leaving the quiet country\ncould ever enter his head. It now seemed clear to him that all his\nexperience of life must be senselessly wasted unless he applied it to\nsome kind of work and again played an active part in life. He did not\neven remember how formerly, on the strength of similar wretched logical\narguments, it had seemed obvious that he would be degrading himself if\nhe now, after the lessons he had had in life, allowed himself to believe\nin the possibility of being useful and in the possibility of happiness\nor love. Now reason suggested quite the opposite. After that journey to\nRyazan he found the country dull; his former pursuits no longer\ninterested him, and often when sitting alone in his study he got up,\nwent to the mirror, and gazed a long time at his own face. Then he would\nturn away to the portrait of his dead Lise, who with hair curled a la\ngrecque looked tenderly and gaily at him out of the gilt frame. She did\nnot now say those former terrible words to him, but looked simply,\nmerrily, and inquisitively at him. And Prince Andrew, crossing his arms\nbehind him, long paced the room, now frowning, now smiling, as he\nreflected on those irrational, inexpressible thoughts, secret as a\ncrime, which altered his whole life and were connected with Pierre, with\nfame, with the girl at the window, the oak, and woman's beauty and love.\nAnd if anyone came into his room at such moments he was particularly\ncold, stern, and above all unpleasantly logical.\n\n\"My dear,\" Princess Mary entering at such a moment would say, \"little\nNicholas can't go out today, it's very cold.\"\n\n\"If it were hot,\" Prince Andrew would reply at such times very dryly to\nhis sister, \"he could go out in his smock, but as it is cold he must\nwear warm clothes, which were designed for that purpose. That is what\nfollows from the fact that it is cold; and not that a child who needs\nfresh air should remain at home,\" he would add with extreme logic, as if\npunishing someone for those secret illogical emotions that stirred\nwithin him.\n\nAt such moments Princess Mary would think how intellectual work dries\nmen up.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nPrince Andrew arrived in Petersburg in August, 1809. It was the time\nwhen the youthful Speranski was at the zenith of his fame and his\nreforms were being pushed forward with the greatest energy. That same\nAugust the Emperor was thrown from his caleche, injured his leg, and\nremained three weeks at Peterhof, receiving Speranski every day and no\none else. At that time the two famous decrees were being prepared that\nso agitated society--abolishing court ranks and introducing examinations\nto qualify for the grades of Collegiate Assessor and State Councilor--\nand not merely these but a whole state constitution, intended to change\nthe existing order of government in Russia: legal, administrative, and\nfinancial, from the Council of State down to the district tribunals. Now\nthose vague liberal dreams with which the Emperor Alexander had ascended\nthe throne, and which he had tried to put into effect with the aid of\nhis associates, Czartoryski, Novosiltsev, Kochubey, and Strogonov--whom\nhe himself in jest had called his Comite de salut public--were taking\nshape and being realized.\n\nNow all these men were replaced by Speranski on the civil side, and\nArakcheev on the military. Soon after his arrival Prince Andrew, as a\ngentleman of the chamber, presented himself at court and at a levee. The\nEmperor, though he met him twice, did not favor him with a single word.\nIt had always seemed to Prince Andrew before that he was antipathetic to\nthe Emperor and that the latter disliked his face and personality\ngenerally, and in the cold, repellent glance the Emperor gave him, he\nnow found further confirmation of this surmise. The courtiers explained\nthe Emperor's neglect of him by His Majesty's displeasure at Bolkonski's\nnot having served since 1805.\n\n\"I know myself that one cannot help one's sympathies and antipathies,\"\nthought Prince Andrew, \"so it will not do to present my proposal for the\nreform of the army regulations to the Emperor personally, but the\nproject will speak for itself.\"\n\nHe mentioned what he had written to an old field marshal, a friend of\nhis father's. The field marshal made an appointment to see him, received\nhim graciously, and promised to inform the Emperor. A few days later\nPrince Andrew received notice that he was to go to see the Minister of\nWar, Count Arakcheev.\n\nOn the appointed day Prince Andrew entered Count Arakcheev's waiting\nroom at nine in the morning.\n\nHe did not know Arakcheev personally, had never seen him, and all he had\nheard of him inspired him with but little respect for the man.\n\n\"He is Minister of War, a man trusted by the Emperor, and I need not\nconcern myself about his personal qualities: he has been commissioned to\nconsider my project, so he alone can get it adopted,\" thought Prince\nAndrew as he waited among a number of important and unimportant people\nin Count Arakcheev's waiting room.\n\nDuring his service, chiefly as an adjutant, Prince Andrew had seen the\nanterooms of many important men, and the different types of such rooms\nwere well known to him. Count Arakcheev's anteroom had quite a special\ncharacter. The faces of the unimportant people awaiting their turn for\nan audience showed embarrassment and servility; the faces of those of\nhigher rank expressed a common feeling of awkwardness, covered by a mask\nof unconcern and ridicule of themselves, their situation, and the person\nfor whom they were waiting. Some walked thoughtfully up and down, others\nwhispered and laughed. Prince Andrew heard the nickname \"Sila\nAndreevich\" and the words, \"Uncle will give it to us hot,\" in reference\nto Count Arakcheev. One general (an important personage), evidently\nfeeling offended at having to wait so long, sat crossing and uncrossing\nhis legs and smiling contemptuously to himself.\n\nBut the moment the door opened one feeling alone appeared on all faces--\nthat of fear. Prince Andrew for the second time asked the adjutant on\nduty to take in his name, but received an ironical look and was told\nthat his turn would come in due course. After some others had been shown\nin and out of the minister's room by the adjutant on duty, an officer\nwho struck Prince Andrew by his humiliated and frightened air was\nadmitted at that terrible door. This officer's audience lasted a long\ntime. Then suddenly the grating sound of a harsh voice was heard from\nthe other side of the door, and the officer--with pale face and\ntrembling lips--came out and passed through the waiting room, clutching\nhis head.\n\nAfter this Prince Andrew was conducted to the door and the officer on\nduty said in a whisper, \"To the right, at the window.\"\n\nPrince Andrew entered a plain tidy room and saw at the table a man of\nforty with a long waist, a long closely cropped head, deep wrinkles,\nscowling brows above dull greenish-hazel eyes and an overhanging red\nnose. Arakcheev turned his head toward him without looking at him.\n\n\"What is your petition?\" asked Arakcheev.\n\n\"I am not petitioning, your excellency,\" returned Prince Andrew quietly.\n\nArakcheev's eyes turned toward him.\n\n\"Sit down,\" said he. \"Prince Bolkonski?\"\n\n\"I am not petitioning about anything. His Majesty the Emperor has\ndeigned to send your excellency a project submitted by me...\"\n\n\"You see, my dear sir, I have read your project,\" interrupted Arakcheev,\nuttering only the first words amiably and then--again without looking at\nPrince Andrew--relapsing gradually into a tone of grumbling contempt.\n\"You are proposing new military laws? There are many laws but no one to\ncarry out the old ones. Nowadays everybody designs laws, it is easier\nwriting than doing.\"\n\n\"I came at His Majesty the Emperor's wish to learn from your excellency\nhow you propose to deal with the memorandum I have presented,\" said\nPrince Andrew politely.\n\n\"I have endorsed a resolution on your memorandum and sent it to the\ncommittee. I do not approve of it,\" said Arakcheev, rising and taking a\npaper from his writing table. \"Here!\" and he handed it to Prince Andrew.\n\nAcross the paper was scrawled in pencil, without capital letters,\nmisspelled, and without punctuation: \"Unsoundly constructed because\nresembles an imitation of the French military code and from the Articles\nof War needlessly deviating.\"\n\n\"To what committee has the memorandum been referred?\" inquired Prince\nAndrew.\n\n\"To the Committee on Army Regulations, and I have recommended that your\nhonor should be appointed a member, but without a salary.\"\n\nPrince Andrew smiled.\n\n\"I don't want one.\"\n\n\"A member without salary,\" repeated Arakcheev. \"I have the honor... Eh!\nCall the next one! Who else is there?\" he shouted, bowing to Prince\nAndrew.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nWhile waiting for the announcement of his appointment to the committee\nPrince Andrew looked up his former acquaintances, particularly those he\nknew to be in power and whose aid he might need. In Petersburg he now\nexperienced the same feeling he had had on the eve of a battle, when\ntroubled by anxious curiosity and irresistibly attracted to the ruling\ncircles where the future, on which the fate of millions depended, was\nbeing shaped. From the irritation of the older men, the curiosity of the\nuninitiated, the reserve of the initiated, the hurry and preoccupation\nof everyone, and the innumerable committees and commissions of whose\nexistence he learned every day, he felt that now, in 1809, here in\nPetersburg a vast civil conflict was in preparation, the commander in\nchief of which was a mysterious person he did not know, but who was\nsupposed to be a man of genius--Speranski. And this movement of\nreconstruction of which Prince Andrew had a vague idea, and Speranski\nits chief promoter, began to interest him so keenly that the question of\nthe army regulations quickly receded to a secondary place in his\nconsciousness.\n\nPrince Andrew was most favorably placed to secure good reception in the\nhighest and most diverse Petersburg circles of the day. The reforming\nparty cordially welcomed and courted him, in the first place because he\nwas reputed to be clever and very well read, and secondly because by\nliberating his serfs he had obtained the reputation of being a liberal.\nThe party of the old and dissatisfied, who censured the innovations,\nturned to him expecting his sympathy in their disapproval of the\nreforms, simply because he was the son of his father. The feminine\nsociety world welcomed him gladly, because he was rich, distinguished, a\ngood match, and almost a newcomer, with a halo of romance on account of\nhis supposed death and the tragic loss of his wife. Besides this the\ngeneral opinion of all who had known him previously was that he had\ngreatly improved during these last five years, having softened and grown\nmore manly, lost his former affectation, pride, and contemptuous irony,\nand acquired the serenity that comes with years. People talked about\nhim, were interested in him, and wanted to meet him.\n\nThe day after his interview with Count Arakcheev, Prince Andrew spent\nthe evening at Count Kochubey's. He told the count of his interview with\nSila Andreevich (Kochubey spoke of Arakcheev by that nickname with the\nsame vague irony Prince Andrew had noticed in the Minister of War's\nanteroom).\n\n\"Mon cher, even in this case you can't do without Michael Mikhaylovich\nSperanski. He manages everything. I'll speak to him. He has promised to\ncome this evening.\"\n\n\"What has Speranski to do with the army regulations?\" asked Prince\nAndrew.\n\nKochubey shook his head smilingly, as if surprised at Bolkonski's\nsimplicity.\n\n\"We were talking to him about you a few days ago,\" Kochubey continued,\n\"and about your freed plowmen.\"\n\n\"Oh, is it you, Prince, who have freed your serfs?\" said an old man of\nCatherine's day, turning contemptuously toward Bolkonski.\n\n\"It was a small estate that brought in no profit,\" replied Prince\nAndrew, trying to extenuate his action so as not to irritate the old man\nuselessly.\n\n\"Afraid of being late...\" said the old man, looking at Kochubey.\n\n\"There's one thing I don't understand,\" he continued. \"Who will plow the\nland if they are set free? It is easy to write laws, but difficult to\nrule.... Just the same as now--I ask you, Count--who will be heads of\nthe departments when everybody has to pass examinations?\"\n\n\"Those who pass the examinations, I suppose,\" replied Kochubey, crossing\nhis legs and glancing round.\n\n\"Well, I have Pryanichnikov serving under me, a splendid man, a\npriceless man, but he's sixty. Is he to go up for examination?\"\n\n\"Yes, that's a difficulty, as education is not at all general, but...\"\n\nCount Kochubey did not finish. He rose, took Prince Andrew by the arm,\nand went to meet a tall, bald, fair man of about forty with a large open\nforehead and a long face of unusual and peculiar whiteness, who was just\nentering. The newcomer wore a blue swallow-tail coat with a cross\nsuspended from his neck and a star on his left breast. It was Speranski.\nPrince Andrew recognized him at once, and felt a throb within him, as\nhappens at critical moments of life. Whether it was from respect, envy,\nor anticipation, he did not know. Speranski's whole figure was of a\npeculiar type that made him easily recognizable. In the society in which\nPrince Andrew lived he had never seen anyone who together with awkward\nand clumsy gestures possessed such calmness and self-assurance; he had\nnever seen so resolute yet gentle an expression as that in those half-\nclosed, rather humid eyes, or so firm a smile that expressed nothing;\nnor had he heard such a refined, smooth, soft voice; above all he had\nnever seen such delicate whiteness of face or hands--hands which were\nbroad, but very plump, soft, and white. Such whiteness and softness\nPrince Andrew had only seen on the faces of soldiers who had been long\nin hospital. This was Speranski, Secretary of State, reporter to the\nEmperor and his companion at Erfurt, where he had more than once met and\ntalked with Napoleon.\n\nSperanski did not shift his eyes from one face to another as people\ninvoluntarily do on entering a large company and was in no hurry to\nspeak. He spoke slowly, with assurance that he would be listened to, and\nhe looked only at the person with whom he was conversing.\n\nPrince Andrew followed Speranski's every word and movement with\nparticular attention. As happens to some people, especially to men who\njudge those near to them severely, he always on meeting anyone new--\nespecially anyone whom, like Speranski, he knew by reputation--expected\nto discover in him the perfection of human qualities.\n\nSperanski told Kochubey he was sorry he had been unable to come sooner\nas he had been detained at the palace. He did not say that the Emperor\nhad kept him, and Prince Andrew noticed this affectation of modesty.\nWhen Kochubey introduced Prince Andrew, Speranski slowly turned his eyes\nto Bolkonski with his customary smile and looked at him in silence.\n\n\"I am very glad to make your acquaintance. I had heard of you, as\neveryone has,\" he said after a pause.\n\nKochubey said a few words about the reception Arakcheev had given\nBolkonski. Speranski smiled more markedly.\n\n\"The chairman of the Committee on Army Regulations is my good friend\nMonsieur Magnitski,\" he said, fully articulating every word and\nsyllable, \"and if you like I can put you in touch with him.\" He paused\nat the full stop. \"I hope you will find him sympathetic and ready to co-\noperate in promoting all that is reasonable.\"\n\nA circle soon formed round Speranski, and the old man who had talked\nabout his subordinate Pryanichnikov addressed a question to him.\n\nPrince Andrew without joining in the conversation watched every movement\nof Speranski's: this man, not long since an insignificant divinity\nstudent, who now, Bolkonski thought, held in his hands--those plump\nwhite hands--the fate of Russia. Prince Andrew was struck by the\nextraordinarily disdainful composure with which Speranski answered the\nold man. He appeared to address condescending words to him from an\nimmeasurable height. When the old man began to speak too loud, Speranski\nsmiled and said he could not judge of the advantage or disadvantage of\nwhat pleased the sovereign.\n\nHaving talked for a little while in the general circle, Speranski rose\nand coming up to Prince Andrew took him along to the other end of the\nroom. It was clear that he thought it necessary to interest himself in\nBolkonski.\n\n\"I had no chance to talk with you, Prince, during the animated\nconversation in which that venerable gentleman involved me,\" he said\nwith a mildly contemptuous smile, as if intimating by that smile that he\nand Prince Andrew understood the insignificance of the people with whom\nhe had just been talking. This flattered Prince Andrew. \"I have known of\nyou for a long time: first from your action with regard to your serfs, a\nfirst example, of which it is very desirable that there should be more\nimitators; and secondly because you are one of those gentlemen of the\nchamber who have not considered themselves offended by the new decree\nconcerning the ranks allotted to courtiers, which is causing so much\ngossip and tittle-tattle.\"\n\n\"No,\" said Prince Andrew, \"my father did not wish me to take advantage\nof the privilege. I began the service from the lower grade.\"\n\n\"Your father, a man of the last century, evidently stands above our\ncontemporaries who so condemn this measure which merely reestablishes\nnatural justice.\"\n\n\"I think, however, that these condemnations have some ground,\" returned\nPrince Andrew, trying to resist Speranski's influence, of which he began\nto be conscious. He did not like to agree with him in everything and\nfelt a wish to contradict. Though he usually spoke easily and well, he\nfelt a difficulty in expressing himself now while talking with\nSperanski. He was too much absorbed in observing the famous man's\npersonality.\n\n\"Grounds of personal ambition maybe,\" Speranski put in quietly.\n\n\"And of state interest to some extent,\" said Prince Andrew.\n\n\"What do you mean?\" asked Speranski quietly, lowering his eyes.\n\n\"I am an admirer of Montesquieu,\" replied Prince Andrew, \"and his idea\nthat le principe des monarchies est l'honneur me parait incontestable.\nCertains droits et privileges de la noblesse me paraissent etre des\nmoyens de soutenir ce sentiment.\" *\n\n\n* \"The principle of monarchies is honor seems to me incontestable.\nCertain rights and privileges for the aristocracy appear to me a means\nof maintaining that sentiment.\"\n\nThe smile vanished from Speranski's white face, which was much improved\nby the change. Probably Prince Andrew's thought interested him.\n\n\"Si vous envisagez la question sous ce point de vue,\" * he began,\npronouncing French with evident difficulty, and speaking even slower\nthan in Russian but quite calmly.\n\n\n* \"If you regard the question from that point of view.\"\n\nSperanski went on to say that honor, l'honneur, cannot be upheld by\nprivileges harmful to the service; that honor, l'honneur, is either a\nnegative concept of not doing what is blameworthy or it is a source of\nemulation in pursuit of commendation and rewards, which recognize it.\nHis arguments were concise, simple, and clear.\n\n\"An institution upholding honor, the source of emulation, is one similar\nto the Legion d'honneur of the great Emperor Napoleon, not harmful but\nhelpful to the success of the service, but not a class or court\nprivilege.\"\n\n\"I do not dispute that, but it cannot be denied that court privileges\nhave attained the same end,\" returned Prince Andrew. \"Every courtier\nconsiders himself bound to maintain his position worthily.\"\n\n\"Yet you do not care to avail yourself of the privilege, Prince,\" said\nSperanski, indicating by a smile that he wished to finish amiably an\nargument which was embarrassing for his companion. \"If you will do me\nthe honor of calling on me on Wednesday,\" he added, \"I will, after\ntalking with Magnitski, let you know what may interest you, and shall\nalso have the pleasure of a more detailed chat with you.\"\n\nClosing his eyes, he bowed a la francaise, without taking leave, and\ntrying to attract as little attention as possible, he left the room.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nDuring the first weeks of his stay in Petersburg Prince Andrew felt the\nwhole trend of thought he had formed during his life of seclusion quite\novershadowed by the trifling cares that engrossed him in that city.\n\nOn returning home in the evening he would jot down in his notebook four\nor five necessary calls or appointments for certain hours. The mechanism\nof life, the arrangement of the day so as to be in time everywhere,\nabsorbed the greater part of his vital energy. He did nothing, did not\neven think or find time to think, but only talked, and talked\nsuccessfully, of what he had thought while in the country.\n\nHe sometimes noticed with dissatisfaction that he repeated the same\nremark on the same day in different circles. But he was so busy for\nwhole days together that he had no time to notice that he was thinking\nof nothing.\n\nAs he had done on their first meeting at Kochubey's, Speranski produced\na strong impression on Prince Andrew on the Wednesday, when he received\nhim tête-à-tête at his own house and talked to him long and\nconfidentially.\n\nTo Bolkonski so many people appeared contemptible and insignificant\ncreatures, and he so longed to find in someone the living ideal of that\nperfection toward which he strove, that he readily believed that in\nSperanski he had found this ideal of a perfectly rational and virtuous\nman. Had Speranski sprung from the same class as himself and possessed\nthe same breeding and traditions, Bolkonski would soon have discovered\nhis weak, human, unheroic sides; but as it was, Speranski's strange and\nlogical turn of mind inspired him with respect all the more because he\ndid not quite understand him. Moreover, Speranski, either because he\nappreciated the other's capacity or because he considered it necessary\nto win him to his side, showed off his dispassionate calm reasonableness\nbefore Prince Andrew and flattered him with that subtle flattery which\ngoes hand in hand with self-assurance and consists in a tacit assumption\nthat one's companion is the only man besides oneself capable of\nunderstanding the folly of the rest of mankind and the reasonableness\nand profundity of one's own ideas.\n\nDuring their long conversation on Wednesday evening, Speranski more than\nonce remarked: \"We regard everything that is above the common level of\nrooted custom...\" or, with a smile: \"But we want the wolves to be fed\nand the sheep to be safe...\" or: \"They cannot understand this...\" and\nall in a way that seemed to say: \"We, you and I, understand what they\nare and who we are.\"\n\nThis first long conversation with Speranski only strengthened in Prince\nAndrew the feeling he had experienced toward him at their first meeting.\nHe saw in him a remarkable, clear-thinking man of vast intellect who by\nhis energy and persistence had attained power, which he was using solely\nfor the welfare of Russia. In Prince Andrew's eyes Speranski was the man\nhe would himself have wished to be--one who explained all the facts of\nlife reasonably, considered important only what was rational, and was\ncapable of applying the standard of reason to everything. Everything\nseemed so simple and clear in Speranski's exposition that Prince Andrew\ninvoluntarily agreed with him about everything. If he replied and\nargued, it was only because he wished to maintain his independence and\nnot submit to Speranski's opinions entirely. Everything was right and\neverything was as it should be: only one thing disconcerted Prince\nAndrew. This was Speranski's cold, mirrorlike look, which did not allow\none to penetrate to his soul, and his delicate white hands, which Prince\nAndrew involuntarily watched as one does watch the hands of those who\npossess power. This mirrorlike gaze and those delicate hands irritated\nPrince Andrew, he knew not why. He was unpleasantly struck, too, by the\nexcessive contempt for others that he observed in Speranski, and by the\ndiversity of lines of argument he used to support his opinions. He made\nuse of every kind of mental device, except analogy, and passed too\nboldly, it seemed to Prince Andrew, from one to another. Now he would\ntake up the position of a practical man and condemn dreamers; now that\nof a satirist, and laugh ironically at his opponents; now grow severely\nlogical, or suddenly rise to the realm of metaphysics. (This last\nresource was one he very frequently employed.) He would transfer a\nquestion to metaphysical heights, pass on to definitions of space, time,\nand thought, and, having deduced the refutation he needed, would again\ndescend to the level of the original discussion.\n\nIn general the trait of Speranski's mentality which struck Prince Andrew\nmost was his absolute and unshakable belief in the power and authority\nof reason. It was evident that the thought could never occur to him\nwhich to Prince Andrew seemed so natural, namely, that it is after all\nimpossible to express all one thinks; and that he had never felt the\ndoubt, \"Is not all I think and believe nonsense?\" And it was just this\npeculiarity of Speranski's mind that particularly attracted Prince\nAndrew.\n\nDuring the first period of their acquaintance Bolkonski felt a\npassionate admiration for him similar to that which he had once felt for\nBonaparte. The fact that Speranski was the son of a village priest, and\nthat stupid people might meanly despise him on account of his humble\norigin (as in fact many did), caused Prince Andrew to cherish his\nsentiment for him the more, and unconsciously to strengthen it.\n\nOn that first evening Bolkonski spent with him, having mentioned the\nCommission for the Revision of the Code of Laws, Speranski told him\nsarcastically that the Commission had existed for a hundred and fifty\nyears, had cost millions, and had done nothing except that Rosenkampf\nhad stuck labels on the corresponding paragraphs of the different codes.\n\n\"And that is all the state has for the millions it has spent,\" said he.\n\"We want to give the Senate new juridical powers, but we have no laws.\nThat is why it is a sin for men like you, Prince, not to serve in these\ntimes!\"\n\nPrince Andrew said that for that work an education in jurisprudence was\nneeded which he did not possess.\n\n\"But nobody possesses it, so what would you have? It is a vicious circle\nfrom which we must break a way out.\"\n\nA week later Prince Andrew was a member of the Committee on Army\nRegulations and--what he had not at all expected--was chairman of a\nsection of the committee for the revision of the laws. At Speranski's\nrequest he took the first part of the Civil Code that was being drawn up\nand, with the aid of the Code Napoleon and the Institutes of Justinian,\nhe worked at formulating the section on Personal Rights.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nNearly two years before this, in 1808, Pierre on returning to Petersburg\nafter visiting his estates had involuntarily found himself in a leading\nposition among the Petersburg Freemasons. He arranged dining and funeral\nlodge meetings, enrolled new members, and busied himself uniting various\nlodges and acquiring authentic charters. He gave money for the erection\nof temples and supplemented as far as he could the collection of alms,\nin regard to which the majority of members were stingy and irregular. He\nsupported almost singlehanded a poorhouse the order had founded in\nPetersburg.\n\nHis life meanwhile continued as before, with the same infatuations and\ndissipations. He liked to dine and drink well, and though he considered\nit immoral and humiliating could not resist the temptations of the\nbachelor circles in which he moved.\n\nAmid the turmoil of his activities and distractions, however, Pierre at\nthe end of a year began to feel that the more firmly he tried to rest\nupon it, the more masonic ground on which he stood gave way under him.\nAt the same time he felt that the deeper the ground sank under him the\ncloser bound he involuntarily became to the order. When he had joined\nthe Freemasons he had experienced the feeling of one who confidently\nsteps onto the smooth surface of a bog. When he put his foot down it\nsank in. To make quite sure of the firmness of the ground, he put his\nother foot down and sank deeper still, became stuck in it, and\ninvoluntarily waded knee-deep in the bog.\n\nJoseph Alexeevich was not in Petersburg--he had of late stood aside from\nthe affairs of the Petersburg lodges, and lived almost entirely in\nMoscow. All the members of the lodges were men Pierre knew in ordinary\nlife, and it was difficult for him to regard them merely as Brothers in\nFreemasonry and not as Prince B. or Ivan Vasilevich D., whom he knew in\nsociety mostly as weak and insignificant men. Under the masonic aprons\nand insignia he saw the uniforms and decorations at which they aimed in\nordinary life. Often after collecting alms, and reckoning up twenty to\nthirty rubles received for the most part in promises from a dozen\nmembers, of whom half were as well able to pay as himself, Pierre\nremembered the masonic vow in which each Brother promised to devote all\nhis belongings to his neighbor, and doubts on which he tried not to\ndwell arose in his soul.\n\nHe divided the Brothers he knew into four categories. In the first he\nput those who did not take an active part in the affairs of the lodges\nor in human affairs, but were exclusively occupied with the mystical\nscience of the order: with questions of the threefold designation of\nGod, the three primordial elements--sulphur, mercury, and salt--or the\nmeaning of the square and all the various figures of the temple of\nSolomon. Pierre respected this class of Brothers to which the elder ones\nchiefly belonged, including, Pierre thought, Joseph Alexeevich himself,\nbut he did not share their interests. His heart was not in the mystical\naspect of Freemasonry.\n\nIn the second category Pierre reckoned himself and others like him,\nseeking and vacillating, who had not yet found in Freemasonry a straight\nand comprehensible path, but hoped to do so.\n\nIn the third category he included those Brothers (the majority) who saw\nnothing in Freemasonry but the external forms and ceremonies, and prized\nthe strict performance of these forms without troubling about their\npurport or significance. Such were Willarski and even the Grand Master\nof the principal lodge.\n\nFinally, to the fourth category also a great many Brothers belonged,\nparticularly those who had lately joined. These according to Pierre's\nobservations were men who had no belief in anything, nor desire for\nanything, but joined the Freemasons merely to associate with the wealthy\nyoung Brothers who were influential through their connections or rank,\nand of whom there were very many in the lodge.\n\nPierre began to feel dissatisfied with what he was doing. Freemasonry,\nat any rate as he saw it here, sometimes seemed to him based merely on\nexternals. He did not think of doubting Freemasonry itself, but\nsuspected that Russian Masonry had taken a wrong path and deviated from\nits original principles. And so toward the end of the year he went\nabroad to be initiated into the higher secrets of the order.\n\nIn the summer of 1809 Pierre returned to Petersburg. Our Freemasons knew\nfrom correspondence with those abroad that Bezukhov had obtained the\nconfidence of many highly placed persons, had been initiated into many\nmysteries, had been raised to a higher grade, and was bringing back with\nhim much that might conduce to the advantage of the masonic cause in\nRussia. The Petersburg Freemasons all came to see him, tried to\ningratiate themselves with him, and it seemed to them all that he was\npreparing something for them and concealing it.\n\nA solemn meeting of the lodge of the second degree was convened, at\nwhich Pierre promised to communicate to the Petersburg Brothers what he\nhad to deliver to them from the highest leaders of their order. The\nmeeting was a full one. After the usual ceremonies Pierre rose and began\nhis address.\n\n\"Dear Brothers,\" he began, blushing and stammering, with a written\nspeech in his hand, \"it is not sufficient to observe our mysteries in\nthe seclusion of our lodge--we must act--act! We are drowsing, but we\nmust act.\" Pierre raised his notebook and began to read.\n\n\"For the dissemination of pure truth and to secure the triumph of\nvirtue,\" he read, \"we must cleanse men from prejudice, diffuse\nprinciples in harmony with the spirit of the times, undertake the\neducation of the young, unite ourselves in indissoluble bonds with the\nwisest men, boldly yet prudently overcome superstitions, infidelity, and\nfolly, and form of those devoted to us a body linked together by unity\nof purpose and possessed of authority and power.\n\n\"To attain this end we must secure a preponderance of virtue over vice\nand must endeavor to secure that the honest man may, even in this world,\nreceive a lasting reward for his virtue. But in these great endeavors we\nare gravely hampered by the political institutions of today. What is to\nbe done in these circumstances? To favor revolutions, overthrow\neverything, repel force by force?... No! We are very far from that.\nEvery violent reform deserves censure, for it quite fails to remedy evil\nwhile men remain what they are, and also because wisdom needs no\nviolence.\n\n\"The whole plan of our order should be based on the idea of preparing\nmen of firmness and virtue bound together by unity of conviction--aiming\nat the punishment of vice and folly, and patronizing talent and virtue:\nraising worthy men from the dust and attaching them to our Brotherhood.\nOnly then will our order have the power unobtrusively to bind the hands\nof the protectors of disorder and to control them without their being\naware of it. In a word, we must found a form of government holding\nuniversal sway, which should be diffused over the whole world without\ndestroying the bonds of citizenship, and beside which all other\ngovernments can continue in their customary course and do everything\nexcept what impedes the great aim of our order, which is to obtain for\nvirtue the victory over vice. This aim was that of Christianity itself.\nIt taught men to be wise and good and for their own benefit to follow\nthe example and instruction of the best and wisest men.\n\n\"At that time, when everything was plunged in darkness, preaching alone\nwas of course sufficient. The novelty of Truth endowed her with special\nstrength, but now we need much more powerful methods. It is now\nnecessary that man, governed by his senses, should find in virtue a\ncharm palpable to those senses. It is impossible to eradicate the\npassions; but we must strive to direct them to a noble aim, and it is\ntherefore necessary that everyone should be able to satisfy his passions\nwithin the limits of virtue. Our order should provide means to that end.\n\n\"As soon as we have a certain number of worthy men in every state, each\nof them again training two others and all being closely united,\neverything will be possible for our order, which has already in secret\naccomplished much for the welfare of mankind.\"\n\nThis speech not only made a strong impression, but created excitement in\nthe lodge. The majority of the Brothers, seeing in it dangerous designs\nof Illuminism, * met it with a coldness that surprised Pierre. The Grand\nMaster began answering him, and Pierre began developing his views with\nmore and more warmth. It was long since there had been so stormy a\nmeeting. Parties were formed, some accusing Pierre of Illuminism, others\nsupporting him. At that meeting he was struck for the first time by the\nendless variety of men's minds, which prevents a truth from ever\npresenting itself identically to two persons. Even those members who\nseemed to be on his side understood him in their own way with\nlimitations and alterations he could not agree to, as what he always\nwanted most was to convey his thought to others just as he himself\nunderstood it.\n\n\n* The Illuminati sought to substitute republican for monarchical\ninstitutions.\n\nAt the end of the meeting the Grand Master with irony and ill-will\nreproved Bezukhov for his vehemence and said it was not love of virtue\nalone, but also a love of strife that had moved him in the dispute.\nPierre did not answer him and asked briefly whether his proposal would\nbe accepted. He was told that it would not, and without waiting for the\nusual formalities he left the lodge and went home.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nAgain Pierre was overtaken by the depression he so dreaded. For three\ndays after the delivery of his speech at the lodge he lay on a sofa at\nhome receiving no one and going nowhere.\n\nIt was just then that he received a letter from his wife, who implored\nhim to see her, telling him how grieved she was about him and how she\nwished to devote her whole life to him.\n\nAt the end of the letter she informed him that in a few days she would\nreturn to Petersburg from abroad.\n\nFollowing this letter one of the masonic Brothers whom Pierre respected\nless than the others forced his way in to see him and, turning the\nconversation upon Pierre's matrimonial affairs, by way of fraternal\nadvice expressed the opinion that his severity to his wife was wrong and\nthat he was neglecting one of the first rules of Freemasonry by not\nforgiving the penitent.\n\nAt the same time his mother-in-law, Prince Vasili's wife, sent to him\nimploring him to come if only for a few minutes to discuss a most\nimportant matter. Pierre saw that there was a conspiracy against him and\nthat they wanted to reunite him with his wife, and in the mood he then\nwas, this was not even unpleasant to him. Nothing mattered to him.\nNothing in life seemed to him of much importance, and under the\ninfluence of the depression that possessed him he valued neither his\nliberty nor his resolution to punish his wife.\n\n\"No one is right and no one is to blame; so she too is not to blame,\" he\nthought.\n\nIf he did not at once give his consent to a reunion with his wife, it\nwas only because in his state of depression he did not feel able to take\nany step. Had his wife come to him, he would not have turned her away.\nCompared to what preoccupied him, was it not a matter of indifference\nwhether he lived with his wife or not?\n\nWithout replying either to his wife or his mother-in-law, Pierre late\none night prepared for a journey and started for Moscow to see Joseph\nAlexeevich. This is what he noted in his diary:\n\nMoscow, 17th November\n\nI have just returned from my benefactor, and hasten to write down what I\nhave experienced. Joseph Alexeevich is living poorly and has for three\nyears been suffering from a painful disease of the bladder. No one has\never heard him utter a groan or a word of complaint. From morning till\nlate at night, except when he eats his very plain food, he is working at\nscience. He received me graciously and made me sit down on the bed on\nwhich he lay. I made the sign of the Knights of the East and of\nJerusalem, and he responded in the same manner, asking me with a mild\nsmile what I had learned and gained in the Prussian and Scottish lodges.\nI told him everything as best I could, and told him what I had proposed\nto our Petersburg lodge, of the bad reception I had encountered, and of\nmy rupture with the Brothers. Joseph Alexeevich, having remained silent\nand thoughtful for a good while, told me his view of the matter, which\nat once lit up for me my whole past and the future path I should follow.\nHe surprised me by asking whether I remembered the threefold aim of the\norder: (1) The preservation and study of the mystery. (2) The\npurification and reformation of oneself for its reception, and (3) The\nimprovement of the human race by striving for such purification. Which\nis the principal aim of these three? Certainly self-reformation and\nself-purification. Only to this aim can we always strive independently\nof circumstances. But at the same time just this aim demands the\ngreatest efforts of us; and so, led astray by pride, losing sight of\nthis aim, we occupy ourselves either with the mystery which in our\nimpurity we are unworthy to receive, or seek the reformation of the\nhuman race while ourselves setting an example of baseness and\nprofligacy. Illuminism is not a pure doctrine, just because it is\nattracted by social activity and puffed up by pride. On this ground\nJoseph Alexeevich condemned my speech and my whole activity, and in the\ndepth of my soul I agreed with him. Talking of my family affairs he said\nto me, \"the chief duty of a true Mason, as I have told you, lies in\nperfecting himself. We often think that by removing all the difficulties\nof our life we shall more quickly reach our aim, but on the contrary, my\ndear sir, it is only in the midst of worldly cares that we can attain\nour three chief aims: (1) Self-knowledge--for man can only know himself\nby comparison, (2) Self-perfecting, which can only be attained by\nconflict, and (3) The attainment of the chief virtue--love of death.\nOnly the vicissitudes of life can show us its vanity and develop our\ninnate love of death or of rebirth to a new life.\" These words are all\nthe more remarkable because, in spite of his great physical sufferings,\nJoseph Alexeevich is never weary of life though he loves death, for\nwhich--in spite of the purity and loftiness of his inner man--he does\nnot yet feel himself sufficiently prepared. My benefactor then explained\nto me fully the meaning of the Great Square of creation and pointed out\nto me that the numbers three and seven are the basis of everything. He\nadvised me not to avoid intercourse with the Petersburg Brothers, but to\ntake up only second-grade posts in the lodge, to try, while diverting\nthe Brothers from pride, to turn them toward the true path self-\nknowledge and self-perfecting. Besides this he advised me for myself\npersonally above all to keep a watch over myself, and to that end he\ngave me a notebook, the one I am now writing in and in which I will in\nfuture note down all my actions.\n\nPetersburg, 23rd November\n\nI am again living with my wife. My mother-in-law came to me in tears and\nsaid that Helene was here and that she implored me to hear her; that she\nwas innocent and unhappy at my desertion, and much more. I knew that if\nI once let myself see her I should not have strength to go on refusing\nwhat she wanted. In my perplexity I did not know whose aid and advice to\nseek. Had my benefactor been here he would have told me what to do. I\nwent to my room and reread Joseph Alexeevich's letters and recalled my\nconversations with him, and deduced from it all that I ought not to\nrefuse a supplicant, and ought to reach a helping hand to everyone--\nespecially to one so closely bound to me--and that I must bear my cross.\nBut if I forgive her for the sake of doing right, then let union with\nher have only a spiritual aim. That is what I decided, and what I wrote\nto Joseph Alexeevich. I told my wife that I begged her to forget the\npast, to forgive me whatever wrong I may have done her, and that I had\nnothing to forgive. It gave me joy to tell her this. She need not know\nhow hard it was for me to see her again. I have settled on the upper\nfloor of this big house and am experiencing a happy feeling of\nregeneration.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nAt that time, as always happens, the highest society that met at court\nand at the grand balls was divided into several circles, each with its\nown particular tone. The largest of these was the French circle of the\nNapoleonic alliance, the circle of Count Rumyantsev and Caulaincourt. In\nthis group Helene, as soon as she had settled in Petersburg with her\nhusband, took a very prominent place. She was visited by the members of\nthe French embassy and by many belonging to that circle and noted for\ntheir intellect and polished manners.\n\nHelene had been at Erfurt during the famous meeting of the Emperors and\nhad brought from there these connections with the Napoleonic\nnotabilities. At Erfurt her success had been brilliant. Napoleon himself\nhad noticed her in the theater and said of her: \"C'est un superbe\nanimal.\" * Her success as a beautiful and elegant woman did not surprise\nPierre, for she had become even handsomer than before. What did surprise\nhim was that during these last two years his wife had succeeded in\ngaining the reputation \"d' une femme charmante, aussi spirituelle que\nbelle.\" *(2) The distinguished Prince de Ligne wrote her eight-page\nletters. Bilibin saved up his epigrams to produce them in Countess\nBezukhova's presence. To be received in the Countess Bezukhova's salon\nwas regarded as a diploma of intellect. Young men read books before\nattending Helene's evenings, to have something to say in her salon, and\nsecretaries of the embassy, and even ambassadors, confided diplomatic\nsecrets to her, so that in a way Helene was a power. Pierre, who knew\nshe was very stupid, sometimes attended, with a strange feeling of\nperplexity and fear, her evenings and dinner parties, where politics,\npoetry, and philosophy were discussed. At these parties his feelings\nwere like those of a conjuror who always expects his trick to be found\nout at any moment. But whether because stupidity was just what was\nneeded to run such a salon, or because those who were deceived found\npleasure in the deception, at any rate it remained unexposed and Helene\nBezukhova's reputation as a lovely and clever woman became so firmly\nestablished that she could say the emptiest and stupidest things and\neverybody would go into raptures over every word of hers and look for a\nprofound meaning in it of which she herself had no conception.\n\n\n* \"That's a superb animal.\"\n\n* (2) \"Of a charming woman, as witty as she is lovely.\"\n\nPierre was just the husband needed for a brilliant society woman. He was\nthat absent-minded crank, a grand seigneur husband who was in no one's\nway, and far from spoiling the high tone and general impression of the\ndrawing room, he served, by the contrast he presented to her, as an\nadvantageous background to his elegant and tactful wife. Pierre during\nthe last two years, as a result of his continual absorption in abstract\ninterests and his sincere contempt for all else, had acquired in his\nwife's circle, which did not interest him, that air of unconcern,\nindifference, and benevolence toward all, which cannot be acquired\nartificially and therefore inspires involuntary respect. He entered his\nwife's drawing room as one enters a theater, was acquainted with\neverybody, equally pleased to see everyone, and equally indifferent to\nthem all. Sometimes he joined in a conversation which interested him\nand, regardless of whether any \"gentlemen of the embassy\" were present\nor not, lispingly expressed his views, which were sometimes not at all\nin accord with the accepted tone of the moment. But the general opinion\nconcerning the queer husband of \"the most distinguished woman in\nPetersburg\" was so well established that no one took his freaks\nseriously.\n\nAmong the many young men who frequented her house every day, Boris\nDrubetskoy, who had already achieved great success in the service, was\nthe most intimate friend of the Bezukhov household since Helene's return\nfrom Erfurt. Helene spoke of him as \"mon page\" and treated him like a\nchild. Her smile for him was the same as for everybody, but sometimes\nthat smile made Pierre uncomfortable. Toward him Boris behaved with a\nparticularly dignified and sad deference. This shade of deference also\ndisturbed Pierre. He had suffered so painfully three years before from\nthe mortification to which his wife had subjected him that he now\nprotected himself from the danger of its repetition, first by not being\na husband to his wife, and secondly by not allowing himself to suspect.\n\n\"No, now that she has become a bluestocking she has finally renounced\nher former infatuations,\" he told himself. \"There has never been an\ninstance of a bluestocking being carried away by affairs of the heart\"--\na statement which, though gathered from an unknown source, he believed\nimplicitly. Yet strange to say Boris' presence in his wife's drawing\nroom (and he was almost always there) had a physical effect upon Pierre;\nit constricted his limbs and destroyed the unconsciousness and freedom\nof his movements.\n\n\"What a strange antipathy,\" thought Pierre, \"yet I used to like him very\nmuch.\"\n\nIn the eyes of the world Pierre was a great gentleman, the rather blind\nand absurd husband of a distinguished wife, a clever crank who did\nnothing but harmed nobody and was a first-rate, good-natured fellow. But\na complex and difficult process of internal development was taking place\nall this time in Pierre's soul, revealing much to him and causing him\nmany spiritual doubts and joys.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nPierre went on with his diary, and this is what he wrote in it during\nthat time:\n\n24th November\n\nGot up at eight, read the Scriptures, then went to my duties. (By Joseph\nAlexeevich's advice Pierre had entered the service of the state and\nserved on one of the committees.) Returned home for dinner and dined\nalone--the countess had many visitors I do not like. I ate and drank\nmoderately and after dinner copied out some passages for the Brothers.\nIn the evening I went down to the countess and told a funny story about\nB., and only remembered that I ought not to have done so when everybody\nlaughed loudly at it.\n\nI am going to bed with a happy and tranquil mind. Great God, help me to\nwalk in Thy paths, (1) to conquer anger by calmness and deliberation,\n(2) to vanquish lust by self-restraint and repulsion, (3) to withdraw\nfrom worldliness, but not avoid (a) the service of the state, (b) family\nduties, (c) relations with my friends, and the management of my affairs.\n\n27th November\n\nI got up late. On waking I lay long in bed yielding to sloth. O God,\nhelp and strengthen me that I may walk in Thy ways! Read the Scriptures,\nbut without proper feeling. Brother Urusov came and we talked about\nworldly vanities. He told me of the Emperor's new projects. I began to\ncriticize them, but remembered my rules and my benefactor's words--that\na true Freemason should be a zealous worker for the state when his aid\nis required and a quiet onlooker when not called on to assist. My tongue\nis my enemy. Brothers G. V. and O. visited me and we had a preliminary\ntalk about the reception of a new Brother. They laid on me the duty of\nRhetor. I feel myself weak and unworthy. Then our talk turned to the\ninterpretation of the seven pillars and steps of the Temple, the seven\nsciences, the seven virtues, the seven vices, and the seven gifts of the\nHoly Spirit. Brother O. was very eloquent. In the evening the admission\ntook place. The new decoration of the Premises contributed much to the\nmagnificence of the spectacle. It was Boris Drubetskoy who was admitted.\nI nominated him and was the Rhetor. A strange feeling agitated me all\nthe time I was alone with him in the dark chamber. I caught myself\nharboring a feeling of hatred toward him which I vainly tried to\novercome. That is why I should really like to save him from evil and\nlead him into the path of truth, but evil thoughts of him did not leave\nme. It seemed to me that his object in entering the Brotherhood was\nmerely to be intimate and in favor with members of our lodge. Apart from\nthe fact that he had asked me several times whether N. and S. were\nmembers of our lodge (a question to which I could not reply) and that\naccording to my observation he is incapable of feeling respect for our\nholy order and is too preoccupied and satisfied with the outer man to\ndesire spiritual improvement, I had no cause to doubt him, but he seemed\nto me insincere, and all the time I stood alone with him in the dark\ntemple it seemed to me that he was smiling contemptuously at my words,\nand I wished really to stab his bare breast with the sword I held to it.\nI could not be eloquent, nor could I frankly mention my doubts to the\nBrothers and to the Grand Master. Great Architect of Nature, help me to\nfind the true path out of the labyrinth of lies!\n\n\nAfter this, three pages were left blank in the diary, and then the\nfollowing was written:\n\nI have had a long and instructive talk alone with Brother V., who\nadvised me to hold fast by Brother A. Though I am unworthy, much was\nrevealed to me. Adonai is the name of the creator of the world. Elohim\nis the name of the ruler of all. The third name is the name unutterable\nwhich means the All. Talks with Brother V. strengthen, refresh, and\nsupport me in the path of virtue. In his presence doubt has no place.\nThe distinction between the poor teachings of mundane science and our\nsacred all-embracing teaching is clear to me. Human sciences dissect\neverything to comprehend it, and kill everything to examine it. In the\nholy science of our order all is one, all is known in its entirety and\nlife. The Trinity--the three elements of matter--are sulphur, mercury,\nand salt. Sulphur is of an oily and fiery nature; in combination with\nsalt by its fiery nature it arouses a desire in the latter by means of\nwhich it attracts mercury, seizes it, holds it, and in combination\nproduces other bodies. Mercury is a fluid, volatile, spiritual essence.\nChrist, the Holy Spirit, Him!...\n\n3rd December\n\nAwoke late, read the Scriptures but was apathetic. Afterwards went and\npaced up and down the large hall. I wished to meditate, but instead my\nimagination pictured an occurrence of four years ago, when Dolokhov,\nmeeting me in Moscow after our duel, said he hoped I was enjoying\nperfect peace of mind in spite of my wife's absence. At the time I gave\nhim no answer. Now I recalled every detail of that meeting and in my\nmind gave him the most malevolent and bitter replies. I recollected\nmyself and drove away that thought only when I found myself glowing with\nanger, but I did not sufficiently repent. Afterwards Boris Drubetskoy\ncame and began relating various adventures. His coming vexed me from the\nfirst, and I said something disagreeable to him. He replied. I flared up\nand said much that was unpleasant and even rude to him. He became\nsilent, and I recollected myself only when it was too late. My God, I\ncannot get on with him at all. The cause of this is my egotism. I set\nmyself above him and so become much worse than he, for he is lenient to\nmy rudeness while I on the contrary nourish contempt for him. O God,\ngrant that in his presence I may rather see my own vileness, and behave\nso that he too may benefit. After dinner I fell asleep and as I was\ndrowsing off I clearly heard a voice saying in my left ear, \"Thy day!\"\n\nI dreamed that I was walking in the dark and was suddenly surrounded by\ndogs, but I went on undismayed. Suddenly a smallish dog seized my left\nthigh with its teeth and would not let go. I began to throttle it with\nmy hands. Scarcely had I torn it off before another, a bigger one, began\nbiting me. I lifted it up, but the higher I lifted it the bigger and\nheavier it grew. And suddenly Brother A. came and, taking my arm, led me\nto a building to enter which we had to pass along a narrow plank. I\nstepped on it, but it bent and gave way and I began to clamber up a\nfence which I could scarcely reach with my hands. After much effort I\ndragged myself up, so that my leg hung down on one side and my body on\nthe other. I looked round and saw Brother A. standing on the fence and\npointing me to a broad avenue and garden, and in the garden was a large\nand beautiful building. I woke up. O Lord, great Architect of Nature,\nhelp me to tear from myself these dogs--my passions especially the last,\nwhich unites in itself the strength of all the former ones, and aid me\nto enter that temple of virtue to a vision of which I attained in my\ndream.\n\n7th December\n\nI dreamed that Joseph Alexeevich was sitting in my house, and that I was\nvery glad and wished to entertain him. It seemed as if I chattered\nincessantly with other people and suddenly remembered that this could\nnot please him, and I wished to come close to him and embrace him. But\nas soon as I drew near I saw that his face had changed and grown young,\nand he was quietly telling me something about the teaching of our order,\nbut so softly that I could not hear it. Then it seemed that we all left\nthe room and something strange happened. We were sitting or lying on the\nfloor. He was telling me something, and I wished to show him my\nsensibility, and not listening to what he was saying I began picturing\nto myself the condition of my inner man and the grace of God sanctifying\nme. And tears came into my eyes, and I was glad he noticed this. But he\nlooked at me with vexation and jumped up, breaking off his remarks. I\nfelt abashed and asked whether what he had been saying did not concern\nme; but he did not reply, gave me a kind look, and then we suddenly\nfound ourselves in my bedroom where there is a double bed. He lay down\non the edge of it and I burned with longing to caress him and lie down\ntoo. And he said, \"Tell me frankly what is your chief temptation? Do you\nknow it? I think you know it already.\" Abashed by this question, I\nreplied that sloth was my chief temptation. He shook his head\nincredulously; and even more abashed, I said that though I was living\nwith my wife as he advised, I was not living with her as her husband. To\nthis he replied that one should not deprive a wife of one's embraces and\ngave me to understand that that was my duty. But I replied that I should\nbe ashamed to do it, and suddenly everything vanished. And I awoke and\nfound in my mind the text from the Gospel: \"The life was the light of\nmen. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it\nnot.\" Joseph Alexeevich's face had looked young and bright. That day I\nreceived a letter from my benefactor in which he wrote about \"conjugal\nduties.\"\n\n9th December\n\nI had a dream from which I awoke with a throbbing heart. I saw that I\nwas in Moscow in my house, in the big sitting room, and Joseph\nAlexeevich came in from the drawing room. I seemed to know at once that\nthe process of regeneration had already taken place in him, and I rushed\nto meet him. I embraced him and kissed his hands, and he said, \"Hast\nthou noticed that my face is different?\" I looked at him, still holding\nhim in my arms, and saw that his face was young, but that he had no hair\non his head and his features were quite changed. And I said, \"I should\nhave known you had I met you by chance,\" and I thought to myself, \"Am I\ntelling the truth?\" And suddenly I saw him lying like a dead body; then\nhe gradually recovered and went with me into my study carrying a large\nbook of sheets of drawing paper; I said, \"I drew that,\" and he answered\nby bowing his head. I opened the book, and on all the pages there were\nexcellent drawings. And in my dream I knew that these drawings\nrepresented the love adventures of the soul with its beloved. And on its\npages I saw a beautiful representation of a maiden in transparent\ngarments and with a transparent body, flying up to the clouds. And I\nseemed to know that this maiden was nothing else than a representation\nof the Song of Songs. And looking at those drawings I dreamed I felt\nthat I was doing wrong, but could not tear myself away from them. Lord,\nhelp me! My God, if Thy forsaking me is Thy doing, Thy will be done; but\nif I am myself the cause, teach me what I should do! I shall perish of\nmy debauchery if Thou utterly desertest me!\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nThe Rostovs' monetary affairs had not improved during the two years they\nhad spent in the country.\n\nThough Nicholas Rostov had kept firmly to his resolution and was still\nserving modestly in an obscure regiment, spending comparatively little,\nthe way of life at Otradnoe--Mitenka's management of affairs, in\nparticular--was such that the debts inevitably increased every year. The\nonly resource obviously presenting itself to the old count was to apply\nfor an official post, so he had come to Petersburg to look for one and\nalso, as he said, to let the lassies enjoy themselves for the last time.\n\nSoon after their arrival in Petersburg Berg proposed to Vera and was\naccepted.\n\nThough in Moscow the Rostovs belonged to the best society without\nthemselves giving it a thought, yet in Petersburg their circle of\nacquaintances was a mixed and indefinite one. In Petersburg they were\nprovincials, and the very people they had entertained in Moscow without\ninquiring to what set they belonged, here looked down on them.\n\nThe Rostovs lived in the same hospitable way in Petersburg as in Moscow,\nand the most diverse people met at their suppers. Country neighbors from\nOtradnoe, impoverished old squires and their daughters, Peronskaya a\nmaid of honor, Pierre Bezukhov, and the son of their district postmaster\nwho had obtained a post in Petersburg. Among the men who very soon\nbecame frequent visitors at the Rostovs' house in Petersburg were Boris,\nPierre whom the count had met in the street and dragged home with him,\nand Berg who spent whole days at the Rostovs' and paid the eldest\ndaughter, Countess Vera, the attentions a young man pays when he intends\nto propose.\n\nNot in vain had Berg shown everybody his right hand wounded at\nAusterlitz and held a perfectly unnecessary sword in his left. He\nnarrated that episode so persistently and with so important an air that\neveryone believed in the merit and usefulness of his deed, and he had\nobtained two decorations for Austerlitz.\n\nIn the Finnish war he also managed to distinguish himself. He had picked\nup the scrap of a grenade that had killed an aide-de-camp standing near\nthe commander-in-chief and had taken it to his commander. Just as he had\ndone after Austerlitz, he related this occurrence at such length and so\ninsistently that everyone again believed it had been necessary to do\nthis, and he received two decorations for the Finnish war also. In 1809\nhe was a captain in the Guards, wore medals, and held some special\nlucrative posts in Petersburg.\n\nThough some skeptics smiled when told of Berg's merits, it could not be\ndenied that he was a painstaking and brave officer, on excellent terms\nwith his superiors, and a moral young man with a brilliant career before\nhim and an assured position in society.\n\nFour years before, meeting a German comrade in the stalls of a Moscow\ntheater, Berg had pointed out Vera Rostova to him and had said in\nGerman, \"das soll mein Weib werden,\" * and from that moment had made up\nhis mind to marry her. Now in Petersburg, having considered the Rostovs'\nposition and his own, he decided that the time had come to propose.\n\n\n* \"That girl shall be my wife.\"\n\nBerg's proposal was at first received with a perplexity that was not\nflattering to him. At first it seemed strange that the son of an obscure\nLivonian gentleman should propose marriage to a Countess Rostova; but\nBerg's chief characteristic was such a naive and good natured egotism\nthat the Rostovs involuntarily came to think it would be a good thing,\nsince he himself was so firmly convinced that it was good, indeed\nexcellent. Moreover, the Rostovs' affairs were seriously embarrassed, as\nthe suitor could not but know; and above all, Vera was twenty-four, had\nbeen taken out everywhere, and though she was certainly good-looking and\nsensible, no one up to now had proposed to her. So they gave their\nconsent.\n\n\"You see,\" said Berg to his comrade, whom he called \"friend\" only\nbecause he knew that everyone has friends, \"you see, I have considered\nit all, and should not marry if I had not thought it all out or if it\nwere in any way unsuitable. But on the contrary, my papa and mamma are\nnow provided for--I have arranged that rent for them in the Baltic\nProvinces--and I can live in Petersburg on my pay, and with her fortune\nand my good management we can get along nicely. I am not marrying for\nmoney--I consider that dishonorable--but a wife should bring her share\nand a husband his. I have my position in the service, she has\nconnections and some means. In our times that is worth something, isn't\nit? But above all, she is a handsome, estimable girl, and she loves\nme...\"\n\nBerg blushed and smiled.\n\n\"And I love her, because her character is sensible and very good. Now\nthe other sister, though they are the same family, is quite different--\nan unpleasant character and has not the same intelligence. She is so...\nyou know?... Unpleasant... But my fiancee!... Well, you will be coming,\"\nhe was going to say, \"to dine,\" but changed his mind and said \"to take\ntea with us,\" and quickly doubling up his tongue he blew a small round\nring of tobacco smoke, perfectly embodying his dream of happiness.\n\nAfter the first feeling of perplexity aroused in the parents by Berg's\nproposal, the holiday tone of joyousness usual at such times took\npossession of the family, but the rejoicing was external and insincere.\nIn the family's feeling toward this wedding a certain awkwardness and\nconstraint was evident, as if they were ashamed of not having loved Vera\nsufficiently and of being so ready to get her off their hands. The old\ncount felt this most. He would probably have been unable to state the\ncause of his embarrassment, but it resulted from the state of his\naffairs. He did not know at all how much he had, what his debts amounted\nto, or what dowry he could give Vera. When his daughters were born he\nhad assigned to each of them, for her dowry, an estate with three\nhundred serfs; but one of these estates had already been sold, and the\nother was mortgaged and the interest so much in arrears that it would\nhave to be sold, so that it was impossible to give it to Vera. Nor had\nhe any money.\n\nBerg had already been engaged a month, and only a week remained before\nthe wedding, but the count had not yet decided in his own mind the\nquestion of the dowry, nor spoken to his wife about it. At one time the\ncount thought of giving her the Ryazan estate or of selling a forest, at\nanother time of borrowing money on a note of hand. A few days before the\nwedding Berg entered the count's study early one morning and, with a\npleasant smile, respectfully asked his future father-in-law to let him\nknow what Vera's dowry would be. The count was so disconcerted by this\nlong-foreseen inquiry that without consideration he gave the first reply\nthat came into his head. \"I like your being businesslike about it.... I\nlike it. You shall be satisfied....\"\n\nAnd patting Berg on the shoulder he got up, wishing to end the\nconversation. But Berg, smiling pleasantly, explained that if he did not\nknow for certain how much Vera would have and did not receive at least\npart of the dowry in advance, he would have to break matters off.\n\n\"Because, consider, Count--if I allowed myself to marry now without\nhaving definite means to maintain my wife, I should be acting badly....\"\n\nThe conversation ended by the count, who wished to be generous and to\navoid further importunity, saying that he would give a note of hand for\neighty thousand rubles. Berg smiled meekly, kissed the count on the\nshoulder, and said that he was very grateful, but that it was impossible\nfor him to arrange his new life without receiving thirty thousand in\nready money. \"Or at least twenty thousand, Count,\" he added, \"and then a\nnote of hand for only sixty thousand.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, all right!\" said the count hurriedly. \"Only excuse me, my\ndear fellow, I'll give you twenty thousand and a note of hand for eighty\nthousand as well. Yes, yes! Kiss me.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nNatasha was sixteen and it was the year 1809, the very year to which she\nhad counted on her fingers with Boris after they had kissed four years\nago. Since then she had not seen him. Before Sonya and her mother, if\nBoris happened to be mentioned, she spoke quite freely of that episode\nas of some childish, long-forgotten matter that was not worth\nmentioning. But in the secret depths of her soul the question whether\nher engagement to Boris was a jest or an important, binding promise\ntormented her.\n\nSince Boris left Moscow in 1805 to join the army he had not seen the\nRostovs. He had been in Moscow several times, and had passed near\nOtradnoe, but had never been to see them.\n\nSometimes it occurred to Natasha that he did not wish to see her, and\nthis conjecture was confirmed by the sad tone in which her elders spoke\nof him.\n\n\"Nowadays old friends are not remembered,\" the countess would say when\nBoris was mentioned.\n\nAnna Mikhaylovna also had of late visited them less frequently, seemed\nto hold herself with particular dignity, and always spoke rapturously\nand gratefully of the merits of her son and the brilliant career on\nwhich he had entered. When the Rostovs came to Petersburg Boris called\non them.\n\nHe drove to their house in some agitation. The memory of Natasha was his\nmost poetic recollection. But he went with the firm intention of letting\nher and her parents feel that the childish relations between himself and\nNatasha could not be binding either on her or on him. He had a brilliant\nposition in society thanks to his intimacy with Countess Bezukhova, a\nbrilliant position in the service thanks to the patronage of an\nimportant personage whose complete confidence he enjoyed, and he was\nbeginning to make plans for marrying one of the richest heiresses in\nPetersburg, plans which might very easily be realized. When he entered\nthe Rostovs' drawing room Natasha was in her own room. When she heard of\nhis arrival she almost ran into the drawing room, flushed and beaming\nwith a more than cordial smile.\n\nBoris remembered Natasha in a short dress, with dark eyes shining from\nunder her curls and boisterous, childish laughter, as he had known her\nfour years before; and so he was taken aback when quite a different\nNatasha entered, and his face expressed rapturous astonishment. This\nexpression on his face pleased Natasha.\n\n\"Well, do you recognize your little madcap playmate?\" asked the\ncountess.\n\nBoris kissed Natasha's hand and said that he was astonished at the\nchange in her.\n\n\"How handsome you have grown!\"\n\n\"I should think so!\" replied Natasha's laughing eyes.\n\n\"And is Papa older?\" she asked.\n\nNatasha sat down and, without joining in Boris' conversation with the\ncountess, silently and minutely studied her childhood's suitor. He felt\nthe weight of that resolute and affectionate scrutiny and glanced at her\noccasionally.\n\nBoris' uniform, spurs, tie, and the way his hair was brushed were all\ncomme il faut and in the latest fashion. This Natasha noticed at once.\nHe sat rather sideways in the armchair next to the countess, arranging\nwith his right hand the cleanest of gloves that fitted his left hand\nlike a skin, and he spoke with a particularly refined compression of his\nlips about the amusements of the highest Petersburg society, recalling\nwith mild irony old times in Moscow and Moscow acquaintances. It was not\naccidentally, Natasha felt, that he alluded, when speaking of the\nhighest aristocracy, to an ambassador's ball he had attended, and to\ninvitations he had received from N.N. and S.S.\n\nAll this time Natasha sat silent, glancing up at him from under her\nbrows. This gaze disturbed and confused Boris more and more. He looked\nround more frequently toward her, and broke off in what he was saying.\nHe did not stay more than ten minutes, then rose and took his leave. The\nsame inquisitive, challenging, and rather mocking eyes still looked at\nhim. After his first visit Boris said to himself that Natasha attracted\nhim just as much as ever, but that he must not yield to that feeling,\nbecause to marry her, a girl almost without fortune, would mean ruin to\nhis career, while to renew their former relations without intending to\nmarry her would be dishonorable. Boris made up his mind to avoid meeting\nNatasha, but despite that resolution he called again a few days later\nand began calling often and spending whole days at the Rostovs'. It\nseemed to him that he ought to have an explanation with Natasha and tell\nher that the old times must be forgotten, that in spite of everything...\nshe could not be his wife, that he had no means, and they would never\nlet her marry him. But he failed to do so and felt awkward about\nentering on such an explanation. From day to day he became more and more\nentangled. It seemed to her mother and Sonya that Natasha was in love\nwith Boris as of old. She sang him his favorite songs, showed him her\nalbum, making him write in it, did not allow him to allude to the past,\nletting it be understood how delightful was the present; and every day\nhe went away in a fog, without having said what he meant to, and not\nknowing what he was doing or why he came, or how it would all end. He\nleft off visiting Helene and received reproachful notes from her every\nday, and yet he continued to spend whole days with the Rostovs.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nOne night when the old countess, in nightcap and dressing jacket,\nwithout her false curls, and with her poor little knob of hair showing\nunder her white cotton cap, knelt sighing and groaning on a rug and\nbowing to the ground in prayer, her door creaked and Natasha, also in a\ndressing jacket with slippers on her bare feet and her hair in\ncurlpapers, ran in. The countess--her prayerful mood dispelled--looked\nround and frowned. She was finishing her last prayer: \"Can it be that\nthis couch will be my grave?\" Natasha, flushed and eager, seeing her\nmother in prayer, suddenly checked her rush, half sat down, and\nunconsciously put out her tongue as if chiding herself. Seeing that her\nmother was still praying she ran on tiptoe to the bed and, rapidly\nslipping one little foot against the other, pushed off her slippers and\njumped onto the bed the countess had feared might become her grave. This\ncouch was high, with a feather bed and five pillows each smaller than\nthe one below. Natasha jumped on it, sank into the feather bed, rolled\nover to the wall, and began snuggling up the bedclothes as she settled\ndown, raising her knees to her chin, kicking out and laughing almost\ninaudibly, now covering herself up head and all, and now peeping at her\nmother. The countess finished her prayers and came to the bed with a\nstern face, but seeing, that Natasha's head was covered, she smiled in\nher kind, weak way.\n\n\"Now then, now then!\" said she.\n\n\"Mamma, can we have a talk? Yes?\" said Natasha. \"Now, just one on your\nthroat and another... that'll do!\" And seizing her mother round the\nneck, she kissed her on the throat. In her behavior to her mother\nNatasha seemed rough, but she was so sensitive and tactful that however\nshe clasped her mother she always managed to do it without hurting her\nor making her feel uncomfortable or displeased.\n\n\"Well, what is it tonight?\" said the mother, having arranged her pillows\nand waited until Natasha, after turning over a couple of times, had\nsettled down beside her under the quilt, spread out her arms, and\nassumed a serious expression.\n\nThese visits of Natasha's at night before the count returned from his\nclub were one of the greatest pleasures of both mother, and daughter.\n\n\"What is it tonight?--But I have to tell you...\"\n\nNatasha put her hand on her mother's mouth.\n\n\"About Boris... I know,\" she said seriously; \"that's what I have come\nabout. Don't say it--I know. No, do tell me!\" and she removed her hand.\n\"Tell me, Mamma! He's nice?\"\n\n\"Natasha, you are sixteen. At your age I was married. You say Boris is\nnice. He is very nice, and I love him like a son. But what then?... What\nare you thinking about? You have quite turned his head, I can see\nthat....\"\n\nAs she said this the countess looked round at her daughter. Natasha was\nlying looking steadily straight before her at one of the mahogany\nsphinxes carved on the corners of the bedstead, so that the countess\nonly saw her daughter's face in profile. That face struck her by its\npeculiarly serious and concentrated expression.\n\nNatasha was listening and considering.\n\n\"Well, what then?\" said she.\n\n\"You have quite turned his head, and why? What do you want of him? You\nknow you can't marry him.\"\n\n\"Why not?\" said Natasha, without changing her position.\n\n\"Because he is young, because he is poor, because he is a relation...\nand because you yourself don't love him.\"\n\n\"How do you know?\"\n\n\"I know. It is not right, darling!\"\n\n\n\"But if I want to...\" said Natasha.\n\n\"Leave off talking nonsense,\" said the countess.\n\n\"But if I want to...\"\n\n\"Natasha, I am in earnest...\"\n\nNatasha did not let her finish. She drew the countess' large hand to\nher, kissed it on the back and then on the palm, then again turned it\nover and began kissing first one knuckle, then the space between the\nknuckles, then the next knuckle, whispering, \"January, February, March,\nApril, May. Speak, Mamma, why don't you say anything? Speak!\" said she,\nturning to her mother, who was tenderly gazing at her daughter and in\nthat contemplation seemed to have forgotten all she had wished to say.\n\n\"It won't do, my love! Not everyone will understand this friendship\ndating from your childish days, and to see him so intimate with you may\ninjure you in the eyes of other young men who visit us, and above all it\ntorments him for nothing. He may already have found a suitable and\nwealthy match, and now he's half crazy.\"\n\n\"Crazy?\" repeated Natasha.\n\n\"I'll tell you some things about myself. I had a cousin...\"\n\n\"I know! Cyril Matveich... but he is old.\"\n\n\"He was not always old. But this is what I'll do, Natasha, I'll have a\ntalk with Boris. He need not come so often....\"\n\n\"Why not, if he likes to?\"\n\n\"Because I know it will end in nothing....\"\n\n\"How can you know? No, Mamma, don't speak to him! What nonsense!\" said\nNatasha in the tone of one being deprived of her property. \"Well, I\nwon't marry, but let him come if he enjoys it and I enjoy it.\" Natasha\nsmiled and looked at her mother. \"Not to marry, but just so,\" she added.\n\n\"How so, my pet?\"\n\n\"Just so. There's no need for me to marry him. But... just so.\"\n\n\"Just so, just so,\" repeated the countess, and shaking all over, she\nwent off into a good humored, unexpected, elderly laugh.\n\n\"Don't laugh, stop!\" cried Natasha. \"You're shaking the whole bed!\nYou're awfully like me, just such another giggler.... Wait...\" and she\nseized the countess' hands and kissed a knuckle of the little finger,\nsaying, \"June,\" and continued, kissing, \"July, August,\" on the other\nhand. \"But, Mamma, is he very much in love? What do you think? Was\nanybody ever so much in love with you? And he's very nice, very, very\nnice. Only not quite my taste--he is so narrow, like the dining-room\nclock.... Don't you understand? Narrow, you know--gray, light gray...\"\n\n\"What rubbish you're talking!\" said the countess.\n\nNatasha continued: \"Don't you really understand? Nicholas would\nunderstand.... Bezukhov, now, is blue, dark-blue and red, and he is\nsquare.\"\n\n\"You flirt with him too,\" said the countess, laughing.\n\n\"No, he is a Freemason, I have found out. He is fine, dark-blue and\nred.... How can I explain it to you?\"\n\n\"Little countess!\" the count's voice called from behind the door.\n\"You're not asleep?\" Natasha jumped up, snatched up her slippers, and\nran barefoot to her own room.\n\nIt was a long time before she could sleep. She kept thinking that no one\ncould understand all that she understood and all there was in her.\n\n\"Sonya?\" she thought, glancing at that curled-up, sleeping little kitten\nwith her enormous plait of hair. \"No, how could she? She's virtuous. She\nfell in love with Nicholas and does not wish to know anything more. Even\nMamma does not understand. It is wonderful how clever I am and how...\ncharming she is,\" she went on, speaking of herself in the third person,\nand imagining it was some very wise man--the wisest and best of men--who\nwas saying it of her. \"There is everything, everything in her,\"\ncontinued this man. \"She is unusually intelligent, charming... and then\nshe is pretty, uncommonly pretty, and agile--she swims and rides\nsplendidly... and her voice! One can really say it's a wonderful voice!\"\n\nShe hummed a scrap from her favorite opera by Cherubini, threw herself\non her bed, laughed at the pleasant thought that she would immediately\nfall asleep, called Dunyasha the maid to put out the candle, and before\nDunyasha had left the room had already passed into yet another happier\nworld of dreams, where everything was as light and beautiful as in\nreality, and even more so because it was different.\n\nNext day the countess called Boris aside and had a talk with him, after\nwhich he ceased coming to the Rostovs'.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nOn the thirty-first of December, New Year's Eve, 1809 - 10 an old\ngrandee of Catherine's day was giving a ball and midnight supper. The\ndiplomatic corps and the Emperor himself were to be present.\n\nThe grandee's well-known mansion on the English Quay glittered with\ninnumerable lights. Police were stationed at the brightly lit entrance\nwhich was carpeted with red baize, and not only gendarmes but dozens of\npolice officers and even the police master himself stood at the porch.\nCarriages kept driving away and fresh ones arriving, with red-liveried\nfootmen and footmen in plumed hats. From the carriages emerged men\nwearing uniforms, stars, and ribbons, while ladies in satin and ermine\ncautiously descended the carriage steps which were let down for them\nwith a clatter, and then walked hurriedly and noiselessly over the baize\nat the entrance.\n\nAlmost every time a new carriage drove up a whisper ran through the\ncrowd and caps were doffed.\n\n\"The Emperor?... No, a minister.... prince... ambassador. Don't you see\nthe plumes?...\" was whispered among the crowd.\n\nOne person, better dressed than the rest, seemed to know everyone and\nmentioned by name the greatest dignitaries of the day.\n\nA third of the visitors had already arrived, but the Rostovs, who were\nto be present, were still hurrying to get dressed.\n\nThere had been many discussions and preparations for this ball in the\nRostov family, many fears that the invitation would not arrive, that the\ndresses would not be ready, or that something would not be arranged as\nit should be.\n\nMarya Ignatevna Peronskaya, a thin and shallow maid of honor at the\ncourt of the Dowager Empress, who was a friend and relation of the\ncountess and piloted the provincial Rostovs in Petersburg high society,\nwas to accompany them to the ball.\n\nThey were to call for her at her house in the Taurida Gardens at ten\no'clock, but it was already five minutes to ten, and the girls were not\nyet dressed.\n\nNatasha was going to her first grand ball. She had got up at eight that\nmorning and had been in a fever of excitement and activity all day. All\nher powers since morning had been concentrated on ensuring that they\nall--she herself, Mamma, and Sonya--should be as well dressed as\npossible. Sonya and her mother put themselves entirely in her hands. The\ncountess was to wear a claret-colored velvet dress, and the two girls\nwhite gauze over pink silk slips, with roses on their bodices and their\nhair dressed a la grecque.\n\nEverything essential had already been done; feet, hands, necks, and ears\nwashed, perfumed, and powdered, as befits a ball; the openwork silk\nstockings and white satin shoes with ribbons were already on; the\nhairdressing was almost done. Sonya was finishing dressing and so was\nthe countess, but Natasha, who had bustled about helping them all, was\nbehindhand. She was still sitting before a looking-glass with a dressing\njacket thrown over her slender shoulders. Sonya stood ready dressed in\nthe middle of the room and, pressing the head of a pin till it hurt her\ndainty finger, was fixing on a last ribbon that squeaked as the pin went\nthrough it.\n\n\"That's not the way, that's not the way, Sonya!\" cried Natasha turning\nher head and clutching with both hands at her hair which the maid who\nwas dressing it had not time to release. \"That bow is not right. Come\nhere!\"\n\nSonya sat down and Natasha pinned the ribbon on differently.\n\n\"Allow me, Miss! I can't do it like that,\" said the maid who was holding\nNatasha's hair.\n\n\"Oh, dear! Well then, wait. That's right, Sonya.\"\n\n\"Aren't you ready? It is nearly ten,\" came the countess' voice.\n\n\"Directly! Directly! And you, Mamma?\"\n\n\"I have only my cap to pin on.\"\n\n\"Don't do it without me!\" called Natasha. \"You won't do it right.\"\n\n\"But it's already ten.\"\n\nThey had decided to be at the ball by half past ten, and Natasha had\nstill to get dressed and they had to call at the Taurida Gardens.\n\nWhen her hair was done, Natasha, in her short petticoat from under which\nher dancing shoes showed, and in her mother's dressing jacket, ran up to\nSonya, scrutinized her, and then ran to her mother. Turning her mother's\nhead this way and that, she fastened on the cap and, hurriedly kissing\nher gray hair, ran back to the maids who were turning up the hem of her\nskirt.\n\nThe cause of the delay was Natasha's skirt, which was too long. Two\nmaids were turning up the hem and hurriedly biting off the ends of\nthread. A third with pins in her mouth was running about between the\ncountess and Sonya, and a fourth held the whole of the gossamer garment\nup high on one uplifted hand.\n\n\"Mavra, quicker, darling!\"\n\n\"Give me my thimble, Miss, from there...\"\n\n\"Whenever will you be ready?\" asked the count coming to the door. \"Here\nis some scent. Peronskaya must be tired of waiting.\"\n\n\"It's ready, Miss,\" said the maid, holding up the shortened gauze dress\nwith two fingers, and blowing and shaking something off it, as if by\nthis to express a consciousness of the airiness and purity of what she\nheld.\n\nNatasha began putting on the dress.\n\n\"In a minute! In a minute! Don't come in, Papa!\" she cried to her father\nas he opened the door--speaking from under the filmy skirt which still\ncovered her whole face.\n\nSonya slammed the door to. A minute later they let the count in. He was\nwearing a blue swallow-tail coat, shoes and stockings, and was perfumed\nand his hair pomaded.\n\n\"Oh, Papa! how nice you look! Charming!\" cried Natasha, as she stood in\nthe middle of the room smoothing out the folds of the gauze.\n\n\"If you please, Miss! allow me,\" said the maid, who on her knees was\npulling the skirt straight and shifting the pins from one side of her\nmouth to the other with her tongue.\n\n\"Say what you like,\" exclaimed Sonya, in a despairing voice as she\nlooked at Natasha, \"say what you like, it's still too long.\"\n\nNatasha stepped back to look at herself in the pier glass. The dress was\ntoo long.\n\n\"Really, madam, it is not at all too long,\" said Mavra, crawling on her\nknees after her young lady.\n\n\"Well, if it's too long we'll tack it up... we'll tack it up in one\nminute,\" said the resolute Dunyasha taking a needle that was stuck on\nthe front of her little shawl and, still kneeling on the floor, set to\nwork once more.\n\nAt that moment, with soft steps, the countess came in shyly, in her cap\nand velvet gown.\n\n\"Oo-oo, my beauty!\" exclaimed the count, \"she looks better than any of\nyou!\"\n\nHe would have embraced her but, blushing, she stepped aside fearing to\nbe rumpled.\n\n\"Mamma, your cap, more to this side,\" said Natasha. \"I'll arrange it,\"\nand she rushed forward so that the maids who were tacking up her skirt\ncould not move fast enough and a piece of gauze was torn off.\n\n\"Oh goodness! What has happened? Really it was not my fault!\"\n\n\"Never mind, I'll run it up, it won't show,\" said Dunyasha.\n\n\"What a beauty--a very queen!\" said the nurse as she came to the door.\n\"And Sonya! They are lovely!\"\n\nAt a quarter past ten they at last got into their carriages and started.\nBut they had still to call at the Taurida Gardens.\n\nPeronskaya was quite ready. In spite of her age and plainness she had\ngone through the same process as the Rostovs, but with less flurry--for\nto her it was a matter of routine. Her ugly old body was washed,\nperfumed, and powdered in just the same way. She had washed behind her\nears just as carefully, and when she entered her drawing room in her\nyellow dress, wearing her badge as maid of honor, her old lady's maid\nwas as full of rapturous admiration as the Rostovs' servants had been.\n\nShe praised the Rostovs' toilets. They praised her taste and toilet, and\nat eleven o'clock, careful of their coiffures and dresses, they settled\nthemselves in their carriages and drove off.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nNatasha had not had a moment free since early morning and had not once\nhad time to think of what lay before her.\n\nIn the damp chill air and crowded closeness of the swaying carriage, she\nfor the first time vividly imagined what was in store for her there at\nthe ball, in those brightly lighted rooms--with music, flowers, dances,\nthe Emperor, and all the brilliant young people of Petersburg. The\nprospect was so splendid that she hardly believed it would come true, so\nout of keeping was it with the chill darkness and closeness of the\ncarriage. She understood all that awaited her only when, after stepping\nover the red baize at the entrance, she entered the hall, took off her\nfur cloak, and, beside Sonya and in front of her mother, mounted the\nbrightly illuminated stairs between the flowers. Only then did she\nremember how she must behave at a ball, and tried to assume the majestic\nair she considered indispensable for a girl on such an occasion. But,\nfortunately for her, she felt her eyes growing misty, she saw nothing\nclearly, her pulse beat a hundred to the minute, and the blood throbbed\nat her heart. She could not assume that pose, which would have made her\nridiculous, and she moved on almost fainting from excitement and trying\nwith all her might to conceal it. And this was the very attitude that\nbecame her best. Before and behind them other visitors were entering,\nalso talking in low tones and wearing ball dresses. The mirrors on the\nlanding reflected ladies in white, pale-blue, and pink dresses, with\ndiamonds and pearls on their bare necks and arms.\n\nNatasha looked in the mirrors and could not distinguish her reflection\nfrom the others. All was blended into one brilliant procession. On\nentering the ballroom the regular hum of voices, footsteps, and\ngreetings deafened Natasha, and the light and glitter dazzled her still\nmore. The host and hostess, who had already been standing at the door\nfor half an hour repeating the same words to the various arrivals,\n\"Charme de vous voir,\" * greeted the Rostovs and Peronskaya in the same\nmanner.\n\n\n* \"Delighted to see you.\"\n\nThe two girls in their white dresses, each with a rose in her black\nhair, both curtsied in the same way, but the hostess' eye involuntarily\nrested longer on the slim Natasha. She looked at her and gave her alone\na special smile in addition to her usual smile as hostess. Looking at\nher she may have recalled the golden, irrecoverable days of her own\ngirlhood and her own first ball. The host also followed Natasha with his\neyes and asked the count which was his daughter.\n\n\"Charming!\" said he, kissing the tips of his fingers.\n\nIn the ballroom guests stood crowding at the entrance doors awaiting the\nEmperor. The countess took up a position in one of the front rows of\nthat crowd. Natasha heard and felt that several people were asking about\nher and looking at her. She realized that those noticing her liked her,\nand this observation helped to calm her.\n\n\"There are some like ourselves and some worse,\" she thought.\n\nPeronskaya was pointing out to the countess the most important people at\nthe ball.\n\n\"That is the Dutch ambassador, do you see? That gray-haired man,\" she\nsaid, indicating an old man with a profusion of silver-gray curly hair,\nwho was surrounded by ladies laughing at something he said.\n\n\"Ah, here she is, the Queen of Petersburg, Countess Bezukhova,\" said\nPeronskaya, indicating Helene who had just entered. \"How lovely! She is\nquite equal to Marya Antonovna. See how the men, young and old, pay\ncourt to her. Beautiful and clever... they say Prince--is quite mad\nabout her. But see, those two, though not good-looking, are even more\nrun after.\"\n\nShe pointed to a lady who was crossing the room followed by a very plain\ndaughter.\n\n\"She is a splendid match, a millionairess,\" said Peronskaya. \"And look,\nhere come her suitors.\"\n\n\"That is Bezukhova's brother, Anatole Kuragin,\" she said, indicating a\nhandsome officer of the Horse Guards who passed by them with head erect,\nlooking at something over the heads of the ladies. \"He's handsome, isn't\nhe? I hear they will marry him to that rich girl. But your cousin,\nDrubetskoy, is also very attentive to her. They say she has millions. Oh\nyes, that's the French ambassador himself!\" she replied to the countess'\ninquiry about Caulaincourt. \"Looks as if he were a king! All the same,\nthe French are charming, very charming. No one more charming in society.\nAh, here she is! Yes, she is still the most beautiful of them all, our\nMarya Antonovna! And how simply she is dressed! Lovely! And that stout\none in spectacles is the universal Freemason,\" she went on, indicating\nPierre. \"Put him beside his wife and he looks a regular buffoon!\"\n\nPierre, swaying his stout body, advanced, making way through the crowd\nand nodding to right and left as casually and good-naturedly as if he\nwere passing through a crowd at a fair. He pushed through, evidently\nlooking for someone.\n\nNatasha looked joyfully at the familiar face of Pierre, \"the buffoon,\"\nas Peronskaya had called him, and knew he was looking for them, and for\nher in particular. He had promised to be at the ball and introduce\npartners to her.\n\nBut before he reached them Pierre stopped beside a very handsome, dark\nman of middle height, and in a white uniform, who stood by a window\ntalking to a tall man wearing stars and a ribbon. Natasha at once\nrecognized the shorter and younger man in the white uniform: it was\nBolkonski, who seemed to her to have grown much younger, happier, and\nbetter-looking.\n\n\"There's someone else we know--Bolkonski, do you see, Mamma?\" said\nNatasha, pointing out Prince Andrew. \"You remember, he stayed a night\nwith us at Otradnoe.\"\n\n\"Oh, you know him?\" said Peronskaya. \"I can't bear him. Il fait a\npresent la pluie et le beau temps. * He's too proud for anything. Takes\nafter his father. And he's hand in glove with Speranski, writing some\nproject or other. Just look how he treats the ladies! There's one\ntalking to him and he has turned away,\" she said, pointing at him. \"I'd\ngive it to him if he treated me as he does those ladies.\"\n\n\n* \"He is all the rage just now.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nSuddenly everybody stirred, began talking, and pressed forward and then\nback, and between the two rows, which separated, the Emperor entered to\nthe sounds of music that had immediately struck up. Behind him walked\nhis host and hostess. He walked in rapidly, bowing to right and left as\nif anxious to get the first moments of the reception over. The band\nplayed the polonaise in vogue at that time on account of the words that\nhad been set to it, beginning: \"Alexander, Elisaveta, all our hearts you\nravish quite...\" The Emperor passed on to the drawing room, the crowd\nmade a rush for the doors, and several persons with excited faces\nhurried there and back again. Then the crowd hastily retired from the\ndrawing-room door, at which the Emperor reappeared talking to the\nhostess. A young man, looking distraught, pounced down on the ladies,\nasking them to move aside. Some ladies, with faces betraying complete\nforgetfulness of all the rules of decorum, pushed forward to the\ndetriment of their toilets. The men began to choose partners and take\ntheir places for the polonaise.\n\nEveryone moved back, and the Emperor came smiling out of the drawing\nroom leading his hostess by the hand but not keeping time to the music.\nThe host followed with Marya Antonovna Naryshkina; then came\nambassadors, ministers, and various generals, whom Peronskaya diligently\nnamed. More than half the ladies already had partners and were taking\nup, or preparing to take up, their positions for the polonaise. Natasha\nfelt that she would be left with her mother and Sonya among a minority\nof women who crowded near the wall, not having been invited to dance.\nShe stood with her slender arms hanging down, her scarcely defined bosom\nrising and falling regularly, and with bated breath and glittering,\nfrightened eyes gazed straight before her, evidently prepared for the\nheight of joy or misery. She was not concerned about the Emperor or any\nof those great people whom Peronskaya was pointing out--she had but one\nthought: \"Is it possible no one will ask me, that I shall not be among\nthe first to dance? Is it possible that not one of all these men will\nnotice me? They do not even seem to see me, or if they do they look as\nif they were saying, 'Ah, she's not the one I'm after, so it's not worth\nlooking at her!' No, it's impossible,\" she thought. \"They must know how\nI long to dance, how splendidly I dance, and how they would enjoy\ndancing with me.\"\n\nThe strains of the polonaise, which had continued for a considerable\ntime, had begun to sound like a sad reminiscence to Natasha's ears. She\nwanted to cry. Peronskaya had left them. The count was at the other end\nof the room. She and the countess and Sonya were standing by themselves\nas in the depths of a forest amid that crowd of strangers, with no one\ninterested in them and not wanted by anyone. Prince Andrew with a lady\npassed by, evidently not recognizing them. The handsome Anatole was\nsmilingly talking to a partner on his arm and looked at Natasha as one\nlooks at a wall. Boris passed them twice and each time turned away. Berg\nand his wife, who were not dancing, came up to them.\n\nThis family gathering seemed humiliating to Natasha--as if there were\nnowhere else for the family to talk but here at the ball. She did not\nlisten to or look at Vera, who was telling her something about her own\ngreen dress.\n\nAt last the Emperor stopped beside his last partner (he had danced with\nthree) and the music ceased. A worried aide-de-camp ran up to the\nRostovs requesting them to stand farther back, though as it was they\nwere already close to the wall, and from the gallery resounded the\ndistinct, precise, enticingly rhythmical strains of a waltz. The Emperor\nlooked smilingly down the room. A minute passed but no one had yet begun\ndancing. An aide-de-camp, the Master of Ceremonies, went up to Countess\nBezukhova and asked her to dance. She smilingly raised her hand and laid\nit on his shoulder without looking at him. The aide-de-camp, an adept in\nhis art, grasping his partner firmly round her waist, with confident\ndeliberation started smoothly, gliding first round the edge of the\ncircle, then at the corner of the room he caught Helene's left hand and\nturned her, the only sound audible, apart from the ever-quickening\nmusic, being the rhythmic click of the spurs on his rapid, agile feet,\nwhile at every third beat his partner's velvet dress spread out and\nseemed to flash as she whirled round. Natasha gazed at them and was\nready to cry because it was not she who was dancing that first turn of\nthe waltz.\n\nPrince Andrew, in the white uniform of a cavalry colonel, wearing\nstockings and dancing shoes, stood looking animated and bright in the\nfront row of the circle not far from the Rostovs. Baron Firhoff was\ntalking to him about the first sitting of the Council of State to be\nheld next day. Prince Andrew, as one closely connected with Speranski\nand participating in the work of the legislative commission, could give\nreliable information about that sitting, concerning which various rumors\nwere current. But not listening to what Firhoff was saying, he was\ngazing now at the sovereign and now at the men intending to dance who\nhad not yet gathered courage to enter the circle.\n\nPrince Andrew was watching these men abashed by the Emperor's presence,\nand the women who were breathlessly longing to be asked to dance.\n\nPierre came up to him and caught him by the arm.\n\n\"You always dance. I have a protegee, the young Rostova, here. Ask her,\"\nhe said.\n\n\"Where is she?\" asked Bolkonski. \"Excuse me!\" he added, turning to the\nbaron, \"we will finish this conversation elsewhere--at a ball one must\ndance.\" He stepped forward in the direction Pierre indicated. The\ndespairing, dejected expression of Natasha's face caught his eye. He\nrecognized her, guessed her feelings, saw that it was her debut,\nremembered her conversation at the window, and with an expression of\npleasure on his face approached Countess Rostova.\n\n\"Allow me to introduce you to my daughter,\" said the countess, with\nheightened color.\n\n\"I have the pleasure of being already acquainted, if the countess\nremembers me,\" said Prince Andrew with a low and courteous bow quite\nbelying Peronskaya's remarks about his rudeness, and approaching Natasha\nhe held out his arm to grasp her waist before he had completed his\ninvitation. He asked her to waltz. That tremulous expression on\nNatasha's face, prepared either for despair or rapture, suddenly\nbrightened into a happy, grateful, childlike smile.\n\n\"I have long been waiting for you,\" that frightened happy little girl\nseemed to say by the smile that replaced the threatened tears, as she\nraised her hand to Prince Andrew's shoulder. They were the second couple\nto enter the circle. Prince Andrew was one of the best dancers of his\nday and Natasha danced exquisitely. Her little feet in their white satin\ndancing shoes did their work swiftly, lightly, and independently of\nherself, while her face beamed with ecstatic happiness. Her slender bare\narms and neck were not beautiful--compared to Helene's her shoulders\nlooked thin and her bosom undeveloped. But Helene seemed, as it were,\nhardened by a varnish left by the thousands of looks that had scanned\nher person, while Natasha was like a girl exposed for the first time,\nwho would have felt very much ashamed had she not been assured that this\nwas absolutely necessary.\n\nPrince Andrew liked dancing, and wishing to escape as quickly as\npossible from the political and clever talk which everyone addressed to\nhim, wishing also to break up the circle of restraint he disliked,\ncaused by the Emperor's presence, he danced, and had chosen Natasha\nbecause Pierre pointed her out to him and because she was the first\npretty girl who caught his eye; but scarcely had he embraced that\nslender supple figure and felt her stirring so close to him and smiling\nso near him than the wine of her charm rose to his head, and he felt\nhimself revived and rejuvenated when after leaving her he stood\nbreathing deeply and watching the other dancers.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nAfter Prince Andrew, Boris came up to ask Natasha for a dance, and then\nthe aide-de-camp who had opened the ball, and several other young men,\nso that, flushed and happy, and passing on her superfluous partners to\nSonya, she did not cease dancing all the evening. She noticed and saw\nnothing of what occupied everyone else. Not only did she fail to notice\nthat the Emperor talked a long time with the French ambassador, and how\nparticularly gracious he was to a certain lady, or that Prince So-and-so\nand So-and-so did and said this and that, and that Helene had great\nsuccess and was honored by the special attention of So-and-so, but she\ndid not even see the Emperor, and only noticed that he had gone because\nthe ball became livelier after his departure. For one of the merry\ncotillions before supper Prince Andrew was again her partner. He\nreminded her of their first encounter in the Otradnoe avenue, and how\nshe had been unable to sleep that moonlight night, and told her how he\nhad involuntarily overheard her. Natasha blushed at that recollection\nand tried to excuse herself, as if there had been something to be\nashamed of in what Prince Andrew had overheard.\n\nLike all men who have grown up in society, Prince Andrew liked meeting\nsomeone there not of the conventional society stamp. And such was\nNatasha, with her surprise, her delight, her shyness, and even her\nmistakes in speaking French. With her he behaved with special care and\ntenderness, sitting beside her and talking of the simplest and most\nunimportant matters; he admired her shy grace. In the middle of the\ncotillion, having completed one of the figures, Natasha, still out of\nbreath, was returning to her seat when another dancer chose her. She was\ntired and panting and evidently thought of declining, but immediately\nput her hand gaily on the man's shoulder, smiling at Prince Andrew.\n\n\"I'd be glad to sit beside you and rest: I'm tired; but you see how they\nkeep asking me, and I'm glad of it, I'm happy and I love everybody, and\nyou and I understand it all,\" and much, much more was said in her smile.\nWhen her partner left her Natasha ran across the room to choose two\nladies for the figure.\n\n\"If she goes to her cousin first and then to another lady, she will be\nmy wife,\" said Prince Andrew to himself quite to his own surprise, as he\nwatched her. She did go first to her cousin.\n\n\"What rubbish sometimes enters one's head!\" thought Prince Andrew, \"but\nwhat is certain is that that girl is so charming, so original, that she\nwon't be dancing here a month before she will be married.... Such as she\nare rare here,\" he thought, as Natasha, readjusting a rose that was\nslipping on her bodice, settled herself beside him.\n\nWhen the cotillion was over the old count in his blue coat came up to\nthe dancers. He invited Prince Andrew to come and see them, and asked\nhis daughter whether she was enjoying herself. Natasha did not answer at\nonce but only looked up with a smile that said reproachfully: \"How can\nyou ask such a question?\"\n\n\"I have never enjoyed myself so much before!\" she said, and Prince\nAndrew noticed how her thin arms rose quickly as if to embrace her\nfather and instantly dropped again. Natasha was happier than she had\never been in her life. She was at that height of bliss when one becomes\ncompletely kind and good and does not believe in the possibility of\nevil, unhappiness, or sorrow.\n\nAt that ball Pierre for the first time felt humiliated by the position\nhis wife occupied in court circles. He was gloomy and absent-minded. A\ndeep furrow ran across his forehead, and standing by a window he stared\nover his spectacles seeing no one.\n\nOn her way to supper Natasha passed him.\n\nPierre's gloomy, unhappy look struck her. She stopped in front of him.\nShe wished to help him, to bestow on him the superabundance of her own\nhappiness.\n\n\"How delightful it is, Count!\" said she. \"Isn't it?\"\n\nPierre smiled absent-mindedly, evidently not grasping what she said.\n\n\"Yes, I am very glad,\" he said.\n\n\"How can people be dissatisfied with anything?\" thought Natasha.\n\"Especially such a capital fellow as Bezukhov!\" In Natasha's eyes all\nthe people at the ball alike were good, kind, and splendid people,\nloving one another; none of them capable of injuring another--and so\nthey ought all to be happy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nNext day Prince Andrew thought of the ball, but his mind did not dwell\non it long. \"Yes, it was a very brilliant ball,\" and then... \"Yes, that\nlittle Rostova is very charming. There's something fresh, original, un-\nPetersburg-like about her that distinguishes her.\" That was all he\nthought about yesterday's ball, and after his morning tea he set to\nwork.\n\nBut either from fatigue or want of sleep he was ill-disposed for work\nand could get nothing done. He kept criticizing his own work, as he\noften did, and was glad when he heard someone coming.\n\nThe visitor was Bitski, who served on various committees, frequented all\nthe societies in Petersburg, and a passionate devotee of the new ideas\nand of Speranski, and a diligent Petersburg newsmonger--one of those men\nwho choose their opinions like their clothes according to the fashion,\nbut who for that very reason appear to be the warmest partisans. Hardly\nhad he got rid of his hat before he ran into Prince Andrew's room with a\npreoccupied air and at once began talking. He had just heard particulars\nof that morning's sitting of the Council of State opened by the Emperor,\nand he spoke of it enthusiastically. The Emperor's speech had been\nextraordinary. It had been a speech such as only constitutional monarchs\ndeliver. \"The Sovereign plainly said that the Council and Senate are\nestates of the realm, he said that the government must rest not on\nauthority but on secure bases. The Emperor said that the fiscal system\nmust be reorganized and the accounts published,\" recounted Bitski,\nemphasizing certain words and opening his eyes significantly.\n\n\"Ah, yes! Today's events mark an epoch, the greatest epoch in our\nhistory,\" he concluded.\n\nPrince Andrew listened to the account of the opening of the Council of\nState, which he had so impatiently awaited and to which he had attached\nsuch importance, and was surprised that this event, now that it had\ntaken place, did not affect him, and even seemed quite insignificant. He\nlistened with quiet irony to Bitski's enthusiastic account of it. A very\nsimple thought occurred to him: \"What does it matter to me or to Bitski\nwhat the Emperor was pleased to say at the Council? Can all that make me\nany happier or better?\"\n\nAnd this simple reflection suddenly destroyed all the interest Prince\nAndrew had felt in the impending reforms. He was going to dine that\nevening at Speranski's, \"with only a few friends,\" as the host had said\nwhen inviting him. The prospect of that dinner in the intimate home\ncircle of the man he so admired had greatly interested Prince Andrew,\nespecially as he had not yet seen Speranski in his domestic\nsurroundings, but now he felt disinclined to go to it.\n\nAt the appointed hour, however, he entered the modest house Speranski\nowned in the Taurida Gardens. In the parqueted dining room this small\nhouse, remarkable for its extreme cleanliness (suggesting that of a\nmonastery), Prince Andrew, who was rather late, found the friendly\ngathering of Speranski's intimate acquaintances already assembled at\nfive o'clock. There were no ladies present except Speranski's little\ndaughter (long-faced like her father) and her governess. The other\nguests were Gervais, Magnitski, and Stolypin. While still in the\nanteroom Prince Andrew heard loud voices and a ringing staccato laugh--a\nlaugh such as one hears on the stage. Someone--it sounded like\nSperanski--was distinctly ejaculating ha-ha-ha. Prince Andrew had never\nbefore heard Speranski's famous laugh, and this ringing, high-pitched\nlaughter from a statesman made a strange impression on him.\n\nHe entered the dining room. The whole company were standing between two\nwindows at a small table laid with hors-d'oeuvres. Speranski, wearing a\ngray swallow-tail coat with a star on the breast, and evidently still\nthe same waistcoat and high white stock he had worn at the meeting of\nthe Council of State, stood at the table with a beaming countenance. His\nguests surrounded him. Magnitski, addressing himself to Speranski, was\nrelating an anecdote, and Speranski was laughing in advance at what\nMagnitski was going to say. When Prince Andrew entered the room\nMagnitski's words were again crowned by laughter. Stolypin gave a deep\nbass guffaw as he munched a piece of bread and cheese. Gervais laughed\nsoftly with a hissing chuckle, and Speranski in a high-pitched staccato\nmanner.\n\nStill laughing, Speranski held out his soft white hand to Prince Andrew.\n\n\"Very pleased to see you, Prince,\" he said. \"One moment...\" he went on,\nturning to Magnitski and interrupting his story. \"We have agreed that\nthis is a dinner for recreation, with not a word about business!\" and\nturning again to the narrator he began to laugh afresh.\n\nPrince Andrew looked at the laughing Speranski with astonishment,\nregret, and disillusionment. It seemed to him that this was not\nSperanski but someone else. Everything that had formerly appeared\nmysterious and fascinating in Speranski suddenly became plain and\nunattractive.\n\nAt dinner the conversation did not cease for a moment and seemed to\nconsist of the contents of a book of funny anecdotes. Before Magnitski\nhad finished his story someone else was anxious to relate something\nstill funnier. Most of the anecdotes, if not relating to the state\nservice, related to people in the service. It seemed that in this\ncompany the insignificance of those people was so definitely accepted\nthat the only possible attitude toward them was one of good humored\nridicule. Speranski related how at the Council that morning a deaf\ndignitary, when asked his opinion, replied that he thought so too.\nGervais gave a long account of an official revision, remarkable for the\nstupidity of everybody concerned. Stolypin, stuttering, broke into the\nconversation and began excitedly talking of the abuses that existed\nunder the former order of things--threatening to give a serious turn to\nthe conversation. Magnitski starting quizzing Stolypin about his\nvehemence. Gervais intervened with a joke, and the talk reverted to its\nformer lively tone.\n\nEvidently Speranski liked to rest after his labors and find amusement in\na circle of friends, and his guests, understanding his wish, tried to\nenliven him and amuse themselves. But their gaiety seemed to Prince\nAndrew mirthless and tiresome. Speranski's high-pitched voice struck him\nunpleasantly, and the incessant laughter grated on him like a false\nnote. Prince Andrew did not laugh and feared that he would be a damper\non the spirits of the company, but no one took any notice of his being\nout of harmony with the general mood. They all seemed very gay.\n\nHe tried several times to join in the conversation, but his remarks were\ntossed aside each time like a cork thrown out of the water, and he could\nnot jest with them.\n\nThere was nothing wrong or unseemly in what they said, it was witty and\nmight have been funny, but it lacked just that something which is the\nsalt of mirth, and they were not even aware that such a thing existed.\n\nAfter dinner Speranski's daughter and her governess rose. He patted the\nlittle girl with his white hand and kissed her. And that gesture, too,\nseemed unnatural to Prince Andrew.\n\nThe men remained at table over their port--English fashion. In the midst\nof a conversation that was started about Napoleon's Spanish affairs,\nwhich they all agreed in approving, Prince Andrew began to express a\ncontrary opinion. Speranski smiled and, with an evident wish to prevent\nthe conversation from taking an unpleasant course, told a story that had\nno connection with the previous conversation. For a few moments all were\nsilent.\n\nHaving sat some time at table, Speranski corked a bottle of wine and,\nremarking, \"Nowadays good wine rides in a carriage and pair,\" passed it\nto the servant and got up. All rose and continuing to talk loudly went\ninto the drawing room. Two letters brought by a courier were handed to\nSperanski and he took them to his study. As soon as he had left the room\nthe general merriment stopped and the guests began to converse sensibly\nand quietly with one another.\n\n\"Now for the recitation!\" said Speranski on returning from his study. \"A\nwonderful talent!\" he said to Prince Andrew, and Magnitski immediately\nassumed a pose and began reciting some humorous verses in French which\nhe had composed about various well-known Petersburg people. He was\ninterrupted several times by applause. When the verses were finished\nPrince Andrew went up to Speranski and took his leave.\n\n\"Where are you off to so early?\" asked Speranski.\n\n\"I promised to go to a reception.\"\n\nThey said no more. Prince Andrew looked closely into those mirrorlike,\nimpenetrable eyes, and felt that it had been ridiculous of him to have\nexpected anything from Speranski and from any of his own activities\nconnected with him, or ever to have attributed importance to what\nSperanski was doing. That precise, mirthless laughter rang in Prince\nAndrew's ears long after he had left the house.\n\nWhen he reached home Prince Andrew began thinking of his life in\nPetersburg during those last four months as if it were something new. He\nrecalled his exertions and solicitations, and the history of his project\nof army reform, which had been accepted for consideration and which they\nwere trying to pass over in silence simply because another, a very poor\none, had already been prepared and submitted to the Emperor. He thought\nof the meetings of a committee of which Berg was a member. He remembered\nhow carefully and at what length everything relating to form and\nprocedure was discussed at those meetings, and how sedulously and\npromptly all that related to the gist of the business was evaded. He\nrecalled his labors on the Legal Code, and how painstakingly he had\ntranslated the articles of the Roman and French codes into Russian, and\nhe felt ashamed of himself. Then he vividly pictured to himself\nBogucharovo, his occupations in the country, his journey to Ryazan; he\nremembered the peasants and Dron the village elder, and mentally\napplying to them the Personal Rights he had divided into paragraphs, he\nfelt astonished that he could have spent so much time on such useless\nwork.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nNext day Prince Andrew called at a few houses he had not visited before,\nand among them at the Rostovs' with whom he had renewed acquaintance at\nthe ball. Apart from considerations of politeness which demanded the\ncall, he wanted to see that original, eager girl who had left such a\npleasant impression on his mind, in her own home.\n\nNatasha was one of the first to meet him. She was wearing a dark-blue\nhouse dress in which Prince Andrew thought her even prettier than in her\nball dress. She and all the Rostov family welcomed him as an old friend,\nsimply and cordially. The whole family, whom he had formerly judged\nseverely, now seemed to him to consist of excellent, simple, and kindly\npeople. The old count's hospitality and good nature, which struck one\nespecially in Petersburg as a pleasant surprise, were such that Prince\nAndrew could not refuse to stay to dinner. \"Yes,\" he thought, \"they are\ncapital people, who of course have not the slightest idea what a\ntreasure they possess in Natasha; but they are kindly folk and form the\nbest possible setting for this strikingly poetic, charming girl,\noverflowing with life!\"\n\nIn Natasha Prince Andrew was conscious of a strange world completely\nalien to him and brimful of joys unknown to him, a different world, that\nin the Otradnoe avenue and at the window that moonlight night had\nalready begun to disconcert him. Now this world disconcerted him no\nlonger and was no longer alien to him, but he himself having entered it\nfound in it a new enjoyment.\n\nAfter dinner Natasha, at Prince Andrew's request, went to the clavichord\nand began singing. Prince Andrew stood by a window talking to the ladies\nand listened to her. In the midst of a phrase he ceased speaking and\nsuddenly felt tears choking him, a thing he had thought impossible for\nhim. He looked at Natasha as she sang, and something new and joyful\nstirred in his soul. He felt happy and at the same time sad. He had\nabsolutely nothing to weep about yet he was ready to weep. What about?\nHis former love? The little princess? His disillusionments?... His hopes\nfor the future?... Yes and no. The chief reason was a sudden, vivid\nsense of the terrible contrast between something infinitely great and\nillimitable within him and that limited and material something that he,\nand even she, was. This contrast weighed on and yet cheered him while\nshe sang.\n\nAs soon as Natasha had finished she went up to him and asked how he\nliked her voice. She asked this and then became confused, feeling that\nshe ought not to have asked it. He smiled, looking at her, and said he\nliked her singing as he liked everything she did.\n\nPrince Andrew left the Rostovs' late in the evening. He went to bed from\nhabit, but soon realized that he could not sleep. Having lit his candle\nhe sat up in bed, then got up, then lay down again not at all troubled\nby his sleeplessness: his soul was as fresh and joyful as if he had\nstepped out of a stuffy room into God's own fresh air. It did not enter\nhis head that he was in love with Natasha; he was not thinking about\nher, but only picturing her to himself, and in consequence all life\nappeared in a new light. \"Why do I strive, why do I toil in this narrow,\nconfined frame, when life, all life with all its joys, is open to me?\"\nsaid he to himself. And for the first time for a very long while he\nbegan making happy plans for the future. He decided that he must attend\nto his son's education by finding a tutor and putting the boy in his\ncharge, then he ought to retire from the service and go abroad, and see\nEngland, Switzerland and Italy. \"I must use my freedom while I feel so\nmuch strength and youth in me,\" he said to himself. \"Pierre was right\nwhen he said one must believe in the possibility of happiness in order\nto be happy, and now I do believe in it. Let the dead bury their dead,\nbut while one has life one must live and be happy!\" thought he.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nOne morning Colonel Berg, whom Pierre knew as he knew everybody in\nMoscow and Petersburg, came to see him. Berg arrived in an immaculate\nbrand-new uniform, with his hair pomaded and brushed forward over his\ntemples as the Emperor Alexander wore his hair.\n\n\"I have just been to see the countess, your wife. Unfortunately she\ncould not grant my request, but I hope, Count, I shall be more fortunate\nwith you,\" he said with a smile.\n\n\"What is it you wish, Colonel? I am at your service.\"\n\n\"I have now quite settled in my new rooms, Count\" (Berg said this with\nperfect conviction that this information could not but be agreeable),\n\"and so I wish to arrange just a small party for my own and my wife's\nfriends.\" (He smiled still more pleasantly.) \"I wished to ask the\ncountess and you to do me the honor of coming to tea and to supper.\"\n\nOnly Countess Helene, considering the society of such people as the\nBergs beneath her, could be cruel enough to refuse such an invitation.\nBerg explained so clearly why he wanted to collect at his house a small\nbut select company, and why this would give him pleasure, and why though\nhe grudged spending money on cards or anything harmful, he was prepared\nto run into some expense for the sake of good society--that Pierre could\nnot refuse, and promised to come.\n\n\"But don't be late, Count, if I may venture to ask; about ten minutes to\neight, please. We shall make up a rubber. Our general is coming. He is\nvery good to me. We shall have supper, Count. So you will do me the\nfavor.\"\n\nContrary to his habit of being late, Pierre on that day arrived at the\nBergs' house, not at ten but at fifteen minutes to eight.\n\nHaving prepared everything necessary for the party, the Bergs were ready\nfor their guests' arrival.\n\nIn their new, clean, and light study with its small busts and pictures\nand new furniture sat Berg and his wife. Berg, closely buttoned up in\nhis new uniform, sat beside his wife explaining to her that one always\ncould and should be acquainted with people above one, because only then\ndoes one get satisfaction from acquaintances.\n\n\"You can get to know something, you can ask for something. See how I\nmanaged from my first promotion.\" (Berg measured his life not by years\nbut by promotions.) \"My comrades are still nobodies, while I am only\nwaiting for a vacancy to command a regiment, and have the happiness to\nbe your husband.\" (He rose and kissed Vera's hand, and on the way to her\nstraightened out a turned-up corner of the carpet.) \"And how have I\nobtained all this? Chiefly by knowing how to choose my aquaintances. It\ngoes without saying that one must be conscientious and methodical.\"\n\nBerg smiled with a sense of his superiority over a weak woman, and\npaused, reflecting that this dear wife of his was after all but a weak\nwoman who could not understand all that constitutes a man's dignity,\nwhat it was ein Mann zu sein. * Vera at the same time smiling with a\nsense of superiority over her good, conscientious husband, who all the\nsame understood life wrongly, as according to Vera all men did. Berg,\njudging by his wife, thought all women weak and foolish. Vera, judging\nonly by her husband and generalizing from that observation, supposed\nthat all men, though they understand nothing and are conceited and\nselfish, ascribe common sense to themselves alone.\n\n\n* To be a man.\n\nBerg rose and embraced his wife carefully, so as not to crush her lace\nfichu for which he had paid a good price, kissing her straight on the\nlips.\n\n\"The only thing is, we mustn't have children too soon,\" he continued,\nfollowing an unconscious sequence of ideas.\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Vera, \"I don't at all want that. We must live for\nsociety.\"\n\n\"Princess Yusupova wore one exactly like this,\" said Berg, pointing to\nthe fichu with a happy and kindly smile.\n\nJust then Count Bezukhov was announced. Husband and wife glanced at one\nanother, both smiling with self-satisfaction, and each mentally claiming\nthe honor of this visit.\n\n\"This is what comes of knowing how to make acquaintances,\" thought Berg.\n\"This is what comes of knowing how to conduct oneself.\"\n\n\"But please don't interrupt me when I am entertaining the guests,\" said\nVera, \"because I know what interests each of them and what to say to\ndifferent people.\"\n\nBerg smiled again.\n\n\"It can't be helped: men must sometimes have masculine conversation,\"\nsaid he.\n\nThey received Pierre in their small, new drawing-room, where it was\nimpossible to sit down anywhere without disturbing its symmetry,\nneatness, and order; so it was quite comprehensible and not strange that\nBerg, having generously offered to disturb the symmetry of an armchair\nor of the sofa for his dear guest, but being apparently painfully\nundecided on the matter himself, eventually left the visitor to settle\nthe question of selection. Pierre disturbed the symmetry by moving a\nchair for himself, and Berg and Vera immediately began their evening\nparty, interrupting each other in their efforts to entertain their\nguest.\n\nVera, having decided in her own mind that Pierre ought to be entertained\nwith conversation about the French embassy, at once began accordingly.\nBerg, having decided that masculine conversation was required,\ninterrupted his wife's remarks and touched on the question of the war\nwith Austria, and unconsciously jumped from the general subject to\npersonal considerations as to the proposals made him to take part in the\nAustrian campaign and the reasons why he had declined them. Though the\nconversation was very incoherent and Vera was angry at the intrusion of\nthe masculine element, both husband and wife felt with satisfaction\nthat, even if only one guest was present, their evening had begun very\nwell and was as like as two peas to every other evening party with its\ntalk, tea, and lighted candles.\n\nBefore long Boris, Berg's old comrade, arrived. There was a shade of\ncondescension and patronage in his treatment of Berg and Vera. After\nBoris came a lady with the colonel, then the general himself, then the\nRostovs, and the party became unquestionably exactly like all other\nevening parties. Berg and Vera could not repress their smiles of\nsatisfaction at the sight of all this movement in their drawing room, at\nthe sound of the disconnected talk, the rustling of dresses, and the\nbowing and scraping. Everything was just as everybody always has it,\nespecially so the general, who admired the apartment, patted Berg on the\nshoulder, and with parental authority superintended the setting out of\nthe table for boston. The general sat down by Count Ilya Rostov, who was\nnext to himself the most important guest. The old people sat with the\nold, the young with the young, and the hostess at the tea table, on\nwhich stood exactly the same kind of cakes in a silver cake basket as\nthe Panins had at their party. Everything was just as it was everywhere\nelse.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nPierre, as one of the principal guests, had to sit down to boston with\nCount Rostov, the general, and the colonel. At the card table he\nhappened to be directly facing Natasha, and was struck by a curious\nchange that had come over her since the ball. She was silent, and not\nonly less pretty than at the ball, but only redeemed from plainness by\nher look of gentle indifference to everything around.\n\n\"What's the matter with her?\" thought Pierre, glancing at her. She was\nsitting by her sister at the tea table, and reluctantly, without looking\nat him, made some reply to Boris who sat down beside her. After playing\nout a whole suit and to his partner's delight taking five tricks,\nPierre, hearing greetings and the steps of someone who had entered the\nroom while he was picking up his tricks, glanced again at Natasha.\n\n\"What has happened to her?\" he asked himself with still greater\nsurprise.\n\nPrince Andrew was standing before her, saying something to her with a\nlook of tender solicitude. She, having raised her head, was looking up\nat him, flushed and evidently trying to master her rapid breathing. And\nthe bright glow of some inner fire that had been suppressed was again\nalight in her. She was completely transformed and from a plain girl had\nagain become what she had been at the ball.\n\nPrince Andrew went up to Pierre, and the latter noticed a new and\nyouthful expression in his friend's face.\n\nPierre changed places several times during the game, sitting now with\nhis back to Natasha and now facing her, but during the whole of the six\nrubbers he watched her and his friend.\n\n\"Something very important is happening between them,\" thought Pierre,\nand a feeling that was both joyful and painful agitated him and made him\nneglect the game.\n\nAfter six rubbers the general got up, saying that it was no use playing\nlike that, and Pierre was released. Natasha on one side was talking with\nSonya and Boris, and Vera with a subtle smile was saying something to\nPrince Andrew. Pierre went up to his friend and, asking whether they\nwere talking secrets, sat down beside them. Vera, having noticed Prince\nAndrew's attentions to Natasha, decided that at a party, a real evening\nparty, subtle allusions to the tender passion were absolutely necessary\nand, seizing a moment when Prince Andrew was alone, began a conversation\nwith him about feelings in general and about her sister. With so\nintellectual a guest as she considered Prince Andrew to be, she felt\nthat she had to employ her diplomatic tact.\n\nWhen Pierre went up to them he noticed that Vera was being carried away\nby her self-satisfied talk, but that Prince Andrew seemed embarrassed, a\nthing that rarely happened with him.\n\n\"What do you think?\" Vera was saying with an arch smile. \"You are so\ndiscerning, Prince, and understand people's characters so well at a\nglance. What do you think of Natalie? Could she be constant in her\nattachments? Could she, like other women\" (Vera meant herself), \"love a\nman once for all and remain true to him forever? That is what I consider\ntrue love. What do you think, Prince?\"\n\n\"I know your sister too little,\" replied Prince Andrew, with a sarcastic\nsmile under which he wished to hide his embarrassment, \"to be able to\nsolve so delicate a question, and then I have noticed that the less\nattractive a woman is the more constant she is likely to be,\" he added,\nand looked up at Pierre who was just approaching them.\n\n\"Yes, that is true, Prince. In our days,\" continued Vera--mentioning\n\"our days\" as people of limited intelligence are fond of doing,\nimagining that they have discovered and appraised the peculiarities of\n\"our days\" and that human characteristics change with the times--\"in our\ndays a girl has so much freedom that the pleasure of being courted often\nstifles real feeling in her. And it must be confessed that Natalie is\nvery susceptible.\" This return to the subject of Natalie caused Prince\nAndrew to knit his brows with discomfort: he was about to rise, but Vera\ncontinued with a still more subtle smile:\n\n\"I think no one has been more courted than she,\" she went on, \"but till\nquite lately she never cared seriously for anyone. Now you know, Count,\"\nshe said to Pierre, \"even our dear cousin Boris, who, between ourselves,\nwas very far gone in the land of tenderness...\" (alluding to a map of\nlove much in vogue at that time).\n\nPrince Andrew frowned and remained silent.\n\n\"You are friendly with Boris, aren't you?\" asked Vera.\n\n\"Yes, I know him...\"\n\n\"I expect he has told you of his childish love for Natasha?\"\n\n\"Oh, there was childish love?\" suddenly asked Prince Andrew, blushing\nunexpectedly.\n\n\"Yes, you know between cousins intimacy often leads to love. Le\ncousinage est un dangereux voisinage. * Don't you think so?\"\n\n\n* \"Cousinhood is a dangerous neighborhood.\"\n\n\"Oh, undoubtedly!\" said Prince Andrew, and with sudden and unnatural\nliveliness he began chaffing Pierre about the need to be very careful\nwith his fifty-year-old Moscow cousins, and in the midst of these\njesting remarks he rose, taking Pierre by the arm, and drew him aside.\n\n\"Well?\" asked Pierre, seeing his friend's strange animation with\nsurprise, and noticing the glance he turned on Natasha as he rose.\n\n\"I must... I must have a talk with you,\" said Prince Andrew. \"You know\nthat pair of women's gloves?\" (He referred to the masonic gloves given\nto a newly initiated Brother to present to the woman he loved.) \"I...\nbut no, I will talk to you later on,\" and with a strange light in his\neyes and restlessness in his movements, Prince Andrew approached Natasha\nand sat down beside her. Pierre saw how Prince Andrew asked her\nsomething and how she flushed as she replied.\n\nBut at that moment Berg came to Pierre and began insisting that he\nshould take part in an argument between the general and the colonel on\nthe affairs in Spain.\n\nBerg was satisfied and happy. The smile of pleasure never left his face.\nThe party was very successful and quite like other parties he had seen.\nEverything was similar: the ladies' subtle talk, the cards, the general\nraising his voice at the card table, and the samovar and the tea cakes;\nonly one thing was lacking that he had always seen at the evening\nparties he wished to imitate. They had not yet had a loud conversation\namong the men and a dispute about something important and clever. Now\nthe general had begun such a discussion and so Berg drew Pierre to it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nNext day, having been invited by the count, Prince Andrew dined with the\nRostovs and spent the rest of the day there.\n\nEveryone in the house realized for whose sake Prince Andrew came, and\nwithout concealing it he tried to be with Natasha all day. Not only in\nthe soul of the frightened yet happy and enraptured Natasha, but in the\nwhole house, there was a feeling of awe at something important that was\nbound to happen. The countess looked with sad and sternly serious eyes\nat Prince Andrew when he talked to Natasha and timidly started some\nartificial conversation about trifles as soon as he looked her way.\nSonya was afraid to leave Natasha and afraid of being in the way when\nshe was with them. Natasha grew pale, in a panic of expectation, when\nshe remained alone with him for a moment. Prince Andrew surprised her by\nhis timidity. She felt that he wanted to say something to her but could\nnot bring himself to do so.\n\nIn the evening, when Prince Andrew had left, the countess went up to\nNatasha and whispered: \"Well, what?\"\n\n\"Mamma! For heaven's sake don't ask me anything now! One can't talk\nabout that,\" said Natasha.\n\nBut all the same that night Natasha, now agitated and now frightened,\nlay a long time in her mother's bed gazing straight before her. She told\nher how he had complimented her, how he told her he was going abroad,\nasked her where they were going to spend the summer, and then how he had\nasked her about Boris.\n\n\"But such a... such a... never happened to me before!\" she said. \"Only I\nfeel afraid in his presence. I am always afraid when I'm with him. What\ndoes that mean? Does it mean that it's the real thing? Yes? Mamma, are\nyou asleep?\"\n\n\"No, my love; I am frightened myself,\" answered her mother. \"Now go!\"\n\n\"All the same I shan't sleep. What silliness, to sleep! Mummy! Mummy!\nsuch a thing never happened to me before,\" she said, surprised and\nalarmed at the feeling she was aware of in herself. \"And could we ever\nhave thought!...\"\n\nIt seemed to Natasha that even at the time she first saw Prince Andrew\nat Otradnoe she had fallen in love with him. It was as if she feared\nthis strange, unexpected happiness of meeting again the very man she had\nthen chosen (she was firmly convinced she had done so) and of finding\nhim, as it seemed, not indifferent to her.\n\n\"And it had to happen that he should come specially to Petersburg while\nwe are here. And it had to happen that we should meet at that ball. It\nis fate. Clearly it is fate that everything led up to this! Already\nthen, directly I saw him I felt something peculiar.\"\n\n\"What else did he say to you? What are those verses? Read them...\" said\nher mother, thoughtfully, referring to some verses Prince Andrew had\nwritten in Natasha's album.\n\n\"Mamma, one need not be ashamed of his being a widower?\"\n\n\"Don't, Natasha! Pray to God. 'Marriages are made in heaven,'\" said her\nmother.\n\n\"Darling Mummy, how I love you! How happy I am!\" cried Natasha, shedding\ntears of joy and excitement and embracing her mother.\n\nAt that very time Prince Andrew was sitting with Pierre and telling him\nof his love for Natasha and his firm resolve to make her his wife.\n\nThat day Countess Helene had a reception at her house. The French\nambassador was there, and a foreign prince of the blood who had of late\nbecome a frequent visitor of hers, and many brilliant ladies and\ngentlemen. Pierre, who had come downstairs, walked through the rooms and\nstruck everyone by his preoccupied, absent-minded, and morose air.\n\nSince the ball he had felt the approach of a fit of nervous depression\nand had made desperate efforts to combat it. Since the intimacy of his\nwife with the royal prince, Pierre had unexpectedly been made a\ngentleman of the bedchamber, and from that time he had begun to feel\noppressed and ashamed in court society, and dark thoughts of the vanity\nof all things human came to him oftener than before. At the same time\nthe feeling he had noticed between his protegee Natasha and Prince\nAndrew accentuated his gloom by the contrast between his own position\nand his friend's. He tried equally to avoid thinking about his wife, and\nabout Natasha and Prince Andrew; and again everything seemed to him\ninsignificant in comparison with eternity; again the question: for what?\npresented itself; and he forced himself to work day and night at masonic\nlabors, hoping to drive away the evil spirit that threatened him. Toward\nmidnight, after he had left the countess' apartments, he was sitting\nupstairs in a shabby dressing gown, copying out the original transaction\nof the Scottish lodge of Freemasons at a table in his low room cloudy\nwith tobacco smoke, when someone came in. It was Prince Andrew.\n\n\"Ah, it's you!\" said Pierre with a preoccupied, dissatisfied air. \"And\nI, you see, am hard at it.\" He pointed to his manuscript book with that\nair of escaping from the ills of life with which unhappy people look at\ntheir work.\n\nPrince Andrew, with a beaming, ecstatic expression of renewed life on\nhis face, paused in front of Pierre and, not noticing his sad look,\nsmiled at him with the egotism of joy.\n\n\"Well, dear heart,\" said he, \"I wanted to tell you about it yesterday\nand I have come to do so today. I never experienced anything like it\nbefore. I am in love, my friend!\"\n\nSuddenly Pierre heaved a deep sigh and dumped his heavy person down on\nthe sofa beside Prince Andrew.\n\n\"With Natasha Rostova, yes?\" said he.\n\n\"Yes, yes! Who else should it be? I should never have believed it, but\nthe feeling is stronger than I. Yesterday I tormented myself and\nsuffered, but I would not exchange even that torment for anything in the\nworld, I have not lived till now. At last I live, but I can't live\nwithout her! But can she love me?... I am too old for her.... Why don't\nyou speak?\"\n\n\"I? I? What did I tell you?\" said Pierre suddenly, rising and beginning\nto pace up and down the room. \"I always thought it.... That girl is such\na treasure... she is a rare girl.... My dear friend, I entreat you,\ndon't philosophize, don't doubt, marry, marry, marry.... And I am sure\nthere will not be a happier man than you.\"\n\n\"But what of her?\"\n\n\"She loves you.\"\n\n\"Don't talk rubbish...\" said Prince Andrew, smiling and looking into\nPierre's eyes.\n\n\"She does, I know,\" Pierre cried fiercely.\n\n\"But do listen,\" returned Prince Andrew, holding him by the arm. \"Do you\nknow the condition I am in? I must talk about it to someone.\"\n\n\"Well, go on, go on. I am very glad,\" said Pierre, and his face really\nchanged, his brow became smooth, and he listened gladly to Prince\nAndrew. Prince Andrew seemed, and really was, quite a different, quite a\nnew man. Where was his spleen, his contempt for life, his\ndisillusionment? Pierre was the only person to whom he made up his mind\nto speak openly; and to him he told all that was in his soul. Now he\nboldly and lightly made plans for an extended future, said he could not\nsacrifice his own happiness to his father's caprice, and spoke of how he\nwould either make his father consent to this marriage and love her, or\nwould do without his consent; then he marveled at the feeling that had\nmastered him as at something strange, apart from and independent of\nhimself.\n\n\"I should not have believed anyone who told me that I was capable of\nsuch love,\" said Prince Andrew. \"It is not at all the same feeling that\nI knew in the past. The whole world is now for me divided into two\nhalves: one half is she, and there all is joy, hope, light: the other\nhalf is everything where she is not, and there is all gloom and\ndarkness....\"\n\n\"Darkness and gloom,\" reiterated Pierre: \"yes, yes, I understand that.\"\n\n\"I cannot help loving the light, it is not my fault. And I am very\nhappy! You understand me? I know you are glad for my sake.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" Pierre assented, looking at his friend with a touched and\nsad expression in his eyes. The brighter Prince Andrew's lot appeared to\nhim, the gloomier seemed his own.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\nPrince Andrew needed his father's consent to his marriage, and to obtain\nthis he started for the country next day.\n\nHis father received his son's communication with external composure, but\ninward wrath. He could not comprehend how anyone could wish to alter his\nlife or introduce anything new into it, when his own life was already\nending. \"If only they would let me end my days as I want to,\" thought\nthe old man, \"then they might do as they please.\" With his son, however,\nhe employed the diplomacy he reserved for important occasions and,\nadopting a quiet tone, discussed the whole matter.\n\nIn the first place the marriage was not a brilliant one as regards\nbirth, wealth, or rank. Secondly, Prince Andrew was no longer as young\nas he had been and his health was poor (the old man laid special stress\non this), while she was very young. Thirdly, he had a son whom it would\nbe a pity to entrust to a chit of a girl. \"Fourthly and finally,\" the\nfather said, looking ironically at his son, \"I beg you to put it off for\na year: go abroad, take a cure, look out as you wanted to for a German\ntutor for Prince Nicholas. Then if your love or passion or obstinacy--as\nyou please--is still as great, marry! And that's my last word on it.\nMind, the last...\" concluded the prince, in a tone which showed that\nnothing would make him alter his decision.\n\nPrince Andrew saw clearly that the old man hoped that his feelings, or\nhis fiancee's, would not stand a year's test, or that he (the old prince\nhimself) would die before then, and he decided to conform to his\nfather's wish--to propose, and postpone the wedding for a year.\n\nThree weeks after the last evening he had spent with the Rostovs, Prince\nAndrew returned to Petersburg.\n\nNext day after her talk with her mother Natasha expected Bolkonski all\nday, but he did not come. On the second and third day it was the same.\nPierre did not come either and Natasha, not knowing that Prince Andrew\nhad gone to see his father, could not explain his absence to herself.\n\nThree weeks passed in this way. Natasha had no desire to go out anywhere\nand wandered from room to room like a shadow, idle and listless; she\nwept secretly at night and did not go to her mother in the evenings. She\nblushed continually and was irritable. It seemed to her that everybody\nknew about her disappointment and was laughing at her and pitying her.\nStrong as was her inward grief, this wound to her vanity intensified her\nmisery.\n\nOnce she came to her mother, tried to say something, and suddenly began\nto cry. Her tears were those of an offended child who does not know why\nit is being punished.\n\nThe countess began to soothe Natasha, who after first listening to her\nmother's words, suddenly interrupted her:\n\n\"Leave off, Mamma! I don't think, and don't want to think about it! He\njust came and then left off, left off...\"\n\nHer voice trembled, and she again nearly cried, but recovered and went\non quietly:\n\n\"And I don't at all want to get married. And I am afraid of him; I have\nnow become quite calm, quite calm.\"\n\nThe day after this conversation Natasha put on the old dress which she\nknew had the peculiar property of conducing to cheerfulness in the\nmornings, and that day she returned to the old way of life which she had\nabandoned since the ball. Having finished her morning tea she went to\nthe ballroom, which she particularly liked for its loud resonance, and\nbegan singing her solfeggio. When she had finished her first exercise\nshe stood still in the middle of the room and sang a musical phrase that\nparticularly pleased her. She listened joyfully (as though she had not\nexpected it) to the charm of the notes reverberating, filling the whole\nempty ballroom, and slowly dying away; and all at once she felt\ncheerful. \"What's the good of making so much of it? Things are nice as\nit is,\" she said to herself, and she began walking up and down the room,\nnot stepping simply on the resounding parquet but treading with each\nstep from the heel to the toe (she had on a new and favorite pair of\nshoes) and listening to the regular tap of the heel and creak of the toe\nas gladly as she had to the sounds of her own voice. Passing a mirror\nshe glanced into it. \"There, that's me!\" the expression of her face\nseemed to say as she caught sight of herself. \"Well, and very nice too!\nI need nobody.\"\n\nA footman wanted to come in to clear away something in the room but she\nwould not let him, and having closed the door behind him continued her\nwalk. That morning she had returned to her favorite mood--love of, and\ndelight in, herself. \"How charming that Natasha is!\" she said again,\nspeaking as some third, collective, male person. \"Pretty, a good voice,\nyoung, and in nobody's way if only they leave her in peace.\" But however\nmuch they left her in peace she could not now be at peace, and\nimmediately felt this.\n\nIn the hall the porch door opened, and someone asked, \"At home?\" and\nthen footsteps were heard. Natasha was looking at the mirror, but did\nnot see herself. She listened to the sounds in the hall. When she saw\nherself, her face was pale. It was he. She knew this for certain, though\nshe hardly heard his voice through the closed doors.\n\nPale and agitated, Natasha ran into the drawing room.\n\n\"Mamma! Bolkonski has come!\" she said. \"Mamma, it is awful, it is\nunbearable! I don't want... to be tormented? What am I to do?...\"\n\nBefore the countess could answer, Prince Andrew entered the room with an\nagitated and serious face. As soon as he saw Natasha his face\nbrightened. He kissed the countess' hand and Natasha's, and sat down\nbeside the sofa.\n\n\"It is long since we had the pleasure...\" began the countess, but Prince\nAndrew interrupted her by answering her intended question, obviously in\nhaste to say what he had to.\n\n\"I have not been to see you all this time because I have been at my\nfather's. I had to talk over a very important matter with him. I only\ngot back last night,\" he said glancing at Natasha; \"I want to have a\ntalk with you, Countess,\" he added after a moment's pause.\n\nThe countess lowered her eyes, sighing deeply.\n\n\"I am at your disposal,\" she murmured.\n\nNatasha knew that she ought to go away, but was unable to do so:\nsomething gripped her throat, and regardless of manners she stared\nstraight at Prince Andrew with wide-open eyes.\n\n\"At once? This instant!... No, it can't be!\" she thought.\n\nAgain he glanced at her, and that glance convinced her that she was not\nmistaken. Yes, at once, that very instant, her fate would be decided.\n\n\"Go, Natasha! I will call you,\" said the countess in a whisper.\n\nNatasha glanced with frightened imploring eyes at Prince Andrew and at\nher mother and went out.\n\n\"I have come, Countess, to ask for your daughter's hand,\" said Prince\nAndrew.\n\nThe countess' face flushed hotly, but she said nothing.\n\n\"Your offer...\" she began at last sedately. He remained silent, looking\ninto her eyes. \"Your offer...\" (she grew confused) \"is agreeable to us,\nand I accept your offer. I am glad. And my husband... I hope... but it\nwill depend on her....\"\n\n\"I will speak to her when I have your consent.... Do you give it to me?\"\nsaid Prince Andrew.\n\n\"Yes,\" replied the countess. She held out her hand to him, and with a\nmixed feeling of estrangement and tenderness pressed her lips to his\nforehead as he stooped to kiss her hand. She wished to love him as a\nson, but felt that to her he was a stranger and a terrifying man. \"I am\nsure my husband will consent,\" said the countess, \"but your father...\"\n\n\"My father, to whom I have told my plans, has made it an express\ncondition of his consent that the wedding is not to take place for a\nyear. And I wished to tell you of that,\" said Prince Andrew.\n\n\"It is true that Natasha is still young, but--so long as that?...\"\n\n\"It is unavoidable,\" said Prince Andrew with a sigh.\n\n\"I will send her to you,\" said the countess, and left the room.\n\n\"Lord have mercy upon us!\" she repeated while seeking her daughter.\n\nSonya said that Natasha was in her bedroom. Natasha was sitting on the\nbed, pale and dry eyed, and was gazing at the icons and whispering\nsomething as she rapidly crossed herself. Seeing her mother she jumped\nup and flew to her.\n\n\"Well, Mamma?... Well?...\"\n\n\"Go, go to him. He is asking for your hand,\" said the countess, coldly\nit seemed to Natasha. \"Go... go,\" said the mother, sadly and\nreproachfully, with a deep sigh, as her daughter ran away.\n\nNatasha never remembered how she entered the drawing room. When she came\nin and saw him she paused. \"Is it possible that this stranger has now\nbecome everything to me?\" she asked herself, and immediately answered,\n\"Yes, everything! He alone is now dearer to me than everything in the\nworld.\" Prince Andrew came up to her with downcast eyes.\n\n\"I have loved you from the very first moment I saw you. May I hope?\"\n\nHe looked at her and was struck by the serious impassioned expression of\nher face. Her face said: \"Why ask? Why doubt what you cannot but know?\nWhy speak, when words cannot express what one feels?\"\n\nShe drew near to him and stopped. He took her hand and kissed it.\n\n\"Do you love me?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes!\" Natasha murmured as if in vexation. Then she sighed loudly\nand, catching her breath more and more quickly, began to sob.\n\n\"What is it? What's the matter?\"\n\n\"Oh, I am so happy!\" she replied, smiled through her tears, bent over\ncloser to him, paused for an instant as if asking herself whether she\nmight, and then kissed him.\n\nPrince Andrew held her hands, looked into her eyes, and did not find in\nhis heart his former love for her. Something in him had suddenly\nchanged; there was no longer the former poetic and mystic charm of\ndesire, but there was pity for her feminine and childish weakness, fear\nat her devotion and trustfulness, and an oppressive yet joyful sense of\nthe duty that now bound him to her forever. The present feeling, though\nnot so bright and poetic as the former, was stronger and more serious.\n\n\"Did your mother tell you that it cannot be for a year?\" asked Prince\nAndrew, still looking into her eyes.\n\n\"Is it possible that I--the 'chit of a girl,' as everybody called me,\"\nthought Natasha--\"is it possible that I am now to be the wife and the\nequal of this strange, dear, clever man whom even my father looks up to?\nCan it be true? Can it be true that there can be no more playing with\nlife, that now I am grown up, that on me now lies a responsibility for\nmy every word and deed? Yes, but what did he ask me?\"\n\n\"No,\" she replied, but she had not understood his question.\n\n\"Forgive me!\" he said. \"But you are so young, and I have already been\nthrough so much in life. I am afraid for you, you do not yet know\nyourself.\"\n\nNatasha listened with concentrated attention, trying but failing to take\nin the meaning of his words.\n\n\"Hard as this year which delays my happiness will be,\" continued Prince\nAndrew, \"it will give you time to be sure of yourself. I ask you to make\nme happy in a year, but you are free: our engagement shall remain a\nsecret, and should you find that you do not love me, or should you come\nto love...\" said Prince Andrew with an unnatural smile.\n\n\"Why do you say that?\" Natasha interrupted him. \"You know that from the\nvery day you first came to Otradnoe I have loved you,\" she cried, quite\nconvinced that she spoke the truth.\n\n\"In a year you will learn to know yourself....\"\n\n\"A whole year!\" Natasha repeated suddenly, only now realizing that the\nmarriage was to be postponed for a year. \"But why a year? Why a\nyear?...\"\n\nPrince Andrew began to explain to her the reasons for this delay.\nNatasha did not hear him.\n\n\"And can't it be helped?\" she asked. Prince Andrew did not reply, but\nhis face expressed the impossibility of altering that decision.\n\n\"It's awful! Oh, it's awful! awful!\" Natasha suddenly cried, and again\nburst into sobs. \"I shall die, waiting a year: it's impossible, it's\nawful!\" She looked into her lover's face and saw in it a look of\ncommiseration and perplexity.\n\n\"No, no! I'll do anything!\" she said, suddenly checking her tears. \"I am\nso happy.\"\n\nThe father and mother came into the room and gave the betrothed couple\ntheir blessing.\n\nFrom that day Prince Andrew began to frequent the Rostovs' as Natasha's\naffianced lover.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\nNo betrothal ceremony took place and Natasha's engagement to Bolkonski\nwas not announced; Prince Andrew insisted on that. He said that as he\nwas responsible for the delay he ought to bear the whole burden of it;\nthat he had given his word and bound himself forever, but that he did\nnot wish to bind Natasha and gave her perfect freedom. If after six\nmonths she felt that she did not love him she would have full right to\nreject him. Naturally neither Natasha nor her parents wished to hear of\nthis, but Prince Andrew was firm. He came every day to the Rostovs', but\ndid not behave to Natasha as an affianced lover: he did not use the\nfamiliar thou, but said you to her, and kissed only her hand. After\ntheir engagement, quite different, intimate, and natural relations\nsprang up between them. It was as if they had not known each other till\nnow. Both liked to recall how they had regarded each other when as yet\nthey were nothing to one another; they felt themselves now quite\ndifferent beings: then they were artificial, now natural and sincere. At\nfirst the family felt some constraint in intercourse with Prince Andrew;\nhe seemed a man from another world, and for a long time Natasha trained\nthe family to get used to him, proudly assuring them all that he only\nappeared to be different, but was really just like all of them, and that\nshe was not afraid of him and no one else ought to be. After a few days\nthey grew accustomed to him, and without restraint in his presence\npursued their usual way of life, in which he took his part. He could\ntalk about rural economy with the count, fashions with the countess and\nNatasha, and about albums and fancywork with Sonya. Sometimes the\nhousehold both among themselves and in his presence expressed their\nwonder at how it had all happened, and at the evident omens there had\nbeen of it: Prince Andrew's coming to Otradnoe and their coming to\nPetersburg, and the likeness between Natasha and Prince Andrew which her\nnurse had noticed on his first visit, and Andrew's encounter with\nNicholas in 1805, and many other incidents betokening that it had to be.\n\nIn the house that poetic dullness and quiet reigned which always\naccompanies the presence of a betrothed couple. Often when all sitting\ntogether everyone kept silent. Sometimes the others would get up and go\naway and the couple, left alone, still remained silent. They rarely\nspoke of their future life. Prince Andrew was afraid and ashamed to\nspeak of it. Natasha shared this as she did all his feelings, which she\nconstantly divined. Once she began questioning him about his son. Prince\nAndrew blushed, as he often did now--Natasha particularly liked it in\nhim--and said that his son would not live with them.\n\n\"Why not?\" asked Natasha in a frightened tone.\n\n\"I cannot take him away from his grandfather, and besides...\"\n\n\"How I should have loved him!\" said Natasha, immediately guessing his\nthought; \"but I know you wish to avoid any pretext for finding fault\nwith us.\"\n\nSometimes the old count would come up, kiss Prince Andrew, and ask his\nadvice about Petya's education or Nicholas' service. The old countess\nsighed as she looked at them; Sonya was always getting frightened lest\nshe should be in the way and tried to find excuses for leaving them\nalone, even when they did not wish it. When Prince Andrew spoke (he\ncould tell a story very well), Natasha listened to him with pride; when\nshe spoke she noticed with fear and joy that he gazed attentively and\nscrutinizingly at her. She asked herself in perplexity: \"What does he\nlook for in me? He is trying to discover something by looking at me!\nWhat if what he seeks in me is not there?\" Sometimes she fell into one\nof the mad, merry moods characteristic of her, and then she particularly\nloved to hear and see how Prince Andrew laughed. He seldom laughed, but\nwhen he did he abandoned himself entirely to his laughter, and after\nsuch a laugh she always felt nearer to him. Natasha would have been\ncompletely happy if the thought of the separation awaiting her and\ndrawing near had not terrified her, just as the mere thought of it made\nhim turn pale and cold.\n\nOn the eve of his departure from Petersburg Prince Andrew brought with\nhim Pierre, who had not been to the Rostovs' once since the ball. Pierre\nseemed disconcerted and embarrassed. He was talking to the countess, and\nNatasha sat down beside a little chess table with Sonya, thereby\ninviting Prince Andrew to come too. He did so.\n\n\"You have known Bezukhov a long time?\" he asked. \"Do you like him?\"\n\n\"Yes, he's a dear, but very absurd.\"\n\nAnd as usual when speaking of Pierre, she began to tell anecdotes of his\nabsent-mindedness, some of which had even been invented about him.\n\n\"Do you know I have entrusted him with our secret? I have known him from\nchildhood. He has a heart of gold. I beg you, Natalie,\" Prince Andrew\nsaid with sudden seriousness--\"I am going away and heaven knows what may\nhappen. You may cease to... all right, I know I am not to say that. Only\nthis, then: whatever may happen to you when I am not here...\"\n\n\"What can happen?\"\n\n\"Whatever trouble may come,\" Prince Andrew continued, \"I beg you,\nMademoiselle Sophie, whatever may happen, to turn to him alone for\nadvice and help! He is a most absent-minded and absurd fellow, but he\nhas a heart of gold.\"\n\nNeither her father, nor her mother, nor Sonya, nor Prince Andrew himself\ncould have foreseen how the separation from her lover would act on\nNatasha. Flushed and agitated she went about the house all that day,\ndry-eyed, occupied with most trivial matters as if not understanding\nwhat awaited her. She did not even cry when, on taking leave, he kissed\nher hand for the last time. \"Don't go!\" she said in a tone that made him\nwonder whether he really ought not to stay and which he remembered long\nafterwards. Nor did she cry when he was gone; but for several days she\nsat in her room dry-eyed, taking no interest in anything and only saying\nnow and then, \"Oh, why did he go away?\"\n\nBut a fortnight after his departure, to the surprise of those around\nher, she recovered from her mental sickness just as suddenly and became\nher old self again, but with a change in her moral physiognomy, as a\nchild gets up after a long illness with a changed expression of face.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\nDuring that year after his son's departure, Prince Nicholas Bolkonski's\nhealth and temper became much worse. He grew still more irritable, and\nit was Princess Mary who generally bore the brunt of his frequent fits\nof unprovoked anger. He seemed carefully to seek out her tender spots so\nas to torture her mentally as harshly as possible. Princess Mary had two\npassions and consequently two joys--her nephew, little Nicholas, and\nreligion--and these were the favorite subjects of the prince's attacks\nand ridicule. Whatever was spoken of he would bring round to the\nsuperstitiousness of old maids, or the petting and spoiling of children.\n\"You want to make him\"--little Nicholas--\"into an old maid like\nyourself! A pity! Prince Andrew wants a son and not an old maid,\" he\nwould say. Or, turning to Mademoiselle Bourienne, he would ask her in\nPrincess Mary's presence how she liked our village priests and icons and\nwould joke about them.\n\nHe continually hurt Princess Mary's feelings and tormented her, but it\ncost her no effort to forgive him. Could he be to blame toward her, or\ncould her father, whom she knew loved her in spite of it all, be unjust?\nAnd what is justice? The princess never thought of that proud word\n\"justice.\" All the complex laws of man centered for her in one clear and\nsimple law--the law of love and self-sacrifice taught us by Him who\nlovingly suffered for mankind though He Himself was God. What had she to\ndo with the justice or injustice of other people? She had to endure and\nlove, and that she did.\n\nDuring the winter Prince Andrew had come to Bald Hills and had been gay,\ngentle, and more affectionate than Princess Mary had known him for a\nlong time past. She felt that something had happened to him, but he said\nnothing to her about his love. Before he left he had a long talk with\nhis father about something, and Princess Mary noticed that before his\ndeparture they were dissatisfied with one another.\n\nSoon after Prince Andrew had gone, Princess Mary wrote to her friend\nJulie Karagina in Petersburg, whom she had dreamed (as all girls dream)\nof marrying to her brother, and who was at that time in mourning for her\nown brother, killed in Turkey.\n\nSorrow, it seems, is our common lot, my dear, tender friend Julie.\n\nYour loss is so terrible that I can only explain it to myself as a\nspecial providence of God who, loving you, wishes to try you and your\nexcellent mother. Oh, my friend! Religion, and religion alone, can--I\nwill not say comfort us--but save us from despair. Religion alone can\nexplain to us what without its help man cannot comprehend: why, for what\ncause, kind and noble beings able to find happiness in life--not merely\nharming no one but necessary to the happiness of others--are called away\nto God, while cruel, useless, harmful persons, or such as are a burden\nto themselves and to others, are left living. The first death I saw, and\none I shall never forget--that of my dear sister-in-law--left that\nimpression on me. Just as you ask destiny why your splendid brother had\nto die, so I asked why that angel Lise, who not only never wronged\nanyone, but in whose soul there were never any unkind thoughts, had to\ndie. And what do you think, dear friend? Five years have passed since\nthen, and already I, with my petty understanding, begin to see clearly\nwhy she had to die, and in what way that death was but an expression of\nthe infinite goodness of the Creator, whose every action, though\ngenerally incomprehensible to us, is but a manifestation of His infinite\nlove for His creatures. Perhaps, I often think, she was too angelically\ninnocent to have the strength to perform all a mother's duties. As a\nyoung wife she was irreproachable; perhaps she could not have been so as\na mother. As it is, not only has she left us, and particularly Prince\nAndrew, with the purest regrets and memories, but probably she will\nthere receive a place I dare not hope for myself. But not to speak of\nher alone, that early and terrible death has had the most beneficent\ninfluence on me and on my brother in spite of all our grief. Then, at\nthe moment of our loss, these thoughts could not occur to me; I should\nthen have dismissed them with horror, but now they are very clear and\ncertain. I write all this to you, dear friend, only to convince you of\nthe Gospel truth which has become for me a principle of life: not a\nsingle hair of our heads will fall without His will. And His will is\ngoverned only by infinite love for us, and so whatever befalls us is for\nour good.\n\nYou ask whether we shall spend next winter in Moscow. In spite of my\nwish to see you, I do not think so and do not want to do so. You will be\nsurprised to hear that the reason for this is Buonaparte! The case is\nthis: my father's health is growing noticeably worse, he cannot stand\nany contradiction and is becoming irritable. This irritability is, as\nyou know, chiefly directed to political questions. He cannot endure the\nnotion that Buonaparte is negotiating on equal terms with all the\nsovereigns of Europe and particularly with our own, the grandson of the\nGreat Catherine! As you know, I am quite indifferent to politics, but\nfrom my father's remarks and his talks with Michael Ivanovich I know all\nthat goes on in the world and especially about the honors conferred on\nBuonaparte, who only at Bald Hills in the whole world, it seems, is not\naccepted as a great man, still less as Emperor of France. And my father\ncannot stand this. It seems to me that it is chiefly because of his\npolitical views that my father is reluctant to speak of going to Moscow;\nfor he foresees the encounters that would result from his way of\nexpressing his views regardless of anybody. All the benefit he might\nderive from a course of treatment he would lose as a result of the\ndisputes about Buonaparte which would be inevitable. In any case it will\nbe decided very shortly.\n\nOur family life goes on in the old way except for my brother Andrew's\nabsence. He, as I wrote you before, has changed very much of late. After\nhis sorrow he only this year quite recovered his spirits. He has again\nbecome as I used to know him when a child: kind, affectionate, with that\nheart of gold to which I know no equal. He has realized, it seems to me,\nthat life is not over for him. But together with this mental change he\nhas grown physically much weaker. He has become thinner and more\nnervous. I am anxious about him and glad he is taking this trip abroad\nwhich the doctors recommended long ago. I hope it will cure him. You\nwrite that in Petersburg he is spoken of as one of the most active,\ncultivated, and capable of the young men. Forgive my vanity as a\nrelation, but I never doubted it. The good he has done to everybody\nhere, from his peasants up to the gentry, is incalculable. On his\narrival in Petersburg he received only his due. I always wonder at the\nway rumors fly from Petersburg to Moscow, especially such false ones as\nthat you write about--I mean the report of my brother's betrothal to the\nlittle Rostova. I do not think my brother will ever marry again, and\ncertainly not her; and this is why: first, I know that though he rarely\nspeaks about the wife he has lost, the grief of that loss has gone too\ndeep in his heart for him ever to decide to give her a successor and our\nlittle angel a stepmother. Secondly because, as far as I know, that girl\nis not the kind of girl who could please Prince Andrew. I do not think\nhe would choose her for a wife, and frankly I do not wish it. But I am\nrunning on too long and am at the end of my second sheet. Good-bye, my\ndear friend. May God keep you in His holy and mighty care. My dear\nfriend, Mademoiselle Bourienne, sends you kisses.\n\nMARY\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\nIn the middle of the summer Princess Mary received an unexpected letter\nfrom Prince Andrew in Switzerland in which he gave her strange and\nsurprising news. He informed her of his engagement to Natasha Rostova.\nThe whole letter breathed loving rapture for his betrothed and tender\nand confiding affection for his sister. He wrote that he had never loved\nas he did now and that only now did he understand and know what life\nwas. He asked his sister to forgive him for not having told her of his\nresolve when he had last visited Bald Hills, though he had spoken of it\nto his father. He had not done so for fear Princess Mary should ask her\nfather to give his consent, irritating him and having to bear the brunt\nof his displeasure without attaining her object. \"Besides,\" he wrote,\n\"the matter was not then so definitely settled as it is now. My father\nthen insisted on a delay of a year and now already six months, half of\nthat period, have passed, and my resolution is firmer than ever. If the\ndoctors did not keep me here at the spas I should be back in Russia, but\nas it is I have to postpone my return for three months. You know me and\nmy relations with Father. I want nothing from him. I have been and\nalways shall be independent; but to go against his will and arouse his\nanger, now that he may perhaps remain with us such a short time, would\ndestroy half my happiness. I am now writing to him about the same\nquestion, and beg you to choose a good moment to hand him the letter and\nto let me know how he looks at the whole matter and whether there is\nhope that he may consent to reduce the term by four months.\"\n\nAfter long hesitations, doubts, and prayers, Princess Mary gave the\nletter to her father. The next day the old prince said to her quietly:\n\n\"Write and tell your brother to wait till I am dead.... It won't be\nlong--I shall soon set him free.\"\n\nThe princess was about to reply, but her father would not let her speak\nand, raising his voice more and more, cried:\n\n\"Marry, marry, my boy!... A good family!... Clever people, eh? Rich, eh?\nYes, a nice stepmother little Nicholas will have! Write and tell him\nthat he may marry tomorrow if he likes. She will be little Nicholas'\nstepmother and I'll marry Bourienne!... Ha, ha, ha! He mustn't be\nwithout a stepmother either! Only one thing, no more women are wanted in\nmy house--let him marry and live by himself. Perhaps you will go and\nlive with him too?\" he added, turning to Princess Mary. \"Go in heaven's\nname! Go out into the frost... the frost... the frost!\"\n\nAfter this outburst the prince did not speak any more about the matter.\nBut repressed vexation at his son's poor-spirited behavior found\nexpression in his treatment of his daughter. To his former pretexts for\nirony a fresh one was now added--allusions to stepmothers and\namiabilities to Mademoiselle Bourienne.\n\n\"Why shouldn't I marry her?\" he asked his daughter. \"She'll make a\nsplendid princess!\"\n\nAnd latterly, to her surprise and bewilderment, Princess Mary noticed\nthat her father was really associating more and more with the\nFrenchwoman. She wrote to Prince Andrew about the reception of his\nletter, but comforted him with hopes of reconciling their father to the\nidea.\n\nLittle Nicholas and his education, her brother Andrew, and religion were\nPrincess Mary's joys and consolations; but besides that, since everyone\nmust have personal hopes, Princess Mary in the profoundest depths of her\nheart had a hidden dream and hope that supplied the chief consolation of\nher life. This comforting dream and hope were given her by God's folk--\nthe half-witted and other pilgrims who visited her without the prince's\nknowledge. The longer she lived, the more experience and observation she\nhad of life, the greater was her wonder at the short-sightedness of men\nwho seek enjoyment and happiness here on earth: toiling, suffering,\nstruggling, and harming one another, to obtain that impossible,\nvisionary, sinful happiness. Prince Andrew had loved his wife, she died,\nbut that was not enough: he wanted to bind his happiness to another\nwoman. Her father objected to this because he wanted a more\ndistinguished and wealthier match for Andrew. And they all struggled and\nsuffered and tormented one another and injured their souls, their\neternal souls, for the attainment of benefits which endure but for an\ninstant. Not only do we know this ourselves, but Christ, the Son of God,\ncame down to earth and told us that this life is but for a moment and is\na probation; yet we cling to it and think to find happiness in it. \"How\nis it that no one realizes this?\" thought Princess Mary. \"No one except\nthese despised God's folk who, wallet on back, come to me by the back\ndoor, afraid of being seen by the prince, not for fear of ill-usage by\nhim but for fear of causing him to sin. To leave family, home, and all\nthe cares of worldly welfare, in order without clinging to anything to\nwander in hempen rags from place to place under an assumed name, doing\nno one any harm but praying for all--for those who drive one away as\nwell as for those who protect one: higher than that life and truth there\nis no life or truth!\"\n\nThere was one pilgrim, a quiet pockmarked little woman of fifty called\nTheodosia, who for over thirty years had gone about barefoot and worn\nheavy chains. Princess Mary was particularly fond of her. Once, when in\na room with a lamp dimly lit before the icon Theodosia was talking of\nher life, the thought that Theodosia alone had found the true path of\nlife suddenly came to Princess Mary with such force that she resolved to\nbecome a pilgrim herself. When Theodosia had gone to sleep Princess Mary\nthought about this for a long time, and at last made up her mind that,\nstrange as it might seem, she must go on a pilgrimage. She disclosed\nthis thought to no one but to her confessor, Father Akinfi, the monk,\nand he approved of her intention. Under guise of a present for the\npilgrims, Princess Mary prepared a pilgrim's complete costume for\nherself: a coarse smock, bast shoes, a rough coat, and a black kerchief.\nOften, approaching the chest of drawers containing this secret treasure,\nPrincess Mary paused, uncertain whether the time had not already come to\nput her project into execution.\n\nOften, listening to the pilgrims' tales, she was so stimulated by their\nsimple speech, mechanical to them but to her so full of deep meaning,\nthat several times she was on the point of abandoning everything and\nrunning away from home. In imagination she already pictured herself by\nTheodosia's side, dressed in coarse rags, walking with a staff, a wallet\non her back, along the dusty road, directing her wanderings from one\nsaint's shrine to another, free from envy, earthly love, or desire, and\nreaching at last the place where there is no more sorrow or sighing, but\neternal joy and bliss.\n\n\"I shall come to a place and pray there, and before having time to get\nused to it or getting to love it, I shall go farther. I will go on till\nmy legs fail, and I'll lie down and die somewhere, and shall at last\nreach that eternal, quiet haven, where there is neither sorrow nor\nsighing...\" thought Princess Mary.\n\nBut afterwards, when she saw her father and especially little Koko\n(Nicholas), her resolve weakened. She wept quietly, and felt that she\nwas a sinner who loved her father and little nephew more than God.\n\nBOOK SEVEN: 1810 - 11\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nThe Bible legend tells us that the absence of labor--idleness--was a\ncondition of the first man's blessedness before the Fall. Fallen man has\nretained a love of idleness, but the curse weighs on the race not only\nbecause we have to seek our bread in the sweat of our brows, but because\nour moral nature is such that we cannot be both idle and at ease. An\ninner voice tells us we are in the wrong if we are idle. If man could\nfind a state in which he felt that though idle he was fulfilling his\nduty, he would have found one of the conditions of man's primitive\nblessedness. And such a state of obligatory and irreproachable idleness\nis the lot of a whole class--the military. The chief attraction of\nmilitary service has consisted and will consist in this compulsory and\nirreproachable idleness.\n\nNicholas Rostov experienced this blissful condition to the full when,\nafter 1807, he continued to serve in the Pavlograd regiment, in which he\nalready commanded the squadron he had taken over from Denisov.\n\nRostov had become a bluff, good-natured fellow, whom his Moscow\nacquaintances would have considered rather bad form, but who was liked\nand respected by his comrades, subordinates, and superiors, and was well\ncontented with his life. Of late, in 1809, he found in letters from home\nmore frequent complaints from his mother that their affairs were falling\ninto greater and greater disorder, and that it was time for him to come\nback to gladden and comfort his old parents.\n\nReading these letters, Nicholas felt a dread of their wanting to take\nhim away from surroundings in which, protected from all the\nentanglements of life, he was living so calmly and quietly. He felt that\nsooner or later he would have to re-enter that whirlpool of life, with\nits embarrassments and affairs to be straightened out, its accounts with\nstewards, quarrels, and intrigues, its ties, society, and with Sonya's\nlove and his promise to her. It was all dreadfully difficult and\ncomplicated; and he replied to his mother in cold, formal letters in\nFrench, beginning: \"My dear Mamma,\" and ending: \"Your obedient son,\"\nwhich said nothing of when he would return. In 1810 he received letters\nfrom his parents, in which they told him of Natasha's engagement to\nBolkonski, and that the wedding would be in a year's time because the\nold prince made difficulties. This letter grieved and mortified\nNicholas. In the first place he was sorry that Natasha, for whom he\ncared more than for anyone else in the family, should be lost to the\nhome; and secondly, from his hussar point of view, he regretted not to\nhave been there to show that fellow Bolkonski that connection with him\nwas no such great honor after all, and that if he loved Natasha he might\ndispense with permission from his dotard father. For a moment he\nhesitated whether he should not apply for leave in order to see Natasha\nbefore she was married, but then came the maneuvers, and considerations\nabout Sonya and about the confusion of their affairs, and Nicholas again\nput it off. But in the spring of that year, he received a letter from\nhis mother, written without his father's knowledge, and that letter\npersuaded him to return. She wrote that if he did not come and take\nmatters in hand, their whole property would be sold by auction and they\nwould all have to go begging. The count was so weak, and trusted Mitenka\nso much, and was so good-natured, that everybody took advantage of him\nand things were going from bad to worse. \"For God's sake, I implore you,\ncome at once if you do not wish to make me and the whole family\nwretched,\" wrote the countess.\n\nThis letter touched Nicholas. He had that common sense of a matter-of-\nfact man which showed him what he ought to do.\n\nThe right thing now was, if not to retire from the service, at any rate\nto go home on leave. Why he had to go he did not know; but after his\nafter-dinner nap he gave orders to saddle Mars, an extremely vicious\ngray stallion that had not been ridden for a long time, and when he\nreturned with the horse all in a lather, he informed Lavrushka\n(Denisov's servant who had remained with him) and his comrades who\nturned up in the evening that he was applying for leave and was going\nhome. Difficult and strange as it was for him to reflect that he would\ngo away without having heard from the staff--and this interested him\nextremely--whether he was promoted to a captaincy or would receive the\nOrder of St. Anne for the last maneuvers; strange as it was to think\nthat he would go away without having sold his three roans to the Polish\nCount Golukhovski, who was bargaining for the horses Rostov had betted\nhe would sell for two thousand rubles; incomprehensible as it seemed\nthat the ball the hussars were giving in honor of the Polish\nMademoiselle Przazdziecka (out of rivalry to the uhlans who had given\none in honor of their Polish Mademoiselle Borzozowska) would take place\nwithout him--he knew he must go away from this good, bright world to\nsomewhere where everything was stupid and confused. A week later he\nobtained his leave. His hussar comrades--not only those of his own\nregiment, but the whole brigade--gave Rostov a dinner to which the\nsubscription was fifteen rubles a head, and at which there were two\nbands and two choirs of singers. Rostov danced the Trepak with Major\nBasov; the tipsy officers tossed, embraced, and dropped Rostov; the\nsoldiers of the third squadron tossed him too, and shouted \"hurrah!\" and\nthen they put him in his sleigh and escorted him as far as the first\npost station.\n\nDuring the first half of the journey--from Kremenchug to Kiev--all\nRostov's thoughts, as is usual in such cases, were behind him, with the\nsquadron; but when he had gone more than halfway he began to forget his\nthree roans and Dozhoyveyko, his quartermaster, and to wonder anxiously\nhow things would be at Otradnoe and what he would find there. Thoughts\nof home grew stronger the nearer he approached it--far stronger, as\nthough this feeling of his was subject to the law by which the force of\nattraction is in inverse proportion to the square of the distance. At\nthe last post station before Otradnoe he gave the driver a three-ruble\ntip, and on arriving he ran breathlessly, like a boy, up the steps of\nhis home.\n\nAfter the rapture of meeting, and after that odd feeling of unsatisfied\nexpectation--the feeling that \"everything is just the same, so why did I\nhurry?\"--Nicholas began to settle down in his old home world. His father\nand mother were much the same, only a little older. What was new in them\nwas a certain uneasiness and occasional discord, which there used not to\nbe, and which, as Nicholas soon found out, was due to the bad state of\ntheir affairs. Sonya was nearly twenty; she had stopped growing prettier\nand promised nothing more than she was already, but that was enough. She\nexhaled happiness and love from the time Nicholas returned, and the\nfaithful, unalterable love of this girl had a gladdening effect on him.\nPetya and Natasha surprised Nicholas most. Petya was a big handsome boy\nof thirteen, merry, witty, and mischievous, with a voice that was\nalready breaking. As for Natasha, for a long while Nicholas wondered and\nlaughed whenever he looked at her.\n\n\"You're not the same at all,\" he said.\n\n\"How? Am I uglier?\"\n\n\"On the contrary, but what dignity? A princess!\" he whispered to her.\n\n\"Yes, yes, yes!\" cried Natasha, joyfully.\n\nShe told him about her romance with Prince Andrew and of his visit to\nOtradnoe and showed him his last letter.\n\n\"Well, are you glad?\" Natasha asked. \"I am so tranquil and happy now.\"\n\n\"Very glad,\" answered Nicholas. \"He is an excellent fellow.... And are\nyou very much in love?\"\n\n\"How shall I put it?\" replied Natasha. \"I was in love with Boris, with\nmy teacher, and with Denisov, but this is quite different. I feel at\npeace and settled. I know that no better man than he exists, and I am\ncalm and contented now. Not at all as before.\"\n\nNicholas expressed his disapproval of the postponement of the marriage\nfor a year; but Natasha attacked her brother with exasperation, proving\nto him that it could not be otherwise, and that it would be a bad thing\nto enter a family against the father's will, and that she herself wished\nit so.\n\n\"You don't at all understand,\" she said.\n\nNicholas was silent and agreed with her.\n\nHer brother often wondered as he looked at her. She did not seem at all\nlike a girl in love and parted from her affianced husband. She was even-\ntempered and calm and quite as cheerful as of old. This amazed Nicholas\nand even made him regard Bolkonski's courtship skeptically. He could not\nbelieve that her fate was sealed, especially as he had not seen her with\nPrince Andrew. It always seemed to him that there was something not\nquite right about this intended marriage.\n\n\"Why this delay? Why no betrothal?\" he thought. Once, when he had\ntouched on this topic with his mother, he discovered, to his surprise\nand somewhat to his satisfaction, that in the depth of her soul she too\nhad doubts about this marriage.\n\n\"You see he writes,\" said she, showing her son a letter of Prince\nAndrew's, with that latent grudge a mother always has in regard to a\ndaughter's future married happiness, \"he writes that he won't come\nbefore December. What can be keeping him? Illness, probably! His health\nis very delicate. Don't tell Natasha. And don't attach importance to her\nbeing so bright: that's because she's living through the last days of\nher girlhood, but I know what she is like every time we receive a letter\nfrom him! However, God grant that everything turns out well!\" (She\nalways ended with these words.) \"He is an excellent man!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nAfter reaching home Nicholas was at first serious and even dull. He was\nworried by the impending necessity of interfering in the stupid business\nmatters for which his mother had called him home. To throw off this\nburden as quickly as possible, on the third day after his arrival he\nwent, angry and scowling and without answering questions as to where he\nwas going, to Mitenka's lodge and demanded an account of everything. But\nwhat an account of everything might be Nicholas knew even less than the\nfrightened and bewildered Mitenka. The conversation and the examination\nof the accounts with Mitenka did not last long. The village elder, a\npeasant delegate, and the village clerk, who were waiting in the\npassage, heard with fear and delight first the young count's voice\nroaring and snapping and rising louder and louder, and then words of\nabuse, dreadful words, ejaculated one after the other.\n\n\"Robber!... Ungrateful wretch!... I'll hack the dog to pieces! I'm not\nmy father!... Robbing us!...\" and so on.\n\nThen with no less fear and delight they saw how the young count, red in\nthe face and with bloodshot eyes, dragged Mitenka out by the scruff of\nthe neck and applied his foot and knee to his behind with great agility\nat convenient moments between the words, shouting, \"Be off! Never let me\nsee your face here again, you villain!\"\n\nMitenka flew headlong down the six steps and ran away into the\nshrubbery. (This shrubbery was a well-known haven of refuge for culprits\nat Otradnoe. Mitenka himself, returning tipsy from the town, used to\nhide there, and many of the residents at Otradnoe, hiding from Mitenka,\nknew of its protective qualities.)\n\nMitenka's wife and sisters-in-law thrust their heads and frightened\nfaces out of the door of a room where a bright samovar was boiling and\nwhere the steward's high bedstead stood with its patchwork quilt.\n\nThe young count paid no heed to them, but, breathing hard, passed by\nwith resolute strides and went into the house.\n\nThe countess, who heard at once from the maids what had happened at the\nlodge, was calmed by the thought that now their affairs would certainly\nimprove, but on the other hand felt anxious as to the effect this\nexcitement might have on her son. She went several times to his door on\ntiptoe and listened, as he lighted one pipe after another.\n\nNext day the old count called his son aside and, with an embarrassed\nsmile, said to him:\n\n\"But you know, my dear boy, it's a pity you got excited! Mitenka has\ntold me all about it.\"\n\n\"I knew,\" thought Nicholas, \"that I should never understand anything in\nthis crazy world.\"\n\n\"You were angry that he had not entered those 700 rubles. But they were\ncarried forward--and you did not look at the other page.\"\n\n\"Papa, he is a blackguard and a thief! I know he is! And what I have\ndone, I have done; but, if you like, I won't speak to him again.\"\n\n\"No, my dear boy\" (the count, too, felt embarrassed. He knew he had\nmismanaged his wife's property and was to blame toward his children, but\nhe did not know how to remedy it). \"No, I beg you to attend to the\nbusiness. I am old. I...\"\n\n\"No, Papa. Forgive me if I have caused you unpleasantness. I understand\nit all less than you do.\"\n\n\"Devil take all these peasants, and money matters, and carryings forward\nfrom page to page,\" he thought. \"I used to understand what a 'corner'\nand the stakes at cards meant, but carrying forward to another page I\ndon't understand at all,\" said he to himself, and after that he did not\nmeddle in business affairs. But once the countess called her son and\ninformed him that she had a promissory note from Anna Mikhaylovna for\ntwo thousand rubles, and asked him what he thought of doing with it.\n\n\"This,\" answered Nicholas. \"You say it rests with me. Well, I don't like\nAnna Mikhaylovna and I don't like Boris, but they were our friends and\npoor. Well then, this!\" and he tore up the note, and by so doing caused\nthe old countess to weep tears of joy. After that, young Rostov took no\nfurther part in any business affairs, but devoted himself with\npassionate enthusiasm to what was to him a new pursuit--the chase--for\nwhich his father kept a large establishment.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nThe weather was already growing wintry and morning frosts congealed an\nearth saturated by autumn rains. The verdure had thickened and its\nbright green stood out sharply against the brownish strips of winter rye\ntrodden down by the cattle, and against the pale-yellow stubble of the\nspring buckwheat. The wooded ravines and the copses, which at the end of\nAugust had still been green islands amid black fields and stubble, had\nbecome golden and bright-red islands amid the green winter rye. The\nhares had already half changed their summer coats, the fox cubs were\nbeginning to scatter, and the young wolves were bigger than dogs. It was\nthe best time of the year for the chase. The hounds of that ardent young\nsportsman Rostov had not merely reached hard winter condition, but were\nso jaded that at a meeting of the huntsmen it was decided to give them a\nthree days' rest and then, on the sixteenth of September, to go on a\ndistant expedition, starting from the oak grove where there was an\nundisturbed litter of wolf cubs.\n\nAll that day the hounds remained at home. It was frosty and the air was\nsharp, but toward evening the sky became overcast and it began to thaw.\nOn the fifteenth, when young Rostov, in his dressing gown, looked out of\nthe window, he saw it was an unsurpassable morning for hunting: it was\nas if the sky were melting and sinking to the earth without any wind.\nThe only motion in the air was that of the dripping, microscopic\nparticles of drizzling mist. The bare twigs in the garden were hung with\ntransparent drops which fell on the freshly fallen leaves. The earth in\nthe kitchen garden looked wet and black and glistened like poppy seed\nand at a short distance merged into the dull, moist veil of mist.\nNicholas went out into the wet and muddy porch. There was a smell of\ndecaying leaves and of dog. Milka, a black-spotted, broad-haunched bitch\nwith prominent black eyes, got up on seeing her master, stretched her\nhind legs, lay down like a hare, and then suddenly jumped up and licked\nhim right on his nose and mustache. Another borzoi, a dog, catching\nsight of his master from the garden path, arched his back and, rushing\nheadlong toward the porch with lifted tail, began rubbing himself\nagainst his legs.\n\n\"O-hoy!\" came at that moment, that inimitable huntsman's call which\nunites the deepest bass with the shrillest tenor, and round the corner\ncame Daniel the head huntsman and head kennelman, a gray, wrinkled old\nman with hair cut straight over his forehead, Ukrainian fashion, a long\nbent whip in his hand, and that look of independence and scorn of\neverything that is only seen in huntsmen. He doffed his Circassian cap\nto his master and looked at him scornfully. This scorn was not offensive\nto his master. Nicholas knew that this Daniel, disdainful of everybody\nand who considered himself above them, was all the same his serf and\nhuntsman.\n\n\"Daniel!\" Nicholas said timidly, conscious at the sight of the weather,\nthe hounds, and the huntsman that he was being carried away by that\nirresistible passion for sport which makes a man forget all his previous\nresolutions, as a lover forgets in the presence of his mistress.\n\n\"What orders, your excellency?\" said the huntsman in his deep bass, deep\nas a proto-deacon's and hoarse with hallooing--and two flashing black\neyes gazed from under his brows at his master, who was silent. \"Can you\nresist it?\" those eyes seemed to be asking.\n\n\"It's a good day, eh? For a hunt and a gallop, eh?\" asked Nicholas,\nscratching Milka behind the ears.\n\nDaniel did not answer, but winked instead.\n\n\"I sent Uvarka at dawn to listen,\" his bass boomed out after a minute's\npause. \"He says she's moved them into the Otradnoe enclosure. They were\nhowling there.\" (This meant that the she-wolf, about whom they both\nknew, had moved with her cubs to the Otradnoe copse, a small place a\nmile and a half from the house.)\n\n\"We ought to go, don't you think so?\" said Nicholas. \"Come to me with\nUvarka.\"\n\n\"As you please.\"\n\n\"Then put off feeding them.\"\n\n\"Yes, sir.\"\n\nFive minutes later Daniel and Uvarka were standing in Nicholas' big\nstudy. Though Daniel was not a big man, to see him in a room was like\nseeing a horse or a bear on the floor among the furniture and\nsurroundings of human life. Daniel himself felt this, and as usual stood\njust inside the door, trying to speak softly and not move, for fear of\nbreaking something in the master's apartment, and he hastened to say all\nthat was necessary so as to get from under that ceiling, out into the\nopen under the sky once more.\n\nHaving finished his inquiries and extorted from Daniel an opinion that\nthe hounds were fit (Daniel himself wished to go hunting), Nicholas\nordered the horses to be saddled. But just as Daniel was about to go\nNatasha came in with rapid steps, not having done up her hair or\nfinished dressing and with her old nurse's big shawl wrapped round her.\nPetya ran in at the same time.\n\n\"You are going?\" asked Natasha. \"I knew you would! Sonya said you\nwouldn't go, but I knew that today is the sort of day when you couldn't\nhelp going.\"\n\n\"Yes, we are going,\" replied Nicholas reluctantly, for today, as he\nintended to hunt seriously, he did not want to take Natasha and Petya.\n\"We are going, but only wolf hunting: it would be dull for you.\"\n\n\"You know it is my greatest pleasure,\" said Natasha. \"It's not fair; you\nare going by yourself, are having the horses saddled and said nothing to\nus about it.\"\n\n\"'No barrier bars a Russian's path'--we'll go!\" shouted Petya.\n\n\"But you can't. Mamma said you mustn't,\" said Nicholas to Natasha.\n\n\"Yes, I'll go. I shall certainly go,\" said Natasha decisively. \"Daniel,\ntell them to saddle for us, and Michael must come with my dogs,\" she\nadded to the huntsman.\n\nIt seemed to Daniel irksome and improper to be in a room at all, but to\nhave anything to do with a young lady seemed to him impossible. He cast\ndown his eyes and hurried out as if it were none of his business,\ncareful as he went not to inflict any accidental injury on the young\nlady.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nThe old count, who had always kept up an enormous hunting establishment\nbut had now handed it all completely over to his son's care, being in\nvery good spirits on this fifteenth of September, prepared to go out\nwith the others.\n\nIn an hour's time the whole hunting party was at the porch. Nicholas,\nwith a stern and serious air which showed that now was no time for\nattending to trifles, went past Natasha and Petya who were trying to\ntell him something. He had a look at all the details of the hunt, sent a\npack of hounds and huntsmen on ahead to find the quarry, mounted his\nchestnut Donets, and whistling to his own leash of borzois, set off\nacross the threshing ground to a field leading to the Otradnoe wood. The\nold count's horse, a sorrel gelding called Viflyanka, was led by the\ngroom in attendance on him, while the count himself was to drive in a\nsmall trap straight to a spot reserved for him.\n\nThey were taking fifty-four hounds, with six hunt attendants and\nwhippers-in. Besides the family, there were eight borzoi kennelmen and\nmore than forty borzois, so that, with the borzois on the leash\nbelonging to members of the family, there were about a hundred and\nthirty dogs and twenty horsemen.\n\nEach dog knew its master and its call. Each man in the hunt knew his\nbusiness, his place, what he had to do. As soon as they had passed the\nfence they all spread out evenly and quietly, without noise or talk,\nalong the road and field leading to the Otradnoe covert.\n\nThe horses stepped over the field as over a thick carpet, now and then\nsplashing into puddles as they crossed a road. The misty sky still\nseemed to descend evenly and imperceptibly toward the earth, the air was\nstill, warm, and silent. Occasionally the whistle of a huntsman, the\nsnort of a horse, the crack of a whip, or the whine of a straggling\nhound could be heard.\n\nWhen they had gone a little less than a mile, five more riders with dogs\nappeared out of the mist, approaching the Rostovs. In front rode a\nfresh-looking, handsome old man with a large gray mustache.\n\n\"Good morning, Uncle!\" said Nicholas, when the old man drew near.\n\n\"That's it. Come on!... I was sure of it,\" began \"Uncle.\" (He was a\ndistant relative of the Rostovs', a man of small means, and their\nneighbor.) \"I knew you wouldn't be able to resist it and it's a good\nthing you're going. That's it! Come on!\" (This was \"Uncle's\" favorite\nexpression.) \"Take the covert at once, for my Girchik says the Ilagins\nare at Korniki with their hounds. That's it. Come on!... They'll take\nthe cubs from under your very nose.\"\n\n\"That's where I'm going. Shall we join up our packs?\" asked Nicholas.\n\nThe hounds were joined into one pack, and \"Uncle\" and Nicholas rode on\nside by side. Natasha, muffled up in shawls which did not hide her eager\nface and shining eyes, galloped up to them. She was followed by Petya\nwho always kept close to her, by Michael, a huntsman, and by a groom\nappointed to look after her. Petya, who was laughing, whipped and pulled\nat his horse. Natasha sat easily and confidently on her black Arabchik\nand reined him in without effort with a firm hand.\n\n\"Uncle\" looked round disapprovingly at Petya and Natasha. He did not\nlike to combine frivolity with the serious business of hunting.\n\n\"Good morning, Uncle! We are going too!\" shouted Petya.\n\n\"Good morning, good morning! But don't go overriding the hounds,\" said\n\"Uncle\" sternly.\n\n\"Nicholas, what a fine dog Trunila is! He knew me,\" said Natasha,\nreferring to her favorite hound.\n\n\"In the first place, Trunila is not a 'dog,' but a harrier,\" thought\nNicholas, and looked sternly at his sister, trying to make her feel the\ndistance that ought to separate them at that moment. Natasha understood\nit.\n\n\"You mustn't think we'll be in anyone's way, Uncle,\" she said. \"We'll go\nto our places and won't budge.\"\n\n\"A good thing too, little countess,\" said \"Uncle,\" \"only mind you don't\nfall off your horse,\" he added, \"because--that's it, come on!--you've\nnothing to hold on to.\"\n\nThe oasis of the Otradnoe covert came in sight a few hundred yards off,\nthe huntsmen were already nearing it. Rostov, having finally settled\nwith \"Uncle\" where they should set on the hounds, and having shown\nNatasha where she was to stand--a spot where nothing could possibly run\nout--went round above the ravine.\n\n\"Well, nephew, you're going for a big wolf,\" said \"Uncle.\" \"Mind and\ndon't let her slip!\"\n\n\"That's as may happen,\" answered Rostov. \"Karay, here!\" he shouted,\nanswering \"Uncle's\" remark by this call to his borzoi. Karay was a\nshaggy old dog with a hanging jowl, famous for having tackled a big wolf\nunaided. They all took up their places.\n\nThe old count, knowing his son's ardor in the hunt, hurried so as not to\nbe late, and the huntsmen had not yet reached their places when Count\nIlya Rostov, cheerful, flushed, and with quivering cheeks, drove up with\nhis black horses over the winter rye to the place reserved for him,\nwhere a wolf might come out. Having straightened his coat and fastened\non his hunting knives and horn, he mounted his good, sleek, well-fed,\nand comfortable horse, Viflyanka, which was turning gray, like himself.\nHis horses and trap were sent home. Count Ilya Rostov, though not at\nheart a keen sportsman, knew the rules of the hunt well, and rode to the\nbushy edge of the road where he was to stand, arranged his reins,\nsettled himself in the saddle, and, feeling that he was ready, looked\nabout with a smile.\n\nBeside him was Simon Chekmar, his personal attendant, an old horseman\nnow somewhat stiff in the saddle. Chekmar held in leash three formidable\nwolfhounds, who had, however, grown fat like their master and his horse.\nTwo wise old dogs lay down unleashed. Some hundred paces farther along\nthe edge of the wood stood Mitka, the count's other groom, a daring\nhorseman and keen rider to hounds. Before the hunt, by old custom, the\ncount had drunk a silver cupful of mulled brandy, taken a snack, and\nwashed it down with half a bottle of his favorite Bordeaux.\n\nHe was somewhat flushed with the wine and the drive. His eyes were\nrather moist and glittered more than usual, and as he sat in his saddle,\nwrapped up in his fur coat, he looked like a child taken out for an\nouting.\n\nThe thin, hollow-cheeked Chekmar, having got everything ready, kept\nglancing at his master with whom he had lived on the best of terms for\nthirty years, and understanding the mood he was in expected a pleasant\nchat. A third person rode up circumspectly through the wood (it was\nplain that he had had a lesson) and stopped behind the count. This\nperson was a gray-bearded old man in a woman's cloak, with a tall peaked\ncap on his head. He was the buffoon, who went by a woman's name,\nNastasya Ivanovna.\n\n\"Well, Nastasya Ivanovna!\" whispered the count, winking at him. \"If you\nscare away the beast, Daniel'll give it you!\"\n\n\"I know a thing or two myself!\" said Nastasya Ivanovna.\n\n\"Hush!\" whispered the count and turned to Simon. \"Have you seen the\nyoung countess?\" he asked. \"Where is she?\"\n\n\"With young Count Peter, by the Zharov rank grass,\" answered Simon,\nsmiling. \"Though she's a lady, she's very fond of hunting.\"\n\n\"And you're surprised at the way she rides, Simon, eh?\" said the count.\n\"She's as good as many a man!\"\n\n\"Of course! It's marvelous. So bold, so easy!\"\n\n\"And Nicholas? Where is he? By the Lyadov upland, isn't he?\"\n\n\"Yes, sir. He knows where to stand. He understands the matter so well\nthat Daniel and I are often quite astounded,\" said Simon, well knowing\nwhat would please his master.\n\n\"Rides well, eh? And how well he looks on his horse, eh?\"\n\n\"A perfect picture! How he chased a fox out of the rank grass by the\nZavarzinsk thicket the other day! Leaped a fearful place; what a sight\nwhen they rushed from the covert... the horse worth a thousand rubles\nand the rider beyond all price! Yes, one would have to search far to\nfind another as smart.\"\n\n\"To search far...\" repeated the count, evidently sorry Simon had not\nsaid more. \"To search far,\" he said, turning back the skirt of his coat\nto get at his snuffbox.\n\n\"The other day when he came out from Mass in full uniform, Michael\nSidorych...\" Simon did not finish, for on the still air he had\ndistinctly caught the music of the hunt with only two or three hounds\ngiving tongue. He bent down his head and listened, shaking a warning\nfinger at his master. \"They are on the scent of the cubs...\" he\nwhispered, \"straight to the Lyadov uplands.\"\n\nThe count, forgetting to smooth out the smile on his face, looked into\nthe distance straight before him, down the narrow open space, holding\nthe snuffbox in his hand but not taking any. After the cry of the hounds\ncame the deep tones of the wolf call from Daniel's hunting horn; the\npack joined the first three hounds and they could be heard in full cry,\nwith that peculiar lift in the note that indicates that they are after a\nwolf. The whippers-in no longer set on the hounds, but changed to the\ncry of ulyulyu, and above the others rose Daniel's voice, now a deep\nbass, now piercingly shrill. His voice seemed to fill the whole wood and\ncarried far beyond out into the open field.\n\nAfter listening a few moments in silence, the count and his attendant\nconvinced themselves that the hounds had separated into two packs: the\nsound of the larger pack, eagerly giving tongue, began to die away in\nthe distance, the other pack rushed by the wood past the count, and it\nwas with this that Daniel's voice was heard calling ulyulyu. The sounds\nof both packs mingled and broke apart again, but both were becoming more\ndistant.\n\nSimon sighed and stooped to straighten the leash a young borzoi had\nentangled; the count too sighed and, noticing the snuffbox in his hand,\nopened it and took a pinch. \"Back!\" cried Simon to a borzoi that was\npushing forward out of the wood. The count started and dropped the\nsnuffbox. Nastasya Ivanovna dismounted to pick it up. The count and\nSimon were looking at him.\n\nThen, unexpectedly, as often happens, the sound of the hunt suddenly\napproached, as if the hounds in full cry and Daniel ulyulyuing were just\nin front of them.\n\nThe count turned and saw on his right Mitka staring at him with eyes\nstarting out of his head, raising his cap and pointing before him to the\nother side.\n\n\"Look out!\" he shouted, in a voice plainly showing that he had long\nfretted to utter that word, and letting the borzois slip he galloped\ntoward the count.\n\nThe count and Simon galloped out of the wood and saw on their left a\nwolf which, softly swaying from side to side, was coming at a quiet lope\nfarther to the left to the very place where they were standing. The\nangry borzois whined and getting free of the leash rushed past the\nhorses' feet at the wolf.\n\nThe wolf paused, turned its heavy forehead toward the dogs awkwardly,\nlike a man suffering from the quinsy, and, still slightly swaying from\nside to side, gave a couple of leaps and with a swish of its tail\ndisappeared into the skirt of the wood. At the same instant, with a cry\nlike a wail, first one hound, then another, and then another, sprang\nhelter-skelter from the wood opposite and the whole pack rushed across\nthe field toward the very spot where the wolf had disappeared. The hazel\nbushes parted behind the hounds and Daniel's chestnut horse appeared,\ndark with sweat. On its long back sat Daniel, hunched forward, capless,\nhis disheveled gray hair hanging over his flushed, perspiring face.\n\n\"Ulyulyulyu! ulyulyu!...\" he cried. When he caught sight of the count\nhis eyes flashed lightning.\n\n\"Blast you!\" he shouted, holding up his whip threateningly at the count.\n\n\"You've let the wolf go!... What sportsmen!\" and as if scorning to say\nmore to the frightened and shamefaced count, he lashed the heaving\nflanks of his sweating chestnut gelding with all the anger the count had\naroused and flew off after the hounds. The count, like a punished\nschoolboy, looked round, trying by a smile to win Simon's sympathy for\nhis plight. But Simon was no longer there. He was galloping round by the\nbushes while the field was coming up on both sides, all trying to head\nthe wolf, but it vanished into the wood before they could do so.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nNicholas Rostov meanwhile remained at his post, waiting for the wolf. By\nthe way the hunt approached and receded, by the cries of the dogs whose\nnotes were familiar to him, by the way the voices of the huntsmen\napproached, receded, and rose, he realized what was happening at the\ncopse. He knew that young and old wolves were there, that the hounds had\nseparated into two packs, that somewhere a wolf was being chased, and\nthat something had gone wrong. He expected the wolf to come his way any\nmoment. He made thousands of different conjectures as to where and from\nwhat side the beast would come and how he would set upon it. Hope\nalternated with despair. Several times he addressed a prayer to God that\nthe wolf should come his way. He prayed with that passionate and\nshamefaced feeling with which men pray at moments of great excitement\narising from trivial causes. \"What would it be to Thee to do this for\nme?\" he said to God. \"I know Thou art great, and that it is a sin to ask\nthis of Thee, but for God's sake do let the old wolf come my way and let\nKaray spring at it--in sight of 'Uncle' who is watching from over there-\n-and seize it by the throat in a death grip!\" A thousand times during\nthat half-hour Rostov cast eager and restless glances over the edge of\nthe wood, with the two scraggy oaks rising above the aspen undergrowth\nand the gully with its water-worn side and \"Uncle's\" cap just visible\nabove the bush on his right.\n\n\"No, I shan't have such luck,\" thought Rostov, \"yet what wouldn't it be\nworth! It is not to be! Everywhere, at cards and in war, I am always\nunlucky.\" Memories of Austerlitz and of Dolokhov flashed rapidly and\nclearly through his mind. \"Only once in my life to get an old wolf, I\nwant only that!\" thought he, straining eyes and ears and looking to the\nleft and then to the right and listening to the slightest variation of\nnote in the cries of the dogs.\n\nAgain he looked to the right and saw something running toward him across\nthe deserted field. \"No, it can't be!\" thought Rostov, taking a deep\nbreath, as a man does at the coming of something long hoped for. The\nheight of happiness was reached--and so simply, without warning, or\nnoise, or display, that Rostov could not believe his eyes and remained\nin doubt for over a second. The wolf ran forward and jumped heavily over\na gully that lay in her path. She was an old animal with a gray back and\nbig reddish belly. She ran without hurry, evidently feeling sure that no\none saw her. Rostov, holding his breath, looked round at the borzois.\nThey stood or lay not seeing the wolf or understanding the situation.\nOld Karay had turned his head and was angrily searching for fleas,\nbaring his yellow teeth and snapping at his hind legs.\n\n\"Ulyulyulyu!\" whispered Rostov, pouting his lips. The borzois jumped up,\njerking the rings of the leashes and pricking their ears. Karay finished\nscratching his hindquarters and, cocking his ears, got up with quivering\ntail from which tufts of matted hair hung down.\n\n\"Shall I loose them or not?\" Nicholas asked himself as the wolf\napproached him coming from the copse. Suddenly the wolf's whole\nphysiognomy changed: she shuddered, seeing what she had probably never\nseen before--human eyes fixed upon her--and turning her head a little\ntoward Rostov, she paused.\n\n\"Back or forward? Eh, no matter, forward...\" the wolf seemed to say to\nherself, and she moved forward without again looking round and with a\nquiet, long, easy yet resolute lope.\n\n\"Ulyulyu!\" cried Nicholas, in a voice not his own, and of its own accord\nhis good horse darted headlong downhill, leaping over gullies to head\noff the wolf, and the borzois passed it, running faster still. Nicholas\ndid not hear his own cry nor feel that he was galloping, nor see the\nborzois, nor the ground over which he went: he saw only the wolf, who,\nincreasing her speed, bounded on in the same direction along the hollow.\nThe first to come into view was Milka, with her black markings and\npowerful quarters, gaining upon the wolf. Nearer and nearer... now she\nwas ahead of it; but the wolf turned its head to face her, and instead\nof putting on speed as she usually did Milka suddenly raised her tail\nand stiffened her forelegs.\n\n\"Ulyulyulyulyu!\" shouted Nicholas.\n\nThe reddish Lyubim rushed forward from behind Milka, sprang impetuously\nat the wolf, and seized it by its hindquarters, but immediately jumped\naside in terror. The wolf crouched, gnashed her teeth, and again rose\nand bounded forward, followed at the distance of a couple of feet by all\nthe borzois, who did not get any closer to her.\n\n\"She'll get away! No, it's impossible!\" thought Nicholas, still shouting\nwith a hoarse voice.\n\n\"Karay, ulyulyu!...\" he shouted, looking round for the old borzoi who\nwas now his only hope. Karay, with all the strength age had left him,\nstretched himself to the utmost and, watching the wolf, galloped heavily\naside to intercept it. But the quickness of the wolf's lope and the\nborzoi's slower pace made it plain that Karay had miscalculated.\nNicholas could already see not far in front of him the wood where the\nwolf would certainly escape should she reach it. But, coming toward him,\nhe saw hounds and a huntsman galloping almost straight at the wolf.\nThere was still hope. A long, yellowish young borzoi, one Nicholas did\nnot know, from another leash, rushed impetuously at the wolf from in\nfront and almost knocked her over. But the wolf jumped up more quickly\nthan anyone could have expected and, gnashing her teeth, flew at the\nyellowish borzoi, which, with a piercing yelp, fell with its head on the\nground, bleeding from a gash in its side.\n\n\"Karay? Old fellow!...\" wailed Nicholas.\n\nThanks to the delay caused by this crossing of the wolf's path, the old\ndog with its felted hair hanging from its thigh was within five paces of\nit. As if aware of her danger, the wolf turned her eyes on Karay, tucked\nher tail yet further between her legs, and increased her speed. But here\nNicholas only saw that something happened to Karay--the borzoi was\nsuddenly on the wolf, and they rolled together down into a gully just in\nfront of them.\n\nThat instant, when Nicholas saw the wolf struggling in the gully with\nthe dogs, while from under them could be seen her gray hair and\noutstretched hind leg and her frightened choking head, with her ears\nlaid back (Karay was pinning her by the throat), was the happiest moment\nof his life. With his hand on his saddlebow, he was ready to dismount\nand stab the wolf, when she suddenly thrust her head up from among that\nmass of dogs, and then her forepaws were on the edge of the gully. She\nclicked her teeth (Karay no longer had her by the throat), leaped with a\nmovement of her hind legs out of the gully, and having disengaged\nherself from the dogs, with tail tucked in again, went forward. Karay,\nhis hair bristling, and probably bruised or wounded, climbed with\ndifficulty out of the gully.\n\n\"Oh my God! Why?\" Nicholas cried in despair.\n\n\"Uncle's\" huntsman was galloping from the other side across the wolf's\npath and his borzois once more stopped the animal's advance. She was\nagain hemmed in.\n\nNicholas and his attendant, with \"Uncle\" and his huntsman, were all\nriding round the wolf, crying \"ulyulyu!\" shouting and preparing to\ndismount each moment that the wolf crouched back, and starting forward\nagain every time she shook herself and moved toward the wood where she\nwould be safe.\n\nAlready, at the beginning of this chase, Daniel, hearing the ulyulyuing,\nhad rushed out from the wood. He saw Karay seize the wolf, and checked\nhis horse, supposing the affair to be over. But when he saw that the\nhorsemen did not dismount and that the wolf shook herself and ran for\nsafety, Daniel set his chestnut galloping, not at the wolf but straight\ntoward the wood, just as Karay had run to cut the animal off. As a\nresult of this, he galloped up to the wolf just when she had been\nstopped a second time by \"Uncle's\" borzois.\n\nDaniel galloped up silently, holding a naked dagger in his left hand and\nthrashing the laboring sides of his chestnut horse with his whip as if\nit were a flail.\n\nNicholas neither saw nor heard Daniel until the chestnut, breathing\nheavily, panted past him, and he heard the fall of a body and saw Daniel\nlying on the wolf's back among the dogs, trying to seize her by the\nears. It was evident to the dogs, the hunters, and to the wolf herself\nthat all was now over. The terrified wolf pressed back her ears and\ntried to rise, but the borzois stuck to her. Daniel rose a little, took\na step, and with his whole weight, as if lying down to rest, fell on the\nwolf, seizing her by the ears. Nicholas was about to stab her, but\nDaniel whispered, \"Don't! We'll gag her!\" and, changing his position,\nset his foot on the wolf's neck. A stick was thrust between her jaws and\nshe was fastened with a leash, as if bridled, her legs were bound\ntogether, and Daniel rolled her over once or twice from side to side.\n\nWith happy, exhausted faces, they laid the old wolf, alive, on a shying\nand snorting horse and, accompanied by the dogs yelping at her, took her\nto the place where they were all to meet. The hounds had killed two of\nthe cubs and the borzois three. The huntsmen assembled with their booty\nand their stories, and all came to look at the wolf, which, with her\nbroad-browed head hanging down and the bitten stick between her jaws,\ngazed with great glassy eyes at this crowd of dogs and men surrounding\nher. When she was touched, she jerked her bound legs and looked wildly\nyet simply at everybody. Old Count Rostov also rode up and touched the\nwolf.\n\n\"Oh, what a formidable one!\" said he. \"A formidable one, eh?\" he asked\nDaniel, who was standing near.\n\n\"Yes, your excellency,\" answered Daniel, quickly doffing his cap.\n\nThe count remembered the wolf he had let slip and his encounter with\nDaniel.\n\n\"Ah, but you are a crusty fellow, friend!\" said the count.\n\nFor sole reply Daniel gave him a shy, childlike, meek, and amiable\nsmile.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nThe old count went home, and Natasha and Petya promised to return very\nsoon, but as it was still early the hunt went farther. At midday they\nput the hounds into a ravine thickly overgrown with young trees.\nNicholas standing in a fallow field could see all his whips.\n\nFacing him lay a field of winter rye, there his own huntsman stood alone\nin a hollow behind a hazel bush. The hounds had scarcely been loosed\nbefore Nicholas heard one he knew, Voltorn, giving tongue at intervals;\nother hounds joined in, now pausing and now again giving tongue. A\nmoment later he heard a cry from the wooded ravine that a fox had been\nfound, and the whole pack, joining together, rushed along the ravine\ntoward the ryefield and away from Nicholas.\n\nHe saw the whips in their red caps galloping along the edge of the\nravine, he even saw the hounds, and was expecting a fox to show itself\nat any moment on the ryefield opposite.\n\nThe huntsman standing in the hollow moved and loosed his borzois, and\nNicholas saw a queer, short-legged red fox with a fine brush going hard\nacross the field. The borzois bore down on it.... Now they drew close to\nthe fox which began to dodge between the field in sharper and sharper\ncurves, trailing its brush, when suddenly a strange white borzoi dashed\nin followed by a black one, and everything was in confusion; the borzois\nformed a star-shaped figure, scarcely swaying their bodies and with\ntails turned away from the center of the group. Two huntsmen galloped up\nto the dogs; one in a red cap, the other, a stranger, in a green coat.\n\n\"What's this?\" thought Nicholas. \"Where's that huntsman from? He is not\n'Uncle's' man.\"\n\nThe huntsmen got the fox, but stayed there a long time without strapping\nit to the saddle. Their horses, bridled and with high saddles, stood\nnear them and there too the dogs were lying. The huntsmen waved their\narms and did something to the fox. Then from that spot came the sound of\na horn, with the signal agreed on in case of a fight.\n\n\"That's Ilagin's huntsman having a row with our Ivan,\" said Nicholas'\ngroom.\n\nNicholas sent the man to call Natasha and Petya to him, and rode at a\nfootpace to the place where the whips were getting the hounds together.\nSeveral of the field galloped to the spot where the fight was going on.\n\nNicholas dismounted, and with Natasha and Petya, who had ridden up,\nstopped near the hounds, waiting to see how the matter would end. Out of\nthe bushes came the huntsman who had been fighting and rode toward his\nyoung master, with the fox tied to his crupper. While still at a\ndistance he took off his cap and tried to speak respectfully, but he was\npale and breathless and his face was angry. One of his eyes was black,\nbut he probably was not even aware of it.\n\n\"What has happened?\" asked Nicholas.\n\n\"A likely thing, killing a fox our dogs had hunted! And it was my gray\nbitch that caught it! Go to law, indeed!... He snatches at the fox! I\ngave him one with the fox. Here it is on my saddle! Do you want a taste\nof this?...\" said the huntsman, pointing to his dagger and probably\nimagining himself still speaking to his foe.\n\nNicholas, not stopping to talk to the man, asked his sister and Petya to\nwait for him and rode to the spot where the enemy's, Ilagin's, hunting\nparty was.\n\nThe victorious huntsman rode off to join the field, and there,\nsurrounded by inquiring sympathizers, recounted his exploits.\n\nThe facts were that Ilagin, with whom the Rostovs had a quarrel and were\nat law, hunted over places that belonged by custom to the Rostovs, and\nhad now, as if purposely, sent his men to the very woods the Rostovs\nwere hunting and let his man snatch a fox their dogs had chased.\n\nNicholas, though he had never seen Ilagin, with his usual absence of\nmoderation in judgment, hated him cordially from reports of his\narbitrariness and violence, and regarded him as his bitterest foe. He\nrode in angry agitation toward him, firmly grasping his whip and fully\nprepared to take the most resolute and desperate steps to punish his\nenemy.\n\nHardly had he passed an angle of the wood before a stout gentleman in a\nbeaver cap came riding toward him on a handsome raven-black horse,\naccompanied by two hunt servants.\n\nInstead of an enemy, Nicholas found in Ilagin a stately and courteous\ngentleman who was particularly anxious to make the young count's\nacquaintance. Having ridden up to Nicholas, Ilagin raised his beaver cap\nand said he much regretted what had occurred and would have the man\npunished who had allowed himself to seize a fox hunted by someone else's\nborzois. He hoped to become better acquainted with the count and invited\nhim to draw his covert.\n\nNatasha, afraid that her brother would do something dreadful, had\nfollowed him in some excitement. Seeing the enemies exchanging friendly\ngreetings, she rode up to them. Ilagin lifted his beaver cap still\nhigher to Natasha and said, with a pleasant smile, that the young\ncountess resembled Diana in her passion for the chase as well as in her\nbeauty, of which he had heard much.\n\nTo expiate his huntsman's offense, Ilagin pressed the Rostovs to come to\nan upland of his about a mile away which he usually kept for himself and\nwhich, he said, swarmed with hares. Nicholas agreed, and the hunt, now\ndoubled, moved on.\n\nThe way to Iligin's upland was across the fields. The hunt servants fell\ninto line. The masters rode together. \"Uncle,\" Rostov, and Ilagin kept\nstealthily glancing at one another's dogs, trying not to be observed by\ntheir companions and searching uneasily for rivals to their own borzois.\n\nRostov was particularly struck by the beauty of a small, pure-bred, red-\nspotted bitch on Ilagin's leash, slender but with muscles like steel, a\ndelicate muzzle, and prominent black eyes. He had heard of the swiftness\nof Ilagin's borzois, and in that beautiful bitch saw a rival to his own\nMilka.\n\nIn the middle of a sober conversation begun by Ilagin about the year's\nharvest, Nicholas pointed to the red-spotted bitch.\n\n\"A fine little bitch, that!\" said he in a careless tone. \"Is she swift?\"\n\n\"That one? Yes, she's a good dog, gets what she's after,\" answered\nIlagin indifferently, of the red-spotted bitch Erza, for which, a year\nbefore, he had given a neighbor three families of house serfs. \"So in\nyour parts, too, the harvest is nothing to boast of, Count?\" he went on,\ncontinuing the conversation they had begun. And considering it polite to\nreturn the young count's compliment, Ilagin looked at his borzois and\npicked out Milka who attracted his attention by her breadth. \"That\nblack-spotted one of yours is fine--well shaped!\" said he.\n\n\"Yes, she's fast enough,\" replied Nicholas, and thought: \"If only a\nfull-grown hare would cross the field now I'd show you what sort of\nborzoi she is,\" and turning to his groom, he said he would give a ruble\nto anyone who found a hare.\n\n\"I don't understand,\" continued Ilagin, \"how some sportsmen can be so\njealous about game and dogs. For myself, I can tell you, Count, I enjoy\nriding in company such as this... what could be better?\" (he again\nraised his cap to Natasha) \"but as for counting skins and what one\ntakes, I don't care about that.\"\n\n\"Of course not!\"\n\n\"Or being upset because someone else's borzoi and not mine catches\nsomething. All I care about is to enjoy seeing the chase, is it not so,\nCount? For I consider that...\"\n\n\"A-tu!\" came the long-drawn cry of one of the borzoi whippers-in, who\nhad halted. He stood on a knoll in the stubble, holding his whip aloft,\nand again repeated his long-drawn cry, \"A-tu!\" (This call and the\nuplifted whip meant that he saw a sitting hare.)\n\n\"Ah, he has found one, I think,\" said Ilagin carelessly. \"Yes, we must\nride up.... Shall we both course it?\" answered Nicholas, seeing in Erza\nand \"Uncle's\" red Rugay two rivals he had never yet had a chance of\npitting against his own borzois. \"And suppose they outdo my Milka at\nonce!\" he thought as he rode with \"Uncle\" and Ilagin toward the hare.\n\n\"A full-grown one?\" asked Ilagin as he approached the whip who had\nsighted the hare--and not without agitation he looked round and whistled\nto Erza.\n\n\"And you, Michael Nikanorovich?\" he said, addressing \"Uncle.\"\n\nThe latter was riding with a sullen expression on his face.\n\n\"How can I join in? Why, you've given a village for each of your\nborzois! That's it, come on! Yours are worth thousands. Try yours\nagainst one another, you two, and I'll look on!\"\n\n\"Rugay, hey, hey!\" he shouted. \"Rugayushka!\" he added, involuntarily by\nthis diminutive expressing his affection and the hopes he placed on this\nred borzoi. Natasha saw and felt the agitation the two elderly men and\nher brother were trying to conceal, and was herself excited by it.\n\nThe huntsman stood halfway up the knoll holding up his whip and the\ngentlefolk rode up to him at a footpace; the hounds that were far off on\nthe horizon turned away from the hare, and the whips, but not the\ngentlefolk, also moved away. All were moving slowly and sedately.\n\n\"How is it pointing?\" asked Nicholas, riding a hundred paces toward the\nwhip who had sighted the hare.\n\nBut before the whip could reply, the hare, scenting the frost coming\nnext morning, was unable to rest and leaped up. The pack on leash rushed\ndownhill in full cry after the hare, and from all sides the borzois that\nwere not on leash darted after the hounds and the hare. All the hunt,\nwho had been moving slowly, shouted, \"Stop!\" calling in the hounds,\nwhile the borzoi whips, with a cry of \"A-tu!\" galloped across the field\nsetting the borzois on the hare. The tranquil Ilagin, Nicholas, Natasha,\nand \"Uncle\" flew, reckless of where and how they went, seeing only the\nborzois and the hare and fearing only to lose sight even for an instant\nof the chase. The hare they had started was a strong and swift one. When\nhe jumped up he did not run at once, but pricked his ears listening to\nthe shouting and trampling that resounded from all sides at once. He\ntook a dozen bounds, not very quickly, letting the borzois gain on him,\nand, finally having chosen his direction and realized his danger, laid\nback his ears and rushed off headlong. He had been lying in the stubble,\nbut in front of him was the autumn sowing where the ground was soft. The\ntwo borzois of the huntsman who had sighted him, having been the\nnearest, were the first to see and pursue him, but they had not gone far\nbefore Ilagin's red-spotted Erza passed them, got within a length, flew\nat the hare with terrible swiftness aiming at his scut, and, thinking\nshe had seized him, rolled over like a ball. The hare arched his back\nand bounded off yet more swiftly. From behind Erza rushed the broad-\nhaunched, black-spotted Milka and began rapidly gaining on the hare.\n\n\"Milashka, dear!\" rose Nicholas' triumphant cry. It looked as if Milka\nwould immediately pounce on the hare, but she overtook him and flew\npast. The hare had squatted. Again the beautiful Erza reached him, but\nwhen close to the hare's scut paused as if measuring the distance, so as\nnot to make a mistake this time but seize his hind leg.\n\n\"Erza, darling!\" Ilagin wailed in a voice unlike his own. Erza did not\nhearken to his appeal. At the very moment when she would have seized her\nprey, the hare moved and darted along the balk between the winter rye\nand the stubble. Again Erza and Milka were abreast, running like a pair\nof carriage horses, and began to overtake the hare, but it was easier\nfor the hare to run on the balk and the borzois did not overtake him so\nquickly.\n\n\"Rugay, Rugayushka! That's it, come on!\" came a third voice just then,\nand \"Uncle's\" red borzoi, straining and curving its back, caught up with\nthe two foremost borzois, pushed ahead of them regardless of the\nterrible strain, put on speed close to the hare, knocked it off the balk\nonto the ryefield, again put on speed still more viciously, sinking to\nhis knees in the muddy field, and all one could see was how, muddying\nhis back, he rolled over with the hare. A ring of borzois surrounded\nhim. A moment later everyone had drawn up round the crowd of dogs. Only\nthe delighted \"Uncle\" dismounted, and cut off a pad, shaking the hare\nfor the blood to drip off, and anxiously glancing round with restless\neyes while his arms and legs twitched. He spoke without himself knowing\nwhom to or what about. \"That's it, come on! That's a dog!... There, it\nhas beaten them all, the thousand-ruble as well as the one-ruble\nborzois. That's it, come on!\" said he, panting and looking wrathfully\naround as if he were abusing someone, as if they were all his enemies\nand had insulted him, and only now had he at last succeeded in\njustifying himself. \"There are your thousand-ruble ones.... That's it,\ncome on!...\"\n\n\"Rugay, here's a pad for you!\" he said, throwing down the hare's muddy\npad. \"You've deserved it, that's it, come on!\"\n\n\"She'd tired herself out, she'd run it down three times by herself,\"\nsaid Nicholas, also not listening to anyone and regardless of whether he\nwere heard or not.\n\n\"But what is there in running across it like that?\" said Ilagin's groom.\n\n\"Once she had missed it and turned it away, any mongrel could take it,\"\nIlagin was saying at the same time, breathless from his gallop and his\nexcitement. At the same moment Natasha, without drawing breath, screamed\njoyously, ecstatically, and so piercingly that it set everyone's ear\ntingling. By that shriek she expressed what the others expressed by all\ntalking at once, and it was so strange that she must herself have been\nashamed of so wild a cry and everyone else would have been amazed at it\nat any other time. \"Uncle\" himself twisted up the hare, threw it neatly\nand smartly across his horse's back as if by that gesture he meant to\nrebuke everybody, and, with an air of not wishing to speak to anyone,\nmounted his bay and rode off. The others all followed, dispirited and\nshamefaced, and only much later were they able to regain their former\naffectation of indifference. For a long time they continued to look at\nred Rugay who, his arched back spattered with mud and clanking the ring\nof his leash, walked along just behind \"Uncle's\" horse with the serene\nair of a conqueror.\n\n\"Well, I am like any other dog as long as it's not a question of\ncoursing. But when it is, then look out!\" his appearance seemed to\nNicholas to be saying.\n\nWhen, much later, \"Uncle\" rode up to Nicholas and began talking to him,\nhe felt flattered that, after what had happened, \"Uncle\" deigned to\nspeak to him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nToward evening Ilagin took leave of Nicholas, who found that they were\nso far from home that he accepted \"Uncle's\" offer that the hunting party\nshould spend the night in his little village of Mikhaylovna.\n\n\"And if you put up at my house that will be better still. That's it,\ncome on!\" said \"Uncle.\" \"You see it's damp weather, and you could rest,\nand the little countess could be driven home in a trap.\"\n\n\"Uncle's\" offer was accepted. A huntsman was sent to Otradnoe for a\ntrap, while Nicholas rode with Natasha and Petya to \"Uncle's\" house.\n\nSome five male domestic serfs, big and little, rushed out to the front\nporch to meet their master. A score of women serfs, old and young, as\nwell as children, popped out from the back entrance to have a look at\nthe hunters who were arriving. The presence of Natasha--a woman, a lady,\nand on horseback--raised the curiosity of the serfs to such a degree\nthat many of them came up to her, stared her in the face, and unabashed\nby her presence made remarks about her as though she were some prodigy\non show and not a human being able to hear or understand what was said\nabout her.\n\n\"Arinka! Look, she sits sideways! There she sits and her skirt\ndangles.... See, she's got a little hunting horn!\"\n\n\"Goodness gracious! See her knife?...\"\n\n\"Isn't she a Tartar!\"\n\n\"How is it you didn't go head over heels?\" asked the boldest of all,\naddressing Natasha directly.\n\n\"Uncle\" dismounted at the porch of his little wooden house which stood\nin the midst of an overgrown garden and, after a glance at his\nretainers, shouted authoritatively that the superfluous ones should take\nthemselves off and that all necessary preparations should be made to\nreceive the guests and the visitors.\n\nThe serfs all dispersed. \"Uncle\" lifted Natasha off her horse and taking\nher hand led her up the rickety wooden steps of the porch. The house,\nwith its bare, unplastered log walls, was not overclean--it did not seem\nthat those living in it aimed at keeping it spotless--but neither was it\nnoticeably neglected. In the entry there was a smell of fresh apples,\nand wolf and fox skins hung about.\n\n\"Uncle\" led the visitors through the anteroom into a small hall with a\nfolding table and red chairs, then into the drawing room with a round\nbirchwood table and a sofa, and finally into his private room where\nthere was a tattered sofa, a worn carpet, and portraits of Suvorov, of\nthe host's father and mother, and of himself in military uniform. The\nstudy smelt strongly of tobacco and dogs. \"Uncle\" asked his visitors to\nsit down and make themselves at home, and then went out of the room.\nRugay, his back still muddy, came into the room and lay down on the\nsofa, cleaning himself with his tongue and teeth. Leading from the study\nwas a passage in which a partition with ragged curtains could be seen.\nFrom behind this came women's laughter and whispers. Natasha, Nicholas,\nand Petya took off their wraps and sat down on the sofa. Petya, leaning\non his elbow, fell asleep at once. Natasha and Nicholas were silent.\nTheir faces glowed, they were hungry and very cheerful. They looked at\none another (now that the hunt was over and they were in the house,\nNicholas no longer considered it necessary to show his manly superiority\nover his sister), Natasha gave him a wink, and neither refrained long\nfrom bursting into a peal of ringing laughter even before they had a\npretext ready to account for it.\n\nAfter a while \"Uncle\" came in, in a Cossack coat, blue trousers, and\nsmall top boots. And Natasha felt that this costume, the very one she\nhad regarded with surprise and amusement at Otradnoe, was just the right\nthing and not at all worse than a swallow-tail or frock coat. \"Uncle\"\ntoo was in high spirits and far from being offended by the brother's and\nsister's laughter (it could never enter his head that they might be\nlaughing at his way of life) he himself joined in the merriment.\n\n\"That's right, young countess, that's it, come on! I never saw anyone\nlike her!\" said he, offering Nicholas a pipe with a long stem and, with\na practiced motion of three fingers, taking down another that had been\ncut short. \"She's ridden all day like a man, and is as fresh as ever!\"\n\nSoon after \"Uncle's\" reappearance the door was opened, evidently from\nthe sound by a barefooted girl, and a stout, rosy, good-looking woman of\nabout forty, with a double chin and full red lips, entered carrying a\nlarge loaded tray. With hospitable dignity and cordiality in her glance\nand in every motion, she looked at the visitors and, with a pleasant\nsmile, bowed respectfully. In spite of her exceptional stoutness, which\ncaused her to protrude her chest and stomach and throw back her head,\nthis woman (who was \"Uncle's\" housekeeper) trod very lightly. She went\nto the table, set down the tray, and with her plump white hands deftly\ntook from it the bottles and various hors d'oeuvres and dishes and\narranged them on the table. When she had finished, she stepped aside and\nstopped at the door with a smile on her face. \"Here I am. I am she! Now\ndo you understand 'Uncle'?\" her expression said to Rostov. How could one\nhelp understanding? Not only Nicholas, but even Natasha understood the\nmeaning of his puckered brow and the happy complacent smile that\nslightly puckered his lips when Anisya Fedorovna entered. On the tray\nwas a bottle of herb wine, different kinds of vodka, pickled mushrooms,\nrye cakes made with buttermilk, honey in the comb, still mead and\nsparkling mead, apples, nuts (raw and roasted), and nut-and-honey\nsweets. Afterwards she brought a freshly roasted chicken, ham, preserves\nmade with honey, and preserves made with sugar.\n\nAll this was the fruit of Anisya Fedorovna's housekeeping, gathered and\nprepared by her. The smell and taste of it all had a smack of Anisya\nFedorovna herself: a savor of juiciness, cleanliness, whiteness, and\npleasant smiles.\n\n\"Take this, little Lady-Countess!\" she kept saying, as she offered\nNatasha first one thing and then another.\n\nNatasha ate of everything and thought she had never seen or eaten such\nbuttermilk cakes, such aromatic jam, such honey-and-nut sweets, or such\na chicken anywhere. Anisya Fedorovna left the room.\n\nAfter supper, over their cherry brandy, Rostov and \"Uncle\" talked of\npast and future hunts, of Rugay and Ilagin's dogs, while Natasha sat\nupright on the sofa and listened with sparkling eyes. She tried several\ntimes to wake Petya that he might eat something, but he only muttered\nincoherent words without waking up. Natasha felt so lighthearted and\nhappy in these novel surroundings that she only feared the trap would\ncome for her too soon. After a casual pause, such as often occurs when\nreceiving friends for the first time in one's own house, \"Uncle,\"\nanswering a thought that was in his visitors' minds, said:\n\n\"This, you see, is how I am finishing my days... Death will come. That's\nit, come on! Nothing will remain. Then why harm anyone?\"\n\n\"Uncle's\" face was very significant and even handsome as he said this.\nInvoluntarily Rostov recalled all the good he had heard about him from\nhis father and the neighbors. Throughout the whole province \"Uncle\" had\nthe reputation of being the most honorable and disinterested of cranks.\nThey called him in to decide family disputes, chose him as executor,\nconfided secrets to him, elected him to be a justice and to other posts;\nbut he always persistently refused public appointments, passing the\nautumn and spring in the fields on his bay gelding, sitting at home in\nwinter, and lying in his overgrown garden in summer.\n\n\"Why don't you enter the service, Uncle?\"\n\n\"I did once, but gave it up. I am not fit for it. That's it, come on! I\ncan't make head or tail of it. That's for you--I haven't brains enough.\nNow, hunting is another matter--that's it, come on! Open the door,\nthere!\" he shouted. \"Why have you shut it?\"\n\nThe door at the end of the passage led to the huntsmen's room, as they\ncalled the room for the hunt servants.\n\nThere was a rapid patter of bare feet, and an unseen hand opened the\ndoor into the huntsmen's room, from which came the clear sounds of a\nbalalayka on which someone, who was evidently a master of the art, was\nplaying. Natasha had been listening to those strains for some time and\nnow went out into the passage to hear better.\n\n\"That's Mitka, my coachman.... I have got him a good balalayka. I'm fond\nof it,\" said \"Uncle.\"\n\nIt was the custom for Mitka to play the balalayka in the huntsmen's room\nwhen \"Uncle\" returned from the chase. \"Uncle\" was fond of such music.\n\n\"How good! Really very good!\" said Nicholas with some unintentional\nsuperciliousness, as if ashamed to confess that the sounds pleased him\nvery much.\n\n\"Very good?\" said Natasha reproachfully, noticing her brother's tone.\n\"Not 'very good' it's simply delicious!\"\n\nJust as \"Uncle's\" pickled mushrooms, honey, and cherry brandy had seemed\nto her the best in the world, so also that song, at that moment, seemed\nto her the acme of musical delight.\n\n\"More, please, more!\" cried Natasha at the door as soon as the balalayka\nceased. Mitka tuned up afresh, and recommenced thrumming the balalayka\nto the air of My Lady, with trills and variations. \"Uncle\" sat\nlistening, slightly smiling, with his head on one side. The air was\nrepeated a hundred times. The balalayka was retuned several times and\nthe same notes were thrummed again, but the listeners did not grow weary\nof it and wished to hear it again and again. Anisya Fedorovna came in\nand leaned her portly person against the doorpost.\n\n\"You like listening?\" she said to Natasha, with a smile extremely like\n\"Uncle's.\" \"That's a good player of ours,\" she added.\n\n\"He doesn't play that part right!\" said \"Uncle\" suddenly, with an\nenergetic gesture. \"Here he ought to burst out--that's it, come on!--\nought to burst out.\"\n\n\"Do you play then?\" asked Natasha.\n\n\"Uncle\" did not answer, but smiled.\n\n\"Anisya, go and see if the strings of my guitar are all right. I haven't\ntouched it for a long time. That's it--come on! I've given it up.\"\n\nAnisya Fedorovna, with her light step, willingly went to fulfill her\nerrand and brought back the guitar.\n\nWithout looking at anyone, \"Uncle\" blew the dust off it and, tapping the\ncase with his bony fingers, tuned the guitar and settled himself in his\narmchair. He took the guitar a little above the fingerboard, arching his\nleft elbow with a somewhat theatrical gesture, and, with a wink at\nAnisya Fedorovna, struck a single chord, pure and sonorous, and then\nquietly, smoothly, and confidently began playing in very slow time, not\nMy Lady, but the well-known song: Came a maiden down the street. The\ntune, played with precision and in exact time, began to thrill in the\nhearts of Nicholas and Natasha, arousing in them the same kind of sober\nmirth as radiated from Anisya Fedorovna's whole being. Anisya Fedorovna\nflushed, and drawing her kerchief over her face went laughing out of the\nroom. \"Uncle\" continued to play correctly, carefully, with energetic\nfirmness, looking with a changed and inspired expression at the spot\nwhere Anisya Fedorovna had just stood. Something seemed to be laughing a\nlittle on one side of his face under his gray mustaches, especially as\nthe song grew brisker and the time quicker and when, here and there, as\nhe ran his fingers over the strings, something seemed to snap.\n\n\"Lovely, lovely! Go on, Uncle, go on!\" shouted Natasha as soon as he had\nfinished. She jumped up and hugged and kissed him. \"Nicholas, Nicholas!\"\nshe said, turning to her brother, as if asking him: \"What is it moves me\nso?\"\n\nNicholas too was greatly pleased by \"Uncle's\" playing, and \"Uncle\"\nplayed the piece over again. Anisya Fedorovna's smiling face reappeared\nin the doorway and behind hers other faces...\n\n\nFetching water clear and sweet, Stop, dear maiden, I entreat--\n\nplayed \"Uncle\" once more, running his fingers skillfully over the\nstrings, and then he stopped short and jerked his shoulders.\n\n\"Go on, Uncle dear,\" Natasha wailed in an imploring tone as if her life\ndepended on it.\n\n\"Uncle\" rose, and it was as if there were two men in him: one of them\nsmiled seriously at the merry fellow, while the merry fellow struck a\nnaive and precise attitude preparatory to a folk dance.\n\n\"Now then, niece!\" he exclaimed, waving to Natasha the hand that had\njust struck a chord.\n\nNatasha threw off the shawl from her shoulders, ran forward to face\n\"Uncle,\" and setting her arms akimbo also made a motion with her\nshoulders and struck an attitude.\n\nWhere, how, and when had this young countess, educated by an emigree\nFrench governess, imbibed from the Russian air she breathed that spirit\nand obtained that manner which the pas de chale * would, one would have\nsupposed, long ago have effaced? But the spirit and the movements were\nthose inimitable and unteachable Russian ones that \"Uncle\" had expected\nof her. As soon as she had struck her pose, and smiled triumphantly,\nproudly, and with sly merriment, the fear that had at first seized\nNicholas and the others that she might not do the right thing was at an\nend, and they were already admiring her.\n\n\n* The French shawl dance.\n\nShe did the right thing with such precision, such complete precision,\nthat Anisya Fedorovna, who had at once handed her the handkerchief she\nneeded for the dance, had tears in her eyes, though she laughed as she\nwatched this slim, graceful countess, reared in silks and velvets and so\ndifferent from herself, who yet was able to understand all that was in\nAnisya and in Anisya's father and mother and aunt, and in every Russian\nman and woman.\n\n\"Well, little countess; that's it--come on!\" cried \"Uncle,\" with a\njoyous laugh, having finished the dance. \"Well done, niece! Now a fine\nyoung fellow must be found as husband for you. That's it--come on!\"\n\n\"He's chosen already,\" said Nicholas smiling.\n\n\"Oh?\" said \"Uncle\" in surprise, looking inquiringly at Natasha, who\nnodded her head with a happy smile.\n\n\"And such a one!\" she said. But as soon as she had said it a new train\nof thoughts and feelings arose in her. \"What did Nicholas' smile mean\nwhen he said 'chosen already'? Is he glad of it or not? It is as if he\nthought my Bolkonski would not approve of or understand our gaiety. But\nhe would understand it all. Where is he now?\" she thought, and her face\nsuddenly became serious. But this lasted only a second. \"Don't dare to\nthink about it,\" she said to herself, and sat down again smilingly\nbeside \"Uncle,\" begging him to play something more.\n\n\"Uncle\" played another song and a valse; then after a pause he cleared\nhis throat and sang his favorite hunting song:\n\n\nAs 'twas growing dark last night Fell the snow so soft and light...\n\n\"Uncle\" sang as peasants sing, with full and naive conviction that the\nwhole meaning of a song lies in the words and that the tune comes of\nitself, and that apart from the words there is no tune, which exists\nonly to give measure to the words. As a result of this the unconsidered\ntune, like the song of a bird, was extraordinarily good. Natasha was in\necstasies over \"Uncle's\" singing. She resolved to give up learning the\nharp and to play only the guitar. She asked \"Uncle\" for his guitar and\nat once found the chords of the song.\n\nAfter nine o'clock two traps and three mounted men, who had been sent to\nlook for them, arrived to fetch Natasha and Petya. The count and\ncountess did not know where they were and were very anxious, said one of\nthe men.\n\nPetya was carried out like a log and laid in the larger of the two\ntraps. Natasha and Nicholas got into the other. \"Uncle\" wrapped Natasha\nup warmly and took leave of her with quite a new tenderness. He\naccompanied them on foot as far as the bridge that could not be crossed,\nso that they had to go round by the ford, and he sent huntsmen to ride\nin front with lanterns.\n\n\"Good-bye, dear niece,\" his voice called out of the darkness--not the\nvoice Natasha had known previously, but the one that had sung As 'twas\ngrowing dark last night.\n\nIn the village through which they passed there were red lights and a\ncheerful smell of smoke.\n\n\"What a darling Uncle is!\" said Natasha, when they had come out onto the\nhighroad.\n\n\"Yes,\" returned Nicholas. \"You're not cold?\"\n\n\"No. I'm quite, quite all right. I feel so comfortable!\" answered\nNatasha, almost perplexed by her feelings. They remained silent a long\nwhile. The night was dark and damp. They could not see the horses, but\nonly heard them splashing through the unseen mud.\n\nWhat was passing in that receptive childlike soul that so eagerly caught\nand assimilated all the diverse impressions of life? How did they all\nfind place in her? But she was very happy. As they were nearing home she\nsuddenly struck up the air of As 'twas growing dark last night--the tune\nof which she had all the way been trying to get and had at last caught.\n\n\"Got it?\" said Nicholas.\n\n\"What were you thinking about just now, Nicholas?\" inquired Natasha.\n\nThey were fond of asking one another that question.\n\n\"I?\" said Nicholas, trying to remember. \"Well, you see, first I thought\nthat Rugay, the red hound, was like Uncle, and that if he were a man he\nwould always keep Uncle near him, if not for his riding, then for his\nmanner. What a good fellow Uncle is! Don't you think so?... Well, and\nyou?\"\n\n\"I? Wait a bit, wait.... Yes, first I thought that we are driving along\nand imagining that we are going home, but that heaven knows where we are\nreally going in the darkness, and that we shall arrive and suddenly find\nthat we are not in Otradnoe, but in Fairyland. And then I thought... No,\nnothing else.\"\n\n\"I know, I expect you thought of him,\" said Nicholas, smiling as Natasha\nknew by the sound of his voice.\n\n\"No,\" said Natasha, though she had in reality been thinking about Prince\nAndrew at the same time as of the rest, and of how he would have liked\n\"Uncle.\" \"And then I was saying to myself all the way, 'How well Anisya\ncarried herself, how well!'\" And Nicholas heard her spontaneous, happy,\nringing laughter. \"And do you know,\" she suddenly said, \"I know that I\nshall never again be as happy and tranquil as I am now.\"\n\n\"Rubbish, nonsense, humbug!\" exclaimed Nicholas, and he thought: \"How\ncharming this Natasha of mine is! I have no other friend like her and\nnever shall have. Why should she marry? We might always drive about\ntogether!\"\n\n\"What a darling this Nicholas of mine is!\" thought Natasha.\n\n\"Ah, there are still lights in the drawing-room!\" she said, pointing to\nthe windows of the house that gleamed invitingly in the moist velvety\ndarkness of the night.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nCount Ilya Rostov had resigned the position of Marshal of the Nobility\nbecause it involved him in too much expense, but still his affairs did\nnot improve. Natasha and Nicholas often noticed their parents conferring\ntogether anxiously and privately and heard suggestions of selling the\nfine ancestral Rostov house and estate near Moscow. It was not necessary\nto entertain so freely as when the count had been Marshal, and life at\nOtradnoe was quieter than in former years, but still the enormous house\nand its lodges were full of people and more than twenty sat down to\ntable every day. These were all their own people who had settled down in\nthe house almost as members of the family, or persons who were, it\nseemed, obliged to live in the count's house. Such were Dimmler the\nmusician and his wife, Vogel the dancing master and his family, Belova,\nan old maiden lady, an inmate of the house, and many others such as\nPetya's tutors, the girls' former governess, and other people who simply\nfound it preferable and more advantageous to live in the count's house\nthan at home. They had not as many visitors as before, but the old\nhabits of life without which the count and countess could not conceive\nof existence remained unchanged. There was still the hunting\nestablishment which Nicholas had even enlarged, the same fifty horses\nand fifteen grooms in the stables, the same expensive presents and\ndinner parties to the whole district on name days; there were still the\ncount's games of whist and boston, at which--spreading out his cards so\nthat everybody could see them--he let himself be plundered of hundreds\nof rubles every day by his neighbors, who looked upon an opportunity to\nplay a rubber with Count Rostov as a most profitable source of income.\n\nThe count moved in his affairs as in a huge net, trying not to believe\nthat he was entangled but becoming more and more so at every step, and\nfeeling too feeble to break the meshes or to set to work carefully and\npatiently to disentangle them. The countess, with her loving heart, felt\nthat her children were being ruined, that it was not the count's fault\nfor he could not help being what he was--that (though he tried to hide\nit) he himself suffered from the consciousness of his own and his\nchildren's ruin, and she tried to find means of remedying the position.\nFrom her feminine point of view she could see only one solution, namely,\nfor Nicholas to marry a rich heiress. She felt this to be their last\nhope and that if Nicholas refused the match she had found for him, she\nwould have to abandon the hope of ever getting matters right. This match\nwas with Julie Karagina, the daughter of excellent and virtuous parents,\na girl the Rostovs had known from childhood, and who had now become a\nwealthy heiress through the death of the last of her brothers.\n\nThe countess had written direct to Julie's mother in Moscow suggesting a\nmarriage between their children and had received a favorable answer from\nher. Karagina had replied that for her part she was agreeable, and\neverything depend on her daughter's inclination. She invited Nicholas to\ncome to Moscow.\n\nSeveral times the countess, with tears in her eyes, told her son that\nnow both her daughters were settled, her only wish was to see him\nmarried. She said she could lie down in her grave peacefully if that\nwere accomplished. Then she told him that she knew of a splendid girl\nand tried to discover what he thought about marriage.\n\nAt other times she praised Julie to him and advised him to go to Moscow\nduring the holidays to amuse himself. Nicholas guessed what his mother's\nremarks were leading to and during one of these conversations induced\nher to speak quite frankly. She told him that her only hope of getting\ntheir affairs disentangled now lay in his marrying Julie Karagina.\n\n\"But, Mamma, suppose I loved a girl who has no fortune, would you expect\nme to sacrifice my feelings and my honor for the sake of money?\" he\nasked his mother, not realizing the cruelty of his question and only\nwishing to show his noble-mindedness.\n\n\"No, you have not understood me,\" said his mother, not knowing how to\njustify herself. \"You have not understood me, Nikolenka. It is your\nhappiness I wish for,\" she added, feeling that she was telling an\nuntruth and was becoming entangled. She began to cry.\n\n\"Mamma, don't cry! Only tell me that you wish it, and you know I will\ngive my life, anything, to put you at ease,\" said Nicholas. \"I would\nsacrifice anything for you--even my feelings.\"\n\nBut the countess did not want the question put like that: she did not\nwant a sacrifice from her son, she herself wished to make a sacrifice\nfor him.\n\n\"No, you have not understood me, don't let us talk about it,\" she\nreplied, wiping away her tears.\n\n\"Maybe I do love a poor girl,\" said Nicholas to himself. \"Am I to\nsacrifice my feelings and my honor for money? I wonder how Mamma could\nspeak so to me. Because Sonya is poor I must not love her,\" he thought,\n\"must not respond to her faithful, devoted love? Yet I should certainly\nbe happier with her than with some doll-like Julie. I can always\nsacrifice my feelings for my family's welfare,\" he said to himself, \"but\nI can't coerce my feelings. If I love Sonya, that feeling is for me\nstronger and higher than all else.\"\n\nNicholas did not go to Moscow, and the countess did not renew the\nconversation with him about marriage. She saw with sorrow, and sometimes\nwith exasperation, symptoms of a growing attachment between her son and\nthe portionless Sonya. Though she blamed herself for it, she could not\nrefrain from grumbling at and worrying Sonya, often pulling her up\nwithout reason, addressing her stiffly as \"my dear,\" and using the\nformal \"you\" instead of the intimate \"thou\" in speaking to her. The\nkindhearted countess was the more vexed with Sonya because that poor,\ndark-eyed niece of hers was so meek, so kind, so devotedly grateful to\nher benefactors, and so faithfully, unchangingly, and unselfishly in\nlove with Nicholas, that there were no grounds for finding fault with\nher.\n\nNicholas was spending the last of his leave at home. A fourth letter had\ncome from Prince Andrew, from Rome, in which he wrote that he would have\nbeen on his way back to Russia long ago had not his wound unexpectedly\nreopened in the warm climate, which obliged him to defer his return till\nthe beginning of the new year. Natasha was still as much in love with\nher betrothed, found the same comfort in that love, and was still as\nready to throw herself into all the pleasures of life as before; but at\nthe end of the fourth month of their separation she began to have fits\nof depression which she could not master. She felt sorry for herself:\nsorry that she was being wasted all this time and of no use to anyone--\nwhile she felt herself so capable of loving and being loved.\n\nThings were not cheerful in the Rostovs' home.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nChristmas came and except for the ceremonial Mass, the solemn and\nwearisome Christmas congratulations from neighbors and servants, and the\nnew dresses everyone put on, there were no special festivities, though\nthe calm frost of twenty degrees Reaumur, the dazzling sunshine by day,\nand the starlight of the winter nights seemed to call for some special\ncelebration of the season.\n\nOn the third day of Christmas week, after the midday dinner, all the\ninmates of the house dispersed to various rooms. It was the dullest time\nof the day. Nicholas, who had been visiting some neighbors that morning,\nwas asleep on the sitting-room sofa. The old count was resting in his\nstudy. Sonya sat in the drawing room at the round table, copying a\ndesign for embroidery. The countess was playing patience. Nastasya\nIvanovna the buffoon sat with a sad face at the window with two old\nladies. Natasha came into the room, went up to Sonya, glanced at what\nshe was doing, and then went up to her mother and stood without\nspeaking.\n\n\"Why are you wandering about like an outcast?\" asked her mother. \"What\ndo you want?\"\n\n\"Him... I want him... now, this minute! I want him!\" said Natasha, with\nglittering eyes and no sign of a smile.\n\nThe countess lifted her head and looked attentively at her daughter.\n\n\"Don't look at me, Mamma! Don't look; I shall cry directly.\"\n\n\"Sit down with me a little,\" said the countess.\n\n\"Mamma, I want him. Why should I be wasted like this, Mamma?\"\n\nHer voice broke, tears gushed from her eyes, and she turned quickly to\nhide them and left the room.\n\nShe passed into the sitting room, stood there thinking awhile, and then\nwent into the maids' room. There an old maidservant was grumbling at a\nyoung girl who stood panting, having just run in through the cold from\nthe serfs' quarters.\n\n\"Stop playing--there's a time for everything,\" said the old woman.\n\n\"Let her alone, Kondratevna,\" said Natasha. \"Go, Mavrushka, go.\"\n\nHaving released Mavrushka, Natasha crossed the dancing hall and went to\nthe vestibule. There an old footman and two young ones were playing\ncards. They broke off and rose as she entered.\n\n\"What can I do with them?\" thought Natasha.\n\n\"Oh, Nikita, please go... where can I send him?... Yes, go to the yard\nand fetch a fowl, please, a cock, and you, Misha, bring me some oats.\"\n\n\"Just a few oats?\" said Misha, cheerfully and readily.\n\n\"Go, go quickly,\" the old man urged him.\n\n\"And you, Theodore, get me a piece of chalk.\"\n\nOn her way past the butler's pantry she told them to set a samovar,\nthough it was not at all the time for tea.\n\nFoka, the butler, was the most ill-tempered person in the house. Natasha\nliked to test her power over him. He distrusted the order and asked\nwhether the samovar was really wanted.\n\n\"Oh dear, what a young lady!\" said Foka, pretending to frown at Natasha.\n\nNo one in the house sent people about or gave them as much trouble as\nNatasha did. She could not see people unconcernedly, but had to send\nthem on some errand. She seemed to be trying whether any of them would\nget angry or sulky with her; but the serfs fulfilled no one's orders so\nreadily as they did hers. \"What can I do, where can I go?\" thought she,\nas she went slowly along the passage.\n\n\"Nastasya Ivanovna, what sort of children shall I have?\" she asked the\nbuffoon, who was coming toward her in a woman's jacket.\n\n\"Why, fleas, crickets, grasshoppers,\" answered the buffoon.\n\n\"O Lord, O Lord, it's always the same! Oh, where am I to go? What am I\nto do with myself?\" And tapping with her heels, she ran quickly upstairs\nto see Vogel and his wife who lived on the upper story.\n\nTwo governesses were sitting with the Vogels at a table, on which were\nplates of raisins, walnuts, and almonds. The governesses were discussing\nwhether it was cheaper to live in Moscow or Odessa. Natasha sat down,\nlistened to their talk with a serious and thoughtful air, and then got\nup again.\n\n\"The island of Madagascar,\" she said, \"Ma-da-gas-car,\" she repeated,\narticulating each syllable distinctly, and, not replying to Madame\nSchoss who asked her what she was saying, she went out of the room.\n\nHer brother Petya was upstairs too; with the man in attendance on him he\nwas preparing fireworks to let off that night.\n\n\"Petya! Petya!\" she called to him. \"Carry me downstairs.\"\n\nPetya ran up and offered her his back. She jumped on it, putting her\narms round his neck, and he pranced along with her.\n\n\"No, don't... the island of Madagascar!\" she said, and jumping off his\nback she went downstairs.\n\nHaving as it were reviewed her kingdom, tested her power, and made sure\nthat everyone was submissive, but that all the same it was dull, Natasha\nbetook herself to the ballroom, picked up her guitar, sat down in a dark\ncorner behind a bookcase, and began to run her fingers over the strings\nin the bass, picking out a passage she recalled from an opera she had\nheard in Petersburg with Prince Andrew. What she drew from the guitar\nwould have had no meaning for other listeners, but in her imagination a\nwhole series of reminiscences arose from those sounds. She sat behind\nthe bookcase with her eyes fixed on a streak of light escaping from the\npantry door and listened to herself and pondered. She was in a mood for\nbrooding on the past.\n\nSonya passed to the pantry with a glass in her hand. Natasha glanced at\nher and at the crack in the pantry door, and it seemed to her that she\nremembered the light falling through that crack once before and Sonya\npassing with a glass in her hand. \"Yes it was exactly the same,\" thought\nNatasha.\n\n\"Sonya, what is this?\" she cried, twanging a thick string.\n\n\"Oh, you are there!\" said Sonya with a start, and came near and\nlistened. \"I don't know. A storm?\" she ventured timidly, afraid of being\nwrong.\n\n\"There! That's just how she started and just how she came up smiling\ntimidly when all this happened before,\" thought Natasha, \"and in just\nthe same way I thought there was something lacking in her.\"\n\n\"No, it's the chorus from The Water-Carrier, listen!\" and Natasha sang\nthe air of the chorus so that Sonya should catch it. \"Where were you\ngoing?\" she asked.\n\n\"To change the water in this glass. I am just finishing the design.\"\n\n\"You always find something to do, but I can't,\" said Natasha. \"And\nwhere's Nicholas?\"\n\n\"Asleep, I think.\"\n\n\"Sonya, go and wake him,\" said Natasha. \"Tell him I want him to come and\nsing.\"\n\nShe sat awhile, wondering what the meaning of it all having happened\nbefore could be, and without solving this problem, or at all regretting\nnot having done so, she again passed in fancy to the time when she was\nwith him and he was looking at her with a lover's eyes.\n\n\"Oh, if only he would come quicker! I am so afraid it will never be!\nAnd, worst of all, I am growing old--that's the thing! There won't then\nbe in me what there is now. But perhaps he'll come today, will come\nimmediately. Perhaps he has come and is sitting in the drawing room.\nPerhaps he came yesterday and I have forgotten it.\" She rose, put down\nthe guitar, and went to the drawing room.\n\nAll the domestic circle, tutors, governesses, and guests, were already\nat the tea table. The servants stood round the table--but Prince Andrew\nwas not there and life was going on as before.\n\n\"Ah, here she is!\" said the old count, when he saw Natasha enter. \"Well,\nsit down by me.\" But Natasha stayed by her mother and glanced round as\nif looking for something.\n\n\"Mamma!\" she muttered, \"give him to me, give him, Mamma, quickly,\nquickly!\" and she again had difficulty in repressing her sobs.\n\nShe sat down at the table and listened to the conversation between the\nelders and Nicholas, who had also come to the table. \"My God, my God!\nThe same faces, the same talk, Papa holding his cup and blowing in the\nsame way!\" thought Natasha, feeling with horror a sense of repulsion\nrising up in her for the whole household, because they were always the\nsame.\n\nAfter tea, Nicholas, Sonya, and Natasha went to the sitting room, to\ntheir favorite corner where their most intimate talks always began.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\n\"Does it ever happen to you,\" said Natasha to her brother, when they\nsettled down in the sitting room, \"does it ever happen to you to feel as\nif there were nothing more to come--nothing; that everything good is\npast? And to feel not exactly dull, but sad?\"\n\n\"I should think so!\" he replied. \"I have felt like that when everything\nwas all right and everyone was cheerful. The thought has come into my\nmind that I was already tired of it all, and that we must all die. Once\nin the regiment I had not gone to some merrymaking where there was\nmusic... and suddenly I felt so depressed...\"\n\n\"Oh yes, I know, I know, I know!\" Natasha interrupted him. \"When I was\nquite little that used to be so with me. Do you remember when I was\npunished once about some plums? You were all dancing, and I sat sobbing\nin the schoolroom? I shall never forget it: I felt sad and sorry for\neveryone, for myself, and for everyone. And I was innocent--that was the\nchief thing,\" said Natasha. \"Do you remember?\"\n\n\"I remember,\" answered Nicholas. \"I remember that I came to you\nafterwards and wanted to comfort you, but do you know, I felt ashamed\nto. We were terribly absurd. I had a funny doll then and wanted to give\nit to you. Do you remember?\"\n\n\"And do you remember,\" Natasha asked with a pensive smile, \"how once,\nlong, long ago, when we were quite little, Uncle called us into the\nstudy--that was in the old house--and it was dark--we went in and\nsuddenly there stood...\"\n\n\"A Negro,\" chimed in Nicholas with a smile of delight. \"Of course I\nremember. Even now I don't know whether there really was a Negro, or if\nwe only dreamed it or were told about him.\"\n\n\"He was gray, you remember, and had white teeth, and stood and looked at\nus...\"\n\n\"Sonya, do you remember?\" asked Nicholas.\n\n\"Yes, yes, I do remember something too,\" Sonya answered timidly.\n\n\"You know I have asked Papa and Mamma about that Negro,\" said Natasha,\n\"and they say there was no Negro at all. But you see, you remember!\"\n\n\"Of course I do, I remember his teeth as if I had just seen them.\"\n\n\"How strange it is! It's as if it were a dream! I like that.\"\n\n\"And do you remember how we rolled hard-boiled eggs in the ballroom, and\nsuddenly two old women began spinning round on the carpet? Was that real\nor not? Do you remember what fun it was?\"\n\n\"Yes, and you remember how Papa in his blue overcoat fired a gun in the\nporch?\"\n\nSo they went through their memories, smiling with pleasure: not the sad\nmemories of old age, but poetic, youthful ones--those impressions of\none's most distant past in which dreams and realities blend--and they\nlaughed with quiet enjoyment.\n\nSonya, as always, did not quite keep pace with them, though they shared\nthe same reminiscences.\n\nMuch that they remembered had slipped from her mind, and what she\nrecalled did not arouse the same poetic feeling as they experienced. She\nsimply enjoyed their pleasure and tried to fit in with it.\n\nShe only really took part when they recalled Sonya's first arrival. She\ntold them how afraid she had been of Nicholas because he had on a corded\njacket and her nurse had told her that she, too, would be sewn up with\ncords.\n\n\"And I remember their telling me that you had been born under a\ncabbage,\" said Natasha, \"and I remember that I dared not disbelieve it\nthen, but knew that it was not true, and I felt so uncomfortable.\"\n\nWhile they were talking a maid thrust her head in at the other door of\nthe sitting room.\n\n\"They have brought the cock, Miss,\" she said in a whisper.\n\n\"It isn't wanted, Petya. Tell them to take it away,\" replied Natasha.\n\nIn the middle of their talk in the sitting room, Dimmler came in and\nwent up to the harp that stood there in a corner. He took off its cloth\ncovering, and the harp gave out a jarring sound.\n\n\"Mr. Dimmler, please play my favorite nocturne by Field,\" came the old\ncountess' voice from the drawing room.\n\nDimmler struck a chord and, turning to Natasha, Nicholas, and Sonya,\nremarked: \"How quiet you young people are!\"\n\n\"Yes, we're philosophizing,\" said Natasha, glancing round for a moment\nand then continuing the conversation. They were now discussing dreams.\n\nDimmler began to play; Natasha went on tiptoe noiselessly to the table,\ntook up a candle, carried it out, and returned, seating herself quietly\nin her former place. It was dark in the room especially where they were\nsitting on the sofa, but through the big windows the silvery light of\nthe full moon fell on the floor. Dimmler had finished the piece but\nstill sat softly running his fingers over the strings, evidently\nuncertain whether to stop or to play something else.\n\n\"Do you know,\" said Natasha in a whisper, moving closer to Nicholas and\nSonya, \"that when one goes on and on recalling memories, one at last\nbegins to remember what happened before one was in the world...\"\n\n\"That is metempsychosis,\" said Sonya, who had always learned well, and\nremembered everything. \"The Egyptians believed that our souls have lived\nin animals, and will go back into animals again.\"\n\n\"No, I don't believe we ever were in animals,\" said Natasha, still in a\nwhisper though the music had ceased. \"But I am certain that we were\nangels somewhere there, and have been here, and that is why we\nremember....\"\n\n\"May I join you?\" said Dimmler who had come up quietly, and he sat down\nby them.\n\n\"If we have been angels, why have we fallen lower?\" said Nicholas. \"No,\nthat can't be!\"\n\n\"Not lower, who said we were lower?... How do I know what I was before?\"\nNatasha rejoined with conviction. \"The soul is immortal--well then, if I\nshall always live I must have lived before, lived for a whole eternity.\"\n\n\"Yes, but it is hard for us to imagine eternity,\" remarked Dimmler, who\nhad joined the young folk with a mildly condescending smile but now\nspoke as quietly and seriously as they.\n\n\"Why is it hard to imagine eternity?\" said Natasha. \"It is now today,\nand it will be tomorrow, and always; and there was yesterday, and the\nday before...\"\n\n\"Natasha! Now it's your turn. Sing me something,\" they heard the\ncountess say. \"Why are you sitting there like conspirators?\"\n\n\"Mamma, I don't at all want to,\" replied Natasha, but all the same she\nrose.\n\nNone of them, not even the middle-aged Dimmler, wanted to break off\ntheir conversation and quit that corner in the sitting room, but Natasha\ngot up and Nicholas sat down at the clavichord. Standing as usual in the\nmiddle of the hall and choosing the place where the resonance was best,\nNatasha began to sing her mother's favorite song.\n\nShe had said she did not want to sing, but it was long since she had\nsung, and long before she again sang, as she did that evening. The\ncount, from his study where he was talking to Mitenka, heard her and,\nlike a schoolboy in a hurry to run out to play, blundered in his talk\nwhile giving orders to the steward, and at last stopped, while Mitenka\nstood in front of him also listening and smiling. Nicholas did not take\nhis eyes off his sister and drew breath in time with her. Sonya, as she\nlistened, thought of the immense difference there was between herself\nand her friend, and how impossible it was for her to be anything like as\nbewitching as her cousin. The old countess sat with a blissful yet sad\nsmile and with tears in her eyes, occasionally shaking her head. She\nthought of Natasha and of her own youth, and of how there was something\nunnatural and dreadful in this impending marriage of Natasha and Prince\nAndrew.\n\nDimmler, who had seated himself beside the countess, listened with\nclosed eyes.\n\n\"Ah, Countess,\" he said at last, \"that's a European talent, she has\nnothing to learn--what softness, tenderness, and strength....\"\n\n\"Ah, how afraid I am for her, how afraid I am!\" said the countess, not\nrealizing to whom she was speaking. Her maternal instinct told her that\nNatasha had too much of something, and that because of this she would\nnot be happy. Before Natasha had finished singing, fourteen-year-old\nPetya rushed in delightedly, to say that some mummers had arrived.\n\nNatasha stopped abruptly.\n\n\"Idiot!\" she screamed at her brother and, running to a chair, threw\nherself on it, sobbing so violently that she could not stop for a long\ntime.\n\n\"It's nothing, Mamma, really it's nothing; only Petya startled me,\" she\nsaid, trying to smile, but her tears still flowed and sobs still choked\nher.\n\nThe mummers (some of the house serfs) dressed up as bears, Turks,\ninnkeepers, and ladies--frightening and funny--bringing in with them the\ncold from outside and a feeling of gaiety, crowded, at first timidly,\ninto the anteroom, then hiding behind one another they pushed into the\nballroom where, shyly at first and then more and more merrily and\nheartily, they started singing, dancing, and playing Christmas games.\nThe countess, when she had identified them and laughed at their\ncostumes, went into the drawing room. The count sat in the ballroom,\nsmiling radiantly and applauding the players. The young people had\ndisappeared.\n\nHalf an hour later there appeared among the other mummers in the\nballroom an old lady in a hooped skirt--this was Nicholas. A Turkish\ngirl was Petya. A clown was Dimmler. An hussar was Natasha, and a\nCircassian was Sonya with burnt-cork mustache and eyebrows.\n\nAfter the condescending surprise, nonrecognition, and praise, from those\nwho were not themselves dressed up, the young people decided that their\ncostumes were so good that they ought to be shown elsewhere.\n\nNicholas, who, as the roads were in splendid condition, wanted to take\nthem all for a drive in his troyka, proposed to take with them about a\ndozen of the serf mummers and drive to \"Uncle's.\"\n\n\"No, why disturb the old fellow?\" said the countess. \"Besides, you\nwouldn't have room to turn round there. If you must go, go to the\nMelyukovs'.\"\n\nMelyukova was a widow, who, with her family and their tutors and\ngovernesses, lived three miles from the Rostovs.\n\n\"That's right, my dear,\" chimed in the old count, thoroughly aroused.\n\"I'll dress up at once and go with them. I'll make Pashette open her\neyes.\"\n\nBut the countess would not agree to his going; he had had a bad leg all\nthese last days. It was decided that the count must not go, but that if\nLouisa Ivanovna (Madame Schoss) would go with them, the young ladies\nmight go to the Melyukovs', Sonya, generally so timid and shy, more\nurgently than anyone begging Louisa Ivanovna not to refuse.\n\nSonya's costume was the best of all. Her mustache and eyebrows were\nextraordinarily becoming. Everyone told her she looked very handsome,\nand she was in a spirited and energetic mood unusual with her. Some\ninner voice told her that now or never her fate would be decided, and in\nher male attire she seemed quite a different person. Louisa Ivanovna\nconsented to go, and in half an hour four troyka sleighs with large and\nsmall bells, their runners squeaking and whistling over the frozen snow,\ndrove up to the porch.\n\nNatasha was foremost in setting a merry holiday tone, which, passing\nfrom one to another, grew stronger and reached its climax when they all\ncame out into the frost and got into the sleighs, talking, calling to\none another, laughing, and shouting.\n\nTwo of the troykas were the usual household sleighs, the third was the\nold count's with a trotter from the Orlov stud as shaft horse, the\nfourth was Nicholas' own with a short shaggy black shaft horse.\nNicholas, in his old lady's dress over which he had belted his hussar\novercoat, stood in the middle of the sleigh, reins in hand.\n\nIt was so light that he could see the moonlight reflected from the metal\nharness disks and from the eyes of the horses, who looked round in alarm\nat the noisy party under the shadow of the porch roof.\n\nNatasha, Sonya, Madame Schoss, and two maids got into Nicholas' sleigh;\nDimmler, his wife, and Petya, into the old count's, and the rest of the\nmummers seated themselves in the other two sleighs.\n\n\"You go ahead, Zakhar!\" shouted Nicholas to his father's coachman,\nwishing for a chance to race past him.\n\nThe old count's troyka, with Dimmler and his party, started forward,\nsqueaking on its runners as though freezing to the snow, its deep-toned\nbell clanging. The side horses, pressing against the shafts of the\nmiddle horse, sank in the snow, which was dry and glittered like sugar,\nand threw it up.\n\nNicholas set off, following the first sleigh; behind him the others\nmoved noisily, their runners squeaking. At first they drove at a steady\ntrot along the narrow road. While they drove past the garden the shadows\nof the bare trees often fell across the road and hid the brilliant\nmoonlight, but as soon as they were past the fence, the snowy plain\nbathed in moonlight and motionless spread out before them glittering\nlike diamonds and dappled with bluish shadows. Bang, bang! went the\nfirst sleigh over a cradle hole in the snow of the road, and each of the\nother sleighs jolted in the same way, and rudely breaking the frost-\nbound stillness, the troykas began to speed along the road, one after\nthe other.\n\n\"A hare's track, a lot of tracks!\" rang out Natasha's voice through the\nfrost-bound air.\n\n\"How light it is, Nicholas!\" came Sonya's voice.\n\nNicholas glanced round at Sonya, and bent down to see her face closer.\nQuite a new, sweet face with black eyebrows and mustaches peeped up at\nhim from her sable furs--so close and yet so distant--in the moonlight.\n\n\"That used to be Sonya,\" thought he, and looked at her closer and\nsmiled.\n\n\"What is it, Nicholas?\"\n\n\"Nothing,\" said he and turned again to the horses.\n\nWhen they came out onto the beaten highroad--polished by sleigh runners\nand cut up by rough-shod hoofs, the marks of which were visible in the\nmoonlight--the horses began to tug at the reins of their own accord and\nincreased their pace. The near side horse, arching his head and breaking\ninto a short canter, tugged at his traces. The shaft horse swayed from\nside to side, moving his ears as if asking: \"Isn't it time to begin\nnow?\" In front, already far ahead the deep bell of the sleigh ringing\nfarther and farther off, the black horses driven by Zakhar could be\nclearly seen against the white snow. From that sleigh one could hear the\nshouts, laughter, and voices of the mummers.\n\n\"Gee up, my darlings!\" shouted Nicholas, pulling the reins to one side\nand flourishing the whip.\n\nIt was only by the keener wind that met them and the jerks given by the\nside horses who pulled harder--ever increasing their gallop--that one\nnoticed how fast the troyka was flying. Nicholas looked back. With\nscreams squeals, and waving of whips that caused even the shaft horses\nto gallop--the other sleighs followed. The shaft horse swung steadily\nbeneath the bow over its head, with no thought of slackening pace and\nready to put on speed when required.\n\nNicholas overtook the first sleigh. They were driving downhill and\ncoming out upon a broad trodden track across a meadow, near a river.\n\n\"Where are we?\" thought he. \"It's the Kosoy meadow, I suppose. But no--\nthis is something new I've never seen before. This isn't the Kosoy\nmeadow nor the Demkin hill, and heaven only knows what it is! It is\nsomething new and enchanted. Well, whatever it may be...\" And shouting\nto his horses, he began to pass the first sleigh.\n\nZakhar held back his horses and turned his face, which was already\ncovered with hoarfrost to his eyebrows.\n\nNicholas gave the horses the rein, and Zakhar, stretching out his arms,\nclucked his tongue and let his horses go.\n\n\"Now, look out, master!\" he cried.\n\nFaster still the two troykas flew side by side, and faster moved the\nfeet of the galloping side horses. Nicholas began to draw ahead. Zakhar,\nwhile still keeping his arms extended, raised one hand with the reins.\n\n\"No you won't, master!\" he shouted.\n\nNicholas put all his horses to a gallop and passed Zakhar. The horses\nshowered the fine dry snow on the faces of those in the sleigh--beside\nthem sounded quick ringing bells and they caught confused glimpses of\nswiftly moving legs and the shadows of the troyka they were passing. The\nwhistling sound of the runners on the snow and the voices of girls\nshrieking were heard from different sides.\n\nAgain checking his horses, Nicholas looked around him. They were still\nsurrounded by the magic plain bathed in moonlight and spangled with\nstars.\n\n\"Zakhar is shouting that I should turn to the left, but why to the\nleft?\" thought Nicholas. \"Are we getting to the Melyukovs'? Is this\nMelyukovka? Heaven only knows where we are going, and heaven knows what\nis happening to us--but it is very strange and pleasant whatever it is.\"\nAnd he looked round in the sleigh.\n\n\"Look, his mustache and eyelashes are all white!\" said one of the\nstrange, pretty, unfamiliar people--the one with fine eyebrows and\nmustache.\n\n\"I think this used to be Natasha,\" thought Nicholas, \"and that was\nMadame Schoss, but perhaps it's not, and this Circassian with the\nmustache I don't know, but I love her.\"\n\n\"Aren't you cold?\" he asked.\n\nThey did not answer but began to laugh. Dimmler from the sleigh behind\nshouted something--probably something funny--but they could not make out\nwhat he said.\n\n\"Yes, yes!\" some voices answered, laughing.\n\n\"But here was a fairy forest with black moving shadows, and a glitter of\ndiamonds and a flight of marble steps and the silver roofs of fairy\nbuildings and the shrill yells of some animals. And if this is really\nMelyukovka, it is still stranger that we drove heaven knows where and\nhave come to Melyukovka,\" thought Nicholas.\n\nIt really was Melyukovka, and maids and footmen with merry faces came\nrunning, out to the porch carrying candles.\n\n\"Who is it?\" asked someone in the porch.\n\n\"The mummers from the count's. I know by the horses,\" replied some\nvoices.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nPelageya Danilovna Melyukova, a broadly built, energetic woman wearing\nspectacles, sat in the drawing room in a loose dress, surrounded by her\ndaughters whom she was trying to keep from feeling dull. They were\nquietly dropping melted wax into snow and looking at the shadows the wax\nfigures would throw on the wall, when they heard the steps and voices of\nnew arrivals in the vestibule.\n\nHussars, ladies, witches, clowns, and bears, after clearing their\nthroats and wiping the hoarfrost from their faces in the vestibule, came\ninto the ballroom where candles were hurriedly lighted. The clown--\nDimmler--and the lady--Nicholas--started a dance. Surrounded by the\nscreaming children the mummers, covering their faces and disguising\ntheir voices, bowed to their hostess and arranged themselves about the\nroom.\n\n\"Dear me! there's no recognizing them! And Natasha! See whom she looks\nlike! She really reminds me of somebody. But Herr Dimmler--isn't he\ngood! I didn't know him! And how he dances. Dear me, there's a\nCircassian. Really, how becoming it is to dear Sonya. And who is that?\nWell, you have cheered us up! Nikita and Vanya--clear away the tables!\nAnd we were sitting so quietly. Ha, ha, ha!... The hussar, the hussar!\nJust like a boy! And the legs!... I can't look at him...\" different\nvoices were saying.\n\nNatasha, the young Melyukovs' favorite, disappeared with them into the\nback rooms where a cork and various dressing gowns and male garments\nwere called for and received from the footman by bare girlish arms from\nbehind the door. Ten minutes later, all the young Melyukovs joined the\nmummers.\n\nPelageya Danilovna, having given orders to clear the rooms for the\nvisitors and arranged about refreshments for the gentry and the serfs,\nwent about among the mummers without removing her spectacles, peering\ninto their faces with a suppressed smile and failing to recognize any of\nthem. It was not merely Dimmler and the Rostovs she failed to recognize,\nshe did not even recognize her own daughters, or her late husband's,\ndressing gowns and uniforms, which they had put on.\n\n\"And who is this?\" she asked her governess, peering into the face of her\nown daughter dressed up as a Kazan-Tartar. \"I suppose it is one of the\nRostovs! Well, Mr. Hussar, and what regiment do you serve in?\" she asked\nNatasha. \"Here, hand some fruit jelly to the Turk!\" she ordered the\nbutler who was handing things round. \"That's not forbidden by his law.\"\n\nSometimes, as she looked at the strange but amusing capers cut by the\ndancers, who--having decided once for all that being disguised, no one\nwould recognize them--were not at all shy, Pelageya Danilovna hid her\nface in her handkerchief, and her whole stout body shook with\nirrepressible, kindly, elderly laughter.\n\n\"My little Sasha! Look at Sasha!\" she said.\n\nAfter Russian country dances and chorus dances, Pelageya Danilovna made\nthe serfs and gentry join in one large circle: a ring, a string, and a\nsilver ruble were fetched and they all played games together.\n\nIn an hour, all the costumes were crumpled and disordered. The corked\neyebrows and mustaches were smeared over the perspiring, flushed, and\nmerry faces. Pelageya Danilovna began to recognize the mummers, admired\ntheir cleverly contrived costumes, and particularly how they suited the\nyoung ladies, and she thanked them all for having entertained her so\nwell. The visitors were invited to supper in the drawing room, and the\nserfs had something served to them in the ballroom.\n\n\"Now to tell one's fortune in the empty bathhouse is frightening!\" said\nan old maid who lived with the Melyukovs, during supper.\n\n\"Why?\" said the eldest Melyukov girl.\n\n\"You wouldn't go, it takes courage...\"\n\n\"I'll go,\" said Sonya.\n\n\"Tell what happened to the young lady!\" said the second Melyukov girl.\n\n\"Well,\" began the old maid, \"a young lady once went out, took a cock,\nlaid the table for two, all properly, and sat down. After sitting a\nwhile, she suddenly hears someone coming... a sleigh drives up with\nharness bells; she hears him coming! He comes in, just in the shape of a\nman, like an officer--comes in and sits down to table with her.\"\n\n\"Ah! ah!\" screamed Natasha, rolling her eyes with horror.\n\n\"Yes? And how... did he speak?\"\n\n\"Yes, like a man. Everything quite all right, and he began persuading\nher; and she should have kept him talking till cockcrow, but she got\nfrightened, just got frightened and hid her face in her hands. Then he\ncaught her up. It was lucky the maids ran in just then...\"\n\n\"Now, why frighten them?\" said Pelageya Danilovna.\n\n\"Mamma, you used to try your fate yourself...\" said her daughter.\n\n\"And how does one do it in a barn?\" inquired Sonya.\n\n\"Well, say you went to the barn now, and listened. It depends on what\nyou hear; hammering and knocking--that's bad; but a sound of shifting\ngrain is good and one sometimes hears that, too.\"\n\n\"Mamma, tell us what happened to you in the barn.\"\n\nPelageya Danilovna smiled.\n\n\"Oh, I've forgotten...\" she replied. \"But none of you would go?\"\n\n\"Yes, I will; Pelageya Danilovna, let me! I'll go,\" said Sonya.\n\n\"Well, why not, if you're not afraid?\"\n\n\"Louisa Ivanovna, may I?\" asked Sonya.\n\nWhether they were playing the ring and string game or the ruble game or\ntalking as now, Nicholas did not leave Sonya's side, and gazed at her\nwith quite new eyes. It seemed to him that it was only today, thanks to\nthat burnt-cork mustache, that he had fully learned to know her. And\nreally, that evening, Sonya was brighter, more animated, and prettier\nthan Nicholas had ever seen her before.\n\n\"So that's what she is like; what a fool I have been!\" he thought gazing\nat her sparkling eyes, and under the mustache a happy rapturous smile\ndimpled her cheeks, a smile he had never seen before.\n\n\"I'm not afraid of anything,\" said Sonya. \"May I go at once?\" She got\nup.\n\nThey told her where the barn was and how she should stand and listen,\nand they handed her a fur cloak. She threw this over her head and\nshoulders and glanced at Nicholas.\n\n\"What a darling that girl is!\" thought he. \"And what have I been\nthinking of till now?\"\n\nSonya went out into the passage to go to the barn. Nicholas went hastily\nto the front porch, saying he felt too hot. The crowd of people really\nhad made the house stuffy.\n\nOutside, there was the same cold stillness and the same moon, but even\nbrighter than before. The light was so strong and the snow sparkled with\nso many stars that one did not wish to look up at the sky and the real\nstars were unnoticed. The sky was black and dreary, while the earth was\ngay.\n\n\"I am a fool, a fool! what have I been waiting for?\" thought Nicholas,\nand running out from the porch he went round the corner of the house and\nalong the path that led to the back porch. He knew Sonya would pass that\nway. Halfway lay some snow-covered piles of firewood and across and\nalong them a network of shadows from the bare old lime trees fell on the\nsnow and on the path. This path led to the barn. The log walls of the\nbarn and its snow-covered roof, that looked as if hewn out of some\nprecious stone, sparkled in the moonlight. A tree in the garden snapped\nwith the frost, and then all was again perfectly silent. His bosom\nseemed to inhale not air but the strength of eternal youth and gladness.\n\nFrom the back porch came the sound of feet descending the steps, the\nbottom step upon which snow had fallen gave a ringing creak and he heard\nthe voice of an old maidservant saying, \"Straight, straight, along the\npath, Miss. Only, don't look back.\"\n\n\"I am not afraid,\" answered Sonya's voice, and along the path toward\nNicholas came the crunching, whistling sound of Sonya's feet in her thin\nshoes.\n\nSonya came along, wrapped in her cloak. She was only a couple of paces\naway when she saw him, and to her too he was not the Nicholas she had\nknown and always slightly feared. He was in a woman's dress, with\ntousled hair and a happy smile new to Sonya. She ran rapidly toward him.\n\n\"Quite different and yet the same,\" thought Nicholas, looking at her\nface all lit up by the moonlight. He slipped his arms under the cloak\nthat covered her head, embraced her, pressed her to him, and kissed her\non the lips that wore a mustache and had a smell of burnt cork. Sonya\nkissed him full on the lips, and disengaging her little hands pressed\nthem to his cheeks.\n\n\"Sonya!... Nicholas!\"... was all they said. They ran to the barn and\nthen back again, re-entering, he by the front and she by the back porch.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nWhen they all drove back from Pelageya Danilovna's, Natasha, who always\nsaw and noticed everything, arranged that she and Madame Schoss should\ngo back in the sleigh with Dimmler, and Sonya with Nicholas and the\nmaids.\n\nOn the way back Nicholas drove at a steady pace instead of racing and\nkept peering by that fantastic all-transforming light into Sonya's face\nand searching beneath the eyebrows and mustache for his former and his\npresent Sonya from whom he had resolved never to be parted again. He\nlooked and recognizing in her both the old and the new Sonya, and being\nreminded by the smell of burnt cork of the sensation of her kiss,\ninhaled the frosty air with a full breast and, looking at the ground\nflying beneath him and at the sparkling sky, felt himself again in\nfairyland.\n\n\"Sonya, is it well with thee?\" he asked from time to time.\n\n\"Yes!\" she replied. \"And with thee?\"\n\nWhen halfway home Nicholas handed the reins to the coachman and ran for\na moment to Natasha's sleigh and stood on its wing.\n\n\"Natasha!\" he whispered in French, \"do you know I have made up my mind\nabout Sonya?\"\n\n\"Have you told her?\" asked Natasha, suddenly beaming all over with joy.\n\n\"Oh, how strange you are with that mustache and those eyebrows!...\nNatasha--are you glad?\"\n\n\"I am so glad, so glad! I was beginning to be vexed with you. I did not\ntell you, but you have been treating her badly. What a heart she has,\nNicholas! I am horrid sometimes, but I was ashamed to be happy while\nSonya was not,\" continued Natasha. \"Now I am so glad! Well, run back to\nher.\"\n\n\"No, wait a bit.... Oh, how funny you look!\" cried Nicholas, peering\ninto her face and finding in his sister too something new, unusual, and\nbewitchingly tender that he had not seen in her before. \"Natasha, it's\nmagical, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" she replied. \"You have done splendidly.\"\n\n\"Had I seen her before as she is now,\" thought Nicholas, \"I should long\nago have asked her what to do and have done whatever she told me, and\nall would have been well.\"\n\n\"So you are glad and I have done right?\"\n\n\"Oh, quite right! I had a quarrel with Mamma some time ago about it.\nMamma said she was angling for you. How could she say such a thing! I\nnearly stormed at Mamma. I will never let anyone say anything bad of\nSonya, for there is nothing but good in her.\"\n\n\"Then it's all right?\" said Nicholas, again scrutinizing the expression\nof his sister's face to see if she was in earnest. Then he jumped down\nand, his boots scrunching the snow, ran back to his sleigh. The same\nhappy, smiling Circassian, with mustache and beaming eyes looking up\nfrom under a sable hood, was still sitting there, and that Circassian\nwas Sonya, and that Sonya was certainly his future happy and loving\nwife.\n\nWhen they reached home and had told their mother how they had spent the\nevening at the Melyukovs', the girls went to their bedroom. When they\nhad undressed, but without washing off the cork mustaches, they sat a\nlong time talking of their happiness. They talked of how they would live\nwhen they were married, how their husbands would be friends, and how\nhappy they would be. On Natasha's table stood two looking glasses which\nDunyasha had prepared beforehand.\n\n\"Only when will all that be? I am afraid never.... It would be too\ngood!\" said Natasha, rising and going to the looking glasses.\n\n\"Sit down, Natasha; perhaps you'll see him,\" said Sonya.\n\nNatasha lit the candles, one on each side of one of the looking glasses,\nand sat down.\n\n\"I see someone with a mustache,\" said Natasha, seeing her own face.\n\n\"You mustn't laugh, Miss,\" said Dunyasha.\n\nWith Sonya's help and the maid's, Natasha got the glass she held into\nthe right position opposite the other; her face assumed a serious\nexpression and she sat silent. She sat a long time looking at the\nreceding line of candles reflected in the glasses and expecting (from\ntales she had heard) to see a coffin, or him, Prince Andrew, in that\nlast dim, indistinctly outlined square. But ready as she was to take the\nsmallest speck for the image of a man or of a coffin, she saw nothing.\nShe began blinking rapidly and moved away from the looking glasses.\n\n\"Why is it others see things and I don't?\" she said. \"You sit down now,\nSonya. You absolutely must, tonight! Do it for me.... Today I feel so\nfrightened!\"\n\nSonya sat down before the glasses, got the right position, and began\nlooking.\n\n\"Now, Miss Sonya is sure to see something,\" whispered Dunyasha; \"while\nyou do nothing but laugh.\"\n\nSonya heard this and Natasha's whisper:\n\n\"I know she will. She saw something last year.\"\n\nFor about three minutes all were silent.\n\n\"Of course she will!\" whispered Natasha, but did not finish... suddenly\nSonya pushed away the glass she was holding and covered her eyes with\nher hand.\n\n\"Oh, Natasha!\" she cried.\n\n\"Did you see? Did you? What was it?\" exclaimed Natasha, holding up the\nlooking glass.\n\nSonya had not seen anything, she was just wanting to blink and to get up\nwhen she heard Natasha say, \"Of course she will!\" She did not wish to\ndisappoint either Dunyasha or Natasha, but it was hard to sit still. She\ndid not herself know how or why the exclamation escaped her when she\ncovered her eyes.\n\n\"You saw him?\" urged Natasha, seizing her hand.\n\n\"Yes. Wait a bit... I... saw him,\" Sonya could not help saying, not yet\nknowing whom Natasha meant by him, Nicholas or Prince Andrew.\n\n\"But why shouldn't I say I saw something? Others do see! Besides who can\ntell whether I saw anything or not?\" flashed through Sonya's mind.\n\n\"Yes, I saw him,\" she said.\n\n\"How? Standing or lying?\"\n\n\"No, I saw... At first there was nothing, then I saw him lying down.\"\n\n\"Andrew lying? Is he ill?\" asked Natasha, her frightened eyes fixed on\nher friend.\n\n\"No, on the contrary, on the contrary! His face was cheerful, and he\nturned to me.\" And when saying this she herself fancied she had really\nseen what she described.\n\n\"Well, and then, Sonya?...\"\n\n\"After that, I could not make out what there was; something blue and\nred...\"\n\n\"Sonya! When will he come back? When shall I see him! O, God, how afraid\nI am for him and for myself and about everything!...\" Natasha began, and\nwithout replying to Sonya's words of comfort she got into bed, and long\nafter her candle was out lay open-eyed and motionless, gazing at the\nmoonlight through the frosty windowpanes.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nSoon after the Christmas holidays Nicholas told his mother of his love\nfor Sonya and of his firm resolve to marry her. The countess, who had\nlong noticed what was going on between them and was expecting this\ndeclaration, listened to him in silence and then told her son that he\nmight marry whom he pleased, but that neither she nor his father would\ngive their blessing to such a marriage. Nicholas, for the first time,\nfelt that his mother was displeased with him and that, despite her love\nfor him, she would not give way. Coldly, without looking at her son, she\nsent for her husband and, when he came, tried briefly and coldly to\ninform him of the facts, in her son's presence, but unable to restrain\nherself she burst into tears of vexation and left the room. The old\ncount began irresolutely to admonish Nicholas and beg him to abandon his\npurpose. Nicholas replied that he could not go back on his word, and his\nfather, sighing and evidently disconcerted, very soon became silent and\nwent in to the countess. In all his encounters with his son, the count\nwas always conscious of his own guilt toward him for having wasted the\nfamily fortune, and so he could not be angry with him for refusing to\nmarry an heiress and choosing the dowerless Sonya. On this occasion, he\nwas only more vividly conscious of the fact that if his affairs had not\nbeen in disorder, no better wife for Nicholas than Sonya could have been\nwished for, and that no one but himself with his Mitenka and his\nuncomfortable habits was to blame for the condition of the family\nfinances.\n\nThe father and mother did not speak of the matter to their son again,\nbut a few days later the countess sent for Sonya and, with a cruelty\nneither of them expected, reproached her niece for trying to catch\nNicholas and for ingratitude. Sonya listened silently with downcast eyes\nto the countess' cruel words, without understanding what was required of\nher. She was ready to sacrifice everything for her benefactors. Self-\nsacrifice was her most cherished idea but in this case she could not see\nwhat she ought to sacrifice, or for whom. She could not help loving the\ncountess and the whole Rostov family, but neither could she help loving\nNicholas and knowing that his happiness depended on that love. She was\nsilent and sad and did not reply. Nicholas felt the situation to be\nintolerable and went to have an explanation with his mother. He first\nimplored her to forgive him and Sonya and consent to their marriage,\nthen he threatened that if she molested Sonya he would at once marry her\nsecretly.\n\nThe countess, with a coldness her son had never seen in her before,\nreplied that he was of age, that Prince Andrew was marrying without his\nfather's consent, and he could do the same, but that she would never\nreceive that intriguer as her daughter.\n\nExploding at the word intriguer, Nicholas, raising his voice, told his\nmother he had never expected her to try to force him to sell his\nfeelings, but if that were so, he would say for the last time.... But he\nhad no time to utter the decisive word which the expression of his face\ncaused his mother to await with terror, and which would perhaps have\nforever remained a cruel memory to them both. He had not time to say it,\nfor Natasha, with a pale and set face, entered the room from the door at\nwhich she had been listening.\n\n\"Nicholas, you are talking nonsense! Be quiet, be quiet, be quiet, I\ntell you!...\" she almost screamed, so as to drown his voice.\n\n\"Mamma darling, it's not at all so... my poor, sweet darling,\" she said\nto her mother, who conscious that they had been on the brink of a\nrupture gazed at her son with terror, but in the obstinacy and\nexcitement of the conflict could not and would not give way.\n\n\"Nicholas, I'll explain to you. Go away! Listen, Mamma darling,\" said\nNatasha.\n\nHer words were incoherent, but they attained the purpose at which she\nwas aiming.\n\nThe countess, sobbing heavily, hid her face on her daughter's breast,\nwhile Nicholas rose, clutching his head, and left the room.\n\nNatasha set to work to effect a reconciliation, and so far succeeded\nthat Nicholas received a promise from his mother that Sonya should not\nbe troubled, while he on his side promised not to undertake anything\nwithout his parents' knowledge.\n\nFirmly resolved, after putting his affairs in order in the regiment, to\nretire from the army and return and marry Sonya, Nicholas, serious,\nsorrowful, and at variance with his parents, but, as it seemed to him,\npassionately in love, left at the beginning of January to rejoin his\nregiment.\n\nAfter Nicholas had gone things in the Rostov household were more\ndepressing than ever, and the countess fell ill from mental agitation.\n\nSonya was unhappy at the separation from Nicholas and still more so on\naccount of the hostile tone the countess could not help adopting toward\nher. The count was more perturbed than ever by the condition of his\naffairs, which called for some decisive action. Their town house and\nestate near Moscow had inevitably to be sold, and for this they had to\ngo to Moscow. But the countess' health obliged them to delay their\ndeparture from day to day.\n\nNatasha, who had borne the first period of separation from her betrothed\nlightly and even cheerfully, now grew more agitated and impatient every\nday. The thought that her best days, which she would have employed in\nloving him, were being vainly wasted, with no advantage to anyone,\ntormented her incessantly. His letters for the most part irritated her.\nIt hurt her to think that while she lived only in the thought of him, he\nwas living a real life, seeing new places and new people that interested\nhim. The more interesting his letters were the more vexed she felt. Her\nletters to him, far from giving her any comfort, seemed to her a\nwearisome and artificial obligation. She could not write, because she\ncould not conceive the possibility of expressing sincerely in a letter\neven a thousandth part of what she expressed by voice, smile, and\nglance. She wrote to him formal, monotonous, and dry letters, to which\nshe attached no importance herself, and in the rough copies of which the\ncountess corrected her mistakes in spelling.\n\nThere was still no improvement in the countess' health, but it was\nimpossible to defer the journey to Moscow any longer. Natasha's\ntrousseau had to be ordered and the house sold. Moreover, Prince Andrew\nwas expected in Moscow, where old Prince Bolkonski was spending the\nwinter, and Natasha felt sure he had already arrived.\n\nSo the countess remained in the country, and the count, taking Sonya and\nNatasha with him, went to Moscow at the end of January.\n\nBOOK EIGHT: 1811 - 12\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nAfter Prince Andrew's engagement to Natasha, Pierre without any apparent\ncause suddenly felt it impossible to go on living as before. Firmly\nconvinced as he was of the truths revealed to him by his benefactor, and\nhappy as he had been in perfecting his inner man, to which he had\ndevoted himself with such ardor--all the zest of such a life vanished\nafter the engagement of Andrew and Natasha and the death of Joseph\nAlexeevich, the news of which reached him almost at the same time. Only\nthe skeleton of life remained: his house, a brilliant wife who now\nenjoyed the favors of a very important personage, acquaintance with all\nPetersburg, and his court service with its dull formalities. And this\nlife suddenly seemed to Pierre unexpectedly loathsome. He ceased keeping\na diary, avoided the company of the Brothers, began going to the club\nagain, drank a great deal, and came once more in touch with the bachelor\nsets, leading such a life that the Countess Helene thought it necessary\nto speak severely to him about it. Pierre felt that she was right, and\nto avoid compromising her went away to Moscow.\n\nIn Moscow as soon as he entered his huge house in which the faded and\nfading princesses still lived, with its enormous retinue; as soon as,\ndriving through the town, he saw the Iberian shrine with innumerable\ntapers burning before the golden covers of the icons, the Kremlin Square\nwith its snow undisturbed by vehicles, the sleigh drivers and hovels of\nthe Sivtsev Vrazhok, those old Moscovites who desired nothing, hurried\nnowhere, and were ending their days leisurely; when he saw those old\nMoscow ladies, the Moscow balls, and the English Club, he felt himself\nat home in a quiet haven. In Moscow he felt at peace, at home, warm and\ndirty as in an old dressing gown.\n\nMoscow society, from the old women down to the children, received Pierre\nlike a long-expected guest whose place was always ready awaiting him.\nFor Moscow society Pierre was the nicest, kindest, most intellectual,\nmerriest, and most magnanimous of cranks, a heedless, genial nobleman of\nthe old Russian type. His purse was always empty because it was open to\neveryone.\n\nBenefit performances, poor pictures, statues, benevolent societies,\ngypsy choirs, schools, subscription dinners, sprees, Freemasons,\nchurches, and books--no one and nothing met with a refusal from him, and\nhad it not been for two friends who had borrowed large sums from him and\ntaken him under their protection, he would have given everything away.\nThere was never a dinner or soiree at the club without him. As soon as\nhe sank into his place on the sofa after two bottles of Margaux he was\nsurrounded, and talking, disputing, and joking began. When there were\nquarrels, his kindly smile and well-timed jests reconciled the\nantagonists. The masonic dinners were dull and dreary when he was not\nthere.\n\nWhen after a bachelor supper he rose with his amiable and kindly smile,\nyielding to the entreaties of the festive company to drive off somewhere\nwith them, shouts of delight and triumph arose among the young men. At\nballs he danced if a partner was needed. Young ladies, married and\nunmarried, liked him because without making love to any of them, he was\nequally amiable to all, especially after supper. \"Il est charmant; il\nn'a pas de sexe,\" * they said of him.\n\n\n* \"He is charming; he has no sex.\"\n\nPierre was one of those retired gentlemen-in-waiting of whom there were\nhundreds good-humoredly ending their days in Moscow.\n\nHow horrified he would have been seven years before, when he first\narrived from abroad, had he been told that there was no need for him to\nseek or plan anything, that his rut had long been shaped, eternally\npredetermined, and that wriggle as he might, he would be what all in his\nposition were. He could not have believed it! Had he not at one time\nlonged with all his heart to establish a republic in Russia; then\nhimself to be a Napoleon; then to be a philosopher; and then a\nstrategist and the conqueror of Napoleon? Had he not seen the\npossibility of, and passionately desired, the regeneration of the sinful\nhuman race, and his own progress to the highest degree of perfection?\nHad he not established schools and hospitals and liberated his serfs?\n\nBut instead of all that--here he was, the wealthy husband of an\nunfaithful wife, a retired gentleman-in-waiting, fond of eating and\ndrinking and, as he unbuttoned his waistcoat, of abusing the government\na bit, a member of the Moscow English Club, and a universal favorite in\nMoscow society. For a long time he could not reconcile himself to the\nidea that he was one of those same retired Moscow gentlemen-in-waiting\nhe had so despised seven years before.\n\nSometimes he consoled himself with the thought that he was only living\nthis life temporarily; but then he was shocked by the thought of how\nmany, like himself, had entered that life and that club temporarily,\nwith all their teeth and hair, and had only left it when not a single\ntooth or hair remained.\n\nIn moments of pride, when he thought of his position it seemed to him\nthat he was quite different and distinct from those other retired\ngentlemen-in-waiting he had formerly despised: they were empty, stupid,\ncontented fellows, satisfied with their position, \"while I am still\ndiscontented and want to do something for mankind. But perhaps all these\ncomrades of mine struggled just like me and sought something new, a path\nin life of their own, and like me were brought by force of\ncircumstances, society, and race--by that elemental force against which\nman is powerless--to the condition I am in,\" said he to himself in\nmoments of humility; and after living some time in Moscow he no longer\ndespised, but began to grow fond of, to respect, and to pity his\ncomrades in destiny, as he pitied himself.\n\nPierre no longer suffered moments of despair, hypochondria, and disgust\nwith life, but the malady that had formerly found expression in such\nacute attacks was driven inwards and never left him for a moment. \"What\nfor? Why? What is going on in the world?\" he would ask himself in\nperplexity several times a day, involuntarily beginning to reflect anew\non the meaning of the phenomena of life; but knowing by experience that\nthere were no answers to these questions he made haste to turn away from\nthem, and took up a book, or hurried off to the club or to Apollon\nNikolaevich's, to exchange the gossip of the town.\n\n\"Helene, who has never cared for anything but her own body and is one of\nthe stupidest women in the world,\" thought Pierre, \"is regarded by\npeople as the acme of intelligence and refinement, and they pay homage\nto her. Napoleon Bonaparte was despised by all as long as he was great,\nbut now that he has become a wretched comedian the Emperor Francis wants\nto offer him his daughter in an illegal marriage. The Spaniards, through\nthe Catholic clergy, offer praise to God for their victory over the\nFrench on the fourteenth of June, and the French, also through the\nCatholic clergy, offer praise because on that same fourteenth of June\nthey defeated the Spaniards. My brother Masons swear by the blood that\nthey are ready to sacrifice everything for their neighbor, but they do\nnot give a ruble each to the collections for the poor, and they\nintrigue, the Astraea Lodge against the Manna Seekers, and fuss about an\nauthentic Scotch carpet and a charter that nobody needs, and the meaning\nof which the very man who wrote it does not understand. We all profess\nthe Christian law of forgiveness of injuries and love of our neighbors,\nthe law in honor of which we have built in Moscow forty times forty\nchurches--but yesterday a deserter was knouted to death and a minister\nof that same law of love and forgiveness, a priest, gave the soldier a\ncross to kiss before his execution.\" So thought Pierre, and the whole of\nthis general deception which everyone accepts, accustomed as he was to\nit, astonished him each time as if it were something new. \"I understand\nthe deception and confusion,\" he thought, \"but how am I to tell them all\nthat I see? I have tried, and have always found that they too in the\ndepths of their souls understand it as I do, and only try not to see it.\nSo it appears that it must be so! But I--what is to become of me?\"\nthought he. He had the unfortunate capacity many men, especially\nRussians, have of seeing and believing in the possibility of goodness\nand truth, but of seeing the evil and falsehood of life too clearly to\nbe able to take a serious part in it. Every sphere of work was\nconnected, in his eyes, with evil and deception. Whatever he tried to\nbe, whatever he engaged in, the evil and falsehood of it repulsed him\nand blocked every path of activity. Yet he had to live and to find\noccupation. It was too dreadful to be under the burden of these\ninsoluble problems, so he abandoned himself to any distraction in order\nto forget them. He frequented every kind of society, drank much, bought\npictures, engaged in building, and above all--read.\n\nHe read, and read everything that came to hand. On coming home, while\nhis valets were still taking off his things, he picked up a book and\nbegan to read. From reading he passed to sleeping, from sleeping to\ngossip in drawing rooms of the club, from gossip to carousals and women;\nfrom carousals back to gossip, reading, and wine. Drinking became more\nand more a physical and also a moral necessity. Though the doctors\nwarned him that with his corpulence wine was dangerous for him, he drank\na great deal. He was only quite at ease when having poured several\nglasses of wine mechanically into his large mouth he felt a pleasant\nwarmth in his body, an amiability toward all his fellows, and a\nreadiness to respond superficially to every idea without probing it\ndeeply. Only after emptying a bottle or two did he feel dimly that the\nterribly tangled skein of life which previously had terrified him was\nnot as dreadful as he had thought. He was always conscious of some\naspect of that skein, as with a buzzing in his head after dinner or\nsupper he chatted or listened to conversation or read. But under the\ninfluence of wine he said to himself: \"It doesn't matter. I'll get it\nunraveled. I have a solution ready, but have no time now--I'll think it\nall out later on!\" But the later on never came.\n\nIn the morning, on an empty stomach, all the old questions appeared as\ninsoluble and terrible as ever, and Pierre hastily picked up a book, and\nif anyone came to see him he was glad.\n\nSometimes he remembered how he had heard that soldiers in war when\nentrenched under the enemy's fire, if they have nothing to do, try hard\nto find some occupation the more easily to bear the danger. To Pierre\nall men seemed like those soldiers, seeking refuge from life: some in\nambition, some in cards, some in framing laws, some in women, some in\ntoys, some in horses, some in politics, some in sport, some in wine, and\nsome in governmental affairs. \"Nothing is trivial, and nothing is\nimportant, it's all the same--only to save oneself from it as best one\ncan,\" thought Pierre. \"Only not to see it, that dreadful it!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nAt the beginning of winter Prince Nicholas Bolkonski and his daughter\nmoved to Moscow. At that time enthusiasm for the Emperor Alexander's\nregime had weakened and a patriotic and anti-French tendency prevailed\nthere, and this, together with his past and his intellect and his\noriginality, at once made Prince Nicholas Bolkonski an object of\nparticular respect to the Moscovites and the center of the Moscow\nopposition to the government.\n\nThe prince had aged very much that year. He showed marked signs of\nsenility by a tendency to fall asleep, forgetfulness of quite recent\nevents, remembrance of remote ones, and the childish vanity with which\nhe accepted the role of head of the Moscow opposition. In spite of this\nthe old man inspired in all his visitors alike a feeling of respectful\nveneration--especially of an evening when he came in to tea in his old-\nfashioned coat and powdered wig and, aroused by anyone, told his abrupt\nstories of the past, or uttered yet more abrupt and scathing criticisms\nof the present. For them all, that old-fashioned house with its gigantic\nmirrors, pre-Revolution furniture, powdered footmen, and the stern\nshrewd old man (himself a relic of the past century) with his gentle\ndaughter and the pretty Frenchwoman who were reverently devoted to him\npresented a majestic and agreeable spectacle. But the visitors did not\nreflect that besides the couple of hours during which they saw their\nhost, there were also twenty-two hours in the day during which the\nprivate and intimate life of the house continued.\n\nLatterly that private life had become very trying for Princess Mary.\nThere in Moscow she was deprived of her greatest pleasures--talks with\nthe pilgrims and the solitude which refreshed her at Bald Hills--and she\nhad none of the advantages and pleasures of city life. She did not go\nout into society; everyone knew that her father would not let her go\nanywhere without him, and his failing health prevented his going out\nhimself, so that she was not invited to dinners and evening parties. She\nhad quite abandoned the hope of getting married. She saw the coldness\nand malevolence with which the old prince received and dismissed the\nyoung men, possible suitors, who sometimes appeared at their house. She\nhad no friends: during this visit to Moscow she had been disappointed in\nthe two who had been nearest to her. Mademoiselle Bourienne, with whom\nshe had never been able to be quite frank, had now become unpleasant to\nher, and for various reasons Princess Mary avoided her. Julie, with whom\nshe had corresponded for the last five years, was in Moscow, but proved\nto be quite alien to her when they met. Just then Julie, who by the\ndeath of her brothers had become one of the richest heiresses in Moscow,\nwas in the full whirl of society pleasures. She was surrounded by young\nmen who, she fancied, had suddenly learned to appreciate her worth.\nJulie was at that stage in the life of a society woman when she feels\nthat her last chance of marrying has come and that her fate must be\ndecided now or never. On Thursdays Princess Mary remembered with a\nmournful smile that she now had no one to write to, since Julie--whose\npresence gave her no pleasure was here and they met every week. Like the\nold emigre who declined to marry the lady with whom he had spent his\nevenings for years, she regretted Julie's presence and having no one to\nwrite to. In Moscow Princess Mary had no one to talk to, no one to whom\nto confide her sorrow, and much sorrow fell to her lot just then. The\ntime for Prince Andrew's return and marriage was approaching, but his\nrequest to her to prepare his father for it had not been carried out; in\nfact, it seemed as if matters were quite hopeless, for at every mention\nof the young Countess Rostova the old prince (who apart from that was\nusually in a bad temper) lost control of himself. Another lately added\nsorrow arose from the lessons she gave her six year-old nephew. To her\nconsternation she detected in herself in relation to little Nicholas\nsome symptoms of her father's irritability. However often she told\nherself that she must not get irritable when teaching her nephew, almost\nevery time that, pointer in hand, she sat down to show him the French\nalphabet, she so longed to pour her own knowledge quickly and easily\ninto the child--who was already afraid that Auntie might at any moment\nget angry--that at his slightest inattention she trembled, became\nflustered and heated, raised her voice, and sometimes pulled him by the\narm and put him in the corner. Having put him in the corner she would\nherself begin to cry over her cruel, evil nature, and little Nicholas,\nfollowing her example, would sob, and without permission would leave his\ncorner, come to her, pull her wet hands from her face, and comfort her.\nBut what distressed the princess most of all was her father's\nirritability, which was always directed against her and had of late\namounted to cruelty. Had he forced her to prostrate herself to the\nground all night, had he beaten her or made her fetch wood or water, it\nwould never have entered her mind to think her position hard; but this\nloving despot--the more cruel because he loved her and for that reason\ntormented himself and her--knew how not merely to hurt and humiliate her\ndeliberately, but to show her that she was always to blame for\neverything. Of late he had exhibited a new trait that tormented Princess\nMary more than anything else; this was his ever-increasing intimacy with\nMademoiselle Bourienne. The idea that at the first moment of receiving\nthe news of his son's intentions had occurred to him in jest--that if\nAndrew got married he himself would marry Bourienne--had evidently\npleased him, and latterly he had persistently, and as it seemed to\nPrincess Mary merely to offend her, shown special endearments to the\ncompanion and expressed his dissatisfaction with his daughter by\ndemonstrations of love of Bourienne.\n\nOne day in Moscow in Princess Mary's presence (she thought her father\ndid it purposely when she was there) the old prince kissed Mademoiselle\nBourienne's hand and, drawing her to him, embraced her affectionately.\nPrincess Mary flushed and ran out of the room. A few minutes later\nMademoiselle Bourienne came into Princess Mary's room smiling and making\ncheerful remarks in her agreeable voice. Princess Mary hastily wiped\naway her tears, went resolutely up to Mademoiselle Bourienne, and\nevidently unconscious of what she was doing began shouting in angry\nhaste at the Frenchwoman, her voice breaking: \"It's horrible, vile,\ninhuman, to take advantage of the weakness...\" She did not finish.\n\"Leave my room,\" she exclaimed, and burst into sobs.\n\nNext day the prince did not say a word to his daughter, but she noticed\nthat at dinner he gave orders that Mademoiselle Bourienne should be\nserved first. After dinner, when the footman handed coffee and from\nhabit began with the princess, the prince suddenly grew furious, threw\nhis stick at Philip, and instantly gave instructions to have him\nconscripted for the army.\n\n\"He doesn't obey... I said it twice... and he doesn't obey! She is the\nfirst person in this house; she's my best friend,\" cried the prince.\n\"And if you allow yourself,\" he screamed in a fury, addressing Princess\nMary for the first time, \"to forget yourself again before her as you\ndared to do yesterday, I will show you who is master in this house. Go!\nDon't let me set eyes on you; beg her pardon!\"\n\nPrincess Mary asked Mademoiselle Bourienne's pardon, and also her\nfather's pardon for herself and for Philip the footman, who had begged\nfor her intervention.\n\nAt such moments something like a pride of sacrifice gathered in her\nsoul. And suddenly that father whom she had judged would look for his\nspectacles in her presence, fumbling near them and not seeing them, or\nwould forget something that had just occurred, or take a false step with\nhis failing legs and turn to see if anyone had noticed his feebleness,\nor, worst of all, at dinner when there were no visitors to excite him\nwould suddenly fall asleep, letting his napkin drop and his shaking head\nsink over his plate. \"He is old and feeble, and I dare to condemn him!\"\nshe thought at such moments, with a feeling of revulsion against\nherself.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nIn 1811 there was living in Moscow a French doctor--Metivier--who had\nrapidly become the fashion. He was enormously tall, handsome, amiable as\nFrenchmen are, and was, as all Moscow said, an extraordinarily clever\ndoctor. He was received in the best houses not merely as a doctor, but\nas an equal.\n\nPrince Nicholas had always ridiculed medicine, but latterly on\nMademoiselle Bourienne's advice had allowed this doctor to visit him and\nhad grown accustomed to him. Metivier came to see the prince about twice\na week.\n\nOn December 6--St. Nicholas' Day and the prince's name day--all Moscow\ncame to the prince's front door but he gave orders to admit no one and\nto invite to dinner only a small number, a list of whom he gave to\nPrincess Mary.\n\nMetivier, who came in the morning with his felicitations, considered it\nproper in his quality of doctor de forcer la consigne, * as he told\nPrincess Mary, and went in to see the prince. It happened that on that\nmorning of his name day the prince was in one of his worst moods. He had\nbeen going about the house all the morning finding fault with everyone\nand pretending not to understand what was said to him and not to be\nunderstood himself. Princess Mary well knew this mood of quiet absorbed\nquerulousness, which generally culminated in a burst of rage, and she\nwent about all that morning as though facing a cocked and loaded gun and\nawaited the inevitable explosion. Until the doctor's arrival the morning\nhad passed off safely. After admitting the doctor, Princess Mary sat\ndown with a book in the drawing room near the door through which she\ncould hear all that passed in the study.\n\n\n* To force the guard.\n\nAt first she heard only Metivier's voice, then her father's, then both\nvoices began speaking at the same time, the door was flung open, and on\nthe threshold appeared the handsome figure of the terrified Metivier\nwith his shock of black hair, and the prince in his dressing gown and\nfez, his face distorted with fury and the pupils of his eyes rolled\ndownwards.\n\n\"You don't understand?\" shouted the prince, \"but I do! French spy, slave\nof Buonaparte, spy, get out of my house! Be off, I tell you...\"\n\nMetivier, shrugging his shoulders, went up to Mademoiselle Bourienne who\nat the sound of shouting had run in from an adjoining room.\n\n\"The prince is not very well: bile and rush of blood to the head. Keep\ncalm, I will call again tomorrow,\" said Metivier; and putting his\nfingers to his lips he hastened away.\n\nThrough the study door came the sound of slippered feet and the cry:\n\"Spies, traitors, traitors everywhere! Not a moment's peace in my own\nhouse!\"\n\nAfter Metivier's departure the old prince called his daughter in, and\nthe whole weight of his wrath fell on her. She was to blame that a spy\nhad been admitted. Had he not told her, yes, told her to make a list,\nand not to admit anyone who was not on that list? Then why was that\nscoundrel admitted? She was the cause of it all. With her, he said, he\ncould not have a moment's peace and could not die quietly.\n\n\"No, ma'am! We must part, we must part! Understand that, understand it!\nI cannot endure any more,\" he said, and left the room. Then, as if\nafraid she might find some means of consolation, he returned and trying\nto appear calm added: \"And don't imagine I have said this in a moment of\nanger. I am calm. I have thought it over, and it will be carried out--we\nmust part; so find some place for yourself....\" But he could not\nrestrain himself and with the virulence of which only one who loves is\ncapable, evidently suffering himself, he shook his fists at her and\nscreamed:\n\n\"If only some fool would marry her!\" Then he slammed the door, sent for\nMademoiselle Bourienne, and subsided into his study.\n\nAt two o'clock the six chosen guests assembled for dinner.\n\nThese guests--the famous Count Rostopchin, Prince Lopukhin with his\nnephew, General Chatrov an old war comrade of the prince's, and of the\nyounger generation Pierre and Boris Drubetskoy--awaited the prince in\nthe drawing room.\n\nBoris, who had come to Moscow on leave a few days before, had been\nanxious to be presented to Prince Nicholas Bolkonski, and had contrived\nto ingratiate himself so well that the old prince in his case made an\nexception to the rule of not receiving bachelors in his house.\n\nThe prince's house did not belong to what is known as fashionable\nsociety, but his little circle--though not much talked about in town--\nwas one it was more flattering to be received in than any other. Boris\nhad realized this the week before when the commander-in-chief in his\npresence invited Rostopchin to dinner on St. Nicholas' Day, and\nRostopchin had replied that he could not come:\n\n\"On that day I always go to pay my devotions to the relics of Prince\nNicholas Bolkonski.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, yes!\" replied the commander-in-chief. \"How is he?...\"\n\nThe small group that assembled before dinner in the lofty old-fashioned\ndrawing room with its old furniture resembled the solemn gathering of a\ncourt of justice. All were silent or talked in low tones. Prince\nNicholas came in serious and taciturn. Princess Mary seemed even quieter\nand more diffident than usual. The guests were reluctant to address her,\nfeeling that she was in no mood for their conversation. Count Rostopchin\nalone kept the conversation going, now relating the latest town news,\nand now the latest political gossip.\n\nLopukhin and the old general occasionally took part in the conversation.\nPrince Bolkonski listened as a presiding judge receives a report, only\nnow and then, silently or by a brief word, showing that he took heed of\nwhat was being reported to him. The tone of the conversation was such as\nindicated that no one approved of what was being done in the political\nworld. Incidents were related evidently confirming the opinion that\neverything was going from bad to worse, but whether telling a story or\ngiving an opinion the speaker always stopped, or was stopped, at the\npoint beyond which his criticism might touch the sovereign himself.\n\nAt dinner the talk turned on the latest political news: Napoleon's\nseizure of the Duke of Oldenburg's territory, and the Russian Note,\nhostile to Napoleon, which had been sent to all the European courts.\n\n\"Bonaparte treats Europe as a pirate does a captured vessel,\" said Count\nRostopchin, repeating a phrase he had uttered several times before. \"One\nonly wonders at the long-suffering or blindness of the crowned heads.\nNow the Pope's turn has come and Bonaparte doesn't scruple to depose the\nhead of the Catholic Church--yet all keep silent! Our sovereign alone\nhas protested against the seizure of the Duke of Oldenburg's territory,\nand even...\" Count Rostopchin paused, feeling that he had reached the\nlimit beyond which censure was impossible.\n\n\"Other territories have been offered in exchange for the Duchy of\nOldenburg,\" said Prince Bolkonski. \"He shifts the Dukes about as I might\nmove my serfs from Bald Hills to Bogucharovo or my Ryazan estates.\"\n\n\"The Duke of Oldenburg bears his misfortunes with admirable strength of\ncharacter and resignation,\" remarked Boris, joining in respectfully.\n\nHe said this because on his journey from Petersburg he had had the honor\nof being presented to the Duke. Prince Bolkonski glanced at the young\nman as if about to say something in reply, but changed his mind,\nevidently considering him too young.\n\n\"I have read our protests about the Oldenburg affair and was surprised\nhow badly the Note was worded,\" remarked Count Rostopchin in the casual\ntone of a man dealing with a subject quite familiar to him.\n\nPierre looked at Rostopchin with naive astonishment, not understanding\nwhy he should be disturbed by the bad composition of the Note.\n\n\"Does it matter, Count, how the Note is worded,\" he asked, \"so long as\nits substance is forcible?\"\n\n\"My dear fellow, with our five hundred thousand troops it should be easy\nto have a good style,\" returned Count Rostopchin.\n\nPierre now understood the count's dissatisfaction with the wording of\nthe Note.\n\n\"One would have thought quill drivers enough had sprung up,\" remarked\nthe old prince. \"There in Petersburg they are always writing--not notes\nonly but even new laws. My Andrew there has written a whole volume of\nlaws for Russia. Nowadays they are always writing!\" and he laughed\nunnaturally.\n\nThere was a momentary pause in the conversation; the old general cleared\nhis throat to draw attention.\n\n\"Did you hear of the last event at the review in Petersburg? The figure\ncut by the new French ambassador.\"\n\n\"Eh? Yes, I heard something: he said something awkward in His Majesty's\npresence.\"\n\n\"His Majesty drew attention to the Grenadier division and to the march\npast,\" continued the general, \"and it seems the ambassador took no\nnotice and allowed himself to reply that: 'We in France pay no attention\nto such trifles!' The Emperor did not condescend to reply. At the next\nreview, they say, the Emperor did not once deign to address him.\"\n\nAll were silent. On this fact relating to the Emperor personally, it was\nimpossible to pass any judgment.\n\n\"Impudent fellows!\" said the prince. \"You know Metivier? I turned him\nout of my house this morning. He was here; they admitted him in spite of\nmy request that they should let no one in,\" he went on, glancing angrily\nat his daughter.\n\nAnd he narrated his whole conversation with the French doctor and the\nreasons that convinced him that Metivier was a spy. Though these reasons\nwere very insufficient and obscure, no one made any rejoinder.\n\nAfter the roast, champagne was served. The guests rose to congratulate\nthe old prince. Princess Mary, too, went round to him.\n\nHe gave her a cold, angry look and offered her his wrinkled, clean-\nshaven cheek to kiss. The whole expression of his face told her that he\nhad not forgotten the morning's talk, that his decision remained in\nforce, and only the presence of visitors hindered his speaking of it to\nher now.\n\nWhen they went into the drawing room where coffee was served, the old\nmen sat together.\n\nPrince Nicholas grew more animated and expressed his views on the\nimpending war.\n\nHe said that our wars with Bonaparte would be disastrous so long as we\nsought alliances with the Germans and thrust ourselves into European\naffairs, into which we had been drawn by the Peace of Tilsit. \"We ought\nnot to fight either for or against Austria. Our political interests are\nall in the East, and in regard to Bonaparte the only thing is to have an\narmed frontier and a firm policy, and he will never dare to cross the\nRussian frontier, as was the case in 1807!\"\n\n\"How can we fight the French, Prince?\" said Count Rostopchin. \"Can we\narm ourselves against our teachers and divinities? Look at our youths,\nlook at our ladies! The French are our Gods: Paris is our Kingdom of\nHeaven.\"\n\nHe began speaking louder, evidently to be heard by everyone.\n\n\"French dresses, French ideas, French feelings! There now, you turned\nMetivier out by the scruff of his neck because he is a Frenchman and a\nscoundrel, but our ladies crawl after him on their knees. I went to a\nparty last night, and there out of five ladies three were Roman\nCatholics and had the Pope's indulgence for doing woolwork on Sundays.\nAnd they themselves sit there nearly naked, like the signboards at our\nPublic Baths if I may say so. Ah, when one looks at our young people,\nPrince, one would like to take Peter the Great's old cudgel out of the\nmuseum and belabor them in the Russian way till all the nonsense jumps\nout of them.\"\n\nAll were silent. The old prince looked at Rostopchin with a smile and\nwagged his head approvingly.\n\n\"Well, good-by, your excellency, keep well!\" said Rostopchin, getting up\nwith characteristic briskness and holding out his hand to the prince.\n\n\"Good-bye, my dear fellow.... His words are music, I never tire of\nhearing him!\" said the old prince, keeping hold of the hand and offering\nhis cheek to be kissed.\n\nFollowing Rostopchin's example the others also rose.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nPrincess Mary as she sat listening to the old men's talk and\nfaultfinding, understood nothing of what she heard; she only wondered\nwhether the guests had all observed her father's hostile attitude toward\nher. She did not even notice the special attentions and amiabilities\nshown her during dinner by Boris Drubetskoy, who was visiting them for\nthe third time already.\n\nPrincess Mary turned with absent-minded questioning look to Pierre, who\nhat in hand and with a smile on his face was the last of the guests to\napproach her after the old prince had gone out and they were left alone\nin the drawing room.\n\n\"May I stay a little longer?\" he said, letting his stout body sink into\nan armchair beside her.\n\n\"Oh yes,\" she answered. \"You noticed nothing?\" her look asked.\n\nPierre was in an agreeable after-dinner mood. He looked straight before\nhim and smiled quietly.\n\n\"Have you known that young man long, Princess?\" he asked.\n\n\"Who?\"\n\n\"Drubetskoy.\"\n\n\"No, not long...\"\n\n\"Do you like him?\"\n\n\"Yes, he is an agreeable young man.... Why do you ask me that?\" said\nPrincess Mary, still thinking of that morning's conversation with her\nfather.\n\n\"Because I have noticed that when a young man comes on leave from\nPetersburg to Moscow it is usually with the object of marrying an\nheiress.\"\n\n\"You have observed that?\" said Princess Mary.\n\n\"Yes,\" returned Pierre with a smile, \"and this young man now manages\nmatters so that where there is a wealthy heiress there he is too. I can\nread him like a book. At present he is hesitating whom to lay siege to--\nyou or Mademoiselle Julie Karagina. He is very attentive to her.\"\n\n\"He visits them?\"\n\n\"Yes, very often. And do you know the new way of courting?\" said Pierre\nwith an amused smile, evidently in that cheerful mood of good humored\nraillery for which he so often reproached himself in his diary.\n\n\"No,\" replied Princess Mary.\n\n\"To please Moscow girls nowadays one has to be melancholy. He is very\nmelancholy with Mademoiselle Karagina,\" said Pierre.\n\n\"Really?\" asked Princess Mary, looking into Pierre's kindly face and\nstill thinking of her own sorrow. \"It would be a relief,\" thought she,\n\"if I ventured to confide what I am feeling to someone. I should like to\ntell everything to Pierre. He is kind and generous. It would be a\nrelief. He would give me advice.\"\n\n\"Would you marry him?\"\n\n\"Oh, my God, Count, there are moments when I would marry anybody!\" she\ncried suddenly to her own surprise and with tears in her voice. \"Ah, how\nbitter it is to love someone near to you and to feel that...\" she went\non in a trembling voice, \"that you can do nothing for him but grieve\nhim, and to know that you cannot alter this. Then there is only one\nthing left--to go away, but where could I go?\"\n\n\"What is wrong? What is it, Princess?\"\n\nBut without finishing what she was saying, Princess Mary burst into\ntears.\n\n\"I don't know what is the matter with me today. Don't take any notice--\nforget what I have said!\"\n\nPierre's gaiety vanished completely. He anxiously questioned the\nprincess, asked her to speak out fully and confide her grief to him; but\nshe only repeated that she begged him to forget what she had said, that\nshe did not remember what she had said, and that she had no trouble\nexcept the one he knew of--that Prince Andrew's marriage threatened to\ncause a rupture between father and son.\n\n\"Have you any news of the Rostovs?\" she asked, to change the subject. \"I\nwas told they are coming soon. I am also expecting Andrew any day. I\nshould like them to meet here.\"\n\n\"And how does he now regard the matter?\" asked Pierre, referring to the\nold prince.\n\nPrincess Mary shook her head.\n\n\"What is to be done? In a few months the year will be up. The thing is\nimpossible. I only wish I could spare my brother the first moments. I\nwish they would come sooner. I hope to be friends with her. You have\nknown them a long time,\" said Princess Mary. \"Tell me honestly the whole\ntruth: what sort of girl is she, and what do you think of her?--The real\ntruth, because you know Andrew is risking so much doing this against his\nfather's will that I should like to know...\"\n\nAn undefined instinct told Pierre that these explanations, and repeated\nrequests to be told the whole truth, expressed ill-will on the princess'\npart toward her future sister-in-law and a wish that he should\ndisapprove of Andrew's choice; but in reply he said what he felt rather\nthan what he thought.\n\n\"I don't know how to answer your question,\" he said, blushing without\nknowing why. \"I really don't know what sort of girl she is; I can't\nanalyze her at all. She is enchanting, but what makes her so I don't\nknow. That is all one can say about her.\"\n\nPrincess Mary sighed, and the expression on her face said: \"Yes, that's\nwhat I expected and feared.\"\n\n\"Is she clever?\" she asked.\n\nPierre considered.\n\n\"I think not,\" he said, \"and yet--yes. She does not deign to be\nclever.... Oh no, she is simply enchanting, and that is all.\"\n\nPrincess Mary again shook her head disapprovingly.\n\n\"Ah, I so long to like her! Tell her so if you see her before I do.\"\n\n\"I hear they are expected very soon,\" said Pierre.\n\nPrincess Mary told Pierre of her plan to become intimate with her future\nsister-in-law as soon as the Rostovs arrived and to try to accustom the\nold prince to her.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nBoris had not succeeded in making a wealthy match in Petersburg, so with\nthe same object in view he came to Moscow. There he wavered between the\ntwo richest heiresses, Julie and Princess Mary. Though Princess Mary\ndespite her plainness seemed to him more attractive than Julie, he,\nwithout knowing why, felt awkward about paying court to her. When they\nhad last met on the old prince's name day, she had answered at random\nall his attempts to talk sentimentally, evidently not listening to what\nhe was saying.\n\nJulie on the contrary accepted his attentions readily, though in a\nmanner peculiar to herself.\n\nShe was twenty-seven. After the death of her brothers she had become\nvery wealthy. She was by now decidedly plain, but thought herself not\nmerely as good-looking as before but even far more attractive. She was\nconfirmed in this delusion by the fact that she had become a very\nwealthy heiress and also by the fact that the older she grew the less\ndangerous she became to men, and the more freely they could associate\nwith her and avail themselves of her suppers, soirees, and the animated\ncompany that assembled at her house, without incurring any obligation. A\nman who would have been afraid ten years before of going every day to\nthe house when there was a girl of seventeen there, for fear of\ncompromising her and committing himself, would now go boldly every day\nand treat her not as a marriageable girl but as a sexless acquaintance.\n\nThat winter the Karagins' house was the most agreeable and hospitable in\nMoscow. In addition to the formal evening and dinner parties, a large\ncompany, chiefly of men, gathered there every day, supping at midnight\nand staying till three in the morning. Julie never missed a ball, a\npromenade, or a play. Her dresses were always of the latest fashion. But\nin spite of that she seemed to be disillusioned about everything and\ntold everyone that she did not believe either in friendship or in love,\nor any of the joys of life, and expected peace only \"yonder.\" She\nadopted the tone of one who has suffered a great disappointment, like a\ngirl who has either lost the man she loved or been cruelly deceived by\nhim. Though nothing of the kind had happened to her she was regarded in\nthat light, and had even herself come to believe that she had suffered\nmuch in life. This melancholy, which did not prevent her amusing\nherself, did not hinder the young people who came to her house from\npassing the time pleasantly. Every visitor who came to the house paid\nhis tribute to the melancholy mood of the hostess, and then amused\nhimself with society gossip, dancing, intellectual games, and bouts\nrimes, which were in vogue at the Karagins'. Only a few of these young\nmen, among them Boris, entered more deeply into Julie's melancholy, and\nwith these she had prolonged conversations in private on the vanity of\nall worldly things, and to them she showed her albums filled with\nmournful sketches, maxims, and verses.\n\nTo Boris, Julie was particularly gracious: she regretted his early\ndisillusionment with life, offered him such consolation of friendship as\nshe who had herself suffered so much could render, and showed him her\nalbum. Boris sketched two trees in the album and wrote: \"Rustic trees,\nyour dark branches shed gloom and melancholy upon me.\"\n\nOn another page he drew a tomb, and wrote:\n\n\nLa mort est secourable et la mort est tranquille. Ah! contre les\ndouleurs il n'y a pas d'autre asile. *\n\n\n* Death gives relief and death is peaceful.\n\nAh! from suffering there is no other refuge.\n\nJulie said this was charming\n\n\"There is something so enchanting in the smile of melancholy,\" she said\nto Boris, repeating word for word a passage she had copied from a book.\n\"It is a ray of light in the darkness, a shade between sadness and\ndespair, showing the possibility of consolation.\"\n\nIn reply Boris wrote these lines:\n\n\nAliment de poison d'une ame trop sensible, Toi, sans qui le bonheur me\nserait impossible, Tendre melancholie, ah, viens me consoler, Viens\ncalmer les tourments de ma sombre retraite, Et mele une douceur secrete\nA ces pleurs que je sens couler. *\n\n\n*Poisonous nourishment of a too sensitive soul, Thou, without whom\nhappiness would for me be impossible, Tender melancholy, ah, come to\nconsole me, Come to calm the torments of my gloomy retreat, And mingle a\nsecret sweetness With these tears that I feel to be flowing.\n\nFor Boris, Julie played most doleful nocturnes on her harp. Boris read\n'Poor Liza' aloud to her, and more than once interrupted the reading\nbecause of the emotions that choked him. Meeting at large gatherings\nJulie and Boris looked on one another as the only souls who understood\none another in a world of indifferent people.\n\nAnna Mikhaylovna, who often visited the Karagins, while playing cards\nwith the mother made careful inquiries as to Julie's dowry (she was to\nhave two estates in Penza and the Nizhegorod forests). Anna Mikhaylovna\nregarded the refined sadness that united her son to the wealthy Julie\nwith emotion, and resignation to the Divine will.\n\n\"You are always charming and melancholy, my dear Julie,\" she said to the\ndaughter. \"Boris says his soul finds repose at your house. He has\nsuffered so many disappointments and is so sensitive,\" said she to the\nmother. \"Ah, my dear, I can't tell you how fond I have grown of Julie\nlatterly,\" she said to her son. \"But who could help loving her? She is\nan angelic being! Ah, Boris, Boris!\"--she paused. \"And how I pity her\nmother,\" she went on; \"today she showed me her accounts and letters from\nPenza (they have enormous estates there), and she, poor thing, has no\none to help her, and they do cheat her so!\"\n\nBoris smiled almost imperceptibly while listening to his mother. He\nlaughed blandly at her naive diplomacy but listened to what she had to\nsay, and sometimes questioned her carefully about the Penza and\nNizhegorod estates.\n\nJulie had long been expecting a proposal from her melancholy adorer and\nwas ready to accept it; but some secret feeling of repulsion for her,\nfor her passionate desire to get married, for her artificiality, and a\nfeeling of horror at renouncing the possibility of real love still\nrestrained Boris. His leave was expiring. He spent every day and whole\ndays at the Karagins', and every day on thinking the matter over told\nhimself that he would propose tomorrow. But in Julie's presence, looking\nat her red face and chin (nearly always powdered), her moist eyes, and\nher expression of continual readiness to pass at once from melancholy to\nan unnatural rapture of married bliss, Boris could not utter the\ndecisive words, though in imagination he had long regarded himself as\nthe possessor of those Penza and Nizhegorod estates and had apportioned\nthe use of the income from them. Julie saw Boris' indecision, and\nsometimes the thought occurred to her that she was repulsive to him, but\nher feminine self-deception immediately supplied her with consolation,\nand she told herself that he was only shy from love. Her melancholy,\nhowever, began to turn to irritability, and not long before Boris'\ndeparture she formed a definite plan of action. Just as Boris' leave of\nabsence was expiring, Anatole Kuragin made his appearance in Moscow, and\nof course in the Karagins' drawing room, and Julie, suddenly abandoning\nher melancholy, became cheerful and very attentive to Kuragin.\n\n\"My dear,\" said Anna Mikhaylovna to her son, \"I know from a reliable\nsource that Prince Vasili has sent his son to Moscow to get him married\nto Julie. I am so fond of Julie that I should be sorry for her. What do\nyou think of it, my dear?\"\n\nThe idea of being made a fool of and of having thrown away that whole\nmonth of arduous melancholy service to Julie, and of seeing all the\nrevenue from the Penza estates which he had already mentally apportioned\nand put to proper use fall into the hands of another, and especially\ninto the hands of that idiot Anatole, pained Boris. He drove to the\nKaragins' with the firm intention of proposing. Julie met him in a gay,\ncareless manner, spoke casually of how she had enjoyed yesterday's ball,\nand asked when he was leaving. Though Boris had come intentionally to\nspeak of his love and therefore meant to be tender, he began speaking\nirritably of feminine inconstancy, of how easily women can turn from\nsadness to joy, and how their moods depend solely on who happens to be\npaying court to them. Julie was offended and replied that it was true\nthat a woman needs variety, and the same thing over and over again would\nweary anyone.\n\n\"Then I should advise you...\" Boris began, wishing to sting her; but at\nthat instant the galling thought occurred to him that he might have to\nleave Moscow without having accomplished his aim, and have vainly wasted\nhis efforts--which was a thing he never allowed to happen.\n\nHe checked himself in the middle of the sentence, lowered his eyes to\navoid seeing her unpleasantly irritated and irresolute face, and said:\n\n\"I did not come here at all to quarrel with you. On the contrary...\"\n\nHe glanced at her to make sure that he might go on. Her irritability had\nsuddenly quite vanished, and her anxious, imploring eyes were fixed on\nhim with greedy expectation. \"I can always arrange so as not to see her\noften,\" thought Boris. \"The affair has been begun and must be finished!\"\nHe blushed hotly, raised his eyes to hers, and said:\n\n\"You know my feelings for you!\"\n\nThere was no need to say more: Julie's face shone with triumph and self-\nsatisfaction; but she forced Boris to say all that is said on such\noccasions--that he loved her and had never loved any other woman more\nthan her. She knew that for the Penza estates and Nizhegorod forests she\ncould demand this, and she received what she demanded.\n\nThe affianced couple, no longer alluding to trees that shed gloom and\nmelancholy upon them, planned the arrangements of a splendid house in\nPetersburg, paid calls, and prepared everything for a brilliant wedding.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nAt the end of January old Count Rostov went to Moscow with Natasha and\nSonya. The countess was still unwell and unable to travel but it was\nimpossible to wait for her recovery. Prince Andrew was expected in\nMoscow any day, the trousseau had to be ordered and the estate near\nMoscow had to be sold, besides which the opportunity of presenting his\nfuture daughter-in-law to old Prince Bolkonski while he was in Moscow\ncould not be missed. The Rostovs' Moscow house had not been heated that\nwinter and, as they had come only for a short time and the countess was\nnot with them, the count decided to stay with Marya Dmitrievna\nAkhrosimova, who had long been pressing her hospitality on them.\n\nLate one evening the Rostovs' four sleighs drove into Marya Dmitrievna's\ncourtyard in the old Konyusheny street. Marya Dmitrievna lived alone.\nShe had already married off her daughter, and her sons were all in the\nservice.\n\nShe held herself as erect, told everyone her opinion as candidly,\nloudly, and bluntly as ever, and her whole bearing seemed a reproach to\nothers for any weakness, passion, or temptation--the possibility of\nwhich she did not admit. From early in the morning, wearing a dressing\njacket, she attended to her household affairs, and then she drove out:\non holy days to church and after the service to jails and prisons on\naffairs of which she never spoke to anyone. On ordinary days, after\ndressing, she received petitioners of various classes, of whom there\nwere always some. Then she had dinner, a substantial and appetizing meal\nat which there were always three or four guests; after dinner she played\na game of boston, and at night she had the newspapers or a new book read\nto her while she knitted. She rarely made an exception and went out to\npay visits, and then only to the most important persons in the town.\n\nShe had not yet gone to bed when the Rostovs arrived and the pulley of\nthe hall door squeaked from the cold as it let in the Rostovs and their\nservants. Marya Dmitrievna, with her spectacles hanging down on her nose\nand her head flung back, stood in the hall doorway looking with a stern,\ngrim face at the new arrivals. One might have thought she was angry with\nthe travelers and would immediately turn them out, had she not at the\nsame time been giving careful instructions to the servants for the\naccommodation of the visitors and their belongings.\n\n\"The count's things? Bring them here,\" she said, pointing to the\nportmanteaus and not greeting anyone. \"The young ladies'? There to the\nleft. Now what are you dawdling for?\" she cried to the maids. \"Get the\nsamovar ready!... You've grown plumper and prettier,\" she remarked,\ndrawing Natasha (whose cheeks were glowing from the cold) to her by the\nhood. \"Foo! You are cold! Now take off your things, quick!\" she shouted\nto the count who was going to kiss her hand. \"You're half frozen, I'm\nsure! Bring some rum for tea!... Bonjour, Sonya dear!\" she added,\nturning to Sonya and indicating by this French greeting her slightly\ncontemptuous though affectionate attitude toward her.\n\nWhen they came in to tea, having taken off their outdoor things and\ntidied themselves up after their journey, Marya Dmitrievna kissed them\nall in due order.\n\n\"I'm heartily glad you have come and are staying with me. It was high\ntime,\" she said, giving Natasha a significant look. \"The old man is here\nand his son's expected any day. You'll have to make his acquaintance.\nBut we'll speak of that later on,\" she added, glancing at Sonya with a\nlook that showed she did not want to speak of it in her presence. \"Now\nlisten,\" she said to the count. \"What do you want tomorrow? Whom will\nyou send for? Shinshin?\" she crooked one of her fingers. \"The sniveling\nAnna Mikhaylovna? That's two. She's here with her son. The son is\ngetting married! Then Bezukhov, eh? He is here too, with his wife. He\nran away from her and she came galloping after him. He dined with me on\nWednesday. As for them\"--and she pointed to the girls--\"tomorrow I'll\ntake them first to the Iberian shrine of the Mother of God, and then\nwe'll drive to the Super-Rogue's. I suppose you'll have everything new.\nDon't judge by me: sleeves nowadays are this size! The other day young\nPrincess Irina Vasilevna came to see me; she was an awful sight--looked\nas if she had put two barrels on her arms. You know not a day passes now\nwithout some new fashion.... And what have you to do yourself?\" she\nasked the count sternly.\n\n\"One thing has come on top of another: her rags to buy, and now a\npurchaser has turned up for the Moscow estate and for the house. If you\nwill be so kind, I'll fix a time and go down to the estate just for a\nday, and leave my lassies with you.\"\n\n\"All right. All right. They'll be safe with me, as safe as in Chancery!\nI'll take them where they must go, scold them a bit, and pet them a\nbit,\" said Marya Dmitrievna, touching her goddaughter and favorite,\nNatasha, on the cheek with her large hand.\n\nNext morning Marya Dmitrievna took the young ladies to the Iberian\nshrine of the Mother of God and to Madame Suppert-Roguet, who was so\nafraid of Marya Dmitrievna that she always let her have costumes at a\nloss merely to get rid of her. Marya Dmitrievna ordered almost the whole\ntrousseau. When they got home she turned everybody out of the room\nexcept Natasha, and then called her pet to her armchair.\n\n\"Well, now we'll talk. I congratulate you on your betrothed. You've\nhooked a fine fellow! I am glad for your sake and I've known him since\nhe was so high.\" She held her hand a couple of feet from the ground.\nNatasha blushed happily. \"I like him and all his family. Now listen! You\nknow that old Prince Nicholas much dislikes his son's marrying. The old\nfellow's crotchety! Of course Prince Andrew is not a child and can shift\nwithout him, but it's not nice to enter a family against a father's\nwill. One wants to do it peacefully and lovingly. You're a clever girl\nand you'll know how to manage. Be kind, and use your wits. Then all will\nbe well.\"\n\nNatasha remained silent, from shyness Marya Dmitrievna supposed, but\nreally because she disliked anyone interfering in what touched her love\nof Prince Andrew, which seemed to her so apart from all human affairs\nthat no one could understand it. She loved and knew Prince Andrew, he\nloved her only, and was to come one of these days and take her. She\nwanted nothing more.\n\n\"You see I have known him a long time and am also fond of Mary, your\nfuture sister-in-law. 'Husbands' sisters bring up blisters,' but this\none wouldn't hurt a fly. She has asked me to bring you two together.\nTomorrow you'll go with your father to see her. Be very nice and\naffectionate to her: you're younger than she. When he comes, he'll find\nyou already know his sister and father and are liked by them. Am I right\nor not? Won't that be best?\"\n\n\"Yes, it will,\" Natasha answered reluctantly.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nNext day, by Marya Dmitrievna's advice, Count Rostov took Natasha to\ncall on Prince Nicholas Bolkonski. The count did not set out cheerfully\non this visit, at heart he felt afraid. He well remembered the last\ninterview he had had with the old prince at the time of the enrollment,\nwhen in reply to an invitation to dinner he had had to listen to an\nangry reprimand for not having provided his full quota of men. Natasha,\non the other hand, having put on her best gown, was in the highest\nspirits. \"They can't help liking me,\" she thought. \"Everybody always has\nliked me, and I am so willing to do anything they wish, so ready to be\nfond of him--for being his father--and of her--for being his sister--\nthat there is no reason for them not to like me...\"\n\nThey drove up to the gloomy old house on the Vozdvizhenka and entered\nthe vestibule.\n\n\"Well, the Lord have mercy on us!\" said the count, half in jest, half in\nearnest; but Natasha noticed that her father was flurried on entering\nthe anteroom and inquired timidly and softly whether the prince and\nprincess were at home.\n\nWhen they had been announced a perturbation was noticeable among the\nservants. The footman who had gone to announce them was stopped by\nanother in the large hall and they whispered to one another. Then a\nmaidservant ran into the hall and hurriedly said something, mentioning\nthe princess. At last an old, cross looking footman came and announced\nto the Rostovs that the prince was not receiving, but that the princess\nbegged them to walk up. The first person who came to meet the visitors\nwas Mademoiselle Bourienne. She greeted the father and daughter with\nspecial politeness and showed them to the princess' room. The princess,\nlooking excited and nervous, her face flushed in patches, ran in to meet\nthe visitors, treading heavily, and vainly trying to appear cordial and\nat ease. From the first glance Princess Mary did not like Natasha. She\nthought her too fashionably dressed, frivolously gay and vain. She did\nnot at all realize that before having seen her future sister-in-law she\nwas prejudiced against her by involuntary envy of her beauty, youth, and\nhappiness, as well as by jealousy of her brother's love for her. Apart\nfrom this insuperable antipathy to her, Princess Mary was agitated just\nthen because on the Rostovs' being announced, the old prince had shouted\nthat he did not wish to see them, that Princess Mary might do so if she\nchose, but they were not to be admitted to him. She had decided to\nreceive them, but feared lest the prince might at any moment indulge in\nsome freak, as he seemed much upset by the Rostovs' visit.\n\n\"There, my dear princess, I've brought you my songstress,\" said the\ncount, bowing and looking round uneasily as if afraid the old prince\nmight appear. \"I am so glad you should get to know one another... very\nsorry the prince is still ailing,\" and after a few more commonplace\nremarks he rose. \"If you'll allow me to leave my Natasha in your hands\nfor a quarter of an hour, Princess, I'll drive round to see Anna\nSemenovna, it's quite near in the Dogs' Square, and then I'll come back\nfor her.\"\n\nThe count had devised this diplomatic ruse (as he afterwards told his\ndaughter) to give the future sisters-in-law an opportunity to talk to\none another freely, but another motive was to avoid the danger of\nencountering the old prince, of whom he was afraid. He did not mention\nthis to his daughter, but Natasha noticed her father's nervousness and\nanxiety and felt mortified by it. She blushed for him, grew still\nangrier at having blushed, and looked at the princess with a bold and\ndefiant expression which said that she was not afraid of anybody. The\nprincess told the count that she would be delighted, and only begged him\nto stay longer at Anna Semenovna's, and he departed.\n\nDespite the uneasy glances thrown at her by Princess Mary--who wished to\nhave a tête-à-tête with Natasha--Mademoiselle Bourienne remained in the\nroom and persistently talked about Moscow amusements and theaters.\nNatasha felt offended by the hesitation she had noticed in the anteroom,\nby her father's nervousness, and by the unnatural manner of the princess\nwho--she thought--was making a favor of receiving her, and so everything\ndispleased her. She did not like Princess Mary, whom she thought very\nplain, affected, and dry. Natasha suddenly shrank into herself and\ninvoluntarily assumed an offhand air which alienated Princess Mary still\nmore. After five minutes of irksome, constrained conversation, they\nheard the sound of slippered feet rapidly approaching. Princess Mary\nlooked frightened.\n\nThe door opened and the old prince, in a dressing gown and a white\nnightcap, came in.\n\n\"Ah, madam!\" he began. \"Madam, Countess... Countess Rostova, if I am not\nmistaken... I beg you to excuse me, to excuse me... I did not know,\nmadam. God is my witness, I did not know you had honored us with a\nvisit, and I came in such a costume only to see my daughter. I beg you\nto excuse me... God is my witness, I didn't know-\" he repeated,\nstressing the word \"God\" so unnaturally and so unpleasantly that\nPrincess Mary stood with downcast eyes not daring to look either at her\nfather or at Natasha.\n\nNor did the latter, having risen and curtsied, know what to do.\nMademoiselle Bourienne alone smiled agreeably.\n\n\"I beg you to excuse me, excuse me! God is my witness, I did not know,\"\nmuttered the old man, and after looking Natasha over from head to foot\nhe went out.\n\nMademoiselle Bourienne was the first to recover herself after this\napparition and began speaking about the prince's indisposition. Natasha\nand Princess Mary looked at one another in silence, and the longer they\ndid so without saying what they wanted to say, the greater grew their\nantipathy to one another.\n\nWhen the count returned, Natasha was impolitely pleased and hastened to\nget away: at that moment she hated the stiff, elderly princess, who\ncould place her in such an embarrassing position and had spent half an\nhour with her without once mentioning Prince Andrew. \"I couldn't begin\ntalking about him in the presence of that Frenchwoman,\" thought Natasha.\nThe same thought was meanwhile tormenting Princess Mary. She knew what\nshe ought to have said to Natasha, but she had been unable to say it\nbecause Mademoiselle Bourienne was in the way, and because, without\nknowing why, she felt it very difficult to speak of the marriage. When\nthe count was already leaving the room, Princess Mary went up hurriedly\nto Natasha, took her by the hand, and said with a deep sigh:\n\n\"Wait, I must...\"\n\nNatasha glanced at her ironically without knowing why.\n\n\"Dear Natalie,\" said Princess Mary, \"I want you to know that I am glad\nmy brother has found happiness....\"\n\nShe paused, feeling that she was not telling the truth. Natasha noticed\nthis and guessed its reason.\n\n\"I think, Princess, it is not convenient to speak of that now,\" she said\nwith external dignity and coldness, though she felt the tears choking\nher.\n\n\"What have I said and what have I done?\" thought she, as soon as she was\nout of the room.\n\nThey waited a long time for Natasha to come to dinner that day. She sat\nin her room crying like a child, blowing her nose and sobbing. Sonya\nstood beside her, kissing her hair.\n\n\"Natasha, what is it about?\" she asked. \"What do they matter to you? It\nwill all pass, Natasha.\"\n\n\"But if you only knew how offensive it was... as if I...\"\n\n\"Don't talk about it, Natasha. It wasn't your fault so why should you\nmind? Kiss me,\" said Sonya.\n\nNatasha raised her head and, kissing her friend on the lips, pressed her\nwet face against her.\n\n\"I can't tell you, I don't know. No one's to blame,\" said Natasha--\"It's\nmy fault. But it all hurts terribly. Oh, why doesn't he come?...\"\n\nShe came in to dinner with red eyes. Marya Dmitrievna, who knew how the\nprince had received the Rostovs, pretended not to notice how upset\nNatasha was and jested resolutely and loudly at table with the count and\nthe other guests.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nThat evening the Rostovs went to the Opera, for which Marya Dmitrievna\nhad taken a box.\n\nNatasha did not want to go, but could not refuse Marya Dmitrievna's kind\noffer which was intended expressly for her. When she came ready dressed\ninto the ballroom to await her father, and looking in the large mirror\nthere saw that she was pretty, very pretty, she felt even more sad, but\nit was a sweet, tender sadness.\n\n\"O God, if he were here now I would not behave as I did then, but\ndifferently. I would not be silly and afraid of things, I would simply\nembrace him, cling to him, and make him look at me with those searching\ninquiring eyes with which he has so often looked at me, and then I would\nmake him laugh as he used to laugh. And his eyes--how I see those eyes!\"\nthought Natasha. \"And what do his father and sister matter to me? I love\nhim alone, him, him, with that face and those eyes, with his smile,\nmanly and yet childlike.... No, I had better not think of him; not think\nof him but forget him, quite forget him for the present. I can't bear\nthis waiting and I shall cry in a minute!\" and she turned away from the\nglass, making an effort not to cry. \"And how can Sonya love Nicholas so\ncalmly and quietly and wait so long and so patiently?\" thought she,\nlooking at Sonya, who also came in quite ready, with a fan in her hand.\n\"No, she's altogether different. I can't!\"\n\nNatasha at that moment felt so softened and tender that it was not\nenough for her to love and know she was beloved, she wanted now, at\nonce, to embrace the man she loved, to speak and hear from him words of\nlove such as filled her heart. While she sat in the carriage beside her\nfather, pensively watching the lights of the street lamps flickering on\nthe frozen window, she felt still sadder and more in love, and forgot\nwhere she was going and with whom. Having fallen into the line of\ncarriages, the Rostovs' carriage drove up to the theater, its wheels\nsqueaking over the snow. Natasha and Sonya, holding up their dresses,\njumped out quickly. The count got out helped by the footmen, and,\npassing among men and women who were entering and the program sellers,\nthey all three went along the corridor to the first row of boxes.\nThrough the closed doors the music was already audible.\n\n\"Natasha, your hair!...\" whispered Sonya.\n\nAn attendant deferentially and quickly slipped before the ladies and\nopened the door of their box. The music sounded louder and through the\ndoor rows of brightly lit boxes in which ladies sat with bare arms and\nshoulders, and noisy stalls brilliant with uniforms, glittered before\ntheir eyes. A lady entering the next box shot a glance of feminine envy\nat Natasha. The curtain had not yet risen and the overture was being\nplayed. Natasha, smoothing her gown, went in with Sonya and sat down,\nscanning the brilliant tiers of boxes opposite. A sensation she had not\nexperienced for a long time--that of hundreds of eyes looking at her\nbare arms and neck--suddenly affected her both agreeably and\ndisagreeably and called up a whole crowd of memories, desires and\nemotions associated with that feeling.\n\nThe two remarkably pretty girls, Natasha and Sonya, with Count Rostov\nwho had not been seen in Moscow for a long time, attracted general\nattention. Moreover, everybody knew vaguely of Natasha's engagement to\nPrince Andrew, and knew that the Rostovs had lived in the country ever\nsince, and all looked with curiosity at a fiancee who was making one of\nthe best matches in Russia.\n\nNatasha's looks, as everyone told her, had improved in the country, and\nthat evening thanks to her agitation she was particularly pretty. She\nstruck those who saw her by her fullness of life and beauty, combined\nwith her indifference to everything about her. Her black eyes looked at\nthe crowd without seeking anyone, and her delicate arm, bare to above\nthe elbow, lay on the velvet edge of the box, while, evidently\nunconsciously, she opened and closed her hand in time to the music,\ncrumpling her program. \"Look, there's Alenina,\" said Sonya, \"with her\nmother, isn't it?\"\n\n\"Dear me, Michael Kirilovich has grown still stouter!\" remarked the\ncount.\n\n\"Look at our Anna Mikhaylovna--what a headdress she has on!\"\n\n\"The Karagins, Julie--and Boris with them. One can see at once that\nthey're engaged....\"\n\n\"Drubetskoy has proposed?\"\n\n\"Oh yes, I heard it today,\" said Shinshin, coming into the Rostovs' box.\n\nNatasha looked in the direction in which her father's eyes were turned\nand saw Julie sitting beside her mother with a happy look on her face\nand a string of pearls round her thick red neck--which Natasha knew was\ncovered with powder. Behind them, wearing a smile and leaning over with\nan ear to Julie's mouth, was Boris' handsome smoothly brushed head. He\nlooked at the Rostovs from under his brows and said something, smiling,\nto his betrothed.\n\n\"They are talking about us, about me and him!\" thought Natasha. \"And he\nno doubt is calming her jealousy of me. They needn't trouble themselves!\nIf only they knew how little I am concerned about any of them.\"\n\nBehind them sat Anna Mikhaylovna wearing a green headdress and with a\nhappy look of resignation to the will of God on her face. Their box was\npervaded by that atmosphere of an affianced couple which Natasha knew so\nwell and liked so much. She turned away and suddenly remembered all that\nhad been so humiliating in her morning's visit.\n\n\"What right has he not to wish to receive me into his family? Oh, better\nnot think of it--not till he comes back!\" she told herself, and began\nlooking at the faces, some strange and some familiar, in the stalls. In\nthe front, in the very center, leaning back against the orchestra rail,\nstood Dolokhov in a Persian dress, his curly hair brushed up into a huge\nshock. He stood in full view of the audience, well aware that he was\nattracting everyone's attention, yet as much at ease as though he were\nin his own room. Around him thronged Moscow's most brilliant young men,\nwhom he evidently dominated.\n\nThe count, laughing, nudged the blushing Sonya and pointed to her former\nadorer.\n\n\"Do you recognize him?\" said he. \"And where has he sprung from?\" he\nasked, turning to Shinshin. \"Didn't he vanish somewhere?\"\n\n\"He did,\" replied Shinshin. \"He was in the Caucasus and ran away from\nthere. They say he has been acting as minister to some ruling prince in\nPersia, where he killed the Shah's brother. Now all the Moscow ladies\nare mad about him! It's 'Dolokhov the Persian' that does it! We never\nhear a word but Dolokhov is mentioned. They swear by him, they offer him\nto you as they would a dish of choice sterlet. Dolokhov and Anatole\nKuragin have turned all our ladies' heads.\"\n\nA tall, beautiful woman with a mass of plaited hair and much exposed\nplump white shoulders and neck, round which she wore a double string of\nlarge pearls, entered the adjoining box rustling her heavy silk dress\nand took a long time settling into her place.\n\nNatasha involuntarily gazed at that neck, those shoulders, and pearls\nand coiffure, and admired the beauty of the shoulders and the pearls.\nWhile Natasha was fixing her gaze on her for the second time the lady\nlooked round and, meeting the count's eyes, nodded to him and smiled.\nShe was the Countess Bezukhova, Pierre's wife, and the count, who knew\neveryone in society, leaned over and spoke to her.\n\n\"Have you been here long, Countess?\" he inquired. \"I'll call, I'll call\nto kiss your hand. I'm here on business and have brought my girls with\nme. They say Semenova acts marvelously. Count Pierre never used to\nforget us. Is he here?\"\n\n\"Yes, he meant to look in,\" answered Helene, and glanced attentively at\nNatasha.\n\nCount Rostov resumed his seat.\n\n\"Handsome, isn't she?\" he whispered to Natasha.\n\n\"Wonderful!\" answered Natasha. \"She's a woman one could easily fall in\nlove with.\"\n\nJust then the last chords of the overture were heard and the conductor\ntapped with his stick. Some latecomers took their seats in the stalls,\nand the curtain rose.\n\nAs soon as it rose everyone in the boxes and stalls became silent, and\nall the men, old and young, in uniform and evening dress, and all the\nwomen with gems on their bare flesh, turned their whole attention with\neager curiosity to the stage. Natasha too began to look at it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nThe floor of the stage consisted of smooth boards, at the sides was some\npainted cardboard representing trees, and at the back was a cloth\nstretched over boards. In the center of the stage sat some girls in red\nbodices and white skirts. One very fat girl in a white silk dress sat\napart on a low bench, to the back of which a piece of green cardboard\nwas glued. They all sang something. When they had finished their song\nthe girl in white went up to the prompter's box and a man with tight\nsilk trousers over his stout legs, and holding a plume and a dagger,\nwent up to her and began singing, waving his arms about.\n\nFirst the man in the tight trousers sang alone, then she sang, then they\nboth paused while the orchestra played and the man fingered the hand of\nthe girl in white, obviously awaiting the beat to start singing with\nher. They sang together and everyone in the theater began clapping and\nshouting, while the man and woman on the stage--who represented lovers--\nbegan smiling, spreading out their arms, and bowing.\n\nAfter her life in the country, and in her present serious mood, all this\nseemed grotesque and amazing to Natasha. She could not follow the opera\nnor even listen to the music; she saw only the painted cardboard and the\nqueerly dressed men and women who moved, spoke, and sang so strangely in\nthat brilliant light. She knew what it was all meant to represent, but\nit was so pretentiously false and unnatural that she first felt ashamed\nfor the actors and then amused at them. She looked at the faces of the\naudience, seeking in them the same sense of ridicule and perplexity she\nherself experienced, but they all seemed attentive to what was happening\non the stage, and expressed delight which to Natasha seemed feigned. \"I\nsuppose it has to be like this!\" she thought. She kept looking round in\nturn at the rows of pomaded heads in the stalls and then at the seminude\nwomen in the boxes, especially at Helene in the next box, who--\napparently quite unclothed--sat with a quiet tranquil smile, not taking\nher eyes off the stage. And feeling the bright light that flooded the\nwhole place and the warm air heated by the crowd, Natasha little by\nlittle began to pass into a state of intoxication she had not\nexperienced for a long while. She did not realize who and where she was,\nnor what was going on before her. As she looked and thought, the\nstrangest fancies unexpectedly and disconnectedly passed through her\nmind: the idea occurred to her of jumping onto the edge of the box and\nsinging the air the actress was singing, then she wished to touch with\nher fan an old gentleman sitting not far from her, then to lean over to\nHelene and tickle her.\n\nAt a moment when all was quiet before the commencement of a song, a door\nleading to the stalls on the side nearest the Rostovs' box creaked, and\nthe steps of a belated arrival were heard. \"There's Kuragin!\" whispered\nShinshin. Countess Bezukhova turned smiling to the newcomer, and\nNatasha, following the direction of that look, saw an exceptionally\nhandsome adjutant approaching their box with a self-assured yet\ncourteous bearing. This was Anatole Kuragin whom she had seen and\nnoticed long ago at the ball in Petersburg. He was now in an adjutant's\nuniform with one epaulet and a shoulder knot. He moved with a restrained\nswagger which would have been ridiculous had he not been so good-looking\nand had his handsome face not worn such an expression of good-humored\ncomplacency and gaiety. Though the performance was proceeding, he walked\ndeliberately down the carpeted gangway, his sword and spurs slightly\njingling and his handsome perfumed head held high. Having looked at\nNatasha he approached his sister, laid his well gloved hand on the edge\nof her box, nodded to her, and leaning forward asked a question, with a\nmotion toward Natasha.\n\n\"Mais charmante!\" said he, evidently referring to Natasha, who did not\nexactly hear his words but understood them from the movement of his\nlips. Then he took his place in the first row of the stalls and sat down\nbeside Dolokhov, nudging with his elbow in a friendly and offhand way\nthat Dolokhov whom others treated so fawningly. He winked at him gaily,\nsmiled, and rested his foot against the orchestra screen.\n\n\"How like the brother is to the sister,\" remarked the count. \"And how\nhandsome they both are!\"\n\nShinshin, lowering his voice, began to tell the count of some intrigue\nof Kuragin's in Moscow, and Natasha tried to overhear it just because he\nhad said she was \"charmante.\"\n\nThe first act was over. In the stalls everyone began moving about, going\nout and coming in.\n\nBoris came to the Rostovs' box, received their congratulations very\nsimply, and raising his eyebrows with an absent-minded smile conveyed to\nNatasha and Sonya his fiancee's invitation to her wedding, and went\naway. Natasha with a gay, coquettish smile talked to him, and\ncongratulated on his approaching wedding that same Boris with whom she\nhad formerly been in love. In the state of intoxication she was in,\neverything seemed simple and natural.\n\nThe scantily clad Helene smiled at everyone in the same way, and Natasha\ngave Boris a similar smile.\n\nHelene's box was filled and surrounded from the stalls by the most\ndistinguished and intellectual men, who seemed to vie with one another\nin their wish to let everyone see that they knew her.\n\nDuring the whole of that entr'acte Kuragin stood with Dolokhov in front\nof the orchestra partition, looking at the Rostovs' box. Natasha knew he\nwas talking about her and this afforded her pleasure. She even turned so\nthat he should see her profile in what she thought was its most becoming\naspect. Before the beginning of the second act Pierre appeared in the\nstalls. The Rostovs had not seen him since their arrival. His face\nlooked sad, and he had grown still stouter since Natasha last saw him.\nHe passed up to the front rows, not noticing anyone. Anatole went up to\nhim and began speaking to him, looking at and indicating the Rostovs'\nbox. On seeing Natasha Pierre grew animated and, hastily passing between\nthe rows, came toward their box. When he got there he leaned on his\nelbows and, smiling, talked to her for a long time. While conversing\nwith Pierre, Natasha heard a man's voice in Countess Bezukhova's box and\nsomething told her it was Kuragin. She turned and their eyes met. Almost\nsmiling, he gazed straight into her eyes with such an enraptured\ncaressing look that it seemed strange to be so near him, to look at him\nlike that, to be so sure he admired her, and not to be acquainted with\nhim.\n\nIn the second act there was scenery representing tombstones, there was a\nround hole in the canvas to represent the moon, shades were raised over\nthe footlights, and from horns and contrabass came deep notes while many\npeople appeared from right and left wearing black cloaks and holding\nthings like daggers in their hands. They began waving their arms. Then\nsome other people ran in and began dragging away the maiden who had been\nin white and was now in light blue. They did not drag her away at once,\nbut sang with her for a long time and then at last dragged her off, and\nbehind the scenes something metallic was struck three times and everyone\nknelt down and sang a prayer. All these things were repeatedly\ninterrupted by the enthusiastic shouts of the audience.\n\nDuring this act every time Natasha looked toward the stalls she saw\nAnatole Kuragin with an arm thrown across the back of his chair, staring\nat her. She was pleased to see that he was captivated by her and it did\nnot occur to her that there was anything wrong in it.\n\nWhen the second act was over Countess Bezukhova rose, turned to the\nRostovs' box--her whole bosom completely exposed--beckoned the old count\nwith a gloved finger, and paying no attention to those who had entered\nher box began talking to him with an amiable smile.\n\n\"Do make me acquainted with your charming daughters,\" said she. \"The\nwhole town is singing their praises and I don't even know them!\"\n\nNatasha rose and curtsied to the splendid countess. She was so pleased\nby praise from this brilliant beauty that she blushed with pleasure.\n\n\"I want to become a Moscovite too, now,\" said Helene. \"How is it you're\nnot ashamed to bury such pearls in the country?\"\n\nCountess Bezukhova quite deserved her reputation of being a fascinating\nwoman. She could say what she did not think--especially what was\nflattering--quite simply and naturally.\n\n\"Dear count, you must let me look after your daughters! Though I am not\nstaying here long this time--nor are you--I will try to amuse them. I\nhave already heard much of you in Petersburg and wanted to get to know\nyou,\" said she to Natasha with her stereotyped and lovely smile. \"I had\nheard about you from my page, Drubetskoy. Have you heard he is getting\nmarried? And also from my husband's friend Bolkonski, Prince Andrew\nBolkonski,\" she went on with special emphasis, implying that she knew of\nhis relation to Natasha. To get better acquainted she asked that one of\nthe young ladies should come into her box for the rest of the\nperformance, and Natasha moved over to it.\n\nThe scene of the third act represented a palace in which many candles\nwere burning and pictures of knights with short beards hung on the\nwalls. In the middle stood what were probably a king and a queen. The\nking waved his right arm and, evidently nervous, sang something badly\nand sat down on a crimson throne. The maiden who had been first in white\nand then in light blue, now wore only a smock, and stood beside the\nthrone with her hair down. She sang something mournfully, addressing the\nqueen, but the king waved his arm severely, and men and women with bare\nlegs came in from both sides and began dancing all together. Then the\nviolins played very shrilly and merrily and one of the women with thick\nbare legs and thin arms, separating from the others, went behind the\nwings, adjusted her bodice, returned to the middle of the stage, and\nbegan jumping and striking one foot rapidly against the other. In the\nstalls everyone clapped and shouted \"bravo!\" Then one of the men went\ninto a corner of the stage. The cymbals and horns in the orchestra\nstruck up more loudly, and this man with bare legs jumped very high and\nwaved his feet about very rapidly. (He was Duport, who received sixty\nthousand rubles a year for this art.) Everybody in the stalls, boxes,\nand galleries began clapping and shouting with all their might, and the\nman stopped and began smiling and bowing to all sides. Then other men\nand women danced with bare legs. Then the king again shouted to the\nsound of music, and they all began singing. But suddenly a storm came\non, chromatic scales and diminished sevenths were heard in the\norchestra, everyone ran off, again dragging one of their number away,\nand the curtain dropped. Once more there was a terrible noise and\nclatter among the audience, and with rapturous faces everyone began\nshouting: \"Duport! Duport! Duport!\" Natasha no longer thought this\nstrange. She looked about with pleasure, smiling joyfully.\n\n\"Isn't Duport delightful?\" Helene asked her.\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" replied Natasha.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nDuring the entr'acte a whiff of cold air came into Helene's box, the\ndoor opened, and Anatole entered, stooping and trying not to brush\nagainst anyone.\n\n\"Let me introduce my brother to you,\" said Helene, her eyes shifting\nuneasily from Natasha to Anatole.\n\nNatasha turned her pretty little head toward the elegant young officer\nand smiled at him over her bare shoulder. Anatole, who was as handsome\nat close quarters as at a distance, sat down beside her and told her he\nhad long wished to have this happiness--ever since the Naryshkins' ball\nin fact, at which he had had the well-remembered pleasure of seeing her.\nKuragin was much more sensible and simple with women than among men. He\ntalked boldly and naturally, and Natasha was strangely and agreeably\nstruck by the fact that there was nothing formidable in this man about\nwhom there was so much talk, but that on the contrary his smile was most\nnaive, cheerful, and good-natured.\n\nKuragin asked her opinion of the performance and told her how at a\nprevious performance Semenova had fallen down on the stage.\n\n\"And do you know, Countess,\" he said, suddenly addressing her as an old,\nfamiliar acquaintance, \"we are getting up a costume tournament; you\nought to take part in it! It will be great fun. We shall all meet at the\nKaragins'! Please come! No! Really, eh?\" said he.\n\nWhile saying this he never removed his smiling eyes from her face, her\nneck, and her bare arms. Natasha knew for certain that he was enraptured\nby her. This pleased her, yet his presence made her feel constrained and\noppressed. When she was not looking at him she felt that he was looking\nat her shoulders, and she involuntarily caught his eye so that he should\nlook into hers rather than this. But looking into his eyes she was\nfrightened, realizing that there was not that barrier of modesty she had\nalways felt between herself and other men. She did not know how it was\nthat within five minutes she had come to feel herself terribly near to\nthis man. When she turned away she feared he might seize her from behind\nby her bare arm and kiss her on the neck. They spoke of most ordinary\nthings, yet she felt that they were closer to one another than she had\never been to any man. Natasha kept turning to Helene and to her father,\nas if asking what it all meant, but Helene was engaged in conversation\nwith a general and did not answer her look, and her father's eyes said\nnothing but what they always said: \"Having a good time? Well, I'm glad\nof it!\"\n\nDuring one of these moments of awkward silence when Anatole's prominent\neyes were gazing calmly and fixedly at her, Natasha, to break the\nsilence, asked him how he liked Moscow. She asked the question and\nblushed. She felt all the time that by talking to him she was doing\nsomething improper. Anatole smiled as though to encourage her.\n\n\"At first I did not like it much, because what makes a town pleasant ce\nsont les jolies femmes, * isn't that so? But now I like it very much\nindeed,\" he said, looking at her significantly. \"You'll come to the\ncostume tournament, Countess? Do come!\" and putting out his hand to her\nbouquet and dropping his voice, he added, \"You will be the prettiest\nthere. Do come, dear countess, and give me this flower as a pledge!\"\n\n\n* Are the pretty women.\n\nNatasha did not understand what he was saying any more than he did\nhimself, but she felt that his incomprehensible words had an improper\nintention. She did not know what to say and turned away as if she had\nnot heard his remark. But as soon as she had turned away she felt that\nhe was there, behind, so close behind her.\n\n\"How is he now? Confused? Angry? Ought I to put it right?\" she asked\nherself, and she could not refrain from turning round. She looked\nstraight into his eyes, and his nearness, self-assurance, and the good-\nnatured tenderness of his smile vanquished her. She smiled just as he\nwas doing, gazing straight into his eyes. And again she felt with horror\nthat no barrier lay between him and her.\n\nThe curtain rose again. Anatole left the box, serene and gay. Natasha\nwent back to her father in the other box, now quite submissive to the\nworld she found herself in. All that was going on before her now seemed\nquite natural, but on the other hand all her previous thoughts of her\nbetrothed, of Princess Mary, or of life in the country did not once\nrecur to her mind and were as if belonging to a remote past.\n\nIn the fourth act there was some sort of devil who sang waving his arm\nabout, till the boards were withdrawn from under him and he disappeared\ndown below. That was the only part of the fourth act that Natasha saw.\nShe felt agitated and tormented, and the cause of this was Kuragin whom\nshe could not help watching. As they were leaving the theater Anatole\ncame up to them, called their carriage, and helped them in. As he was\nputting Natasha in he pressed her arm above the elbow. Agitated and\nflushed she turned round. He was looking at her with glittering eyes,\nsmiling tenderly.\n\nOnly after she had reached home was Natasha able clearly to think over\nwhat had happened to her, and suddenly remembering Prince Andrew she was\nhorrified, and at tea to which all had sat down after the opera, she\ngave a loud exclamation, flushed, and ran out of the room.\n\n\"O God! I am lost!\" she said to herself. \"How could I let him?\" She sat\nfor a long time hiding her flushed face in her hands trying to realize\nwhat had happened to her, but was unable either to understand what had\nhappened or what she felt. Everything seemed dark, obscure, and\nterrible. There in that enormous, illuminated theater where the bare-\nlegged Duport, in a tinsel-decorated jacket, jumped about to the music\non wet boards, and young girls and old men, and the nearly naked Helene\nwith her proud, calm smile, rapturously cried \"bravo!\"--there in the\npresence of that Helene it had all seemed clear and simple; but now,\nalone by herself, it was incomprehensible. \"What is it? What was that\nterror I felt of him? What is this gnawing of conscience I am feeling\nnow?\" she thought.\n\nOnly to the old countess at night in bed could Natasha have told all she\nwas feeling. She knew that Sonya with her severe and simple views would\neither not understand it at all or would be horrified at such a\nconfession. So Natasha tried to solve what was torturing her by herself.\n\n\"Am I spoiled for Andrew's love or not?\" she asked herself, and with\nsoothing irony replied: \"What a fool I am to ask that! What did happen\nto me? Nothing! I have done nothing, I didn't lead him on at all. Nobody\nwill know and I shall never see him again,\" she told herself. \"So it is\nplain that nothing has happened and there is nothing to repent of, and\nAndrew can love me still. But why 'still?' O God, why isn't he here?\"\nNatasha quieted herself for a moment, but again some instinct told her\nthat though all this was true, and though nothing had happened, yet the\nformer purity of her love for Prince Andrew had perished. And again in\nimagination she went over her whole conversation with Kuragin, and again\nsaw the face, gestures, and tender smile of that bold handsome man when\nhe pressed her arm.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nAnatole Kuragin was staying in Moscow because his father had sent him\naway from Petersburg, where he had been spending twenty thousand rubles\na year in cash, besides running up debts for as much more, which his\ncreditors demanded from his father.\n\nHis father announced to him that he would now pay half his debts for the\nlast time, but only on condition that he went to Moscow as adjutant to\nthe commander-in-chief--a post his father had procured for him--and\nwould at last try to make a good match there. He indicated to him\nPrincess Mary and Julie Karagina.\n\nAnatole consented and went to Moscow, where he put up at Pierre's house.\nPierre received him unwillingly at first, but got used to him after a\nwhile, sometimes even accompanied him on his carousals, and gave him\nmoney under the guise of loans.\n\nAs Shinshin had remarked, from the time of his arrival Anatole had\nturned the heads of the Moscow ladies, especially by the fact that he\nslighted them and plainly preferred the gypsy girls and French\nactresses--with the chief of whom, Mademoiselle George, he was said to\nbe on intimate relations. He had never missed a carousal at Danilov's or\nother Moscow revelers', drank whole nights through, outvying everyone\nelse, and was at all the balls and parties of the best society. There\nwas talk of his intrigues with some of the ladies, and he flirted with a\nfew of them at the balls. But he did not run after the unmarried girls,\nespecially the rich heiresses who were most of them plain. There was a\nspecial reason for this, as he had got married two years before--a fact\nknown only to his most intimate friends. At that time while with his\nregiment in Poland, a Polish landowner of small means had forced him to\nmarry his daughter. Anatole had very soon abandoned his wife and, for a\npayment which he agreed to send to his father-in-law, had arranged to be\nfree to pass himself off as a bachelor.\n\nAnatole was always content with his position, with himself, and with\nothers. He was instinctively and thoroughly convinced that it was\nimpossible for him to live otherwise than as he did and that he had\nnever in his life done anything base. He was incapable of considering\nhow his actions might affect others or what the consequences of this or\nthat action of his might be. He was convinced that, as a duck is so made\nthat it must live in water, so God had made him such that he must spend\nthirty thousand rubles a year and always occupy a prominent position in\nsociety. He believed this so firmly that others, looking at him, were\npersuaded of it too and did not refuse him either a leading place in\nsociety or money, which he borrowed from anyone and everyone and\nevidently would not repay.\n\nHe was not a gambler, at any rate he did not care about winning. He was\nnot vain. He did not mind what people thought of him. Still less could\nhe be accused of ambition. More than once he had vexed his father by\nspoiling his own career, and he laughed at distinctions of all kinds. He\nwas not mean, and did not refuse anyone who asked of him. All he cared\nabout was gaiety and women, and as according to his ideas there was\nnothing dishonorable in these tastes, and he was incapable of\nconsidering what the gratification of his tastes entailed for others, he\nhonestly considered himself irreproachable, sincerely despised rogues\nand bad people, and with a tranquil conscience carried his head high.\n\nRakes, those male Magdalenes, have a secret feeling of innocence similar\nto that which female Magdalenes have, based on the same hope of\nforgiveness. \"All will be forgiven her, for she loved much; and all will\nbe forgiven him, for he enjoyed much.\"\n\nDolokhov, who had reappeared that year in Moscow after his exile and his\nPersian adventures, and was leading a life of luxury, gambling, and\ndissipation, associated with his old Petersburg comrade Kuragin and made\nuse of him for his own ends.\n\nAnatole was sincerely fond of Dolokhov for his cleverness and audacity.\nDolokhov, who needed Anatole Kuragin's name, position, and connections\nas a bait to draw rich young men into his gambling set, made use of him\nand amused himself at his expense without letting the other feel it.\nApart from the advantage he derived from Anatole, the very process of\ndominating another's will was in itself a pleasure, a habit, and a\nnecessity to Dolokhov.\n\nNatasha had made a strong impression on Kuragin. At supper after the\nopera he described to Dolokhov with the air of a connoisseur the\nattractions of her arms, shoulders, feet, and hair and expressed his\nintention of making love to her. Anatole had no notion and was incapable\nof considering what might come of such love-making, as he never had any\nnotion of the outcome of any of his actions.\n\n\"She's first-rate, my dear fellow, but not for us,\" replied Dolokhov.\n\n\"I will tell my sister to ask her to dinner,\" said Anatole. \"Eh?\"\n\n\"You'd better wait till she's married....\"\n\n\"You know, I adore little girls, they lose their heads at once,\" pursued\nAnatole.\n\n\"You have been caught once already by a 'little girl,'\" said Dolokhov\nwho knew of Kuragin's marriage. \"Take care!\"\n\n\"Well, that can't happen twice! Eh?\" said Anatole, with a good-humored\nlaugh.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nThe day after the opera the Rostovs went nowhere and nobody came to see\nthem. Marya Dmitrievna talked to the count about something which they\nconcealed from Natasha. Natasha guessed they were talking about the old\nprince and planning something, and this disquieted and offended her. She\nwas expecting Prince Andrew any moment and twice that day sent a\nmanservant to the Vozdvizhenka to ascertain whether he had come. He had\nnot arrived. She suffered more now than during her first days in Moscow.\nTo her impatience and pining for him were now added the unpleasant\nrecollection of her interview with Princess Mary and the old prince, and\na fear and anxiety of which she did not understand the cause. She\ncontinually fancied that either he would never come or that something\nwould happen to her before he came. She could no longer think of him by\nherself calmly and continuously as she had done before. As soon as she\nbegan to think of him, the recollection of the old prince, of Princess\nMary, of the theater, and of Kuragin mingled with her thoughts. The\nquestion again presented itself whether she was not guilty, whether she\nhad not already broken faith with Prince Andrew, and again she found\nherself recalling to the minutest detail every word, every gesture, and\nevery shade in the play of expression on the face of the man who had\nbeen able to arouse in her such an incomprehensible and terrifying\nfeeling. To the family Natasha seemed livelier than usual, but she was\nfar less tranquil and happy than before.\n\nOn Sunday morning Marya Dmitrievna invited her visitors to Mass at her\nparish church--the Church of the Assumption built over the graves of\nvictims of the plague.\n\n\"I don't like those fashionable churches,\" she said, evidently priding\nherself on her independence of thought. \"God is the same everywhere. We\nhave an excellent priest, he conducts the service decently and with\ndignity, and the deacon is the same. What holiness is there in giving\nconcerts in the choir? I don't like it, it's just self-indulgence!\"\n\nMarya Dmitrievna liked Sundays and knew how to keep them. Her whole\nhouse was scrubbed and cleaned on Saturdays; neither she nor the\nservants worked, and they all wore holiday dress and went to church. At\nher table there were extra dishes at dinner, and the servants had vodka\nand roast goose or suckling pig. But in nothing in the house was the\nholiday so noticeable as in Marya Dmitrievna's broad, stern face, which\non that day wore an invariable look of solemn festivity.\n\nAfter Mass, when they had finished their coffee in the dining room where\nthe loose covers had been removed from the furniture, a servant\nannounced that the carriage was ready, and Marya Dmitrievna rose with a\nstern air. She wore her holiday shawl, in which she paid calls, and\nannounced that she was going to see Prince Nicholas Bolkonski to have an\nexplanation with him about Natasha.\n\nAfter she had gone, a dressmaker from Madame Suppert-Roguet waited on\nthe Rostovs, and Natasha, very glad of this diversion, having shut\nherself into a room adjoining the drawing room, occupied herself trying\non the new dresses. Just as she had put on a bodice without sleeves and\nonly tacked together, and was turning her head to see in the glass how\nthe back fitted, she heard in the drawing room the animated sounds of\nher father's voice and another's--a woman's--that made her flush. It was\nHelene. Natasha had not time to take off the bodice before the door\nopened and Countess Bezukhova, dressed in a purple velvet gown with a\nhigh collar, came into the room beaming with good-humored amiable\nsmiles.\n\n\"Oh, my enchantress!\" she cried to the blushing Natasha. \"Charming! No,\nthis is really beyond anything, my dear count,\" said she to Count Rostov\nwho had followed her in. \"How can you live in Moscow and go nowhere? No,\nI won't let you off! Mademoiselle George will recite at my house tonight\nand there'll be some people, and if you don't bring your lovely girls--\nwho are prettier than Mademoiselle George--I won't know you! My husband\nis away in Tver or I would send him to fetch you. You must come. You\npositively must! Between eight and nine.\"\n\nShe nodded to the dressmaker, whom she knew and who had curtsied\nrespectfully to her, and seated herself in an armchair beside the\nlooking glass, draping the folds of her velvet dress picturesquely. She\ndid not cease chattering good-naturedly and gaily, continually praising\nNatasha's beauty. She looked at Natasha's dresses and praised them, as\nwell as a new dress of her own made of \"metallic gauze,\" which she had\nreceived from Paris, and advised Natasha to have one like it.\n\n\"But anything suits you, my charmer!\" she remarked.\n\nA smile of pleasure never left Natasha's face. She felt happy and as if\nshe were blossoming under the praise of this dear Countess Bezukhova who\nhad formerly seemed to her so unapproachable and important and was now\nso kind to her. Natasha brightened up and felt almost in love with this\nwoman, who was so beautiful and so kind. Helene for her part was\nsincerely delighted with Natasha and wished to give her a good time.\nAnatole had asked her to bring him and Natasha together, and she was\ncalling on the Rostovs for that purpose. The idea of throwing her\nbrother and Natasha together amused her.\n\nThough at one time, in Petersburg, she had been annoyed with Natasha for\ndrawing Boris away, she did not think of that now, and in her own way\nheartily wished Natasha well. As she was leaving the Rostovs she called\nher protegee aside.\n\n\"My brother dined with me yesterday--we nearly died of laughter--he ate\nnothing and kept sighing for you, my charmer! He is madly, quite madly,\nin love with you, my dear.\"\n\nNatasha blushed scarlet when she heard this.\n\n\"How she blushes, how she blushes, my pretty!\" said Helene. \"You must\ncertainly come. If you love somebody, my charmer, that is not a reason\nto shut yourself up. Even if you are engaged, I am sure your fiance\nwould wish you to go into society rather than be bored to death.\"\n\n\"So she knows I am engaged, and she and her husband Pierre--that good\nPierre--have talked and laughed about this. So it's all right.\" And\nagain, under Helene's influence, what had seemed terrible now seemed\nsimple and natural. \"And she is such a grande dame, so kind, and\nevidently likes me so much. And why not enjoy myself?\" thought Natasha,\ngazing at Helene with wide-open, wondering eyes.\n\nMarya Dmitrievna came back to dinner taciturn and serious, having\nevidently suffered a defeat at the old prince's. She was still too\nagitated by the encounter to be able to talk of the affair calmly. In\nanswer to the count's inquiries she replied that things were all right\nand that she would tell about it next day. On hearing of Countess\nBezukhova's visit and the invitation for that evening, Marya Dmitrievna\nremarked:\n\n\"I don't care to have anything to do with Bezukhova and don't advise you\nto; however, if you've promised--go. It will divert your thoughts,\" she\nadded, addressing Natasha.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nCount Rostov took the girls to Countess Bezukhova's. There were a good\nmany people there, but nearly all strangers to Natasha. Count Rostov was\ndispleased to see that the company consisted almost entirely of men and\nwomen known for the freedom of their conduct. Mademoiselle George was\nstanding in a corner of the drawing room surrounded by young men. There\nwere several Frenchmen present, among them Metivier who from the time\nHelene reached Moscow had been an intimate in her house. The count\ndecided not to sit down to cards or let his girls out of his sight and\nto get away as soon as Mademoiselle George's performance was over.\n\nAnatole was at the door, evidently on the lookout for the Rostovs.\nImmediately after greeting the count he went up to Natasha and followed\nher. As soon as she saw him she was seized by the same feeling she had\nhad at the opera--gratified vanity at his admiration of her and fear at\nthe absence of a moral barrier between them.\n\nHelene welcomed Natasha delightedly and was loud in admiration of her\nbeauty and her dress. Soon after their arrival Mademoiselle George went\nout of the room to change her costume. In the drawing room people began\narranging the chairs and taking their seats. Anatole moved a chair for\nNatasha and was about to sit down beside her, but the count, who never\nlost sight of her, took the seat himself. Anatole sat down behind her.\n\nMademoiselle George, with her bare, fat, dimpled arms, and a red shawl\ndraped over one shoulder, came into the space left vacant for her, and\nassumed an unnatural pose. Enthusiastic whispering was audible.\n\nMademoiselle George looked sternly and gloomily at the audience and\nbegan reciting some French verses describing her guilty love for her\nson. In some places she raised her voice, in others she whispered,\nlifting her head triumphantly; sometimes she paused and uttered hoarse\nsounds, rolling her eyes.\n\n\"Adorable! divine! delicious!\" was heard from every side.\n\nNatasha looked at the fat actress, but neither saw nor heard nor\nunderstood anything of what went on before her. She only felt herself\nagain completely borne away into this strange senseless world--so remote\nfrom her old world--a world in which it was impossible to know what was\ngood or bad, reasonable or senseless. Behind her sat Anatole, and\nconscious of his proximity she experienced a frightened sense of\nexpectancy.\n\nAfter the first monologue the whole company rose and surrounded\nMademoiselle George, expressing their enthusiasm.\n\n\"How beautiful she is!\" Natasha remarked to her father who had also\nrisen and was moving through the crowd toward the actress.\n\n\"I don't think so when I look at you!\" said Anatole, following Natasha.\nHe said this at a moment when she alone could hear him. \"You are\nenchanting... from the moment I saw you I have never ceased...\"\n\n\"Come, come, Natasha!\" said the count, as he turned back for his\ndaughter. \"How beautiful she is!\" Natasha without saying anything\nstepped up to her father and looked at him with surprised inquiring\neyes.\n\nAfter giving several recitations, Mademoiselle George left, and Countess\nBezukhova asked her visitors into the ballroom.\n\nThe count wished to go home, but Helene entreated him not to spoil her\nimprovised ball, and the Rostovs stayed on. Anatole asked Natasha for a\nvalse and as they danced he pressed her waist and hand and told her she\nwas bewitching and that he loved her. During the ecossaise, which she\nalso danced with him, Anatole said nothing when they happened to be by\nthemselves, but merely gazed at her. Natasha lifted her frightened eyes\nto him, but there was such confident tenderness in his affectionate look\nand smile that she could not, whilst looking at him, say what she had to\nsay. She lowered her eyes.\n\n\"Don't say such things to me. I am betrothed and love another,\" she said\nrapidly.... She glanced at him.\n\nAnatole was not upset or pained by what she had said.\n\n\"Don't speak to me of that! What can I do?\" said he. \"I tell you I am\nmadly, madly, in love with you! Is it my fault that you are\nenchanting?... It's our turn to begin.\"\n\nNatasha, animated and excited, looked about her with wide-open\nfrightened eyes and seemed merrier than usual. She understood hardly\nanything that went on that evening. They danced the ecossaise and the\nGrossvater. Her father asked her to come home, but she begged to remain.\nWherever she went and whomever she was speaking to, she felt his eyes\nupon her. Later on she recalled how she had asked her father to let her\ngo to the dressing room to rearrange her dress, that Helene had followed\nher and spoken laughingly of her brother's love, and that she again met\nAnatole in the little sitting room. Helene had disappeared leaving them\nalone, and Anatole had taken her hand and said in a tender voice:\n\n\"I cannot come to visit you but is it possible that I shall never see\nyou? I love you madly. Can I never...?\" and, blocking her path, he\nbrought his face close to hers.\n\nHis large, glittering, masculine eyes were so close to hers that she saw\nnothing but them.\n\n\"Natalie?\" he whispered inquiringly while she felt her hands being\npainfully pressed. \"Natalie?\"\n\n\"I don't understand. I have nothing to say,\" her eyes replied.\n\nBurning lips were pressed to hers, and at the same instant she felt\nherself released, and Helene's footsteps and the rustle of her dress\nwere heard in the room. Natasha looked round at her, and then, red and\ntrembling, threw a frightened look of inquiry at Anatole and moved\ntoward the door.\n\n\"One word, just one, for God's sake!\" cried Anatole.\n\nShe paused. She so wanted a word from him that would explain to her what\nhad happened and to which she could find no answer.\n\n\"Natalie, just a word, only one!\" he kept repeating, evidently not\nknowing what to say and he repeated it till Helene came up to them.\n\nHelene returned with Natasha to the drawing room. The Rostovs went away\nwithout staying for supper.\n\nAfter reaching home Natasha did not sleep all night. She was tormented\nby the insoluble question whether she loved Anatole or Prince Andrew.\nShe loved Prince Andrew--she remembered distinctly how deeply she loved\nhim. But she also loved Anatole, of that there was no doubt. \"Else how\ncould all this have happened?\" thought she. \"If, after that, I could\nreturn his smile when saying good-by, if I was able to let it come to\nthat, it means that I loved him from the first. It means that he is\nkind, noble, and splendid, and I could not help loving him. What am I to\ndo if I love him and the other one too?\" she asked herself, unable to\nfind an answer to these terrible questions.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nMorning came with its cares and bustle. Everyone got up and began to\nmove about and talk, dressmakers came again. Marya Dmitrievna appeared,\nand they were called to breakfast. Natasha kept looking uneasily at\neverybody with wide-open eyes, as if wishing to intercept every glance\ndirected toward her, and tried to appear the same as usual.\n\nAfter breakfast, which was her best time, Marya Dmitrievna sat down in\nher armchair and called Natasha and the count to her.\n\n\"Well, friends, I have now thought the whole matter over and this is my\nadvice,\" she began. \"Yesterday, as you know, I went to see Prince\nBolkonski. Well, I had a talk with him.... He took it into his head to\nbegin shouting, but I am not one to be shouted down. I said what I had\nto say!\"\n\n\"Well, and he?\" asked the count.\n\n\"He? He's crazy... he did not want to listen. But what's the use of\ntalking? As it is we have worn the poor girl out,\" said Marya\nDmitrievna. \"My advice to you is finish your business and go back home\nto Otradnoe... and wait there.\"\n\n\"Oh, no!\" exclaimed Natasha.\n\n\"Yes, go back,\" said Marya Dmitrievna, \"and wait there. If your\nbetrothed comes here now--there will be no avoiding a quarrel; but alone\nwith the old man he will talk things over and then come on to you.\"\n\nCount Rostov approved of this suggestion, appreciating its\nreasonableness. If the old man came round it would be all the better to\nvisit him in Moscow or at Bald Hills later on; and if not, the wedding,\nagainst his wishes, could only be arranged at Otradnoe.\n\n\"That is perfectly true. And I am sorry I went to see him and took her,\"\nsaid the old count.\n\n\"No, why be sorry? Being here, you had to pay your respects. But if he\nwon't--that's his affair,\" said Marya Dmitrievna, looking for something\nin her reticule. \"Besides, the trousseau is ready, so there is nothing\nto wait for; and what is not ready I'll send after you. Though I don't\nlike letting you go, it is the best way. So go, with God's blessing!\"\n\nHaving found what she was looking for in the reticule she handed it to\nNatasha. It was a letter from Princess Mary.\n\n\"She has written to you. How she torments herself, poor thing! She's\nafraid you might think that she does not like you.\"\n\n\"But she doesn't like me,\" said Natasha.\n\n\"Don't talk nonsense!\" cried Marya Dmitrievna.\n\n\"I shan't believe anyone, I know she doesn't like me,\" replied Natasha\nboldly as she took the letter, and her face expressed a cold and angry\nresolution that caused Marya Dmitrievna to look at her more intently and\nto frown.\n\n\"Don't answer like that, my good girl!\" she said. \"What I say is true!\nWrite an answer!\" Natasha did not reply and went to her own room to read\nPrincess Mary's letter.\n\nPrincess Mary wrote that she was in despair at the misunderstanding that\nhad occurred between them. Whatever her father's feelings might be, she\nbegged Natasha to believe that she could not help loving her as the one\nchosen by her brother, for whose happiness she was ready to sacrifice\neverything.\n\n\"Do not think, however,\" she wrote, \"that my father is ill-disposed\ntoward you. He is an invalid and an old man who must be forgiven; but he\nis good and magnanimous and will love her who makes his son happy.\"\nPrincess Mary went on to ask Natasha to fix a time when she could see\nher again.\n\nAfter reading the letter Natasha sat down at the writing table to answer\nit. \"Dear Princess,\" she wrote in French quickly and mechanically, and\nthen paused. What more could she write after all that had happened the\nevening before? \"Yes, yes! All that has happened, and now all is\nchanged,\" she thought as she sat with the letter she had begun before\nher. \"Must I break off with him? Must I really? That's awful...\" and to\nescape from these dreadful thoughts she went to Sonya and began sorting\npatterns with her.\n\nAfter dinner Natasha went to her room and again took up Princess Mary's\nletter. \"Can it be that it is all over?\" she thought. \"Can it be that\nall this has happened so quickly and has destroyed all that went\nbefore?\" She recalled her love for Prince Andrew in all its former\nstrength, and at the same time felt that she loved Kuragin. She vividly\npictured herself as Prince Andrew's wife, and the scenes of happiness\nwith him she had so often repeated in her imagination, and at the same\ntime, aglow with excitement, recalled every detail of yesterday's\ninterview with Anatole.\n\n\"Why could that not be as well?\" she sometimes asked herself in complete\nbewilderment. \"Only so could I be completely happy; but now I have to\nchoose, and I can't be happy without either of them. Only,\" she thought,\n\"to tell Prince Andrew what has happened or to hide it from him are both\nequally impossible. But with that one nothing is spoiled. But am I\nreally to abandon forever the joy of Prince Andrew's love, in which I\nhave lived so long?\"\n\n\"Please, Miss!\" whispered a maid entering the room with a mysterious\nair. \"A man told me to give you this-\" and she handed Natasha a letter.\n\n\"Only, for Christ's sake...\" the girl went on, as Natasha, without\nthinking, mechanically broke the seal and read a love letter from\nAnatole, of which, without taking in a word, she understood only that it\nwas a letter from him--from the man she loved. Yes, she loved him, or\nelse how could that have happened which had happened? And how could she\nhave a love letter from him in her hand?\n\nWith trembling hands Natasha held that passionate love letter which\nDolokhov had composed for Anatole, and as she read it she found in it an\necho of all that she herself imagined she was feeling.\n\n\"Since yesterday evening my fate has been sealed; to be loved by you or\nto die. There is no other way for me,\" the letter began. Then he went on\nto say that he knew her parents would not give her to him--for this\nthere were secret reasons he could reveal only to her--but that if she\nloved him she need only say the word yes, and no human power could\nhinder their bliss. Love would conquer all. He would steal her away and\ncarry her off to the ends of the earth.\n\n\"Yes, yes! I love him!\" thought Natasha, reading the letter for the\ntwentieth time and finding some peculiarly deep meaning in each word of\nit.\n\nThat evening Marya Dmitrievna was going to the Akharovs' and proposed to\ntake the girls with her. Natasha, pleading a headache, remained at home.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nOn returning late in the evening Sonya went to Natasha's room, and to\nher surprise found her still dressed and asleep on the sofa. Open on the\ntable, beside her lay Anatole's letter. Sonya picked it up and read it.\n\nAs she read she glanced at the sleeping Natasha, trying to find in her\nface an explanation of what she was reading, but did not find it. Her\nface was calm, gentle, and happy. Clutching her breast to keep herself\nfrom choking, Sonya, pale and trembling with fear and agitation, sat\ndown in an armchair and burst into tears.\n\n\"How was it I noticed nothing? How could it go so far? Can she have left\noff loving Prince Andrew? And how could she let Kuragin go to such\nlengths? He is a deceiver and a villain, that's plain! What will\nNicholas, dear noble Nicholas, do when he hears of it? So this is the\nmeaning of her excited, resolute, unnatural look the day before\nyesterday, yesterday, and today,\" thought Sonya. \"But it can't be that\nshe loves him! She probably opened the letter without knowing who it was\nfrom. Probably she is offended by it. She could not do such a thing!\"\n\nSonya wiped away her tears and went up to Natasha, again scanning her\nface.\n\n\"Natasha!\" she said, just audibly.\n\nNatasha awoke and saw Sonya.\n\n\"Ah, you're back?\"\n\nAnd with the decision and tenderness that often come at the moment of\nawakening, she embraced her friend, but noticing Sonya's look of\nembarrassment, her own face expressed confusion and suspicion.\n\n\"Sonya, you've read that letter?\" she demanded.\n\n\"Yes,\" answered Sonya softly.\n\nNatasha smiled rapturously.\n\n\"No, Sonya, I can't any longer!\" she said. \"I can't hide it from you any\nlonger. You know, we love one another! Sonya, darling, he writes...\nSonya...\"\n\nSonya stared open-eyed at Natasha, unable to believe her ears.\n\n\"And Bolkonski?\" she asked.\n\n\"Ah, Sonya, if you only knew how happy I am!\" cried Natasha. \"You don't\nknow what love is....\"\n\n\"But, Natasha, can that be all over?\"\n\nNatasha looked at Sonya with wide-open eyes as if she could not grasp\nthe question.\n\n\"Well, then, are you refusing Prince Andrew?\" said Sonya.\n\n\"Oh, you don't understand anything! Don't talk nonsense, just listen!\"\nsaid Natasha, with momentary vexation.\n\n\"But I can't believe it,\" insisted Sonya. \"I don't understand. How is it\nyou have loved a man for a whole year and suddenly... Why, you have only\nseen him three times! Natasha, I don't believe you, you're joking! In\nthree days to forget everything and so...\"\n\n\"Three days?\" said Natasha. \"It seems to me I've loved him a hundred\nyears. It seems to me that I have never loved anyone before. You can't\nunderstand it.... Sonya, wait a bit, sit here,\" and Natasha embraced and\nkissed her.\n\n\"I had heard that it happens like this, and you must have heard it too,\nbut it's only now that I feel such love. It's not the same as before. As\nsoon as I saw him I felt he was my master and I his slave, and that I\ncould not help loving him. Yes, his slave! Whatever he orders I shall\ndo. You don't understand that. What can I do? What can I do, Sonya?\"\ncried Natasha with a happy yet frightened expression.\n\n\"But think what you are doing,\" cried Sonya. \"I can't leave it like\nthis. This secret correspondence... How could you let him go so far?\"\nshe went on, with a horror and disgust she could hardly conceal.\n\n\"I told you that I have no will,\" Natasha replied. \"Why can't you\nunderstand? I love him!\"\n\n\"Then I won't let it come to that... I shall tell!\" cried Sonya,\nbursting into tears.\n\n\"What do you mean? For God's sake... If you tell, you are my enemy!\"\ndeclared Natasha. \"You want me to be miserable, you want us to be\nseparated....\"\n\nWhen she saw Natasha's fright, Sonya shed tears of shame and pity for\nher friend.\n\n\"But what has happened between you?\" she asked. \"What has he said to\nyou? Why doesn't he come to the house?\"\n\nNatasha did not answer her questions.\n\n\"For God's sake, Sonya, don't tell anyone, don't torture me,\" Natasha\nentreated. \"Remember no one ought to interfere in such matters! I have\nconfided in you....\"\n\n\"But why this secrecy? Why doesn't he come to the house?\" asked Sonya.\n\"Why doesn't he openly ask for your hand? You know Prince Andrew gave\nyou complete freedom--if it is really so; but I don't believe it!\nNatasha, have you considered what these secret reasons can be?\"\n\nNatasha looked at Sonya with astonishment. Evidently this question\npresented itself to her mind for the first time and she did not know how\nto answer it.\n\n\"I don't know what the reasons are. But there must be reasons!\"\n\nSonya sighed and shook her head incredulously.\n\n\"If there were reasons...\" she began.\n\nBut Natasha, guessing her doubts, interrupted her in alarm.\n\n\"Sonya, one can't doubt him! One can't, one can't! Don't you\nunderstand?\" she cried.\n\n\"Does he love you?\"\n\n\"Does he love me?\" Natasha repeated with a smile of pity at her friend's\nlack of comprehension. \"Why, you have read his letter and you have seen\nhim.\"\n\n\"But if he is dishonorable?\"\n\n\"He! dishonorable? If you only knew!\" exclaimed Natasha.\n\n\"If he is an honorable man he should either declare his intentions or\ncease seeing you; and if you won't do this, I will. I will write to him,\nand I will tell Papa!\" said Sonya resolutely.\n\n\"But I can't live without him!\" cried Natasha.\n\n\"Natasha, I don't understand you. And what are you saying! Think of your\nfather and of Nicholas.\"\n\n\"I don't want anyone, I don't love anyone but him. How dare you say he\nis dishonorable? Don't you know that I love him?\" screamed Natasha. \"Go\naway, Sonya! I don't want to quarrel with you, but go, for God's sake\ngo! You see how I am suffering!\" Natasha cried angrily, in a voice of\ndespair and repressed irritation. Sonya burst into sobs and ran from the\nroom.\n\nNatasha went to the table and without a moment's reflection wrote that\nanswer to Princess Mary which she had been unable to write all the\nmorning. In this letter she said briefly that all their\nmisunderstandings were at an end; that availing herself of the\nmagnanimity of Prince Andrew who when he went abroad had given her her\nfreedom, she begged Princess Mary to forget everything and forgive her\nif she had been to blame toward her, but that she could not be his wife.\nAt that moment this all seemed quite easy, simple, and clear to Natasha.\n\nOn Friday the Rostovs were to return to the country, but on Wednesday\nthe count went with the prospective purchaser to his estate near Moscow.\n\nOn the day the count left, Sonya and Natasha were invited to a big\ndinner party at the Karagins', and Marya Dmitrievna took them there. At\nthat party Natasha again met Anatole, and Sonya noticed that she spoke\nto him, trying not to be overheard, and that all through dinner she was\nmore agitated than ever. When they got home Natasha was the first to\nbegin the explanation Sonya expected.\n\n\"There, Sonya, you were talking all sorts of nonsense about him,\"\nNatasha began in a mild voice such as children use when they wish to be\npraised. \"We have had an explanation today.\"\n\n\"Well, what happened? What did he say? Natasha, how glad I am you're not\nangry with me! Tell me everything--the whole truth. What did he say?\"\n\nNatasha became thoughtful.\n\n\"Oh, Sonya, if you knew him as I do! He said... He asked me what I had\npromised Bolkonski. He was glad I was free to refuse him.\"\n\nSonya sighed sorrowfully.\n\n\"But you haven't refused Bolkonski?\" said she.\n\n\"Perhaps I have. Perhaps all is over between me and Bolkonski. Why do\nyou think so badly of me?\"\n\n\"I don't think anything, only I don't understand this...\"\n\n\"Wait a bit, Sonya, you'll understand everything. You'll see what a man\nhe is! Now don't think badly of me or of him. I don't think badly of\nanyone: I love and pity everybody. But what am I to do?\"\n\nSonya did not succumb to the tender tone Natasha used toward her. The\nmore emotional and ingratiating the expression of Natasha's face became,\nthe more serious and stern grew Sonya's.\n\n\"Natasha,\" said she, \"you asked me not to speak to you, and I haven't\nspoken, but now you yourself have begun. I don't trust him, Natasha. Why\nthis secrecy?\"\n\n\"Again, again!\" interrupted Natasha.\n\n\"Natasha, I am afraid for you!\"\n\n\"Afraid of what?\"\n\n\"I am afraid you're going to your ruin,\" said Sonya resolutely, and was\nherself horrified at what she had said.\n\nAnger again showed in Natasha's face.\n\n\"And I'll go to my ruin, I will, as soon as possible! It's not your\nbusiness! It won't be you, but I, who'll suffer. Leave me alone, leave\nme alone! I hate you!\"\n\n\"Natasha!\" moaned Sonya, aghast.\n\n\"I hate you, I hate you! You're my enemy forever!\" And Natasha ran out\nof the room.\n\nNatasha did not speak to Sonya again and avoided her. With the same\nexpression of agitated surprise and guilt she went about the house,\ntaking up now one occupation, now another, and at once abandoning them.\n\nHard as it was for Sonya, she watched her friend and did not let her out\nof her sight.\n\nThe day before the count was to return, Sonya noticed that Natasha sat\nby the drawing-room window all the morning as if expecting something and\nthat she made a sign to an officer who drove past, whom Sonya took to be\nAnatole.\n\nSonya began watching her friend still more attentively and noticed that\nat dinner and all that evening Natasha was in a strange and unnatural\nstate. She answered questions at random, began sentences she did not\nfinish, and laughed at everything.\n\nAfter tea Sonya noticed a housemaid at Natasha's door timidly waiting to\nlet her pass. She let the girl go in, and then listening at the door\nlearned that another letter had been delivered.\n\nThen suddenly it became clear to Sonya that Natasha had some dreadful\nplan for that evening. Sonya knocked at her door. Natasha did not let\nher in.\n\n\"She will run away with him!\" thought Sonya. \"She is capable of\nanything. There was something particularly pathetic and resolute in her\nface today. She cried as she said good-by to Uncle,\" Sonya remembered.\n\"Yes, that's it, she means to elope with him, but what am I to do?\"\nthought she, recalling all the signs that clearly indicated that Natasha\nhad some terrible intention. \"The count is away. What am I to do? Write\nto Kuragin demanding an explanation? But what is there to oblige him to\nreply? Write to Pierre, as Prince Andrew asked me to in case of some\nmisfortune?... But perhaps she really has already refused Bolkonski--she\nsent a letter to Princess Mary yesterday. And Uncle is away....\" To tell\nMarya Dmitrievna who had such faith in Natasha seemed to Sonya terrible.\n\"Well, anyway,\" thought Sonya as she stood in the dark passage, \"now or\nnever I must prove that I remember the family's goodness to me and that\nI love Nicholas. Yes! If I don't sleep for three nights I'll not leave\nthis passage and will hold her back by force and will and not let the\nfamily be disgraced,\" thought she.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nAnatole had lately moved to Dolokhov's. The plan for Natalie Rostova's\nabduction had been arranged and the preparations made by Dolokhov a few\ndays before, and on the day that Sonya, after listening at Natasha's\ndoor, resolved to safeguard her, it was to have been put into execution.\nNatasha had promised to come out to Kuragin at the back porch at ten\nthat evening. Kuragin was to put her into a troyka he would have ready\nand to drive her forty miles to the village of Kamenka, where an\nunfrocked priest was in readiness to perform a marriage ceremony over\nthem. At Kamenka a relay of horses was to wait which would take them to\nthe Warsaw highroad, and from there they would hasten abroad with post\nhorses.\n\nAnatole had a passport, an order for post horses, ten thousand rubles he\nhad taken from his sister and another ten thousand borrowed with\nDolokhov's help.\n\nTwo witnesses for the mock marriage--Khvostikov, a retired petty\nofficial whom Dolokhov made use of in his gambling transactions, and\nMakarin, a retired hussar, a kindly, weak fellow who had an unbounded\naffection for Kuragin--were sitting at tea in Dolokhov's front room.\n\nIn his large study, the walls of which were hung to the ceiling with\nPersian rugs, bearskins, and weapons, sat Dolokhov in a traveling cloak\nand high boots, at an open desk on which lay an abacus and some bundles of\npaper money. Anatole, with uniform unbuttoned, walked to and fro from\nthe room where the witnesses were sitting, through the study to the room\nbehind, where his French valet and others were packing the last of his\nthings. Dolokhov was counting the money and noting something down.\n\n\"Well,\" he said, \"Khvostikov must have two thousand.\"\n\n\"Give it to him, then,\" said Anatole.\n\n\"Makarka\" (their name for Makarin) \"will go through fire and water for\nyou for nothing. So here are our accounts all settled,\" said Dolokhov,\nshowing him the memorandum. \"Is that right?\"\n\n\"Yes, of course,\" returned Anatole, evidently not listening to Dolokhov\nand looking straight before him with a smile that did not leave his\nface.\n\nDolokhov banged down the lid of his desk and turned to Anatole with an\nironic smile:\n\n\"Do you know? You'd really better drop it all. There's still time!\"\n\n\"Fool,\" retorted Anatole. \"Don't talk nonsense! If you only knew... it's\nthe devil knows what!\"\n\n\"No, really, give it up!\" said Dolokhov. \"I am speaking seriously. It's\nno joke, this plot you've hatched.\"\n\n\"What, teasing again? Go to the devil! Eh?\" said Anatole, making a\ngrimace. \"Really it's no time for your stupid jokes,\" and he left the\nroom.\n\nDolokhov smiled contemptuously and condescendingly when Anatole had gone\nout.\n\n\"You wait a bit,\" he called after him. \"I'm not joking, I'm talking\nsense. Come here, come here!\"\n\nAnatole returned and looked at Dolokhov, trying to give him his\nattention and evidently submitting to him involuntarily.\n\n\"Now listen to me. I'm telling you this for the last time. Why should I\njoke about it? Did I hinder you? Who arranged everything for you? Who\nfound the priest and got the passport? Who raised the money? I did it\nall.\"\n\n\"Well, thank you for it. Do you think I am not grateful?\" And Anatole\nsighed and embraced Dolokhov.\n\n\"I helped you, but all the same I must tell you the truth; it is a\ndangerous business, and if you think about it--a stupid business. Well,\nyou'll carry her off--all right! Will they let it stop at that? It will\ncome out that you're already married. Why, they'll have you in the\ncriminal court....\"\n\n\"Oh, nonsense, nonsense!\" Anatole ejaculated and again made a grimace.\n\"Didn't I explain to you? What?\" And Anatole, with the partiality dull-\nwitted people have for any conclusion they have reached by their own\nreasoning, repeated the argument he had already put to Dolokhov a\nhundred times. \"Didn't I explain to you that I have come to this\nconclusion: if this marriage is invalid,\" he went on, crooking one\nfinger, \"then I have nothing to answer for; but if it is valid, no\nmatter! Abroad no one will know anything about it. Isn't that so? And\ndon't talk to me, don't, don't.\"\n\n\"Seriously, you'd better drop it! You'll only get yourself into a mess!\"\n\n\"Go to the devil!\" cried Anatole and, clutching his hair, left the room,\nbut returned at once and dropped into an armchair in front of Dolokhov\nwith his feet turned under him. \"It's the very devil! What? Feel how it\nbeats!\" He took Dolokhov's hand and put it on his heart. \"What a foot,\nmy dear fellow! What a glance! A goddess!\" he added in French. \"What?\"\n\nDolokhov with a cold smile and a gleam in his handsome insolent eyes\nlooked at him--evidently wishing to get some more amusement out of him.\n\n\"Well and when the money's gone, what then?\"\n\n\"What then? Eh?\" repeated Anatole, sincerely perplexed by a thought of\nthe future. \"What then?... Then, I don't know.... But why talk\nnonsense!\" He glanced at his watch. \"It's time!\"\n\nAnatole went into the back room.\n\n\"Now then! Nearly ready? You're dawdling!\" he shouted to the servants.\n\nDolokhov put away the money, called a footman whom he ordered to bring\nsomething for them to eat and drink before the journey, and went into\nthe room where Khvostikov and Makarin were sitting.\n\nAnatole lay on the sofa in the study leaning on his elbow and smiling\npensively, while his handsome lips muttered tenderly to himself.\n\n\"Come and eat something. Have a drink!\" Dolokhov shouted to him from the\nother room.\n\n\"I don't want to,\" answered Anatole continuing to smile.\n\n\"Come! Balaga is here.\"\n\nAnatole rose and went into the dining room. Balaga was a famous troyka\ndriver who had known Dolokhov and Anatole some six years and had given\nthem good service with his troykas. More than once when Anatole's\nregiment was stationed at Tver he had taken him from Tver in the\nevening, brought him to Moscow by daybreak, and driven him back again\nthe next night. More than once he had enabled Dolokhov to escape when\npursued. More than once he had driven them through the town with gypsies\nand \"ladykins\" as he called the cocottes. More than once in their\nservice he had run over pedestrians and upset vehicles in the streets of\nMoscow and had always been protected from the consequences by \"my\ngentlemen\" as he called them. He had ruined more than one horse in their\nservice. More than once they had beaten him, and more than once they had\nmade him drunk on champagne and Madeira, which he loved; and he knew\nmore than one thing about each of them which would long ago have sent an\nordinary man to Siberia. They often called Balaga into their orgies and\nmade him drink and dance at the gypsies', and more than one thousand\nrubles of their money had passed through his hands. In their service he\nrisked his skin and his life twenty times a year, and in their service\nhad lost more horses than the money he had from them would buy. But he\nliked them; liked that mad driving at twelve miles an hour, liked\nupsetting a driver or running down a pedestrian, and flying at full\ngallop through the Moscow streets. He liked to hear those wild, tipsy\nshouts behind him: \"Get on! Get on!\" when it was impossible to go any\nfaster. He liked giving a painful lash on the neck to some peasant who,\nmore dead than alive, was already hurrying out of his way. \"Real\ngentlemen!\" he considered them.\n\nAnatole and Dolokhov liked Balaga too for his masterly driving and\nbecause he liked the things they liked. With others Balaga bargained,\ncharging twenty-five rubles for a two hours' drive, and rarely drove\nhimself, generally letting his young men do so. But with \"his gentlemen\"\nhe always drove himself and never demanded anything for his work. Only a\ncouple of times a year--when he knew from their valets that they had\nmoney in hand--he would turn up of a morning quite sober and with a deep\nbow would ask them to help him. The gentlemen always made him sit down.\n\n\"Do help me out, Theodore Ivanych, sir,\" or \"your excellency,\" he would\nsay. \"I am quite out of horses. Let me have what you can to go to the\nfair.\"\n\nAnd Anatole and Dolokhov, when they had money, would give him a thousand\nor a couple of thousand rubles.\n\nBalaga was a fair-haired, short, and snub-nosed peasant of about twenty-\nseven; red-faced, with a particularly red thick neck, glittering little\neyes, and a small beard. He wore a fine, dark-blue, silk-lined cloth\ncoat over a sheepskin.\n\nOn entering the room now he crossed himself, turning toward the front\ncorner of the room, and went up to Dolokhov, holding out a small, black\nhand.\n\n\"Theodore Ivanych!\" he said, bowing.\n\n\"How d'you do, friend? Well, here he is!\"\n\n\"Good day, your excellency!\" he said, again holding out his hand to\nAnatole who had just come in.\n\n\"I say, Balaga,\" said Anatole, putting his hands on the man's shoulders,\n\"do you care for me or not? Eh? Now, do me a service.... What horses\nhave you come with? Eh?\"\n\n\"As your messenger ordered, your special beasts,\" replied Balaga.\n\n\"Well, listen, Balaga! Drive all three to death but get me there in\nthree hours. Eh?\"\n\n\"When they are dead, what shall I drive?\" said Balaga with a wink.\n\n\"Mind, I'll smash your face in! Don't make jokes!\" cried Anatole,\nsuddenly rolling his eyes.\n\n\"Why joke?\" said the driver, laughing. \"As if I'd grudge my gentlemen\nanything! As fast as ever the horses can gallop, so fast we'll go!\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said Anatole. \"Well, sit down.\"\n\n\"Yes, sit down!\" said Dolokhov.\n\n\"I'll stand, Theodore Ivanych.\"\n\n\"Sit down; nonsense! Have a drink!\" said Anatole, and filled a large\nglass of Madeira for him.\n\nThe driver's eyes sparkled at the sight of the wine. After refusing it\nfor manners' sake, he drank it and wiped his mouth with a red silk\nhandkerchief he took out of his cap.\n\n\"And when are we to start, your excellency?\"\n\n\"Well...\" Anatole looked at his watch. \"We'll start at once. Mind,\nBalaga! You'll get there in time? Eh?\"\n\n\"That depends on our luck in starting, else why shouldn't we be there in\ntime?\" replied Balaga. \"Didn't we get you to Tver in seven hours? I\nthink you remember that, your excellency?\"\n\n\"Do you know, one Christmas I drove from Tver,\" said Anatole, smilingly\nat the recollection and turning to Makarin who gazed rapturously at him\nwith wide-open eyes. \"Will you believe it, Makarka, it took one's breath\naway, the rate we flew. We came across a train of loaded sleighs and\ndrove right over two of them. Eh?\"\n\n\"Those were horses!\" Balaga continued the tale. \"That time I'd harnessed\ntwo young side horses with the bay in the shafts,\" he went on, turning\nto Dolokhov. \"Will you believe it, Theodore Ivanych, those animals flew\nforty miles? I couldn't hold them in, my hands grew numb in the sharp\nfrost so that I threw down the reins--'Catch hold yourself, your\nexcellency!' says I, and I just tumbled on the bottom of the sleigh and\nsprawled there. It wasn't a case of urging them on, there was no holding\nthem in till we reached the place. The devils took us there in three\nhours! Only the near one died of it.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nAnatole went out of the room and returned a few minutes later wearing a\nfur coat girt with a silver belt, and a sable cap jauntily set on one\nside and very becoming to his handsome face. Having looked in a mirror,\nand standing before Dolokhov in the same pose he had assumed before it,\nhe lifted a glass of wine.\n\n\"Well, good-by, Theodore. Thank you for everything and farewell!\" said\nAnatole. \"Well, comrades and friends...\" he considered for a moment\n\"...of my youth, farewell!\" he said, turning to Makarin and the others.\n\nThough they were all going with him, Anatole evidently wished to make\nsomething touching and solemn out of this address to his comrades. He\nspoke slowly in a loud voice and throwing out his chest slightly swayed\none leg.\n\n\"All take glasses; you too, Balaga. Well, comrades and friends of my\nyouth, we've had our fling and lived and reveled. Eh? And now, when\nshall we meet again? I am going abroad. We have had a good time--now\nfarewell, lads! To our health! Hurrah!...\" he cried, and emptying his\nglass flung it on the floor.\n\n\"To your health!\" said Balaga who also emptied his glass, and wiped his\nmouth with his handkerchief.\n\nMakarin embraced Anatole with tears in his eyes.\n\n\"Ah, Prince, how sorry I am to part from you!\n\n\"Let's go. Let's go!\" cried Anatole.\n\nBalaga was about to leave the room.\n\n\"No, stop!\" said Anatole. \"Shut the door; we have first to sit down.\nThat's the way.\"\n\nThey shut the door and all sat down.\n\n\"Now, quick march, lads!\" said Anatole, rising.\n\nJoseph, his valet, handed him his sabretache and saber, and they all\nwent out into the vestibule.\n\n\"And where's the fur cloak?\" asked Dolokhov. \"Hey, Ignatka! Go to\nMatrena Matrevna and ask her for the sable cloak. I have heard what\nelopements are like,\" continued Dolokhov with a wink. \"Why, she'll rush\nout more dead than alive just in the things she is wearing; if you delay\nat all there'll be tears and 'Papa' and 'Mamma,' and she's frozen in a\nminute and must go back--but you wrap the fur cloak round her first\nthing and carry her to the sleigh.\"\n\nThe valet brought a woman's fox-lined cloak.\n\n\"Fool, I told you the sable one! Hey, Matrena, the sable!\" he shouted so\nthat his voice rang far through the rooms.\n\nA handsome, slim, and pale-faced gypsy girl with glittering black eyes\nand curly blue-black hair, wearing a red shawl, ran out with a sable\nmantle on her arm.\n\n\"Here, I don't grudge it--take it!\" she said, evidently afraid of her\nmaster and yet regretful of her cloak.\n\nDolokhov, without answering, took the cloak, threw it over Matrena, and\nwrapped her up in it.\n\n\"That's the way,\" said Dolokhov, \"and then so!\" and he turned the collar\nup round her head, leaving only a little of the face uncovered. \"And\nthen so, do you see?\" and he pushed Anatole's head forward to meet the\ngap left by the collar, through which Matrena's brilliant smile was\nseen.\n\n\"Well, good-by, Matrena,\" said Anatole, kissing her. \"Ah, my revels here\nare over. Remember me to Steshka. There, good-by! Good-bye, Matrena,\nwish me luck!\"\n\n\"Well, Prince, may God give you great luck!\" said Matrena in her gypsy\naccent.\n\nTwo troykas were standing before the porch and two young drivers were\nholding the horses. Balaga took his seat in the front one and holding\nhis elbows high arranged the reins deliberately. Anatole and Dolokhov\ngot in with him. Makarin, Khvostikov, and a valet seated themselves in\nthe other sleigh.\n\n\"Well, are you ready?\" asked Balaga.\n\n\"Go!\" he cried, twisting the reins round his hands, and the troyka tore\ndown the Nikitski Boulevard.\n\n\"Tproo! Get out of the way! Hi!... Tproo!...\" The shouting of Balaga and\nof the sturdy young fellow seated on the box was all that could be\nheard. On the Arbat Square the troyka caught against a carriage;\nsomething cracked, shouts were heard, and the troyka flew along the\nArbat Street.\n\nAfter taking a turn along the Podnovinski Boulevard, Balaga began to\nrein in, and turning back drew up at the crossing of the old Konyusheny\nStreet.\n\nThe young fellow on the box jumped down to hold the horses and Anatole\nand Dolokhov went along the pavement. When they reached the gate\nDolokhov whistled. The whistle was answered, and a maidservant ran out.\n\n\"Come into the courtyard or you'll be seen; she'll come out directly,\"\nsaid she.\n\nDolokhov stayed by the gate. Anatole followed the maid into the\ncourtyard, turned the corner, and ran up into the porch.\n\nHe was met by Gabriel, Marya Dmitrievna's gigantic footman.\n\n\"Come to the mistress, please,\" said the footman in his deep bass,\nintercepting any retreat.\n\n\"To what Mistress? Who are you?\" asked Anatole in a breathless whisper.\n\n\"Kindly step in, my orders are to bring you in.\"\n\n\"Kuragin! Come back!\" shouted Dolokhov. \"Betrayed! Back!\"\n\nDolokhov, after Anatole entered, had remained at the wicket gate and was\nstruggling with the yard porter who was trying to lock it. With a last\ndesperate effort Dolokhov pushed the porter aside, and when Anatole ran\nback seized him by the arm, pulled him through the wicket, and ran back\nwith him to the troyka.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nMarya Dmitrievna, having found Sonya weeping in the corridor, made her\nconfess everything, and intercepting the note to Natasha she read it and\nwent into Natasha's room with it in her hand.\n\n\"You shameless good-for-nothing!\" said she. \"I won't hear a word.\"\n\nPushing back Natasha who looked at her with astonished but tearless\neyes, she locked her in; and having given orders to the yard porter to\nadmit the persons who would be coming that evening, but not to let them\nout again, and having told the footman to bring them up to her, she\nseated herself in the drawing room to await the abductors.\n\nWhen Gabriel came to inform her that the men who had come had run away\nagain, she rose frowning, and clasping her hands behind her paced\nthrough the rooms a long time considering what she should do. Toward\nmidnight she went to Natasha's room fingering the key in her pocket.\nSonya was sitting sobbing in the corridor. \"Marya Dmitrievna, for God's\nsake let me in to her!\" she pleaded, but Marya Dmitrievna unlocked the\ndoor and went in without giving her an answer.... \"Disgusting,\nabominable... In my house... horrid girl, hussy! I'm only sorry for her\nfather!\" thought she, trying to restrain her wrath. \"Hard as it may be,\nI'll tell them all to hold their tongues and will hide it from the\ncount.\" She entered the room with resolute steps. Natasha lying on the\nsofa, her head hidden in her hands, and she did not stir. She was in\njust the same position in which Marya Dmitrievna had left her.\n\n\"A nice girl! Very nice!\" said Marya Dmitrievna. \"Arranging meetings\nwith lovers in my house! It's no use pretending: you listen when I speak\nto you!\" And Marya Dmitrievna touched her arm. \"Listen when I speak!\nYou've disgraced yourself like the lowest of hussies. I'd treat you\ndifferently, but I'm sorry for your father, so I will conceal it.\"\n\nNatasha did not change her position, but her whole body heaved with\nnoiseless, convulsive sobs which choked her. Marya Dmitrievna glanced\nround at Sonya and seated herself on the sofa beside Natasha.\n\n\"It's lucky for him that he escaped me; but I'll find him!\" she said in\nher rough voice. \"Do you hear what I am saying or not?\" she added.\n\nShe put her large hand under Natasha's face and turned it toward her.\nBoth Marya Dmitrievna and Sonya were amazed when they saw how Natasha\nlooked. Her eyes were dry and glistening, her lips compressed, her\ncheeks sunken.\n\n\"Let me be!... What is it to me?... I shall die!\" she muttered,\nwrenching herself from Marya Dmitrievna's hands with a vicious effort\nand sinking down again into her former position.\n\n\"Natalie!\" said Marya Dmitrievna. \"I wish for your good. Lie still, stay\nlike that then, I won't touch you. But listen. I won't tell you how\nguilty you are. You know that yourself. But when your father comes back\ntomorrow what am I to tell him? Eh?\"\n\nAgain Natasha's body shook with sobs.\n\n\"Suppose he finds out, and your brother, and your betrothed?\"\n\n\"I have no betrothed: I have refused him!\" cried Natasha.\n\n\"That's all the same,\" continued Marya Dmitrievna. \"If they hear of\nthis, will they let it pass? He, your father, I know him... if he\nchallenges him to a duel will that be all right? Eh?\"\n\n\"Oh, let me be! Why have you interfered at all? Why? Why? Who asked you\nto?\" shouted Natasha, raising herself on the sofa and looking\nmalignantly at Marya Dmitrievna.\n\n\"But what did you want?\" cried Marya Dmitrievna, growing angry again.\n\"Were you kept under lock and key? Who hindered his coming to the house?\nWhy carry you off as if you were some gypsy singing girl?... Well, if he\nhad carried you off... do you think they wouldn't have found him? Your\nfather, or brother, or your betrothed? And he's a scoundrel, a wretch--\nthat's a fact!\"\n\n\"He is better than any of you!\" exclaimed Natasha getting up. \"If you\nhadn't interfered... Oh, my God! What is it all? What is it? Sonya,\nwhy?... Go away!\"\n\nAnd she burst into sobs with the despairing vehemence with which people\nbewail disasters they feel they have themselves occasioned. Marya\nDmitrievna was to speak again but Natasha cried out:\n\n\"Go away! Go away! You all hate and despise me!\" and she threw herself\nback on the sofa.\n\nMarya Dmitrievna went on admonishing her for some time, enjoining on her\nthat it must all be kept from her father and assuring her that nobody\nwould know anything about it if only Natasha herself would undertake to\nforget it all and not let anyone see that something had happened.\nNatasha did not reply, nor did she sob any longer, but she grew cold and\nhad a shivering fit. Marya Dmitrievna put a pillow under her head,\ncovered her with two quilts, and herself brought her some lime-flower\nwater, but Natasha did not respond to her.\n\n\"Well, let her sleep,\" said Marya Dmitrievna as she went out of the room\nsupposing Natasha to be asleep.\n\nBut Natasha was not asleep; with pale face and fixed wide-open eyes she\nlooked straight before her. All that night she did not sleep or weep and\ndid not speak to Sonya who got up and went to her several times.\n\nNext day Count Rostov returned from his estate near Moscow in time for\nlunch as he had promised. He was in very good spirits; the affair with\nthe purchaser was going on satisfactorily, and there was nothing to keep\nhim any longer in Moscow, away from the countess whom he missed. Marya\nDmitrievna met him and told him that Natasha had been very unwell the\nday before and that they had sent for the doctor, but that she was\nbetter now. Natasha had not left her room that morning. With compressed\nand parched lips and dry fixed eyes, she sat at the window, uneasily\nwatching the people who drove past and hurriedly glancing round at\nanyone who entered the room. She was evidently expecting news of him and\nthat he would come or would write to her.\n\nWhen the count came to see her she turned anxiously round at the sound\nof a man's footstep, and then her face resumed its cold and malevolent\nexpression. She did not even get up to greet him. \"What is the matter\nwith you, my angel? Are you ill?\" asked the count.\n\nAfter a moment's silence Natasha answered: \"Yes, ill.\"\n\nIn reply to the count's anxious inquiries as to why she was so dejected\nand whether anything had happened to her betrothed, she assured him that\nnothing had happened and asked him not to worry. Marya Dmitrievna\nconfirmed Natasha's assurances that nothing had happened. From the\npretense of illness, from his daughter's distress, and by the\nembarrassed faces of Sonya and Marya Dmitrievna, the count saw clearly\nthat something had gone wrong during his absence, but it was so terrible\nfor him to think that anything disgraceful had happened to his beloved\ndaughter, and he so prized his own cheerful tranquillity, that he\navoided inquiries and tried to assure himself that nothing particularly\nhad happened; and he was only dissatisfied that her indisposition\ndelayed their return to the country.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nFrom the day his wife arrived in Moscow Pierre had been intending to go\naway somewhere, so as not to be near her. Soon after the Rostovs came to\nMoscow the effect Natasha had on him made him hasten to carry out his\nintention. He went to Tver to see Joseph Alexeevich's widow, who had\nlong since promised to hand over to him some papers of her deceased\nhusband's.\n\nWhen he returned to Moscow Pierre was handed a letter from Marya\nDmitrievna asking him to come and see her on a matter of great\nimportance relating to Andrew Bolkonski and his betrothed. Pierre had\nbeen avoiding Natasha because it seemed to him that his feeling for her\nwas stronger than a married man's should be for his friend's fiancee.\nYet some fate constantly threw them together.\n\n\"What can have happened? And what can they want with me?\" thought he as\nhe dressed to go to Marya Dmitrievna's. \"If only Prince Andrew would\nhurry up and come and marry her!\" thought he on his way to the house.\n\nOn the Tverskoy Boulevard a familiar voice called to him.\n\n\"Pierre! Been back long?\" someone shouted. Pierre raised his head. In a\nsleigh drawn by two gray trotting-horses that were bespattering the\ndashboard with snow, Anatole and his constant companion Makarin dashed\npast. Anatole was sitting upright in the classic pose of military\ndandies, the lower part of his face hidden by his beaver collar and his\nhead slightly bent. His face was fresh and rosy, his white-plumed hat,\ntilted to one side, disclosed his curled and pomaded hair besprinkled\nwith powdery snow.\n\n\"Yes, indeed, that's a true sage,\" thought Pierre. \"He sees nothing\nbeyond the pleasure of the moment, nothing troubles him and so he is\nalways cheerful, satisfied, and serene. What wouldn't I give to be like\nhim!\" he thought enviously.\n\nIn Marya Dmitrievna's anteroom the footman who helped him off with his\nfur coat said that the mistress asked him to come to her bedroom.\n\nWhen he opened the ballroom door Pierre saw Natasha sitting at the\nwindow, with a thin, pale, and spiteful face. She glanced round at him,\nfrowned, and left the room with an expression of cold dignity.\n\n\"What has happened?\" asked Pierre, entering Marya Dmitrievna's room.\n\n\"Fine doings!\" answered Dmitrievna. \"For fifty-eight years have I lived\nin this world and never known anything so disgraceful!\"\n\nAnd having put him on his honor not to repeat anything she told him,\nMarya Dmitrievna informed him that Natasha had refused Prince Andrew\nwithout her parents' knowledge and that the cause of this was Anatole\nKuragin into whose society Pierre's wife had thrown her and with whom\nNatasha had tried to elope during her father's absence, in order to be\nmarried secretly.\n\nPierre raised his shoulders and listened open-mouthed to what was told\nhim, scarcely able to believe his own ears. That Prince Andrew's deeply\nloved affianced wife--the same Natasha Rostova who used to be so\ncharming--should give up Bolkonski for that fool Anatole who was already\nsecretly married (as Pierre knew), and should be so in love with him as\nto agree to run away with him, was something Pierre could not conceive\nand could not imagine.\n\nHe could not reconcile the charming impression he had of Natasha, whom\nhe had known from a child, with this new conception of her baseness,\nfolly, and cruelty. He thought of his wife. \"They are all alike!\" he\nsaid to himself, reflecting that he was not the only man unfortunate\nenough to be tied to a bad woman. But still he pitied Prince Andrew to\nthe point of tears and sympathized with his wounded pride, and the more\nhe pitied his friend the more did he think with contempt and even with\ndisgust of that Natasha who had just passed him in the ballroom with\nsuch a look of cold dignity. He did not know that Natasha's soul was\noverflowing with despair, shame, and humiliation, and that it was not\nher fault that her face happened to assume an expression of calm dignity\nand severity.\n\n\"But how get married?\" said Pierre, in answer to Marya Dmitrievna. \"He\ncould not marry--he is married!\"\n\n\"Things get worse from hour to hour!\" ejaculated Marya Dmitrievna. \"A\nnice youth! What a scoundrel! And she's expecting him--expecting him\nsince yesterday. She must be told! Then at least she won't go on\nexpecting him.\"\n\nAfter hearing the details of Anatole's marriage from Pierre, and giving\nvent to her anger against Anatole in words of abuse, Marya Dmitrievna\ntold Pierre why she had sent for him. She was afraid that the count or\nBolkonski, who might arrive at any moment, if they knew of this affair\n(which she hoped to hide from them) might challenge Anatole to a duel,\nand she therefore asked Pierre to tell his brother-in-law in her name to\nleave Moscow and not dare to let her set eyes on him again. Pierre--only\nnow realizing the danger to the old count, Nicholas, and Prince Andrew--\npromised to do as she wished. Having briefly and exactly explained her\nwishes to him, she let him go to the drawing room.\n\n\"Mind, the count knows nothing. Behave as if you know nothing either,\"\nshe said. \"And I will go and tell her it is no use expecting him! And\nstay to dinner if you care to!\" she called after Pierre.\n\nPierre met the old count, who seemed nervous and upset. That morning\nNatasha had told him that she had rejected Bolkonski.\n\n\"Troubles, troubles, my dear fellow!\" he said to Pierre. \"What troubles\none has with these girls without their mother! I do so regret having\ncome here.... I will be frank with you. Have you heard she has broken\noff her engagement without consulting anybody? It's true this engagement\nnever was much to my liking. Of course he is an excellent man, but\nstill, with his father's disapproval they wouldn't have been happy, and\nNatasha won't lack suitors. Still, it has been going on so long, and to\ntake such a step without father's or mother's consent! And now she's\nill, and God knows what! It's hard, Count, hard to manage daughters in\ntheir mother's absence....\"\n\nPierre saw that the count was much upset and tried to change the\nsubject, but the count returned to his troubles.\n\nSonya entered the room with an agitated face.\n\n\"Natasha is not quite well; she's in her room and would like to see you.\nMarya Dmitrievna is with her and she too asks you to come.\"\n\n\"Yes, you are a great friend of Bolkonski's, no doubt she wants to send\nhim a message,\" said the count. \"Oh dear! Oh dear! How happy it all\nwas!\"\n\nAnd clutching the spare gray locks on his temples the count left the\nroom.\n\nWhen Marya Dmitrievna told Natasha that Anatole was married, Natasha did\nnot wish to believe it and insisted on having it confirmed by Pierre\nhimself. Sonya told Pierre this as she led him along the corridor to\nNatasha's room.\n\nNatasha, pale and stern, was sitting beside Marya Dmitrievna, and her\neyes, glittering feverishly, met Pierre with a questioning look the\nmoment he entered. She did not smile or nod, but only gazed fixedly at\nhim, and her look asked only one thing: was he a friend, or like the\nothers an enemy in regard to Anatole? As for Pierre, he evidently did\nnot exist for her.\n\n\"He knows all about it,\" said Marya Dmitrievna pointing to Pierre and\naddressing Natasha. \"Let him tell you whether I have told the truth.\"\n\nNatasha looked from one to the other as a hunted and wounded animal\nlooks at the approaching dogs and sportsmen.\n\n\"Natalya Ilynichna,\" Pierre began, dropping his eyes with a feeling of\npity for her and loathing for the thing he had to do, \"whether it is\ntrue or not should make no difference to you, because...\"\n\n\"Then it is not true that he's married!\"\n\n\"Yes, it is true.\"\n\n\"Has he been married long?\" she asked. \"On your honor?...\"\n\nPierre gave his word of honor.\n\n\"Is he still here?\" she asked, quickly.\n\n\"Yes, I have just seen him.\"\n\nShe was evidently unable to speak and made a sign with her hands that\nthey should leave her alone.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nPierre did not stay for dinner, but left the room and went away at once.\nHe drove through the town seeking Anatole Kuragin, at the thought of\nwhom now the blood rushed to his heart and he felt a difficulty in\nbreathing. He was not at the ice hills, nor at the gypsies', nor at\nKomoneno's. Pierre drove to the club. In the club all was going on as\nusual. The members who were assembling for dinner were sitting about in\ngroups; they greeted Pierre and spoke of the town news. The footman\nhaving greeted him, knowing his habits and his acquaintances, told him\nthere was a place left for him in the small dining room and that Prince\nMichael Zakharych was in the library, but Paul Timofeevich had not yet\narrived. One of Pierre's acquaintances, while they were talking about\nthe weather, asked if he had heard of Kuragin's abduction of Rostova\nwhich was talked of in the town, and was it true? Pierre laughed and\nsaid it was nonsense for he had just come from the Rostovs'. He asked\neveryone about Anatole. One man told him he had not come yet, and\nanother that he was coming to dinner. Pierre felt it strange to see this\ncalm, indifferent crowd of people unaware of what was going on in his\nsoul. He paced through the ballroom, waited till everyone had come, and\nas Anatole had not turned up did not stay for dinner but drove home.\n\nAnatole, for whom Pierre was looking, dined that day with Dolokhov,\nconsulting him as to how to remedy this unfortunate affair. It seemed to\nhim essential to see Natasha. In the evening he drove to his sister's to\ndiscuss with her how to arrange a meeting. When Pierre returned home\nafter vainly hunting all over Moscow, his valet informed him that Prince\nAnatole was with the countess. The countess' drawing room was full of\nguests.\n\nPierre without greeting his wife whom he had not seen since his return--\nat that moment she was more repulsive to him than ever--entered the\ndrawing room and seeing Anatole went up to him.\n\n\"Ah, Pierre,\" said the countess going up to her husband. \"You don't know\nwhat a plight our Anatole...\"\n\nShe stopped, seeing in the forward thrust of her husband's head, in his\nglowing eyes and his resolute gait, the terrible indications of that\nrage and strength which she knew and had herself experienced after his\nduel with Dolokhov.\n\n\"Where you are, there is vice and evil!\" said Pierre to his wife.\n\"Anatole, come with me! I must speak to you,\" he added in French.\n\nAnatole glanced round at his sister and rose submissively, ready to\nfollow Pierre. Pierre, taking him by the arm, pulled him toward himself\nand was leading him from the room.\n\n\"If you allow yourself in my drawing room...\" whispered Helene, but\nPierre did not reply and went out of the room.\n\nAnatole followed him with his usual jaunty step but his face betrayed\nanxiety.\n\nHaving entered his study Pierre closed the door and addressed Anatole\nwithout looking at him.\n\n\"You promised Countess Rostova to marry her and were about to elope with\nher, is that so?\"\n\n\"Mon cher,\" answered Anatole (their whole conversation was in French),\n\"I don't consider myself bound to answer questions put to me in that\ntone.\"\n\nPierre's face, already pale, became distorted by fury. He seized Anatole\nby the collar of his uniform with his big hand and shook him from side\nto side till Anatole's face showed a sufficient degree of terror.\n\n\"When I tell you that I must talk to you!...\" repeated Pierre.\n\n\"Come now, this is stupid. What?\" said Anatole, fingering a button of\nhis collar that had been wrenched loose with a bit of the cloth.\n\n\"You're a scoundrel and a blackguard, and I don't know what deprives me\nfrom the pleasure of smashing your head with this!\" said Pierre,\nexpressing himself so artificially because he was talking French.\n\nHe took a heavy paperweight and lifted it threateningly, but at once put\nit back in its place.\n\n\"Did you promise to marry her?\"\n\n\"I... I didn't think of it. I never promised, because...\"\n\nPierre interrupted him.\n\n\"Have you any letters of hers? Any letters?\" he said, moving toward\nAnatole.\n\nAnatole glanced at him and immediately thrust his hand into his pocket\nand drew out his pocketbook.\n\nPierre took the letter Anatole handed him and, pushing aside a table\nthat stood in his way, threw himself on the sofa.\n\n\"I shan't be violent, don't be afraid!\" said Pierre in answer to a\nfrightened gesture of Anatole's. \"First, the letters,\" said he, as if\nrepeating a lesson to himself. \"Secondly,\" he continued after a short\npause, again rising and again pacing the room, \"tomorrow you must get\nout of Moscow.\"\n\n\"But how can I?...\"\n\n\"Thirdly,\" Pierre continued without listening to him, \"you must never\nbreathe a word of what has passed between you and Countess Rostova. I\nknow I can't prevent your doing so, but if you have a spark of\nconscience...\" Pierre paced the room several times in silence.\n\nAnatole sat at a table frowning and biting his lips.\n\n\"After all, you must understand that besides your pleasure there is such\na thing as other people's happiness and peace, and that you are ruining\na whole life for the sake of amusing yourself! Amuse yourself with women\nlike my wife--with them you are within your rights, for they know what\nyou want of them. They are armed against you by the same experience of\ndebauchery; but to promise a maid to marry her... to deceive, to\nkidnap.... Don't you understand that it is as mean as beating an old man\nor a child?...\"\n\nPierre paused and looked at Anatole no longer with an angry but with a\nquestioning look.\n\n\"I don't know about that, eh?\" said Anatole, growing more confident as\nPierre mastered his wrath. \"I don't know that and don't want to,\" he\nsaid, not looking at Pierre and with a slight tremor of his lower jaw,\n\"but you have used such words to me--'mean' and so on--which as a man of\nhonor I can't allow anyone to use.\"\n\nPierre glanced at him with amazement, unable to understand what he\nwanted.\n\n\"Though it was tête-à-tête,\" Anatole continued, \"still I can't...\"\n\n\"Is it satisfaction you want?\" said Pierre ironically.\n\n\"You could at least take back your words. What? If you want me to do as\nyou wish, eh?\"\n\n\"I take them back, I take them back!\" said Pierre, \"and I ask you to\nforgive me.\" Pierre involuntarily glanced at the loose button. \"And if\nyou require money for your journey...\"\n\nAnatole smiled. The expression of that base and cringing smile, which\nPierre knew so well in his wife, revolted him.\n\n\"Oh, vile and heartless brood!\" he exclaimed, and left the room.\n\nNext day Anatole left for Petersburg.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nPierre drove to Marya Dmitrievna's to tell her of the fulfillment of her\nwish that Kuragin should be banished from Moscow. The whole house was in\na state of alarm and commotion. Natasha was very ill, having, as Marya\nDmitrievna told him in secret, poisoned herself the night after she had\nbeen told that Anatole was married, with some arsenic she had stealthily\nprocured. After swallowing a little she had been so frightened that she\nwoke Sonya and told her what she had done. The necessary antidotes had\nbeen administered in time and she was now out of danger, though still so\nweak that it was out of the question to move her to the country, and so\nthe countess had been sent for. Pierre saw the distracted count, and\nSonya, who had a tear-stained face, but he could not see Natasha.\n\nPierre dined at the club that day and heard on all sides gossip about\nthe attempted abduction of Rostova. He resolutely denied these rumors,\nassuring everyone that nothing had happened except that his brother-in-\nlaw had proposed to her and been refused. It seemed to Pierre that it\nwas his duty to conceal the whole affair and re-establish Natasha's\nreputation.\n\nHe was awaiting Prince Andrew's return with dread and went every day to\nthe old prince's for news of him.\n\nOld Prince Bolkonski heard all the rumors current in the town from\nMademoiselle Bourienne and had read the note to Princess Mary in which\nNatasha had broken off her engagement. He seemed in better spirits than\nusual and awaited his son with great impatience.\n\nSome days after Anatole's departure Pierre received a note from Prince\nAndrew, informing him of his arrival and asking him to come to see him.\n\nAs soon as he reached Moscow, Prince Andrew had received from his father\nNatasha's note to Princess Mary breaking off her engagement\n(Mademoiselle Bourienne had purloined it from Princess Mary and given it\nto the old prince), and he heard from him the story of Natasha's\nelopement, with additions.\n\nPrince Andrew had arrived in the evening and Pierre came to see him next\nmorning. Pierre expected to find Prince Andrew in almost the same state\nas Natasha and was therefore surprised on entering the drawing room to\nhear him in the study talking in a loud animated voice about some\nintrigue going on in Petersburg. The old prince's voice and another now\nand then interrupted him. Princess Mary came out to meet Pierre. She\nsighed, looking toward the door of the room where Prince Andrew was,\nevidently intending to express her sympathy with his sorrow, but Pierre\nsaw by her face that she was glad both at what had happened and at the\nway her brother had taken the news of Natasha's faithlessness.\n\n\"He says he expected it,\" she remarked. \"I know his pride will not let\nhim express his feelings, but still he has taken it better, far better,\nthan I expected. Evidently it had to be....\"\n\n\"But is it possible that all is really ended?\" asked Pierre.\n\nPrincess Mary looked at him with astonishment. She did not understand\nhow he could ask such a question. Pierre went into the study. Prince\nAndrew, greatly changed and plainly in better health, but with a fresh\nhorizontal wrinkle between his brows, stood in civilian dress facing his\nfather and Prince Meshcherski, warmly disputing and vigorously\ngesticulating. The conversation was about Speranski--the news of whose\nsudden exile and alleged treachery had just reached Moscow.\n\n\"Now he is censured and accused by all who were enthusiastic about him a\nmonth ago,\" Prince Andrew was saying, \"and by those who were unable to\nunderstand his aims. To judge a man who is in disfavor and to throw on\nhim all the blame of other men's mistakes is very easy, but I maintain\nthat if anything good has been accomplished in this reign it was done by\nhim, by him alone.\"\n\nHe paused at the sight of Pierre. His face quivered and immediately\nassumed a vindictive expression.\n\n\"Posterity will do him justice,\" he concluded, and at once turned to\nPierre.\n\n\"Well, how are you? Still getting stouter?\" he said with animation, but\nthe new wrinkle on his forehead deepened. \"Yes, I am well,\" he said in\nanswer to Pierre's question, and smiled.\n\nTo Pierre that smile said plainly: \"I am well, but my health is now of\nno use to anyone.\"\n\nAfter a few words to Pierre about the awful roads from the Polish\nfrontier, about people he had met in Switzerland who knew Pierre, and\nabout M. Dessalles, whom he had brought from abroad to be his son's\ntutor, Prince Andrew again joined warmly in the conversation about\nSperanski which was still going on between the two old men.\n\n\"If there were treason, or proofs of secret relations with Napoleon,\nthey would have been made public,\" he said with warmth and haste. \"I do\nnot, and never did, like Speranski personally, but I like justice!\"\n\nPierre now recognized in his friend a need with which he was only too\nfamiliar, to get excited and to have arguments about extraneous matters\nin order to stifle thoughts that were too oppressive and too intimate.\nWhen Prince Meshcherski had left, Prince Andrew took Pierre's arm and\nasked him into the room that had been assigned him. A bed had been made\nup there, and some open portmanteaus and trunks stood about. Prince\nAndrew went to one and took out a small casket, from which he drew a\npacket wrapped in paper. He did it all silently and very quickly. He\nstood up and coughed. His face was gloomy and his lips compressed.\n\n\"Forgive me for troubling you...\"\n\nPierre saw that Prince Andrew was going to speak of Natasha, and his\nbroad face expressed pity and sympathy. This expression irritated Prince\nAndrew, and in a determined, ringing, and unpleasant tone he continued:\n\n\"I have received a refusal from Countess Rostova and have heard reports\nof your brother-in-law having sought her hand, or something of that\nkind. Is that true?\"\n\n\"Both true and untrue,\" Pierre began; but Prince Andrew interrupted him.\n\n\"Here are her letters and her portrait,\" said he.\n\nHe took the packet from the table and handed it to Pierre.\n\n\"Give this to the countess... if you see her.\"\n\n\"She is very ill,\" said Pierre.\n\n\"Then she is here still?\" said Prince Andrew. \"And Prince Kuragin?\" he\nadded quickly.\n\n\"He left long ago. She has been at death's door.\"\n\n\"I much regret her illness,\" said Prince Andrew; and he smiled like his\nfather, coldly, maliciously, and unpleasantly.\n\n\"So Monsieur Kuragin has not honored Countess Rostova with his hand?\"\nsaid Prince Andrew, and he snorted several times.\n\n\"He could not marry, for he was married already,\" said Pierre.\n\nPrince Andrew laughed disagreeably, again reminding one of his father.\n\n\"And where is your brother-in-law now, if I may ask?\" he said.\n\n\"He has gone to Peters... But I don't know,\" said Pierre.\n\n\"Well, it doesn't matter,\" said Prince Andrew. \"Tell Countess Rostova\nthat she was and is perfectly free and that I wish her all that is\ngood.\"\n\nPierre took the packet. Prince Andrew, as if trying to remember whether\nhe had something more to say, or waiting to see if Pierre would say\nanything, looked fixedly at him.\n\n\"I say, do you remember our discussion in Petersburg?\" asked Pierre,\n\"about...\"\n\n\"Yes,\" returned Prince Andrew hastily. \"I said that a fallen woman\nshould be forgiven, but I didn't say I could forgive her. I can't.\"\n\n\"But can this be compared...?\" said Pierre.\n\nPrince Andrew interrupted him and cried sharply: \"Yes, ask her hand\nagain, be magnanimous, and so on?... Yes, that would be very noble, but\nI am unable to follow in that gentleman's footsteps. If you wish to be\nmy friend never speak to me of that... of all that! Well, good-by. So\nyou'll give her the packet?\"\n\nPierre left the room and went to the old prince and Princess Mary.\n\nThe old man seemed livelier than usual. Princess Mary was the same as\nalways, but beneath her sympathy for her brother, Pierre noticed her\nsatisfaction that the engagement had been broken off. Looking at them\nPierre realized what contempt and animosity they all felt for the\nRostovs, and that it was impossible in their presence even to mention\nthe name of her who could give up Prince Andrew for anyone else.\n\nAt dinner the talk turned on the war, the approach of which was becoming\nevident. Prince Andrew talked incessantly, arguing now with his father,\nnow with the Swiss tutor Dessalles, and showing an unnatural animation,\nthe cause of which Pierre so well understood.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nThat same evening Pierre went to the Rostovs' to fulfill the commission\nentrusted to him. Natasha was in bed, the count at the club, and Pierre,\nafter giving the letters to Sonya, went to Marya Dmitrievna who was\ninterested to know how Prince Andrew had taken the news. Ten minutes\nlater Sonya came to Marya Dmitrievna.\n\n\"Natasha insists on seeing Count Peter Kirilovich,\" said she.\n\n\"But how? Are we to take him up to her? The room there has not been\ntidied up.\"\n\n\"No, she has dressed and gone into the drawing room,\" said Sonya.\n\nMarya Dmitrievna only shrugged her shoulders.\n\n\"When will her mother come? She has worried me to death! Now mind, don't\ntell her everything!\" said she to Pierre. \"One hasn't the heart to scold\nher, she is so much to be pitied, so much to be pitied.\"\n\nNatasha was standing in the middle of the drawing room, emaciated, with\na pale set face, but not at all shamefaced as Pierre expected to find\nher. When he appeared at the door she grew flurried, evidently undecided\nwhether to go to meet him or to wait till he came up.\n\nPierre hastened to her. He thought she would give him her hand as usual;\nbut she, stepping up to him, stopped, breathing heavily, her arms\nhanging lifelessly just in the pose she used to stand in when she went\nto the middle of the ballroom to sing, but with quite a different\nexpression of face.\n\n\"Peter Kirilovich,\" she began rapidly, \"Prince Bolkonski was your\nfriend--is your friend,\" she corrected herself. (It seemed to her that\neverything that had once been must now be different.) \"He told me once\nto apply to you...\"\n\nPierre sniffed as he looked at her, but did not speak. Till then he had\nreproached her in his heart and tried to despise her, but he now felt so\nsorry for her that there was no room in his soul for reproach.\n\n\"He is here now: tell him... to for... forgive me!\" She stopped and\nbreathed still more quickly, but did not shed tears.\n\n\"Yes... I will tell him,\" answered Pierre; \"but...\"\n\nHe did not know what to say.\n\nNatasha was evidently dismayed at the thought of what he might think she\nhad meant.\n\n\"No, I know all is over,\" she said hurriedly. \"No, that can never be.\nI'm only tormented by the wrong I have done him. Tell him only that I\nbeg him to forgive, forgive, forgive me for everything....\"\n\nShe trembled all over and sat down on a chair.\n\nA sense of pity he had never before known overflowed Pierre's heart.\n\n\"I will tell him, I will tell him everything once more,\" said Pierre.\n\"But... I should like to know one thing....\"\n\n\"Know what?\" Natasha's eyes asked.\n\n\"I should like to know, did you love...\" Pierre did not know how to\nrefer to Anatole and flushed at the thought of him--\"did you love that\nbad man?\"\n\n\"Don't call him bad!\" said Natasha. \"But I don't know, don't know at\nall....\"\n\nShe began to cry and a still greater sense of pity, tenderness, and love\nwelled up in Pierre. He felt the tears trickle under his spectacles and\nhoped they would not be noticed.\n\n\"We won't speak of it any more, my dear,\" said Pierre, and his gentle,\ncordial tone suddenly seemed very strange to Natasha.\n\n\"We won't speak of it, my dear--I'll tell him everything; but one thing\nI beg of you, consider me your friend and if you want help, advice, or\nsimply to open your heart to someone--not now, but when your mind is\nclearer think of me!\" He took her hand and kissed it. \"I shall be happy\nif it's in my power...\"\n\nPierre grew confused.\n\n\"Don't speak to me like that. I am not worth it!\" exclaimed Natasha and\nturned to leave the room, but Pierre held her hand.\n\nHe knew he had something more to say to her. But when he said it he was\namazed at his own words.\n\n\"Stop, stop! You have your whole life before you,\" said he to her.\n\n\n\"Before me? No! All is over for me,\" she replied with shame and self-\nabasement.\n\n\"All over?\" he repeated. \"If I were not myself, but the handsomest,\ncleverest, and best man in the world, and were free, I would this moment\nask on my knees for your hand and your love!\"\n\nFor the first time for many days Natasha wept tears of gratitude and\ntenderness, and glancing at Pierre she went out of the room.\n\nPierre too when she had gone almost ran into the anteroom, restraining\ntears of tenderness and joy that choked him, and without finding the\nsleeves of his fur cloak threw it on and got into his sleigh.\n\n\"Where to now, your excellency?\" asked the coachman.\n\n\"Where to?\" Pierre asked himself. \"Where can I go now? Surely not to the\nclub or to pay calls?\" All men seemed so pitiful, so poor, in comparison\nwith this feeling of tenderness and love he experienced: in comparison\nwith that softened, grateful, last look she had given him through her\ntears.\n\n\"Home!\" said Pierre, and despite twenty-two degrees of frost Fahrenheit\nhe threw open the bearskin cloak from his broad chest and inhaled the\nair with joy.\n\nIt was clear and frosty. Above the dirty, ill-lit streets, above the\nblack roofs, stretched the dark starry sky. Only looking up at the sky\ndid Pierre cease to feel how sordid and humiliating were all mundane\nthings compared with the heights to which his soul had just been raised.\nAt the entrance to the Arbat Square an immense expanse of dark starry\nsky presented itself to his eyes. Almost in the center of it, above the\nPrechistenka Boulevard, surrounded and sprinkled on all sides by stars\nbut distinguished from them all by its nearness to the earth, its white\nlight, and its long uplifted tail, shone the enormous and brilliant\ncomet of 1812--the comet which was said to portend all kinds of woes and\nthe end of the world. In Pierre, however, that comet with its long\nluminous tail aroused no feeling of fear. On the contrary he gazed\njoyfully, his eyes moist with tears, at this bright comet which, having\ntraveled in its orbit with inconceivable velocity through immeasurable\nspace, seemed suddenly--like an arrow piercing the earth--to remain\nfixed in a chosen spot, vigorously holding its tail erect, shining and\ndisplaying its white light amid countless other scintillating stars. It\nseemed to Pierre that this comet fully responded to what was passing in\nhis own softened and uplifted soul, now blossoming into a new life.\n\nBOOK NINE: 1812\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nFrom the close of the year 1811 intensified arming and concentrating of\nthe forces of Western Europe began, and in 1812 these forces--millions\nof men, reckoning those transporting and feeding the army--moved from\nthe west eastwards to the Russian frontier, toward which since 1811\nRussian forces had been similarly drawn. On the twelfth of June, 1812,\nthe forces of Western Europe crossed the Russian frontier and war began,\nthat is, an event took place opposed to human reason and to human\nnature. Millions of men perpetrated against one another such innumerable\ncrimes, frauds, treacheries, thefts, forgeries, issues of false money,\nburglaries, incendiarisms, and murders as in whole centuries are not\nrecorded in the annals of all the law courts of the world, but which\nthose who committed them did not at the time regard as being crimes.\n\nWhat produced this extraordinary occurrence? What were its causes? The\nhistorians tell us with naive assurance that its causes were the wrongs\ninflicted on the Duke of Oldenburg, the nonobservance of the Continental\nSystem, the ambition of Napoleon, the firmness of Alexander, the\nmistakes of the diplomatists, and so on.\n\nConsequently, it would only have been necessary for Metternich,\nRumyantsev, or Talleyrand, between a levee and an evening party, to have\ntaken proper pains and written a more adroit note, or for Napoleon to\nhave written to Alexander: \"My respected Brother, I consent to restore\nthe duchy to the Duke of Oldenburg\"--and there would have been no war.\n\nWe can understand that the matter seemed like that to contemporaries. It\nnaturally seemed to Napoleon that the war was caused by England's\nintrigues (as in fact he said on the island of St. Helena). It naturally\nseemed to members of the English Parliament that the cause of the war\nwas Napoleon's ambition; to the Duke of Oldenburg, that the cause of the\nwar was the violence done to him; to businessmen that the cause of the\nwar was the Continental System which was ruining Europe; to the generals\nand old soldiers that the chief reason for the war was the necessity of\ngiving them employment; to the legitimists of that day that it was the\nneed of re-establishing les bons principes, and to the diplomatists of\nthat time that it all resulted from the fact that the alliance between\nRussia and Austria in 1809 had not been sufficiently well concealed from\nNapoleon, and from the awkward wording of Memorandum No. 178. It is\nnatural that these and a countless and infinite quantity of other\nreasons, the number depending on the endless diversity of points of\nview, presented themselves to the men of that day; but to us, to\nposterity who view the thing that happened in all its magnitude and\nperceive its plain and terrible meaning, these causes seem insufficient.\nTo us it is incomprehensible that millions of Christian men killed and\ntortured each other either because Napoleon was ambitious or Alexander\nwas firm, or because England's policy was astute or the Duke of\nOldenburg wronged. We cannot grasp what connection such circumstances\nhave with the actual fact of slaughter and violence: why because the\nDuke was wronged, thousands of men from the other side of Europe killed\nand ruined the people of Smolensk and Moscow and were killed by them.\n\nTo us, their descendants, who are not historians and are not carried\naway by the process of research and can therefore regard the event with\nunclouded common sense, an incalculable number of causes present\nthemselves. The deeper we delve in search of these causes the more of\nthem we find; and each separate cause or whole series of causes appears\nto us equally valid in itself and equally false by its insignificance\ncompared to the magnitude of the events, and by its impotence--apart\nfrom the cooperation of all the other coincident causes--to occasion the\nevent. To us, the wish or objection of this or that French corporal to\nserve a second term appears as much a cause as Napoleon's refusal to\nwithdraw his troops beyond the Vistula and to restore the duchy of\nOldenburg; for had he not wished to serve, and had a second, a third,\nand a thousandth corporal and private also refused, there would have\nbeen so many less men in Napoleon's army and the war could not have\noccurred.\n\nHad Napoleon not taken offense at the demand that he should withdraw\nbeyond the Vistula, and not ordered his troops to advance, there would\nhave been no war; but had all his sergeants objected to serving a second\nterm then also there could have been no war. Nor could there have been a\nwar had there been no English intrigues and no Duke of Oldenburg, and\nhad Alexander not felt insulted, and had there not been an autocratic\ngovernment in Russia, or a Revolution in France and a subsequent\ndictatorship and Empire, or all the things that produced the French\nRevolution, and so on. Without each of these causes nothing could have\nhappened. So all these causes--myriads of causes--coincided to bring it\nabout. And so there was no one cause for that occurrence, but it had to\noccur because it had to. Millions of men, renouncing their human\nfeelings and reason, had to go from west to east to slay their fellows,\njust as some centuries previously hordes of men had come from the east\nto the west, slaying their fellows.\n\nThe actions of Napoleon and Alexander, on whose words the event seemed\nto hang, were as little voluntary as the actions of any soldier who was\ndrawn into the campaign by lot or by conscription. This could not be\notherwise, for in order that the will of Napoleon and Alexander (on whom\nthe event seemed to depend) should be carried out, the concurrence of\ninnumerable circumstances was needed without any one of which the event\ncould not have taken place. It was necessary that millions of men in\nwhose hands lay the real power--the soldiers who fired, or transported\nprovisions and guns--should consent to carry out the will of these weak\nindividuals, and should have been induced to do so by an infinite number\nof diverse and complex causes.\n\nWe are forced to fall back on fatalism as an explanation of irrational\nevents (that is to say, events the reasonableness of which we do not\nunderstand). The more we try to explain such events in history\nreasonably, the more unreasonable and incomprehensible do they become to\nus.\n\nEach man lives for himself, using his freedom to attain his personal\naims, and feels with his whole being that he can now do or abstain from\ndoing this or that action; but as soon as he has done it, that action\nperformed at a certain moment in time becomes irrevocable and belongs to\nhistory, in which it has not a free but a predestined significance.\n\nThere are two sides to the life of every man, his individual life, which\nis the more free the more abstract its interests, and his elemental hive\nlife in which he inevitably obeys laws laid down for him.\n\nMan lives consciously for himself, but is an unconscious instrument in\nthe attainment of the historic, universal, aims of humanity. A deed done\nis irrevocable, and its result coinciding in time with the actions of\nmillions of other men assumes an historic significance. The higher a man\nstands on the social ladder, the more people he is connected with and\nthe more power he has over others, the more evident is the\npredestination and inevitability of his every action.\n\n\"The king's heart is in the hands of the Lord.\"\n\nA king is history's slave.\n\nHistory, that is, the unconscious, general, hive life of mankind, uses\nevery moment of the life of kings as a tool for its own purposes.\n\nThough Napoleon at that time, in 1812, was more convinced than ever that\nit depended on him, verser (ou ne pas verser) le sang de ses peuples *--\nas Alexander expressed it in the last letter he wrote him--he had never\nbeen so much in the grip of inevitable laws, which compelled him, while\nthinking that he was acting on his own volition, to perform for the hive\nlife--that is to say, for history--whatever had to be performed.\n\n\n* \"To shed (or not to shed) the blood of his peoples.\"\n\nThe people of the west moved eastwards to slay their fellow men, and by\nthe law of coincidence thousands of minute causes fitted in and co-\nordinated to produce that movement and war: reproaches for the\nnonobservance of the Continental System, the Duke of Oldenburg's wrongs,\nthe movement of troops into Prussia--undertaken (as it seemed to\nNapoleon) only for the purpose of securing an armed peace, the French\nEmperor's love and habit of war coinciding with his people's\ninclinations, allurement by the grandeur of the preparations, and the\nexpenditure on those preparations and the need of obtaining advantages\nto compensate for that expenditure, the intoxicating honors he received\nin Dresden, the diplomatic negotiations which, in the opinion of\ncontemporaries, were carried on with a sincere desire to attain peace,\nbut which only wounded the self-love of both sides, and millions of\nother causes that adapted themselves to the event that was happening or\ncoincided with it.\n\nWhen an apple has ripened and falls, why does it fall? Because of its\nattraction to the earth, because its stalk withers, because it is dried\nby the sun, because it grows heavier, because the wind shakes it, or\nbecause the boy standing below wants to eat it?\n\nNothing is the cause. All this is only the coincidence of conditions in\nwhich all vital organic and elemental events occur. And the botanist who\nfinds that the apple falls because the cellular tissue decays and so\nforth is equally right with the child who stands under the tree and says\nthe apple fell because he wanted to eat it and prayed for it. Equally\nright or wrong is he who says that Napoleon went to Moscow because he\nwanted to, and perished because Alexander desired his destruction, and\nhe who says that an undermined hill weighing a million tons fell because\nthe last navvy struck it for the last time with his mattock. In historic\nevents the so-called great men are labels giving names to events, and\nlike labels they have but the smallest connection with the event itself.\n\nEvery act of theirs, which appears to them an act of their own will, is\nin an historical sense involuntary and is related to the whole course of\nhistory and predestined from eternity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nOn the twenty-ninth of May Napoleon left Dresden, where he had spent\nthree weeks surrounded by a court that included princes, dukes, kings,\nand even an emperor. Before leaving, Napoleon showed favor to the\nemperor, kings, and princes who had deserved it, reprimanded the kings\nand princes with whom he was dissatisfied, presented pearls and diamonds\nof his own--that is, which he had taken from other kings--to the Empress\nof Austria, and having, as his historian tells us, tenderly embraced the\nEmpress Marie Louise--who regarded him as her husband, though he had\nleft another wife in Paris--left her grieved by the parting which she\nseemed hardly able to bear. Though the diplomatists still firmly\nbelieved in the possibility of peace and worked zealously to that end,\nand though the Emperor Napoleon himself wrote a letter to Alexander,\ncalling him Monsieur mon frere, and sincerely assured him that he did\nnot want war and would always love and honor him--yet he set off to join\nhis army, and at every station gave fresh orders to accelerate the\nmovement of his troops from west to east. He went in a traveling coach\nwith six horses, surrounded by pages, aides-de-camp, and an escort,\nalong the road to Posen, Thorn, Danzig, and Konigsberg. At each of these\ntowns thousands of people met him with excitement and enthusiasm.\n\nThe army was moving from west to east, and relays of six horses carried\nhim in the same direction. On the tenth of June, * coming up with the\narmy, he spent the night in apartments prepared for him on the estate of\na Polish count in the Vilkavisski forest.\n\n\n* Old style.\n\nNext day, overtaking the army, he went in a carriage to the Niemen, and,\nchanging into a Polish uniform, he drove to the riverbank in order to\nselect a place for the crossing.\n\nSeeing, on the other side, some Cossacks (les Cosaques) and the wide-\nspreading steppes in the midst of which lay the holy city of Moscow\n(Moscou, la ville sainte), the capital of a realm such as the Scythia\ninto which Alexander the Great had marched--Napoleon unexpectedly, and\ncontrary alike to strategic and diplomatic considerations, ordered an\nadvance, and the next day his army began to cross the Niemen.\n\nEarly in the morning of the twelfth of June he came out of his tent,\nwhich was pitched that day on the steep left bank of the Niemen, and\nlooked through a spyglass at the streams of his troops pouring out of\nthe Vilkavisski forest and flowing over the three bridges thrown across\nthe river. The troops, knowing of the Emperor's presence, were on the\nlookout for him, and when they caught sight of a figure in an overcoat\nand a cocked hat standing apart from his suite in front of his tent on\nthe hill, they threw up their caps and shouted: \"Vive l'Empereur!\" and\none after another poured in a ceaseless stream out of the vast forest\nthat had concealed them and, separating, flowed on and on by the three\nbridges to the other side.\n\n\"Now we'll go into action. Oh, when he takes it in hand himself, things\nget hot... by heaven!... There he is!... Vive l'Empereur! So these are\nthe steppes of Asia! It's a nasty country all the same. Au revoir,\nBeauche; I'll keep the best palace in Moscow for you! Au revoir. Good\nluck!... Did you see the Emperor? Vive l'Empereur!... preur!--If they\nmake me Governor of India, Gerard, I'll make you Minister of Kashmir--\nthat's settled. Vive l'Empereur! Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah! The Cossacks--\nthose rascals--see how they run! Vive l'Empereur! There he is, do you\nsee him? I've seen him twice, as I see you now. The little corporal... I\nsaw him give the cross to one of the veterans.... Vive l'Empereur!\" came\nthe voices of men, old and young, of most diverse characters and social\npositions. On the faces of all was one common expression of joy at the\ncommencement of the long-expected campaign and of rapture and devotion\nto the man in the gray coat who was standing on the hill.\n\nOn the thirteenth of June a rather small, thoroughbred Arab horse was\nbrought to Napoleon. He mounted it and rode at a gallop to one of the\nbridges over the Niemen, deafened continually by incessant and rapturous\nacclamations which he evidently endured only because it was impossible\nto forbid the soldiers to express their love of him by such shouting,\nbut the shouting which accompanied him everywhere disturbed him and\ndistracted him from the military cares that had occupied him from the\ntime he joined the army. He rode across one of the swaying pontoon\nbridges to the farther side, turned sharply to the left, and galloped in\nthe direction of Kovno, preceded by enraptured, mounted chasseurs of the\nGuard who, breathless with delight, galloped ahead to clear a path for\nhim through the troops. On reaching the broad river Viliya, he stopped\nnear a regiment of Polish uhlans stationed by the river.\n\n\"Vivat!\" shouted the Poles, ecstatically, breaking their ranks and\npressing against one another to see him.\n\nNapoleon looked up and down the river, dismounted, and sat down on a log\nthat lay on the bank. At a mute sign from him, a telescope was handed\nhim which he rested on the back of a happy page who had run up to him,\nand he gazed at the opposite bank. Then he became absorbed in a map laid\nout on the logs. Without lifting his head he said something, and two of\nhis aides-de-camp galloped off to the Polish uhlans.\n\n\"What? What did he say?\" was heard in the ranks of the Polish uhlans\nwhen one of the aides-de-camp rode up to them.\n\nThe order was to find a ford and to cross the river. The colonel of the\nPolish uhlans, a handsome old man, flushed and, fumbling in his speech\nfrom excitement, asked the aide-de-camp whether he would be permitted to\nswim the river with his uhlans instead of seeking a ford. In evident\nfear of refusal, like a boy asking for permission to get on a horse, he\nbegged to be allowed to swim across the river before the Emperor's eyes.\nThe aide-de-camp replied that probably the Emperor would not be\ndispleased at this excess of zeal.\n\nAs soon as the aide-de-camp had said this, the old mustached officer,\nwith happy face and sparkling eyes, raised his saber, shouted \"Vivat!\"\nand, commanding the uhlans to follow him, spurred his horse and galloped\ninto the river. He gave an angry thrust to his horse, which had grown\nrestive under him, and plunged into the water, heading for the deepest\npart where the current was swift. Hundreds of uhlans galloped in after\nhim. It was cold and uncanny in the rapid current in the middle of the\nstream, and the uhlans caught hold of one another as they fell off their\nhorses. Some of the horses were drowned and some of the men; the others\ntried to swim on, some in the saddle and some clinging to their horses'\nmanes. They tried to make their way forward to the opposite bank and,\nthough there was a ford one third of a mile away, were proud that they\nwere swimming and drowning in this river under the eyes of the man who\nsat on the log and was not even looking at what they were doing. When\nthe aide-de-camp, having returned and choosing an opportune moment,\nventured to draw the Emperor's attention to the devotion of the Poles to\nhis person, the little man in the gray overcoat got up and, having\nsummoned Berthier, began pacing up and down the bank with him, giving\nhim instructions and occasionally glancing disapprovingly at the\ndrowning uhlans who distracted his attention.\n\nFor him it was no new conviction that his presence in any part of the\nworld, from Africa to the steppes of Muscovy alike, was enough to\ndumfound people and impel them to insane self-oblivion. He called for\nhis horse and rode to his quarters.\n\nSome forty uhlans were drowned in the river, though boats were sent to\ntheir assistance. The majority struggled back to the bank from which\nthey had started. The colonel and some of his men got across and with\ndifficulty clambered out on the further bank. And as soon as they had\ngot out, in their soaked and streaming clothes, they shouted \"Vivat!\"\nand looked ecstatically at the spot where Napoleon had been but where he\nno longer was and at that moment considered themselves happy.\n\nThat evening, between issuing one order that the forged Russian paper\nmoney prepared for use in Russia should be delivered as quickly as\npossible and another that a Saxon should be shot, on whom a letter\ncontaining information about the orders to the French army had been\nfound, Napoleon also gave instructions that the Polish colonel who had\nneedlessly plunged into the river should be enrolled in the Legion\nd'honneur of which Napoleon was himself the head.\n\nQuos vult perdere dementat. *\n\n\n* Those whom (God) wishes to destroy he drives mad.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nThe Emperor of Russia had, meanwhile, been in Vilna for more than a\nmonth, reviewing troops and holding maneuvers. Nothing was ready for the\nwar that everyone expected and to prepare for which the Emperor had come\nfrom Petersburg. There was no general plan of action. The vacillation\nbetween the various plans that were proposed had even increased after\nthe Emperor had been at headquarters for a month. Each of the three\narmies had its own commander-in-chief, but there was no supreme\ncommander of all the forces, and the Emperor did not assume that\nresponsibility himself.\n\nThe longer the Emperor remained in Vilna the less did everybody--tired\nof waiting--prepare for the war. All the efforts of those who surrounded\nthe sovereign seemed directed merely to making him spend his time\npleasantly and forget that war was impending.\n\nIn June, after many balls and fetes given by the Polish magnates, by the\ncourtiers, and by the Emperor himself, it occurred to one of the Polish\naides-de-camp in attendance that a dinner and ball should be given for\nthe Emperor by his aides-de-camp. This idea was eagerly received. The\nEmperor gave his consent. The aides-de-camp collected money by\nsubscription. The lady who was thought to be most pleasing to the\nEmperor was invited to act as hostess. Count Bennigsen, being a\nlandowner in the Vilna province, offered his country house for the fete,\nand the thirteenth of June was fixed for a ball, dinner, regatta, and\nfireworks at Zakret, Count Bennigsen's country seat.\n\nThe very day that Napoleon issued the order to cross the Niemen, and his\nvanguard, driving off the Cossacks, crossed the Russian frontier,\nAlexander spent the evening at the entertainment given by his aides-de-\ncamp at Bennigsen's country house.\n\nIt was a gay and brilliant fete. Connoisseurs of such matters declared\nthat rarely had so many beautiful women been assembled in one place.\nCountess Bezukhova was present among other Russian ladies who had\nfollowed the sovereign from Petersburg to Vilna and eclipsed the refined\nPolish ladies by her massive, so-called Russian type of beauty. The\nEmperor noticed her and honored her with a dance.\n\nBoris Drubetskoy, having left his wife in Moscow and being for the\npresent en garcon (as he phrased it), was also there and, though not an\naide-de-camp, had subscribed a large sum toward the expenses. Boris was\nnow a rich man who had risen to high honors and no longer sought\npatronage but stood on an equal footing with the highest of those of his\nown age. He was meeting Helene in Vilna after not having seen her for a\nlong time and did not recall the past, but as Helene was enjoying the\nfavors of a very important personage and Boris had only recently\nmarried, they met as good friends of long standing.\n\nAt midnight dancing was still going on. Helene, not having a suitable\npartner, herself offered to dance the mazurka with Boris. They were the\nthird couple. Boris, coolly looking at Helene's dazzling bare shoulders\nwhich emerged from a dark, gold-embroidered, gauze gown, talked to her\nof old acquaintances and at the same time, unaware of it himself and\nunnoticed by others, never for an instant ceased to observe the Emperor\nwho was in the same room. The Emperor was not dancing, he stood in the\ndoorway, stopping now one pair and now another with gracious words which\nhe alone knew how to utter.\n\nAs the mazurka began, Boris saw that Adjutant General Balashev, one of\nthose in closest attendance on the Emperor, went up to him and contrary\nto court etiquette stood near him while he was talking to a Polish lady.\nHaving finished speaking to her, the Emperor looked inquiringly at\nBalashev and, evidently understanding that he only acted thus because\nthere were important reasons for so doing, nodded slightly to the lady\nand turned to him. Hardly had Balashev begun to speak before a look of\namazement appeared on the Emperor's face. He took Balashev by the arm\nand crossed the room with him, unconsciously clearing a path seven yards\nwide as the people on both sides made way for him. Boris noticed\nArakcheev's excited face when the sovereign went out with Balashev.\nArakcheev looked at the Emperor from under his brow and, sniffing with\nhis red nose, stepped forward from the crowd as if expecting the Emperor\nto address him. (Boris understood that Arakcheev envied Balashev and was\ndispleased that evidently important news had reached the Emperor\notherwise than through himself.)\n\nBut the Emperor and Balashev passed out into the illuminated garden\nwithout noticing Arakcheev who, holding his sword and glancing\nwrathfully around, followed some twenty paces behind them.\n\nAll the time Boris was going through the figures of the mazurka, he was\nworried by the question of what news Balashev had brought and how he\ncould find it out before others. In the figure in which he had to choose\ntwo ladies, he whispered to Helene that he meant to choose Countess\nPotocka who, he thought, had gone out onto the veranda, and glided over\nthe parquet to the door opening into the garden, where, seeing Balashev\nand the Emperor returning to the veranda, he stood still. They were\nmoving toward the door. Boris, fluttering as if he had not had time to\nwithdraw, respectfully pressed close to the doorpost with bowed head.\n\nThe Emperor, with the agitation of one who has been personally\naffronted, was finishing with these words:\n\n\"To enter Russia without declaring war! I will not make peace as long as\na single armed enemy remains in my country!\" It seemed to Boris that it\ngave the Emperor pleasure to utter these words. He was satisfied with\nthe form in which he had expressed his thoughts, but displeased that\nBoris had overheard it.\n\n\"Let no one know of it!\" the Emperor added with a frown.\n\nBoris understood that this was meant for him and, closing his eyes,\nslightly bowed his head. The Emperor re-entered the ballroom and\nremained there about another half-hour.\n\nBoris was thus the first to learn the news that the French army had\ncrossed the Niemen and, thanks to this, was able to show certain\nimportant personages that much that was concealed from others was\nusually known to him, and by this means he rose higher in their\nestimation.\n\nThe unexpected news of the French having crossed the Niemen was\nparticularly startling after a month of unfulfilled expectations, and at\na ball. On first receiving the news, under the influence of indignation\nand resentment the Emperor had found a phrase that pleased him, fully\nexpressed his feelings, and has since become famous. On returning home\nat two o'clock that night he sent for his secretary, Shishkov, and told\nhim to write an order to the troops and a rescript to Field Marshal\nPrince Saltykov, in which he insisted on the words being inserted that\nhe would not make peace so long as a single armed Frenchman remained on\nRussian soil.\n\nNext day the following letter was sent to Napoleon:\n\nMonsieur mon frere,\n\nYesterday I learned that, despite the loyalty with which I have kept my\nengagements with Your Majesty, your troops have crossed the Russian\nfrontier, and I have this moment received from Petersburg a note, in\nwhich Count Lauriston informs me, as a reason for this aggression, that\nYour Majesty has considered yourself to be in a state of war with me\nfrom the time Prince Kuragin asked for his passports. The reasons on\nwhich the Duc de Bassano based his refusal to deliver them to him would\nnever have led me to suppose that that could serve as a pretext for\naggression. In fact, the ambassador, as he himself has declared, was\nnever authorized to make that demand, and as soon as I was informed of\nit I let him know how much I disapproved of it and ordered him to remain\nat his post. If Your Majesty does not intend to shed the blood of our\npeoples for such a misunderstanding, and consents to withdraw your\ntroops from Russian territory, I will regard what has passed as not\nhaving occurred and an understanding between us will be possible. In the\ncontrary case, Your Majesty, I shall see myself forced to repel an\nattack that nothing on my part has provoked. It still depends on Your\nMajesty to preserve humanity from the calamity of another war. I am,\netc.,\n\n(signed) Alexander.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nAt two in the morning of the fourteenth of June, the Emperor, having\nsent for Balashev and read him his letter to Napoleon, ordered him to\ntake it and hand it personally to the French Emperor. When dispatching\nBalashev, the Emperor repeated to him the words that he would not make\npeace so long as a single armed enemy remained on Russian soil and told\nhim to transmit those words to Napoleon. Alexander did not insert them\nin his letter to Napoleon, because with his characteristic tact he felt\nit would be injudicious to use them at a moment when a last attempt at\nreconciliation was being made, but he definitely instructed Balashev to\nrepeat them personally to Napoleon.\n\nHaving set off in the small hours of the fourteenth, accompanied by a\nbugler and two Cossacks, Balashev reached the French outposts at the\nvillage of Rykonty, on the Russian side of the Niemen, by dawn. There he\nwas stopped by French cavalry sentinels.\n\nA French noncommissioned officer of hussars, in crimson uniform and a\nshaggy cap, shouted to the approaching Balashev to halt. Balashev did\nnot do so at once, but continued to advance along the road at a walking\npace.\n\nThe noncommissioned officer frowned and, muttering words of abuse,\nadvanced his horse's chest against Balashev, put his hand to his saber,\nand shouted rudely at the Russian general, asking: was he deaf that he\ndid not do as he was told? Balashev mentioned who he was. The\nnoncommissioned officer began talking with his comrades about regimental\nmatters without looking at the Russian general.\n\nAfter living at the seat of the highest authority and power, after\nconversing with the Emperor less than three hours before, and in general\nbeing accustomed to the respect due to his rank in the service, Balashev\nfound it very strange here on Russian soil to encounter this hostile,\nand still more this disrespectful, application of brute force to\nhimself.\n\nThe sun was only just appearing from behind the clouds, the air was\nfresh and dewy. A herd of cattle was being driven along the road from\nthe village, and over the fields the larks rose trilling, one after\nanother, like bubbles rising in water.\n\nBalashev looked around him, awaiting the arrival of an officer from the\nvillage. The Russian Cossacks and bugler and the French hussars looked\nsilently at one another from time to time.\n\nA French colonel of hussars, who had evidently just left his bed, came\nriding from the village on a handsome sleek gray horse, accompanied by\ntwo hussars. The officer, the soldiers, and their horses all looked\nsmart and well kept.\n\nIt was that first period of a campaign when troops are still in full\ntrim, almost like that of peacetime maneuvers, but with a shade of\nmartial swagger in their clothes, and a touch of the gaiety and spirit\nof enterprise which always accompany the opening of a campaign.\n\nThe French colonel with difficulty repressed a yawn, but was polite and\nevidently understood Balashev's importance. He led him past his soldiers\nand behind the outposts and told him that his wish to be presented to\nthe Emperor would most likely be satisfied immediately, as the Emperor's\nquarters were, he believed, not far off.\n\nThey rode through the village of Rykonty, past tethered French hussar\nhorses, past sentinels and men who saluted their colonel and stared with\ncuriosity at a Russian uniform, and came out at the other end of the\nvillage. The colonel said that the commander of the division was a mile\nand a quarter away and would receive Balashev and conduct him to his\ndestination.\n\nThe sun had by now risen and shone gaily on the bright verdure.\n\nThey had hardly ridden up a hill, past a tavern, before they saw a group\nof horsemen coming toward them. In front of the group, on a black horse\nwith trappings that glittered in the sun, rode a tall man with plumes in\nhis hat and black hair curling down to his shoulders. He wore a red\nmantle, and stretched his long legs forward in French fashion. This man\nrode toward Balashev at a gallop, his plumes flowing and his gems and\ngold lace glittering in the bright June sunshine.\n\nBalashev was only two horses' length from the equestrian with the\nbracelets, plumes, necklaces, and gold embroidery, who was galloping\ntoward him with a theatrically solemn countenance, when Julner, the\nFrench colonel, whispered respectfully: \"The King of Naples!\" It was, in\nfact, Murat, now called \"King of Naples.\" Though it was quite\nincomprehensible why he should be King of Naples, he was called so, and\nwas himself convinced that he was so, and therefore assumed a more\nsolemn and important air than formerly. He was so sure that he really\nwas the King of Naples that when, on the eve of his departure from that\ncity, while walking through the streets with his wife, some Italians\ncalled out to him: \"Viva il re!\" * he turned to his wife with a pensive\nsmile and said: \"Poor fellows, they don't know that I am leaving them\ntomorrow!\"\n\n\n* \"Long live the king.\"\n\nBut though he firmly believed himself to be King of Naples and pitied\nthe grief felt by the subjects he was abandoning, latterly, after he had\nbeen ordered to return to military service--and especially since his\nlast interview with Napoleon in Danzig, when his august brother-in-law\nhad told him: \"I made you King that you should reign in my way, but not\nin yours!\"--he had cheerfully taken up his familiar business, and--like\na well-fed but not overfat horse that feels himself in harness and grows\nskittish between the shafts--he dressed up in clothes as variegated and\nexpensive as possible, and gaily and contentedly galloped along the\nroads of Poland, without himself knowing why or whither.\n\nOn seeing the Russian general he threw back his head, with its long hair\ncurling to his shoulders, in a majestically royal manner, and looked\ninquiringly at the French colonel. The colonel respectfully informed His\nMajesty of Balashev's mission, whose name he could not pronounce.\n\n\"De Bal-macheve!\" said the King (overcoming by his assurance the\ndifficulty that had presented itself to the colonel). \"Charmed to make\nyour acquaintance, General!\" he added, with a gesture of kingly\ncondescension.\n\nAs soon as the King began to speak loud and fast his royal dignity\ninstantly forsook him, and without noticing it he passed into his\nnatural tone of good-natured familiarity. He laid his hand on the\nwithers of Balashev's horse and said:\n\n\"Well, General, it all looks like war,\" as if regretting a circumstance\nof which he was unable to judge.\n\n\"Your Majesty,\" replied Balashev, \"my master, the Emperor, does not\ndesire war and as Your Majesty sees...\" said Balashev, using the words\nYour Majesty at every opportunity, with the affectation unavoidable in\nfrequently addressing one to whom the title was still a novelty.\n\nMurat's face beamed with stupid satisfaction as he listened to \"Monsieur\nde Bal-macheve.\" But royaute oblige! * and he felt it incumbent on him,\nas a king and an ally, to confer on state affairs with Alexander's\nenvoy. He dismounted, took Balashev's arm, and moving a few steps away\nfrom his suite, which waited respectfully, began to pace up and down\nwith him, trying to speak significantly. He referred to the fact that\nthe Emperor Napoleon had resented the demand that he should withdraw his\ntroops from Prussia, especially when that demand became generally known\nand the dignity of France was thereby offended.\n\n\n* \"Royalty has its obligations.\"\n\nBalashev replied that there was \"nothing offensive in the demand,\nbecause...\" but Murat interrupted him.\n\n\"Then you don't consider the Emperor Alexander the aggressor?\" he asked\nunexpectedly, with a kindly and foolish smile.\n\nBalashev told him why he considered Napoleon to be the originator of the\nwar.\n\n\"Oh, my dear general!\" Murat again interrupted him, \"with all my heart I\nwish the Emperors may arrange the affair between them, and that the war\nbegun by no wish of mine may finish as quickly as possible!\" said he, in\nthe tone of a servant who wants to remain good friends with another\ndespite a quarrel between their masters.\n\nAnd he went on to inquiries about the Grand Duke and the state of his\nhealth, and to reminiscences of the gay and amusing times he had spent\nwith him in Naples. Then suddenly, as if remembering his royal dignity,\nMurat solemnly drew himself up, assumed the pose in which he had stood\nat his coronation, and, waving his right arm, said:\n\n\"I won't detain you longer, General. I wish success to your mission,\"\nand with his embroidered red mantle, his flowing feathers, and his\nglittering ornaments, he rejoined his suite who were respectfully\nawaiting him.\n\nBalashev rode on, supposing from Murat's words that he would very soon\nbe brought before Napoleon himself. But instead of that, at the next\nvillage the sentinels of Davout's infantry corps detained him as the\npickets of the vanguard had done, and an adjutant of the corps\ncommander, who was fetched, conducted him into the village to Marshal\nDavout.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nDavout was to Napoleon what Arakcheev was to Alexander--though not a\ncoward like Arakcheev, he was as precise, as cruel, and as unable to\nexpress his devotion to his monarch except by cruelty.\n\nIn the organism of states such men are necessary, as wolves are\nnecessary in the organism of nature, and they always exist, always\nappear and hold their own, however incongruous their presence and their\nproximity to the head of the government may be. This inevitability alone\ncan explain how the cruel Arakcheev, who tore out a grenadier's mustache\nwith his own hands, whose weak nerves rendered him unable to face\ndanger, and who was neither an educated man nor a courtier, was able to\nmaintain his powerful position with Alexander, whose own character was\nchivalrous, noble, and gentle.\n\nBalashev found Davout seated on a barrel in the shed of a peasant's hut,\nwriting--he was auditing accounts. Better quarters could have been found\nhim, but Marshal Davout was one of those men who purposely put\nthemselves in most depressing conditions to have a justification for\nbeing gloomy. For the same reason they are always hard at work and in a\nhurry. \"How can I think of the bright side of life when, as you see, I\nam sitting on a barrel and working in a dirty shed?\" the expression of\nhis face seemed to say. The chief pleasure and necessity of such men,\nwhen they encounter anyone who shows animation, is to flaunt their own\ndreary, persistent activity. Davout allowed himself that pleasure when\nBalashev was brought in. He became still more absorbed in his task when\nthe Russian general entered, and after glancing over his spectacles at\nBalashev's face, which was animated by the beauty of the morning and by\nhis talk with Murat, he did not rise or even stir, but scowled still\nmore and sneered malevolently.\n\nWhen he noticed in Balashev's face the disagreeable impression this\nreception produced, Davout raised his head and coldly asked what he\nwanted.\n\nThinking he could have been received in such a manner only because\nDavout did not know that he was adjutant general to the Emperor\nAlexander and even his envoy to Napoleon, Balashev hastened to inform\nhim of his rank and mission. Contrary to his expectation, Davout, after\nhearing him, became still surlier and ruder.\n\n\"Where is your dispatch?\" he inquired. \"Give it to me. I will send it to\nthe Emperor.\"\n\nBalashev replied that he had been ordered to hand it personally to the\nEmperor.\n\n\"Your Emperor's orders are obeyed in your army, but here,\" said Davout,\n\"you must do as you're told.\"\n\nAnd, as if to make the Russian general still more conscious of his\ndependence on brute force, Davout sent an adjutant to call the officer\non duty.\n\nBalashev took out the packet containing the Emperor's letter and laid it\non the table (made of a door with its hinges still hanging on it, laid\nacross two barrels). Davout took the packet and read the inscription.\n\n\"You are perfectly at liberty to treat me with respect or not,\"\nprotested Balashev, \"but permit me to observe that I have the honor to\nbe adjutant general to His Majesty....\"\n\nDavout glanced at him silently and plainly derived pleasure from the\nsigns of agitation and confusion which appeared on Balashev's face.\n\n\"You will be treated as is fitting,\" said he and, putting the packet in\nhis pocket, left the shed.\n\nA minute later the marshal's adjutant, de Castres, came in and conducted\nBalashev to the quarters assigned him.\n\nThat day he dined with the marshal, at the same board on the barrels.\n\nNext day Davout rode out early and, after asking Balashev to come to\nhim, peremptorily requested him to remain there, to move on with the\nbaggage train should orders come for it to move, and to talk to no one\nexcept Monsieur de Castres.\n\nAfter four days of solitude, ennui, and consciousness of his impotence\nand insignificance--particularly acute by contrast with the sphere of\npower in which he had so lately moved--and after several marches with\nthe marshal's baggage and the French army, which occupied the whole\ndistrict, Balashev was brought to Vilna--now occupied by the French--\nthrough the very gate by which he had left it four days previously.\n\nNext day the imperial gentleman-in-waiting, the Comte de Turenne, came\nto Balashev and informed him of the Emperor Napoleon's wish to honor him\nwith an audience.\n\nFour days before, sentinels of the Preobrazhensk regiment had stood in\nfront of the house to which Balashev was conducted, and now two French\ngrenadiers stood there in blue uniforms unfastened in front and with\nshaggy caps on their heads, and an escort of hussars and uhlans and a\nbrilliant suite of aides-de-camp, pages, and generals, who were waiting\nfor Napoleon to come out, were standing at the porch, round his saddle\nhorse and his Mameluke, Rustan. Napoleon received Balashev in the very\nhouse in Vilna from which Alexander had dispatched him on his mission.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nThough Balashev was used to imperial pomp, he was amazed at the luxury\nand magnificence of Napoleon's court.\n\nThe Comte de Turenne showed him into a big reception room where many\ngenerals, gentlemen-in-waiting, and Polish magnates--several of whom\nBalashev had seen at the court of the Emperor of Russia--were waiting.\nDuroc said that Napoleon would receive the Russian general before going\nfor his ride.\n\nAfter some minutes, the gentleman-in-waiting who was on duty came into\nthe great reception room and, bowing politely, asked Balashev to follow\nhim.\n\nBalashev went into a small reception room, one door of which led into a\nstudy, the very one from which the Russian Emperor had dispatched him on\nhis mission. He stood a minute or two, waiting. He heard hurried\nfootsteps beyond the door, both halves of it were opened rapidly; all\nwas silent and then from the study the sound was heard of other steps,\nfirm and resolute--they were those of Napoleon. He had just finished\ndressing for his ride, and wore a blue uniform, opening in front over a\nwhite waistcoat so long that it covered his rotund stomach, white\nleather breeches tightly fitting the fat thighs of his short legs, and\nHessian boots. His short hair had evidently just been brushed, but one\nlock hung down in the middle of his broad forehead. His plump white neck\nstood out sharply above the black collar of his uniform, and he smelled\nof Eau de Cologne. His full face, rather young-looking, with its\nprominent chin, wore a gracious and majestic expression of imperial\nwelcome.\n\nHe entered briskly, with a jerk at every step and his head slightly\nthrown back. His whole short corpulent figure with broad thick\nshoulders, and chest and stomach involuntarily protruding, had that\nimposing and stately appearance one sees in men of forty who live in\ncomfort. It was evident, too, that he was in the best of spirits that\nday.\n\nHe nodded in answer to Balashav's low and respectful bow, and coming up\nto him at once began speaking like a man who values every moment of his\ntime and does not condescend to prepare what he has to say but is sure\nhe will always say the right thing and say it well.\n\n\"Good day, General!\" said he. \"I have received the letter you brought\nfrom the Emperor Alexander and am very glad to see you.\" He glanced with\nhis large eyes into Balashav's face and immediately looked past him.\n\nIt was plain that Balashev's personality did not interest him at all.\nEvidently only what took place within his own mind interested him.\nNothing outside himself had any significance for him, because everything\nin the world, it seemed to him, depended entirely on his will.\n\n\"I do not, and did not, desire war,\" he continued, \"but it has been\nforced on me. Even now\" (he emphasized the word) \"I am ready to receive\nany explanations you can give me.\"\n\nAnd he began clearly and concisely to explain his reasons for\ndissatisfaction with the Russian government. Judging by the calmly\nmoderate and amicable tone in which the French Emperor spoke, Balashev\nwas firmly persuaded that he wished for peace and intended to enter into\nnegotiations.\n\nWhen Napoleon, having finished speaking, looked inquiringly at the\nRussian envoy, Balashev began a speech he had prepared long before:\n\"Sire! The Emperor, my master...\" but the sight of the Emperor's eyes\nbent on him confused him. \"You are flurried--compose yourself!\" Napoleon\nseemed to say, as with a scarcely perceptible smile he looked at\nBalashev's uniform and sword.\n\nBalashev recovered himself and began to speak. He said that the Emperor\nAlexander did not consider Kurakin's demand for his passports a\nsufficient cause for war; that Kurakin had acted on his own initiative\nand without his sovereign's assent, that the Emperor Alexander did not\ndesire war, and had no relations with England.\n\n\"Not yet!\" interposed Napoleon, and, as if fearing to give vent to his\nfeelings, he frowned and nodded slightly as a sign that Balashev might\nproceed.\n\nAfter saying all he had been instructed to say, Balashev added that the\nEmperor Alexander wished for peace, but would not enter into\nnegotiations except on condition that... Here Balashev hesitated: he\nremembered the words the Emperor Alexander had not written in his\nletter, but had specially inserted in the rescript to Saltykov and had\ntold Balashev to repeat to Napoleon. Balashev remembered these words,\n\"So long as a single armed foe remains on Russian soil,\" but some\ncomplex feeling restrained him. He could not utter them, though he\nwished to do so. He grew confused and said: \"On condition that the\nFrench army retires beyond the Niemen.\"\n\nNapoleon noticed Balashev's embarrassment when uttering these last\nwords; his face twitched and the calf of his left leg began to quiver\nrhythmically. Without moving from where he stood he began speaking in a\nlouder tone and more hurriedly than before. During the speech that\nfollowed, Balashev, who more than once lowered his eyes, involuntarily\nnoticed the quivering of Napoleon's left leg which increased the more\nNapoleon raised his voice.\n\n\"I desire peace, no less than the Emperor Alexander,\" he began. \"Have I\nnot for eighteen months been doing everything to obtain it? I have\nwaited eighteen months for explanations. But in order to begin\nnegotiations, what is demanded of me?\" he said, frowning and making an\nenergetic gesture of inquiry with his small white plump hand.\n\n\"The withdrawal of your army beyond the Niemen, sire,\" replied Balashev.\n\n\"The Niemen?\" repeated Napoleon. \"So now you want me to retire beyond\nthe Niemen--only the Niemen?\" repeated Napoleon, looking straight at\nBalashev.\n\nThe latter bowed his head respectfully.\n\nInstead of the demand of four months earlier to withdraw from Pomerania,\nonly a withdrawal beyond the Niemen was now demanded. Napoleon turned\nquickly and began to pace the room.\n\n\"You say the demand now is that I am to withdraw beyond the Niemen\nbefore commencing negotiations, but in just the same way two months ago\nthe demand was that I should withdraw beyond the Vistula and the Oder,\nand yet you are willing to negotiate.\"\n\nHe went in silence from one corner of the room to the other and again\nstopped in front of Balashev. Balashev noticed that his left leg was\nquivering faster than before and his face seemed petrified in its stern\nexpression. This quivering of his left leg was a thing Napoleon was\nconscious of. \"The vibration of my left calf is a great sign with me,\"\nhe remarked at a later date.\n\n\"Such demands as to retreat beyond the Vistula and Oder may be made to a\nPrince of Baden, but not to me!\" Napoleon almost screamed, quite to his\nown surprise. \"If you gave me Petersburg and Moscow I could not accept\nsuch conditions. You say I have begun this war! But who first joined his\narmy? The Emperor Alexander, not I! And you offer me negotiations when I\nhave expended millions, when you are in alliance with England, and when\nyour position is a bad one. You offer me negotiations! But what is the\naim of your alliance with England? What has she given you?\" he continued\nhurriedly, evidently no longer trying to show the advantages of peace\nand discuss its possibility, but only to prove his own rectitude and\npower and Alexander's errors and duplicity.\n\nThe commencement of his speech had obviously been made with the\nintention of demonstrating the advantages of his position and showing\nthat he was nevertheless willing to negotiate. But he had begun talking,\nand the more he talked the less could he control his words.\n\nThe whole purport of his remarks now was evidently to exalt himself and\ninsult Alexander--just what he had least desired at the commencement of\nthe interview.\n\n\"I hear you have made peace with Turkey?\"\n\nBalashev bowed his head affirmatively.\n\n\"Peace has been concluded...\" he began.\n\nBut Napoleon did not let him speak. He evidently wanted to do all the\ntalking himself, and continued to talk with the sort of eloquence and\nunrestrained irritability to which spoiled people are so prone.\n\n\"Yes, I know you have made peace with the Turks without obtaining\nMoldavia and Wallachia; I would have given your sovereign those\nprovinces as I gave him Finland. Yes,\" he went on, \"I promised and would\nhave given the Emperor Alexander Moldavia and Wallachia, and now he\nwon't have those splendid provinces. Yet he might have united them to\nhis empire and in a single reign would have extended Russia from the\nGulf of Bothnia to the mouths of the Danube. Catherine the Great could\nnot have done more,\" said Napoleon, growing more and more excited as he\npaced up and down the room, repeating to Balashev almost the very words\nhe had used to Alexander himself at Tilsit. \"All that, he would have\nowed to my friendship. Oh, what a splendid reign!\" he repeated several\ntimes, then paused, drew from his pocket a gold snuffbox, lifted it to\nhis nose, and greedily sniffed at it.\n\n\"What a splendid reign the Emperor Alexander's might have been!\"\n\nHe looked compassionately at Balashev, and as soon as the latter tried\nto make some rejoinder hastily interrupted him.\n\n\"What could he wish or look for that he would not have obtained through\nmy friendship?\" demanded Napoleon, shrugging his shoulders in\nperplexity. \"But no, he has preferred to surround himself with my\nenemies, and with whom? With Steins, Armfeldts, Bennigsens, and\nWintzingerodes! Stein, a traitor expelled from his own country;\nArmfeldt, a rake and an intriguer; Wintzingerode, a fugitive French\nsubject; Bennigsen, rather more of a soldier than the others, but all\nthe same an incompetent who was unable to do anything in 1807 and who\nshould awaken terrible memories in the Emperor Alexander's mind....\nGranted that were they competent they might be made use of,\" continued\nNapoleon--hardly able to keep pace in words with the rush of thoughts\nthat incessantly sprang up, proving how right and strong he was (in his\nperception the two were one and the same)--\"but they are not even that!\nThey are neither fit for war nor peace! Barclay is said to be the most\ncapable of them all, but I cannot say so, judging by his first\nmovements. And what are they doing, all these courtiers? Pfuel proposes,\nArmfeldt disputes, Bennigsen considers, and Barclay, called on to act,\ndoes not know what to decide on, and time passes bringing no result.\nBagration alone is a military man. He's stupid, but he has experience, a\nquick eye, and resolution.... And what role is your young monarch\nplaying in that monstrous crowd? They compromise him and throw on him\nthe responsibility for all that happens. A sovereign should not be with\nthe army unless he is a general!\" said Napoleon, evidently uttering\nthese words as a direct challenge to the Emperor. He knew how Alexander\ndesired to be a military commander.\n\n\"The campaign began only a week ago, and you haven't even been able to\ndefend Vilna. You are cut in two and have been driven out of the Polish\nprovinces. Your army is grumbling.\"\n\n\"On the contrary, Your Majesty,\" said Balashev, hardly able to remember\nwhat had been said to him and following these verbal fireworks with\ndifficulty, \"the troops are burning with eagerness...\"\n\n\"I know everything!\" Napoleon interrupted him. \"I know everything. I\nknow the number of your battalions as exactly as I know my own. You have\nnot two hundred thousand men, and I have three times that number. I give\nyou my word of honor,\" said Napoleon, forgetting that his word of honor\ncould carry no weight--\"I give you my word of honor that I have five\nhundred and thirty thousand men this side of the Vistula. The Turks will\nbe of no use to you; they are worth nothing and have shown it by making\npeace with you. As for the Swedes--it is their fate to be governed by\nmad kings. Their king was insane and they changed him for another--\nBernadotte, who promptly went mad--for no Swede would ally himself with\nRussia unless he were mad.\"\n\nNapoleon grinned maliciously and again raised his snuffbox to his nose.\n\nBalashev knew how to reply to each of Napoleon's remarks, and would have\ndone so; he continually made the gesture of a man wishing to say\nsomething, but Napoleon always interrupted him. To the alleged insanity\nof the Swedes, Balashev wished to reply that when Russia is on her side\nSweden is practically an island: but Napoleon gave an angry exclamation\nto drown his voice. Napoleon was in that state of irritability in which\na man has to talk, talk, and talk, merely to convince himself that he is\nin the right. Balashev began to feel uncomfortable: as envoy he feared\nto demean his dignity and felt the necessity of replying; but, as a man,\nhe shrank before the transport of groundless wrath that had evidently\nseized Napoleon. He knew that none of the words now uttered by Napoleon\nhad any significance, and that Napoleon himself would be ashamed of them\nwhen he came to his senses. Balashev stood with downcast eyes, looking\nat the movements of Napoleon's stout legs and trying to avoid meeting\nhis eyes.\n\n\"But what do I care about your allies?\" said Napoleon. \"I have allies--\nthe Poles. There are eighty thousand of them and they fight like lions.\nAnd there will be two hundred thousand of them.\"\n\nAnd probably still more perturbed by the fact that he had uttered this\nobvious falsehood, and that Balashev still stood silently before him in\nthe same attitude of submission to fate, Napoleon abruptly turned round,\ndrew close to Balashev's face, and, gesticulating rapidly and\nenergetically with his white hands, almost shouted:\n\n\"Know that if you stir up Prussia against me, I'll wipe it off the map\nof Europe!\" he declared, his face pale and distorted by anger, and he\nstruck one of his small hands energetically with the other. \"Yes, I will\nthrow you back beyond the Dvina and beyond the Dnieper, and will re-\nerect against you that barrier which it was criminal and blind of Europe\nto allow to be destroyed. Yes, that is what will happen to you. That is\nwhat you have gained by alienating me!\" And he walked silently several\ntimes up and down the room, his fat shoulders twitching.\n\nHe put his snuffbox into his waistcoat pocket, took it out again, lifted\nit several times to his nose, and stopped in front of Balashev. He\npaused, looked ironically straight into Balashev's eyes, and said in a\nquiet voice:\n\n\"And yet what a splendid reign your master might have had!\"\n\nBalashev, feeling it incumbent on him to reply, said that from the\nRussian side things did not appear in so gloomy a light. Napoleon was\nsilent, still looking derisively at him and evidently not listening to\nhim. Balashev said that in Russia the best results were expected from\nthe war. Napoleon nodded condescendingly, as if to say, \"I know it's\nyour duty to say that, but you don't believe it yourself. I have\nconvinced you.\"\n\nWhen Balashev had ended, Napoleon again took out his snuffbox, sniffed\nat it, and stamped his foot twice on the floor as a signal. The door\nopened, a gentleman-in-waiting, bending respectfully, handed the Emperor\nhis hat and gloves; another brought him a pocket handkerchief. Napoleon,\nwithout giving them a glance, turned to Balashev:\n\n\"Assure the Emperor Alexander from me,\" said he, taking his hat, \"that I\nam as devoted to him as before: I know him thoroughly and very highly\nesteem his lofty qualities. I will detain you no longer, General; you\nshall receive my letter to the Emperor.\"\n\nAnd Napoleon went quickly to the door. Everyone in the reception room\nrushed forward and descended the staircase.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nAfter all that Napoleon had said to him--those bursts of anger and the\nlast dryly spoken words: \"I will detain you no longer, General; you\nshall receive my letter,\" Balashev felt convinced that Napoleon would\nnot wish to see him, and would even avoid another meeting with him--an\ninsulted envoy--especially as he had witnessed his unseemly anger. But,\nto his surprise, Balashev received, through Duroc, an invitation to dine\nwith the Emperor that day.\n\nBessieres, Caulaincourt, and Berthier were present at that dinner.\n\nNapoleon met Balashev cheerfully and amiably. He not only showed no sign\nof constraint or self-reproach on account of his outburst that morning,\nbut, on the contrary, tried to reassure Balashev. It was evident that he\nhad long been convinced that it was impossible for him to make a\nmistake, and that in his perception whatever he did was right, not\nbecause it harmonized with any idea of right and wrong, but because he\ndid it.\n\nThe Emperor was in very good spirits after his ride through Vilna, where\ncrowds of people had rapturously greeted and followed him. From all the\nwindows of the streets through which he rode, rugs, flags, and his\nmonogram were displayed, and the Polish ladies, welcoming him, waved\ntheir handkerchiefs to him.\n\nAt dinner, having placed Balashev beside him, Napoleon not only treated\nhim amiably but behaved as if Balashev were one of his own courtiers,\none of those who sympathized with his plans and ought to rejoice at his\nsuccess. In the course of conversation he mentioned Moscow and\nquestioned Balashev about the Russian capital, not merely as an\ninterested traveler asks about a new city he intends to visit, but as if\nconvinced that Balashev, as a Russian, must be flattered by his\ncuriosity.\n\n\"How many inhabitants are there in Moscow? How many houses? Is it true\nthat Moscow is called 'Holy Moscow'? How many churches are there in\nMoscow?\" he asked.\n\nAnd receiving the reply that there were more than two hundred churches,\nhe remarked:\n\n\"Why such a quantity of churches?\"\n\n\"The Russians are very devout,\" replied Balashev.\n\n\"But a large number of monasteries and churches is always a sign of the\nbackwardness of a people,\" said Napoleon, turning to Caulaincourt for\nappreciation of this remark.\n\nBalashev respectfully ventured to disagree with the French Emperor.\n\n\"Every country has its own character,\" said he.\n\n\"But nowhere in Europe is there anything like that,\" said Napoleon.\n\n\"I beg your Majesty's pardon,\" returned Balashev, \"besides Russia there\nis Spain, where there are also many churches and monasteries.\"\n\nThis reply of Balashev's, which hinted at the recent defeats of the\nFrench in Spain, was much appreciated when he related it at Alexander's\ncourt, but it was not much appreciated at Napoleon's dinner, where it\npassed unnoticed.\n\nThe uninterested and perplexed faces of the marshals showed that they\nwere puzzled as to what Balashev's tone suggested. \"If there is a point\nwe don't see it, or it is not at all witty,\" their expressions seemed to\nsay. So little was his rejoinder appreciated that Napoleon did not\nnotice it at all and naively asked Balashev through what towns the\ndirect road from there to Moscow passed. Balashev, who was on the alert\nall through the dinner, replied that just as \"all roads lead to Rome,\"\nso all roads lead to Moscow: there were many roads, and \"among them the\nroad through Poltava, which Charles XII chose.\" Balashev involuntarily\nflushed with pleasure at the aptitude of this reply, but hardly had he\nuttered the word Poltava before Caulaincourt began speaking of the\nbadness of the road from Petersburg to Moscow and of his Petersburg\nreminiscences.\n\nAfter dinner they went to drink coffee in Napoleon's study, which four\ndays previously had been that of the Emperor Alexander. Napoleon sat\ndown, toying with his Sevres coffee cup, and motioned Balashev to a\nchair beside him.\n\nNapoleon was in that well-known after-dinner mood which, more than any\nreasoned cause, makes a man contented with himself and disposed to\nconsider everyone his friend. It seemed to him that he was surrounded by\nmen who adored him: and he felt convinced that, after his dinner,\nBalashev too was his friend and worshiper. Napoleon turned to him with a\npleasant, though slightly ironic, smile.\n\n\"They tell me this is the room the Emperor Alexander occupied? Strange,\nisn't it, General?\" he said, evidently not doubting that this remark\nwould be agreeable to his hearer since it went to prove his, Napoleon's,\nsuperiority to Alexander.\n\nBalashev made no reply and bowed his head in silence.\n\n\"Yes. Four days ago in this room, Wintzingerode and Stein were\ndeliberating,\" continued Napoleon with the same derisive and self-\nconfident smile. \"What I can't understand,\" he went on, \"is that the\nEmperor Alexander has surrounded himself with my personal enemies. That\nI do not... understand. Has he not thought that I may do the same?\" and\nhe turned inquiringly to Balashev, and evidently this thought turned him\nback on to the track of his morning's anger, which was still fresh in\nhim.\n\n\"And let him know that I will do so!\" said Napoleon, rising and pushing\nhis cup away with his hand. \"I'll drive all his Wurttemberg, Baden, and\nWeimar relations out of Germany.... Yes. I'll drive them out. Let him\nprepare an asylum for them in Russia!\"\n\nBalashev bowed his head with an air indicating that he would like to\nmake his bow and leave, and only listened because he could not help\nhearing what was said to him. Napoleon did not notice this expression;\nhe treated Balashev not as an envoy from his enemy, but as a man now\nfully devoted to him and who must rejoice at his former master's\nhumiliation.\n\n\"And why has the Emperor Alexander taken command of the armies? What is\nthe good of that? War is my profession, but his business is to reign and\nnot to command armies! Why has he taken on himself such a\nresponsibility?\"\n\nAgain Napoleon brought out his snuffbox, paced several times up and down\nthe room in silence, and then, suddenly and unexpectedly, went up to\nBalashev and with a slight smile, as confidently, quickly, and simply as\nif he were doing something not merely important but pleasing to\nBalashev, he raised his hand to the forty-year-old Russian general's\nface and, taking him by the ear, pulled it gently, smiling with his lips\nonly.\n\nTo have one's ear pulled by the Emperor was considered the greatest\nhonor and mark of favor at the French court.\n\n\"Well, adorer and courtier of the Emperor Alexander, why don't you say\nanything?\" said he, as if it was ridiculous, in his presence, to be the\nadorer and courtier of anyone but himself, Napoleon. \"Are the horses\nready for the general?\" he added, with a slight inclination of his head\nin reply to Balashev's bow. \"Let him have mine, he has a long way to\ngo!\"\n\nThe letter taken by Balashev was the last Napoleon sent to Alexander.\nEvery detail of the interview was communicated to the Russian monarch,\nand the war began...\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nAfter his interview with Pierre in Moscow, Prince Andrew went to\nPetersburg, on business as he told his family, but really to meet\nAnatole Kuragin whom he felt it necessary to encounter. On reaching\nPetersburg he inquired for Kuragin but the latter had already left the\ncity. Pierre had warned his brother-in-law that Prince Andrew was on his\ntrack. Anatole Kuragin promptly obtained an appointment from the\nMinister of War and went to join the army in Moldavia. While in\nPetersburg Prince Andrew met Kutuzov, his former commander who was\nalways well disposed toward him, and Kutuzov suggested that he should\naccompany him to the army in Moldavia, to which the old general had been\nappointed commander-in-chief. So Prince Andrew, having received an\nappointment on the headquarters staff, left for Turkey.\n\nPrince Andrew did not think it proper to write and challenge Kuragin. He\nthought that if he challenged him without some fresh cause it might\ncompromise the young Countess Rostova and so he wanted to meet Kuragin\npersonally in order to find a fresh pretext for a duel. But he again\nfailed to meet Kuragin in Turkey, for soon after Prince Andrew arrived,\nthe latter returned to Russia. In a new country, amid new conditions,\nPrince Andrew found life easier to bear. After his betrothed had broken\nfaith with him--which he felt the more acutely the more he tried to\nconceal its effects--the surroundings in which he had been happy became\ntrying to him, and the freedom and independence he had once prized so\nhighly were still more so. Not only could he no longer think the\nthoughts that had first come to him as he lay gazing at the sky on the\nfield of Austerlitz and had later enlarged upon with Pierre, and which\nhad filled his solitude at Bogucharovo and then in Switzerland and Rome,\nbut he even dreaded to recall them and the bright and boundless horizons\nthey had revealed. He was now concerned only with the nearest practical\nmatters unrelated to his past interests, and he seized on these the more\neagerly the more those past interests were closed to him. It was as if\nthat lofty, infinite canopy of heaven that had once towered above him\nhad suddenly turned into a low, solid vault that weighed him down, in\nwhich all was clear, but nothing eternal or mysterious.\n\nOf the activities that presented themselves to him, army service was the\nsimplest and most familiar. As a general on duty on Kutuzov's staff, he\napplied himself to business with zeal and perseverance and surprised\nKutuzov by his willingness and accuracy in work. Not having found\nKuragin in Turkey, Prince Andrew did not think it necessary to rush back\nto Russia after him, but all the same he knew that however long it might\nbe before he met Kuragin, despite his contempt for him and despite all\nthe proofs he deduced to convince himself that it was not worth stooping\nto a conflict with him--he knew that when he did meet him he would not\nbe able to resist calling him out, any more than a ravenous man can help\nsnatching at food. And the consciousness that the insult was not yet\navenged, that his rancor was still unspent, weighed on his heart and\npoisoned the artificial tranquillity which he managed to obtain in\nTurkey by means of restless, plodding, and rather vainglorious and\nambitious activity.\n\nIn the year 1812, when news of the war with Napoleon reached Bucharest--\nwhere Kutuzov had been living for two months, passing his days and\nnights with a Wallachian woman--Prince Andrew asked Kutuzov to transfer\nhim to the Western Army. Kutuzov, who was already weary of Bolkonski's\nactivity which seemed to reproach his own idleness, very readily let him\ngo and gave him a mission to Barclay de Tolly.\n\nBefore joining the Western Army which was then, in May, encamped at\nDrissa, Prince Andrew visited Bald Hills which was directly on his way,\nbeing only two miles off the Smolensk highroad. During the last three\nyears there had been so many changes in his life, he had thought, felt,\nand seen so much (having traveled both in the east and the west), that\non reaching Bald Hills it struck him as strange and unexpected to find\nthe way of life there unchanged and still the same in every detail. He\nentered through the gates with their stone pillars and drove up the\navenue leading to the house as if he were entering an enchanted,\nsleeping castle. The same old stateliness, the same cleanliness, the\nsame stillness reigned there, and inside there was the same furniture,\nthe same walls, sounds, and smell, and the same timid faces, only\nsomewhat older. Princess Mary was still the same timid, plain maiden\ngetting on in years, uselessly and joylessly passing the best years of\nher life in fear and constant suffering. Mademoiselle Bourienne was the\nsame coquettish, self-satisfied girl, enjoying every moment of her\nexistence and full of joyous hopes for the future. She had merely become\nmore self-confident, Prince Andrew thought. Dessalles, the tutor he had\nbrought from Switzerland, was wearing a coat of Russian cut and talking\nbroken Russian to the servants, but was still the same narrowly\nintelligent, conscientious, and pedantic preceptor. The old prince had\nchanged in appearance only by the loss of a tooth, which left a\nnoticeable gap on one side of his mouth; in character he was the same as\never, only showing still more irritability and skepticism as to what was\nhappening in the world. Little Nicholas alone had changed. He had grown,\nbecome rosier, had curly dark hair, and, when merry and laughing, quite\nunconsciously lifted the upper lip of his pretty little mouth just as\nthe little princess used to do. He alone did not obey the law of\nimmutability in the enchanted, sleeping castle. But though externally\nall remained as of old, the inner relations of all these people had\nchanged since Prince Andrew had seen them last. The household was\ndivided into two alien and hostile camps, who changed their habits for\nhis sake and only met because he was there. To the one camp belonged the\nold prince, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and the architect; to the other\nPrincess Mary, Dessalles, little Nicholas, and all the old nurses and\nmaids.\n\nDuring his stay at Bald Hills all the family dined together, but they\nwere ill at ease and Prince Andrew felt that he was a visitor for whose\nsake an exception was being made and that his presence made them all\nfeel awkward. Involuntarily feeling this at dinner on the first day, he\nwas taciturn, and the old prince noticing this also became morosely dumb\nand retired to his apartments directly after dinner. In the evening,\nwhen Prince Andrew went to him and, trying to rouse him, began to tell\nhim of the young Count Kamensky's campaign, the old prince began\nunexpectedly to talk about Princess Mary, blaming her for her\nsuperstitions and her dislike of Mademoiselle Bourienne, who, he said,\nwas the only person really attached to him.\n\nThe old prince said that if he was ill it was only because of Princess\nMary: that she purposely worried and irritated him, and that by\nindulgence and silly talk she was spoiling little Prince Nicholas. The\nold prince knew very well that he tormented his daughter and that her\nlife was very hard, but he also knew that he could not help tormenting\nher and that she deserved it. \"Why does Prince Andrew, who sees this,\nsay nothing to me about his sister? Does he think me a scoundrel, or an\nold fool who, without any reason, keeps his own daughter at a distance\nand attaches this Frenchwoman to himself? He doesn't understand, so I\nmust explain it, and he must hear me out,\" thought the old prince. And\nhe began explaining why he could not put up with his daughter's\nunreasonable character.\n\n\"If you ask me,\" said Prince Andrew, without looking up (he was\ncensuring his father for the first time in his life), \"I did not wish to\nspeak about it, but as you ask me I will give you my frank opinion. If\nthere is any misunderstanding and discord between you and Mary, I can't\nblame her for it at all. I know how she loves and respects you. Since\nyou ask me,\" continued Prince Andrew, becoming irritable--as he was\nalways liable to do of late--\"I can only say that if there are any\nmisunderstandings they are caused by that worthless woman, who is not\nfit to be my sister's companion.\"\n\nThe old man at first stared fixedly at his son, and an unnatural smile\ndisclosed the fresh gap between his teeth to which Prince Andrew could\nnot get accustomed.\n\n\"What companion, my dear boy? Eh? You've already been talking it over!\nEh?\"\n\n\"Father, I did not want to judge,\" said Prince Andrew, in a hard and\nbitter tone, \"but you challenged me, and I have said, and always shall\nsay, that Mary is not to blame, but those to blame--the one to blame--is\nthat Frenchwoman.\"\n\n\"Ah, he has passed judgment... passed judgement!\" said the old man in a\nlow voice and, as it seemed to Prince Andrew, with some embarrassment,\nbut then he suddenly jumped up and cried: \"Be off, be off! Let not a\ntrace of you remain here!...\"\n\nPrince Andrew wished to leave at once, but Princess Mary persuaded him\nto stay another day. That day he did not see his father, who did not\nleave his room and admitted no one but Mademoiselle Bourienne and\nTikhon, but asked several times whether his son had gone. Next day,\nbefore leaving, Prince Andrew went to his son's rooms. The boy, curly-\nheaded like his mother and glowing with health, sat on his knee, and\nPrince Andrew began telling him the story of Bluebeard, but fell into a\nreverie without finishing the story. He thought not of this pretty\nchild, his son whom he held on his knee, but of himself. He sought in\nhimself either remorse for having angered his father or regret at\nleaving home for the first time in his life on bad terms with him, and\nwas horrified to find neither. What meant still more to him was that he\nsought and did not find in himself the former tenderness for his son\nwhich he had hoped to reawaken by caressing the boy and taking him on\nhis knee.\n\n\"Well, go on!\" said his son.\n\nPrince Andrew, without replying, put him down from his knee and went out\nof the room.\n\nAs soon as Prince Andrew had given up his daily occupations, and\nespecially on returning to the old conditions of life amid which he had\nbeen happy, weariness of life overcame him with its former intensity,\nand he hastened to escape from these memories and to find some work as\nsoon as possible.\n\n\"So you've decided to go, Andrew?\" asked his sister.\n\n\"Thank God that I can,\" replied Prince Andrew. \"I am very sorry you\ncan't.\"\n\n\"Why do you say that?\" replied Princess Mary. \"Why do you say that, when\nyou are going to this terrible war, and he is so old? Mademoiselle\nBourienne says he has been asking about you....\"\n\nAs soon as she began to speak of that, her lips trembled and her tears\nbegan to fall. Prince Andrew turned away and began pacing the room.\n\n\"Ah, my God! my God! When one thinks who and what--what trash--can cause\npeople misery!\" he said with a malignity that alarmed Princess Mary.\n\nShe understood that when speaking of \"trash\" he referred not only to\nMademoiselle Bourienne, the cause of her misery, but also to the man who\nhad ruined his own happiness.\n\n\"Andrew! One thing I beg, I entreat of you!\" she said, touching his\nelbow and looking at him with eyes that shone through her tears. \"I\nunderstand you\" (she looked down). \"Don't imagine that sorrow is the\nwork of men. Men are His tools.\" She looked a little above Prince\nAndrew's head with the confident, accustomed look with which one looks\nat the place where a familiar portrait hangs. \"Sorrow is sent by Him,\nnot by men. Men are His instruments, they are not to blame. If you think\nsomeone has wronged you, forget it and forgive! We have no right to\npunish. And then you will know the happiness of forgiving.\"\n\n\"If I were a woman I would do so, Mary. That is a woman's virtue. But a\nman should not and cannot forgive and forget,\" he replied, and though\ntill that moment he had not been thinking of Kuragin, all his unexpended\nanger suddenly swelled up in his heart.\n\n\"If Mary is already persuading me to forgive, it means that I ought long\nago to have punished him,\" he thought. And giving her no further reply,\nhe began thinking of the glad vindictive moment when he would meet\nKuragin who he knew was now in the army.\n\nPrincess Mary begged him to stay one day more, saying that she knew how\nunhappy her father would be if Andrew left without being reconciled to\nhim, but Prince Andrew replied that he would probably soon be back again\nfrom the army and would certainly write to his father, but that the\nlonger he stayed now the more embittered their differences would become.\n\n\"Good-bye, Andrew! Remember that misfortunes come from God, and men are\nnever to blame,\" were the last words he heard from his sister when he\ntook leave of her.\n\n\"Then it must be so!\" thought Prince Andrew as he drove out of the\navenue from the house at Bald Hills. \"She, poor innocent creature, is\nleft to be victimized by an old man who has outlived his wits. The old\nman feels he is guilty, but cannot change himself. My boy is growing up\nand rejoices in life, in which like everybody else he will deceive or be\ndeceived. And I am off to the army. Why? I myself don't know. I want to\nmeet that man whom I despise, so as to give him a chance to kill and\nlaugh at me!\"\n\nThese conditions of life had been the same before, but then they were\nall connected, while now they had all tumbled to pieces. Only senseless\nthings, lacking coherence, presented themselves one after another to\nPrince Andrew's mind.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nPrince Andrew reached the general headquarters of the army at the end of\nJune. The first army, with which was the Emperor, occupied the fortified\ncamp at Drissa; the second army was retreating, trying to effect a\njunction with the first one from which it was said to be cut off by\nlarge French forces. Everyone was dissatisfied with the general course\nof affairs in the Russian army, but no one anticipated any danger of\ninvasion of the Russian provinces, and no one thought the war would\nextend farther than the western, the Polish, provinces.\n\nPrince Andrew found Barclay de Tolly, to whom he had been assigned, on\nthe bank of the Drissa. As there was not a single town or large village\nin the vicinity of the camp, the immense number of generals and\ncourtiers accompanying the army were living in the best houses of the\nvillages on both sides of the river, over a radius of six miles. Barclay\nde Tolly was quartered nearly three miles from the Emperor. He received\nBolkonski stiffly and coldly and told him in his foreign accent that he\nwould mention him to the Emperor for a decision as to his employment,\nbut asked him meanwhile to remain on his staff. Anatole Kuragin, whom\nPrince Andrew had hoped to find with the army, was not there. He had\ngone to Petersburg, but Prince Andrew was glad to hear this. His mind\nwas occupied by the interests of the center that was conducting a\ngigantic war, and he was glad to be free for a while from the\ndistraction caused by the thought of Kuragin. During the first four\ndays, while no duties were required of him, Prince Andrew rode round the\nwhole fortified camp and, by the aid of his own knowledge and by talks\nwith experts, tried to form a definite opinion about it. But the\nquestion whether the camp was advantageous or disadvantageous remained\nfor him undecided. Already from his military experience and what he had\nseen in the Austrian campaign, he had come to the conclusion that in war\nthe most deeply considered plans have no significance and that all\ndepends on the way unexpected movements of the enemy--that cannot be\nforeseen--are met, and on how and by whom the whole matter is handled.\nTo clear up this last point for himself, Prince Andrew, utilizing his\nposition and acquaintances, tried to fathom the character of the control\nof the army and of the men and parties engaged in it, and he deduced for\nhimself the following of the state of affairs.\n\nWhile the Emperor had still been at Vilna, the forces had been divided\ninto three armies. First, the army under Barclay de Tolly, secondly, the\narmy under Bagration, and thirdly, the one commanded by Tormasov. The\nEmperor was with the first army, but not as commander-in-chief. In the\norders issued it was stated, not that the Emperor would take command,\nbut only that he would be with the army. The Emperor, moreover, had with\nhim not a commander-in-chief's staff but the imperial headquarters\nstaff. In attendance on him was the head of the imperial staff,\nQuartermaster General Prince Volkonski, as well as generals, imperial\naides-de-camp, diplomatic officials, and a large number of foreigners,\nbut not the army staff. Besides these, there were in attendance on the\nEmperor without any definite appointments: Arakcheev, the ex-Minister of\nWar; Count Bennigsen, the senior general in rank; the Grand Duke\nTsarevich Constantine Pavlovich; Count Rumyantsev, the Chancellor;\nStein, a former Prussian minister; Armfeldt, a Swedish general; Pfuel,\nthe chief author of the plan of campaign; Paulucci, an adjutant general\nand Sardinian emigre; Wolzogen--and many others. Though these men had no\nmilitary appointment in the army, their position gave them influence,\nand often a corps commander, or even the commander-in-chief, did not\nknow in what capacity he was questioned by Bennigsen, the Grand Duke,\nArakcheev, or Prince Volkonski, or was given this or that advice and did\nnot know whether a certain order received in the form of advice emanated\nfrom the man who gave it or from the Emperor and whether it had to be\nexecuted or not. But this was only the external condition; the essential\nsignificance of the presence of the Emperor and of all these people,\nfrom a courtier's point of view (and in an Emperor's vicinity all became\ncourtiers), was clear to everyone. It was this: the Emperor did not\nassume the title of commander-in-chief, but disposed of all the armies;\nthe men around him were his assistants. Arakcheev was a faithful\ncustodian to enforce order and acted as the sovereign's bodyguard.\nBennigsen was a landlord in the Vilna province who appeared to be doing\nthe honors of the district, but was in reality a good general, useful as\nan adviser and ready at hand to replace Barclay. The Grand Duke was\nthere because it suited him to be. The ex-Minister Stein was there\nbecause his advice was useful and the Emperor Alexander held him in high\nesteem personally. Armfeldt virulently hated Napoleon and was a general\nfull of self-confidence, a quality that always influenced Alexander.\nPaulucci was there because he was bold and decided in speech. The\nadjutants general were there because they always accompanied the\nEmperor, and lastly and chiefly Pfuel was there because he had drawn up\nthe plan of campaign against Napoleon and, having induced Alexander to\nbelieve in the efficacy of that plan, was directing the whole business\nof the war. With Pfuel was Wolzogen, who expressed Pfuel's thoughts in a\nmore comprehensible way than Pfuel himself (who was a harsh, bookish\ntheorist, self-confident to the point of despising everyone else) was\nable to do.\n\nBesides these Russians and foreigners who propounded new and unexpected\nideas every day--especially the foreigners, who did so with a boldness\ncharacteristic of people employed in a country not their own--there were\nmany secondary personages accompanying the army because their principals\nwere there.\n\nAmong the opinions and voices in this immense, restless, brilliant, and\nproud sphere, Prince Andrew noticed the following sharply defined\nsubdivisions of tendencies and parties:\n\nThe first party consisted of Pfuel and his adherents--military theorists\nwho believed in a science of war with immutable laws--laws of oblique\nmovements, outflankings, and so forth. Pfuel and his adherents demanded\na retirement into the depths of the country in accordance with precise\nlaws defined by a pseudo-theory of war, and they saw only barbarism,\nignorance, or evil intention in every deviation from that theory. To\nthis party belonged the foreign nobles, Wolzogen, Wintzingerode, and\nothers, chiefly Germans.\n\nThe second party was directly opposed to the first; one extreme, as\nalways happens, was met by representatives of the other. The members of\nthis party were those who had demanded an advance from Vilna into Poland\nand freedom from all prearranged plans. Besides being advocates of bold\naction, this section also represented nationalism, which made them still\nmore one-sided in the dispute. They were Russians: Bagration, Ermolov\n(who was beginning to come to the front), and others. At that time a\nfamous joke of Ermolov's was being circulated, that as a great favor he\nhad petitioned the Emperor to make him a German. The men of that party,\nremembering Suvorov, said that what one had to do was not to reason, or\nstick pins into maps, but to fight, beat the enemy, keep him out of\nRussia, and not let the army get discouraged.\n\nTo the third party--in which the Emperor had most confidence--belonged\nthe courtiers who tried to arrange compromises between the other two.\nThe members of this party, chiefly civilians and to whom Arakcheev\nbelonged, thought and said what men who have no convictions but wish to\nseem to have some generally say. They said that undoubtedly war,\nparticularly against such a genius as Bonaparte (they called him\nBonaparte now), needs most deeply devised plans and profound scientific\nknowledge and in that respect Pfuel was a genius, but at the same time\nit had to be acknowledged that the theorists are often one-sided, and\ntherefore one should not trust them absolutely, but should also listen\nto what Pfuel's opponents and practical men of experience in warfare had\nto say, and then choose a middle course. They insisted on the retention\nof the camp at Drissa, according to Pfuel's plan, but on changing the\nmovements of the other armies. Though, by this course, neither one aim\nnor the other could be attained, yet it seemed best to the adherents of\nthis third party.\n\nOf a fourth opinion the most conspicuous representative was the\nTsarevich, who could not forget his disillusionment at Austerlitz, where\nhe had ridden out at the head of the Guards, in his casque and cavalry\nuniform as to a review, expecting to crush the French gallantly; but\nunexpectedly finding himself in the front line had narrowly escaped amid\nthe general confusion. The men of this party had both the quality and\nthe defect of frankness in their opinions. They feared Napoleon,\nrecognized his strength and their own weakness, and frankly said so.\nThey said: \"Nothing but sorrow, shame, and ruin will come of all this!\nWe have abandoned Vilna and Vitebsk and shall abandon Drissa. The only\nreasonable thing left to do is to conclude peace as soon as possible,\nbefore we are turned out of Petersburg.\"\n\nThis view was very general in the upper army circles and found support\nalso in Petersburg and from the chancellor, Rumyantsev, who, for other\nreasons of state, was in favor of peace.\n\nThe fifth party consisted of those who were adherents of Barclay de\nTolly, not so much as a man but as minister of war and commander-in-\nchief. \"Be he what he may\" (they always began like that), \"he is an\nhonest, practical man and we have nobody better. Give him real power,\nfor war cannot be conducted successfully without unity of command, and\nhe will show what he can do, as he did in Finland. If our army is well\norganized and strong and has withdrawn to Drissa without suffering any\ndefeats, we owe this entirely to Barclay. If Barclay is now to be\nsuperseded by Bennigsen all will be lost, for Bennigsen showed his\nincapacity already in 1807.\"\n\nThe sixth party, the Bennigsenites, said, on the contrary, that at any\nrate there was no one more active and experienced than Bennigsen: \"and\ntwist about as you may, you will have to come to Bennigsen eventually.\nLet the others make mistakes now!\" said they, arguing that our\nretirement to Drissa was a most shameful reverse and an unbroken series\nof blunders. \"The more mistakes that are made the better. It will at any\nrate be understood all the sooner that things cannot go on like this.\nWhat is wanted is not some Barclay or other, but a man like Bennigsen,\nwho made his mark in 1807, and to whom Napoleon himself did justice--a\nman whose authority would be willingly recognized, and Bennigsen is the\nonly such man.\"\n\nThe seventh party consisted of the sort of people who are always to be\nfound, especially around young sovereigns, and of whom there were\nparticularly many round Alexander--generals and imperial aides-de-camp\npassionately devoted to the Emperor, not merely as a monarch but as a\nman, adoring him sincerely and disinterestedly, as Rostov had done in\n1805, and who saw in him not only all the virtues but all human\ncapabilities as well. These men, though enchanted with the sovereign for\nrefusing the command of the army, yet blamed him for such excessive\nmodesty, and only desired and insisted that their adored sovereign\nshould abandon his diffidence and openly announce that he would place\nhimself at the head of the army, gather round him a commander-in-chief's\nstaff, and, consulting experienced theoreticians and practical men where\nnecessary, would himself lead the troops, whose spirits would thereby be\nraised to the highest pitch.\n\nThe eighth and largest group, which in its enormous numbers was to the\nothers as ninety-nine to one, consisted of men who desired neither peace\nnor war, neither an advance nor a defensive camp at the Drissa or\nanywhere else, neither Barclay nor the Emperor, neither Pfuel nor\nBennigsen, but only the one most essential thing--as much advantage and\npleasure for themselves as possible. In the troubled waters of\nconflicting and intersecting intrigues that eddied about the Emperor's\nheadquarters, it was possible to succeed in many ways unthinkable at\nother times. A man who simply wished to retain his lucrative post would\ntoday agree with Pfuel, tomorrow with his opponent, and the day after,\nmerely to avoid responsibility or to please the Emperor, would declare\nthat he had no opinion at all on the matter. Another who wished to gain\nsome advantage would attract the Emperor's attention by loudly\nadvocating the very thing the Emperor had hinted at the day before, and\nwould dispute and shout at the council, beating his breast and\nchallenging those who did not agree with him to duels, thereby proving\nthat he was prepared to sacrifice himself for the common good. A third,\nin the absence of opponents, between two councils would simply solicit a\nspecial gratuity for his faithful services, well knowing that at that\nmoment people would be too busy to refuse him. A fourth while seemingly\noverwhelmed with work would often come accidentally under the Emperor's\neye. A fifth, to achieve his long-cherished aim of dining with the\nEmperor, would stubbornly insist on the correctness or falsity of some\nnewly emerging opinion and for this object would produce arguments more\nor less forcible and correct.\n\nAll the men of this party were fishing for rubles, decorations, and\npromotions, and in this pursuit watched only the weathercock of imperial\nfavor, and directly they noticed it turning in any direction, this whole\ndrone population of the army began blowing hard that way, so that it was\nall the harder for the Emperor to turn it elsewhere. Amid the\nuncertainties of the position, with the menace of serious danger giving\na peculiarly threatening character to everything, amid this vortex of\nintrigue, egotism, conflict of views and feelings, and the diversity of\nrace among these people--this eighth and largest party of those\npreoccupied with personal interests imparted great confusion and\nobscurity to the common task. Whatever question arose, a swarm of these\ndrones, without having finished their buzzing on a previous theme, flew\nover to the new one and by their hum drowned and obscured the voices of\nthose who were disputing honestly.\n\nFrom among all these parties, just at the time Prince Andrew reached the\narmy, another, a ninth party, was being formed and was beginning to\nraise its voice. This was the party of the elders, reasonable men\nexperienced and capable in state affairs, who, without sharing any of\nthose conflicting opinions, were able to take a detached view of what\nwas going on at the staff at headquarters and to consider means of\nescape from this muddle, indecision, intricacy, and weakness.\n\nThe men of this party said and thought that what was wrong resulted\nchiefly from the Emperor's presence in the army with his military court\nand from the consequent presence there of an indefinite, conditional,\nand unsteady fluctuation of relations, which is in place at court but\nharmful in an army; that a sovereign should reign but not command the\narmy, and that the only way out of the position would be for the Emperor\nand his court to leave the army; that the mere presence of the Emperor\nparalyzed the action of fifty thousand men required to secure his\npersonal safety, and that the worst commander-in-chief, if independent,\nwould be better than the very best one trammeled by the presence and\nauthority of the monarch.\n\nJust at the time Prince Andrew was living unoccupied at Drissa,\nShishkov, the Secretary of State and one of the chief representatives of\nthis party, wrote a letter to the Emperor which Arakcheev and Balashev\nagreed to sign. In this letter, availing himself of permission given him\nby the Emperor to discuss the general course of affairs, he respectfully\nsuggested--on the plea that it was necessary for the sovereign to arouse\na warlike spirit in the people of the capital--that the Emperor should\nleave the army.\n\nThat arousing of the people by their sovereign and his call to them to\ndefend their country--the very incitement which was the chief cause of\nRussia's triumph in so far as it was produced by the Tsar's personal\npresence in Moscow--was suggested to the Emperor, and accepted by him,\nas a pretext for quitting the army.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nThis letter had not yet been presented to the Emperor when Barclay, one\nday at dinner, informed Bolkonski that the sovereign wished to see him\npersonally, to question him about Turkey, and that Prince Andrew was to\npresent himself at Bennigsen's quarters at six that evening.\n\nNews was received at the Emperor's quarters that very day of a fresh\nmovement by Napoleon which might endanger the army--news subsequently\nfound to be false. And that morning Colonel Michaud had ridden round the\nDrissa fortifications with the Emperor and had pointed out to him that\nthis fortified camp constructed by Pfuel, and till then considered a\nchef-d'oeuvre of tactical science which would ensure Napoleon's\ndestruction, was an absurdity, threatening the destruction of the\nRussian army.\n\nPrince Andrew arrived at Bennigsen's quarters--a country gentleman's\nhouse of moderate size, situated on the very banks of the river. Neither\nBennigsen nor the Emperor was there, but Chernyshev, the Emperor's aide-\nde-camp, received Bolkonski and informed him that the Emperor,\naccompanied by General Bennigsen and Marquis Paulucci, had gone a second\ntime that day to inspect the fortifications of the Drissa camp, of the\nsuitability of which serious doubts were beginning to be felt.\n\nChernyshev was sitting at a window in the first room with a French novel\nin his hand. This room had probably been a music room; there was still\nan organ in it on which some rugs were piled, and in one corner stood\nthe folding bedstead of Bennigsen's adjutant. This adjutant was also\nthere and sat dozing on the rolled-up bedding, evidently exhausted by\nwork or by feasting. Two doors led from the room, one straight on into\nwhat had been the drawing room, and another, on the right, to the study.\nThrough the first door came the sound of voices conversing in German and\noccasionally in French. In that drawing room were gathered, by the\nEmperor's wish, not a military council (the Emperor preferred\nindefiniteness), but certain persons whose opinions he wished to know in\nview of the impending difficulties. It was not a council of war, but, as\nit were, a council to elucidate certain questions for the Emperor\npersonally. To this semicouncil had been invited the Swedish General\nArmfeldt, Adjutant General Wolzogen, Wintzingerode (whom Napoleon had\nreferred to as a renegade French subject), Michaud, Toll, Count Stein\nwho was not a military man at all, and Pfuel himself, who, as Prince\nAndrew had heard, was the mainspring of the whole affair. Prince Andrew\nhad an opportunity of getting a good look at him, for Pfuel arrived soon\nafter himself and, in passing through to the drawing room, stopped a\nminute to speak to Chernyshev.\n\nAt first sight, Pfuel, in his ill-made uniform of a Russian general,\nwhich fitted him badly like a fancy costume, seemed familiar to Prince\nAndrew, though he saw him now for the first time. There was about him\nsomething of Weyrother, Mack, and Schmidt, and many other German\ntheorist-generals whom Prince Andrew had seen in 1805, but he was more\ntypical than any of them. Prince Andrew had never yet seen a German\ntheorist in whom all the characteristics of those others were united to\nsuch an extent.\n\nPfuel was short and very thin but broad-boned, of coarse, robust build,\nbroad in the hips, and with prominent shoulder blades. His face was much\nwrinkled and his eyes deep set. His hair had evidently been hastily\nbrushed smooth in front of the temples, but stuck up behind in quaint\nlittle tufts. He entered the room, looking restlessly and angrily\naround, as if afraid of everything in that large apartment. Awkwardly\nholding up his sword, he addressed Chernyshev and asked in German where\nthe Emperor was. One could see that he wished to pass through the rooms\nas quickly as possible, finish with the bows and greetings, and sit down\nto business in front of a map, where he would feel at home. He nodded\nhurriedly in reply to Chernyshev, and smiled ironically on hearing that\nthe sovereign was inspecting the fortifications that he, Pfuel, had\nplanned in accord with his theory. He muttered something to himself\nabruptly and in a bass voice, as self-assured Germans do--it might have\nbeen \"stupid fellow\"... or \"the whole affair will be ruined,\" or\n\"something absurd will come of it.\"... Prince Andrew did not catch what\nhe said and would have passed on, but Chernyshev introduced him to\nPfuel, remarking that Prince Andrew was just back from Turkey where the\nwar had terminated so fortunately. Pfuel barely glanced--not so much at\nPrince Andrew as past him--and said, with a laugh: \"That must have been\na fine tactical war\"; and, laughing contemptuously, went on into the\nroom from which the sound of voices was heard.\n\nPfuel, always inclined to be irritably sarcastic, was particularly\ndisturbed that day, evidently by the fact that they had dared to inspect\nand criticize his camp in his absence. From this short interview with\nPfuel, Prince Andrew, thanks to his Austerlitz experiences, was able to\nform a clear conception of the man. Pfuel was one of those hopelessly\nand immutably self-confident men, self-confident to the point of\nmartyrdom as only Germans are, because only Germans are self-confident\non the basis of an abstract notion--science, that is, the supposed\nknowledge of absolute truth. A Frenchman is self-assured because he\nregards himself personally, both in mind and body, as irresistibly\nattractive to men and women. An Englishman is self-assured, as being a\ncitizen of the best-organized state in the world, and therefore as an\nEnglishman always knows what he should do and knows that all he does as\nan Englishman is undoubtedly correct. An Italian is self-assured because\nhe is excitable and easily forgets himself and other people. A Russian\nis self-assured just because he knows nothing and does not want to know\nanything, since he does not believe that anything can be known. The\nGerman's self-assurance is worst of all, stronger and more repulsive\nthan any other, because he imagines that he knows the truth--science--\nwhich he himself has invented but which is for him the absolute truth.\n\nPfuel was evidently of that sort. He had a science--the theory of\noblique movements deduced by him from the history of Frederick the\nGreat's wars, and all he came across in the history of more recent\nwarfare seemed to him absurd and barbarous--monstrous collisions in\nwhich so many blunders were committed by both sides that these wars\ncould not be called wars, they did not accord with the theory, and\ntherefore could not serve as material for science.\n\nIn 1806 Pfuel had been one of those responsible, for the plan of\ncampaign that ended in Jena and Auerstadt, but he did not see the least\nproof of the fallibility of his theory in the disasters of that war. On\nthe contrary, the deviations made from his theory were, in his opinion,\nthe sole cause of the whole disaster, and with characteristically\ngleeful sarcasm he would remark, \"There, I said the whole affair would\ngo to the devil!\" Pfuel was one of those theoreticians who so love their\ntheory that they lose sight of the theory's object--its practical\napplication. His love of theory made him hate everything practical, and\nhe would not listen to it. He was even pleased by failures, for failures\nresulting from deviations in practice from the theory only proved to him\nthe accuracy of his theory.\n\nHe said a few words to Prince Andrew and Chernyshev about the present\nwar, with the air of a man who knows beforehand that all will go wrong,\nand who is not displeased that it should be so. The unbrushed tufts of\nhair sticking up behind and the hastily brushed hair on his temples\nexpressed this most eloquently.\n\nHe passed into the next room, and the deep, querulous sounds of his\nvoice were at once heard from there.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nPrince Andrew's eyes were still following Pfuel out of the room when\nCount Bennigsen entered hurriedly, and nodding to Bolkonski, but not\npausing, went into the study, giving instructions to his adjutant as he\nwent. The Emperor was following him, and Bennigsen had hastened on to\nmake some preparations and to be ready to receive the sovereign.\nChernyshev and Prince Andrew went out into the porch, where the Emperor,\nwho looked fatigued, was dismounting. Marquis Paulucci was talking to\nhim with particular warmth and the Emperor, with his head bent to the\nleft, was listening with a dissatisfied air. The Emperor moved forward\nevidently wishing to end the conversation, but the flushed and excited\nItalian, oblivious of decorum, followed him and continued to speak.\n\n\"And as for the man who advised forming this camp--the Drissa camp,\"\nsaid Paulucci, as the Emperor mounted the steps and noticing Prince\nAndrew scanned his unfamiliar face, \"as to that person, sire...\"\ncontinued Paulucci, desperately, apparently unable to restrain himself,\n\"the man who advised the Drissa camp--I see no alternative but the\nlunatic asylum or the gallows!\"\n\nWithout heeding the end of the Italian's remarks, and as though not\nhearing them, the Emperor, recognizing Bolkonski, addressed him\ngraciously.\n\n\"I am very glad to see you! Go in there where they are meeting, and wait\nfor me.\"\n\nThe Emperor went into the study. He was followed by Prince Peter\nMikhaylovich Volkonski and Baron Stein, and the door closed behind them.\nPrince Andrew, taking advantage of the Emperor's permission, accompanied\nPaulucci, whom he had known in Turkey, into the drawing room where the\ncouncil was assembled.\n\nPrince Peter Mikhaylovich Volkonski occupied the position, as it were,\nof chief of the Emperor's staff. He came out of the study into the\ndrawing room with some maps which he spread on a table, and put\nquestions on which he wished to hear the opinion of the gentlemen\npresent. What had happened was that news (which afterwards proved to be\nfalse) had been received during the night of a movement by the French to\noutflank the Drissa camp.\n\nThe first to speak was General Armfeldt who, to meet the difficulty that\npresented itself, unexpectedly proposed a perfectly new position away\nfrom the Petersburg and Moscow roads. The reason for this was\ninexplicable (unless he wished to show that he, too, could have an\nopinion), but he urged that at this point the army should unite and\nthere await the enemy. It was plain that Armfeldt had thought out that\nplan long ago and now expounded it not so much to answer the questions\nput--which, in fact, his plan did not answer--as to avail himself of the\nopportunity to air it. It was one of the millions of proposals, one as\ngood as another, that could be made as long as it was quite unknown what\ncharacter the war would take. Some disputed his arguments, others\ndefended them. Young Count Toll objected to the Swedish general's views\nmore warmly than anyone else, and in the course of the dispute drew from\nhis side pocket a well-filled notebook, which he asked permission to\nread to them. In these voluminous notes Toll suggested another scheme,\ntotally different from Armfeldt's or Pfuel's plan of campaign. In answer\nto Toll, Paulucci suggested an advance and an attack, which, he urged,\ncould alone extricate us from the present uncertainty and from the trap\n(as he called the Drissa camp) in which we were situated.\n\nDuring all these discussions Pfuel and his interpreter, Wolzogen (his\n\"bridge\" in court relations), were silent. Pfuel only snorted\ncontemptuously and turned away, to show that he would never demean\nhimself by replying to such nonsense as he was now hearing. So when\nPrince Volkonski, who was in the chair, called on him to give his\nopinion, he merely said:\n\n\"Why ask me? General Armfeldt has proposed a splendid position with an\nexposed rear, or why not this Italian gentleman's attack--very fine, or\na retreat, also good! Why ask me?\" said he. \"Why, you yourselves know\neverything better than I do.\"\n\nBut when Volkonski said, with a frown, that it was in the Emperor's name\nthat he asked his opinion, Pfuel rose and, suddenly growing animated,\nbegan to speak:\n\n\"Everything has been spoiled, everything muddled, everybody thought they\nknew better than I did, and now you come to me! How mend matters? There\nis nothing to mend! The principles laid down by me must be strictly\nadhered to,\" said he, drumming on the table with his bony fingers. \"What\nis the difficulty? Nonsense, childishness!\"\n\nHe went up to the map and speaking rapidly began proving that no\neventuality could alter the efficiency of the Drissa camp, that\neverything had been foreseen, and that if the enemy were really going to\noutflank it, the enemy would inevitably be destroyed.\n\nPaulucci, who did not know German, began questioning him in French.\nWolzogen came to the assistance of his chief, who spoke French badly,\nand began translating for him, hardly able to keep pace with Pfuel, who\nwas rapidly demonstrating that not only all that had happened, but all\nthat could happen, had been foreseen in his scheme, and that if there\nwere now any difficulties the whole fault lay in the fact that his plan\nhad not been precisely executed. He kept laughing sarcastically, he\ndemonstrated, and at last contemptuously ceased to demonstrate, like a\nmathematician who ceases to prove in various ways the accuracy of a\nproblem that has already been proved. Wolzogen took his place and\ncontinued to explain his views in French, every now and then turning to\nPfuel and saying, \"Is it not so, your excellency?\" But Pfuel, like a man\nheated in a fight who strikes those on his own side, shouted angrily at\nhis own supporter, Wolzogen:\n\n\"Well, of course, what more is there to explain?\"\n\nPaulucci and Michaud both attacked Wolzogen simultaneously in French.\nArmfeldt addressed Pfuel in German. Toll explained to Volkonski in\nRussian. Prince Andrew listened and observed in silence.\n\nOf all these men Prince Andrew sympathized most with Pfuel, angry,\ndetermined, and absurdly self-confident as he was. Of all those present,\nevidently he alone was not seeking anything for himself, nursed no\nhatred against anyone, and only desired that the plan, formed on a\ntheory arrived at by years of toil, should be carried out. He was\nridiculous, and unpleasantly sarcastic, but yet he inspired involuntary\nrespect by his boundless devotion to an idea. Besides this, the remarks\nof all except Pfuel had one common trait that had not been noticeable at\nthe council of war in 1805: there was now a panic fear of Napoleon's\ngenius, which, though concealed, was noticeable in every rejoinder.\nEverything was assumed to be possible for Napoleon, they expected him\nfrom every side, and invoked his terrible name to shatter each other's\nproposals. Pfuel alone seemed to consider Napoleon a barbarian like\neveryone else who opposed his theory. But besides this feeling of\nrespect, Pfuel evoked pity in Prince Andrew. From the tone in which the\ncourtiers addressed him and the way Paulucci had allowed himself to\nspeak of him to the Emperor, but above all from a certain desperation in\nPfuel's own expressions, it was clear that the others knew, and Pfuel\nhimself felt, that his fall was at hand. And despite his self-confidence\nand grumpy German sarcasm he was pitiable, with his hair smoothly\nbrushed on the temples and sticking up in tufts behind. Though he\nconcealed the fact under a show of irritation and contempt, he was\nevidently in despair that the sole remaining chance of verifying his\ntheory by a huge experiment and proving its soundness to the whole world\nwas slipping away from him.\n\nThe discussions continued a long time, and the longer they lasted the\nmore heated became the disputes, culminating in shouts and\npersonalities, and the less was it possible to arrive at any general\nconclusion from all that had been said. Prince Andrew, listening to this\npolyglot talk and to these surmises, plans, refutations, and shouts,\nfelt nothing but amazement at what they were saying. A thought that had\nlong since and often occurred to him during his military activities--the\nidea that there is not and cannot be any science of war, and that\ntherefore there can be no such thing as a military genius--now appeared\nto him an obvious truth. \"What theory and science is possible about a\nmatter the conditions and circumstances of which are unknown and cannot\nbe defined, especially when the strength of the acting forces cannot be\nascertained? No one was or is able to foresee in what condition our or\nthe enemy's armies will be in a day's time, and no one can gauge the\nforce of this or that detachment. Sometimes--when there is not a coward\nat the front to shout, 'We are cut off!' and start running, but a brave\nand jolly lad who shouts, 'Hurrah!'--a detachment of five thousand is\nworth thirty thousand, as at Schon Grabern, while at times fifty\nthousand run from eight thousand, as at Austerlitz. What science can\nthere be in a matter in which, as in all practical matters, nothing can\nbe defined and everything depends on innumerable conditions, the\nsignificance of which is determined at a particular moment which arrives\nno one knows when? Armfeldt says our army is cut in half, and Paulucci\nsays we have got the French army between two fires; Michaud says that\nthe worthlessness of the Drissa camp lies in having the river behind it,\nand Pfuel says that is what constitutes its strength; Toll proposes one\nplan, Armfeldt another, and they are all good and all bad, and the\nadvantages of any suggestions can be seen only at the moment of trial.\nAnd why do they all speak of a 'military genius'? Is a man a genius who\ncan order bread to be brought up at the right time and say who is to go\nto the right and who to the left? It is only because military men are\ninvested with pomp and power and crowds of sychophants flatter power,\nattributing to it qualities of genius it does not possess. The best\ngenerals I have known were, on the contrary, stupid or absent-minded\nmen. Bagration was the best, Napoleon himself admitted that. And of\nBonaparte himself! I remember his limited, self-satisfied face on the\nfield of Austerlitz. Not only does a good army commander not need any\nspecial qualities, on the contrary he needs the absence of the highest\nand best human attributes--love, poetry, tenderness, and philosophic\ninquiring doubt. He should be limited, firmly convinced that what he is\ndoing is very important (otherwise he will not have sufficient\npatience), and only then will he be a brave leader. God forbid that he\nshould be humane, should love, or pity, or think of what is just and\nunjust. It is understandable that a theory of their 'genius' was\ninvented for them long ago because they have power! The success of a\nmilitary action depends not on them, but on the man in the ranks who\nshouts, 'We are lost!' or who shouts, 'Hurrah!' And only in the ranks\ncan one serve with assurance of being useful.\"\n\nSo thought Prince Andrew as he listened to the talking, and he roused\nhimself only when Paulucci called him and everyone was leaving.\n\nAt the review next day the Emperor asked Prince Andrew where he would\nlike to serve, and Prince Andrew lost his standing in court circles\nforever by not asking to remain attached to the sovereign's person, but\nfor permission to serve in the army.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nBefore the beginning of the campaign, Rostov had received a letter from\nhis parents in which they told him briefly of Natasha's illness and the\nbreaking off of her engagement to Prince Andrew (which they explained by\nNatasha's having rejected him) and again asked Nicholas to retire from\nthe army and return home. On receiving this letter, Nicholas did not\neven make any attempt to get leave of absence or to retire from the\narmy, but wrote to his parents that he was sorry Natasha was ill and her\nengagement broken off, and that he would do all he could to meet their\nwishes. To Sonya he wrote separately.\n\n\"Adored friend of my soul!\" he wrote. \"Nothing but honor could keep me\nfrom returning to the country. But now, at the commencement of the\ncampaign, I should feel dishonored, not only in my comrades' eyes but in\nmy own, if I preferred my own happiness to my love and duty to the\nFatherland. But this shall be our last separation. Believe me, directly\nthe war is over, if I am still alive and still loved by you, I will\nthrow up everything and fly to you, to press you forever to my ardent\nbreast.\"\n\nIt was, in fact, only the commencement of the campaign that prevented\nRostov from returning home as he had promised and marrying Sonya. The\nautumn in Otradnoe with the hunting, and the winter with the Christmas\nholidays and Sonya's love, had opened out to him a vista of tranquil\nrural joys and peace such as he had never known before, and which now\nallured him. \"A splendid wife, children, a good pack of hounds, a dozen\nleashes of smart borzois, agriculture, neighbors, service by\nelection...\" thought he. But now the campaign was beginning, and he had\nto remain with his regiment. And since it had to be so, Nicholas Rostov,\nas was natural to him, felt contented with the life he led in the\nregiment and was able to find pleasure in that life.\n\nOn his return from his furlough Nicholas, having been joyfully welcomed\nby his comrades, was sent to obtain remounts and brought back from the\nUkraine excellent horses which pleased him and earned him commendation\nfrom his commanders. During his absence he had been promoted captain,\nand when the regiment was put on war footing with an increase in\nnumbers, he was again allotted his old squadron.\n\nThe campaign began, the regiment was moved into Poland on double pay,\nnew officers arrived, new men and horses, and above all everybody was\ninfected with the merrily excited mood that goes with the commencement\nof a war, and Rostov, conscious of his advantageous position in the\nregiment, devoted himself entirely to the pleasures and interests of\nmilitary service, though he knew that sooner or later he would have to\nrelinquish them.\n\nThe troops retired from Vilna for various complicated reasons of state,\npolitical and strategic. Each step of the retreat was accompanied by a\ncomplicated interplay of interests, arguments, and passions at\nheadquarters. For the Pavlograd hussars, however, the whole of this\nretreat during the finest period of summer and with sufficient supplies\nwas a very simple and agreeable business.\n\nIt was only at headquarters that there was depression, uneasiness, and\nintriguing; in the body of the army they did not ask themselves where\nthey were going or why. If they regretted having to retreat, it was only\nbecause they had to leave billets they had grown accustomed to, or some\npretty young Polish lady. If the thought that things looked bad chanced\nto enter anyone's head, he tried to be as cheerful as befits a good\nsoldier and not to think of the general trend of affairs, but only of\nthe task nearest to hand. First they camped gaily before Vilna, making\nacquaintance with the Polish landowners, preparing for reviews and being\nreviewed by the Emperor and other high commanders. Then came an order to\nretreat to Sventsyani and destroy any provisions they could not carry\naway with them. Sventsyani was remembered by the hussars only as the\ndrunken camp, a name the whole army gave to their encampment there, and\nbecause many complaints were made against the troops, who, taking\nadvantage of the order to collect provisions, took also horses,\ncarriages, and carpets from the Polish proprietors. Rostov remembered\nSventsyani, because on the first day of their arrival at that small town\nhe changed his sergeant major and was unable to manage all the drunken\nmen of his squadron who, unknown to him, had appropriated five barrels\nof old beer. From Sventsyani they retired farther and farther to Drissa,\nand thence again beyond Drissa, drawing near to the frontier of Russia\nproper.\n\nOn the thirteenth of July the Pavlograds took part in a serious action\nfor the first time.\n\nOn the twelfth of July, on the eve of that action, there was a heavy\nstorm of rain and hail. In general, the summer of 1812 was remarkable\nfor its storms.\n\nThe two Pavlograd squadrons were bivouacking on a field of rye, which\nwas already in ear but had been completely trodden down by cattle and\nhorses. The rain was descending in torrents, and Rostov, with a young\nofficer named Ilyin, his protege, was sitting in a hastily constructed\nshelter. An officer of their regiment, with long mustaches extending\nonto his cheeks, who after riding to the staff had been overtaken by the\nrain, entered Rostov's shelter.\n\n\"I have come from the staff, Count. Have you heard of Raevski's\nexploit?\"\n\nAnd the officer gave them details of the Saltanov battle, which he had\nheard at the staff.\n\nRostov, smoking his pipe and turning his head about as the water\ntrickled down his neck, listened inattentively, with an occasional\nglance at Ilyin, who was pressing close to him. This officer, a lad of\nsixteen who had recently joined the regiment, was now in the same\nrelation to Nicholas that Nicholas had been to Denisov seven years\nbefore. Ilyin tried to imitate Rostov in everything and adored him as a\ngirl might have done.\n\nZdrzhinski, the officer with the long mustache, spoke grandiloquently of\nthe Saltanov dam being \"a Russian Thermopylae,\" and of how a deed worthy\nof antiquity had been performed by General Raevski. He recounted how\nRaevski had led his two sons onto the dam under terrific fire and had\ncharged with them beside him. Rostov heard the story and not only said\nnothing to encourage Zdrzhinski's enthusiasm but, on the contrary,\nlooked like a man ashamed of what he was hearing, though with no\nintention of contradicting it. Since the campaigns of Austerlitz and of\n1807 Rostov knew by experience that men always lie when describing\nmilitary exploits, as he himself had done when recounting them; besides\nthat, he had experience enough to know that nothing happens in war at\nall as we can imagine or relate it. And so he did not like Zdrzhinski's\ntale, nor did he like Zdrzhinski himself who, with his mustaches\nextending over his cheeks, bent low over the face of his hearer, as was\nhis habit, and crowded Rostov in the narrow shanty. Rostov looked at him\nin silence. \"In the first place, there must have been such a confusion\nand crowding on the dam that was being attacked that if Raevski did lead\nhis sons there, it could have had no effect except perhaps on some dozen\nmen nearest to him,\" thought he, \"the rest could not have seen how or\nwith whom Raevski came onto the dam. And even those who did see it would\nnot have been much stimulated by it, for what had they to do with\nRaevski's tender paternal feelings when their own skins were in danger?\nAnd besides, the fate of the Fatherland did not depend on whether they\ntook the Saltanov dam or not, as we are told was the case at\nThermopylae. So why should he have made such a sacrifice? And why expose\nhis own children in the battle? I would not have taken my brother Petya\nthere, or even Ilyin, who's a stranger to me but a nice lad, but would\nhave tried to put them somewhere under cover,\" Nicholas continued to\nthink, as he listened to Zdrzhinski. But he did not express his\nthoughts, for in such matters, too, he had gained experience. He knew\nthat this tale redounded to the glory of our arms and so one had to\npretend not to doubt it. And he acted accordingly.\n\n\"I can't stand this any more,\" said Ilyin, noticing that Rostov did not\nrelish Zdrzhinski's conversation. \"My stockings and shirt... and the\nwater is running on my seat! I'll go and look for shelter. The rain\nseems less heavy.\"\n\nIlyin went out and Zdrzhinski rode away.\n\nFive minutes later Ilyin, splashing through the mud, came running back\nto the shanty.\n\n\"Hurrah! Rostov, come quick! I've found it! About two hundred yards away\nthere's a tavern where ours have already gathered. We can at least get\ndry there, and Mary Hendrikhovna's there.\"\n\nMary Hendrikhovna was the wife of the regimental doctor, a pretty young\nGerman woman he had married in Poland. The doctor, whether from lack of\nmeans or because he did not like to part from his young wife in the\nearly days of their marriage, took her about with him wherever the\nhussar regiment went and his jealousy had become a standing joke among\nthe hussar officers.\n\nRostov threw his cloak over his shoulders, shouted to Lavrushka to\nfollow with the things, and--now slipping in the mud, now splashing\nright through it--set off with Ilyin in the lessening rain and the\ndarkness that was occasionally rent by distant lightning.\n\n\"Rostov, where are you?\"\n\n\"Here. What lightning!\" they called to one another.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nIn the tavern, before which stood the doctor's covered cart, there were\nalready some five officers. Mary Hendrikhovna, a plump little blonde\nGerman, in a dressing jacket and nightcap, was sitting on a broad bench\nin the front corner. Her husband, the doctor, lay asleep behind her.\nRostov and Ilyin, on entering the room, were welcomed with merry shouts\nand laughter.\n\n\"Dear me, how jolly we are!\" said Rostov laughing.\n\n\"And why do you stand there gaping?\"\n\n\"What swells they are! Why, the water streams from them! Don't make our\ndrawing room so wet.\"\n\n\"Don't mess Mary Hendrikhovna's dress!\" cried other voices.\n\nRostov and Ilyin hastened to find a corner where they could change into\ndry clothes without offending Mary Hendrikhovna's modesty. They were\ngoing into a tiny recess behind a partition to change, but found it\ncompletely filled by three officers who sat playing cards by the light\nof a solitary candle on an empty box, and these officers would on no\naccount yield their position. Mary Hendrikhovna obliged them with the\nloan of a petticoat to be used as a curtain, and behind that screen\nRostov and Ilyin, helped by Lavrushka who had brought their kits,\nchanged their wet things for dry ones.\n\nA fire was made up in the dilapidated brick stove. A board was found,\nfixed on two saddles and covered with a horsecloth, a small samovar was\nproduced and a cellaret and half a bottle of rum, and having asked Mary\nHendrikhovna to preside, they all crowded round her. One offered her a\nclean handkerchief to wipe her charming hands, another spread a jacket\nunder her little feet to keep them from the damp, another hung his coat\nover the window to keep out the draft, and yet another waved the flies\noff her husband's face, lest he should wake up.\n\n\"Leave him alone,\" said Mary Hendrikhovna, smiling timidly and happily.\n\"He is sleeping well as it is, after a sleepless night.\"\n\n\"Oh, no, Mary Hendrikhovna,\" replied the officer, \"one must look after\nthe doctor. Perhaps he'll take pity on me someday, when it comes to\ncutting off a leg or an arm for me.\"\n\nThere were only three tumblers, the water was so muddy that one could\nnot make out whether the tea was strong or weak, and the samovar held\nonly six tumblers of water, but this made it all the pleasanter to take\nturns in order of seniority to receive one's tumbler from Mary\nHendrikhovna's plump little hands with their short and not overclean\nnails. All the officers appeared to be, and really were, in love with\nher that evening. Even those playing cards behind the partition soon\nleft their game and came over to the samovar, yielding to the general\nmood of courting Mary Hendrikhovna. She, seeing herself surrounded by\nsuch brilliant and polite young men, beamed with satisfaction, try as\nshe might to hide it, and perturbed as she evidently was each time her\nhusband moved in his sleep behind her.\n\nThere was only one spoon, sugar was more plentiful than anything else,\nbut it took too long to dissolve, so it was decided that Mary\nHendrikhovna should stir the sugar for everyone in turn. Rostov received\nhis tumbler, and adding some rum to it asked Mary Hendrikhovna to stir\nit.\n\n\"But you take it without sugar?\" she said, smiling all the time, as if\neverything she said and everything the others said was very amusing and\nhad a double meaning.\n\n\"It is not the sugar I want, but only that your little hand should stir\nmy tea.\"\n\nMary Hendrikhovna assented and began looking for the spoon which someone\nmeanwhile had pounced on.\n\n\"Use your finger, Mary Hendrikhovna, it will be still nicer,\" said\nRostov.\n\n\"Too hot!\" she replied, blushing with pleasure.\n\nIlyin put a few drops of rum into the bucket of water and brought it to\nMary Hendrikhovna, asking her to stir it with her finger.\n\n\"This is my cup,\" said he. \"Only dip your finger in it and I'll drink it\nall up.\"\n\nWhen they had emptied the samovar, Rostov took a pack of cards and\nproposed that they should play \"Kings\" with Mary Hendrikhovna. They drew\nlots to settle who should make up her set. At Rostov's suggestion it was\nagreed that whoever became \"King\" should have the right to kiss Mary\nHendrikhovna's hand, and that the \"Booby\" should go to refill and reheat\nthe samovar for the doctor when the latter awoke.\n\n\"Well, but supposing Mary Hendrikhovna is 'King'?\" asked Ilyin.\n\n\"As it is, she is Queen, and her word is law!\"\n\nThey had hardly begun to play before the doctor's disheveled head\nsuddenly appeared from behind Mary Hendrikhovna. He had been awake for\nsome time, listening to what was being said, and evidently found nothing\nentertaining or amusing in what was going on. His face was sad and\ndepressed. Without greeting the officers, he scratched himself and asked\nto be allowed to pass as they were blocking the way. As soon as he had\nleft the room all the officers burst into loud laughter and Mary\nHendrikhovna blushed till her eyes filled with tears and thereby became\nstill more attractive to them. Returning from the yard, the doctor told\nhis wife (who had ceased to smile so happily, and looked at him in\nalarm, awaiting her sentence) that the rain had ceased and they must go\nto sleep in their covered cart, or everything in it would be stolen.\n\n\"But I'll send an orderly.... Two of them!\" said Rostov. \"What an idea,\ndoctor!\"\n\n\"I'll stand guard on it myself!\" said Ilyin.\n\n\"No, gentlemen, you have had your sleep, but I have not slept for two\nnights,\" replied the doctor, and he sat down morosely beside his wife,\nwaiting for the game to end.\n\nSeeing his gloomy face as he frowned at his wife, the officers grew\nstill merrier, and some of them could not refrain from laughter, for\nwhich they hurriedly sought plausible pretexts. When he had gone, taking\nhis wife with him, and had settled down with her in their covered cart,\nthe officers lay down in the tavern, covering themselves with their wet\ncloaks, but they did not sleep for a long time; now they exchanged\nremarks, recalling the doctor's uneasiness and his wife's delight, now\nthey ran out into the porch and reported what was taking place in the\ncovered trap. Several times Rostov, covering his head, tried to go to\nsleep, but some remark would arouse him and conversation would be\nresumed, to the accompaniment of unreasoning, merry, childlike laughter.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nIt was nearly three o'clock but no one was yet asleep, when the\nquartermaster appeared with an order to move on to the little town of\nOstrovna. Still laughing and talking, the officers began hurriedly\ngetting ready and again boiled some muddy water in the samovar. But\nRostov went off to his squadron without waiting for tea. Day was\nbreaking, the rain had ceased, and the clouds were dispersing. It felt\ndamp and cold, especially in clothes that were still moist. As they left\nthe tavern in the twilight of the dawn, Rostov and Ilyin both glanced\nunder the wet and glistening leather hood of the doctor's cart, from\nunder the apron of which his feet were sticking out, and in the middle\nof which his wife's nightcap was visible and her sleepy breathing\naudible.\n\n\"She really is a dear little thing,\" said Rostov to Ilyin, who was\nfollowing him.\n\n\"A charming woman!\" said Ilyin, with all the gravity of a boy of\nsixteen.\n\nHalf an hour later the squadron was lined up on the road. The command\nwas heard to \"mount\" and the soldiers crossed themselves and mounted.\nRostov riding in front gave the order \"Forward!\" and the hussars, with\nclanking sabers and subdued talk, their horses' hoofs splashing in the\nmud, defiled in fours and moved along the broad road planted with birch\ntrees on each side, following the infantry and a battery that had gone\non in front.\n\nTattered, blue-purple clouds, reddening in the east, were scudding\nbefore the wind. It was growing lighter and lighter. That curly grass\nwhich always grows by country roadsides became clearly visible, still\nwet with the night's rain; the drooping branches of the birches, also\nwet, swayed in the wind and flung down bright drops of water to one\nside. The soldiers' faces were more and more clearly visible. Rostov,\nalways closely followed by Ilyin, rode along the side of the road\nbetween two rows of birch trees.\n\nWhen campaigning, Rostov allowed himself the indulgence of riding not a\nregimental but a Cossack horse. A judge of horses and a sportsman, he\nhad lately procured himself a large, fine, mettlesome, Donets horse,\ndun-colored, with light mane and tail, and when he rode it no one could\noutgallop him. To ride this horse was a pleasure to him, and he thought\nof the horse, of the morning, of the doctor's wife, but not once of the\nimpending danger.\n\nFormerly, when going into action, Rostov had felt afraid; now he had not\nthe least feeling of fear. He was fearless, not because he had grown\nused to being under fire (one cannot grow used to danger), but because\nhe had learned how to manage his thoughts when in danger. He had grown\naccustomed when going into action to think about anything but what would\nseem most likely to interest him--the impending danger. During the first\nperiod of his service, hard as he tried and much as he reproached\nhimself with cowardice, he had not been able to do this, but with time\nit had come of itself. Now he rode beside Ilyin under the birch trees,\noccasionally plucking leaves from a branch that met his hand, sometimes\ntouching his horse's side with his foot, or, without turning round,\nhanding a pipe he had finished to an hussar riding behind him, with as\ncalm and careless an air as though he were merely out for a ride. He\nglanced with pity at the excited face of Ilyin, who talked much and in\ngreat agitation. He knew from experience the tormenting expectation of\nterror and death the cornet was suffering and knew that only time could\nhelp him.\n\nAs soon as the sun appeared in a clear strip of sky beneath the clouds,\nthe wind fell, as if it dared not spoil the beauty of the summer morning\nafter the storm; drops still continued to fall, but vertically now, and\nall was still. The whole sun appeared on the horizon and disappeared\nbehind a long narrow cloud that hung above it. A few minutes later it\nreappeared brighter still from behind the top of the cloud, tearing its\nedge. Everything grew bright and glittered. And with that light, and as\nif in reply to it, came the sound of guns ahead of them.\n\nBefore Rostov had had time to consider and determine the distance of\nthat firing, Count Ostermann-Tolstoy's adjutant came galloping from\nVitebsk with orders to advance at a trot along the road.\n\nThe squadron overtook and passed the infantry and the battery--which had\nalso quickened their pace--rode down a hill, and passing through an\nempty and deserted village again ascended. The horses began to lather\nand the men to flush.\n\n\"Halt! Dress your ranks!\" the order of the regimental commander was\nheard ahead. \"Forward by the left. Walk, march!\" came the order from in\nfront.\n\nAnd the hussars, passing along the line of troops on the left flank of\nour position, halted behind our uhlans who were in the front line. To\nthe right stood our infantry in a dense column: they were the reserve.\nHigher up the hill, on the very horizon, our guns were visible through\nthe wonderfully clear air, brightly illuminated by slanting morning\nsunbeams. In front, beyond a hollow dale, could be seen the enemy's\ncolumns and guns. Our advanced line, already in action, could be heard\nbriskly exchanging shots with the enemy in the dale.\n\nAt these sounds, long unheard, Rostov's spirits rose, as at the strains\nof the merriest music. Trap-ta-ta-tap! cracked the shots, now together,\nnow several quickly one after another. Again all was silent and then\nagain it sounded as if someone were walking on detonators and exploding\nthem.\n\nThe hussars remained in the same place for about an hour. A cannonade\nbegan. Count Ostermann with his suite rode up behind the squadron,\nhalted, spoke to the commander of the regiment, and rode up the hill to\nthe guns.\n\nAfter Ostermann had gone, a command rang out to the uhlans.\n\n\"Form column! Prepare to charge!\"\n\nThe infantry in front of them parted into platoons to allow the cavalry\nto pass. The uhlans started, the streamers on their spears fluttering,\nand trotted downhill toward the French cavalry which was seen below to\nthe left.\n\nAs soon as the uhlans descended the hill, the hussars were ordered up\nthe hill to support the battery. As they took the places vacated by the\nuhlans, bullets came from the front, whining and whistling, but fell\nspent without taking effect.\n\nThe sounds, which he had not heard for so long, had an even more\npleasurable and exhilarating effect on Rostov than the previous sounds\nof firing. Drawing himself up, he viewed the field of battle opening out\nbefore him from the hill, and with his whole soul followed the movement\nof the uhlans. They swooped down close to the French dragoons, something\nconfused happened there amid the smoke, and five minutes later our\nuhlans were galloping back, not to the place they had occupied but more\nto the left, and among the orange-colored uhlans on chestnut horses and\nbehind them, in a large group, blue French dragoons on gray horses could\nbe seen.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nRostov, with his keen sportsman's eye, was one of the first to catch\nsight of these blue French dragoons pursuing our uhlans. Nearer and\nnearer in disorderly crowds came the uhlans and the French dragoons\npursuing them. He could already see how these men, who looked so small\nat the foot of the hill, jostled and overtook one another, waving their\narms and their sabers in the air.\n\nRostov gazed at what was happening before him as at a hunt. He felt\ninstinctively that if the hussars struck at the French dragoons now, the\nlatter could not withstand them, but if a charge was to be made it must\nbe done now, at that very moment, or it would be too late. He looked\naround. A captain, standing beside him, was gazing like himself with\neyes fixed on the cavalry below them.\n\n\"Andrew Sevastyanych!\" said Rostov. \"You know, we could crush them....\"\n\n\"A fine thing too!\" replied the captain, \"and really...\"\n\nRostov, without waiting to hear him out, touched his horse, galloped to\nthe front of his squadron, and before he had time to finish giving the\nword of command, the whole squadron, sharing his feeling, was following\nhim. Rostov himself did not know how or why he did it. He acted as he\ndid when hunting, without reflecting or considering. He saw the dragoons\nnear and that they were galloping in disorder; he knew they could not\nwithstand an attack--knew there was only that moment and that if he let\nit slip it would not return. The bullets were whining and whistling so\nstimulatingly around him and his horse was so eager to go that he could\nnot restrain himself. He touched his horse, gave the word of command,\nand immediately, hearing behind him the tramp of the horses of his\ndeployed squadron, rode at full trot downhill toward the dragoons.\nHardly had they reached the bottom of the hill before their pace\ninstinctively changed to a gallop, which grew faster and faster as they\ndrew nearer to our uhlans and the French dragoons who galloped after\nthem. The dragoons were now close at hand. On seeing the hussars, the\nforemost began to turn, while those behind began to halt. With the same\nfeeling with which he had galloped across the path of a wolf, Rostov\ngave rein to his Donets horse and galloped to intersect the path of the\ndragoons' disordered lines. One Uhlan stopped, another who was on foot\nflung himself to the ground to avoid being knocked over, and a riderless\nhorse fell in among the hussars. Nearly all the French dragoons were\ngalloping back. Rostov, picking out one on a gray horse, dashed after\nhim. On the way he came upon a bush, his gallant horse cleared it, and\nalmost before he had righted himself in his saddle he saw that he would\nimmediately overtake the enemy he had selected. That Frenchman, by his\nuniform an officer, was going at a gallop, crouching on his gray horse\nand urging it on with his saber. In another moment Rostov's horse dashed\nits breast against the hindquarters of the officer's horse, almost\nknocking it over, and at the same instant Rostov, without knowing why,\nraised his saber and struck the Frenchman with it.\n\nThe instant he had done this, all Rostov's animation vanished. The\nofficer fell, not so much from the blow--which had but slightly cut his\narm above the elbow--as from the shock to his horse and from fright.\nRostov reined in his horse, and his eyes sought his foe to see whom he\nhad vanquished. The French dragoon officer was hopping with one foot on\nthe ground, the other being caught in the stirrup. His eyes, screwed up\nwith fear as if he every moment expected another blow, gazed up at\nRostov with shrinking terror. His pale and mud-stained face--fair and\nyoung, with a dimple in the chin and light-blue eyes--was not an enemy's\nface at all suited to a battlefield, but a most ordinary, homelike face.\nBefore Rostov had decided what to do with him, the officer cried, \"I\nsurrender!\" He hurriedly but vainly tried to get his foot out of the\nstirrup and did not remove his frightened blue eyes from Rostov's face.\nSome hussars who galloped up disengaged his foot and helped him into the\nsaddle. On all sides, the hussars were busy with the dragoons; one was\nwounded, but though his face was bleeding, he would not give up his\nhorse; another was perched up behind an hussar with his arms round him;\na third was being helped by an hussar to mount his horse. In front, the\nFrench infantry were firing as they ran. The hussars galloped hastily\nback with their prisoners. Rostov galloped back with the rest, aware of\nan unpleasant feeling of depression in his heart. Something vague and\nconfused, which he could not at all account for, had come over him with\nthe capture of that officer and the blow he had dealt him.\n\nCount Ostermann-Tolstoy met the returning hussars, sent for Rostov,\nthanked him, and said he would report his gallant deed to the Emperor\nand would recommend him for a St. George's Cross. When sent for by Count\nOstermann, Rostov, remembering that he had charged without orders, felt\nsure his commander was sending for him to punish him for breach of\ndiscipline. Ostermann's flattering words and promise of a reward should\ntherefore have struck him all the more pleasantly, but he still felt\nthat same vaguely disagreeable feeling of moral nausea. \"But what on\nearth is worrying me?\" he asked himself as he rode back from the\ngeneral. \"Ilyin? No, he's safe. Have I disgraced myself in any way? No,\nthat's not it.\" Something else, resembling remorse, tormented him. \"Yes,\noh yes, that French officer with the dimple. And I remember how my arm\npaused when I raised it.\"\n\nRostov saw the prisoners being led away and galloped after them to have\na look at his Frenchman with the dimple on his chin. He was sitting in\nhis foreign uniform on an hussar packhorse and looked anxiously about\nhim; The sword cut on his arm could scarcely be called a wound. He\nglanced at Rostov with a feigned smile and waved his hand in greeting.\nRostov still had the same indefinite feeling, as of shame.\n\nAll that day and the next his friends and comrades noticed that Rostov,\nwithout being dull or angry, was silent, thoughtful, and preoccupied. He\ndrank reluctantly, tried to remain alone, and kept turning something\nover in his mind.\n\nRostov was always thinking about that brilliant exploit of his, which to\nhis amazement had gained him the St. George's Cross and even given him a\nreputation for bravery, and there was something he could not at all\nunderstand. \"So others are even more afraid than I am!\" he thought. \"So\nthat's all there is in what is called heroism! And did I do it for my\ncountry's sake? And how was he to blame, with his dimple and blue eyes?\nAnd how frightened he was! He thought that I should kill him. Why should\nI kill him? My hand trembled. And they have given me a St. George's\nCross.... I can't make it out at all.\"\n\nBut while Nicholas was considering these questions and still could reach\nno clear solution of what puzzled him so, the wheel of fortune in the\nservice, as often happens, turned in his favor. After the affair at\nOstrovna he was brought into notice, received command of an hussar\nbattalion, and when a brave officer was needed he was chosen.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nOn receiving news of Natasha's illness, the countess, though not quite\nwell yet and still weak, went to Moscow with Petya and the rest of the\nhousehold, and the whole family moved from Marya Dmitrievna's house to\ntheir own and settled down in town.\n\nNatasha's illness was so serious that, fortunately for her and for her\nparents, the consideration of all that had caused the illness, her\nconduct and the breaking off of her engagement, receded into the\nbackground. She was so ill that it was impossible for them to consider\nin how far she was to blame for what had happened. She could not eat or\nsleep, grew visibly thinner, coughed, and, as the doctors made them\nfeel, was in danger. They could not think of anything but how to help\nher. Doctors came to see her singly and in consultation, talked much in\nFrench, German, and Latin, blamed one another, and prescribed a great\nvariety of medicines for all the diseases known to them, but the simple\nidea never occurred to any of them that they could not know the disease\nNatasha was suffering from, as no disease suffered by a live man can be\nknown, for every living person has his own peculiarities and always has\nhis own peculiar, personal, novel, complicated disease, unknown to\nmedicine--not a disease of the lungs, liver, skin, heart, nerves, and so\non mentioned in medical books, but a disease consisting of one of the\ninnumerable combinations of the maladies of those organs. This simple\nthought could not occur to the doctors (as it cannot occur to a wizard\nthat he is unable to work his charms) because the business of their\nlives was to cure, and they received money for it and had spent the best\nyears of their lives on that business. But, above all, that thought was\nkept out of their minds by the fact that they saw they were really\nuseful, as in fact they were to the whole Rostov family. Their\nusefulness did not depend on making the patient swallow substances for\nthe most part harmful (the harm was scarcely perceptible, as they were\ngiven in small doses), but they were useful, necessary, and\nindispensable because they satisfied a mental need of the invalid and of\nthose who loved her--and that is why there are, and always will be,\npseudo-healers, wise women, homeopaths, and allopaths. They satisfied\nthat eternal human need for hope of relief, for sympathy, and that\nsomething should be done, which is felt by those who are suffering. They\nsatisfied the need seen in its most elementary form in a child, when it\nwants to have a place rubbed that has been hurt. A child knocks itself\nand runs at once to the arms of its mother or nurse to have the aching\nspot rubbed or kissed, and it feels better when this is done. The child\ncannot believe that the strongest and wisest of its people have no\nremedy for its pain, and the hope of relief and the expression of its\nmother's sympathy while she rubs the bump comforts it. The doctors were\nof use to Natasha because they kissed and rubbed her bump, assuring her\nthat it would soon pass if only the coachman went to the chemist's in\nthe Arbat and got a powder and some pills in a pretty box for a ruble\nand seventy kopeks, and if she took those powders in boiled water at\nintervals of precisely two hours, neither more nor less.\n\nWhat would Sonya and the count and countess have done, how would they\nhave looked, if nothing had been done, if there had not been those pills\nto give by the clock, the warm drinks, the chicken cutlets, and all the\nother details of life ordered by the doctors, the carrying out of which\nsupplied an occupation and consolation to the family circle? How would\nthe count have borne his dearly loved daughter's illness had he not\nknown that it was costing him a thousand rubles, and that he would not\ngrudge thousands more to benefit her, or had he not known that if her\nillness continued he would not grudge yet other thousands and would take\nher abroad for consultations there, and had he not been able to explain\nthe details of how Metivier and Feller had not understood the symptoms,\nbut Frise had, and Mudrov had diagnosed them even better? What would the\ncountess have done had she not been able sometimes to scold the invalid\nfor not strictly obeying the doctor's orders?\n\n\"You'll never get well like that,\" she would say, forgetting her grief\nin her vexation, \"if you won't obey the doctor and take your medicine at\nthe right time! You mustn't trifle with it, you know, or it may turn to\npneumonia,\" she would go on, deriving much comfort from the utterance of\nthat foreign word, incomprehensible to others as well as to herself.\n\nWhat would Sonya have done without the glad consciousness that she had\nnot undressed during the first three nights, in order to be ready to\ncarry out all the doctor's injunctions with precision, and that she\nstill kept awake at night so as not to miss the proper time when the\nslightly harmful pills in the little gilt box had to be administered?\nEven to Natasha herself it was pleasant to see that so many sacrifices\nwere being made for her sake, and to know that she had to take medicine\nat certain hours, though she declared that no medicine would cure her\nand that it was all nonsense. And it was even pleasant to be able to\nshow, by disregarding the orders, that she did not believe in medical\ntreatment and did not value her life.\n\nThe doctor came every day, felt her pulse, looked at her tongue, and\nregardless of her grief-stricken face joked with her. But when he had\ngone into another room, to which the countess hurriedly followed him, he\nassumed a grave air and thoughtfully shaking his head said that though\nthere was danger, he had hopes of the effect of this last medicine and\none must wait and see, that the malady was chiefly mental, but... And\nthe countess, trying to conceal the action from herself and from him,\nslipped a gold coin into his hand and always returned to the patient\nwith a more tranquil mind.\n\nThe symptoms of Natasha's illness were that she ate little, slept\nlittle, coughed, and was always low-spirited. The doctors said that she\ncould not get on without medical treatment, so they kept her in the\nstifling atmosphere of the town, and the Rostovs did not move to the\ncountry that summer of 1812.\n\nIn spite of the many pills she swallowed and the drops and powders out\nof the little bottles and boxes of which Madame Schoss who was fond of\nsuch things made a large collection, and in spite of being deprived of\nthe country life to which she was accustomed, youth prevailed. Natasha's\ngrief began to be overlaid by the impressions of daily life, it ceased\nto press so painfully on her heart, it gradually faded into the past,\nand she began to recover physically.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nNatasha was calmer but no happier. She not merely avoided all external\nforms of pleasure--balls, promenades, concerts, and theaters--but she\nnever laughed without a sound of tears in her laughter. She could not\nsing. As soon as she began to laugh, or tried to sing by herself, tears\nchoked her: tears of remorse, tears at the recollection of those pure\ntimes which could never return, tears of vexation that she should so\nuselessly have ruined her young life which might have been so happy.\nLaughter and singing in particular seemed to her like a blasphemy, in\nface of her sorrow. Without any need of self-restraint, no wish to\ncoquet ever entered her head. She said and felt at that time that no man\nwas more to her than Nastasya Ivanovna, the buffoon. Something stood\nsentinel within her and forbade her every joy. Besides, she had lost all\nthe old interests of her carefree girlish life that had been so full of\nhope. The previous autumn, the hunting, \"Uncle,\" and the Christmas\nholidays spent with Nicholas at Otradnoe were what she recalled oftenest\nand most painfully. What would she not have given to bring back even a\nsingle day of that time! But it was gone forever. Her presentiment at\nthe time had not deceived her--that that state of freedom and readiness\nfor any enjoyment would not return again. Yet it was necessary to live\non.\n\nIt comforted her to reflect that she was not better as she had formerly\nimagined, but worse, much worse, than anybody else in the world. But\nthis was not enough. She knew that, and asked herself, \"What next?\" But\nthere was nothing to come. There was no joy in life, yet life was\npassing. Natasha apparently tried not to be a burden or a hindrance to\nanyone, but wanted nothing for herself. She kept away from everyone in\nthe house and felt at ease only with her brother Petya. She liked to be\nwith him better than with the others, and when alone with him she\nsometimes laughed. She hardly ever left the house and of those who came\nto see them was glad to see only one person, Pierre. It would have been\nimpossible to treat her with more delicacy, greater care, and at the\nsame time more seriously than did Count Bezukhov. Natasha unconsciously\nfelt this delicacy and so found great pleasure in his society. But she\nwas not even grateful to him for it; nothing good on Pierre's part\nseemed to her to be an effort, it seemed so natural for him to be kind\nto everyone that there was no merit in his kindness. Sometimes Natasha\nnoticed embarrassment and awkwardness on his part in her presence,\nespecially when he wanted to do something to please her, or feared that\nsomething they spoke of would awaken memories distressing to her. She\nnoticed this and attributed it to his general kindness and shyness,\nwhich she imagined must be the same toward everyone as it was to her.\nAfter those involuntary words--that if he were free he would have asked\non his knees for her hand and her love--uttered at a moment when she was\nso strongly agitated, Pierre never spoke to Natasha of his feelings; and\nit seemed plain to her that those words, which had then so comforted\nher, were spoken as all sorts of meaningless words are spoken to comfort\na crying child. It was not because Pierre was a married man, but because\nNatasha felt very strongly with him that moral barrier the absence of\nwhich she had experienced with Kuragin that it never entered her head\nthat the relations between him and herself could lead to love on her\npart, still less on his, or even to the kind of tender, self-conscious,\nromantic friendship between a man and a woman of which she had known\nseveral instances.\n\nBefore the end of the fast of St. Peter, Agrafena Ivanovna Belova, a\ncountry neighbor of the Rostovs, came to Moscow to pay her devotions at\nthe shrines of the Moscow saints. She suggested that Natasha should fast\nand prepare for Holy Communion, and Natasha gladly welcomed the idea.\nDespite the doctor's orders that she should not go out early in the\nmorning, Natasha insisted on fasting and preparing for the sacrament,\nnot as they generally prepared for it in the Rostov family by attending\nthree services in their own house, but as Agrafena Ivanovna did, by\ngoing to church every day for a week and not once missing Vespers,\nMatins, or Mass.\n\nThe countess was pleased with Natasha's zeal; after the poor results of\nthe medical treatment, in the depths of her heart she hoped that prayer\nmight help her daughter more than medicines and, though not without fear\nand concealing it from the doctor, she agreed to Natasha's wish and\nentrusted her to Belova. Agrafena Ivanovna used to come to wake Natasha\nat three in the morning, but generally found her already awake. She was\nafraid of being late for Matins. Hastily washing, and meekly putting on\nher shabbiest dress and an old mantilla, Natasha, shivering in the fresh\nair, went out into the deserted streets lit by the clear light of dawn.\nBy Agrafena Ivanovna's advice Natasha prepared herself not in their own\nparish, but at a church where, according to the devout Agrafena\nIvanovna, the priest was a man of very severe and lofty life. There were\nnever many people in the church; Natasha always stood beside Belova in\nthe customary place before an icon of the Blessed Virgin, let into the\nscreen before the choir on the left side, and a feeling, new to her, of\nhumility before something great and incomprehensible, seized her when at\nthat unusual morning hour, gazing at the dark face of the Virgin\nilluminated by the candles burning before it and by the morning light\nfalling from the window, she listened to the words of the service which\nshe tried to follow with understanding. When she understood them her\npersonal feeling became interwoven in the prayers with shades of its\nown. When she did not understand, it was sweeter still to think that the\nwish to understand everything is pride, that it is impossible to\nunderstand all, that it is only necessary to believe and to commit\noneself to God, whom she felt guiding her soul at those moments. She\ncrossed herself, bowed low, and when she did not understand, in horror\nat her own vileness, simply asked God to forgive her everything,\neverything, to have mercy upon her. The prayers to which she surrendered\nherself most of all were those of repentance. On her way home at an\nearly hour when she met no one but bricklayers going to work or men\nsweeping the street, and everybody within the houses was still asleep,\nNatasha experienced a feeling new to her, a sense of the possibility of\ncorrecting her faults, the possibility of a new, clean life, and of\nhappiness.\n\nDuring the whole week she spent in this way, that feeling grew every\nday. And the happiness of taking communion, or \"communing\" as Agrafena\nIvanovna, joyously playing with the word, called it, seemed to Natasha\nso great that she felt she should never live till that blessed Sunday.\n\nBut the happy day came, and on that memorable Sunday, when, dressed in\nwhite muslin, she returned home after communion, for the first time for\nmany months she felt calm and not oppressed by the thought of the life\nthat lay before her.\n\nThe doctor who came to see her that day ordered her to continue the\npowders he had prescribed a fortnight previously.\n\n\"She must certainly go on taking them morning and evening,\" said he,\nevidently sincerely satisfied with his success. \"Only, please be\nparticular about it.\n\n\"Be quite easy,\" he continued playfully, as he adroitly took the gold\ncoin in his palm. \"She will soon be singing and frolicking about. The\nlast medicine has done her a very great deal of good. She has freshened\nup very much.\"\n\nThe countess, with a cheerful expression on her face, looked down at her\nnails and spat a little for luck as she returned to the drawing room.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nAt the beginning of July more and more disquieting reports about the war\nbegan to spread in Moscow; people spoke of an appeal by the Emperor to\nthe people, and of his coming himself from the army to Moscow. And as up\nto the eleventh of July no manifesto or appeal had been received,\nexaggerated reports became current about them and about the position of\nRussia. It was said that the Emperor was leaving the army because it was\nin danger, it was said that Smolensk had surrendered, that Napoleon had\nan army of a million and only a miracle could save Russia.\n\nOn the eleventh of July, which was Saturday, the manifesto was received\nbut was not yet in print, and Pierre, who was at the Rostovs', promised\nto come to dinner next day, Sunday, and bring a copy of the manifesto\nand appeal, which he would obtain from Count Rostopchin.\n\nThat Sunday, the Rostovs went to Mass at the Razumovskis' private chapel\nas usual. It was a hot July day. Even at ten o'clock, when the Rostovs\ngot out of their carriage at the chapel, the sultry air, the shouts of\nhawkers, the light and gay summer clothes of the crowd, the dusty leaves\nof the trees on the boulevard, the sounds of the band and the white\ntrousers of a battalion marching to parade, the rattling of wheels on\nthe cobblestones, and the brilliant, hot sunshine were all full of that\nsummer languor, that content and discontent with the present, which is\nmost strongly felt on a bright, hot day in town. All the Moscow\nnotabilities, all the Rostovs' acquaintances, were at the Razumovskis'\nchapel, for, as if expecting something to happen, many wealthy families\nwho usually left town for their country estates had not gone away that\nsummer. As Natasha, at her mother's side, passed through the crowd\nbehind a liveried footman who cleared the way for them, she heard a\nyoung man speaking about her in too loud a whisper.\n\n\"That's Rostova, the one who...\"\n\n\"She's much thinner, but all the same she's pretty!\"\n\nShe heard, or thought she heard, the names of Kuragin and Bolkonski. But\nshe was always imagining that. It always seemed to her that everyone who\nlooked at her was thinking only of what had happened to her. With a\nsinking heart, wretched as she always was now when she found herself in\na crowd, Natasha in her lilac silk dress trimmed with black lace walked-\n-as women can walk--with the more repose and stateliness the greater the\npain and shame in her soul. She knew for certain that she was pretty,\nbut this no longer gave her satisfaction as it used to. On the contrary\nit tormented her more than anything else of late, and particularly so on\nthis bright, hot summer day in town. \"It's Sunday again--another week\npast,\" she thought, recalling that she had been here the Sunday before,\n\"and always the same life that is no life, and the same surroundings in\nwhich it used to be so easy to live. I'm pretty, I'm young, and I know\nthat now I am good. I used to be bad, but now I know I am good,\" she\nthought, \"but yet my best years are slipping by and are no good to\nanyone.\" She stood by her mother's side and exchanged nods with\nacquaintances near her. From habit she scrutinized the ladies' dresses,\ncondemned the bearing of a lady standing close by who was not crossing\nherself properly but in a cramped manner, and again she thought with\nvexation that she was herself being judged and was judging others, and\nsuddenly, at the sound of the service, she felt horrified at her own\nvileness, horrified that the former purity of her soul was again lost to\nher.\n\nA comely, fresh-looking old man was conducting the service with that\nmild solemnity which has so elevating and soothing an effect on the\nsouls of the worshipers. The gates of the sanctuary screen were closed,\nthe curtain was slowly drawn, and from behind it a soft mysterious voice\npronounced some words. Tears, the cause of which she herself did not\nunderstand, made Natasha's breast heave, and a joyous but oppressive\nfeeling agitated her.\n\n\"Teach me what I should do, how to live my life, how I may grow good\nforever, forever!\" she pleaded.\n\nThe deacon came out onto the raised space before the altar screen and,\nholding his thumb extended, drew his long hair from under his dalmatic\nand, making the sign of the cross on his breast, began in a loud and\nsolemn voice to recite the words of the prayer...\n\n\"In peace let us pray unto the Lord.\"\n\n\"As one community, without distinction of class, without enmity, united\nby brotherly love--let us pray!\" thought Natasha.\n\n\"For the peace that is from above, and for the salvation of our souls.\"\n\n\"For the world of angels and all the spirits who dwell above us,\" prayed\nNatasha.\n\nWhen they prayed for the warriors, she thought of her brother and\nDenisov. When they prayed for all traveling by land and sea, she\nremembered Prince Andrew, prayed for him, and asked God to forgive her\nall the wrongs she had done him. When they prayed for those who love us,\nshe prayed for the members of her own family, her father and mother and\nSonya, realizing for the first time how wrongly she had acted toward\nthem, and feeling all the strength of her love for them. When they\nprayed for those who hate us, she tried to think of her enemies and\npeople who hated her, in order to pray for them. She included among her\nenemies the creditors and all who had business dealings with her father,\nand always at the thought of enemies and those who hated her she\nremembered Anatole who had done her so much harm--and though he did not\nhate her she gladly prayed for him as for an enemy. Only at prayer did\nshe feel able to think clearly and calmly of Prince Andrew and Anatole,\nas men for whom her feelings were as nothing compared with her awe and\ndevotion to God. When they prayed for the Imperial family and the Synod,\nshe bowed very low and made the sign of the cross, saying to herself\nthat even if she did not understand, still she could not doubt, and at\nany rate loved the governing Synod and prayed for it.\n\nWhen he had finished the Litany the deacon crossed the stole over his\nbreast and said, \"Let us commit ourselves and our whole lives to Christ\nthe Lord!\"\n\n\"Commit ourselves to God,\" Natasha inwardly repeated. \"Lord God, I\nsubmit myself to Thy will!\" she thought. \"I want nothing, wish for\nnothing; teach me what to do and how to use my will! Take me, take me!\"\nprayed Natasha, with impatient emotion in her heart, not crossing\nherself but letting her slender arms hang down as if expecting some\ninvisible power at any moment to take her and deliver her from herself,\nfrom her regrets, desires, remorse, hopes, and sins.\n\nThe countess looked round several times at her daughter's softened face\nand shining eyes and prayed God to help her.\n\nUnexpectedly, in the middle of the service, and not in the usual order\nNatasha knew so well, the deacon brought out a small stool, the one he\nknelt on when praying on Trinity Sunday, and placed it before the doors\nof the sanctuary screen. The priest came out with his purple velvet\nbiretta on his head, adjusted his hair, and knelt down with an effort.\nEverybody followed his example and they looked at one another in\nsurprise. Then came the prayer just received from the Synod--a prayer\nfor the deliverance of Russia from hostile invasion.\n\n\"Lord God of might, God of our salvation!\" began the priest in that\nvoice, clear, not grandiloquent but mild, in which only the Slav clergy\nread and which acts so irresistibly on a Russian heart.\n\n\"Lord God of might, God of our salvation! Look this day in mercy and\nblessing on Thy humble people, and graciously hear us, spare us, and\nhave mercy upon us! This foe confounding Thy land, desiring to lay waste\nthe whole world, rises against us; these lawless men are gathered\ntogether to overthrow Thy kingdom, to destroy Thy dear Jerusalem, Thy\nbeloved Russia; to defile Thy temples, to overthrow Thine altars, and to\ndesecrate our holy shrines. How long, O Lord, how long shall the wicked\ntriumph? How long shall they wield unlawful power?\n\n\"Lord God! Hear us when we pray to Thee; strengthen with Thy might our\nmost gracious sovereign lord, the Emperor Alexander Pavlovich; be\nmindful of his uprightness and meekness, reward him according to his\nrighteousness, and let it preserve us, Thy chosen Israel! Bless his\ncounsels, his undertakings, and his work; strengthen his kingdom by\nThine almighty hand, and give him victory over his enemy, even as Thou\ngavest Moses the victory over Amalek, Gideon over Midian, and David over\nGoliath. Preserve his army, put a bow of brass in the hands of those who\nhave armed themselves in Thy Name, and gird their loins with strength\nfor the fight. Take up the spear and shield and arise to help us;\nconfound and put to shame those who have devised evil against us, may\nthey be before the faces of Thy faithful warriors as dust before the\nwind, and may Thy mighty Angel confound them and put them to flight; may\nthey be ensnared when they know it not, and may the plots they have laid\nin secret be turned against them; let them fall before Thy servants'\nfeet and be laid low by our hosts! Lord, Thou art able to save both\ngreat and small; Thou art God, and man cannot prevail against Thee!\n\n\"God of our fathers! Remember Thy bounteous mercy and loving-kindness\nwhich are from of old; turn not Thy face from us, but be gracious to our\nunworthiness, and in Thy great goodness and Thy many mercies regard not\nour transgressions and iniquities! Create in us a clean heart and renew\na right spirit within us, strengthen us all in Thy faith, fortify our\nhope, inspire us with true love one for another, arm us with unity of\nspirit in the righteous defense of the heritage Thou gavest to us and to\nour fathers, and let not the scepter of the wicked be exalted against\nthe destiny of those Thou hast sanctified.\n\n\"O Lord our God, in whom we believe and in whom we put our trust, let us\nnot be confounded in our hope of Thy mercy, and give us a token of Thy\nblessing, that those who hate us and our Orthodox faith may see it and\nbe put to shame and perish, and may all the nations know that Thou art\nthe Lord and we are Thy people. Show Thy mercy upon us this day, O Lord,\nand grant us Thy salvation; make the hearts of Thy servants to rejoice\nin Thy mercy; smite down our enemies and destroy them swiftly beneath\nthe feet of Thy faithful servants! For Thou art the defense, the succor,\nand the victory of them that put their trust in Thee, and to Thee be all\nglory, to Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, now and forever, world without\nend. Amen.\"\n\nIn Natasha's receptive condition of soul this prayer affected her\nstrongly. She listened to every word about the victory of Moses over\nAmalek, of Gideon over Midian, and of David over Goliath, and about the\ndestruction of \"Thy Jerusalem,\" and she prayed to God with the\ntenderness and emotion with which her heart was overflowing, but without\nfully understanding what she was asking of God in that prayer. She\nshared with all her heart in the prayer for the spirit of righteousness,\nfor the strengthening of the heart by faith and hope, and its animation\nby love. But she could not pray that her enemies might be trampled under\nfoot when but a few minutes before she had been wishing she had more of\nthem that she might pray for them. But neither could she doubt the\nrighteousness of the prayer that was being read on bended knees. She\nfelt in her heart a devout and tremulous awe at the thought of the\npunishment that overtakes men for their sins, and especially of her own\nsins, and she prayed to God to forgive them all, and her too, and to\ngive them all, and her too, peace and happiness. And it seemed to her\nthat God heard her prayer.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nFrom the day when Pierre, after leaving the Rostovs' with Natasha's\ngrateful look fresh in his mind, had gazed at the comet that seemed to\nbe fixed in the sky and felt that something new was appearing on his own\nhorizon--from that day the problem of the vanity and uselessness of all\nearthly things, that had incessantly tormented him, no longer presented\nitself. That terrible question \"Why?\" \"Wherefore?\" which had come to him\namid every occupation, was now replaced, not by another question or by a\nreply to the former question, but by her image. When he listened to, or\nhimself took part in, trivial conversations, when he read or heard of\nhuman baseness or folly, he was not horrified as formerly, and did not\nask himself why men struggled so about these things when all is so\ntransient and incomprehensible--but he remembered her as he had last\nseen her, and all his doubts vanished--not because she had answered the\nquestions that had haunted him, but because his conception of her\ntransferred him instantly to another, a brighter, realm of spiritual\nactivity in which no one could be justified or guilty--a realm of beauty\nand love which it was worth living for. Whatever worldly baseness\npresented itself to him, he said to himself:\n\n\"Well, supposing N. N. swindled the country and the Tsar, and the\ncountry and the Tsar confer honors upon him, what does that matter? She\nsmiled at me yesterday and asked me to come again, and I love her, and\nno one will ever know it.\" And his soul felt calm and peaceful.\n\nPierre still went into society, drank as much and led the same idle and\ndissipated life, because besides the hours he spent at the Rostovs'\nthere were other hours he had to spend somehow, and the habits and\nacquaintances he had made in Moscow formed a current that bore him along\nirresistibly. But latterly, when more and more disquieting reports came\nfrom the seat of war and Natasha's health began to improve and she no\nlonger aroused in him the former feeling of careful pity, an ever-\nincreasing restlessness, which he could not explain, took possession of\nhim. He felt that the condition he was in could not continue long, that\na catastrophe was coming which would change his whole life, and he\nimpatiently sought everywhere for signs of that approaching catastrophe.\nOne of his brother Masons had revealed to Pierre the following prophecy\nconcerning Napoleon, drawn from the Revelation of St. John.\n\nIn chapter 13, verse 18, of the Apocalypse, it is said:\n\nHere is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the\nbeast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred\nthreescore and six.\n\nAnd in the fifth verse of the same chapter:\n\nAnd there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and\nblasphemies; and power was given unto him to continue forty and two\nmonths.\n\nThe French alphabet, written out with the same numerical values as the\nHebrew, in which the first nine letters denote units and the others\ntens, will have the following significance:\n\n\na b c d e f g h i k 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9\n10 l m n o p q r s 20 30 40 50 60 70 80\n90 t u v w x y 100 110 120 130 140 150 z 160\n\nWriting the words L'Empereur Napoleon in numbers, it appears that the\nsum of them is 666, and that Napoleon was therefore the beast foretold\nin the Apocalypse. Moreover, by applying the same system to the words\nquarante-deux, * which was the term allowed to the beast that \"spoke\ngreat things and blasphemies,\" the same number 666 was obtained; from\nwhich it followed that the limit fixed for Napoleon's power had come in\nthe year 1812 when the French emperor was forty-two. This prophecy\npleased Pierre very much and he often asked himself what would put an\nend to the power of the beast, that is, of Napoleon, and tried by the\nsame system of using letters as numbers and adding them up, to find an\nanswer to the question that engrossed him. He wrote the words L'Empereur\nAlexandre, La nation russe and added up their numbers, but the sums were\neither more or less than 666. Once when making such calculations he\nwrote down his own name in French, Comte Pierre Besouhoff, but the sum\nof the numbers did not come right. Then he changed the spelling,\nsubstituting a z for the s and adding de and the article le, still\nwithout obtaining the desired result. Then it occurred to him: if the\nanswer to the question were contained in his name, his nationality would\nalso be given in the answer. So he wrote Le russe Besuhof and adding up\nthe numbers got 671. This was only five too much, and five was\nrepresented by e, the very letter elided from the article le before the\nword Empereur. By omitting the e, though incorrectly, Pierre got the\nanswer he sought. L'russe Besuhof made 666. This discovery excited him.\nHow, or by what means, he was connected with the great event foretold in\nthe Apocalypse he did not know, but he did not doubt that connection for\na moment. His love for Natasha, Antichrist, Napoleon, the invasion, the\ncomet, 666, L'Empereur Napoleon, and L'russe Besuhof--all this had to\nmature and culminate, to lift him out of that spellbound, petty sphere\nof Moscow habits in which he felt himself held captive and lead him to a\ngreat achievement and great happiness.\n\n\n* Forty-two.\n\nOn the eve of the Sunday when the special prayer was read, Pierre had\npromised the Rostovs to bring them, from Count Rostopchin whom he knew\nwell, both the appeal to the people and the news from the army. In the\nmorning, when he went to call at Rostopchin's he met there a courier\nfresh from the army, an acquaintance of his own, who often danced at\nMoscow balls.\n\n\"Do, please, for heaven's sake, relieve me of something!\" said the\ncourier. \"I have a sackful of letters to parents.\"\n\nAmong these letters was one from Nicholas Rostov to his father. Pierre\ntook that letter, and Rostopchin also gave him the Emperor's appeal to\nMoscow, which had just been printed, the last army orders, and his own\nmost recent bulletin. Glancing through the army orders, Pierre found in\none of them, in the lists of killed, wounded, and rewarded, the name of\nNicholas Rostov, awarded a St. George's Cross of the Fourth Class for\ncourage shown in the Ostrovna affair, and in the same order the name of\nPrince Andrew Bolkonski, appointed to the command of a regiment of\nChasseurs. Though he did not want to remind the Rostovs of Bolkonski,\nPierre could not refrain from making them happy by the news of their\nson's having received a decoration, so he sent that printed army order\nand Nicholas' letter to the Rostovs, keeping the appeal, the bulletin,\nand the other orders to take with him when he went to dinner.\n\nHis conversation with Count Rostopchin and the latter's tone of anxious\nhurry, the meeting with the courier who talked casually of how badly\nthings were going in the army, the rumors of the discovery of spies in\nMoscow and of a leaflet in circulation stating that Napoleon promised to\nbe in both the Russian capitals by the autumn, and the talk of the\nEmperor's being expected to arrive next day--all aroused with fresh\nforce that feeling of agitation and expectation in Pierre which he had\nbeen conscious of ever since the appearance of the comet, and especially\nsince the beginning of the war.\n\nHe had long been thinking of entering the army and would have done so\nhad he not been hindered, first, by his membership of the Society of\nFreemasons to which he was bound by oath and which preached perpetual\npeace and the abolition of war, and secondly, by the fact that when he\nsaw the great mass of Muscovites who had donned uniform and were talking\npatriotism, he somehow felt ashamed to take the step. But the chief\nreason for not carrying out his intention to enter the army lay in the\nvague idea that he was L'russe Besuhof who had the number of the beast,\n666; that his part in the great affair of setting a limit to the power\nof the beast that spoke great and blasphemous things had been\npredestined from eternity, and that therefore he ought not to undertake\nanything, but wait for what was bound to come to pass.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nA few intimate friends were dining with the Rostovs that day, as usual\non Sundays.\n\nPierre came early so as to find them alone.\n\nHe had grown so stout this year that he would have been abnormal had he\nnot been so tall, so broad of limb, and so strong that he carried his\nbulk with evident ease.\n\nHe went up the stairs, puffing and muttering something. His coachman did\nnot even ask whether he was to wait. He knew that when his master was at\nthe Rostovs' he stayed till midnight. The Rostovs' footman rushed\neagerly forward to help him off with his cloak and take his hat and\nstick. Pierre, from club habit, always left both hat and stick in the\nanteroom.\n\nThe first person he saw in the house was Natasha. Even before he saw\nher, while taking off his cloak, he heard her. She was practicing solfa\nexercises in the music room. He knew that she had not sung since her\nillness, and so the sound of her voice surprised and delighted him. He\nopened the door softly and saw her, in the lilac dress she had worn at\nchurch, walking about the room singing. She had her back to him when he\nopened the door, but when, turning quickly, she saw his broad, surprised\nface, she blushed and came rapidly up to him.\n\n\"I want to try to sing again,\" she said, adding as if by way of excuse,\n\"it is, at least, something to do.\"\n\n\"That's capital!\"\n\n\"How glad I am you've come! I am so happy today,\" she said, with the old\nanimation Pierre had not seen in her for a long time. \"You know Nicholas\nhas received a St. George's Cross? I am so proud of him.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, I sent that announcement. But I don't want to interrupt you,\"\nhe added, and was about to go to the drawing room.\n\nNatasha stopped him.\n\n\"Count, is it wrong of me to sing?\" she said blushing, and fixing her\neyes inquiringly on him.\n\n\"No... Why should it be? On the contrary... But why do you ask me?\"\n\n\"I don't know myself,\" Natasha answered quickly, \"but I should not like\nto do anything you disapproved of. I believe in you completely. You\ndon't know how important you are to me, how much you've done for me....\"\nShe spoke rapidly and did not notice how Pierre flushed at her words. \"I\nsaw in that same army order that he, Bolkonski\" (she whispered the name\nhastily), \"is in Russia, and in the army again. What do you think?\"--she\nwas speaking hurriedly, evidently afraid her strength might fail her--\n\"Will he ever forgive me? Will he not always have a bitter feeling\ntoward me? What do you think? What do you think?\"\n\n\"I think...\" Pierre replied, \"that he has nothing to forgive.... If I\nwere in his place...\"\n\nBy association of ideas, Pierre was at once carried back to the day\nwhen, trying to comfort her, he had said that if he were not himself but\nthe best man in the world and free, he would ask on his knees for her\nhand; and the same feeling of pity, tenderness, and love took possession\nof him and the same words rose to his lips. But she did not give him\ntime to say them.\n\n\"Yes, you... you...\" she said, uttering the word you rapturously--\n\"that's a different thing. I know no one kinder, more generous, or\nbetter than you; nobody could be! Had you not been there then, and now\ntoo, I don't know what would have become of me, because...\"\n\nTears suddenly rose in her eyes, she turned away, lifted her music\nbefore her eyes, began singing again, and again began walking up and\ndown the room.\n\nJust then Petya came running in from the drawing room.\n\nPetya was now a handsome rosy lad of fifteen with full red lips and\nresembled Natasha. He was preparing to enter the university, but he and\nhis friend Obolenski had lately, in secret, agreed to join the hussars.\n\nPetya had come rushing out to talk to his namesake about this affair. He\nhad asked Pierre to find out whether he would be accepted in the\nhussars.\n\nPierre walked up and down the drawing room, not listening to what Petya\nwas saying.\n\nPetya pulled him by the arm to attract his attention.\n\n\"Well, what about my plan? Peter Kirilych, for heaven's sake! You are my\nonly hope,\" said Petya.\n\n\"Oh yes, your plan. To join the hussars? I'll mention it, I'll bring it\nall up today.\"\n\n\"Well, mon cher, have you got the manifesto?\" asked the old count. \"The\ncountess has been to Mass at the Razumovskis' and heard the new prayer.\nShe says it's very fine.\"\n\n\"Yes, I've got it,\" said Pierre. \"The Emperor is to be here tomorrow...\nthere's to be an Extraordinary Meeting of the nobility, and they are\ntalking of a levy of ten men per thousand. Oh yes, let me congratulate\nyou!\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, thank God! Well, and what news from the army?\"\n\n\"We are again retreating. They say we're already near Smolensk,\" replied\nPierre.\n\n\"O Lord, O Lord!\" exclaimed the count. \"Where is the manifesto?\"\n\n\"The Emperor's appeal? Oh yes!\"\n\nPierre began feeling in his pockets for the papers, but could not find\nthem. Still slapping his pockets, he kissed the hand of the countess who\nentered the room and glanced uneasily around, evidently expecting\nNatasha, who had left off singing but had not yet come into the drawing\nroom.\n\n\"On my word, I don't know what I've done with it,\" he said.\n\n\"There he is, always losing everything!\" remarked the countess.\n\nNatasha entered with a softened and agitated expression of face and sat\ndown looking silently at Pierre. As soon as she entered, Pierre's\nfeatures, which had been gloomy, suddenly lighted up, and while still\nsearching for the papers he glanced at her several times.\n\n\"No, really! I'll drive home, I must have left them there. I'll\ncertainly...\"\n\n\"But you'll be late for dinner.\"\n\n\"Oh! And my coachman has gone.\"\n\nBut Sonya, who had gone to look for the papers in the anteroom, had\nfound them in Pierre's hat, where he had carefully tucked them under the\nlining. Pierre was about to begin reading.\n\n\"No, after dinner,\" said the old count, evidently expecting much\nenjoyment from that reading.\n\nAt dinner, at which champagne was drunk to the health of the new\nchevalier of St. George, Shinshin told them the town news, of the\nillness of the old Georgian princess, of Metivier's disappearance from\nMoscow, and of how some German fellow had been brought to Rostopchin and\naccused of being a French \"spyer\" (so Count Rostopchin had told the\nstory), and how Rostopchin let him go and assured the people that he was\n\"not a spire at all, but only an old German ruin.\"\n\n\"People are being arrested...\" said the count. \"I've told the countess\nshe should not speak French so much. It's not the time for it now.\"\n\n\"And have you heard?\" Shinshin asked. \"Prince Golitsyn has engaged a\nmaster to teach him Russian. It is becoming dangerous to speak French in\nthe streets.\"\n\n\"And how about you, Count Peter Kirilych? If they call up the militia,\nyou too will have to mount a horse,\" remarked the old count, addressing\nPierre.\n\nPierre had been silent and preoccupied all through dinner, seeming not\nto grasp what was said. He looked at the count.\n\n\"Oh yes, the war,\" he said. \"No! What sort of warrior should I make? And\nyet everything is so strange, so strange! I can't make it out. I don't\nknow, I am very far from having military tastes, but in these times no\none can answer for himself.\"\n\nAfter dinner the count settled himself comfortably in an easy chair and\nwith a serious face asked Sonya, who was considered an excellent reader,\nto read the appeal.\n\n\"To Moscow, our ancient Capital!\n\n\"The enemy has entered the borders of Russia with immense forces. He\ncomes to despoil our beloved country.\"\n\nSonya read painstakingly in her high-pitched voice. The count listened\nwith closed eyes, heaving abrupt sighs at certain passages.\n\nNatasha sat erect, gazing with a searching look now at her father and\nnow at Pierre.\n\nPierre felt her eyes on him and tried not to look round. The countess\nshook her head disapprovingly and angrily at every solemn expression in\nthe manifesto. In all these words she saw only that the danger\nthreatening her son would not soon be over. Shinshin, with a sarcastic\nsmile on his lips, was evidently preparing to make fun of anything that\ngave him the opportunity: Sonya's reading, any remark of the count's, or\neven the manifesto itself should no better pretext present itself.\n\nAfter reading about the dangers that threatened Russia, the hopes the\nEmperor placed on Moscow and especially on its illustrious nobility,\nSonya, with a quiver in her voice due chiefly to the attention that was\nbeing paid to her, read the last words:\n\n\"We ourselves will not delay to appear among our people in that Capital\nand in other parts of our realm for consultation, and for the direction\nof all our levies, both those now barring the enemy's path and those\nfreshly formed to defeat him wherever he may appear. May the ruin he\nhopes to bring upon us recoil on his own head, and may Europe delivered\nfrom bondage glorify the name of Russia!\"\n\n\"Yes, that's it!\" cried the count, opening his moist eyes and sniffing\nrepeatedly, as if a strong vinaigrette had been held to his nose; and he\nadded, \"Let the Emperor but say the word and we'll sacrifice everything\nand begrudge nothing.\"\n\nBefore Shinshin had time to utter the joke he was ready to make on the\ncount's patriotism, Natasha jumped up from her place and ran to her\nfather.\n\n\"What a darling our Papa is!\" she cried, kissing him, and she again\nlooked at Pierre with the unconscious coquetry that had returned to her\nwith her better spirits.\n\n\"There! Here's a patriot for you!\" said Shinshin.\n\n\"Not a patriot at all, but simply...\" Natasha replied in an injured\ntone. \"Everything seems funny to you, but this isn't at all a joke....\"\n\n\"A joke indeed!\" put in the count. \"Let him but say the word and we'll\nall go.... We're not Germans!\"\n\n\"But did you notice, it says, 'for consultation'?\" said Pierre.\n\n\"Never mind what it's for....\"\n\nAt this moment, Petya, to whom nobody was paying any attention, came up\nto his father with a very flushed face and said in his breaking voice\nthat was now deep and now shrill:\n\n\"Well, Papa, I tell you definitely, and Mamma too, it's as you please,\nbut I say definitely that you must let me enter the army, because I\ncan't... that's all....\"\n\nThe countess, in dismay, looked up to heaven, clasped her hands, and\nturned angrily to her husband.\n\n\"That comes of your talking!\" said she.\n\nBut the count had already recovered from his excitement.\n\n\"Come, come!\" said he. \"Here's a fine warrior! No! Nonsense! You must\nstudy.\"\n\n\"It's not nonsense, Papa. Fedya Obolenski is younger than I, and he's\ngoing too. Besides, all the same I can't study now when...\" Petya\nstopped short, flushed till he perspired, but still got out the words,\n\"when our Fatherland is in danger.\"\n\n\"That'll do, that'll do--nonsense....\"\n\n\"But you said yourself that we would sacrifice everything.\"\n\n\"Petya! Be quiet, I tell you!\" cried the count, with a glance at his\nwife, who had turned pale and was staring fixedly at her son.\n\n\"And I tell you--Peter Kirilych here will also tell you...\"\n\n\"Nonsense, I tell you. Your mother's milk has hardly dried on your lips\nand you want to go into the army! There, there, I tell you,\" and the\ncount moved to go out of the room, taking the papers, probably to reread\nthem in his study before having a nap.\n\n\"Well, Peter Kirilych, let's go and have a smoke,\" he said.\n\nPierre was agitated and undecided. Natasha's unwontedly brilliant eyes,\ncontinually glancing at him with a more than cordial look, had reduced\nhim to this condition.\n\n\"No, I think I'll go home.\"\n\n\"Home? Why, you meant to spend the evening with us.... You don't often\ncome nowadays as it is, and this girl of mine,\" said the count good-\nnaturedly, pointing to Natasha, \"only brightens up when you're here.\"\n\n\"Yes, I had forgotten... I really must go home... business...\" said\nPierre hurriedly.\n\n\"Well, then, au revoir!\" said the count, and went out of the room.\n\n\"Why are you going? Why are you upset?\" asked Natasha, and she looked\nchallengingly into Pierre's eyes.\n\n\"Because I love you!\" was what he wanted to say, but he did not say it,\nand only blushed till the tears came, and lowered his eyes.\n\n\"Because it is better for me to come less often... because... No, simply\nI have business....\"\n\n\"Why? No, tell me!\" Natasha began resolutely and suddenly stopped.\n\nThey looked at each other with dismayed and embarrassed faces. He tried\nto smile but could not: his smile expressed suffering, and he silently\nkissed her hand and went out.\n\nPierre made up his mind not to go to the Rostovs' any more.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nAfter the definite refusal he had received, Petya went to his room and\nthere locked himself in and wept bitterly. When he came in to tea,\nsilent, morose, and with tear-stained face, everybody pretended not to\nnotice anything.\n\nNext day the Emperor arrived in Moscow, and several of the Rostovs'\ndomestic serfs begged permission to go to have a look at him. That\nmorning Petya was a long time dressing and arranging his hair and collar\nto look like a grown-up man. He frowned before his looking glass,\ngesticulated, shrugged his shoulders, and finally, without saying a word\nto anyone, took his cap and left the house by the back door, trying to\navoid notice. Petya decided to go straight to where the Emperor was and\nto explain frankly to some gentleman-in-waiting (he imagined the Emperor\nto be always surrounded by gentlemen-in-waiting) that he, Count Rostov,\nin spite of his youth wished to serve his country; that youth could be\nno hindrance to loyalty, and that he was ready to... While dressing,\nPetya had prepared many fine things he meant to say to the gentleman-in-\nwaiting.\n\nIt was on the very fact of being so young that Petya counted for success\nin reaching the Emperor--he even thought how surprised everyone would be\nat his youthfulness--and yet in the arrangement of his collar and hair\nand by his sedate deliberate walk he wished to appear a grown-up man.\nBut the farther he went and the more his attention was diverted by the\never-increasing crowds moving toward the Kremlin, the less he remembered\nto walk with the sedateness and deliberation of a man. As he approached\nthe Kremlin he even began to avoid being crushed and resolutely stuck\nout his elbows in a menacing way. But within the Trinity Gateway he was\nso pressed to the wall by people who probably were unaware of the\npatriotic intentions with which he had come that in spite of all his\ndetermination he had to give in, and stop while carriages passed in,\nrumbling beneath the archway. Beside Petya stood a peasant woman, a\nfootman, two tradesmen, and a discharged soldier. After standing some\ntime in the gateway, Petya tried to move forward in front of the others\nwithout waiting for all the carriages to pass, and he began resolutely\nworking his way with his elbows, but the woman just in front of him, who\nwas the first against whom he directed his efforts, angrily shouted at\nhim:\n\n\"What are you shoving for, young lordling? Don't you see we're all\nstanding still? Then why push?\"\n\n\"Anybody can shove,\" said the footman, and also began working his elbows\nto such effect that he pushed Petya into a very filthy corner of the\ngateway.\n\nPetya wiped his perspiring face with his hands and pulled up the damp\ncollar which he had arranged so well at home to seem like a man's.\n\nHe felt that he no longer looked presentable, and feared that if he were\nnow to approach the gentlemen-in-waiting in that plight he would not be\nadmitted to the Emperor. But it was impossible to smarten oneself up or\nmove to another place, because of the crowd. One of the generals who\ndrove past was an acquaintance of the Rostovs', and Petya thought of\nasking his help, but came to the conclusion that that would not be a\nmanly thing to do. When the carriages had all passed in, the crowd,\ncarrying Petya with it, streamed forward into the Kremlin Square which\nwas already full of people. There were people not only in the square,\nbut everywhere--on the slopes and on the roofs. As soon as Petya found\nhimself in the square he clearly heard the sound of bells and the joyous\nvoices of the crowd that filled the whole Kremlin.\n\nFor a while the crowd was less dense, but suddenly all heads were bared,\nand everyone rushed forward in one direction. Petya was being pressed so\nthat he could scarcely breathe, and everybody shouted, \"Hurrah! hurrah!\nhurrah!\" Petya stood on tiptoe and pushed and pinched, but could see\nnothing except the people about him.\n\nAll the faces bore the same expression of excitement and enthusiasm. A\ntradesman's wife standing beside Petya sobbed, and the tears ran down\nher cheeks.\n\n\"Father! Angel! Dear one!\" she kept repeating, wiping away her tears\nwith her fingers.\n\n\"Hurrah!\" was heard on all sides.\n\nFor a moment the crowd stood still, but then it made another rush\nforward.\n\nQuite beside himself, Petya, clinching his teeth and rolling his eyes\nferociously, pushed forward, elbowing his way and shouting \"hurrah!\" as\nif he were prepared that instant to kill himself and everyone else, but\non both sides of him other people with similarly ferocious faces pushed\nforward and everybody shouted \"hurrah!\"\n\n\"So this is what the Emperor is!\" thought Petya. \"No, I can't petition\nhim myself--that would be too bold.\" But in spite of this he continued\nto struggle desperately forward, and from between the backs of those in\nfront he caught glimpses of an open space with a strip of red cloth\nspread out on it; but just then the crowd swayed back--the police in\nfront were pushing back those who had pressed too close to the\nprocession: the Emperor was passing from the palace to the Cathedral of\nthe Assumption--and Petya unexpectedly received such a blow on his side\nand ribs and was squeezed so hard that suddenly everything grew dim\nbefore his eyes and he lost consciousness. When he came to himself, a\nman of clerical appearance with a tuft of gray hair at the back of his\nhead and wearing a shabby blue cassock--probably a church clerk and\nchanter--was holding him under the arm with one hand while warding off\nthe pressure of the crowd with the other.\n\n\"You've crushed the young gentleman!\" said the clerk. \"What are you up\nto? Gently!... They've crushed him, crushed him!\"\n\nThe Emperor entered the Cathedral of the Assumption. The crowd spread\nout again more evenly, and the clerk led Petya--pale and breathless--to\nthe Tsar-cannon. Several people were sorry for Petya, and suddenly a\ncrowd turned toward him and pressed round him. Those who stood nearest\nhim attended to him, unbuttoned his coat, seated him on the raised\nplatform of the cannon, and reproached those others (whoever they might\nbe) who had crushed him.\n\n\"One might easily get killed that way! What do they mean by it? Killing\npeople! Poor dear, he's as white as a sheet!\"--various voices were heard\nsaying.\n\nPetya soon came to himself, the color returned to his face, the pain had\npassed, and at the cost of that temporary unpleasantness he had obtained\na place by the cannon from where he hoped to see the Emperor who would\nbe returning that way. Petya no longer thought of presenting his\npetition. If he could only see the Emperor he would be happy!\n\nWhile the service was proceeding in the Cathedral of the Assumption--it\nwas a combined service of prayer on the occasion of the Emperor's\narrival and of thanksgiving for the conclusion of peace with the Turks--\nthe crowd outside spread out and hawkers appeared, selling kvas,\ngingerbread, and poppyseed sweets (of which Petya was particularly\nfond), and ordinary conversation could again be heard. A tradesman's\nwife was showing a rent in her shawl and telling how much the shawl had\ncost; another was saying that all silk goods had now got dear. The clerk\nwho had rescued Petya was talking to a functionary about the priests who\nwere officiating that day with the bishop. The clerk several times used\nthe word \"plenary\" (of the service), a word Petya did not understand.\nTwo young citizens were joking with some serf girls who were cracking\nnuts. All these conversations, especially the joking with the girls,\nwere such as might have had a particular charm for Petya at his age, but\nthey did not interest him now. He sat on his elevation--the pedestal of\nthe cannon--still agitated as before by the thought of the Emperor and\nby his love for him. The feeling of pain and fear he had experienced\nwhen he was being crushed, together with that of rapture, still further\nintensified his sense of the importance of the occasion.\n\nSuddenly the sound of a firing of cannon was heard from the embankment,\nto celebrate the signing of peace with the Turks, and the crowd rushed\nimpetuously toward the embankment to watch the firing. Petya too would\nhave run there, but the clerk who had taken the young gentleman under\nhis protection stopped him. The firing was still proceeding when\nofficers, generals, and gentlemen-in-waiting came running out of the\ncathedral, and after them others in a more leisurely manner: caps were\nagain raised, and those who had run to look at the cannon ran back\nagain. At last four men in uniforms and sashes emerged from the\ncathedral doors. \"Hurrah! hurrah!\" shouted the crowd again.\n\n\"Which is he? Which?\" asked Petya in a tearful voice, of those around\nhim, but no one answered him, everybody was too excited; and Petya,\nfixing on one of those four men, whom he could not clearly see for the\ntears of joy that filled his eyes, concentrated all his enthusiasm on\nhim--though it happened not to be the Emperor--frantically shouted\n\"Hurrah!\" and resolved that tomorrow, come what might, he would join the\narmy.\n\nThe crowd ran after the Emperor, followed him to the palace, and began\nto disperse. It was already late, and Petya had not eaten anything and\nwas drenched with perspiration, yet he did not go home but stood with\nthat diminishing, but still considerable, crowd before the palace while\nthe Emperor dined--looking in at the palace windows, expecting he knew\nnot what, and envying alike the notables he saw arriving at the entrance\nto dine with the Emperor and the court footmen who served at table,\nglimpses of whom could be seen through the windows.\n\nWhile the Emperor was dining, Valuev, looking out of the window, said:\n\n\"The people are still hoping to see Your Majesty again.\"\n\nThe dinner was nearly over, and the Emperor, munching a biscuit, rose\nand went out onto the balcony. The people, with Petya among them, rushed\ntoward the balcony.\n\n\"Angel! Dear one! Hurrah! Father!...\" cried the crowd, and Petya with\nit, and again the women and men of weaker mold, Petya among them, wept\nwith joy.\n\nA largish piece of the biscuit the Emperor was holding in his hand broke\noff, fell on the balcony parapet, and then to the ground. A coachman in\na jerkin, who stood nearest, sprang forward and snatched it up. Several\npeople in the crowd rushed at the coachman. Seeing this the Emperor had\na plateful of biscuits brought him and began throwing them down from the\nbalcony. Petya's eyes grew bloodshot, and still more excited by the\ndanger of being crushed, he rushed at the biscuits. He did not know why,\nbut he had to have a biscuit from the Tsar's hand and he felt that he\nmust not give way. He sprang forward and upset an old woman who was\ncatching at a biscuit; the old woman did not consider herself defeated\nthough she was lying on the ground--she grabbed at some biscuits but her\nhand did not reach them. Petya pushed her hand away with his knee,\nseized a biscuit, and as if fearing to be too late, again shouted\n\"Hurrah!\" with a voice already hoarse.\n\nThe Emperor went in, and after that the greater part of the crowd began\nto disperse.\n\n\"There! I said if only we waited--and so it was!\" was being joyfully\nsaid by various people.\n\nHappy as Petya was, he felt sad at having to go home knowing that all\nthe enjoyment of that day was over. He did not go straight home from the\nKremlin, but called on his friend Obolenski, who was fifteen and was\nalso entering the regiment. On returning home Petya announced resolutely\nand firmly that if he was not allowed to enter the service he would run\naway. And next day, Count Ilya Rostov--though he had not yet quite\nyielded--went to inquire how he could arrange for Petya to serve where\nthere would be least danger.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nTwo days later, on the fifteenth of July, an immense number of carriages\nwere standing outside the Sloboda Palace.\n\nThe great halls were full. In the first were the nobility and gentry in\ntheir uniforms, in the second bearded merchants in full-skirted coats of\nblue cloth and wearing medals. In the noblemen's hall there was an\nincessant movement and buzz of voices. The chief magnates sat on high-\nbacked chairs at a large table under the portrait of the Emperor, but\nmost of the gentry were strolling about the room.\n\nAll these nobles, whom Pierre met every day at the club or in their own\nhouses, were in uniform--some in that of Catherine's day, others in that\nof Emperor Paul, others again in the new uniforms of Alexander's time or\nthe ordinary uniform of the nobility, and the general characteristic of\nbeing in uniform imparted something strange and fantastic to these\ndiverse and familiar personalities, both old and young. The old men,\ndim-eyed, toothless, bald, sallow, and bloated, or gaunt and wrinkled,\nwere especially striking. For the most part they sat quietly in their\nplaces and were silent, or, if they walked about and talked, attached\nthemselves to someone younger. On all these faces, as on the faces of\nthe crowd Petya had seen in the Square, there was a striking\ncontradiction: the general expectation of a solemn event, and at the\nsame time the everyday interests in a boston card party, Peter the cook,\nZinaida Dmitrievna's health, and so on.\n\nPierre was there too, buttoned up since early morning in a nobleman's\nuniform that had become too tight for him. He was agitated; this\nextraordinary gathering not only of nobles but also of the merchant-\nclass--les etats generaux (States-General)--evoked in him a whole series\nof ideas he had long laid aside but which were deeply graven in his\nsoul: thoughts of the Contrat Social and the French Revolution. The\nwords that had struck him in the Emperor's appeal--that the sovereign\nwas coming to the capital for consultation with his people--strengthened\nthis idea. And imagining that in this direction something important\nwhich he had long awaited was drawing near, he strolled about watching\nand listening to conversations, but nowhere finding any confirmation of\nthe ideas that occupied him.\n\nThe Emperor's manifesto was read, evoking enthusiasm, and then all moved\nabout discussing it. Besides the ordinary topics of conversation, Pierre\nheard questions of where the marshals of the nobility were to stand when\nthe Emperor entered, when a ball should be given in the Emperor's honor,\nwhether they should group themselves by districts or by whole\nprovinces... and so on; but as soon as the war was touched on, or what\nthe nobility had been convened for, the talk became undecided and\nindefinite. Then all preferred listening to speaking.\n\nA middle-aged man, handsome and virile, in the uniform of a retired\nnaval officer, was speaking in one of the rooms, and a small crowd was\npressing round him. Pierre went up to the circle that had formed round\nthe speaker and listened. Count Ilya Rostov, in a military uniform of\nCatherine's time, was sauntering with a pleasant smile among the crowd,\nwith all of whom he was acquainted. He too approached that group and\nlistened with a kindly smile and nods of approval, as he always did, to\nwhat the speaker was saying. The retired naval man was speaking very\nboldly, as was evident from the expression on the faces of the listeners\nand from the fact that some people Pierre knew as the meekest and\nquietest of men walked away disapprovingly or expressed disagreement\nwith him. Pierre pushed his way into the middle of the group, listened,\nand convinced himself that the man was indeed a liberal, but of views\nquite different from his own. The naval officer spoke in a particularly\nsonorous, musical, and aristocratic baritone voice, pleasantly\nswallowing his r's and generally slurring his consonants: the voice of a\nman calling out to his servant, \"Heah! Bwing me my pipe!\" It was\nindicative of dissipation and the exercise of authority.\n\n\"What if the Smolensk people have offahd to waise militia for the\nEmpewah? Ah we to take Smolensk as our patte'n? If the noble awistocwacy\nof the pwovince of Moscow thinks fit, it can show its loyalty to our\nsov'weign the Empewah in other ways. Have we fo'gotten the waising of\nthe militia in the yeah 'seven? All that did was to enwich the pwiests'\nsons and thieves and wobbahs....\"\n\nCount Ilya Rostov smiled blandly and nodded approval.\n\n\"And was our militia of any use to the Empia? Not at all! It only wuined\nour farming! Bettah have another conscwiption... o' ou' men will wetu'n\nneithah soldiers no' peasants, and we'll get only depwavity fwom them.\nThe nobility don't gwudge theah lives--evewy one of us will go and bwing\nin more wecwuits, and the sov'weign\" (that was the way he referred to\nthe Emperor) \"need only say the word and we'll all die fo' him!\" added\nthe orator with animation.\n\nCount Rostov's mouth watered with pleasure and he nudged Pierre, but\nPierre wanted to speak himself. He pushed forward, feeling stirred, but\nnot yet sure what stirred him or what he would say. Scarcely had he\nopened his mouth when one of the senators, a man without a tooth in his\nhead, with a shrewd though angry expression, standing near the first\nspeaker, interrupted him. Evidently accustomed to managing debates and\nto maintaining an argument, he began in low but distinct tones:\n\n\"I imagine, sir,\" said he, mumbling with his toothless mouth, \"that we\nhave been summoned here not to discuss whether it's best for the empire\nat the present moment to adopt conscription or to call out the militia.\nWe have been summoned to reply to the appeal with which our sovereign\nthe Emperor has honored us. But to judge what is best--conscription or\nthe militia--we can leave to the supreme authority....\"\n\nPierre suddenly saw an outlet for his excitement. He hardened his heart\nagainst the senator who was introducing this set and narrow attitude\ninto the deliberations of the nobility. Pierre stepped forward and\ninterrupted him. He himself did not yet know what he would say, but he\nbegan to speak eagerly, occasionally lapsing into French or expressing\nhimself in bookish Russian.\n\n\"Excuse me, your excellency,\" he began. (He was well acquainted with the\nsenator, but thought it necessary on this occasion to address him\nformally.) \"Though I don't agree with the gentleman...\" (he hesitated:\nhe wished to say, \"Mon tres honorable preopinant\"--\"My very honorable\nopponent\") \"with the gentleman... whom I have not the honor of knowing,\nI suppose that the nobility have been summoned not merely to express\ntheir sympathy and enthusiasm but also to consider the means by which we\ncan assist our Fatherland! I imagine,\" he went on, warming to his\nsubject, \"that the Emperor himself would not be satisfied to find in us\nmerely owners of serfs whom we are willing to devote to his service, and\nchair a canon * we are ready to make of ourselves--and not to obtain\nfrom us any co-co-counsel.\"\n\n\n* \"Food for cannon.\"\n\nMany persons withdrew from the circle, noticing the senator's sarcastic\nsmile and the freedom of Pierre's remarks. Only Count Rostov was pleased\nwith them as he had been pleased with those of the naval officer, the\nsenator, and in general with whatever speech he had last heard.\n\n\"I think that before discussing these questions,\" Pierre continued, \"we\nshould ask the Emperor--most respectfully ask His Majesty--to let us\nknow the number of our troops and the position in which our army and our\nforces now are, and then...\"\n\nBut scarcely had Pierre uttered these words before he was attacked from\nthree sides. The most vigorous attack came from an old acquaintance, a\nboston player who had always been well disposed toward him, Stepan\nStepanovich Adraksin. Adraksin was in uniform, and whether as a result\nof the uniform or from some other cause Pierre saw before him quite a\ndifferent man. With a sudden expression of malevolence on his aged face,\nAdraksin shouted at Pierre:\n\n\"In the first place, I tell you we have no right to question the Emperor\nabout that, and secondly, if the Russian nobility had that right, the\nEmperor could not answer such a question. The troops are moved according\nto the enemy's movements and the number of men increases and\ndecreases...\"\n\nAnother voice, that of a nobleman of medium height and about forty years\nof age, whom Pierre had formerly met at the gypsies' and knew as a bad\ncardplayer, and who, also transformed by his uniform, came up to Pierre,\ninterrupted Adraksin.\n\n\"Yes, and this is not a time for discussing,\" he continued, \"but for\nacting: there is war in Russia! The enemy is advancing to destroy\nRussia, to desecrate the tombs of our fathers, to carry off our wives\nand children.\" The nobleman smote his breast. \"We will all arise, every\none of us will go, for our father the Tsar!\" he shouted, rolling his\nbloodshot eyes. Several approving voices were heard in the crowd. \"We\nare Russians and will not grudge our blood in defense of our faith, the\nthrone, and the Fatherland! We must cease raving if we are sons of our\nFatherland! We will show Europe how Russia rises to the defense of\nRussia!\"\n\nPierre wished to reply, but could not get in a word. He felt that his\nwords, apart from what meaning they conveyed, were less audible than the\nsound of his opponent's voice.\n\nCount Rostov at the back of the crowd was expressing approval; several\npersons, briskly turning a shoulder to the orator at the end of a\nphrase, said:\n\n\"That's right, quite right! Just so!\"\n\nPierre wished to say that he was ready to sacrifice his money, his\nserfs, or himself, only one ought to know the state of affairs in order\nto be able to improve it, but he was unable to speak. Many voices\nshouted and talked at the same time, so that Count Rostov had not time\nto signify his approval of them all, and the group increased, dispersed,\nre-formed, and then moved with a hum of talk into the largest hall and\nto the big table. Not only was Pierre's attempt to speak unsuccessful,\nbut he was rudely interrupted, pushed aside, and people turned away from\nhim as from a common enemy. This happened not because they were\ndispleased by the substance of his speech, which had even been forgotten\nafter the many subsequent speeches, but to animate it the crowd needed a\ntangible object to love and a tangible object to hate. Pierre became the\nlatter. Many other orators spoke after the excited nobleman, and all in\nthe same tone. Many spoke eloquently and with originality.\n\nGlinka, the editor of the Russian Messenger, who was recognized (cries\nof \"author! author!\" were heard in the crowd), said that \"hell must be\nrepulsed by hell,\" and that he had seen a child smiling at lightning\nflashes and thunderclaps, but \"we will not be that child.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, at thunderclaps!\" was repeated approvingly in the back rows\nof the crowd.\n\nThe crowd drew up to the large table, at which sat gray-haired or bald\nseventy-year-old magnates, uniformed and besashed almost all of whom\nPierre had seen in their own homes with their buffoons, or playing\nboston at the clubs. With an incessant hum of voices the crowd advanced\nto the table. Pressed by the throng against the high backs of the\nchairs, the orators spoke one after another and sometimes two together.\nThose standing behind noticed what a speaker omitted to say and hastened\nto supply it. Others in that heat and crush racked their brains to find\nsome thought and hastened to utter it. The old magnates, whom Pierre\nknew, sat and turned to look first at one and then at another, and their\nfaces for the most part only expressed the fact that they found it very\nhot. Pierre, however, felt excited, and the general desire to show that\nthey were ready to go to all lengths--which found expression in the\ntones and looks more than in the substance of the speeches--infected him\ntoo. He did not renounce his opinions, but felt himself in some way to\nblame and wished to justify himself.\n\n\"I only said that it would be more to the purpose to make sacrifices\nwhen we know what is needed!\" said he, trying to be heard above the\nother voices.\n\nOne of the old men nearest to him looked round, but his attention was\nimmediately diverted by an exclamation at the other side of the table.\n\n\"Yes, Moscow will be surrendered! She will be our expiation!\" shouted\none man.\n\n\"He is the enemy of mankind!\" cried another. \"Allow me to speak....\"\n\"Gentlemen, you are crushing me!...\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\nAt that moment Count Rostopchin with his protruding chin and alert eyes,\nwearing the uniform of a general with sash over his shoulder, entered\nthe room, stepping briskly to the front of the crowd of gentry.\n\n\"Our sovereign the Emperor will be here in a moment,\" said Rostopchin.\n\"I am straight from the palace. Seeing the position we are in, I think\nthere is little need for discussion. The Emperor has deigned to summon\nus and the merchants. Millions will pour forth from there\"--he pointed\nto the merchants' hall--\"but our business is to supply men and not spare\nourselves... That is the least we can do!\"\n\nA conference took place confined to the magnates sitting at the table.\nThe whole consultation passed more than quietly. After all the preceding\nnoise the sound of their old voices saying one after another, \"I agree,\"\nor for variety, \"I too am of that opinion,\" and so on had even a\nmournful effect.\n\nThe secretary was told to write down the resolution of the Moscow\nnobility and gentry, that they would furnish ten men, fully equipped,\nout of every thousand serfs, as the Smolensk gentry had done. Their\nchairs made a scraping noise as the gentlemen who had conferred rose\nwith apparent relief, and began walking up and down, arm in arm, to\nstretch their legs and converse in couples.\n\n\"The Emperor! The Emperor!\" a sudden cry resounded through the halls and\nthe whole throng hurried to the entrance.\n\nThe Emperor entered the hall through a broad path between two lines of\nnobles. Every face expressed respectful, awe-struck curiosity. Pierre\nstood rather far off and could not hear all that the Emperor said. From\nwhat he did hear he understood that the Emperor spoke of the danger\nthreatening the empire and of the hopes he placed on the Moscow\nnobility. He was answered by a voice which informed him of the\nresolution just arrived at.\n\n\"Gentlemen!\" said the Emperor with a quivering voice.\n\nThere was a rustling among the crowd and it again subsided, so that\nPierre distinctly heard the pleasantly human voice of the Emperor saying\nwith emotion:\n\n\"I never doubted the devotion of the Russian nobles, but today it has\nsurpassed my expectations. I thank you in the name of the Fatherland!\nGentlemen, let us act! Time is most precious...\"\n\nThe Emperor ceased speaking, the crowd began pressing round him, and\nrapturous exclamations were heard from all sides.\n\n\"Yes, most precious... a royal word,\" said Count Rostov, with a sob. He\nstood at the back, and, though he had heard hardly anything, understood\neverything in his own way.\n\nFrom the hall of the nobility the Emperor went to that of the merchants.\nThere he remained about ten minutes. Pierre was among those who saw him\ncome out from the merchants' hall with tears of emotion in his eyes. As\nbecame known later, he had scarcely begun to address the merchants\nbefore tears gushed from his eyes and he concluded in a trembling voice.\nWhen Pierre saw the Emperor he was coming out accompanied by two\nmerchants, one of whom Pierre knew, a fat otkupshchik. The other was the\nmayor, a man with a thin sallow face and narrow beard. Both were\nweeping. Tears filled the thin man's eyes, and the fat otkupshchik\nsobbed outright like a child and kept repeating:\n\n\"Our lives and property--take them, Your Majesty!\"\n\nPierre's one feeling at the moment was a desire to show that he was\nready to go all lengths and was prepared to sacrifice everything. He now\nfelt ashamed of his speech with its constitutional tendency and sought\nan opportunity of effacing it. Having heard that Count Mamonov was\nfurnishing a regiment, Bezukhov at once informed Rostopchin that he\nwould give a thousand men and their maintenance.\n\nOld Rostov could not tell his wife of what had passed without tears, and\nat once consented to Petya's request and went himself to enter his name.\n\nNext day the Emperor left Moscow. The assembled nobles all took off\ntheir uniforms and settled down again in their homes and clubs, and not\nwithout some groans gave orders to their stewards about the enrollment,\nfeeling amazed themselves at what they had done.\n\nBOOK TEN: 1812\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nNapoleon began the war with Russia because he could not resist going to\nDresden, could not help having his head turned by the homage he\nreceived, could not help donning a Polish uniform and yielding to the\nstimulating influence of a June morning, and could not refrain from\nbursts of anger in the presence of Kurakin and then of Balashev.\n\nAlexander refused negotiations because he felt himself to be personally\ninsulted. Barclay de Tolly tried to command the army in the best way,\nbecause he wished to fulfill his duty and earn fame as a great\ncommander. Rostov charged the French because he could not restrain his\nwish for a gallop across a level field; and in the same way the\ninnumerable people who took part in the war acted in accord with their\npersonal characteristics, habits, circumstances, and aims. They were\nmoved by fear or vanity, rejoiced or were indignant, reasoned, imagining\nthat they knew what they were doing and did it of their own free will,\nbut they all were involuntary tools of history, carrying on a work\nconcealed from them but comprehensible to us. Such is the inevitable\nfate of men of action, and the higher they stand in the social hierarchy\nthe less are they free.\n\nThe actors of 1812 have long since left the stage, their personal\ninterests have vanished leaving no trace, and nothing remains of that\ntime but its historic results.\n\nProvidence compelled all these men, striving to attain personal aims, to\nfurther the accomplishment of a stupendous result no one of them at all\nexpected--neither Napoleon, nor Alexander, nor still less any of those\nwho did the actual fighting.\n\nThe cause of the destruction of the French army in 1812 is clear to us\nnow. No one will deny that that cause was, on the one hand, its advance\ninto the heart of Russia late in the season without any preparation for\na winter campaign and, on the other, the character given to the war by\nthe burning of Russian towns and the hatred of the foe this aroused\namong the Russian people. But no one at the time foresaw (what now seems\nso evident) that this was the only way an army of eight hundred thousand\nmen--the best in the world and led by the best general--could be\ndestroyed in conflict with a raw army of half its numerical strength,\nand led by inexperienced commanders as the Russian army was. Not only\ndid no one see this, but on the Russian side every effort was made to\nhinder the only thing that could save Russia, while on the French side,\ndespite Napoleon's experience and so-called military genius, every\neffort was directed to pushing on to Moscow at the end of the summer,\nthat is, to doing the very thing that was bound to lead to destruction.\n\nIn historical works on the year 1812 French writers are very fond of\nsaying that Napoleon felt the danger of extending his line, that he\nsought a battle and that his marshals advised him to stop at Smolensk,\nand of making similar statements to show that the danger of the campaign\nwas even then understood. Russian authors are still fonder of telling us\nthat from the commencement of the campaign a Scythian war plan was\nadopted to lure Napoleon into the depths of Russia, and this plan some\nof them attribute to Pfuel, others to a certain Frenchman, others to\nToll, and others again to Alexander himself--pointing to notes,\nprojects, and letters which contain hints of such a line of action. But\nall these hints at what happened, both from the French side and the\nRussian, are advanced only because they fit in with the event. Had that\nevent not occurred these hints would have been forgotten, as we have\nforgotten the thousands and millions of hints and expectations to the\ncontrary which were current then but have now been forgotten because the\nevent falsified them. There are always so many conjectures as to the\nissue of any event that however it may end there will always be people\nto say: \"I said then that it would be so,\" quite forgetting that amid\ntheir innumerable conjectures many were to quite the contrary effect.\n\nConjectures as to Napoleon's awareness of the danger of extending his\nline, and (on the Russian side) as to luring the enemy into the depths\nof Russia, are evidently of that kind, and only by much straining can\nhistorians attribute such conceptions to Napoleon and his marshals, or\nsuch plans to the Russian commanders. All the facts are in flat\ncontradiction to such conjectures. During the whole period of the war\nnot only was there no wish on the Russian side to draw the French into\nthe heart of the country, but from their first entry into Russia\neverything was done to stop them. And not only was Napoleon not afraid\nto extend his line, but he welcomed every step forward as a triumph and\ndid not seek battle as eagerly as in former campaigns, but very lazily.\n\nAt the very beginning of the war our armies were divided, and our sole\naim was to unite them, though uniting the armies was no advantage if we\nmeant to retire and lure the enemy into the depths of the country. Our\nEmperor joined the army to encourage it to defend every inch of Russian\nsoil and not to retreat. The enormous Drissa camp was formed on Pfuel's\nplan, and there was no intention of retiring farther. The Emperor\nreproached the commanders in chief for every step they retired. He could\nnot bear the idea of letting the enemy even reach Smolensk, still less\ncould he contemplate the burning of Moscow, and when our armies did\nunite he was displeased that Smolensk was abandoned and burned without a\ngeneral engagement having been fought under its walls.\n\nSo thought the Emperor, and the Russian commanders and people were still\nmore provoked at the thought that our forces were retreating into the\ndepths of the country.\n\nNapoleon having cut our armies apart advanced far into the country and\nmissed several chances of forcing an engagement. In August he was at\nSmolensk and thought only of how to advance farther, though as we now\nsee that advance was evidently ruinous to him.\n\nThe facts clearly show that Napoleon did not foresee the danger of the\nadvance on Moscow, nor did Alexander and the Russian commanders then\nthink of luring Napoleon on, but quite the contrary. The luring of\nNapoleon into the depths of the country was not the result of any plan,\nfor no one believed it to be possible; it resulted from a most complex\ninterplay of intrigues, aims, and wishes among those who took part in\nthe war and had no perception whatever of the inevitable, or of the one\nway of saving Russia. Everything came about fortuitously. The armies\nwere divided at the commencement of the campaign. We tried to unite\nthem, with the evident intention of giving battle and checking the\nenemy's advance, and by this effort to unite them while avoiding battle\nwith a much stronger enemy, and necessarily withdrawing the armies at an\nacute angle--we led the French on to Smolensk. But we withdrew at an\nacute angle not only because the French advanced between our two armies;\nthe angle became still more acute and we withdrew still farther, because\nBarclay de Tolly was an unpopular foreigner disliked by Bagration (who\nwould come under his command), and Bagration--being in command of the\nsecond army--tried to postpone joining up and coming under Barclay's\ncommand as long as he could. Bagration was slow in effecting the\njunction--though that was the chief aim of all at headquarters--because,\nas he alleged, he exposed his army to danger on this march, and it was\nbest for him to retire more to the left and more to the south, worrying\nthe enemy from flank and rear and securing from the Ukraine recruits for\nhis army; and it looks as if he planned this in order not to come under\nthe command of the detested foreigner Barclay, whose rank was inferior\nto his own.\n\nThe Emperor was with the army to encourage it, but his presence and\nignorance of what steps to take, and the enormous number of advisers and\nplans, destroyed the first army's energy and it retired.\n\nThe intention was to make a stand at the Drissa camp, but Paulucci,\naiming at becoming commander-in-chief, unexpectedly employed his energy\nto influence Alexander, and Pfuel's whole plan was abandoned and the\ncommand entrusted to Barclay. But as Barclay did not inspire confidence\nhis power was limited. The armies were divided, there was no unity of\ncommand, and Barclay was unpopular; but from this confusion, division,\nand the unpopularity of the foreign commander-in-chief, there resulted\non the one hand indecision and the avoidance of a battle (which we could\nnot have refrained from had the armies been united and had someone else,\ninstead of Barclay, been in command) and on the other an ever-increasing\nindignation against the foreigners and an increase in patriotic zeal.\n\nAt last the Emperor left the army, and as the most convenient and indeed\nthe only pretext for his departure it was decided that it was necessary\nfor him to inspire the people in the capitals and arouse the nation in\ngeneral to a patriotic war. And by this visit of the Emperor to Moscow\nthe strength of the Russian army was trebled.\n\nHe left in order not to obstruct the commander-in-chief's undivided\ncontrol of the army, and hoping that more decisive action would then be\ntaken, but the command of the armies became still more confused and\nenfeebled. Bennigsen, the Tsarevich, and a swarm of adjutants general\nremained with the army to keep the commander-in-chief under observation\nand arouse his energy, and Barclay, feeling less free than ever under\nthe observation of all these \"eyes of the Emperor,\" became still more\ncautious of undertaking any decisive action and avoided giving battle.\n\nBarclay stood for caution. The Tsarevich hinted at treachery and\ndemanded a general engagement. Lubomirski, Bronnitski, Wlocki, and the\nothers of that group stirred up so much trouble that Barclay, under\npretext of sending papers to the Emperor, dispatched these Polish\nadjutants general to Petersburg and plunged into an open struggle with\nBennigsen and the Tsarevich.\n\nAt Smolensk the armies at last reunited, much as Bagration disliked it.\n\nBagration drove up in a carriage to the house occupied by Barclay.\nBarclay donned his sash and came out to meet and report to his senior\nofficer Bagration.\n\nDespite his seniority in rank Bagration, in this contest of magnanimity,\ntook his orders from Barclay, but, having submitted, agreed with him\nless than ever. By the Emperor's orders Bagration reported direct to\nhim. He wrote to Arakcheev, the Emperor's confidant: \"It must be as my\nsovereign pleases, but I cannot work with the Minister (meaning\nBarclay). For God's sake send me somewhere else if only in command of a\nregiment. I cannot stand it here. Headquarters are so full of Germans\nthat a Russian cannot exist and there is no sense in anything. I thought\nI was really serving my sovereign and the Fatherland, but it turns out\nthat I am serving Barclay. I confess I do not want to.\"\n\nThe swarm of Bronnitskis and Wintzingerodes and their like still further\nembittered the relations between the commanders in chief, and even less\nunity resulted. Preparations were made to fight the French before\nSmolensk. A general was sent to survey the position. This general,\nhating Barclay, rode to visit a friend of his own, a corps commander,\nand, having spent the day with him, returned to Barclay and condemned,\nas unsuitable from every point of view, the battleground he had not\nseen.\n\nWhile disputes and intrigues were going on about the future field of\nbattle, and while we were looking for the French--having lost touch with\nthem--the French stumbled upon Neverovski's division and reached the\nwalls of Smolensk.\n\nIt was necessary to fight an unexpected battle at Smolensk to save our\nlines of communication. The battle was fought and thousands were killed\non both sides.\n\nSmolensk was abandoned contrary to the wishes of the Emperor and of the\nwhole people. But Smolensk was burned by its own inhabitants-who had\nbeen misled by their governor. And these ruined inhabitants, setting an\nexample to other Russians, went to Moscow thinking only of their own\nlosses but kindling hatred of the foe. Napoleon advanced farther and we\nretired, thus arriving at the very result which caused his destruction.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nThe day after his son had left, Prince Nicholas sent for Princess Mary\nto come to his study.\n\n\"Well? Are you satisfied now?\" said he. \"You've made me quarrel with my\nson! Satisfied, are you? That's all you wanted! Satisfied?... It hurts\nme, it hurts. I'm old and weak and this is what you wanted. Well then,\ngloat over it! Gloat over it!\"\n\nAfter that Princess Mary did not see her father for a whole week. He was\nill and did not leave his study.\n\nPrincess Mary noticed to her surprise that during this illness the old\nprince not only excluded her from his room, but did not admit\nMademoiselle Bourienne either. Tikhon alone attended him.\n\nAt the end of the week the prince reappeared and resumed his former way\nof life, devoting himself with special activity to building operations\nand the arrangement of the gardens and completely breaking off his\nrelations with Mademoiselle Bourienne. His looks and cold tone to his\ndaughter seemed to say: \"There, you see? You plotted against me, you\nlied to Prince Andrew about my relations with that Frenchwoman and made\nme quarrel with him, but you see I need neither her nor you!\"\n\nPrincess Mary spent half of every day with little Nicholas, watching his\nlessons, teaching him Russian and music herself, and talking to\nDessalles; the rest of the day she spent over her books, with her old\nnurse, or with \"God's folk\" who sometimes came by the back door to see\nher.\n\nOf the war Princess Mary thought as women do think about wars. She\nfeared for her brother who was in it, was horrified by and amazed at the\nstrange cruelty that impels men to kill one another, but she did not\nunderstand the significance of this war, which seemed to her like all\nprevious wars. She did not realize the significance of this war, though\nDessalles with whom she constantly conversed was passionately interested\nin its progress and tried to explain his own conception of it to her,\nand though the \"God's folk\" who came to see her reported, in their own\nway, the rumors current among the people of an invasion by Antichrist,\nand though Julie (now Princess Drubetskaya), who had resumed\ncorrespondence with her, wrote patriotic letters from Moscow.\n\n\"I write you in Russian, my good friend,\" wrote Julie in her Frenchified\nRussian, \"because I have a detestation for all the French, and the same\nfor their language which I cannot support to hear spoken.... We in\nMoscow are elated by enthusiasm for our adored Emperor.\n\n\"My poor husband is enduring pains and hunger in Jewish taverns, but the\nnews which I have inspires me yet more.\n\n\"You heard probably of the heroic exploit of Raevski, embracing his two\nsons and saying: 'I will perish with them but we will not be shaken!'\nAnd truly though the enemy was twice stronger than we, we were\nunshakable. We pass the time as we can, but in war as in war! The\nprincesses Aline and Sophie sit whole days with me, and we, unhappy\nwidows of live men, make beautiful conversations over our 'charpie',\nonly you, my friend, are missing...\" and so on.\n\nThe chief reason Princess Mary did not realize the full significance of\nthis war was that the old prince never spoke of it, did not recognize\nit, and laughed at Dessalles when he mentioned it at dinner. The\nprince's tone was so calm and confident that Princess Mary\nunhesitatingly believed him.\n\nAll that July the old prince was exceedingly active and even animated.\nHe planned another garden and began a new building for the domestic\nserfs. The only thing that made Princess Mary anxious about him was that\nhe slept very little and, instead of sleeping in his study as usual,\nchanged his sleeping place every day. One day he would order his camp\nbed to be set up in the glass gallery, another day he remained on the\ncouch or on the lounge chair in the drawing room and dozed there without\nundressing, while--instead of Mademoiselle Bourienne--a serf boy read to\nhim. Then again he would spend a night in the dining room.\n\nOn August 1, a second letter was received from Prince Andrew. In his\nfirst letter which came soon after he had left home, Prince Andrew had\ndutifully asked his father's forgiveness for what he had allowed himself\nto say and begged to be restored to his favor. To this letter the old\nprince had replied affectionately, and from that time had kept the\nFrenchwoman at a distance. Prince Andrew's second letter, written near\nVitebsk after the French had occupied that town, gave a brief account of\nthe whole campaign, enclosed for them a plan he had drawn and forecasts\nas to the further progress of the war. In this letter Prince Andrew\npointed out to his father the danger of staying at Bald Hills, so near\nthe theater of war and on the army's direct line of march, and advised\nhim to move to Moscow.\n\nAt dinner that day, on Dessalles' mentioning that the French were said\nto have already entered Vitebsk, the old prince remembered his son's\nletter.\n\n\"There was a letter from Prince Andrew today,\" he said to Princess Mary-\n-\"Haven't you read it?\"\n\n\"No, Father,\" she replied in a frightened voice.\n\nShe could not have read the letter as she did not even know it had\narrived.\n\n\"He writes about this war,\" said the prince, with the ironic smile that\nhad become habitual to him in speaking of the present war.\n\n\"That must be very interesting,\" said Dessalles. \"Prince Andrew is in a\nposition to know...\"\n\n\"Oh, very interesting!\" said Mademoiselle Bourienne.\n\n\"Go and get it for me,\" said the old prince to Mademoiselle Bourienne.\n\"You know--under the paperweight on the little table.\"\n\nMademoiselle Bourienne jumped up eagerly.\n\n\"No, don't!\" he exclaimed with a frown. \"You go, Michael Ivanovich.\"\n\nMichael Ivanovich rose and went to the study. But as soon as he had left\nthe room the old prince, looking uneasily round, threw down his napkin\nand went himself.\n\n\"They can't do anything... always make some muddle,\" he muttered.\n\nWhile he was away Princess Mary, Dessalles, Mademoiselle Bourienne, and\neven little Nicholas exchanged looks in silence. The old prince returned\nwith quick steps, accompanied by Michael Ivanovich, bringing the letter\nand a plan. These he put down beside him--not letting anyone read them\nat dinner.\n\nOn moving to the drawing room he handed the letter to Princess Mary and,\nspreading out before him the plan of the new building and fixing his\neyes upon it, told her to read the letter aloud. When she had done so\nPrincess Mary looked inquiringly at her father. He was examining the\nplan, evidently engrossed in his own ideas.\n\n\"What do you think of it, Prince?\" Dessalles ventured to ask.\n\n\"I? I?...\" said the prince as if unpleasantly awakened, and not taking\nhis eyes from the plan of the building.\n\n\"Very possibly the theater of war will move so near to us that...\"\n\n\"Ha ha ha! The theater of war!\" said the prince. \"I have said and still\nsay that the theater of war is Poland and the enemy will never get\nbeyond the Niemen.\"\n\nDessalles looked in amazement at the prince, who was talking of the\nNiemen when the enemy was already at the Dnieper, but Princess Mary,\nforgetting the geographical position of the Niemen, thought that what\nher father was saying was correct.\n\n\"When the snow melts they'll sink in the Polish swamps. Only they could\nfail to see it,\" the prince continued, evidently thinking of the\ncampaign of 1807 which seemed to him so recent. \"Bennigsen should have\nadvanced into Prussia sooner, then things would have taken a different\nturn...\"\n\n\"But, Prince,\" Dessalles began timidly, \"the letter mentions\nVitebsk....\"\n\n\"Ah, the letter? Yes...\" replied the prince peevishly. \"Yes... yes...\"\nHis face suddenly took on a morose expression. He paused. \"Yes, he\nwrites that the French were beaten at... at... what river is it?\"\n\nDessalles dropped his eyes.\n\n\"The prince says nothing about that,\" he remarked gently.\n\n\"Doesn't he? But I didn't invent it myself.\"\n\nNo one spoke for a long time.\n\n\"Yes... yes... Well, Michael Ivanovich,\" he suddenly went on, raising\nhis head and pointing to the plan of the building, \"tell me how you mean\nto alter it....\"\n\nMichael Ivanovich went up to the plan, and the prince after speaking to\nhim about the building looked angrily at Princess Mary and Dessalles and\nwent to his own room.\n\nPrincess Mary saw Dessalles' embarrassed and astonished look fixed on\nher father, noticed his silence, and was struck by the fact that her\nfather had forgotten his son's letter on the drawing-room table; but she\nwas not only afraid to speak of it and ask Dessalles the reason of his\nconfusion and silence, but was afraid even to think about it.\n\nIn the evening Michael Ivanovich, sent by the prince, came to Princess\nMary for Prince Andrew's letter which had been forgotten in the drawing\nroom. She gave it to him and, unpleasant as it was to her to do so,\nventured to ask him what her father was doing.\n\n\"Always busy,\" replied Michael Ivanovich with a respectfully ironic\nsmile which caused Princess Mary to turn pale. \"He's worrying very much\nabout the new building. He has been reading a little, but now\"--Michael\nIvanovich went on, lowering his voice--\"now he's at his desk, busy with\nhis will, I expect.\" (One of the prince's favorite occupations of late\nhad been the preparation of some papers he meant to leave at his death\nand which he called his \"will.\")\n\n\"And Alpatych is being sent to Smolensk?\" asked Princess Mary.\n\n\"Oh, yes, he has been waiting to start for some time.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nWhen Michael Ivanovich returned to the study with the letter, the old\nprince, with spectacles on and a shade over his eyes, was sitting at his\nopen bureau with screened candles, holding a paper in his outstretched\nhand, and in a somewhat dramatic attitude was reading his manuscript--\nhis \"Remarks\" as he termed it--which was to be transmitted to the\nEmperor after his death.\n\nWhen Michael Ivanovich went in there were tears in the prince's eyes\nevoked by the memory of the time when the paper he was now reading had\nbeen written. He took the letter from Michael Ivanovich's hand, put it\nin his pocket, folded up his papers, and called in Alpatych who had long\nbeen waiting.\n\nThe prince had a list of things to be bought in Smolensk and, walking up\nand down the room past Alpatych who stood by the door, he gave his\ninstructions.\n\n\"First, notepaper--do you hear? Eight quires, like this sample, gilt-\nedged... it must be exactly like the sample. Varnish, sealing wax, as in\nMichael Ivanovich's list.\"\n\nHe paced up and down for a while and glanced at his notes.\n\n\"Then hand to the governor in person a letter about the deed.\"\n\nNext, bolts for the doors of the new building were wanted and had to be\nof a special shape the prince had himself designed, and a leather case\nhad to be ordered to keep the \"will\" in.\n\nThe instructions to Alpatych took over two hours and still the prince\ndid not let him go. He sat down, sank into thought, closed his eyes, and\ndozed off. Alpatych made a slight movement.\n\n\"Well, go, go! If anything more is wanted I'll send after you.\"\n\nAlpatych went out. The prince again went to his bureau, glanced into it,\nfingered his papers, closed the bureau again, and sat down at the table\nto write to the governor.\n\nIt was already late when he rose after sealing the letter. He wished to\nsleep, but he knew he would not be able to and that most depressing\nthoughts came to him in bed. So he called Tikhon and went through the\nrooms with him to show him where to set up the bed for that night.\n\nHe went about looking at every corner. Every place seemed\nunsatisfactory, but worst of all was his customary couch in the study.\nThat couch was dreadful to him, probably because of the oppressive\nthoughts he had had when lying there. It was unsatisfactory everywhere,\nbut the corner behind the piano in the sitting room was better than\nother places: he had never slept there yet.\n\nWith the help of a footman Tikhon brought in the bedstead and began\nputting it up.\n\n\"That's not right! That's not right!\" cried the prince, and himself\npushed it a few inches from the corner and then closer in again.\n\n\"Well, at last I've finished, now I'll rest,\" thought the prince, and\nlet Tikhon undress him.\n\nFrowning with vexation at the effort necessary to divest himself of his\ncoat and trousers, the prince undressed, sat down heavily on the bed,\nand appeared to be meditating as he looked contemptuously at his\nwithered yellow legs. He was not meditating, but only deferring the\nmoment of making the effort to lift those legs up and turn over on the\nbed. \"Ugh, how hard it is! Oh, that this toil might end and you would\nrelease me!\" thought he. Pressing his lips together he made that effort\nfor the twenty-thousandth time and lay down. But hardly had he done so\nbefore he felt the bed rocking backwards and forwards beneath him as if\nit were breathing heavily and jolting. This happened to him almost every\nnight. He opened his eyes as they were closing.\n\n\"No peace, damn them!\" he muttered, angry he knew not with whom. \"Ah\nyes, there was something else important, very important, that I was\nkeeping till I should be in bed. The bolts? No, I told him about them.\nNo, it was something, something in the drawing room. Princess Mary\ntalked some nonsense. Dessalles, that fool, said something. Something in\nmy pocket--can't remember...\"\n\n\"Tikhon, what did we talk about at dinner?\"\n\n\"About Prince Michael...\"\n\n\"Be quiet, quiet!\" The prince slapped his hand on the table. \"Yes, I\nknow, Prince Andrew's letter! Princess Mary read it. Dessalles said\nsomething about Vitebsk. Now I'll read it.\"\n\nHe had the letter taken from his pocket and the table--on which stood a\nglass of lemonade and a spiral wax candle--moved close to the bed, and\nputting on his spectacles he began reading. Only now in the stillness of\nthe night, reading it by the faint light under the green shade, did he\ngrasp its meaning for a moment.\n\n\"The French at Vitebsk, in four days' march they may be at Smolensk;\nperhaps are already there! Tikhon!\" Tikhon jumped up. \"No, no, I don't\nwant anything!\" he shouted.\n\nHe put the letter under the candlestick and closed his eyes. And there\nrose before him the Danube at bright noonday: reeds, the Russian camp,\nand himself a young general without a wrinkle on his ruddy face,\nvigorous and alert, entering Potemkin's gaily colored tent, and a\nburning sense of jealousy of \"the favorite\" agitated him now as strongly\nas it had done then. He recalled all the words spoken at that first\nmeeting with Potemkin. And he saw before him a plump, rather sallow-\nfaced, short, stout woman, the Empress Mother, with her smile and her\nwords at her first gracious reception of him, and then that same face on\nthe catafalque, and the encounter he had with Zubov over her coffin\nabout his right to kiss her hand.\n\n\"Oh, quicker, quicker! To get back to that time and have done with all\nthe present! Quicker, quicker--and that they should leave me in peace!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nBald Hills, Prince Nicholas Bolkonski's estate, lay forty miles east\nfrom Smolensk and two miles from the main road to Moscow.\n\nThe same evening that the prince gave his instructions to Alpatych,\nDessalles, having asked to see Princess Mary, told her that, as the\nprince was not very well and was taking no steps to secure his safety,\nthough from Prince Andrew's letter it was evident that to remain at Bald\nHills might be dangerous, he respectfully advised her to send a letter\nby Alpatych to the Provincial Governor at Smolensk, asking him to let\nher know the state of affairs and the extent of the danger to which Bald\nHills was exposed. Dessalles wrote this letter to the Governor for\nPrincess Mary, she signed it, and it was given to Alpatych with\ninstructions to hand it to the Governor and to come back as quickly as\npossible if there was danger.\n\nHaving received all his orders Alpatych, wearing a white beaver hat--a\npresent from the prince--and carrying a stick as the prince did, went\nout accompanied by his family. Three well-fed roans stood ready\nharnessed to a small conveyance with a leather hood.\n\nThe larger bell was muffled and the little bells on the harness stuffed\nwith paper. The prince allowed no one at Bald Hills to drive with\nringing bells; but on a long journey Alpatych liked to have them. His\nsatellites--the senior clerk, a countinghouse clerk, a scullery maid, a\ncook, two old women, a little pageboy, the coachman, and various\ndomestic serfs--were seeing him off.\n\nHis daughter placed chintz-covered down cushions for him to sit on and\nbehind his back. His old sister-in-law popped in a small bundle, and one\nof the coachmen helped him into the vehicle.\n\n\"There! There! Women's fuss! Women, women!\" said Alpatych, puffing and\nspeaking rapidly just as the prince did, and he climbed into the trap.\n\nAfter giving the clerk orders about the work to be done, Alpatych, not\ntrying to imitate the prince now, lifted the hat from his bald head and\ncrossed himself three times.\n\n\"If there is anything... come back, Yakov Alpatych! For Christ's sake\nthink of us!\" cried his wife, referring to the rumors of war and the\nenemy.\n\n\"Women, women! Women's fuss!\" muttered Alpatych to himself and started\non his journey, looking round at the fields of yellow rye and the still-\ngreen, thickly growing oats, and at other quite black fields just being\nplowed a second time.\n\nAs he went along he looked with pleasure at the year's splendid crop of\ncorn, scrutinized the strips of ryefield which here and there were\nalready being reaped, made his calculations as to the sowing and the\nharvest, and asked himself whether he had not forgotten any of the\nprince's orders.\n\nHaving baited the horses twice on the way, he arrived at the town toward\nevening on the fourth of August.\n\nAlpatych kept meeting and overtaking baggage trains and troops on the\nroad. As he approached Smolensk he heard the sounds of distant firing,\nbut these did not impress him. What struck him most was the sight of a\nsplendid field of oats in which a camp had been pitched and which was\nbeing mown down by the soldiers, evidently for fodder. This fact\nimpressed Alpatych, but in thinking about his own business he soon\nforgot it.\n\nAll the interests of his life for more than thirty years had been\nbounded by the will of the prince, and he never went beyond that limit.\nEverything not connected with the execution of the prince's orders did\nnot interest and did not even exist for Alpatych.\n\nOn reaching Smolensk on the evening of the fourth of August he put up in\nthe Gachina suburb across the Dnieper, at the inn kept by Ferapontov,\nwhere he had been in the habit of putting up for the last thirty years.\nSome thirty years ago Ferapontov, by Alpatych's advice, had bought a\nwood from the prince, had begun to trade, and now had a house, an inn,\nand a corn dealer's shop in that province. He was a stout, dark, red-\nfaced peasant in the forties, with thick lips, a broad knob of a nose,\nsimilar knobs over his black frowning brows, and a round belly.\n\nWearing a waistcoat over his cotton shirt, Ferapontov was standing\nbefore his shop which opened onto the street. On seeing Alpatych he went\nup to him.\n\n\"You're welcome, Yakov Alpatych. Folks are leaving the town, but you\nhave come to it,\" said he.\n\n\"Why are they leaving the town?\" asked Alpatych.\n\n\"That's what I say. Folks are foolish! Always afraid of the French.\"\n\n\"Women's fuss, women's fuss!\" said Alpatych.\n\n\"Just what I think, Yakov Alpatych. What I say is: orders have been\ngiven not to let them in, so that must be right. And the peasants are\nasking three rubles for carting--it isn't Christian!\"\n\nYakov Alpatych heard without heeding. He asked for a samovar and for hay\nfor his horses, and when he had had his tea he went to bed.\n\nAll night long troops were moving past the inn. Next morning Alpatych\ndonned a jacket he wore only in town and went out on business. It was a\nsunny morning and by eight o'clock it was already hot. \"A good day for\nharvesting,\" thought Alpatych.\n\nFrom beyond the town firing had been heard since early morning. At eight\no'clock the booming of cannon was added to the sound of musketry. Many\npeople were hurrying through the streets and there were many soldiers,\nbut cabs were still driving about, tradesmen stood at their shops, and\nservice was being held in the churches as usual. Alpatych went to the\nshops, to government offices, to the post office, and to the Governor's.\nIn the offices and shops and at the post office everyone was talking\nabout the army and about the enemy who was already attacking the town,\neverybody was asking what should be done, and all were trying to calm\none another.\n\nIn front of the Governor's house Alpatych found a large number of\npeople, Cossacks, and a traveling carriage of the Governor's. At the\nporch he met two of the landed gentry, one of whom he knew. This man, an\nex-captain of police, was saying angrily:\n\n\"It's no joke, you know! It's all very well if you're single. 'One man\nthough undone is but one,' as the proverb says, but with thirteen in\nyour family and all the property... They've brought us to utter ruin!\nWhat sort of governors are they to do that? They ought to be hanged--the\nbrigands!...\"\n\n\"Oh come, that's enough!\" said the other.\n\n\"What do I care? Let him hear! We're not dogs,\" said the ex-captain of\npolice, and looking round he noticed Alpatych.\n\n\"Oh, Yakov Alpatych! What have you come for?\"\n\n\"To see the Governor by his excellency's order,\" answered Alpatych,\nlifting his head and proudly thrusting his hand into the bosom of his\ncoat as he always did when he mentioned the prince.... \"He has ordered\nme to inquire into the position of affairs,\" he added.\n\n\"Yes, go and find out!\" shouted the angry gentleman. \"They've brought\nthings to such a pass that there are no carts or anything!... There it\nis again, do you hear?\" said he, pointing in the direction whence came\nthe sounds of firing.\n\n\"They've brought us all to ruin... the brigands!\" he repeated, and\ndescended the porch steps.\n\nAlpatych swayed his head and went upstairs. In the waiting room were\ntradesmen, women, and officials, looking silently at one another. The\ndoor of the Governor's room opened and they all rose and moved forward.\nAn official ran out, said some words to a merchant, called a stout\nofficial with a cross hanging on his neck to follow him, and vanished\nagain, evidently wishing to avoid the inquiring looks and questions\naddressed to him. Alpatych moved forward and next time the official came\nout addressed him, one hand placed in the breast of his buttoned coat,\nand handed him two letters.\n\n\"To his Honor Baron Asch, from General-in-Chief Prince Bolkonski,\" he\nannounced with such solemnity and significance that the official turned\nto him and took the letters.\n\nA few minutes later the Governor received Alpatych and hurriedly said to\nhim:\n\n\"Inform the prince and princess that I knew nothing: I acted on the\nhighest instructions--here...\" and he handed a paper to Alpatych.\n\"Still, as the prince is unwell my advice is that they should go to\nMoscow. I am just starting myself. Inform them...\"\n\nBut the Governor did not finish: a dusty perspiring officer ran into the\nroom and began to say something in French. The Governor's face expressed\nterror.\n\n\"Go,\" he said, nodding his head to Alpatych, and began questioning the\nofficer.\n\nEager, frightened, helpless glances were turned on Alpatych when he came\nout of the Governor's room. Involuntarily listening now to the firing,\nwhich had drawn nearer and was increasing in strength, Alpatych hurried\nto his inn. The paper handed to him by the Governor said this:\n\n\"I assure you that the town of Smolensk is not in the slightest danger\nas yet and it is unlikely that it will be threatened with any. I from\nthe one side and Prince Bagration from the other are marching to unite\nour forces before Smolensk, which junction will be effected on the 22nd\ninstant, and both armies with their united forces will defend our\ncompatriots of the province entrusted to your care till our efforts\nshall have beaten back the enemies of our Fatherland, or till the last\nwarrior in our valiant ranks has perished. From this you will see that\nyou have a perfect right to reassure the inhabitants of Smolensk, for\nthose defended by two such brave armies may feel assured of victory.\"\n(Instructions from Barclay de Tolly to Baron Asch, the civil governor of\nSmolensk, 1812.)\n\nPeople were anxiously roaming about the streets.\n\nCarts piled high with household utensils, chairs, and cupboards kept\nemerging from the gates of the yards and moving along the streets.\nLoaded carts stood at the house next to Ferapontov's and women were\nwailing and lamenting as they said good-by. A small watchdog ran round\nbarking in front of the harnessed horses.\n\nAlpatych entered the innyard at a quicker pace than usual and went\nstraight to the shed where his horses and trap were. The coachman was\nasleep. He woke him up, told him to harness, and went into the passage.\nFrom the host's room came the sounds of a child crying, the despairing\nsobs of a woman, and the hoarse angry shouting of Ferapontov. The cook\nbegan running hither and thither in the passage like a frightened hen,\njust as Alpatych entered.\n\n\"He's done her to death. Killed the mistress!... Beat her... dragged her\nabout so!...\"\n\n\"What for?\" asked Alpatych.\n\n\"She kept begging to go away. She's a woman! 'Take me away,' says she,\n'don't let me perish with my little children! Folks,' she says, 'are all\ngone, so why,' she says, 'don't we go?' And he began beating and pulling\nher about so!\"\n\nAt these words Alpatych nodded as if in approval, and not wishing to\nhear more went to the door of the room opposite the innkeeper's, where\nhe had left his purchases.\n\n\"You brute, you murderer!\" screamed a thin, pale woman who, with a baby\nin her arms and her kerchief torn from her head, burst through the door\nat that moment and down the steps into the yard.\n\nFerapontov came out after her, but on seeing Alpatych adjusted his\nwaistcoat, smoothed his hair, yawned, and followed Alpatych into the\nopposite room.\n\n\"Going already?\" said he.\n\nAlpatych, without answering or looking at his host, sorted his packages\nand asked how much he owed.\n\n\"We'll reckon up! Well, have you been to the Governor's?\" asked\nFerapontov. \"What has been decided?\"\n\nAlpatych replied that the Governor had not told him anything definite.\n\n\"With our business, how can we get away?\" said Ferapontov. \"We'd have to\npay seven rubles a cartload to Dorogobuzh and I tell them they're not\nChristians to ask it! Selivanov, now, did a good stroke last Thursday--\nsold flour to the army at nine rubles a sack. Will you have some tea?\"\nhe added.\n\nWhile the horses were being harnessed Alpatych and Ferapontov over their\ntea talked of the price of corn, the crops, and the good weather for\nharvesting.\n\n\"Well, it seems to be getting quieter,\" remarked Ferapontov, finishing\nhis third cup of tea and getting up. \"Ours must have got the best of it.\nThe orders were not to let them in. So we're in force, it seems.... They\nsay the other day Matthew Ivanych Platov drove them into the river\nMarina and drowned some eighteen thousand in one day.\"\n\nAlpatych collected his parcels, handed them to the coachman who had come\nin, and settled up with the innkeeper. The noise of wheels, hoofs, and\nbells was heard from the gateway as a little trap passed out.\n\nIt was by now late in the afternoon. Half the street was in shadow, the\nother half brightly lit by the sun. Alpatych looked out of the window\nand went to the door. Suddenly the strange sound of a far-off whistling\nand thud was heard, followed by a boom of cannon blending into a dull\nroar that set the windows rattling.\n\nHe went out into the street: two men were running past toward the\nbridge. From different sides came whistling sounds and the thud of\ncannon balls and bursting shells falling on the town. But these sounds\nwere hardly heard in comparison with the noise of the firing outside the\ntown and attracted little attention from the inhabitants. The town was\nbeing bombarded by a hundred and thirty guns which Napoleon had ordered\nup after four o'clock. The people did not at once realize the meaning of\nthis bombardment.\n\nAt first the noise of the falling bombs and shells only aroused\ncuriosity. Ferapontov's wife, who till then had not ceased wailing under\nthe shed, became quiet and with the baby in her arms went to the gate,\nlistening to the sounds and looking in silence at the people.\n\nThe cook and a shop assistant came to the gate. With lively curiosity\neveryone tried to get a glimpse of the projectiles as they flew over\ntheir heads. Several people came round the corner talking eagerly.\n\n\"What force!\" remarked one. \"Knocked the roof and ceiling all to\nsplinters!\"\n\n\"Routed up the earth like a pig,\" said another.\n\n\"That's grand, it bucks one up!\" laughed the first. \"Lucky you jumped\naside, or it would have wiped you out!\"\n\nOthers joined those men and stopped and told how cannon balls had fallen\non a house close to them. Meanwhile still more projectiles, now with the\nswift sinister whistle of a cannon ball, now with the agreeable\nintermittent whistle of a shell, flew over people's heads incessantly,\nbut not one fell close by, they all flew over. Alpatych was getting into\nhis trap. The innkeeper stood at the gate.\n\n\"What are you staring at?\" he shouted to the cook, who in her red skirt,\nwith sleeves rolled up, swinging her bare elbows, had stepped to the\ncorner to listen to what was being said.\n\n\"What marvels!\" she exclaimed, but hearing her master's voice she turned\nback, pulling down her tucked-up skirt.\n\nOnce more something whistled, but this time quite close, swooping\ndownwards like a little bird; a flame flashed in the middle of the\nstreet, something exploded, and the street was shrouded in smoke.\n\n\"Scoundrel, what are you doing?\" shouted the innkeeper, rushing to the\ncook.\n\nAt that moment the pitiful wailing of women was heard from different\nsides, the frightened baby began to cry, and people crowded silently\nwith pale faces round the cook. The loudest sound in that crowd was her\nwailing.\n\n\"Oh-h-h! Dear souls, dear kind souls! Don't let me die! My good\nsouls!...\"\n\nFive minutes later no one remained in the street. The cook, with her\nthigh broken by a shell splinter, had been carried into the kitchen.\nAlpatych, his coachman, Ferapontov's wife and children and the house\nporter were all sitting in the cellar, listening. The roar of guns, the\nwhistling of projectiles, and the piteous moaning of the cook, which\nrose above the other sounds, did not cease for a moment. The mistress\nrocked and hushed her baby and when anyone came into the cellar asked in\na pathetic whisper what had become of her husband who had remained in\nthe street. A shopman who entered told her that her husband had gone\nwith others to the cathedral, whence they were fetching the wonder-\nworking icon of Smolensk.\n\nToward dusk the cannonade began to subside. Alpatych left the cellar and\nstopped in the doorway. The evening sky that had been so clear was\nclouded with smoke, through which, high up, the sickle of the new moon\nshone strangely. Now that the terrible din of the guns had ceased a hush\nseemed to reign over the town, broken only by the rustle of footsteps,\nthe moaning, the distant cries, and the crackle of fires which seemed\nwidespread everywhere. The cook's moans had now subsided. On two sides\nblack curling clouds of smoke rose and spread from the fires. Through\nthe streets soldiers in various uniforms walked or ran confusedly in\ndifferent directions like ants from a ruined ant-hill. Several of them\nran into Ferapontov's yard before Alpatych's eyes. Alpatych went out to\nthe gate. A retreating regiment, thronging and hurrying, blocked the\nstreet.\n\nNoticing him, an officer said: \"The town is being abandoned. Get away,\nget away!\" and then, turning to the soldiers, shouted:\n\n\"I'll teach you to run into the yards!\"\n\nAlpatych went back to the house, called the coachman, and told him to\nset off. Ferapontov's whole household came out too, following Alpatych\nand the coachman. The women, who had been silent till then, suddenly\nbegan to wail as they looked at the fires--the smoke and even the flames\nof which could be seen in the failing twilight--and as if in reply the\nsame kind of lamentation was heard from other parts of the street.\nInside the shed Alpatych and the coachman arranged the tangled reins and\ntraces of their horses with trembling hands.\n\nAs Alpatych was driving out of the gate he saw some ten soldiers in\nFerapontov's open shop, talking loudly and filling their bags and\nknapsacks with flour and sunflower seeds. Just then Ferapontov returned\nand entered his shop. On seeing the soldiers he was about to shout at\nthem, but suddenly stopped and, clutching at his hair, burst into sobs\nand laughter:\n\n\"Loot everything, lads! Don't let those devils get it!\" he cried, taking\nsome bags of flour himself and throwing them into the street.\n\nSome of the soldiers were frightened and ran away, others went on\nfilling their bags. On seeing Alpatych, Ferapontov turned to him:\n\n\"Russia is done for!\" he cried. \"Alpatych, I'll set the place on fire\nmyself. We're done for!...\" and Ferapontov ran into the yard.\n\nSoldiers were passing in a constant stream along the street blocking it\ncompletely, so that Alpatych could not pass out and had to wait.\nFerapontov's wife and children were also sitting in a cart waiting till\nit was possible to drive out.\n\nNight had come. There were stars in the sky and the new moon shone out\namid the smoke that screened it. On the sloping descent to the Dnieper\nAlpatych's cart and that of the innkeeper's wife, which were slowly\nmoving amid the rows of soldiers and of other vehicles, had to stop. In\na side street near the crossroads where the vehicles had stopped, a\nhouse and some shops were on fire. This fire was already burning itself\nout. The flames now died down and were lost in the black smoke, now\nsuddenly flared up again brightly, lighting up with strange distinctness\nthe faces of the people crowding at the crossroads. Black figures\nflitted about before the fire, and through the incessant crackling of\nthe flames talking and shouting could be heard. Seeing that his trap\nwould not be able to move on for some time, Alpatych got down and turned\ninto the side street to look at the fire. Soldiers were continually\nrushing backwards and forwards near it, and he saw two of them and a man\nin a frieze coat dragging burning beams into another yard across the\nstreet, while others carried bundles of hay.\n\nAlpatych went up to a large crowd standing before a high barn which was\nblazing briskly. The walls were all on fire and the back wall had fallen\nin, the wooden roof was collapsing, and the rafters were alight. The\ncrowd was evidently watching for the roof to fall in, and Alpatych\nwatched for it too.\n\n\"Alpatych!\" a familiar voice suddenly hailed the old man.\n\n\"Mercy on us! Your excellency!\" answered Alpatych, immediately\nrecognizing the voice of his young prince.\n\nPrince Andrew in his riding cloak, mounted on a black horse, was looking\nat Alpatych from the back of the crowd.\n\n\"Why are you here?\" he asked.\n\n\"Your... your excellency,\" stammered Alpatych and broke into sobs. \"Are\nwe really lost? Master!...\"\n\n\"Why are you here?\" Prince Andrew repeated.\n\nAt that moment the flames flared up and showed his young master's pale\nworn face. Alpatych told how he had been sent there and how difficult it\nwas to get away.\n\n\"Are we really quite lost, your excellency?\" he asked again.\n\nPrince Andrew without replying took out a notebook and raising his knee\nbegan writing in pencil on a page he tore out. He wrote to his sister:\n\n\"Smolensk is being abandoned. Bald Hills will be occupied by the enemy\nwithin a week. Set off immediately for Moscow. Let me know at once when\nyou will start. Send by special messenger to Usvyazh.\"\n\nHaving written this and given the paper to Alpatych, he told him how to\narrange for departure of the prince, the princess, his son, and the\nboy's tutor, and how and where to let him know immediately. Before he\nhad had time to finish giving these instructions, a chief of staff\nfollowed by a suite galloped up to him.\n\n\"You are a colonel?\" shouted the chief of staff with a German accent, in\na voice familiar to Prince Andrew. \"Houses are set on fire in your\npresence and you stand by! What does this mean? You will answer for it!\"\nshouted Berg, who was now assistant to the chief of staff of the\ncommander of the left flank of the infantry of the first army, a place,\nas Berg said, \"very agreeable and well en evidence.\"\n\nPrince Andrew looked at him and without replying went on speaking to\nAlpatych.\n\n\"So tell them that I shall await a reply till the tenth, and if by the\ntenth I don't receive news that they have all got away I shall have to\nthrow up everything and come myself to Bald Hills.\"\n\n\"Prince,\" said Berg, recognizing Prince Andrew, \"I only spoke because I\nhave to obey orders, because I always do obey exactly.... You must\nplease excuse me,\" he went on apologetically.\n\nSomething cracked in the flames. The fire died down for a moment and\nwreaths of black smoke rolled from under the roof. There was another\nterrible crash and something huge collapsed.\n\n\"Ou-rou-rou!\" yelled the crowd, echoing the crash of the collapsing roof\nof the barn, the burning grain in which diffused a cakelike aroma all\naround. The flames flared up again, lighting the animated, delighted,\nexhausted faces of the spectators.\n\nThe man in the frieze coat raised his arms and shouted:\n\n\"It's fine, lads! Now it's raging... It's fine!\"\n\n\"That's the owner himself,\" cried several voices.\n\n\"Well then,\" continued Prince Andrew to Alpatych, \"report to them as I\nhave told you\"; and not replying a word to Berg who was now mute beside\nhim, he touched his horse and rode down the side street.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nFrom Smolensk the troops continued to retreat, followed by the enemy. On\nthe tenth of August the regiment Prince Andrew commanded was marching\nalong the highroad past the avenue leading to Bald Hills. Heat and\ndrought had continued for more than three weeks. Each day fleecy clouds\nfloated across the sky and occasionally veiled the sun, but toward\nevening the sky cleared again and the sun set in reddish-brown mist.\nHeavy night dews alone refreshed the earth. The unreaped corn was\nscorched and shed its grain. The marshes dried up. The cattle lowed from\nhunger, finding no food on the sun-parched meadows. Only at night and in\nthe forests while the dew lasted was there any freshness. But on the\nroad, the highroad along which the troops marched, there was no such\nfreshness even at night or when the road passed through the forest; the\ndew was imperceptible on the sandy dust churned up more than six inches\ndeep. As soon as day dawned the march began. The artillery and baggage\nwagons moved noiselessly through the deep dust that rose to the very\nhubs of the wheels, and the infantry sank ankle-deep in that soft,\nchoking, hot dust that never cooled even at night. Some of this dust was\nkneaded by the feet and wheels, while the rest rose and hung like a\ncloud over the troops, settling in eyes, ears, hair, and nostrils, and\nworst of all in the lungs of the men and beasts as they moved along that\nroad. The higher the sun rose the higher rose that cloud of dust, and\nthrough the screen of its hot fine particles one could look with naked\neye at the sun, which showed like a huge crimson ball in the unclouded\nsky. There was no wind, and the men choked in that motionless\natmosphere. They marched with handkerchiefs tied over their noses and\nmouths. When they passed through a village they all rushed to the wells\nand fought for the water and drank it down to the mud.\n\nPrince Andrew was in command of a regiment, and the management of that\nregiment, the welfare of the men and the necessity of receiving and\ngiving orders, engrossed him. The burning of Smolensk and its\nabandonment made an epoch in his life. A novel feeling of anger against\nthe foe made him forget his own sorrow. He was entirely devoted to the\naffairs of his regiment and was considerate and kind to his men and\nofficers. In the regiment they called him \"our prince,\" were proud of\nhim and loved him. But he was kind and gentle only to those of his\nregiment, to Timokhin and the like--people quite new to him, belonging\nto a different world and who could not know and understand his past. As\nsoon as he came across a former acquaintance or anyone from the staff,\nhe bristled up immediately and grew spiteful, ironical, and\ncontemptuous. Everything that reminded him of his past was repugnant to\nhim, and so in his relations with that former circle he confined himself\nto trying to do his duty and not to be unfair.\n\nIn truth everything presented itself in a dark and gloomy light to\nPrince Andrew, especially after the abandonment of Smolensk on the sixth\nof August (he considered that it could and should have been defended)\nand after his sick father had had to flee to Moscow, abandoning to\npillage his dearly beloved Bald Hills which he had built and peopled.\nBut despite this, thanks to his regiment, Prince Andrew had something to\nthink about entirely apart from general questions. Two days previously\nhe had received news that his father, son, and sister had left for\nMoscow; and though there was nothing for him to do at Bald Hills, Prince\nAndrew with a characteristic desire to foment his own grief decided that\nhe must ride there.\n\nHe ordered his horse to be saddled and, leaving his regiment on the\nmarch, rode to his father's estate where he had been born and spent his\nchildhood. Riding past the pond where there used always to be dozens of\nwomen chattering as they rinsed their linen or beat it with wooden\nbeetles, Prince Andrew noticed that there was not a soul about and that\nthe little washing wharf, torn from its place and half submerged, was\nfloating on its side in the middle of the pond. He rode to the keeper's\nlodge. No one at the stone entrance gates of the drive and the door\nstood open. Grass had already begun to grow on the garden paths, and\nhorses and calves were straying in the English park. Prince Andrew rode\nup to the hothouse; some of the glass panes were broken, and of the\ntrees in tubs some were overturned and others dried up. He called for\nTaras the gardener, but no one replied. Having gone round the corner of\nthe hothouse to the ornamental garden, he saw that the carved garden\nfence was broken and branches of the plum trees had been torn off with\nthe fruit. An old peasant whom Prince Andrew in his childhood had often\nseen at the gate was sitting on a green garden seat, plaiting a bast\nshoe.\n\nHe was deaf and did not hear Prince Andrew ride up. He was sitting on\nthe seat the old prince used to like to sit on, and beside him strips of\nbast were hanging on the broken and withered branch of a magnolia.\n\nPrince Andrew rode up to the house. Several limes in the old garden had\nbeen cut down and a piebald mare and her foal were wandering in front of\nthe house among the rosebushes. The shutters were all closed, except at\none window which was open. A little serf boy, seeing Prince Andrew, ran\ninto the house. Alpatych, having sent his family away, was alone at Bald\nHills and was sitting indoors reading the Lives of the Saints. On\nhearing that Prince Andrew had come, he went out with his spectacles on\nhis nose, buttoning his coat, and, hastily stepping up, without a word\nbegan weeping and kissing Prince Andrew's knee.\n\nThen, vexed at his own weakness, he turned away and began to report on\nthe position of affairs. Everything precious and valuable had been\nremoved to Bogucharovo. Seventy quarters of grain had also been carted\naway. The hay and the spring corn, of which Alpatych said there had been\na remarkable crop that year, had been commandeered by the troops and\nmown down while still green. The peasants were ruined; some of them too\nhad gone to Bogucharovo, only a few remained.\n\nWithout waiting to hear him out, Prince Andrew asked:\n\n\"When did my father and sister leave?\" meaning when did they leave for\nMoscow.\n\nAlpatych, understanding the question to refer to their departure for\nBogucharovo, replied that they had left on the seventh and again went\ninto details concerning the estate management, asking for instructions.\n\n\"Am I to let the troops have the oats, and to take a receipt for them?\nWe have still six hundred quarters left,\" he inquired.\n\n\"What am I to say to him?\" thought Prince Andrew, looking down on the\nold man's bald head shining in the sun and seeing by the expression on\nhis face that the old man himself understood how untimely such questions\nwere and only asked them to allay his grief.\n\n\"Yes, let them have it,\" replied Prince Andrew.\n\n\"If you noticed some disorder in the garden,\" said Alpatych, \"it was\nimpossible to prevent it. Three regiments have been here and spent the\nnight, dragoons mostly. I took down the name and rank of their\ncommanding officer, to hand in a complaint about it.\"\n\n\"Well, and what are you going to do? Will you stay here if the enemy\noccupies the place?\" asked Prince Andrew.\n\nAlpatych turned his face to Prince Andrew, looked at him, and suddenly\nwith a solemn gesture raised his arm.\n\n\"He is my refuge! His will be done!\" he exclaimed.\n\nA group of bareheaded peasants was approaching across the meadow toward\nthe prince.\n\n\"Well, good-by!\" said Prince Andrew, bending over to Alpatych. \"You must\ngo away too, take away what you can and tell the serfs to go to the\nRyazan estate or to the one near Moscow.\"\n\nAlpatych clung to Prince Andrew's leg and burst into sobs. Gently\ndisengaging himself, the prince spurred his horse and rode down the\navenue at a gallop.\n\nThe old man was still sitting in the ornamental garden, like a fly\nimpassive on the face of a loved one who is dead, tapping the last on\nwhich he was making the bast shoe, and two little girls, running out\nfrom the hot house carrying in their skirts plums they had plucked from\nthe trees there, came upon Prince Andrew. On seeing the young master,\nthe elder one with frightened look clutched her younger companion by the\nhand and hid with her behind a birch tree, not stopping to pick up some\ngreen plums they had dropped.\n\nPrince Andrew turned away with startled haste, unwilling to let them see\nthat they had been observed. He was sorry for the pretty frightened\nlittle girl, was afraid of looking at her, and yet felt an irresistible\ndesire to do so. A new sensation of comfort and relief came over him\nwhen, seeing these girls, he realized the existence of other human\ninterests entirely aloof from his own and just as legitimate as those\nthat occupied him. Evidently these girls passionately desired one thing-\n-to carry away and eat those green plums without being caught--and\nPrince Andrew shared their wish for the success of their enterprise. He\ncould not resist looking at them once more. Believing their danger past,\nthey sprang from their ambush and, chirruping something in their shrill\nlittle voices and holding up their skirts, their bare little sunburned\nfeet scampered merrily and quickly across the meadow grass.\n\nPrince Andrew was somewhat refreshed by having ridden off the dusty\nhighroad along which the troops were moving. But not far from Bald Hills\nhe again came out on the road and overtook his regiment at its halting\nplace by the dam of a small pond. It was past one o'clock. The sun, a\nred ball through the dust, burned and scorched his back intolerably\nthrough his black coat. The dust always hung motionless above the buzz\nof talk that came from the resting troops. There was no wind. As he\ncrossed the dam Prince Andrew smelled the ooze and freshness of the\npond. He longed to get into that water, however dirty it might be, and\nhe glanced round at the pool from whence came sounds of shrieks and\nlaughter. The small, muddy, green pond had risen visibly more than a\nfoot, flooding the dam, because it was full of the naked white bodies of\nsoldiers with brick-red hands, necks, and faces, who were splashing\nabout in it. All this naked white human flesh, laughing and shrieking,\nfloundered about in that dirty pool like carp stuffed into a watering\ncan, and the suggestion of merriment in that floundering mass rendered\nit specially pathetic.\n\nOne fair-haired young soldier of the third company, whom Prince Andrew\nknew and who had a strap round the calf of one leg, crossed himself,\nstepped back to get a good run, and plunged into the water; another, a\ndark noncommissioned officer who was always shaggy, stood up to his\nwaist in the water joyfully wriggling his muscular figure and snorted\nwith satisfaction as he poured the water over his head with hands\nblackened to the wrists. There were sounds of men slapping one another,\nyelling, and puffing.\n\nEverywhere on the bank, on the dam, and in the pond, there was healthy,\nwhite, muscular flesh. The officer, Timokhin, with his red little nose,\nstanding on the dam wiping himself with a towel, felt confused at seeing\nthe prince, but made up his mind to address him nevertheless.\n\n\"It's very nice, your excellency! Wouldn't you like to?\" said he.\n\n\"It's dirty,\" replied Prince Andrew, making a grimace.\n\n\"We'll clear it out for you in a minute,\" said Timokhin, and, still\nundressed, ran off to clear the men out of the pond.\n\n\"The prince wants to bathe.\"\n\n\"What prince? Ours?\" said many voices, and the men were in such haste to\nclear out that the prince could hardly stop them. He decided that he\nwould rather wash himself with water in the barn.\n\n\"Flesh, bodies, cannon fodder!\" he thought, and he looked at his own\nnaked body and shuddered, not from cold but from a sense of disgust and\nhorror he did not himself understand, aroused by the sight of that\nimmense number of bodies splashing about in the dirty pond.\n\nOn the seventh of August Prince Bagration wrote as follows from his\nquarters at Mikhaylovna on the Smolensk road:\n\nDear Count Alexis Andreevich--(He was writing to Arakcheev but knew that\nhis letter would be read by the Emperor, and therefore weighed every\nword in it to the best of his ability.)\n\nI expect the Minister (Barclay de Tolly) has already reported the\nabandonment of Smolensk to the enemy. It is pitiable and sad, and the\nwhole army is in despair that this most important place has been\nwantonly abandoned. I, for my part, begged him personally most urgently\nand finally wrote him, but nothing would induce him to consent. I swear\nto you on my honor that Napoleon was in such a fix as never before and\nmight have lost half his army but could not have taken Smolensk. Our\ntroops fought, and are fighting, as never before. With fifteen thousand\nmen I held the enemy at bay for thirty-five hours and beat him; but he\nwould not hold out even for fourteen hours. It is disgraceful, a stain\non our army, and as for him, he ought, it seems to me, not to live. If\nhe reports that our losses were great, it is not true; perhaps about\nfour thousand, not more, and not even that; but even were they ten\nthousand, that's war! But the enemy has lost masses...\n\nWhat would it have cost him to hold out for another two days? They would\nhave had to retire of their own accord, for they had no water for men or\nhorses. He gave me his word he would not retreat, but suddenly sent\ninstructions that he was retiring that night. We cannot fight in this\nway, or we may soon bring the enemy to Moscow...\n\nThere is a rumor that you are thinking of peace. God forbid that you\nshould make peace after all our sacrifices and such insane retreats! You\nwould set all Russia against you and every one of us would feel ashamed\nto wear the uniform. If it has come to this--we must fight as long as\nRussia can and as long as there are men able to stand...\n\nOne man ought to be in command, and not two. Your Minister may perhaps\nbe good as a Minister, but as a general he is not merely bad but\nexecrable, yet to him is entrusted the fate of our whole country.... I\nam really frantic with vexation; forgive my writing boldly. It is clear\nthat the man who advocates the conclusion of a peace, and that the\nMinister should command the army, does not love our sovereign and\ndesires the ruin of us all. So I write you frankly: call out the\nmilitia. For the Minister is leading these visitors after him to Moscow\nin a most masterly way. The whole army feels great suspicion of the\nImperial aide-de-camp Wolzogen. He is said to be more Napoleon's man\nthan ours, and he is always advising the Minister. I am not merely civil\nto him but obey him like a corporal, though I am his senior. This is\npainful, but, loving my benefactor and sovereign, I submit. Only I am\nsorry for the Emperor that he entrusts our fine army to such as he.\nConsider that on our retreat we have lost by fatigue and left in the\nhospital more than fifteen thousand men, and had we attacked this would\nnot have happened. Tell me, for God's sake, what will Russia, our mother\nRussia, say to our being so frightened, and why are we abandoning our\ngood and gallant Fatherland to such rabble and implanting feelings of\nhatred and shame in all our subjects? What are we scared at and of whom\nare we afraid? I am not to blame that the Minister is vacillating, a\ncoward, dense, dilatory, and has all bad qualities. The whole army\nbewails it and calls down curses upon him...\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nAmong the innumerable categories applicable to the phenomena of human\nlife one may discriminate between those in which substance prevails and\nthose in which form prevails. To the latter--as distinguished from\nvillage, country, provincial, or even Moscow life--we may allot\nPetersburg life, and especially the life of its salons. That life of the\nsalons is unchanging. Since the year 1805 we had made peace and had\nagain quarreled with Bonaparte and had made constitutions and unmade\nthem again, but the salons of Anna Pavlovna and Helene remained just as\nthey had been--the one seven and the other five years before. At Anna\nPavlovna's they talked with perplexity of Bonaparte's successes just as\nbefore and saw in them and in the subservience shown to him by the\nEuropean sovereigns a malicious conspiracy, the sole object of which was\nto cause unpleasantness and anxiety to the court circle of which Anna\nPavlovna was the representative. And in Helene's salon, which Rumyantsev\nhimself honored with his visits, regarding Helene as a remarkably\nintelligent woman, they talked with the same ecstasy in 1812 as in 1808\nof the \"great nation\" and the \"great man,\" and regretted our rupture\nwith France, a rupture which, according to them, ought to be promptly\nterminated by peace.\n\nOf late, since the Emperor's return from the army, there had been some\nexcitement in these conflicting salon circles and some demonstrations of\nhostility to one another, but each camp retained its own tendency. In\nAnna Pavlovna's circle only those Frenchmen were admitted who were deep-\nrooted legitimists, and patriotic views were expressed to the effect\nthat one ought not to go to the French theater and that to maintain the\nFrench troupe was costing the government as much as a whole army corps.\nThe progress of the war was eagerly followed, and only the reports most\nflattering to our army were circulated. In the French circle of Helene\nand Rumyantsev the reports of the cruelty of the enemy and of the war\nwere contradicted and all Napoleon's attempts at conciliation were\ndiscussed. In that circle they discountenanced those who advised hurried\npreparations for a removal to Kazan of the court and the girls'\neducational establishments under the patronage of the Dowager Empress.\nIn Helene's circle the war in general was regarded as a series of formal\ndemonstrations which would very soon end in peace, and the view\nprevailed expressed by Bilibin--who now in Petersburg was quite at home\nin Helene's house, which every clever man was obliged to visit--that not\nby gunpowder but by those who invented it would matters be settled. In\nthat circle the Moscow enthusiasm--news of which had reached Petersburg\nsimultaneously with the Emperor's return--was ridiculed sarcastically\nand very cleverly, though with much caution.\n\nAnna Pavlovna's circle on the contrary was enraptured by this enthusiasm\nand spoke of it as Plutarch speaks of the deeds of the ancients. Prince\nVasili, who still occupied his former important posts, formed a\nconnecting link between these two circles. He visited his \"good friend\nAnna Pavlovna\" as well as his daughter's \"diplomatic salon,\" and often\nin his constant comings and goings between the two camps became confused\nand said at Helene's what he should have said at Anna Pavlovna's and\nvice versa.\n\nSoon after the Emperor's return Prince Vasili in a conversation about\nthe war at Anna Pavlovna's severely condemned Barclay de Tolly, but was\nundecided as to who ought to be appointed commander-in-chief. One of the\nvisitors, usually spoken of as \"a man of great merit,\" having described\nhow he had that day seen Kutuzov, the newly chosen chief of the\nPetersburg militia, presiding over the enrollment of recruits at the\nTreasury, cautiously ventured to suggest that Kutuzov would be the man\nto satisfy all requirements.\n\nAnna Pavlovna remarked with a melancholy smile that Kutuzov had done\nnothing but cause the Emperor annoyance.\n\n\"I have talked and talked at the Assembly of the Nobility,\" Prince\nVasili interrupted, \"but they did not listen to me. I told them his\nelection as chief of the militia would not please the Emperor. They did\nnot listen to me.\n\n\"It's all this mania for opposition,\" he went on. \"And who for? It is\nall because we want to ape the foolish enthusiasm of those Muscovites,\"\nPrince Vasili continued, forgetting for a moment that though at Helene's\none had to ridicule the Moscow enthusiasm, at Anna Pavlovna's one had to\nbe ecstatic about it. But he retrieved his mistake at once. \"Now, is it\nsuitable that Count Kutuzov, the oldest general in Russia, should\npreside at that tribunal? He will get nothing for his pains! How could\nthey make a man commander-in-chief who cannot mount a horse, who drops\nasleep at a council, and has the very worst morals! A good reputation he\nmade for himself at Bucharest! I don't speak of his capacity as a\ngeneral, but at a time like this how they appoint a decrepit, blind old\nman, positively blind? A fine idea to have a blind general! He can't see\nanything. To play blindman's bluff? He can't see at all!\"\n\nNo one replied to his remarks.\n\nThis was quite correct on the twenty-fourth of July. But on the twenty-\nninth of July Kutuzov received the title of Prince. This might indicate\na wish to get rid of him, and therefore Prince Vasili's opinion\ncontinued to be correct though he was not now in any hurry to express\nit. But on the eighth of August a committee, consisting of Field Marshal\nSaltykov, Arakcheev, Vyazmitinov, Lopukhin, and Kochubey met to consider\nthe progress of the war. This committee came to the conclusion that our\nfailures were due to a want of unity in the command and though the\nmembers of the committee were aware of the Emperor's dislike of Kutuzov,\nafter a short deliberation they agreed to advise his appointment as\ncommander in chief. That same day Kutuzov was appointed commander-in-\nchief with full powers over the armies and over the whole region\noccupied by them.\n\nOn the ninth of August Prince Vasili at Anna Pavlovna's again met the\n\"man of great merit.\" The latter was very attentive to Anna Pavlovna\nbecause he wanted to be appointed director of one of the educational\nestablishments for young ladies. Prince Vasili entered the room with the\nair of a happy conqueror who has attained the object of his desires.\n\n\"Well, have you heard the great news? Prince Kutuzov is field marshal!\nAll dissensions are at an end! I am so glad, so delighted! At last we\nhave a man!\" said he, glancing sternly and significantly round at\neveryone in the drawing room.\n\nThe \"man of great merit,\" despite his desire to obtain the post of\ndirector, could not refrain from reminding Prince Vasili of his former\nopinion. Though this was impolite to Prince Vasili in Anna Pavlovna's\ndrawing room, and also to Anna Pavlovna herself who had received the\nnews with delight, he could not resist the temptation.\n\n\"But, Prince, they say he is blind!\" said he, reminding Prince Vasili of\nhis own words.\n\n\"Eh? Nonsense! He sees well enough,\" said Prince Vasili rapidly, in a\ndeep voice and with a slight cough--the voice and cough with which he\nwas wont to dispose of all difficulties.\n\n\"He sees well enough,\" he added. \"And what I am so pleased about,\" he\nwent on, \"is that our sovereign has given him full powers over all the\narmies and the whole region--powers no commander-in-chief ever had\nbefore. He is a second autocrat,\" he concluded with a victorious smile.\n\n\"God grant it! God grant it!\" said Anna Pavlovna.\n\nThe \"man of great merit,\" who was still a novice in court circles,\nwishing to flatter Anna Pavlovna by defending her former position on\nthis question, observed:\n\n\"It is said that the Emperor was reluctant to give Kutuzov those powers.\nThey say he blushed like a girl to whom Joconde is read, when he said to\nKutuzov: 'Your Emperor and the Fatherland award you this honor.'\"\n\n\"Perhaps the heart took no part in that speech,\" said Anna Pavlovna.\n\n\"Oh, no, no!\" warmly rejoined Prince Vasili, who would not now yield\nKutuzov to anyone; in his opinion Kutuzov was not only admirable\nhimself, but was adored by everybody. \"No, that's impossible,\" said he,\n\"for our sovereign appreciated him so highly before.\"\n\n\"God grant only that Prince Kutuzov assumes real power and does not\nallow anyone to put a spoke in his wheel,\" observed Anna Pavlovna.\n\nUnderstanding at once to whom she alluded, Prince Vasili said in a\nwhisper:\n\n\"I know for a fact that Kutuzov made it an absolute condition that the\nTsarevich should not be with the army. Do you know what he said to the\nEmperor?\"\n\nAnd Prince Vasili repeated the words supposed to have been spoken by\nKutuzov to the Emperor. \"I can neither punish him if he does wrong nor\nreward him if he does right.\"\n\n\"Oh, a very wise man is Prince Kutuzov! I have known him a long time!\"\n\n\"They even say,\" remarked the \"man of great merit\" who did not yet\npossess courtly tact, \"that his excellency made it an express condition\nthat the sovereign himself should not be with the army.\"\n\nAs soon as he said this both Prince Vasili and Anna Pavlovna turned away\nfrom him and glanced sadly at one another with a sigh at his naivete.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nWhile this was taking place in Petersburg the French had already passed\nSmolensk and were drawing nearer and nearer to Moscow. Napoleon's\nhistorian Thiers, like other of his historians, trying to justify his\nhero says that he was drawn to the walls of Moscow against his will. He\nis as right as other historians who look for the explanation of historic\nevents in the will of one man; he is as right as the Russian historians\nwho maintain that Napoleon was drawn to Moscow by the skill of the\nRussian commanders. Here besides the law of retrospection, which regards\nall the past as a preparation for events that subsequently occur, the\nlaw of reciprocity comes in, confusing the whole matter. A good\nchessplayer having lost a game is sincerely convinced that his loss\nresulted from a mistake he made and looks for that mistake in the\nopening, but forgets that at each stage of the game there were similar\nmistakes and that none of his moves were perfect. He only notices the\nmistake to which he pays attention, because his opponent took advantage\nof it. How much more complex than this is the game of war, which occurs\nunder certain limits of time, and where it is not one will that\nmanipulates lifeless objects, but everything results from innumerable\nconflicts of various wills!\n\nAfter Smolensk Napoleon sought a battle beyond Dorogobuzh at Vyazma, and\nthen at Tsarevo-Zaymishche, but it happened that owing to a conjunction\nof innumerable circumstances the Russians could not give battle till\nthey reached Borodino, seventy miles from Moscow. From Vyazma Napoleon\nordered a direct advance on Moscow.\n\nMoscou, la capitale asiatique de ce grand empire, la ville sacree des\npeuples d'Alexandre, Moscou avec ses innombrables eglises en forme de\npagodes chinoises, * this Moscow gave Napoleon's imagination no rest. On\nthe march from Vyazma to Tsarevo-Zaymishche he rode his light bay\nbobtailed ambler accompanied by his Guards, his bodyguard, his pages,\nand aides-de-camp. Berthier, his chief of staff, dropped behind to\nquestion a Russian prisoner captured by the cavalry. Followed by\nLelorgne d'Ideville, an interpreter, he overtook Napoleon at a gallop\nand reined in his horse with an amused expression.\n\n\n* \"Moscow, the Asiatic capital of this great empire, the sacred city of\nAlexander's people, Moscow with its innumerable churches shaped like\nChinese pagodas.\"\n\n\"Well?\" asked Napoleon.\n\n\"One of Platov's Cossacks says that Platov's corps is joining up with\nthe main army and that Kutuzov has been appointed commander-in-chief. He\nis a very shrewd and garrulous fellow.\"\n\nNapoleon smiled and told them to give the Cossack a horse and bring the\nman to him. He wished to talk to him himself. Several adjutants galloped\noff, and an hour later, Lavrushka, the serf Denisov had handed over to\nRostov, rode up to Napoleon in an orderly's jacket and on a French\ncavalry saddle, with a merry, and tipsy face. Napoleon told him to ride\nby his side and began questioning him.\n\n\"You are a Cossack?\"\n\n\"Yes, a Cossack, your Honor.\"\n\n\"The Cossack, not knowing in what company he was, for Napoleon's plain\nappearance had nothing about it that would reveal to an Oriental mind\nthe presence of a monarch, talked with extreme familiarity of the\nincidents of the war,\" says Thiers, narrating this episode. In reality\nLavrushka, having got drunk the day before and left his master\ndinnerless, had been whipped and sent to the village in quest of\nchickens, where he engaged in looting till the French took him prisoner.\nLavrushka was one of those coarse, bare-faced lackeys who have seen all\nsorts of things, consider it necessary to do everything in a mean and\ncunning way, are ready to render any sort of service to their master,\nand are keen at guessing their master's baser impulses, especially those\nprompted by vanity and pettiness.\n\nFinding himself in the company of Napoleon, whose identity he had easily\nand surely recognized, Lavrushka was not in the least abashed but merely\ndid his utmost to gain his new master's favor.\n\nHe knew very well that this was Napoleon, but Napoleon's presence could\nno more intimidate him than Rostov's, or a sergeant major's with the\nrods, would have done, for he had nothing that either the sergeant major\nor Napoleon could deprive him of.\n\nSo he rattled on, telling all the gossip he had heard among the\norderlies. Much of it true. But when Napoleon asked him whether the\nRussians thought they would beat Bonaparte or not, Lavrushka screwed up\nhis eyes and considered.\n\nIn this question he saw subtle cunning, as men of his type see cunning\nin everything, so he frowned and did not answer immediately.\n\n\"It's like this,\" he said thoughtfully, \"if there's a battle soon, yours\nwill win. That's right. But if three days pass, then after that, well,\nthen that same battle will not soon be over.\"\n\nLelorgne d'Ideville smilingly interpreted this speech to Napoleon thus:\n\"If a battle takes place within the next three days the French will win,\nbut if later, God knows what will happen.\" Napoleon did not smile,\nthough he was evidently in high good humor, and he ordered these words\nto be repeated.\n\nLavrushka noticed this and to entertain him further, pretending not to\nknow who Napoleon was, added:\n\n\"We know that you have Bonaparte and that he has beaten everybody in the\nworld, but we are a different matter...\"--without knowing why or how\nthis bit of boastful patriotism slipped out at the end.\n\nThe interpreter translated these words without the last phrase, and\nBonaparte smiled. \"The young Cossack made his mighty interlocutor\nsmile,\" says Thiers. After riding a few paces in silence, Napoleon\nturned to Berthier and said he wished to see how the news that he was\ntalking to the Emperor himself, to that very Emperor who had written his\nimmortally victorious name on the Pyramids, would affect this enfant du\nDon. *\n\n\n* \"Child of the Don.\"\n\nThe fact was accordingly conveyed to Lavrushka.\n\nLavrushka, understanding that this was done to perplex him and that\nNapoleon expected him to be frightened, to gratify his new masters\npromptly pretended to be astonished and awe-struck, opened his eyes\nwide, and assumed the expression he usually put on when taken to be\nwhipped. \"As soon as Napoleon's interpreter had spoken,\" says Thiers,\n\"the Cossack, seized by amazement, did not utter another word, but rode\non, his eyes fixed on the conqueror whose fame had reached him across\nthe steppes of the East. All his loquacity was suddenly arrested and\nreplaced by a naive and silent feeling of admiration. Napoleon, after\nmaking the Cossack a present, had him set free like a bird restored to\nits native fields.\"\n\nNapoleon rode on, dreaming of the Moscow that so appealed to his\nimagination, and \"the bird restored to its native fields\" galloped to\nour outposts, inventing on the way all that had not taken place but that\nhe meant to relate to his comrades. What had really taken place he did\nnot wish to relate because it seemed to him not worth telling. He found\nthe Cossacks, inquired for the regiment operating with Platov's\ndetachment and by evening found his master, Nicholas Rostov, quartered\nat Yankovo. Rostov was just mounting to go for a ride round the\nneighboring villages with Ilyin; he let Lavrushka have another horse and\ntook him along with him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nPrincess Mary was not in Moscow and out of danger as Prince Andrew\nsupposed.\n\nAfter the return of Alpatych from Smolensk the old prince suddenly\nseemed to awake as from a dream. He ordered the militiamen to be called\nup from the villages and armed, and wrote a letter to the commander-in-\nchief informing him that he had resolved to remain at Bald Hills to the\nlast extremity and to defend it, leaving to the commander-in-chief's\ndiscretion to take measures or not for the defense of Bald Hills, where\none of Russia's oldest generals would be captured or killed, and he\nannounced to his household that he would remain at Bald Hills.\n\nBut while himself remaining, he gave instructions for the departure of\nthe princess and Dessalles with the little prince to Bogucharovo and\nthence to Moscow. Princess Mary, alarmed by her father's feverish and\nsleepless activity after his previous apathy, could not bring herself to\nleave him alone and for the first time in her life ventured to disobey\nhim. She refused to go away and her father's fury broke over her in a\nterrible storm. He repeated every injustice he had ever inflicted on\nher. Trying to convict her, he told her she had worn him out, had caused\nhis quarrel with his son, had harbored nasty suspicions of him, making\nit the object of her life to poison his existence, and he drove her from\nhis study telling her that if she did not go away it was all the same to\nhim. He declared that he did not wish to remember her existence and\nwarned her not to dare to let him see her. The fact that he did not, as\nshe had feared, order her to be carried away by force but only told her\nnot to let him see her cheered Princess Mary. She knew it was a proof\nthat in the depth of his soul he was glad she was remaining at home and\nhad not gone away.\n\nThe morning after little Nicholas had left, the old prince donned his\nfull uniform and prepared to visit the commander-in-chief. His caleche\nwas already at the door. Princess Mary saw him walk out of the house in\nhis uniform wearing all his orders and go down the garden to review his\narmed peasants and domestic serfs. She sat by the window listening to\nhis voice which reached her from the garden. Suddenly several men came\nrunning up the avenue with frightened faces.\n\nPrincess Mary ran out to the porch, down the flower-bordered path, and\ninto the avenue. A large crowd of militiamen and domestics were moving\ntoward her, and in their midst several men were supporting by the\narmpits and dragging along a little old man in a uniform and\ndecorations. She ran up to him and, in the play of the sunlight that\nfell in small round spots through the shade of the lime-tree avenue,\ncould not be sure what change there was in his face. All she could see\nwas that his former stern and determined expression had altered to one\nof timidity and submission. On seeing his daughter he moved his helpless\nlips and made a hoarse sound. It was impossible to make out what he\nwanted. He was lifted up, carried to his study, and laid on the very\ncouch he had so feared of late.\n\nThe doctor, who was fetched that same night, bled him and said that the\nprince had had a seizure paralyzing his right side.\n\nIt was becoming more and more dangerous to remain at Bald Hills, and\nnext day they moved the prince to Bogucharovo, the doctor accompanying\nhim.\n\nBy the time they reached Bogucharovo, Dessalles and the little prince\nhad already left for Moscow.\n\nFor three weeks the old prince lay stricken by paralysis in the new\nhouse Prince Andrew had built at Bogucharovo, ever in the same state,\ngetting neither better nor worse. He was unconscious and lay like a\ndistorted corpse. He muttered unceasingly, his eyebrows and lips\ntwitching, and it was impossible to tell whether he understood what was\ngoing on around him or not. One thing was certain--that he was suffering\nand wished to say something. But what it was, no one could tell: it\nmight be some caprice of a sick and half-crazy man, or it might relate\nto public affairs, or possibly to family concerns.\n\nThe doctor said this restlessness did not mean anything and was due to\nphysical causes; but Princess Mary thought he wished to tell her\nsomething, and the fact that her presence always increased his\nrestlessness confirmed her opinion.\n\nHe was evidently suffering both physically and mentally. There was no\nhope of recovery. It was impossible for him to travel, it would not do\nto let him die on the road. \"Would it not be better if the end did come,\nthe very end?\" Princess Mary sometimes thought. Night and day, hardly\nsleeping at all, she watched him and, terrible to say, often watched him\nnot with hope of finding signs of improvement but wishing to find\nsymptoms of the approach of the end.\n\nStrange as it was to her to acknowledge this feeling in herself, yet\nthere it was. And what seemed still more terrible to her was that since\nher father's illness began (perhaps even sooner, when she stayed with\nhim expecting something to happen), all the personal desires and hopes\nthat had been forgotten or sleeping within her had awakened. Thoughts\nthat had not entered her mind for years--thoughts of a life free from\nthe fear of her father, and even the possibility of love and of family\nhappiness--floated continually in her imagination like temptations of\nthe devil. Thrust them aside as she would, questions continually\nrecurred to her as to how she would order her life now, after that.\nThese were temptations of the devil and Princess Mary knew it. She knew\nthat the sole weapon against him was prayer, and she tried to pray. She\nassumed an attitude of prayer, looked at the icons, repeated the words\nof a prayer, but she could not pray. She felt that a different world had\nnow taken possession of her--the life of a world of strenuous and free\nactivity, quite opposed to the spiritual world in which till now she had\nbeen confined and in which her greatest comfort had been prayer. She\ncould not pray, could not weep, and worldly cares took possession of\nher.\n\nIt was becoming dangerous to remain in Bogucharovo. News of the approach\nof the French came from all sides, and in one village, ten miles from\nBogucharovo, a homestead had been looted by French marauders.\n\nThe doctor insisted on the necessity of moving the prince; the\nprovincial Marshal of the Nobility sent an official to Princess Mary to\npersuade her to get away as quickly as possible, and the head of the\nrural police having come to Bogucharovo urged the same thing, saying\nthat the French were only some twenty-five miles away, that French\nproclamations were circulating in the villages, and that if the princess\ndid not take her father away before the fifteenth, he could not answer\nfor the consequences.\n\nThe princess decided to leave on the fifteenth. The cares of preparation\nand giving orders, for which everyone came to her, occupied her all day.\nShe spent the night of the fourteenth as usual, without undressing, in\nthe room next to the one where the prince lay. Several times, waking up,\nshe heard his groans and muttering, the creak of his bed, and the steps\nof Tikhon and the doctor when they turned him over. Several times she\nlistened at the door, and it seemed to her that his mutterings were\nlouder than usual and that they turned him over oftener. She could not\nsleep and several times went to the door and listened, wishing to enter\nbut not deciding to do so. Though he did not speak, Princess Mary saw\nand knew how unpleasant every sign of anxiety on his account was to him.\nShe had noticed with what dissatisfaction he turned from the look she\nsometimes involuntarily fixed on him. She knew that her going in during\nthe night at an unusual hour would irritate him.\n\nBut never had she felt so grieved for him or so much afraid of losing\nhim. She recalled all her life with him and in every word and act of his\nfound an expression of his love of her. Occasionally amid these memories\ntemptations of the devil would surge into her imagination: thoughts of\nhow things would be after his death, and how her new, liberated life\nwould be ordered. But she drove these thoughts away with disgust. Toward\nmorning he became quiet and she fell asleep.\n\nShe woke late. That sincerity which often comes with waking showed her\nclearly what chiefly concerned her about her father's illness. On waking\nshe listened to what was going on behind the door and, hearing him\ngroan, said to herself with a sigh that things were still the same.\n\n\"But what could have happened? What did I want? I want his death!\" she\ncried with a feeling of loathing for herself.\n\nShe washed, dressed, said her prayers, and went out to the porch. In\nfront of it stood carriages without horses and things were being packed\ninto the vehicles.\n\nIt was a warm, gray morning. Princess Mary stopped at the porch, still\nhorrified by her spiritual baseness and trying to arrange her thoughts\nbefore going to her father. The doctor came downstairs and went out to\nher.\n\n\"He is a little better today,\" said he. \"I was looking for you. One can\nmake out something of what he is saying. His head is clearer. Come in,\nhe is asking for you...\"\n\nPrincess Mary's heart beat so violently at this news that she grew pale\nand leaned against the wall to keep from falling. To see him, talk to\nhim, feel his eyes on her now that her whole soul was overflowing with\nthose dreadful, wicked temptations, was a torment of joy and terror.\n\n\"Come,\" said the doctor.\n\nPrincess Mary entered her father's room and went up to his bed. He was\nlying on his back propped up high, and his small bony hands with their\nknotted purple veins were lying on the quilt; his left eye gazed\nstraight before him, his right eye was awry, and his brows and lips\nmotionless. He seemed altogether so thin, small, and pathetic. His face\nseemed to have shriveled or melted; his features had grown smaller.\nPrincess Mary went up and kissed his hand. His left hand pressed hers so\nthat she understood that he had long been waiting for her to come. He\ntwitched her hand, and his brows and lips quivered angrily.\n\nShe looked at him in dismay trying to guess what he wanted of her. When\nshe changed her position so that his left eye could see her face he\ncalmed down, not taking his eyes off her for some seconds. Then his lips\nand tongue moved, sounds came, and he began to speak, gazing timidly and\nimploringly at her, evidently afraid that she might not understand.\n\nStraining all her faculties Princess Mary looked at him. The comic\nefforts with which he moved his tongue made her drop her eyes and with\ndifficulty repress the sobs that rose to her throat. He said something,\nrepeating the same words several times. She could not understand them,\nbut tried to guess what he was saying and inquiringly repeated the words\nhe uttered.\n\n\"Mmm...ar...ate...ate...\" he repeated several times.\n\nIt was quite impossible to understand these sounds. The doctor thought\nhe had guessed them, and inquiringly repeated: \"Mary, are you afraid?\"\nThe prince shook his head, again repeated the same sounds.\n\n\"My mind, my mind aches?\" questioned Princess Mary.\n\nHe made a mumbling sound in confirmation of this, took her hand, and\nbegan pressing it to different parts of his breast as if trying to find\nthe right place for it.\n\n\"Always thoughts... about you... thoughts...\" he then uttered much more\nclearly than he had done before, now that he was sure of being\nunderstood.\n\nPrincess Mary pressed her head against his hand, trying to hide her sobs\nand tears.\n\nHe moved his hand over her hair.\n\n\"I have been calling you all night...\" he brought out.\n\n\"If only I had known...\" she said through her tears. \"I was afraid to\ncome in.\"\n\nHe pressed her hand.\n\n\"Weren't you asleep?\"\n\n\"No, I did not sleep,\" said Princess Mary, shaking her head.\n\nUnconsciously imitating her father, she now tried to express herself as\nhe did, as much as possible by signs, and her tongue too seemed to move\nwith difficulty.\n\n\"Dear one... Dearest...\" Princess Mary could not quite make out what he\nhad said, but from his look it was clear that he had uttered a tender\ncaressing word such as he had never used to her before. \"Why didn't you\ncome in?\"\n\n\"And I was wishing for his death!\" thought Princess Mary.\n\nHe was silent awhile.\n\n\"Thank you... daughter dear!... for all, for all... forgive!... thank\nyou!... forgive!... thank you!...\" and tears began to flow from his\neyes. \"Call Andrew!\" he said suddenly, and a childish, timid expression\nof doubt showed itself on his face as he spoke.\n\nHe himself seemed aware that his demand was meaningless. So at least it\nseemed to Princess Mary.\n\n\"I have a letter from him,\" she replied.\n\nHe glanced at her with timid surprise.\n\n\"Where is he?\"\n\n\"He's with the army, Father, at Smolensk.\"\n\nHe closed his eyes and remained silent a long time. Then as if in answer\nto his doubts and to confirm the fact that now he understood and\nremembered everything, he nodded his head and reopened his eyes.\n\n\"Yes,\" he said, softly and distinctly. \"Russia has perished. They've\ndestroyed her.\"\n\nAnd he began to sob, and again tears flowed from his eyes. Princess Mary\ncould no longer restrain herself and wept while she gazed at his face.\n\nAgain he closed his eyes. His sobs ceased, he pointed to his eyes, and\nTikhon, understanding him, wiped away the tears.\n\nThen he again opened his eyes and said something none of them could\nunderstand for a long time, till at last Tikhon understood and repeated\nit. Princess Mary had sought the meaning of his words in the mood in\nwhich he had just been speaking. She thought he was speaking of Russia,\nor Prince Andrew, of herself, of his grandson, or of his own death, and\nso she could not guess his words.\n\n\"Put on your white dress. I like it,\" was what he said.\n\nHaving understood this Princess Mary sobbed still louder, and the doctor\ntaking her arm led her out to the veranda, soothing her and trying to\npersuade her to prepare for her journey. When she had left the room the\nprince again began speaking about his son, about the war, and about the\nEmperor, angrily twitching his brows and raising his hoarse voice, and\nthen he had a second and final stroke.\n\nPrincess Mary stayed on the veranda. The day had cleared, it was hot and\nsunny. She could understand nothing, think of nothing and feel nothing,\nexcept passionate love for her father, love such as she thought she had\nnever felt till that moment. She ran out sobbing into the garden and as\nfar as the pond, along the avenues of young lime trees Prince Andrew had\nplanted.\n\n\"Yes... I... I... I wished for his death! Yes, I wanted it to end\nquicker.... I wished to be at peace.... And what will become of me? What\nuse will peace be when he is no longer here?\" Princess Mary murmured,\npacing the garden with hurried steps and pressing her hands to her bosom\nwhich heaved with convulsive sobs.\n\nWhen she had completed the tour of the garden, which brought her again\nto the house, she saw Mademoiselle Bourienne--who had remained at\nBogucharovo and did not wish to leave it--coming toward her with a\nstranger. This was the Marshal of the Nobility of the district, who had\ncome personally to point out to the princess the necessity for her\nprompt departure. Princess Mary listened without understanding him; she\nled him to the house, offered him lunch, and sat down with him. Then,\nexcusing herself, she went to the door of the old prince's room. The\ndoctor came out with an agitated face and said she could not enter.\n\n\"Go away, Princess! Go away... go away!\"\n\nShe returned to the garden and sat down on the grass at the foot of the\nslope by the pond, where no one could see her. She did not know how long\nshe had been there when she was aroused by the sound of a woman's\nfootsteps running along the path. She rose and saw Dunyasha her maid,\nwho was evidently looking for her, and who stopped suddenly as if in\nalarm on seeing her mistress.\n\n\"Please come, Princess... The Prince,\" said Dunyasha in a breaking\nvoice.\n\n\"Immediately, I'm coming, I'm coming!\" replied the princess hurriedly,\nnot giving Dunyasha time to finish what she was saying, and trying to\navoid seeing the girl she ran toward the house.\n\n\"Princess, it's God's will! You must be prepared for everything,\" said\nthe Marshal, meeting her at the house door.\n\n\"Let me alone; it's not true!\" she cried angrily to him.\n\nThe doctor tried to stop her. She pushed him aside and ran to her\nfather's door. \"Why are these people with frightened faces stopping me?\nI don't want any of them! And what are they doing here?\" she thought.\nShe opened the door and the bright daylight in that previously darkened\nroom startled her. In the room were her nurse and other women. They all\ndrew back from the bed, making way for her. He was still lying on the\nbed as before, but the stern expression of his quiet face made Princess\nMary stop short on the threshold.\n\n\"No, he's not dead--it's impossible!\" she told herself and approached\nhim, and repressing the terror that seized her, she pressed her lips to\nhis cheek. But she stepped back immediately. All the force of the\ntenderness she had been feeling for him vanished instantly and was\nreplaced by a feeling of horror at what lay there before her. \"No, he is\nno more! He is not, but here where he was is something unfamiliar and\nhostile, some dreadful, terrifying, and repellent mystery!\" And hiding\nher face in her hands, Princess Mary sank into the arms of the doctor,\nwho held her up.\n\nIn the presence of Tikhon and the doctor the women washed what had been\nthe prince, tied his head up with a handkerchief that the mouth should\nnot stiffen while open, and with another handkerchief tied together the\nlegs that were already spreading apart. Then they dressed him in uniform\nwith his decorations and placed his shriveled little body on a table.\nHeaven only knows who arranged all this and when, but it all got done as\nif of its own accord. Toward night candles were burning round his\ncoffin, a pall was spread over it, the floor was strewn with sprays of\njuniper, a printed band was tucked in under his shriveled head, and in a\ncorner of the room sat a chanter reading the psalms.\n\nJust as horses shy and snort and gather about a dead horse, so the\ninmates of the house and strangers crowded into the drawing room round\nthe coffin--the Marshal, the village Elder, peasant women--and all with\nfixed and frightened eyes, crossing themselves, bowed and kissed the old\nprince's cold and stiffened hand.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nUntil Prince Andrew settled in Bogucharovo its owners had always been\nabsentees, and its peasants were of quite a different character from\nthose of Bald Hills. They differed from them in speech, dress, and\ndisposition. They were called steppe peasants. The old prince used to\napprove of them for their endurance at work when they came to Bald Hills\nto help with the harvest or to dig ponds, and ditches, but he disliked\nthem for their boorishness.\n\nPrince Andrew's last stay at Bogucharovo, when he introduced hospitals\nand schools and reduced the quitrent the peasants had to pay, had not\nsoftened their disposition but had on the contrary strengthened in them\nthe traits of character the old prince called boorishness. Various\nobscure rumors were always current among them: at one time a rumor that\nthey would all be enrolled as Cossacks; at another of a new religion to\nwhich they were all to be converted; then of some proclamation of the\nTsar's and of an oath to the Tsar Paul in 1797 (in connection with which\nit was rumored that freedom had been granted them but the landowners had\nstopped it), then of Peter Fedorovich's return to the throne in seven\nyears' time, when everything would be made free and so \"simple\" that\nthere would be no restrictions. Rumors of the war with Bonaparte and his\ninvasion were connected in their minds with the same sort of vague\nnotions of Antichrist, the end of the world, and \"pure freedom.\"\n\nIn the vicinity of Bogucharovo were large villages belonging to the\ncrown or to owners whose serfs paid quitrent and could work where they\npleased. There were very few resident landlords in the neighborhood and\nalso very few domestic or literate serfs, and in the lives of the\npeasantry of those parts the mysterious undercurrents in the life of the\nRussian people, the causes and meaning of which are so baffling to\ncontemporaries, were more clearly and strongly noticeable than among\nothers. One instance, which had occurred some twenty years before, was a\nmovement among the peasants to emigrate to some unknown \"warm rivers.\"\nHundreds of peasants, among them the Bogucharovo folk, suddenly began\nselling their cattle and moving in whole families toward the southeast.\nAs birds migrate to somewhere beyond the sea, so these men with their\nwives and children streamed to the southeast, to parts where none of\nthem had ever been. They set off in caravans, bought their freedom one\nby one or ran away, and drove or walked toward the \"warm rivers.\" Many\nof them were punished, some sent to Siberia, many died of cold and\nhunger on the road, many returned of their own accord, and the movement\ndied down of itself just as it had sprung up, without apparent reason.\nBut such undercurrents still existed among the people and gathered new\nforces ready to manifest themselves just as strangely, unexpectedly, and\nat the same time simply, naturally, and forcibly. Now in 1812, to anyone\nliving in close touch with these people it was apparent that these\nundercurrents were acting strongly and nearing an eruption.\n\nAlpatych, who had reached Bogucharovo shortly before the old prince's\ndeath, noticed an agitation among the peasants, and that contrary to\nwhat was happening in the Bald Hills district, where over a radius of\nforty miles all the peasants were moving away and leaving their villages\nto be devastated by the Cossacks, the peasants in the steppe region\nround Bogucharovo were, it was rumored, in touch with the French,\nreceived leaflets from them that passed from hand to hand, and did not\nmigrate. He learned from domestic serfs loyal to him that the peasant\nKarp, who possessed great influence in the village commune and had\nrecently been away driving a government transport, had returned with\nnews that the Cossacks were destroying deserted villages, but that the\nFrench did not harm them. Alpatych also knew that on the previous day\nanother peasant had even brought from the village of Visloukhovo, which\nwas occupied by the French, a proclamation by a French general that no\nharm would be done to the inhabitants, and if they remained they would\nbe paid for anything taken from them. As proof of this the peasant had\nbrought from Visloukhovo a hundred rubles in notes (he did not know that\nthey were false) paid to him in advance for hay.\n\nMore important still, Alpatych learned that on the morning of the very\nday he gave the village Elder orders to collect carts to move the\nprincess' luggage from Bogucharovo, there had been a village meeting at\nwhich it had been decided not to move but to wait. Yet there was no time\nto waste. On the fifteenth, the day of the old prince's death, the\nMarshal had insisted on Princess Mary's leaving at once, as it was\nbecoming dangerous. He had told her that after the sixteenth he could\nnot be responsible for what might happen. On the evening of the day the\nold prince died the Marshal went away, promising to return next day for\nthe funeral. But this he was unable to do, for he received tidings that\nthe French had unexpectedly advanced, and had barely time to remove his\nown family and valuables from his estate.\n\nFor some thirty years Bogucharovo had been managed by the village Elder,\nDron, whom the old prince called by the diminutive \"Dronushka.\"\n\nDron was one of those physically and mentally vigorous peasants who grow\nbig beards as soon as they are of age and go on unchanged till they are\nsixty or seventy, without a gray hair or the loss of a tooth, as\nstraight and strong at sixty as at thirty.\n\nSoon after the migration to the \"warm rivers,\" in which he had taken\npart like the rest, Dron was made village Elder and overseer of\nBogucharovo, and had since filled that post irreproachably for twenty-\nthree years. The peasants feared him more than they did their master.\nThe masters, both the old prince and the young, and the steward\nrespected him and jestingly called him \"the Minister.\" During the whole\ntime of his service Dron had never been drunk or ill, never after\nsleepless nights or the hardest tasks had he shown the least fatigue,\nand though he could not read he had never forgotten a single money\naccount or the number of quarters of flour in any of the endless\ncartloads he sold for the prince, nor a single shock of the whole corn\ncrop on any single acre of the Bogucharovo fields.\n\nAlpatych, arriving from the devastated Bald Hills estate, sent for his\nDron on the day of the prince's funeral and told him to have twelve\nhorses got ready for the princess' carriages and eighteen carts for the\nthings to be removed from Bogucharovo. Though the peasants paid\nquitrent, Alpatych thought no difficulty would be made about complying\nwith this order, for there were two hundred and thirty households at\nwork in Bogucharovo and the peasants were well to do. But on hearing the\norder Dron lowered his eyes and remained silent. Alpatych named certain\npeasants he knew, from whom he told him to take the carts.\n\nDron replied that the horses of these peasants were away carting.\nAlpatych named others, but they too, according to Dron, had no horses\navailable: some horses were carting for the government, others were too\nweak, and others had died for want of fodder. It seemed that no horses\ncould be had even for the carriages, much less for the carting.\n\nAlpatych looked intently at Dron and frowned. Just as Dron was a model\nvillage Elder, so Alpatych had not managed the prince's estates for\ntwenty years in vain. He was a model steward, possessing in the highest\ndegree the faculty of divining the needs and instincts of those he dealt\nwith. Having glanced at Dron he at once understood that his answers did\nnot express his personal views but the general mood of the Bogucharovo\ncommune, by which the Elder had already been carried away. But he also\nknew that Dron, who had acquired property and was hated by the commune,\nmust be hesitating between the two camps: the masters' and the serfs'.\nHe noticed this hesitation in Dron's look and therefore frowned and\nmoved closer up to him.\n\n\"Now just listen, Dronushka,\" said he. \"Don't talk nonsense to me. His\nexcellency Prince Andrew himself gave me orders to move all the people\naway and not leave them with the enemy, and there is an order from the\nTsar about it too. Anyone who stays is a traitor to the Tsar. Do you\nhear?\"\n\n\"I hear,\" Dron answered without lifting his eyes.\n\nAlpatych was not satisfied with this reply.\n\n\"Eh, Dron, it will turn out badly!\" he said, shaking his head.\n\n\"The power is in your hands,\" Dron rejoined sadly.\n\n\"Eh, Dron, drop it!\" Alpatych repeated, withdrawing his hand from his\nbosom and solemnly pointing to the floor at Dron's feet. \"I can see\nthrough you and three yards into the ground under you,\" he continued,\ngazing at the floor in front of Dron.\n\nDron was disconcerted, glanced furtively at Alpatych and again lowered\nhis eyes.\n\n\"You drop this nonsense and tell the people to get ready to leave their\nhomes and go to Moscow and to get carts ready for tomorrow morning for\nthe princess' things. And don't go to any meeting yourself, do you\nhear?\"\n\nDron suddenly fell on his knees.\n\n\"Yakov Alpatych, discharge me! Take the keys from me and discharge me,\nfor Christ's sake!\"\n\n\"Stop that!\" cried Alpatych sternly. \"I see through you and three yards\nunder you,\" he repeated, knowing that his skill in beekeeping, his\nknowledge of the right time to sow the oats, and the fact that he had\nbeen able to retain the old prince's favor for twenty years had long\nsince gained him the reputation of being a wizard, and that the power of\nseeing three yards under a man is considered an attribute of wizards.\n\nDron got up and was about to say something, but Alpatych interrupted\nhim.\n\n\"What is it you have got into your heads, eh?... What are you thinking\nof, eh?\"\n\n\"What am I to do with the people?\" said Dron. \"They're quite beside\nthemselves; I have already told them...\"\n\n\"'Told them,' I dare say!\" said Alpatych. \"Are they drinking?\" he asked\nabruptly.\n\n\"Quite beside themselves, Yakov Alpatych; they've fetched another\nbarrel.\"\n\n\"Well, then, listen! I'll go to the police officer, and you tell them\nso, and that they must stop this and the carts must be got ready.\"\n\n\"I understand.\"\n\nAlpatych did not insist further. He had managed people for a long time\nand knew that the chief way to make them obey is to show no suspicion\nthat they can possibly disobey. Having wrung a submissive \"I understand\"\nfrom Dron, Alpatych contented himself with that, though he not only\ndoubted but felt almost certain that without the help of troops the\ncarts would not be forthcoming.\n\nAnd so it was, for when evening came no carts had been provided. In the\nvillage, outside the drink shop, another meeting was being held, which\ndecided that the horses should be driven out into the woods and the\ncarts should not be provided. Without saying anything of this to the\nprincess, Alpatych had his own belongings taken out of the carts which\nhad arrived from Bald Hills and had those horses got ready for the\nprincess' carriages. Meanwhile he went himself to the police\nauthorities.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nAfter her father's funeral Princess Mary shut herself up in her room and\ndid not admit anyone. A maid came to the door to say that Alpatych was\nasking for orders about their departure. (This was before his talk with\nDron.) Princess Mary raised herself on the sofa on which she had been\nlying and replied through the closed door that she did not mean to go\naway and begged to be left in peace.\n\nThe windows of the room in which she was lying looked westward. She lay\non the sofa with her face to the wall, fingering the buttons of the\nleather cushion and seeing nothing but that cushion, and her confused\nthoughts were centered on one subject--the irrevocability of death and\nher own spiritual baseness, which she had not suspected, but which had\nshown itself during her father's illness. She wished to pray but did not\ndare to, dared not in her present state of mind address herself to God.\nShe lay for a long time in that position.\n\nThe sun had reached the other side of the house, and its slanting rays\nshone into the open window, lighting up the room and part of the morocco\ncushion at which Princess Mary was looking. The flow of her thoughts\nsuddenly stopped. Unconsciously she sat up, smoothed her hair, got up,\nand went to the window, involuntarily inhaling the freshness of the\nclear but windy evening.\n\n\"Yes, you can well enjoy the evening now! He is gone and no one will\nhinder you,\" she said to herself, and sinking into a chair she let her\nhead fall on the window sill.\n\nSomeone spoke her name in a soft and tender voice from the garden and\nkissed her head. She looked up. It was Mademoiselle Bourienne in a black\ndress and weepers. She softly approached Princess Mary, sighed, kissed\nher, and immediately began to cry. The princess looked up at her. All\ntheir former disharmony and her own jealousy recurred to her mind. But\nshe remembered too how he had changed of late toward Mademoiselle\nBourienne and could not bear to see her, thereby showing how unjust were\nthe reproaches Princess Mary had mentally addressed to her. \"Besides, is\nit for me, for me who desired his death, to condemn anyone?\" she\nthought.\n\nPrincess Mary vividly pictured to herself the position of Mademoiselle\nBourienne, whom she had of late kept at a distance, but who yet was\ndependent on her and living in her house. She felt sorry for her and\nheld out her hand with a glance of gentle inquiry. Mademoiselle\nBourienne at once began crying again and kissed that hand, speaking of\nthe princess' sorrow and making herself a partner in it. She said her\nonly consolation was the fact that the princess allowed her to share her\nsorrow, that all the old misunderstandings should sink into nothing but\nthis great grief; that she felt herself blameless in regard to everyone,\nand that he, from above, saw her affection and gratitude. The princess\nheard her, not heeding her words but occasionally looking up at her and\nlistening to the sound of her voice.\n\n\"Your position is doubly terrible, dear princess,\" said Mademoiselle\nBourienne after a pause. \"I understand that you could not, and cannot,\nthink of yourself, but with my love for you I must do so.... Has\nAlpatych been to you? Has he spoken to you of going away?\" she asked.\n\nPrincess Mary did not answer. She did not understand who was to go or\nwhere to. \"Is it possible to plan or think of anything now? Is it not\nall the same?\" she thought, and did not reply.\n\n\"You know, chere Marie,\" said Mademoiselle Bourienne, \"that we are in\ndanger--are surrounded by the French. It would be dangerous to move now.\nIf we go we are almost sure to be taken prisoners, and God knows...\"\n\nPrincess Mary looked at her companion without understanding what she was\ntalking about.\n\n\"Oh, if anyone knew how little anything matters to me now,\" she said.\n\"Of course I would on no account wish to go away from him.... Alpatych\ndid say something about going.... Speak to him; I can do nothing,\nnothing, and don't want to....\"\n\n\"I've spoken to him. He hopes we should be in time to get away tomorrow,\nbut I think it would now be better to stay here,\" said Mademoiselle\nBourienne. \"Because, you will agree, chere Marie, to fall into the hands\nof the soldiers or of riotous peasants would be terrible.\"\n\nMademoiselle Bourienne took from her reticule a proclamation (not\nprinted on ordinary Russian paper) of General Rameau's, telling people\nnot to leave their homes and that the French authorities would afford\nthem proper protection. She handed this to the princess.\n\n\"I think it would be best to appeal to that general,\" she continued,\n\"and I am sure that all due respect would be shown you.\"\n\nPrincess Mary read the paper, and her face began to quiver with stifled\nsobs.\n\n\"From whom did you get this?\" she asked.\n\n\"They probably recognized that I am French, by my name,\" replied\nMademoiselle Bourienne blushing.\n\nPrincess Mary, with the paper in her hand, rose from the window and with\na pale face went out of the room and into what had been Prince Andrew's\nstudy.\n\n\"Dunyasha, send Alpatych, or Dronushka, or somebody to me!\" she said,\n\"and tell Mademoiselle Bourienne not to come to me,\" she added, hearing\nMademoiselle Bourienne's voice. \"We must go at once, at once!\" she said,\nappalled at the thought of being left in the hands of the French.\n\n\"If Prince Andrew heard that I was in the power of the French! That I,\nthe daughter of Prince Nicholas Bolkonski, asked General Rameau for\nprotection and accepted his favor!\" This idea horrified her, made her\nshudder, blush, and feel such a rush of anger and pride as she had never\nexperienced before. All that was distressing, and especially all that\nwas humiliating, in her position rose vividly to her mind. \"They, the\nFrench, would settle in this house: M. le General Rameau would occupy\nPrince Andrew's study and amuse himself by looking through and reading\nhis letters and papers. Mademoiselle Bourienne would do the honors of\nBogucharovo for him. I should be given a small room as a favor, the\nsoldiers would violate my father's newly dug grave to steal his crosses\nand stars, they would tell me of their victories over the Russians, and\nwould pretend to sympathize with my sorrow...\" thought Princess Mary,\nnot thinking her own thoughts but feeling bound to think like her father\nand her brother. For herself she did not care where she remained or what\nhappened to her, but she felt herself the representative of her dead\nfather and of Prince Andrew. Involuntarily she thought their thoughts\nand felt their feelings. What they would have said and what they would\nhave done she felt bound to say and do. She went into Prince Andrew's\nstudy, trying to enter completely into his ideas, and considered her\nposition.\n\nThe demands of life, which had seemed to her annihilated by her father's\ndeath, all at once rose before her with a new, previously unknown force\nand took possession of her.\n\nAgitated and flushed she paced the room, sending now for Michael\nIvanovich and now for Tikhon or Dron. Dunyasha, the nurse, and the other\nmaids could not say in how far Mademoiselle Bourienne's statement was\ncorrect. Alpatych was not at home, he had gone to the police. Neither\ncould the architect Michael Ivanovich, who on being sent for came in\nwith sleepy eyes, tell Princess Mary anything. With just the same smile\nof agreement with which for fifteen years he had been accustomed to\nanswer the old prince without expressing views of his own, he now\nreplied to Princess Mary, so that nothing definite could be got from his\nanswers. The old valet Tikhon, with sunken, emaciated face that bore the\nstamp of inconsolable grief, replied: \"Yes, Princess\" to all Princess\nMary's questions and hardly refrained from sobbing as he looked at her.\n\nAt length Dron, the village Elder, entered the room and with a deep bow\nto Princess Mary came to a halt by the doorpost.\n\nPrincess Mary walked up and down the room and stopped in front of him.\n\n\"Dronushka,\" she said, regarding as a sure friend this Dronushka who\nalways used to bring a special kind of gingerbread from his visit to the\nfair at Vyazma every year and smilingly offer it to her, \"Dronushka, now\nsince our misfortune...\" she began, but could not go on.\n\n\"We are all in God's hands,\" said he, with a sigh.\n\nThey were silent for a while.\n\n\"Dronushka, Alpatych has gone off somewhere and I have no one to turn\nto. Is it true, as they tell me, that I can't even go away?\"\n\n\"Why shouldn't you go away, your excellency? You can go,\" said Dron.\n\n\"I was told it would be dangerous because of the enemy. Dear friend, I\ncan do nothing. I understand nothing. I have nobody! I want to go away\ntonight or early tomorrow morning.\"\n\nDron paused. He looked askance at Princess Mary and said: \"There are no\nhorses; I told Yakov Alpatych so.\"\n\n\"Why are there none?\" asked the princess.\n\n\"It's all God's scourge,\" said Dron. \"What horses we had have been taken\nfor the army or have died--this is such a year! It's not a case of\nfeeding horses--we may die of hunger ourselves! As it is, some go three\ndays without eating. We've nothing, we've been ruined.\"\n\nPrincess Mary listened attentively to what he told her.\n\n\"The peasants are ruined? They have no bread?\" she asked.\n\n\"They're dying of hunger,\" said Dron. \"It's not a case of carting.\"\n\n\"But why didn't you tell me, Dronushka? Isn't it possible to help them?\nI'll do all I can....\"\n\nTo Princess Mary it was strange that now, at a moment when such sorrow\nwas filling her soul, there could be rich people and poor, and the rich\ncould refrain from helping the poor. She had heard vaguely that there\nwas such a thing as \"landlord's corn\" which was sometimes given to the\npeasants. She also knew that neither her father nor her brother would\nrefuse to help the peasants in need, she only feared to make some\nmistake in speaking about the distribution of the grain she wished to\ngive. She was glad such cares presented themselves, enabling her without\nscruple to forget her own grief. She began asking Dron about the\npeasants' needs and what there was in Bogucharovo that belonged to the\nlandlord.\n\n\"But we have grain belonging to my brother?\" she said.\n\n\"The landlord's grain is all safe,\" replied Dron proudly. \"Our prince\ndid not order it to be sold.\"\n\n\"Give it to the peasants, let them have all they need; I give you leave\nin my brother's name,\" said she.\n\nDron made no answer but sighed deeply.\n\n\"Give them that corn if there is enough of it. Distribute it all. I give\nthis order in my brother's name; and tell them that what is ours is\ntheirs. We do not grudge them anything. Tell them so.\"\n\nDron looked intently at the princess while she was speaking.\n\n\"Discharge me, little mother, for God's sake! Order the keys to be taken\nfrom me,\" said he. \"I have served twenty-three years and have done no\nwrong. Discharge me, for God's sake!\"\n\nPrincess Mary did not understand what he wanted of her or why he was\nasking to be discharged. She replied that she had never doubted his\ndevotion and that she was ready to do anything for him and for the\npeasants.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nAn hour later Dunyasha came to tell the princess that Dron had come, and\nall the peasants had assembled at the barn by the princess' order and\nwished to have word with their mistress.\n\n\"But I never told them to come,\" said Princess Mary. \"I only told Dron\nto let them have the grain.\"\n\n\"Only, for God's sake, Princess dear, have them sent away and don't go\nout to them. It's all a trick,\" said Dunyasha, \"and when Yakov Alpatych\nreturns let us get away... and please don't...\"\n\n\"What is a trick?\" asked Princess Mary in surprise.\n\n\"I know it is, only listen to me for God's sake! Ask nurse too. They say\nthey don't agree to leave Bogucharovo as you ordered.\"\n\n\"You're making some mistake. I never ordered them to go away,\" said\nPrincess Mary. \"Call Dronushka.\"\n\nDron came and confirmed Dunyasha's words; the peasants had come by the\nprincess' order.\n\n\"But I never sent for them,\" declared the princess. \"You must have given\nmy message wrong. I only said that you were to give them the grain.\"\n\nDron only sighed in reply.\n\n\"If you order it they will go away,\" said he.\n\n\"No, no. I'll go out to them,\" said Princess Mary, and in spite of the\nnurse's and Dunyasha's protests she went out into the porch; Dron,\nDunyasha, the nurse, and Michael Ivanovich following her.\n\n\"They probably think I am offering them the grain to bribe them to\nremain here, while I myself go away leaving them to the mercy of the\nFrench,\" thought Princess Mary. \"I will offer them monthly rations and\nhousing at our Moscow estate. I am sure Andrew would do even more in my\nplace,\" she thought as she went out in the twilight toward the crowd\nstanding on the pasture by the barn.\n\nThe men crowded closer together, stirred, and rapidly took off their\nhats. Princess Mary lowered her eyes and, tripping over her skirt, came\nclose up to them. So many different eyes, old and young, were fixed on\nher, and there were so many different faces, that she could not\ndistinguish any of them and, feeling that she must speak to them all at\nonce, did not know how to do it. But again the sense that she\nrepresented her father and her brother gave her courage, and she boldly\nbegan her speech.\n\n\"I am very glad you have come,\" she said without raising her eyes, and\nfeeling her heart beating quickly and violently. \"Dronushka tells me\nthat the war has ruined you. That is our common misfortune, and I shall\ngrudge nothing to help you. I am myself going away because it is\ndangerous here... the enemy is near... because... I am giving you\neverything, my friends, and I beg you to take everything, all our grain,\nso that you may not suffer want! And if you have been told that I am\ngiving you the grain to keep you here--that is not true. On the\ncontrary, I ask you to go with all your belongings to our estate near\nMoscow, and I promise you I will see to it that there you shall want for\nnothing. You shall be given food and lodging.\"\n\nThe princess stopped. Sighs were the only sound heard in the crowd.\n\n\"I am not doing this on my own account,\" she continued, \"I do it in the\nname of my dead father, who was a good master to you, and of my brother\nand his son.\"\n\nAgain she paused. No one broke the silence.\n\n\"Ours is a common misfortune and we will share it together. All that is\nmine is yours,\" she concluded, scanning the faces before her.\n\nAll eyes were gazing at her with one and the same expression. She could\nnot fathom whether it was curiosity, devotion, gratitude, or\napprehension and distrust--but the expression on all the faces was\nidentical.\n\n\"We are all very thankful for your bounty, but it won't do for us to\ntake the landlord's grain,\" said a voice at the back of the crowd.\n\n\"But why not?\" asked the princess.\n\nNo one replied and Princess Mary, looking round at the crowd, found that\nevery eye she met now was immediately dropped.\n\n\"But why don't you want to take it?\" she asked again.\n\nNo one answered.\n\nThe silence began to oppress the princess and she tried to catch\nsomeone's eye.\n\n\"Why don't you speak?\" she inquired of a very old man who stood just in\nfront of her leaning on his stick. \"If you think something more is\nwanted, tell me! I will do anything,\" said she, catching his eye.\n\nBut as if this angered him, he bent his head quite low and muttered:\n\n\"Why should we agree? We don't want the grain.\"\n\n\"Why should we give up everything? We don't agree. Don't agree.... We\nare sorry for you, but we're not willing. Go away yourself, alone...\"\ncame from various sides of the crowd.\n\nAnd again all the faces in that crowd bore an identical expression,\nthough now it was certainly not an expression of curiosity or gratitude,\nbut of angry resolve.\n\n\"But you can't have understood me,\" said Princess Mary with a sad smile.\n\"Why don't you want to go? I promise to house and feed you, while here\nthe enemy would ruin you...\"\n\nBut her voice was drowned by the voices of the crowd.\n\n\"We're not willing. Let them ruin us! We won't take your grain. We don't\nagree.\"\n\nAgain Princess Mary tried to catch someone's eye, but not a single eye\nin the crowd was turned to her; evidently they were all trying to avoid\nher look. She felt strange and awkward.\n\n\"Oh yes, an artful tale! Follow her into slavery! Pull down your houses\nand go into bondage! I dare say! 'I'll give you grain, indeed!' she\nsays,\" voices in the crowd were heard saying.\n\nWith drooping head Princess Mary left the crowd and went back to the\nhouse. Having repeated her order to Dron to have horses ready for her\ndeparture next morning, she went to her room and remained alone with her\nown thoughts.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nFor a long time that night Princess Mary sat by the open window of her\nroom hearing the sound of the peasants' voices that reached her from the\nvillage, but it was not of them she was thinking. She felt that she\ncould not understand them however much she might think about them. She\nthought only of one thing, her sorrow, which, after the break caused by\ncares for the present, seemed already to belong to the past. Now she\ncould remember it and weep or pray.\n\nAfter sunset the wind had dropped. The night was calm and fresh. Toward\nmidnight the voices began to subside, a cock crowed, the full moon began\nto show from behind the lime trees, a fresh white dewy mist began to\nrise, and stillness reigned over the village and the house.\n\nPictures of the near past--her father's illness and last moments--rose\none after another to her memory. With mournful pleasure she now lingered\nover these images, repelling with horror only the last one, the picture\nof his death, which she felt she could not contemplate even in\nimagination at this still and mystic hour of night. And these pictures\npresented themselves to her so clearly and in such detail that they\nseemed now present, now past, and now future.\n\nShe vividly recalled the moment when he had his first stroke and was\nbeing dragged along by his armpits through the garden at Bald Hills,\nmuttering something with his helpless tongue, twitching his gray\neyebrows and looking uneasily and timidly at her.\n\n\"Even then he wanted to tell me what he told me the day he died,\" she\nthought. \"He had always thought what he said then.\" And she recalled in\nall its detail the night at Bald Hills before he had the last stroke,\nwhen with a foreboding of disaster she had remained at home against his\nwill. She had not slept and had stolen downstairs on tiptoe, and going\nto the door of the conservatory where he slept that night had listened\nat the door. In a suffering and weary voice he was saying something to\nTikhon, speaking of the Crimea and its warm nights and of the Empress.\nEvidently he had wanted to talk. \"And why didn't he call me? Why didn't\nhe let me be there instead of Tikhon?\" Princess Mary had thought and\nthought again now. \"Now he will never tell anyone what he had in his\nsoul. Never will that moment return for him or for me when he might have\nsaid all he longed to say, and not Tikhon but I might have heard and\nunderstood him. Why didn't I enter the room?\" she thought. \"Perhaps he\nwould then have said to me what he said the day he died. While talking\nto Tikhon he asked about me twice. He wanted to see me, and I was\nstanding close by, outside the door. It was sad and painful for him to\ntalk to Tikhon who did not understand him. I remember how he began\nspeaking to him about Lise as if she were alive--he had forgotten she\nwas dead--and Tikhon reminded him that she was no more, and he shouted,\n'Fool!' He was greatly depressed. From behind the door I heard how he\nlay down on his bed groaning and loudly exclaimed, 'My God!' Why didn't\nI go in then? What could he have done to me? What could I have lost? And\nperhaps he would then have been comforted and would have said that word\nto me.\" And Princess Mary uttered aloud the caressing word he had said\nto her on the day of his death. \"Dear-est!\" she repeated, and began\nsobbing, with tears that relieved her soul. She now saw his face before\nher. And not the face she had known ever since she could remember and\nhad always seen at a distance, but the timid, feeble face she had seen\nfor the first time quite closely, with all its wrinkles and details,\nwhen she stooped near to his mouth to catch what he said.\n\n\"Dear-est!\" she repeated again.\n\n\"What was he thinking when he uttered that word? What is he thinking\nnow?\" This question suddenly presented itself to her, and in answer she\nsaw him before her with the expression that was on his face as he lay in\nhis coffin with his chin bound up with a white handkerchief. And the\nhorror that had seized her when she touched him and convinced herself\nthat that was not he, but something mysterious and horrible, seized her\nagain. She tried to think of something else and to pray, but could do\nneither. With wide-open eyes she gazed at the moonlight and the shadows,\nexpecting every moment to see his dead face, and she felt that the\nsilence brooding over the house and within it held her fast.\n\n\"Dunyasha,\" she whispered. \"Dunyasha!\" she screamed wildly, and tearing\nherself out of this silence she ran to the servants' quarters to meet\nher old nurse and the maidservants who came running toward her.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nOn the seventeenth of August Rostov and Ilyin, accompanied by Lavrushka\nwho had just returned from captivity and by an hussar orderly, left\ntheir quarters at Yankovo, ten miles from Bogucharovo, and went for a\nride--to try a new horse Ilyin had bought and to find out whether there\nwas any hay to be had in the villages.\n\nFor the last three days Bogucharovo had lain between the two hostile\narmies, so that it was as easy for the Russian rearguard to get to it as\nfor the French vanguard; Rostov, as a careful squadron commander, wished\nto take such provisions as remained at Bogucharovo before the French\ncould get them.\n\nRostov and Ilyin were in the merriest of moods. On the way to\nBogucharovo, a princely estate with a dwelling house and farm where they\nhoped to find many domestic serfs and pretty girls, they questioned\nLavrushka about Napoleon and laughed at his stories, and raced one\nanother to try Ilyin's horse.\n\nRostov had no idea that the village he was entering was the property of\nthat very Bolkonski who had been engaged to his sister.\n\nRostov and Ilyin gave rein to their horses for a last race along the\nincline before reaching Bogucharovo, and Rostov, outstripping Ilyin, was\nthe first to gallop into the village street.\n\n\"You're first!\" cried Ilyin, flushed.\n\n\"Yes, always first both on the grassland and here,\" answered Rostov,\nstroking his heated Donets horse.\n\n\"And I'd have won on my Frenchy, your excellency,\" said Lavrushka from\nbehind, alluding to his shabby cart horse, \"only I didn't wish to\nmortify you.\"\n\nThey rode at a footpace to the barn, where a large crowd of peasants was\nstanding.\n\nSome of the men bared their heads, others stared at the new arrivals\nwithout doffing their caps. Two tall old peasants with wrinkled faces\nand scanty beards emerged from the tavern, smiling, staggering, and\nsinging some incoherent song, and approached the officers.\n\n\"Fine fellows!\" said Rostov laughing. \"Is there any hay here?\"\n\n\"And how like one another,\" said Ilyin.\n\n\"A mo-o-st me-r-r-y co-o-m-pa...!\" sang one of the peasants with a\nblissful smile.\n\nOne of the men came out of the crowd and went up to Rostov.\n\n\"Who do you belong to?\" he asked.\n\n\"The French,\" replied Ilyin jestingly, \"and here is Napoleon himself\"--\nand he pointed to Lavrushka.\n\n\"Then you are Russians?\" the peasant asked again.\n\n\"And is there a large force of you here?\" said another, a short man,\ncoming up.\n\n\"Very large,\" answered Rostov. \"But why have you collected here?\" he\nadded. \"Is it a holiday?\"\n\n\"The old men have met to talk over the business of the commune,\" replied\nthe peasant, moving away.\n\nAt that moment, on the road leading from the big house, two women and a\nman in a white hat were seen coming toward the officers.\n\n\"The one in pink is mine, so keep off!\" said Ilyin on seeing Dunyasha\nrunning resolutely toward him.\n\n\"She'll be ours!\" said Lavrushka to Ilyin, winking.\n\n\"What do you want, my pretty?\" said Ilyin with a smile.\n\n\"The princess ordered me to ask your regiment and your name.\"\n\n\"This is Count Rostov, squadron commander, and I am your humble\nservant.\"\n\n\"Co-o-om-pa-ny!\" roared the tipsy peasant with a beatific smile as he\nlooked at Ilyin talking to the girl. Following Dunyasha, Alpatych\nadvanced to Rostov, having bared his head while still at a distance.\n\n\"May I make bold to trouble your honor?\" said he respectfully, but with\na shade of contempt for the youthfulness of this officer and with a hand\nthrust into his bosom. \"My mistress, daughter of General in Chief Prince\nNicholas Bolkonski who died on the fifteenth of this month, finding\nherself in difficulties owing to the boorishness of these people\"--he\npointed to the peasants--\"asks you to come up to the house.... Won't\nyou, please, ride on a little farther,\" said Alpatych with a melancholy\nsmile, \"as it is not convenient in the presence of...?\" He pointed to\nthe two peasants who kept as close to him as horseflies to a horse.\n\n\"Ah!... Alpatych... Ah, Yakov Alpatych... Grand! Forgive us for Christ's\nsake, eh?\" said the peasants, smiling joyfully at him.\n\nRostov looked at the tipsy peasants and smiled.\n\n\"Or perhaps they amuse your honor?\" remarked Alpatych with a staid air,\nas he pointed at the old men with his free hand.\n\n\"No, there's not much to be amused at here,\" said Rostov, and rode on a\nlittle way. \"What's the matter?\" he asked.\n\n\"I make bold to inform your honor that the rude peasants here don't wish\nto let the mistress leave the estate, and threaten to unharness her\nhorses, so that though everything has been packed up since morning, her\nexcellency cannot get away.\"\n\n\"Impossible!\" exclaimed Rostov.\n\n\"I have the honor to report to you the actual truth,\" said Alpatych.\n\nRostov dismounted, gave his horse to the orderly, and followed Alpatych\nto the house, questioning him as to the state of affairs. It appeared\nthat the princess' offer of corn to the peasants the previous day, and\nher talk with Dron and at the meeting, had actually had so bad an effect\nthat Dron had finally given up the keys and joined the peasants and had\nnot appeared when Alpatych sent for him; and that in the morning when\nthe princess gave orders to harness for her journey, the peasants had\ncome in a large crowd to the barn and sent word that they would not let\nher leave the village: that there was an order not to move, and that\nthey would unharness the horses. Alpatych had gone out to admonish them,\nbut was told (it was chiefly Karp who did the talking, Dron not showing\nhimself in the crowd) that they could not let the princess go, that\nthere was an order to the contrary, but that if she stayed they would\nserve her as before and obey her in everything.\n\nAt the moment when Rostov and Ilyin were galloping along the road,\nPrincess Mary, despite the dissuasions of Alpatych, her nurse, and the\nmaids, had given orders to harness and intended to start, but when the\ncavalrymen were espied they were taken for Frenchmen, the coachman ran\naway, and the women in the house began to wail.\n\n\"Father! Benefactor! God has sent you!\" exclaimed deeply moved voices as\nRostov passed through the anteroom.\n\nPrincess Mary was sitting helpless and bewildered in the large sitting\nroom, when Rostov was shown in. She could not grasp who he was and why\nhe had come, or what was happening to her. When she saw his Russian\nface, and by his walk and the first words he uttered recognized him as a\nman of her own class, she glanced at him with her deep radiant look and\nbegan speaking in a voice that faltered and trembled with emotion. This\nmeeting immediately struck Rostov as a romantic event. \"A helpless girl\noverwhelmed with grief, left to the mercy of coarse, rioting peasants!\nAnd what a strange fate sent me here! What gentleness and nobility there\nare in her features and expression!\" thought he as he looked at her and\nlistened to her timid story.\n\nWhen she began to tell him that all this had happened the day after her\nfather's funeral, her voice trembled. She turned away, and then, as if\nfearing he might take her words as meant to move him to pity, looked at\nhim with an apprehensive glance of inquiry. There were tears in Rostov's\neyes. Princess Mary noticed this and glanced gratefully at him with that\nradiant look which caused the plainness of her face to be forgotten.\n\n\"I cannot express, Princess, how glad I am that I happened to ride here\nand am able to show my readiness to serve you,\" said Rostov, rising. \"Go\nwhen you please, and I give you my word of honor that no one shall dare\nto cause you annoyance if only you will allow me to act as your escort.\"\nAnd bowing respectfully, as if to a lady of royal blood, he moved toward\nthe door.\n\nRostov's deferential tone seemed to indicate that though he would\nconsider himself happy to be acquainted with her, he did not wish to\ntake advantage of her misfortunes to intrude upon her.\n\nPrincess Mary understood this and appreciated his delicacy.\n\n\"I am very, very grateful to you,\" she said in French, \"but I hope it\nwas all a misunderstanding and that no one is to blame for it.\" She\nsuddenly began to cry.\n\n\"Excuse me!\" she said.\n\nRostov, knitting his brows, left the room with another low bow.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\n\"Well, is she pretty? Ah, friend--my pink one is delicious; her name is\nDunyasha....\"\n\nBut on glancing at Rostov's face Ilyin stopped short. He saw that his\nhero and commander was following quite a different train of thought.\n\nRostov glanced angrily at Ilyin and without replying strode off with\nrapid steps to the village.\n\n\"I'll show them; I'll give it to them, the brigands!\" said he to\nhimself.\n\nAlpatych at a gliding trot, only just managing not to run, kept up with\nhim with difficulty.\n\n\"What decision have you been pleased to come to?\" said he.\n\nRostov stopped and, clenching his fists, suddenly and sternly turned on\nAlpatych.\n\n\"Decision? What decision? Old dotard!...\" cried he. \"What have you been\nabout? Eh? The peasants are rioting, and you can't manage them? You're a\ntraitor yourself! I know you. I'll flay you all alive!...\" And as if\nafraid of wasting his store of anger, he left Alpatych and went rapidly\nforward. Alpatych, mastering his offended feelings, kept pace with\nRostov at a gliding gait and continued to impart his views. He said the\npeasants were obdurate and that at the present moment it would be\nimprudent to \"overresist\" them without an armed force, and would it not\nbe better first to send for the military?\n\n\"I'll give them armed force... I'll 'overresist' them!\" uttered Rostov\nmeaninglessly, breathless with irrational animal fury and the need to\nvent it.\n\nWithout considering what he would do he moved unconciously with quick,\nresolute steps toward the crowd. And the nearer he drew to it the more\nAlpatych felt that this unreasonable action might produce good results.\nThe peasants in the crowd were similarly impressed when they saw\nRostov's rapid, firm steps and resolute, frowning face.\n\nAfter the hussars had come to the village and Rostov had gone to see the\nprincess, a certain confusion and dissension had arisen among the crowd.\nSome of the peasants said that these new arrivals were Russians and\nmight take it amiss that the mistress was being detained. Dron was of\nthis opinion, but as soon as he expressed it Karp and others attacked\ntheir ex-Elder.\n\n\"How many years have you been fattening on the commune?\" Karp shouted at\nhim. \"It's all one to you! You'll dig up your pot of money and take it\naway with you.... What does it matter to you whether our homes are\nruined or not?\"\n\n\"We've been told to keep order, and that no one is to leave their homes\nor take away a single grain, and that's all about it!\" cried another.\n\n\"It was your son's turn to be conscripted, but no fear! You begrudged\nyour lump of a son,\" a little old man suddenly began attacking Dron--\n\"and so they took my Vanka to be shaved for a soldier! But we all have\nto die.\"\n\n\"To be sure, we all have to die. I'm not against the commune,\" said\nDron.\n\n\"That's it--not against it! You've filled your belly....\"\n\nThe two tall peasants had their say. As soon as Rostov, followed by\nIlyin, Lavrushka, and Alpatych, came up to the crowd, Karp, thrusting\nhis fingers into his belt and smiling a little, walked to the front.\nDron on the contrary retired to the rear and the crowd drew closer\ntogether.\n\n\"Who is your Elder here? Hey?\" shouted Rostov, coming up to the crowd\nwith quick steps.\n\n\"The Elder? What do you want with him?...\" asked Karp.\n\nBut before the words were well out of his mouth, his cap flew off and a\nfierce blow jerked his head to one side.\n\n\"Caps off, traitors!\" shouted Rostov in a wrathful voice. \"Where's the\nElder?\" he cried furiously.\n\n\"The Elder.... He wants the Elder!... Dron Zakharych, you!\" meek and\nflustered voices here and there were heard calling and caps began to\ncome off their heads.\n\n\"We don't riot, we're following the orders,\" declared Karp, and at that\nmoment several voices began speaking together.\n\n\"It's as the old men have decided--there's too many of you giving\norders.\"\n\n\"Arguing? Mutiny!... Brigands! Traitors!\" cried Rostov unmeaningly in a\nvoice not his own, gripping Karp by the collar. \"Bind him, bind him!\" he\nshouted, though there was no one to bind him but Lavrushka and Alpatych.\n\nLavrushka, however, ran up to Karp and seized him by the arms from\nbehind.\n\n\"Shall I call up our men from beyond the hill?\" he called out.\n\nAlpatych turned to the peasants and ordered two of them by name to come\nand bind Karp. The men obediently came out of the crowd and began taking\noff their belts.\n\n\"Where's the Elder?\" demanded Rostov in a loud voice.\n\nWith a pale and frowning face Dron stepped out of the crowd.\n\n\"Are you the Elder? Bind him, Lavrushka!\" shouted Rostov, as if that\norder, too, could not possibly meet with any opposition.\n\nAnd in fact two more peasants began binding Dron, who took off his own\nbelt and handed it to them, as if to aid them.\n\n\"And you all listen to me!\" said Rostov to the peasants. \"Be off to your\nhouses at once, and don't let one of your voices be heard!\"\n\n\"Why, we've not done any harm! We did it just out of foolishness. It's\nall nonsense... I said then that it was not in order,\" voices were heard\nbickering with one another.\n\n\n\"There! What did I say?\" said Alpatych, coming into his own again. \"It's\nwrong, lads!\"\n\n\"All our stupidity, Yakov Alpatych,\" came the answers, and the crowd\nbegan at once to disperse through the village.\n\nThe two bound men were led off to the master's house. The two drunken\npeasants followed them.\n\n\"Aye, when I look at you!...\" said one of them to Karp.\n\n\"How can one talk to the masters like that? What were you thinking of,\nyou fool?\" added the other--\"A real fool!\"\n\nTwo hours later the carts were standing in the courtyard of the\nBogucharovo house. The peasants were briskly carrying out the\nproprietor's goods and packing them on the carts, and Dron, liberated at\nPrincess Mary's wish from the cupboard where he had been confined, was\nstanding in the yard directing the men.\n\n\"Don't put it in so carelessly,\" said one of the peasants, a man with a\nround smiling face, taking a casket from a housemaid. \"You know it has\ncost money! How can you chuck it in like that or shove it under the cord\nwhere it'll get rubbed? I don't like that way of doing things. Let it\nall be done properly, according to rule. Look here, put it under the\nbast matting and cover it with hay--that's the way!\"\n\n\"Eh, books, books!\" said another peasant, bringing out Prince Andrew's\nlibrary cupboards. \"Don't catch up against it! It's heavy, lads--solid\nbooks.\"\n\n\"Yes, they worked all day and didn't play!\" remarked the tall, round-\nfaced peasant gravely, pointing with a significant wink at the\ndictionaries that were on the top.\n\nUnwilling to obtrude himself on the princess, Rostov did not go back to\nthe house but remained in the village awaiting her departure. When her\ncarriage drove out of the house, he mounted and accompanied her eight\nmiles from Bogucharovo to where the road was occupied by our troops. At\nthe inn at Yankovo he respectfully took leave of her, for the first time\npermitting himself to kiss her hand.\n\n\"How can you speak so!\" he blushingly replied to Princess Mary's\nexpressions of gratitude for her deliverance, as she termed what had\noccurred. \"Any police officer would have done as much! If we had had\nonly peasants to fight, we should not have let the enemy come so far,\"\nsaid he with a sense of shame and wishing to change the subject. \"I am\nonly happy to have had the opportunity of making your acquaintance.\nGood-bye, Princess. I wish you happiness and consolation and hope to\nmeet you again in happier circumstances. If you don't want to make me\nblush, please don't thank me!\"\n\nBut the princess, if she did not again thank him in words, thanked him\nwith the whole expression of her face, radiant with gratitude and\ntenderness. She could not believe that there was nothing to thank him\nfor. On the contrary, it seemed to her certain that had he not been\nthere she would have perished at the hands of the mutineers and of the\nFrench, and that he had exposed himself to terrible and obvious danger\nto save her, and even more certain was it that he was a man of lofty and\nnoble soul, able to understand her position and her sorrow. His kind,\nhonest eyes, with the tears rising in them when she herself had begun to\ncry as she spoke of her loss, did not leave her memory.\n\nWhen she had taken leave of him and remained alone she suddenly felt her\neyes filling with tears, and then not for the first time the strange\nquestion presented itself to her: did she love him?\n\nOn the rest of the way to Moscow, though the princess' position was not\na cheerful one, Dunyasha, who went with her in the carriage, more than\nonce noticed that her mistress leaned out of the window and smiled at\nsomething with an expression of mingled joy and sorrow.\n\n\"Well, supposing I do love him?\" thought Princess Mary.\n\nAshamed as she was of acknowledging to herself that she had fallen in\nlove with a man who would perhaps never love her, she comforted herself\nwith the thought that no one would ever know it and that she would not\nbe to blame if, without ever speaking of it to anyone, she continued to\nthe end of her life to love the man with whom she had fallen in love for\nthe first and last time in her life.\n\nSometimes when she recalled his looks, his sympathy, and his words,\nhappiness did not appear impossible to her. It was at those moments that\nDunyasha noticed her smiling as she looked out of the carriage window.\n\n\"Was it not fate that brought him to Bogucharovo, and at that very\nmoment?\" thought Princess Mary. \"And that caused his sister to refuse my\nbrother?\" And in all this Princess Mary saw the hand of Providence.\n\nThe impression the princess made on Rostov was a very agreeable one. To\nremember her gave him pleasure, and when his comrades, hearing of his\nadventure at Bogucharovo, rallied him on having gone to look for hay and\nhaving picked up one of the wealthiest heiresses in Russia, he grew\nangry. It made him angry just because the idea of marrying the gentle\nPrincess Mary, who was attractive to him and had an enormous fortune,\nhad against his will more than once entered his head. For himself\npersonally Nicholas could not wish for a better wife: by marrying her he\nwould make the countess his mother happy, would be able to put his\nfather's affairs in order, and would even--he felt it--ensure Princess\nMary's happiness.\n\nBut Sonya? And his plighted word? That was why Rostov grew angry when he\nwas rallied about Princess Bolkonskaya.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nOn receiving command of the armies Kutuzov remembered Prince Andrew and\nsent an order for him to report at headquarters.\n\nPrince Andrew arrived at Tsarevo-Zaymishche on the very day and at the\nvery hour that Kutuzov was reviewing the troops for the first time. He\nstopped in the village at the priest's house in front of which stood the\ncommander-in-chief's carriage, and he sat down on the bench at the gate\nawaiting his Serene Highness, as everyone now called Kutuzov. From the\nfield beyond the village came now sounds of regimental music and now the\nroar of many voices shouting \"Hurrah!\" to the new commander-in-chief.\nTwo orderlies, a courier and a major-domo, stood near by, some ten paces\nfrom Prince Andrew, availing themselves of Kutuzov's absence and of the\nfine weather. A short, swarthy lieutenant colonel of hussars with thick\nmustaches and whiskers rode up to the gate and, glancing at Prince\nAndrew, inquired whether his Serene Highness was putting up there and\nwhether he would soon be back.\n\nPrince Andrew replied that he was not on his Serene Highness' staff but\nwas himself a new arrival. The lieutenant colonel turned to a smart\norderly, who, with the peculiar contempt with which a commander-in-\nchief's orderly speaks to officers, replied:\n\n\"What? His Serene Highness? I expect he'll be here soon. What do you\nwant?\"\n\nThe lieutenant colonel of hussars smiled beneath his mustache at the\norderly's tone, dismounted, gave his horse to a dispatch runner, and\napproached Bolkonski with a slight bow. Bolkonski made room for him on\nthe bench and the lieutenant colonel sat down beside him.\n\n\"You're also waiting for the commander-in-chief?\" said he. \"They say he\nweceives evewyone, thank God!... It's awful with those sausage eaters!\nErmolov had weason to ask to be pwomoted to be a German! Now p'waps\nWussians will get a look in. As it was, devil only knows what was\nhappening. We kept wetweating and wetweating. Did you take part in the\ncampaign?\" he asked.\n\n\"I had the pleasure,\" replied Prince Andrew, \"not only of taking part in\nthe retreat but of losing in that retreat all I held dear--not to\nmention the estate and home of my birth--my father, who died of grief. I\nbelong to the province of Smolensk.\"\n\n\"Ah? You're Pwince Bolkonski? Vewy glad to make your acquaintance! I'm\nLieutenant Colonel Denisov, better known as 'Vaska,'\" said Denisov,\npressing Prince Andrew's hand and looking into his face with a\nparticularly kindly attention. \"Yes, I heard,\" said he sympathetically,\nand after a short pause added: \"Yes, it's Scythian warfare. It's all\nvewy well--only not for those who get it in the neck. So you are Pwince\nAndwew Bolkonski?\" He swayed his head. \"Vewy pleased, Pwince, to make\nyour acquaintance!\" he repeated again, smiling sadly, and he again\npressed Prince Andrew's hand.\n\nPrince Andrew knew Denisov from what Natasha had told him of her first\nsuitor. This memory carried him sadly and sweetly back to those painful\nfeelings of which he had not thought lately, but which still found place\nin his soul. Of late he had received so many new and very serious\nimpressions--such as the retreat from Smolensk, his visit to Bald Hills,\nand the recent news of his father's death--and had experienced so many\nemotions, that for a long time past those memories had not entered his\nmind, and now that they did, they did not act on him with nearly their\nformer strength. For Denisov, too, the memories awakened by the name of\nBolkonski belonged to a distant, romantic past, when after supper and\nafter Natasha's singing he had proposed to a little girl of fifteen\nwithout realizing what he was doing. He smiled at the recollection of\nthat time and of his love for Natasha, and passed at once to what now\ninterested him passionately and exclusively. This was a plan of campaign\nhe had devised while serving at the outposts during the retreat. He had\nproposed that plan to Barclay de Tolly and now wished to propose it to\nKutuzov. The plan was based on the fact that the French line of\noperation was too extended, and it proposed that instead of, or\nconcurrently with, action on the front to bar the advance of the French,\nwe should attack their line of communication. He began explaining his\nplan to Prince Andrew.\n\n\"They can't hold all that line. It's impossible. I will undertake to\nbweak thwough. Give me five hundwed men and I will bweak the line,\nthat's certain! There's only one way--guewilla warfare!\"\n\nDenisov rose and began gesticulating as he explained his plan to\nBolkonski. In the midst of his explanation shouts were heard from the\narmy, growing more incoherent and more diffused, mingling with music and\nsongs and coming from the field where the review was held. Sounds of\nhoofs and shouts were nearing the village.\n\n\"He's coming! He's coming!\" shouted a Cossack standing at the gate.\n\nBolkonski and Denisov moved to the gate, at which a knot of soldiers (a\nguard of honor) was standing, and they saw Kutuzov coming down the\nstreet mounted on a rather small sorrel horse. A huge suite of generals\nrode behind him. Barclay was riding almost beside him, and a crowd of\nofficers ran after and around them shouting, \"Hurrah!\"\n\nHis adjutants galloped into the yard before him. Kutuzov was impatiently\nurging on his horse, which ambled smoothly under his weight, and he\nraised his hand to his white Horse Guard's cap with a red band and no\npeak, nodding his head continually. When he came up to the guard of\nhonor, a fine set of Grenadiers mostly wearing decorations, who were\ngiving him the salute, he looked at them silently and attentively for\nnearly a minute with the steady gaze of a commander and then turned to\nthe crowd of generals and officers surrounding him. Suddenly his face\nassumed a subtle expression, he shrugged his shoulders with an air of\nperplexity.\n\n\"And with such fine fellows to retreat and retreat! Well, good-by,\nGeneral,\" he added, and rode into the yard past Prince Andrew and\nDenisov.\n\n\"Hurrah! hurrah! hurrah!\" shouted those behind him.\n\nSince Prince Andrew had last seen him Kutuzov had grown still more\ncorpulent, flaccid, and fat. But the bleached eyeball, the scar, and the\nfamiliar weariness of his expression were still the same. He was wearing\nthe white Horse Guard's cap and a military overcoat with a whip hanging\nover his shoulder by a thin strap. He sat heavily and swayed limply on\nhis brisk little horse.\n\n\"Whew... whew... whew!\" he whistled just audibly as he rode into the\nyard. His face expressed the relief of relaxed strain felt by a man who\nmeans to rest after a ceremony. He drew his left foot out of the stirrup\nand, lurching with his whole body and puckering his face with the\neffort, raised it with difficulty onto the saddle, leaned on his knee,\ngroaned, and slipped down into the arms of the Cossacks and adjutants\nwho stood ready to assist him.\n\nHe pulled himself together, looked round, screwing up his eyes, glanced\nat Prince Andrew, and, evidently not recognizing him, moved with his\nwaddling gait to the porch. \"Whew... whew... whew!\" he whistled, and\nagain glanced at Prince Andrew. As often occurs with old men, it was\nonly after some seconds that the impression produced by Prince Andrew's\nface linked itself up with Kutuzov's remembrance of his personality.\n\n\"Ah, how do you do, my dear prince? How do you do, my dear boy? Come\nalong...\" said he, glancing wearily round, and he stepped onto the porch\nwhich creaked under his weight.\n\nHe unbuttoned his coat and sat down on a bench in the porch.\n\n\"And how's your father?\"\n\n\"I received news of his death, yesterday,\" replied Prince Andrew\nabruptly.\n\nKutuzov looked at him with eyes wide open with dismay and then took off\nhis cap and crossed himself:\n\n\"May the kingdom of Heaven be his! God's will be done to us all!\" He\nsighed deeply, his whole chest heaving, and was silent for a while. \"I\nloved him and respected him, and sympathize with you with all my heart.\"\n\nHe embraced Prince Andrew, pressing him to his fat breast, and for some\ntime did not let him go. When he released him Prince Andrew saw that\nKutuzov's flabby lips were trembling and that tears were in his eyes. He\nsighed and pressed on the bench with both hands to raise himself.\n\n\"Come! Come with me, we'll have a talk,\" said he.\n\nBut at that moment Denisov, no more intimidated by his superiors than by\nthe enemy, came with jingling spurs up the steps of the porch, despite\nthe angry whispers of the adjutants who tried to stop him. Kutuzov, his\nhands still pressed on the seat, glanced at him glumly. Denisov, having\ngiven his name, announced that he had to communicate to his Serene\nHighness a matter of great importance for their country's welfare.\nKutuzov looked wearily at him and, lifting his hands with a gesture of\nannoyance, folded them across his stomach, repeating the words: \"For our\ncountry's welfare? Well, what is it? Speak!\" Denisov blushed like a girl\n(it was strange to see the color rise in that shaggy, bibulous, time-\nworn face) and boldly began to expound his plan of cutting the enemy's\nlines of communication between Smolensk and Vyazma. Denisov came from\nthose parts and knew the country well. His plan seemed decidedly a good\none, especially from the strength of conviction with which he spoke.\nKutuzov looked down at his own legs, occasionally glancing at the door\nof the adjoining hut as if expecting something unpleasant to emerge from\nit. And from that hut, while Denisov was speaking, a general with a\nportfolio under his arm really did appear.\n\n\"What?\" said Kutuzov, in the midst of Denisov's explanations, \"are you\nready so soon?\"\n\n\"Ready, your Serene Highness,\" replied the general.\n\nKutuzov swayed his head, as much as to say: \"How is one man to deal with\nit all?\" and again listened to Denisov.\n\n\"I give my word of honor as a Wussian officer,\" said Denisov, \"that I\ncan bweak Napoleon's line of communication!\"\n\n\"What relation are you to Intendant General Kiril Andreevich Denisov?\"\nasked Kutuzov, interrupting him.\n\n\"He is my uncle, your Sewene Highness.\"\n\n\"Ah, we were friends,\" said Kutuzov cheerfully. \"All right, all right,\nfriend, stay here at the staff and tomorrow we'll have a talk.\"\n\nWith a nod to Denisov he turned away and put out his hand for the papers\nKonovnitsyn had brought him.\n\n\"Would not your Serene Highness like to come inside?\" said the general\non duty in a discontented voice, \"the plans must be examined and several\npapers have to be signed.\"\n\nAn adjutant came out and announced that everything was in readiness\nwithin. But Kutuzov evidently did not wish to enter that room till he\nwas disengaged. He made a grimace...\n\n\"No, tell them to bring a small table out here, my dear boy. I'll look\nat them here,\" said he. \"Don't go away,\" he added, turning to Prince\nAndrew, who remained in the porch and listened to the general's report.\n\nWhile this was being given, Prince Andrew heard the whisper of a woman's\nvoice and the rustle of a silk dress behind the door. Several times on\nglancing that way he noticed behind that door a plump, rosy, handsome\nwoman in a pink dress with a lilac silk kerchief on her head, holding a\ndish and evidently awaiting the entrance of the commander-in-chief.\nKutuzov's adjutant whispered to Prince Andrew that this was the wife of\nthe priest whose home it was, and that she intended to offer his Serene\nHighness bread and salt. \"Her husband has welcomed his Serene Highness\nwith the cross at the church, and she intends to welcome him in the\nhouse.... She's very pretty,\" added the adjutant with a smile. At those\nwords Kutuzov looked round. He was listening to the general's report--\nwhich consisted chiefly of a criticism of the position at Tsarevo-\nZaymishche--as he had listened to Denisov, and seven years previously\nhad listened to the discussion at the Austerlitz council of war. He\nevidently listened only because he had ears which, though there was a\npiece of tow in one of them, could not help hearing; but it was evident\nthat nothing the general could say would surprise or even interest him,\nthat he knew all that would be said beforehand, and heard it all only\nbecause he had to, as one has to listen to the chanting of a service of\nprayer. All that Denisov had said was clever and to the point. What the\ngeneral was saying was even more clever and to the point, but it was\nevident that Kutuzov despised knowledge and cleverness, and knew of\nsomething else that would decide the matter--something independent of\ncleverness and knowledge. Prince Andrew watched the commander-in-chief's\nface attentively, and the only expression he could see there was one of\nboredom, curiosity as to the meaning of the feminine whispering behind\nthe door, and a desire to observe propriety. It was evident that Kutuzov\ndespised cleverness and learning and even the patriotic feeling shown by\nDenisov, but despised them not because of his own intellect, feelings,\nor knowledge--he did not try to display any of these--but because of\nsomething else. He despised them because of his old age and experience\nof life. The only instruction Kutuzov gave of his own accord during that\nreport referred to looting by the Russian troops. At the end of the\nreport the general put before him for signature a paper relating to the\nrecovery of payment from army commanders for green oats mown down by the\nsoldiers, when landowners lodged petitions for compensation.\n\nAfter hearing the matter, Kutuzov smacked his lips together and shook\nhis head.\n\n\"Into the stove... into the fire with it! I tell you once for all, my\ndear fellow,\" said he, \"into the fire with all such things! Let them cut\nthe crops and burn wood to their hearts' content. I don't order it or\nallow it, but I don't exact compensation either. One can't get on\nwithout it. 'When wood is chopped the chips will fly.'\" He looked at the\npaper again. \"Oh, this German precision!\" he muttered, shaking his head.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\n\"Well, that's all!\" said Kutuzov as he signed the last of the documents,\nand rising heavily and smoothing out the folds in his fat white neck he\nmoved toward the door with a more cheerful expression.\n\nThe priest's wife, flushing rosy red, caught up the dish she had after\nall not managed to present at the right moment, though she had so long\nbeen preparing for it, and with a low bow offered it to Kutuzov.\n\nHe screwed up his eyes, smiled, lifted her chin with his hand, and said:\n\n\"Ah, what a beauty! Thank you, sweetheart!\"\n\nHe took some gold pieces from his trouser pocket and put them on the\ndish for her. \"Well, my dear, and how are we getting on?\" he asked,\nmoving to the door of the room assigned to him. The priest's wife\nsmiled, and with dimples in her rosy cheeks followed him into the room.\nThe adjutant came out to the porch and asked Prince Andrew to lunch with\nhim. Half an hour later Prince Andrew was again called to Kutuzov. He\nfound him reclining in an armchair, still in the same unbuttoned\novercoat. He had in his hand a French book which he closed as Prince\nAndrew entered, marking the place with a knife. Prince Andrew saw by the\ncover that it was Les Chevaliers du Cygne by Madame de Genlis.\n\n\"Well, sit down, sit down here. Let's have a talk,\" said Kutuzov. \"It's\nsad, very sad. But remember, my dear fellow, that I am a father to you,\na second father....\"\n\nPrince Andrew told Kutuzov all he knew of his father's death, and what\nhe had seen at Bald Hills when he passed through it.\n\n\"What... what they have brought us to!\" Kutuzov suddenly cried in an\nagitated voice, evidently picturing vividly to himself from Prince\nAndrew's story the condition Russia was in. \"But give me time, give me\ntime!\" he said with a grim look, evidently not wishing to continue this\nagitating conversation, and added: \"I sent for you to keep you with me.\"\n\n\"I thank your Serene Highness, but I fear I am no longer fit for the\nstaff,\" replied Prince Andrew with a smile which Kutuzov noticed.\n\nKutuzov glanced inquiringly at him.\n\n\"But above all,\" added Prince Andrew, \"I have grown used to my regiment,\nam fond of the officers, and I fancy the men also like me. I should be\nsorry to leave the regiment. If I decline the honor of being with you,\nbelieve me...\"\n\nA shrewd, kindly, yet subtly derisive expression lit up Kutuzov's podgy\nface. He cut Bolkonski short.\n\n\"I am sorry, for I need you. But you're right, you're right! It's not\nhere that men are needed. Advisers are always plentiful, but men are\nnot. The regiments would not be what they are if the would-be advisers\nserved there as you do. I remember you at Austerlitz.... I remember,\nyes, I remember you with the standard!\" said Kutuzov, and a flush of\npleasure suffused Prince Andrew's face at this recollection.\n\nTaking his hand and drawing him downwards, Kutuzov offered his cheek to\nbe kissed, and again Prince Andrew noticed tears in the old man's eyes.\nThough Prince Andrew knew that Kutuzov's tears came easily, and that he\nwas particularly tender to and considerate of him from a wish to show\nsympathy with his loss, yet this reminder of Austerlitz was both\npleasant and flattering to him.\n\n\"Go your way and God be with you. I know your path is the path of\nhonor!\" He paused. \"I missed you at Bucharest, but I needed someone to\nsend.\" And changing the subject, Kutuzov began to speak of the Turkish\nwar and the peace that had been concluded. \"Yes, I have been much\nblamed,\" he said, \"both for that war and the peace... but everything\ncame at the right time. Tout vient a point a celui qui sait attendre. *\nAnd there were as many advisers there as here...\" he went on, returning\nto the subject of \"advisers\" which evidently occupied him. \"Ah, those\nadvisers!\" said he. \"If we had listened to them all we should not have\nmade peace with Turkey and should not have been through with that war.\nEverything in haste, but more haste, less speed. Kamenski would have\nbeen lost if he had not died. He stormed fortresses with thirty thousand\nmen. It is not difficult to capture a fortress but it is difficult to\nwin a campaign. For that, not storming and attacking but patience and\ntime are wanted. Kamenski sent soldiers to Rustchuk, but I only employed\nthese two things and took more fortresses than Kamenski and made them\nTurks eat horseflesh!\" He swayed his head. \"And the French shall too,\nbelieve me,\" he went on, growing warmer and beating his chest, \"I'll\nmake them eat horseflesh!\" And tears again dimmed his eyes.\n\n\n* \"Everything comes in time to him who knows how to wait.\"\n\n\"But shan't we have to accept battle?\" remarked Prince Andrew.\n\n\"We shall if everybody wants it; it can't be helped.... But believe me,\nmy dear boy, there is nothing stronger than those two: patience and\ntime, they will do it all. But the advisers n'entendent pas de cette\noreille, voila le mal. * Some want a thing--others don't. What's one to\ndo?\" he asked, evidently expecting an answer. \"Well, what do you want us\nto do?\" he repeated and his eye shone with a deep, shrewd look. \"I'll\ntell you what to do,\" he continued, as Prince Andrew still did not\nreply: \"I will tell you what to do, and what I do. Dans le doute, mon\ncher,\" he paused, \"abstiens-toi\" *(2)--he articulated the French proverb\ndeliberately.\n\n\n* \"Don't see it that way, that's the trouble.\"\n\n* (2) \"When in doubt, my dear fellow, do nothing.\"\n\n\"Well, good-by, my dear fellow; remember that with all my heart I share\nyour sorrow, and that for you I am not a Serene Highness, nor a prince,\nnor a commander-in-chief, but a father! If you want anything come\nstraight to me. Good-bye, my dear boy.\"\n\nAgain he embraced and kissed Prince Andrew, but before the latter had\nleft the room Kutuzov gave a sigh of relief and went on with his\nunfinished novel, Les Chevaliers du Cygne by Madame de Genlis.\n\nPrince Andrew could not have explained how or why it was, but after that\ninterview with Kutuzov he went back to his regiment reassured as to the\ngeneral course of affairs and as to the man to whom it had been\nentrusted. The more he realized the absence of all personal motive in\nthat old man--in whom there seemed to remain only the habit of passions,\nand in place of an intellect (grouping events and drawing conclusions)\nonly the capacity calmly to contemplate the course of events--the more\nreassured he was that everything would be as it should. \"He will not\nbring in any plan of his own. He will not devise or undertake anything,\"\nthought Prince Andrew, \"but he will hear everything, remember\neverything, and put everything in its place. He will not hinder anything\nuseful nor allow anything harmful. He understands that there is\nsomething stronger and more important than his own will--the inevitable\ncourse of events, and he can see them and grasp their significance, and\nseeing that significance can refrain from meddling and renounce his\npersonal wish directed to something else. And above all,\" thought Prince\nAndrew, \"one believes in him because he's Russian, despite the novel by\nGenlis and the French proverbs, and because his voice shook when he\nsaid: 'What they have brought us to!' and had a sob in it when he said\nhe would 'make them eat horseflesh!'\"\n\nOn such feelings, more or less dimly shared by all, the unanimity and\ngeneral approval were founded with which, despite court influences, the\npopular choice of Kutuzov as commander-in-chief was received.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nAfter the Emperor had left Moscow, life flowed on there in its usual\ncourse, and its course was so very usual that it was difficult to\nremember the recent days of patriotic elation and ardor, hard to believe\nthat Russia was really in danger and that the members of the English\nClub were also sons of the Fatherland ready to sacrifice everything for\nit. The one thing that recalled the patriotic fervor everyone had\ndisplayed during the Emperor's stay was the call for contributions of\nmen and money, a necessity that as soon as the promises had been made\nassumed a legal, official form and became unavoidable.\n\nWith the enemy's approach to Moscow, the Moscovites' view of their\nsituation did not grow more serious but on the contrary became even more\nfrivolous, as always happens with people who see a great danger\napproaching. At the approach of danger there are always two voices that\nspeak with equal power in the human soul: one very reasonably tells a\nman to consider the nature of the danger and the means of escaping it;\nthe other, still more reasonably, says that it is too depressing and\npainful to think of the danger, since it is not in man's power to\nforesee everything and avert the general course of events, and it is\ntherefore better to disregard what is painful till it comes, and to\nthink about what is pleasant. In solitude a man generally listens to the\nfirst voice, but in society to the second. So it was now with the\ninhabitants of Moscow. It was long since people had been as gay in\nMoscow as that year.\n\nRostopchin's broadsheets, headed by woodcuts of a drink shop, a potman,\nand a Moscow burgher called Karpushka Chigirin, \"who--having been a\nmilitiaman and having had rather too much at the pub--heard that\nNapoleon wished to come to Moscow, grew angry, abused the French in very\nbad language, came out of the drink shop, and, under the sign of the\neagle, began to address the assembled people,\" were read and discussed,\ntogether with the latest of Vasili Lvovich Pushkin's bouts rimes.\n\nIn the corner room at the club, members gathered to read these\nbroadsheets, and some liked the way Karpushka jeered at the French,\nsaying: \"They will swell up with Russian cabbage, burst with our\nbuckwheat porridge, and choke themselves with cabbage soup. They are all\ndwarfs and one peasant woman will toss three of them with a hayfork.\"\nOthers did not like that tone and said it was stupid and vulgar. It was\nsaid that Rostopchin had expelled all Frenchmen and even all foreigners\nfrom Moscow, and that there had been some spies and agents of Napoleon\namong them; but this was told chiefly to introduce Rostopchin's witty\nremark on that occasion. The foreigners were deported to Nizhni by boat,\nand Rostopchin had said to them in French: \"Rentrez en vousmemes; entrez\ndans la barque, et n'en faites pas une barque de Charon.\" * There was\ntalk of all the government offices having been already removed from\nMoscow, and to this Shinshin's witticism was added--that for that alone\nMoscow ought to be grateful to Napoleon. It was said that Mamonov's\nregiment would cost him eight hundred thousand rubles, and that Bezukhov\nhad spent even more on his, but that the best thing about Bezukhov's\naction was that he himself was going to don a uniform and ride at the\nhead of his regiment without charging anything for the show.\n\n\n* \"Think it over; get into the barque, and take care not to make it a\nbarque of Charon.\"\n\n\"You don't spare anyone,\" said Julie Drubetskaya as she collected and\npressed together a bunch of raveled lint with her thin, beringed\nfingers.\n\nJulie was preparing to leave Moscow next day and was giving a farewell\nsoiree.\n\n\"Bezukhov est ridicule, but he is so kind and good-natured. What\npleasure is there to be so caustique?\"\n\n\"A forfeit!\" cried a young man in militia uniform whom Julie called \"mon\nchevalier,\" and who was going with her to Nizhni.\n\nIn Julie's set, as in many other circles in Moscow, it had been agreed\nthat they would speak nothing but Russian and that those who made a slip\nand spoke French should pay fines to the Committee of Voluntary\nContributions.\n\n\"Another forfeit for a Gallicism,\" said a Russian writer who was\npresent. \"'What pleasure is there to be' is not Russian!\"\n\n\"You spare no one,\" continued Julie to the young man without heeding the\nauthor's remark.\n\n\"For caustique--I am guilty and will pay, and I am prepared to pay again\nfor the pleasure of telling you the truth. For Gallicisms I won't be\nresponsible,\" she remarked, turning to the author: \"I have neither the\nmoney nor the time, like Prince Galitsyn, to engage a master to teach me\nRussian!\"\n\n\"Ah, here he is!\" she added. \"Quand on... No, no,\" she said to the\nmilitia officer, \"you won't catch me. Speak of the sun and you see its\nrays!\" and she smiled amiably at Pierre. \"We were just talking of you,\"\nshe said with the facility in lying natural to a society woman. \"We were\nsaying that your regiment would be sure to be better than Mamonov's.\"\n\n\"Oh, don't talk to me of my regiment,\" replied Pierre, kissing his\nhostess' hand and taking a seat beside her. \"I am so sick of it.\"\n\n\"You will, of course, command it yourself?\" said Julie, directing a sly,\nsarcastic glance toward the militia officer.\n\nThe latter in Pierre's presence had ceased to be caustic, and his face\nexpressed perplexity as to what Julie's smile might mean. In spite of\nhis absent-mindedness and good nature, Pierre's personality immediately\nchecked any attempt to ridicule him to his face.\n\n\"No,\" said Pierre, with a laughing glance at his big, stout body. \"I\nshould make too good a target for the French, besides I am afraid I\nshould hardly be able to climb onto a horse.\"\n\nAmong those whom Julie's guests happened to choose to gossip about were\nthe Rostovs.\n\n\"I hear that their affairs are in a very bad way,\" said Julie. \"And he\nis so unreasonable, the count himself I mean. The Razumovskis wanted to\nbuy his house and his estate near Moscow, but it drags on and on. He\nasks too much.\"\n\n\"No, I think the sale will come off in a few days,\" said someone.\n\"Though it is madness to buy anything in Moscow now.\"\n\n\"Why?\" asked Julie. \"You don't think Moscow is in danger?\"\n\n\"Then why are you leaving?\"\n\n\"I? What a question! I am going because... well, because everyone is\ngoing: and besides--I am not Joan of Arc or an Amazon.\"\n\n\"Well, of course, of course! Let me have some more strips of linen.\"\n\n\"If he manages the business properly he will be able to pay off all his\ndebts,\" said the militia officer, speaking of Rostov.\n\n\"A kindly old man but not up to much. And why do they stay on so long in\nMoscow? They meant to leave for the country long ago. Natalie is quite\nwell again now, isn't she?\" Julie asked Pierre with a knowing smile.\n\n\"They are waiting for their younger son,\" Pierre replied. \"He joined\nObolenski's Cossacks and went to Belaya Tserkov where the regiment is\nbeing formed. But now they have had him transferred to my regiment and\nare expecting him every day. The count wanted to leave long ago, but the\ncountess won't on any account leave Moscow till her son returns.\"\n\n\"I met them the day before yesterday at the Arkharovs'. Natalie has\nrecovered her looks and is brighter. She sang a song. How easily some\npeople get over everything!\"\n\n\"Get over what?\" inquired Pierre, looking displeased.\n\nJulie smiled.\n\n\"You know, Count, such knights as you are only found in Madame de\nSouza's novels.\"\n\n\"What knights? What do you mean?\" demanded Pierre, blushing.\n\n\"Oh, come, my dear count! C'est la fable de tout Moscou. Je vous admire,\nma parole d'honneur!\" *\n\n\n* \"It is the talk of all Moscow. My word, I admire you!\"\n\n\"Forfeit, forfeit!\" cried the militia officer.\n\n\"All right, one can't talk--how tiresome!\"\n\n\"What is 'the talk of all Moscow'?\" Pierre asked angrily, rising to his\nfeet.\n\n\"Come now, Count, you know!\"\n\n\"I don't know anything about it,\" said Pierre.\n\n\"I know you were friendly with Natalie, and so... but I was always more\nfriendly with Vera--that dear Vera.\"\n\n\"No, madame!\" Pierre continued in a tone of displeasure, \"I have not\ntaken on myself the role of Natalie Rostova's knight at all, and have\nnot been to their house for nearly a month. But I cannot understand the\ncruelty...\"\n\n\"Qui s'excuse s'accuse,\" * said Julie, smiling and waving the lint\ntriumphantly, and to have the last word she promptly changed the\nsubject. \"Do you know what I heard today? Poor Mary Bolkonskaya arrived\nin Moscow yesterday. Do you know that she has lost her father?\"\n\n\n* \"Who excuses himself, accuses himself.\"\n\n\"Really? Where is she? I should like very much to see her,\" said Pierre.\n\n\"I spent the evening with her yesterday. She is going to their estate\nnear Moscow either today or tomorrow morning, with her nephew.\"\n\n\"Well, and how is she?\" asked Pierre.\n\n\"She is well, but sad. But do you know who rescued her? It is quite a\nromance. Nicholas Rostov! She was surrounded, and they wanted to kill\nher and had wounded some of her people. He rushed in and saved her....\"\n\n\"Another romance,\" said the militia officer. \"Really, this general\nflight has been arranged to get all the old maids married off. Catiche\nis one and Princess Bolkonskaya another.\"\n\n\"Do you know, I really believe she is un petit peu amoureuse du jeune\nhomme.\" *\n\n\n* \"A little bit in love with the young man.\"\n\n\"Forfeit, forfeit, forfeit!\"\n\n\"But how could one say that in Russian?\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nWhen Pierre returned home he was handed two of Rostopchin's broadsheets\nthat had been brought that day.\n\nThe first declared that the report that Count Rostopchin had forbidden\npeople to leave Moscow was false; on the contrary he was glad that\nladies and tradesmen's wives were leaving the city. \"There will be less\npanic and less gossip,\" ran the broadsheet \"but I will stake my life on\nit that scoundrel will not enter Moscow.\" These words showed Pierre\nclearly for the first time that the French would enter Moscow. The\nsecond broadsheet stated that our headquarters were at Vyazma, that\nCount Wittgenstein had defeated the French, but that as many of the\ninhabitants of Moscow wished to be armed, weapons were ready for them at\nthe arsenal: sabers, pistols, and muskets which could be had at a low\nprice. The tone of the proclamation was not as jocose as in the former\nChigirin talks. Pierre pondered over these broadsheets. Evidently the\nterrible stormcloud he had desired with the whole strength of his soul\nbut which yet aroused involuntary horror in him was drawing near.\n\n\"Shall I join the army and enter the service, or wait?\" he asked himself\nfor the hundredth time. He took a pack of cards that lay on the table\nand began to lay them out for a game of patience.\n\n\"If this patience comes out,\" he said to himself after shuffling the\ncards, holding them in his hand, and lifting his head, \"if it comes out,\nit means... what does it mean?\"\n\nHe had not decided what it should mean when he heard the voice of the\neldest princess at the door asking whether she might come in.\n\n\"Then it will mean that I must go to the army,\" said Pierre to himself.\n\"Come in, come in!\" he added to the princess.\n\nOnly the eldest princess, the one with the stony face and long waist,\nwas still living in Pierre's house. The two younger ones had both\nmarried.\n\n\"Excuse my coming to you, cousin,\" she said in a reproachful and\nagitated voice. \"You know some decision must be come to. What is going\nto happen? Everyone has left Moscow and the people are rioting. How is\nit that we are staying on?\"\n\n\"On the contrary, things seem satisfactory, ma cousine,\" said Pierre in\nthe bantering tone he habitually adopted toward her, always feeling\nuncomfortable in the role of her benefactor.\n\n\"Satisfactory, indeed! Very satisfactory! Barbara Ivanovna told me today\nhow our troops are distinguishing themselves. It certainly does them\ncredit! And the people too are quite mutinous--they no longer obey, even\nmy maid has taken to being rude. At this rate they will soon begin\nbeating us. One can't walk in the streets. But, above all, the French\nwill be here any day now, so what are we waiting for? I ask just one\nthing of you, cousin,\" she went on, \"arrange for me to be taken to\nPetersburg. Whatever I may be, I can't live under Bonaparte's rule.\"\n\n\"Oh, come, ma cousine! Where do you get your information from? On the\ncontrary...\"\n\n\"I won't submit to your Napoleon! Others may if they please.... If you\ndon't want to do this...\"\n\n\"But I will, I'll give the order at once.\"\n\nThe princess was apparently vexed at not having anyone to be angry with.\nMuttering to herself, she sat down on a chair.\n\n\"But you have been misinformed,\" said Pierre. \"Everything is quiet in\nthe city and there is not the slightest danger. See! I've just been\nreading...\" He showed her the broadsheet. \"Count Rostopchin writes that\nhe will stake his life on it that the enemy will not enter Moscow.\"\n\n\"Oh, that count of yours!\" said the princess malevolently. \"He is a\nhypocrite, a rascal who has himself roused the people to riot. Didn't he\nwrite in those idiotic broadsheets that anyone, 'whoever it might be,\nshould be dragged to the lockup by his hair'? (How silly!) 'And honor\nand glory to whoever captures him,' he says. This is what his cajolery\nhas brought us to! Barbara Ivanovna told me the mob near killed her\nbecause she said something in French.\"\n\n\"Oh, but it's so... You take everything so to heart,\" said Pierre, and\nbegan laying out his cards for patience.\n\nAlthough that patience did come out, Pierre did not join the army, but\nremained in deserted Moscow ever in the same state of agitation,\nirresolution, and alarm, yet at the same time joyfully expecting\nsomething terrible.\n\nNext day toward evening the princess set off, and Pierre's head steward\ncame to inform him that the money needed for the equipment of his\nregiment could not be found without selling one of the estates. In\ngeneral the head steward made out to Pierre that his project of raising\na regiment would ruin him. Pierre listened to him, scarcely able to\nrepress a smile.\n\n\"Well then, sell it,\" said he. \"What's to be done? I can't draw back\nnow!\"\n\nThe worse everything became, especially his own affairs, the better was\nPierre pleased and the more evident was it that the catastrophe he\nexpected was approaching. Hardly anyone he knew was left in town. Julie\nhad gone, and so had Princess Mary. Of his intimate friends only the\nRostovs remained, but he did not go to see them.\n\nTo distract his thoughts he drove that day to the village of Vorontsovo\nto see the great balloon Leppich was constructing to destroy the foe,\nand a trial balloon that was to go up next day. The balloon was not yet\nready, but Pierre learned that it was being constructed by the Emperor's\ndesire. The Emperor had written to Count Rostopchin as follows:\n\nAs soon as Leppich is ready, get together a crew of reliable and\nintelligent men for his car and send a courier to General Kutuzov to let\nhim know. I have informed him of the matter.\n\nPlease impress upon Leppich to be very careful where he descends for the\nfirst time, that he may not make a mistake and fall into the enemy's\nhands. It is essential for him to combine his movements with those of\nthe commander-in-chief.\n\nOn his way home from Vorontsovo, as he was passing the Bolotnoe Place\nPierre, seeing a large crowd round the Lobnoe Place, stopped and got out\nof his trap. A French cook accused of being a spy was being flogged. The\nflogging was only just over, and the executioner was releasing from the\nflogging bench a stout man with red whiskers, in blue stockings and a\ngreen jacket, who was moaning piteously. Another criminal, thin and\npale, stood near. Judging by their faces they were both Frenchmen. With\na frightened and suffering look resembling that on the thin Frenchman's\nface, Pierre pushed his way in through the crowd.\n\n\"What is it? Who is it? What is it for?\" he kept asking.\n\nBut the attention of the crowd--officials, burghers, shopkeepers,\npeasants, and women in cloaks and in pelisses--was so eagerly centered\non what was passing in Lobnoe Place that no one answered him. The stout\nman rose, frowned, shrugged his shoulders, and evidently trying to\nappear firm began to pull on his jacket without looking about him, but\nsuddenly his lips trembled and he began to cry, in the way full-blooded\ngrown-up men cry, though angry with himself for doing so. In the crowd\npeople began talking loudly, to stifle their feelings of pity as it\nseemed to Pierre.\n\n\"He's cook to some prince.\"\n\n\"Eh, mounseer, Russian sauce seems to be sour to a Frenchman... sets his\nteeth on edge!\" said a wrinkled clerk who was standing behind Pierre,\nwhen the Frenchman began to cry.\n\nThe clerk glanced round, evidently hoping that his joke would be\nappreciated. Some people began to laugh, others continued to watch in\ndismay the executioner who was undressing the other man.\n\nPierre choked, his face puckered, and he turned hastily away, went back\nto his trap muttering something to himself as he went, and took his\nseat. As they drove along he shuddered and exclaimed several times so\naudibly that the coachman asked him:\n\n\"What is your pleasure?\"\n\n\"Where are you going?\" shouted Pierre to the man, who was driving to\nLubyanka Street.\n\n\"To the Governor's, as you ordered,\" answered the coachman.\n\n\"Fool! Idiot!\" shouted Pierre, abusing his coachman--a thing he rarely\ndid. \"Home, I told you! And drive faster, blockhead!\" \"I must get away\nthis very day,\" he murmured to himself.\n\nAt the sight of the tortured Frenchman and the crowd surrounding the\nLobnoe Place, Pierre had so definitely made up his mind that he could no\nlonger remain in Moscow and would leave for the army that very day that\nit seemed to him that either he had told the coachman this or that the\nman ought to have known it for himself.\n\nOn reaching home Pierre gave orders to Evstafey--his head coachman who\nknew everything, could do anything, and was known to all Moscow--that he\nwould leave that night for the army at Mozhaysk, and that his saddle\nhorses should be sent there. This could not all be arranged that day, so\non Evstafey's representation Pierre had to put off his departure till\nnext day to allow time for the relay horses to be sent on in advance.\n\nOn the twenty-fourth the weather cleared up after a spell of rain, and\nafter dinner Pierre left Moscow. When changing horses that night in\nPerkhushkovo, he learned that there had been a great battle that\nevening. (This was the battle of Shevardino.) He was told that there in\nPerkhushkovo the earth trembled from the firing, but nobody could answer\nhis questions as to who had won. At dawn next day Pierre was approaching\nMozhaysk.\n\nEvery house in Mozhaysk had soldiers quartered in it, and at the hostel\nwhere Pierre was met by his groom and coachman there was no room to be\nhad. It was full of officers.\n\nEverywhere in Mozhaysk and beyond it, troops were stationed or on the\nmarch. Cossacks, foot and horse soldiers, wagons, caissons, and cannon\nwere everywhere. Pierre pushed forward as fast as he could, and the\nfarther he left Moscow behind and the deeper he plunged into that sea of\ntroops the more was he overcome by restless agitation and a new and\njoyful feeling he had not experienced before. It was a feeling akin to\nwhat he had felt at the Sloboda Palace during the Emperor's visit--a\nsense of the necessity of undertaking something and sacrificing\nsomething. He now experienced a glad consciousness that everything that\nconstitutes men's happiness--the comforts of life, wealth, even life\nitself--is rubbish it is pleasant to throw away, compared with\nsomething... With what? Pierre could not say, and he did not try to\ndetermine for whom and for what he felt such particular delight in\nsacrificing everything. He was not occupied with the question of what to\nsacrifice for; the fact of sacrificing in itself afforded him a new and\njoyous sensation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nOn the twenty-fourth of August the battle of the Shevardino Redoubt was\nfought, on the twenty-fifth not a shot was fired by either side, and on\nthe twenty-sixth the battle of Borodino itself took place.\n\nWhy and how were the battles of Shevardino and Borodino given and\naccepted? Why was the battle of Borodino fought? There was not the least\nsense in it for either the French or the Russians. Its immediate result\nfor the Russians was, and was bound to be, that we were brought nearer\nto the destruction of Moscow--which we feared more than anything in the\nworld; and for the French its immediate result was that they were\nbrought nearer to the destruction of their whole army--which they feared\nmore than anything in the world. What the result must be was quite\nobvious, and yet Napoleon offered and Kutuzov accepted that battle.\n\nIf the commanders had been guided by reason, it would seem that it must\nhave been obvious to Napoleon that by advancing thirteen hundred miles\nand giving battle with a probability of losing a quarter of his army, he\nwas advancing to certain destruction, and it must have been equally\nclear to Kutuzov that by accepting battle and risking the loss of a\nquarter of his army he would certainly lose Moscow. For Kutuzov this was\nmathematically clear, as it is that if when playing draughts I have one\nman less and go on exchanging, I shall certainly lose, and therefore\nshould not exchange. When my opponent has sixteen men and I have\nfourteen, I am only one eighth weaker than he, but when I have exchanged\nthirteen more men he will be three times as strong as I am.\n\nBefore the battle of Borodino our strength in proportion to the French\nwas about as five to six, but after that battle it was little more than\none to two: previously we had a hundred thousand against a hundred and\ntwenty thousand; afterwards little more than fifty thousand against a\nhundred thousand. Yet the shrewd and experienced Kutuzov accepted the\nbattle, while Napoleon, who was said to be a commander of genius, gave\nit, losing a quarter of his army and lengthening his lines of\ncommunication still more. If it is said that he expected to end the\ncampaign by occupying Moscow as he had ended a previous campaign by\noccupying Vienna, there is much evidence to the contrary. Napoleon's\nhistorians themselves tell us that from Smolensk onwards he wished to\nstop, knew the danger of his extended position, and knew that the\noccupation of Moscow would not be the end of the campaign, for he had\nseen at Smolensk the state in which Russian towns were left to him, and\nhad not received a single reply to his repeated announcements of his\nwish to negotiate.\n\nIn giving and accepting battle at Borodino, Kutuzov acted involuntarily\nand irrationally. But later on, to fit what had occurred, the historians\nprovided cunningly devised evidence of the foresight and genius of the\ngenerals who, of all the blind tools of history were the most enslaved\nand involuntary.\n\nThe ancients have left us model heroic poems in which the heroes furnish\nthe whole interest of the story, and we are still unable to accustom\nourselves to the fact that for our epoch histories of that kind are\nmeaningless.\n\nOn the other question, how the battle of Borodino and the preceding\nbattle of Shevardino were fought, there also exists a definite and well-\nknown, but quite false, conception. All the historians describe the\naffair as follows:\n\nThe Russian army, they say, in its retreat from Smolensk sought out for\nitself the best position for a general engagement and found such a\nposition at Borodino.\n\nThe Russians, they say, fortified this position in advance on the left\nof the highroad (from Moscow to Smolensk) and almost at a right angle to\nit, from Borodino to Utitsa, at the very place where the battle was\nfought.\n\nIn front of this position, they say, a fortified outpost was set up on\nthe Shevardino mound to observe the enemy. On the twenty-fourth, we are\ntold, Napoleon attacked this advanced post and took it, and, on the\ntwenty-sixth, attacked the whole Russian army, which was in position on\nthe field of Borodino.\n\nSo the histories say, and it is all quite wrong, as anyone who cares to\nlook into the matter can easily convince himself.\n\nThe Russians did not seek out the best position but, on the contrary,\nduring the retreat passed many positions better than Borodino. They did\nnot stop at any one of these positions because Kutuzov did not wish to\noccupy a position he had not himself chosen, because the popular demand\nfor a battle had not yet expressed itself strongly enough, and because\nMiloradovich had not yet arrived with the militia, and for many other\nreasons. The fact is that other positions they had passed were stronger,\nand that the position at Borodino (the one where the battle was fought),\nfar from being strong, was no more a position than any other spot one\nmight find in the Russian Empire by sticking a pin into the map at\nhazard.\n\nNot only did the Russians not fortify the position on the field of\nBorodino to the left of, and at a right angle to, the highroad (that is,\nthe position on which the battle took place), but never till the twenty-\nfifth of August, 1812, did they think that a battle might be fought\nthere. This was shown first by the fact that there were no entrenchments\nthere by the twenty fifth and that those begun on the twenty-fifth and\ntwenty-sixth were not completed, and secondly, by the position of the\nShevardino Redoubt. That redoubt was quite senseless in front of the\nposition where the battle was accepted. Why was it more strongly\nfortified than any other post? And why were all efforts exhausted and\nsix thousand men sacrificed to defend it till late at night on the\ntwenty-fourth? A Cossack patrol would have sufficed to observe the\nenemy. Thirdly, as proof that the position on which the battle was\nfought had not been foreseen and that the Shevardino Redoubt was not an\nadvanced post of that position, we have the fact that up to the twenty-\nfifth, Barclay de Tolly and Bagration were convinced that the Shevardino\nRedoubt was the left flank of the position, and that Kutuzov himself in\nhis report, written in hot haste after the battle, speaks of the\nShevardino Redoubt as the left flank of the position. It was much later,\nwhen reports on the battle of Borodino were written at leisure, that the\nincorrect and extraordinary statement was invented (probably to justify\nthe mistakes of a commander-in-chief who had to be represented as\ninfallible) that the Shevardino Redoubt was an advanced post--whereas in\nreality it was simply a fortified point on the left flank--and that the\nbattle of Borodino was fought by us on an entrenched position previously\nselected, where as it was fought on a quite unexpected spot which was\nalmost unentrenched.\n\nThe case was evidently this: a position was selected along the river\nKolocha--which crosses the highroad not at a right angle but at an acute\nangle--so that the left flank was at Shevardino, the right flank near\nthe village of Novoe, and the center at Borodino at the confluence of\nthe rivers Kolocha and Voyna.\n\nTo anyone who looks at the field of Borodino without thinking of how the\nbattle was actually fought, this position, protected by the river\nKolocha, presents itself as obvious for an army whose object was to\nprevent an enemy from advancing along the Smolensk road to Moscow.\n\nNapoleon, riding to Valuevo on the twenty-fourth, did not see (as the\nhistory books say he did) the position of the Russians from Utitsa to\nBorodino (he could not have seen that position because it did not\nexist), nor did he see an advanced post of the Russian army, but while\npursuing the Russian rearguard he came upon the left flank of the\nRussian position--at the Shevardino Redoubt--and unexpectedly for the\nRussians moved his army across the Kolocha. And the Russians, not having\ntime to begin a general engagement, withdrew their left wing from the\nposition they had intended to occupy and took up a new position which\nhad not been foreseen and was not fortified. By crossing to the other\nside of the Kolocha to the left of the highroad, Napoleon shifted the\nwhole forthcoming battle from right to left (looking from the Russian\nside) and transferred it to the plain between Utitsa, Semenovsk, and\nBorodino--a plain no more advantageous as a position than any other\nplain in Russia--and there the whole battle of the twenty-sixth of\nAugust took place.\n\nHad Napoleon not ridden out on the evening of the twenty-fourth to the\nKolocha, and had he not then ordered an immediate attack on the redoubt\nbut had begun the attack next morning, no one would have doubted that\nthe Shevardino Redoubt was the left flank of our position, and the\nbattle would have taken place where we expected it. In that case we\nshould probably have defended the Shevardino Redoubt--our left flank--\nstill more obstinately. We should have attacked Napoleon in the center\nor on the right, and the engagement would have taken place on the\ntwenty-fifth, in the position we intended and had fortified. But as the\nattack on our left flank took place in the evening after the retreat of\nour rear guard (that is, immediately after the fight at Gridneva), and\nas the Russian commanders did not wish, or were not in time, to begin a\ngeneral engagement then on the evening of the twenty-fourth, the first\nand chief action of the battle of Borodino was already lost on the\ntwenty-fourth, and obviously led to the loss of the one fought on the\ntwenty-sixth.\n\nAfter the loss of the Shevardino Redoubt, we found ourselves on the\nmorning of the twenty-fifth without a position for our left flank, and\nwere forced to bend it back and hastily entrench it where it chanced to\nbe.\n\nNot only was the Russian army on the twenty-sixth defended by weak,\nunfinished entrenchments, but the disadvantage of that position was\nincreased by the fact that the Russian commanders--not having fully\nrealized what had happened, namely the loss of our position on the left\nflank and the shifting of the whole field of the forthcoming battle from\nright to left--maintained their extended position from the village of\nNovoe to Utitsa, and consequently had to move their forces from right to\nleft during the battle. So it happened that throughout the whole battle\nthe Russians opposed the entire French army launched against our left\nflank with but half as many men. (Poniatowski's action against Utitsa,\nand Uvarov's on the right flank against the French, were actions\ndistinct from the main course of the battle.) So the battle of Borodino\ndid not take place at all as (in an effort to conceal our commanders'\nmistakes even at the cost of diminishing the glory due to the Russian\narmy and people) it has been described. The battle of Borodino was not\nfought on a chosen and entrenched position with forces only slightly\nweaker than those of the enemy, but, as a result of the loss of the\nShevardino Redoubt, the Russians fought the battle of Borodino on an\nopen and almost unentrenched position, with forces only half as numerous\nas the French; that is to say, under conditions in which it was not\nmerely unthinkable to fight for ten hours and secure an indecisive\nresult, but unthinkable to keep an army even from complete\ndisintegration and flight.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nOn the morning of the twenty-fifth Pierre was leaving Mozhaysk. At the\ndescent of the high steep hill, down which a winding road led out of the\ntown past the cathedral on the right, where a service was being held and\nthe bells were ringing, Pierre got out of his vehicle and proceeded on\nfoot. Behind him a cavalry regiment was coming down the hill preceded by\nits singers. Coming up toward him was a train of carts carrying men who\nhad been wounded in the engagement the day before. The peasant drivers,\nshouting and lashing their horses, kept crossing from side to side. The\ncarts, in each of which three or four wounded soldiers were lying or\nsitting, jolted over the stones that had been thrown on the steep\nincline to make it something like a road. The wounded, bandaged with\nrags, with pale cheeks, compressed lips, and knitted brows, held on to\nthe sides of the carts as they were jolted against one another. Almost\nall of them stared with naive, childlike curiosity at Pierre's white hat\nand green swallow-tail coat.\n\nPierre's coachman shouted angrily at the convoy of wounded to keep to\none side of the road. The cavalry regiment, as it descended the hill\nwith its singers, surrounded Pierre's carriage and blocked the road.\nPierre stopped, being pressed against the side of the cutting in which\nthe road ran. The sunshine from behind the hill did not penetrate into\nthe cutting and there it was cold and damp, but above Pierre's head was\nthe bright August sunshine and the bells sounded merrily. One of the\ncarts with wounded stopped by the side of the road close to Pierre. The\ndriver in his bast shoes ran panting up to it, placed a stone under one\nof its tireless hind wheels, and began arranging the breech-band on his\nlittle horse.\n\nOne of the wounded, an old soldier with a bandaged arm who was following\nthe cart on foot, caught hold of it with his sound hand and turned to\nlook at Pierre.\n\n\"I say, fellow countryman! Will they set us down here or take us on to\nMoscow?\" he asked.\n\nPierre was so deep in thought that he did not hear the question. He was\nlooking now at the cavalry regiment that had met the convoy of wounded,\nnow at the cart by which he was standing, in which two wounded men were\nsitting and one was lying. One of those sitting up in the cart had\nprobably been wounded in the cheek. His whole head was wrapped in rags\nand one cheek was swollen to the size of a baby's head. His nose and\nmouth were twisted to one side. This soldier was looking at the\ncathedral and crossing himself. Another, a young lad, a fair-haired\nrecruit as white as though there was no blood in his thin face, looked\nat Pierre kindly, with a fixed smile. The third lay prone so that his\nface was not visible. The cavalry singers were passing close by:\n\n\nAh lost, quite lost... is my head so keen, Living in a foreign land.\n\nthey sang their soldiers' dance song.\n\nAs if responding to them but with a different sort of merriment, the\nmetallic sound of the bells reverberated high above and the hot rays of\nthe sun bathed the top of the opposite slope with yet another sort of\nmerriment. But beneath the slope, by the cart with the wounded near the\npanting little nag where Pierre stood, it was damp, somber, and sad.\n\nThe soldier with the swollen cheek looked angrily at the cavalry\nsingers.\n\n\"Oh, the coxcombs!\" he muttered reproachfully.\n\n\"It's not the soldiers only, but I've seen peasants today, too.... The\npeasants--even they have to go,\" said the soldier behind the cart,\naddressing Pierre with a sad smile. \"No distinctions made nowadays....\nThey want the whole nation to fall on them--in a word, it's Moscow! They\nwant to make an end of it.\"\n\nIn spite of the obscurity of the soldier's words Pierre understood what\nhe wanted to say and nodded approval.\n\nThe road was clear again; Pierre descended the hill and drove on.\n\nHe kept looking to either side of the road for familiar faces, but only\nsaw everywhere the unfamiliar faces of various military men of different\nbranches of the service, who all looked with astonishment at his white\nhat and green tail coat.\n\nHaving gone nearly three miles he at last met an acquaintance and\neagerly addressed him. This was one of the head army doctors. He was\ndriving toward Pierre in a covered gig, sitting beside a young surgeon,\nand on recognizing Pierre he told the Cossack who occupied the driver's\nseat to pull up.\n\n\"Count! Your excellency, how come you to be here?\" asked the doctor.\n\n\"Well, you know, I wanted to see...\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, there will be something to see....\"\n\nPierre got out and talked to the doctor, explaining his intention of\ntaking part in a battle.\n\nThe doctor advised him to apply direct to Kutuzov.\n\n\"Why should you be God knows where out of sight, during the battle?\" he\nsaid, exchanging glances with his young companion. \"Anyhow his Serene\nHighness knows you and will receive you graciously. That's what you must\ndo.\"\n\nThe doctor seemed tired and in a hurry.\n\n\"You think so?... Ah, I also wanted to ask you where our position is\nexactly?\" said Pierre.\n\n\"The position?\" repeated the doctor. \"Well, that's not my line. Drive\npast Tatarinova, a lot of digging is going on there. Go up the hillock\nand you'll see.\"\n\n\"Can one see from there?... If you would...\"\n\nBut the doctor interrupted him and moved toward his gig.\n\n\"I would go with you but on my honor I'm up to here\"--and he pointed to\nhis throat. \"I'm galloping to the commander of the corps. How do matters\nstand?... You know, Count, there'll be a battle tomorrow. Out of an army\nof a hundred thousand we must expect at least twenty thousand wounded,\nand we haven't stretchers, or bunks, or dressers, or doctors enough for\nsix thousand. We have ten thousand carts, but we need other things as\nwell--we must manage as best we can!\"\n\nThe strange thought that of the thousands of men, young and old, who had\nstared with merry surprise at his hat (perhaps the very men he had\nnoticed), twenty thousand were inevitably doomed to wounds and death\namazed Pierre.\n\n\"They may die tomorrow; why are they thinking of anything but death?\"\nAnd by some latent sequence of thought the descent of the Mozhaysk hill,\nthe carts with the wounded, the ringing bells, the slanting rays of the\nsun, and the songs of the cavalrymen vividly recurred to his mind.\n\n\"The cavalry ride to battle and meet the wounded and do not for a moment\nthink of what awaits them, but pass by, winking at the wounded. Yet from\namong these men twenty thousand are doomed to die, and they wonder at my\nhat! Strange!\" thought Pierre, continuing his way to Tatarinova.\n\nIn front of a landowner's house to the left of the road stood carriages,\nwagons, and crowds of orderlies and sentinels. The commander-in-chief\nwas putting up there, but just when Pierre arrived he was not in and\nhardly any of the staff were there--they had gone to the church service.\nPierre drove on toward Gorki.\n\nWhen he had ascended the hill and reached the little village street, he\nsaw for the first time peasant militiamen in their white shirts and with\ncrosses on their caps, who, talking and laughing loudly, animated and\nperspiring, were at work on a huge knoll overgrown with grass to the\nright of the road.\n\nSome of them were digging, others were wheeling barrowloads of earth\nalong planks, while others stood about doing nothing.\n\nTwo officers were standing on the knoll, directing the men. On seeing\nthese peasants, who were evidently still amused by the novelty of their\nposition as soldiers, Pierre once more thought of the wounded men at\nMozhaysk and understood what the soldier had meant when he said: \"They\nwant the whole nation to fall on them.\" The sight of these bearded\npeasants at work on the battlefield, with their queer, clumsy boots and\nperspiring necks, and their shirts opening from the left toward the\nmiddle, unfastened, exposing their sunburned collarbones, impressed\nPierre more strongly with the solemnity and importance of the moment\nthan anything he had yet seen or heard.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nPierre stepped out of his carriage and, passing the toiling militiamen,\nascended the knoll from which, according to the doctor, the battlefield\ncould be seen.\n\nIt was about eleven o'clock. The sun shone somewhat to the left and\nbehind him and brightly lit up the enormous panorama which, rising like\nan amphitheater, extended before him in the clear rarefied atmosphere.\n\nFrom above on the left, bisecting that amphitheater, wound the Smolensk\nhighroad, passing through a village with a white church some five\nhundred paces in front of the knoll and below it. This was Borodino.\nBelow the village the road crossed the river by a bridge and, winding\ndown and up, rose higher and higher to the village of Valuevo visible\nabout four miles away, where Napoleon was then stationed. Beyond Valuevo\nthe road disappeared into a yellowing forest on the horizon. Far in the\ndistance in that birch and fir forest to the right of the road, the\ncross and belfry of the Kolocha Monastery gleamed in the sun. Here and\nthere over the whole of that blue expanse, to right and left of the\nforest and the road, smoking campfires could be seen and indefinite\nmasses of troops--ours and the enemy's. The ground to the right--along\nthe course of the Kolocha and Moskva rivers--was broken and hilly.\nBetween the hollows the villages of Bezubova and Zakharino showed in the\ndistance. On the left the ground was more level; there were fields of\ngrain, and the smoking ruins of Semenovsk, which had been burned down,\ncould be seen.\n\nAll that Pierre saw was so indefinite that neither the left nor the\nright side of the field fully satisfied his expectations. Nowhere could\nhe see the battlefield he had expected to find, but only fields,\nmeadows, troops, woods, the smoke of campfires, villages, mounds, and\nstreams; and try as he would he could descry no military \"position\" in\nthis place which teemed with life, nor could he even distinguish our\ntroops from the enemy's.\n\n\"I must ask someone who knows,\" he thought, and addressed an officer who\nwas looking with curiosity at his huge unmilitary figure.\n\n\"May I ask you,\" said Pierre, \"what village that is in front?\"\n\n\"Burdino, isn't it?\" said the officer, turning to his companion.\n\n\"Borodino,\" the other corrected him.\n\nThe officer, evidently glad of an opportunity for a talk, moved up to\nPierre.\n\n\"Are those our men there?\" Pierre inquired.\n\n\"Yes, and there, further on, are the French,\" said the officer. \"There\nthey are, there... you can see them.\"\n\n\"Where? Where?\" asked Pierre.\n\n\"One can see them with the naked eye... Why, there!\"\n\nThe officer pointed with his hand to the smoke visible on the left\nbeyond the river, and the same stern and serious expression that Pierre\nhad noticed on many of the faces he had met came into his face.\n\n\"Ah, those are the French! And over there?...\" Pierre pointed to a knoll\non the left, near which some troops could be seen.\n\n\"Those are ours.\"\n\n\"Ah, ours! And there?...\" Pierre pointed to another knoll in the\ndistance with a big tree on it, near a village that lay in a hollow\nwhere also some campfires were smoking and something black was visible.\n\n\"That's his again,\" said the officer. (It was the Shevardino Redoubt.)\n\"It was ours yesterday, but now it is his.\"\n\n\"Then how about our position?\"\n\n\"Our position?\" replied the officer with a smile of satisfaction. \"I can\ntell you quite clearly, because I constructed nearly all our\nentrenchments. There, you see? There's our center, at Borodino, just\nthere,\" and he pointed to the village in front of them with the white\nchurch. \"That's where one crosses the Kolocha. You see down there where\nthe rows of hay are lying in the hollow, there's the bridge. That's our\ncenter. Our right flank is over there\"--he pointed sharply to the right,\nfar away in the broken ground--\"That's where the Moskva River is, and we\nhave thrown up three redoubts there, very strong ones. The left\nflank...\" here the officer paused. \"Well, you see, that's difficult to\nexplain.... Yesterday our left flank was there at Shevardino, you see,\nwhere the oak is, but now we have withdrawn our left wing--now it is\nover there, do you see that village and the smoke? That's Semenovsk,\nyes, there,\" he pointed to Raevski's knoll. \"But the battle will hardly\nbe there. His having moved his troops there is only a ruse; he will\nprobably pass round to the right of the Moskva. But wherever it may be,\nmany a man will be missing tomorrow!\" he remarked.\n\nAn elderly sergeant who had approached the officer while he was giving\nthese explanations had waited in silence for him to finish speaking, but\nat this point, evidently not liking the officer's remark, interrupted\nhim.\n\n\"Gabions must be sent for,\" said he sternly.\n\nThe officer appeared abashed, as though he understood that one might\nthink of how many men would be missing tomorrow but ought not to speak\nof it.\n\n\"Well, send number three company again,\" the officer replied hurriedly.\n\n\"And you, are you one of the doctors?\"\n\n\"No, I've come on my own,\" answered Pierre, and he went down the hill\nagain, passing the militiamen.\n\n\"Oh, those damned fellows!\" muttered the officer who followed him,\nholding his nose as he ran past the men at work.\n\n\"There they are... bringing her, coming... There they are... They'll be\nhere in a minute...\" voices were suddenly heard saying; and officers,\nsoldiers, and militiamen began running forward along the road.\n\nA church procession was coming up the hill from Borodino. First along\nthe dusty road came the infantry in ranks, bareheaded and with arms\nreversed. From behind them came the sound of church singing.\n\nSoldiers and militiamen ran bareheaded past Pierre toward the\nprocession.\n\n\"They are bringing her, our Protectress!... The Iberian Mother of God!\"\nsomeone cried.\n\n\"The Smolensk Mother of God,\" another corrected him.\n\nThe militiamen, both those who had been in the village and those who had\nbeen at work on the battery, threw down their spades and ran to meet the\nchurch procession. Following the battalion that marched along the dusty\nroad came priests in their vestments--one little old man in a hood with\nattendants and singers. Behind them soldiers and officers bore a large,\ndark-faced icon with an embossed metal cover. This was the icon that had\nbeen brought from Smolensk and had since accompanied the army. Behind,\nbefore, and on both sides, crowds of militiamen with bared heads walked,\nran, and bowed to the ground.\n\nAt the summit of the hill they stopped with the icon; the men who had\nbeen holding it up by the linen bands attached to it were relieved by\nothers, the chanters relit their censers, and service began. The hot\nrays of the sun beat down vertically and a fresh soft wind played with\nthe hair of the bared heads and with the ribbons decorating the icon.\nThe singing did not sound loud under the open sky. An immense crowd of\nbareheaded officers, soldiers, and militiamen surrounded the icon.\nBehind the priest and a chanter stood the notabilities on a spot\nreserved for them. A bald general with a St. George's Cross on his neck\nstood just behind the priest's back, and without crossing himself (he\nwas evidently a German) patiently awaited the end of the service, which\nhe considered it necessary to hear to the end, probably to arouse the\npatriotism of the Russian people. Another general stood in a martial\npose, crossing himself by shaking his hand in front of his chest while\nlooking about him. Standing among the crowd of peasants, Pierre\nrecognized several acquaintances among these notables, but did not look\nat them--his whole attention was absorbed in watching the serious\nexpression on the faces of the crowd of soldiers and militiamen who were\nall gazing eagerly at the icon. As soon as the tired chanters, who were\nsinging the service for the twentieth time that day, began lazily and\nmechanically to sing: \"Save from calamity Thy servants, O Mother of\nGod,\" and the priest and deacon chimed in: \"For to Thee under God we all\nflee as to an inviolable bulwark and protection,\" there again kindled in\nall those faces the same expression of consciousness of the solemnity of\nthe impending moment that Pierre had seen on the faces at the foot of\nthe hill at Mozhaysk and momentarily on many and many faces he had met\nthat morning; and heads were bowed more frequently and hair tossed back,\nand sighs and the sound men made as they crossed themselves were heard.\n\nThe crowd round the icon suddenly parted and pressed against Pierre.\nSomeone, a very important personage judging by the haste with which way\nwas made for him, was approaching the icon.\n\nIt was Kutuzov, who had been riding round the position and on his way\nback to Tatarinova had stopped where the service was being held. Pierre\nrecognized him at once by his peculiar figure, which distinguished him\nfrom everybody else.\n\nWith a long overcoat on his exceedingly stout, round-shouldered body,\nwith uncovered white head and puffy face showing the white ball of the\neye he had lost, Kutuzov walked with plunging, swaying gait into the\ncrowd and stopped behind the priest. He crossed himself with an\naccustomed movement, bent till he touched the ground with his hand, and\nbowed his white head with a deep sigh. Behind Kutuzov was Bennigsen and\nthe suite. Despite the presence of the commander-in-chief, who attracted\nthe attention of all the superior officers, the militiamen and soldiers\ncontinued their prayers without looking at him.\n\nWhen the service was over, Kutuzov stepped up to the icon, sank heavily\nto his knees, bowed to the ground, and for a long time tried vainly to\nrise, but could not do so on account of his weakness and weight. His\nwhite head twitched with the effort. At last he rose, kissed the icon as\na child does with naively pouting lips, and again bowed till he touched\nthe ground with his hand. The other generals followed his example, then\nthe officers, and after them with excited faces, pressing on one\nanother, crowding, panting, and pushing, scrambled the soldiers and\nmilitiamen.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nStaggering amid the crush, Pierre looked about him.\n\n\"Count Peter Kirilovich! How did you get here?\" said a voice.\n\nPierre looked round. Boris Drubetskoy, brushing his knees with his hand\n(he had probably soiled them when he, too, had knelt before the icon),\ncame up to him smiling. Boris was elegantly dressed, with a slightly\nmartial touch appropriate to a campaign. He wore a long coat and like\nKutuzov had a whip slung across his shoulder.\n\nMeanwhile Kutuzov had reached the village and seated himself in the\nshade of the nearest house, on a bench which one Cossack had run to\nfetch and another had hastily covered with a rug. An immense and\nbrilliant suite surrounded him.\n\nThe icon was carried further, accompanied by the throng. Pierre stopped\nsome thirty paces from Kutuzov, talking to Boris.\n\nHe explained his wish to be present at the battle and to see the\nposition.\n\n\"This is what you must do,\" said Boris. \"I will do the honors of the\ncamp to you. You will see everything best from where Count Bennigsen\nwill be. I am in attendance on him, you know; I'll mention it to him.\nBut if you want to ride round the position, come along with us. We are\njust going to the left flank. Then when we get back, do spend the night\nwith me and we'll arrange a game of cards. Of course you know Dmitri\nSergeevich? Those are his quarters,\" and he pointed to the third house\nin the village of Gorki.\n\n\"But I should like to see the right flank. They say it's very strong,\"\nsaid Pierre. \"I should like to start from the Moskva River and ride\nround the whole position.\"\n\n\"Well, you can do that later, but the chief thing is the left flank.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes. But where is Prince Bolkonski's regiment? Can you point it\nout to me?\"\n\n\"Prince Andrew's? We shall pass it and I'll take you to him.\"\n\n\"What about the left flank?\" asked Pierre\n\n\"To tell you the truth, between ourselves, God only knows what state our\nleft flank is in,\" said Boris confidentially lowering his voice. \"It is\nnot at all what Count Bennigsen intended. He meant to fortify that knoll\nquite differently, but...\" Boris shrugged his shoulders, \"his Serene\nHighness would not have it, or someone persuaded him. You see...\" but\nBoris did not finish, for at that moment Kaysarov, Kutuzov's adjutant,\ncame up to Pierre. \"Ah, Kaysarov!\" said Boris, addressing him with an\nunembarrassed smile, \"I was just trying to explain our position to the\ncount. It is amazing how his Serene Highness could so foresee the\nintentions of the French!\"\n\n\"You mean the left flank?\" asked Kaysarov.\n\n\"Yes, exactly; the left flank is now extremely strong.\"\n\nThough Kutuzov had dismissed all unnecessary men from the staff, Boris\nhad contrived to remain at headquarters after the changes. He had\nestablished himself with Count Bennigsen, who, like all on whom Boris\nhad been in attendance, considered young Prince Drubetskoy an invaluable\nman.\n\nIn the higher command there were two sharply defined parties: Kutuzov's\nparty and that of Bennigsen, the chief of staff. Boris belonged to the\nlatter and no one else, while showing servile respect to Kutuzov, could\nso create an impression that the old fellow was not much good and that\nBennigsen managed everything. Now the decisive moment of battle had come\nwhen Kutuzov would be destroyed and the power pass to Bennigsen, or even\nif Kutuzov won the battle it would be felt that everything was done by\nBennigsen. In any case many great rewards would have to be given for\ntomorrow's action, and new men would come to the front. So Boris was\nfull of nervous vivacity all day.\n\nAfter Kaysarov, others whom Pierre knew came up to him, and he had not\ntime to reply to all the questions about Moscow that were showered upon\nhim, or to listen to all that was told him. The faces all expressed\nanimation and apprehension, but it seemed to Pierre that the cause of\nthe excitement shown in some of these faces lay chiefly in questions of\npersonal success; his mind, however, was occupied by the different\nexpression he saw on other faces--an expression that spoke not of\npersonal matters but of the universal questions of life and death.\nKutuzov noticed Pierre's figure and the group gathered round him.\n\n\"Call him to me,\" said Kutuzov.\n\nAn adjutant told Pierre of his Serene Highness' wish, and Pierre went\ntoward Kutuzov's bench. But a militiaman got there before him. It was\nDolokhov.\n\n\"How did that fellow get here?\" asked Pierre.\n\n\"He's a creature that wriggles in anywhere!\" was the answer. \"He has\nbeen degraded, you know. Now he wants to bob up again. He's been\nproposing some scheme or other and has crawled into the enemy's picket\nline at night.... He's a brave fellow.\"\n\nPierre took off his hat and bowed respectfully to Kutuzov.\n\n\"I concluded that if I reported to your Serene Highness you might send\nme away or say that you knew what I was reporting, but then I shouldn't\nlose anything...\" Dolokhov was saying.\n\n\"Yes, yes.\"\n\n\"But if I were right, I should be rendering a service to my Fatherland\nfor which I am ready to die.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes.\"\n\n\"And should your Serene Highness require a man who will not spare his\nskin, please think of me.... Perhaps I may prove useful to your Serene\nHighness.\"\n\n\"Yes... Yes...\" Kutuzov repeated, his laughing eye narrowing more and\nmore as he looked at Pierre.\n\nJust then Boris, with his courtierlike adroitness, stepped up to\nPierre's side near Kutuzov and in a most natural manner, without raising\nhis voice, said to Pierre, as though continuing an interrupted\nconversation:\n\n\"The militia have put on clean white shirts to be ready to die. What\nheroism, Count!\"\n\nBoris evidently said this to Pierre in order to be overheard by his\nSerene Highness. He knew Kutuzov's attention would be caught by those\nwords, and so it was.\n\n\"What are you saying about the militia?\" he asked Boris.\n\n\"Preparing for tomorrow, your Serene Highness--for death--they have put\non clean shirts.\"\n\n\"Ah... a wonderful, a matchless people!\" said Kutuzov; and he closed his\neyes and swayed his head. \"A matchless people!\" he repeated with a sigh.\n\n\"So you want to smell gunpowder?\" he said to Pierre. \"Yes, it's a\npleasant smell. I have the honor to be one of your wife's adorers. Is\nshe well? My quarters are at your service.\"\n\nAnd as often happens with old people, Kutuzov began looking about\nabsent-mindedly as if forgetting all he wanted to say or do.\n\nThen, evidently remembering what he wanted, he beckoned to Andrew\nKaysarov, his adjutant's brother.\n\n\"Those verses... those verses of Marin's... how do they go, eh? Those he\nwrote about Gerakov: 'Lectures for the corps inditing'... Recite them,\nrecite them!\" said he, evidently preparing to laugh.\n\nKaysarov recited.... Kutuzov smilingly nodded his head to the rhythm of\nthe verses.\n\nWhen Pierre had left Kutuzov, Dolokhov came up to him and took his hand.\n\n\"I am very glad to meet you here, Count,\" he said aloud, regardless of\nthe presence of strangers and in a particularly resolute and solemn\ntone. \"On the eve of a day when God alone knows who of us is fated to\nsurvive, I am glad of this opportunity to tell you that I regret the\nmisunderstandings that occurred between us and should wish you not to\nhave any ill feeling for me. I beg you to forgive me.\"\n\nPierre looked at Dolokhov with a smile, not knowing what to say to him.\nWith tears in his eyes Dolokhov embraced Pierre and kissed him.\n\nBoris said a few words to his general, and Count Bennigsen turned to\nPierre and proposed that he should ride with him along the line.\n\n\"It will interest you,\" said he.\n\n\"Yes, very much,\" replied Pierre.\n\nHalf an hour later Kutuzov left for Tatarinova, and Bennigsen and his\nsuite, with Pierre among them, set out on their ride along the line.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\nFrom Gorki, Bennigsen descended the highroad to the bridge which, when\nthey had looked at it from the hill, the officer had pointed out as\nbeing the center of our position and where rows of fragrant new-mown hay\nlay by the riverside. They rode across that bridge into the village of\nBorodino and thence turned to the left, passing an enormous number of\ntroops and guns, and came to a high knoll where militiamen were digging.\nThis was the redoubt, as yet unnamed, which afterwards became known as\nthe Raevski Redoubt, or the Knoll Battery, but Pierre paid no special\nattention to it. He did not know that it would become more memorable to\nhim than any other spot on the plain of Borodino.\n\nThey then crossed the hollow to Semenovsk, where the soldiers were\ndragging away the last logs from the huts and barns. Then they rode\ndownhill and uphill, across a ryefield trodden and beaten down as if by\nhail, following a track freshly made by the artillery over the furrows\nof the plowed land, and reached some fleches * which were still being\ndug.\n\n\n* A kind of entrenchment.\n\nAt the fleches Bennigsen stopped and began looking at the Shevardino\nRedoubt opposite, which had been ours the day before and where several\nhorsemen could be descried. The officers said that either Napoleon or\nMurat was there, and they all gazed eagerly at this little group of\nhorsemen. Pierre also looked at them, trying to guess which of the\nscarcely discernible figures was Napoleon. At last those mounted men\nrode away from the mound and disappeared.\n\nBennigsen spoke to a general who approached him, and began explaining\nthe whole position of our troops. Pierre listened to him, straining each\nfaculty to understand the essential points of the impending battle, but\nwas mortified to feel that his mental capacity was inadequate for the\ntask. He could make nothing of it. Bennigsen stopped speaking and,\nnoticing that Pierre was listening, suddenly said to him:\n\n\"I don't think this interests you?\"\n\n\"On the contrary it's very interesting!\" replied Pierre not quite\ntruthfully.\n\nFrom the fleches they rode still farther to the left, along a road\nwinding through a thick, low-growing birch wood. In the middle of the\nwood a brown hare with white feet sprang out and, scared by the tramp of\nthe many horses, grew so confused that it leaped along the road in front\nof them for some time, arousing general attention and laughter, and only\nwhen several voices shouted at it did it dart to one side and disappear\nin the thicket. After going through the wood for about a mile and a half\nthey came out on a glade where troops of Tuchkov's corps were stationed\nto defend the left flank.\n\nHere, at the extreme left flank, Bennigsen talked a great deal and with\nmuch heat, and, as it seemed to Pierre, gave orders of great military\nimportance. In front of Tuchkov's troops was some high ground not\noccupied by troops. Bennigsen loudly criticized this mistake, saying\nthat it was madness to leave a height which commanded the country around\nunoccupied and to place troops below it. Some of the generals expressed\nthe same opinion. One in particular declared with martial heat that they\nwere put there to be slaughtered. Bennigsen on his own authority ordered\nthe troops to occupy the high ground. This disposition on the left flank\nincreased Pierre's doubt of his own capacity to understand military\nmatters. Listening to Bennigsen and the generals criticizing the\nposition of the troops behind the hill, he quite understood them and\nshared their opinion, but for that very reason he could not understand\nhow the man who put them there behind the hill could have made so gross\nand palpable a blunder.\n\nPierre did not know that these troops were not, as Bennigsen supposed,\nput there to defend the position, but were in a concealed position as an\nambush, that they should not be seen and might be able to strike an\napproaching enemy unexpectedly. Bennigsen did not know this and moved\nthe troops forward according to his own ideas without mentioning the\nmatter to the commander-in-chief.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\nOn that bright evening of August 25, Prince Andrew lay leaning on his\nelbow in a broken-down shed in the village of Knyazkovo at the further\nend of his regiment's encampment. Through a gap in the broken wall he\ncould see, beside the wooden fence, a row of thirty year-old birches\nwith their lower branches lopped off, a field on which shocks of oats\nwere standing, and some bushes near which rose the smoke of campfires--\nthe soldiers' kitchens.\n\nNarrow and burdensome and useless to anyone as his life now seemed to\nhim, Prince Andrew on the eve of battle felt agitated and irritable as\nhe had done seven years before at Austerlitz.\n\nHe had received and given the orders for next day's battle and had\nnothing more to do. But his thoughts--the simplest, clearest, and\ntherefore most terrible thoughts--would give him no peace. He knew that\ntomorrow's battle would be the most terrible of all he had taken part\nin, and for the first time in his life the possibility of death\npresented itself to him--not in relation to any worldly matter or with\nreference to its effect on others, but simply in relation to himself, to\nhis own soul--vividly, plainly, terribly, and almost as a certainty. And\nfrom the height of this perception all that had previously tormented and\npreoccupied him suddenly became illumined by a cold white light without\nshadows, without perspective, without distinction of outline. All life\nappeared to him like magic-lantern pictures at which he had long been\ngazing by artificial light through a glass. Now he suddenly saw those\nbadly daubed pictures in clear daylight and without a glass. \"Yes, yes!\nThere they are, those false images that agitated, enraptured, and\ntormented me,\" said he to himself, passing in review the principal\npictures of the magic lantern of life and regarding them now in the cold\nwhite daylight of his clear perception of death. \"There they are, those\nrudely painted figures that once seemed splendid and mysterious. Glory,\nthe good of society, love of a woman, the Fatherland itself--how\nimportant these pictures appeared to me, with what profound meaning they\nseemed to be filled! And it is all so simple, pale, and crude in the\ncold white light of this morning which I feel is dawning for me.\" The\nthree great sorrows of his life held his attention in particular: his\nlove for a woman, his father's death, and the French invasion which had\noverrun half Russia. \"Love... that little girl who seemed to me brimming\nover with mystic forces! Yes, indeed, I loved her. I made romantic plans\nof love and happiness with her! Oh, what a boy I was!\" he said aloud\nbitterly. \"Ah me! I believed in some ideal love which was to keep her\nfaithful to me for the whole year of my absence! Like the gentle dove in\nthe fable she was to pine apart from me.... But it was much simpler\nreally.... It was all very simple and horrible.\"\n\n\"When my father built Bald Hills he thought the place was his: his land,\nhis air, his peasants. But Napoleon came and swept him aside,\nunconscious of his existence, as he might brush a chip from his path,\nand his Bald Hills and his whole life fell to pieces. Princess Mary says\nit is a trial sent from above. What is the trial for, when he is not\nhere and will never return? He is not here! For whom then is the trial\nintended? The Fatherland, the destruction of Moscow! And tomorrow I\nshall be killed, perhaps not even by a Frenchman but by one of our own\nmen, by a soldier discharging a musket close to my ear as one of them\ndid yesterday, and the French will come and take me by head and heels\nand fling me into a hole that I may not stink under their noses, and new\nconditions of life will arise, which will seem quite ordinary to others\nand about which I shall know nothing. I shall not exist...\"\n\nHe looked at the row of birches shining in the sunshine, with their\nmotionless green and yellow foliage and white bark. \"To die... to be\nkilled tomorrow... That I should not exist... That all this should still\nbe, but no me....\"\n\nAnd the birches with their light and shade, the curly clouds, the smoke\nof the campfires, and all that was around him changed and seemed\nterrible and menacing. A cold shiver ran down his spine. He rose\nquickly, went out of the shed, and began to walk about.\n\nAfter he had returned, voices were heard outside the shed. \"Who's that?\"\nhe cried.\n\nThe red-nosed Captain Timokhin, formerly Dolokhov's squadron commander,\nbut now from lack of officers a battalion commander, shyly entered the\nshed followed by an adjutant and the regimental paymaster.\n\nPrince Andrew rose hastily, listened to the business they had come\nabout, gave them some further instructions, and was about to dismiss\nthem when he heard a familiar, lisping, voice behind the shed.\n\n\"Devil take it!\" said the voice of a man stumbling over something.\n\nPrince Andrew looked out of the shed and saw Pierre, who had tripped\nover a pole on the ground and had nearly fallen, coming his way. It was\nunpleasant to Prince Andrew to meet people of his own set in general,\nand Pierre especially, for he reminded him of all the painful moments of\nhis last visit to Moscow.\n\n\"You? What a surprise!\" said he. \"What brings you here? This is\nunexpected!\"\n\nAs he said this his eyes and face expressed more than coldness--they\nexpressed hostility, which Pierre noticed at once. He had approached the\nshed full of animation, but on seeing Prince Andrew's face he felt\nconstrained and ill at ease.\n\n\"I have come... simply... you know... come... it interests me,\" said\nPierre, who had so often that day senselessly repeated that word\n\"interesting.\" \"I wish to see the battle.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, and what do the masonic brothers say about war? How would they\nstop it?\" said Prince Andrew sarcastically. \"Well, and how's Moscow? And\nmy people? Have they reached Moscow at last?\" he asked seriously.\n\n\"Yes, they have. Julie Drubetskaya told me so. I went to see them, but\nmissed them. They have gone to your estate near Moscow.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\nThe officers were about to take leave, but Prince Andrew, apparently\nreluctant to be left alone with his friend, asked them to stay and have\ntea. Seats were brought in and so was the tea. The officers gazed with\nsurprise at Pierre's huge stout figure and listened to his talk of\nMoscow and the position of our army, round which he had ridden. Prince\nAndrew remained silent, and his expression was so forbidding that Pierre\naddressed his remarks chiefly to the good-natured battalion commander.\n\n\"So you understand the whole position of our troops?\" Prince Andrew\ninterrupted him.\n\n\"Yes--that is, how do you mean?\" said Pierre. \"Not being a military man\nI can't say I have understood it fully, but I understand the general\nposition.\"\n\n\"Well, then, you know more than anyone else, be it who it may,\" said\nPrince Andrew.\n\n\"Oh!\" said Pierre, looking over his spectacles in perplexity at Prince\nAndrew. \"Well, and what do you think of Kutuzov's appointment?\" he\nasked.\n\n\"I was very glad of his appointment, that's all I know,\" replied Prince\nAndrew.\n\n\"And tell me your opinion of Barclay de Tolly. In Moscow they are saying\nheaven knows what about him.... What do you think of him?\"\n\n\"Ask them,\" replied Prince Andrew, indicating the officers.\n\nPierre looked at Timokhin with the condescendingly interrogative smile\nwith which everybody involuntarily addressed that officer.\n\n\"We see light again, since his Serenity has been appointed, your\nexcellency,\" said Timokhin timidly, and continually turning to glance at\nhis colonel.\n\n\"Why so?\" asked Pierre.\n\n\"Well, to mention only firewood and fodder, let me inform you. Why, when\nwe were retreating from Sventsyani we dare not touch a stick or a wisp\nof hay or anything. You see, we were going away, so he would get it all;\nwasn't it so, your excellency?\" and again Timokhin turned to the prince.\n\"But we daren't. In our regiment two officers were court-martialed for\nthat kind of thing. But when his Serenity took command everything became\nstraight forward. Now we see light...\"\n\n\"Then why was it forbidden?\"\n\nTimokhin looked about in confusion, not knowing what or how to answer\nsuch a question. Pierre put the same question to Prince Andrew.\n\n\"Why, so as not to lay waste the country we were abandoning to the\nenemy,\" said Prince Andrew with venomous irony. \"It is very sound: one\ncan't permit the land to be pillaged and accustom the troops to\nmarauding. At Smolensk too he judged correctly that the French might\noutflank us, as they had larger forces. But he could not understand\nthis,\" cried Prince Andrew in a shrill voice that seemed to escape him\ninvoluntarily: \"he could not understand that there, for the first time,\nwe were fighting for Russian soil, and that there was a spirit in the\nmen such as I had never seen before, that we had held the French for two\ndays, and that that success had increased our strength tenfold. He\nordered us to retreat, and all our efforts and losses went for nothing.\nHe had no thought of betraying us, he tried to do the best he could, he\nthought out everything, and that is why he is unsuitable. He is\nunsuitable now, just because he plans out everything very thoroughly and\naccurately as every German has to. How can I explain?... Well, say your\nfather has a German valet, and he is a splendid valet and satisfies your\nfather's requirements better than you could, then it's all right to let\nhim serve. But if your father is mortally sick you'll send the valet\naway and attend to your father with your own unpracticed, awkward hands,\nand will soothe him better than a skilled man who is a stranger could.\nSo it has been with Barclay. While Russia was well, a foreigner could\nserve her and be a splendid minister; but as soon as she is in danger\nshe needs one of her own kin. But in your club they have been making him\nout a traitor! They slander him as a traitor, and the only result will\nbe that afterwards, ashamed of their false accusations, they will make\nhim out a hero or a genius instead of a traitor, and that will be still\nmore unjust. He is an honest and very punctilious German.\"\n\n\"And they say he's a skillful commander,\" rejoined Pierre.\n\n\"I don't understand what is meant by 'a skillful commander,'\" replied\nPrince Andrew ironically.\n\n\"A skillful commander?\" replied Pierre. \"Why, one who foresees all\ncontingencies... and foresees the adversary's intentions.\"\n\n\"But that's impossible,\" said Prince Andrew as if it were a matter\nsettled long ago.\n\nPierre looked at him in surprise.\n\n\"And yet they say that war is like a game of chess?\" he remarked.\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Prince Andrew, \"but with this little difference, that in\nchess you may think over each move as long as you please and are not\nlimited for time, and with this difference too, that a knight is always\nstronger than a pawn, and two pawns are always stronger than one, while\nin war a battalion is sometimes stronger than a division and sometimes\nweaker than a company. The relative strength of bodies of troops can\nnever be known to anyone. Believe me,\" he went on, \"if things depended\non arrangements made by the staff, I should be there making\narrangements, but instead of that I have the honor to serve here in the\nregiment with these gentlemen, and I consider that on us tomorrow's\nbattle will depend and not on those others.... Success never depends,\nand never will depend, on position, or equipment, or even on numbers,\nand least of all on position.\"\n\n\"But on what then?\"\n\n\"On the feeling that is in me and in him,\" he pointed to Timokhin, \"and\nin each soldier.\"\n\nPrince Andrew glanced at Timokhin, who looked at his commander in alarm\nand bewilderment. In contrast to his former reticent taciturnity Prince\nAndrew now seemed excited. He could apparently not refrain from\nexpressing the thoughts that had suddenly occurred to him.\n\n\"A battle is won by those who firmly resolve to win it! Why did we lose\nthe battle at Austerlitz? The French losses were almost equal to ours,\nbut very early we said to ourselves that we were losing the battle, and\nwe did lose it. And we said so because we had nothing to fight for\nthere, we wanted to get away from the battlefield as soon as we could.\n'We've lost, so let us run,' and we ran. If we had not said that till\nthe evening, heaven knows what might not have happened. But tomorrow we\nshan't say it! You talk about our position, the left flank weak and the\nright flank too extended,\" he went on. \"That's all nonsense, there's\nnothing of the kind. But what awaits us tomorrow? A hundred million most\ndiverse chances which will be decided on the instant by the fact that\nour men or theirs run or do not run, and that this man or that man is\nkilled, but all that is being done at present is only play. The fact is\nthat those men with whom you have ridden round the position not only do\nnot help matters, but hinder. They are only concerned with their own\npetty interests.\"\n\n\"At such a moment?\" said Pierre reproachfully.\n\n\"At such a moment!\" Prince Andrew repeated. \"To them it is only a moment\naffording opportunities to undermine a rival and obtain an extra cross\nor ribbon. For me tomorrow means this: a Russian army of a hundred\nthousand and a French army of a hundred thousand have met to fight, and\nthe thing is that these two hundred thousand men will fight and the side\nthat fights more fiercely and spares itself least will win. And if you\nlike I will tell you that whatever happens and whatever muddles those at\nthe top may make, we shall win tomorrow's battle. Tomorrow, happen what\nmay, we shall win!\"\n\n\"There now, your excellency! That's the truth, the real truth,\" said\nTimokhin. \"Who would spare himself now? The soldiers in my battalion,\nbelieve me, wouldn't drink their vodka! 'It's not the day for that!'\nthey say.\"\n\nAll were silent. The officers rose. Prince Andrew went out of the shed\nwith them, giving final orders to the adjutant. After they had gone\nPierre approached Prince Andrew and was about to start a conversation\nwhen they heard the clatter of three horses' hoofs on the road not far\nfrom the shed, and looking in that direction Prince Andrew recognized\nWolzogen and Clausewitz accompanied by a Cossack. They rode close by\ncontinuing to converse, and Prince Andrew involuntarily heard these\nwords:\n\n\"Der Krieg muss in Raum verlegt werden. Der Ansicht kann ich nicht genug\nPreis geben,\" * said one of them.\n\n\n* \"The war must be extended widely. I cannot sufficiently commend that\nview.\"\n\n\"Oh, ja,\" said the other, \"der Zweck ist nur den Feind zu schwächen, so\nkann man gewiss nicht den Verlust der Privat-Personen in Achtung\nnehmen.\" *\n\n\n* \"Oh, yes, the only aim is to weaken the enemy, so of course one cannot\ntake into account the loss of private individuals.\"\n\n\"Oh, no,\" agreed the other.\n\n\"Extend widely!\" said Prince Andrew with an angry snort, when they had\nridden past. \"In that 'extend' were my father, son, and sister, at Bald\nHills. That's all the same to him! That's what I was saying to you--\nthose German gentlemen won't win the battle tomorrow but will only make\nall the mess they can, because they have nothing in their German heads\nbut theories not worth an empty eggshell and haven't in their hearts the\none thing needed tomorrow--that which Timokhin has. They have yielded up\nall Europe to him, and have now come to teach us. Fine teachers!\" and\nagain his voice grew shrill.\n\n\"So you think we shall win tomorrow's battle?\" asked Pierre.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" answered Prince Andrew absently. \"One thing I would do if I\nhad the power,\" he began again, \"I would not take prisoners. Why take\nprisoners? It's chivalry! The French have destroyed my home and are on\ntheir way to destroy Moscow, they have outraged and are outraging me\nevery moment. They are my enemies. In my opinion they are all criminals.\nAnd so thinks Timokhin and the whole army. They should be executed!\nSince they are my foes they cannot be my friends, whatever may have been\nsaid at Tilsit.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" muttered Pierre, looking with shining eyes at Prince Andrew.\n\"I quite agree with you!\"\n\nThe question that had perturbed Pierre on the Mozhaysk hill and all that\nday now seemed to him quite clear and completely solved. He now\nunderstood the whole meaning and importance of this war and of the\nimpending battle. All he had seen that day, all the significant and\nstern expressions on the faces he had seen in passing, were lit up for\nhim by a new light. He understood that latent heat (as they say in\nphysics) of patriotism which was present in all these men he had seen,\nand this explained to him why they all prepared for death calmly, and as\nit were lightheartedly.\n\n\"Not take prisoners,\" Prince Andrew continued: \"That by itself would\nquite change the whole war and make it less cruel. As it is we have\nplayed at war--that's what's vile! We play at magnanimity and all that\nstuff. Such magnanimity and sensibility are like the magnanimity and\nsensibility of a lady who faints when she sees a calf being killed: she\nis so kindhearted that she can't look at blood, but enjoys eating the\ncalf served up with sauce. They talk to us of the rules of war, of\nchivalry, of flags of truce, of mercy to the unfortunate and so on. It's\nall rubbish! I saw chivalry and flags of truce in 1805; they humbugged\nus and we humbugged them. They plunder other people's houses, issue\nfalse paper money, and worst of all they kill my children and my father,\nand then talk of rules of war and magnanimity to foes! Take no\nprisoners, but kill and be killed! He who has come to this as I have\nthrough the same sufferings...\"\n\nPrince Andrew, who had thought it was all the same to him whether or not\nMoscow was taken as Smolensk had been, was suddenly checked in his\nspeech by an unexpected cramp in his throat. He paced up and down a few\ntimes in silence, but his eyes glittered feverishly and his lips\nquivered as he began speaking.\n\n\"If there was none of this magnanimity in war, we should go to war only\nwhen it was worth while going to certain death, as now. Then there would\nnot be war because Paul Ivanovich had offended Michael Ivanovich. And\nwhen there was a war, like this one, it would be war! And then the\ndetermination of the troops would be quite different. Then all these\nWestphalians and Hessians whom Napoleon is leading would not follow him\ninto Russia, and we should not go to fight in Austria and Prussia\nwithout knowing why. War is not courtesy but the most horrible thing in\nlife; and we ought to understand that and not play at war. We ought to\naccept this terrible necessity sternly and seriously. It all lies in\nthat: get rid of falsehood and let war be war and not a game. As it is\nnow, war is the favorite pastime of the idle and frivolous. The military\ncalling is the most highly honored.\n\n\"But what is war? What is needed for success in warfare? What are the\nhabits of the military? The aim of war is murder; the methods of war are\nspying, treachery, and their encouragement, the ruin of a country's\ninhabitants, robbing them or stealing to provision the army, and fraud\nand falsehood termed military craft. The habits of the military class\nare the absence of freedom, that is, discipline, idleness, ignorance,\ncruelty, debauchery, and drunkenness. And in spite of all this it is the\nhighest class, respected by everyone. All the kings, except the Chinese,\nwear military uniforms, and he who kills most people receives the\nhighest rewards.\n\n\"They meet, as we shall meet tomorrow, to murder one another; they kill\nand maim tens of thousands, and then have thanksgiving services for\nhaving killed so many people (they even exaggerate the number), and they\nannounce a victory, supposing that the more people they have killed the\ngreater their achievement. How does God above look at them and hear\nthem?\" exclaimed Prince Andrew in a shrill, piercing voice. \"Ah, my\nfriend, it has of late become hard for me to live. I see that I have\nbegun to understand too much. And it doesn't do for man to taste of the\ntree of knowledge of good and evil.... Ah, well, it's not for long!\" he\nadded.\n\n\"However, you're sleepy, and it's time for me to sleep. Go back to\nGorki!\" said Prince Andrew suddenly.\n\n\"Oh no!\" Pierre replied, looking at Prince Andrew with frightened,\ncompassionate eyes.\n\n\"Go, go! Before a battle one must have one's sleep out,\" repeated Prince\nAndrew.\n\nHe came quickly up to Pierre and embraced and kissed him. \"Good-bye, be\noff!\" he shouted. \"Whether we meet again or not...\" and turning away\nhurriedly he entered the shed.\n\nIt was already dark, and Pierre could not make out whether the\nexpression of Prince Andrew's face was angry or tender.\n\nFor some time he stood in silence considering whether he should follow\nhim or go away. \"No, he does not want it!\" Pierre concluded. \"And I know\nthat this is our last meeting!\" He sighed deeply and rode back to Gorki.\n\nOn re-entering the shed Prince Andrew lay down on a rug, but he could\nnot sleep.\n\nHe closed his eyes. One picture succeeded another in his imagination. On\none of them he dwelt long and joyfully. He vividly recalled an evening\nin Petersburg. Natasha with animated and excited face was telling him\nhow she had gone to look for mushrooms the previous summer and had lost\nher way in the big forest. She incoherently described the depths of the\nforest, her feelings, and a talk with a beekeeper she met, and\nconstantly interrupted her story to say: \"No, I can't! I'm not telling\nit right; no, you don't understand,\" though he encouraged her by saying\nthat he did understand, and he really had understood all she wanted to\nsay. But Natasha was not satisfied with her own words: she felt that\nthey did not convey the passionately poetic feeling she had experienced\nthat day and wished to convey. \"He was such a delightful old man, and it\nwas so dark in the forest... and he had such kind... No, I can't\ndescribe it,\" she had said, flushed and excited. Prince Andrew smiled\nnow the same happy smile as then when he had looked into her eyes. \"I\nunderstood her,\" he thought. \"I not only understood her, but it was just\nthat inner, spiritual force, that sincerity, that frankness of soul--\nthat very soul of hers which seemed to be fettered by her body--it was\nthat soul I loved in her... loved so strongly and happily...\" and\nsuddenly he remembered how his love had ended. \"He did not need anything\nof that kind. He neither saw nor understood anything of the sort. He\nonly saw in her a pretty and fresh young girl, with whom he did not\ndeign to unite his fate. And I?... and he is still alive and gay!\"\n\nPrince Andrew jumped up as if someone had burned him, and again began\npacing up and down in front of the shed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\nOn August 25, the eve of the battle of Borodino, M. de Beausset, prefect\nof the French Emperor's palace, arrived at Napoleon's quarters at\nValuevo with Colonel Fabvier, the former from Paris and the latter from\nMadrid.\n\nDonning his court uniform, M. de Beausset ordered a box he had brought\nfor the Emperor to be carried before him and entered the first\ncompartment of Napoleon's tent, where he began opening the box while\nconversing with Napoleon's aides-de-camp who surrounded him.\n\nFabvier, not entering the tent, remained at the entrance talking to some\ngenerals of his acquaintance.\n\nThe Emperor Napoleon had not yet left his bedroom and was finishing his\ntoilet. Slightly snorting and grunting, he presented now his back and\nnow his plump hairy chest to the brush with which his valet was rubbing\nhim down. Another valet, with his finger over the mouth of a bottle, was\nsprinkling Eau de Cologne on the Emperor's pampered body with an\nexpression which seemed to say that he alone knew where and how much Eau\nde Cologne should be sprinkled. Napoleon's short hair was wet and matted\non the forehead, but his face, though puffy and yellow, expressed\nphysical satisfaction. \"Go on, harder, go on!\" he muttered to the valet\nwho was rubbing him, slightly twitching and grunting. An aide-de-camp,\nwho had entered the bedroom to report to the Emperor the number of\nprisoners taken in yesterday's action, was standing by the door after\ndelivering his message, awaiting permission to withdraw. Napoleon,\nfrowning, looked at him from under his brows.\n\n\"No prisoners!\" said he, repeating the aide-de-camp's words. \"They are\nforcing us to exterminate them. So much the worse for the Russian\narmy.... Go on... harder, harder!\" he muttered, hunching his back and\npresenting his fat shoulders.\n\n\"All right. Let Monsieur de Beausset enter, and Fabvier too,\" he said,\nnodding to the aide-de-camp.\n\n\"Yes, sire,\" and the aide-de-camp disappeared through the door of the\ntent.\n\nTwo valets rapidly dressed His Majesty, and wearing the blue uniform of\nthe Guards he went with firm quick steps to the reception room.\n\nDe Beausset's hands meanwhile were busily engaged arranging the present\nhe had brought from the Empress, on two chairs directly in front of the\nentrance. But Napoleon had dressed and come out with such unexpected\nrapidity that he had not time to finish arranging the surprise.\n\nNapoleon noticed at once what they were about and guessed that they were\nnot ready. He did not wish to deprive them of the pleasure of giving him\na surprise, so he pretended not to see de Beausset and called Fabvier to\nhim, listening silently and with a stern frown to what Fabvier told him\nof the heroism and devotion of his troops fighting at Salamanca, at the\nother end of Europe, with but one thought--to be worthy of their\nEmperor--and but one fear--to fail to please him. The result of that\nbattle had been deplorable. Napoleon made ironic remarks during\nFabvier's account, as if he had not expected that matters could go\notherwise in his absence.\n\n\"I must make up for that in Moscow,\" said Napoleon. \"I'll see you\nlater,\" he added, and summoned de Beausset, who by that time had\nprepared the surprise, having placed something on the chairs and covered\nit with a cloth.\n\nDe Beausset bowed low, with that courtly French bow which only the old\nretainers of the Bourbons knew how to make, and approached him,\npresenting an envelope.\n\nNapoleon turned to him gaily and pulled his ear.\n\n\"You have hurried here. I am very glad. Well, what is Paris saying?\" he\nasked, suddenly changing his former stern expression for a most cordial\ntone.\n\n\"Sire, all Paris regrets your absence,\" replied de Beausset as was\nproper.\n\nBut though Napoleon knew that de Beausset had to say something of this\nkind, and though in his lucid moments he knew it was untrue, he was\npleased to hear it from him. Again he honored him by touching his ear.\n\n\"I am very sorry to have made you travel so far,\" said he.\n\n\"Sire, I expected nothing less than to find you at the gates of Moscow,\"\nreplied de Beausset.\n\nNapoleon smiled and, lifting his head absent-mindedly, glanced to the\nright. An aide-de-camp approached with gliding steps and offered him a\ngold snuffbox, which he took.\n\n\"Yes, it has happened luckily for you,\" he said, raising the open\nsnuffbox to his nose. \"You are fond of travel, and in three days you\nwill see Moscow. You surely did not expect to see that Asiatic capital.\nYou will have a pleasant journey.\"\n\nDe Beausset bowed gratefully at this regard for his taste for travel (of\nwhich he had not till then been aware).\n\n\"Ha, what's this?\" asked Napoleon, noticing that all the courtiers were\nlooking at something concealed under a cloth.\n\nWith courtly adroitness de Beausset half turned and without turning his\nback to the Emperor retired two steps, twitching off the cloth at the\nsame time, and said:\n\n\"A present to Your Majesty from the Empress.\"\n\nIt was a portrait, painted in bright colors by Gerard, of the son borne\nto Napoleon by the daughter of the Emperor of Austria, the boy whom for\nsome reason everyone called \"The King of Rome.\"\n\nA very pretty curly-headed boy with a look of the Christ in the Sistine\nMadonna was depicted playing at stick and ball. The ball represented the\nterrestrial globe and the stick in his other hand a scepter.\n\nThough it was not clear what the artist meant to express by depicting\nthe so-called King of Rome spiking the earth with a stick, the allegory\napparently seemed to Napoleon, as it had done to all who had seen it in\nParis, quite clear and very pleasing.\n\n\"The King of Rome!\" he said, pointing to the portrait with a graceful\ngesture. \"Admirable!\"\n\nWith the natural capacity of an Italian for changing the expression of\nhis face at will, he drew nearer to the portrait and assumed a look of\npensive tenderness. He felt that what he now said and did would be\nhistorical, and it seemed to him that it would now be best for him--\nwhose grandeur enabled his son to play stick and ball with the\nterrestrial globe--to show, in contrast to that grandeur, the simplest\npaternal tenderness. His eyes grew dim, he moved forward, glanced round\nat a chair (which seemed to place itself under him), and sat down on it\nbefore the portrait. At a single gesture from him everyone went out on\ntiptoe, leaving the great man to himself and his emotion.\n\nHaving sat still for a while he touched--himself not knowing why--the\nthick spot of paint representing the highest light in the portrait,\nrose, and recalled de Beausset and the officer on duty. He ordered the\nportrait to be carried outside his tent, that the Old Guard, stationed\nround it, might not be deprived of the pleasure of seeing the King of\nRome, the son and heir of their adored monarch.\n\nAnd while he was doing M. de Beausset the honor of breakfasting with\nhim, they heard, as Napoleon had anticipated, the rapturous cries of the\nofficers and men of the Old Guard who had run up to see the portrait.\n\n\"Vive l'Empereur! Vive le roi de Rome! Vive l'Empereur!\" came those\necstatic cries.\n\nAfter breakfast Napoleon in de Beausset's presence dictated his order of\nthe day to the army.\n\n\"Short and energetic!\" he remarked when he had read over the\nproclamation which he had dictated straight off without corrections. It\nran:\n\nSoldiers! This is the battle you have so longed for. Victory depends on\nyou. It is essential for us; it will give us all we need: comfortable\nquarters and a speedy return to our country. Behave as you did at\nAusterlitz, Friedland, Vitebsk, and Smolensk. Let our remotest posterity\nrecall your achievements this day with pride. Let it be said of each of\nyou: \"He was in the great battle before Moscow!\"\n\n\"Before Moscow!\" repeated Napoleon, and inviting M. de Beausset, who was\nso fond of travel, to accompany him on his ride, he went out of the tent\nto where the horses stood saddled.\n\n\"Your Majesty is too kind!\" replied de Beausset to the invitation to\naccompany the Emperor; he wanted to sleep, did not know how to ride and\nwas afraid of doing so.\n\nBut Napoleon nodded to the traveler, and de Beausset had to mount. When\nNapoleon came out of the tent the shouting of the Guards before his\nson's portrait grew still louder. Napoleon frowned.\n\n\"Take him away!\" he said, pointing with a gracefully majestic gesture to\nthe portrait. \"It is too soon for him to see a field of battle.\"\n\nDe Beausset closed his eyes, bowed his head, and sighed deeply, to\nindicate how profoundly he valued and comprehended the Emperor's words.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII\n\nOn the twenty-fifth of August, so his historians tell us, Napoleon spent\nthe whole day on horseback inspecting the locality, considering plans\nsubmitted to him by his marshals, and personally giving commands to his\ngenerals.\n\nThe original line of the Russian forces along the river Kolocha had been\ndislocated by the capture of the Shevardino Redoubt on the twenty-\nfourth, and part of the line--the left flank--had been drawn back. That\npart of the line was not entrenched and in front of it the ground was\nmore open and level than elsewhere. It was evident to anyone, military\nor not, that it was here the French should attack. It would seem that\nnot much consideration was needed to reach this conclusion, nor any\nparticular care or trouble on the part of the Emperor and his marshals,\nnor was there any need of that special and supreme quality called genius\nthat people are so apt to ascribe to Napoleon; yet the historians who\ndescribed the event later and the men who then surrounded Napoleon, and\nhe himself, thought otherwise.\n\nNapoleon rode over the plain and surveyed the locality with a profound\nair and in silence, nodded with approval or shook his head dubiously,\nand without communicating to the generals around him the profound course\nof ideas which guided his decisions merely gave them his final\nconclusions in the form of commands. Having listened to a suggestion\nfrom Davout, who was now called Prince d'Eckmuhl, to turn the Russian\nleft wing, Napoleon said it should not be done, without explaining why\nnot. To a proposal made by General Campan (who was to attack the\nfleches) to lead his division through the woods, Napoleon agreed, though\nthe so-called Duke of Elchingen (Ney) ventured to remark that a movement\nthrough the woods was dangerous and might disorder the division.\n\nHaving inspected the country opposite the Shevardino Redoubt, Napoleon\npondered a little in silence and then indicated the spots where two\nbatteries should be set up by the morrow to act against the Russian\nentrenchments, and the places where, in line with them, the field\nartillery should be placed.\n\nAfter giving these and other commands he returned to his tent, and the\ndispositions for the battle were written down from his dictation.\n\nThese dispositions, of which the French historians write with enthusiasm\nand other historians with profound respect, were as follows:\n\nAt dawn the two new batteries established during the night on the plain\noccupied by the Prince d'Eckmuhl will open fire on the opposing\nbatteries of the enemy.\n\nAt the same time the commander of the artillery of the 1st Corps,\nGeneral Pernetti, with thirty cannon of Campan's division and all the\nhowitzers of Dessaix's and Friant's divisions, will move forward, open\nfire, and overwhelm with shellfire the enemy's battery, against which\nwill operate:\n\n\n24 guns of the artillery of the Guards 30 guns of Campan's division\n\nand 8 guns of Friant's and Dessaix's divisions --\n\nin all 62 guns.\n\nThe commander of the artillery of the 3rd Corps, General Fouche, will\nplace the howitzers of the 3rd and 8th Corps, sixteen in all, on the\nflanks of the battery that is to bombard the entrenchment on the left,\nwhich will have forty guns in all directed against it.\n\nGeneral Sorbier must be ready at the first order to advance with all the\nhowitzers of the Guard's artillery against either one or other of the\nentrenchments.\n\nDuring the cannonade Prince Poniatowski is to advance through the wood\non the village and turn the enemy's position.\n\nGeneral Campan will move through the wood to seize the first\nfortification.\n\nAfter the advance has begun in this manner, orders will be given in\naccordance with the enemy's movements.\n\nThe cannonade on the left flank will begin as soon as the guns of the\nright wing are heard. The sharpshooters of Morand's division and of the\nvice-King's division will open a heavy fire on seeing the attack\ncommence on the right wing.\n\nThe vice-King will occupy the village and cross by its three bridges,\nadvancing to the same heights as Morand's and Gibrard's divisions, which\nunder his leadership will be directed against the redoubt and come into\nline with the rest of the forces.\n\nAll this must be done in good order (le tout se fera avec ordre et\nmethode) as far as possible retaining troops in reserve.\n\nThe Imperial Camp near Mozhaysk,\n\nSeptember, 6, 1812.\n\nThese dispositions, which are very obscure and confused if one allows\noneself to regard the arrangements without religious awe of his genius,\nrelated to Napoleon's orders to deal with four points--four different\norders. Not one of these was, or could be, carried out.\n\nIn the disposition it is said first that the batteries placed on the\nspot chosen by Napoleon, with the guns of Pernetti and Fouche; which\nwere to come in line with them, 102 guns in all, were to open fire and\nshower shells on the Russian fleches and redoubts. This could not be\ndone, as from the spots selected by Napoleon the projectiles did not\ncarry to the Russian works, and those 102 guns shot into the air until\nthe nearest commander, contrary to Napoleon's instructions, moved them\nforward.\n\nThe second order was that Poniatowski, moving to the village through the\nwood, should turn the Russian left flank. This could not be done and was\nnot done, because Poniatowski, advancing on the village through the\nwood, met Tuchkov there barring his way, and could not and did not turn\nthe Russian position.\n\nThe third order was: General Campan will move through the wood to seize\nthe first fortification. General Campan's division did not seize the\nfirst fortification but was driven back, for on emerging from the wood\nit had to reform under grapeshot, of which Napoleon was unaware.\n\nThe fourth order was: The vice-King will occupy the village (Borodino)\nand cross by its three bridges, advancing to the same heights as\nMorand's and Gibrard's divisions (for whose movements no directions are\ngiven), which under his leadership will be directed against the redoubt\nand come into line with the rest of the forces.\n\nAs far as one can make out, not so much from this unintelligible\nsentence as from the attempts the vice-King made to execute the orders\ngiven him, he was to advance from the left through Borodino to the\nredoubt while the divisions of Morand and Gerard were to advance\nsimultaneously from the front.\n\nAll this, like the other parts of the disposition, was not and could not\nbe executed. After passing through Borodino the vice-King was driven\nback to the Kolocha and could get no farther; while the divisions of\nMorand and Gerard did not take the redoubt but were driven back, and the\nredoubt was only taken at the end of the battle by the cavalry (a thing\nprobably unforeseen and not heard of by Napoleon). So not one of the\norders in the disposition was, or could be, executed. But in the\ndisposition it is said that, after the fight has commenced in this\nmanner, orders will be given in accordance with the enemy's movements,\nand so it might be supposed that all necessary arrangements would be\nmade by Napoleon during the battle. But this was not and could not be\ndone, for during the whole battle Napoleon was so far away that, as\nappeared later, he could not know the course of the battle and not one\nof his orders during the fight could be executed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII\n\nMany historians say that the French did not win the battle of Borodino\nbecause Napoleon had a cold, and that if he had not had a cold the\norders he gave before and during the battle would have been still more\nfull of genius and Russia would have been lost and the face of the world\nhave been changed. To historians who believe that Russia was shaped by\nthe will of one man--Peter the Great--and that France from a republic\nbecame an empire and French armies went to Russia at the will of one\nman--Napoleon--to say that Russia remained a power because Napoleon had\na bad cold on the twenty-fourth of August may seem logical and\nconvincing.\n\nIf it had depended on Napoleon's will to fight or not to fight the\nbattle of Borodino, and if this or that other arrangement depended on\nhis will, then evidently a cold affecting the manifestation of his will\nmight have saved Russia, and consequently the valet who omitted to bring\nNapoleon his waterproof boots on the twenty-fourth would have been the\nsavior of Russia. Along that line of thought such a deduction is\nindubitable, as indubitable as the deduction Voltaire made in jest\n(without knowing what he was jesting at) when he saw that the Massacre\nof St. Bartholomew was due to Charles IX's stomach being deranged. But\nto men who do not admit that Russia was formed by the will of one man,\nPeter I, or that the French Empire was formed and the war with Russia\nbegun by the will of one man, Napoleon, that argument seems not merely\nuntrue and irrational, but contrary to all human reality. To the\nquestion of what causes historic events another answer presents itself,\nnamely, that the course of human events is predetermined from on high--\ndepends on the coincidence of the wills of all who take part in the\nevents, and that a Napoleon's influence on the course of these events is\npurely external and fictitious.\n\nStrange as at first glance it may seem to suppose that the Massacre of\nSt. Bartholomew was not due to Charles IX's will, though he gave the\norder for it and thought it was done as a result of that order; and\nstrange as it may seem to suppose that the slaughter of eighty thousand\nmen at Borodino was not due to Napoleon's will, though he ordered the\ncommencement and conduct of the battle and thought it was done because\nhe ordered it; strange as these suppositions appear, yet human dignity--\nwhich tells me that each of us is, if not more at least not less a man\nthan the great Napoleon--demands the acceptance of that solution of the\nquestion, and historic investigation abundantly confirms it.\n\nAt the battle of Borodino Napoleon shot at no one and killed no one.\nThat was all done by the soldiers. Therefore it was not he who killed\npeople.\n\nThe French soldiers went to kill and be killed at the battle of Borodino\nnot because of Napoleon's orders but by their own volition. The whole\narmy--French, Italian, German, Polish, and Dutch--hungry, ragged, and\nweary of the campaign, felt at the sight of an army blocking their road\nto Moscow that the wine was drawn and must be drunk. Had Napoleon then\nforbidden them to fight the Russians, they would have killed him and\nhave proceeded to fight the Russians because it was inevitable.\n\nWhen they heard Napoleon's proclamation offering them, as compensation\nfor mutilation and death, the words of posterity about their having been\nin the battle before Moscow, they cried \"Vive l'Empereur!\" just as they\nhad cried \"Vive l'Empereur!\" at the sight of the portrait of the boy\npiercing the terrestrial globe with a toy stick, and just as they would\nhave cried \"Vive l'Empereur!\" at any nonsense that might be told them.\nThere was nothing left for them to do but cry \"Vive l'Empereur!\" and go\nto fight, in order to get food and rest as conquerors in Moscow. So it\nwas not because of Napoleon's commands that they killed their fellow\nmen.\n\nAnd it was not Napoleon who directed the course of the battle, for none\nof his orders were executed and during the battle he did not know what\nwas going on before him. So the way in which these people killed one\nanother was not decided by Napoleon's will but occurred independently of\nhim, in accord with the will of hundreds of thousands of people who took\npart in the common action. It only seemed to Napoleon that it all took\nplace by his will. And so the question whether he had or had not a cold\nhas no more historic interest than the cold of the least of the\ntransport soldiers.\n\nMoreover, the assertion made by various writers that his cold was the\ncause of his dispositions not being as well-planned as on former\noccasions, and of his orders during the battle not being as good as\npreviously, is quite baseless, which again shows that Napoleon's cold on\nthe twenty-sixth of August was unimportant.\n\nThe dispositions cited above are not at all worse, but are even better,\nthan previous dispositions by which he had won victories. His pseudo-\norders during the battle were also no worse than formerly, but much the\nsame as usual. These dispositions and orders only seem worse than\nprevious ones because the battle of Borodino was the first Napoleon did\nnot win. The profoundest and most excellent dispositions and orders seem\nvery bad, and every learned militarist criticizes them with looks of\nimportance, when they relate to a battle that has been lost, and the\nvery worst dispositions and orders seem very good, and serious people\nfill whole volumes to demonstrate their merits, when they relate to a\nbattle that has been won.\n\nThe dispositions drawn up by Weyrother for the battle of Austerlitz were\na model of perfection for that kind of composition, but still they were\ncriticized--criticized for their very perfection, for their excessive\nminuteness.\n\nNapoleon at the battle of Borodino fulfilled his office as\nrepresentative of authority as well as, and even better than, at other\nbattles. He did nothing harmful to the progress of the battle; he\ninclined to the most reasonable opinions, he made no confusion, did not\ncontradict himself, did not get frightened or run away from the field of\nbattle, but with his great tact and military experience carried out his\nrole of appearing to command, calmly and with dignity.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX\n\nOn returning from a second inspection of the lines, Napoleon remarked:\n\n\"The chessmen are set up, the game will begin tomorrow!\"\n\nHaving ordered punch and summoned de Beausset, he began to talk to him\nabout Paris and about some changes he meant to make in the Empress'\nhousehold, surprising the prefect by his memory of minute details\nrelating to the court.\n\nHe showed an interest in trifles, joked about de Beausset's love of\ntravel, and chatted carelessly, as a famous, self-confident surgeon who\nknows his job does when turning up his sleeves and putting on his apron\nwhile a patient is being strapped to the operating table. \"The matter is\nin my hands and is clear and definite in my head. When the time comes to\nset to work I shall do it as no one else could, but now I can jest, and\nthe more I jest and the calmer I am the more tranquil and confident you\nought to be, and the more amazed at my genius.\"\n\nHaving finished his second glass of punch, Napoleon went to rest before\nthe serious business which, he considered, awaited him next day. He was\nso much interested in that task that he was unable to sleep, and in\nspite of his cold which had grown worse from the dampness of the\nevening, he went into the large division of the tent at three o'clock in\nthe morning, loudly blowing his nose. He asked whether the Russians had\nnot withdrawn, and was told that the enemy's fires were still in the\nsame places. He nodded approval.\n\nThe adjutant in attendance came into the tent.\n\n\"Well, Rapp, do you think we shall do good business today?\" Napoleon\nasked him.\n\n\"Without doubt, sire,\" replied Rapp.\n\nNapoleon looked at him.\n\n\"Do you remember, sire, what you did me the honor to say at Smolensk?\"\ncontinued Rapp. \"The wine is drawn and must be drunk.\"\n\nNapoleon frowned and sat silent for a long time leaning his head on his\nhand.\n\n\"This poor army!\" he suddenly remarked. \"It has diminished greatly since\nSmolensk. Fortune is frankly a courtesan, Rapp. I have always said so\nand I am beginning to experience it. But the Guards, Rapp, the Guards\nare intact?\" he remarked interrogatively.\n\n\"Yes, sire,\" replied Rapp.\n\nNapoleon took a lozenge, put it in his mouth, and glanced at his watch.\nHe was not sleepy and it was still not nearly morning. It was impossible\nto give further orders for the sake of killing time, for the orders had\nall been given and were now being executed.\n\n\"Have the biscuits and rice been served out to the regiments of the\nGuards?\" asked Napoleon sternly.\n\n\"Yes, sire.\"\n\n\"The rice too?\"\n\nRapp replied that he had given the Emperor's order about the rice, but\nNapoleon shook his head in dissatisfaction as if not believing that his\norder had been executed. An attendant came in with punch. Napoleon\nordered another glass to be brought for Rapp, and silently sipped his\nown.\n\n\"I have neither taste nor smell,\" he remarked, sniffing at his glass.\n\"This cold is tiresome. They talk about medicine--what is the good of\nmedicine when it can't cure a cold! Corvisart gave me these lozenges but\nthey don't help at all. What can doctors cure? One can't cure anything.\nOur body is a machine for living. It is organized for that, it is its\nnature. Let life go on in it unhindered and let it defend itself, it\nwill do more than if you paralyze it by encumbering it with remedies.\nOur body is like a perfect watch that should go for a certain time; the\nwatchmaker cannot open it, he can only adjust it by fumbling, and that\nblindfold.... Yes, our body is just a machine for living, that is all.\"\n\nAnd having entered on the path of definition, of which he was fond,\nNapoleon suddenly and unexpectedly gave a new one.\n\n\"Do you know, Rapp, what military art is?\" asked he. \"It is the art of\nbeing stronger than the enemy at a given moment. That's all.\"\n\nRapp made no reply.\n\n\"Tomorrow we shall have to deal with Kutuzov!\" said Napoleon. \"We shall\nsee! Do you remember at Braunau he commanded an army for three weeks and\ndid not once mount a horse to inspect his entrenchments.... We shall\nsee!\"\n\nHe looked at his watch. It was still only four o'clock. He did not feel\nsleepy. The punch was finished and there was still nothing to do. He\nrose, walked to and fro, put on a warm overcoat and a hat, and went out\nof the tent. The night was dark and damp, a scarcely perceptible\nmoisture was descending from above. Near by, the campfires were dimly\nburning among the French Guards, and in the distance those of the\nRussian line shone through the smoke. The weather was calm, and the\nrustle and tramp of the French troops already beginning to move to take\nup their positions were clearly audible.\n\nNapoleon walked about in front of his tent, looked at the fires and\nlistened to these sounds, and as he was passing a tall guardsman in a\nshaggy cap, who was standing sentinel before his tent and had drawn\nhimself up like a black pillar at sight of the Emperor, Napoleon stopped\nin front of him.\n\n\"What year did you enter the service?\" he asked with that affectation of\nmilitary bluntness and geniality with which he always addressed the\nsoldiers.\n\nThe man answered the question.\n\n\"Ah! One of the old ones! Has your regiment had its rice?\"\n\n\"It has, Your Majesty.\"\n\nNapoleon nodded and walked away.\n\nAt half-past five Napoleon rode to the village of Shevardino.\n\nIt was growing light, the sky was clearing, only a single cloud lay in\nthe east. The abandoned campfires were burning themselves out in the\nfaint morning light.\n\nOn the right a single deep report of a cannon resounded and died away in\nthe prevailing silence. Some minutes passed. A second and a third report\nshook the air, then a fourth and a fifth boomed solemnly near by on the\nright.\n\nThe first shots had not yet ceased to reverberate before others rang out\nand yet more were heard mingling with and overtaking one another.\n\nNapoleon with his suite rode up to the Shevardino Redoubt where he\ndismounted. The game had begun.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX\n\nOn returning to Gorki after having seen Prince Andrew, Pierre ordered\nhis groom to get the horses ready and to call him early in the morning,\nand then immediately fell asleep behind a partition in a corner Boris\nhad given up to him.\n\nBefore he was thoroughly awake next morning everybody had already left\nthe hut. The panes were rattling in the little windows and his groom was\nshaking him.\n\n\"Your excellency! Your excellency! Your excellency!\" he kept repeating\npertinaciously while he shook Pierre by the shoulder without looking at\nhim, having apparently lost hope of getting him to wake up.\n\n\"What? Has it begun? Is it time?\" Pierre asked, waking up.\n\n\"Hear the firing,\" said the groom, a discharged soldier. \"All the\ngentlemen have gone out, and his Serene Highness himself rode past long\nago.\"\n\nPierre dressed hastily and ran out to the porch. Outside all was bright,\nfresh, dewy, and cheerful. The sun, just bursting forth from behind a\ncloud that had concealed it, was shining, with rays still half broken by\nthe clouds, over the roofs of the street opposite, on the dew-\nbesprinkled dust of the road, on the walls of the houses, on the\nwindows, the fence, and on Pierre's horses standing before the hut. The\nroar of guns sounded more distinct outside. An adjutant accompanied by a\nCossack passed by at a sharp trot.\n\n\"It's time, Count; it's time!\" cried the adjutant.\n\nTelling the groom to follow him with the horses, Pierre went down the\nstreet to the knoll from which he had looked at the field of battle the\nday before. A crowd of military men was assembled there, members of the\nstaff could be heard conversing in French, and Kutuzov's gray head in a\nwhite cap with a red band was visible, his gray nape sunk between his\nshoulders. He was looking through a field glass down the highroad before\nhim.\n\nMounting the steps to the knoll Pierre looked at the scene before him,\nspellbound by beauty. It was the same panorama he had admired from that\nspot the day before, but now the whole place was full of troops and\ncovered by smoke clouds from the guns, and the slanting rays of the\nbright sun, rising slightly to the left behind Pierre, cast upon it\nthrough the clear morning air penetrating streaks of rosy, golden-tinted\nlight and long dark shadows. The forest at the farthest extremity of the\npanorama seemed carved in some precious stone of a yellowish-green\ncolor; its undulating outline was silhouetted against the horizon and\nwas pierced beyond Valuevo by the Smolensk highroad crowded with troops.\nNearer at hand glittered golden cornfields interspersed with copses.\nThere were troops to be seen everywhere, in front and to the right and\nleft. All this was vivid, majestic, and unexpected; but what impressed\nPierre most of all was the view of the battlefield itself, of Borodino\nand the hollows on both sides of the Kolocha.\n\nAbove the Kolocha, in Borodino and on both sides of it, especially to\nthe left where the Voyna flowing between its marshy banks falls into the\nKolocha, a mist had spread which seemed to melt, to dissolve, and to\nbecome translucent when the brilliant sun appeared and magically colored\nand outlined everything. The smoke of the guns mingled with this mist,\nand over the whole expanse and through that mist the rays of the morning\nsun were reflected, flashing back like lightning from the water, from\nthe dew, and from the bayonets of the troops crowded together by the\nriverbanks and in Borodino. A white church could be seen through the\nmist, and here and there the roofs of huts in Borodino as well as dense\nmasses of soldiers, or green ammunition chests and ordnance. And all\nthis moved, or seemed to move, as the smoke and mist spread out over the\nwhole space. Just as in the mist-enveloped hollow near Borodino, so\nalong the entire line outside and above it and especially in the woods\nand fields to the left, in the valleys and on the summits of the high\nground, clouds of powder smoke seemed continually to spring up out of\nnothing, now singly, now several at a time, some translucent, others\ndense, which, swelling, growing, rolling, and blending, extended over\nthe whole expanse.\n\nThese puffs of smoke and (strange to say) the sound of the firing\nproduced the chief beauty of the spectacle.\n\n\"Puff!\"--suddenly a round compact cloud of smoke was seen merging from\nviolet into gray and milky white, and \"boom!\" came the report a second\nlater.\n\n\"Puff! puff!\"--and two clouds arose pushing one another and blending\ntogether; and \"boom, boom!\" came the sounds confirming what the eye had\nseen.\n\nPierre glanced round at the first cloud, which he had seen as a round\ncompact ball, and in its place already were balloons of smoke floating\nto one side, and--\"puff\" (with a pause)--\"puff, puff!\" three and then\nfour more appeared and then from each, with the same interval--\"boom--\nboom, boom!\" came the fine, firm, precise sounds in reply. It seemed as\nif those smoke clouds sometimes ran and sometimes stood still while\nwoods, fields, and glittering bayonets ran past them. From the left,\nover fields and bushes, those large balls of smoke were continually\nappearing followed by their solemn reports, while nearer still, in the\nhollows and woods, there burst from the muskets small cloudlets that had\nno time to become balls, but had their little echoes in just the same\nway. \"Trakh-ta-ta-takh!\" came the frequent crackle of musketry, but it\nwas irregular and feeble in comparison with the reports of the cannon.\n\nPierre wished to be there with that smoke, those shining bayonets, that\nmovement, and those sounds. He turned to look at Kutuzov and his suite,\nto compare his impressions with those of others. They were all looking\nat the field of battle as he was, and, as it seemed to him, with the\nsame feelings. All their faces were now shining with that latent warmth\nof feeling Pierre had noticed the day before and had fully understood\nafter his talk with Prince Andrew.\n\n\"Go, my dear fellow, go... and Christ be with you!\" Kutuzov was saying\nto a general who stood beside him, not taking his eye from the\nbattlefield.\n\nHaving received this order the general passed by Pierre on his way down\nthe knoll.\n\n\"To the crossing!\" said the general coldly and sternly in reply to one\nof the staff who asked where he was going.\n\n\"I'll go there too, I too!\" thought Pierre, and followed the general.\n\nThe general mounted a horse a Cossack had brought him. Pierre went to\nhis groom who was holding his horses and, asking which was the quietest,\nclambered onto it, seized it by the mane, and turning out his toes\npressed his heels against its sides and, feeling that his spectacles\nwere slipping off but unable to let go of the mane and reins, he\ngalloped after the general, causing the staff officers to smile as they\nwatched him from the knoll.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI\n\nHaving descended the hill the general after whom Pierre was galloping\nturned sharply to the left, and Pierre, losing sight of him, galloped in\namong some ranks of infantry marching ahead of him. He tried to pass\neither in front of them or to the right or left, but there were soldiers\neverywhere, all with the same preoccupied expression and busy with some\nunseen but evidently important task. They all gazed with the same\ndissatisfied and inquiring expression at this stout man in a white hat,\nwho for some unknown reason threatened to trample them under his horse's\nhoofs.\n\n\"Why ride into the middle of the battalion?\" one of them shouted at him.\n\nAnother prodded his horse with the butt end of a musket, and Pierre,\nbending over his saddlebow and hardly able to control his shying horse,\ngalloped ahead of the soldiers where there was a free space.\n\nThere was a bridge ahead of him, where other soldiers stood firing.\nPierre rode up to them. Without being aware of it he had come to the\nbridge across the Kolocha between Gorki and Borodino, which the French\n(having occupied Borodino) were attacking in the first phase of the\nbattle. Pierre saw that there was a bridge in front of him and that\nsoldiers were doing something on both sides of it and in the meadow,\namong the rows of new-mown hay which he had taken no notice of amid the\nsmoke of the campfires the day before; but despite the incessant firing\ngoing on there he had no idea that this was the field of battle. He did\nnot notice the sound of the bullets whistling from every side, or the\nprojectiles that flew over him, did not see the enemy on the other side\nof the river, and for a long time did not notice the killed and wounded,\nthough many fell near him. He looked about him with a smile which did\nnot leave his face.\n\n\"Why's that fellow in front of the line?\" shouted somebody at him again.\n\n\"To the left!... Keep to the right!\" the men shouted to him.\n\nPierre went to the right, and unexpectedly encountered one of Raevski's\nadjutants whom he knew. The adjutant looked angrily at him, evidently\nalso intending to shout at him, but on recognizing him he nodded.\n\n\"How have you got here?\" he said, and galloped on.\n\nPierre, feeling out of place there, having nothing to do, and afraid of\ngetting in someone's way again, galloped after the adjutant.\n\n\"What's happening here? May I come with you?\" he asked.\n\n\"One moment, one moment!\" replied the adjutant, and riding up to a stout\ncolonel who was standing in the meadow, he gave him some message and\nthen addressed Pierre.\n\n\"Why have you come here, Count?\" he asked with a smile. \"Still\ninquisitive?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" assented Pierre.\n\nBut the adjutant turned his horse about and rode on.\n\n\"Here it's tolerable,\" said he, \"but with Bagration on the left flank\nthey're getting it frightfully hot.\"\n\n\"Really?\" said Pierre. \"Where is that?\"\n\n\"Come along with me to our knoll. We can get a view from there and in\nour battery it is still bearable,\" said the adjutant. \"Will you come?\"\n\n\"Yes, I'll come with you,\" replied Pierre, looking round for his groom.\n\nIt was only now that he noticed wounded men staggering along or being\ncarried on stretchers. On that very meadow he had ridden over the day\nbefore, a soldier was lying athwart the rows of scented hay, with his\nhead thrown awkwardly back and his shako off.\n\n\"Why haven't they carried him away?\" Pierre was about to ask, but seeing\nthe stern expression of the adjutant who was also looking that way, he\nchecked himself.\n\nPierre did not find his groom and rode along the hollow with the\nadjutant to Raevski's Redoubt. His horse lagged behind the adjutant's\nand jolted him at every step.\n\n\"You don't seem to be used to riding, Count?\" remarked the adjutant.\n\n\"No it's not that, but her action seems so jerky,\" said Pierre in a\npuzzled tone.\n\n\"Why... she's wounded!\" said the adjutant. \"In the off foreleg above the\nknee. A bullet, no doubt. I congratulate you, Count, on your baptism of\nfire!\"\n\nHaving ridden in the smoke past the Sixth Corps, behind the artillery\nwhich had been moved forward and was in action, deafening them with the\nnoise of firing, they came to a small wood. There it was cool and quiet,\nwith a scent of autumn. Pierre and the adjutant dismounted and walked up\nthe hill on foot.\n\n\"Is the general here?\" asked the adjutant on reaching the knoll.\n\n\"He was here a minute ago but has just gone that way,\" someone told him,\npointing to the right.\n\nThe adjutant looked at Pierre as if puzzled what to do with him now.\n\n\"Don't trouble about me,\" said Pierre. \"I'll go up onto the knoll if I\nmay?\"\n\n\"Yes, do. You'll see everything from there and it's less dangerous, and\nI'll come for you.\"\n\nPierre went to the battery and the adjutant rode on. They did not meet\nagain, and only much later did Pierre learn that he lost an arm that\nday.\n\nThe knoll to which Pierre ascended was that famous one afterwards known\nto the Russians as the Knoll Battery or Raevski's Redoubt, and to the\nFrench as la grande redoute, la fatale redoute, la redoute du centre,\naround which tens of thousands fell, and which the French regarded as\nthe key to the whole position.\n\nThis redoubt consisted of a knoll, on three sides of which trenches had\nbeen dug. Within the entrenchment stood ten guns that were being fired\nthrough openings in the earthwork.\n\nIn line with the knoll on both sides stood other guns which also fired\nincessantly. A little behind the guns stood infantry. When ascending\nthat knoll Pierre had no notion that this spot, on which small trenches\nhad been dug and from which a few guns were firing, was the most\nimportant point of the battle.\n\nOn the contrary, just because he happened to be there he thought it one\nof the least significant parts of the field.\n\nHaving reached the knoll, Pierre sat down at one end of a trench\nsurrounding the battery and gazed at what was going on around him with\nan unconsciously happy smile. Occasionally he rose and walked about the\nbattery still with that same smile, trying not to obstruct the soldiers\nwho were loading, hauling the guns, and continually running past him\nwith bags and charges. The guns of that battery were being fired\ncontinually one after another with a deafening roar, enveloping the\nwhole neighborhood in powder smoke.\n\nIn contrast with the dread felt by the infantrymen placed in support,\nhere in the battery where a small number of men busy at their work were\nseparated from the rest by a trench, everyone experienced a common and\nas it were family feeling of animation.\n\nThe intrusion of Pierre's nonmilitary figure in a white hat made an\nunpleasant impression at first. The soldiers looked askance at him with\nsurprise and even alarm as they went past him. The senior artillery\nofficer, a tall, long-legged, pockmarked man, moved over to Pierre as if\nto see the action of the farthest gun and looked at him with curiosity.\n\nA young round-faced officer, quite a boy still and evidently only just\nout of the Cadet College, who was zealously commanding the two guns\nentrusted to him, addressed Pierre sternly.\n\n\"Sir,\" he said, \"permit me to ask you to stand aside. You must not be\nhere.\"\n\nThe soldiers shook their heads disapprovingly as they looked at Pierre.\nBut when they had convinced themselves that this man in the white hat\nwas doing no harm, but either sat quietly on the slope of the trench\nwith a shy smile or, politely making way for the soldiers, paced up and\ndown the battery under fire as calmly as if he were on a boulevard,\ntheir feeling of hostile distrust gradually began to change into a\nkindly and bantering sympathy, such as soldiers feel for their dogs,\ncocks, goats, and in general for the animals that live with the\nregiment. The men soon accepted Pierre into their family, adopted him,\ngave him a nickname (\"our gentleman\"), and made kindly fun of him among\nthemselves.\n\nA shell tore up the earth two paces from Pierre and he looked around\nwith a smile as he brushed from his clothes some earth it had thrown up.\n\n\"And how's it you're not afraid, sir, really now?\" a red-faced, broad-\nshouldered soldier asked Pierre, with a grin that disclosed a set of\nsound, white teeth.\n\n\"Are you afraid, then?\" said Pierre.\n\n\"What else do you expect?\" answered the soldier. \"She has no mercy, you\nknow! When she comes spluttering down, out go your innards. One can't\nhelp being afraid,\" he said laughing.\n\nSeveral of the men, with bright kindly faces, stopped beside Pierre.\nThey seemed not to have expected him to talk like anybody else, and the\ndiscovery that he did so delighted them.\n\n\"It's the business of us soldiers. But in a gentleman it's wonderful!\nThere's a gentleman for you!\"\n\n\"To your places!\" cried the young officer to the men gathered round\nPierre.\n\nThe young officer was evidently exercising his duties for the first or\nsecond time and therefore treated both his superiors and the men with\ngreat precision and formality.\n\nThe booming cannonade and the fusillade of musketry were growing more\nintense over the whole field, especially to the left where Bagration's\nfleches were, but where Pierre was the smoke of the firing made it\nalmost impossible to distinguish anything. Moreover, his whole attention\nwas engrossed by watching the family circle--separated from all else--\nformed by the men in the battery. His first unconscious feeling of\njoyful animation produced by the sights and sounds of the battlefield\nwas now replaced by another, especially since he had seen that soldier\nlying alone in the hayfield. Now, seated on the slope of the trench, he\nobserved the faces of those around him.\n\nBy ten o'clock some twenty men had already been carried away from the\nbattery; two guns were smashed and cannon balls fell more and more\nfrequently on the battery and spent bullets buzzed and whistled around.\nBut the men in the battery seemed not to notice this, and merry voices\nand jokes were heard on all sides.\n\n\"A live one!\" shouted a man as a whistling shell approached.\n\n\"Not this way! To the infantry!\" added another with loud laughter,\nseeing the shell fly past and fall into the ranks of the supports.\n\n\"Are you bowing to a friend, eh?\" remarked another, chaffing a peasant\nwho ducked low as a cannon ball flew over.\n\nSeveral soldiers gathered by the wall of the trench, looking out to see\nwhat was happening in front.\n\n\"They've withdrawn the front line, it has retired,\" said they, pointing\nover the earthwork.\n\n\"Mind your own business,\" an old sergeant shouted at them. \"If they've\nretired it's because there's work for them to do farther back.\"\n\nAnd the sergeant, taking one of the men by the shoulders, gave him a\nshove with his knee. This was followed by a burst of laughter.\n\n\"To the fifth gun, wheel it up!\" came shouts from one side.\n\n\"Now then, all together, like bargees!\" rose the merry voices of those\nwho were moving the gun.\n\n\"Oh, she nearly knocked our gentleman's hat off!\" cried the red-faced\nhumorist, showing his teeth chaffing Pierre. \"Awkward baggage!\" he added\nreproachfully to a cannon ball that struck a cannon wheel and a man's\nleg.\n\n\"Now then, you foxes!\" said another, laughing at some militiamen who,\nstooping low, entered the battery to carry away the wounded man.\n\n\"So this gruel isn't to your taste? Oh, you crows! You're scared!\" they\nshouted at the militiamen who stood hesitating before the man whose leg\nhad been torn off.\n\n\"There, lads... oh, oh!\" they mimicked the peasants, \"they don't like it\nat all!\"\n\nPierre noticed that after every ball that hit the redoubt, and after\nevery loss, the liveliness increased more and more.\n\nAs the flames of the fire hidden within come more and more vividly and\nrapidly from an approaching thundercloud, so, as if in opposition to\nwhat was taking place, the lightning of hidden fire growing more and\nmore intense glowed in the faces of these men.\n\nPierre did not look out at the battlefield and was not concerned to know\nwhat was happening there; he was entirely absorbed in watching this fire\nwhich burned ever more brightly and which he felt was flaming up in the\nsame way in his own soul.\n\nAt ten o'clock the infantry that had been among the bushes in front of\nthe battery and along the Kamenka streamlet retreated. From the battery\nthey could be seen running back past it carrying their wounded on their\nmuskets. A general with his suite came to the battery, and after\nspeaking to the colonel gave Pierre an angry look and went away again\nhaving ordered the infantry supports behind the battery to lie down, so\nas to be less exposed to fire. After this from amid the ranks of\ninfantry to the right of the battery came the sound of a drum and shouts\nof command, and from the battery one saw how those ranks of infantry\nmoved forward.\n\nPierre looked over the wall of the trench and was particularly struck by\na pale young officer who, letting his sword hang down, was walking\nbackwards and kept glancing uneasily around.\n\nThe ranks of the infantry disappeared amid the smoke but their long-\ndrawn shout and rapid musketry firing could still be heard. A few\nminutes later crowds of wounded men and stretcher-bearers came back from\nthat direction. Projectiles began to fall still more frequently in the\nbattery. Several men were lying about who had not been removed. Around\nthe cannon the men moved still more briskly and busily. No one any\nlonger took notice of Pierre. Once or twice he was shouted at for being\nin the way. The senior officer moved with big, rapid strides from one\ngun to another with a frowning face. The young officer, with his face\nstill more flushed, commanded the men more scrupulously than ever. The\nsoldiers handed up the charges, turned, loaded, and did their business\nwith strained smartness. They gave little jumps as they walked, as\nthough they were on springs.\n\nThe stormcloud had come upon them, and in every face the fire which\nPierre had watched kindle burned up brightly. Pierre standing beside the\ncommanding officer. The young officer, his hand to his shako, ran up to\nhis superior.\n\n\"I have the honor to report, sir, that only eight rounds are left. Are\nwe to continue firing?\" he asked.\n\n\"Grapeshot!\" the senior shouted, without answering the question, looking\nover the wall of the trench.\n\nSuddenly something happened: the young officer gave a gasp and bending\ndouble sat down on the ground like a bird shot on the wing. Everything\nbecame strange, confused, and misty in Pierre's eyes.\n\nOne cannon ball after another whistled by and struck the earthwork, a\nsoldier, or a gun. Pierre, who had not noticed these sounds before, now\nheard nothing else. On the right of the battery soldiers shouting\n\"Hurrah!\" were running not forwards but backwards, it seemed to Pierre.\n\nA cannon ball struck the very end of the earth work by which he was\nstanding, crumbling down the earth; a black ball flashed before his eyes\nand at the same instant plumped into something. Some militiamen who were\nentering the battery ran back.\n\n\"All with grapeshot!\" shouted the officer.\n\nThe sergeant ran up to the officer and in a frightened whisper informed\nhim (as a butler at dinner informs his master that there is no more of\nsome wine asked for) that there were no more charges.\n\n\"The scoundrels! What are they doing?\" shouted the officer, turning to\nPierre.\n\nThe officer's face was red and perspiring and his eyes glittered under\nhis frowning brow.\n\n\"Run to the reserves and bring up the ammunition boxes!\" he yelled,\nangrily avoiding Pierre with his eyes and speaking to his men.\n\n\"I'll go,\" said Pierre.\n\nThe officer, without answering him, strode across to the opposite side.\n\n\"Don't fire.... Wait!\" he shouted.\n\nThe man who had been ordered to go for ammunition stumbled against\nPierre.\n\n\"Eh, sir, this is no place for you,\" said he, and ran down the slope.\n\nPierre ran after him, avoiding the spot where the young officer was\nsitting.\n\nOne cannon ball, another, and a third flew over him, falling in front,\nbeside, and behind him. Pierre ran down the slope. \"Where am I going?\"\nhe suddenly asked himself when he was already near the green ammunition\nwagons. He halted irresolutely, not knowing whether to return or go on.\nSuddenly a terrible concussion threw him backwards to the ground. At the\nsame instant he was dazzled by a great flash of flame, and immediately a\ndeafening roar, crackling, and whistling made his ears tingle.\n\nWhen he came to himself he was sitting on the ground leaning on his\nhands; the ammunition wagons he had been approaching no longer existed,\nonly charred green boards and rags littered the scorched grass, and a\nhorse, dangling fragments of its shaft behind it, galloped past, while\nanother horse lay, like Pierre, on the ground, uttering prolonged and\npiercing cries.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII\n\nBeside himself with terror Pierre jumped up and ran back to the battery,\nas to the only refuge from the horrors that surrounded him.\n\nOn entering the earthwork he noticed that there were men doing something\nthere but that no shots were being fired from the battery. He had no\ntime to realize who these men were. He saw the senior officer lying on\nthe earth wall with his back turned as if he were examining something\ndown below and that one of the soldiers he had noticed before was\nstruggling forward shouting \"Brothers!\" and trying to free himself from\nsome men who were holding him by the arm. He also saw something else\nthat was strange.\n\nBut he had not time to realize that the colonel had been killed, that\nthe soldier shouting \"Brothers!\" was a prisoner, and that another man\nhad been bayoneted in the back before his eyes, for hardly had he run\ninto the redoubt before a thin, sallow-faced, perspiring man in a blue\nuniform rushed on him sword in hand, shouting something. Instinctively\nguarding against the shock--for they had been running together at full\nspeed before they saw one another--Pierre put out his hands and seized\nthe man (a French officer) by the shoulder with one hand and by the\nthroat with the other. The officer, dropping his sword, seized Pierre by\nhis collar.\n\nFor some seconds they gazed with frightened eyes at one another's\nunfamiliar faces and both were perplexed at what they had done and what\nthey were to do next. \"Am I taken prisoner or have I taken him\nprisoner?\" each was thinking. But the French officer was evidently more\ninclined to think he had been taken prisoner because Pierre's strong\nhand, impelled by instinctive fear, squeezed his throat ever tighter and\ntighter. The Frenchman was about to say something, when just above their\nheads, terrible and low, a cannon ball whistled, and it seemed to Pierre\nthat the French officer's head had been torn off, so swiftly had he\nducked it.\n\nPierre too bent his head and let his hands fall. Without further thought\nas to who had taken whom prisoner, the Frenchman ran back to the battery\nand Pierre ran down the slope stumbling over the dead and wounded who,\nit seemed to him, caught at his feet. But before he reached the foot of\nthe knoll he was met by a dense crowd of Russian soldiers who,\nstumbling, tripping up, and shouting, ran merrily and wildly toward the\nbattery. (This was the attack for which Ermolov claimed the credit,\ndeclaring that only his courage and good luck made such a feat possible:\nit was the attack in which he was said to have thrown some St. George's\nCrosses he had in his pocket into the battery for the first soldiers to\ntake who got there.)\n\nThe French who had occupied the battery fled, and our troops shouting\n\"Hurrah!\" pursued them so far beyond the battery that it was difficult\nto call them back.\n\nThe prisoners were brought down from the battery and among them was a\nwounded French general, whom the officers surrounded. Crowds of wounded-\n-some known to Pierre and some unknown--Russians and French, with faces\ndistorted by suffering, walked, crawled, and were carried on stretchers\nfrom the battery. Pierre again went up onto the knoll where he had spent\nover an hour, and of that family circle which had received him as a\nmember he did not find a single one. There were many dead whom he did\nnot know, but some he recognized. The young officer still sat in the\nsame way, bent double, in a pool of blood at the edge of the earth wall.\nThe red-faced man was still twitching, but they did not carry him away.\n\nPierre ran down the slope once more.\n\n\"Now they will stop it, now they will be horrified at what they have\ndone!\" he thought, aimlessly going toward a crowd of stretcher bearers\nmoving from the battlefield.\n\nBut behind the veil of smoke the sun was still high, and in front and\nespecially to the left, near Semenovsk, something seemed to be seething\nin the smoke, and the roar of cannon and musketry did not diminish, but\neven increased to desperation like a man who, straining himself, shrieks\nwith all his remaining strength.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII\n\nThe chief action of the battle of Borodino was fought within the seven\nthousand feet between Borodino and Bagration's fleches. Beyond that\nspace there was, on the one side, a demonstration made by the Russians\nwith Uvarov's cavalry at midday, and on the other side, beyond Utitsa,\nPoniatowski's collision with Tuchkov; but these two were detached and\nfeeble actions in comparison with what took place in the center of the\nbattlefield. On the field between Borodino and the fleches, beside the\nwood, the chief action of the day took place on an open space visible\nfrom both sides and was fought in the simplest and most artless way.\n\nThe battle began on both sides with a cannonade from several hundred\nguns.\n\nThen when the whole field was covered with smoke, two divisions,\nCampan's and Dessaix's, advanced from the French right, while Murat's\ntroops advanced on Borodino from their left.\n\nFrom the Shevardino Redoubt where Napoleon was standing the fleches were\ntwo thirds of a mile away, and it was more than a mile as the crow flies\nto Borodino, so that Napoleon could not see what was happening there,\nespecially as the smoke mingling with the mist hid the whole locality.\nThe soldiers of Dessaix's division advancing against the fleches could\nonly be seen till they had entered the hollow that lay between them and\nthe fleches. As soon as they had descended into that hollow, the smoke\nof the guns and musketry on the fleches grew so dense that it covered\nthe whole approach on that side of it. Through the smoke glimpses could\nbe caught of something black--probably men--and at times the glint of\nbayonets. But whether they were moving or stationary, whether they were\nFrench or Russian, could not be discovered from the Shevardino Redoubt.\n\nThe sun had risen brightly and its slanting rays struck straight into\nNapoleon's face as, shading his eyes with his hand, he looked at the\nfleches. The smoke spread out before them, and at times it looked as if\nthe smoke were moving, at times as if the troops moved. Sometimes shouts\nwere heard through the firing, but it was impossible to tell what was\nbeing done there.\n\nNapoleon, standing on the knoll, looked through a field glass, and in\nits small circlet saw smoke and men, sometimes his own and sometimes\nRussians, but when he looked again with the naked eye, he could not tell\nwhere what he had seen was.\n\nHe descended the knoll and began walking up and down before it.\n\nOccasionally he stopped, listened to the firing, and gazed intently at\nthe battlefield.\n\nBut not only was it impossible to make out what was happening from where\nhe was standing down below, or from the knoll above on which some of his\ngenerals had taken their stand, but even from the fleches themselves--in\nwhich by this time there were now Russian and now French soldiers,\nalternately or together, dead, wounded, alive, frightened, or maddened--\neven at those fleches themselves it was impossible to make out what was\ntaking place. There for several hours amid incessant cannon and musketry\nfire, now Russians were seen alone, now Frenchmen alone, now infantry,\nand now cavalry: they appeared, fired, fell, collided, not knowing what\nto do with one another, screamed, and ran back again.\n\nFrom the battlefield adjutants he had sent out, and orderlies from his\nmarshals, kept galloping up to Napoleon with reports of the progress of\nthe action, but all these reports were false, both because it was\nimpossible in the heat of battle to say what was happening at any given\nmoment and because many of the adjutants did not go to the actual place\nof conflict but reported what they had heard from others; and also\nbecause while an adjutant was riding more than a mile to Napoleon\ncircumstances changed and the news he brought was already becoming\nfalse. Thus an adjutant galloped up from Murat with tidings that\nBorodino had been occupied and the bridge over the Kolocha was in the\nhands of the French. The adjutant asked whether Napoleon wished the\ntroops to cross it? Napoleon gave orders that the troops should form up\non the farther side and wait. But before that order was given--almost as\nsoon in fact as the adjutant had left Borodino--the bridge had been\nretaken by the Russians and burned, in the very skirmish at which Pierre\nhad been present at the beginning of the battle.\n\nAn adjutant galloped up from the fleches with a pale and frightened face\nand reported to Napoleon that their attack had been repulsed, Campan\nwounded, and Davout killed; yet at the very time the adjutant had been\ntold that the French had been repulsed, the fleches had in fact been\nrecaptured by other French troops, and Davout was alive and only\nslightly bruised. On the basis of these necessarily untrustworthy\nreports Napoleon gave his orders, which had either been executed before\nhe gave them or could not be and were not executed.\n\nThe marshals and generals, who were nearer to the field of battle but,\nlike Napoleon, did not take part in the actual fighting and only\noccasionally went within musket range, made their own arrangements\nwithout asking Napoleon and issued orders where and in what direction to\nfire and where cavalry should gallop and infantry should run. But even\ntheir orders, like Napoleon's, were seldom carried out, and then but\npartially. For the most part things happened contrary to their orders.\nSoldiers ordered to advance ran back on meeting grapeshot; soldiers\nordered to remain where they were, suddenly, seeing Russians\nunexpectedly before them, sometimes rushed back and sometimes forward,\nand the cavalry dashed without orders in pursuit of the flying Russians.\nIn this way two cavalry regiments galloped through the Semenovsk hollow\nand as soon as they reached the top of the incline turned round and\ngalloped full speed back again. The infantry moved in the same way,\nsometimes running to quite other places than those they were ordered to\ngo to. All orders as to where and when to move the guns, when to send\ninfantry to shoot or horsemen to ride down the Russian infantry--all\nsuch orders were given by the officers on the spot nearest to the units\nconcerned, without asking either Ney, Davout, or Murat, much less\nNapoleon. They did not fear getting into trouble for not fulfilling\norders or for acting on their own initiative, for in battle what is at\nstake is what is dearest to man--his own life--and it sometimes seems\nthat safety lies in running back, sometimes in running forward; and\nthese men who were right in the heat of the battle acted according to\nthe mood of the moment. In reality, however, all these movements forward\nand backward did not improve or alter the position of the troops. All\ntheir rushing and galloping at one another did little harm, the harm of\ndisablement and death was caused by the balls and bullets that flew over\nthe fields on which these men were floundering about. As soon as they\nleft the place where the balls and bullets were flying about, their\nsuperiors, located in the background, re-formed them and brought them\nunder discipline and under the influence of that discipline led them\nback to the zone of fire, where under the influence of fear of death\nthey lost their discipline and rushed about according to the chance\npromptings of the throng.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV\n\nNapoleon's generals--Davout, Ney, and Murat, who were near that region\nof fire and sometimes even entered it--repeatedly led into it huge\nmasses of well-ordered troops. But contrary to what had always happened\nin their former battles, instead of the news they expected of the\nenemy's flight, these orderly masses returned thence as disorganized and\nterrified mobs. The generals re-formed them, but their numbers\nconstantly decreased. In the middle of the day Murat sent his adjutant\nto Napoleon to demand reinforcements.\n\nNapoleon sat at the foot of the knoll, drinking punch, when Murat's\nadjutant galloped up with an assurance that the Russians would be routed\nif His Majesty would let him have another division.\n\n\"Reinforcements?\" said Napoleon in a tone of stern surprise, looking at\nthe adjutant--a handsome lad with long black curls arranged like Murat's\nown--as though he did not understand his words.\n\n\"Reinforcements!\" thought Napoleon to himself. \"How can they need\nreinforcements when they already have half the army directed against a\nweak, unentrenched Russian wing?\"\n\n\"Tell the King of Naples,\" said he sternly, \"that it is not noon yet,\nand I don't yet see my chessboard clearly. Go!...\"\n\nThe handsome boy adjutant with the long hair sighed deeply without\nremoving his hand from his hat and galloped back to where men were being\nslaughtered.\n\nNapoleon rose and having summoned Caulaincourt and Berthier began\ntalking to them about matters unconnected with the battle.\n\nIn the midst of this conversation, which was beginning to interest\nNapoleon, Berthier's eyes turned to look at a general with a suite, who\nwas galloping toward the knoll on a lathering horse. It was Belliard.\nHaving dismounted he went up to the Emperor with rapid strides and in a\nloud voice began boldly demonstrating the necessity of sending\nreinforcements. He swore on his honor that the Russians were lost if the\nEmperor would give another division.\n\nNapoleon shrugged his shoulders and continued to pace up and down\nwithout replying. Belliard began talking loudly and eagerly to the\ngenerals of the suite around him.\n\n\"You are very fiery, Belliard,\" said Napoleon, when he again came up to\nthe general. \"In the heat of a battle it is easy to make a mistake. Go\nand have another look and then come back to me.\"\n\nBefore Belliard was out of sight, a messenger from another part of the\nbattlefield galloped up.\n\n\"Now then, what do you want?\" asked Napoleon in the tone of a man\nirritated at being continually disturbed.\n\n\"Sire, the prince...\" began the adjutant.\n\n\"Asks for reinforcements?\" said Napoleon with an angry gesture.\n\nThe adjutant bent his head affirmatively and began to report, but the\nEmperor turned from him, took a couple of steps, stopped, came back, and\ncalled Berthier.\n\n\"We must give reserves,\" he said, moving his arms slightly apart. \"Who\ndo you think should be sent there?\" he asked of Berthier (whom he\nsubsequently termed \"that gosling I have made an eagle\").\n\n\"Send Claparede's division, sire,\" replied Berthier, who knew all the\ndivision's regiments, and battalions by heart.\n\nNapoleon nodded assent.\n\nThe adjutant galloped to Claparede's division and a few minutes later\nthe Young Guards stationed behind the knoll moved forward. Napoleon\ngazed silently in that direction.\n\n\"No!\" he suddenly said to Berthier. \"I can't send Claparede. Send\nFriant's division.\"\n\nThough there was no advantage in sending Friant's division instead of\nClaparede's, and even an obvious inconvenience and delay in stopping\nClaparede and sending Friant now, the order was carried out exactly.\nNapoleon did not notice that in regard to his army he was playing the\npart of a doctor who hinders by his medicines--a role he so justly\nunderstood and condemned.\n\nFriant's division disappeared as the others had done into the smoke of\nthe battlefield. From all sides adjutants continued to arrive at a\ngallop and as if by agreement all said the same thing. They all asked\nfor reinforcements and all said that the Russians were holding their\npositions and maintaining a hellish fire under which the French army was\nmelting away.\n\nNapoleon sat on a campstool, wrapped in thought.\n\nM. de Beausset, the man so fond of travel, having fasted since morning,\ncame up to the Emperor and ventured respectfully to suggest lunch to His\nMajesty.\n\n\"I hope I may now congratulate Your Majesty on a victory?\" said he.\n\nNapoleon silently shook his head in negation. Assuming the negation to\nrefer only to the victory and not to the lunch, M. de Beausset ventured\nwith respectful jocularity to remark that there is no reason for not\nhaving lunch when one can get it.\n\n\"Go away...\" exclaimed Napoleon suddenly and morosely, and turned aside.\n\nA beatific smile of regret, repentance, and ecstasy beamed on M. de\nBeausset's face and he glided away to the other generals.\n\nNapoleon was experiencing a feeling of depression like that of an ever-\nlucky gambler who, after recklessly flinging money about and always\nwinning, suddenly just when he has calculated all the chances of the\ngame, finds that the more he considers his play the more surely he\nloses.\n\nHis troops were the same, his generals the same, the same preparations\nhad been made, the same dispositions, and the same proclamation courte\net energique, he himself was still the same: he knew that and knew that\nhe was now even more experienced and skillful than before. Even the\nenemy was the same as at Austerlitz and Friedland--yet the terrible\nstroke of his arm had supernaturally become impotent.\n\nAll the old methods that had been unfailingly crowned with success: the\nconcentration of batteries on one point, an attack by reserves to break\nthe enemy's line, and a cavalry attack by \"the men of iron,\" all these\nmethods had already been employed, yet not only was there no victory,\nbut from all sides came the same news of generals killed and wounded, of\nreinforcements needed, of the impossibility of driving back the\nRussians, and of disorganization among his own troops.\n\nFormerly, after he had given two or three orders and uttered a few\nphrases, marshals and adjutants had come galloping up with\ncongratulations and happy faces, announcing the trophies taken, the\ncorps of prisoners, bundles of enemy eagles and standards, cannon and\nstores, and Murat had only begged leave to loose the cavalry to gather\nin the baggage wagons. So it had been at Lodi, Marengo, Arcola, Jena,\nAusterlitz, Wagram, and so on. But now something strange was happening\nto his troops.\n\nDespite news of the capture of the fleches, Napoleon saw that this was\nnot the same, not at all the same, as what had happened in his former\nbattles. He saw that what he was feeling was felt by all the men about\nhim experienced in the art of war. All their faces looked dejected, and\nthey all shunned one another's eyes--only a de Beausset could fail to\ngrasp the meaning of what was happening.\n\nBut Napoleon with his long experience of war well knew the meaning of a\nbattle not gained by the attacking side in eight hours, after all\nefforts had been expended. He knew that it was a lost battle and that\nthe least accident might now--with the fight balanced on such a strained\ncenter--destroy him and his army.\n\nWhen he ran his mind over the whole of this strange Russian campaign in\nwhich not one battle had been won, and in which not a flag, or cannon,\nor army corps had been captured in two months, when he looked at the\nconcealed depression on the faces around him and heard reports of the\nRussians still holding their ground--a terrible feeling like a nightmare\ntook possession of him, and all the unlucky accidents that might destroy\nhim occurred to his mind. The Russians might fall on his left wing,\nmight break through his center, he himself might be killed by a stray\ncannon ball. All this was possible. In former battles he had only\nconsidered the possibilities of success, but now innumerable unlucky\nchances presented themselves, and he expected them all. Yes, it was like\na dream in which a man fancies that a ruffian is coming to attack him,\nand raises his arm to strike that ruffian a terrible blow which he knows\nshould annihilate him, but then feels that his arm drops powerless and\nlimp like a rag, and the horror of unavoidable destruction seizes him in\nhis helplessness.\n\nThe news that the Russians were attacking the left flank of the French\narmy aroused that horror in Napoleon. He sat silently on a campstool\nbelow the knoll, with head bowed and elbows on his knees. Berthier\napproached and suggested that they should ride along the line to\nascertain the position of affairs.\n\n\"What? What do you say?\" asked Napoleon. \"Yes, tell them to bring me my\nhorse.\"\n\nHe mounted and rode toward Semenovsk.\n\nAmid the powder smoke, slowly dispersing over the whole space through\nwhich Napoleon rode, horses and men were lying in pools of blood, singly\nor in heaps. Neither Napoleon nor any of his generals had ever before\nseen such horrors or so many slain in such a small area. The roar of\nguns, that had not ceased for ten hours, wearied the ear and gave a\npeculiar significance to the spectacle, as music does to tableaux\nvivants. Napoleon rode up the high ground at Semenovsk, and through the\nsmoke saw ranks of men in uniforms of a color unfamiliar to him. They\nwere Russians.\n\nThe Russians stood in serried ranks behind Semenovsk village and its\nknoll, and their guns boomed incessantly along their line and sent forth\nclouds of smoke. It was no longer a battle: it was a continuous\nslaughter which could be of no avail either to the French or the\nRussians. Napoleon stopped his horse and again fell into the reverie\nfrom which Berthier had aroused him. He could not stop what was going on\nbefore him and around him and was supposed to be directed by him and to\ndepend on him, and from its lack of success this affair, for the first\ntime, seemed to him unnecessary and horrible.\n\nOne of the generals rode up to Napoleon and ventured to offer to lead\nthe Old Guard into action. Ney and Berthier, standing near Napoleon,\nexchanged looks and smiled contemptuously at this general's senseless\noffer.\n\nNapoleon bowed his head and remained silent a long time.\n\n\"At eight hundred leagues from France, I will not have my Guard\ndestroyed!\" he said, and turning his horse rode back to Shevardino.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXV\n\nOn the rug-covered bench where Pierre had seen him in the morning sat\nKutuzov, his gray head hanging, his heavy body relaxed. He gave no\norders, but only assented to or dissented from what others suggested.\n\n\"Yes, yes, do that,\" he replied to various proposals. \"Yes, yes: go,\ndear boy, and have a look,\" he would say to one or another of those\nabout him; or, \"No, don't, we'd better wait!\" He listened to the reports\nthat were brought him and gave directions when his subordinates demanded\nthat of him; but when listening to the reports it seemed as if he were\nnot interested in the import of the words spoken, but rather in\nsomething else--in the expression of face and tone of voice of those who\nwere reporting. By long years of military experience he knew, and with\nthe wisdom of age understood, that it is impossible for one man to\ndirect hundreds of thousands of others struggling with death, and he\nknew that the result of a battle is decided not by the orders of a\ncommander-in-chief, nor the place where the troops are stationed, nor by\nthe number of cannon or of slaughtered men, but by that intangible force\ncalled the spirit of the army, and he watched this force and guided it\nin as far as that was in his power.\n\nKutuzov's general expression was one of concentrated quiet attention,\nand his face wore a strained look as if he found it difficult to master\nthe fatigue of his old and feeble body.\n\nAt eleven o'clock they brought him news that the fleches captured by the\nFrench had been retaken, but that Prince Bagration was wounded. Kutuzov\ngroaned and swayed his head.\n\n\"Ride over to Prince Peter Ivanovich and find out about it exactly,\" he\nsaid to one of his adjutants, and then turned to the Duke of Wurttemberg\nwho was standing behind him.\n\n\"Will Your Highness please take command of the first army?\"\n\nSoon after the duke's departure--before he could possibly have reached\nSemenovsk--his adjutant came back from him and told Kutuzov that the\nduke asked for more troops.\n\nKutuzov made a grimace and sent an order to Dokhturov to take over the\ncommand of the first army, and a request to the duke--whom he said he\ncould not spare at such an important moment--to return to him. When they\nbrought him news that Murat had been taken prisoner, and the staff\nofficers congratulated him, Kutuzov smiled.\n\n\"Wait a little, gentlemen,\" said he. \"The battle is won, and there is\nnothing extraordinary in the capture of Murat. Still, it is better to\nwait before we rejoice.\"\n\nBut he sent an adjutant to take the news round the army.\n\nWhen Scherbinin came galloping from the left flank with news that the\nFrench had captured the fleches and the village of Semenovsk, Kutuzov,\nguessing by the sounds of the battle and by Scherbinin's looks that the\nnews was bad, rose as if to stretch his legs and, taking Scherbinin's\narm, led him aside.\n\n\"Go, my dear fellow,\" he said to Ermolov, \"and see whether something\ncan't be done.\"\n\nKutuzov was in Gorki, near the center of the Russian position. The\nattack directed by Napoleon against our left flank had been several\ntimes repulsed. In the center the French had not got beyond Borodino,\nand on their left flank Uvarov's cavalry had put the French to flight.\n\nToward three o'clock the French attacks ceased. On the faces of all who\ncame from the field of battle, and of those who stood around him,\nKutuzov noticed an expression of extreme tension. He was satisfied with\nthe day's success--a success exceeding his expectations, but the old\nman's strength was failing him. Several times his head dropped low as if\nit were falling and he dozed off. Dinner was brought him.\n\nAdjutant General Wolzogen, the man who when riding past Prince Andrew\nhad said, \"the war should be extended widely,\" and whom Bagration so\ndetested, rode up while Kutuzov was at dinner. Wolzogen had come from\nBarclay de Tolly to report on the progress of affairs on the left flank.\nThe sagacious Barclay de Tolly, seeing crowds of wounded men running\nback and the disordered rear of the army, weighed all the circumstances,\nconcluded that the battle was lost, and sent his favorite officer to the\ncommander in chief with that news.\n\nKutuzov was chewing a piece of roast chicken with difficulty and glanced\nat Wolzogen with eyes that brightened under their puckering lids.\n\nWolzogen, nonchalantly stretching his legs, approached Kutuzov with a\nhalf-contemptuous smile on his lips, scarcely touching the peak of his\ncap.\n\nHe treated his Serene Highness with a somewhat affected nonchalance\nintended to show that, as a highly trained military man, he left it to\nRussians to make an idol of this useless old man, but that he knew whom\nhe was dealing with. \"Der alte Herr\" (as in their own set the Germans\ncalled Kutuzov) \"is making himself very comfortable,\" thought Wolzogen,\nand looking severely at the dishes in front of Kutuzov he began to\nreport to \"the old gentleman\" the position of affairs on the left flank\nas Barclay had ordered him to and as he himself had seen and understood\nit.\n\n\"All the points of our position are in the enemy's hands and we cannot\ndislodge them for lack of troops, the men are running away and it is\nimpossible to stop them,\" he reported.\n\nKutuzov ceased chewing and fixed an astonished gaze on Wolzogen, as if\nnot understanding what was said to him. Wolzogen, noticing \"the old\ngentleman's\" agitation, said with a smile:\n\n\"I have not considered it right to conceal from your Serene Highness\nwhat I have seen. The troops are in complete disorder...\"\n\n\"You have seen? You have seen?...\" Kutuzov shouted. Frowning and rising\nquickly, he went up to Wolzogen.\n\n\"How... how dare you!...\" he shouted, choking and making a threatening\ngesture with his trembling arms: \"How dare you, sir, say that to me? You\nknow nothing about it. Tell General Barclay from me that his information\nis incorrect and that the real course of the battle is better known to\nme, the commander-in-chief, than to him.\"\n\nWolzogen was about to make a rejoinder, but Kutuzov interrupted him.\n\n\"The enemy has been repulsed on the left and defeated on the right\nflank. If you have seen amiss, sir, do not allow yourself to say what\nyou don't know! Be so good as to ride to General Barclay and inform him\nof my firm intention to attack the enemy tomorrow,\" said Kutuzov\nsternly.\n\nAll were silent, and the only sound audible was the heavy breathing of\nthe panting old general.\n\n\"They are repulsed everywhere, for which I thank God and our brave army!\nThe enemy is beaten, and tomorrow we shall drive him from the sacred\nsoil of Russia,\" said Kutuzov crossing himself, and he suddenly sobbed\nas his eyes filled with tears.\n\nWolzogen, shrugging his shoulders and curling his lips, stepped silently\naside, marveling at \"the old gentleman's\" conceited stupidity.\n\n\"Ah, here he is, my hero!\" said Kutuzov to a portly, handsome, dark-\nhaired general who was just ascending the knoll.\n\nThis was Raevski, who had spent the whole day at the most important part\nof the field of Borodino.\n\nRaevski reported that the troops were firmly holding their ground and\nthat the French no longer ventured to attack.\n\nAfter hearing him, Kutuzov said in French:\n\n\"Then you do not think, like some others, that we must retreat?\"\n\n\"On the contrary, your Highness, in indecisive actions it is always the\nmost stubborn who remain victors,\" replied Raevski, \"and in my\nopinion...\"\n\n\"Kaysarov!\" Kutuzov called to his adjutant. \"Sit down and write out the\norder of the day for tomorrow. And you,\" he continued, addressing\nanother, \"ride along the line and announce that tomorrow we attack.\"\n\nWhile Kutuzov was talking to Raevski and dictating the order of the day,\nWolzogen returned from Barclay and said that General Barclay wished to\nhave written confirmation of the order the field marshal had given.\n\nKutuzov, without looking at Wolzogen, gave directions for the order to\nbe written out which the former commander-in-chief, to avoid personal\nresponsibility, very judiciously wished to receive.\n\nAnd by means of that mysterious indefinable bond which maintains\nthroughout an army one and the same temper, known as \"the spirit of the\narmy,\" and which constitutes the sinew of war, Kutuzov's words, his\norder for a battle next day, immediately became known from one end of\nthe army to the other.\n\nIt was far from being the same words or the same order that reached the\nfarthest links of that chain. The tales passing from mouth to mouth at\ndifferent ends of the army did not even resemble what Kutuzov had said,\nbut the sense of his words spread everywhere because what he said was\nnot the outcome of cunning calculations, but of a feeling that lay in\nthe commander-in-chief's soul as in that of every Russian.\n\nAnd on learning that tomorrow they were to attack the enemy, and hearing\nfrom the highest quarters a confirmation of what they wanted to believe,\nthe exhausted, wavering men felt comforted and inspirited.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVI\n\nPrince Andrew's regiment was among the reserves which till after one\no'clock were stationed inactive behind Semenovsk, under heavy artillery\nfire. Toward two o'clock the regiment, having already lost more than two\nhundred men, was moved forward into a trampled oatfield in the gap\nbetween Semenovsk and the Knoll Battery, where thousands of men perished\nthat day and on which an intense, concentrated fire from several hundred\nenemy guns was directed between one and two o'clock.\n\nWithout moving from that spot or firing a single shot the regiment here\nlost another third of its men. From in front and especially from the\nright, in the unlifting smoke the guns boomed, and out of the mysterious\ndomain of smoke that overlay the whole space in front, quick hissing\ncannon balls and slow whistling shells flew unceasingly. At times, as if\nto allow them a respite, a quarter of an hour passed during which the\ncannon balls and shells all flew overhead, but sometimes several men\nwere torn from the regiment in a minute and the slain were continually\nbeing dragged away and the wounded carried off.\n\nWith each fresh blow less and less chance of life remained for those not\nyet killed. The regiment stood in columns of battalion, three hundred\npaces apart, but nevertheless the men were always in one and the same\nmood. All alike were taciturn and morose. Talk was rarely heard in the\nranks, and it ceased altogether every time the thud of a successful shot\nand the cry of \"stretchers!\" was heard. Most of the time, by their\nofficers' order, the men sat on the ground. One, having taken off his\nshako, carefully loosened the gathers of its lining and drew them tight\nagain; another, rubbing some dry clay between his palms, polished his\nbayonet; another fingered the strap and pulled the buckle of his\nbandolier, while another smoothed and refolded his leg bands and put his\nboots on again. Some built little houses of the tufts in the plowed\nground, or plaited baskets from the straw in the cornfield. All seemed\nfully absorbed in these pursuits. When men were killed or wounded, when\nrows of stretchers went past, when some troops retreated, and when great\nmasses of the enemy came into view through the smoke, no one paid any\nattention to these things. But when our artillery or cavalry advanced or\nsome of our infantry were seen to move forward, words of approval were\nheard on all sides. But the liveliest attention was attracted by\noccurrences quite apart from, and unconnected with, the battle. It was\nas if the minds of these morally exhausted men found relief in everyday,\ncommonplace occurrences. A battery of artillery was passing in front of\nthe regiment. The horse of an ammunition cart put its leg over a trace.\n\"Hey, look at the trace horse!... Get her leg out! She'll fall.... Ah,\nthey don't see it!\" came identical shouts from the ranks all along the\nregiment. Another time, general attention was attracted by a small brown\ndog, coming heaven knows whence, which trotted in a preoccupied manner\nin front of the ranks with tail stiffly erect till suddenly a shell fell\nclose by, when it yelped, tucked its tail between its legs, and darted\naside. Yells and shrieks of laughter rose from the whole regiment. But\nsuch distractions lasted only a moment, and for eight hours the men had\nbeen inactive, without food, in constant fear of death, and their pale\nand gloomy faces grew ever paler and gloomier.\n\nPrince Andrew, pale and gloomy like everyone in the regiment, paced up\nand down from the border of one patch to another, at the edge of the\nmeadow beside an oatfield, with head bowed and arms behind his back.\nThere was nothing for him to do and no orders to be given. Everything\nwent on of itself. The killed were dragged from the front, the wounded\ncarried away, and the ranks closed up. If any soldiers ran to the rear\nthey returned immediately and hastily. At first Prince Andrew,\nconsidering it his duty to rouse the courage of the men and to set them\nan example, walked about among the ranks, but he soon became convinced\nthat this was unnecessary and that there was nothing he could teach\nthem. All the powers of his soul, as of every soldier there, were\nunconsciously bent on avoiding the contemplation of the horrors of their\nsituation. He walked along the meadow, dragging his feet, rustling the\ngrass, and gazing at the dust that covered his boots; now he took big\nstrides trying to keep to the footprints left on the meadow by the\nmowers, then he counted his steps, calculating how often he must walk\nfrom one strip to another to walk a mile, then he stripped the flowers\nfrom the wormwood that grew along a boundary rut, rubbed them in his\npalms, and smelled their pungent, sweetly bitter scent. Nothing remained\nof the previous day's thoughts. He thought of nothing. He listened with\nweary ears to the ever-recurring sounds, distinguishing the whistle of\nflying projectiles from the booming of the reports, glanced at the\ntiresomely familiar faces of the men of the first battalion, and waited.\n\"Here it comes... this one is coming our way again!\" he thought,\nlistening to an approaching whistle in the hidden region of smoke. \"One,\nanother! Again! It has hit....\" He stopped and looked at the ranks. \"No,\nit has gone over. But this one has hit!\" And again he started trying to\nreach the boundary strip in sixteen paces. A whizz and a thud! Five\npaces from him, a cannon ball tore up the dry earth and disappeared. A\nchill ran down his back. Again he glanced at the ranks. Probably many\nhad been hit--a large crowd had gathered near the second battalion.\n\n\"Adjutant!\" he shouted. \"Order them not to crowd together.\"\n\nThe adjutant, having obeyed this instruction, approached Prince Andrew.\nFrom the other side a battalion commander rode up.\n\n\"Look out!\" came a frightened cry from a soldier and, like a bird\nwhirring in rapid flight and alighting on the ground, a shell dropped\nwith little noise within two steps of Prince Andrew and close to the\nbattalion commander's horse. The horse first, regardless of whether it\nwas right or wrong to show fear, snorted, reared almost throwing the\nmajor, and galloped aside. The horse's terror infected the men.\n\n\"Lie down!\" cried the adjutant, throwing himself flat on the ground.\n\nPrince Andrew hesitated. The smoking shell spun like a top between him\nand the prostrate adjutant, near a wormwood plant between the field and\nthe meadow.\n\n\"Can this be death?\" thought Prince Andrew, looking with a quite new,\nenvious glance at the grass, the wormwood, and the streamlet of smoke\nthat curled up from the rotating black ball. \"I cannot, I do not wish to\ndie. I love life--I love this grass, this earth, this air....\" He\nthought this, and at the same time remembered that people were looking\nat him.\n\n\"It's shameful, sir!\" he said to the adjutant. \"What...\"\n\nHe did not finish speaking. At one and the same moment came the sound of\nan explosion, a whistle of splinters as from a breaking window frame, a\nsuffocating smell of powder, and Prince Andrew started to one side,\nraising his arm, and fell on his chest. Several officers ran up to him.\nFrom the right side of his abdomen, blood was welling out making a large\nstain on the grass.\n\nThe militiamen with stretchers who were called up stood behind the\nofficers. Prince Andrew lay on his chest with his face in the grass,\nbreathing heavily and noisily.\n\n\"What are you waiting for? Come along!\"\n\nThe peasants went up and took him by his shoulders and legs, but he\nmoaned piteously and, exchanging looks, they set him down again.\n\n\"Pick him up, lift him, it's all the same!\" cried someone.\n\nThey again took him by the shoulders and laid him on the stretcher.\n\n\"Ah, God! My God! What is it? The stomach? That means death! My God!\"--\nvoices among the officers were heard saying.\n\n\"It flew a hair's breadth past my ear,\" said the adjutant.\n\nThe peasants, adjusting the stretcher to their shoulders, started\nhurriedly along the path they had trodden down, to the dressing station.\n\n\"Keep in step! Ah... those peasants!\" shouted an officer, seizing by\ntheir shoulders and checking the peasants, who were walking unevenly and\njolting the stretcher.\n\n\"Get into step, Fedor... I say, Fedor!\" said the foremost peasant.\n\n\"Now that's right!\" said the one behind joyfully, when he had got into\nstep.\n\n\"Your excellency! Eh, Prince!\" said the trembling voice of Timokhin, who\nhad run up and was looking down on the stretcher.\n\nPrince Andrew opened his eyes and looked up at the speaker from the\nstretcher into which his head had sunk deep and again his eyelids\ndrooped.\n\nThe militiamen carried Prince Andrew to the dressing station by the\nwood, where wagons were stationed. The dressing station consisted of\nthree tents with flaps turned back, pitched at the edge of a birch wood.\nIn the wood, wagons and horses were standing. The horses were eating\noats from their movable troughs and sparrows flew down and pecked the\ngrains that fell. Some crows, scenting blood, flew among the birch trees\ncawing impatiently. Around the tents, over more than five acres,\nbloodstained men in various garbs stood, sat, or lay. Around the wounded\nstood crowds of soldier stretcher-bearers with dismal and attentive\nfaces, whom the officers keeping order tried in vain to drive from the\nspot. Disregarding the officers' orders, the soldiers stood leaning\nagainst their stretchers and gazing intently, as if trying to comprehend\nthe difficult problem of what was taking place before them. From the\ntents came now loud angry cries and now plaintive groans. Occasionally\ndressers ran out to fetch water, or to point out those who were to be\nbrought in next. The wounded men awaiting their turn outside the tents\ngroaned, sighed, wept, screamed, swore, or asked for vodka. Some were\ndelirious. Prince Andrew's bearers, stepping over the wounded who had\nnot yet been bandaged, took him, as a regimental commander, close up to\none of the tents and there stopped, awaiting instructions. Prince Andrew\nopened his eyes and for a long time could not make out what was going on\naround him. He remembered the meadow, the wormwood, the field, the\nwhirling black ball, and his sudden rush of passionate love of life. Two\nsteps from him, leaning against a branch and talking loudly and\nattracting general attention, stood a tall, handsome, black-haired\nnoncommissioned officer with a bandaged head. He had been wounded in the\nhead and leg by bullets. Around him, eagerly listening to his talk, a\ncrowd of wounded and stretcher-bearers was gathered.\n\n\"We kicked him out from there so that he chucked everything, we grabbed\nthe King himself!\" cried he, looking around him with eyes that glittered\nwith fever. \"If only reserves had come up just then, lads, there\nwouldn't have been nothing left of him! I tell you surely...\"\n\nLike all the others near the speaker, Prince Andrew looked at him with\nshining eyes and experienced a sense of comfort. \"But isn't it all the\nsame now?\" thought he. \"And what will be there, and what has there been\nhere? Why was I so reluctant to part with life? There was something in\nthis life I did not and do not understand.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVII\n\nOne of the doctors came out of the tent in a bloodstained apron, holding\na cigar between the thumb and little finger of one of his small\nbloodstained hands, so as not to smear it. He raised his head and looked\nabout him, but above the level of the wounded men. He evidently wanted a\nlittle respite. After turning his head from right to left for some time,\nhe sighed and looked down.\n\n\"All right, immediately,\" he replied to a dresser who pointed Prince\nAndrew out to him, and he told them to carry him into the tent.\n\nMurmurs arose among the wounded who were waiting.\n\n\"It seems that even in the next world only the gentry are to have a\nchance!\" remarked one.\n\nPrince Andrew was carried in and laid on a table that had only just been\ncleared and which a dresser was washing down. Prince Andrew could not\nmake out distinctly what was in that tent. The pitiful groans from all\nsides and the torturing pain in his thigh, stomach, and back distracted\nhim. All he saw about him merged into a general impression of naked,\nbleeding human bodies that seemed to fill the whole of the low tent, as\na few weeks previously, on that hot August day, such bodies had filled\nthe dirty pond beside the Smolensk road. Yes, it was the same flesh, the\nsame chair a canon, the sight of which had even then filled him with\nhorror, as by a presentiment.\n\nThere were three operating tables in the tent. Two were occupied, and on\nthe third they placed Prince Andrew. For a little while he was left\nalone and involuntarily witnessed what was taking place on the other two\ntables. On the nearest one sat a Tartar, probably a Cossack, judging by\nthe uniform thrown down beside him. Four soldiers were holding him, and\na spectacled doctor was cutting into his muscular brown back.\n\n\"Ooh, ooh, ooh!\" grunted the Tartar, and suddenly lifting up his swarthy\nsnub-nosed face with its high cheekbones, and baring his white teeth, he\nbegan to wriggle and twitch his body and utter piercing, ringing, and\nprolonged yells. On the other table, round which many people were\ncrowding, a tall well-fed man lay on his back with his head thrown back.\nHis curly hair, its color, and the shape of his head seemed strangely\nfamiliar to Prince Andrew. Several dressers were pressing on his chest\nto hold him down. One large, white, plump leg twitched rapidly all the\ntime with a feverish tremor. The man was sobbing and choking\nconvulsively. Two doctors--one of whom was pale and trembling--were\nsilently doing something to this man's other, gory leg. When he had\nfinished with the Tartar, whom they covered with an overcoat, the\nspectacled doctor came up to Prince Andrew, wiping his hands.\n\nHe glanced at Prince Andrew's face and quickly turned away.\n\n\"Undress him! What are you waiting for?\" he cried angrily to the\ndressers.\n\nHis very first, remotest recollections of childhood came back to Prince\nAndrew's mind when the dresser with sleeves rolled up began hastily to\nundo the buttons of his clothes and undressed him. The doctor bent down\nover the wound, felt it, and sighed deeply. Then he made a sign to\nsomeone, and the torturing pain in his abdomen caused Prince Andrew to\nlose consciousness. When he came to himself the splintered portions of\nhis thighbone had been extracted, the torn flesh cut away, and the wound\nbandaged. Water was being sprinkled on his face. As soon as Prince\nAndrew opened his eyes, the doctor bent over, kissed him silently on the\nlips, and hurried away.\n\nAfter the sufferings he had been enduring, Prince Andrew enjoyed a\nblissful feeling such as he had not experienced for a long time. All the\nbest and happiest moments of his life--especially his earliest\nchildhood, when he used to be undressed and put to bed, and when leaning\nover him his nurse sang him to sleep and he, burying his head in the\npillow, felt happy in the mere consciousness of life--returned to his\nmemory, not merely as something past but as something present.\n\nThe doctors were busily engaged with the wounded man the shape of whose\nhead seemed familiar to Prince Andrew: they were lifting him up and\ntrying to quiet him.\n\n\"Show it to me.... Oh, ooh... Oh! Oh, ooh!\" his frightened moans could\nbe heard, subdued by suffering and broken by sobs.\n\nHearing those moans Prince Andrew wanted to weep. Whether because he was\ndying without glory, or because he was sorry to part with life, or\nbecause of those memories of a childhood that could not return, or\nbecause he was suffering and others were suffering and that man near him\nwas groaning so piteously--he felt like weeping childlike, kindly, and\nalmost happy tears.\n\nThe wounded man was shown his amputated leg stained with clotted blood\nand with the boot still on.\n\n\"Oh! Oh, ooh!\" he sobbed, like a woman.\n\nThe doctor who had been standing beside him, preventing Prince Andrew\nfrom seeing his face, moved away.\n\n\"My God! What is this? Why is he here?\" said Prince Andrew to himself.\n\nIn the miserable, sobbing, enfeebled man whose leg had just been\namputated, he recognized Anatole Kuragin. Men were supporting him in\ntheir arms and offering him a glass of water, but his trembling, swollen\nlips could not grasp its rim. Anatole was sobbing painfully. \"Yes, it is\nhe! Yes, that man is somehow closely and painfully connected with me,\"\nthought Prince Andrew, not yet clearly grasping what he saw before him.\n\"What is the connection of that man with my childhood and life?\" he\nasked himself without finding an answer. And suddenly a new unexpected\nmemory from that realm of pure and loving childhood presented itself to\nhim. He remembered Natasha as he had seen her for the first time at the\nball in 1810, with her slender neck and arms and with a frightened happy\nface ready for rapture, and love and tenderness for her, stronger and\nmore vivid than ever, awoke in his soul. He now remembered the\nconnection that existed between himself and this man who was dimly\ngazing at him through tears that filled his swollen eyes. He remembered\neverything, and ecstatic pity and love for that man overflowed his happy\nheart.\n\nPrince Andrew could no longer restrain himself and wept tender loving\ntears for his fellow men, for himself, and for his own and their errors.\n\n\"Compassion, love of our brothers, for those who love us and for those\nwho hate us, love of our enemies; yes, that love which God preached on\nearth and which Princess Mary taught me and I did not understand--that\nis what made me sorry to part with life, that is what remained for me\nhad I lived. But now it is too late. I know it!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXVIII\n\nThe terrible spectacle of the battlefield covered with dead and wounded,\ntogether with the heaviness of his head and the news that some twenty\ngenerals he knew personally had been killed or wounded, and the\nconsciousness of the impotence of his once mighty arm, produced an\nunexpected impression on Napoleon who usually liked to look at the\nkilled and wounded, thereby, he considered, testing his strength of\nmind. This day the horrible appearance of the battlefield overcame that\nstrength of mind which he thought constituted his merit and his\ngreatness. He rode hurriedly from the battlefield and returned to the\nShevardino knoll, where he sat on his campstool, his sallow face swollen\nand heavy, his eyes dim, his nose red, and his voice hoarse,\ninvoluntarily listening, with downcast eyes, to the sounds of firing.\nWith painful dejection he awaited the end of this action, in which he\nregarded himself as a participant and which he was unable to arrest. A\npersonal, human feeling for a brief moment got the better of the\nartificial phantasm of life he had served so long. He felt in his own\nperson the sufferings and death he had witnessed on the battlefield. The\nheaviness of his head and chest reminded him of the possibility of\nsuffering and death for himself. At that moment he did not desire\nMoscow, or victory, or glory (what need had he for any more glory?). The\none thing he wished for was rest, tranquillity, and freedom. But when he\nhad been on the Semenovsk heights the artillery commander had proposed\nto him to bring several batteries of artillery up to those heights to\nstrengthen the fire on the Russian troops crowded in front of Knyazkovo.\nNapoleon had assented and had given orders that news should be brought\nto him of the effect those batteries produced.\n\nAn adjutant came now to inform him that the fire of two hundred guns had\nbeen concentrated on the Russians, as he had ordered, but that they\nstill held their ground.\n\n\"Our fire is mowing them down by rows, but still they hold on,\" said the\nadjutant.\n\n\"They want more!...\" said Napoleon in a hoarse voice.\n\n\"Sire?\" asked the adjutant who had not heard the remark.\n\n\"They want more!\" croaked Napoleon frowning. \"Let them have it!\"\n\nEven before he gave that order the thing he did not desire, and for\nwhich he gave the order only because he thought it was expected of him,\nwas being done. And he fell back into that artificial realm of imaginary\ngreatness, and again--as a horse walking a treadmill thinks it is doing\nsomething for itself--he submissively fulfilled the cruel, sad, gloomy,\nand inhuman role predestined for him.\n\nAnd not for that day and hour alone were the mind and conscience\ndarkened of this man on whom the responsibility for what was happening\nlay more than on all the others who took part in it. Never to the end of\nhis life could he understand goodness, beauty, or truth, or the\nsignificance of his actions which were too contrary to goodness and\ntruth, too remote from everything human, for him ever to be able to\ngrasp their meaning. He could not disavow his actions, belauded as they\nwere by half the world, and so he had to repudiate truth, goodness, and\nall humanity.\n\nNot only on that day, as he rode over the battlefield strewn with men\nkilled and maimed (by his will as he believed), did he reckon as he\nlooked at them how many Russians there were for each Frenchman and,\ndeceiving himself, find reason for rejoicing in the calculation that\nthere were five Russians for every Frenchman. Not on that day alone did\nhe write in a letter to Paris that \"the battle field was superb,\"\nbecause fifty thousand corpses lay there, but even on the island of St.\nHelena in the peaceful solitude where he said he intended to devote his\nleisure to an account of the great deeds he had done, he wrote:\n\nThe Russian war should have been the most popular war of modern times:\nit was a war of good sense, for real interests, for the tranquillity and\nsecurity of all; it was purely pacific and conservative.\n\nIt was a war for a great cause, the end of uncertainties and the\nbeginning of security. A new horizon and new labors were opening out,\nfull of well-being and prosperity for all. The European system was\nalready founded; all that remained was to organize it.\n\nSatisfied on these great points and with tranquility everywhere, I too\nshould have had my Congress and my Holy Alliance. Those ideas were\nstolen from me. In that reunion of great sovereigns we should have\ndiscussed our interests like one family, and have rendered account to\nthe peoples as clerk to master.\n\nEurope would in this way soon have been, in fact, but one people, and\nanyone who traveled anywhere would have found himself always in the\ncommon fatherland. I should have demanded the freedom of all navigable\nrivers for everybody, that the seas should be common to all, and that\nthe great standing armies should be reduced henceforth to mere guards\nfor the sovereigns.\n\nOn returning to France, to the bosom of the great, strong, magnificent,\npeaceful, and glorious fatherland, I should have proclaimed her\nfrontiers immutable; all future wars purely defensive, all\naggrandizement antinational. I should have associated my son in the\nEmpire; my dictatorship would have been finished, and his constitutional\nreign would have begun.\n\nParis would have been the capital of the world, and the French the envy\nof the nations!\n\nMy leisure then, and my old age, would have been devoted, in company\nwith the Empress and during the royal apprenticeship of my son, to\nleisurely visiting, with our own horses and like a true country couple,\nevery corner of the Empire, receiving complaints, redressing wrongs, and\nscattering public buildings and benefactions on all sides and\neverywhere.\n\nNapoleon, predestined by Providence for the gloomy role of executioner\nof the peoples, assured himself that the aim of his actions had been the\npeoples' welfare and that he could control the fate of millions and by\nthe employment of power confer benefactions.\n\n\"Of four hundred thousand who crossed the Vistula,\" he wrote further of\nthe Russian war, \"half were Austrians, Prussians, Saxons, Poles,\nBavarians, Wurttembergers, Mecklenburgers, Spaniards, Italians, and\nNeapolitans. The Imperial army, strictly speaking, was one third\ncomposed of Dutch, Belgians, men from the borders of the Rhine,\nPiedmontese, Swiss, Genevese, Tuscans, Romans, inhabitants of the\nThirty-second Military Division, of Bremen, of Hamburg, and so on: it\nincluded scarcely a hundred and forty thousand who spoke French. The\nRussian expedition actually cost France less than fifty thousand men;\nthe Russian army in its retreat from Vilna to Moscow lost in the various\nbattles four times more men than the French army; the burning of Moscow\ncost the lives of a hundred thousand Russians who died of cold and want\nin the woods; finally, in its march from Moscow to the Oder the Russian\narmy also suffered from the severity of the season; so that by the time\nit reached Vilna it numbered only fifty thousand, and at Kalisch less\nthan eighteen thousand.\"\n\nHe imagined that the war with Russia came about by his will, and the\nhorrors that occurred did not stagger his soul. He boldly took the whole\nresponsibility for what happened, and his darkened mind found\njustification in the belief that among the hundreds of thousands who\nperished there were fewer Frenchmen than Hessians and Bavarians.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIX\n\nSeveral tens of thousands of the slain lay in diverse postures and\nvarious uniforms on the fields and meadows belonging to the Davydov\nfamily and to the crown serfs--those fields and meadows where for\nhundreds of years the peasants of Borodino, Gorki, Shevardino, and\nSemenovsk had reaped their harvests and pastured their cattle. At the\ndressing stations the grass and earth were soaked with blood for a space\nof some three acres around. Crowds of men of various arms, wounded and\nunwounded, with frightened faces, dragged themselves back to Mozhaysk\nfrom the one army and back to Valuevo from the other. Other crowds,\nexhausted and hungry, went forward led by their officers. Others held\ntheir ground and continued to fire.\n\nOver the whole field, previously so gaily beautiful with the glitter of\nbayonets and cloudlets of smoke in the morning sun, there now spread a\nmist of damp and smoke and a strange acid smell of saltpeter and blood.\nClouds gathered and drops of rain began to fall on the dead and wounded,\non the frightened, exhausted, and hesitating men, as if to say: \"Enough,\nmen! Enough! Cease... bethink yourselves! What are you doing?\"\n\nTo the men of both sides alike, worn out by want of food and rest, it\nbegan equally to appear doubtful whether they should continue to\nslaughter one another; all the faces expressed hesitation, and the\nquestion arose in every soul: \"For what, for whom, must I kill and be\nkilled?... You may go and kill whom you please, but I don't want to do\nso anymore!\" By evening this thought had ripened in every soul. At any\nmoment these men might have been seized with horror at what they were\ndoing and might have thrown up everything and run away anywhere.\n\nBut though toward the end of the battle the men felt all the horror of\nwhat they were doing, though they would have been glad to leave off,\nsome incomprehensible, mysterious power continued to control them, and\nthey still brought up the charges, loaded, aimed, and applied the match,\nthough only one artilleryman survived out of every three, and though\nthey stumbled and panted with fatigue, perspiring and stained with blood\nand powder. The cannon balls flew just as swiftly and cruelly from both\nsides, crushing human bodies, and that terrible work which was not done\nby the will of a man but at the will of Him who governs men and worlds\ncontinued.\n\nAnyone looking at the disorganized rear of the Russian army would have\nsaid that, if only the French made one more slight effort, it would\ndisappear; and anyone looking at the rear of the French army would have\nsaid that the Russians need only make one more slight effort and the\nFrench would be destroyed. But neither the French nor the Russians made\nthat effort, and the flame of battle burned slowly out.\n\nThe Russians did not make that effort because they were not attacking\nthe French. At the beginning of the battle they stood blocking the way\nto Moscow and they still did so at the end of the battle as at the\nbeginning. But even had the aim of the Russians been to drive the French\nfrom their positions, they could not have made this last effort, for all\nthe Russian troops had been broken up, there was no part of the Russian\narmy that had not suffered in the battle, and though still holding their\npositions they had lost ONE HALF of their army.\n\nThe French, with the memory of all their former victories during fifteen\nyears, with the assurance of Napoleon's invincibility, with the\nconsciousness that they had captured part of the battlefield and had\nlost only a quarter of their men and still had their Guards intact,\ntwenty thousand strong, might easily have made that effort. The French\nwho had attacked the Russian army in order to drive it from its position\nought to have made that effort, for as long as the Russians continued to\nblock the road to Moscow as before, the aim of the French had not been\nattained and all their efforts and losses were in vain. But the French\ndid not make that effort. Some historians say that Napoleon need only\nhave used his Old Guards, who were intact, and the battle would have\nbeen won. To speak of what would have happened had Napoleon sent his\nGuards is like talking of what would happen if autumn became spring. It\ncould not be. Napoleon did not give his Guards, not because he did not\nwant to, but because it could not be done. All the generals, officers,\nand soldiers of the French army knew it could not be done, because the\nflagging spirit of the troops would not permit it.\n\nIt was not Napoleon alone who had experienced that nightmare feeling of\nthe mighty arm being stricken powerless, but all the generals and\nsoldiers of his army whether they had taken part in the battle or not,\nafter all their experience of previous battles--when after one tenth of\nsuch efforts the enemy had fled--experienced a similar feeling of terror\nbefore an enemy who, after losing HALF his men, stood as threateningly\nat the end as at the beginning of the battle. The moral force of the\nattacking French army was exhausted. Not that sort of victory which is\ndefined by the capture of pieces of material fastened to sticks, called\nstandards, and of the ground on which the troops had stood and were\nstanding, but a moral victory that convinces the enemy of the moral\nsuperiority of his opponent and of his own impotence was gained by the\nRussians at Borodino. The French invaders, like an infuriated animal\nthat has in its onslaught received a mortal wound, felt that they were\nperishing, but could not stop, any more than the Russian army, weaker by\none half, could help swerving. By impetus gained, the French army was\nstill able to roll forward to Moscow, but there, without further effort\non the part of the Russians, it had to perish, bleeding from the mortal\nwound it had received at Borodino. The direct consequence of the battle\nof Borodino was Napoleon's senseless flight from Moscow, his retreat\nalong the old Smolensk road, the destruction of the invading army of\nfive hundred thousand men, and the downfall of Napoleonic France, on\nwhich at Borodino for the first time the hand of an opponent of stronger\nspirit had been laid.\n\nBOOK ELEVEN: 1812\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nAbsolute continuity of motion is not comprehensible to the human mind.\nLaws of motion of any kind become comprehensible to man only when he\nexamines arbitrarily selected elements of that motion; but at the same\ntime, a large proportion of human error comes from the arbitrary\ndivision of continuous motion into discontinuous elements. There is a\nwell known, so-called sophism of the ancients consisting in this, that\nAchilles could never catch up with a tortoise he was following, in spite\nof the fact that he traveled ten times as fast as the tortoise. By the\ntime Achilles has covered the distance that separated him from the\ntortoise, the tortoise has covered one tenth of that distance ahead of\nhim: when Achilles has covered that tenth, the tortoise has covered\nanother one hundredth, and so on forever. This problem seemed to the\nancients insoluble. The absurd answer (that Achilles could never\novertake the tortoise) resulted from this: that motion was arbitrarily\ndivided into discontinuous elements, whereas the motion both of Achilles\nand of the tortoise was continuous.\n\nBy adopting smaller and smaller elements of motion we only approach a\nsolution of the problem, but never reach it. Only when we have admitted\nthe conception of the infinitely small, and the resulting geometrical\nprogression with a common ratio of one tenth, and have found the sum of\nthis progression to infinity, do we reach a solution of the problem.\n\nA modern branch of mathematics having achieved the art of dealing with\nthe infinitely small can now yield solutions in other more complex\nproblems of motion which used to appear insoluble.\n\nThis modern branch of mathematics, unknown to the ancients, when dealing\nwith problems of motion admits the conception of the infinitely small,\nand so conforms to the chief condition of motion (absolute continuity)\nand thereby corrects the inevitable error which the human mind cannot\navoid when it deals with separate elements of motion instead of\nexamining continuous motion.\n\nIn seeking the laws of historical movement just the same thing happens.\nThe movement of humanity, arising as it does from innumerable arbitrary\nhuman wills, is continuous.\n\nTo understand the laws of this continuous movement is the aim of\nhistory. But to arrive at these laws, resulting from the sum of all\nthose human wills, man's mind postulates arbitrary and disconnected\nunits. The first method of history is to take an arbitrarily selected\nseries of continuous events and examine it apart from others, though\nthere is and can be no beginning to any event, for one event always\nflows uninterruptedly from another.\n\nThe second method is to consider the actions of some one man--a king or\na commander--as equivalent to the sum of many individual wills; whereas\nthe sum of individual wills is never expressed by the activity of a\nsingle historic personage.\n\nHistorical science in its endeavor to draw nearer to truth continually\ntakes smaller and smaller units for examination. But however small the\nunits it takes, we feel that to take any unit disconnected from others,\nor to assume a beginning of any phenomenon, or to say that the will of\nmany men is expressed by the actions of any one historic personage, is\nin itself false.\n\nIt needs no critical exertion to reduce utterly to dust any deductions\ndrawn from history. It is merely necessary to select some larger or\nsmaller unit as the subject of observation--as criticism has every right\nto do, seeing that whatever unit history observes must always be\narbitrarily selected.\n\nOnly by taking infinitesimally small units for observation (the\ndifferential of history, that is, the individual tendencies of men) and\nattaining to the art of integrating them (that is, finding the sum of\nthese infinitesimals) can we hope to arrive at the laws of history.\n\nThe first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe present an\nextraordinary movement of millions of people. Men leave their customary\npursuits, hasten from one side of Europe to the other, plunder and\nslaughter one another, triumph and are plunged in despair, and for some\nyears the whole course of life is altered and presents an intensive\nmovement which first increases and then slackens. What was the cause of\nthis movement, by what laws was it governed? asks the mind of man.\n\nThe historians, replying to this question, lay before us the sayings and\ndoings of a few dozen men in a building in the city of Paris, calling\nthese sayings and doings \"the Revolution\"; then they give a detailed\nbiography of Napoleon and of certain people favorable or hostile to him;\ntell of the influence some of these people had on others, and say: that\nis why this movement took place and those are its laws.\n\nBut the mind of man not only refuses to believe this explanation, but\nplainly says that this method of explanation is fallacious, because in\nit a weaker phenomenon is taken as the cause of a stronger. The sum of\nhuman wills produced the Revolution and Napoleon, and only the sum of\nthose wills first tolerated and then destroyed them.\n\n\"But every time there have been conquests there have been conquerors;\nevery time there has been a revolution in any state there have been\ngreat men,\" says history. And, indeed, human reason replies: every time\nconquerors appear there have been wars, but this does not prove that the\nconquerors caused the wars and that it is possible to find the laws of a\nwar in the personal activity of a single man. Whenever I look at my\nwatch and its hands point to ten, I hear the bells of the neighboring\nchurch; but because the bells begin to ring when the hands of the clock\nreach ten, I have no right to assume that the movement of the bells is\ncaused by the position of the hands of the watch.\n\nWhenever I see the movement of a locomotive I hear the whistle and see\nthe valves opening and wheels turning; but I have no right to conclude\nthat the whistling and the turning of wheels are the cause of the\nmovement of the engine.\n\nThe peasants say that a cold wind blows in late spring because the oaks\nare budding, and really every spring cold winds do blow when the oak is\nbudding. But though I do not know what causes the cold winds to blow\nwhen the oak buds unfold, I cannot agree with the peasants that the\nunfolding of the oak buds is the cause of the cold wind, for the force\nof the wind is beyond the influence of the buds. I see only a\ncoincidence of occurrences such as happens with all the phenomena of\nlife, and I see that however much and however carefully I observe the\nhands of the watch, and the valves and wheels of the engine, and the\noak, I shall not discover the cause of the bells ringing, the engine\nmoving, or of the winds of spring. To that I must entirely change my\npoint of view and study the laws of the movement of steam, of the bells,\nand of the wind. History must do the same. And attempts in this\ndirection have already been made.\n\nTo study the laws of history we must completely change the subject of\nour observation, must leave aside kings, ministers, and generals, and\nstudy the common, infinitesimally small elements by which the masses are\nmoved. No one can say in how far it is possible for man to advance in\nthis way toward an understanding of the laws of history; but it is\nevident that only along that path does the possibility of discovering\nthe laws of history lie, and that as yet not a millionth part as much\nmental effort has been applied in this direction by historians as has\nbeen devoted to describing the actions of various kings, commanders, and\nministers and propounding the historians' own reflections concerning\nthese actions.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nThe forces of a dozen European nations burst into Russia. The Russian\narmy and people avoided a collision till Smolensk was reached, and again\nfrom Smolensk to Borodino. The French army pushed on to Moscow, its\ngoal, its impetus ever increasing as it neared its aim, just as the\nvelocity of a falling body increases as it approaches the earth. Behind\nit were seven hundred miles of hunger-stricken, hostile country; ahead\nwere a few dozen miles separating it from its goal. Every soldier in\nNapoleon's army felt this and the invasion moved on by its own momentum.\n\nThe more the Russian army retreated the more fiercely a spirit of hatred\nof the enemy flared up, and while it retreated the army increased and\nconsolidated. At Borodino a collision took place. Neither army was\nbroken up, but the Russian army retreated immediately after the\ncollision as inevitably as a ball recoils after colliding with another\nhaving a greater momentum, and with equal inevitability the ball of\ninvasion that had advanced with such momentum rolled on for some\ndistance, though the collision had deprived it of all its force.\n\nThe Russians retreated eighty miles--to beyond Moscow--and the French\nreached Moscow and there came to a standstill. For five weeks after that\nthere was not a single battle. The French did not move. As a bleeding,\nmortally wounded animal licks its wounds, they remained inert in Moscow\nfor five weeks, and then suddenly, with no fresh reason, fled back: they\nmade a dash for the Kaluga road, and (after a victory--for at Malo-\nYaroslavets the field of conflict again remained theirs) without\nundertaking a single serious battle, they fled still more rapidly back\nto Smolensk, beyond Smolensk, beyond the Berezina, beyond Vilna, and\nfarther still.\n\nOn the evening of the twenty-sixth of August, Kutuzov and the whole\nRussian army were convinced that the battle of Borodino was a victory.\nKutuzov reported so to the Emperor. He gave orders to prepare for a\nfresh conflict to finish the enemy and did this not to deceive anyone,\nbut because he knew that the enemy was beaten, as everyone who had taken\npart in the battle knew it.\n\nBut all that evening and next day reports came in one after another of\nunheard-of losses, of the loss of half the army, and a fresh battle\nproved physically impossible.\n\nIt was impossible to give battle before information had been collected,\nthe wounded gathered in, the supplies of ammunition replenished, the\nslain reckoned up, new officers appointed to replace those who had been\nkilled, and before the men had had food and sleep. And meanwhile, the\nvery next morning after the battle, the French army advanced of itself\nupon the Russians, carried forward by the force of its own momentum now\nseemingly increased in inverse proportion to the square of the distance\nfrom its aim. Kutuzov's wish was to attack next day, and the whole army\ndesired to do so. But to make an attack the wish to do so is not\nsufficient, there must also be a possibility of doing it, and that\npossibility did not exist. It was impossible not to retreat a day's\nmarch, and then in the same way it was impossible not to retreat another\nand a third day's march, and at last, on the first of September when the\narmy drew near Moscow--despite the strength of the feeling that had\narisen in all ranks--the force of circumstances compelled it to retire\nbeyond Moscow. And the troops retired one more, last, day's march, and\nabandoned Moscow to the enemy.\n\nFor people accustomed to think that plans of campaign and battles are\nmade by generals--as any one of us sitting over a map in his study may\nimagine how he would have arranged things in this or that battle--the\nquestions present themselves: Why did Kutuzov during the retreat not do\nthis or that? Why did he not take up a position before reaching Fili?\nWhy did he not retire at once by the Kaluga road, abandoning Moscow? and\nso on. People accustomed to think in that way forget, or do not know,\nthe inevitable conditions which always limit the activities of any\ncommander in chief. The activity of a commander-in-chief does not at all\nresemble the activity we imagine to ourselves when we sit at ease in our\nstudies examining some campaign on the map, with a certain number of\ntroops on this and that side in a certain known locality, and begin our\nplans from some given moment. A commander-in-chief is never dealing with\nthe beginning of any event--the position from which we always\ncontemplate it. The commander-in-chief is always in the midst of a\nseries of shifting events and so he never can at any moment consider the\nwhole import of an event that is occurring. Moment by moment the event\nis imperceptibly shaping itself, and at every moment of this continuous,\nuninterrupted shaping of events the commander-in-chief is in the midst\nof a most complex play of intrigues, worries, contingencies,\nauthorities, projects, counsels, threats, and deceptions and is\ncontinually obliged to reply to innumerable questions addressed to him,\nwhich constantly conflict with one another.\n\nLearned military authorities quite seriously tell us that Kutuzov should\nhave moved his army to the Kaluga road long before reaching Fili, and\nthat somebody actually submitted such a proposal to him. But a commander\nin chief, especially at a difficult moment, has always before him not\none proposal but dozens simultaneously. And all these proposals, based\non strategics and tactics, contradict each other.\n\nA commander-in-chief's business, it would seem, is simply to choose one\nof these projects. But even that he cannot do. Events and time do not\nwait. For instance, on the twenty-eighth it is suggested to him to cross\nto the Kaluga road, but just then an adjutant gallops up from\nMiloradovich asking whether he is to engage the French or retire. An\norder must be given him at once, that instant. And the order to retreat\ncarries us past the turn to the Kaluga road. And after the adjutant\ncomes the commissary general asking where the stores are to be taken,\nand the chief of the hospitals asks where the wounded are to go, and a\ncourier from Petersburg brings a letter from the sovereign which does\nnot admit of the possibility of abandoning Moscow, and the commander-in-\nchief's rival, the man who is undermining him (and there are always not\nmerely one but several such), presents a new project diametrically\nopposed to that of turning to the Kaluga road, and the commander-in-\nchief himself needs sleep and refreshment to maintain his energy and a\nrespectable general who has been overlooked in the distribution of\nrewards comes to complain, and the inhabitants of the district pray to\nbe defended, and an officer sent to inspect the locality comes in and\ngives a report quite contrary to what was said by the officer previously\nsent; and a spy, a prisoner, and a general who has been on\nreconnaissance, all describe the position of the enemy's army\ndifferently. People accustomed to misunderstand or to forget these\ninevitable conditions of a commander-in-chief's actions describe to us,\nfor instance, the position of the army at Fili and assume that the\ncommander-in-chief could, on the first of September, quite freely decide\nwhether to abandon Moscow or defend it; whereas, with the Russian army\nless than four miles from Moscow, no such question existed. When had\nthat question been settled? At Drissa and at Smolensk and most palpably\nof all on the twenty-fourth of August at Shevardino and on the twenty-\nsixth at Borodino, and each day and hour and minute of the retreat from\nBorodino to Fili.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nWhen Ermolov, having been sent by Kutuzov to inspect the position, told\nthe field marshal that it was impossible to fight there before Moscow\nand that they must retreat, Kutuzov looked at him in silence.\n\n\"Give me your hand,\" said he and, turning it over so as to feel the\npulse, added: \"You are not well, my dear fellow. Think what you are\nsaying!\"\n\nKutuzov could not yet admit the possibility of retreating beyond Moscow\nwithout a battle.\n\nOn the Poklonny Hill, four miles from the Dorogomilov gate of Moscow,\nKutuzov got out of his carriage and sat down on a bench by the roadside.\nA great crowd of generals gathered round him, and Count Rostopchin, who\nhad come out from Moscow, joined them. This brilliant company separated\ninto several groups who all discussed the advantages and disadvantages\nof the position, the state of the army, the plans suggested, the\nsituation of Moscow, and military questions generally. Though they had\nnot been summoned for the purpose, and though it was not so called, they\nall felt that this was really a council of war. The conversations all\ndealt with public questions. If anyone gave or asked for personal news,\nit was done in a whisper and they immediately reverted to general\nmatters. No jokes, or laughter, or smiles even, were seen among all\nthese men. They evidently all made an effort to hold themselves at the\nheight the situation demanded. And all these groups, while talking among\nthemselves, tried to keep near the commander-in-chief (whose bench\nformed the center of the gathering) and to speak so that he might\noverhear them. The commander in chief listened to what was being said\nand sometimes asked them to repeat their remarks, but did not himself\ntake part in the conversations or express any opinion. After hearing\nwhat was being said by one or other of these groups he generally turned\naway with an air of disappointment, as though they were not speaking of\nanything he wished to hear. Some discussed the position that had been\nchosen, criticizing not the position itself so much as the mental\ncapacity of those who had chosen it. Others argued that a mistake had\nbeen made earlier and that a battle should have been fought two days\nbefore. Others again spoke of the battle of Salamanca, which was\ndescribed by Crosart, a newly arrived Frenchman in a Spanish uniform.\n(This Frenchman and one of the German princes serving with the Russian\narmy were discussing the siege of Saragossa and considering the\npossibility of defending Moscow in a similar manner.) Count Rostopchin\nwas telling a fourth group that he was prepared to die with the city\ntrain bands under the walls of the capital, but that he still could not\nhelp regretting having been left in ignorance of what was happening, and\nthat had he known it sooner things would have been different.... A fifth\ngroup, displaying the profundity of their strategic perceptions,\ndiscussed the direction the troops would now have to take. A sixth group\nwas talking absolute nonsense. Kutuzov's expression grew more and more\npreoccupied and gloomy. From all this talk he saw only one thing: that\nto defend Moscow was a physical impossibility in the full meaning of\nthose words, that is to say, so utterly impossible that if any senseless\ncommander were to give orders to fight, confusion would result but the\nbattle would still not take place. It would not take place because the\ncommanders not merely all recognized the position to be impossible, but\nin their conversations were only discussing what would happen after its\ninevitable abandonment. How could the commanders lead their troops to a\nfield of battle they considered impossible to hold? The lower-grade\nofficers and even the soldiers (who too reason) also considered the\nposition impossible and therefore could not go to fight, fully convinced\nas they were of defeat. If Bennigsen insisted on the position being\ndefended and others still discussed it, the question was no longer\nimportant in itself but only as a pretext for disputes and intrigue.\nThis Kutuzov knew well.\n\nBennigsen, who had chosen the position, warmly displayed his Russian\npatriotism (Kutuzov could not listen to this without wincing) by\ninsisting that Moscow must be defended. His aim was as clear as daylight\nto Kutuzov: if the defense failed, to throw the blame on Kutuzov who had\nbrought the army as far as the Sparrow Hills without giving battle; if\nit succeeded, to claim the success as his own; or if battle were not\ngiven, to clear himself of the crime of abandoning Moscow. But this\nintrigue did not now occupy the old man's mind. One terrible question\nabsorbed him and to that question he heard no reply from anyone. The\nquestion for him now was: \"Have I really allowed Napoleon to reach\nMoscow, and when did I do so? When was it decided? Can it have been\nyesterday when I ordered Platov to retreat, or was it the evening\nbefore, when I had a nap and told Bennigsen to issue orders? Or was it\nearlier still?... When, when was this terrible affair decided? Moscow\nmust be abandoned. The army must retreat and the order to do so must be\ngiven.\" To give that terrible order seemed to him equivalent to\nresigning the command of the army. And not only did he love power to\nwhich he was accustomed (the honours awarded to Prince Prozorovski,\nunder whom he had served in Turkey, galled him), but he was convinced\nthat he was destined to save Russia and that that was why, against the\nEmperor's wish and by the will of the people, he had been chosen\ncommander-in-chief. He was convinced that he alone could maintain\ncommand of the army in these difficult circumstances, and that in all\nthe world he alone could encounter the invincible Napoleon without fear,\nand he was horrified at the thought of the order he had to issue. But\nsomething had to be decided, and these conversations around him which\nwere assuming too free a character must be stopped.\n\nHe called the most important generals to him.\n\n\"My head, be it good or bad, must depend on itself,\" said he, rising\nfrom the bench, and he rode to Fili where his carriages were waiting.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nThe Council of War began to assemble at two in the afternoon in the\nbetter and roomier part of Andrew Savostyanov's hut. The men, women, and\nchildren of the large peasant family crowded into the back room across\nthe passage. Only Malasha, Andrew's six-year-old granddaughter whom his\nSerene Highness had petted and to whom he had given a lump of sugar\nwhile drinking his tea, remained on the top of the brick oven in the\nlarger room. Malasha looked down from the oven with shy delight at the\nfaces, uniforms, and decorations of the generals, who one after another\ncame into the room and sat down on the broad benches in the corner under\nthe icons. \"Granddad\" himself, as Malasha in her own mind called\nKutuzov, sat apart in a dark corner behind the oven. He sat, sunk deep\nin a folding armchair, and continually cleared his throat and pulled at\nthe collar of his coat which, though it was unbuttoned, still seemed to\npinch his neck. Those who entered went up one by one to the field\nmarshal; he pressed the hands of some and nodded to others. His adjutant\nKaysarov was about to draw back the curtain of the window facing\nKutuzov, but the latter moved his hand angrily and Kaysarov understood\nthat his Serene Highness did not wish his face to be seen.\n\nRound the peasant's deal table, on which lay maps, plans, pencils, and\npapers, so many people gathered that the orderlies brought in another\nbench and put it beside the table. Ermolov, Kaysarov, and Toll, who had\njust arrived, sat down on this bench. In the foremost place, immediately\nunder the icons, sat Barclay de Tolly, his high forehead merging into\nhis bald crown. He had a St. George's Cross round his neck and looked\npale and ill. He had been feverish for two days and was now shivering\nand in pain. Beside him sat Uvarov, who with rapid gesticulations was\ngiving him some information, speaking in low tones as they all did.\nChubby little Dokhturov was listening attentively with eyebrows raised\nand arms folded on his stomach. On the other side sat Count Ostermann-\nTolstoy, seemingly absorbed in his own thoughts. His broad head with its\nbold features and glittering eyes was resting on his hand. Raevski,\ntwitching forward the black hair on his temples as was his habit,\nglanced now at Kutuzov and now at the door with a look of impatience.\nKonovnitsyn's firm, handsome, and kindly face was lit up by a tender,\nsly smile. His glance met Malasha's, and the expression of his eyes\ncaused the little girl to smile.\n\nThey were all waiting for Bennigsen, who on the pretext of inspecting\nthe position was finishing his savory dinner. They waited for him from\nfour till six o'clock and did not begin their deliberations all that\ntime but talked in low tones of other matters.\n\nOnly when Bennigsen had entered the hut did Kutuzov leave his corner and\ndraw toward the table, but not near enough for the candles that had been\nplaced there to light up his face.\n\nBennigsen opened the council with the question: \"Are we to abandon\nRussia's ancient and sacred capital without a struggle, or are we to\ndefend it?\" A prolonged and general silence followed. There was a frown\non every face and only Kutuzov's angry grunts and occasional cough broke\nthe silence. All eyes were gazing at him. Malasha too looked at\n\"Granddad.\" She was nearest to him and saw how his face puckered; he\nseemed about to cry, but this did not last long.\n\n\"Russia's ancient and sacred capital!\" he suddenly said, repeating\nBennigsen's words in an angry voice and thereby drawing attention to the\nfalse note in them. \"Allow me to tell you, your excellency, that that\nquestion has no meaning for a Russian.\" (He lurched his heavy body\nforward.) \"Such a question cannot be put; it is senseless! The question\nI have asked these gentlemen to meet to discuss is a military one. The\nquestion is that of saving Russia. Is it better to give up Moscow\nwithout a battle, or by accepting battle to risk losing the army as well\nas Moscow? That is the question on which I want your opinion,\" and he\nsank back in his chair.\n\nThe discussion began. Bennigsen did not yet consider his game lost.\nAdmitting the view of Barclay and others that a defensive battle at Fili\nwas impossible, but imbued with Russian patriotism and the love of\nMoscow, he proposed to move troops from the right to the left flank\nduring the night and attack the French right flank the following day.\nOpinions were divided, and arguments were advanced for and against that\nproject. Ermolov, Dokhturov, and Raevski agreed with Bennigsen. Whether\nfeeling it necessary to make a sacrifice before abandoning the capital\nor guided by other, personal considerations, these generals seemed not\nto understand that this council could not alter the inevitable course of\nevents and that Moscow was in effect already abandoned. The other\ngenerals, however, understood it and, leaving aside the question of\nMoscow, spoke of the direction the army should take in its retreat.\nMalasha, who kept her eyes fixed on what was going on before her,\nunderstood the meaning of the council differently. It seemed to her that\nit was only a personal struggle between \"Granddad\" and \"Long-coat\" as\nshe termed Bennigsen. She saw that they grew spiteful when they spoke to\none another, and in her heart she sided with \"Granddad.\" In the midst of\nthe conversation she noticed \"Granddad\" give Bennigsen a quick, subtle\nglance, and then to her joys she saw that \"Granddad\" said something to\n\"Long-coat\" which settled him. Bennigsen suddenly reddened and paced\nangrily up and down the room. What so affected him was Kutuzov's calm\nand quiet comment on the advantage or disadvantage of Bennigsen's\nproposal to move troops by night from the right to the left flank to\nattack the French right wing.\n\n\"Gentlemen,\" said Kutuzov, \"I cannot approve of the count's plan. Moving\ntroops in close proximity to an enemy is always dangerous, and military\nhistory supports that view. For instance...\" Kutuzov seemed to reflect,\nsearching for an example, then with a clear, naive look at Bennigsen he\nadded: \"Oh yes; take the battle of Friedland, which I think the count\nwell remembers, and which was... not fully successful, only because our\ntroops were rearranged too near the enemy...\"\n\nThere followed a momentary pause, which seemed very long to them all.\n\nThe discussion recommenced, but pauses frequently occurred and they all\nfelt that there was no more to be said.\n\nDuring one of these pauses Kutuzov heaved a deep sigh as if preparing to\nspeak. They all looked at him.\n\n\"Well, gentlemen, I see that it is I who will have to pay for the broken\ncrockery,\" said he, and rising slowly he moved to the table. \"Gentlemen,\nI have heard your views. Some of you will not agree with me. But I,\" he\npaused, \"by the authority entrusted to me by my Sovereign and country,\norder a retreat.\"\n\nAfter that the generals began to disperse with the solemnity and\ncircumspect silence of people who are leaving, after a funeral.\n\nSome of the generals, in low tones and in a strain very different from\nthe way they had spoken during the council, communicated something to\ntheir commander-in-chief.\n\nMalasha, who had long been expected for supper, climbed carefully\nbackwards down from the oven, her bare little feet catching at its\nprojections, and slipping between the legs of the generals she darted\nout of the room.\n\nWhen he had dismissed the generals Kutuzov sat a long time with his\nelbows on the table, thinking always of the same terrible question:\n\"When, when did the abandonment of Moscow become inevitable? When was\nthat done which settled the matter? And who was to blame for it?\"\n\n\"I did not expect this,\" said he to his adjutant Schneider when the\nlatter came in late that night. \"I did not expect this! I did not think\nthis would happen.\"\n\n\"You should take some rest, your Serene Highness,\" replied Schneider.\n\n\"But no! They shall eat horseflesh yet, like the Turks!\" exclaimed\nKutuzov without replying, striking the table with his podgy fist. \"They\nshall too, if only...\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nAt that very time, in circumstances even more important than retreating\nwithout a battle, namely the evacuation and burning of Moscow,\nRostopchin, who is usually represented as being the instigator of that\nevent, acted in an altogether different manner from Kutuzov.\n\nAfter the battle of Borodino the abandonment and burning of Moscow was\nas inevitable as the retreat of the army beyond Moscow without fighting.\n\nEvery Russian might have predicted it, not by reasoning but by the\nfeeling implanted in each of us and in our fathers.\n\nThe same thing that took place in Moscow had happened in all the towns\nand villages on Russian soil beginning with Smolensk, without the\nparticipation of Count Rostopchin and his broadsheets. The people\nawaited the enemy unconcernedly, did not riot or become excited or tear\nanyone to pieces, but faced its fate, feeling within it the strength to\nfind what it should do at that most difficult moment. And as soon as the\nenemy drew near the wealthy classes went away abandoning their property,\nwhile the poorer remained and burned and destroyed what was left.\n\nThe consciousness that this would be so and would always be so was and\nis present in the heart of every Russian. And a consciousness of this,\nand a foreboding that Moscow would be taken, was present in Russian\nMoscow society in 1812. Those who had quitted Moscow already in July and\nat the beginning of August showed that they expected this. Those who\nwent away, taking what they could and abandoning their houses and half\ntheir belongings, did so from the latent patriotism which expresses\nitself not by phrases or by giving one's children to save the fatherland\nand similar unnatural exploits, but unobtrusively, simply, organically,\nand therefore in the way that always produces the most powerful results.\n\n\"It is disgraceful to run away from danger; only cowards are running\naway from Moscow,\" they were told. In his broadsheets Rostopchin\nimpressed on them that to leave Moscow was shameful. They were ashamed\nto be called cowards, ashamed to leave, but still they left, knowing it\nhad to be done. Why did they go? It is impossible to suppose that\nRostopchin had scared them by his accounts of horrors Napoleon had\ncommitted in conquered countries. The first people to go away were the\nrich educated people who knew quite well that Vienna and Berlin had\nremained intact and that during Napoleon's occupation the inhabitants\nhad spent their time pleasantly in the company of the charming Frenchmen\nwhom the Russians, and especially the Russian ladies, then liked so\nmuch.\n\nThey went away because for Russians there could be no question as to\nwhether things would go well or ill under French rule in Moscow. It was\nout of the question to be under French rule, it would be the worst thing\nthat could happen. They went away even before the battle of Borodino and\nstill more rapidly after it, despite Rostopchin's calls to defend Moscow\nor the announcement of his intention to take the wonder-working icon of\nthe Iberian Mother of God and go to fight, or of the balloons that were\nto destroy the French, and despite all the nonsense Rostopchin wrote in\nhis broadsheets. They knew that it was for the army to fight, and that\nif it could not succeed it would not do to take young ladies and house\nserfs to the Three Hills quarter of Moscow to fight Napoleon, and that\nthey must go away, sorry as they were to abandon their property to\ndestruction. They went away without thinking of the tremendous\nsignificance of that immense and wealthy city being given over to\ndestruction, for a great city with wooden buildings was certain when\nabandoned by its inhabitants to be burned. They went away each on his\nown account, and yet it was only in consequence of their going away that\nthe momentous event was accomplished that will always remain the\ngreatest glory of the Russian people. The lady who, afraid of being\nstopped by Count Rostopchin's orders, had already in June moved with her\nNegroes and her women jesters from Moscow to her Saratov estate, with a\nvague consciousness that she was not Bonaparte's servant, was really,\nsimply, and truly carrying out the great work which saved Russia. But\nCount Rostopchin, who now taunted those who left Moscow and now had the\ngovernment offices removed; now distributed quite useless weapons to the\ndrunken rabble; now had processions displaying the icons, and now\nforbade Father Augustin to remove icons or the relics of saints; now\nseized all the private carts in Moscow and on one hundred and thirty-six\nof them removed the balloon that was being constructed by Leppich; now\nhinted that he would burn Moscow and related how he had set fire to his\nown house; now wrote a proclamation to the French solemnly upbraiding\nthem for having destroyed his Orphanage; now claimed the glory of having\nhinted that he would burn Moscow and now repudiated the deed; now\nordered the people to catch all spies and bring them to him, and now\nreproached them for doing so; now expelled all the French residents from\nMoscow, and now allowed Madame Aubert-Chalme (the center of the whole\nFrench colony in Moscow) to remain, but ordered the venerable old\npostmaster Klyucharev to be arrested and exiled for no particular\noffense; now assembled the people at the Three Hills to fight the French\nand now, to get rid of them, handed over to them a man to be killed and\nhimself drove away by a back gate; now declared that he would not\nsurvive the fall of Moscow, and now wrote French verses in albums\nconcerning his share in the affair--this man did not understand the\nmeaning of what was happening but merely wanted to do something himself\nthat would astonish people, to perform some patriotically heroic feat;\nand like a child he made sport of the momentous, and unavoidable event--\nthe abandonment and burning of Moscow--and tried with his puny hand now\nto speed and now to stay the enormous, popular tide that bore him along\nwith it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nHelene, having returned with the court from Vilna to Petersburg, found\nherself in a difficult position.\n\nIn Petersburg she had enjoyed the special protection of a grandee who\noccupied one of the highest posts in the Empire. In Vilna she had formed\nan intimacy with a young foreign prince. When she returned to Petersburg\nboth the magnate and the prince were there, and both claimed their\nrights. Helene was faced by a new problem--how to preserve her intimacy\nwith both without offending either.\n\nWhat would have seemed difficult or even impossible to another woman did\nnot cause the least embarrassment to Countess Bezukhova, who evidently\ndeserved her reputation of being a very clever woman. Had she attempted\nconcealment, or tried to extricate herself from her awkward position by\ncunning, she would have spoiled her case by acknowledging herself\nguilty. But Helene, like a really great man who can do whatever he\npleases, at once assumed her own position to be correct, as she\nsincerely believed it to be, and that everyone else was to blame.\n\nThe first time the young foreigner allowed himself to reproach her, she\nlifted her beautiful head and, half turning to him, said firmly: \"That's\njust like a man--selfish and cruel! I expected nothing else. A woman\nsacrifices herself for you, she suffers, and this is her reward! What\nright have you, monseigneur, to demand an account of my attachments and\nfriendships? He is a man who has been more than a father to me!\" The\nprince was about to say something, but Helene interrupted him.\n\n\"Well, yes,\" said she, \"it may be that he has other sentiments for me\nthan those of a father, but that is not a reason for me to shut my door\non him. I am not a man, that I should repay kindness with ingratitude!\nKnow, monseigneur, that in all that relates to my intimate feelings I\nrender account only to God and to my conscience,\" she concluded, laying\nher hand on her beautiful, fully expanded bosom and looking up to\nheaven.\n\n\"But for heaven's sake listen to me!\"\n\n\"Marry me, and I will be your slave!\"\n\n\"But that's impossible.\"\n\n\"You won't deign to demean yourself by marrying me, you...\" said Helene,\nbeginning to cry.\n\nThe prince tried to comfort her, but Helene, as if quite distraught,\nsaid through her tears that there was nothing to prevent her marrying,\nthat there were precedents (there were up to that time very few, but she\nmentioned Napoleon and some other exalted personages), that she had\nnever been her husband's wife, and that she had been sacrificed.\n\n\"But the law, religion...\" said the prince, already yielding.\n\n\"The law, religion... What have they been invented for if they can't\narrange that?\" said Helene.\n\nThe prince was surprised that so simple an idea had not occurred to him,\nand he applied for advice to the holy brethren of the Society of Jesus,\nwith whom he was on intimate terms.\n\nA few days later at one of those enchanting fetes which Helene gave at\nher country house on the Stone Island, the charming Monsieur de Jobert,\na man no longer young, with snow white hair and brilliant black eyes, a\nJesuit a robe courte * was presented to her, and in the garden by the\nlight of the illuminations and to the sound of music talked to her for a\nlong time of the love of God, of Christ, of the Sacred Heart, and of the\nconsolations the one true Catholic religion affords in this world and\nthe next. Helene was touched, and more than once tears rose to her eyes\nand to those of Monsieur de Jobert and their voices trembled. A dance,\nfor which her partner came to seek her, put an end to her discourse with\nher future directeur de conscience, but the next evening Monsieur de\nJobert came to see Helene when she was alone, and after that often came\nagain.\n\n\n* Lay member of the Society of Jesus.\n\nOne day he took the countess to a Roman Catholic church, where she knelt\ndown before the altar to which she was led. The enchanting, middle-aged\nFrenchman laid his hands on her head and, as she herself afterward\ndescribed it, she felt something like a fresh breeze wafted into her\nsoul. It was explained to her that this was la grace.\n\nAfter that a long-frocked abbe was brought to her. She confessed to him,\nand he absolved her from her sins. Next day she received a box\ncontaining the Sacred Host, which was left at her house for her to\npartake of. A few days later Helene learned with pleasure that she had\nnow been admitted to the true Catholic Church and that in a few days the\nPope himself would hear of her and would send her a certain document.\n\nAll that was done around her and to her at this time, all the attention\ndevoted to her by so many clever men and expressed in such pleasant,\nrefined ways, and the state of dove-like purity she was now in (she wore\nonly white dresses and white ribbons all that time) gave her pleasure,\nbut her pleasure did not cause her for a moment to forget her aim. And\nas it always happens in contests of cunning that a stupid person gets\nthe better of cleverer ones, Helene--having realized that the main\nobject of all these words and all this trouble was, after converting her\nto Catholicism, to obtain money from her for Jesuit institutions (as to\nwhich she received indications)-before parting with her money insisted\nthat the various operations necessary to free her from her husband\nshould be performed. In her view the aim of every religion was merely to\npreserve certain proprieties while affording satisfaction to human\ndesires. And with this aim, in one of her talks with her Father\nConfessor, she insisted on an answer to the question, in how far was she\nbound by her marriage?\n\nThey were sitting in the twilight by a window in the drawing room. The\nscent of flowers came in at the window. Helene was wearing a white\ndress, transparent over her shoulders and bosom. The abbe, a well-fed\nman with a plump, clean-shaven chin, a pleasant firm mouth, and white\nhands meekly folded on his knees, sat close to Helene and, with a subtle\nsmile on his lips and a peaceful look of delight at her beauty,\noccasionally glanced at her face as he explained his opinion on the\nsubject. Helene with an uneasy smile looked at his curly hair and his\nplump, clean-shaven, blackish cheeks and every moment expected the\nconversation to take a fresh turn. But the abbe, though he evidently\nenjoyed the beauty of his companion, was absorbed in his mastery of the\nmatter.\n\nThe course of the Father Confessor's arguments ran as follows: \"Ignorant\nof the import of what you were undertaking, you made a vow of conjugal\nfidelity to a man who on his part, by entering the married state without\nfaith in the religious significance of marriage, committed an act of\nsacrilege. That marriage lacked the dual significance it should have\nhad. Yet in spite of this your vow was binding. You swerved from it.\nWhat did you commit by so acting? A venial, or a mortal, sin? A venial\nsin, for you acted without evil intention. If now you married again with\nthe object of bearing children, your sin might be forgiven. But the\nquestion is again a twofold one: firstly...\"\n\nBut suddenly Helene, who was getting bored, said with one of her\nbewitching smiles: \"But I think that having espoused the true religion I\ncannot be bound by what a false religion laid upon me.\"\n\nThe director of her conscience was astounded at having the case\npresented to him thus with the simplicity of Columbus' egg. He was\ndelighted at the unexpected rapidity of his pupil's progress, but could\nnot abandon the edifice of argument he had laboriously constructed.\n\n\"Let us understand one another, Countess,\" said he with a smile, and\nbegan refuting his spiritual daughter's arguments.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nHelene understood that the question was very simple and easy from the\necclesiastical point of view, and that her directors were making\ndifficulties only because they were apprehensive as to how the matter\nwould be regarded by the secular authorities.\n\nSo she decided that it was necessary to prepare the opinion of society.\nShe provoked the jealousy of the elderly magnate and told him what she\nhad told her other suitor; that is, she put the matter so that the only\nway for him to obtain a right over her was to marry her. The elderly\nmagnate was at first as much taken aback by this suggestion of marriage\nwith a woman whose husband was alive, as the younger man had been, but\nHelene's imperturbable conviction that it was as simple and natural as\nmarrying a maiden had its effect on him too. Had Helene herself shown\nthe least sign of hesitation, shame, or secrecy, her cause would\ncertainly have been lost; but not only did she show no signs of secrecy\nor shame, on the contrary, with good-natured naivete she told her\nintimate friends (and these were all Petersburg) that both the prince\nand the magnate had proposed to her and that she loved both and was\nafraid of grieving either.\n\nA rumor immediately spread in Petersburg, not that Helene wanted to be\ndivorced from her husband (had such a report spread many would have\nopposed so illegal an intention) but simply that the unfortunate and\ninteresting Helene was in doubt which of the two men she should marry.\nThe question was no longer whether this was possible, but only which was\nthe better match and how the matter would be regarded at court. There\nwere, it is true, some rigid individuals unable to rise to the height of\nsuch a question, who saw in the project a desecration of the sacrament\nof marriage, but there were not many such and they remained silent,\nwhile the majority were interested in Helene's good fortune and in the\nquestion which match would be the more advantageous. Whether it was\nright or wrong to remarry while one had a husband living they did not\ndiscuss, for that question had evidently been settled by people \"wiser\nthan you or me,\" as they said, and to doubt the correctness of that\ndecision would be to risk exposing one's stupidity and incapacity to\nlive in society.\n\nOnly Marya Dmitrievna Akhrosimova, who had come to Petersburg that\nsummer to see one of her sons, allowed herself plainly to express an\nopinion contrary to the general one. Meeting Helene at a ball she\nstopped her in the middle of the room and, amid general silence, said in\nher gruff voice: \"So wives of living men have started marrying again!\nPerhaps you think you have invented a novelty? You have been\nforestalled, my dear! It was thought of long ago. It is done in all the\nbrothels,\" and with these words Marya Dmitrievna, turning up her wide\nsleeves with her usual threatening gesture and glancing sternly round,\nmoved across the room.\n\nThough people were afraid of Marya Dmitrievna she was regarded in\nPetersburg as a buffoon, and so of what she had said they only noticed,\nand repeated in a whisper, the one coarse word she had used, supposing\nthe whole sting of her remark to lie in that word.\n\nPrince Vasili, who of late very often forgot what he had said and\nrepeated one and the same thing a hundred times, remarked to his\ndaughter whenever he chanced to see her:\n\n\"Helene, I have a word to say to you,\" and he would lead her aside,\ndrawing her hand downward. \"I have heard of certain projects\nconcerning... you know. Well my dear child, you know how your father's\nheart rejoices to know that you... You have suffered so much.... But, my\ndear child, consult only your own heart. That is all I have to say,\" and\nconcealing his unvarying emotion he would press his cheek against his\ndaughter's and move away.\n\nBilibin, who had not lost his reputation of an exceedingly clever man,\nand who was one of the disinterested friends so brilliant a woman as\nHelene always has--men friends who can never change into lovers--once\ngave her his view of the matter at a small and intimate gathering.\n\n\"Listen, Bilibin,\" said Helene (she always called friends of that sort\nby their surnames), and she touched his coat sleeve with her white,\nberinged fingers. \"Tell me, as you would a sister, what I ought to do.\nWhich of the two?\"\n\nBilibin wrinkled up the skin over his eyebrows and pondered, with a\nsmile on his lips.\n\n\"You are not taking me unawares, you know,\" said he. \"As a true friend,\nI have thought and thought again about your affair. You see, if you\nmarry the prince\"--he meant the younger man--and he crooked one finger,\n\"you forever lose the chance of marrying the other, and you will\ndisplease the court besides. (You know there is some kind of\nconnection.) But if you marry the old count you will make his last days\nhappy, and as widow of the Grand... the prince would no longer be making\na mesalliance by marrying you,\" and Bilibin smoothed out his forehead.\n\n\"That's a true friend!\" said Helene beaming, and again touching\nBilibin's sleeve. \"But I love them, you know, and don't want to distress\neither of them. I would give my life for the happiness of them both.\"\n\nBilibin shrugged his shoulders, as much as to say that not even he could\nhelp in that difficulty.\n\n\"Une maitresse-femme! * That's what is called putting things squarely.\nShe would like to be married to all three at the same time,\" thought he.\n\n\n* A masterly woman.\n\n\"But tell me, how will your husband look at the matter?\" Bilibin asked,\nhis reputation being so well established that he did not fear to ask so\nnaive a question. \"Will he agree?\"\n\n\"Oh, he loves me so!\" said Helene, who for some reason imagined that\nPierre too loved her. \"He will do anything for me.\"\n\nBilibin puckered his skin in preparation for something witty.\n\n\"Even divorce you?\" said he.\n\nHelene laughed.\n\nAmong those who ventured to doubt the justifiability of the proposed\nmarriage was Helene's mother, Princess Kuragina. She was continually\ntormented by jealousy of her daughter, and now that jealousy concerned a\nsubject near to her own heart, she could not reconcile herself to the\nidea. She consulted a Russian priest as to the possibility of divorce\nand remarriage during a husband's lifetime, and the priest told her that\nit was impossible, and to her delight showed her a text in the Gospel\nwhich (as it seemed to him) plainly forbids remarriage while the husband\nis alive.\n\nArmed with these arguments, which appeared to her unanswerable, she\ndrove to her daughter's early one morning so as to find her alone.\n\nHaving listened to her mother's objections, Helene smiled blandly and\nironically.\n\n\"But it says plainly: 'Whosoever shall marry her that is divorced...'\"\nsaid the old princess.\n\n\"Ah, Maman, ne dites pas de betises. Vous ne comprenez rien. Dans ma\nposition j'ai des devoirs,\" * said Helene changing from Russian, in\nwhich language she always felt that her case did not sound quite clear,\ninto French which suited it better.\n\n\n* \"Oh, Mamma, don't talk nonsense! You don't understand anything. In my\nposition I have obligations.\"\n\n\"But, my dear....\"\n\n\"Oh, Mamma, how is it you don't understand that the Holy Father, who has\nthe right to grant dispensations...\"\n\nJust then the lady companion who lived with Helene came in to announce\nthat His Highness was in the ballroom and wished to see her.\n\n\"Non, dites-lui que je ne veux pas le voir, que je suis furieuse contre\nlui, parce qu'il m'a manque parole.\" *\n\n\n* \"No, tell him I don't wish to see him, I am furious with him for not\nkeeping his word to me.\"\n\n\"Comtesse, a tout peche misericorde,\" * said a fair-haired young man\nwith a long face and nose, as he entered the room.\n\n\n* \"Countess, there is mercy for every sin.\"\n\nThe old princess rose respectfully and curtsied. The young man who had\nentered took no notice of her. The princess nodded to her daughter and\nsidled out of the room.\n\n\"Yes, she is right,\" thought the old princess, all her convictions\ndissipated by the appearance of His Highness. \"She is right, but how is\nit that we in our irrecoverable youth did not know it? Yet it is so\nsimple,\" she thought as she got into her carriage.\n\nBy the beginning of August Helene's affairs were clearly defined and she\nwrote a letter to her husband--who, as she imagined, loved her very\nmuch--informing him of her intention to marry N.N. and of her having\nembraced the one true faith, and asking him to carry out all the\nformalities necessary for a divorce, which would be explained to him by\nthe bearer of the letter.\n\nAnd so I pray God to have you, my friend, in His holy and powerful\nkeeping--Your friend Helene.\n\nThis letter was brought to Pierre's house when he was on the field of\nBorodino.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nToward the end of the battle of Borodino, Pierre, having run down from\nRaevski's battery a second time, made his way through a gully to\nKnyazkovo with a crowd of soldiers, reached the dressing station, and\nseeing blood and hearing cries and groans hurried on, still entangled in\nthe crowds of soldiers.\n\nThe one thing he now desired with his whole soul was to get away quickly\nfrom the terrible sensations amid which he had lived that day and return\nto ordinary conditions of life and sleep quietly in a room in his own\nbed. He felt that only in the ordinary conditions of life would he be\nable to understand himself and all he had seen and felt. But such\nordinary conditions of life were nowhere to be found.\n\nThough shells and bullets did not whistle over the road along which he\nwas going, still on all sides there was what there had been on the field\nof battle. There were still the same suffering, exhausted, and sometimes\nstrangely indifferent faces, the same blood, the same soldiers'\novercoats, the same sounds of firing which, though distant now, still\naroused terror, and besides this there were the foul air and the dust.\n\nHaving gone a couple of miles along the Mozhaysk road, Pierre sat down\nby the roadside.\n\nDusk had fallen, and the roar of guns died away. Pierre lay leaning on\nhis elbow for a long time, gazing at the shadows that moved past him in\nthe darkness. He was continually imagining that a cannon ball was flying\ntoward him with a terrific whizz, and then he shuddered and sat up. He\nhad no idea how long he had been there. In the middle of the night three\nsoldiers, having brought some firewood, settled down near him and began\nlighting a fire.\n\nThe soldiers, who threw sidelong glances at Pierre, got the fire to burn\nand placed an iron pot on it into which they broke some dried bread and\nput a little dripping. The pleasant odor of greasy viands mingled with\nthe smell of smoke. Pierre sat up and sighed. The three soldiers were\neating and talking among themselves, taking no notice of him.\n\n\"And who may you be?\" one of them suddenly asked Pierre, evidently\nmeaning what Pierre himself had in mind, namely: \"If you want to eat\nwe'll give you some food, only let us know whether you are an honest\nman.\"\n\n\"I, I...\" said Pierre, feeling it necessary to minimize his social\nposition as much as possible so as to be nearer to the soldiers and\nbetter understood by them. \"By rights I am a militia officer, but my men\nare not here. I came to the battle and have lost them.\"\n\n\"There now!\" said one of the soldiers.\n\nAnother shook his head.\n\n\"Would you like a little mash?\" the first soldier asked, and handed\nPierre a wooden spoon after licking it clean.\n\nPierre sat down by the fire and began eating the mash, as they called\nthe food in the cauldron, and he thought it more delicious than any food\nhe had ever tasted. As he sat bending greedily over it, helping himself\nto large spoonfuls and chewing one after another, his face was lit up by\nthe fire and the soldiers looked at him in silence.\n\n\"Where have you to go to? Tell us!\" said one of them.\n\n\"To Mozhaysk.\"\n\n\"You're a gentleman, aren't you?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And what's your name?\"\n\n\"Peter Kirilych.\"\n\n\"Well then, Peter Kirilych, come along with us, we'll take you there.\"\n\nIn the total darkness the soldiers walked with Pierre to Mozhaysk.\n\nBy the time they got near Mozhaysk and began ascending the steep hill\ninto the town, the cocks were already crowing. Pierre went on with the\nsoldiers, quite forgetting that his inn was at the bottom of the hill\nand that he had already passed it. He would not soon have remembered\nthis, such was his state of forgetfulness, had he not halfway up the\nhill stumbled upon his groom, who had been to look for him in the town\nand was returning to the inn. The groom recognized Pierre in the\ndarkness by his white hat.\n\n\"Your excellency!\" he said. \"Why, we were beginning to despair! How is\nit you are on foot? And where are you going, please?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes!\" said Pierre.\n\nThe soldiers stopped.\n\n\"So you've found your folk?\" said one of them. \"Well, good-by, Peter\nKirilych--isn't it?\"\n\n\"Good-bye, Peter Kirilych!\" Pierre heard the other voices repeat.\n\n\"Good-bye!\" he said and turned with his groom toward the inn.\n\n\"I ought to give them something!\" he thought, and felt in his pocket.\n\"No, better not!\" said another, inner voice.\n\nThere was not a room to be had at the inn, they were all occupied.\nPierre went out into the yard and, covering himself up head and all, lay\ndown in his carriage.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nScarcely had Pierre laid his head on the pillow before he felt himself\nfalling asleep, but suddenly, almost with the distinctness of reality,\nhe heard the boom, boom, boom of firing, the thud of projectiles, groans\nand cries, and smelled blood and powder, and a feeling of horror and\ndread of death seized him. Filled with fright he opened his eyes and\nlifted his head from under his cloak. All was tranquil in the yard. Only\nsomeone's orderly passed through the gateway, splashing through the mud,\nand talked to the innkeeper. Above Pierre's head some pigeons, disturbed\nby the movement he had made in sitting up, fluttered under the dark roof\nof the penthouse. The whole courtyard was permeated by a strong peaceful\nsmell of stable yards, delightful to Pierre at that moment. He could see\nthe clear starry sky between the dark roofs of two penthouses.\n\n\"Thank God, there is no more of that!\" he thought, covering up his head\nagain. \"Oh, what a terrible thing is fear, and how shamefully I yielded\nto it! But they... they were steady and calm all the time, to the\nend...\" thought he.\n\nThey, in Pierre's mind, were the soldiers, those who had been at the\nbattery, those who had given him food, and those who had prayed before\nthe icon. They, those strange men he had not previously known, stood out\nclearly and sharply from everyone else.\n\n\"To be a soldier, just a soldier!\" thought Pierre as he fell asleep, \"to\nenter communal life completely, to be imbued by what makes them what\nthey are. But how cast off all the superfluous, devilish burden of my\nouter man? There was a time when I could have done it. I could have run\naway from my father, as I wanted to. Or I might have been sent to serve\nas a soldier after the duel with Dolokhov.\" And the memory of the dinner\nat the English Club when he had challenged Dolokhov flashed through\nPierre's mind, and then he remembered his benefactor at Torzhok. And now\na picture of a solemn meeting of the lodge presented itself to his mind.\nIt was taking place at the English Club and someone near and dear to him\nsat at the end of the table. \"Yes, that is he! It is my benefactor. But\nhe died!\" thought Pierre. \"Yes, he died, and I did not know he was\nalive. How sorry I am that he died, and how glad I am that he is alive\nagain!\" On one side of the table sat Anatole, Dolokhov, Nesvitski,\nDenisov, and others like them (in his dream the category to which these\nmen belonged was as clearly defined in his mind as the category of those\nhe termed they), and he heard those people, Anatole and Dolokhov,\nshouting and singing loudly; yet through their shouting the voice of his\nbenefactor was heard speaking all the time and the sound of his words\nwas as weighty and uninterrupted as the booming on the battlefield, but\npleasant and comforting. Pierre did not understand what his benefactor\nwas saying, but he knew (the categories of thoughts were also quite\ndistinct in his dream) that he was talking of goodness and the\npossibility of being what they were. And they with their simple, kind,\nfirm faces surrounded his benefactor on all sides. But though they were\nkindly they did not look at Pierre and did not know him. Wishing to\nspeak and to attract their attention, he got up, but at that moment his\nlegs grew cold and bare.\n\nHe felt ashamed, and with one arm covered his legs from which his cloak\nhad in fact slipped. For a moment as he was rearranging his cloak Pierre\nopened his eyes and saw the same penthouse roofs, posts, and yard, but\nnow they were all bluish, lit up, and glittering with frost or dew.\n\n\"It is dawn,\" thought Pierre. \"But that's not what I want. I want to\nhear and understand my benefactor's words.\" Again he covered himself up\nwith his cloak, but now neither the lodge nor his benefactor was there.\nThere were only thoughts clearly expressed in words, thoughts that\nsomeone was uttering or that he himself was formulating.\n\nAfterwards when he recalled those thoughts Pierre was convinced that\nsomeone outside himself had spoken them, though the impressions of that\nday had evoked them. He had never, it seemed to him, been able to think\nand express his thoughts like that when awake.\n\n\"To endure war is the most difficult subordination of man's freedom to\nthe law of God,\" the voice had said. \"Simplicity is submission to the\nwill of God; you cannot escape from Him. And they are simple. They do\nnot talk, but act. The spoken word is silver but the unspoken is golden.\nMan can be master of nothing while he fears death, but he who does not\nfear it possesses all. If there were no suffering, man would not know\nhis limitations, would not know himself. The hardest thing (Pierre went\non thinking, or hearing, in his dream) is to be able in your soul to\nunite the meaning of all. To unite all?\" he asked himself. \"No, not to\nunite. Thoughts cannot be united, but to harness all these thoughts\ntogether is what we need! Yes, one must harness them, must harness\nthem!\" he repeated to himself with inward rapture, feeling that these\nwords and they alone expressed what he wanted to say and solved the\nquestion that tormented him.\n\n\"Yes, one must harness, it is time to harness.\"\n\n\"Time to harness, time to harness, your excellency! Your excellency!\"\nsome voice was repeating. \"We must harness, it is time to harness....\"\n\nIt was the voice of the groom, trying to wake him. The sun shone\nstraight into Pierre's face. He glanced at the dirty innyard in the\nmiddle of which soldiers were watering their lean horses at the pump\nwhile carts were passing out of the gate. Pierre turned away with\nrepugnance, and closing his eyes quickly fell back on the carriage seat.\n\"No, I don't want that, I don't want to see and understand that. I want\nto understand what was revealing itself to me in my dream. One second\nmore and I should have understood it all! But what am I to do? Harness,\nbut how can I harness everything?\" and Pierre felt with horror that the\nmeaning of all he had seen and thought in the dream had been destroyed.\n\nThe groom, the coachman, and the innkeeper told Pierre that an officer\nhad come with news that the French were already near Mozhaysk and that\nour men were leaving it.\n\nPierre got up and, having told them to harness and overtake him, went on\nfoot through the town.\n\nThe troops were moving on, leaving about ten thousand wounded behind\nthem. There were wounded in the yards, at the windows of the houses, and\nthe streets were crowded with them. In the streets, around carts that\nwere to take some of the wounded away, shouts, curses, and blows could\nbe heard. Pierre offered the use of his carriage, which had overtaken\nhim, to a wounded general he knew, and drove with him to Moscow. On the\nway Pierre was told of the death of his brother-in-law Anatole and of\nthat of Prince Andrew.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nOn the thirteenth of August Pierre reached Moscow. Close to the gates of\nthe city he was met by Count Rostopchin's adjutant.\n\n\"We have been looking for you everywhere,\" said the adjutant. \"The count\nwants to see you particularly. He asks you to come to him at once on a\nvery important matter.\"\n\nWithout going home, Pierre took a cab and drove to see the Moscow\ncommander-in-chief.\n\nCount Rostopchin had only that morning returned to town from his summer\nvilla at Sokolniki. The anteroom and reception room of his house were\nfull of officials who had been summoned or had come for orders.\nVasilchikov and Platov had already seen the count and explained to him\nthat it was impossible to defend Moscow and that it would have to be\nsurrendered. Though this news was being concealed from the inhabitants,\nthe officials--the heads of the various government departments--knew\nthat Moscow would soon be in the enemy's hands, just as Count Rostopchin\nhimself knew it, and to escape personal responsibility they had all come\nto the governor to ask how they were to deal with their various\ndepartments.\n\nAs Pierre was entering the reception room a courier from the army came\nout of Rostopchin's private room.\n\nIn answer to questions with which he was greeted, the courier made a\ndespairing gesture with his hand and passed through the room.\n\nWhile waiting in the reception room Pierre with weary eyes watched the\nvarious officials, old and young, military and civilian, who were there.\nThey all seemed dissatisfied and uneasy. Pierre went up to a group of\nmen, one of whom he knew. After greeting Pierre they continued their\nconversation.\n\n\"If they're sent out and brought back again later on it will do no harm,\nbut as things are now one can't answer for anything.\"\n\n\"But you see what he writes...\" said another, pointing to a printed\nsheet he held in his hand.\n\n\"That's another matter. That's necessary for the people,\" said the\nfirst.\n\n\"What is it?\" asked Pierre.\n\n\"Oh, it's a fresh broadsheet.\"\n\nPierre took it and began reading.\n\nHis Serene Highness has passed through Mozhaysk in order to join up with\nthe troops moving toward him and has taken up a strong position where\nthe enemy will not soon attack him. Forty eight guns with ammunition\nhave been sent him from here, and his Serene Highness says he will\ndefend Moscow to the last drop of blood and is even ready to fight in\nthe streets. Do not be upset, brothers, that the law courts are closed;\nthings have to be put in order, and we will deal with villains in our\nown way! When the time comes I shall want both town and peasant lads and\nwill raise the cry a day or two beforehand, but they are not wanted yet\nso I hold my peace. An ax will be useful, a hunting spear not bad, but a\nthree-pronged fork will be best of all: a Frenchman is no heavier than a\nsheaf of rye. Tomorrow after dinner I shall take the Iberian icon of the\nMother of God to the wounded in the Catherine Hospital where we will\nhave some water blessed. That will help them to get well quicker. I,\ntoo, am well now: one of my eyes was sore but now I am on the lookout\nwith both.\n\n\"But military men have told me that it is impossible to fight in the\ntown,\" said Pierre, \"and that the position...\"\n\n\"Well, of course! That's what we were saying,\" replied the first\nspeaker.\n\n\"And what does he mean by 'One of my eyes was sore but now I am on the\nlookout with both'?\" asked Pierre.\n\n\"The count had a sty,\" replied the adjutant smiling, \"and was very much\nupset when I told him people had come to ask what was the matter with\nhim. By the by, Count,\" he added suddenly, addressing Pierre with a\nsmile, \"we heard that you have family troubles and that the countess,\nyour wife...\"\n\n\"I have heard nothing,\" Pierre replied unconcernedly. \"But what have you\nheard?\"\n\n\"Oh, well, you know people often invent things. I only say what I\nheard.\"\n\n\"But what did you hear?\"\n\n\"Well, they say,\" continued the adjutant with the same smile, \"that the\ncountess, your wife, is preparing to go abroad. I expect it's\nnonsense....\"\n\n\"Possibly,\" remarked Pierre, looking about him absent-mindedly. \"And who\nis that?\" he asked, indicating a short old man in a clean blue peasant\novercoat, with a big snow-white beard and eyebrows and a ruddy face.\n\n\"He? That's a tradesman, that is to say, he's the restaurant keeper,\nVereshchagin. Perhaps you have heard of that affair with the\nproclamation.\"\n\n\"Oh, so that is Vereshchagin!\" said Pierre, looking at the firm, calm\nface of the old man and seeking any indication of his being a traitor.\n\n\"That's not he himself, that's the father of the fellow who wrote the\nproclamation,\" said the adjutant. \"The young man is in prison and I\nexpect it will go hard with him.\"\n\nAn old gentleman wearing a star and another official, a German wearing a\ncross round his neck, approached the speaker.\n\n\n\"It's a complicated story, you know,\" said the adjutant. \"That\nproclamation appeared about two months ago. The count was informed of\nit. He gave orders to investigate the matter. Gabriel Ivanovich here\nmade the inquiries. The proclamation had passed through exactly sixty-\nthree hands. He asked one, 'From whom did you get it?' 'From so-and-so.'\nHe went to the next one. 'From whom did you get it?' and so on till he\nreached Vereshchagin, a half educated tradesman, you know, 'a pet of a\ntrader,'\" said the adjutant smiling. \"They asked him, 'Who gave it you?'\nAnd the point is that we knew whom he had it from. He could only have\nhad it from the Postmaster. But evidently they had come to some\nunderstanding. He replied: 'From no one; I made it up myself.' They\nthreatened and questioned him, but he stuck to that: 'I made it up\nmyself.' And so it was reported to the count, who sent for the man.\n'From whom did you get the proclamation?' 'I wrote it myself.' Well, you\nknow the count,\" said the adjutant cheerfully, with a smile of pride,\n\"he flared up dreadfully--and just think of the fellow's audacity,\nlying, and obstinacy!\"\n\n\"And the count wanted him to say it was from Klyucharev? I understand!\"\nsaid Pierre.\n\n\"Not at all,\" rejoined the adjutant in dismay. \"Klyucharev had his own\nsins to answer for without that and that is why he has been banished.\nBut the point is that the count was much annoyed. 'How could you have\nwritten it yourself?' said he, and he took up the Hamburg Gazette that\nwas lying on the table. 'Here it is! You did not write it yourself but\ntranslated it, and translated it abominably, because you don't even know\nFrench, you fool.' And what do you think? 'No,' said he, 'I have not\nread any papers, I made it up myself.' 'If that's so, you're a traitor\nand I'll have you tried, and you'll be hanged! Say from whom you had\nit.' 'I have seen no papers, I made it up myself.' And that was the end\nof it. The count had the father fetched, but the fellow stuck to it. He\nwas sent for trial and condemned to hard labor, I believe. Now the\nfather has come to intercede for him. But he's a good-for-nothing lad!\nYou know that sort of tradesman's son, a dandy and lady-killer. He\nattended some lectures somewhere and imagines that the devil is no match\nfor him. That's the sort of fellow he is. His father keeps a cookshop\nhere by the Stone Bridge, and you know there was a large icon of God\nAlmighty painted with a scepter in one hand and an orb in the other.\nWell, he took that icon home with him for a few days and what did he do?\nHe found some scoundrel of a painter...\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nIn the middle of this fresh tale Pierre was summoned to the commander in\nchief.\n\nWhen he entered the private room Count Rostopchin, puckering his face,\nwas rubbing his forehead and eyes with his hand. A short man was saying\nsomething, but when Pierre entered he stopped speaking and went out.\n\n\"Ah, how do you do, great warrior?\" said Rostopchin as soon as the short\nman had left the room. \"We have heard of your prowess. But that's not\nthe point. Between ourselves, mon cher, do you belong to the Masons?\" he\nwent on severely, as though there were something wrong about it which he\nnevertheless intended to pardon. Pierre remained silent. \"I am well\ninformed, my friend, but I am aware that there are Masons and I hope\nthat you are not one of those who on pretense of saving mankind wish to\nruin Russia.\"\n\n\"Yes, I am a Mason,\" Pierre replied.\n\n\"There, you see, mon cher! I expect you know that Messrs. Speranski and\nMagnitski have been deported to their proper place. Mr. Klyucharev has\nbeen treated in the same way, and so have others who on the plea of\nbuilding up the temple of Solomon have tried to destroy the temple of\ntheir fatherland. You can understand that there are reasons for this and\nthat I could not have exiled the Postmaster had he not been a harmful\nperson. It has now come to my knowledge that you lent him your carriage\nfor his removal from town, and that you have even accepted papers from\nhim for safe custody. I like you and don't wish you any harm and--as you\nare only half my age--I advise you, as a father would, to cease all\ncommunication with men of that stamp and to leave here as soon as\npossible.\"\n\n\"But what did Klyucharev do wrong, Count?\" asked Pierre.\n\n\"That is for me to know, but not for you to ask,\" shouted Rostopchin.\n\n\"If he is accused of circulating Napoleon's proclamation it is not\nproved that he did so,\" said Pierre without looking at Rostopchin, \"and\nVereshchagin...\"\n\n\"There we are!\" Rostopchin shouted at Pierre louder than before,\nfrowning suddenly. \"Vereshchagin is a renegade and a traitor who will be\npunished as he deserves,\" said he with the vindictive heat with which\npeople speak when recalling an insult. \"But I did not summon you to\ndiscuss my actions, but to give you advice--or an order if you prefer\nit. I beg you to leave the town and break off all communication with\nsuch men as Klyucharev. And I will knock the nonsense out of anybody\"--\nbut probably realizing that he was shouting at Bezukhov who so far was\nnot guilty of anything, he added, taking Pierre's hand in a friendly\nmanner, \"We are on the eve of a public disaster and I haven't time to be\npolite to everybody who has business with me. My head is sometimes in a\nwhirl. Well, mon cher, what are you doing personally?\"\n\n\"Why, nothing,\" answered Pierre without raising his eyes or changing the\nthoughtful expression of his face.\n\nThe count frowned.\n\n\"A word of friendly advice, mon cher. Be off as soon as you can, that's\nall I have to tell you. Happy he who has ears to hear. Good-bye, my dear\nfellow. Oh, by the by!\" he shouted through the doorway after Pierre, \"is\nit true that the countess has fallen into the clutches of the holy\nfathers of the Society of Jesus?\"\n\nPierre did not answer and left Rostopchin's room more sullen and angry\nthan he had ever before shown himself.\n\nWhen he reached home it was already getting dark. Some eight people had\ncome to see him that evening: the secretary of a committee, the colonel\nof his battalion, his steward, his major-domo, and various petitioners.\nThey all had business with Pierre and wanted decisions from him. Pierre\ndid not understand and was not interested in any of these questions and\nonly answered them in order to get rid of these people. When left alone\nat last he opened and read his wife's letter.\n\n\"They, the soldiers at the battery, Prince Andrew killed... that old\nman... Simplicity is submission to God. Suffering is necessary... the\nmeaning of all... one must harness... my wife is getting married... One\nmust forget and understand...\" And going to his bed he threw himself on\nit without undressing and immediately fell asleep.\n\nWhen he awoke next morning the major-domo came to inform him that a\nspecial messenger, a police officer, had come from Count Rostopchin to\nknow whether Count Bezukhov had left or was leaving the town.\n\nA dozen persons who had business with Pierre were awaiting him in the\ndrawing room. Pierre dressed hurriedly and, instead of going to see\nthem, went to the back porch and out through the gate.\n\nFrom that time till the end of the destruction of Moscow no one of\nBezukhov's household, despite all the search they made, saw Pierre again\nor knew where he was.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nThe Rostovs remained in Moscow till the first of September, that is,\ntill the eve of the enemy's entry into the city.\n\nAfter Petya had joined Obolenski's regiment of Cossacks and left for\nBelaya Tserkov where that regiment was forming, the countess was seized\nwith terror. The thought that both her sons were at the war, had both\ngone from under her wing, that today or tomorrow either or both of them\nmight be killed like the three sons of one of her acquaintances, struck\nher that summer for the first time with cruel clearness. She tried to\nget Nicholas back and wished to go herself to join Petya, or to get him\nan appointment somewhere in Petersburg, but neither of these proved\npossible. Petya could not return unless his regiment did so or unless he\nwas transferred to another regiment on active service. Nicholas was\nsomewhere with the army and had not sent a word since his last letter,\nin which he had given a detailed account of his meeting with Princess\nMary. The countess did not sleep at night, or when she did fall asleep\ndreamed that she saw her sons lying dead. After many consultations and\nconversations, the count at last devised means to tranquillize her. He\ngot Petya transferred from Obolenski's regiment to Bezukhov's, which was\nin training near Moscow. Though Petya would remain in the service, this\ntransfer would give the countess the consolation of seeing at least one\nof her sons under her wing, and she hoped to arrange matters for her\nPetya so as not to let him go again, but always get him appointed to\nplaces where he could not possibly take part in a battle. As long as\nNicholas alone was in danger the countess imagined that she loved her\nfirst-born more than all her other children and even reproached herself\nfor it; but when her youngest: the scapegrace who had been bad at\nlessons, was always breaking things in the house and making himself a\nnuisance to everybody, that snub-nosed Petya with his merry black eyes\nand fresh rosy cheeks where soft down was just beginning to show--when\nhe was thrown amid those big, dreadful, cruel men who were fighting\nsomewhere about something and apparently finding pleasure in it--then\nhis mother thought she loved him more, much more, than all her other\nchildren. The nearer the time came for Petya to return, the more uneasy\ngrew the countess. She began to think she would never live to see such\nhappiness. The presence of Sonya, of her beloved Natasha, or even of her\nhusband irritated her. \"What do I want with them? I want no one but\nPetya,\" she thought.\n\nAt the end of August the Rostovs received another letter from Nicholas.\nHe wrote from the province of Voronezh where he had been sent to procure\nremounts, but that letter did not set the countess at ease. Knowing that\none son was out of danger she became the more anxious about Petya.\n\nThough by the twentieth of August nearly all the Rostovs' acquaintances\nhad left Moscow, and though everybody tried to persuade the countess to\nget away as quickly as possible, she would not hear of leaving before\nher treasure, her adored Petya, returned. On the twenty-eighth of August\nhe arrived. The passionate tenderness with which his mother received him\ndid not please the sixteen-year-old officer. Though she concealed from\nhim her intention of keeping him under her wing, Petya guessed her\ndesigns, and instinctively fearing that he might give way to emotion\nwhen with her--might \"become womanish\" as he termed it to himself--he\ntreated her coldly, avoided her, and during his stay in Moscow attached\nhimself exclusively to Natasha for whom he had always had a particularly\nbrotherly tenderness, almost lover-like.\n\nOwing to the count's customary carelessness nothing was ready for their\ndeparture by the twenty-eighth of August and the carts that were to come\nfrom their Ryazan and Moscow estates to remove their household\nbelongings did not arrive till the thirtieth.\n\nFrom the twenty-eighth till the thirty-first all Moscow was in a bustle\nand commotion. Every day thousands of men wounded at Borodino were\nbrought in by the Dorogomilov gate and taken to various parts of Moscow,\nand thousands of carts conveyed the inhabitants and their possessions\nout by the other gates. In spite of Rostopchin's broadsheets, or because\nof them or independently of them, the strangest and most contradictory\nrumors were current in the town. Some said that no one was to be allowed\nto leave the city, others on the contrary said that all the icons had\nbeen taken out of the churches and everybody was to be ordered to leave.\nSome said there had been another battle after Borodino at which the\nFrench had been routed, while others on the contrary reported that the\nRussian army had been destroyed. Some talked about the Moscow militia\nwhich, preceded by the clergy, would go to the Three Hills; others\nwhispered that Augustin had been forbidden to leave, that traitors had\nbeen seized, that the peasants were rioting and robbing people on their\nway from Moscow, and so on. But all this was only talk; in reality\n(though the Council of Fili, at which it was decided to abandon Moscow,\nhad not yet been held) both those who went away and those who remained\nbehind felt, though they did not show it, that Moscow would certainly be\nabandoned, and that they ought to get away as quickly as possible and\nsave their belongings. It was felt that everything would suddenly break\nup and change, but up to the first of September nothing had done so. As\na criminal who is being led to execution knows that he must die\nimmediately, but yet looks about him and straightens the cap that is\nawry on his head, so Moscow involuntarily continued its wonted life,\nthough it knew that the time of its destruction was near when the\nconditions of life to which its people were accustomed to submit would\nbe completely upset.\n\nDuring the three days preceding the occupation of Moscow the whole\nRostov family was absorbed in various activities. The head of the\nfamily, Count Ilya Rostov, continually drove about the city collecting\nthe current rumors from all sides and gave superficial and hasty orders\nat home about the preparations for their departure.\n\nThe countess watched the things being packed, was dissatisfied with\neverything, was constantly in pursuit of Petya who was always running\naway from her, and was jealous of Natasha with whom he spent all his\ntime. Sonya alone directed the practical side of matters by getting\nthings packed. But of late Sonya had been particularly sad and silent.\nNicholas' letter in which he mentioned Princess Mary had elicited, in\nher presence, joyous comments from the countess, who saw an intervention\nof Providence in this meeting of the princess and Nicholas.\n\n\"I was never pleased at Bolkonski's engagement to Natasha,\" said the\ncountess, \"but I always wanted Nicholas to marry the princess, and had a\npresentiment that it would happen. What a good thing it would be!\"\n\nSonya felt that this was true: that the only possibility of retrieving\nthe Rostovs' affairs was by Nicholas marrying a rich woman, and that the\nprincess was a good match. It was very bitter for her. But despite her\ngrief, or perhaps just because of it, she took on herself all the\ndifficult work of directing the storing and packing of their things and\nwas busy for whole days. The count and countess turned to her when they\nhad any orders to give. Petya and Natasha on the contrary, far from\nhelping their parents, were generally a nuisance and a hindrance to\neveryone. Almost all day long the house resounded with their running\nfeet, their cries, and their spontaneous laughter. They laughed and were\ngay not because there was any reason to laugh, but because gaiety and\nmirth were in their hearts and so everything that happened was a cause\nfor gaiety and laughter to them. Petya was in high spirits because\nhaving left home a boy he had returned (as everybody told him) a fine\nyoung man, because he was at home, because he had left Belaya Tserkov\nwhere there was no hope of soon taking part in a battle and had come to\nMoscow where there was to be fighting in a few days, and chiefly because\nNatasha, whose lead he always followed, was in high spirits. Natasha was\ngay because she had been sad too long and now nothing reminded her of\nthe cause of her sadness, and because she was feeling well. She was also\nhappy because she had someone to adore her: the adoration of others was\na lubricant the wheels of her machine needed to make them run freely--\nand Petya adored her. Above all, they were gay because there was a war\nnear Moscow, there would be fighting at the town gates, arms were being\ngiven out, everybody was escaping--going away somewhere, and in general\nsomething extraordinary was happening, and that is always exciting,\nespecially to the young.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nOn Saturday, the thirty-first of August, everything in the Rostovs'\nhouse seemed topsy-turvy. All the doors were open, all the furniture was\nbeing carried out or moved about, and the mirrors and pictures had been\ntaken down. There were trunks in the rooms, and hay, wrapping paper, and\nropes were scattered about. The peasants and house serfs carrying out\nthe things were treading heavily on the parquet floors. The yard was\ncrowded with peasant carts, some loaded high and already corded up,\nothers still empty.\n\nThe voices and footsteps of the many servants and of the peasants who\nhad come with the carts resounded as they shouted to one another in the\nyard and in the house. The count had been out since morning. The\ncountess had a headache brought on by all the noise and turmoil and was\nlying down in the new sitting room with a vinegar compress on her head.\nPetya was not at home, he had gone to visit a friend with whom he meant\nto obtain a transfer from the militia to the active army. Sonya was in\nthe ballroom looking after the packing of the glass and china. Natasha\nwas sitting on the floor of her dismantled room with dresses, ribbons,\nand scarves strewn all about her, gazing fixedly at the floor and\nholding in her hands the old ball dress (already out of fashion) which\nshe had worn at her first Petersburg ball.\n\nNatasha was ashamed of doing nothing when everyone else was so busy, and\nseveral times that morning had tried to set to work, but her heart was\nnot in it, and she could not and did not know how to do anything except\nwith all her heart and all her might. For a while she had stood beside\nSonya while the china was being packed and tried to help, but soon gave\nit up and went to her room to pack her own things. At first she found it\namusing to give away dresses and ribbons to the maids, but when that was\ndone and what was left had still to be packed, she found it dull.\n\n\"Dunyasha, you pack! You will, won't you, dear?\" And when Dunyasha\nwillingly promised to do it all for her, Natasha sat down on the floor,\ntook her old ball dress, and fell into a reverie quite unrelated to what\nought to have occupied her thoughts now. She was roused from her reverie\nby the talk of the maids in the next room (which was theirs) and by the\nsound of their hurried footsteps going to the back porch. Natasha got up\nand looked out of the window. An enormously long row of carts full of\nwounded men had stopped in the street.\n\nThe housekeeper, the old nurse, the cooks, coachmen, maids, footmen,\npostilions, and scullions stood at the gate, staring at the wounded.\n\nNatasha, throwing a clean pocket handkerchief over her hair and holding\nan end of it in each hand, went out into the street.\n\nThe former housekeeper, old Mavra Kuzminichna, had stepped out of the\ncrowd by the gate, gone up to a cart with a hood constructed of bast\nmats, and was speaking to a pale young officer who lay inside. Natasha\nmoved a few steps forward and stopped shyly, still holding her\nhandkerchief, and listened to what the housekeeper was saying.\n\n\"Then you have nobody in Moscow?\" she was saying. \"You would be more\ncomfortable somewhere in a house... in ours, for instance... the family\nare leaving.\"\n\n\"I don't know if it would be allowed,\" replied the officer in a weak\nvoice. \"Here is our commanding officer... ask him,\" and he pointed to a\nstout major who was walking back along the street past the row of carts.\n\nNatasha glanced with frightened eyes at the face of the wounded officer\nand at once went to meet the major.\n\n\"May the wounded men stay in our house?\" she asked.\n\nThe major raised his hand to his cap with a smile.\n\n\"Which one do you want, Ma'am'selle?\" said he, screwing up his eyes and\nsmiling.\n\nNatasha quietly repeated her question, and her face and whole manner\nwere so serious, though she was still holding the ends of her\nhandkerchief, that the major ceased smiling and after some reflection--\nas if considering in how far the thing was possible--replied in the\naffirmative.\n\n\"Oh yes, why not? They may,\" he said.\n\nWith a slight inclination of her head, Natasha stepped back quickly to\nMavra Kuzminichna, who stood talking compassionately to the officer.\n\n\"They may. He says they may!\" whispered Natasha.\n\nThe cart in which the officer lay was turned into the Rostovs' yard, and\ndozens of carts with wounded men began at the invitation of the\ntownsfolk to turn into the yards and to draw up at the entrances of the\nhouses in Povarskaya Street. Natasha was evidently pleased to be dealing\nwith new people outside the ordinary routine of her life. She and Mavra\nKuzminichna tried to get as many of the wounded as possible into their\nyard.\n\n\"Your Papa must be told, though,\" said Mavra Kuzminichna.\n\n\"Never mind, never mind, what does it matter? For one day we can move\ninto the drawing room. They can have all our half of the house.\"\n\n\"There now, young lady, you do take things into your head! Even if we\nput them into the wing, the men's room, or the nurse's room, we must ask\npermission.\"\n\n\"Well, I'll ask.\"\n\nNatasha ran into the house and went on tiptoe through the half-open door\ninto the sitting room, where there was a smell of vinegar and Hoffman's\ndrops.\n\n\"Are you asleep, Mamma?\"\n\n\"Oh, what sleep-?\" said the countess, waking up just as she was dropping\ninto a doze.\n\n\"Mamma darling!\" said Natasha, kneeling by her mother and bringing her\nface close to her mother's, \"I am sorry, forgive me, I'll never do it\nagain; I woke you up! Mavra Kuzminichna has sent me: they have brought\nsome wounded here--officers. Will you let them come? They have nowhere\nto go. I knew you'd let them come!\" she said quickly all in one breath.\n\n\"What officers? Whom have they brought? I don't understand anything\nabout it,\" said the countess.\n\nNatasha laughed, and the countess too smiled slightly.\n\n\"I knew you'd give permission... so I'll tell them,\" and, having kissed\nher mother, Natasha got up and went to the door.\n\nIn the hall she met her father, who had returned with bad news.\n\n\"We've stayed too long!\" said the count with involuntary vexation. \"The\nclub is closed and the police are leaving.\"\n\n\"Papa, is it all right--I've invited some of the wounded into the\nhouse?\" said Natasha.\n\n\"Of course it is,\" he answered absently. \"That's not the point. I beg\nyou not to indulge in trifles now, but to help to pack, and tomorrow we\nmust go, go, go!....\"\n\nAnd the count gave a similar order to the major-domo and the servants.\n\nAt dinner Petya having returned home told them the news he had heard. He\nsaid the people had been getting arms in the Kremlin, and that though\nRostopchin's broadsheet had said that he would sound a call two or three\ndays in advance, the order had certainly already been given for everyone\nto go armed to the Three Hills tomorrow, and that there would be a big\nbattle there.\n\nThe countess looked with timid horror at her son's eager, excited face\nas he said this. She realized that if she said a word about his not\ngoing to the battle (she knew he enjoyed the thought of the impending\nengagement) he would say something about men, honor, and the fatherland-\n-something senseless, masculine, and obstinate which there would be no\ncontradicting, and her plans would be spoiled; and so, hoping to arrange\nto leave before then and take Petya with her as their protector and\ndefender, she did not answer him, but after dinner called the count\naside and implored him with tears to take her away quickly, that very\nnight if possible. With a woman's involuntary loving cunning she, who\ntill then had not shown any alarm, said that she would die of fright if\nthey did not leave that very night. Without any pretense she was now\nafraid of everything.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nMadame Schoss, who had been out to visit her daughter, increased the\ncountess' fears still more by telling what she had seen at a spirit\ndealer's in Myasnitski Street. When returning by that street she had\nbeen unable to pass because of a drunken crowd rioting in front of the\nshop. She had taken a cab and driven home by a side street and the\ncabman had told her that the people were breaking open the barrels at\nthe drink store, having received orders to do so.\n\nAfter dinner the whole Rostov household set to work with enthusiastic\nhaste packing their belongings and preparing for their departure. The\nold count, suddenly setting to work, kept passing from the yard to the\nhouse and back again, shouting confused instructions to the hurrying\npeople, and flurrying them still more. Petya directed things in the\nyard. Sonya, owing to the count's contradictory orders, lost her head\nand did not know what to do. The servants ran noisily about the house\nand yard, shouting and disputing. Natasha, with the ardor characteristic\nof all she did suddenly set to work too. At first her intervention in\nthe business of packing was received skeptically. Everybody expected\nsome prank from her and did not wish to obey her; but she resolutely and\npassionately demanded obedience, grew angry and nearly cried because\nthey did not heed her, and at last succeeded in making them believe her.\nHer first exploit, which cost her immense effort and established her\nauthority, was the packing of the carpets. The count had valuable\nGobelin tapestries and Persian carpets in the house. When Natasha set to\nwork two cases were standing open in the ballroom, one almost full up\nwith crockery, the other with carpets. There was also much china\nstanding on the tables, and still more was being brought in from the\nstoreroom. A third case was needed and servants had gone to fetch it.\n\n\"Sonya, wait a bit--we'll pack everything into these,\" said Natasha.\n\n\"You can't, Miss, we have tried to,\" said the butler's assistant.\n\n\"No, wait a minute, please.\"\n\nAnd Natasha began rapidly taking out of the case dishes and plates\nwrapped in paper.\n\n\"The dishes must go in here among the carpets,\" said she.\n\n\"Why, it's a mercy if we can get the carpets alone into three cases,\"\nsaid the butler's assistant.\n\n\"Oh, wait, please!\" And Natasha began rapidly and deftly sorting out the\nthings. \"These aren't needed,\" said she, putting aside some plates of\nKiev ware. \"These--yes, these must go among the carpets,\" she said,\nreferring to the Saxony china dishes.\n\n\"Don't, Natasha! Leave it alone! We'll get it all packed,\" urged Sonya\nreproachfully.\n\n\"What a young lady she is!\" remarked the major-domo.\n\nBut Natasha would not give in. She turned everything out and began\nquickly repacking, deciding that the inferior Russian carpets and\nunnecessary crockery should not be taken at all. When everything had\nbeen taken out of the cases, they recommenced packing, and it turned out\nthat when the cheaper things not worth taking had nearly all been\nrejected, the valuable ones really did all go into the two cases. Only\nthe lid of the case containing the carpets would not shut down. A few\nmore things might have been taken out, but Natasha insisted on having\nher own way. She packed, repacked, pressed, made the butler's assistant\nand Petya--whom she had drawn into the business of packing--press on the\nlid, and made desperate efforts herself.\n\n\"That's enough, Natasha,\" said Sonya. \"I see you were right, but just\ntake out the top one.\"\n\n\"I won't!\" cried Natasha, with one hand holding back the hair that hung\nover her perspiring face, while with the other she pressed down the\ncarpets. \"Now press, Petya! Press, Vasilich, press hard!\" she cried.\n\nThe carpets yielded and the lid closed; Natasha, clapping her hands,\nscreamed with delight and tears fell from her eyes. But this only lasted\na moment. She at once set to work afresh and they now trusted her\ncompletely. The count was not angry even when they told him that Natasha\nhad countermanded an order of his, and the servants now came to her to\nask whether a cart was sufficiently loaded, and whether it might be\ncorded up. Thanks to Natasha's directions the work now went on\nexpeditiously, unnecessary things were left, and the most valuable\npacked as compactly as possible.\n\nBut hard as they all worked till quite late that night, they could not\nget everything packed. The countess had fallen asleep and the count,\nhaving put off their departure till next morning, went to bed.\n\nSonya and Natasha slept in the sitting room without undressing.\n\nThat night another wounded man was driven down the Povarskaya, and Mavra\nKuzminichna, who was standing at the gate, had him brought into the\nRostovs' yard. Mavra Kuzminichna concluded that he was a very important\nman. He was being conveyed in a caleche with a raised hood, and was\nquite covered by an apron. On the box beside the driver sat a venerable\nold attendant. A doctor and two soldiers followed the carriage in a\ncart.\n\n\"Please come in here. The masters are going away and the whole house\nwill be empty,\" said the old woman to the old attendant.\n\n\"Well, perhaps,\" said he with a sigh. \"We don't expect to get him home\nalive! We have a house of our own in Moscow, but it's a long way from\nhere, and there's nobody living in it.\"\n\n\"Do us the honor to come in, there's plenty of everything in the\nmaster's house. Come in,\" said Mavra Kuzminichna. \"Is he very ill?\" she\nasked.\n\nThe attendant made a hopeless gesture.\n\n\"We don't expect to get him home! We must ask the doctor.\"\n\nAnd the old servant got down from the box and went up to the cart.\n\n\"All right!\" said the doctor.\n\nThe old servant returned to the caleche, looked into it, shook his head\ndisconsolately, told the driver to turn into the yard, and stopped\nbeside Mavra Kuzminichna.\n\n\"O, Lord Jesus Christ!\" she murmured.\n\nShe invited them to take the wounded man into the house.\n\n\"The masters won't object...\" she said.\n\nBut they had to avoid carrying the man upstairs, and so they took him\ninto the wing and put him in the room that had been Madame Schoss'.\n\nThis wounded man was Prince Andrew Bolkonski.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nMoscow's last day had come. It was a clear bright autumn day, a Sunday.\nThe church bells everywhere were ringing for service, just as usual on\nSundays. Nobody seemed yet to realize what awaited the city.\n\nOnly two things indicated the social condition of Moscow--the rabble,\nthat is the poor people, and the price of commodities. An enormous crowd\nof factory hands, house serfs, and peasants, with whom some officials,\nseminarists, and gentry were mingled, had gone early that morning to the\nThree Hills. Having waited there for Rostopchin who did not turn up,\nthey became convinced that Moscow would be surrendered, and then\ndispersed all about the town to the public houses and cookshops. Prices\ntoo that day indicated the state of affairs. The price of weapons, of\ngold, of carts and horses, kept rising, but the value of paper money and\ncity articles kept falling, so that by midday there were instances of\ncarters removing valuable goods, such as cloth, and receiving in payment\na half of what they carted, while peasant horses were fetching five\nhundred rubles each, and furniture, mirrors, and bronzes were being\ngiven away for nothing.\n\nIn the Rostovs' staid old-fashioned house the dissolution of former\nconditions of life was but little noticeable. As to the serfs the only\nindication was that three out of their huge retinue disappeared during\nthe night, but nothing was stolen; and as to the value of their\npossessions, the thirty peasant carts that had come in from their\nestates and which many people envied proved to be extremely valuable and\nthey were offered enormous sums of money for them. Not only were huge\nsums offered for the horses and carts, but on the previous evening and\nearly in the morning of the first of September, orderlies and servants\nsent by wounded officers came to the Rostovs' and wounded men dragged\nthemselves there from the Rostovs' and from neighboring houses where\nthey were accommodated, entreating the servants to try to get them a\nlift out of Moscow. The major-domo to whom these entreaties were\naddressed, though he was sorry for the wounded, resolutely refused,\nsaying that he dare not even mention the matter to the count. Pity these\nwounded men as one might, it was evident that if they were given one\ncart there would be no reason to refuse another, or all the carts and\none's own carriages as well. Thirty carts could not save all the wounded\nand in the general catastrophe one could not disregard oneself and one's\nown family. So thought the major-domo on his master's behalf.\n\nOn waking up that morning Count Ilya Rostov left his bedroom softly, so\nas not to wake the countess who had fallen asleep only toward morning,\nand came out to the porch in his lilac silk dressing gown. In the yard\nstood the carts ready corded. The carriages were at the front porch. The\nmajor-domo stood at the porch talking to an elderly orderly and to a\npale young officer with a bandaged arm. On seeing the count the major-\ndomo made a significant and stern gesture to them both to go away.\n\n\"Well, Vasilich, is everything ready?\" asked the count, and stroking his\nbald head he looked good-naturedly at the officer and the orderly and\nnodded to them. (He liked to see new faces.)\n\n\"We can harness at once, your excellency.\"\n\n\"Well, that's right. As soon as the countess wakes we'll be off, God\nwilling! What is it, gentlemen?\" he added, turning to the officer. \"Are\nyou staying in my house?\"\n\nThe officer came nearer and suddenly his face flushed crimson.\n\n\"Count, be so good as to allow me... for God's sake, to get into some\ncorner of one of your carts! I have nothing here with me.... I shall be\nall right on a loaded cart...\"\n\nBefore the officer had finished speaking the orderly made the same\nrequest on behalf of his master.\n\n\"Oh, yes, yes, yes!\" said the count hastily. \"I shall be very pleased,\nvery pleased. Vasilich, you'll see to it. Just unload one or two carts.\nWell, what of it... do what's necessary...\" said the count, muttering\nsome indefinite order.\n\nBut at the same moment an expression of warm gratitude on the officer's\nface had already sealed the order. The count looked around him. In the\nyard, at the gates, at the window of the wings, wounded officers and\ntheir orderlies were to be seen. They were all looking at the count and\nmoving toward the porch.\n\n\"Please step into the gallery, your excellency,\" said the major-domo.\n\"What are your orders about the pictures?\"\n\nThe count went into the house with him, repeating his order not to\nrefuse the wounded who asked for a lift.\n\n\"Well, never mind, some of the things can be unloaded,\" he added in a\nsoft, confidential voice, as though afraid of being overheard.\n\nAt nine o'clock the countess woke up, and Matrena Timofeevna, who had\nbeen her lady's maid before her marriage and now performed a sort of\nchief gendarme's duty for her, came to say that Madame Schoss was much\noffended and the young ladies' summer dresses could not be left behind.\nOn inquiry, the countess learned that Madame Schoss was offended because\nher trunk had been taken down from its cart, and all the loads were\nbeing uncorded and the luggage taken out of the carts to make room for\nwounded men whom the count in the simplicity of his heart had ordered\nthat they should take with them. The countess sent for her husband.\n\n\"What is this, my dear? I hear that the luggage is being unloaded.\"\n\n\"You know, love, I wanted to tell you... Countess dear... an officer\ncame to me to ask for a few carts for the wounded. After all, ours are\nthings that can be bought but think what being left behind means to\nthem!... Really now, in our own yard--we asked them in ourselves and\nthere are officers among them.... You know, I think, my dear... let them\nbe taken... where's the hurry?\"\n\nThe count spoke timidly, as he always did when talking of money matters.\nThe countess was accustomed to this tone as a precursor of news of\nsomething detrimental to the children's interests, such as the building\nof a new gallery or conservatory, the inauguration of a private theater\nor an orchestra. She was accustomed always to oppose anything announced\nin that timid tone and considered it her duty to do so.\n\nShe assumed her dolefully submissive manner and said to her husband:\n\"Listen to me, Count, you have managed matters so that we are getting\nnothing for the house, and now you wish to throw away all our--all the\nchildren's property! You said yourself that we have a hundred thousand\nrubles' worth of things in the house. I don't consent, my dear, I don't!\nDo as you please! It's the government's business to look after the\nwounded; they know that. Look at the Lopukhins opposite, they cleared\nout everything two days ago. That's what other people do. It's only we\nwho are such fools. If you have no pity on me, have some for the\nchildren.\"\n\nFlourishing his arms in despair the count left the room without\nreplying.\n\n\"Papa, what are you doing that for?\" asked Natasha, who had followed him\ninto her mother's room.\n\n\"Nothing! What business is it of yours?\" muttered the count angrily.\n\n\"But I heard,\" said Natasha. \"Why does Mamma object?\"\n\n\"What business is it of yours?\" cried the count.\n\nNatasha stepped up to the window and pondered.\n\n\"Papa! Here's Berg coming to see us,\" said she, looking out of the\nwindow.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nBerg, the Rostovs' son-in-law, was already a colonel wearing the orders\nof Vladimir and Anna, and he still filled the quiet and agreeable post\nof assistant to the head of the staff of the assistant commander of the\nfirst division of the Second Army.\n\nOn the first of September he had come to Moscow from the army.\n\nHe had nothing to do in Moscow, but he had noticed that everyone in the\narmy was asking for leave to visit Moscow and had something to do there.\nSo he considered it necessary to ask for leave of absence for family and\ndomestic reasons.\n\nBerg drove up to his father-in-law's house in his spruce little trap\nwith a pair of sleek roans, exactly like those of a certain prince. He\nlooked attentively at the carts in the yard and while going up to the\nporch took out a clean pocket handkerchief and tied a knot in it.\n\nFrom the anteroom Berg ran with smooth though impatient steps into the\ndrawing room, where he embraced the count, kissed the hands of Natasha\nand Sonya, and hastened to inquire after \"Mamma's\" health.\n\n\"Health, at a time like this?\" said the count. \"Come, tell us the news!\nIs the army retreating or will there be another battle?\"\n\n\"God Almighty alone can decide the fate of our fatherland, Papa,\" said\nBerg. \"The army is burning with a spirit of heroism and the leaders, so\nto say, have now assembled in council. No one knows what is coming. But\nin general I can tell you, Papa, that such a heroic spirit, the truly\nantique valor of the Russian army, which they--which it\" (he corrected\nhimself) \"has shown or displayed in the battle of the twenty-sixth--\nthere are no words worthy to do it justice! I tell you, Papa\" (he smote\nhimself on the breast as a general he had heard speaking had done, but\nBerg did it a trifle late for he should have struck his breast at the\nwords \"Russian army\"), \"I tell you frankly that we, the commanders, far\nfrom having to urge the men on or anything of that kind, could hardly\nrestrain those... those... yes, those exploits of antique valor,\" he\nwent on rapidly. \"General Barclay de Tolly risked his life everywhere at\nthe head of the troops, I can assure you. Our corps was stationed on a\nhillside. You can imagine!\"\n\nAnd Berg related all that he remembered of the various tales he had\nheard those days. Natasha watched him with an intent gaze that confused\nhim, as if she were trying to find in his face the answer to some\nquestion.\n\n\"Altogether such heroism as was displayed by the Russian warriors cannot\nbe imagined or adequately praised!\" said Berg, glancing round at\nNatasha, and as if anxious to conciliate her, replying to her intent\nlook with a smile. \"'Russia is not in Moscow, she lives in the hearts of\nher sons!' Isn't it so, Papa?\" said he.\n\nJust then the countess came in from the sitting room with a weary and\ndissatisfied expression. Berg hurriedly jumped up, kissed her hand,\nasked about her health, and, swaying his head from side to side to\nexpress sympathy, remained standing beside her.\n\n\"Yes, Mamma, I tell you sincerely that these are hard and sad times for\nevery Russian. But why are you so anxious? You have still time to get\naway....\"\n\n\"I can't think what the servants are about,\" said the countess, turning\nto her husband. \"I have just been told that nothing is ready yet.\nSomebody after all must see to things. One misses Mitenka at such times.\nThere won't be any end to it.\"\n\nThe count was about to say something, but evidently restrained himself.\nHe got up from his chair and went to the door.\n\nAt that moment Berg drew out his handkerchief as if to blow his nose\nand, seeing the knot in it, pondered, shaking his head sadly and\nsignificantly.\n\n\"And I have a great favor to ask of you, Papa,\" said he.\n\n\"Hm...\" said the count, and stopped.\n\n\"I was driving past Yusupov's house just now,\" said Berg with a laugh,\n\"when the steward, a man I know, ran out and asked me whether I wouldn't\nbuy something. I went in out of curiosity, you know, and there is a\nsmall chiffonier and a dressing table. You know how dear Vera wanted a\nchiffonier like that and how we had a dispute about it.\" (At the mention\nof the chiffonier and dressing table Berg involuntarily changed his tone\nto one of pleasure at his admirable domestic arrangements.) \"And it's\nsuch a beauty! It pulls out and has a secret English drawer, you know!\nAnd dear Vera has long wanted one. I wish to give her a surprise, you\nsee. I saw so many of those peasant carts in your yard. Please let me\nhave one, I will pay the man well, and...\"\n\nThe count frowned and coughed.\n\n\"Ask the countess, I don't give orders.\"\n\n\"If it's inconvenient, please don't,\" said Berg. \"Only I so wanted it,\nfor dear Vera's sake.\"\n\n\"Oh, go to the devil, all of you! To the devil, the devil, the devil...\"\ncried the old count. \"My head's in a whirl!\"\n\nAnd he left the room. The countess began to cry.\n\n\"Yes, Mamma! Yes, these are very hard times!\" said Berg.\n\nNatasha left the room with her father and, as if finding it difficult to\nreach some decision, first followed him and then ran downstairs.\n\nPetya was in the porch, engaged in giving out weapons to the servants\nwho were to leave Moscow. The loaded carts were still standing in the\nyard. Two of them had been uncorded and a wounded officer was climbing\ninto one of them helped by an orderly.\n\n\"Do you know what it's about?\" Petya asked Natasha.\n\nShe understood that he meant what were their parents quarreling about.\nShe did not answer.\n\n\"It's because Papa wanted to give up all the carts to the wounded,\" said\nPetya. \"Vasilich told me. I consider...\"\n\n\"I consider,\" Natasha suddenly almost shouted, turning her angry face to\nPetya, \"I consider it so horrid, so abominable, so... I don't know what.\nAre we despicable Germans?\"\n\nHer throat quivered with convulsive sobs and, afraid of weakening and\nletting the force of her anger run to waste, she turned and rushed\nheadlong up the stairs.\n\nBerg was sitting beside the countess consoling her with the respectful\nattention of a relative. The count, pipe in hand, was pacing up and down\nthe room, when Natasha, her face distorted by anger, burst in like a\ntempest and approached her mother with rapid steps.\n\n\"It's horrid! It's abominable!\" she screamed. \"You can't possibly have\nordered it!\"\n\nBerg and the countess looked at her, perplexed and frightened. The count\nstood still at the window and listened.\n\n\"Mamma, it's impossible: see what is going on in the yard!\" she cried.\n\"They will be left!...\"\n\n\"What's the matter with you? Who are 'they'? What do you want?\"\n\n\"Why, the wounded! It's impossible, Mamma. It's monstrous!... No, Mamma\ndarling, it's not the thing. Please forgive me, darling.... Mamma, what\ndoes it matter what we take away? Only look what is going on in the\nyard... Mamma!... It's impossible!\"\n\nThe count stood by the window and listened without turning round.\nSuddenly he sniffed and put his face closer to the window.\n\nThe countess glanced at her daughter, saw her face full of shame for her\nmother, saw her agitation, and understood why her husband did not turn\nto look at her now, and she glanced round quite disconcerted.\n\n\"Oh, do as you like! Am I hindering anyone?\" she said, not surrendering\nat once.\n\n\"Mamma, darling, forgive me!\"\n\nBut the countess pushed her daughter away and went up to her husband.\n\n\"My dear, you order what is right.... You know I don't understand about\nit,\" said she, dropping her eyes shamefacedly.\n\n\"The eggs... the eggs are teaching the hen,\" muttered the count through\ntears of joy, and he embraced his wife who was glad to hide her look of\nshame on his breast.\n\n\"Papa! Mamma! May I see to it? May I?...\" asked Natasha. \"We will still\ntake all the most necessary things.\"\n\nThe count nodded affirmatively, and Natasha, at the rapid pace at which\nshe used to run when playing at tag, ran through the ballroom to the\nanteroom and downstairs into the yard.\n\nThe servants gathered round Natasha, but could not believe the strange\norder she brought them until the count himself, in his wife's name,\nconfirmed the order to give up all the carts to the wounded and take the\ntrunks to the storerooms. When they understood that order the servants\nset to work at this new task with pleasure and zeal. It no longer seemed\nstrange to them but on the contrary it seemed the only thing that could\nbe done, just as a quarter of an hour before it had not seemed strange\nto anyone that the wounded should be left behind and the goods carted\naway but that had seemed the only thing to do.\n\nThe whole household, as if to atone for not having done it sooner, set\neagerly to work at the new task of placing the wounded in the carts. The\nwounded dragged themselves out of their rooms and stood with pale but\nhappy faces round the carts. The news that carts were to be had spread\nto the neighboring houses, from which wounded men began to come into the\nRostovs' yard. Many of the wounded asked them not to unload the carts\nbut only to let them sit on the top of the things. But the work of\nunloading, once started, could not be arrested. It seemed not to matter\nwhether all or only half the things were left behind. Cases full of\nchina, bronzes, pictures, and mirrors that had been so carefully packed\nthe night before now lay about the yard, and still they went on\nsearching for and finding possibilities of unloading this or that and\nletting the wounded have another and yet another cart.\n\n\"We can take four more men,\" said the steward. \"They can have my trap,\nor else what is to become of them?\"\n\n\"Let them have my wardrobe cart,\" said the countess. \"Dunyasha can go\nwith me in the carriage.\"\n\nThey unloaded the wardrobe cart and sent it to take wounded men from a\nhouse two doors off. The whole household, servants included, was bright\nand animated. Natasha was in a state of rapturous excitement such as she\nhad not known for a long time.\n\n\"What could we fasten this onto?\" asked the servants, trying to fix a\ntrunk on the narrow footboard behind a carriage. \"We must keep at least\none cart.\"\n\n\"What's in it?\" asked Natasha.\n\n\"The count's books.\"\n\n\"Leave it, Vasilich will put it away. It's not wanted.\"\n\nThe phaeton was full of people and there was a doubt as to where Count\nPeter could sit.\n\n\"On the box. You'll sit on the box, won't you, Petya?\" cried Natasha.\n\nSonya too was busy all this time, but the aim of her efforts was quite\ndifferent from Natasha's. She was putting away the things that had to be\nleft behind and making a list of them as the countess wished, and she\ntried to get as much taken away with them as possible.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nBefore two o'clock in the afternoon the Rostovs' four carriages, packed\nfull and with the horses harnessed, stood at the front door. One by one\nthe carts with the wounded had moved out of the yard.\n\nThe caleche in which Prince Andrew was being taken attracted Sonya's\nattention as it passed the front porch. With the help of a maid she was\narranging a seat for the countess in the huge high coach that stood at\nthe entrance.\n\n\"Whose caleche is that?\" she inquired, leaning out of the carriage\nwindow.\n\n\"Why, didn't you know, Miss?\" replied the maid. \"The wounded prince: he\nspent the night in our house and is going with us.\"\n\n\"But who is it? What's his name?\"\n\n\"It's our intended that was--Prince Bolkonski himself! They say he is\ndying,\" replied the maid with a sigh.\n\nSonya jumped out of the coach and ran to the countess. The countess,\ntired out and already dressed in shawl and bonnet for her journey, was\npacing up and down the drawing room, waiting for the household to\nassemble for the usual silent prayer with closed doors before starting.\nNatasha was not in the room.\n\n\"Mamma,\" said Sonya, \"Prince Andrew is here, mortally wounded. He is\ngoing with us.\"\n\nThe countess opened her eyes in dismay and, seizing Sonya's arm, glanced\naround.\n\n\"Natasha?\" she murmured.\n\nAt that moment this news had only one significance for both of them.\nThey knew their Natasha, and alarm as to what would happen if she heard\nthis news stifled all sympathy for the man they both liked.\n\n\"Natasha does not know yet, but he is going with us,\" said Sonya.\n\n\"You say he is dying?\"\n\nSonya nodded.\n\nThe countess put her arms around Sonya and began to cry.\n\n\"The ways of God are past finding out!\" she thought, feeling that the\nAlmighty Hand, hitherto unseen, was becoming manifest in all that was\nnow taking place.\n\n\"Well, Mamma? Everything is ready. What's the matter?\" asked Natasha, as\nwith animated face she ran into the room.\n\n\"Nothing,\" answered the countess. \"If everything is ready let us start.\"\n\nAnd the countess bent over her reticule to hide her agitated face. Sonya\nembraced Natasha and kissed her.\n\nNatasha looked at her inquiringly.\n\n\"What is it? What has happened?\"\n\n\"Nothing... No...\"\n\n\"Is it something very bad for me? What is it?\" persisted Natasha with\nher quick intuition.\n\nSonya sighed and made no reply. The count, Petya, Madame Schoss, Mavra\nKuzminichna, and Vasilich came into the drawing room and, having closed\nthe doors, they all sat down and remained for some moments silently\nseated without looking at one another.\n\nThe count was the first to rise, and with a loud sigh crossed himself\nbefore the icon. All the others did the same. Then the count embraced\nMavra Kuzminichna and Vasilich, who were to remain in Moscow, and while\nthey caught at his hand and kissed his shoulder he patted their backs\nlightly with some vaguely affectionate and comforting words. The\ncountess went into the oratory and there Sonya found her on her knees\nbefore the icons that had been left here and there hanging on the wall.\n(The most precious ones, with which some family tradition was connected,\nwere being taken with them.)\n\nIn the porch and in the yard the men whom Petya had armed with swords\nand daggers, with trousers tucked inside their high boots and with belts\nand girdles tightened, were taking leave of those remaining behind.\n\nAs is always the case at a departure, much had been forgotten or put in\nthe wrong place, and for a long time two menservants stood one on each\nside of the open door and the carriage steps waiting to help the\ncountess in, while maids rushed with cushions and bundles from the house\nto the carriages, the caleche, the phaeton, and back again.\n\n\"They always will forget everything!\" said the countess. \"Don't you know\nI can't sit like that?\"\n\nAnd Dunyasha, with clenched teeth, without replying but with an\naggrieved look on her face, hastily got into the coach to rearrange the\nseat.\n\n\"Oh, those servants!\" said the count, swaying his head.\n\nEfim, the old coachman, who was the only one the countess trusted to\ndrive her, sat perched up high on the box and did not so much as glance\nround at what was going on behind him. From thirty years' experience he\nknew it would be some time yet before the order, \"Be off, in God's\nname!\" would be given him: and he knew that even when it was said he\nwould be stopped once or twice more while they sent back to fetch\nsomething that had been forgotten, and even after that he would again be\nstopped and the countess herself would lean out of the window and beg\nhim for the love of heaven to drive carefully down the hill. He knew all\nthis and therefore waited calmly for what would happen, with more\npatience than the horses, especially the near one, the chestnut Falcon,\nwho was pawing the ground and champing his bit. At last all were seated,\nthe carriage steps were folded and pulled up, the door was shut,\nsomebody was sent for a traveling case, and the countess leaned out and\nsaid what she had to say. Then Efim deliberately doffed his hat and\nbegan crossing himself. The postilion and all the other servants did the\nsame. \"Off, in God's name!\" said Efim, putting on his hat. \"Start!\" The\npostilion started the horses, the off pole horse tugged at his collar,\nthe high springs creaked, and the body of the coach swayed. The footman\nsprang onto the box of the moving coach which jolted as it passed out of\nthe yard onto the uneven roadway; the other vehicles jolted in their\nturn, and the procession of carriages moved up the street. In the\ncarriages, the caleche, and the phaeton, all crossed themselves as they\npassed the church opposite the house. Those who were to remain in Moscow\nwalked on either side of the vehicles seeing the travelers off.\n\nRarely had Natasha experienced so joyful a feeling as now, sitting in\nthe carriage beside the countess and gazing at the slowly receding walls\nof forsaken, agitated Moscow. Occasionally she leaned out of the\ncarriage window and looked back and then forward at the long train of\nwounded in front of them. Almost at the head of the line she could see\nthe raised hood of Prince Andrew's caleche. She did not know who was in\nit, but each time she looked at the procession her eyes sought that\ncaleche. She knew it was right in front.\n\nIn Kudrino, from the Nikitski, Presnya, and Podnovinsk Streets came\nseveral other trains of vehicles similar to the Rostovs', and as they\npassed along the Sadovaya Street the carriages and carts formed two rows\nabreast.\n\nAs they were going round the Sukharev water tower Natasha, who was\ninquisitively and alertly scrutinizing the people driving or walking\npast, suddenly cried out in joyful surprise:\n\n\"Dear me! Mamma, Sonya, look, it's he!\"\n\n\"Who? Who?\"\n\n\"Look! Yes, on my word, it's Bezukhov!\" said Natasha, putting her head\nout of the carriage and staring at a tall, stout man in a coachman's\nlong coat, who from his manner of walking and moving was evidently a\ngentleman in disguise, and who was passing under the arch of the\nSukharev tower accompanied by a small, sallow-faced, beardless old man\nin a frieze coat.\n\n\"Yes, it really is Bezukhov in a coachman's coat, with a queer-looking\nold boy. Really,\" said Natasha, \"look, look!\"\n\n\"No, it's not he. How can you talk such nonsense?\"\n\n\"Mamma,\" screamed Natasha, \"I'll stake my head it's he! I assure you!\nStop, stop!\" she cried to the coachman.\n\nBut the coachman could not stop, for from the Meshchanski Street came\nmore carts and carriages, and the Rostovs were being shouted at to move\non and not block the way.\n\nIn fact, however, though now much farther off than before, the Rostovs\nall saw Pierre--or someone extraordinarily like him--in a coachman's\ncoat, going down the street with head bent and a serious face beside a\nsmall, beardless old man who looked like a footman. That old man noticed\na face thrust out of the carriage window gazing at them, and\nrespectfully touching Pierre's elbow said something to him and pointed\nto the carriage. Pierre, evidently engrossed in thought, could not at\nfirst understand him. At length when he had understood and looked in the\ndirection the old man indicated, he recognized Natasha, and following\nhis first impulse stepped instantly and rapidly toward the coach. But\nhaving taken a dozen steps he seemed to remember something and stopped.\n\nNatasha's face, leaning out of the window, beamed with quizzical\nkindliness.\n\n\"Peter Kirilovich, come here! We have recognized you! This is\nwonderful!\" she cried, holding out her hand to him. \"What are you doing?\nWhy are you like this?\"\n\nPierre took her outstretched hand and kissed it awkwardly as he walked\nalong beside her while the coach still moved on.\n\n\"What is the matter, Count?\" asked the countess in a surprised and\ncommiserating tone.\n\n\"What? What? Why? Don't ask me,\" said Pierre, and looked round at\nNatasha whose radiant, happy expression--of which he was conscious\nwithout looking at her--filled him with enchantment.\n\n\"Are you remaining in Moscow, then?\"\n\nPierre hesitated.\n\n\"In Moscow?\" he said in a questioning tone. \"Yes, in Moscow. Good-bye!\"\n\n\"Ah, if only I were a man! I'd certainly stay with you. How splendid!\"\nsaid Natasha. \"Mamma, if you'll let me, I'll stay!\"\n\nPierre glanced absently at Natasha and was about to say something, but\nthe countess interrupted him.\n\n\"You were at the battle, we heard.\"\n\n\"Yes, I was,\" Pierre answered. \"There will be another battle\ntomorrow...\" he began, but Natasha interrupted him.\n\n\"But what is the matter with you, Count? You are not like yourself....\"\n\n\"Oh, don't ask me, don't ask me! I don't know myself. Tomorrow... But\nno! Good-bye, good-by!\" he muttered. \"It's an awful time!\" and dropping\nbehind the carriage he stepped onto the pavement.\n\nNatasha continued to lean out of the window for a long time, beaming at\nhim with her kindly, slightly quizzical, happy smile.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nFor the last two days, ever since leaving home, Pierre had been living\nin the empty house of his deceased benefactor, Bazdeev. This is how it\nhappened.\n\nWhen he woke up on the morning after his return to Moscow and his\ninterview with Count Rostopchin, he could not for some time make out\nwhere he was and what was expected of him. When he was informed that\namong others awaiting him in his reception room there was a Frenchman\nwho had brought a letter from his wife, the Countess Helene, he felt\nsuddenly overcome by that sense of confusion and hopelessness to which\nhe was apt to succumb. He felt that everything was now at an end, all\nwas in confusion and crumbling to pieces, that nobody was right or\nwrong, the future held nothing, and there was no escape from this\nposition. Smiling unnaturally and muttering to himself, he first sat\ndown on the sofa in an attitude of despair, then rose, went to the door\nof the reception room and peeped through the crack, returned flourishing\nhis arms, and took up a book. His major-domo came in a second time to\nsay that the Frenchman who had brought the letter from the countess was\nvery anxious to see him if only for a minute, and that someone from\nBazdeev's widow had called to ask Pierre to take charge of her husband's\nbooks, as she herself was leaving for the country.\n\n\"Oh, yes, in a minute; wait... or no! No, of course... go and say I will\ncome directly,\" Pierre replied to the major-domo.\n\nBut as soon as the man had left the room Pierre took up his hat which\nwas lying on the table and went out of his study by the other door.\nThere was no one in the passage. He went along the whole length of this\npassage to the stairs and, frowning and rubbing his forehead with both\nhands, went down as far as the first landing. The hall porter was\nstanding at the front door. From the landing where Pierre stood there\nwas a second staircase leading to the back entrance. He went down that\nstaircase and out into the yard. No one had seen him. But there were\nsome carriages waiting, and as soon as Pierre stepped out of the gate\nthe coachmen and the yard porter noticed him and raised their caps to\nhim. When he felt he was being looked at he behaved like an ostrich\nwhich hides its head in a bush in order not to be seen: he hung his head\nand quickening his pace went down the street.\n\nOf all the affairs awaiting Pierre that day the sorting of Joseph\nBazdeev's books and papers appeared to him the most necessary.\n\nHe hired the first cab he met and told the driver to go to the\nPatriarch's Ponds, where the widow Bazdeev's house was.\n\nContinually turning round to look at the rows of loaded carts that were\nmaking their way from all sides out of Moscow, and balancing his bulky\nbody so as not to slip out of the ramshackle old vehicle, Pierre,\nexperiencing the joyful feeling of a boy escaping from school, began to\ntalk to his driver.\n\nThe man told him that arms were being distributed today at the Kremlin\nand that tomorrow everyone would be sent out beyond the Three Hills\ngates and a great battle would be fought there.\n\nHaving reached the Patriarch's Ponds Pierre found the Bazdeevs' house,\nwhere he had not been for a long time past. He went up to the gate.\nGerasim, that sallow beardless old man Pierre had seen at Torzhok five\nyears before with Joseph Bazdeev, came out in answer to his knock.\n\n\"At home?\" asked Pierre.\n\n\"Owing to the present state of things Sophia Danilovna has gone to the\nTorzhok estate with the children, your excellency.\"\n\n\"I will come in all the same, I have to look through the books,\" said\nPierre.\n\n\"Be so good as to step in. Makar Alexeevich, the brother of my late\nmaster--may the kingdom of heaven be his--has remained here, but he is\nin a weak state as you know,\" said the old servant.\n\nPierre knew that Makar Alexeevich was Joseph Bazdeev's half-insane\nbrother and a hard drinker.\n\n\"Yes, yes, I know. Let us go in...\" said Pierre and entered the house.\n\nA tall, bald-headed old man with a red nose, wearing a dressing gown and\nwith galoshes on his bare feet, stood in the anteroom. On seeing Pierre\nhe muttered something angrily and went away along the passage.\n\n\"He was a very clever man but has now grown quite feeble, as your honor\nsees,\" said Gerasim. \"Will you step into the study?\" Pierre nodded. \"As\nit was sealed up so it has remained, but Sophia Danilovna gave orders\nthat if anyone should come from you they were to have the books.\"\n\nPierre went into that gloomy study which he had entered with such\ntrepidation in his benefactor's lifetime. The room, dusty and untouched\nsince the death of Joseph Bazdeev was now even gloomier.\n\nGerasim opened one of the shutters and left the room on tiptoe. Pierre\nwent round the study, approached the cupboard in which the manuscripts\nwere kept, and took out what had once been one of the most important,\nthe holy of holies of the order. This was the authentic Scotch Acts with\nBazdeev's notes and explanations. He sat down at the dusty writing\ntable, and, having laid the manuscripts before him, opened them out,\nclosed them, finally pushed them away, and resting his head on his hand\nsank into meditation.\n\nGerasim looked cautiously into the study several times and saw Pierre\nalways sitting in the same attitude.\n\nMore than two hours passed and Gerasim took the liberty of making a\nslight noise at the door to attract his attention, but Pierre did not\nhear him.\n\n\"Is the cabman to be discharged, your honor?\"\n\n\"Oh yes!\" said Pierre, rousing himself and rising hurriedly. \"Look\nhere,\" he added, taking Gerasim by a button of his coat and looking down\nat the old man with moist, shining, and ecstatic eyes, \"I say, do you\nknow that there is going to be a battle tomorrow?\"\n\n\"We heard so,\" replied the man.\n\n\"I beg you not to tell anyone who I am, and to do what I ask you.\"\n\n\"Yes, your excellency,\" replied Gerasim. \"Will you have something to\neat?\"\n\n\"No, but I want something else. I want peasant clothes and a pistol,\"\nsaid Pierre, unexpectedly blushing.\n\n\"Yes, your excellency,\" said Gerasim after thinking for a moment.\n\nAll the rest of that day Pierre spent alone in his benefactor's study,\nand Gerasim heard him pacing restlessly from one corner to another and\ntalking to himself. And he spent the night on a bed made up for him\nthere.\n\nGerasim, being a servant who in his time had seen many strange things,\naccepted Pierre's taking up his residence in the house without surprise,\nand seemed pleased to have someone to wait on. That same evening--\nwithout even asking himself what they were wanted for--he procured a\ncoachman's coat and cap for Pierre, and promised to get him the pistol\nnext day. Makar Alexeevich came twice that evening shuffling along in\nhis galoshes as far as the door and stopped and looked ingratiatingly at\nPierre. But as soon as Pierre turned toward him he wrapped his dressing\ngown around him with a shamefaced and angry look and hurried away. It\nwas when Pierre (wearing the coachman's coat which Gerasim had procured\nfor him and had disinfected by steam) was on his way with the old man to\nbuy the pistol at the Sukharev market that he met the Rostovs.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nKutuzov's order to retreat through Moscow to the Ryazan road was issued\nat night on the first of September.\n\nThe first troops started at once, and during the night they marched\nslowly and steadily without hurry. At daybreak, however, those nearing\nthe town at the Dorogomilov bridge saw ahead of them masses of soldiers\ncrowding and hurrying across the bridge, ascending on the opposite side\nand blocking the streets and alleys, while endless masses of troops were\nbearing down on them from behind, and an unreasoning hurry and alarm\novercame them. They all rushed forward to the bridge, onto it, and to\nthe fords and the boats. Kutuzov himself had driven round by side\nstreets to the other side of Moscow.\n\nBy ten o'clock in the morning of the second of September, only the rear\nguard remained in the Dorogomilov suburb, where they had ample room. The\nmain army was on the other side of Moscow or beyond it.\n\nAt that very time, at ten in the morning of the second of September,\nNapoleon was standing among his troops on the Poklonny Hill looking at\nthe panorama spread out before him. From the twenty-sixth of August to\nthe second of September, that is from the battle of Borodino to the\nentry of the French into Moscow, during the whole of that agitating,\nmemorable week, there had been the extraordinary autumn weather that\nalways comes as a surprise, when the sun hangs low and gives more heat\nthan in spring, when everything shines so brightly in the rare clear\natmosphere that the eyes smart, when the lungs are strengthened and\nrefreshed by inhaling the aromatic autumn air, when even the nights are\nwarm, and when in those dark warm nights, golden stars startle and\ndelight us continually by falling from the sky.\n\nAt ten in the morning of the second of September this weather still\nheld.\n\nThe brightness of the morning was magical. Moscow seen from the Poklonny\nHill lay spaciously spread out with her river, her gardens, and her\nchurches, and she seemed to be living her usual life, her cupolas\nglittering like stars in the sunlight.\n\nThe view of the strange city with its peculiar architecture, such as he\nhad never seen before, filled Napoleon with the rather envious and\nuneasy curiosity men feel when they see an alien form of life that has\nno knowledge of them. This city was evidently living with the full force\nof its own life. By the indefinite signs which, even at a distance,\ndistinguish a living body from a dead one, Napoleon from the Poklonny\nHill perceived the throb of life in the town and felt, as it were, the\nbreathing of that great and beautiful body.\n\nEvery Russian looking at Moscow feels her to be a mother; every\nforeigner who sees her, even if ignorant of her significance as the\nmother city, must feel her feminine character, and Napoleon felt it.\n\n\"Cette ville asiatique aux innombrables eglises, Moscou la sainte. La\nvoila done enfin, cette fameuse ville! Il etait temps,\" * said he, and\ndismounting he ordered a plan of Moscow to be spread out before him, and\nsummoned Lelorgne d'Ideville, the interpreter.\n\n\n* \"That Asiatic city of the innumerable churches, holy Moscow! Here it\nis then at last, that famous city. It was high time.\"\n\n\"A town captured by the enemy is like a maid who has lost her honor,\"\nthought he (he had said so to Tuchkov at Smolensk). From that point of\nview he gazed at the Oriental beauty he had not seen before. It seemed\nstrange to him that his long-felt wish, which had seemed unattainable,\nhad at last been realized. In the clear morning light he gazed now at\nthe city and now at the plan, considering its details, and the assurance\nof possessing it agitated and awed him.\n\n\"But could it be otherwise?\" he thought. \"Here is this capital at my\nfeet. Where is Alexander now, and of what is he thinking? A strange,\nbeautiful, and majestic city; and a strange and majestic moment! In what\nlight must I appear to them!\" thought he, thinking of his troops. \"Here\nshe is, the reward for all those fainthearted men,\" he reflected,\nglancing at those near him and at the troops who were approaching and\nforming up. \"One word from me, one movement of my hand, and that ancient\ncapital of the Tsars would perish. But my clemency is always ready to\ndescend upon the vanquished. I must be magnanimous and truly great. But\nno, it can't be true that I am in Moscow,\" he suddenly thought. \"Yet\nhere she is lying at my feet, with her golden domes and crosses\nscintillating and twinkling in the sunshine. But I shall spare her. On\nthe ancient monuments of barbarism and despotism I will inscribe great\nwords of justice and mercy.... It is just this which Alexander will feel\nmost painfully, I know him.\" (It seemed to Napoleon that the chief\nimport of what was taking place lay in the personal struggle between\nhimself and Alexander.) \"From the height of the Kremlin--yes, there is\nthe Kremlin, yes--I will give them just laws; I will teach them the\nmeaning of true civilization, I will make generations of boyars remember\ntheir conqueror with love. I will tell the deputation that I did not,\nand do not, desire war, that I have waged war only against the false\npolicy of their court; that I love and respect Alexander and that in\nMoscow I will accept terms of peace worthy of myself and of my people. I\ndo not wish to utilize the fortunes of war to humiliate an honored\nmonarch. 'Boyars,' I will say to them, 'I do not desire war, I desire\nthe peace and welfare of all my subjects.' However, I know their\npresence will inspire me, and I shall speak to them as I always do:\nclearly, impressively, and majestically. But can it be true that I am in\nMoscow? Yes, there she lies.\"\n\n\"Qu'on m'amene les boyars,\" * said he to his suite.\n\n\n* \"Bring the boyars to me.\"\n\nA general with a brilliant suite galloped off at once to fetch the\nboyars.\n\nTwo hours passed. Napoleon had lunched and was again standing in the\nsame place on the Poklonny Hill awaiting the deputation. His speech to\nthe boyars had already taken definite shape in his imagination. That\nspeech was full of dignity and greatness as Napoleon understood it.\n\nHe was himself carried away by the tone of magnanimity he intended to\nadopt toward Moscow. In his imagination he appointed days for assemblies\nat the palace of the Tsars, at which Russian notables and his own would\nmingle. He mentally appointed a governor, one who would win the hearts\nof the people. Having learned that there were many charitable\ninstitutions in Moscow he mentally decided that he would shower favors\non them all. He thought that, as in Africa he had to put on a burnoose\nand sit in a mosque, so in Moscow he must be beneficent like the Tsars.\nAnd in order finally to touch the hearts of the Russians--and being like\nall Frenchmen unable to imagine anything sentimental without a reference\nto ma chere, ma tendre, ma pauvre mere * --he decided that he would\nplace an inscription on all these establishments in large letters: \"This\nestablishment is dedicated to my dear mother.\" Or no, it should be\nsimply: Maison de ma Mere, *(2) he concluded. \"But am I really in\nMoscow? Yes, here it lies before me, but why is the deputation from the\ncity so long in appearing?\" he wondered.\n\n\n* \"My dear, my tender, my poor mother.\"\n\n* (2) \"House of my Mother.\"\n\nMeanwhile an agitated consultation was being carried on in whispers\namong his generals and marshals at the rear of his suite. Those sent to\nfetch the deputation had returned with the news that Moscow was empty,\nthat everyone had left it. The faces of those who were not conferring\ntogether were pale and perturbed. They were not alarmed by the fact that\nMoscow had been abandoned by its inhabitants (grave as that fact\nseemed), but by the question how to tell the Emperor--without putting\nhim in the terrible position of appearing ridiculous--that he had been\nawaiting the boyars so long in vain: that there were drunken mobs left\nin Moscow but no one else. Some said that a deputation of some sort must\nbe scraped together, others disputed that opinion and maintained that\nthe Emperor should first be carefully and skillfully prepared, and then\ntold the truth.\n\n\"He will have to be told, all the same,\" said some gentlemen of the\nsuite. \"But, gentlemen...\"\n\nThe position was the more awkward because the Emperor, meditating upon\nhis magnanimous plans, was pacing patiently up and down before the\noutspread map, occasionally glancing along the road to Moscow from under\nhis lifted hand with a bright and proud smile.\n\n\"But it's impossible...\" declared the gentlemen of the suite, shrugging\ntheir shoulders but not venturing to utter the implied word--le\nridicule...\n\nAt last the Emperor, tired of futile expectation, his actor's instinct\nsuggesting to him that the sublime moment having been too long drawn out\nwas beginning to lose its sublimity, gave a sign with his hand. A single\nreport of a signaling gun followed, and the troops, who were already\nspread out on different sides of Moscow, moved into the city through\nTver, Kaluga, and Dorogomilov gates. Faster and faster, vying with one\nanother, they moved at the double or at a trot, vanishing amid the\nclouds of dust they raised and making the air ring with a deafening roar\nof mingling shouts.\n\nDrawn on by the movement of his troops Napoleon rode with them as far as\nthe Dorogomilov gate, but there again stopped and, dismounting from his\nhorse, paced for a long time by the Kammer-Kollezski rampart, awaiting\nthe deputation.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nMeanwhile Moscow was empty. There were still people in it, perhaps a\nfiftieth part of its former inhabitants had remained, but it was empty.\nIt was empty in the sense that a dying queenless hive is empty.\n\nIn a queenless hive no life is left though to a superficial glance it\nseems as much alive as other hives.\n\nThe bees circle round a queenless hive in the hot beams of the midday\nsun as gaily as around the living hives; from a distance it smells of\nhoney like the others, and bees fly in and out in the same way. But one\nhas only to observe that hive to realize that there is no longer any\nlife in it. The bees do not fly in the same way, the smell and the sound\nthat meet the beekeeper are not the same. To the beekeeper's tap on the\nwall of the sick hive, instead of the former instant unanimous humming\nof tens of thousands of bees with their abdomens threateningly\ncompressed, and producing by the rapid vibration of their wings an\naerial living sound, the only reply is a disconnected buzzing from\ndifferent parts of the deserted hive. From the alighting board, instead\nof the former spirituous fragrant smell of honey and venom, and the warm\nwhiffs of crowded life, comes an odor of emptiness and decay mingling\nwith the smell of honey. There are no longer sentinels sounding the\nalarm with their abdomens raised, and ready to die in defense of the\nhive. There is no longer the measured quiet sound of throbbing activity,\nlike the sound of boiling water, but diverse discordant sounds of\ndisorder. In and out of the hive long black robber bees smeared with\nhoney fly timidly and shiftily. They do not sting, but crawl away from\ndanger. Formerly only bees laden with honey flew into the hive, and they\nflew out empty; now they fly out laden. The beekeeper opens the lower\npart of the hive and peers in. Instead of black, glossy bees--tamed by\ntoil, clinging to one another's legs and drawing out the wax, with a\nceaseless hum of labor--that used to hang in long clusters down to the\nfloor of the hive, drowsy shriveled bees crawl about separately in\nvarious directions on the floor and walls of the hive. Instead of a\nneatly glued floor, swept by the bees with the fanning of their wings,\nthere is a floor littered with bits of wax, excrement, dying bees\nscarcely moving their legs, and dead ones that have not been cleared\naway.\n\nThe beekeeper opens the upper part of the hive and examines the super.\nInstead of serried rows of bees sealing up every gap in the combs and\nkeeping the brood warm, he sees the skillful complex structures of the\ncombs, but no longer in their former state of purity. All is neglected\nand foul. Black robber bees are swiftly and stealthily prowling about\nthe combs, and the short home bees, shriveled and listless as if they\nwere old, creep slowly about without trying to hinder the robbers,\nhaving lost all motive and all sense of life. Drones, bumblebees, wasps,\nand butterflies knock awkwardly against the walls of the hive in their\nflight. Here and there among the cells containing dead brood and honey\nan angry buzzing can sometimes be heard. Here and there a couple of\nbees, by force of habit and custom cleaning out the brood cells, with\nefforts beyond their strength laboriously drag away a dead bee or\nbumblebee without knowing why they do it. In another corner two old bees\nare languidly fighting, or cleaning themselves, or feeding one another,\nwithout themselves knowing whether they do it with friendly or hostile\nintent. In a third place a crowd of bees, crushing one another, attack\nsome victim and fight and smother it, and the victim, enfeebled or\nkilled, drops from above slowly and lightly as a feather, among the heap\nof corpses. The keeper opens the two center partitions to examine the\nbrood cells. In place of the former close dark circles formed by\nthousands of bees sitting back to back and guarding the high mystery of\ngeneration, he sees hundreds of dull, listless, and sleepy shells of\nbees. They have almost all died unawares, sitting in the sanctuary they\nhad guarded and which is now no more. They reek of decay and death. Only\na few of them still move, rise, and feebly fly to settle on the enemy's\nhand, lacking the spirit to die stinging him; the rest are dead and fall\nas lightly as fish scales. The beekeeper closes the hive, chalks a mark\non it, and when he has time tears out its contents and burns it clean.\n\nSo in the same way Moscow was empty when Napoleon, weary, uneasy, and\nmorose, paced up and down in front of the Kammer-Kollezski rampart,\nawaiting what to his mind was a necessary, if but formal, observance of\nthe proprieties--a deputation.\n\nIn various corners of Moscow there still remained a few people aimlessly\nmoving about, following their old habits and hardly aware of what they\nwere doing.\n\nWhen with due circumspection Napoleon was informed that Moscow was\nempty, he looked angrily at his informant, turned away, and silently\ncontinued to walk to and fro.\n\n\"My carriage!\" he said.\n\nHe took his seat beside the aide-de-camp on duty and drove into the\nsuburb. \"Moscow deserted!\" he said to himself. \"What an incredible\nevent!\"\n\nHe did not drive into the town, but put up at an inn in the Dorogomilov\nsuburb.\n\nThe coup de theatre had not come off.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXI\n\nThe Russian troops were passing through Moscow from two o'clock at night\ntill two in the afternoon and bore away with them the wounded and the\nlast of the inhabitants who were leaving.\n\nThe greatest crush during the movement of the troops took place at the\nStone, Moskva, and Yauza bridges.\n\nWhile the troops, dividing into two parts when passing around the\nKremlin, were thronging the Moskva and the Stone bridges, a great many\nsoldiers, taking advantage of the stoppage and congestion, turned back\nfrom the bridges and slipped stealthily and silently past the church of\nVasili the Beatified and under the Borovitski gate, back up the hill to\nthe Red Square where some instinct told them they could easily take\nthings not belonging to them. Crowds of the kind seen at cheap sales\nfilled all the passages and alleys of the Bazaar. But there were no\ndealers with voices of ingratiating affability inviting customers to\nenter; there were no hawkers, nor the usual motley crowd of female\npurchasers--but only soldiers, in uniforms and overcoats though without\nmuskets, entering the Bazaar empty-handed and silently making their way\nout through its passages with bundles. Tradesmen and their assistants\n(of whom there were but few) moved about among the soldiers quite\nbewildered. They unlocked their shops and locked them up again, and\nthemselves carried goods away with the help of their assistants. On the\nsquare in front of the Bazaar were drummers beating the muster call. But\nthe roll of the drums did not make the looting soldiers run in the\ndirection of the drum as formerly, but made them, on the contrary, run\nfarther away. Among the soldiers in the shops and passages some men were\nto be seen in gray coats, with closely shaven heads. Two officers, one\nwith a scarf over his uniform and mounted on a lean, dark-gray horse,\nthe other in an overcoat and on foot, stood at the corner of Ilyinka\nStreet, talking. A third officer galloped up to them.\n\n\"The general orders them all to be driven out at once, without fail.\nThis is outrageous! Half the men have dispersed.\"\n\n\"Where are you off to?... Where?...\" he shouted to three infantrymen\nwithout muskets who, holding up the skirts of their overcoats, were\nslipping past him into the Bazaar passage. \"Stop, you rascals!\"\n\n\"But how are you going to stop them?\" replied another officer. \"There is\nno getting them together. The army should push on before the rest bolt,\nthat's all!\"\n\n\"How can one push on? They are stuck there, wedged on the bridge, and\ndon't move. Shouldn't we put a cordon round to prevent the rest from\nrunning away?\"\n\n\"Come, go in there and drive them out!\" shouted the senior officer.\n\nThe officer in the scarf dismounted, called up a drummer, and went with\nhim into the arcade. Some soldiers started running away in a group. A\nshopkeeper with red pimples on his cheeks near the nose, and a calm,\npersistent, calculating expression on his plump face, hurriedly and\nostentatiously approached the officer, swinging his arms.\n\n\"Your honor!\" said he. \"Be so good as to protect us! We won't grudge\ntrifles, you are welcome to anything--we shall be delighted! Pray!...\nI'll fetch a piece of cloth at once for such an honorable gentleman, or\neven two pieces with pleasure. For we feel how it is; but what's all\nthis--sheer robbery! If you please, could not guards be placed if only\nto let us close the shop....\"\n\nSeveral shopkeepers crowded round the officer.\n\n\"Eh, what twaddle!\" said one of them, a thin, stern-looking man. \"When\none's head is gone one doesn't weep for one's hair! Take what any of you\nlike!\" And flourishing his arm energetically he turned sideways to the\nofficer.\n\n\"It's all very well for you, Ivan Sidorych, to talk,\" said the first\ntradesman angrily. \"Please step inside, your honor!\"\n\n\"Talk indeed!\" cried the thin one. \"In my three shops here I have a\nhundred thousand rubles' worth of goods. Can they be saved when the army\nhas gone? Eh, what people! 'Against God's might our hands can't fight.'\"\n\n\"Come inside, your honor!\" repeated the tradesman, bowing.\n\nThe officer stood perplexed and his face showed indecision.\n\n\"It's not my business!\" he exclaimed, and strode on quickly down one of\nthe passages.\n\nFrom one open shop came the sound of blows and vituperation, and just as\nthe officer came up to it a man in a gray coat with a shaven head was\nflung out violently.\n\nThis man, bent double, rushed past the tradesman and the officer. The\nofficer pounced on the soldiers who were in the shops, but at that\nmoment fearful screams reached them from the huge crowd on the Moskva\nbridge and the officer ran out into the square.\n\n\"What is it? What is it?\" he asked, but his comrade was already\ngalloping off past Vasili the Beatified in the direction from which the\nscreams came.\n\nThe officer mounted his horse and rode after him. When he reached the\nbridge he saw two unlimbered guns, the infantry crossing the bridge,\nseveral overturned carts, and frightened and laughing faces among the\ntroops. Beside the cannon a cart was standing to which two horses were\nharnessed. Four borzois with collars were pressing close to the wheels.\nThe cart was loaded high, and at the very top, beside a child's chair\nwith its legs in the air, sat a peasant woman uttering piercing and\ndesperate shrieks. He was told by his fellow officers that the screams\nof the crowd and the shrieks of the woman were due to the fact that\nGeneral Ermolov, coming up to the crowd and learning that soldiers were\ndispersing among the shops while crowds of civilians blocked the bridge,\nhad ordered two guns to be unlimbered and made a show of firing at the\nbridge. The crowd, crushing one another, upsetting carts, and shouting\nand squeezing desperately, had cleared off the bridge and the troops\nwere now moving forward.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXII\n\nMeanwhile, the city itself was deserted. There was hardly anyone in the\nstreets. The gates and shops were all closed, only here and there round\nthe taverns solitary shouts or drunken songs could be heard. Nobody\ndrove through the streets and footsteps were rarely heard. The\nPovarskaya was quite still and deserted. The huge courtyard of the\nRostovs' house was littered with wisps of hay and with dung from the\nhorses, and not a soul was to be seen there. In the great drawing room\nof the house, which had been left with all it contained, were two\npeople. They were the yard porter Ignat, and the page boy Mishka,\nVasilich's grandson who had stayed in Moscow with his grandfather.\nMishka had opened the clavichord and was strumming on it with one\nfinger. The yard porter, his arms akimbo, stood smiling with\nsatisfaction before the large mirror.\n\n\"Isn't it fine, eh, Uncle Ignat?\" said the boy, suddenly beginning to\nstrike the keyboard with both hands.\n\n\"Only fancy!\" answered Ignat, surprised at the broadening grin on his\nface in the mirror.\n\n\"Impudence! Impudence!\" they heard behind them the voice of Mavra\nKuzminichna who had entered silently. \"How he's grinning, the fat mug!\nIs that what you're here for? Nothing's cleared away down there and\nVasilich is worn out. Just you wait a bit!\"\n\nIgnat left off smiling, adjusted his belt, and went out of the room with\nmeekly downcast eyes.\n\n\"Aunt, I did it gently,\" said the boy.\n\n\"I'll give you something gently, you monkey you!\" cried Mavra\nKuzminichna, raising her arm threateningly. \"Go and get the samovar to\nboil for your grandfather.\"\n\nMavra Kuzminichna flicked the dust off the clavichord and closed it, and\nwith a deep sigh left the drawing room and locked its main door.\n\nGoing out into the yard she paused to consider where she should go next-\n-to drink tea in the servants' wing with Vasilich, or into the storeroom\nto put away what still lay about.\n\nShe heard the sound of quick footsteps in the quiet street. Someone\nstopped at the gate, and the latch rattled as someone tried to open it.\nMavra Kuzminichna went to the gate.\n\n\"Who do you want?\"\n\n\"The count--Count Ilya Andreevich Rostov.\"\n\n\"And who are you?\"\n\n\"An officer, I have to see him,\" came the reply in a pleasant, well-bred\nRussian voice.\n\nMavra Kuzminichna opened the gate and an officer of eighteen, with the\nround face of a Rostov, entered the yard.\n\n\"They have gone away, sir. Went away yesterday at vespertime,\" said\nMavra Kuzminichna cordially.\n\nThe young officer standing in the gateway, as if hesitating whether to\nenter or not, clicked his tongue.\n\n\"Ah, how annoying!\" he muttered. \"I should have come yesterday.... Ah,\nwhat a pity.\"\n\nMeanwhile, Mavra Kuzminichna was attentively and sympathetically\nexamining the familiar Rostov features of the young man's face, his\ntattered coat and trodden-down boots.\n\n\"What did you want to see the count for?\" she asked.\n\n\"Oh well... it can't be helped!\" said he in a tone of vexation and\nplaced his hand on the gate as if to leave.\n\nHe again paused in indecision.\n\n\"You see,\" he suddenly said, \"I am a kinsman of the count's and he has\nbeen very kind to me. As you see\" (he glanced with an amused air and\ngood-natured smile at his coat and boots) \"my things are worn out and I\nhave no money, so I was going to ask the count...\"\n\nMavra Kuzminichna did not let him finish.\n\n\"Just wait a minute, sir. One little moment,\" said she.\n\nAnd as soon as the officer let go of the gate handle she turned and,\nhurrying away on her old legs, went through the back yard to the\nservants' quarters.\n\nWhile Mavra Kuzminichna was running to her room the officer walked about\nthe yard gazing at his worn-out boots with lowered head and a faint\nsmile on his lips. \"What a pity I've missed Uncle! What a nice old\nwoman! Where has she run off to? And how am I to find the nearest way to\novertake my regiment, which must by now be getting near the Rogozhski\ngate?\" thought he. Just then Mavra Kuzminichna appeared from behind the\ncorner of the house with a frightened yet resolute look, carrying a\nrolled-up check kerchief in her hand. While still a few steps from the\nofficer she unfolded the kerchief and took out of it a white twenty-\nfive-ruble assignat and hastily handed it to him.\n\n\"If his excellency had been at home, as a kinsman he would of course...\nbut as it is...\"\n\nMavra Kuzminichna grew abashed and confused. The officer did not\ndecline, but took the note quietly and thanked her.\n\n\"If the count had been at home...\" Mavra Kuzminichna went on\napologetically. \"Christ be with you, sir! May God preserve you!\" said\nshe, bowing as she saw him out.\n\nSwaying his head and smiling as if amused at himself, the officer ran\nalmost at a trot through the deserted streets toward the Yauza bridge to\novertake his regiment.\n\nBut Mavra Kuzminichna stood at the closed gate for some time with moist\neyes, pensively swaying her head and feeling an unexpected flow of\nmotherly tenderness and pity for the unknown young officer.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIII\n\nFrom an unfinished house on the Varvarka, the ground floor of which was\na dramshop, came drunken shouts and songs. On benches round the tables\nin a dirty little room sat some ten factory hands. Tipsy and perspiring,\nwith dim eyes and wide-open mouths, they were all laboriously singing\nsome song or other. They were singing discordantly, arduously, and with\ngreat effort, evidently not because they wished to sing, but because\nthey wanted to show they were drunk and on a spree. One, a tall, fair-\nhaired lad in a clean blue coat, was standing over the others. His face\nwith its fine straight nose would have been handsome had it not been for\nhis thin, compressed, twitching lips and dull, gloomy, fixed eyes.\nEvidently possessed by some idea, he stood over those who were singing,\nand solemnly and jerkily flourished above their heads his white arm with\nthe sleeve turned up to the elbow, trying unnaturally to spread out his\ndirty fingers. The sleeve of his coat kept slipping down and he always\ncarefully rolled it up again with his left hand, as if it were most\nimportant that the sinewy white arm he was flourishing should be bare.\nIn the midst of the song cries were heard, and fighting and blows in the\npassage and porch. The tall lad waved his arm.\n\n\"Stop it!\" he exclaimed peremptorily. \"There's a fight, lads!\" And,\nstill rolling up his sleeve, he went out to the porch.\n\nThe factory hands followed him. These men, who under the leadership of\nthe tall lad were drinking in the dramshop that morning, had brought the\npublican some skins from the factory and for this had had drink served\nthem. The blacksmiths from a neighboring smithy, hearing the sounds of\nrevelry in the tavern and supposing it to have been broken into, wished\nto force their way in too and a fight in the porch had resulted.\n\nThe publican was fighting one of the smiths at the door, and when the\nworkmen came out the smith, wrenching himself free from the tavern\nkeeper, fell face downward on the pavement.\n\nAnother smith tried to enter the doorway, pressing against the publican\nwith his chest.\n\nThe lad with the turned-up sleeve gave the smith a blow in the face and\ncried wildly: \"They're fighting us, lads!\"\n\nAt that moment the first smith got up and, scratching his bruised face\nto make it bleed, shouted in a tearful voice: \"Police! Murder!...\nThey've killed a man, lads!\"\n\n\"Oh, gracious me, a man beaten to death--killed!...\" screamed a woman\ncoming out of a gate close by.\n\nA crowd gathered round the bloodstained smith.\n\n\"Haven't you robbed people enough--taking their last shirts?\" said a\nvoice addressing the publican. \"What have you killed a man for, you\nthief?\"\n\nThe tall lad, standing in the porch, turned his bleared eyes from the\npublican to the smith and back again as if considering whom he ought to\nfight now.\n\n\"Murderer!\" he shouted suddenly to the publican. \"Bind him, lads!\"\n\n\"I daresay you would like to bind me!\" shouted the publican, pushing\naway the men advancing on him, and snatching his cap from his head he\nflung it on the ground.\n\nAs if this action had some mysterious and menacing significance, the\nworkmen surrounding the publican paused in indecision.\n\n\"I know the law very well, mates! I'll take the matter to the captain of\npolice. You think I won't get to him? Robbery is not permitted to\nanybody now a days!\" shouted the publican, picking up his cap.\n\n\"Come along then! Come along then!\" the publican and the tall young\nfellow repeated one after the other, and they moved up the street\ntogether.\n\nThe bloodstained smith went beside them. The factory hands and others\nfollowed behind, talking and shouting.\n\nAt the corner of the Moroseyka, opposite a large house with closed\nshutters and bearing a bootmaker's signboard, stood a score of thin,\nworn-out, gloomy-faced bootmakers, wearing overalls and long tattered\ncoats.\n\n\"He should pay folks off properly,\" a thin workingman, with frowning\nbrows and a straggly beard, was saying.\n\n\"But he's sucked our blood and now he thinks he's quit of us. He's been\nmisleading us all the week and now that he's brought us to this pass\nhe's made off.\"\n\nOn seeing the crowd and the bloodstained man the workman ceased\nspeaking, and with eager curiosity all the bootmakers joined the moving\ncrowd.\n\n\"Where are all the folks going?\"\n\n\"Why, to the police, of course!\"\n\n\"I say, is it true that we have been beaten?\" \"And what did you think?\nLook what folks are saying.\"\n\nQuestions and answers were heard. The publican, taking advantage of the\nincreased crowd, dropped behind and returned to his tavern.\n\nThe tall youth, not noticing the disappearance of his foe, waved his\nbare arm and went on talking incessantly, attracting general attention\nto himself. It was around him that the people chiefly crowded, expecting\nanswers from him to the questions that occupied all their minds.\n\n\"He must keep order, keep the law, that's what the government is there\nfor. Am I not right, good Christians?\" said the tall youth, with a\nscarcely perceptible smile. \"He thinks there's no government! How can\none do without government? Or else there would be plenty who'd rob us.\"\n\n\"Why talk nonsense?\" rejoined voices in the crowd. \"Will they give up\nMoscow like this? They told you that for fun, and you believed it!\nAren't there plenty of troops on the march? Let him in, indeed! That's\nwhat the government is for. You'd better listen to what people are\nsaying,\" said some of the mob pointing to the tall youth.\n\nBy the wall of China-Town a smaller group of people were gathered round\na man in a frieze coat who held a paper in his hand.\n\n\"An ukase, they are reading an ukase! Reading an ukase!\" cried voices in\nthe crowd, and the people rushed toward the reader.\n\nThe man in the frieze coat was reading the broadsheet of August 31. When\nthe crowd collected round him he seemed confused, but at the demand of\nthe tall lad who had pushed his way up to him, he began in a rather\ntremulous voice to read the sheet from the beginning.\n\n\"Early tomorrow I shall go to his Serene Highness,\" he read (\"Sirin\nHighness,\" said the tall fellow with a triumphant smile on his lips and\na frown on his brow), \"to consult with him to act, and to aid the army\nto exterminate these scoundrels. We too will take part...\" the reader\nwent on, and then paused (\"Do you see,\" shouted the youth victoriously,\n\"he's going to clear up the whole affair for you....\"), \"in destroying\nthem, and will send these visitors to the devil. I will come back to\ndinner, and we'll set to work. We will do, completely do, and undo these\nscoundrels.\"\n\nThe last words were read out in the midst of complete silence. The tall\nlad hung his head gloomily. It was evident that no one had understood\nthe last part. In particular, the words \"I will come back to dinner,\"\nevidently displeased both reader and audience. The people's minds were\ntuned to a high pitch and this was too simple and needlessly\ncomprehensible--it was what any one of them might have said and\ntherefore was what an ukase emanating from the highest authority should\nnot say.\n\nThey all stood despondent and silent. The tall youth moved his lips and\nswayed from side to side.\n\n\"We should ask him... that's he himself?\"... \"Yes, ask him indeed!...\nWhy not? He'll explain\"... voices in the rear of the crowd were suddenly\nheard saying, and the general attention turned to the police\nsuperintendent's trap which drove into the square attended by two\nmounted dragoons.\n\nThe superintendent of police, who had gone that morning by Count\nRostopchin's orders to burn the barges and had in connection with that\nmatter acquired a large sum of money which was at that moment in his\npocket, on seeing a crowd bearing down upon him told his coachman to\nstop.\n\n\"What people are these?\" he shouted to the men, who were moving singly\nand timidly in the direction of his trap.\n\n\"What people are these?\" he shouted again, receiving no answer.\n\n\"Your honor...\" replied the shopman in the frieze coat, \"your honor, in\naccord with the proclamation of his highest excellency the count, they\ndesire to serve, not sparing their lives, and it is not any kind of\nriot, but as his highest excellence said...\"\n\n\"The count has not left, he is here, and an order will be issued\nconcerning you,\" said the superintendent of police. \"Go on!\" he ordered\nhis coachman.\n\nThe crowd halted, pressing around those who had heard what the\nsuperintendent had said, and looking at the departing trap.\n\nThe superintendent of police turned round at that moment with a scared\nlook, said something to his coachman, and his horses increased their\nspeed.\n\n\"It's a fraud, lads! Lead the way to him, himself!\" shouted the tall\nyouth. \"Don't let him go, lads! Let him answer us! Keep him!\" shouted\ndifferent people and the people dashed in pursuit of the trap.\n\nFollowing the superintendent of police and talking loudly the crowd went\nin the direction of the Lubyanka Street.\n\n\"There now, the gentry and merchants have gone away and left us to\nperish. Do they think we're dogs?\" voices in the crowd were heard saying\nmore and more frequently.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIV\n\nOn the evening of the first of September, after his interview with\nKutuzov, Count Rostopchin had returned to Moscow mortified and offended\nbecause he had not been invited to attend the council of war, and\nbecause Kutuzov had paid no attention to his offer to take part in the\ndefense of the city; amazed also at the novel outlook revealed to him at\nthe camp, which treated the tranquillity of the capital and its\npatriotic fervor as not merely secondary but quite irrelevant and\nunimportant matters. Distressed, offended, and surprised by all this,\nRostopchin had returned to Moscow. After supper he lay down on a sofa\nwithout undressing, and was awakened soon after midnight by a courier\nbringing him a letter from Kutuzov. This letter requested the count to\nsend police officers to guide the troops through the town, as the army\nwas retreating to the Ryazan road beyond Moscow. This was not news to\nRostopchin. He had known that Moscow would be abandoned not merely since\nhis interview the previous day with Kutuzov on the Poklonny Hill but\never since the battle of Borodino, for all the generals who came to\nMoscow after that battle had said unanimously that it was impossible to\nfight another battle, and since then the government property had been\nremoved every night, and half the inhabitants had left the city with\nRostopchin's own permission. Yet all the same this information\nastonished and irritated the count, coming as it did in the form of a\nsimple note with an order from Kutuzov, and received at night, breaking\nin on his beauty sleep.\n\nWhen later on in his memoirs Count Rostopchin explained his actions at\nthis time, he repeatedly says that he was then actuated by two important\nconsiderations: to maintain tranquillity in Moscow and expedite the\ndeparture of the inhabitants. If one accepts this twofold aim all\nRostopchin's actions appear irreproachable. \"Why were the holy relics,\nthe arms, ammunition, gunpowder, and stores of corn not removed? Why\nwere thousands of inhabitants deceived into believing that Moscow would\nnot be given up--and thereby ruined?\" \"To preserve the tranquillity of\nthe city,\" explains Count Rostopchin. \"Why were bundles of useless\npapers from the government offices, and Leppich's balloon and other\narticles removed?\" \"To leave the town empty,\" explains Count Rostopchin.\nOne need only admit that public tranquillity is in danger and any action\nfinds a justification.\n\nAll the horrors of the reign of terror were based only on solicitude for\npublic tranquillity.\n\nOn what, then, was Count Rostopchin's fear for the tranquillity of\nMoscow based in 1812? What reason was there for assuming any probability\nof an uprising in the city? The inhabitants were leaving it and the\nretreating troops were filling it. Why should that cause the masses to\nriot?\n\nNeither in Moscow nor anywhere in Russia did anything resembling an\ninsurrection ever occur when the enemy entered a town. More than ten\nthousand people were still in Moscow on the first and second of\nSeptember, and except for a mob in the governor's courtyard, assembled\nthere at his bidding, nothing happened. It is obvious that there would\nhave been even less reason to expect a disturbance among the people if\nafter the battle of Borodino, when the surrender of Moscow became\ncertain or at least probable, Rostopchin instead of exciting the people\nby distributing arms and broadsheets had taken steps to remove all the\nholy relics, the gunpowder, munitions, and money, and had told the\npopulation plainly that the town would be abandoned.\n\nRostopchin, though he had patriotic sentiments, was a sanguine and\nimpulsive man who had always moved in the highest administrative circles\nand had no understanding at all of the people he supposed himself to be\nguiding. Ever since the enemy's entry into Smolensk he had in\nimagination been playing the role of director of the popular feeling of\n\"the heart of Russia.\" Not only did it seem to him (as to all\nadministrators) that he controlled the external actions of Moscow's\ninhabitants, but he also thought he controlled their mental attitude by\nmeans of his broadsheets and posters, written in a coarse tone which the\npeople despise in their own class and do not understand from those in\nauthority. Rostopchin was so pleased with the fine role of leader of\npopular feeling, and had grown so used to it, that the necessity of\nrelinquishing that role and abandoning Moscow without any heroic display\ntook him unawares and he suddenly felt the ground slip away from under\nhis feet, so that he positively did not know what to do. Though he knew\nit was coming, he did not till the last moment wholeheartedly believe\nthat Moscow would be abandoned, and did not prepare for it. The\ninhabitants left against his wishes. If the government offices were\nremoved, this was only done on the demand of officials to whom the count\nyielded reluctantly. He was absorbed in the role he had created for\nhimself. As is often the case with those gifted with an ardent\nimagination, though he had long known that Moscow would be abandoned he\nknew it only with his intellect, he did not believe it in his heart and\ndid not adapt himself mentally to this new position of affairs.\n\nAll his painstaking and energetic activity (in how far it was useful and\nhad any effect on the people is another question) had been simply\ndirected toward arousing in the masses his own feeling of patriotic\nhatred of the French.\n\nBut when events assumed their true historical character, when expressing\nhatred for the French in words proved insufficient, when it was not even\npossible to express that hatred by fighting a battle, when self-\nconfidence was of no avail in relation to the one question before\nMoscow, when the whole population streamed out of Moscow as one man,\nabandoning their belongings and proving by that negative action all the\ndepth of their national feeling, then the role chosen by Rostopchin\nsuddenly appeared senseless. He unexpectedly felt himself ridiculous,\nweak, and alone, with no ground to stand on.\n\nWhen, awakened from his sleep, he received that cold, peremptory note\nfrom Kutuzov, he felt the more irritated the more he felt himself to\nblame. All that he had been specially put in charge of, the state\nproperty which he should have removed, was still in Moscow and it was no\nlonger possible to take the whole of it away.\n\n\"Who is to blame for it? Who has let things come to such a pass?\" he\nruminated. \"Not I, of course. I had everything ready. I had Moscow\nfirmly in hand. And this is what they have let it come to! Villains!\nTraitors!\" he thought, without clearly defining who the villains and\ntraitors were, but feeling it necessary to hate those traitors whoever\nthey might be who were to blame for the false and ridiculous position in\nwhich he found himself.\n\nAll that night Count Rostopchin issued orders, for which people came to\nhim from all parts of Moscow. Those about him had never seen the count\nso morose and irritable.\n\n\"Your excellency, the Director of the Registrar's Department has sent\nfor instructions... From the Consistory, from the Senate, from the\nUniversity, from the Foundling Hospital, the Suffragan has sent...\nasking for information.... What are your orders about the Fire Brigade?\nFrom the governor of the prison... from the superintendent of the\nlunatic asylum...\" All night long such announcements were continually\nbeing received by the count.\n\nTo all these inquiries he gave brief and angry replies indicating that\norders from him were not now needed, that the whole affair, carefully\nprepared by him, had now been ruined by somebody, and that that somebody\nwould have to bear the whole responsibility for all that might happen.\n\n\"Oh, tell that blockhead,\" he said in reply to the question from the\nRegistrar's Department, \"that he should remain to guard his documents.\nNow why are you asking silly questions about the Fire Brigade? They have\nhorses, let them be off to Vladimir, and not leave them to the French.\"\n\n\"Your excellency, the superintendent of the lunatic asylum has come:\nwhat are your commands?\"\n\n\"My commands? Let them go away, that's all.... And let the lunatics out\ninto the town. When lunatics command our armies God evidently means\nthese other madmen to be free.\"\n\nIn reply to an inquiry about the convicts in the prison, Count\nRostopchin shouted angrily at the governor:\n\n\"Do you expect me to give you two battalions--which we have not got--for\na convoy? Release them, that's all about it!\"\n\n\"Your excellency, there are some political prisoners, Meshkov,\nVereshchagin...\"\n\n\"Vereshchagin! Hasn't he been hanged yet?\" shouted Rostopchin. \"Bring\nhim to me!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXV\n\nToward nine o'clock in the morning, when the troops were already moving\nthrough Moscow, nobody came to the count any more for instructions.\nThose who were able to get away were going of their own accord, those\nwho remained behind decided for themselves what they must do.\n\nThe count ordered his carriage that he might drive to Sokolniki, and sat\nin his study with folded hands, morose, sallow, and taciturn.\n\nIn quiet and untroubled times it seems to every administrator that it is\nonly by his efforts that the whole population under his rule is kept\ngoing, and in this consciousness of being indispensable every\nadministrator finds the chief reward of his labor and efforts. While the\nsea of history remains calm the ruler-administrator in his frail bark,\nholding on with a boat hook to the ship of the people and himself\nmoving, naturally imagines that his efforts move the ship he is holding\non to. But as soon as a storm arises and the sea begins to heave and the\nship to move, such a delusion is no longer possible. The ship moves\nindependently with its own enormous motion, the boat hook no longer\nreaches the moving vessel, and suddenly the administrator, instead of\nappearing a ruler and a source of power, becomes an insignificant,\nuseless, feeble man.\n\nRostopchin felt this, and it was this which exasperated him.\n\nThe superintendent of police, whom the crowd had stopped, went in to see\nhim at the same time as an adjutant who informed the count that the\nhorses were harnessed. They were both pale, and the superintendent of\npolice, after reporting that he had executed the instructions he had\nreceived, informed the count that an immense crowd had collected in the\ncourtyard and wished to see him.\n\nWithout saying a word Rostopchin rose and walked hastily to his light,\nluxurious drawing room, went to the balcony door, took hold of the\nhandle, let it go again, and went to the window from which he had a\nbetter view of the whole crowd. The tall lad was standing in front,\nflourishing his arm and saying something with a stern look. The blood-\nstained smith stood beside him with a gloomy face. A drone of voices was\naudible through the closed window.\n\n\"Is my carriage ready?\" asked Rostopchin, stepping back from the window.\n\n\"It is, your excellency,\" replied the adjutant.\n\nRostopchin went again to the balcony door.\n\n\"But what do they want?\" he asked the superintendent of police.\n\n\"Your excellency, they say they have got ready, according to your\norders, to go against the French, and they shouted something about\ntreachery. But it is a turbulent crowd, your excellency--I hardly\nmanaged to get away from it. Your excellency, I venture to suggest...\"\n\n\"You may go. I don't need you to tell me what to do!\" exclaimed\nRostopchin angrily.\n\nHe stood by the balcony door looking at the crowd.\n\n\"This is what they have done with Russia! This is what they have done\nwith me!\" thought he, full of an irrepressible fury that welled up\nwithin him against the someone to whom what was happening might be\nattributed. As often happens with passionate people, he was mastered by\nanger but was still seeking an object on which to vent it. \"Here is that\nmob, the dregs of the people,\" he thought as he gazed at the crowd:\n\"this rabble they have roused by their folly! They want a victim,\" he\nthought as he looked at the tall lad flourishing his arm. And this\nthought occurred to him just because he himself desired a victim,\nsomething on which to vent his rage.\n\n\"Is the carriage ready?\" he asked again.\n\n\"Yes, your excellency. What are your orders about Vereshchagin? He is\nwaiting at the porch,\" said the adjutant.\n\n\"Ah!\" exclaimed Rostopchin, as if struck by an unexpected recollection.\n\nAnd rapidly opening the door he went resolutely out onto the balcony.\nThe talking instantly ceased, hats and caps were doffed, and all eyes\nwere raised to the count.\n\n\"Good morning, lads!\" said the count briskly and loudly. \"Thank you for\ncoming. I'll come out to you in a moment, but we must first settle with\nthe villain. We must punish the villain who has caused the ruin of\nMoscow. Wait for me!\"\n\nAnd the count stepped as briskly back into the room and slammed the door\nbehind him.\n\nA murmur of approbation and satisfaction ran through the crowd. \"He'll\nsettle with all the villains, you'll see! And you said the French...\nHe'll show you what law is!\" the mob were saying as if reproving one\nanother for their lack of confidence.\n\nA few minutes later an officer came hurriedly out of the front door,\ngave an order, and the dragoons formed up in line. The crowd moved\neagerly from the balcony toward the porch. Rostopchin, coming out there\nwith quick angry steps, looked hastily around as if seeking someone.\n\n\"Where is he?\" he inquired. And as he spoke he saw a young man coming\nround the corner of the house between two dragoons. He had a long thin\nneck, and his head, that had been half shaved, was again covered by\nshort hair. This young man was dressed in a threadbare blue cloth coat\nlined with fox fur, that had once been smart, and dirty hempen convict\ntrousers, over which were pulled his thin, dirty, trodden-down boots. On\nhis thin, weak legs were heavy chains which hampered his irresolute\nmovements.\n\n\"Ah!\" said Rostopchin, hurriedly turning away his eyes from the young\nman in the fur-lined coat and pointing to the bottom step of the porch.\n\"Put him there.\"\n\nThe young man in his clattering chains stepped clumsily to the spot\nindicated, holding away with one finger the coat collar which chafed his\nneck, turned his long neck twice this way and that, sighed, and\nsubmissively folded before him his thin hands, unused to work.\n\nFor several seconds while the young man was taking his place on the step\nthe silence continued. Only among the back rows of the people, who were\nall pressing toward the one spot, could sighs, groans, and the shuffling\nof feet be heard.\n\nWhile waiting for the young man to take his place on the step Rostopchin\nstood frowning and rubbing his face with his hand.\n\n\"Lads!\" said he, with a metallic ring in his voice. \"This man,\nVereshchagin, is the scoundrel by whose doing Moscow is perishing.\"\n\nThe young man in the fur-lined coat, stooping a little, stood in a\nsubmissive attitude, his fingers clasped before him. His emaciated young\nface, disfigured by the half-shaven head, hung down hopelessly. At the\ncount's first words he raised it slowly and looked up at him as if\nwishing to say something or at least to meet his eye. But Rostopchin did\nnot look at him. A vein in the young man's long thin neck swelled like a\ncord and went blue behind the ear, and suddenly his face flushed.\n\nAll eyes were fixed on him. He looked at the crowd, and rendered more\nhopeful by the expression he read on the faces there, he smiled sadly\nand timidly, and lowering his head shifted his feet on the step.\n\n\"He has betrayed his Tsar and his country, he has gone over to\nBonaparte. He alone of all the Russians has disgraced the Russian name,\nhe has caused Moscow to perish,\" said Rostopchin in a sharp, even voice,\nbut suddenly he glanced down at Vereshchagin who continued to stand in\nthe same submissive attitude. As if inflamed by the sight, he raised his\narm and addressed the people, almost shouting:\n\n\"Deal with him as you think fit! I hand him over to you.\"\n\nThe crowd remained silent and only pressed closer and closer to one\nanother. To keep one another back, to breathe in that stifling\natmosphere, to be unable to stir, and to await something unknown,\nuncomprehended, and terrible, was becoming unbearable. Those standing in\nfront, who had seen and heard what had taken place before them, all\nstood with wide-open eyes and mouths, straining with all their strength,\nand held back the crowd that was pushing behind them.\n\n\"Beat him!... Let the traitor perish and not disgrace the Russian name!\"\nshouted Rostopchin. \"Cut him down. I command it.\"\n\nHearing not so much the words as the angry tone of Rostopchin's voice,\nthe crowd moaned and heaved forward, but again paused.\n\n\"Count!\" exclaimed the timid yet theatrical voice of Vereshchagin in the\nmidst of the momentary silence that ensued, \"Count! One God is above us\nboth....\" He lifted his head and again the thick vein in his thin neck\nfilled with blood and the color rapidly came and went in his face.\n\nHe did not finish what he wished to say.\n\n\"Cut him down! I command it...\" shouted Rostopchin, suddenly growing\npale like Vereshchagin.\n\n\"Draw sabers!\" cried the dragoon officer, drawing his own.\n\nAnother still stronger wave flowed through the crowd and reaching the\nfront ranks carried it swaying to the very steps of the porch. The tall\nyouth, with a stony look on his face, and rigid and uplifted arm, stood\nbeside Vereshchagin.\n\n\"Saber him!\" the dragoon officer almost whispered.\n\nAnd one of the soldiers, his face all at once distorted with fury,\nstruck Vereshchagin on the head with the blunt side of his saber.\n\n\"Ah!\" cried Vereshchagin in meek surprise, looking round with a\nfrightened glance as if not understanding why this was done to him. A\nsimilar moan of surprise and horror ran through the crowd. \"O Lord!\"\nexclaimed a sorrowful voice.\n\nBut after the exclamation of surprise that had escaped from Vereshchagin\nhe uttered a plaintive cry of pain, and that cry was fatal. The barrier\nof human feeling, strained to the utmost, that had held the crowd in\ncheck suddenly broke. The crime had begun and must now be completed. The\nplaintive moan of reproach was drowned by the threatening and angry roar\nof the crowd. Like the seventh and last wave that shatters a ship, that\nlast irresistible wave burst from the rear and reached the front ranks,\ncarrying them off their feet and engulfing them all. The dragoon was\nabout to repeat his blow. Vereshchagin with a cry of horror, covering\nhis head with his hands, rushed toward the crowd. The tall youth,\nagainst whom he stumbled, seized his thin neck with his hands and,\nyelling wildly, fell with him under the feet of the pressing, struggling\ncrowd.\n\nSome beat and tore at Vereshchagin, others at the tall youth. And the\nscreams of those that were being trampled on and of those who tried to\nrescue the tall lad only increased the fury of the crowd. It was a long\ntime before the dragoons could extricate the bleeding youth, beaten\nalmost to death. And for a long time, despite the feverish haste with\nwhich the mob tried to end the work that had been begun, those who were\nhitting, throttling, and tearing at Vereshchagin were unable to kill\nhim, for the crowd pressed from all sides, swaying as one mass with them\nin the center and rendering it impossible for them either to kill him or\nlet him go.\n\n\"Hit him with an ax, eh!... Crushed?... Traitor, he sold Christ....\nStill alive... tenacious... serves him right! Torture serves a thief\nright. Use the hatchet!... What--still alive?\"\n\nOnly when the victim ceased to struggle and his cries changed to a long-\ndrawn, measured death rattle did the crowd around his prostrate,\nbleeding corpse begin rapidly to change places. Each one came up,\nglanced at what had been done, and with horror, reproach, and\nastonishment pushed back again.\n\n\"O Lord! The people are like wild beasts! How could he be alive?\" voices\nin the crowd could be heard saying. \"Quite a young fellow too... must\nhave been a merchant's son. What men!... and they say he's not the right\none.... How not the right one?... O Lord! And there's another has been\nbeaten too--they say he's nearly done for.... Oh, the people... Aren't\nthey afraid of sinning?...\" said the same mob now, looking with pained\ndistress at the dead body with its long, thin, half-severed neck and its\nlivid face stained with blood and dust.\n\nA painstaking police officer, considering the presence of a corpse in\nhis excellency's courtyard unseemly, told the dragoons to take it away.\nTwo dragoons took it by its distorted legs and dragged it along the\nground. The gory, dust-stained, half-shaven head with its long neck\ntrailed twisting along the ground. The crowd shrank back from it.\n\nAt the moment when Vereshchagin fell and the crowd closed in with savage\nyells and swayed about him, Rostopchin suddenly turned pale and, instead\nof going to the back entrance where his carriage awaited him, went with\nhurried steps and bent head, not knowing where and why, along the\npassage leading to the rooms on the ground floor. The count's face was\nwhite and he could not control the feverish twitching of his lower jaw.\n\n\"This way, your excellency... Where are you going?... This way,\nplease...\" said a trembling, frightened voice behind him.\n\nCount Rostopchin was unable to reply and, turning obediently, went in\nthe direction indicated. At the back entrance stood his caleche. The\ndistant roar of the yelling crowd was audible even there. He hastily\ntook his seat and told the coachman to drive him to his country house in\nSokolniki.\n\nWhen they reached the Myasnitski Street and could no longer hear the\nshouts of the mob, the count began to repent. He remembered with\ndissatisfaction the agitation and fear he had betrayed before his\nsubordinates. \"The mob is terrible--disgusting,\" he said to himself in\nFrench. \"They are like wolves whom nothing but flesh can appease.\"\n\"Count! One God is above us both!\"--Vereshchagin's words suddenly\nrecurred to him, and a disagreeable shiver ran down his back. But this\nwas only a momentary feeling and Count Rostopchin smiled disdainfully at\nhimself. \"I had other duties,\" thought he. \"The people had to be\nappeased. Many other victims have perished and are perishing for the\npublic good\"--and he began thinking of his social duties to his family\nand to the city entrusted to him, and of himself--not himself as\nTheodore Vasilyevich Rostopchin (he fancied that Theodore Vasilyevich\nRostopchin was sacrificing himself for the public good) but himself as\ngovernor, the representative of authority and of the Tsar. \"Had I been\nsimply Theodore Vasilyevich my course of action would have been quite\ndifferent, but it was my duty to safeguard my life and dignity as\ncommander-in-chief.\"\n\nLightly swaying on the flexible springs of his carriage and no longer\nhearing the terrible sounds of the crowd, Rostopchin grew physically\ncalm and, as always happens, as soon as he became physically tranquil\nhis mind devised reasons why he should be mentally tranquil too. The\nthought which tranquillized Rostopchin was not a new one. Since the\nworld began and men have killed one another no one has ever committed\nsuch a crime against his fellow man without comforting himself with this\nsame idea. This idea is le bien public, the hypothetical welfare of\nother people.\n\nTo a man not swayed by passion that welfare is never certain, but he who\ncommits such a crime always knows just where that welfare lies. And\nRostopchin now knew it.\n\nNot only did his reason not reproach him for what he had done, but he\neven found cause for self-satisfaction in having so successfully\ncontrived to avail himself of a convenient opportunity to punish a\ncriminal and at the same time pacify the mob.\n\n\"Vereshchagin was tried and condemned to death,\" thought Rostopchin\n(though the Senate had only condemned Vereshchagin to hard labor), \"he\nwas a traitor and a spy. I could not let him go unpunished and so I have\nkilled two birds with one stone: to appease the mob I gave them a victim\nand at the same time punished a miscreant.\"\n\nHaving reached his country house and begun to give orders about domestic\narrangements, the count grew quite tranquil.\n\nHalf an hour later he was driving with his fast horses across the\nSokolniki field, no longer thinking of what had occurred but considering\nwhat was to come. He was driving to the Yauza bridge where he had heard\nthat Kutuzov was. Count Rostopchin was mentally preparing the angry and\nstinging reproaches he meant to address to Kutuzov for his deception. He\nwould make that foxy old courtier feel that the responsibility for all\nthe calamities that would follow the abandonment of the city and the\nruin of Russia (as Rostopchin regarded it) would fall upon his doting\nold head. Planning beforehand what he would say to Kutuzov, Rostopchin\nturned angrily in his caleche and gazed sternly from side to side.\n\nThe Sokolniki field was deserted. Only at the end of it, in front of the\nalmshouse and the lunatic asylum, could be seen some people in white and\nothers like them walking singly across the field shouting and\ngesticulating.\n\nOne of these was running to cross the path of Count Rostopchin's\ncarriage, and the count himself, his coachman, and his dragoons looked\nwith vague horror and curiosity at these released lunatics and\nespecially at the one running toward them.\n\nSwaying from side to side on his long, thin legs in his fluttering\ndressing gown, this lunatic was running impetuously, his gaze fixed on\nRostopchin, shouting something in a hoarse voice and making signs to him\nto stop. The lunatic's solemn, gloomy face was thin and yellow, with its\nbeard growing in uneven tufts. His black, agate pupils with saffron-\nyellow whites moved restlessly near the lower eyelids.\n\n\"Stop! Pull up, I tell you!\" he cried in a piercing voice, and again\nshouted something breathlessly with emphatic intonations and gestures.\n\nComing abreast of the caleche he ran beside it.\n\n\"Thrice have they slain me, thrice have I risen from the dead. They\nstoned me, crucified me... I shall rise... shall rise... shall rise.\nThey have torn my body. The kingdom of God will be overthrown... Thrice\nwill I overthrow it and thrice re-establish it!\" he cried, raising his\nvoice higher and higher.\n\nCount Rostopchin suddenly grew pale as he had done when the crowd closed\nin on Vereshchagin. He turned away. \"Go fas... faster!\" he cried in a\ntrembling voice to his coachman. The caleche flew over the ground as\nfast as the horses could draw it, but for a long time Count Rostopchin\nstill heard the insane despairing screams growing fainter in the\ndistance, while his eyes saw nothing but the astonished, frightened,\nbloodstained face of \"the traitor\" in the fur-lined coat.\n\nRecent as that mental picture was, Rostopchin already felt that it had\ncut deep into his heart and drawn blood. Even now he felt clearly that\nthe gory trace of that recollection would not pass with time, but that\nthe terrible memory would, on the contrary, dwell in his heart ever more\ncruelly and painfully to the end of his life. He seemed still to hear\nthe sound of his own words: \"Cut him down! I command it....\"\n\n\"Why did I utter those words? It was by some accident I said them.... I\nneed not have said them,\" he thought. \"And then nothing would have\nhappened.\" He saw the frightened and then infuriated face of the dragoon\nwho dealt the blow, the look of silent, timid reproach that boy in the\nfur-lined coat had turned upon him. \"But I did not do it for my own\nsake. I was bound to act that way.... The mob, the traitor... the public\nwelfare,\" thought he.\n\nTroops were still crowding at the Yauza bridge. It was hot. Kutuzov,\ndejected and frowning, sat on a bench by the bridge toying with his whip\nin the sand when a caleche dashed up noisily. A man in a general's\nuniform with plumes in his hat went up to Kutuzov and said something in\nFrench. It was Count Rostopchin. He told Kutuzov that he had come\nbecause Moscow, the capital, was no more and only the army remained.\n\n\"Things would have been different if your Serene Highness had not told\nme that you would not abandon Moscow without another battle; all this\nwould not have happened,\" he said.\n\nKutuzov looked at Rostopchin as if, not grasping what was said to him,\nhe was trying to read something peculiar written at that moment on the\nface of the man addressing him. Rostopchin grew confused and became\nsilent. Kutuzov slightly shook his head and not taking his penetrating\ngaze from Rostopchin's face muttered softly:\n\n\"No! I shall not give up Moscow without a battle!\"\n\nWhether Kutuzov was thinking of something entirely different when he\nspoke those words, or uttered them purposely, knowing them to be\nmeaningless, at any rate Rostopchin made no reply and hastily left him.\nAnd strange to say, the Governor of Moscow, the proud Count Rostopchin,\ntook up a Cossack whip and went to the bridge where he began with shouts\nto drive on the carts that blocked the way.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVI\n\nToward four o'clock in the afternoon Murat's troops were entering\nMoscow. In front rode a detachment of Wurttemberg hussars and behind\nthem rode the King of Naples himself accompanied by a numerous suite.\n\nAbout the middle of the Arbat Street, near the Church of the Miraculous\nIcon of St. Nicholas, Murat halted to await news from the advanced\ndetachment as to the condition in which they had found the citadel, le\nKremlin.\n\nAround Murat gathered a group of those who had remained in Moscow. They\nall stared in timid bewilderment at the strange, long-haired commander\ndressed up in feathers and gold.\n\n\"Is that their Tsar himself? He's not bad!\" low voices could be heard\nsaying.\n\nAn interpreter rode up to the group.\n\n\"Take off your cap... your caps!\" These words went from one to another\nin the crowd. The interpreter addressed an old porter and asked if it\nwas far to the Kremlin. The porter, listening in perplexity to the\nunfamiliar Polish accent and not realizing that the interpreter was\nspeaking Russian, did not understand what was being said to him and\nslipped behind the others.\n\nMurat approached the interpreter and told him to ask where the Russian\narmy was. One of the Russians understood what was asked and several\nvoices at once began answering the interpreter. A French officer,\nreturning from the advanced detachment, rode up to Murat and reported\nthat the gates of the citadel had been barricaded and that there was\nprobably an ambuscade there.\n\n\"Good!\" said Murat and, turning to one of the gentlemen in his suite,\nordered four light guns to be moved forward to fire at the gates.\n\nThe guns emerged at a trot from the column following Murat and advanced\nup the Arbat. When they reached the end of the Vozdvizhenka Street they\nhalted and drew in the Square. Several French officers superintended the\nplacing of the guns and looked at the Kremlin through field glasses.\n\nThe bells in the Kremlin were ringing for vespers, and this sound\ntroubled the French. They imagined it to be a call to arms. A few\ninfantrymen ran to the Kutafyev Gate. Beams and wooden screens had been\nput there, and two musket shots rang out from under the gate as soon as\nan officer and men began to run toward it. A general who was standing by\nthe guns shouted some words of command to the officer, and the latter\nran back again with his men.\n\nThe sound of three more shots came from the gate.\n\nOne shot struck a French soldier's foot, and from behind the screens\ncame the strange sound of a few voices shouting. Instantly as at a word\nof command the expression of cheerful serenity on the faces of the\nFrench general, officers, and men changed to one of determined\nconcentrated readiness for strife and suffering. To all of them from the\nmarshal to the least soldier, that place was not the Vozdvizhenka,\nMokhavaya, or Kutafyev Street, nor the Troitsa Gate (places familiar in\nMoscow), but a new battlefield which would probably prove sanguinary.\nAnd all made ready for that battle. The cries from the gates ceased. The\nguns were advanced, the artillerymen blew the ash off their linstocks,\nand an officer gave the word \"Fire!\" This was followed by two whistling\nsounds of canister shot, one after another. The shot rattled against the\nstone of the gate and upon the wooden beams and screens, and two\nwavering clouds of smoke rose over the Square.\n\nA few instants after the echo of the reports resounding over the stone-\nbuilt Kremlin had died away the French heard a strange sound above their\nhead. Thousands of crows rose above the walls and circled in the air,\ncawing and noisily flapping their wings. Together with that sound came a\nsolitary human cry from the gateway and amid the smoke appeared the\nfigure of a bareheaded man in a peasant's coat. He grasped a musket and\ntook aim at the French. \"Fire!\" repeated the officer once more, and the\nreports of a musket and of two cannon shots were heard simultaneously.\nThe gate was again hidden by smoke.\n\nNothing more stirred behind the screens and the French infantry soldiers\nand officers advanced to the gate. In the gateway lay three wounded and\nfour dead. Two men in peasant coats ran away at the foot of the wall,\ntoward the Znamenka.\n\n\"Clear that away!\" said the officer, pointing to the beams and the\ncorpses, and the French soldiers, after dispatching the wounded, threw\nthe corpses over the parapet.\n\nWho these men were nobody knew. \"Clear that away!\" was all that was said\nof them, and they were thrown over the parapet and removed later on that\nthey might not stink. Thiers alone dedicates a few eloquent lines to\ntheir memory: \"These wretches had occupied the sacred citadel, having\nsupplied themselves with guns from the arsenal, and fired\" (the\nwretches) \"at the French. Some of them were sabered and the Kremlin was\npurged of their presence.\"\n\nMurat was informed that the way had been cleared. The French entered the\ngates and began pitching their camp in the Senate Square. Out of the\nwindows of the Senate House the soldiers threw chairs into the Square\nfor fuel and kindled fires there.\n\nOther detachments passed through the Kremlin and encamped along the\nMoroseyka, the Lubyanka, and Pokrovka Streets. Others quartered\nthemselves along the Vozdvizhenka, the Nikolski, and the Tverskoy\nStreets. No masters of the houses being found anywhere, the French were\nnot billeted on the inhabitants as is usual in towns but lived in it as\nin a camp.\n\nThough tattered, hungry, worn out, and reduced to a third of their\noriginal number, the French entered Moscow in good marching order. It\nwas a weary and famished, but still a fighting and menacing army. But it\nremained an army only until its soldiers had dispersed into their\ndifferent lodgings. As soon as the men of the various regiments began to\ndisperse among the wealthy and deserted houses, the army was lost\nforever and there came into being something nondescript, neither\ncitizens nor soldiers but what are known as marauders. When five weeks\nlater these same men left Moscow, they no longer formed an army. They\nwere a mob of marauders, each carrying a quantity of articles which\nseemed to him valuable or useful. The aim of each man when he left\nMoscow was no longer, as it had been, to conquer, but merely to keep\nwhat he had acquired. Like a monkey which puts its paw into the narrow\nneck of a jug, and having seized a handful of nuts will not open its\nfist for fear of losing what it holds, and therefore perishes, the\nFrench when they left Moscow had inevitably to perish because they\ncarried their loot with them, yet to abandon what they had stolen was as\nimpossible for them as it is for the monkey to open its paw and let go\nof its nuts. Ten minutes after each regiment had entered a Moscow\ndistrict, not a soldier or officer was left. Men in military uniforms\nand Hessian boots could be seen through the windows, laughing and\nwalking through the rooms. In cellars and storerooms similar men were\nbusy among the provisions, and in the yards unlocking or breaking open\ncoach house and stable doors, lighting fires in kitchens and kneading\nand baking bread with rolled-up sleeves, and cooking; or frightening,\namusing, or caressing women and children. There were many such men both\nin the shops and houses--but there was no army.\n\nOrder after order was issued by the French commanders that day\nforbidding the men to disperse about the town, sternly forbidding any\nviolence to the inhabitants or any looting, and announcing a roll call\nfor that very evening. But despite all these measures the men, who had\ntill then constituted an army, flowed all over the wealthy, deserted\ncity with its comforts and plentiful supplies. As a hungry herd of\ncattle keeps well together when crossing a barren field, but gets out of\nhand and at once disperses uncontrollably as soon as it reaches rich\npastures, so did the army disperse all over the wealthy city.\n\nNo residents were left in Moscow, and the soldiers--like water\npercolating through sand--spread irresistibly through the city in all\ndirections from the Kremlin into which they had first marched. The\ncavalry, on entering a merchant's house that had been abandoned and\nfinding there stabling more than sufficient for their horses, went on,\nall the same, to the next house which seemed to them better. Many of\nthem appropriated several houses, chalked their names on them, and\nquarreled and even fought with other companies for them. Before they had\nhad time to secure quarters the soldiers ran out into the streets to see\nthe city and, hearing that everything had been abandoned, rushed to\nplaces where valuables were to be had for the taking. The officers\nfollowed to check the soldiers and were involuntarily drawn into doing\nthe same. In Carriage Row carriages had been left in the shops, and\ngenerals flocked there to select caleches and coaches for themselves.\nThe few inhabitants who had remained invited commanding officers to\ntheir houses, hoping thereby to secure themselves from being plundered.\nThere were masses of wealth and there seemed no end to it. All around\nthe quarters occupied by the French were other regions still unexplored\nand unoccupied where, they thought, yet greater riches might be found.\nAnd Moscow engulfed the army ever deeper and deeper. When water is\nspilled on dry ground both the dry ground and the water disappear and\nmud results; and in the same way the entry of the famished army into the\nrich and deserted city resulted in fires and looting and the destruction\nof both the army and the wealthy city.\n\nThe French attributed the Fire of Moscow au patriotisme feroce de\nRostopchine, * the Russians to the barbarity of the French. In reality,\nhowever, it was not, and could not be, possible to explain the burning\nof Moscow by making any individual, or any group of people, responsible\nfor it. Moscow was burned because it found itself in a position in which\nany town built of wood was bound to burn, quite apart from whether it\nhad, or had not, a hundred and thirty inferior fire engines. Deserted\nMoscow had to burn as inevitably as a heap of shavings has to burn on\nwhich sparks continually fall for several days. A town built of wood,\nwhere scarcely a day passes without conflagrations when the house owners\nare in residence and a police force is present, cannot help burning when\nits inhabitants have left it and it is occupied by soldiers who smoke\npipes, make campfires of the Senate chairs in the Senate Square, and\ncook themselves meals twice a day. In peacetime it is only necessary to\nbillet troops in the villages of any district and the number of fires in\nthat district immediately increases. How much then must the probability\nof fire be increased in an abandoned, wooden town where foreign troops\nare quartered. \"Le patriotisme feroce de Rostopchine\" and the barbarity\nof the French were not to blame in the matter. Moscow was set on fire by\nthe soldiers' pipes, kitchens, and campfires, and by the carelessness of\nenemy soldiers occupying houses they did not own. Even if there was any\narson (which is very doubtful, for no one had any reason to burn the\nhouses--in any case a troublesome and dangerous thing to do), arson\ncannot be regarded as the cause, for the same thing would have happened\nwithout any incendiarism.\n\n\n* To Rostopchin's ferocious patriotism.\n\nHowever tempting it might be for the French to blame Rostopchin's\nferocity and for Russians to blame the scoundrel Bonaparte, or later on\nto place an heroic torch in the hands of their own people, it is\nimpossible not to see that there could be no such direct cause of the\nfire, for Moscow had to burn as every village, factory, or house must\nburn which is left by its owners and in which strangers are allowed to\nlive and cook their porridge. Moscow was burned by its inhabitants, it\nis true, but by those who had abandoned it and not by those who remained\nin it. Moscow when occupied by the enemy did not remain intact like\nBerlin, Vienna, and other towns, simply because its inhabitants\nabandoned it and did not welcome the French with bread and salt, nor\nbring them the keys of the city.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVII\n\nThe absorption of the French by Moscow, radiating starwise as it did,\nonly reached the quarter where Pierre was staying by the evening of the\nsecond of September.\n\nAfter the last two days spent in solitude and unusual circumstances,\nPierre was in a state bordering on insanity. He was completely obsessed\nby one persistent thought. He did not know how or when this thought had\ntaken such possession of him, but he remembered nothing of the past,\nunderstood nothing of the present, and all he saw and heard appeared to\nhim like a dream.\n\nHe had left home only to escape the intricate tangle of life's demands\nthat enmeshed him, and which in his present condition he was unable to\nunravel. He had gone to Joseph Alexeevich's house, on the plea of\nsorting the deceased's books and papers, only in search of rest from\nlife's turmoil, for in his mind the memory of Joseph Alexeevich was\nconnected with a world of eternal, solemn, and calm thoughts, quite\ncontrary to the restless confusion into which he felt himself being\ndrawn. He sought a quiet refuge, and in Joseph Alexeevich's study he\nreally found it. When he sat with his elbows on the dusty writing table\nin the deathlike stillness of the study, calm and significant memories\nof the last few days rose one after another in his imagination,\nparticularly of the battle of Borodino and of that vague sense of his\nown insignificance and insincerity compared with the truth, simplicity,\nand strength of the class of men he mentally classed as they. When\nGerasim roused him from his reverie the idea occurred to him of taking\npart in the popular defense of Moscow which he knew was projected. And\nwith that object he had asked Gerasim to get him a peasant's coat and a\npistol, confiding to him his intentions of remaining in Joseph\nAlexeevich's house and keeping his name secret. Then during the first\nday spent in inaction and solitude (he tried several times to fix his\nattention on the masonic manuscripts, but was unable to do so) the idea\nthat had previously occurred to him of the cabalistic significance of\nhis name in connection with Bonaparte's more than once vaguely presented\nitself. But the idea that he, L'russe Besuhof, was destined to set a\nlimit to the power of the Beast was as yet only one of the fancies that\noften passed through his mind and left no trace behind.\n\nWhen, having bought the coat merely with the object of taking part among\nthe people in the defense of Moscow, Pierre had met the Rostovs and\nNatasha had said to him: \"Are you remaining in Moscow?... How splendid!\"\nthe thought flashed into his mind that it really would be a good thing,\neven if Moscow were taken, for him to remain there and do what he was\npredestined to do.\n\nNext day, with the sole idea of not sparing himself and not lagging in\nany way behind them, Pierre went to the Three Hills gate. But when he\nreturned to the house convinced that Moscow would not be defended, he\nsuddenly felt that what before had seemed to him merely a possibility\nhad now become absolutely necessary and inevitable. He must remain in\nMoscow, concealing his name, and must meet Napoleon and kill him, and\neither perish or put an end to the misery of all Europe--which it seemed\nto him was solely due to Napoleon.\n\nPierre knew all the details of the attempt on Bonaparte's life in 1809\nby a German student in Vienna, and knew that the student had been shot.\nAnd the risk to which he would expose his life by carrying out his\ndesign excited him still more.\n\nTwo equally strong feelings drew Pierre irresistibly to this purpose.\nThe first was a feeling of the necessity of sacrifice and suffering in\nview of the common calamity, the same feeling that had caused him to go\nto Mozhaysk on the twenty-fifth and to make his way to the very thick of\nthe battle and had now caused him to run away from his home and, in\nplace of the luxury and comfort to which he was accustomed, to sleep on\na hard sofa without undressing and eat the same food as Gerasim. The\nother was that vague and quite Russian feeling of contempt for\neverything conventional, artificial, and human--for everything the\nmajority of men regard as the greatest good in the world. Pierre had\nfirst experienced this strange and fascinating feeling at the Sloboda\nPalace, when he had suddenly felt that wealth, power, and life--all that\nmen so painstakingly acquire and guard--if it has any worth has so only\nby reason of the joy with which it can all be renounced.\n\nIt was the feeling that induces a volunteer recruit to spend his last\npenny on drink, and a drunken man to smash mirrors or glasses for no\napparent reason and knowing that it will cost him all the money he\npossesses: the feeling which causes a man to perform actions which from\nan ordinary point of view are insane, to test, as it were, his personal\npower and strength, affirming the existence of a higher, nonhuman\ncriterion of life.\n\nFrom the very day Pierre had experienced this feeling for the first time\nat the Sloboda Palace he had been continuously under its influence, but\nonly now found full satisfaction for it. Moreover, at this moment Pierre\nwas supported in his design and prevented from renouncing it by what he\nhad already done in that direction. If he were now to leave Moscow like\neveryone else, his flight from home, the peasant coat, the pistol, and\nhis announcement to the Rostovs that he would remain in Moscow would all\nbecome not merely meaningless but contemptible and ridiculous, and to\nthis Pierre was very sensitive.\n\nPierre's physical condition, as is always the case, corresponded to his\nmental state. The unaccustomed coarse food, the vodka he drank during\nthose days, the absence of wine and cigars, his dirty unchanged linen,\ntwo almost sleepless nights passed on a short sofa without bedding--all\nthis kept him in a state of excitement bordering on insanity.\n\nIt was two o'clock in the afternoon. The French had already entered\nMoscow. Pierre knew this, but instead of acting he only thought about\nhis undertaking, going over its minutest details in his mind. In his\nfancy he did not clearly picture to himself either the striking of the\nblow or the death of Napoleon, but with extraordinary vividness and\nmelancholy enjoyment imagined his own destruction and heroic endurance.\n\n\"Yes, alone, for the sake of all, I must do it or perish!\" he thought.\n\"Yes, I will approach... and then suddenly... with pistol or dagger? But\nthat is all the same! 'It is not I but the hand of Providence that\npunishes thee,' I shall say,\" thought he, imagining what he would say\nwhen killing Napoleon. \"Well then, take me and execute me!\" he went on,\nspeaking to himself and bowing his head with a sad but firm expression.\n\nWhile Pierre, standing in the middle of the room, was talking to himself\nin this way, the study door opened and on the threshold appeared the\nfigure of Makar Alexeevich, always so timid before but now quite\ntransformed.\n\nHis dressing gown was unfastened, his face red and distorted. He was\nobviously drunk. On seeing Pierre he grew confused at first, but\nnoticing embarrassment on Pierre's face immediately grew bold and,\nstaggering on his thin legs, advanced into the middle of the room.\n\n\"They're frightened,\" he said confidentially in a hoarse voice. \"I say I\nwon't surrender, I say... Am I not right, sir?\"\n\nHe paused and then suddenly seeing the pistol on the table seized it\nwith unexpected rapidity and ran out into the corridor.\n\nGerasim and the porter, who had followed Makar Alexeevich, stopped him\nin the vestibule and tried to take the pistol from him. Pierre, coming\nout into the corridor, looked with pity and repulsion at the half-crazy\nold man. Makar Alexeevich, frowning with exertion, held on to the pistol\nand screamed hoarsely, evidently with some heroic fancy in his head.\n\n\"To arms! Board them! No, you shan't get it,\" he yelled.\n\n\"That will do, please, that will do. Have the goodness--please, sir, to\nlet go! Please, sir...\" pleaded Gerasim, trying carefully to steer Makar\nAlexeevich by the elbows back to the door.\n\n\"Who are you? Bonaparte!...\" shouted Makar Alexeevich.\n\n\"That's not right, sir. Come to your room, please, and rest. Allow me to\nhave the pistol.\"\n\n\"Be off, thou base slave! Touch me not! See this?\" shouted Makar\nAlexeevich, brandishing the pistol. \"Board them!\"\n\n\"Catch hold!\" whispered Gerasim to the porter.\n\nThey seized Makar Alexeevich by the arms and dragged him to the door.\n\nThe vestibule was filled with the discordant sounds of a struggle and of\na tipsy, hoarse voice.\n\nSuddenly a fresh sound, a piercing feminine scream, reverberated from\nthe porch and the cook came running into the vestibule.\n\n\"It's them! Gracious heavens! O Lord, four of them, horsemen!\" she\ncried.\n\nGerasim and the porter let Makar Alexeevich go, and in the now silent\ncorridor the sound of several hands knocking at the front door could be\nheard.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXVIII\n\nPierre, having decided that until he had carried out his design he would\ndisclose neither his identity nor his knowledge of French, stood at the\nhalf-open door of the corridor, intending to conceal himself as soon as\nthe French entered. But the French entered and still Pierre did not\nretire--an irresistible curiosity kept him there.\n\nThere were two of them. One was an officer--a tall, soldierly, handsome\nman--the other evidently a private or an orderly, sunburned, short, and\nthin, with sunken cheeks and a dull expression. The officer walked in\nfront, leaning on a stick and slightly limping. When he had advanced a\nfew steps he stopped, having apparently decided that these were good\nquarters, turned round to the soldiers standing at the entrance, and in\na loud voice of command ordered them to put up the horses. Having done\nthat, the officer, lifting his elbow with a smart gesture, stroked his\nmustache and lightly touched his hat.\n\n\"Bonjour, la compagnie!\" * said he gaily, smiling and looking about him.\n\n\n* \"Good day, everybody!\"\n\nNo one gave any reply.\n\n\"Vous etes le bourgeois?\" * the officer asked Gerasim.\n\n\n* \"Are you the master here?\"\n\nGerasim gazed at the officer with an alarmed and inquiring look.\n\n\"Quartier, quartier, logement!\" said the officer, looking down at the\nlittle man with a condescending and good-natured smile. \"Les francais\nsont de bons enfants. Que diable! Voyons! Ne nous fachons pas, mon\nvieux!\" * added he, clapping the scared and silent Gerasim on the\nshoulder. \"Well, does no one speak French in this establishment?\" he\nasked again in French, looking around and meeting Pierre's eyes. Pierre\nmoved away from the door.\n\n\n* \"Quarters, quarters, lodgings! The French are good fellows. What the\ndevil! There, don't let us be cross, old fellow!\"\n\nAgain the officer turned to Gerasim and asked him to show him the rooms\nin the house.\n\n\"Master, not here--don't understand... me, you...\" said Gerasim, trying\nto render his words more comprehensible by contorting them.\n\nStill smiling, the French officer spread out his hands before Gerasim's\nnose, intimating that he did not understand him either, and moved,\nlimping, to the door at which Pierre was standing. Pierre wished to go\naway and conceal himself, but at that moment he saw Makar Alexeevich\nappearing at the open kitchen door with the pistol in his hand. With a\nmadman's cunning, Makar Alexeevich eyed the Frenchman, raised his\npistol, and took aim.\n\n\"Board them!\" yelled the tipsy man, trying to press the trigger. Hearing\nthe yell the officer turned round, and at the same moment Pierre threw\nhimself on the drunkard. Just when Pierre snatched at and struck up the\npistol Makar Alexeevich at last got his fingers on the trigger, there\nwas a deafening report, and all were enveloped in a cloud of smoke. The\nFrenchman turned pale and rushed to the door.\n\nForgetting his intention of concealing his knowledge of French, Pierre,\nsnatching away the pistol and throwing it down, ran up to the officer\nand addressed him in French.\n\n\"You are not wounded?\" he asked.\n\n\"I think not,\" answered the Frenchman, feeling himself over. \"But I have\nhad a lucky escape this time,\" he added, pointing to the damaged plaster\nof the wall. \"Who is that man?\" said he, looking sternly at Pierre.\n\n\"Oh, I am really in despair at what has occurred,\" said Pierre rapidly,\nquite forgetting the part he had intended to play. \"He is an unfortunate\nmadman who did not know what he was doing.\"\n\nThe officer went up to Makar Alexeevich and took him by the collar.\n\nMakar Alexeevich was standing with parted lips, swaying, as if about to\nfall asleep, as he leaned against the wall.\n\n\"Brigand! You shall pay for this,\" said the Frenchman, letting go of\nhim. \"We French are merciful after victory, but we do not pardon\ntraitors,\" he added, with a look of gloomy dignity and a fine energetic\ngesture.\n\nPierre continued, in French, to persuade the officer not to hold that\ndrunken imbecile to account. The Frenchman listened in silence with the\nsame gloomy expression, but suddenly turned to Pierre with a smile. For\na few seconds he looked at him in silence. His handsome face assumed a\nmelodramatically gentle expression and he held out his hand.\n\n\"You have saved my life. You are French,\" said he.\n\nFor a Frenchman that deduction was indubitable. Only a Frenchman could\nperform a great deed, and to save his life--the life of M. Ramballe,\ncaptain of the 13th Light Regiment--was undoubtedly a very great deed.\n\nBut however indubitable that conclusion and the officer's conviction\nbased upon it, Pierre felt it necessary to disillusion him.\n\n\"I am Russian,\" he said quickly.\n\n\"Tut, tut, tut! Tell that to others,\" said the officer, waving his\nfinger before his nose and smiling. \"You shall tell me all about that\npresently. I am delighted to meet a compatriot. Well, and what are we to\ndo with this man?\" he added, addressing himself to Pierre as to a\nbrother.\n\nEven if Pierre were not a Frenchman, having once received that loftiest\nof human appellations he could not renounce it, said the officer's look\nand tone. In reply to his last question Pierre again explained who Makar\nAlexeevich was and how just before their arrival that drunken imbecile\nhad seized the loaded pistol which they had not had time to recover from\nhim, and begged the officer to let the deed go unpunished.\n\nThe Frenchman expanded his chest and made a majestic gesture with his\narm.\n\n\"You have saved my life! You are French. You ask his pardon? I grant it\nyou. Lead that man away!\" said he quickly and energetically, and taking\nthe arm of Pierre whom he had promoted to be a Frenchman for saving his\nlife, he went with him into the room.\n\nThe soldiers in the yard, hearing the shot, came into the passage asking\nwhat had happened, and expressed their readiness to punish the culprits,\nbut the officer sternly checked them.\n\n\"You will be called in when you are wanted,\" he said.\n\nThe soldiers went out again, and the orderly, who had meanwhile had time\nto visit the kitchen, came up to his officer.\n\n\"Captain, there is soup and a leg of mutton in the kitchen,\" said he.\n\"Shall I serve them up?\"\n\n\"Yes, and some wine,\" answered the captain.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXIX\n\nWhen the French officer went into the room with Pierre the latter again\nthought it his duty to assure him that he was not French and wished to\ngo away, but the officer would not hear of it. He was so very polite,\namiable, good-natured, and genuinely grateful to Pierre for saving his\nlife that Pierre had not the heart to refuse, and sat down with him in\nthe parlor--the first room they entered. To Pierre's assurances that he\nwas not a Frenchman, the captain, evidently not understanding how anyone\ncould decline so flattering an appellation, shrugged his shoulders and\nsaid that if Pierre absolutely insisted on passing for a Russian let it\nbe so, but for all that he would be forever bound to Pierre by gratitude\nfor saving his life.\n\nHad this man been endowed with the slightest capacity for perceiving the\nfeelings of others, and had he at all understood what Pierre's feelings\nwere, the latter would probably have left him, but the man's animated\nobtuseness to everything other than himself disarmed Pierre.\n\n\"A Frenchman or a Russian prince incognito,\" said the officer, looking\nat Pierre's fine though dirty linen and at the ring on his finger. \"I\nowe my life to you and offer you my friendship. A Frenchman never\nforgets either an insult or a service. I offer you my friendship. That\nis all I can say.\"\n\nThere was so much good nature and nobility (in the French sense of the\nword) in the officer's voice, in the expression of his face and in his\ngestures, that Pierre, unconsciously smiling in response to the\nFrenchman's smile, pressed the hand held out to him.\n\n\"Captain Ramballe, of the 13th Light Regiment, Chevalier of the Legion\nof Honor for the affair on the seventh of September,\" he introduced\nhimself, a self-satisfied irrepressible smile puckering his lips under\nhis mustache. \"Will you now be so good as to tell me with whom I have\nthe honor of conversing so pleasantly, instead of being in the ambulance\nwith that maniac's bullet in my body?\"\n\nPierre replied that he could not tell him his name and, blushing, began\nto try to invent a name and to say something about his reason for\nconcealing it, but the Frenchman hastily interrupted him.\n\n\"Oh, please!\" said he. \"I understand your reasons. You are an officer...\na superior officer perhaps. You have borne arms against us. That's not\nmy business. I owe you my life. That is enough for me. I am quite at\nyour service. You belong to the gentry?\" he concluded with a shade of\ninquiry in his tone. Pierre bent his head. \"Your baptismal name, if you\nplease. That is all I ask. Monsieur Pierre, you say.... That's all I\nwant to know.\"\n\nWhen the mutton and an omelet had been served and a samovar and vodka\nbrought, with some wine which the French had taken from a Russian cellar\nand brought with them, Ramballe invited Pierre to share his dinner, and\nhimself began to eat greedily and quickly like a healthy and hungry man,\nmunching his food rapidly with his strong teeth, continually smacking\nhis lips, and repeating--\"Excellent! Delicious!\" His face grew red and\nwas covered with perspiration. Pierre was hungry and shared the dinner\nwith pleasure. Morel, the orderly, brought some hot water in a saucepan\nand placed a bottle of claret in it. He also brought a bottle of kvass,\ntaken from the kitchen for them to try. That beverage was already known\nto the French and had been given a special name. They called it limonade\nde cochon (pig's lemonade), and Morel spoke well of the limonade de\ncochon he had found in the kitchen. But as the captain had the wine they\nhad taken while passing through Moscow, he left the kvass to Morel and\napplied himself to the bottle of Bordeaux. He wrapped the bottle up to\nits neck in a table napkin and poured out wine for himself and for\nPierre. The satisfaction of his hunger and the wine rendered the captain\nstill more lively and he chatted incessantly all through dinner.\n\n\"Yes, my dear Monsieur Pierre, I owe you a fine votive candle for saving\nme from that maniac.... You see, I have bullets enough in my body\nalready. Here is one I got at Wagram\" (he touched his side) \"and a\nsecond at Smolensk\"--he showed a scar on his cheek--\"and this leg which\nas you see does not want to march, I got that on the seventh at the\ngreat battle of la Moskowa. Sacre Dieu! It was splendid! That deluge of\nfire was worth seeing. It was a tough job you set us there, my word! You\nmay be proud of it! And on my honor, in spite of the cough I caught\nthere, I should be ready to begin again. I pity those who did not see\nit.\"\n\n\"I was there,\" said Pierre.\n\n\"Bah, really? So much the better! You are certainly brave foes. The\ngreat redoubt held out well, by my pipe!\" continued the Frenchman. \"And\nyou made us pay dear for it. I was at it three times--sure as I sit\nhere. Three times we reached the guns and three times we were thrown\nback like cardboard figures. Oh, it was beautiful, Monsieur Pierre! Your\ngrenadiers were splendid, by heaven! I saw them close up their ranks six\ntimes in succession and march as if on parade. Fine fellows! Our King of\nNaples, who knows what's what, cried 'Bravo!' Ha, ha! So you are one of\nus soldiers!\" he added, smiling, after a momentary pause. \"So much the\nbetter, so much the better, Monsieur Pierre! Terrible in battle...\ngallant... with the fair\" (he winked and smiled), \"that's what the\nFrench are, Monsieur Pierre, aren't they?\"\n\nThe captain was so naively and good-humoredly gay, so real, and so\npleased with himself that Pierre almost winked back as he looked merrily\nat him. Probably the word \"gallant\" turned the captain's thoughts to the\nstate of Moscow.\n\n\"Apropos, tell me please, is it true that the women have all left\nMoscow? What a queer idea! What had they to be afraid of?\"\n\n\"Would not the French ladies leave Paris if the Russians entered it?\"\nasked Pierre.\n\n\"Ha, ha, ha!\" The Frenchman emitted a merry, sanguine chuckle, patting\nPierre on the shoulder. \"What a thing to say!\" he exclaimed. \"Paris?...\nBut Paris, Paris...\"\n\n\"Paris--the capital of the world,\" Pierre finished his remark for him.\n\nThe captain looked at Pierre. He had a habit of stopping short in the\nmiddle of his talk and gazing intently with his laughing, kindly eyes.\n\n\"Well, if you hadn't told me you were Russian, I should have wagered\nthat you were Parisian! You have that... I don't know what, that...\" and\nhaving uttered this compliment, he again gazed at him in silence.\n\n\"I have been in Paris. I spent years there,\" said Pierre.\n\n\"Oh yes, one sees that plainly. Paris!... A man who doesn't know Paris\nis a savage. You can tell a Parisian two leagues off. Paris is Talma, la\nDuchenois, Potier, the Sorbonne, the boulevards,\" and noticing that his\nconclusion was weaker than what had gone before, he added quickly:\n\"There is only one Paris in the world. You have been to Paris and have\nremained Russian. Well, I don't esteem you the less for it.\"\n\nUnder the influence of the wine he had drunk, and after the days he had\nspent alone with his depressing thoughts, Pierre involuntarily enjoyed\ntalking with this cheerful and good-natured man.\n\n\"To return to your ladies--I hear they are lovely. What a wretched idea\nto go and bury themselves in the steppes when the French army is in\nMoscow. What a chance those girls have missed! Your peasants, now--\nthat's another thing; but you civilized people, you ought to know us\nbetter than that. We took Vienna, Berlin, Madrid, Naples, Rome, Warsaw,\nall the world's capitals.... We are feared, but we are loved. We are\nnice to know. And then the Emperor...\" he began, but Pierre interrupted\nhim.\n\n\"The Emperor,\" Pierre repeated, and his face suddenly became sad and\nembarrassed, \"is the Emperor...?\"\n\n\"The Emperor? He is generosity, mercy, justice, order, genius--that's\nwhat the Emperor is! It is I, Ramballe, who tell you so.... I assure you\nI was his enemy eight years ago. My father was an emigrant count.... But\nthat man has vanquished me. He has taken hold of me. I could not resist\nthe sight of the grandeur and glory with which he has covered France.\nWhen I understood what he wanted--when I saw that he was preparing a bed\nof laurels for us, you know, I said to myself: 'That is a monarch,' and\nI devoted myself to him! So there! Oh yes, mon cher, he is the greatest\nman of the ages past or future.\"\n\n\"Is he in Moscow?\" Pierre stammered with a guilty look.\n\nThe Frenchman looked at his guilty face and smiled.\n\n\"No, he will make his entry tomorrow,\" he replied, and continued his\ntalk.\n\nTheir conversation was interrupted by the cries of several voices at the\ngate and by Morel, who came to say that some Wurttemberg hussars had\ncome and wanted to put up their horses in the yard where the captain's\nhorses were. This difficulty had arisen chiefly because the hussars did\nnot understand what was said to them in French.\n\nThe captain had their senior sergeant called in, and in a stern voice\nasked him to what regiment he belonged, who was his commanding officer,\nand by what right he allowed himself to claim quarters that were already\noccupied. The German who knew little French, answered the two first\nquestions by giving the names of his regiment and of his commanding\nofficer, but in reply to the third question which he did not understand\nsaid, introducing broken French into his own German, that he was the\nquartermaster of the regiment and his commander had ordered him to\noccupy all the houses one after another. Pierre, who knew German,\ntranslated what the German said to the captain and gave the captain's\nreply to the Wurttemberg hussar in German. When he had understood what\nwas said to him, the German submitted and took his men elsewhere. The\ncaptain went out into the porch and gave some orders in a loud voice.\n\nWhen he returned to the room Pierre was sitting in the same place as\nbefore, with his head in his hands. His face expressed suffering. He\nreally was suffering at that moment. When the captain went out and he\nwas left alone, suddenly he came to himself and realized the position he\nwas in. It was not that Moscow had been taken or that the happy\nconquerors were masters in it and were patronizing him. Painful as that\nwas it was not that which tormented Pierre at the moment. He was\ntormented by the consciousness of his own weakness. The few glasses of\nwine he had drunk and the conversation with this good-natured man had\ndestroyed the mood of concentrated gloom in which he had spent the last\nfew days and which was essential for the execution of his design. The\npistol, dagger, and peasant coat were ready. Napoleon was to enter the\ntown next day. Pierre still considered that it would be a useful and\nworthy action to slay the evildoer, but now he felt that he would not do\nit. He did not know why, but he felt a foreboding that he would not\ncarry out his intention. He struggled against the confession of his\nweakness but dimly felt that he could not overcome it and that his\nformer gloomy frame of mind, concerning vengeance, killing, and self-\nsacrifice, had been dispersed like dust by contact with the first man he\nmet.\n\nThe captain returned to the room, limping slightly and whistling a tune.\n\nThe Frenchman's chatter which had previously amused Pierre now repelled\nhim. The tune he was whistling, his gait, and the gesture with which he\ntwirled his mustache, all now seemed offensive. \"I will go away\nimmediately. I won't say another word to him,\" thought Pierre. He\nthought this, but still sat in the same place. A strange feeling of\nweakness tied him to the spot; he wished to get up and go away, but\ncould not do so.\n\nThe captain, on the other hand, seemed very cheerful. He paced up and\ndown the room twice. His eyes shone and his mustache twitched as if he\nwere smiling to himself at some amusing thought.\n\n\"The colonel of those Wurttembergers is delightful,\" he suddenly said.\n\"He's a German, but a nice fellow all the same.... But he's a German.\"\nHe sat down facing Pierre. \"By the way, you know German, then?\"\n\nPierre looked at him in silence.\n\n\"What is the German for 'shelter'?\"\n\n\"Shelter?\" Pierre repeated. \"The German for shelter is Unterkunft.\"\n\n\"How do you say it?\" the captain asked quickly and doubtfully.\n\n\"Unterkunft,\" Pierre repeated.\n\n\"Onterkoff,\" said the captain and looked at Pierre for some seconds with\nlaughing eyes. \"These Germans are first-rate fools, don't you think so,\nMonsieur Pierre?\" he concluded.\n\n\"Well, let's have another bottle of this Moscow Bordeaux, shall we?\nMorel will warm us up another little bottle. Morel!\" he called out\ngaily.\n\nMorel brought candles and a bottle of wine. The captain looked at Pierre\nby the candlelight and was evidently struck by the troubled expression\non his companion's face. Ramballe, with genuine distress and sympathy in\nhis face, went up to Pierre and bent over him.\n\n\"There now, we're sad,\" said he, touching Pierre's hand. \"Have I upset\nyou? No, really, have you anything against me?\" he asked Pierre.\n\"Perhaps it's the state of affairs?\"\n\nPierre did not answer, but looked cordially into the Frenchman's eyes\nwhose expression of sympathy was pleasing to him.\n\n\"Honestly, without speaking of what I owe you, I feel friendship for\nyou. Can I do anything for you? Dispose of me. It is for life and death.\nI say it with my hand on my heart!\" said he, striking his chest.\n\n\"Thank you,\" said Pierre.\n\nThe captain gazed intently at him as he had done when he learned that\n\"shelter\" was Unterkunft in German, and his face suddenly brightened.\n\n\"Well, in that case, I drink to our friendship!\" he cried gaily, filling\ntwo glasses with wine.\n\nPierre took one of the glasses and emptied it. Ramballe emptied his too,\nagain pressed Pierre's hand, and leaned his elbows on the table in a\npensive attitude.\n\n\"Yes, my dear friend,\" he began, \"such is fortune's caprice. Who would\nhave said that I should be a soldier and a captain of dragoons in the\nservice of Bonaparte, as we used to call him? Yet here I am in Moscow\nwith him. I must tell you, mon cher,\" he continued in the sad and\nmeasured tones of a man who intends to tell a long story, \"that our name\nis one of the most ancient in France.\"\n\nAnd with a Frenchman's easy and naive frankness the captain told Pierre\nthe story of his ancestors, his childhood, youth, and manhood, and all\nabout his relations and his financial and family affairs, \"ma pauvre\nmere\" playing of course an important part in the story.\n\n\"But all that is only life's setting, the real thing is love--love! Am I\nnot right, Monsieur Pierre?\" said he, growing animated. \"Another glass?\"\n\nPierre again emptied his glass and poured himself out a third.\n\n\"Oh, women, women!\" and the captain, looking with glistening eyes at\nPierre, began talking of love and of his love affairs.\n\nThere were very many of these, as one could easily believe, looking at\nthe officer's handsome, self-satisfied face, and noting the eager\nenthusiasm with which he spoke of women. Though all Ramballe's love\nstories had the sensual character which Frenchmen regard as the special\ncharm and poetry of love, yet he told his story with such sincere\nconviction that he alone had experienced and known all the charm of love\nand he described women so alluringly that Pierre listened to him with\ncuriosity.\n\nIt was plain that l'amour which the Frenchman was so fond of was not\nthat low and simple kind that Pierre had once felt for his wife, nor was\nit the romantic love stimulated by himself that he experienced for\nNatasha. (Ramballe despised both these kinds of love equally: the one he\nconsidered the \"love of clodhoppers\" and the other the \"love of\nsimpletons.\") L'amour which the Frenchman worshiped consisted\nprincipally in the unnaturalness of his relation to the woman and in a\ncombination of incongruities giving the chief charm to the feeling.\n\nThus the captain touchingly recounted the story of his love for a\nfascinating marquise of thirty-five and at the same time for a charming,\ninnocent child of seventeen, daughter of the bewitching marquise. The\nconflict of magnanimity between the mother and the daughter, ending in\nthe mother's sacrificing herself and offering her daughter in marriage\nto her lover, even now agitated the captain, though it was the memory of\na distant past. Then he recounted an episode in which the husband played\nthe part of the lover, and he--the lover--assumed the role of the\nhusband, as well as several droll incidents from his recollections of\nGermany, where \"shelter\" is called Unterkunft and where the husbands eat\nsauerkraut and the young girls are \"too blonde.\"\n\nFinally, the latest episode in Poland still fresh in the captain's\nmemory, and which he narrated with rapid gestures and glowing face, was\nof how he had saved the life of a Pole (in general, the saving of life\ncontinually occurred in the captain's stories) and the Pole had\nentrusted to him his enchanting wife (parisienne de coeur) while himself\nentering the French service. The captain was happy, the enchanting\nPolish lady wished to elope with him, but, prompted by magnanimity, the\ncaptain restored the wife to the husband, saying as he did so: \"I have\nsaved your life, and I save your honor!\" Having repeated these words the\ncaptain wiped his eyes and gave himself a shake, as if driving away the\nweakness which assailed him at this touching recollection.\n\nListening to the captain's tales, Pierre--as often happens late in the\nevening and under the influence of wine--followed all that was told him,\nunderstood it all, and at the same time followed a train of personal\nmemories which, he knew not why, suddenly arose in his mind. While\nlistening to these love stories his own love for Natasha unexpectedly\nrose to his mind, and going over the pictures of that love in his\nimagination he mentally compared them with Ramballe's tales. Listening\nto the story of the struggle between love and duty, Pierre saw before\nhis eyes every minutest detail of his last meeting with the object of\nhis love at the Sukharev water tower. At the time of that meeting it had\nnot produced an effect upon him--he had not even once recalled it. But\nnow it seemed to him that that meeting had had in it something very\nimportant and poetic.\n\n\"Peter Kirilovich, come here! We have recognized you,\" he now seemed to\nhear the words she had uttered and to see before him her eyes, her\nsmile, her traveling hood, and a stray lock of her hair... and there\nseemed to him something pathetic and touching in all this.\n\nHaving finished his tale about the enchanting Polish lady, the captain\nasked Pierre if he had ever experienced a similar impulse to sacrifice\nhimself for love and a feeling of envy of the legitimate husband.\n\nChallenged by this question Pierre raised his head and felt a need to\nexpress the thoughts that filled his mind. He began to explain that he\nunderstood love for a women somewhat differently. He said that in all\nhis life he had loved and still loved only one woman, and that she could\nnever be his.\n\n\"Tiens!\" said the captain.\n\nPierre then explained that he had loved this woman from his earliest\nyears, but that he had not dared to think of her because she was too\nyoung, and because he had been an illegitimate son without a name.\nAfterwards when he had received a name and wealth he dared not think of\nher because he loved her too well, placing her far above everything in\nthe world, and especially therefore above himself.\n\nWhen he had reached this point, Pierre asked the captain whether he\nunderstood that.\n\nThe captain made a gesture signifying that even if he did not understand\nit he begged Pierre to continue.\n\n\"Platonic love, clouds...\" he muttered.\n\nWhether it was the wine he had drunk, or an impulse of frankness, or the\nthought that this man did not, and never would, know any of those who\nplayed a part in his story, or whether it was all these things together,\nsomething loosened Pierre's tongue. Speaking thickly and with a faraway\nlook in his shining eyes, he told the whole story of his life: his\nmarriage, Natasha's love for his best friend, her betrayal of him, and\nall his own simple relations with her. Urged on by Ramballe's questions\nhe also told what he had at first concealed--his own position and even\nhis name.\n\nMore than anything else in Pierre's story the captain was impressed by\nthe fact that Pierre was very rich, had two mansions in Moscow, and that\nhe had abandoned everything and not left the city, but remained there\nconcealing his name and station.\n\nWhen it was late at night they went out together into the street. The\nnight was warm and light. To the left of the house on the Pokrovka a\nfire glowed--the first of those that were beginning in Moscow. To the\nright and high up in the sky was the sickle of the waning moon and\nopposite to it hung that bright comet which was connected in Pierre's\nheart with his love. At the gate stood Gerasim, the cook, and two\nFrenchmen. Their laughter and their mutually incomprehensible remarks in\ntwo languages could be heard. They were looking at the glow seen in the\ntown.\n\nThere was nothing terrible in the one small, distant fire in the immense\ncity.\n\nGazing at the high starry sky, at the moon, at the comet, and at the\nglow from the fire, Pierre experienced a joyful emotion. \"There now, how\ngood it is, what more does one need?\" thought he. And suddenly\nremembering his intention he grew dizzy and felt so faint that he leaned\nagainst the fence to save himself from falling.\n\nWithout taking leave of his new friend, Pierre left the gate with\nunsteady steps and returning to his room lay down on the sofa and\nimmediately fell asleep.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXX\n\nThe glow of the first fire that began on the second of September was\nwatched from the various roads by the fugitive Muscovites and by the\nretreating troops, with many different feelings.\n\nThe Rostov party spent the night at Mytishchi, fourteen miles from\nMoscow. They had started so late on the first of September, the road had\nbeen so blocked by vehicles and troops, so many things had been\nforgotten for which servants were sent back, that they had decided to\nspend that night at a place three miles out of Moscow. The next morning\nthey woke late and were again delayed so often that they only got as far\nas Great Mytishchi. At ten o'clock that evening the Rostov family and\nthe wounded traveling with them were all distributed in the yards and\nhuts of that large village. The Rostovs' servants and coachmen and the\norderlies of the wounded officers, after attending to their masters, had\nsupper, fed the horses, and came out into the porches.\n\nIn a neighboring hut lay Raevski's adjutant with a fractured wrist. The\nawful pain he suffered made him moan incessantly and piteously, and his\nmoaning sounded terrible in the darkness of the autumn night. He had\nspent the first night in the same yard as the Rostovs. The countess said\nshe had been unable to close her eyes on account of his moaning, and at\nMytishchi she moved into a worse hut simply to be farther away from the\nwounded man.\n\nIn the darkness of the night one of the servants noticed, above the high\nbody of a coach standing before the porch, the small glow of another\nfire. One glow had long been visible and everybody knew that it was\nLittle Mytishchi burning--set on fire by Mamonov's Cossacks.\n\n\"But look here, brothers, there's another fire!\" remarked an orderly.\n\nAll turned their attention to the glow.\n\n\"But they told us Little Mytishchi had been set on fire by Mamonov's\nCossacks.\"\n\n\"But that's not Mytishchi, it's farther away.\"\n\n\"Look, it must be in Moscow!\"\n\nTwo of the gazers went round to the other side of the coach and sat down\non its steps.\n\n\"It's more to the left, why, Little Mytishchi is over there, and this is\nright on the other side.\"\n\nSeveral men joined the first two.\n\n\"See how it's flaring,\" said one. \"That's a fire in Moscow: either in\nthe Sushchevski or the Rogozhski quarter.\"\n\nNo one replied to this remark and for some time they all gazed silently\nat the spreading flames of the second fire in the distance.\n\nOld Daniel Terentich, the count's valet (as he was called), came up to\nthe group and shouted at Mishka.\n\n\"What are you staring at, you good-for-nothing?... The count will be\ncalling and there's nobody there; go and gather the clothes together.\"\n\n\"I only ran out to get some water,\" said Mishka.\n\n\"But what do you think, Daniel Terentich? Doesn't it look as if that\nglow were in Moscow?\" remarked one of the footmen.\n\nDaniel Terentich made no reply, and again for a long time they were all\nsilent. The glow spread, rising and falling, farther and farther still.\n\n\"God have mercy.... It's windy and dry...\" said another voice.\n\n\"Just look! See what it's doing now. O Lord! You can even see the crows\nflying. Lord have mercy on us sinners!\"\n\n\"They'll put it out, no fear!\"\n\n\"Who's to put it out?\" Daniel Terentich, who had hitherto been silent,\nwas heard to say. His voice was calm and deliberate. \"Moscow it is,\nbrothers,\" said he. \"Mother Moscow, the white...\" his voice faltered,\nand he gave way to an old man's sob.\n\nAnd it was as if they had all only waited for this to realize the\nsignificance for them of the glow they were watching. Sighs were heard,\nwords of prayer, and the sobbing of the count's old valet.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXI\n\nThe valet, returning to the cottage, informed the count that Moscow was\nburning. The count donned his dressing gown and went out to look. Sonya\nand Madame Schoss, who had not yet undressed, went out with him. Only\nNatasha and the countess remained in the room. Petya was no longer with\nthe family, he had gone on with his regiment which was making for\nTroitsa.\n\nThe countess, on hearing that Moscow was on fire, began to cry. Natasha,\npale, with a fixed look, was sitting on the bench under the icons just\nwhere she had sat down on arriving and paid no attention to her father's\nwords. She was listening to the ceaseless moaning of the adjutant, three\nhouses off.\n\n\"Oh, how terrible,\" said Sonya returning from the yard chilled and\nfrightened. \"I believe the whole of Moscow will burn, there's an awful\nglow! Natasha, do look! You can see it from the window,\" she said to her\ncousin, evidently wishing to distract her mind.\n\nBut Natasha looked at her as if not understanding what was said to her\nand again fixed her eyes on the corner of the stove. She had been in\nthis condition of stupor since the morning, when Sonya, to the surprise\nand annoyance of the countess, had for some unaccountable reason found\nit necessary to tell Natasha of Prince Andrew's wound and of his being\nwith their party. The countess had seldom been so angry with anyone as\nshe was with Sonya. Sonya had cried and begged to be forgiven and now,\nas if trying to atone for her fault, paid unceasing attention to her\ncousin.\n\n\"Look, Natasha, how dreadfully it is burning!\" said she.\n\n\"What's burning?\" asked Natasha. \"Oh, yes, Moscow.\"\n\nAnd as if in order not to offend Sonya and to get rid of her, she turned\nher face to the window, looked out in such a way that it was evident\nthat she could not see anything, and again settled down in her former\nattitude.\n\n\"But you didn't see it!\"\n\n\"Yes, really I did,\" Natasha replied in a voice that pleaded to be left\nin peace.\n\nBoth the countess and Sonya understood that, naturally, neither Moscow\nnor the burning of Moscow nor anything else could seem of importance to\nNatasha.\n\nThe count returned and lay down behind the partition. The countess went\nup to her daughter and touched her head with the back of her hand as she\nwas wont to do when Natasha was ill, then touched her forehead with her\nlips as if to feel whether she was feverish, and finally kissed her.\n\n\"You are cold. You are trembling all over. You'd better lie down,\" said\nthe countess.\n\n\"Lie down? All right, I will. I'll lie down at once,\" said Natasha.\n\nWhen Natasha had been told that morning that Prince Andrew was seriously\nwounded and was traveling with their party, she had at first asked many\nquestions: Where was he going? How was he wounded? Was it serious? And\ncould she see him? But after she had been told that she could not see\nhim, that he was seriously wounded but that his life was not in danger,\nshe ceased to ask questions or to speak at all, evidently disbelieving\nwhat they told her, and convinced that say what she might she would\nstill be told the same. All the way she had sat motionless in a corner\nof the coach with wide open eyes, and the expression in them which the\ncountess knew so well and feared so much, and now she sat in the same\nway on the bench where she had seated herself on arriving. She was\nplanning something and either deciding or had already decided something\nin her mind. The countess knew this, but what it might be she did not\nknow, and this alarmed and tormented her.\n\n\"Natasha, undress, darling; lie down on my bed.\"\n\nA bed had been made on a bedstead for the countess only. Madame Schoss\nand the two girls were to sleep on some hay on the floor.\n\n\"No, Mamma, I will lie down here on the floor,\" Natasha replied\nirritably and she went to the window and opened it. Through the open\nwindow the moans of the adjutant could be heard more distinctly. She put\nher head out into the damp night air, and the countess saw her slim neck\nshaking with sobs and throbbing against the window frame. Natasha knew\nit was not Prince Andrew who was moaning. She knew Prince Andrew was in\nthe same yard as themselves and in a part of the hut across the passage;\nbut this dreadful incessant moaning made her sob. The countess exchanged\na look with Sonya.\n\n\"Lie down, darling; lie down, my pet,\" said the countess, softly\ntouching Natasha's shoulders. \"Come, lie down.\"\n\n\"Oh, yes... I'll lie down at once,\" said Natasha, and began hurriedly\nundressing, tugging at the tapes of her petticoat.\n\nWhen she had thrown off her dress and put on a dressing jacket, she sat\ndown with her foot under her on the bed that had been made up on the\nfloor, jerked her thin and rather short plait of hair to the front, and\nbegan replaiting it. Her long, thin, practiced fingers rapidly\nunplaited, replaited, and tied up her plait. Her head moved from side to\nside from habit, but her eyes, feverishly wide, looked fixedly before\nher. When her toilet for the night was finished she sank gently onto the\nsheet spread over the hay on the side nearest the door.\n\n\"Natasha, you'd better lie in the middle,\" said Sonya.\n\n\"I'll stay here,\" muttered Natasha. \"Do lie down,\" she added crossly,\nand buried her face in the pillow.\n\nThe countess, Madame Schoss, and Sonya undressed hastily and lay down.\nThe small lamp in front of the icons was the only light left in the\nroom. But in the yard there was a light from the fire at Little\nMytishchi a mile and a half away, and through the night came the noise\nof people shouting at a tavern Mamonov's Cossacks had set up across the\nstreet, and the adjutant's unceasing moans could still be heard.\n\nFor a long time Natasha listened attentively to the sounds that reached\nher from inside and outside the room and did not move. First she heard\nher mother praying and sighing and the creaking of her bed under her,\nthen Madame Schoss' familiar whistling snore and Sonya's gentle\nbreathing. Then the countess called to Natasha. Natasha did not answer.\n\n\"I think she's asleep, Mamma,\" said Sonya softly.\n\nAfter a short silence the countess spoke again but this time no one\nreplied.\n\nSoon after that Natasha heard her mother's even breathing. Natasha did\nnot move, though her little bare foot, thrust out from under the quilt,\nwas growing cold on the bare floor.\n\nAs if to celebrate a victory over everybody, a cricket chirped in a\ncrack in the wall. A cock crowed far off and another replied near by.\nThe shouting in the tavern had died down; only the moaning of the\nadjutant was heard. Natasha sat up.\n\n\"Sonya, are you asleep? Mamma?\" she whispered.\n\nNo one replied. Natasha rose slowly and carefully, crossed herself, and\nstepped cautiously on the cold and dirty floor with her slim, supple,\nbare feet. The boards of the floor creaked. Stepping cautiously from one\nfoot to the other she ran like a kitten the few steps to the door and\ngrasped the cold door handle.\n\nIt seemed to her that something heavy was beating rhythmically against\nall the walls of the room: it was her own heart, sinking with alarm and\nterror and overflowing with love.\n\nShe opened the door and stepped across the threshold and onto the cold,\ndamp earthen floor of the passage. The cold she felt refreshed her. With\nher bare feet she touched a sleeping man, stepped over him, and opened\nthe door into the part of the hut where Prince Andrew lay. It was dark\nin there. In the farthest corner, on a bench beside a bed on which\nsomething was lying, stood a tallow candle with a long, thick, and\nsmoldering wick.\n\nFrom the moment she had been told that morning of Prince Andrew's wound\nand his presence there, Natasha had resolved to see him. She did not\nknow why she had to, she knew the meeting would be painful, but felt the\nmore convinced that it was necessary.\n\nAll day she had lived only in hope of seeing him that night. But now\nthat the moment had come she was filled with dread of what she might\nsee. How was he maimed? What was left of him? Was he like that incessant\nmoaning of the adjutant's? Yes, he was altogether like that. In her\nimagination he was that terrible moaning personified. When she saw an\nindistinct shape in the corner, and mistook his knees raised under the\nquilt for his shoulders, she imagined a horrible body there, and stood\nstill in terror. But an irresistible impulse drew her forward. She\ncautiously took one step and then another, and found herself in the\nmiddle of a small room containing baggage. Another man--Timokhin--was\nlying in a corner on the benches beneath the icons, and two others--the\ndoctor and a valet--lay on the floor.\n\nThe valet sat up and whispered something. Timokhin, kept awake by the\npain in his wounded leg, gazed with wide-open eyes at this strange\napparition of a girl in a white chemise, dressing jacket, and nightcap.\nThe valet's sleepy, frightened exclamation, \"What do you want? What's\nthe matter?\" made Natasha approach more swiftly to what was lying in the\ncorner. Horribly unlike a man as that body looked, she must see him. She\npassed the valet, the snuff fell from the candle wick, and she saw\nPrince Andrew clearly with his arms outside the quilt, and such as she\nhad always seen him.\n\nHe was the same as ever, but the feverish color of his face, his\nglittering eyes rapturously turned toward her, and especially his neck,\ndelicate as a child's, revealed by the turn-down collar of his shirt,\ngave him a peculiarly innocent, childlike look, such as she had never\nseen on him before. She went up to him and with a swift, flexible,\nyouthful movement dropped on her knees.\n\nHe smiled and held out his hand to her.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXII\n\nSeven days had passed since Prince Andrew found himself in the ambulance\nstation on the field of Borodino. His feverish state and the\ninflammation of his bowels, which were injured, were in the doctor's\nopinion sure to carry him off. But on the seventh day he ate with\npleasure a piece of bread with some tea, and the doctor noticed that his\ntemperature was lower. He had regained consciousness that morning. The\nfirst night after they left Moscow had been fairly warm and he had\nremained in the caleche, but at Mytishchi the wounded man himself asked\nto be taken out and given some tea. The pain caused by his removal into\nthe hut had made him groan aloud and again lose consciousness. When he\nhad been placed on his camp bed he lay for a long time motionless with\nclosed eyes. Then he opened them and whispered softly: \"And the tea?\"\nHis remembering such a small detail of everyday life astonished the\ndoctor. He felt Prince Andrew's pulse, and to his surprise and\ndissatisfaction found it had improved. He was dissatisfied because he\nknew by experience that if his patient did not die now, he would do so a\nlittle later with greater suffering. Timokhin, the red-nosed major of\nPrince Andrew's regiment, had joined him in Moscow and was being taken\nalong with him, having been wounded in the leg at the battle of\nBorodino. They were accompanied by a doctor, Prince Andrew's valet, his\ncoachman, and two orderlies.\n\nThey gave Prince Andrew some tea. He drank it eagerly, looking with\nfeverish eyes at the door in front of him as if trying to understand and\nremember something.\n\n\"I don't want any more. Is Timokhin here?\" he asked.\n\nTimokhin crept along the bench to him.\n\n\"I am here, your excellency.\"\n\n\"How's your wound?\"\n\n\"Mine, sir? All right. But how about you?\"\n\nPrince Andrew again pondered as if trying to remember something.\n\n\"Couldn't one get a book?\" he asked.\n\n\"What book?\"\n\n\"The Gospels. I haven't one.\"\n\nThe doctor promised to procure it for him and began to ask how he was\nfeeling. Prince Andrew answered all his questions reluctantly but\nreasonably, and then said he wanted a bolster placed under him as he was\nuncomfortable and in great pain. The doctor and valet lifted the cloak\nwith which he was covered and, making wry faces at the noisome smell of\nmortifying flesh that came from the wound, began examining that dreadful\nplace. The doctor was very much displeased about something and made a\nchange in the dressings, turning the wounded man over so that he groaned\nagain and grew unconscious and delirious from the agony. He kept asking\nthem to get him the book and put it under him.\n\n\"What trouble would it be to you?\" he said. \"I have not got one. Please\nget it for me and put it under for a moment,\" he pleaded in a piteous\nvoice.\n\nThe doctor went into the passage to wash his hands.\n\n\"You fellows have no conscience,\" said he to the valet who was pouring\nwater over his hands. \"For just one moment I didn't look after you...\nIt's such pain, you know, that I wonder how he can bear it.\"\n\n\"By the Lord Jesus Christ, I thought we had put something under him!\"\nsaid the valet.\n\nThe first time Prince Andrew understood where he was and what was the\nmatter with him and remembered being wounded and how was when he asked\nto be carried into the hut after his caleche had stopped at Mytishchi.\nAfter growing confused from pain while being carried into the hut he\nagain regained consciousness, and while drinking tea once more recalled\nall that had happened to him, and above all vividly remembered the\nmoment at the ambulance station when, at the sight of the sufferings of\na man he disliked, those new thoughts had come to him which promised him\nhappiness. And those thoughts, though now vague and indefinite, again\npossessed his soul. He remembered that he had now a new source of\nhappiness and that this happiness had something to do with the Gospels.\nThat was why he asked for a copy of them. The uncomfortable position in\nwhich they had put him and turned him over again confused his thoughts,\nand when he came to himself a third time it was in the complete\nstillness of the night. Everybody near him was sleeping. A cricket\nchirped from across the passage; someone was shouting and singing in the\nstreet; cockroaches rustled on the table, on the icons, and on the\nwalls, and a big fly flopped at the head of the bed and around the\ncandle beside him, the wick of which was charred and had shaped itself\nlike a mushroom.\n\nHis mind was not in a normal state. A healthy man usually thinks of,\nfeels, and remembers innumerable things simultaneously, but has the\npower and will to select one sequence of thoughts or events on which to\nfix his whole attention. A healthy man can tear himself away from the\ndeepest reflections to say a civil word to someone who comes in and can\nthen return again to his own thoughts. But Prince Andrew's mind was not\nin a normal state in that respect. All the powers of his mind were more\nactive and clearer than ever, but they acted apart from his will. Most\ndiverse thoughts and images occupied him simultaneously. At times his\nbrain suddenly began to work with a vigor, clearness, and depth it had\nnever reached when he was in health, but suddenly in the midst of its\nwork it would turn to some unexpected idea and he had not the strength\nto turn it back again.\n\n\"Yes, a new happiness was revealed to me of which man cannot be\ndeprived,\" he thought as he lay in the semidarkness of the quiet hut,\ngazing fixedly before him with feverish wide open eyes. \"A happiness\nlying beyond material forces, outside the material influences that act\non man--a happiness of the soul alone, the happiness of loving. Every\nman can understand it, but to conceive it and enjoin it was possible\nonly for God. But how did God enjoin that law? And why was the Son...?\"\n\nAnd suddenly the sequence of these thoughts broke off, and Prince Andrew\nheard (without knowing whether it was a delusion or reality) a soft\nwhispering voice incessantly and rhythmically repeating \"piti-piti-\npiti,\" and then \"titi,\" and then again \"piti-piti-piti,\" and \"ti-ti\"\nonce more. At the same time he felt that above his face, above the very\nmiddle of it, some strange airy structure was being erected out of\nslender needles or splinters, to the sound of this whispered music. He\nfelt that he had to balance carefully (though it was difficult) so that\nthis airy structure should not collapse; but nevertheless it kept\ncollapsing and again slowly rising to the sound of whispered rhythmic\nmusic--\"it stretches, stretches, spreading out and stretching,\" said\nPrince Andrew to himself. While listening to this whispering and feeling\nthe sensation of this drawing out and the construction of this edifice\nof needles, he also saw by glimpses a red halo round the candle, and\nheard the rustle of the cockroaches and the buzzing of the fly that\nflopped against his pillow and his face. Each time the fly touched his\nface it gave him a burning sensation and yet to his surprise it did not\ndestroy the structure, though it knocked against the very region of his\nface where it was rising. But besides this there was something else of\nimportance. It was something white by the door--the statue of a sphinx,\nwhich also oppressed him.\n\n\"But perhaps that's my shirt on the table,\" he thought, \"and that's my\nlegs, and that is the door, but why is it always stretching and drawing\nitself out, and 'piti-piti-piti' and 'ti-ti' and 'piti-piti-piti'...?\nThat's enough, please leave off!\" Prince Andrew painfully entreated\nsomeone. And suddenly thoughts and feelings again swam to the surface of\nhis mind with peculiar clearness and force.\n\n\"Yes--love,\" he thought again quite clearly. \"But not love which loves\nfor something, for some quality, for some purpose, or for some reason,\nbut the love which I--while dying--first experienced when I saw my enemy\nand yet loved him. I experienced that feeling of love which is the very\nessence of the soul and does not require an object. Now again I feel\nthat bliss. To love one's neighbors, to love one's enemies, to love\neverything, to love God in all His manifestations. It is possible to\nlove someone dear to you with human love, but an enemy can only be loved\nby divine love. That is why I experienced such joy when I felt that I\nloved that man. What has become of him? Is he alive?...\n\n\"When loving with human love one may pass from love to hatred, but\ndivine love cannot change. No, neither death nor anything else can\ndestroy it. It is the very essence of the soul. Yet how many people have\nI hated in my life? And of them all, I loved and hated none as I did\nher.\" And he vividly pictured to himself Natasha, not as he had done in\nthe past with nothing but her charms which gave him delight, but for the\nfirst time picturing to himself her soul. And he understood her\nfeelings, her sufferings, shame, and remorse. He now understood for the\nfirst time all the cruelty of his rejection of her, the cruelty of his\nrupture with her. \"If only it were possible for me to see her once more!\nJust once, looking into those eyes to say...\"\n\n\"Piti-piti-piti and ti-ti and piti-piti-piti boom!\" flopped the fly...\nAnd his attention was suddenly carried into another world, a world of\nreality and delirium in which something particular was happening. In\nthat world some structure was still being erected and did not fall,\nsomething was still stretching out, and the candle with its red halo was\nstill burning, and the same shirtlike sphinx lay near the door; but\nbesides all this something creaked, there was a whiff of fresh air, and\na new white sphinx appeared, standing at the door. And that sphinx had\nthe pale face and shining eyes of the very Natasha of whom he had just\nbeen thinking.\n\n\"Oh, how oppressive this continual delirium is,\" thought Prince Andrew,\ntrying to drive that face from his imagination. But the face remained\nbefore him with the force of reality and drew nearer. Prince Andrew\nwished to return to that former world of pure thought, but he could not,\nand delirium drew him back into its domain. The soft whispering voice\ncontinued its rhythmic murmur, something oppressed him and stretched\nout, and the strange face was before him. Prince Andrew collected all\nhis strength in an effort to recover his senses, he moved a little, and\nsuddenly there was a ringing in his ears, a dimness in his eyes, and\nlike a man plunged into water he lost consciousness. When he came to\nhimself, Natasha, that same living Natasha whom of all people he most\nlonged to love with this new pure divine love that had been revealed to\nhim, was kneeling before him. He realized that it was the real living\nNatasha, and he was not surprised but quietly happy. Natasha, motionless\non her knees (she was unable to stir), with frightened eyes riveted on\nhim, was restraining her sobs. Her face was pale and rigid. Only in the\nlower part of it something quivered.\n\nPrince Andrew sighed with relief, smiled, and held out his hand.\n\n\"You?\" he said. \"How fortunate!\"\n\nWith a rapid but careful movement Natasha drew nearer to him on her\nknees and, taking his hand carefully, bent her face over it and began\nkissing it, just touching it lightly with her lips.\n\n\"Forgive me!\" she whispered, raising her head and glancing at him.\n\"Forgive me!\"\n\n\"I love you,\" said Prince Andrew.\n\n\"Forgive...!\"\n\n\"Forgive what?\" he asked.\n\n\"Forgive me for what I ha-ve do-ne!\" faltered Natasha in a scarcely\naudible, broken whisper, and began kissing his hand more rapidly, just\ntouching it with her lips.\n\n\"I love you more, better than before,\" said Prince Andrew, lifting her\nface with his hand so as to look into her eyes.\n\nThose eyes, filled with happy tears, gazed at him timidly,\ncompassionately, and with joyous love. Natasha's thin pale face, with\nits swollen lips, was more than plain--it was dreadful. But Prince\nAndrew did not see that, he saw her shining eyes which were beautiful.\nThey heard the sound of voices behind them.\n\nPeter the valet, who was now wide awake, had roused the doctor.\nTimokhin, who had not slept at all because of the pain in his leg, had\nlong been watching all that was going on, carefully covering his bare\nbody with the sheet as he huddled up on his bench.\n\n\"What's this?\" said the doctor, rising from his bed. \"Please go away,\nmadam!\"\n\nAt that moment a maid sent by the countess, who had noticed her\ndaughter's absence, knocked at the door.\n\nLike a somnambulist aroused from her sleep Natasha went out of the room\nand, returning to her hut, fell sobbing on her bed.\n\nFrom that time, during all the rest of the Rostovs' journey, at every\nhalting place and wherever they spent a night, Natasha never left the\nwounded Bolkonski, and the doctor had to admit that he had not expected\nfrom a young girl either such firmness or such skill in nursing a\nwounded man.\n\nDreadful as the countess imagined it would be should Prince Andrew die\nin her daughter's arms during the journey--as, judging by what the\ndoctor said, it seemed might easily happen--she could not oppose\nNatasha. Though with the intimacy now established between the wounded\nman and Natasha the thought occurred that should he recover their former\nengagement would be renewed, no one--least of all Natasha and Prince\nAndrew--spoke of this: the unsettled question of life and death, which\nhung not only over Bolkonski but over all Russia, shut out all other\nconsiderations.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIII\n\nOn the third of September Pierre awoke late. His head was aching, the\nclothes in which he had slept without undressing felt uncomfortable on\nhis body, and his mind had a dim consciousness of something shameful he\nhad done the day before. That something shameful was his yesterday's\nconversation with Captain Ramballe.\n\nIt was eleven by the clock, but it seemed peculiarly dark out of doors.\nPierre rose, rubbed his eyes, and seeing the pistol with an engraved\nstock which Gerasim had replaced on the writing table, he remembered\nwhere he was and what lay before him that very day.\n\n\"Am I not too late?\" he thought. \"No, probably he won't make his entry\ninto Moscow before noon.\"\n\nPierre did not allow himself to reflect on what lay before him, but\nhastened to act.\n\nAfter arranging his clothes, he took the pistol and was about to go out.\nBut it then occurred to him for the first time that he certainly could\nnot carry the weapon in his hand through the streets. It was difficult\nto hide such a big pistol even under his wide coat. He could not carry\nit unnoticed in his belt or under his arm. Besides, it had been\ndischarged, and he had not had time to reload it. \"No matter, dagger\nwill do,\" he said to himself, though when planning his design he had\nmore than once come to the conclusion that the chief mistake made by the\nstudent in 1809 had been to try to kill Napoleon with a dagger. But as\nhis chief aim consisted not in carrying out his design, but in proving\nto himself that he would not abandon his intention and was doing all he\ncould to achieve it, Pierre hastily took the blunt jagged dagger in a\ngreen sheath which he had bought at the Sukharev market with the pistol,\nand hid it under his waistcoat.\n\nHaving tied a girdle over his coat and pulled his cap low on his head,\nPierre went down the corridor, trying to avoid making a noise or meeting\nthe captain, and passed out into the street.\n\nThe conflagration, at which he had looked with so much indifference the\nevening before, had greatly increased during the night. Moscow was on\nfire in several places. The buildings in Carriage Row, across the river,\nin the Bazaar and the Povarskoy, as well as the barges on the Moskva\nRiver and the timber yards by the Dorogomilov Bridge, were all ablaze.\n\nPierre's way led through side streets to the Povarskoy and from there to\nthe church of St. Nicholas on the Arbat, where he had long before\ndecided that the deed should be done. The gates of most of the houses\nwere locked and the shutters up. The streets and lanes were deserted.\nThe air was full of smoke and the smell of burning. Now and then he met\nRussians with anxious and timid faces, and Frenchmen with an air not of\nthe city but of the camp, walking in the middle of the streets. Both the\nRussians and the French looked at Pierre with surprise. Besides his\nheight and stoutness, and the strange morose look of suffering in his\nface and whole figure, the Russians stared at Pierre because they could\nnot make out to what class he could belong. The French followed him with\nastonishment in their eyes chiefly because Pierre, unlike all the other\nRussians who gazed at the French with fear and curiosity, paid no\nattention to them. At the gate of one house three Frenchmen, who were\nexplaining something to some Russians who did not understand them,\nstopped Pierre asking if he did not know French.\n\nPierre shook his head and went on. In another side street a sentinel\nstanding beside a green caisson shouted at him, but only when the shout\nwas threateningly repeated and he heard the click of the man's musket as\nhe raised it did Pierre understand that he had to pass on the other side\nof the street. He heard nothing and saw nothing of what went on around\nhim. He carried his resolution within himself in terror and haste, like\nsomething dreadful and alien to him, for, after the previous night's\nexperience, he was afraid of losing it. But he was not destined to bring\nhis mood safely to his destination. And even had he not been hindered by\nanything on the way, his intention could not now have been carried out,\nfor Napoleon had passed the Arbat more than four hours previously on his\nway from the Dorogomilov suburb to the Kremlin, and was now sitting in a\nvery gloomy frame of mind in a royal study in the Kremlin, giving\ndetailed and exact orders as to measures to be taken immediately to\nextinguish the fire, to prevent looting, and to reassure the\ninhabitants. But Pierre did not know this; he was entirely absorbed in\nwhat lay before him, and was tortured--as those are who obstinately\nundertake a task that is impossible for them not because of its\ndifficulty but because of its incompatibility with their natures--by the\nfear of weakening at the decisive moment and so losing his self-esteem.\n\nThough he heard and saw nothing around him he found his way by instinct\nand did not go wrong in the side streets that led to the Povarskoy.\n\nAs Pierre approached that street the smoke became denser and denser--he\neven felt the heat of the fire. Occasionally curly tongues of flame rose\nfrom under the roofs of the houses. He met more people in the streets\nand they were more excited. But Pierre, though he felt that something\nunusual was happening around him, did not realize that he was\napproaching the fire. As he was going along a foot path across a wide-\nopen space adjoining the Povarskoy on one side and the gardens of Prince\nGruzinski's house on the other, Pierre suddenly heard the desperate\nweeping of a woman close to him. He stopped as if awakening from a dream\nand lifted his head.\n\nBy the side of the path, on the dusty dry grass, all sorts of household\ngoods lay in a heap: featherbeds, a samovar, icons, and trunks. On the\nground, beside the trunks, sat a thin woman no longer young, with long,\nprominent upper teeth, and wearing a black cloak and cap. This woman,\nswaying to and fro and muttering something, was choking with sobs. Two\ngirls of about ten and twelve, dressed in dirty short frocks and cloaks,\nwere staring at their mother with a look of stupefaction on their pale\nfrightened faces. The youngest child, a boy of about seven, who wore an\novercoat and an immense cap evidently not his own, was crying in his old\nnurse's arms. A dirty, barefooted maid was sitting on a trunk, and,\nhaving undone her pale-colored plait, was pulling it straight and\nsniffing at her singed hair. The woman's husband, a short, round-\nshouldered man in the undress uniform of a civilian official, with\nsausage-shaped whiskers and showing under his square-set cap the hair\nsmoothly brushed forward over his temples, with expressionless face was\nmoving the trunks, which were placed one on another, and was dragging\nsome garments from under them.\n\nAs soon as she saw Pierre, the woman almost threw herself at his feet.\n\n\"Dear people, good Christians, save me, help me, dear friends... help\nus, somebody,\" she muttered between her sobs. \"My girl... My daughter!\nMy youngest daughter is left behind. She's burned! Ooh! Was it for this\nI nursed you.... Ooh!\"\n\n\"Don't, Mary Nikolievna!\" said her husband to her in a low voice,\nevidently only to justify himself before the stranger. \"Sister must have\ntaken her, or else where can she be?\" he added.\n\n\"Monster! Villain!\" shouted the woman angrily, suddenly ceasing to weep.\n\"You have no heart, you don't feel for your own child! Another man would\nhave rescued her from the fire. But this is a monster and neither a man\nnor a father! You, honored sir, are a noble man,\" she went on,\naddressing Pierre rapidly between her sobs. \"The fire broke out\nalongside, and blew our way, the maid called out 'Fire!' and we rushed\nto collect our things. We ran out just as we were.... This is what we\nhave brought away.... The icons, and my dowry bed, all the rest is lost.\nWe seized the children. But not Katie! Ooh! O Lord!...\" and again she\nbegan to sob. \"My child, my dear one! Burned, burned!\"\n\n\"But where was she left?\" asked Pierre.\n\nFrom the expression of his animated face the woman saw that this man\nmight help her.\n\n\"Oh, dear sir!\" she cried, seizing him by the legs. \"My benefactor, set\nmy heart at ease.... Aniska, go, you horrid girl, show him the way!\" she\ncried to the maid, angrily opening her mouth and still farther exposing\nher long teeth.\n\n\"Show me the way, show me, I... I'll do it,\" gasped Pierre rapidly.\n\nThe dirty maidservant stepped from behind the trunk, put up her plait,\nsighed, and went on her short, bare feet along the path. Pierre felt as\nif he had come back to life after a heavy swoon. He held his head\nhigher, his eyes shone with the light of life, and with swift steps he\nfollowed the maid, overtook her, and came out on the Povarskoy. The\nwhole street was full of clouds of black smoke. Tongues of flame here\nand there broke through that cloud. A great number of people crowded in\nfront of the conflagration. In the middle of the street stood a French\ngeneral saying something to those around him. Pierre, accompanied by the\nmaid, was advancing to the spot where the general stood, but the French\nsoldiers stopped him.\n\n\"On ne passe pas!\" * cried a voice.\n\n\n* \"You can't pass!\"\n\n\"This way, uncle,\" cried the girl. \"We'll pass through the side street,\nby the Nikulins'!\"\n\nPierre turned back, giving a spring now and then to keep up with her.\nShe ran across the street, turned down a side street to the left, and,\npassing three houses, turned into a yard on the right.\n\n\"It's here, close by,\" said she and, running across the yard, opened a\ngate in a wooden fence and, stopping, pointed out to him a small wooden\nwing of the house, which was burning brightly and fiercely. One of its\nsides had fallen in, another was on fire, and bright flames issued from\nthe openings of the windows and from under the roof.\n\nAs Pierre passed through the fence gate, he was enveloped by hot air and\ninvoluntarily stopped.\n\n\"Which is it? Which is your house?\" he asked.\n\n\"Ooh!\" wailed the girl, pointing to the wing. \"That's it, that was our\nlodging. You've burned to death, our treasure, Katie, my precious little\nmissy! Ooh!\" lamented Aniska, who at the sight of the fire felt that she\ntoo must give expression to her feelings.\n\nPierre rushed to the wing, but the heat was so great that he\ninvoluntarily passed round in a curve and came upon the large house that\nwas as yet burning only at one end, just below the roof, and around\nwhich swarmed a crowd of Frenchmen. At first Pierre did not realize what\nthese men, who were dragging something out, were about; but seeing\nbefore him a Frenchman hitting a peasant with a blunt saber and trying\nto take from him a fox-fur coat, he vaguely understood that looting was\ngoing on there, but he had no time to dwell on that idea.\n\nThe sounds of crackling and the din of falling walls and ceilings, the\nwhistle and hiss of the flames, the excited shouts of the people, and\nthe sight of the swaying smoke, now gathering into thick black clouds\nand now soaring up with glittering sparks, with here and there dense\nsheaves of flame (now red and now like golden fish scales creeping along\nthe walls), and the heat and smoke and rapidity of motion, produced on\nPierre the usual animating effects of a conflagration. It had a\npeculiarly strong effect on him because at the sight of the fire he felt\nhimself suddenly freed from the ideas that had weighed him down. He felt\nyoung, bright, adroit, and resolute. He ran round to the other side of\nthe lodge and was about to dash into that part of it which was still\nstanding, when just above his head he heard several voices shouting and\nthen a cracking sound and the ring of something heavy falling close\nbeside him.\n\nPierre looked up and saw at a window of the large house some Frenchmen\nwho had just thrown out the drawer of a chest, filled with metal\narticles. Other French soldiers standing below went up to the drawer.\n\n\"What does this fellow want?\" shouted one of them referring to Pierre.\n\n\"There's a child in that house. Haven't you seen a child?\" cried Pierre.\n\n\"What's he talking about? Get along!\" said several voices, and one of\nthe soldiers, evidently afraid that Pierre might want to take from them\nsome of the plate and bronzes that were in the drawer, moved\nthreateningly toward him.\n\n\"A child?\" shouted a Frenchman from above. \"I did hear something\nsquealing in the garden. Perhaps it's his brat that the fellow is\nlooking for. After all, one must be human, you know....\"\n\n\"Where is it? Where?\" said Pierre.\n\n\"There! There!\" shouted the Frenchman at the window, pointing to the\ngarden at the back of the house. \"Wait a bit--I'm coming down.\"\n\nAnd a minute or two later the Frenchman, a black-eyed fellow with a spot\non his cheek, in shirt sleeves, really did jump out of a window on the\nground floor, and clapping Pierre on the shoulder ran with him into the\ngarden.\n\n\"Hurry up, you others!\" he called out to his comrades. \"It's getting\nhot.\"\n\nWhen they reached a gravel path behind the house the Frenchman pulled\nPierre by the arm and pointed to a round, graveled space where a three-\nyear-old girl in a pink dress was lying under a seat.\n\n\"There is your child! Oh, a girl, so much the better!\" said the\nFrenchman. \"Good-bye, Fatty. We must be human, we are all mortal you\nknow!\" and the Frenchman with the spot on his cheek ran back to his\ncomrades.\n\nBreathless with joy, Pierre ran to the little girl and was going to take\nher in his arms. But seeing a stranger the sickly, scrofulous-looking\nchild, unattractively like her mother, began to yell and run away.\nPierre, however, seized her and lifted her in his arms. She screamed\ndesperately and angrily and tried with her little hands to pull Pierre's\nhands away and to bite them with her slobbering mouth. Pierre was seized\nby a sense of horror and repulsion such as he had experienced when\ntouching some nasty little animal. But he made an effort not to throw\nthe child down and ran with her to the large house. It was now, however,\nimpossible to get back the way he had come; the maid, Aniska, was no\nlonger there, and Pierre with a feeling of pity and disgust pressed the\nwet, painfully sobbing child to himself as tenderly as he could and ran\nwith her through the garden seeking another way out.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XXXIV\n\nHaving run through different yards and side streets, Pierre got back\nwith his little burden to the Gruzinski garden at the corner of the\nPovarskoy. He did not at first recognize the place from which he had set\nout to look for the child, so crowded was it now with people and goods\nthat had been dragged out of the houses. Besides Russian families who\nhad taken refuge here from the fire with their belongings, there were\nseveral French soldiers in a variety of clothing. Pierre took no notice\nof them. He hurried to find the family of that civil servant in order to\nrestore the daughter to her mother and go to save someone else. Pierre\nfelt that he had still much to do and to do quickly. Glowing with the\nheat and from running, he felt at that moment more strongly than ever\nthe sense of youth, animation, and determination that had come on him\nwhen he ran to save the child. She had now become quiet and, clinging\nwith her little hands to Pierre's coat, sat on his arm gazing about her\nlike some little wild animal. He glanced at her occasionally with a\nslight smile. He fancied he saw something pathetically innocent in that\nfrightened, sickly little face.\n\nHe did not find the civil servant or his wife where he had left them. He\nwalked among the crowd with rapid steps, scanning the various faces he\nmet. Involuntarily he noticed a Georgian or Armenian family consisting\nof a very handsome old man of Oriental type, wearing a new, cloth-\ncovered, sheepskin coat and new boots, an old woman of similar type, and\na young woman. That very young woman seemed to Pierre the perfection of\nOriental beauty, with her sharply outlined, arched, black eyebrows and\nthe extraordinarily soft, bright color of her long, beautiful,\nexpressionless face. Amid the scattered property and the crowd on the\nopen space, she, in her rich satin cloak with a bright lilac shawl on\nher head, suggested a delicate exotic plant thrown out onto the snow.\nShe was sitting on some bundles a little behind the old woman, and\nlooked from under her long lashes with motionless, large, almond-shaped\neyes at the ground before her. Evidently she was aware of her beauty and\nfearful because of it. Her face struck Pierre and, hurrying along by the\nfence, he turned several times to look at her. When he had reached the\nfence, still without finding those he sought, he stopped and looked\nabout him.\n\nWith the child in his arms his figure was now more conspicuous than\nbefore, and a group of Russians, both men and women, gathered about him.\n\n\"Have you lost anyone, my dear fellow? You're of the gentry yourself,\naren't you? Whose child is it?\" they asked him.\n\nPierre replied that the child belonged to a woman in a black coat who\nhad been sitting there with her other children, and he asked whether\nanyone knew where she had gone.\n\n\"Why, that must be the Anferovs,\" said an old deacon, addressing a\npockmarked peasant woman. \"Lord have mercy, Lord have mercy!\" he added\nin his customary bass.\n\n\"The Anferovs? No,\" said the woman. \"They left in the morning. That must\nbe either Mary Nikolievna's or the Ivanovs'!\"\n\n\"He says 'a woman,' and Mary Nikolievna is a lady,\" remarked a house\nserf.\n\n\"Do you know her? She's thin, with long teeth,\" said Pierre.\n\n\"That's Mary Nikolievna! They went inside the garden when these wolves\nswooped down,\" said the woman, pointing to the French soldiers.\n\n\"O Lord, have mercy!\" added the deacon.\n\n\"Go over that way, they're there. It's she! She kept on lamenting and\ncrying,\" continued the woman. \"It's she. Here, this way!\"\n\nBut Pierre was not listening to the woman. He had for some seconds been\nintently watching what was going on a few steps away. He was looking at\nthe Armenian family and at two French soldiers who had gone up to them.\nOne of these, a nimble little man, was wearing a blue coat tied round\nthe waist with a rope. He had a nightcap on his head and his feet were\nbare. The other, whose appearance particularly struck Pierre, was a\nlong, lank, round-shouldered, fair-haired man, slow in his movements and\nwith an idiotic expression of face. He wore a woman's loose gown of\nfrieze, blue trousers, and large torn Hessian boots. The little\nbarefooted Frenchman in the blue coat went up to the Armenians and,\nsaying something, immediately seized the old man by his legs and the old\nman at once began pulling off his boots. The other in the frieze gown\nstopped in front of the beautiful Armenian girl and with his hands in\nhis pockets stood staring at her, motionless and silent.\n\n\"Here, take the child!\" said Pierre peremptorily and hurriedly to the\nwoman, handing the little girl to her. \"Give her back to them, give her\nback!\" he almost shouted, putting the child, who began screaming, on the\nground, and again looking at the Frenchman and the Armenian family.\n\nThe old man was already sitting barefoot. The little Frenchman had\nsecured his second boot and was slapping one boot against the other. The\nold man was saying something in a voice broken by sobs, but Pierre\ncaught but a glimpse of this, his whole attention was directed to the\nFrenchman in the frieze gown who meanwhile, swaying slowly from side to\nside, had drawn nearer to the young woman and taking his hands from his\npockets had seized her by the neck.\n\nThe beautiful Armenian still sat motionless and in the same attitude,\nwith her long lashes drooping as if she did not see or feel what the\nsoldier was doing to her.\n\nWhile Pierre was running the few steps that separated him from the\nFrenchman, the tall marauder in the frieze gown was already tearing from\nher neck the necklace the young Armenian was wearing, and the young\nwoman, clutching at her neck, screamed piercingly.\n\n\"Let that woman alone!\" exclaimed Pierre hoarsely in a furious voice,\nseizing the soldier by his round shoulders and throwing him aside.\n\nThe soldier fell, got up, and ran away. But his comrade, throwing down\nthe boots and drawing his sword, moved threateningly toward Pierre.\n\n\"Voyons, Pas de betises!\" * he cried.\n\n\n* \"Look here, no nonsense!\"\n\nPierre was in such a transport of rage that he remembered nothing and\nhis strength increased tenfold. He rushed at the barefooted Frenchman\nand, before the latter had time to draw his sword, knocked him off his\nfeet and hammered him with his fists. Shouts of approval were heard from\nthe crowd around, and at the same moment a mounted patrol of French\nuhlans appeared from round the corner. The uhlans came up at a trot to\nPierre and the Frenchman and surrounded them. Pierre remembered nothing\nof what happened after that. He only remembered beating someone and\nbeing beaten and finally feeling that his hands were bound and that a\ncrowd of French soldiers stood around him and were searching him.\n\n\"Lieutenant, he has a dagger,\" were the first words Pierre understood.\n\n\"Ah, a weapon?\" said the officer and turned to the barefooted soldier\nwho had been arrested with Pierre. \"All right, you can tell all about it\nat the court-martial.\" Then he turned to Pierre. \"Do you speak French?\"\n\nPierre looked around him with bloodshot eyes and did not reply. His face\nprobably looked very terrible, for the officer said something in a\nwhisper and four more uhlans left the ranks and placed themselves on\nboth sides of Pierre.\n\n\"Do you speak French?\" the officer asked again, keeping at a distance\nfrom Pierre. \"Call the interpreter.\"\n\nA little man in Russian civilian clothes rode out from the ranks, and by\nhis clothes and manner of speaking Pierre at once knew him to be a\nFrench salesman from one of the Moscow shops.\n\n\"He does not look like a common man,\" said the interpreter, after a\nsearching look at Pierre.\n\n\"Ah, he looks very much like an incendiary,\" remarked the officer. \"And\nask him who he is,\" he added.\n\n\"Who are you?\" asked the interpreter in poor Russian. \"You must answer\nthe chief.\"\n\n\"I will not tell you who I am. I am your prisoner--take me!\" Pierre\nsuddenly replied in French.\n\n\"Ah, ah!\" muttered the officer with a frown. \"Well then, march!\"\n\nA crowd had collected round the uhlans. Nearest to Pierre stood the\npockmarked peasant woman with the little girl, and when the patrol\nstarted she moved forward.\n\n\"Where are they taking you to, you poor dear?\" said she. \"And the little\ngirl, the little girl, what am I to do with her if she's not theirs?\"\nsaid the woman.\n\n\"What does that woman want?\" asked the officer.\n\nPierre was as if intoxicated. His elation increased at the sight of the\nlittle girl he had saved.\n\n\"What does she want?\" he murmured. \"She is bringing me my daughter whom\nI have just saved from the flames,\" said he. \"Good-bye!\" And without\nknowing how this aimless lie had escaped him, he went along with\nresolute and triumphant steps between the French soldiers.\n\nThe French patrol was one of those sent out through the various streets\nof Moscow by Durosnel's order to put a stop to the pillage, and\nespecially to catch the incendiaries who, according to the general\nopinion which had that day originated among the higher French officers,\nwere the cause of the conflagrations. After marching through a number of\nstreets the patrol arrested five more Russian suspects: a small\nshopkeeper, two seminary students, a peasant, and a house serf, besides\nseveral looters. But of all these various suspected characters, Pierre\nwas considered to be the most suspicious of all. When they had all been\nbrought for the night to a large house on the Zubov Rampart that was\nbeing used as a guardhouse, Pierre was placed apart under strict guard.\n\nBOOK TWELVE: 1812\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nIn Petersburg at that time a complicated struggle was being carried on\nwith greater heat than ever in the highest circles, between the parties\nof Rumyantsev, the French, Marya Fedorovna, the Tsarevich, and others,\ndrowned as usual by the buzzing of the court drones. But the calm,\nluxurious life of Petersburg, concerned only about phantoms and\nreflections of real life, went on in its old way and made it hard,\nexcept by a great effort, to realize the danger and the difficult\nposition of the Russian people. There were the same receptions and\nballs, the same French theater, the same court interests and service\ninterests and intrigues as usual. Only in the very highest circles were\nattempts made to keep in mind the difficulties of the actual position.\nStories were whispered of how differently the two Empresses behaved in\nthese difficult circumstances. The Empress Marya, concerned for the\nwelfare of the charitable and educational institutions under her\npatronage, had given directions that they should all be removed to\nKazan, and the things belonging to these institutions had already been\npacked up. The Empress Elisabeth, however, when asked what instructions\nshe would be pleased to give--with her characteristic Russian patriotism\nhad replied that she could give no directions about state institutions\nfor that was the affair of the sovereign, but as far as she personally\nwas concerned she would be the last to quit Petersburg.\n\nAt Anna Pavlovna's on the twenty-sixth of August, the very day of the\nbattle of Borodino, there was a soiree, the chief feature of which was\nto be the reading of a letter from His Lordship the Bishop when sending\nthe Emperor an icon of the Venerable Sergius. It was regarded as a model\nof ecclesiastical, patriotic eloquence. Prince Vasili himself, famed for\nhis elocution, was to read it. (He used to read at the Empress'.) The\nart of his reading was supposed to lie in rolling out the words, quite\nindependently of their meaning, in a loud and singsong voice alternating\nbetween a despairing wail and a tender murmur, so that the wail fell\nquite at random on one word and the murmur on another. This reading, as\nwas always the case at Anna Pavlovna's soirees, had a political\nsignificance. That evening she expected several important personages who\nhad to be made ashamed of their visits to the French theater and aroused\nto a patriotic temper. A good many people had already arrived, but Anna\nPavlovna, not yet seeing all those whom she wanted in her drawing room,\ndid not let the reading begin but wound up the springs of a general\nconversation.\n\nThe news of the day in Petersburg was the illness of Countess Bezukhova.\nShe had fallen ill unexpectedly a few days previously, had missed\nseveral gatherings of which she was usually ornament, and was said to be\nreceiving no one, and instead of the celebrated Petersburg doctors who\nusually attended her had entrusted herself to some Italian doctor who\nwas treating her in some new and unusual way.\n\nThey all knew very well that the enchanting countess' illness arose from\nan inconvenience resulting from marrying two husbands at the same time,\nand that the Italian's cure consisted in removing such inconvenience;\nbut in Anna Pavlovna's presence no one dared to think of this or even\nappear to know it.\n\n\"They say the poor countess is very ill. The doctor says it is angina\npectoris.\"\n\n\"Angina? Oh, that's a terrible illness!\"\n\n\"They say that the rivals are reconciled, thanks to the angina...\" and\nthe word angina was repeated with great satisfaction.\n\n\"The count is pathetic, they say. He cried like a child when the doctor\ntold him the case was dangerous.\"\n\n\"Oh, it would be a terrible loss, she is an enchanting woman.\"\n\n\"You are speaking of the poor countess?\" said Anna Pavlovna, coming up\njust then. \"I sent to ask for news, and hear that she is a little\nbetter. Oh, she is certainly the most charming woman in the world,\" she\nwent on, with a smile at her own enthusiasm. \"We belong to different\ncamps, but that does not prevent my esteeming her as she deserves. She\nis very unfortunate!\" added Anna Pavlovna.\n\nSupposing that by these words Anna Pavlovna was somewhat lifting the\nveil from the secret of the countess' malady, an unwary young man\nventured to express surprise that well known doctors had not been called\nin and that the countess was being attended by a charlatan who might\nemploy dangerous remedies.\n\n\"Your information may be better than mine,\" Anna Pavlovna suddenly and\nvenomously retorted on the inexperienced young man, \"but I know on good\nauthority that this doctor is a very learned and able man. He is private\nphysician to the Queen of Spain.\"\n\nAnd having thus demolished the young man, Anna Pavlovna turned to\nanother group where Bilibin was talking about the Austrians: having\nwrinkled up his face he was evidently preparing to smooth it out again\nand utter one of his mots.\n\n\"I think it is delightful,\" he said, referring to a diplomatic note that\nhad been sent to Vienna with some Austrian banners captured from the\nFrench by Wittgenstein, \"the hero of Petropol\" as he was then called in\nPetersburg.\n\n\"What? What's that?\" asked Anna Pavlovna, securing silence for the mot,\nwhich she had heard before.\n\nAnd Bilibin repeated the actual words of the diplomatic dispatch, which\nhe had himself composed.\n\n\"The Emperor returns these Austrian banners,\" said Bilibin, \"friendly\nbanners gone astray and found on a wrong path,\" and his brow became\nsmooth again.\n\n\"Charming, charming!\" observed Prince Vasili.\n\n\"The path to Warsaw, perhaps,\" Prince Hippolyte remarked loudly and\nunexpectedly. Everybody looked at him, understanding what he meant.\nPrince Hippolyte himself glanced around with amused surprise. He knew no\nmore than the others what his words meant. During his diplomatic career\nhe had more than once noticed that such utterances were received as very\nwitty, and at every opportunity he uttered in that way the first words\nthat entered his head. \"It may turn out very well,\" he thought, \"but if\nnot, they'll know how to arrange matters.\" And really, during the\nawkward silence that ensued, that insufficiently patriotic person\nentered whom Anna Pavlovna had been waiting for and wished to convert,\nand she, smiling and shaking a finger at Hippolyte, invited Prince\nVasili to the table and bringing him two candles and the manuscript\nbegged him to begin. Everyone became silent.\n\n\"Most Gracious Sovereign and Emperor!\" Prince Vasili sternly declaimed,\nlooking round at his audience as if to inquire whether anyone had\nanything to say to the contrary. But no one said anything. \"Moscow, our\nancient capital, the New Jerusalem, receives her Christ\"--he placed a\nsudden emphasis on the word her--\"as a mother receives her zealous sons\ninto her arms, and through the gathering mists, foreseeing the brilliant\nglory of thy rule, sings in exultation, 'Hosanna, blessed is he that\ncometh!'\"\n\nPrince Vasili pronounced these last words in a tearful voice.\n\nBilibin attentively examined his nails, and many of those present\nappeared intimidated, as if asking in what they were to blame. Anna\nPavlovna whispered the next words in advance, like an old woman\nmuttering the prayer at Communion: \"Let the bold and insolent\nGoliath...\" she whispered.\n\nPrince Vasili continued.\n\n\"Let the bold and insolent Goliath from the borders of France encompass\nthe realms of Russia with death-bearing terrors; humble Faith, the sling\nof the Russian David, shall suddenly smite his head in his bloodthirsty\npride. This icon of the Venerable Sergius, the servant of God and\nzealous champion of old of our country's weal, is offered to Your\nImperial Majesty. I grieve that my waning strength prevents rejoicing in\nthe sight of your most gracious presence. I raise fervent prayers to\nHeaven that the Almighty may exalt the race of the just, and mercifully\nfulfill the desires of Your Majesty.\"\n\n\"What force! What a style!\" was uttered in approval both of reader and\nof author.\n\nAnimated by that address Anna Pavlovna's guests talked for a long time\nof the state of the fatherland and offered various conjectures as to the\nresult of the battle to be fought in a few days.\n\n\"You will see,\" said Anna Pavlovna, \"that tomorrow, on the Emperor's\nbirthday, we shall receive news. I have a favorable presentiment!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nAnna Pavlovna's presentiment was in fact fulfilled. Next day during the\nservice at the palace church in honor of the Emperor's birthday, Prince\nVolkonski was called out of the church and received a dispatch from\nPrince Kutuzov. It was Kutuzov's report, written from Tatarinova on the\nday of the battle. Kutuzov wrote that the Russians had not retreated a\nstep, that the French losses were much heavier than ours, and that he\nwas writing in haste from the field of battle before collecting full\ninformation. It followed that there must have been a victory. And at\nonce, without leaving the church, thanks were rendered to the Creator\nfor His help and for the victory.\n\nAnna Pavlovna's presentiment was justified, and all that morning a\njoyously festive mood reigned in the city. Everyone believed the victory\nto have been complete, and some even spoke of Napoleon's having been\ncaptured, of his deposition, and of the choice of a new ruler for\nFrance.\n\nIt is very difficult for events to be reflected in their real strength\nand completeness amid the conditions of court life and far from the\nscene of action. General events involuntarily group themselves around\nsome particular incident. So now the courtiers' pleasure was based as\nmuch on the fact that the news had arrived on the Emperor's birthday as\non the fact of the victory itself. It was like a successfully arranged\nsurprise. Mention was made in Kutuzov's report of the Russian losses,\namong which figured the names of Tuchkov, Bagration, and Kutaysov. In\nthe Petersburg world this sad side of the affair again involuntarily\ncentered round a single incident: Kutaysov's death. Everybody knew him,\nthe Emperor liked him, and he was young and interesting. That day\neveryone met with the words:\n\n\"What a wonderful coincidence! Just during the service. But what a loss\nKutaysov is! How sorry I am!\"\n\n\"What did I tell about Kutuzov?\" Prince Vasili now said with a prophet's\npride. \"I always said he was the only man capable of defeating\nNapoleon.\"\n\nBut next day no news arrived from the army and the public mood grew\nanxious. The courtiers suffered because of the suffering the suspense\noccasioned the Emperor.\n\n\"Fancy the Emperor's position!\" said they, and instead of extolling\nKutuzov as they had done the day before, they condemned him as the cause\nof the Emperor's anxiety. That day Prince Vasili no longer boasted of\nhis protege Kutuzov, but remained silent when the commander-in-chief was\nmentioned. Moreover, toward evening, as if everything conspired to make\nPetersburg society anxious and uneasy, a terrible piece of news was\nadded. Countess Helene Bezukhova had suddenly died of that terrible\nmalady it had been so agreeable to mention. Officially, at large\ngatherings, everyone said that Countess Bezukhova had died of a terrible\nattack of angina pectoris, but in intimate circles details were\nmentioned of how the private physician of the Queen of Spain had\nprescribed small doses of a certain drug to produce a certain effect;\nbut Helene, tortured by the fact that the old count suspected her and\nthat her husband to whom she had written (that wretched, profligate\nPierre) had not replied, had suddenly taken a very large dose of the\ndrug, and had died in agony before assistance could be rendered her. It\nwas said that Prince Vasili and the old count had turned upon the\nItalian, but the latter had produced such letters from the unfortunate\ndeceased that they had immediately let the matter drop.\n\nTalk in general centered round three melancholy facts: the Emperor's\nlack of news, the loss of Kutaysov, and the death of Helene.\n\nOn the third day after Kutuzov's report a country gentleman arrived from\nMoscow, and news of the surrender of Moscow to the French spread through\nthe whole town. This was terrible! What a position for the Emperor to be\nin! Kutuzov was a traitor, and Prince Vasili during the visits of\ncondolence paid to him on the occasion of his daughter's death said of\nKutuzov, whom he had formerly praised (it was excusable for him in his\ngrief to forget what he had said), that it was impossible to expect\nanything else from a blind and depraved old man.\n\n\"I only wonder that the fate of Russia could have been entrusted to such\na man.\"\n\nAs long as this news remained unofficial it was possible to doubt it,\nbut the next day the following communication was received from Count\nRostopchin:\n\nPrince Kutuzov's adjutant has brought me a letter in which he demands\npolice officers to guide the army to the Ryazan road. He writes that he\nis regretfully abandoning Moscow. Sire! Kutuzov's action decides the\nfate of the capital and of your empire! Russia will shudder to learn of\nthe abandonment of the city in which her greatness is centered and in\nwhich lie the ashes of your ancestors! I shall follow the army. I have\nhad everything removed, and it only remains for me to weep over the fate\nof my fatherland.\n\nOn receiving this dispatch the Emperor sent Prince Volkonski to Kutuzov\nwith the following rescript:\n\nPrince Michael Ilarionovich! Since the twenty-ninth of August I have\nreceived no communication from you, yet on the first of September I\nreceived from the commander-in-chief of Moscow, via Yaroslavl, the sad\nnews that you, with the army, have decided to abandon Moscow. You can\nyourself imagine the effect this news has had on me, and your silence\nincreases my astonishment. I am sending this by Adjutant-General Prince\nVolkonski, to hear from you the situation of the army and the reasons\nthat have induced you to take this melancholy decision.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nNine days after the abandonment of Moscow, a messenger from Kutuzov\nreached Petersburg with the official announcement of that event. This\nmessenger was Michaud, a Frenchman who did not know Russian, but who was\nquoique etranger, russe de coeur et d'ame, * as he said of himself.\n\n\n* Though a foreigner, Russian in heart and soul.\n\nThe Emperor at once received this messenger in his study at the palace\non Stone Island. Michaud, who had never seen Moscow before the campaign\nand who did not know Russian, yet felt deeply moved (as he wrote) when\nhe appeared before notre tres gracieux souverain * with the news of the\nburning of Moscow, dont les flammes eclairaient sa route. *(2)\n\n\n* Our most gracious sovereign.\n\n* (2) Whose flames illumined his route.\n\nThough the source of M. Michaud's chagrin must have been different from\nthat which caused Russians to grieve, he had such a sad face when shown\ninto the Emperor's study that the latter at once asked:\n\n\"Have you brought me sad news, Colonel?\"\n\n\"Very sad, sire,\" replied Michaud, lowering his eyes with a sigh. \"The\nabandonment of Moscow.\"\n\n\"Have they surrendered my ancient capital without a battle?\" asked the\nEmperor quickly, his face suddenly flushing.\n\nMichaud respectfully delivered the message Kutuzov had entrusted to him,\nwhich was that it had been impossible to fight before Moscow, and that\nas the only remaining choice was between losing the army as well as\nMoscow, or losing Moscow alone, the field marshal had to choose the\nlatter.\n\nThe Emperor listened in silence, not looking at Michaud.\n\n\"Has the enemy entered the city?\" he asked.\n\n\"Yes, sire, and Moscow is now in ashes. I left it all in flames,\"\nreplied Michaud in a decided tone, but glancing at the Emperor he was\nfrightened by what he had done.\n\nThe Emperor began to breathe heavily and rapidly, his lower lip\ntrembled, and tears instantly appeared in his fine blue eyes.\n\nBut this lasted only a moment. He suddenly frowned, as if blaming\nhimself for his weakness, and raising his head addressed Michaud in a\nfirm voice:\n\n\"I see, Colonel, from all that is happening, that Providence requires\ngreat sacrifices of us... I am ready to submit myself in all things to\nHis will; but tell me, Michaud, how did you leave the army when it saw\nmy ancient capital abandoned without a battle? Did you not notice\ndiscouragement?...\"\n\nSeeing that his most gracious ruler was calm once more, Michaud also\ngrew calm, but was not immediately ready to reply to the Emperor's\ndirect and relevant question which required a direct answer.\n\n\"Sire, will you allow me to speak frankly as befits a loyal soldier?\" he\nasked to gain time.\n\n\"Colonel, I always require it,\" replied the Emperor. \"Conceal nothing\nfrom me, I wish to know absolutely how things are.\"\n\n\"Sire!\" said Michaud with a subtle, scarcely perceptible smile on his\nlips, having now prepared a well-phrased reply, \"sire, I left the whole\narmy, from its chiefs to the lowest soldier, without exception in\ndesperate and agonized terror...\"\n\n\"How is that?\" the Emperor interrupted him, frowning sternly. \"Would\nmisfortune make my Russians lose heart?... Never!\"\n\nMichaud had only waited for this to bring out the phrase he had\nprepared.\n\n\"Sire,\" he said, with respectful playfulness, \"they are only afraid lest\nYour Majesty, in the goodness of your heart, should allow yourself to be\npersuaded to make peace. They are burning for the combat,\" declared this\nrepresentative of the Russian nation, \"and to prove to Your Majesty by\nthe sacrifice of their lives how devoted they are....\"\n\n\"Ah!\" said the Emperor reassured, and with a kindly gleam in his eyes,\nhe patted Michaud on the shoulder. \"You set me at ease, Colonel.\"\n\nHe bent his head and was silent for some time.\n\n\"Well, then, go back to the army,\" he said, drawing himself up to his\nfull height and addressing Michaud with a gracious and majestic gesture,\n\"and tell our brave men and all my good subjects wherever you go that\nwhen I have not a soldier left I shall put myself at the head of my\nbeloved nobility and my good peasants and so use the last resources of\nmy empire. It still offers me more than my enemies suppose,\" said the\nEmperor growing more and more animated; \"but should it ever be ordained\nby Divine Providence,\" he continued, raising to heaven his fine eyes\nshining with emotion, \"that my dynasty should cease to reign on the\nthrone of my ancestors, then after exhausting all the means at my\ncommand, I shall let my beard grow to here\" (he pointed halfway down his\nchest) \"and go and eat potatoes with the meanest of my peasants, rather\nthan sign the disgrace of my country and of my beloved people whose\nsacrifices I know how to appreciate.\"\n\nHaving uttered these words in an agitated voice the Emperor suddenly\nturned away as if to hide from Michaud the tears that rose to his eyes,\nand went to the further end of his study. Having stood there a few\nmoments, he strode back to Michaud and pressed his arm below the elbow\nwith a vigorous movement. The Emperor's mild and handsome face was\nflushed and his eyes gleamed with resolution and anger.\n\n\"Colonel Michaud, do not forget what I say to you here, perhaps we may\nrecall it with pleasure someday... Napoleon or I,\" said the Emperor,\ntouching his breast. \"We can no longer both reign together. I have\nlearned to know him, and he will not deceive me any more....\"\n\nAnd the Emperor paused, with a frown.\n\nWhen he heard these words and saw the expression of firm resolution in\nthe Emperor's eyes, Michaud--quoique etranger, russe de coeur et d'ame--\nat that solemn moment felt himself enraptured by all that he had heard\n(as he used afterwards to say), and gave expression to his own feelings\nand those of the Russian people whose representative he considered\nhimself to be, in the following words:\n\n\"Sire!\" said he, \"Your Majesty is at this moment signing the glory of\nthe nation and the salvation of Europe!\"\n\nWith an inclination of the head the Emperor dismissed him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nIt is natural for us who were not living in those days to imagine that\nwhen half Russia had been conquered and the inhabitants were fleeing to\ndistant provinces, and one levy after another was being raised for the\ndefense of the fatherland, all Russians from the greatest to the least\nwere solely engaged in sacrificing themselves, saving their fatherland,\nor weeping over its downfall. The tales and descriptions of that time\nwithout exception speak only of the self-sacrifice, patriotic devotion,\ndespair, grief, and the heroism of the Russians. But it was not really\nso. It appears so to us because we see only the general historic\ninterest of that time and do not see all the personal human interests\nthat people had. Yet in reality those personal interests of the moment\nso much transcend the general interests that they always prevent the\npublic interest from being felt or even noticed. Most of the people at\nthat time paid no attention to the general progress of events but were\nguided only by their private interests, and they were the very people\nwhose activities at that period were most useful.\n\nThose who tried to understand the general course of events and to take\npart in it by self-sacrifice and heroism were the most useless members\nof society, they saw everything upside down, and all they did for the\ncommon good turned out to be useless and foolish--like Pierre's and\nMamonov's regiments which looted Russian villages, and the lint the\nyoung ladies prepared and that never reached the wounded, and so on.\nEven those, fond of intellectual talk and of expressing their feelings,\nwho discussed Russia's position at the time involuntarily introduced\ninto their conversation either a shade of pretense and falsehood or\nuseless condemnation and anger directed against people accused of\nactions no one could possibly be guilty of. In historic events the rule\nforbidding us to eat of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge is specially\napplicable. Only unconscious action bears fruit, and he who plays a part\nin an historic event never understands its significance. If he tries to\nrealize it his efforts are fruitless.\n\nThe more closely a man was engaged in the events then taking place in\nRussia the less did he realize their significance. In Petersburg and in\nthe provinces at a distance from Moscow, ladies, and gentlemen in\nmilitia uniforms, wept for Russia and its ancient capital and talked of\nself-sacrifice and so on; but in the army which retired beyond Moscow\nthere was little talk or thought of Moscow, and when they caught sight\nof its burned ruins no one swore to be avenged on the French, but they\nthought about their next pay, their next quarters, of Matreshka the\nvivandiere, and like matters.\n\nAs the war had caught him in the service, Nicholas Rostov took a close\nand prolonged part in the defense of his country, but did so casually,\nwithout any aim at self-sacrifice, and he therefore looked at what was\ngoing on in Russia without despair and without dismally racking his\nbrains over it. Had he been asked what he thought of the state of\nRussia, he would have said that it was not his business to think about\nit, that Kutuzov and others were there for that purpose, but that he had\nheard that the regiments were to be made up to their full strength, that\nfighting would probably go on for a long time yet, and that things being\nso it was quite likely he might be in command of a regiment in a couple\nof years' time.\n\nAs he looked at the matter in this way, he learned that he was being\nsent to Voronezh to buy remounts for his division, not only without\nregret at being prevented from taking part in the coming battle, but\nwith the greatest pleasure--which he did not conceal and which his\ncomrades fully understood.\n\nA few days before the battle of Borodino, Nicholas received the\nnecessary money and warrants, and having sent some hussars on in\nadvance, he set out with post horses for Voronezh.\n\nOnly a man who has experienced it--that is, has passed some months\ncontinuously in an atmosphere of campaigning and war--can understand the\ndelight Nicholas felt when he escaped from the region covered by the\narmy's foraging operations, provision trains, and hospitals. When--free\nfrom soldiers, wagons, and the filthy traces of a camp--he saw villages\nwith peasants and peasant women, gentlemen's country houses, fields\nwhere cattle were grazing, posthouses with stationmasters asleep in\nthem, he rejoiced as though seeing all this for the first time. What for\na long while specially surprised and delighted him were the women, young\nand healthy, without a dozen officers making up to each of them; women,\ntoo, who were pleased and flattered that a passing officer should joke\nwith them.\n\nIn the highest spirits Nicholas arrived at night at a hotel in Voronezh,\nordered things he had long been deprived of in camp, and next day, very\nclean-shaven and in a full-dress uniform he had not worn for a long\ntime, went to present himself to the authorities.\n\nThe commander of the militia was a civilian general, an old man who was\nevidently pleased with his military designation and rank. He received\nNicholas brusquely (imagining this to be characteristically military)\nand questioned him with an important air, as if considering the general\nprogress of affairs and approving and disapproving with full right to do\nso. Nicholas was in such good spirits that this merely amused him.\n\nFrom the commander of the militia he drove to the governor. The governor\nwas a brisk little man, very simple and affable. He indicated the stud\nfarms at which Nicholas might procure horses, recommended to him a horse\ndealer in the town and a landowner fourteen miles out of town who had\nthe best horses, and promised to assist him in every way.\n\n\"You are Count Ilya Rostov's son? My wife was a great friend of your\nmother's. We are at home on Thursdays--today is Thursday, so please come\nand see us quite informally,\" said the governor, taking leave of him.\n\nImmediately on leaving the governor's, Nicholas hired post horses and,\ntaking his squadron quartermaster with him, drove at a gallop to the\nlandowner, fourteen miles away, who had the stud. Everything seemed to\nhim pleasant and easy during that first part of his stay in Voronezh\nand, as usually happens when a man is in a pleasant state of mind,\neverything went well and easily.\n\nThe landowner to whom Nicholas went was a bachelor, an old cavalryman, a\nhorse fancier, a sportsman, the possessor of some century-old brandy and\nsome old Hungarian wine, who had a snuggery where he smoked, and who\nowned some splendid horses.\n\nIn very few words Nicholas bought seventeen picked stallions for six\nthousand rubles--to serve, as he said, as samples of his remounts. After\ndining and taking rather too much of the Hungarian wine, Nicholas--\nhaving exchanged kisses with the landowner, with whom he was already on\nthe friendliest terms--galloped back over abominable roads, in the\nbrightest frame of mind, continually urging on the driver so as to be in\ntime for the governor's party.\n\nWhen he had changed, poured water over his head, and scented himself,\nNicholas arrived at the governor's rather late, but with the phrase\n\"better late than never\" on his lips.\n\nIt was not a ball, nor had dancing been announced, but everyone knew\nthat Catherine Petrovna would play valses and the ecossaise on the\nclavichord and that there would be dancing, and so everyone had come as\nto a ball.\n\nProvincial life in 1812 went on very much as usual, but with this\ndifference, that it was livelier in the towns in consequence of the\narrival of many wealthy families from Moscow, and as in everything that\nwent on in Russia at that time a special recklessness was noticeable, an\n\"in for a penny, in for a pound--who cares?\" spirit, and the inevitable\nsmall talk, instead of turning on the weather and mutual acquaintances,\nnow turned on Moscow, the army, and Napoleon.\n\nThe society gathered together at the governor's was the best in\nVoronezh.\n\nThere were a great many ladies and some of Nicholas' Moscow\nacquaintances, but there were no men who could at all vie with the\ncavalier of St. George, the hussar remount officer, the good-natured and\nwell-bred Count Rostov. Among the men was an Italian prisoner, an\nofficer of the French army; and Nicholas felt that the presence of that\nprisoner enhanced his own importance as a Russian hero. The Italian was,\nas it were, a war trophy. Nicholas felt this, it seemed to him that\neveryone regarded the Italian in the same light, and he treated him\ncordially though with dignity and restraint.\n\nAs soon as Nicholas entered in his hussar uniform, diffusing around him\na fragrance of perfume and wine, and had uttered the words \"better late\nthan never\" and heard them repeated several times by others, people\nclustered around him; all eyes turned on him, and he felt at once that\nhe had entered into his proper position in the province--that of a\nuniversal favorite: a very pleasant position, and intoxicatingly so\nafter his long privations. At posting stations, at inns, and in the\nlandowner's snuggery, maidservants had been flattered by his notice, and\nhere too at the governor's party there were (as it seemed to Nicholas)\nan inexhaustible number of pretty young women, married and unmarried,\nimpatiently awaiting his notice. The women and girls flirted with him\nand, from the first day, the people concerned themselves to get this\nfine young daredevil of an hussar married and settled down. Among these\nwas the governor's wife herself, who welcomed Rostov as a near relative\nand called him \"Nicholas.\"\n\nCatherine Petrovna did actually play valses and the ecossaise, and\ndancing began in which Nicholas still further captivated the provincial\nsociety by his agility. His particularly free manner of dancing even\nsurprised them all. Nicholas was himself rather surprised at the way he\ndanced that evening. He had never danced like that in Moscow and would\neven have considered such a very free and easy manner improper and in\nbad form, but here he felt it incumbent on him to astonish them all by\nsomething unusual, something they would have to accept as the regular\nthing in the capital though new to them in the provinces.\n\nAll the evening Nicholas paid attention to a blue-eyed, plump and\npleasing little blonde, the wife of one of the provincial officials.\nWith the naive conviction of young men in a merry mood that other men's\nwives were created for them, Rostov did not leave the lady's side and\ntreated her husband in a friendly and conspiratorial style, as if,\nwithout speaking of it, they knew how capitally Nicholas and the lady\nwould get on together. The husband, however, did not seem to share that\nconviction and tried to behave morosely with Rostov. But the latter's\ngood-natured naivete was so boundless that sometimes even he\ninvoluntarily yielded to Nicholas' good humor. Toward the end of the\nevening, however, as the wife's face grew more flushed and animated, the\nhusband's became more and more melancholy and solemn, as though there\nwere but a given amount of animation between them and as the wife's\nshare increased the husband's diminished.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nNicholas sat leaning slightly forward in an armchair, bending closely\nover the blonde lady and paying her mythological compliments with a\nsmile that never left his face. Jauntily shifting the position of his\nlegs in their tight riding breeches, diffusing an odor of perfume, and\nadmiring his partner, himself, and the fine outlines of his legs in\ntheir well-fitting Hessian boots, Nicholas told the blonde lady that he\nwished to run away with a certain lady here in Voronezh.\n\n\"Which lady?\"\n\n\"A charming lady, a divine one. Her eyes\" (Nicholas looked at his\npartner) \"are blue, her mouth coral and ivory; her figure\" (he glanced\nat her shoulders) \"like Diana's....\"\n\nThe husband came up and sullenly asked his wife what she was talking\nabout.\n\n\"Ah, Nikita Ivanych!\" cried Nicholas, rising politely, and as if wishing\nNikita Ivanych to share his joke, he began to tell him of his intention\nto elope with a blonde lady.\n\nThe husband smiled gloomily, the wife gaily. The governor's good-natured\nwife came up with a look of disapproval.\n\n\"Anna Ignatyevna wants to see you, Nicholas,\" said she, pronouncing the\nname so that Nicholas at once understood that Anna Ignatyevna was a very\nimportant person. \"Come, Nicholas! You know you let me call you so?\"\n\n\"Oh, yes, Aunt. Who is she?\"\n\n\"Anna Ignatyevna Malvintseva. She has heard from her niece how you\nrescued her... Can you guess?\"\n\n\"I rescued such a lot of them!\" said Nicholas.\n\n\"Her niece, Princess Bolkonskaya. She is here in Voronezh with her aunt.\nOho! How you blush. Why, are...?\"\n\n\"Not a bit! Please don't, Aunt!\"\n\n\"Very well, very well!... Oh, what a fellow you are!\"\n\nThe governor's wife led him up to a tall and very stout old lady with a\nblue headdress, who had just finished her game of cards with the most\nimportant personages of the town. This was Malvintseva, Princess Mary's\naunt on her mother's side, a rich, childless widow who always lived in\nVoronezh. When Rostov approached her she was standing settling up for\nthe game. She looked at him and, screwing up her eyes sternly, continued\nto upbraid the general who had won from her.\n\n\"Very pleased, mon cher,\" she then said, holding out her hand to\nNicholas. \"Pray come and see me.\"\n\nAfter a few words about Princess Mary and her late father, whom\nMalvintseva had evidently not liked, and having asked what Nicholas knew\nof Prince Andrew, who also was evidently no favorite of hers, the\nimportant old lady dismissed Nicholas after repeating her invitation to\ncome to see her.\n\nNicholas promised to come and blushed again as he bowed. At the mention\nof Princess Mary he experienced a feeling of shyness and even of fear,\nwhich he himself did not understand.\n\nWhen he had parted from Malvintseva Nicholas wished to return to the\ndancing, but the governor's little wife placed her plump hand on his\nsleeve and, saying that she wanted to have a talk with him, led him to\nher sitting room, from which those who were there immediately withdrew\nso as not to be in her way.\n\n\"Do you know, dear boy,\" began the governor's wife with a serious\nexpression on her kind little face, \"that really would be the match for\nyou: would you like me to arrange it?\"\n\n\"Whom do you mean, Aunt?\" asked Nicholas.\n\n\"I will make a match for you with the princess. Catherine Petrovna\nspeaks of Lily, but I say, no--the princess! Do you want me to do it? I\nam sure your mother will be grateful to me. What a charming girl she is,\nreally! And she is not at all so plain, either.\"\n\n\"Not at all,\" replied Nicholas as if offended at the idea. \"As befits a\nsoldier, Aunt, I don't force myself on anyone or refuse anything,\" he\nsaid before he had time to consider what he was saying.\n\n\"Well then, remember, this is not a joke!\"\n\n\"Of course not!\"\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" the governor's wife said as if talking to herself. \"But, my\ndear boy, among other things you are too attentive to the other, the\nblonde. One is sorry for the husband, really....\"\n\n\"Oh no, we are good friends with him,\" said Nicholas in the simplicity\nof his heart; it did not enter his head that a pastime so pleasant to\nhimself might not be pleasant to someone else.\n\n\"But what nonsense I have been saying to the governor's wife!\" thought\nNicholas suddenly at supper. \"She will really begin to arrange a\nmatch... and Sonya...?\" And on taking leave of the governor's wife, when\nshe again smilingly said to him, \"Well then, remember!\" he drew her\naside.\n\n\"But see here, to tell the truth, Aunt...\"\n\n\"What is it, my dear? Come, let's sit down here,\" said she.\n\nNicholas suddenly felt a desire and need to tell his most intimate\nthoughts (which he would not have told to his mother, his sister, or his\nfriend) to this woman who was almost a stranger. When he afterwards\nrecalled that impulse to unsolicited and inexplicable frankness which\nhad very important results for him, it seemed to him--as it seems to\neveryone in such cases--that it was merely some silly whim that seized\nhim: yet that burst of frankness, together with other trifling events,\nhad immense consequences for him and for all his family.\n\n\"You see, Aunt, Mamma has long wanted me to marry an heiress, but the\nvery idea of marrying for money is repugnant to me.\"\n\n\"Oh yes, I understand,\" said the governor's wife.\n\n\"But Princess Bolkonskaya--that's another matter. I will tell you the\ntruth. In the first place I like her very much, I feel drawn to her; and\nthen, after I met her under such circumstances--so strangely, the idea\noften occurred to me: 'This is fate.' Especially if you remember that\nMamma had long been thinking of it; but I had never happened to meet her\nbefore, somehow it had always happened that we did not meet. And as long\nas my sister Natasha was engaged to her brother it was of course out of\nthe question for me to think of marrying her. And it must needs happen\nthat I should meet her just when Natasha's engagement had been broken\noff... and then everything... So you see... I never told this to anyone\nand never will, only to you.\"\n\nThe governor's wife pressed his elbow gratefully.\n\n\"You know Sonya, my cousin? I love her, and promised to marry her, and\nwill do so.... So you see there can be no question about-\" said Nicholas\nincoherently and blushing.\n\n\"My dear boy, what a way to look at it! You know Sonya has nothing and\nyou yourself say your Papa's affairs are in a very bad way. And what\nabout your mother? It would kill her, that's one thing. And what sort of\nlife would it be for Sonya--if she's a girl with a heart? Your mother in\ndespair, and you all ruined.... No, my dear, you and Sonya ought to\nunderstand that.\"\n\nNicholas remained silent. It comforted him to hear these arguments.\n\n\"All the same, Aunt, it is impossible,\" he rejoined with a sigh, after a\nshort pause. \"Besides, would the princess have me? And besides, she is\nnow in mourning. How can one think of it!\"\n\n\"But you don't suppose I'm going to get you married at once? There is\nalways a right way of doing things,\" replied the governor's wife.\n\n\"What a matchmaker you are, Aunt...\" said Nicholas, kissing her plump\nlittle hand.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nOn reaching Moscow after her meeting with Rostov, Princess Mary had\nfound her nephew there with his tutor, and a letter from Prince Andrew\ngiving her instructions how to get to her Aunt Malvintseva at Voronezh.\nThat feeling akin to temptation which had tormented her during her\nfather's illness, since his death, and especially since her meeting with\nRostov was smothered by arrangements for the journey, anxiety about her\nbrother, settling in a new house, meeting new people, and attending to\nher nephew's education. She was sad. Now, after a month passed in quiet\nsurroundings, she felt more and more deeply the loss of her father which\nwas associated in her mind with the ruin of Russia. She was agitated and\nincessantly tortured by the thought of the dangers to which her brother,\nthe only intimate person now remaining to her, was exposed. She was\nworried too about her nephew's education for which she had always felt\nherself incompetent, but in the depths of her soul she felt at peace--a\npeace arising from consciousness of having stifled those personal dreams\nand hopes that had been on the point of awakening within her and were\nrelated to her meeting with Rostov.\n\nThe day after her party the governor's wife came to see Malvintseva and,\nafter discussing her plan with the aunt, remarked that though under\npresent circumstances a formal betrothal was, of course, not to be\nthought of, all the same the young people might be brought together and\ncould get to know one another. Malvintseva expressed approval, and the\ngovernor's wife began to speak of Rostov in Mary's presence, praising\nhim and telling how he had blushed when Princess Mary's name was\nmentioned. But Princess Mary experienced a painful rather than a joyful\nfeeling--her mental tranquillity was destroyed, and desires, doubts,\nself-reproach, and hopes reawoke.\n\nDuring the two days that elapsed before Rostov called, Princess Mary\ncontinually thought of how she ought to behave to him. First she decided\nnot to come to the drawing room when he called to see her aunt--that it\nwould not be proper for her, in her deep mourning, to receive visitors;\nthen she thought this would be rude after what he had done for her; then\nit occurred to her that her aunt and the governor's wife had intentions\nconcerning herself and Rostov--their looks and words at times seemed to\nconfirm this supposition--then she told herself that only she, with her\nsinful nature, could think this of them: they could not forget that\nsituated as she was, while still wearing deep mourning, such matchmaking\nwould be an insult to her and to her father's memory. Assuming that she\ndid go down to see him, Princess Mary imagined the words he would say to\nher and what she would say to him, and these words sometimes seemed\nundeservedly cold and then to mean too much. More than anything she\nfeared lest the confusion she felt might overwhelm her and betray her as\nsoon as she saw him.\n\nBut when on Sunday after church the footman announced in the drawing\nroom that Count Rostov had called, the princess showed no confusion,\nonly a slight blush suffused her cheeks and her eyes lit up with a new\nand radiant light.\n\n\"You have met him, Aunt?\" said she in a calm voice, unable herself to\nunderstand that she could be outwardly so calm and natural.\n\nWhen Rostov entered the room, the princess dropped her eyes for an\ninstant, as if to give the visitor time to greet her aunt, and then just\nas Nicholas turned to her she raised her head and met his look with\nshining eyes. With a movement full of dignity and grace she half rose\nwith a smile of pleasure, held out her slender, delicate hand to him,\nand began to speak in a voice in which for the first time new deep\nwomanly notes vibrated. Mademoiselle Bourienne, who was in the drawing\nroom, looked at Princess Mary in bewildered surprise. Herself a\nconsummate coquette, she could not have maneuvered better on meeting a\nman she wished to attract.\n\n\"Either black is particularly becoming to her or she really has greatly\nimproved without my having noticed it. And above all, what tact and\ngrace!\" thought Mademoiselle Bourienne.\n\nHad Princess Mary been capable of reflection at that moment, she would\nhave been more surprised than Mademoiselle Bourienne at the change that\nhad taken place in herself. From the moment she recognized that dear,\nloved face, a new life force took possession of her and compelled her to\nspeak and act apart from her own will. From the time Rostov entered, her\nface became suddenly transformed. It was as if a light had been kindled\nin a carved and painted lantern and the intricate, skillful, artistic\nwork on its sides, that previously seemed dark, coarse, and meaningless,\nwas suddenly shown up in unexpected and striking beauty. For the first\ntime all that pure, spiritual, inward travail through which she had\nlived appeared on the surface. All her inward labor, her dissatisfaction\nwith herself, her sufferings, her strivings after goodness, her\nmeekness, love, and self-sacrifice--all this now shone in those radiant\neyes, in her delicate smile, and in every trait of her gentle face.\n\nRostov saw all this as clearly as if he had known her whole life. He\nfelt that the being before him was quite different from, and better\nthan, anyone he had met before, and above all better than himself.\n\nTheir conversation was very simple and unimportant. They spoke of the\nwar, and like everyone else unconsciously exaggerated their sorrow about\nit; they spoke of their last meeting--Nicholas trying to change the\nsubject--they talked of the governor's kind wife, of Nicholas'\nrelations, and of Princess Mary's.\n\nShe did not talk about her brother, diverting the conversation as soon\nas her aunt mentioned Andrew. Evidently she could speak of Russia's\nmisfortunes with a certain artificiality, but her brother was too near\nher heart and she neither could nor would speak lightly of him. Nicholas\nnoticed this, as he noticed every shade of Princess Mary's character\nwith an observation unusual to him, and everything confirmed his\nconviction that she was a quite unusual and extraordinary being.\nNicholas blushed and was confused when people spoke to him about the\nprincess (as she did when he was mentioned) and even when he thought of\nher, but in her presence he felt quite at ease, and said not at all what\nhe had prepared, but what, quite appropriately, occurred to him at the\nmoment.\n\nWhen a pause occurred during his short visit, Nicholas, as is usual when\nthere are children, turned to Prince Andrew's little son, caressing him\nand asking whether he would like to be an hussar. He took the boy on his\nknee, played with him, and looked round at Princess Mary. With a\nsoftened, happy, timid look she watched the boy she loved in the arms of\nthe man she loved. Nicholas also noticed that look and, as if\nunderstanding it, flushed with pleasure and began to kiss the boy with\ngood natured playfulness.\n\nAs she was in mourning Princess Mary did not go out into society, and\nNicholas did not think it the proper thing to visit her again; but all\nthe same the governor's wife went on with her matchmaking, passing on to\nNicholas the flattering things Princess Mary said of him and vice versa,\nand insisting on his declaring himself to Princess Mary. For this\npurpose she arranged a meeting between the young people at the bishop's\nhouse before Mass.\n\nThough Rostov told the governor's wife that he would not make any\ndeclaration to Princess Mary, he promised to go.\n\nAs at Tilsit Rostov had not allowed himself to doubt that what everybody\nconsidered right was right, so now, after a short but sincere struggle\nbetween his effort to arrange his life by his own sense of justice, and\nin obedient submission to circumstances, he chose the latter and yielded\nto the power he felt irresistibly carrying him he knew not where. He\nknew that after his promise to Sonya it would be what he deemed base to\ndeclare his feelings to Princess Mary. And he knew that he would never\nact basely. But he also knew (or rather felt at the bottom of his heart)\nthat by resigning himself now to the force of circumstances and to those\nwho were guiding him, he was not only doing nothing wrong, but was doing\nsomething very important--more important than anything he had ever done\nin his life.\n\nAfter meeting Princess Mary, though the course of his life went on\nexternally as before, all his former amusements lost their charm for him\nand he often thought about her. But he never thought about her as he had\nthought of all the young ladies without exception whom he had met in\nsociety, nor as he had for a long time, and at one time rapturously,\nthought about Sonya. He had pictured each of those young ladies as\nalmost all honest-hearted young men do, that is, as a possible wife,\nadapting her in his imagination to all the conditions of married life: a\nwhite dressing gown, his wife at the tea table, his wife's carriage,\nlittle ones, Mamma and Papa, their relations to her, and so on--and\nthese pictures of the future had given him pleasure. But with Princess\nMary, to whom they were trying to get him engaged, he could never\npicture anything of future married life. If he tried, his pictures\nseemed incongruous and false. It made him afraid.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nThe dreadful news of the battle of Borodino, of our losses in killed and\nwounded, and the still more terrible news of the loss of Moscow reached\nVoronezh in the middle of September. Princess Mary, having learned of\nher brother's wound only from the Gazette and having no definite news of\nhim, prepared (so Nicholas heard, he had not seen her again himself) to\nset off in search of Prince Andrew.\n\nWhen he received the news of the battle of Borodino and the abandonment\nof Moscow, Rostov was not seized with despair, anger, the desire for\nvengeance, or any feeling of that kind, but everything in Voronezh\nsuddenly seemed to him dull and tiresome, and he experienced an\nindefinite feeling of shame and awkwardness. The conversations he heard\nseemed to him insincere; he did not know how to judge all these affairs\nand felt that only in the regiment would everything again become clear\nto him. He made haste to finish buying the horses, and often became\nunreasonably angry with his servant and squadron quartermaster.\n\nA few days before his departure a special thanksgiving, at which\nNicholas was present, was held in the cathedral for the Russian victory.\nHe stood a little behind the governor and held himself with military\ndecorum through the service, meditating on a great variety of subjects.\nWhen the service was over the governor's wife beckoned him to her.\n\n\"Have you seen the princess?\" she asked, indicating with a movement of\nher head a lady standing on the opposite side, beyond the choir.\n\nNicholas immediately recognized Princess Mary not so much by the profile\nhe saw under her bonnet as by the feeling of solicitude, timidity, and\npity that immediately overcame him. Princess Mary, evidently engrossed\nby her thoughts, was crossing herself for the last time before leaving\nthe church.\n\nNicholas looked at her face with surprise. It was the same face he had\nseen before, there was the same general expression of refined, inner,\nspiritual labor, but now it was quite differently lit up. There was a\npathetic expression of sorrow, prayer, and hope in it. As had occurred\nbefore when she was present, Nicholas went up to her without waiting to\nbe prompted by the governor's wife and not asking himself whether or not\nit was right and proper to address her here in church, and told her he\nhad heard of her trouble and sympathized with his whole soul. As soon as\nshe heard his voice a vivid glow kindled in her face, lighting up both\nher sorrow and her joy.\n\n\"There is one thing I wanted to tell you, Princess,\" said Rostov. \"It is\nthat if your brother, Prince Andrew Nikolievich, were not living, it\nwould have been at once announced in the Gazette, as he is a colonel.\"\n\nThe princess looked at him, not grasping what he was saying, but cheered\nby the expression of regretful sympathy on his face.\n\n\"And I have known so many cases of a splinter wound\" (the Gazette said\nit was a shell) \"either proving fatal at once or being very slight,\"\ncontinued Nicholas. \"We must hope for the best, and I am sure...\"\n\nPrincess Mary interrupted him.\n\n\"Oh, that would be so dread...\" she began and, prevented by agitation\nfrom finishing, she bent her head with a movement as graceful as\neverything she did in his presence and, looking up at him gratefully,\nwent out, following her aunt.\n\nThat evening Nicholas did not go out, but stayed at home to settle some\naccounts with the horse dealers. When he had finished that business it\nwas already too late to go anywhere but still too early to go to bed,\nand for a long time he paced up and down the room, reflecting on his\nlife, a thing he rarely did.\n\nPrincess Mary had made an agreeable impression on him when he had met\nher in Smolensk province. His having encountered her in such exceptional\ncircumstances, and his mother having at one time mentioned her to him as\na good match, had drawn his particular attention to her. When he met her\nagain in Voronezh the impression she made on him was not merely pleasing\nbut powerful. Nicholas had been struck by the peculiar moral beauty he\nobserved in her at this time. He was, however, preparing to go away and\nit had not entered his head to regret that he was thus depriving himself\nof chances of meeting her. But that day's encounter in church had, he\nfelt, sunk deeper than was desirable for his peace of mind. That pale,\nsad, refined face, that radiant look, those gentle graceful gestures,\nand especially the deep and tender sorrow expressed in all her features\nagitated him and evoked his sympathy. In men Rostov could not bear to\nsee the expression of a higher spiritual life (that was why he did not\nlike Prince Andrew) and he referred to it contemptuously as philosophy\nand dreaminess, but in Princess Mary that very sorrow which revealed the\ndepth of a whole spiritual world foreign to him was an irresistible\nattraction.\n\n\"She must be a wonderful woman. A real angel!\" he said to himself. \"Why\nam I not free? Why was I in such a hurry with Sonya?\" And he\ninvoluntarily compared the two: the lack of spirituality in the one and\nthe abundance of it in the other--a spirituality he himself lacked and\ntherefore valued most highly. He tried to picture what would happen were\nhe free. How he would propose to her and how she would become his wife.\nBut no, he could not imagine that. He felt awed, and no clear picture\npresented itself to his mind. He had long ago pictured to himself a\nfuture with Sonya, and that was all clear and simple just because it had\nall been thought out and he knew all there was in Sonya, but it was\nimpossible to picture a future with Princess Mary, because he did not\nunderstand her but simply loved her.\n\nReveries about Sonya had had something merry and playful in them, but to\ndream of Princess Mary was always difficult and a little frightening.\n\n\"How she prayed!\" he thought. \"It was plain that her whole soul was in\nher prayer. Yes, that was the prayer that moves mountains, and I am sure\nher prayer will be answered. Why don't I pray for what I want?\" he\nsuddenly thought. \"What do I want? To be free, released from Sonya...\nShe was right,\" he thought, remembering what the governor's wife had\nsaid: \"Nothing but misfortune can come of marrying Sonya. Muddles, grief\nfor Mamma... business difficulties... muddles, terrible muddles!\nBesides, I don't love her--not as I should. O, God! release me from this\ndreadful, inextricable position!\" he suddenly began to pray. \"Yes,\nprayer can move mountains, but one must have faith and not pray as\nNatasha and I used to as children, that the snow might turn into sugar--\nand then run out into the yard to see whether it had done so. No, but I\nam not praying for trifles now,\" he thought as he put his pipe down in a\ncorner, and folding his hands placed himself before the icon. Softened\nby memories of Princess Mary he began to pray as he had not done for a\nlong time. Tears were in his eyes and in his throat when the door opened\nand Lavrushka came in with some papers.\n\n\"Blockhead! Why do you come in without being called?\" cried Nicholas,\nquickly changing his attitude.\n\n\"From the governor,\" said Lavrushka in a sleepy voice. \"A courier has\narrived and there's a letter for you.\"\n\n\"Well, all right, thanks. You can go!\"\n\nNicholas took the two letters, one of which was from his mother and the\nother from Sonya. He recognized them by the handwriting and opened\nSonya's first. He had read only a few lines when he turned pale and his\neyes opened wide with fear and joy.\n\n\"No, it's not possible!\" he cried aloud.\n\nUnable to sit still he paced up and down the room holding the letter and\nreading it. He glanced through it, then read it again, and then again,\nand standing still in the middle of the room he raised his shoulders,\nstretching out his hands, with his mouth wide open and his eyes fixed.\nWhat he had just been praying for with confidence that God would hear\nhim had come to pass; but Nicholas was as much astonished as if it were\nsomething extraordinary and unexpected, and as if the very fact that it\nhad happened so quickly proved that it had not come from God to whom he\nhad prayed, but by some ordinary coincidence.\n\nThis unexpected and, as it seemed to Nicholas, quite voluntary letter\nfrom Sonya freed him from the knot that fettered him and from which\nthere had seemed no escape. She wrote that the last unfortunate events--\nthe loss of almost the whole of the Rostovs' Moscow property--and the\ncountess' repeatedly expressed wish that Nicholas should marry Princess\nBolkonskaya, together with his silence and coldness of late, had all\ncombined to make her decide to release him from his promise and set him\ncompletely free.\n\nIt would be too painful to me to think that I might be a cause of sorrow\nor discord in the family that has been so good to me (she wrote), and my\nlove has no aim but the happiness of those I love; so, Nicholas, I beg\nyou to consider yourself free, and to be assured that, in spite of\neverything, no one can love you more than does\n\nYour Sonya\n\nBoth letters were written from Troitsa. The other, from the countess,\ndescribed their last days in Moscow, their departure, the fire, and the\ndestruction of all their property. In this letter the countess also\nmentioned that Prince Andrew was among the wounded traveling with them;\nhis state was very critical, but the doctor said there was now more\nhope. Sonya and Natasha were nursing him.\n\nNext day Nicholas took his mother's letter and went to see Princess\nMary. Neither he nor she said a word about what \"Natasha nursing him\"\nmight mean, but thanks to this letter Nicholas suddenly became almost as\nintimate with the princess as if they were relations.\n\nThe following day he saw Princess Mary off on her journey to Yaroslavl,\nand a few days later left to rejoin his regiment.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nSonya's letter written from Troitsa, which had come as an answer to\nNicholas' prayer, was prompted by this: the thought of getting Nicholas\nmarried to an heiress occupied the old countess' mind more and more. She\nknew that Sonya was the chief obstacle to this happening, and Sonya's\nlife in the countess' house had grown harder and harder, especially\nafter they had received a letter from Nicholas telling of his meeting\nwith Princess Mary in Bogucharovo. The countess let no occasion slip of\nmaking humiliating or cruel allusions to Sonya.\n\nBut a few days before they left Moscow, moved and excited by all that\nwas going on, she called Sonya to her and, instead of reproaching and\nmaking demands on her, tearfully implored her to sacrifice herself and\nrepay all that the family had done for her by breaking off her\nengagement with Nicholas.\n\n\"I shall not be at peace till you promise me this.\"\n\nSonya burst into hysterical tears and replied through her sobs that she\nwould do anything and was prepared for anything, but gave no actual\npromise and could not bring herself to decide to do what was demanded of\nher. She must sacrifice herself for the family that had reared and\nbrought her up. To sacrifice herself for others was Sonya's habit. Her\nposition in the house was such that only by sacrifice could she show her\nworth, and she was accustomed to this and loved doing it. But in all her\nformer acts of self-sacrifice she had been happily conscious that they\nraised her in her own esteem and in that of others, and so made her more\nworthy of Nicholas whom she loved more than anything in the world. But\nnow they wanted her to sacrifice the very thing that constituted the\nwhole reward for her self-sacrifice and the whole meaning of her life.\nAnd for the first time she felt bitterness against those who had been\nher benefactors only to torture her the more painfully; she felt jealous\nof Natasha who had never experienced anything of this sort, had never\nneeded to sacrifice herself, but made others sacrifice themselves for\nher and yet was beloved by everybody. And for the first time Sonya felt\nthat out of her pure, quiet love for Nicholas a passionate feeling was\nbeginning to grow up which was stronger than principle, virtue, or\nreligion. Under the influence of this feeling Sonya, whose life of\ndependence had taught her involuntarily to be secretive, having answered\nthe countess in vague general terms, avoided talking with her and\nresolved to wait till she should see Nicholas, not in order to set him\nfree but on the contrary at that meeting to bind him to her forever.\n\nThe bustle and terror of the Rostovs' last days in Moscow stifled the\ngloomy thoughts that oppressed Sonya. She was glad to find escape from\nthem in practical activity. But when she heard of Prince Andrew's\npresence in their house, despite her sincere pity for him and for\nNatasha, she was seized by a joyful and superstitious feeling that God\ndid not intend her to be separated from Nicholas. She knew that Natasha\nloved no one but Prince Andrew and had never ceased to love him. She\nknew that being thrown together again under such terrible circumstances\nthey would again fall in love with one another, and that Nicholas would\nthen not be able to marry Princess Mary as they would be within the\nprohibited degrees of affinity. Despite all the terror of what had\nhappened during those last days and during the first days of their\njourney, this feeling that Providence was intervening in her personal\naffairs cheered Sonya.\n\nAt the Troitsa monastery the Rostovs first broke their journey for a\nwhole day.\n\nThree large rooms were assigned to them in the monastery hostelry, one\nof which was occupied by Prince Andrew. The wounded man was much better\nthat day and Natasha was sitting with him. In the next room sat the\ncount and countess respectfully conversing with the prior, who was\ncalling on them as old acquaintances and benefactors of the monastery.\nSonya was there too, tormented by curiosity as to what Prince Andrew and\nNatasha were talking about. She heard the sound of their voices through\nthe door. That door opened and Natasha came out, looking excited. Not\nnoticing the monk, who had risen to greet her and was drawing back the\nwide sleeve on his right arm, she went up to Sonya and took her hand.\n\n\"Natasha, what are you about? Come here!\" said the countess.\n\nNatasha went up to the monk for his blessing, and he advised her to pray\nfor aid to God and His saint.\n\nAs soon as the prior withdrew, Natasha took her friend by the hand and\nwent with her into the unoccupied room.\n\n\"Sonya, will he live?\" she asked. \"Sonya, how happy I am, and how\nunhappy!... Sonya, dovey, everything is as it used to be. If only he\nlives! He cannot... because... because... of\" and Natasha burst into\ntears.\n\n\"Yes! I knew it! Thank God!\" murmured Sonya. \"He will live.\"\n\nSonya was not less agitated than her friend by the latter's fear and\ngrief and by her own personal feelings which she shared with no one.\nSobbing, she kissed and comforted Natasha. \"If only he lives!\" she\nthought. Having wept, talked, and wiped away their tears, the two\nfriends went together to Prince Andrew's door. Natasha opened it\ncautiously and glanced into the room, Sonya standing beside her at the\nhalf-open door.\n\nPrince Andrew was lying raised high on three pillows. His pale face was\ncalm, his eyes closed, and they could see his regular breathing.\n\n\"O, Natasha!\" Sonya suddenly almost screamed, catching her companion's\narm and stepping back from the door.\n\n\"What? What is it?\" asked Natasha.\n\n\"It's that, that...\" said Sonya, with a white face and trembling lips.\n\nNatasha softly closed the door and went with Sonya to the window, not\nyet understanding what the latter was telling her.\n\n\"You remember,\" said Sonya with a solemn and frightened expression. \"You\nremember when I looked in the mirror for you... at Otradnoe at\nChristmas? Do you remember what I saw?\"\n\n\"Yes, yes!\" cried Natasha opening her eyes wide, and vaguely recalling\nthat Sonya had told her something about Prince Andrew whom she had seen\nlying down.\n\n\"You remember?\" Sonya went on. \"I saw it then and told everybody, you\nand Dunyasha. I saw him lying on a bed,\" said she, making a gesture with\nher hand and a lifted finger at each detail, \"and that he had his eyes\nclosed and was covered just with a pink quilt, and that his hands were\nfolded,\" she concluded, convincing herself that the details she had just\nseen were exactly what she had seen in the mirror.\n\nShe had in fact seen nothing then but had mentioned the first thing that\ncame into her head, but what she had invented then seemed to her now as\nreal as any other recollection. She not only remembered what she had\nthen said--that he turned to look at her and smiled and was covered with\nsomething red--but was firmly convinced that she had then seen and said\nthat he was covered with a pink quilt and that his eyes were closed.\n\n\"Yes, yes, it really was pink!\" cried Natasha, who now thought she too\nremembered the word pink being used, and saw in this the most\nextraordinary and mysterious part of the prediction.\n\n\"But what does it mean?\" she added meditatively.\n\n\"Oh, I don't know, it is all so strange,\" replied Sonya, clutching at\nher head.\n\nA few minutes later Prince Andrew rang and Natasha went to him, but\nSonya, feeling unusually excited and touched, remained at the window\nthinking about the strangeness of what had occurred.\n\nThey had an opportunity that day to send letters to the army, and the\ncountess was writing to her son.\n\n\"Sonya!\" said the countess, raising her eyes from her letter as her\nniece passed, \"Sonya, won't you write to Nicholas?\" She spoke in a soft,\ntremulous voice, and in the weary eyes that looked over her spectacles\nSonya read all that the countess meant to convey with these words. Those\neyes expressed entreaty, shame at having to ask, fear of a refusal, and\nreadiness for relentless hatred in case of such refusal.\n\nSonya went up to the countess and, kneeling down, kissed her hand.\n\n\"Yes, Mamma, I will write,\" said she.\n\nSonya was softened, excited, and touched by all that had occurred that\nday, especially by the mysterious fulfillment she had just seen of her\nvision. Now that she knew that the renewal of Natasha's relations with\nPrince Andrew would prevent Nicholas from marrying Princess Mary, she\nwas joyfully conscious of a return of that self-sacrificing spirit in\nwhich she was accustomed to live and loved to live. So with a joyful\nconsciousness of performing a magnanimous deed--interrupted several\ntimes by the tears that dimmed her velvety black eyes--she wrote that\ntouching letter the arrival of which had so amazed Nicholas.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nThe officer and soldiers who had arrested Pierre treated him with\nhostility but yet with respect, in the guardhouse to which he was taken.\nIn their attitude toward him could still be felt both uncertainty as to\nwho he might be--perhaps a very important person--and hostility as a\nresult of their recent personal conflict with him.\n\nBut when the guard was relieved next morning, Pierre felt that for the\nnew guard--both officers and men--he was not as interesting as he had\nbeen to his captors; and in fact the guard of the second day did not\nrecognize in this big, stout man in a peasant coat the vigorous person\nwho had fought so desperately with the marauder and the convoy and had\nuttered those solemn words about saving a child; they saw in him only\nNo. 17 of the captured Russians, arrested and detained for some reason\nby order of the Higher Command. If they noticed anything remarkable\nabout Pierre, it was only his unabashed, meditative concentration and\nthoughtfulness, and the way he spoke French, which struck them as\nsurprisingly good. In spite of this he was placed that day with the\nother arrested suspects, as the separate room he had occupied was\nrequired by an officer.\n\nAll the Russians confined with Pierre were men of the lowest class and,\nrecognizing him as a gentleman, they all avoided him, more especially as\nhe spoke French. Pierre felt sad at hearing them making fun of him.\n\nThat evening he learned that all these prisoners (he, probably, among\nthem) were to be tried for incendiarism. On the third day he was taken\nwith the others to a house where a French general with a white mustache\nsat with two colonels and other Frenchmen with scarves on their arms.\nWith the precision and definiteness customary in addressing prisoners,\nand which is supposed to preclude human frailty, Pierre like the others\nwas questioned as to who he was, where he had been, with what object,\nand so on.\n\nThese questions, like questions put at trials generally, left the\nessence of the matter aside, shut out the possibility of that essence's\nbeing revealed, and were designed only to form a channel through which\nthe judges wished the answers of the accused to flow so as to lead to\nthe desired result, namely a conviction. As soon as Pierre began to say\nanything that did not fit in with that aim, the channel was removed and\nthe water could flow to waste. Pierre felt, moreover, what the accused\nalways feel at their trial, perplexity as to why these questions were\nput to him. He had a feeling that it was only out of condescension or a\nkind of civility that this device of placing a channel was employed. He\nknew he was in these men's power, that only by force had they brought\nhim there, that force alone gave them the right to demand answers to\ntheir questions, and that the sole object of that assembly was to\ninculpate him. And so, as they had the power and wish to inculpate him,\nthis expedient of an inquiry and trial seemed unnecessary. It was\nevident that any answer would lead to conviction. When asked what he was\ndoing when he was arrested, Pierre replied in a rather tragic manner\nthat he was restoring to its parents a child he had saved from the\nflames. Why had he fought the marauder? Pierre answered that he \"was\nprotecting a woman,\" and that \"to protect a woman who was being insulted\nwas the duty of every man; that...\" They interrupted him, for this was\nnot to the point. Why was he in the yard of a burning house where\nwitnesses had seen him? He replied that he had gone out to see what was\nhappening in Moscow. Again they interrupted him: they had not asked\nwhere he was going, but why he was found near the fire? Who was he? they\nasked, repeating their first question, which he had declined to answer.\nAgain he replied that he could not answer it.\n\n\"Put that down, that's bad... very bad,\" sternly remarked the general\nwith the white mustache and red flushed face.\n\nOn the fourth day fires broke out on the Zubovski rampart.\n\nPierre and thirteen others were moved to the coach house of a merchant's\nhouse near the Crimean bridge. On his way through the streets Pierre\nfelt stifled by the smoke which seemed to hang over the whole city.\nFires were visible on all sides. He did not then realize the\nsignificance of the burning of Moscow, and looked at the fires with\nhorror.\n\nHe passed four days in the coach house near the Crimean bridge and\nduring that time learned, from the talk of the French soldiers, that all\nthose confined there were awaiting a decision which might come any day\nfrom the marshal. What marshal this was, Pierre could not learn from the\nsoldiers. Evidently for them \"the marshal\" represented a very high and\nrather mysterious power.\n\nThese first days, before the eighth of September when the prisoners were\nhad up for a second examination, were the hardest of all for Pierre.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nOn the eighth of September an officer--a very important one judging by\nthe respect the guards showed him--entered the coach house where the\nprisoners were. This officer, probably someone on the staff, was holding\na paper in his hand, and called over all the Russians there, naming\nPierre as \"the man who does not give his name.\" Glancing indolently and\nindifferently at all the prisoners, he ordered the officer in charge to\nhave them decently dressed and tidied up before taking them to the\nmarshal. An hour later a squad of soldiers arrived and Pierre with\nthirteen others was led to the Virgin's Field. It was a fine day, sunny\nafter rain, and the air was unusually pure. The smoke did not hang low\nas on the day when Pierre had been taken from the guardhouse on the\nZubovski rampart, but rose through the pure air in columns. No flames\nwere seen, but columns of smoke rose on all sides, and all Moscow as far\nas Pierre could see was one vast charred ruin. On all sides there were\nwaste spaces with only stoves and chimney stacks still standing, and\nhere and there the blackened walls of some brick houses. Pierre gazed at\nthe ruins and did not recognize districts he had known well. Here and\nthere he could see churches that had not been burned. The Kremlin, which\nwas not destroyed, gleamed white in the distance with its towers and the\nbelfry of Ivan the Great. The domes of the New Convent of the Virgin\nglittered brightly and its bells were ringing particularly clearly.\nThese bells reminded Pierre that it was Sunday and the feast of the\nNativity of the Virgin. But there seemed to be no one to celebrate this\nholiday: everywhere were blackened ruins, and the few Russians to be\nseen were tattered and frightened people who tried to hide when they saw\nthe French.\n\nIt was plain that the Russian nest was ruined and destroyed, but in\nplace of the Russian order of life that had been destroyed, Pierre\nunconsciously felt that a quite different, firm, French order had been\nestablished over this ruined nest. He felt this in the looks of the\nsoldiers who, marching in regular ranks briskly and gaily, were\nescorting him and the other criminals; he felt it in the looks of an\nimportant French official in a carriage and pair driven by a soldier,\nwhom they met on the way. He felt it in the merry sounds of regimental\nmusic he heard from the left side of the field, and felt and realized it\nespecially from the list of prisoners the French officer had read out\nwhen he came that morning. Pierre had been taken by one set of soldiers\nand led first to one and then to another place with dozens of other men,\nand it seemed that they might have forgotten him, or confused him with\nthe others. But no: the answers he had given when questioned had come\nback to him in his designation as \"the man who does not give his name,\"\nand under that appellation, which to Pierre seemed terrible, they were\nnow leading him somewhere with unhesitating assurance on their faces\nthat he and all the other prisoners were exactly the ones they wanted\nand that they were being taken to the proper place. Pierre felt himself\nto be an insignificant chip fallen among the wheels of a machine whose\naction he did not understand but which was working well.\n\nHe and the other prisoners were taken to the right side of the Virgin's\nField, to a large white house with an immense garden not far from the\nconvent. This was Prince Shcherbitov's house, where Pierre had often\nbeen in other days, and which, as he learned from the talk of the\nsoldiers, was now occupied by the marshal, the Duke of Eckmuhl (Davout).\n\nThey were taken to the entrance and led into the house one by one.\nPierre was the sixth to enter. He was conducted through a glass gallery,\nan anteroom, and a hall, which were familiar to him, into a long low\nstudy at the door of which stood an adjutant.\n\nDavout, spectacles on nose, sat bent over a table at the further end of\nthe room. Pierre went close up to him, but Davout, evidently consulting\na paper that lay before him, did not look up. Without raising his eyes,\nhe said in a low voice:\n\n\"Who are you?\"\n\nPierre was silent because he was incapable of uttering a word. To him\nDavout was not merely a French general, but a man notorious for his\ncruelty. Looking at his cold face, as he sat like a stern schoolmaster\nwho was prepared to wait awhile for an answer, Pierre felt that every\ninstant of delay might cost him his life; but he did not know what to\nsay. He did not venture to repeat what he had said at his first\nexamination, yet to disclose his rank and position was dangerous and\nembarrassing. So he was silent. But before he had decided what to do,\nDavout raised his head, pushed his spectacles back on his forehead,\nscrewed up his eyes, and looked intently at him.\n\n\"I know that man,\" he said in a cold, measured tone, evidently\ncalculated to frighten Pierre.\n\nThe chill that had been running down Pierre's back now seized his head\nas in a vise.\n\n\"You cannot know me, General, I have never seen you...\"\n\n\"He is a Russian spy,\" Davout interrupted, addressing another general\nwho was present, but whom Pierre had not noticed.\n\nDavout turned away. With an unexpected reverberation in his voice Pierre\nrapidly began:\n\n\"No, monseigneur,\" he said, suddenly remembering that Davout was a duke.\n\"No, monseigneur, you cannot have known me. I am a militia officer and\nhave not quitted Moscow.\"\n\n\"Your name?\" asked Davout.\n\n\"Bezukhov.\"\n\n\"What proof have I that you are not lying?\"\n\n\"Monseigneur!\" exclaimed Pierre, not in an offended but in a pleading\nvoice.\n\nDavout looked up and gazed intently at him. For some seconds they looked\nat one another, and that look saved Pierre. Apart from conditions of war\nand law, that look established human relations between the two men. At\nthat moment an immense number of things passed dimly through both their\nminds, and they realized that they were both children of humanity and\nwere brothers.\n\nAt the first glance, when Davout had only raised his head from the\npapers where human affairs and lives were indicated by numbers, Pierre\nwas merely a circumstance, and Davout could have shot him without\nburdening his conscience with an evil deed, but now he saw in him a\nhuman being. He reflected for a moment.\n\n\"How can you show me that you are telling the truth?\" said Davout\ncoldly.\n\nPierre remembered Ramballe, and named him and his regiment and the\nstreet where the house was.\n\n\"You are not what you say,\" returned Davout.\n\nIn a trembling, faltering voice Pierre began adducing proofs of the\ntruth of his statements.\n\nBut at that moment an adjutant entered and reported something to Davout.\n\nDavout brightened up at the news the adjutant brought, and began\nbuttoning up his uniform. It seemed that he had quite forgotten Pierre.\n\nWhen the adjutant reminded him of the prisoner, he jerked his head in\nPierre's direction with a frown and ordered him to be led away. But\nwhere they were to take him Pierre did not know: back to the coach house\nor to the place of execution his companions had pointed out to him as\nthey crossed the Virgin's Field.\n\nHe turned his head and saw that the adjutant was putting another\nquestion to Davout.\n\n\"Yes, of course!\" replied Davout, but what this \"yes\" meant, Pierre did\nnot know.\n\nPierre could not afterwards remember how he went, whether it was far, or\nin which direction. His faculties were quite numbed, he was stupefied,\nand noticing nothing around him went on moving his legs as the others\ndid till they all stopped and he stopped too. The only thought in his\nmind at that time was: who was it that had really sentenced him to\ndeath? Not the men on the commission that had first examined him--not\none of them wished to or, evidently, could have done it. It was not\nDavout, who had looked at him in so human a way. In another moment\nDavout would have realized that he was doing wrong, but just then the\nadjutant had come in and interrupted him. The adjutant, also, had\nevidently had no evil intent though he might have refrained from coming\nin. Then who was executing him, killing him, depriving him of life--him,\nPierre, with all his memories, aspirations, hopes, and thoughts? Who was\ndoing this? And Pierre felt that it was no one.\n\nIt was a system--a concurrence of circumstances.\n\nA system of some sort was killing him--Pierre--depriving him of life, of\neverything, annihilating him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nFrom Prince Shcherbatov's house the prisoners were led straight down the\nVirgin's Field, to the left of the nunnery, as far as a kitchen garden\nin which a post had been set up. Beyond that post a fresh pit had been\ndug in the ground, and near the post and the pit a large crowd stood in\na semicircle. The crowd consisted of a few Russians and many of\nNapoleon's soldiers who were not on duty--Germans, Italians, and\nFrenchmen, in a variety of uniforms. To the right and left of the post\nstood rows of French troops in blue uniforms with red epaulets and high\nboots and shakos.\n\nThe prisoners were placed in a certain order, according to the list\n(Pierre was sixth), and were led to the post. Several drums suddenly\nbegan to beat on both sides of them, and at that sound Pierre felt as if\npart of his soul had been torn away. He lost the power of thinking or\nunderstanding. He could only hear and see. And he had only one wish--\nthat the frightful thing that had to happen should happen quickly.\nPierre looked round at his fellow prisoners and scrutinized them.\n\nThe two first were convicts with shaven heads. One was tall and thin,\nthe other dark, shaggy, and sinewy, with a flat nose. The third was a\ndomestic serf, about forty-five years old, with grizzled hair and a\nplump, well-nourished body. The fourth was a peasant, a very handsome\nman with a broad, light-brown beard and black eyes. The fifth was a\nfactory hand, a thin, sallow-faced lad of eighteen in a loose coat.\n\nPierre heard the French consulting whether to shoot them separately or\ntwo at a time. \"In couples,\" replied the officer in command in a calm\nvoice. There was a stir in the ranks of the soldiers and it was evident\nthat they were all hurrying--not as men hurry to do something they\nunderstand, but as people hurry to finish a necessary but unpleasant and\nincomprehensible task.\n\nA French official wearing a scarf came up to the right of the row of\nprisoners and read out the sentence in Russian and in French.\n\nThen two pairs of Frenchmen approached the criminals and at the\nofficer's command took the two convicts who stood first in the row. The\nconvicts stopped when they reached the post and, while sacks were being\nbrought, looked dumbly around as a wounded beast looks at an approaching\nhuntsman. One crossed himself continually, the other scratched his back\nand made a movement of the lips resembling a smile. With hurried hands\nthe soldiers blindfolded them, drawing the sacks over their heads, and\nbound them to the post.\n\nTwelve sharpshooters with muskets stepped out of the ranks with a firm\nregular tread and halted eight paces from the post. Pierre turned away\nto avoid seeing what was going to happen. Suddenly a crackling, rolling\nnoise was heard which seemed to him louder than the most terrific\nthunder, and he looked round. There was some smoke, and the Frenchmen\nwere doing something near the pit, with pale faces and trembling hands.\nTwo more prisoners were led up. In the same way and with similar looks,\nthese two glanced vainly at the onlookers with only a silent appeal for\nprotection in their eyes, evidently unable to understand or believe what\nwas going to happen to them. They could not believe it because they\nalone knew what their life meant to them, and so they neither understood\nnor believed that it could be taken from them.\n\nAgain Pierre did not wish to look and again turned away; but again the\nsound as of a frightful explosion struck his ear, and at the same moment\nhe saw smoke, blood, and the pale, scared faces of the Frenchmen who\nwere again doing something by the post, their trembling hands impeding\none another. Pierre, breathing heavily, looked around as if asking what\nit meant. The same question was expressed in all the looks that met his.\n\nOn the faces of all the Russians and of the French soldiers and officers\nwithout exception, he read the same dismay, horror, and conflict that\nwere in his own heart. \"But who, after all, is doing this? They are all\nsuffering as I am. Who then is it? Who?\" flashed for an instant through\nhis mind.\n\n\"Sharpshooters of the 86th, forward!\" shouted someone. The fifth\nprisoner, the one next to Pierre, was led away--alone. Pierre did not\nunderstand that he was saved, that he and the rest had been brought\nthere only to witness the execution. With ever-growing horror, and no\nsense of joy or relief, he gazed at what was taking place. The fifth man\nwas the factory lad in the loose cloak. The moment they laid hands on\nhim he sprang aside in terror and clutched at Pierre. (Pierre shuddered\nand shook himself free.) The lad was unable to walk. They dragged him\nalong, holding him up under the arms, and he screamed. When they got him\nto the post he grew quiet, as if he suddenly understood something.\nWhether he understood that screaming was useless or whether he thought\nit incredible that men should kill him, at any rate he took his stand at\nthe post, waiting to be blindfolded like the others, and like a wounded\nanimal looked around him with glittering eyes.\n\nPierre was no longer able to turn away and close his eyes. His curiosity\nand agitation, like that of the whole crowd, reached the highest pitch\nat this fifth murder. Like the others this fifth man seemed calm; he\nwrapped his loose cloak closer and rubbed one bare foot with the other.\n\nWhen they began to blindfold him he himself adjusted the knot which hurt\nthe back of his head; then when they propped him against the\nbloodstained post, he leaned back and, not being comfortable in that\nposition, straightened himself, adjusted his feet, and leaned back again\nmore comfortably. Pierre did not take his eyes from him and did not miss\nhis slightest movement.\n\nProbably a word of command was given and was followed by the reports of\neight muskets; but try as he would Pierre could not afterwards remember\nhaving heard the slightest sound of the shots. He only saw how the\nworkman suddenly sank down on the cords that held him, how blood showed\nitself in two places, how the ropes slackened under the weight of the\nhanging body, and how the workman sat down, his head hanging unnaturally\nand one leg bent under him. Pierre ran up to the post. No one hindered\nhim. Pale, frightened people were doing something around the workman.\nThe lower jaw of an old Frenchman with a thick mustache trembled as he\nuntied the ropes. The body collapsed. The soldiers dragged it awkwardly\nfrom the post and began pushing it into the pit.\n\nThey all plainly and certainly knew that they were criminals who must\nhide the traces of their guilt as quickly as possible.\n\nPierre glanced into the pit and saw that the factory lad was lying with\nhis knees close up to his head and one shoulder higher than the other.\nThat shoulder rose and fell rhythmically and convulsively, but spadefuls\nof earth were already being thrown over the whole body. One of the\nsoldiers, evidently suffering, shouted gruffly and angrily at Pierre to\ngo back. But Pierre did not understand him and remained near the post,\nand no one drove him away.\n\nWhen the pit had been filled up a command was given. Pierre was taken\nback to his place, and the rows of troops on both sides of the post made\na half turn and went past it at a measured pace. The twenty-four\nsharpshooters with discharged muskets, standing in the center of the\ncircle, ran back to their places as the companies passed by.\n\nPierre gazed now with dazed eyes at these sharpshooters who ran in\ncouples out of the circle. All but one rejoined their companies. This\none, a young soldier, his face deadly pale, his shako pushed back, and\nhis musket resting on the ground, still stood near the pit at the spot\nfrom which he had fired. He swayed like a drunken man, taking some steps\nforward and back to save himself from falling. An old, noncommissioned\nofficer ran out of the ranks and taking him by the elbow dragged him to\nhis company. The crowd of Russians and Frenchmen began to disperse. They\nall went away silently and with drooping heads.\n\n\"That will teach them to start fires,\" said one of the Frenchmen.\n\nPierre glanced round at the speaker and saw that it was a soldier who\nwas trying to find some relief after what had been done, but was not\nable to do so. Without finishing what he had begun to say he made a\nhopeless movement with his arm and went away.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nAfter the execution Pierre was separated from the rest of the prisoners\nand placed alone in a small, ruined, and befouled church.\n\nToward evening a noncommissioned officer entered with two soldiers and\ntold him that he had been pardoned and would now go to the barracks for\nthe prisoners of war. Without understanding what was said to him, Pierre\ngot up and went with the soldiers. They took him to the upper end of the\nfield, where there were some sheds built of charred planks, beams, and\nbattens, and led him into one of them. In the darkness some twenty\ndifferent men surrounded Pierre. He looked at them without understanding\nwho they were, why they were there, or what they wanted of him. He heard\nwhat they said, but did not understand the meaning of the words and made\nno kind of deduction from or application of them. He replied to\nquestions they put to him, but did not consider who was listening to his\nreplies, nor how they would understand them. He looked at their faces\nand figures, but they all seemed to him equally meaningless.\n\nFrom the moment Pierre had witnessed those terrible murders committed by\nmen who did not wish to commit them, it was as if the mainspring of his\nlife, on which everything depended and which made everything appear\nalive, had suddenly been wrenched out and everything had collapsed into\na heap of meaningless rubbish. Though he did not acknowledge it to\nhimself, his faith in the right ordering of the universe, in humanity,\nin his own soul, and in God, had been destroyed. He had experienced this\nbefore, but never so strongly as now. When similar doubts had assailed\nhim before, they had been the result of his own wrongdoing, and at the\nbottom of his heart he had felt that relief from his despair and from\nthose doubts was to be found within himself. But now he felt that the\nuniverse had crumbled before his eyes and only meaningless ruins\nremained, and this not by any fault of his own. He felt that it was not\nin his power to regain faith in the meaning of life.\n\nAround him in the darkness men were standing and evidently something\nabout him interested them greatly. They were telling him something and\nasking him something. Then they led him away somewhere, and at last he\nfound himself in a corner of the shed among men who were laughing and\ntalking on all sides.\n\n\"Well, then, mates... that very prince who...\" some voice at the other\nend of the shed was saying, with a strong emphasis on the word who.\n\nSitting silent and motionless on a heap of straw against the wall,\nPierre sometimes opened and sometimes closed his eyes. But as soon as he\nclosed them he saw before him the dreadful face of the factory lad--\nespecially dreadful because of its simplicity--and the faces of the\nmurderers, even more dreadful because of their disquiet. And he opened\nhis eyes again and stared vacantly into the darkness around him.\n\nBeside him in a stooping position sat a small man of whose presence he\nwas first made aware by a strong smell of perspiration which came from\nhim every time he moved. This man was doing something to his legs in the\ndarkness, and though Pierre could not see his face he felt that the man\ncontinually glanced at him. On growing used to the darkness Pierre saw\nthat the man was taking off his leg bands, and the way he did it aroused\nPierre's interest.\n\nHaving unwound the string that tied the band on one leg, he carefully\ncoiled it up and immediately set to work on the other leg, glancing up\nat Pierre. While one hand hung up the first string the other was already\nunwinding the band on the second leg. In this way, having carefully\nremoved the leg bands by deft circular motions of his arm following one\nanother uninterruptedly, the man hung the leg bands up on some pegs\nfixed above his head. Then he took out a knife, cut something, closed\nthe knife, placed it under the head of his bed, and, seating himself\ncomfortably, clasped his arms round his lifted knees and fixed his eyes\non Pierre. The latter was conscious of something pleasant, comforting,\nand well-rounded in these deft movements, in the man's well-ordered\narrangements in his corner, and even in his very smell, and he looked at\nthe man without taking his eyes from him.\n\n\"You've seen a lot of trouble, sir, eh?\" the little man suddenly said.\n\nAnd there was so much kindliness and simplicity in his singsong voice\nthat Pierre tried to reply, but his jaw trembled and he felt tears\nrising to his eyes. The little fellow, giving Pierre no time to betray\nhis confusion, instantly continued in the same pleasant tones:\n\n\"Eh, lad, don't fret!\" said he, in the tender singsong caressing voice\nold Russian peasant women employ. \"Don't fret, friend--'suffer an hour,\nlive for an age!' that's how it is, my dear fellow. And here we live,\nthank heaven, without offense. Among these folk, too, there are good men\nas well as bad,\" said he, and still speaking, he turned on his knees\nwith a supple movement, got up, coughed, and went off to another part of\nthe shed.\n\n\"Eh, you rascal!\" Pierre heard the same kind voice saying at the other\nend of the shed. \"So you've come, you rascal? She remembers... Now, now,\nthat'll do!\"\n\nAnd the soldier, pushing away a little dog that was jumping up at him,\nreturned to his place and sat down. In his hands he had something\nwrapped in a rag.\n\n\"Here, eat a bit, sir,\" said he, resuming his former respectful tone as\nhe unwrapped and offered Pierre some baked potatoes. \"We had soup for\ndinner and the potatoes are grand!\"\n\nPierre had not eaten all day and the smell of the potatoes seemed\nextremely pleasant to him. He thanked the soldier and began to eat.\n\n\"Well, are they all right?\" said the soldier with a smile. \"You should\ndo like this.\"\n\nHe took a potato, drew out his clasp knife, cut the potato into two\nequal halves on the palm of his hand, sprinkled some salt on it from the\nrag, and handed it to Pierre.\n\n\"The potatoes are grand!\" he said once more. \"Eat some like that!\"\n\nPierre thought he had never eaten anything that tasted better.\n\n\"Oh, I'm all right,\" said he, \"but why did they shoot those poor\nfellows? The last one was hardly twenty.\"\n\n\"Tss, tt...!\" said the little man. \"Ah, what a sin... what a sin!\" he\nadded quickly, and as if his words were always waiting ready in his\nmouth and flew out involuntarily he went on: \"How was it, sir, that you\nstayed in Moscow?\"\n\n\"I didn't think they would come so soon. I stayed accidentally,\" replied\nPierre.\n\n\"And how did they arrest you, dear lad? At your house?\"\n\n\"No, I went to look at the fire, and they arrested me there, and tried\nme as an incendiary.\"\n\n\"Where there's law there's injustice,\" put in the little man.\n\n\"And have you been here long?\" Pierre asked as he munched the last of\nthe potato.\n\n\"I? It was last Sunday they took me, out of a hospital in Moscow.\"\n\n\"Why, are you a soldier then?\"\n\n\"Yes, we are soldiers of the Apsheron regiment. I was dying of fever. We\nweren't told anything. There were some twenty of us lying there. We had\nno idea, never guessed at all.\"\n\n\"And do you feel sad here?\" Pierre inquired.\n\n\"How can one help it, lad? My name is Platon, and the surname is\nKarataev,\" he added, evidently wishing to make it easier for Pierre to\naddress him. \"They call me 'little falcon' in the regiment. How is one\nto help feeling sad? Moscow--she's the mother of cities. How can one see\nall this and not feel sad? But 'the maggot gnaws the cabbage, yet dies\nfirst'; that's what the old folks used to tell us,\" he added rapidly.\n\n\"What? What did you say?\" asked Pierre.\n\n\"Who? I?\" said Karataev. \"I say things happen not as we plan but as God\njudges,\" he replied, thinking that he was repeating what he had said\nbefore, and immediately continued:\n\n\"Well, and you, have you a family estate, sir? And a house? So you have\nabundance, then? And a housewife? And your old parents, are they still\nliving?\" he asked.\n\nAnd though it was too dark for Pierre to see, he felt that a suppressed\nsmile of kindliness puckered the soldier's lips as he put these\nquestions. He seemed grieved that Pierre had no parents, especially that\nhe had no mother.\n\n\"A wife for counsel, a mother-in-law for welcome, but there's none as\ndear as one's own mother!\" said he. \"Well, and have you little ones?\" he\nwent on asking.\n\nAgain Pierre's negative answer seemed to distress him, and he hastened\nto add:\n\n\"Never mind! You're young folks yet, and please God may still have some.\nThe great thing is to live in harmony....\"\n\n\"But it's all the same now,\" Pierre could not help saying.\n\n\"Ah, my dear fellow!\" rejoined Karataev, \"never decline a prison or a\nbeggar's sack!\"\n\nHe seated himself more comfortably and coughed, evidently preparing to\ntell a long story.\n\n\"Well, my dear fellow, I was still living at home,\" he began. \"We had a\nwell-to-do homestead, plenty of land, we peasants lived well and our\nhouse was one to thank God for. When Father and we went out mowing there\nwere seven of us. We lived well. We were real peasants. It so\nhappened...\"\n\nAnd Platon Karataev told a long story of how he had gone into someone's\ncopse to take wood, how he had been caught by the keeper, had been\ntried, flogged, and sent to serve as a soldier.\n\n\"Well, lad,\" and a smile changed the tone of his voice \"we thought it\nwas a misfortune but it turned out a blessing! If it had not been for my\nsin, my brother would have had to go as a soldier. But he, my younger\nbrother, had five little ones, while I, you see, only left a wife\nbehind. We had a little girl, but God took her before I went as a\nsoldier. I come home on leave and I'll tell you how it was, I look and\nsee that they are living better than before. The yard full of cattle,\nthe women at home, two brothers away earning wages, and only Michael the\nyoungest, at home. Father, he says, 'All my children are the same to me:\nit hurts the same whichever finger gets bitten. But if Platon hadn't\nbeen shaved for a soldier, Michael would have had to go.' called us all\nto him and, will you believe it, placed us in front of the icons.\n'Michael,' he says, 'come here and bow down to his feet; and you, young\nwoman, you bow down too; and you, grandchildren, also bow down before\nhim! Do you understand?' he says. That's how it is, dear fellow. Fate\nlooks for a head. But we are always judging, 'that's not well--that's\nnot right!' Our luck is like water in a dragnet: you pull at it and it\nbulges, but when you've drawn it out it's empty! That's how it is.\"\n\nAnd Platon shifted his seat on the straw.\n\nAfter a short silence he rose.\n\n\"Well, I think you must be sleepy,\" said he, and began rapidly crossing\nhimself and repeating:\n\n\"Lord Jesus Christ, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus\nChrist, holy Saint Nicholas, Frola and Lavra! Lord Jesus Christ, have\nmercy on us and save us!\" he concluded, then bowed to the ground, got\nup, sighed, and sat down again on his heap of straw. \"That's the way.\nLay me down like a stone, O God, and raise me up like a loaf,\" he\nmuttered as he lay down, pulling his coat over him.\n\n\"What prayer was that you were saying?\" asked Pierre.\n\n\"Eh?\" murmured Platon, who had almost fallen asleep. \"What was I saying?\nI was praying. Don't you pray?\"\n\n\"Yes, I do,\" said Pierre. \"But what was that you said: Frola and Lavra?\"\n\n\"Well, of course,\" replied Platon quickly, \"the horses' saints. One must\npity the animals too. Eh, the rascal! Now you've curled up and got warm,\nyou daughter of a bitch!\" said Karataev, touching the dog that lay at\nhis feet, and again turning over he fell asleep immediately.\n\nSounds of crying and screaming came from somewhere in the distance\noutside, and flames were visible through the cracks of the shed, but\ninside it was quiet and dark. For a long time Pierre did not sleep, but\nlay with eyes open in the darkness, listening to the regular snoring of\nPlaton who lay beside him, and he felt that the world that had been\nshattered was once more stirring in his soul with a new beauty and on\nnew and unshakable foundations.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nTwenty-three soldiers, three officers, and two officials were confined\nin the shed in which Pierre had been placed and where he remained for\nfour weeks.\n\nWhen Pierre remembered them afterwards they all seemed misty figures to\nhim except Platon Karataev, who always remained in his mind a most vivid\nand precious memory and the personification of everything Russian,\nkindly, and round. When Pierre saw his neighbor next morning at dawn the\nfirst impression of him, as of something round, was fully confirmed:\nPlaton's whole figure--in a French overcoat girdled with a cord, a\nsoldier's cap, and bast shoes--was round. His head was quite round, his\nback, chest, shoulders, and even his arms, which he held as if ever\nready to embrace something, were rounded, his pleasant smile and his\nlarge, gentle brown eyes were also round.\n\nPlaton Karataev must have been fifty, judging by his stories of\ncampaigns he had been in, told as by an old soldier. He did not himself\nknow his age and was quite unable to determine it. But his brilliantly\nwhite, strong teeth which showed in two unbroken semicircles when he\nlaughed--as he often did--were all sound and good, there was not a gray\nhair in his beard or on his head, and his whole body gave an impression\nof suppleness and especially of firmness and endurance.\n\nHis face, despite its fine, rounded wrinkles, had an expression of\ninnocence and youth, his voice was pleasant and musical. But the chief\npeculiarity of his speech was its directness and appositeness. It was\nevident that he never considered what he had said or was going to say,\nand consequently the rapidity and justice of his intonation had an\nirresistible persuasiveness.\n\nHis physical strength and agility during the first days of his\nimprisonment were such that he seemed not to know what fatigue and\nsickness meant. Every night before lying down, he said: \"Lord, lay me\ndown as a stone and raise me up as a loaf!\" and every morning on getting\nup, he said: \"I lay down and curled up, I get up and shake myself.\" And\nindeed he only had to lie down, to fall asleep like a stone, and he only\nhad to shake himself, to be ready without a moment's delay for some\nwork, just as children are ready to play directly they awake. He could\ndo everything, not very well but not badly. He baked, cooked, sewed,\nplaned, and mended boots. He was always busy, and only at night allowed\nhimself conversation--of which he was fond--and songs. He did not sing\nlike a trained singer who knows he is listened to, but like the birds,\nevidently giving vent to the sounds in the same way that one stretches\noneself or walks about to get rid of stiffness, and the sounds were\nalways high-pitched, mournful, delicate, and almost feminine, and his\nface at such times was very serious.\n\nHaving been taken prisoner and allowed his beard to grow, he seemed to\nhave thrown off all that had been forced upon him--everything military\nand alien to himself--and had returned to his former peasant habits.\n\n\"A soldier on leave--a shirt outside breeches,\" he would say.\n\nHe did not like talking about his life as a soldier, though he did not\ncomplain, and often mentioned that he had not been flogged once during\nthe whole of his army service. When he related anything it was generally\nsome old and evidently precious memory of his \"Christian\" life, as he\ncalled his peasant existence. The proverbs, of which his talk was full,\nwere for the most part not the coarse and indecent saws soldiers employ,\nbut those folk sayings which taken without a context seem so\ninsignificant, but when used appositely suddenly acquire a significance\nof profound wisdom.\n\nHe would often say the exact opposite of what he had said on a previous\noccasion, yet both would be right. He liked to talk and he talked well,\nadorning his speech with terms of endearment and with folk sayings which\nPierre thought he invented himself, but the chief charm of his talk lay\nin the fact that the commonest events--sometimes just such as Pierre had\nwitnessed without taking notice of them--assumed in Karataev's a\ncharacter of solemn fitness. He liked to hear the folk tales one of the\nsoldiers used to tell of an evening (they were always the same), but\nmost of all he liked to hear stories of real life. He would smile\njoyfully when listening to such stories, now and then putting in a word\nor asking a question to make the moral beauty of what he was told clear\nto himself. Karataev had no attachments, friendships, or love, as Pierre\nunderstood them, but loved and lived affectionately with everything life\nbrought him in contact with, particularly with man--not any particular\nman, but those with whom he happened to be. He loved his dog, his\ncomrades, the French, and Pierre who was his neighbor, but Pierre felt\nthat in spite of Karataev's affectionate tenderness for him (by which he\nunconsciously gave Pierre's spiritual life its due) he would not have\ngrieved for a moment at parting from him. And Pierre began to feel in\nthe same way toward Karataev.\n\nTo all the other prisoners Platon Karataev seemed a most ordinary\nsoldier. They called him \"little falcon\" or \"Platosha,\" chaffed him\ngood-naturedly, and sent him on errands. But to Pierre he always\nremained what he had seemed that first night: an unfathomable, rounded,\neternal personification of the spirit of simplicity and truth.\n\nPlaton Karataev knew nothing by heart except his prayers. When he began\nto speak he seemed not to know how he would conclude.\n\nSometimes Pierre, struck by the meaning of his words, would ask him to\nrepeat them, but Platon could never recall what he had said a moment\nbefore, just as he never could repeat to Pierre the words of his\nfavorite song: native and birch tree and my heart is sick occurred in\nit, but when spoken and not sung, no meaning could be got out of it. He\ndid not, and could not, understand the meaning of words apart from their\ncontext. Every word and action of his was the manifestation of an\nactivity unknown to him, which was his life. But his life, as he\nregarded it, had no meaning as a separate thing. It had meaning only as\npart of a whole of which he was always conscious. His words and actions\nflowed from him as evenly, inevitably, and spontaneously as fragrance\nexhales from a flower. He could not understand the value or significance\nof any word or deed taken separately.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nWhen Princess Mary heard from Nicholas that her brother was with the\nRostovs at Yaroslavl she at once prepared to go there, in spite of her\naunt's efforts to dissuade her--and not merely to go herself but to take\nher nephew with her. Whether it were difficult or easy, possible or\nimpossible, she did not ask and did not want to know: it was her duty,\nnot only to herself, to be near her brother who was perhaps dying, but\nto do everything possible to take his son to him, and so she prepared to\nset off. That she had not heard from Prince Andrew himself, Princess\nMary attributed to his being too weak to write or to his considering the\nlong journey too hard and too dangerous for her and his son.\n\nIn a few days Princess Mary was ready to start. Her equipages were the\nhuge family coach in which she had traveled to Voronezh, a semiopen\ntrap, and a baggage cart. With her traveled Mademoiselle Bourienne,\nlittle Nicholas and his tutor, her old nurse, three maids, Tikhon, and a\nyoung footman and courier her aunt had sent to accompany her.\n\nThe usual route through Moscow could not be thought of, and the\nroundabout way Princess Mary was obliged to take through Lipetsk,\nRyazan, Vladimir, and Shuya was very long and, as post horses were not\neverywhere obtainable, very difficult, and near Ryazan where the French\nwere said to have shown themselves was even dangerous.\n\nDuring this difficult journey Mademoiselle Bourienne, Dessalles, and\nPrincess Mary's servants were astonished at her energy and firmness of\nspirit. She went to bed later and rose earlier than any of them, and no\ndifficulties daunted her. Thanks to her activity and energy, which\ninfected her fellow travelers, they approached Yaroslavl by the end of\nthe second week.\n\nThe last days of her stay in Voronezh had been the happiest of her life.\nHer love for Rostov no longer tormented or agitated her. It filled her\nwhole soul, had become an integral part of herself, and she no longer\nstruggled against it. Latterly she had become convinced that she loved\nand was beloved, though she never said this definitely to herself in\nwords. She had become convinced of it at her last interview with\nNicholas, when he had come to tell her that her brother was with the\nRostovs. Not by a single word had Nicholas alluded to the fact that\nPrince Andrew's relations with Natasha might, if he recovered, be\nrenewed, but Princess Mary saw by his face that he knew and thought of\nthis.\n\nYet in spite of that, his relation to her--considerate, delicate, and\nloving--not only remained unchanged, but it sometimes seemed to Princess\nMary that he was even glad that the family connection between them\nallowed him to express his friendship more freely. She knew that she\nloved for the first and only time in her life and felt that she was\nbeloved, and was happy in regard to it.\n\nBut this happiness on one side of her spiritual nature did not prevent\nher feeling grief for her brother with full force; on the contrary, that\nspiritual tranquility on the one side made it the more possible for her\nto give full play to her feeling for her brother. That feeling was so\nstrong at the moment of leaving Voronezh that those who saw her off, as\nthey looked at her careworn, despairing face, felt sure she would fall\nill on the journey. But the very difficulties and preoccupations of the\njourney, which she took so actively in hand, saved her for a while from\nher grief and gave her strength.\n\nAs always happens when traveling, Princess Mary thought only of the\njourney itself, forgetting its object. But as she approached Yaroslavl\nthe thought of what might await her there--not after many days, but that\nvery evening--again presented itself to her and her agitation increased\nto its utmost limit.\n\nThe courier who had been sent on in advance to find out where the\nRostovs were staying in Yaroslavl, and in what condition Prince Andrew\nwas, when he met the big coach just entering the town gates was appalled\nby the terrible pallor of the princess' face that looked out at him from\nthe window.\n\n\"I have found out everything, your excellency: the Rostovs are staying\nat the merchant Bronnikov's house, in the Square not far from here,\nright above the Volga,\" said the courier.\n\nPrincess Mary looked at him with frightened inquiry, not understanding\nwhy he did not reply to what she chiefly wanted to know: how was her\nbrother? Mademoiselle Bourienne put that question for her.\n\n\"How is the prince?\" she asked.\n\n\"His excellency is staying in the same house with them.\"\n\n\"Then he is alive,\" thought Princess Mary, and asked in a low voice:\n\"How is he?\"\n\n\"The servants say he is still the same.\"\n\nWhat \"still the same\" might mean Princess Mary did not ask, but with an\nunnoticed glance at little seven-year-old Nicholas, who was sitting in\nfront of her looking with pleasure at the town, she bowed her head and\ndid not raise it again till the heavy coach, rumbling, shaking and\nswaying, came to a stop. The carriage steps clattered as they were let\ndown.\n\nThe carriage door was opened. On the left there was water--a great\nriver--and on the right a porch. There were people at the entrance:\nservants, and a rosy girl with a large plait of black hair, smiling as\nit seemed to Princess Mary in an unpleasantly affected way. (This was\nSonya.) Princess Mary ran up the steps. \"This way, this way!\" said the\ngirl, with the same artificial smile, and the princess found herself in\nthe hall facing an elderly woman of Oriental type, who came rapidly to\nmeet her with a look of emotion. This was the countess. She embraced\nPrincess Mary and kissed her.\n\n\"Mon enfant!\" she muttered, \"je vous aime et vous connais depuis\nlongtemps.\" *\n\n\n* \"My child! I love you and have known you a long time.\"\n\n\nDespite her excitement, Princess Mary realized that this was the\ncountess and that it was necessary to say something to her. Hardly\nknowing how she did it, she contrived to utter a few polite phrases in\nFrench in the same tone as those that had been addressed to her, and\nasked: \"How is he?\"\n\n\"The doctor says that he is not in danger,\" said the countess, but as\nshe spoke she raised her eyes with a sigh, and her gesture conveyed a\ncontradiction of her words.\n\n\"Where is he? Can I see him--can I?\" asked the princess.\n\n\"One moment, Princess, one moment, my dear! Is this his son?\" said the\ncountess, turning to little Nicholas who was coming in with Dessalles.\n\"There will be room for everybody, this is a big house. Oh, what a\nlovely boy!\"\n\nThe countess took Princess Mary into the drawing room, where Sonya was\ntalking to Mademoiselle Bourienne. The countess caressed the boy, and\nthe old count came in and welcomed the princess. He had changed very\nmuch since Princess Mary had last seen him. Then he had been a brisk,\ncheerful, self-assured old man; now he seemed a pitiful, bewildered\nperson. While talking to Princess Mary he continually looked round as if\nasking everyone whether he was doing the right thing. After the\ndestruction of Moscow and of his property, thrown out of his accustomed\ngroove he seemed to have lost the sense of his own significance and to\nfeel that there was no longer a place for him in life.\n\nIn spite of her one desire to see her brother as soon as possible, and\nher vexation that at the moment when all she wanted was to see him they\nshould be trying to entertain her and pretending to admire her nephew,\nthe princess noticed all that was going on around her and felt the\nnecessity of submitting, for a time, to this new order of things which\nshe had entered. She knew it to be necessary, and though it was hard for\nher she was not vexed with these people.\n\n\"This is my niece,\" said the count, introducing Sonya--\"You don't know\nher, Princess?\"\n\nPrincess Mary turned to Sonya and, trying to stifle the hostile feeling\nthat arose in her toward the girl, she kissed her. But she felt\noppressed by the fact that the mood of everyone around her was so far\nfrom what was in her own heart.\n\n\"Where is he?\" she asked again, addressing them all.\n\n\"He is downstairs. Natasha is with him,\" answered Sonya, flushing. \"We\nhave sent to ask. I think you must be tired, Princess.\"\n\nTears of vexation showed themselves in Princess Mary's eyes. She turned\naway and was about to ask the countess again how to go to him, when\nlight, impetuous, and seemingly buoyant steps were heard at the door.\nThe princess looked round and saw Natasha coming in, almost running--\nthat Natasha whom she had liked so little at their meeting in Moscow\nlong since.\n\nBut hardly had the princess looked at Natasha's face before she realized\nthat here was a real comrade in her grief, and consequently a friend.\nShe ran to meet her, embraced her, and began to cry on her shoulder.\n\nAs soon as Natasha, sitting at the head of Prince Andrew's bed, heard of\nPrincess Mary's arrival, she softly left his room and hastened to her\nwith those swift steps that had sounded buoyant to Princess Mary.\n\nThere was only one expression on her agitated face when she ran into the\ndrawing room--that of love--boundless love for him, for her, and for all\nthat was near to the man she loved; and of pity, suffering for others,\nand passionate desire to give herself entirely to helping them. It was\nplain that at that moment there was in Natasha's heart no thought of\nherself or of her own relations with Prince Andrew.\n\nPrincess Mary, with her acute sensibility, understood all this at the\nfirst glance at Natasha's face, and wept on her shoulder with sorrowful\npleasure.\n\n\"Come, come to him, Mary,\" said Natasha, leading her into the other\nroom.\n\nPrincess Mary raised her head, dried her eyes, and turned to Natasha.\nShe felt that from her she would be able to understand and learn\neverything.\n\n\"How...\" she began her question but stopped short.\n\nShe felt that it was impossible to ask, or to answer, in words.\nNatasha's face and eyes would have to tell her all more clearly and\nprofoundly.\n\nNatasha was gazing at her, but seemed afraid and in doubt whether to say\nall she knew or not; she seemed to feel that before those luminous eyes\nwhich penetrated into the very depths of her heart, it was impossible\nnot to tell the whole truth which she saw. And suddenly, Natasha's lips\ntwitched, ugly wrinkles gathered round her mouth, and covering her face\nwith her hands she burst into sobs.\n\nPrincess Mary understood.\n\nBut she still hoped, and asked, in words she herself did not trust:\n\n\"But how is his wound? What is his general condition?\"\n\n\"You, you... will see,\" was all Natasha could say.\n\nThey sat a little while downstairs near his room till they had left off\ncrying and were able to go to him with calm faces.\n\n\"How has his whole illness gone? Is it long since he grew worse? When\ndid this happen?\" Princess Mary inquired.\n\nNatasha told her that at first there had been danger from his feverish\ncondition and the pain he suffered, but at Troitsa that had passed and\nthe doctor had only been afraid of gangrene. That danger had also\npassed. When they reached Yaroslavl the wound had begun to fester\n(Natasha knew all about such things as festering) and the doctor had\nsaid that the festering might take a normal course. Then fever set in,\nbut the doctor had said the fever was not very serious.\n\n\"But two days ago this suddenly happened,\" said Natasha, struggling with\nher sobs. \"I don't know why, but you will see what he is like.\"\n\n\"Is he weaker? Thinner?\" asked the princess.\n\n\"No, it's not that, but worse. You will see. O, Mary, he is too good, he\ncannot, cannot live, because...\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nWhen Natasha opened Prince Andrew's door with a familiar movement and\nlet Princess Mary pass into the room before her, the princess felt the\nsobs in her throat. Hard as she had tried to prepare herself, and now\ntried to remain tranquil, she knew that she would be unable to look at\nhim without tears.\n\nThe princess understood what Natasha had meant by the words: \"two days\nago this suddenly happened.\" She understood those words to mean that he\nhad suddenly softened and that this softening and gentleness were signs\nof approaching death. As she stepped to the door she already saw in\nimagination Andrew's face as she remembered it in childhood, a gentle,\nmild, sympathetic face which he had rarely shown, and which therefore\naffected her very strongly. She was sure he would speak soft, tender\nwords to her such as her father had uttered before his death, and that\nshe would not be able to bear it and would burst into sobs in his\npresence. Yet sooner or later it had to be, and she went in. The sobs\nrose higher and higher in her throat as she more and more clearly\ndistinguished his form and her shortsighted eyes tried to make out his\nfeatures, and then she saw his face and met his gaze.\n\nHe was lying in a squirrel-fur dressing gown on a divan, surrounded by\npillows. He was thin and pale. In one thin, translucently white hand he\nheld a handkerchief, while with the other he stroked the delicate\nmustache he had grown, moving his fingers slowly. His eyes gazed at them\nas they entered.\n\nOn seeing his face and meeting his eyes Princess Mary's pace suddenly\nslackened, she felt her tears dry up and her sobs ceased. She suddenly\nfelt guilty and grew timid on catching the expression of his face and\neyes.\n\n\"But in what am I to blame?\" she asked herself. And his cold, stern look\nreplied: \"Because you are alive and thinking of the living, while I...\"\n\nIn the deep gaze that seemed to look not outwards but inwards there was\nan almost hostile expression as he slowly regarded his sister and\nNatasha.\n\nHe kissed his sister, holding her hand in his as was their wont.\n\n\"How are you, Mary? How did you manage to get here?\" said he in a voice\nas calm and aloof as his look.\n\nHad he screamed in agony, that scream would not have struck such horror\ninto Princess Mary's heart as the tone of his voice.\n\n\"And have you brought little Nicholas?\" he asked in the same slow, quiet\nmanner and with an obvious effort to remember.\n\n\"How are you now?\" said Princess Mary, herself surprised at what she was\nsaying.\n\n\"That, my dear, you must ask the doctor,\" he replied, and again making\nan evident effort to be affectionate, he said with his lips only (his\nwords clearly did not correspond to his thoughts):\n\n\"Merci, chere amie, d'etre venue.\" *\n\n\n* \"Thank you for coming, my dear.\"\n\nPrincess Mary pressed his hand. The pressure made him wince just\nperceptibly. He was silent, and she did not know what to say. She now\nunderstood what had happened to him two days before. In his words, his\ntone, and especially in that calm, almost antagonistic look could be\nfelt an estrangement from everything belonging to this world, terrible\nin one who is alive. Evidently only with an effort did he understand\nanything living; but it was obvious that he failed to understand, not\nbecause he lacked the power to do so but because he understood something\nelse--something the living did not and could not understand--and which\nwholly occupied his mind.\n\n\"There, you see how strangely fate has brought us together,\" said he,\nbreaking the silence and pointing to Natasha. \"She looks after me all\nthe time.\"\n\nPrincess Mary heard him and did not understand how he could say such a\nthing. He, the sensitive, tender Prince Andrew, how could he say that,\nbefore her whom he loved and who loved him? Had he expected to live he\ncould not have said those words in that offensively cold tone. If he had\nnot known that he was dying, how could he have failed to pity her and\nhow could he speak like that in her presence? The only explanation was\nthat he was indifferent, because something else, much more important,\nhad been revealed to him.\n\nThe conversation was cold and disconnected and continually broke off.\n\n\"Mary came by way of Ryazan,\" said Natasha.\n\nPrince Andrew did not notice that she called his sister Mary, and only\nafter calling her so in his presence did Natasha notice it herself.\n\n\"Really?\" he asked.\n\n\"They told her that all Moscow has been burned down, and that...\"\n\nNatasha stopped. It was impossible to talk. It was plain that he was\nmaking an effort to listen, but could not do so.\n\n\"Yes, they say it's burned,\" he said. \"It's a great pity,\" and he gazed\nstraight before him, absently stroking his mustache with his fingers.\n\n\"And so you have met Count Nicholas, Mary?\" Prince Andrew suddenly said,\nevidently wishing to speak pleasantly to them. \"He wrote here that he\ntook a great liking to you,\" he went on simply and calmly, evidently\nunable to understand all the complex significance his words had for\nliving people. \"If you liked him too, it would be a good thing for you\nto get married,\" he added rather more quickly, as if pleased at having\nfound words he had long been seeking.\n\nPrincess Mary heard his words but they had no meaning for her, except as\na proof of how far away he now was from everything living.\n\n\"Why talk of me?\" she said quietly and glanced at Natasha.\n\nNatasha, who felt her glance, did not look at her. All three were again\nsilent.\n\n\"Andrew, would you like...\" Princess Mary suddenly said in a trembling\nvoice, \"would you like to see little Nicholas? He is always talking\nabout you!\"\n\nPrince Andrew smiled just perceptibly and for the first time, but\nPrincess Mary, who knew his face so well, saw with horror that he did\nnot smile with pleasure or affection for his son, but with quiet, gentle\nirony because he thought she was trying what she believed to be the last\nmeans of arousing him.\n\n\"Yes, I shall be very glad to see him. Is he quite well?\"\n\nWhen little Nicholas was brought into Prince Andrew's room he looked at\nhis father with frightened eyes, but did not cry, because no one else\nwas crying. Prince Andrew kissed him and evidently did not know what to\nsay to him.\n\nWhen Nicholas had been led away, Princess Mary again went up to her\nbrother, kissed him, and unable to restrain her tears any longer began\nto cry.\n\nHe looked at her attentively.\n\n\"Is it about Nicholas?\" he asked.\n\nPrincess Mary nodded her head, weeping.\n\n\"Mary, you know the Gosp...\" but he broke off.\n\n\"What did you say?\"\n\n\"Nothing. You mustn't cry here,\" he said, looking at her with the same\ncold expression.\n\nWhen Princess Mary began to cry, he understood that she was crying at\nthe thought that little Nicholas would be left without a father. With a\ngreat effort he tried to return to life and to see things from their\npoint of view.\n\n\"Yes, to them it must seem sad!\" he thought. \"But how simple it is.\n\n\"The fowls of the air sow not, neither do they reap, yet your Father\nfeedeth them,\" he said to himself and wished to say to Princess Mary;\n\"but no, they will take it their own way, they won't understand! They\ncan't understand that all those feelings they prize so--all our\nfeelings, all those ideas that seem so important to us, are unnecessary.\nWe cannot understand one another,\" and he remained silent.\n\nPrince Andrew's little son was seven. He could scarcely read, and knew\nnothing. After that day he lived through many things, gaining knowledge,\nobservation, and experience, but had he possessed all the faculties he\nafterwards acquired, he could not have had a better or more profound\nunderstanding of the meaning of the scene he had witnessed between his\nfather, Mary, and Natasha, than he had then. He understood it\ncompletely, and, leaving the room without crying, went silently up to\nNatasha who had come out with him and looked shyly at her with his\nbeautiful, thoughtful eyes, then his uplifted, rosy upper lip trembled\nand leaning his head against her he began to cry.\n\nAfter that he avoided Dessalles and the countess who caressed him and\neither sat alone or came timidly to Princess Mary, or to Natasha of whom\nhe seemed even fonder than of his aunt, and clung to them quietly and\nshyly.\n\nWhen Princess Mary had left Prince Andrew she fully understood what\nNatasha's face had told her. She did not speak any more to Natasha of\nhopes of saving his life. She took turns with her beside his sofa, and\ndid not cry any more, but prayed continually, turning in soul to that\nEternal and Unfathomable, whose presence above the dying man was now so\nevident.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nNot only did Prince Andrew know he would die, but he felt that he was\ndying and was already half dead. He was conscious of an aloofness from\neverything earthly and a strange and joyous lightness of existence.\nWithout haste or agitation he awaited what was coming. That inexorable,\neternal, distant, and unknown the presence of which he had felt\ncontinually all his life--was now near to him and, by the strange\nlightness he experienced, almost comprehensible and palpable...\n\n\nFormerly he had feared the end. He had twice experienced that terribly\ntormenting fear of death--the end--but now he no longer understood that\nfear.\n\nHe had felt it for the first time when the shell spun like a top before\nhim, and he looked at the fallow field, the bushes, and the sky, and\nknew that he was face to face with death. When he came to himself after\nbeing wounded and the flower of eternal, unfettered love had instantly\nunfolded itself in his soul as if freed from the bondage of life that\nhad restrained it, he no longer feared death and ceased to think about\nit.\n\nDuring the hours of solitude, suffering, and partial delirium he spent\nafter he was wounded, the more deeply he penetrated into the new\nprinciple of eternal love revealed to him, the more he unconsciously\ndetached himself from earthly life. To love everything and everybody and\nalways to sacrifice oneself for love meant not to love anyone, not to\nlive this earthly life. And the more imbued he became with that\nprinciple of love, the more he renounced life and the more completely he\ndestroyed that dreadful barrier which--in the absence of such love--\nstands between life and death. When during those first days he\nremembered that he would have to die, he said to himself: \"Well, what of\nit? So much the better!\"\n\nBut after the night in Mytishchi when, half delirious, he had seen her\nfor whom he longed appear before him and, having pressed her hand to his\nlips, had shed gentle, happy tears, love for a particular woman again\ncrept unobserved into his heart and once more bound him to life. And\njoyful and agitating thoughts began to occupy his mind. Recalling the\nmoment at the ambulance station when he had seen Kuragin, he could not\nnow regain the feeling he then had, but was tormented by the question\nwhether Kuragin was alive. And he dared not inquire.\n\nHis illness pursued its normal physical course, but what Natasha\nreferred to when she said: \"This suddenly happened,\" had occurred two\ndays before Princess Mary arrived. It was the last spiritual struggle\nbetween life and death, in which death gained the victory. It was the\nunexpected realization of the fact that he still valued life as\npresented to him in the form of his love for Natasha, and a last, though\nultimately vanquished, attack of terror before the unknown.\n\nIt was evening. As usual after dinner he was slightly feverish, and his\nthoughts were preternaturally clear. Sonya was sitting by the table. He\nbegan to doze. Suddenly a feeling of happiness seized him.\n\n\"Ah, she has come!\" thought he.\n\nAnd so it was: in Sonya's place sat Natasha who had just come in\nnoiselessly.\n\nSince she had begun looking after him, he had always experienced this\nphysical consciousness of her nearness. She was sitting in an armchair\nplaced sideways, screening the light of the candle from him, and was\nknitting a stocking. She had learned to knit stockings since Prince\nAndrew had casually mentioned that no one nursed the sick so well as old\nnurses who knit stockings, and that there is something soothing in the\nknitting of stockings. The needles clicked lightly in her slender,\nrapidly moving hands, and he could clearly see the thoughtful profile of\nher drooping face. She moved, and the ball rolled off her knees. She\nstarted, glanced round at him, and screening the candle with her hand\nstooped carefully with a supple and exact movement, picked up the ball,\nand regained her former position.\n\nHe looked at her without moving and saw that she wanted to draw a deep\nbreath after stooping, but refrained from doing so and breathed\ncautiously.\n\nAt the Troitsa monastery they had spoken of the past, and he had told\nher that if he lived he would always thank God for his wound which had\nbrought them together again, but after that they never spoke of the\nfuture.\n\n\"Can it or can it not be?\" he now thought as he looked at her and\nlistened to the light click of the steel needles. \"Can fate have brought\nme to her so strangely only for me to die?... Is it possible that the\ntruth of life has been revealed to me only to show me that I have spent\nmy life in falsity? I love her more than anything in the world! But what\nam I to do if I love her?\" he thought, and he involuntarily groaned,\nfrom a habit acquired during his sufferings.\n\nOn hearing that sound Natasha put down the stocking, leaned nearer to\nhim, and suddenly, noticing his shining eyes, stepped lightly up to him\nand bent over him.\n\n\"You are not asleep?\"\n\n\"No, I have been looking at you a long time. I felt you come in. No one\nelse gives me that sense of soft tranquillity that you do... that light.\nI want to weep for joy.\"\n\nNatasha drew closer to him. Her face shone with rapturous joy.\n\n\"Natasha, I love you too much! More than anything in the world.\"\n\n\"And I!\"--She turned away for an instant. \"Why too much?\" she asked.\n\n\"Why too much?... Well, what do you, what do you feel in your soul, your\nwhole soul--shall I live? What do you think?\"\n\n\"I am sure of it, sure!\" Natasha almost shouted, taking hold of both his\nhands with a passionate movement.\n\nHe remained silent awhile.\n\n\"How good it would be!\" and taking her hand he kissed it.\n\nNatasha felt happy and agitated, but at once remembered that this would\nnot do and that he had to be quiet.\n\n\"But you have not slept,\" she said, repressing her joy. \"Try to sleep...\nplease!\"\n\nHe pressed her hand and released it, and she went back to the candle and\nsat down again in her former position. Twice she turned and looked at\nhim, and her eyes met his beaming at her. She set herself a task on her\nstocking and resolved not to turn round till it was finished.\n\nSoon he really shut his eyes and fell asleep. He did not sleep long and\nsuddenly awoke with a start and in a cold perspiration.\n\nAs he fell asleep he had still been thinking of the subject that now\nalways occupied his mind--about life and death, and chiefly about death.\nHe felt himself nearer to it.\n\n\"Love? What is love?\" he thought.\n\n\"Love hinders death. Love is life. All, everything that I understand, I\nunderstand only because I love. Everything is, everything exists, only\nbecause I love. Everything is united by it alone. Love is God, and to\ndie means that I, a particle of love, shall return to the general and\neternal source.\" These thoughts seemed to him comforting. But they were\nonly thoughts. Something was lacking in them, they were not clear, they\nwere too one-sidedly personal and brain-spun. And there was the former\nagitation and obscurity. He fell asleep.\n\nHe dreamed that he was lying in the room he really was in, but that he\nwas quite well and unwounded. Many various, indifferent, and\ninsignificant people appeared before him. He talked to them and\ndiscussed something trivial. They were preparing to go away somewhere.\nPrince Andrew dimly realized that all this was trivial and that he had\nmore important cares, but he continued to speak, surprising them by\nempty witticisms. Gradually, unnoticed, all these persons began to\ndisappear and a single question, that of the closed door, superseded all\nelse. He rose and went to the door to bolt and lock it. Everything\ndepended on whether he was, or was not, in time to lock it. He went, and\ntried to hurry, but his legs refused to move and he knew he would not be\nin time to lock the door though he painfully strained all his powers. He\nwas seized by an agonizing fear. And that fear was the fear of death. It\nstood behind the door. But just when he was clumsily creeping toward the\ndoor, that dreadful something on the other side was already pressing\nagainst it and forcing its way in. Something not human--death--was\nbreaking in through that door, and had to be kept out. He seized the\ndoor, making a final effort to hold it back--to lock it was no longer\npossible--but his efforts were weak and clumsy and the door, pushed from\nbehind by that terror, opened and closed again.\n\nOnce again it pushed from outside. His last superhuman efforts were vain\nand both halves of the door noiselessly opened. It entered, and it was\ndeath, and Prince Andrew died.\n\nBut at the instant he died, Prince Andrew remembered that he was asleep,\nand at the very instant he died, having made an effort, he awoke.\n\n\"Yes, it was death! I died--and woke up. Yes, death is an awakening!\"\nAnd all at once it grew light in his soul and the veil that had till\nthen concealed the unknown was lifted from his spiritual vision. He felt\nas if powers till then confined within him had been liberated, and that\nstrange lightness did not again leave him.\n\nWhen, waking in a cold perspiration, he moved on the divan, Natasha went\nup and asked him what was the matter. He did not answer and looked at\nher strangely, not understanding.\n\nThat was what had happened to him two days before Princess Mary's\narrival. From that day, as the doctor expressed it, the wasting fever\nassumed a malignant character, but what the doctor said did not interest\nNatasha, she saw the terrible moral symptoms which to her were more\nconvincing.\n\nFrom that day an awakening from life came to Prince Andrew together with\nhis awakening from sleep. And compared to the duration of life it did\nnot seem to him slower than an awakening from sleep compared to the\nduration of a dream.\n\nThere was nothing terrible or violent in this comparatively slow\nawakening.\n\nHis last days and hours passed in an ordinary and simple way. Both\nPrincess Mary and Natasha, who did not leave him, felt this. They did\nnot weep or shudder and during these last days they themselves felt that\nthey were not attending on him (he was no longer there, he had left\nthem) but on what reminded them most closely of him--his body. Both felt\nthis so strongly that the outward and terrible side of death did not\naffect them and they did not feel it necessary to foment their grief.\nNeither in his presence nor out of it did they weep, nor did they ever\ntalk to one another about him. They felt that they could not express in\nwords what they understood.\n\nThey both saw that he was sinking slowly and quietly, deeper and deeper,\naway from them, and they both knew that this had to be so and that it\nwas right.\n\nHe confessed, and received communion: everyone came to take leave of\nhim. When they brought his son to him, he pressed his lips to the boy's\nand turned away, not because he felt it hard and sad (Princess Mary and\nNatasha understood that) but simply because he thought it was all that\nwas required of him, but when they told him to bless the boy, he did\nwhat was demanded and looked round as if asking whether there was\nanything else he should do.\n\nWhen the last convulsions of the body, which the spirit was leaving,\noccurred, Princess Mary and Natasha were present.\n\n\"Is it over?\" said Princess Mary when his body had for a few minutes\nlain motionless, growing cold before them. Natasha went up, looked at\nthe dead eyes, and hastened to close them. She closed them but did not\nkiss them, but clung to that which reminded her most nearly of him--his\nbody.\n\n\"Where has he gone? Where is he now?...\"\n\nWhen the body, washed and dressed, lay in the coffin on a table,\neveryone came to take leave of him and they all wept.\n\nLittle Nicholas cried because his heart was rent by painful perplexity.\nThe countess and Sonya cried from pity for Natasha and because he was no\nmore. The old count cried because he felt that before long, he, too,\nmust take the same terrible step.\n\nNatasha and Princess Mary also wept now, but not because of their own\npersonal grief; they wept with a reverent and softening emotion which\nhad taken possession of their souls at the consciousness of the simple\nand solemn mystery of death that had been accomplished in their\npresence.\n\nBOOK THIRTEEN: 1812\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nMan's mind cannot grasp the causes of events in their completeness, but\nthe desire to find those causes is implanted in man's soul. And without\nconsidering the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions any one of\nwhich taken separately may seem to be the cause, he snatches at the\nfirst approximation to a cause that seems to him intelligible and says:\n\"This is the cause!\" In historical events (where the actions of men are\nthe subject of observation) the first and most primitive approximation\nto present itself was the will of the gods and, after that, the will of\nthose who stood in the most prominent position--the heroes of history.\nBut we need only penetrate to the essence of any historic event--which\nlies in the activity of the general mass of men who take part in it--to\nbe convinced that the will of the historic hero does not control the\nactions of the mass but is itself continually controlled. It may seem to\nbe a matter of indifference whether we understand the meaning of\nhistorical events this way or that; yet there is the same difference\nbetween a man who says that the people of the West moved on the East\nbecause Napoleon wished it and a man who says that this happened because\nit had to happen, as there is between those who declared that the earth\nwas stationary and that the planets moved round it and those who\nadmitted that they did not know what upheld the earth, but knew there\nwere laws directing its movement and that of the other planets. There\nis, and can be, no cause of an historical event except the one cause of\nall causes. But there are laws directing events, and some of these laws\nare known to us while we are conscious of others we cannot comprehend.\nThe discovery of these laws is only possible when we have quite\nabandoned the attempt to find the cause in the will of some one man,\njust as the discovery of the laws of the motion of the planets was\npossible only when men abandoned the conception of the fixity of the\nearth.\n\nThe historians consider that, next to the battle of Borodino and the\noccupation of Moscow by the enemy and its destruction by fire, the most\nimportant episode of the war of 1812 was the movement of the Russian\narmy from the Ryazana to the Kaluga road and to the Tarutino camp--the\nso-called flank march across the Krasnaya Pakhra River. They ascribe the\nglory of that achievement of genius to different men and dispute as to\nwhom the honor is due. Even foreign historians, including the French,\nacknowledge the genius of the Russian commanders when they speak of that\nflank march. But it is hard to understand why military writers, and\nfollowing them others, consider this flank march to be the profound\nconception of some one man who saved Russia and destroyed Napoleon. In\nthe first place it is hard to understand where the profundity and genius\nof this movement lay, for not much mental effort was needed to see that\nthe best position for an army when it is not being attacked is where\nthere are most provisions; and even a dull boy of thirteen could have\nguessed that the best position for an army after its retreat from Moscow\nin 1812 was on the Kaluga road. So it is impossible to understand by\nwhat reasoning the historians reach the conclusion that this maneuver\nwas a profound one. And it is even more difficult to understand just why\nthey think that this maneuver was calculated to save Russia and destroy\nthe French; for this flank march, had it been preceded, accompanied, or\nfollowed by other circumstances, might have proved ruinous to the\nRussians and salutary for the French. If the position of the Russian\narmy really began to improve from the time of that march, it does not at\nall follow that the march was the cause of it.\n\nThat flank march might not only have failed to give any advantage to the\nRussian army, but might in other circumstances have led to its\ndestruction. What would have happened had Moscow not burned down? If\nMurat had not lost sight of the Russians? If Napoleon had not remained\ninactive? If the Russian army at Krasnaya Pakhra had given battle as\nBennigsen and Barclay advised? What would have happened had the French\nattacked the Russians while they were marching beyond the Pakhra? What\nwould have happened if on approaching Tarutino, Napoleon had attacked\nthe Russians with but a tenth of the energy he had shown when he\nattacked them at Smolensk? What would have happened had the French moved\non Petersburg?... In any of these eventualities the flank march that\nbrought salvation might have proved disastrous.\n\nThe third and most incomprehensible thing is that people studying\nhistory deliberately avoid seeing that this flank march cannot be\nattributed to any one man, that no one ever foresaw it, and that in\nreality, like the retreat from Fili, it did not suggest itself to anyone\nin its entirety, but resulted--moment by moment, step by step, event by\nevent--from an endless number of most diverse circumstances and was only\nseen in its entirety when it had been accomplished and belonged to the\npast.\n\nAt the council at Fili the prevailing thought in the minds of the\nRussian commanders was the one naturally suggesting itself, namely, a\ndirect retreat by the Nizhni road. In proof of this there is the fact\nthat the majority of the council voted for such a retreat, and above all\nthere is the well-known conversation after the council, between the\ncommander in chief and Lanskoy, who was in charge of the commissariat\ndepartment. Lanskoy informed the commander-in-chief that the army\nsupplies were for the most part stored along the Oka in the Tula and\nRyazan provinces, and that if they retreated on Nizhni the army would be\nseparated from its supplies by the broad river Oka, which cannot be\ncrossed early in winter. This was the first indication of the necessity\nof deviating from what had previously seemed the most natural course--a\ndirect retreat on Nizhni-Novgorod. The army turned more to the south,\nalong the Ryazan road and nearer to its supplies. Subsequently the\ninactivity of the French (who even lost sight of the Russian army),\nconcern for the safety of the arsenal at Tula, and especially the\nadvantages of drawing nearer to its supplies caused the army to turn\nstill further south to the Tula road. Having crossed over, by a forced\nmarch, to the Tula road beyond the Pakhra, the Russian commanders\nintended to remain at Podolsk and had no thought of the Tarutino\nposition; but innumerable circumstances and the reappearance of French\ntroops who had for a time lost touch with the Russians, and projects of\ngiving battle, and above all the abundance of provisions in Kaluga\nprovince, obliged our army to turn still more to the south and to cross\nfrom the Tula to the Kaluga road and go to Tarutino, which was between\nthe roads along which those supplies lay. Just as it is impossible to\nsay when it was decided to abandon Moscow, so it is impossible to say\nprecisely when, or by whom, it was decided to move to Tarutino. Only\nwhen the army had got there, as the result of innumerable and varying\nforces, did people begin to assure themselves that they had desired this\nmovement and long ago foreseen its result.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nThe famous flank movement merely consisted in this: after the advance of\nthe French had ceased, the Russian army, which had been continually\nretreating straight back from the invaders, deviated from that direct\ncourse and, not finding itself pursued, was naturally drawn toward the\ndistrict where supplies were abundant.\n\nIf instead of imagining to ourselves commanders of genius leading the\nRussian army, we picture that army without any leaders, it could not\nhave done anything but make a return movement toward Moscow, describing\nan arc in the direction where most provisions were to be found and where\nthe country was richest.\n\nThat movement from the Nizhni to the Ryazan, Tula, and Kaluga roads was\nso natural that even the Russian marauders moved in that direction, and\ndemands were sent from Petersburg for Kutuzov to take his army that way.\nAt Tarutino Kutuzov received what was almost a reprimand from the\nEmperor for having moved his army along the Ryazan road, and the\nEmperor's letter indicated to him the very position he had already\noccupied near Kaluga.\n\nHaving rolled like a ball in the direction of the impetus given by the\nwhole campaign and by the battle of Borodino, the Russian army--when the\nstrength of that impetus was exhausted and no fresh push was received--\nassumed the position natural to it.\n\nKutuzov's merit lay, not in any strategic maneuver of genius, as it is\ncalled, but in the fact that he alone understood the significance of\nwhat had happened. He alone then understood the meaning of the French\narmy's inactivity, he alone continued to assert that the battle of\nBorodino had been a victory, he alone--who as commander-in-chief might\nhave been expected to be eager to attack--employed his whole strength to\nrestrain the Russian army from useless engagements.\n\nThe beast wounded at Borodino was lying where the fleeing hunter had\nleft him; but whether he was still alive, whether he was strong and\nmerely lying low, the hunter did not know. Suddenly the beast was heard\nto moan.\n\nThe moan of that wounded beast (the French army) which betrayed its\ncalamitous condition was the sending of Lauriston to Kutuzov's camp with\novertures for peace.\n\nNapoleon, with his usual assurance that whatever entered his head was\nright, wrote to Kutuzov the first words that occurred to him, though\nthey were meaningless.\n\nMONSIEUR LE PRINCE KOUTOUZOV: I am sending one of my adjutants-general\nto discuss several interesting questions with you. I beg your Highness\nto credit what he says to you, especially when he expresses the\nsentiment of esteem and special regard I have long entertained for your\nperson. This letter having no other object, I pray God, monsieur le\nPrince Koutouzov, to keep you in His holy and gracious protection!\n\nNAPOLEON MOSCOW, OCTOBER 30, 1812\n\nKutuzov replied: \"I should be cursed by posterity were I looked on as\nthe initiator of a settlement of any sort. Such is the present spirit of\nmy nation.\" But he continued to exert all his powers to restrain his\ntroops from attacking.\n\nDuring the month that the French troops were pillaging in Moscow and the\nRussian troops were quietly encamped at Tarutino, a change had taken\nplace in the relative strength of the two armies--both in spirit and in\nnumber--as a result of which the superiority had passed to the Russian\nside. Though the condition and numbers of the French army were unknown\nto the Russians, as soon as that change occurred the need of attacking\nat once showed itself by countless signs. These signs were: Lauriston's\nmission; the abundance of provisions at Tarutino; the reports coming in\nfrom all sides of the inactivity and disorder of the French; the flow of\nrecruits to our regiments; the fine weather; the long rest the Russian\nsoldiers had enjoyed, and the impatience to do what they had been\nassembled for, which usually shows itself in an army that has been\nresting; curiosity as to what the French army, so long lost sight of,\nwas doing; the boldness with which our outposts now scouted close up to\nthe French stationed at Tarutino; the news of easy successes gained by\npeasants and guerrilla troops over the French, the envy aroused by this;\nthe desire for revenge that lay in the heart of every Russian as long as\nthe French were in Moscow, and (above all) a dim consciousness in every\nsoldier's mind that the relative strength of the armies had changed and\nthat the advantage was now on our side. There was a substantial change\nin the relative strength, and an advance had become inevitable. And at\nonce, as a clock begins to strike and chime as soon as the minute hand\nhas completed a full circle, this change was shown by an increased\nactivity, whirring, and chiming in the higher spheres.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nThe Russian army was commanded by Kutuzov and his staff, and also by the\nEmperor from Petersburg. Before the news of the abandonment of Moscow\nhad been received in Petersburg, a detailed plan of the whole campaign\nhad been drawn up and sent to Kutuzov for his guidance. Though this plan\nhad been drawn up on the supposition that Moscow was still in our hands,\nit was approved by the staff and accepted as a basis for action. Kutuzov\nonly replied that movements arranged from a distance were always\ndifficult to execute. So fresh instructions were sent for the solution\nof difficulties that might be encountered, as well as fresh people who\nwere to watch Kutuzov's actions and report upon them.\n\nBesides this, the whole staff of the Russian army was now reorganized.\nThe posts left vacant by Bagration, who had been killed, and by Barclay,\nwho had gone away in dudgeon, had to be filled. Very serious\nconsideration was given to the question whether it would be better to\nput A in B's place and B in D's, or on the contrary to put D in A's\nplace, and so on--as if anything more than A's or B's satisfaction\ndepended on this.\n\nAs a result of the hostility between Kutuzov and Bennigsen, his Chief of\nStaff, the presence of confidential representatives of the Emperor, and\nthese transfers, a more than usually complicated play of parties was\ngoing on among the staff of the army. A was undermining B, D was\nundermining C, and so on in all possible combinations and permutations.\nIn all these plottings the subject of intrigue was generally the conduct\nof the war, which all these men believed they were directing; but this\naffair of the war went on independently of them, as it had to go: that\nis, never in the way people devised, but flowing always from the\nessential attitude of the masses. Only in the highest spheres did all\nthese schemes, crossings, and interminglings appear to be a true\nreflection of what had to happen.\n\nPrince Michael Ilarionovich! (wrote the Emperor on the second of October\nin a letter that reached Kutuzov after the battle at Tarutino) Since\nSeptember 2 Moscow has been in the hands of the enemy. Your last reports\nwere written on the twentieth, and during all this time not only has no\naction been taken against the enemy or for the relief of the ancient\ncapital, but according to your last report you have even retreated\nfarther. Serpukhov is already occupied by an enemy detachment and Tula\nwith its famous arsenal so indispensable to the army, is in danger. From\nGeneral Wintzingerode's reports, I see that an enemy corps of ten\nthousand men is moving on the Petersburg road. Another corps of several\nthousand men is moving on Dmitrov. A third has advanced along the\nVladimir road, and a fourth, rather considerable detachment is stationed\nbetween Ruza and Mozhaysk. Napoleon himself was in Moscow as late as the\ntwenty-fifth. In view of all this information, when the enemy has\nscattered his forces in large detachments, and with Napoleon and his\nGuards in Moscow, is it possible that the enemy's forces confronting you\nare so considerable as not to allow of your taking the offensive? On the\ncontrary, he is probably pursuing you with detachments, or at most with\nan army corps much weaker than the army entrusted to you. It would seem\nthat, availing yourself of these circumstances, you might advantageously\nattack a weaker one and annihilate him, or at least oblige him to\nretreat, retaining in our hands an important part of the provinces now\noccupied by the enemy, and thereby averting danger from Tula and other\ntowns in the interior. You will be responsible if the enemy is able to\ndirect a force of any size against Petersburg to threaten this capital\nin which it has not been possible to retain many troops; for with the\narmy entrusted to you, and acting with resolution and energy, you have\nample means to avert this fresh calamity. Remember that you have still\nto answer to our offended country for the loss of Moscow. You have\nexperienced my readiness to reward you. That readiness will not weaken\nin me, but I and Russia have a right to expect from you all the zeal,\nfirmness, and success which your intellect, military talent, and the\ncourage of the troops you command justify us in expecting.\n\nBut by the time this letter, which proved that the real relation of the\nforces had already made itself felt in Petersburg, was dispatched,\nKutuzov had found himself unable any longer to restrain the army he\ncommanded from attacking and a battle had taken place.\n\nOn the second of October a Cossack, Shapovalov, who was out scouting,\nkilled one hare and wounded another. Following the wounded hare he made\nhis way far into the forest and came upon the left flank of Murat's\narmy, encamped there without any precautions. The Cossack laughingly\ntold his comrades how he had almost fallen into the hands of the French.\nA cornet, hearing the story, informed his commander.\n\nThe Cossack was sent for and questioned. The Cossack officers wished to\ntake advantage of this chance to capture some horses, but one of the\nsuperior officers, who was acquainted with the higher authorities,\nreported the incident to a general on the staff. The state of things on\nthe staff had of late been exceedingly strained. Ermolov had been to see\nBennigsen a few days previously and had entreated him to use his\ninfluence with the commander-in-chief to induce him to take the\noffensive.\n\n\"If I did not know you I should think you did not want what you are\nasking for. I need only advise anything and his Highness is sure to do\nthe opposite,\" replied Bennigsen.\n\nThe Cossack's report, confirmed by horse patrols who were sent out, was\nthe final proof that events had matured. The tightly coiled spring was\nreleased, the clock began to whirr and the chimes to play. Despite all\nhis supposed power, his intellect, his experience, and his knowledge of\nmen, Kutuzov--having taken into consideration the Cossack's report, a\nnote from Bennigsen who sent personal reports to the Emperor, the wishes\nhe supposed the Emperor to hold, and the fact that all the generals\nexpressed the same wish--could no longer check the inevitable movement,\nand gave the order to do what he regarded as useless and harmful--gave\nhis approval, that is, to the accomplished fact.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nBennigsen's note and the Cossack's information that the left flank of\nthe French was unguarded were merely final indications that it was\nnecessary to order an attack, and it was fixed for the fifth of October.\n\nOn the morning of the fourth of October Kutuzov signed the dispositions.\nToll read them to Ermolov, asking him to attend to the further\narrangements.\n\n\"All right--all right. I haven't time just now,\" replied Ermolov, and\nleft the hut.\n\nThe dispositions drawn up by Toll were very good. As in the Austerlitz\ndispositions, it was written--though not in German this time:\n\n\"The First Column will march here and here,\" \"the Second Column will\nmarch there and there,\" and so on; and on paper, all these columns\narrived at their places at the appointed time and destroyed the enemy.\nEverything had been admirably thought out as is usual in dispositions,\nand as is always the case, not a single column reached its place at the\nappointed time.\n\nWhen the necessary number of copies of the dispositions had been\nprepared, an officer was summoned and sent to deliver them to Ermolov to\ndeal with. A young officer of the Horse Guards, Kutuzov's orderly,\npleased at the importance of the mission entrusted to him, went to\nErmolov's quarters.\n\n\"Gone away,\" said Ermolov's orderly.\n\nThe officer of the Horse Guards went to a general with whom Ermolov was\noften to be found.\n\n\"No, and the general's out too.\"\n\nThe officer, mounting his horse, rode off to someone else.\n\n\"No, he's gone out.\"\n\n\"If only they don't make me responsible for this delay! What a nuisance\nit is!\" thought the officer, and he rode round the whole camp. One man\nsaid he had seen Ermolov ride past with some other generals, others said\nhe must have returned home. The officer searched till six o'clock in the\nevening without even stopping to eat. Ermolov was nowhere to be found\nand no one knew where he was. The officer snatched a little food at a\ncomrade's, and rode again to the vanguard to find Miloradovich.\nMiloradovich too was away, but here he was told that he had gone to a\nball at General Kikin's and that Ermolov was probably there too.\n\n\"But where is it?\"\n\n\"Why, there, over at Echkino,\" said a Cossack officer, pointing to a\ncountry house in the far distance.\n\n\"What, outside our line?\"\n\n\"They've put two regiments as outposts, and they're having such a spree\nthere, it's awful! Two bands and three sets of singers!\"\n\nThe officer rode out beyond our lines to Echkino. While still at a\ndistance he heard as he rode the merry sounds of a soldier's dance song\nproceeding from the house.\n\n\"In the meadows... in the meadows!\" he heard, accompanied by whistling\nand the sound of a torban, drowned every now and then by shouts. These\nsounds made his spirits rise, but at the same time he was afraid that he\nwould be blamed for not having executed sooner the important order\nentrusted to him. It was already past eight o'clock. He dismounted and\nwent up into the porch of a large country house which had remained\nintact between the Russian and French forces. In the refreshment room\nand the hall, footmen were bustling about with wine and viands. Groups\nof singers stood outside the windows. The officer was admitted and\nimmediately saw all the chief generals of the army together, and among\nthem Ermolov's big imposing figure. They all had their coats unbuttoned\nand were standing in a semicircle with flushed and animated faces,\nlaughing loudly. In the middle of the room a short handsome general with\na red face was dancing the trepak with much spirit and agility.\n\n\"Ha, ha, ha! Bravo, Nicholas Ivanych! Ha, ha, ha!\"\n\nThe officer felt that by arriving with important orders at such a moment\nhe was doubly to blame, and he would have preferred to wait; but one of\nthe generals espied him and, hearing what he had come about, informed\nErmolov.\n\nErmolov came forward with a frown on his face and, hearing what the\nofficer had to say, took the papers from him without a word.\n\n\"You think he went off just by chance?\" said a comrade, who was on the\nstaff that evening, to the officer of the Horse Guards, referring to\nErmolov. \"It was a trick. It was done on purpose to get Konovnitsyn into\ntrouble. You'll see what a mess there'll be tomorrow.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nNext day the decrepit Kutuzov, having given orders to be called early,\nsaid his prayers, dressed, and, with an unpleasant consciousness of\nhaving to direct a battle he did not approve of, got into his caleche\nand drove from Letashovka (a village three and a half miles from\nTarutino) to the place where the attacking columns were to meet. He sat\nin the caleche, dozing and waking up by turns, and listening for any\nsound of firing on the right as an indication that the action had begun.\nBut all was still quiet. A damp dull autumn morning was just dawning. On\napproaching Tarutino Kutuzov noticed cavalrymen leading their horses to\nwater across the road along which he was driving. Kutuzov looked at them\nsearchingly, stopped his carriage, and inquired what regiment they\nbelonged to. They belonged to a column that should have been far in\nfront and in ambush long before then. \"It may be a mistake,\" thought the\nold commander-in-chief. But a little further on he saw infantry\nregiments with their arms piled and the soldiers, only partly dressed,\neating their rye porridge and carrying fuel. He sent for an officer. The\nofficer reported that no order to advance had been received.\n\n\"How! Not rec...\" Kutuzov began, but checked himself immediately and\nsent for a senior officer. Getting out of his caleche, he waited with\ndrooping head and breathing heavily, pacing silently up and down. When\nEykhen, the officer of the general staff whom he had summoned, appeared,\nKutuzov went purple in the face, not because that officer was to blame\nfor the mistake, but because he was an object of sufficient importance\nfor him to vent his wrath on. Trembling and panting the old man fell\ninto that state of fury in which he sometimes used to roll on the\nground, and he fell upon Eykhen, threatening him with his hands,\nshouting and loading him with gross abuse. Another man, Captain Brozin,\nwho happened to turn up and who was not at all to blame, suffered the\nsame fate.\n\n\"What sort of another blackguard are you? I'll have you shot!\nScoundrels!\" yelled Kutuzov in a hoarse voice, waving his arms and\nreeling.\n\nHe was suffering physically. He, the commander-in-chief, a Serene\nHighness who everybody said possessed powers such as no man had ever had\nin Russia, to be placed in this position--made the laughingstock of the\nwhole army! \"I needn't have been in such a hurry to pray about today, or\nhave kept awake thinking everything over all night,\" thought he to\nhimself. \"When I was a chit of an officer no one would have dared to\nmock me so... and now!\" He was in a state of physical suffering as if\nfrom corporal punishment, and could not avoid expressing it by cries of\nanger and distress. But his strength soon began to fail him, and looking\nabout him, conscious of having said much that was amiss, he again got\ninto his caleche and drove back in silence.\n\nHis wrath, once expended, did not return, and blinking feebly he\nlistened to excuses and self-justifications (Ermolov did not come to see\nhim till the next day) and to the insistence of Bennigsen, Konovnitsyn,\nand Toll that the movement that had miscarried should be executed next\nday. And once more Kutuzov had to consent.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nNext day the troops assembled in their appointed places in the evening\nand advanced during the night. It was an autumn night with dark purple\nclouds, but no rain. The ground was damp but not muddy, and the troops\nadvanced noiselessly, only occasionally a jingling of the artillery\ncould be faintly heard. The men were forbidden to talk out loud, to\nsmoke their pipes, or to strike a light, and they tried to prevent their\nhorses neighing. The secrecy of the undertaking heightened its charm and\nthey marched gaily. Some columns, supposing they had reached their\ndestination, halted, piled arms, and settled down on the cold ground,\nbut the majority marched all night and arrived at places where they\nevidently should not have been.\n\nOnly Count Orlov-Denisov with his Cossacks (the least important\ndetachment of all) got to his appointed place at the right time. This\ndetachment halted at the outskirts of a forest, on the path leading from\nthe village of Stromilova to Dmitrovsk.\n\nToward dawn, Count Orlov-Denisov, who had dozed off, was awakened by a\ndeserter from the French army being brought to him. This was a Polish\nsergeant of Poniatowski's corps, who explained in Polish that he had\ncome over because he had been slighted in the service: that he ought\nlong ago to have been made an officer, that he was braver than any of\nthem, and so he had left them and wished to pay them out. He said that\nMurat was spending the night less than a mile from where they were, and\nthat if they would let him have a convoy of a hundred men he would\ncapture him alive. Count Orlov-Denisov consulted his fellow officers.\n\nThe offer was too tempting to be refused. Everyone volunteered to go and\neverybody advised making the attempt. After much disputing and arguing,\nMajor-General Grekov with two Cossack regiments decided to go with the\nPolish sergeant.\n\n\"Now, remember,\" said Count Orlov-Denisov to the sergeant at parting,\n\"if you have been lying I'll have you hanged like a dog; but if it's\ntrue you shall have a hundred gold pieces!\"\n\nWithout replying, the sergeant, with a resolute air, mounted and rode\naway with Grekov whose men had quickly assembled. They disappeared into\nthe forest, and Count Orlov-Denisov, having seen Grekov off, returned,\nshivering from the freshness of the early dawn and excited by what he\nhad undertaken on his own responsibility, and began looking at the enemy\ncamp, now just visible in the deceptive light of dawn and the dying\ncampfires. Our columns ought to have begun to appear on an open\ndeclivity to his right. He looked in that direction, but though the\ncolumns would have been visible quite far off, they were not to be seen.\nIt seemed to the count that things were beginning to stir in the French\ncamp, and his keen-sighted adjutant confirmed this.\n\n\"Oh, it is really too late,\" said Count Orlov, looking at the camp.\n\nAs often happens when someone we have trusted is no longer before our\neyes, it suddenly seemed quite clear and obvious to him that the\nsergeant was an impostor, that he had lied, and that the whole Russian\nattack would be ruined by the absence of those two regiments, which he\nwould lead away heaven only knew where. How could one capture a\ncommander-in-chief from among such a mass of troops!\n\n\"I am sure that rascal was lying,\" said the count.\n\n\"They can still be called back,\" said one of his suite, who like Count\nOrlov felt distrustful of the adventure when he looked at the enemy's\ncamp.\n\n\"Eh? Really... what do you think? Should we let them go on or not?\"\n\n\"Will you have them fetched back?\"\n\n\"Fetch them back, fetch them back!\" said Count Orlov with sudden\ndetermination, looking at his watch. \"It will be too late. It is quite\nlight.\"\n\nAnd the adjutant galloped through the forest after Grekov. When Grekov\nreturned, Count Orlov-Denisov, excited both by the abandoned attempt and\nby vainly awaiting the infantry columns that still did not appear, as\nwell as by the proximity of the enemy, resolved to advance. All his men\nfelt the same excitement.\n\n\"Mount!\" he commanded in a whisper. The men took their places and\ncrossed themselves.... \"Forward, with God's aid!\"\n\n\"Hurrah-ah-ah!\" reverberated in the forest, and the Cossack companies,\ntrailing their lances and advancing one after another as if poured out\nof a sack, dashed gaily across the brook toward the camp.\n\nOne desperate, frightened yell from the first French soldier who saw the\nCossacks, and all who were in the camp, undressed and only just waking\nup, ran off in all directions, abandoning cannons, muskets, and horses.\n\nHad the Cossacks pursued the French, without heeding what was behind and\naround them, they would have captured Murat and everything there. That\nwas what the officers desired. But it was impossible to make the\nCossacks budge when once they had got booty and prisoners. None of them\nlistened to orders. Fifteen hundred prisoners and thirty-eight guns were\ntaken on the spot, besides standards and (what seemed most important to\nthe Cossacks) horses, saddles, horsecloths, and the like. All this had\nto be dealt with, the prisoners and guns secured, the booty divided--not\nwithout some shouting and even a little fighting among themselves--and\nit was on this that the Cossacks all busied themselves.\n\nThe French, not being farther pursued, began to recover themselves: they\nformed into detachments and began firing. Orlov-Denisov, still waiting\nfor the other columns to arrive, advanced no further.\n\nMeantime, according to the dispositions which said that \"the First\nColumn will march\" and so on, the infantry of the belated columns,\ncommanded by Bennigsen and directed by Toll, had started in due order\nand, as always happens, had got somewhere, but not to their appointed\nplaces. As always happens the men, starting cheerfully, began to halt;\nmurmurs were heard, there was a sense of confusion, and finally a\nbackward movement. Adjutants and generals galloped about, shouted, grew\nangry, quarreled, said they had come quite wrong and were late, gave\nvent to a little abuse, and at last gave it all up and went forward,\nsimply to get somewhere. \"We shall get somewhere or other!\" And they did\nindeed get somewhere, though not to their right places; a few eventually\neven got to their right place, but too late to be of any use and only in\ntime to be fired at. Toll, who in this battle played the part of\nWeyrother at Austerlitz, galloped assiduously from place to place,\nfinding everything upside down everywhere. Thus he stumbled on Bagovut's\ncorps in a wood when it was already broad daylight, though the corps\nshould long before have joined Orlov-Denisov. Excited and vexed by the\nfailure and supposing that someone must be responsible for it, Toll\ngalloped up to the commander of the corps and began upbraiding him\nseverely, saying that he ought to be shot. General Bagovut, a fighting\nold soldier of placid temperament, being also upset by all the delay,\nconfusion, and cross-purposes, fell into a rage to everybody's surprise\nand quite contrary to his usual character and said disagreeable things\nto Toll.\n\n\"I prefer not to take lessons from anyone, but I can die with my men as\nwell as anybody,\" he said, and advanced with a single division.\n\nComing out onto a field under the enemy's fire, this brave general went\nstraight ahead, leading his men under fire, without considering in his\nagitation whether going into action now, with a single division, would\nbe of any use or no. Danger, cannon balls, and bullets were just what he\nneeded in his angry mood. One of the first bullets killed him, and other\nbullets killed many of his men. And his division remained under fire for\nsome time quite uselessly.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nMeanwhile another column was to have attacked the French from the front,\nbut Kutuzov accompanied that column. He well knew that nothing but\nconfusion would come of this battle undertaken against his will, and as\nfar as was in his power held the troops back. He did not advance.\n\nHe rode silently on his small gray horse, indolently answering\nsuggestions that they should attack.\n\n\"The word attack is always on your tongue, but you don't see that we are\nunable to execute complicated maneuvers,\" said he to Miloradovich who\nasked permission to advance.\n\n\"We couldn't take Murat prisoner this morning or get to the place in\ntime, and nothing can be done now!\" he replied to someone else.\n\nWhen Kutuzov was informed that at the French rear--where according to\nthe reports of the Cossacks there had previously been nobody--there were\nnow two battalions of Poles, he gave a sidelong glance at Ermolov who\nwas behind him and to whom he had not spoken since the previous day.\n\n\"You see! They are asking to attack and making plans of all kinds, but\nas soon as one gets to business nothing is ready, and the enemy,\nforewarned, takes measures accordingly.\"\n\nErmolov screwed up his eyes and smiled faintly on hearing these words.\nHe understood that for him the storm had blown over, and that Kutuzov\nwould content himself with that hint.\n\n\"He's having a little fun at my expense,\" said Ermolov softly, nudging\nwith his knee Raevski who was at his side.\n\nSoon after this, Ermolov moved up to Kutuzov and respectfully remarked:\n\n\"It is not too late yet, your Highness--the enemy has not gone away--if\nyou were to order an attack! If not, the Guards will not so much as see\na little smoke.\"\n\nKutuzov did not reply, but when they reported to him that Murat's troops\nwere in retreat he ordered an advance, though at every hundred paces he\nhalted for three quarters of an hour.\n\nThe whole battle consisted in what Orlov-Denisov's Cossacks had done:\nthe rest of the army merely lost some hundreds of men uselessly.\n\nIn consequence of this battle Kutuzov received a diamond decoration, and\nBennigsen some diamonds and a hundred thousand rubles, others also\nreceived pleasant recognitions corresponding to their various grades,\nand following the battle fresh changes were made in the staff.\n\n\"That's how everything is done with us, all topsy-turvy!\" said the\nRussian officers and generals after the Tarutino battle, letting it be\nunderstood that some fool there is doing things all wrong but that we\nourselves should not have done so, just as people speak today. But\npeople who talk like that either do not know what they are talking about\nor deliberately deceive themselves. No battle--Tarutino, Borodino, or\nAusterlitz--takes place as those who planned it anticipated. That is an\nessential condition.\n\nA countless number of free forces (for nowhere is man freer than during\na battle, where it is a question of life and death) influence the course\ntaken by the fight, and that course never can be known in advance and\nnever coincides with the direction of any one force.\n\nIf many simultaneously and variously directed forces act on a given\nbody, the direction of its motion cannot coincide with any one of those\nforces, but will always be a mean--what in mechanics is represented by\nthe diagonal of a parallelogram of forces.\n\nIf in the descriptions given by historians, especially French ones, we\nfind their wars and battles carried out in accordance with previously\nformed plans, the only conclusion to be drawn is that those descriptions\nare false.\n\nThe battle of Tarutino obviously did not attain the aim Toll had in\nview--to lead the troops into action in the order prescribed by the\ndispositions; nor that which Count Orlov-Denisov may have had in view--\nto take Murat prisoner; nor the result of immediately destroying the\nwhole corps, which Bennigsen and others may have had in view; nor the\naim of the officer who wished to go into action to distinguish himself;\nnor that of the Cossack who wanted more booty than he got, and so on.\nBut if the aim of the battle was what actually resulted and what all the\nRussians of that day desired--to drive the French out of Russia and\ndestroy their army--it is quite clear that the battle of Tarutino, just\nbecause of its incongruities, was exactly what was wanted at that stage\nof the campaign. It would be difficult and even impossible to imagine\nany result more opportune than the actual outcome of this battle. With a\nminimum of effort and insignificant losses, despite the greatest\nconfusion, the most important results of the whole campaign were\nattained: the transition from retreat to advance, an exposure of the\nweakness of the French, and the administration of that shock which\nNapoleon's army had only awaited to begin its flight.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nNapoleon enters Moscow after the brilliant victory de la Moskowa; there\ncan be no doubt about the victory for the battlefield remains in the\nhands of the French. The Russians retreat and abandon their ancient\ncapital. Moscow, abounding in provisions, arms, munitions, and\nincalculable wealth, is in Napoleon's hands. The Russian army, only half\nthe strength of the French, does not make a single attempt to attack for\na whole month. Napoleon's position is most brilliant. He can either fall\non the Russian army with double its strength and destroy it; negotiate\nan advantageous peace, or in case of a refusal make a menacing move on\nPetersburg, or even, in the case of a reverse, return to Smolensk or\nVilna; or remain in Moscow; in short, no special genius would seem to be\nrequired to retain the brilliant position the French held at that time.\nFor that, only very simple and easy steps were necessary: not to allow\nthe troops to loot, to prepare winter clothing--of which there was\nsufficient in Moscow for the whole army--and methodically to collect the\nprovisions, of which (according to the French historians) there were\nenough in Moscow to supply the whole army for six months. Yet Napoleon,\nthat greatest of all geniuses, who the historians declare had control of\nthe army, took none of these steps.\n\nHe not merely did nothing of the kind, but on the contrary he used his\npower to select the most foolish and ruinous of all the courses open to\nhim. Of all that Napoleon might have done: wintering in Moscow,\nadvancing on Petersburg or on Nizhni-Novgorod, or retiring by a more\nnortherly or more southerly route (say by the road Kutuzov afterwards\ntook), nothing more stupid or disastrous can be imagined than what he\nactually did. He remained in Moscow till October, letting the troops\nplunder the city; then, hesitating whether to leave a garrison behind\nhim, he quitted Moscow, approached Kutuzov without joining battle,\nturned to the right and reached Malo-Yaroslavets, again without\nattempting to break through and take the road Kutuzov took, but retiring\ninstead to Mozhaysk along the devastated Smolensk road. Nothing more\nstupid than that could have been devised, or more disastrous for the\narmy, as the sequel showed. Had Napoleon's aim been to destroy his army,\nthe most skillful strategist could hardly have devised any series of\nactions that would so completely have accomplished that purpose,\nindependently of anything the Russian army might do.\n\nNapoleon, the man of genius, did this! But to say that he destroyed his\narmy because he wished to, or because he was very stupid, would be as\nunjust as to say that he had brought his troops to Moscow because he\nwished to and because he was very clever and a genius.\n\nIn both cases his personal activity, having no more force than the\npersonal activity of any soldier, merely coincided with the laws that\nguided the event.\n\nThe historians quite falsely represent Napoleon's faculties as having\nweakened in Moscow, and do so only because the results did not justify\nhis actions. He employed all his ability and strength to do the best he\ncould for himself and his army, as he had done previously and as he did\nsubsequently in 1813. His activity at that time was no less astounding\nthan it was in Egypt, in Italy, in Austria, and in Prussia. We do not\nknow for certain in how far his genius was genuine in Egypt--where forty\ncenturies looked down upon his grandeur--for his great exploits there\nare all told us by Frenchmen. We cannot accurately estimate his genius\nin Austria or Prussia, for we have to draw our information from French\nor German sources, and the incomprehensible surrender of whole corps\nwithout fighting and of fortresses without a siege must incline Germans\nto recognize his genius as the only explanation of the war carried on in\nGermany. But we, thank God, have no need to recognize his genius in\norder to hide our shame. We have paid for the right to look at the\nmatter plainly and simply, and we will not abandon that right.\n\nHis activity in Moscow was as amazing and as full of genius as\nelsewhere. Order after order and plan after plan were issued by him from\nthe time he entered Moscow till the time he left it. The absence of\ncitizens and of a deputation, and even the burning of Moscow, did not\ndisconcert him. He did not lose sight either of the welfare of his army\nor of the doings of the enemy, or of the welfare of the people of\nRussia, or of the direction of affairs in Paris, or of diplomatic\nconsiderations concerning the terms of the anticipated peace.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nWith regard to military matters, Napoleon immediately on his entry into\nMoscow gave General Sabastiani strict orders to observe the movements of\nthe Russian army, sent army corps out along the different roads, and\ncharged Murat to find Kutuzov. Then he gave careful directions about the\nfortification of the Kremlin, and drew up a brilliant plan for a future\ncampaign over the whole map of Russia.\n\nWith regard to diplomatic questions, Napoleon summoned Captain Yakovlev,\nwho had been robbed and was in rags and did not know how to get out of\nMoscow, minutely explained to him his whole policy and his magnanimity,\nand having written a letter to the Emperor Alexander in which he\nconsidered it his duty to inform his Friend and Brother that Rostopchin\nhad managed affairs badly in Moscow, he dispatched Yakovlev to\nPetersburg.\n\nHaving similarly explained his views and his magnanimity to Tutolmin, he\ndispatched that old man also to Petersburg to negotiate.\n\nWith regard to legal matters, immediately after the fires he gave orders\nto find and execute the incendiaries. And the scoundrel Rostopchin was\npunished by an order to burn down his houses.\n\nWith regard to administrative matters, Moscow was granted a\nconstitution. A municipality was established and the following\nannouncement issued:\n\nINHABITANTS OF MOSCOW!\n\nYour misfortunes are cruel, but His Majesty the Emperor and King desires\nto arrest their course. Terrible examples have taught you how he\npunishes disobedience and crime. Strict measures have been taken to put\nan end to disorder and to re-establish public security. A paternal\nadministration, chosen from among yourselves, will form your\nmunicipality or city government. It will take care of you, of your\nneeds, and of your welfare. Its members will be distinguished by a red\nribbon worn across the shoulder, and the mayor of the city will wear a\nwhite belt as well. But when not on duty they will only wear a red\nribbon round the left arm.\n\nThe city police is established on its former footing, and better order\nalready prevails in consequence of its activity. The government has\nappointed two commissaries general, or chiefs of police, and twenty\ncommissaries or captains of wards have been appointed to the different\nwards of the city. You will recognize them by the white ribbon they will\nwear on the left arm. Several churches of different denominations are\nopen, and divine service is performed in them unhindered. Your fellow\ncitizens are returning every day to their homes and orders have been\ngiven that they should find in them the help and protection due to their\nmisfortunes. These are the measures the government has adopted to re-\nestablish order and relieve your condition. But to achieve this aim it\nis necessary that you should add your efforts and should, if possible,\nforget the misfortunes you have suffered, should entertain the hope of a\nless cruel fate, should be certain that inevitable and ignominious death\nawaits those who make any attempt on your persons or on what remains of\nyour property, and finally that you should not doubt that these will be\nsafeguarded, since such is the will of the greatest and most just of\nmonarchs. Soldiers and citizens, of whatever nation you may be, re-\nestablish public confidence, the source of the welfare of a state, live\nlike brothers, render mutual aid and protection one to another, unite to\ndefeat the intentions of the evil-minded, obey the military and civil\nauthorities, and your tears will soon cease to flow!\n\nWith regard to supplies for the army, Napoleon decreed that all the\ntroops in turn should enter Moscow a la maraude * to obtain provisions\nfor themselves, so that the army might have its future provided for.\n\n\n* As looters.\n\nWith regard to religion, Napoleon ordered the priests to be brought back\nand services to be again performed in the churches.\n\nWith regard to commerce and to provisioning the army, the following was\nplacarded everywhere:\n\nPROCLAMATION!\n\nYou, peaceful inhabitants of Moscow, artisans and workmen whom\nmisfortune has driven from the city, and you scattered tillers of the\nsoil, still kept out in the fields by groundless fear, listen!\nTranquillity is returning to this capital and order is being restored in\nit. Your fellow countrymen are emerging boldly from their hiding places\non finding that they are respected. Any violence to them or to their\nproperty is promptly punished. His Majesty the Emperor and King protects\nthem, and considers no one among you his enemy except those who disobey\nhis orders. He desires to end your misfortunes and restore you to your\nhomes and families. Respond, therefore, to his benevolent intentions and\ncome to us without fear. Inhabitants, return with confidence to your\nabodes! You will soon find means of satisfying your needs. Craftsmen and\nindustrious artisans, return to your work, your houses, your shops,\nwhere the protection of guards awaits you! You shall receive proper pay\nfor your work. And lastly you too, peasants, come from the forests where\nyou are hiding in terror, return to your huts without fear, in full\nassurance that you will find protection! Markets are established in the\ncity where peasants can bring their surplus supplies and the products of\nthe soil. The government has taken the following steps to ensure freedom\nof sale for them: (1) From today, peasants, husbandmen, and those living\nin the neighborhood of Moscow may without any danger bring their\nsupplies of all kinds to two appointed markets, of which one is on the\nMokhovaya Street and the other at the Provision Market. (2) Such\nsupplies will be bought from them at such prices as seller and buyer may\nagree on, and if a seller is unable to obtain a fair price he will be\nfree to take his goods back to his village and no one may hinder him\nunder any pretense. (3) Sunday and Wednesday of each week are appointed\nas the chief market days and to that end a sufficient number of troops\nwill be stationed along the highroads on Tuesdays and Saturdays at such\ndistances from the town as to protect the carts. (4) Similar measures\nwill be taken that peasants with their carts and horses may meet with no\nhindrance on their return journey. (5) Steps will immediately be taken\nto re-establish ordinary trading.\n\nInhabitants of the city and villages, and you, workingmen and artisans,\nto whatever nation you belong, you are called on to carry out the\npaternal intentions of His Majesty the Emperor and King and to co-\noperate with him for the public welfare! Lay your respect and confidence\nat his feet and do not delay to unite with us!\n\nWith the object of raising the spirits of the troops and of the people,\nreviews were constantly held and rewards distributed. The Emperor rode\nthrough the streets to comfort the inhabitants, and, despite his\npreoccupation with state affairs, himself visited the theaters that were\nestablished by his order.\n\nIn regard to philanthropy, the greatest virtue of crowned heads,\nNapoleon also did all in his power. He caused the words Maison de ma\nMere to be inscribed on the charitable institutions, thereby combining\ntender filial affection with the majestic benevolence of a monarch. He\nvisited the Foundling Hospital and, allowing the orphans saved by him to\nkiss his white hands, graciously conversed with Tutolmin. Then, as\nThiers eloquently recounts, he ordered his soldiers to be paid in forged\nRussian money which he had prepared: \"Raising the use of these means by\nan act worthy of himself and of the French army, he let relief be\ndistributed to those who had been burned out. But as food was too\nprecious to be given to foreigners, who were for the most part enemies,\nNapoleon preferred to supply them with money with which to purchase food\nfrom outside, and had paper rubles distributed to them.\"\n\nWith reference to army discipline, orders were continually being issued\nto inflict severe punishment for the nonperformance of military duties\nand to suppress robbery.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nBut strange to say, all these measures, efforts, and plans--which were\nnot at all worse than others issued in similar circumstances--did not\naffect the essence of the matter but, like the hands of a clock detached\nfrom the mechanism, swung about in an arbitrary and aimless way without\nengaging the cogwheels.\n\nWith reference to the military side--the plan of campaign--that work of\ngenius of which Thiers remarks that, \"His genius never devised anything\nmore profound, more skillful, or more admirable,\" and enters into a\npolemic with M. Fain to prove that this work of genius must be referred\nnot to the fourth but to the fifteenth of October--that plan never was\nor could be executed, for it was quite out of touch with the facts of\nthe case. The fortifying of the Kremlin, for which la Mosquee (as\nNapoleon termed the church of Basil the Beatified) was to have been\nrazed to the ground, proved quite useless. The mining of the Kremlin\nonly helped toward fulfilling Napoleon's wish that it should be blown up\nwhen he left Moscow--as a child wants the floor on which he has hurt\nhimself to be beaten. The pursuit of the Russian army, about which\nNapoleon was so concerned, produced an unheard-of result. The French\ngenerals lost touch with the Russian army of sixty thousand men, and\naccording to Thiers it was only eventually found, like a lost pin, by\nthe skill--and apparently the genius--of Murat.\n\nWith reference to diplomacy, all Napoleon's arguments as to his\nmagnanimity and justice, both to Tutolmin and to Yakovlev (whose chief\nconcern was to obtain a greatcoat and a conveyance), proved useless;\nAlexander did not receive these envoys and did not reply to their\nembassage.\n\nWith regard to legal matters, after the execution of the supposed\nincendiaries the rest of Moscow burned down.\n\nWith regard to administrative matters, the establishment of a\nmunicipality did not stop the robberies and was only of use to certain\npeople who formed part of that municipality and under pretext of\npreserving order looted Moscow or saved their own property from being\nlooted.\n\nWith regard to religion, as to which in Egypt matters had so easily been\nsettled by Napoleon's visit to a mosque, no results were achieved. Two\nor three priests who were found in Moscow did try to carry out\nNapoleon's wish, but one of them was slapped in the face by a French\nsoldier while conducting service, and a French official reported of\nanother that: \"The priest whom I found and invited to say Mass cleaned\nand locked up the church. That night the doors were again broken open,\nthe padlocks smashed, the books mutilated, and other disorders\nperpetrated.\"\n\nWith reference to commerce, the proclamation to industrious workmen and\nto peasants evoked no response. There were no industrious workmen, and\nthe peasants caught the commissaries who ventured too far out of town\nwith the proclamation and killed them.\n\nAs to the theaters for the entertainment of the people and the troops,\nthese did not meet with success either. The theaters set up in the\nKremlin and in Posnyakov's house were closed again at once because the\nactors and actresses were robbed.\n\nEven philanthropy did not have the desired effect. The genuine as well\nas the false paper money which flooded Moscow lost its value. The\nFrench, collecting booty, cared only for gold. Not only was the paper\nmoney valueless which Napoleon so graciously distributed to the\nunfortunate, but even silver lost its value in relation to gold.\n\nBut the most amazing example of the ineffectiveness of the orders given\nby the authorities at that time was Napoleon's attempt to stop the\nlooting and re-establish discipline.\n\nThis is what the army authorities were reporting:\n\n\"Looting continues in the city despite the decrees against it. Order is\nnot yet restored and not a single merchant is carrying on trade in a\nlawful manner. The sutlers alone venture to trade, and they sell stolen\ngoods.\"\n\n\"The neighborhood of my ward continues to be pillaged by soldiers of the\n3rd Corps who, not satisfied with taking from the unfortunate\ninhabitants hiding in the cellars the little they have left, even have\nthe ferocity to wound them with their sabers, as I have repeatedly\nwitnessed.\"\n\n\"Nothing new, except that the soldiers are robbing and pillaging--\nOctober 9.\"\n\n\"Robbery and pillaging continue. There is a band of thieves in our\ndistrict who ought to be arrested by a strong force--October 11.\"\n\n\"The Emperor is extremely displeased that despite the strict orders to\nstop pillage, parties of marauding Guards are continually seen returning\nto the Kremlin. Among the Old Guard disorder and pillage were renewed\nmore violently than ever yesterday evening, last night, and today. The\nEmperor sees with regret that the picked soldiers appointed to guard his\nperson, who should set an example of discipline, carry disobedience to\nsuch a point that they break into the cellars and stores containing army\nsupplies. Others have disgraced themselves to the extent of disobeying\nsentinels and officers, and have abused and beaten them.\"\n\n\"The Grand Marshal of the palace,\" wrote the governor, \"complains\nbitterly that in spite of repeated orders, the soldiers continue to\ncommit nuisances in all the courtyards and even under the very windows\nof the Emperor.\"\n\nThat army, like a herd of cattle run wild and trampling underfoot the\nprovender which might have saved it from starvation, disintegrated and\nperished with each additional day it remained in Moscow. But it did not\ngo away.\n\nIt began to run away only when suddenly seized by a panic caused by the\ncapture of transport trains on the Smolensk road, and by the battle of\nTarutino. The news of that battle of Tarutino, unexpectedly received by\nNapoleon at a review, evoked in him a desire to punish the Russians\n(Thiers says), and he issued the order for departure which the whole\narmy was demanding.\n\nFleeing from Moscow the soldiers took with them everything they had\nstolen. Napoleon, too, carried away his own personal tresor, but on\nseeing the baggage trains that impeded the army, he was (Thiers says)\nhorror-struck. And yet with his experience of war he did not order all\nthe superfluous vehicles to be burned, as he had done with those of a\ncertain marshal when approaching Moscow. He gazed at the caleches and\ncarriages in which soldiers were riding and remarked that it was a very\ngood thing, as those vehicles could be used to carry provisions, the\nsick, and the wounded.\n\nThe plight of the whole army resembled that of a wounded animal which\nfeels it is perishing and does not know what it is doing. To study the\nskillful tactics and aims of Napoleon and his army from the time it\nentered Moscow till it was destroyed is like studying the dying leaps\nand shudders of a mortally wounded animal. Very often a wounded animal,\nhearing a rustle, rushes straight at the hunter's gun, runs forward and\nback again, and hastens its own end. Napoleon, under pressure from his\nwhole army, did the same thing. The rustle of the battle of Tarutino\nfrightened the beast, and it rushed forward onto the hunter's gun,\nreached him, turned back, and finally--like any wild beast--ran back\nalong the most disadvantageous and dangerous path, where the old scent\nwas familiar.\n\nDuring the whole of that period Napoleon, who seems to us to have been\nthe leader of all these movements--as the figurehead of a ship may seem\nto a savage to guide the vessel--acted like a child who, holding a\ncouple of strings inside a carriage, thinks he is driving it.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nEarly in the morning of the sixth of October Pierre went out of the\nshed, and on returning stopped by the door to play with a little blue-\ngray dog, with a long body and short bandy legs, that jumped about him.\nThis little dog lived in their shed, sleeping beside Karataev at night;\nit sometimes made excursions into the town but always returned again.\nProbably it had never had an owner, and it still belonged to nobody and\nhad no name. The French called it Azor; the soldier who told stories\ncalled it Femgalka; Karataev and others called it Gray, or sometimes\nFlabby. Its lack of a master, a name, or even of a breed or any definite\ncolor did not seem to trouble the blue-gray dog in the least. Its furry\ntail stood up firm and round as a plume, its bandy legs served it so\nwell that it would often gracefully lift a hind leg and run very easily\nand quickly on three legs, as if disdaining to use all four. Everything\npleased it. Now it would roll on its back, yelping with delight, now\nbask in the sun with a thoughtful air of importance, and now frolic\nabout playing with a chip of wood or a straw.\n\nPierre's attire by now consisted of a dirty torn shirt (the only remnant\nof his former clothing), a pair of soldier's trousers which by\nKarataev's advice he tied with string round the ankles for warmth, and a\npeasant coat and cap. Physically he had changed much during this time.\nHe no longer seemed stout, though he still had the appearance of\nsolidity and strength hereditary in his family. A beard and mustache\ncovered the lower part of his face, and a tangle of hair, infested with\nlice, curled round his head like a cap. The look of his eyes was\nresolute, calm, and animatedly alert, as never before. The former\nslackness which had shown itself even in his eyes was now replaced by an\nenergetic readiness for action and resistance. His feet were bare.\n\nPierre first looked down the field across which vehicles and horsemen\nwere passing that morning, then into the distance across the river, then\nat the dog who was pretending to be in earnest about biting him, and\nthen at his bare feet which he placed with pleasure in various\npositions, moving his dirty thick big toes. Every time he looked at his\nbare feet a smile of animated self-satisfaction flitted across his face.\nThe sight of them reminded him of all he had experienced and learned\nduring these weeks and this recollection was pleasant to him.\n\nFor some days the weather had been calm and clear with slight frosts in\nthe mornings--what is called an \"old wives' summer.\"\n\nIn the sunshine the air was warm, and that warmth was particularly\npleasant with the invigorating freshness of the morning frost still in\nthe air.\n\nOn everything--far and near--lay the magic crystal glitter seen only at\nthat time of autumn. The Sparrow Hills were visible in the distance,\nwith the village, the church, and the large white house. The bare trees,\nthe sand, the bricks and roofs of the houses, the green church spire,\nand the corners of the white house in the distance, all stood out in the\ntransparent air in most delicate outline and with unnatural clearness.\nNear by could be seen the familiar ruins of a half-burned mansion\noccupied by the French, with lilac bushes still showing dark green\nbeside the fence. And even that ruined and befouled house--which in dull\nweather was repulsively ugly--seemed quietly beautiful now, in the\nclear, motionless brilliance.\n\nA French corporal, with coat unbuttoned in a homely way, a skullcap on\nhis head, and a short pipe in his mouth, came from behind a corner of\nthe shed and approached Pierre with a friendly wink.\n\n\"What sunshine, Monsieur Kiril!\" (Their name for Pierre.) \"Eh? Just like\nspring!\"\n\nAnd the corporal leaned against the door and offered Pierre his pipe,\nthough whenever he offered it Pierre always declined it.\n\n\"To be on the march in such weather...\" he began.\n\nPierre inquired what was being said about leaving, and the corporal told\nhim that nearly all the troops were starting and there ought to be an\norder about the prisoners that day. Sokolov, one of the soldiers in the\nshed with Pierre, was dying, and Pierre told the corporal that something\nshould be done about him. The corporal replied that Pierre need not\nworry about that as they had an ambulance and a permanent hospital and\narrangements would be made for the sick, and that in general everything\nthat could happen had been foreseen by the authorities.\n\n\"Besides, Monsieur Kiril, you have only to say a word to the captain,\nyou know. He is a man who never forgets anything. Speak to the captain\nwhen he makes his round, he will do anything for you.\"\n\n(The captain of whom the corporal spoke often had long chats with Pierre\nand showed him all sorts of favors.)\n\n\"'You see, St. Thomas,' he said to me the other day. 'Monsieur Kiril is\na man of education, who speaks French. He is a Russian seigneur who has\nhad misfortunes, but he is a man. He knows what's what.... If he wants\nanything and asks me, he won't get a refusal. When one has studied, you\nsee, one likes education and well-bred people.' It is for your sake I\nmention it, Monsieur Kiril. The other day if it had not been for you\nthat affair would have ended ill.\"\n\nAnd after chatting a while longer, the corporal went away. (The affair\nhe had alluded to had happened a few days before--a fight between the\nprisoners and the French soldiers, in which Pierre had succeeded in\npacifying his comrades.) Some of the prisoners who had heard Pierre\ntalking to the corporal immediately asked what the Frenchman had said.\nWhile Pierre was repeating what he had been told about the army leaving\nMoscow, a thin, sallow, tattered French soldier came up to the door of\nthe shed. Rapidly and timidly raising his fingers to his forehead by way\nof greeting, he asked Pierre whether the soldier Platoche to whom he had\ngiven a shirt to sew was in that shed.\n\nA week before the French had had boot leather and linen issued to them,\nwhich they had given out to the prisoners to make up into boots and\nshirts for them.\n\n\"Ready, ready, dear fellow!\" said Karataev, coming out with a neatly\nfolded shirt.\n\nKarataev, on account of the warm weather and for convenience at work,\nwas wearing only trousers and a tattered shirt as black as soot. His\nhair was bound round, workman fashion, with a wisp of lime-tree bast,\nand his round face seemed rounder and pleasanter than ever.\n\n\"A promise is own brother to performance! I said Friday and here it is,\nready,\" said Platon, smiling and unfolding the shirt he had sewn.\n\nThe Frenchman glanced around uneasily and then, as if overcoming his\nhesitation, rapidly threw off his uniform and put on the shirt. He had a\nlong, greasy, flowered silk waistcoat next to his sallow, thin bare\nbody, but no shirt. He was evidently afraid the prisoners looking on\nwould laugh at him, and thrust his head into the shirt hurriedly. None\nof the prisoners said a word.\n\n\"See, it fits well!\" Platon kept repeating, pulling the shirt straight.\n\nThe Frenchman, having pushed his head and hands through, without raising\nhis eyes, looked down at the shirt and examined the seams.\n\n\"You see, dear man, this is not a sewing shop, and I had no proper\ntools; and, as they say, one needs a tool even to kill a louse,\" said\nPlaton with one of his round smiles, obviously pleased with his work.\n\n\"It's good, quite good, thank you,\" said the Frenchman, in French, \"but\nthere must be some linen left over.\"\n\n\"It will fit better still when it sets to your body,\" said Karataev,\nstill admiring his handiwork. \"You'll be nice and comfortable....\"\n\n\"Thanks, thanks, old fellow.... But the bits left over?\" said the\nFrenchman again and smiled. He took out an assignation ruble note and\ngave it to Karataev. \"But give me the pieces that are over.\"\n\nPierre saw that Platon did not want to understand what the Frenchman was\nsaying, and he looked on without interfering. Karataev thanked the\nFrenchman for the money and went on admiring his own work. The Frenchman\ninsisted on having the pieces returned that were left over and asked\nPierre to translate what he said.\n\n\"What does he want the bits for?\" said Karataev. \"They'd make fine leg\nbands for us. Well, never mind.\"\n\nAnd Karataev, with a suddenly changed and saddened expression, took a\nsmall bundle of scraps from inside his shirt and gave it to the\nFrenchman without looking at him. \"Oh dear!\" muttered Karataev and went\naway. The Frenchman looked at the linen, considered for a moment, then\nlooked inquiringly at Pierre and, as if Pierre's look had told him\nsomething, suddenly blushed and shouted in a squeaky voice:\n\n\"Platoche! Eh, Platoche! Keep them yourself!\" And handing back the odd\nbits he turned and went out.\n\n\"There, look at that,\" said Karataev, swaying his head. \"People said\nthey were not Christians, but they too have souls. It's what the old\nfolk used to say: 'A sweating hand's an open hand, a dry hand's close.'\nHe's naked, but yet he's given it back.\"\n\nKarataev smiled thoughtfully and was silent awhile looking at the\npieces.\n\n\"But they'll make grand leg bands, dear friend,\" he said, and went back\ninto the shed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nFour weeks had passed since Pierre had been taken prisoner and though\nthe French had offered to move him from the men's to the officers' shed,\nhe had stayed in the shed where he was first put.\n\nIn burned and devastated Moscow Pierre experienced almost the extreme\nlimits of privation a man can endure; but thanks to his physical\nstrength and health, of which he had till then been unconscious, and\nthanks especially to the fact that the privations came so gradually that\nit was impossible to say when they began, he endured his position not\nonly lightly but joyfully. And just at this time he obtained the\ntranquillity and ease of mind he had formerly striven in vain to reach.\nHe had long sought in different ways that tranquillity of mind, that\ninner harmony which had so impressed him in the soldiers at the battle\nof Borodino. He had sought it in philanthropy, in Freemasonry, in the\ndissipations of town life, in wine, in heroic feats of self-sacrifice,\nand in romantic love for Natasha; he had sought it by reasoning--and all\nthese quests and experiments had failed him. And now without thinking\nabout it he had found that peace and inner harmony only through the\nhorror of death, through privation, and through what he recognized in\nKarataev.\n\nThose dreadful moments he had lived through at the executions had as it\nwere forever washed away from his imagination and memory the agitating\nthoughts and feelings that had formerly seemed so important. It did not\nnow occur to him to think of Russia, or the war, or politics, or\nNapoleon. It was plain to him that all these things were no business of\nhis, and that he was not called on to judge concerning them and\ntherefore could not do so. \"Russia and summer weather are not bound\ntogether,\" he thought, repeating words of Karataev's which he found\nstrangely consoling. His intention of killing Napoleon and his\ncalculations of the cabalistic number of the beast of the Apocalypse now\nseemed to him meaningless and even ridiculous. His anger with his wife\nand anxiety that his name should not be smirched now seemed not merely\ntrivial but even amusing. What concern was it of his that somewhere or\nother that woman was leading the life she preferred? What did it matter\nto anybody, and especially to him, whether or not they found out that\ntheir prisoner's name was Count Bezukhov?\n\nHe now often remembered his conversation with Prince Andrew and quite\nagreed with him, though he understood Prince Andrew's thoughts somewhat\ndifferently. Prince Andrew had thought and said that happiness could\nonly be negative, but had said it with a shade of bitterness and irony\nas though he was really saying that all desire for positive happiness is\nimplanted in us merely to torment us and never be satisfied. But Pierre\nbelieved it without any mental reservation. The absence of suffering,\nthe satisfaction of one's needs and consequent freedom in the choice of\none's occupation, that is, of one's way of life, now seemed to Pierre to\nbe indubitably man's highest happiness. Here and now for the first time\nhe fully appreciated the enjoyment of eating when he wanted to eat,\ndrinking when he wanted to drink, sleeping when he wanted to sleep, of\nwarmth when he was cold, of talking to a fellow man when he wished to\ntalk and to hear a human voice. The satisfaction of one's needs--good\nfood, cleanliness, and freedom--now that he was deprived of all this,\nseemed to Pierre to constitute perfect happiness; and the choice of\noccupation, that is, of his way of life--now that that was so\nrestricted--seemed to him such an easy matter that he forgot that a\nsuperfluity of the comforts of life destroys all joy in satisfying one's\nneeds, while great freedom in the choice of occupation--such freedom as\nhis wealth, his education, and his social position had given him in his\nown life--is just what makes the choice of occupation insolubly\ndifficult and destroys the desire and possibility of having an\noccupation.\n\nAll Pierre's daydreams now turned on the time when he would be free. Yet\nsubsequently, and for the rest of his life, he thought and spoke with\nenthusiasm of that month of captivity, of those irrecoverable, strong,\njoyful sensations, and chiefly of the complete peace of mind and inner\nfreedom which he experienced only during those weeks.\n\nWhen on the first day he got up early, went out of the shed at dawn, and\nsaw the cupolas and crosses of the New Convent of the Virgin still dark\nat first, the hoarfrost on the dusty grass, the Sparrow Hills, and the\nwooded banks above the winding river vanishing in the purple distance,\nwhen he felt the contact of the fresh air and heard the noise of the\ncrows flying from Moscow across the field, and when afterwards light\ngleamed from the east and the sun's rim appeared solemnly from behind a\ncloud, and the cupolas and crosses, the hoarfrost, the distance and the\nriver, all began to sparkle in the glad light--Pierre felt a new joy and\nstrength in life such as he had never before known. And this not only\nstayed with him during the whole of his imprisonment, but even grew in\nstrength as the hardships of his position increased.\n\nThat feeling of alertness and of readiness for anything was still\nfurther strengthened in him by the high opinion his fellow prisoners\nformed of him soon after his arrival at the shed. With his knowledge of\nlanguages, the respect shown him by the French, his simplicity, his\nreadiness to give anything asked of him (he received the allowance of\nthree rubles a week made to officers); with his strength, which he\nshowed to the soldiers by pressing nails into the walls of the hut; his\ngentleness to his companions, and his capacity for sitting still and\nthinking without doing anything (which seemed to them incomprehensible),\nhe appeared to them a rather mysterious and superior being. The very\nqualities that had been a hindrance, if not actually harmful, to him in\nthe world he had lived in--his strength, his disdain for the comforts of\nlife, his absent-mindedness and simplicity--here among these people gave\nhim almost the status of a hero. And Pierre felt that their opinion\nplaced responsibilities upon him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nThe French evacuation began on the night between the sixth and seventh\nof October: kitchens and sheds were dismantled, carts loaded, and troops\nand baggage trains started.\n\nAt seven in the morning a French convoy in marching trim, wearing shakos\nand carrying muskets, knapsacks, and enormous sacks, stood in front of\nthe sheds, and animated French talk mingled with curses sounded all\nalong the lines.\n\nIn the shed everyone was ready, dressed, belted, shod, and only awaited\nthe order to start. The sick soldier, Sokolov, pale and thin with dark\nshadows round his eyes, alone sat in his place barefoot and not dressed.\nHis eyes, prominent from the emaciation of his face, gazed inquiringly\nat his comrades who were paying no attention to him, and he moaned\nregularly and quietly. It was evidently not so much his sufferings that\ncaused him to moan (he had dysentery) as his fear and grief at being\nleft alone.\n\nPierre, girt with a rope round his waist and wearing shoes Karataev had\nmade for him from some leather a French soldier had torn off a tea chest\nand brought to have his boots mended with, went up to the sick man and\nsquatted down beside him.\n\n\"You know, Sokolov, they are not all going away! They have a hospital\nhere. You may be better off than we others,\" said Pierre.\n\n\"O Lord! Oh, it will be the death of me! O Lord!\" moaned the man in a\nlouder voice.\n\n\"I'll go and ask them again directly,\" said Pierre, rising and going to\nthe door of the shed.\n\nJust as Pierre reached the door, the corporal who had offered him a pipe\nthe day before came up to it with two soldiers. The corporal and\nsoldiers were in marching kit with knapsacks and shakos that had metal\nstraps, and these changed their familiar faces.\n\nThe corporal came, according to orders, to shut the door. The prisoners\nhad to be counted before being let out.\n\n\"Corporal, what will they do with the sick man?...\" Pierre began.\n\nBut even as he spoke he began to doubt whether this was the corporal he\nknew or a stranger, so unlike himself did the corporal seem at that\nmoment. Moreover, just as Pierre was speaking a sharp rattle of drums\nwas suddenly heard from both sides. The corporal frowned at Pierre's\nwords and, uttering some meaningless oaths, slammed the door. The shed\nbecame semidark, and the sharp rattle of the drums on two sides drowned\nthe sick man's groans.\n\n\"There it is!... It again!...\" said Pierre to himself, and an\ninvoluntary shudder ran down his spine. In the corporal's changed face,\nin the sound of his voice, in the stirring and deafening noise of the\ndrums, he recognized that mysterious, callous force which compelled\npeople against their will to kill their fellow men--that force the\neffect of which he had witnessed during the executions. To fear or to\ntry to escape that force, to address entreaties or exhortations to those\nwho served as its tools, was useless. Pierre knew this now. One had to\nwait and endure. He did not again go to the sick man, nor turn to look\nat him, but stood frowning by the door of the hut.\n\nWhen that door was opened and the prisoners, crowding against one\nanother like a flock of sheep, squeezed into the exit, Pierre pushed his\nway forward and approached that very captain who as the corporal had\nassured him was ready to do anything for him. The captain was also in\nmarching kit, and on his cold face appeared that same it which Pierre\nhad recognized in the corporal's words and in the roll of the drums.\n\n\"Pass on, pass on!\" the captain reiterated, frowning sternly, and\nlooking at the prisoners who thronged past him.\n\nPierre went up to him, though he knew his attempt would be vain.\n\n\"What now?\" the officer asked with a cold look as if not recognizing\nPierre.\n\nPierre told him about the sick man.\n\n\"He'll manage to walk, devil take him!\" said the captain. \"Pass on, pass\non!\" he continued without looking at Pierre.\n\n\"But he is dying,\" Pierre again began.\n\n\"Be so good...\" shouted the captain, frowning angrily.\n\n\"Dram-da-da-dam, dam-dam...\" rattled the drums, and Pierre understood\nthat this mysterious force completely controlled these men and that it\nwas now useless to say any more.\n\nThe officer prisoners were separated from the soldiers and told to march\nin front. There were about thirty officers, with Pierre among them, and\nabout three hundred men.\n\nThe officers, who had come from the other sheds, were all strangers to\nPierre and much better dressed than he. They looked at him and at his\nshoes mistrustfully, as at an alien. Not far from him walked a fat major\nwith a sallow, bloated, angry face, who was wearing a Kazan dressing\ngown tied round with a towel, and who evidently enjoyed the respect of\nhis fellow prisoners. He kept one hand, in which he clasped his tobacco\npouch, inside the bosom of his dressing gown and held the stem of his\npipe firmly with the other. Panting and puffing, the major grumbled and\ngrowled at everybody because he thought he was being pushed and that\nthey were all hurrying when they had nowhere to hurry to and were all\nsurprised at something when there was nothing to be surprised at.\nAnother, a thin little officer, was speaking to everyone, conjecturing\nwhere they were now being taken and how far they would get that day. An\nofficial in felt boots and wearing a commissariat uniform ran round from\nside to side and gazed at the ruins of Moscow, loudly announcing his\nobservations as to what had been burned down and what this or that part\nof the city was that they could see. A third officer, who by his accent\nwas a Pole, disputed with the commissariat officer, arguing that he was\nmistaken in his identification of the different wards of Moscow.\n\n\"What are you disputing about?\" said the major angrily. \"What does it\nmatter whether it is St. Nicholas or St. Blasius? You see it's burned\ndown, and there's an end of it.... What are you pushing for? Isn't the\nroad wide enough?\" said he, turning to a man behind him who was not\npushing him at all.\n\n\"Oh, oh, oh! What have they done?\" the prisoners on one side and another\nwere heard saying as they gazed on the charred ruins. \"All beyond the\nriver, and Zubova, and in the Kremlin.... Just look! There's not half of\nit left. Yes, I told you--the whole quarter beyond the river, and so it\nis.\"\n\n\"Well, you know it's burned, so what's the use of talking?\" said the\nmajor.\n\nAs they passed near a church in the Khamovniki (one of the few unburned\nquarters of Moscow) the whole mass of prisoners suddenly started to one\nside and exclamations of horror and disgust were heard.\n\n\"Ah, the villains! What heathens! Yes; dead, dead, so he is... And\nsmeared with something!\"\n\nPierre too drew near the church where the thing was that evoked these\nexclamations, and dimly made out something leaning against the palings\nsurrounding the church. From the words of his comrades who saw better\nthan he did, he found that this was the body of a man, set upright\nagainst the palings with its face smeared with soot.\n\n\"Go on! What the devil... Go on! Thirty thousand devils!...\" the convoy\nguards began cursing and the French soldiers, with fresh virulence,\ndrove away with their swords the crowd of prisoners who were gazing at\nthe dead man.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nThrough the cross streets of the Khamovniki quarter the prisoners\nmarched, followed only by their escort and the vehicles and wagons\nbelonging to that escort, but when they reached the supply stores they\ncame among a huge and closely packed train of artillery mingled with\nprivate vehicles.\n\nAt the bridge they all halted, waiting for those in front to get across.\nFrom the bridge they had a view of endless lines of moving baggage\ntrains before and behind them. To the right, where the Kaluga road turns\nnear Neskuchny, endless rows of troops and carts stretched away into the\ndistance. These were troops of Beauharnais' corps which had started\nbefore any of the others. Behind, along the riverside and across the\nStone Bridge, were Ney's troops and transport.\n\nDavout's troops, in whose charge were the prisoners, were crossing the\nCrimean bridge and some were already debouching into the Kaluga road.\nBut the baggage trains stretched out so that the last of Beauharnais'\ntrain had not yet got out of Moscow and reached the Kaluga road when the\nvanguard of Ney's army was already emerging from the Great Ordynka\nStreet.\n\nWhen they had crossed the Crimean bridge the prisoners moved a few steps\nforward, halted, and again moved on, and from all sides vehicles and men\ncrowded closer and closer together. They advanced the few hundred paces\nthat separated the bridge from the Kaluga road, taking more than an hour\nto do so, and came out upon the square where the streets of the\nTransmoskva ward and the Kaluga road converge, and the prisoners jammed\nclose together had to stand for some hours at that crossway. From all\nsides, like the roar of the sea, were heard the rattle of wheels, the\ntramp of feet, and incessant shouts of anger and abuse. Pierre stood\npressed against the wall of a charred house, listening to that noise\nwhich mingled in his imagination with the roll of the drums.\n\nTo get a better view, several officer prisoners climbed onto the wall of\nthe half-burned house against which Pierre was leaning.\n\n\"What crowds! Just look at the crowds!... They've loaded goods even on\nthe cannon! Look there, those are furs!\" they exclaimed. \"Just see what\nthe blackguards have looted.... There! See what that one has behind in\nthe cart.... Why, those are settings taken from some icons, by\nheaven!... Oh, the rascals!... See how that fellow has loaded himself\nup, he can hardly walk! Good lord, they've even grabbed those\nchaises!... See that fellow there sitting on the trunks.... Heavens!\nThey're fighting.\"\n\n\"That's right, hit him on the snout--on his snout! Like this, we shan't\nget away before evening. Look, look there.... Why, that must be\nNapoleon's own. See what horses! And the monograms with a crown! It's\nlike a portable house.... That fellow's dropped his sack and doesn't see\nit. Fighting again... A woman with a baby, and not bad-looking either!\nYes, I dare say, that's the way they'll let you pass... Just look,\nthere's no end to it. Russian wenches, by heaven, so they are! In\ncarriages--see how comfortably they've settled themselves!\"\n\nAgain, as at the church in Khamovniki, a wave of general curiosity bore\nall the prisoners forward onto the road, and Pierre, thanks to his\nstature, saw over the heads of the others what so attracted their\ncuriosity. In three carriages involved among the munition carts, closely\nsqueezed together, sat women with rouged faces, dressed in glaring\ncolors, who were shouting something in shrill voices.\n\nFrom the moment Pierre had recognized the appearance of the mysterious\nforce nothing had seemed to him strange or dreadful: neither the corpse\nsmeared with soot for fun nor these women hurrying away nor the burned\nruins of Moscow. All that he now witnessed scarcely made an impression\non him--as if his soul, making ready for a hard struggle, refused to\nreceive impressions that might weaken it.\n\nThe women's vehicles drove by. Behind them came more carts, soldiers,\nwagons, soldiers, gun carriages, carriages, soldiers, ammunition carts,\nmore soldiers, and now and then women.\n\nPierre did not see the people as individuals but saw their movement.\n\nAll these people and horses seemed driven forward by some invisible\npower. During the hour Pierre watched them they all came flowing from\nthe different streets with one and the same desire to get on quickly;\nthey all jostled one another, began to grow angry and to fight, white\nteeth gleamed, brows frowned, ever the same words of abuse flew from\nside to side, and all the faces bore the same swaggeringly resolute and\ncoldly cruel expression that had struck Pierre that morning on the\ncorporal's face when the drums were beating.\n\nIt was not till nearly evening that the officer commanding the escort\ncollected his men and with shouts and quarrels forced his way in among\nthe baggage trains, and the prisoners, hemmed in on all sides, emerged\nonto the Kaluga road.\n\nThey marched very quickly, without resting, and halted only when the sun\nbegan to set. The baggage carts drew up close together and the men began\nto prepare for their night's rest. They all appeared angry and\ndissatisfied. For a long time, oaths, angry shouts, and fighting could\nbe heard from all sides. A carriage that followed the escort ran into\none of the carts and knocked a hole in it with its pole. Several\nsoldiers ran toward the cart from different sides: some beat the\ncarriage horses on their heads, turning them aside, others fought among\nthemselves, and Pierre saw that one German was badly wounded on the head\nby a sword.\n\nIt seemed that all these men, now that they had stopped amid fields in\nthe chill dusk of the autumn evening, experienced one and the same\nfeeling of unpleasant awakening from the hurry and eagerness to push on\nthat had seized them at the start. Once at a standstill they all seemed\nto understand that they did not yet know where they were going, and that\nmuch that was painful and difficult awaited them on this journey.\n\nDuring this halt the escort treated the prisoners even worse than they\nhad done at the start. It was here that the prisoners for the first time\nreceived horseflesh for their meat ration.\n\nFrom the officer down to the lowest soldier they showed what seemed like\npersonal spite against each of the prisoners, in unexpected contrast to\ntheir former friendly relations.\n\nThis spite increased still more when, on calling over the roll of\nprisoners, it was found that in the bustle of leaving Moscow one Russian\nsoldier, who had pretended to suffer from colic, had escaped. Pierre saw\na Frenchman beat a Russian soldier cruelly for straying too far from the\nroad, and heard his friend the captain reprimand and threaten to court-\nmartial a noncommissioned officer on account of the escape of the\nRussian. To the noncommissioned officer's excuse that the prisoner was\nill and could not walk, the officer replied that the order was to shoot\nthose who lagged behind. Pierre felt that that fatal force which had\ncrushed him during the executions, but which he had not felt during his\nimprisonment, now again controlled his existence. It was terrible, but\nhe felt that in proportion to the efforts of that fatal force to crush\nhim, there grew and strengthened in his soul a power of life independent\nof it.\n\nHe ate his supper of buckwheat soup with horseflesh and chatted with his\ncomrades.\n\nNeither Pierre nor any of the others spoke of what they had seen in\nMoscow, or of the roughness of their treatment by the French, or of the\norder to shoot them which had been announced to them. As if in reaction\nagainst the worsening of their position they were all particularly\nanimated and gay. They spoke of personal reminiscences, of amusing\nscenes they had witnessed during the campaign, and avoided all talk of\ntheir present situation.\n\nThe sun had set long since. Bright stars shone out here and there in the\nsky. A red glow as of a conflagration spread above the horizon from the\nrising full moon, and that vast red ball swayed strangely in the gray\nhaze. It grew light. The evening was ending, but the night had not yet\ncome. Pierre got up and left his new companions, crossing between the\ncampfires to the other side of the road where he had been told the\ncommon soldier prisoners were stationed. He wanted to talk to them. On\nthe road he was stopped by a French sentinel who ordered him back.\n\nPierre turned back, not to his companions by the campfire, but to an\nunharnessed cart where there was nobody. Tucking his legs under him and\ndropping his head he sat down on the cold ground by the wheel of the\ncart and remained motionless a long while sunk in thought. Suddenly he\nburst out into a fit of his broad, good-natured laughter, so loud that\nmen from various sides turned with surprise to see what this strange and\nevidently solitary laughter could mean.\n\n\"Ha-ha-ha!\" laughed Pierre. And he said aloud to himself: \"The soldier\ndid not let me pass. They took me and shut me up. They hold me captive.\nWhat, me? Me? My immortal soul? Ha-ha-ha! Ha-ha-ha!...\" and he laughed\ntill tears started to his eyes.\n\nA man got up and came to see what this queer big fellow was laughing at\nall by himself. Pierre stopped laughing, got up, went farther away from\nthe inquisitive man, and looked around him.\n\nThe huge, endless bivouac that had previously resounded with the\ncrackling of campfires and the voices of many men had grown quiet, the\nred campfires were growing paler and dying down. High up in the light\nsky hung the full moon. Forests and fields beyond the camp, unseen\nbefore, were now visible in the distance. And farther still, beyond\nthose forests and fields, the bright, oscillating, limitless distance\nlured one to itself. Pierre glanced up at the sky and the twinkling\nstars in its faraway depths. \"And all that is me, all that is within me,\nand it is all I!\" thought Pierre. \"And they caught all that and put it\ninto a shed boarded up with planks!\" He smiled, and went and lay down to\nsleep beside his companions.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nIn the early days of October another envoy came to Kutuzov with a letter\nfrom Napoleon proposing peace and falsely dated from Moscow, though\nNapoleon was already not far from Kutuzov on the old Kaluga road.\nKutuzov replied to this letter as he had done to the one formerly\nbrought by Lauriston, saying that there could be no question of peace.\n\nSoon after that a report was received from Dorokhov's guerrilla\ndetachment operating to the left of Tarutino that troops of Broussier's\ndivision had been seen at Forminsk and that being separated from the\nrest of the French army they might easily be destroyed. The soldiers and\nofficers again demanded action. Generals on the staff, excited by the\nmemory of the easy victory at Tarutino, urged Kutuzov to carry out\nDorokhov's suggestion. Kutuzov did not consider any offensive necessary.\nThe result was a compromise which was inevitable: a small detachment was\nsent to Forminsk to attack Broussier.\n\nBy a strange coincidence, this task, which turned out to be a most\ndifficult and important one, was entrusted to Dokhturov--that same\nmodest little Dokhturov whom no one had described to us as drawing up\nplans of battles, dashing about in front of regiments, showering crosses\non batteries, and so on, and who was thought to be and was spoken of as\nundecided and undiscerning--but whom we find commanding wherever the\nposition was most difficult all through the Russo-French wars from\nAusterlitz to the year 1813. At Austerlitz he remained last at the\nAugezd dam, rallying the regiments, saving what was possible when all\nwere flying and perishing and not a single general was left in the rear\nguard. Ill with fever he went to Smolensk with twenty thousand men to\ndefend the town against Napoleon's whole army. In Smolensk, at the\nMalakhov Gate, he had hardly dozed off in a paroxysm of fever before he\nwas awakened by the bombardment of the town--and Smolensk held out all\nday long. At the battle of Borodino, when Bagration was killed and nine\ntenths of the men of our left flank had fallen and the full force of the\nFrench artillery fire was directed against it, the man sent there was\nthis same irresolute and undiscerning Dokhturov--Kutuzov hastening to\nrectify a mistake he had made by sending someone else there first. And\nthe quiet little Dokhturov rode thither, and Borodino became the\ngreatest glory of the Russian army. Many heroes have been described to\nus in verse and prose, but of Dokhturov scarcely a word has been said.\n\nIt was Dokhturov again whom they sent to Forminsk and from there to\nMalo-Yaroslavets, the place where the last battle with the French was\nfought and where the obvious disintegration of the French army began;\nand we are told of many geniuses and heroes of that period of the\ncampaign, but of Dokhturov nothing or very little is said and that\ndubiously. And this silence about Dokhturov is the clearest testimony to\nhis merit.\n\nIt is natural for a man who does not understand the workings of a\nmachine to imagine that a shaving that has fallen into it by chance and\nis interfering with its action and tossing about in it is its most\nimportant part. The man who does not understand the construction of the\nmachine cannot conceive that the small connecting cogwheel which\nrevolves quietly is one of the most essential parts of the machine, and\nnot the shaving which merely harms and hinders the working.\n\nOn the tenth of October when Dokhturov had gone halfway to Forminsk and\nstopped at the village of Aristovo, preparing faithfully to execute the\norders he had received, the whole French army having, in its convulsive\nmovement, reached Murat's position apparently in order to give battle--\nsuddenly without any reason turned off to the left onto the new Kaluga\nroad and began to enter Forminsk, where only Broussier had been till\nthen. At that time Dokhturov had under his command, besides Dorokhov's\ndetachment, the two small guerrilla detachments of Figner and Seslavin.\n\nOn the evening of October 11 Seslavin came to the Aristovo headquarters\nwith a French guardsman he had captured. The prisoner said that the\ntroops that had entered Forminsk that day were the vanguard of the whole\narmy, that Napoleon was there and the whole army had left Moscow four\ndays previously. That same evening a house serf who had come from\nBorovsk said he had seen an immense army entering the town. Some\nCossacks of Dokhturov's detachment reported having sighted the French\nGuards marching along the road to Borovsk. From all these reports it was\nevident that where they had expected to meet a single division there was\nnow the whole French army marching from Moscow in an unexpected\ndirection--along the Kaluga road. Dokhturov was unwilling to undertake\nany action, as it was not clear to him now what he ought to do. He had\nbeen ordered to attack Forminsk. But only Broussier had been there at\nthat time and now the whole French army was there. Ermolov wished to act\non his own judgment, but Dokhturov insisted that he must have Kutuzov's\ninstructions. So it was decided to send a dispatch to the staff.\n\nFor this purpose a capable officer, Bolkhovitinov, was chosen, who was\nto explain the whole affair by word of mouth, besides delivering a\nwritten report. Toward midnight Bolkhovitinov, having received the\ndispatch and verbal instructions, galloped off to the General Staff\naccompanied by a Cossack with spare horses.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nIt was a warm, dark, autumn night. It had been raining for four days.\nHaving changed horses twice and galloped twenty miles in an hour and a\nhalf over a sticky, muddy road, Bolkhovitinov reached Litashevka after\none o'clock at night. Dismounting at a cottage on whose wattle fence\nhung a signboard, GENERAL STAFF, and throwing down his reins, he entered\na dark passage.\n\n\"The general on duty, quick! It's very important!\" said he to someone\nwho had risen and was sniffing in the dark passage.\n\n\"He has been very unwell since the evening and this is the third night\nhe has not slept,\" said the orderly pleadingly in a whisper. \"You should\nwake the captain first.\"\n\n\"But this is very important, from General Dokhturov,\" said\nBolkhovitinov, entering the open door which he had found by feeling in\nthe dark.\n\nThe orderly had gone in before him and began waking somebody.\n\n\"Your honor, your honor! A courier.\"\n\n\"What? What's that? From whom?\" came a sleepy voice.\n\n\"From Dokhturov and from Alexey Petrovich. Napoleon is at Forminsk,\"\nsaid Bolkhovitinov, unable to see in the dark who was speaking but\nguessing by the voice that it was not Konovnitsyn.\n\nThe man who had wakened yawned and stretched himself.\n\n\"I don't like waking him,\" he said, fumbling for something. \"He is very\nill. Perhaps this is only a rumor.\"\n\n\"Here is the dispatch,\" said Bolkhovitinov. \"My orders are to give it at\nonce to the general on duty.\"\n\n\"Wait a moment, I'll light a candle. You damned rascal, where do you\nalways hide it?\" said the voice of the man who was stretching himself,\nto the orderly. (This was Shcherbinin, Konovnitsyn's adjutant.) \"I've\nfound it, I've found it!\" he added.\n\nThe orderly was striking a light and Shcherbinin was fumbling for\nsomething on the candlestick.\n\n\"Oh, the nasty beasts!\" said he with disgust.\n\nBy the light of the sparks Bolkhovitinov saw Shcherbinin's youthful face\nas he held the candle, and the face of another man who was still asleep.\nThis was Konovnitsyn.\n\nWhen the flame of the sulphur splinters kindled by the tinder burned up,\nfirst blue and then red, Shcherbinin lit the tallow candle, from the\ncandlestick of which the cockroaches that had been gnawing it were\nrunning away, and looked at the messenger. Bolkhovitinov was bespattered\nall over with mud and had smeared his face by wiping it with his sleeve.\n\n\"Who gave the report?\" inquired Shcherbinin, taking the envelope.\n\n\"The news is reliable,\" said Bolkhovitinov. \"Prisoners, Cossacks, and\nthe scouts all say the same thing.\"\n\n\"There's nothing to be done, we'll have to wake him,\" said Shcherbinin,\nrising and going up to the man in the nightcap who lay covered by a\ngreatcoat. \"Peter Petrovich!\" said he. (Konovnitsyn did not stir.) \"To\nthe General Staff!\" he said with a smile, knowing that those words would\nbe sure to arouse him.\n\nAnd in fact the head in the nightcap was lifted at once. On\nKonovnitsyn's handsome, resolute face with cheeks flushed by fever,\nthere still remained for an instant a faraway dreamy expression remote\nfrom present affairs, but then he suddenly started and his face assumed\nits habitual calm and firm appearance.\n\n\"Well, what is it? From whom?\" he asked immediately but without hurry,\nblinking at the light.\n\nWhile listening to the officer's report Konovnitsyn broke the seal and\nread the dispatch. Hardly had he done so before he lowered his legs in\ntheir woolen stockings to the earthen floor and began putting on his\nboots. Then he took off his nightcap, combed his hair over his temples,\nand donned his cap.\n\n\"Did you get here quickly? Let us go to his Highness.\"\n\nKonovnitsyn had understood at once that the news brought was of great\nimportance and that no time must be lost. He did not consider or ask\nhimself whether the news was good or bad. That did not interest him. He\nregarded the whole business of the war not with his intelligence or his\nreason but by something else. There was within him a deep unexpressed\nconviction that all would be well, but that one must not trust to this\nand still less speak about it, but must only attend to one's own work.\nAnd he did his work, giving his whole strength to the task.\n\nPeter Petrovich Konovnitsyn, like Dokhturov, seems to have been included\nmerely for propriety's sake in the list of the so-called heroes of 1812-\n-the Barclays, Raevskis, Ermolovs, Platovs, and Miloradoviches. Like\nDokhturov he had the reputation of being a man of very limited capacity\nand information, and like Dokhturov he never made plans of battle but\nwas always found where the situation was most difficult. Since his\nappointment as general on duty he had always slept with his door open,\ngiving orders that every messenger should be allowed to wake him up. In\nbattle he was always under fire, so that Kutuzov reproved him for it and\nfeared to send him to the front, and like Dokhturov he was one of those\nunnoticed cogwheels that, without clatter or noise, constitute the most\nessential part of the machine.\n\nComing out of the hut into the damp, dark night Konovnitsyn frowned--\npartly from an increased pain in his head and partly at the unpleasant\nthought that occurred to him, of how all that nest of influential men on\nthe staff would be stirred up by this news, especially Bennigsen, who\never since Tarutino had been at daggers drawn with Kutuzov; and how they\nwould make suggestions, quarrel, issue orders, and rescind them. And\nthis premonition was disagreeable to him though he knew it could not be\nhelped.\n\nAnd in fact Toll, to whom he went to communicate the news, immediately\nbegan to expound his plans to a general sharing his quarters, until\nKonovnitsyn, who listened in weary silence, reminded him that they must\ngo to see his Highness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nKutuzov like all old people did not sleep much at night. He often fell\nasleep unexpectedly in the daytime, but at night, lying on his bed\nwithout undressing, he generally remained awake thinking.\n\nSo he lay now on his bed, supporting his large, heavy, scarred head on\nhis plump hand, with his one eye open, meditating and peering into the\ndarkness.\n\nSince Bennigsen, who corresponded with the Emperor and had more\ninfluence than anyone else on the staff, had begun to avoid him, Kutuzov\nwas more at ease as to the possibility of himself and his troops being\nobliged to take part in useless aggressive movements. The lesson of the\nTarutino battle and of the day before it, which Kutuzov remembered with\npain, must, he thought, have some effect on others too.\n\n\"They must understand that we can only lose by taking the offensive.\nPatience and time are my warriors, my champions,\" thought Kutuzov. He\nknew that an apple should not be plucked while it is green. It will fall\nof itself when ripe, but if picked unripe the apple is spoiled, the tree\nis harmed, and your teeth are set on edge. Like an experienced sportsman\nhe knew that the beast was wounded, and wounded as only the whole\nstrength of Russia could have wounded it, but whether it was mortally\nwounded or not was still an undecided question. Now by the fact of\nLauriston and Barthelemi having been sent, and by the reports of the\nguerrillas, Kutuzov was almost sure that the wound was mortal. But he\nneeded further proofs and it was necessary to wait.\n\n\"They want to run to see how they have wounded it. Wait and we shall\nsee! Continual maneuvers, continual advances!\" thought he. \"What for?\nOnly to distinguish themselves! As if fighting were fun. They are like\nchildren from whom one can't get any sensible account of what has\nhappened because they all want to show how well they can fight. But\nthat's not what is needed now.\n\n\"And what ingenious maneuvers they all propose to me! It seems to them\nthat when they have thought of two or three contingencies\" (he\nremembered the general plan sent him from Petersburg) \"they have\nforeseen everything. But the contingencies are endless.\"\n\nThe undecided question as to whether the wound inflicted at Borodino was\nmortal or not had hung over Kutuzov's head for a whole month. On the one\nhand the French had occupied Moscow. On the other Kutuzov felt assured\nwith all his being that the terrible blow into which he and all the\nRussians had put their whole strength must have been mortal. But in any\ncase proofs were needed; he had waited a whole month for them and grew\nmore impatient the longer he waited. Lying on his bed during those\nsleepless nights he did just what he reproached those younger generals\nfor doing. He imagined all sorts of possible contingencies, just like\nthe younger men, but with this difference, that he saw thousands of\ncontingencies instead of two or three and based nothing on them. The\nlonger he thought the more contingencies presented themselves. He\nimagined all sorts of movements of the Napoleonic army as a whole or in\nsections--against Petersburg, or against him, or to outflank him. He\nthought too of the possibility (which he feared most of all) that\nNapoleon might fight him with his own weapon and remain in Moscow\nawaiting him. Kutuzov even imagined that Napoleon's army might turn back\nthrough Medyn and Yukhnov, but the one thing he could not foresee was\nwhat happened--the insane, convulsive stampede of Napoleon's army during\nits first eleven days after leaving Moscow: a stampede which made\npossible what Kutuzov had not yet even dared to think of--the complete\nextermination of the French. Dorokhov's report about Broussier's\ndivision, the guerrillas' reports of distress in Napoleon's army, rumors\nof preparations for leaving Moscow, all confirmed the supposition that\nthe French army was beaten and preparing for flight. But these were only\nsuppositions, which seemed important to the younger men but not to\nKutuzov. With his sixty years' experience he knew what value to attach\nto rumors, knew how apt people who desire anything are to group all news\nso that it appears to confirm what they desire, and he knew how readily\nin such cases they omit all that makes for the contrary. And the more he\ndesired it the less he allowed himself to believe it. This question\nabsorbed all his mental powers. All else was to him only life's\ncustomary routine. To such customary routine belonged his conversations\nwith the staff, the letters he wrote from Tarutino to Madame de Stael,\nthe reading of novels, the distribution of awards, his correspondence\nwith Petersburg, and so on. But the destruction of the French, which he\nalone foresaw, was his heart's one desire.\n\nOn the night of the eleventh of October he lay leaning on his arm and\nthinking of that.\n\nThere was a stir in the next room and he heard the steps of Toll,\nKonovnitsyn, and Bolkhovitinov.\n\n\"Eh, who's there? Come in, come in! What news?\" the field marshal called\nout to them.\n\nWhile a footman was lighting a candle, Toll communicated the substance\nof the news.\n\n\"Who brought it?\" asked Kutuzov with a look which, when the candle was\nlit, struck Toll by its cold severity.\n\n\"There can be no doubt about it, your Highness.\"\n\n\"Call him in, call him here.\"\n\nKutuzov sat up with one leg hanging down from the bed and his big paunch\nresting against the other which was doubled under him. He screwed up his\nseeing eye to scrutinize the messenger more carefully, as if wishing to\nread in his face what preoccupied his own mind.\n\n\"Tell me, tell me, friend,\" said he to Bolkhovitinov in his low, aged\nvoice, as he pulled together the shirt which gaped open on his chest,\n\"come nearer--nearer. What news have you brought me? Eh? That Napoleon\nhas left Moscow? Are you sure? Eh?\"\n\nBolkhovitinov gave a detailed account from the beginning of all he had\nbeen told to report.\n\n\"Speak quicker, quicker! Don't torture me!\" Kutuzov interrupted him.\n\nBolkhovitinov told him everything and was then silent, awaiting\ninstructions. Toll was beginning to say something but Kutuzov checked\nhim. He tried to say something, but his face suddenly puckered and\nwrinkled; he waved his arm at Toll and turned to the opposite side of\nthe room, to the corner darkened by the icons that hung there.\n\n\"O Lord, my Creator, Thou has heard our prayer...\" said he in a\ntremulous voice with folded hands. \"Russia is saved. I thank Thee, O\nLord!\" and he wept.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nFrom the time he received this news to the end of the campaign all\nKutuzov's activity was directed toward restraining his troops, by\nauthority, by guile, and by entreaty, from useless attacks, maneuvers,\nor encounters with the perishing enemy. Dokhturov went to Malo-\nYaroslavets, but Kutuzov lingered with the main army and gave orders for\nthe evacuation of Kaluga--a retreat beyond which town seemed to him\nquite possible.\n\nEverywhere Kutuzov retreated, but the enemy without waiting for his\nretreat fled in the opposite direction.\n\nNapoleon's historians describe to us his skilled maneuvers at Tarutino\nand Malo-Yaroslavets, and make conjectures as to what would have\nhappened had Napoleon been in time to penetrate into the rich southern\nprovinces.\n\nBut not to speak of the fact that nothing prevented him from advancing\ninto those southern provinces (for the Russian army did not bar his\nway), the historians forget that nothing could have saved his army, for\nthen already it bore within itself the germs of inevitable ruin. How\ncould that army--which had found abundant supplies in Moscow and had\ntrampled them underfoot instead of keeping them, and on arriving at\nSmolensk had looted provisions instead of storing them--how could that\narmy recuperate in Kaluga province, which was inhabited by Russians such\nas those who lived in Moscow, and where fire had the same property of\nconsuming what was set ablaze?\n\nThat army could not recover anywhere. Since the battle of Borodino and\nthe pillage of Moscow it had borne within itself, as it were, the\nchemical elements of dissolution.\n\nThe members of what had once been an army--Napoleon himself and all his\nsoldiers fled--without knowing whither, each concerned only to make his\nescape as quickly as possible from this position, of the hopelessness of\nwhich they were all more or less vaguely conscious.\n\nSo it came about that at the council at Malo-Yaroslavets, when the\ngenerals pretending to confer together expressed various opinions, all\nmouths were closed by the opinion uttered by the simple-minded soldier\nMouton who, speaking last, said what they all felt: that the one thing\nneedful was to get away as quickly as possible; and no one, not even\nNapoleon, could say anything against that truth which they all\nrecognized.\n\nBut though they all realized that it was necessary to get away, there\nstill remained a feeling of shame at admitting that they must flee. An\nexternal shock was needed to overcome that shame, and this shock came in\ndue time. It was what the French called \"le hourra de l'Empereur.\"\n\nThe day after the council at Malo-Yaroslavets Napoleon rode out early in\nthe morning amid the lines of his army with his suite of marshals and an\nescort, on the pretext of inspecting the army and the scene of the\nprevious and of the impending battle. Some Cossacks on the prowl for\nbooty fell in with the Emperor and very nearly captured him. If the\nCossacks did not capture Napoleon then, what saved him was the very\nthing that was destroying the French army, the booty on which the\nCossacks fell. Here as at Tarutino they went after plunder, leaving the\nmen. Disregarding Napoleon they rushed after the plunder and Napoleon\nmanaged to escape.\n\nWhen les enfants du Don might so easily have taken the Emperor himself\nin the midst of his army, it was clear that there was nothing for it but\nto fly as fast as possible along the nearest, familiar road. Napoleon\nwith his forty-year-old stomach understood that hint, not feeling his\nformer agility and boldness, and under the influence of the fright the\nCossacks had given him he at once agreed with Mouton and issued orders--\nas the historians tell us--to retreat by the Smolensk road.\n\nThat Napoleon agreed with Mouton, and that the army retreated, does not\nprove that Napoleon caused it to retreat, but that the forces which\ninfluenced the whole army and directed it along the Mozhaysk (that is,\nthe Smolensk) road acted simultaneously on him also.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nA man in motion always devises an aim for that motion. To be able to go\na thousand miles he must imagine that something good awaits him at the\nend of those thousand miles. One must have the prospect of a promised\nland to have the strength to move.\n\nThe promised land for the French during their advance had been Moscow,\nduring their retreat it was their native land. But that native land was\ntoo far off, and for a man going a thousand miles it is absolutely\nnecessary to set aside his final goal and to say to himself: \"Today I\nshall get to a place twenty-five miles off where I shall rest and spend\nthe night,\" and during the first day's journey that resting place\neclipses his ultimate goal and attracts all his hopes and desires. And\nthe impulses felt by a single person are always magnified in a crowd.\n\nFor the French retreating along the old Smolensk road, the final goal--\ntheir native land--was too remote, and their immediate goal was\nSmolensk, toward which all their desires and hopes, enormously\nintensified in the mass, urged them on. It was not that they knew that\nmuch food and fresh troops awaited them in Smolensk, nor that they were\ntold so (on the contrary their superior officers, and Napoleon himself,\nknew that provisions were scarce there), but because this alone could\ngive them strength to move on and endure their present privations. So\nboth those who knew and those who did not know deceived themselves, and\npushed on to Smolensk as to a promised land.\n\nComing out onto the highroad the French fled with surprising energy and\nunheard-of rapidity toward the goal they had fixed on. Besides the\ncommon impulse which bound the whole crowd of French into one mass and\nsupplied them with a certain energy, there was another cause binding\nthem together--their great numbers. As with the physical law of gravity,\ntheir enormous mass drew the individual human atoms to itself. In their\nhundreds of thousands they moved like a whole nation.\n\nEach of them desired nothing more than to give himself up as a prisoner\nto escape from all this horror and misery; but on the one hand the force\nof this common attraction to Smolensk, their goal, drew each of them in\nthe same direction; on the other hand an army corps could not surrender\nto a company, and though the French availed themselves of every\nconvenient opportunity to detach themselves and to surrender on the\nslightest decent pretext, such pretexts did not always occur. Their very\nnumbers and their crowded and swift movement deprived them of that\npossibility and rendered it not only difficult but impossible for the\nRussians to stop this movement, to which the French were directing all\ntheir energies. Beyond a certain limit no mechanical disruption of the\nbody could hasten the process of decomposition.\n\nA lump of snow cannot be melted instantaneously. There is a certain\nlimit of time in less than which no amount of heat can melt the snow. On\nthe contrary the greater the heat the more solidified the remaining snow\nbecomes.\n\nOf the Russian commanders Kutuzov alone understood this. When the flight\nof the French army along the Smolensk road became well defined, what\nKonovnitsyn had foreseen on the night of the eleventh of October began\nto occur. The superior officers all wanted to distinguish themselves, to\ncut off, to seize, to capture, and to overthrow the French, and all\nclamored for action.\n\nKutuzov alone used all his power (and such power is very limited in the\ncase of any commander-in-chief) to prevent an attack.\n\nHe could not tell them what we say now: \"Why fight, why block the road,\nlosing our own men and inhumanly slaughtering unfortunate wretches? What\nis the use of that, when a third of their army has melted away on the\nroad from Moscow to Vyazma without any battle?\" But drawing from his\naged wisdom what they could understand, he told them of the golden\nbridge, and they laughed at and slandered him, flinging themselves on,\nrending and exulting over the dying beast.\n\nErmolov, Miloradovich, Platov, and others in proximity to the French\nnear Vyazma could not resist their desire to cut off and break up two\nFrench corps, and by way of reporting their intention to Kutuzov they\nsent him a blank sheet of paper in an envelope.\n\nAnd try as Kutuzov might to restrain the troops, our men attacked,\ntrying to bar the road. Infantry regiments, we are told, advanced to the\nattack with music and with drums beating, and killed and lost thousands\nof men.\n\nBut they did not cut off or overthrow anybody and the French army,\nclosing up more firmly at the danger, continued, while steadily melting\naway, to pursue its fatal path to Smolensk.\n\nBOOK FOURTEEN: 1812\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nThe Battle of Borodino, with the occupation of Moscow that followed it\nand the flight of the French without further conflicts, is one of the\nmost instructive phenomena in history.\n\nAll historians agree that the external activity of states and nations in\ntheir conflicts with one another is expressed in wars, and that as a\ndirect result of greater or less success in war the political strength\nof states and nations increases or decreases.\n\nStrange as may be the historical account of how some king or emperor,\nhaving quarreled with another, collects an army, fights his enemy's\narmy, gains a victory by killing three, five, or ten thousand men, and\nsubjugates a kingdom and an entire nation of several millions, all the\nfacts of history (as far as we know it) confirm the truth of the\nstatement that the greater or lesser success of one army against another\nis the cause, or at least an essential indication, of an increase or\ndecrease in the strength of the nation--even though it is unintelligible\nwhy the defeat of an army--a hundredth part of a nation--should oblige\nthat whole nation to submit. An army gains a victory, and at once the\nrights of the conquering nation have increased to the detriment of the\ndefeated. An army has suffered defeat, and at once a people loses its\nrights in proportion to the severity of the reverse, and if its army\nsuffers a complete defeat the nation is quite subjugated.\n\nSo according to history it has been found from the most ancient times,\nand so it is to our own day. All Napoleon's wars serve to confirm this\nrule. In proportion to the defeat of the Austrian army Austria loses its\nrights, and the rights and the strength of France increase. The\nvictories of the French at Jena and Auerstadt destroy the independent\nexistence of Prussia.\n\nBut then, in 1812, the French gain a victory near Moscow. Moscow is\ntaken and after that, with no further battles, it is not Russia that\nceases to exist, but the French army of six hundred thousand, and then\nNapoleonic France itself. To strain the facts to fit the rules of\nhistory: to say that the field of battle at Borodino remained in the\nhands of the Russians, or that after Moscow there were other battles\nthat destroyed Napoleon's army, is impossible.\n\nAfter the French victory at Borodino there was no general engagement nor\nany that were at all serious, yet the French army ceased to exist. What\ndoes this mean? If it were an example taken from the history of China,\nwe might say that it was not an historic phenomenon (which is the\nhistorians' usual expedient when anything does not fit their standards);\nif the matter concerned some brief conflict in which only a small number\nof troops took part, we might treat it as an exception; but this event\noccurred before our fathers' eyes, and for them it was a question of the\nlife or death of their fatherland, and it happened in the greatest of\nall known wars.\n\nThe period of the campaign of 1812 from the battle of Borodino to the\nexpulsion of the French proved that the winning of a battle does not\nproduce a conquest and is not even an invariable indication of conquest;\nit proved that the force which decides the fate of peoples lies not in\nthe conquerors, nor even in armies and battles, but in something else.\n\nThe French historians, describing the condition of the French army\nbefore it left Moscow, affirm that all was in order in the Grand Army,\nexcept the cavalry, the artillery, and the transport--there was no\nforage for the horses or the cattle. That was a misfortune no one could\nremedy, for the peasants of the district burned their hay rather than\nlet the French have it.\n\nThe victory gained did not bring the usual results because the peasants\nKarp and Vlas (who after the French had evacuated Moscow drove in their\ncarts to pillage the town, and in general personally failed to manifest\nany heroic feelings), and the whole innumerable multitude of such\npeasants, did not bring their hay to Moscow for the high price offered\nthem, but burned it instead.\n\nLet us imagine two men who have come out to fight a duel with rapiers\naccording to all the rules of the art of fencing. The fencing has gone\non for some time; suddenly one of the combatants, feeling himself\nwounded and understanding that the matter is no joke but concerns his\nlife, throws down his rapier, and seizing the first cudgel that comes to\nhand begins to brandish it. Then let us imagine that the combatant who\nso sensibly employed the best and simplest means to attain his end was\nat the same time influenced by traditions of chivalry and, desiring to\nconceal the facts of the case, insisted that he had gained his victory\nwith the rapier according to all the rules of art. One can imagine what\nconfusion and obscurity would result from such an account of the duel.\n\nThe fencer who demanded a contest according to the rules of fencing was\nthe French army; his opponent who threw away the rapier and snatched up\nthe cudgel was the Russian people; those who try to explain the matter\naccording to the rules of fencing are the historians who have described\nthe event.\n\nAfter the burning of Smolensk a war began which did not follow any\nprevious traditions of war. The burning of towns and villages, the\nretreats after battles, the blow dealt at Borodino and the renewed\nretreat, the burning of Moscow, the capture of marauders, the seizure of\ntransports, and the guerrilla war were all departures from the rules.\n\nNapoleon felt this, and from the time he took up the correct fencing\nattitude in Moscow and instead of his opponent's rapier saw a cudgel\nraised above his head, he did not cease to complain to Kutuzov and to\nthe Emperor Alexander that the war was being carried on contrary to all\nthe rules--as if there were any rules for killing people. In spite of\nthe complaints of the French as to the nonobservance of the rules, in\nspite of the fact that to some highly placed Russians it seemed rather\ndisgraceful to fight with a cudgel and they wanted to assume a pose en\nquarte or en tierce according to all the rules, and to make an adroit\nthrust en prime, and so on--the cudgel of the people's war was lifted\nwith all its menacing and majestic strength, and without consulting\nanyone's tastes or rules and regardless of anything else, it rose and\nfell with stupid simplicity, but consistently, and belabored the French\ntill the whole invasion had perished.\n\nAnd it is well for a people who do not--as the French did in 1813--\nsalute according to all the rules of art, and, presenting the hilt of\ntheir rapier gracefully and politely, hand it to their magnanimous\nconqueror, but at the moment of trial, without asking what rules others\nhave adopted in similar cases, simply and easily pick up the first\ncudgel that comes to hand and strike with it till the feeling of\nresentment and revenge in their soul yields to a feeling of contempt and\ncompassion.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nOne of the most obvious and advantageous departures from the so-called\nlaws of war is the action of scattered groups against men pressed\ntogether in a mass. Such action always occurs in wars that take on a\nnational character. In such actions, instead of two crowds opposing each\nother, the men disperse, attack singly, run away when attacked by\nstronger forces, but again attack when opportunity offers. This was done\nby the guerrillas in Spain, by the mountain tribes in the Caucasus, and\nby the Russians in 1812.\n\nPeople have called this kind of war \"guerrilla warfare\" and assume that\nby so calling it they have explained its meaning. But such a war does\nnot fit in under any rule and is directly opposed to a well-known rule\nof tactics which is accepted as infallible. That rule says that an\nattacker should concentrate his forces in order to be stronger than his\nopponent at the moment of conflict.\n\nGuerrilla war (always successful, as history shows) directly infringes\nthat rule.\n\nThis contradiction arises from the fact that military science assumes\nthe strength of an army to be identical with its numbers. Military\nscience says that the more troops the greater the strength. Les gros\nbataillons ont toujours raison. *\n\n\n* Large battalions are always victorious.\n\nFor military science to say this is like defining momentum in mechanics\nby reference to the mass only: stating that momenta are equal or unequal\nto each other simply because the masses involved are equal or unequal.\n\nMomentum (quantity of motion) is the product of mass and velocity.\n\nIn military affairs the strength of an army is the product of its mass\nand some unknown x.\n\nMilitary science, seeing in history innumerable instances of the fact\nthat the size of any army does not coincide with its strength and that\nsmall detachments defeat larger ones, obscurely admits the existence of\nthis unknown factor and tries to discover it--now in a geometric\nformation, now in the equipment employed, now, and most usually, in the\ngenius of the commanders. But the assignment of these various meanings\nto the factor does not yield results which accord with the historic\nfacts.\n\nYet it is only necessary to abandon the false view (adopted to gratify\nthe \"heroes\") of the efficacy of the directions issued in wartime by\ncommanders, in order to find this unknown quantity.\n\nThat unknown quantity is the spirit of the army, that is to say, the\ngreater or lesser readiness to fight and face danger felt by all the men\ncomposing an army, quite independently of whether they are, or are not,\nfighting under the command of a genius, in two--or three-line formation,\nwith cudgels or with rifles that repeat thirty times a minute. Men who\nwant to fight will always put themselves in the most advantageous\nconditions for fighting.\n\nThe spirit of an army is the factor which multiplied by the mass gives\nthe resulting force. To define and express the significance of this\nunknown factor--the spirit of an army--is a problem for science.\n\nThis problem is only solvable if we cease arbitrarily to substitute for\nthe unknown x itself the conditions under which that force becomes\napparent--such as the commands of the general, the equipment employed,\nand so on--mistaking these for the real significance of the factor, and\nif we recognize this unknown quantity in its entirety as being the\ngreater or lesser desire to fight and to face danger. Only then,\nexpressing known historic facts by equations and comparing the relative\nsignificance of this factor, can we hope to define the unknown.\n\nTen men, battalions, or divisions, fighting fifteen men, battalions, or\ndivisions, conquer--that is, kill or take captive--all the others, while\nthemselves losing four, so that on the one side four and on the other\nfifteen were lost. Consequently the four were equal to the fifteen, and\ntherefore 4x = 15y. Consequently x/y = 15/4. This equation does not give\nus the value of the unknown factor but gives us a ratio between two\nunknowns. And by bringing variously selected historic units (battles,\ncampaigns, periods of war) into such equations, a series of numbers\ncould be obtained in which certain laws should exist and might be\ndiscovered.\n\nThe tactical rule that an army should act in masses when attacking, and\nin smaller groups in retreat, unconsciously confirms the truth that the\nstrength of an army depends on its spirit. To lead men forward under\nfire more discipline (obtainable only by movement in masses) is needed\nthan is needed to resist attacks. But this rule which leaves out of\naccount the spirit of the army continually proves incorrect and is in\nparticularly striking contrast to the facts when some strong rise or\nfall in the spirit of the troops occurs, as in all national wars.\n\nThe French, retreating in 1812--though according to tactics they should\nhave separated into detachments to defend themselves--congregated into a\nmass because the spirit of the army had so fallen that only the mass\nheld the army together. The Russians, on the contrary, ought according\nto tactics to have attacked in mass, but in fact they split up into\nsmall units, because their spirit had so risen that separate\nindividuals, without orders, dealt blows at the French without needing\nany compulsion to induce them to expose themselves to hardships and\ndangers.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nThe so-called partisan war began with the entry of the French into\nSmolensk.\n\nBefore partisan warfare had been officially recognized by the\ngovernment, thousands of enemy stragglers, marauders, and foragers had\nbeen destroyed by the Cossacks and the peasants, who killed them off as\ninstinctively as dogs worry a stray mad dog to death. Denis Davydov,\nwith his Russian instinct, was the first to recognize the value of this\nterrible cudgel which regardless of the rules of military science\ndestroyed the French, and to him belongs the credit for taking the first\nstep toward regularizing this method of warfare.\n\nOn August 24 Davydov's first partisan detachment was formed and then\nothers were recognized. The further the campaign progressed the more\nnumerous these detachments became.\n\nThe irregulars destroyed the great army piecemeal. They gathered the\nfallen leaves that dropped of themselves from that withered tree--the\nFrench army--and sometimes shook that tree itself. By October, when the\nFrench were fleeing toward Smolensk, there were hundreds of such\ncompanies, of various sizes and characters. There were some that adopted\nall the army methods and had infantry, artillery, staffs, and the\ncomforts of life. Others consisted solely of Cossack cavalry. There were\nalso small scratch groups of foot and horse, and groups of peasants and\nlandowners that remained unknown. A sacristan commanded one party which\ncaptured several hundred prisoners in the course of a month; and there\nwas Vasilisa, the wife of a village elder, who slew hundreds of the\nFrench.\n\nThe partisan warfare flamed up most fiercely in the latter days of\nOctober. Its first period had passed: when the partisans themselves,\namazed at their own boldness, feared every minute to be surrounded and\ncaptured by the French, and hid in the forests without unsaddling,\nhardly daring to dismount and always expecting to be pursued. By the end\nof October this kind of warfare had taken definite shape: it had become\nclear to all what could be ventured against the French and what could\nnot. Now only the commanders of detachments with staffs, and moving\naccording to rules at a distance from the French, still regarded many\nthings as impossible. The small bands that had started their activities\nlong before and had already observed the French closely considered\nthings possible which the commanders of the big detachments did not dare\nto contemplate. The Cossacks and peasants who crept in among the French\nnow considered everything possible.\n\nOn October 22, Denisov (who was one of the irregulars) was with his\ngroup at the height of the guerrilla enthusiasm. Since early morning he\nand his party had been on the move. All day long he had been watching\nfrom the forest that skirted the highroad a large French convoy of\ncavalry baggage and Russian prisoners separated from the rest of the\narmy, which--as was learned from spies and prisoners--was moving under a\nstrong escort to Smolensk. Besides Denisov and Dolokhov (who also led a\nsmall party and moved in Denisov's vicinity), the commanders of some\nlarge divisions with staffs also knew of this convoy and, as Denisov\nexpressed it, were sharpening their teeth for it. Two of the commanders\nof large parties--one a Pole and the other a German--sent invitations to\nDenisov almost simultaneously, requesting him to join up with their\ndivisions to attack the convoy.\n\n\"No, bwother, I have gwown mustaches myself,\" said Denisov on reading\nthese documents, and he wrote to the German that, despite his heartfelt\ndesire to serve under so valiant and renowned a general, he had to forgo\nthat pleasure because he was already under the command of the Polish\ngeneral. To the Polish general he replied to the same effect, informing\nhim that he was already under the command of the German.\n\nHaving arranged matters thus, Denisov and Dolokhov intended, without\nreporting matters to the higher command, to attack and seize that convoy\nwith their own small forces. On October 22 it was moving from the\nvillage of Mikulino to that of Shamshevo. To the left of the road\nbetween Mikulino and Shamshevo there were large forests, extending in\nsome places up to the road itself though in others a mile or more back\nfrom it. Through these forests Denisov and his party rode all day,\nsometimes keeping well back in them and sometimes coming to the very\nedge, but never losing sight of the moving French. That morning,\nCossacks of Denisov's party had seized and carried off into the forest\ntwo wagons loaded with cavalry saddles, which had stuck in the mud not\nfar from Mikulino where the forest ran close to the road. Since then,\nand until evening, the party had watched the movements of the French\nwithout attacking. It was necessary to let the French reach Shamshevo\nquietly without alarming them and then, after joining Dolokhov who was\nto come that evening to a consultation at a watchman's hut in the forest\nless than a mile from Shamshevo, to surprise the French at dawn, falling\nlike an avalanche on their heads from two sides, and rout and capture\nthem all at one blow.\n\nIn their rear, more than a mile from Mikulino where the forest came\nright up to the road, six Cossacks were posted to report if any fresh\ncolumns of French should show themselves.\n\nBeyond Shamshevo, Dolokhov was to observe the road in the same way, to\nfind out at what distance there were other French troops. They reckoned\nthat the convoy had fifteen hundred men. Denisov had two hundred, and\nDolokhov might have as many more, but the disparity of numbers did not\ndeter Denisov. All that he now wanted to know was what troops these were\nand to learn that he had to capture a \"tongue\"--that is, a man from the\nenemy column. That morning's attack on the wagons had been made so\nhastily that the Frenchmen with the wagons had all been killed; only a\nlittle drummer boy had been taken alive, and as he was a straggler he\ncould tell them nothing definite about the troops in that column.\n\nDenisov considered it dangerous to make a second attack for fear of\nputting the whole column on the alert, so he sent Tikhon Shcherbaty, a\npeasant of his party, to Shamshevo to try and seize at least one of the\nFrench quartermasters who had been sent on in advance.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nIt was a warm rainy autumn day. The sky and the horizon were both the\ncolor of muddy water. At times a sort of mist descended, and then\nsuddenly heavy slanting rain came down.\n\nDenisov in a felt cloak and a sheepskin cap from which the rain ran down\nwas riding a thin thoroughbred horse with sunken sides. Like his horse,\nwhich turned its head and laid its ears back, he shrank from the driving\nrain and gazed anxiously before him. His thin face with its short, thick\nblack beard looked angry.\n\nBeside Denisov rode an esaul, * Denisov's fellow worker, also in felt\ncloak and sheepskin cap, and riding a large sleek Don horse.\n\n\n* A captain of Cossacks.\n\nEsaul Lovayski the Third was a tall man as straight as an arrow, pale-\nfaced, fair-haired, with narrow light eyes and with calm self-\nsatisfaction in his face and bearing. Though it was impossible to say in\nwhat the peculiarity of the horse and rider lay, yet at first glance at\nthe esaul and Denisov one saw that the latter was wet and uncomfortable\nand was a man mounted on a horse, while looking at the esaul one saw\nthat he was as comfortable and as much at ease as always and that he was\nnot a man who had mounted a horse, but a man who was one with his horse,\na being consequently possessed of twofold strength.\n\nA little ahead of them walked a peasant guide, wet to the skin and\nwearing a gray peasant coat and a white knitted cap.\n\nA little behind, on a poor, small, lean Kirghiz mount with an enormous\ntail and mane and a bleeding mouth, rode a young officer in a blue\nFrench overcoat.\n\nBeside him rode an hussar, with a boy in a tattered French uniform and\nblue cap behind him on the crupper of his horse. The boy held on to the\nhussar with cold, red hands, and raising his eyebrows gazed about him\nwith surprise. This was the French drummer boy captured that morning.\n\nBehind them along the narrow, sodden, cutup forest road came hussars in\nthrees and fours, and then Cossacks: some in felt cloaks, some in French\ngreatcoats, and some with horsecloths over their heads. The horses,\nbeing drenched by the rain, all looked black whether chestnut or bay.\nTheir necks, with their wet, close-clinging manes, looked strangely\nthin. Steam rose from them. Clothes, saddles, reins, were all wet,\nslippery, and sodden, like the ground and the fallen leaves that strewed\nthe road. The men sat huddled up trying not to stir, so as to warm the\nwater that had trickled to their bodies and not admit the fresh cold\nwater that was leaking in under their seats, their knees, and at the\nback of their necks. In the midst of the outspread line of Cossacks two\nwagons, drawn by French horses and by saddled Cossack horses that had\nbeen hitched on in front, rumbled over the tree stumps and branches and\nsplashed through the water that lay in the ruts.\n\nDenisov's horse swerved aside to avoid a pool in the track and bumped\nhis rider's knee against a tree.\n\n\"Oh, the devil!\" exclaimed Denisov angrily, and showing his teeth he\nstruck his horse three times with his whip, splashing himself and his\ncomrades with mud.\n\nDenisov was out of sorts both because of the rain and also from hunger\n(none of them had eaten anything since morning), and yet more because he\nstill had no news from Dolokhov and the man sent to capture a \"tongue\"\nhad not returned.\n\n\"There'll hardly be another such chance to fall on a transport as today.\nIt's too risky to attack them by oneself, and if we put it off till\nanother day one of the big guerrilla detachments will snatch the prey\nfrom under our noses,\" thought Denisov, continually peering forward,\nhoping to see a messenger from Dolokhov.\n\nOn coming to a path in the forest along which he could see far to the\nright, Denisov stopped.\n\n\"There's someone coming,\" said he.\n\nThe esaul looked in the direction Denisov indicated.\n\n\"There are two, an officer and a Cossack. But it is not presupposable\nthat it is the lieutenant colonel himself,\" said the esaul, who was fond\nof using words the Cossacks did not know.\n\nThe approaching riders having descended a decline were no longer\nvisible, but they reappeared a few minutes later. In front, at a weary\ngallop and using his leather whip, rode an officer, disheveled and\ndrenched, whose trousers had worked up to above his knees. Behind him,\nstanding in the stirrups, trotted a Cossack. The officer, a very young\nlad with a broad rosy face and keen merry eyes, galloped up to Denisov\nand handed him a sodden envelope.\n\n\"From the general,\" said the officer. \"Please excuse its not being quite\ndry.\"\n\nDenisov, frowning, took the envelope and opened it.\n\n\"There, they kept telling us: 'It's dangerous, it's dangerous,'\" said\nthe officer, addressing the esaul while Denisov was reading the\ndispatch. \"But Komarov and I\"--he pointed to the Cossack--\"were\nprepared. We have each of us two pistols.... But what's this?\" he asked,\nnoticing the French drummer boy. \"A prisoner? You've already been in\naction? May I speak to him?\"\n\n\"Wostov! Petya!\" exclaimed Denisov, having run through the dispatch.\n\"Why didn't you say who you were?\" and turning with a smile he held out\nhis hand to the lad.\n\nThe officer was Petya Rostov.\n\nAll the way Petya had been preparing himself to behave with Denisov as\nbefitted a grownup man and an officer--without hinting at their previous\nacquaintance. But as soon as Denisov smiled at him Petya brightened up,\nblushed with pleasure, forgot the official manner he had been\nrehearsing, and began telling him how he had already been in a battle\nnear Vyazma and how a certain hussar had distinguished himself there.\n\n\"Well, I am glad to see you,\" Denisov interrupted him, and his face\nagain assumed its anxious expression.\n\n\"Michael Feoklitych,\" said he to the esaul, \"this is again fwom that\nGerman, you know. He\"--he indicated Petya--\"is serving under him.\"\n\nAnd Denisov told the esaul that the dispatch just delivered was a\nrepetition of the German general's demand that he should join forces\nwith him for an attack on the transport.\n\n\"If we don't take it tomowwow, he'll snatch it fwom under our noses,\" he\nadded.\n\nWhile Denisov was talking to the esaul, Petya--abashed by Denisov's cold\ntone and supposing that it was due to the condition of his trousers--\nfurtively tried to pull them down under his greatcoat so that no one\nshould notice it, while maintaining as martial an air as possible.\n\n\"Will there be any orders, your honor?\" he asked Denisov, holding his\nhand at the salute and resuming the game of adjutant and general for\nwhich he had prepared himself, \"or shall I remain with your honor?\"\n\n\"Orders?\" Denisov repeated thoughtfully. \"But can you stay till\ntomowwow?\"\n\n\"Oh, please... May I stay with you?\" cried Petya.\n\n\"But, just what did the genewal tell you? To weturn at once?\" asked\nDenisov.\n\nPetya blushed.\n\n\"He gave me no instructions. I think I could?\" he returned, inquiringly.\n\n\"Well, all wight,\" said Denisov.\n\nAnd turning to his men he directed a party to go on to the halting place\narranged near the watchman's hut in the forest, and told the officer on\nthe Kirghiz horse (who performed the duties of an adjutant) to go and\nfind out where Dolokhov was and whether he would come that evening.\nDenisov himself intended going with the esaul and Petya to the edge of\nthe forest where it reached out to Shamshevo, to have a look at the part\nof the French bivouac they were to attack next day.\n\n\"Well, old fellow,\" said he to the peasant guide, \"lead us to\nShamshevo.\"\n\nDenisov, Petya, and the esaul, accompanied by some Cossacks and the\nhussar who had the prisoner, rode to the left across a ravine to the\nedge of the forest.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nThe rain had stopped, and only the mist was falling and drops from the\ntrees. Denisov, the esaul, and Petya rode silently, following the\npeasant in the knitted cap who, stepping lightly with outturned toes and\nmoving noiselessly in his bast shoes over the roots and wet leaves,\nsilently led them to the edge of the forest.\n\nHe ascended an incline, stopped, looked about him, and advanced to where\nthe screen of trees was less dense. On reaching a large oak tree that\nhad not yet shed its leaves, he stopped and beckoned mysteriously to\nthem with his hand.\n\nDenisov and Petya rode up to him. From the spot where the peasant was\nstanding they could see the French. Immediately beyond the forest, on a\ndownward slope, lay a field of spring rye. To the right, beyond a steep\nravine, was a small village and a landowner's house with a broken roof.\nIn the village, in the house, in the garden, by the well, by the pond,\nover all the rising ground, and all along the road uphill from the\nbridge leading to the village, not more than five hundred yards away,\ncrowds of men could be seen through the shimmering mist. Their un-\nRussian shouting at their horses which were straining uphill with the\ncarts, and their calls to one another, could be clearly heard.\n\n\"Bwing the prisoner here,\" said Denisov in a low voice, not taking his\neyes off the French.\n\nA Cossack dismounted, lifted the boy down, and took him to Denisov.\nPointing to the French troops, Denisov asked him what these and those of\nthem were. The boy, thrusting his cold hands into his pockets and\nlifting his eyebrows, looked at Denisov in affright, but in spite of an\nevident desire to say all he knew gave confused answers, merely\nassenting to everything Denisov asked him. Denisov turned away from him\nfrowning and addressed the esaul, conveying his own conjectures to him.\n\nPetya, rapidly turning his head, looked now at the drummer boy, now at\nDenisov, now at the esaul, and now at the French in the village and\nalong the road, trying not to miss anything of importance.\n\n\"Whether Dolokhov comes or not, we must seize it, eh?\" said Denisov with\na merry sparkle in his eyes.\n\n\"It is a very suitable spot,\" said the esaul.\n\n\"We'll send the infantwy down by the swamps,\" Denisov continued.\n\"They'll cweep up to the garden; you'll wide up fwom there with the\nCossacks\"--he pointed to a spot in the forest beyond the village--\"and I\nwith my hussars fwom here. And at the signal shot...\"\n\n\"The hollow is impassable--there's a swamp there,\" said the esaul. \"The\nhorses would sink. We must ride round more to the left....\"\n\nWhile they were talking in undertones the crack of a shot sounded from\nthe low ground by the pond, a puff of white smoke appeared, then\nanother, and the sound of hundreds of seemingly merry French voices\nshouting together came up from the slope. For a moment Denisov and the\nesaul drew back. They were so near that they thought they were the cause\nof the firing and shouting. But the firing and shouting did not relate\nto them. Down below, a man wearing something red was running through the\nmarsh. The French were evidently firing and shouting at him.\n\n\"Why, that's our Tikhon,\" said the esaul.\n\n\"So it is! It is!\"\n\n\"The wascal!\" said Denisov.\n\n\"He'll get away!\" said the esaul, screwing up his eyes.\n\nThe man whom they called Tikhon, having run to the stream, plunged in so\nthat the water splashed in the air, and, having disappeared for an\ninstant, scrambled out on all fours, all black with the wet, and ran on.\nThe French who had been pursuing him stopped.\n\n\"Smart, that!\" said the esaul.\n\n\"What a beast!\" said Denisov with his former look of vexation. \"What has\nhe been doing all this time?\"\n\n\"Who is he?\" asked Petya.\n\n\"He's our plastun. I sent him to capture a 'tongue.'\"\n\n\"Oh, yes,\" said Petya, nodding at the first words Denisov uttered as if\nhe understood it all, though he really did not understand anything of\nit.\n\nTikhon Shcherbaty was one of the most indispensable men in their band.\nHe was a peasant from Pokrovsk, near the river Gzhat. When Denisov had\ncome to Pokrovsk at the beginning of his operations and had as usual\nsummoned the village elder and asked him what he knew about the French,\nthe elder, as though shielding himself, had replied, as all village\nelders did, that he had neither seen nor heard anything of them. But\nwhen Denisov explained that his purpose was to kill the French, and\nasked if no French had strayed that way, the elder replied that some\n\"more-orderers\" had really been at their village, but that Tikhon\nShcherbaty was the only man who dealt with such matters. Denisov had\nTikhon called and, having praised him for his activity, said a few words\nin the elder's presence about loyalty to the Tsar and the country and\nthe hatred of the French that all sons of the fatherland should cherish.\n\n\"We don't do the French any harm,\" said Tikhon, evidently frightened by\nDenisov's words. \"We only fooled about with the lads for fun, you know!\nWe killed a score or so of 'more-orderers,' but we did no harm else...\"\n\nNext day when Denisov had left Pokrovsk, having quite forgotten about\nthis peasant, it was reported to him that Tikhon had attached himself to\ntheir party and asked to be allowed to remain with it. Denisov gave\norders to let him do so.\n\nTikhon, who at first did rough work, laying campfires, fetching water,\nflaying dead horses, and so on, soon showed a great liking and aptitude\nfor partisan warfare. At night he would go out for booty and always\nbrought back French clothing and weapons, and when told to would bring\nin French captives also. Denisov then relieved him from drudgery and\nbegan taking him with him when he went out on expeditions and had him\nenrolled among the Cossacks.\n\nTikhon did not like riding, and always went on foot, never lagging\nbehind the cavalry. He was armed with a musketoon (which he carried\nrather as a joke), a pike and an ax, which latter he used as a wolf uses\nits teeth, with equal ease picking fleas out of its fur or crunching\nthick bones. Tikhon with equal accuracy would split logs with blows at\narm's length, or holding the head of the ax would cut thin little pegs\nor carve spoons. In Denisov's party he held a peculiar and exceptional\nposition. When anything particularly difficult or nasty had to be done--\nto push a cart out of the mud with one's shoulders, pull a horse out of\na swamp by its tail, skin it, slink in among the French, or walk more\nthan thirty miles in a day--everybody pointed laughingly at Tikhon.\n\n\"It won't hurt that devil--he's as strong as a horse!\" they said of him.\n\nOnce a Frenchman Tikhon was trying to capture fired a pistol at him and\nshot him in the fleshy part of the back. That wound (which Tikhon\ntreated only with internal and external applications of vodka) was the\nsubject of the liveliest jokes by the whole detachment--jokes in which\nTikhon readily joined.\n\n\"Hallo, mate! Never again? Gave you a twist?\" the Cossacks would banter\nhim. And Tikhon, purposely writhing and making faces, pretended to be\nangry and swore at the French with the funniest curses. The only effect\nof this incident on Tikhon was that after being wounded he seldom\nbrought in prisoners.\n\nHe was the bravest and most useful man in the party. No one found more\nopportunities for attacking, no one captured or killed more Frenchmen,\nand consequently he was made the buffoon of all the Cossacks and hussars\nand willingly accepted that role. Now he had been sent by Denisov\novernight to Shamshevo to capture a \"tongue.\" But whether because he had\nnot been content to take only one Frenchman or because he had slept\nthrough the night, he had crept by day into some bushes right among the\nFrench and, as Denisov had witnessed from above, had been detected by\nthem.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nAfter talking for some time with the esaul about next day's attack,\nwhich now, seeing how near they were to the French, he seemed to have\ndefinitely decided on, Denisov turned his horse and rode back.\n\n\"Now, my lad, we'll go and get dwy,\" he said to Petya.\n\nAs they approached the watchhouse Denisov stopped, peering into the\nforest. Among the trees a man with long legs and long, swinging arms,\nwearing a short jacket, bast shoes, and a Kazan hat, was approaching\nwith long, light steps. He had a musketoon over his shoulder and an ax\nstuck in his girdle. When he espied Denisov he hastily threw something\ninto the bushes, removed his sodden hat by its floppy brim, and\napproached his commander. It was Tikhon. His wrinkled and pockmarked\nface and narrow little eyes beamed with self-satisfied merriment. He\nlifted his head high and gazed at Denisov as if repressing a laugh.\n\n\"Well, where did you disappear to?\" inquired Denisov.\n\n\"Where did I disappear to? I went to get Frenchmen,\" answered Tikhon\nboldly and hurriedly, in a husky but melodious bass voice.\n\n\"Why did you push yourself in there by daylight? You ass! Well, why\nhaven't you taken one?\"\n\n\"Oh, I took one all right,\" said Tikhon.\n\n\"Where is he?\"\n\n\"You see, I took him first thing at dawn,\" Tikhon continued, spreading\nout his flat feet with outturned toes in their bast shoes. \"I took him\ninto the forest. Then I see he's no good and think I'll go and fetch a\nlikelier one.\"\n\n\"You see?... What a wogue--it's just as I thought,\" said Denisov to the\nesaul. \"Why didn't you bwing that one?\"\n\n\"What was the good of bringing him?\" Tikhon interrupted hastily and\nangrily--\"that one wouldn't have done for you. As if I don't know what\nsort you want!\"\n\n\"What a bwute you are!... Well?\"\n\n\"I went for another one,\" Tikhon continued, \"and I crept like this\nthrough the wood and lay down.\" (He suddenly lay down on his stomach\nwith a supple movement to show how he had done it.) \"One turned up and I\ngrabbed him, like this.\" (He jumped up quickly and lightly.) \"'Come\nalong to the colonel,' I said. He starts yelling, and suddenly there\nwere four of them. They rushed at me with their little swords. So I went\nfor them with my ax, this way: 'What are you up to?' says I. 'Christ be\nwith you!'\" shouted Tikhon, waving his arms with an angry scowl and\nthrowing out his chest.\n\n\"Yes, we saw from the hill how you took to your heels through the\npuddles!\" said the esaul, screwing up his glittering eyes.\n\nPetya badly wanted to laugh, but noticed that they all refrained from\nlaughing. He turned his eyes rapidly from Tikhon's face to the esaul's\nand Denisov's, unable to make out what it all meant.\n\n\"Don't play the fool!\" said Denisov, coughing angrily. \"Why didn't you\nbwing the first one?\"\n\nTikhon scratched his back with one hand and his head with the other,\nthen suddenly his whole face expanded into a beaming, foolish grin,\ndisclosing a gap where he had lost a tooth (that was why he was called\nShcherbaty--the gap-toothed). Denisov smiled, and Petya burst into a\npeal of merry laughter in which Tikhon himself joined.\n\n\"Oh, but he was a regular good-for-nothing,\" said Tikhon. \"The clothes\non him--poor stuff! How could I bring him? And so rude, your honor! Why,\nhe says: 'I'm a general's son myself, I won't go!' he says.\"\n\n\"You are a bwute!\" said Denisov. \"I wanted to question...\"\n\n\"But I questioned him,\" said Tikhon. \"He said he didn't know much.\n'There are a lot of us,' he says, 'but all poor stuff--only soldiers in\nname,' he says. 'Shout loud at them,' he says, 'and you'll take them\nall,'\" Tikhon concluded, looking cheerfully and resolutely into\nDenisov's eyes.\n\n\"I'll give you a hundwed sharp lashes--that'll teach you to play the\nfool!\" said Denisov severely.\n\n\"But why are you angry?\" remonstrated Tikhon, \"just as if I'd never seen\nyour Frenchmen! Only wait till it gets dark and I'll fetch you any of\nthem you want--three if you like.\"\n\n\"Well, let's go,\" said Denisov, and rode all the way to the watchhouse\nin silence and frowning angrily.\n\nTikhon followed behind and Petya heard the Cossacks laughing with him\nand at him, about some pair of boots he had thrown into the bushes.\n\nWhen the fit of laughter that had seized him at Tikhon's words and smile\nhad passed and Petya realized for a moment that this Tikhon had killed a\nman, he felt uneasy. He looked round at the captive drummer boy and felt\na pang in his heart. But this uneasiness lasted only a moment. He felt\nit necessary to hold his head higher, to brace himself, and to question\nthe esaul with an air of importance about tomorrow's undertaking, that\nhe might not be unworthy of the company in which he found himself.\n\nThe officer who had been sent to inquire met Denisov on the way with the\nnews that Dolokhov was soon coming and that all was well with him.\n\nDenisov at once cheered up and, calling Petya to him, said: \"Well, tell\nme about yourself.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nPetya, having left his people after their departure from Moscow, joined\nhis regiment and was soon taken as orderly by a general commanding a\nlarge guerrilla detachment. From the time he received his commission,\nand especially since he had joined the active army and taken part in the\nbattle of Vyazma, Petya had been in a constant state of blissful\nexcitement at being grown-up and in a perpetual ecstatic hurry not to\nmiss any chance to do something really heroic. He was highly delighted\nwith what he saw and experienced in the army, but at the same time it\nalways seemed to him that the really heroic exploits were being\nperformed just where he did not happen to be. And he was always in a\nhurry to get where he was not.\n\nWhen on the twenty-first of October his general expressed a wish to send\nsomebody to Denisov's detachment, Petya begged so piteously to be sent\nthat the general could not refuse. But when dispatching him he recalled\nPetya's mad action at the battle of Vyazma, where instead of riding by\nthe road to the place to which he had been sent, he had galloped to the\nadvanced line under the fire of the French and had there twice fired his\npistol. So now the general explicitly forbade his taking part in any\naction whatever of Denisov's. That was why Petya had blushed and grown\nconfused when Denisov asked him whether he could stay. Before they had\nridden to the outskirts of the forest Petya had considered he must carry\nout his instructions strictly and return at once. But when he saw the\nFrench and saw Tikhon and learned that there would certainly be an\nattack that night, he decided, with the rapidity with which young people\nchange their views, that the general, whom he had greatly respected till\nthen, was a rubbishy German, that Denisov was a hero, the esaul a hero,\nand Tikhon a hero too, and that it would be shameful for him to leave\nthem at a moment of difficulty.\n\nIt was already growing dusk when Denisov, Petya, and the esaul rode up\nto the watchhouse. In the twilight saddled horses could be seen, and\nCossacks and hussars who had rigged up rough shelters in the glade and\nwere kindling glowing fires in a hollow of the forest where the French\ncould not see the smoke. In the passage of the small watchhouse a\nCossack with sleeves rolled up was chopping some mutton. In the room\nthree officers of Denisov's band were converting a door into a tabletop.\nPetya took off his wet clothes, gave them to be dried, and at once began\nhelping the officers to fix up the dinner table.\n\nIn ten minutes the table was ready and a napkin spread on it. On the\ntable were vodka, a flask of rum, white bread, roast mutton, and salt.\n\nSitting at table with the officers and tearing the fat savory mutton\nwith his hands, down which the grease trickled, Petya was in an ecstatic\nchildish state of love for all men, and consequently of confidence that\nothers loved him in the same way.\n\n\"So then what do you think, Vasili Dmitrich?\" said he to Denisov. \"It's\nall right my staying a day with you?\" And not waiting for a reply he\nanswered his own question: \"You see I was told to find out--well, I am\nfinding out.... Only do let me into the very... into the chief... I\ndon't want a reward... But I want...\"\n\nPetya clenched his teeth and looked around, throwing back his head and\nflourishing his arms.\n\n\"Into the vewy chief...\" Denisov repeated with a smile.\n\n\"Only, please let me command something, so that I may really command...\"\nPetya went on. \"What would it be to you?... Oh, you want a knife?\" he\nsaid, turning to an officer who wished to cut himself a piece of mutton.\n\nAnd he handed him his clasp knife. The officer admired it.\n\n\"Please keep it. I have several like it,\" said Petya, blushing.\n\"Heavens! I was quite forgetting!\" he suddenly cried. \"I have some\nraisins, fine ones; you know, seedless ones. We have a new sutler and he\nhas such capital things. I bought ten pounds. I am used to something\nsweet. Would you like some?...\" and Petya ran out into the passage to\nhis Cossack and brought back some bags which contained about five pounds\nof raisins. \"Have some, gentlemen, have some!\"\n\n\"You want a coffeepot, don't you?\" he asked the esaul. \"I bought a\ncapital one from our sutler! He has splendid things. And he's very\nhonest, that's the chief thing. I'll be sure to send it to you. Or\nperhaps your flints are giving out, or are worn out--that happens\nsometimes, you know. I have brought some with me, here they are\"--and he\nshowed a bag--\"a hundred flints. I bought them very cheap. Please take\nas many as you want, or all if you like....\"\n\nThen suddenly, dismayed lest he had said too much, Petya stopped and\nblushed.\n\nHe tried to remember whether he had not done anything else that was\nfoolish. And running over the events of the day he remembered the French\ndrummer boy. \"It's capital for us here, but what of him? Where have they\nput him? Have they fed him? Haven't they hurt his feelings?\" he thought.\nBut having caught himself saying too much about the flints, he was now\nafraid to speak out.\n\n\"I might ask,\" he thought, \"but they'll say: 'He's a boy himself and so\nhe pities the boy.' I'll show them tomorrow whether I'm a boy. Will it\nseem odd if I ask?\" Petya thought. \"Well, never mind!\" and immediately,\nblushing and looking anxiously at the officers to see if they appeared\nironical, he said:\n\n\"May I call in that boy who was taken prisoner and give him something to\neat?... Perhaps...\"\n\n\"Yes, he's a poor little fellow,\" said Denisov, who evidently saw\nnothing shameful in this reminder. \"Call him in. His name is Vincent\nBosse. Have him fetched.\"\n\n\"I'll call him,\" said Petya.\n\n\"Yes, yes, call him. A poor little fellow,\" Denisov repeated.\n\nPetya was standing at the door when Denisov said this. He slipped in\nbetween the officers, came close to Denisov, and said:\n\n\"Let me kiss you, dear old fellow! Oh, how fine, how splendid!\"\n\nAnd having kissed Denisov he ran out of the hut.\n\n\"Bosse! Vincent!\" Petya cried, stopping outside the door.\n\n\"Who do you want, sir?\" asked a voice in the darkness.\n\nPetya replied that he wanted the French lad who had been captured that\nday.\n\n\"Ah, Vesenny?\" said a Cossack.\n\nVincent, the boy's name, had already been changed by the Cossacks into\nVesenny (vernal) and into Vesenya by the peasants and soldiers. In both\nthese adaptations the reference to spring (vesna) matched the impression\nmade by the young lad.\n\n\"He is warming himself there by the bonfire. Ho, Vesenya! Vesenya!--\nVesenny!\" laughing voices were heard calling to one another in the\ndarkness.\n\n\"He's a smart lad,\" said an hussar standing near Petya. \"We gave him\nsomething to eat a while ago. He was awfully hungry!\"\n\nThe sound of bare feet splashing through the mud was heard in the\ndarkness, and the drummer boy came to the door.\n\n\"Ah, c'est vous!\" said Petya. \"Voulez-vous manger? N'ayez pas peur, on\nne vous fera pas de mal,\" * he added shyly and affectionately, touching\nthe boy's hand. \"Entrez, entrez.\" *(2)\n\n\n* \"Ah, it's you! Do you want something to eat? Don't be afraid, they\nwon't hurt you.\"\n\n* (2) \"Come in, come in.\"\n\n\"Merci, monsieur,\" * said the drummer boy in a trembling almost childish\nvoice, and he began scraping his dirty feet on the threshold.\n\n\n* \"Thank you, sir.\"\n\nThere were many things Petya wanted to say to the drummer boy, but did\nnot dare to. He stood irresolutely beside him in the passage. Then in\nthe darkness he took the boy's hand and pressed it.\n\n\"Come in, come in!\" he repeated in a gentle whisper. \"Oh, what can I do\nfor him?\" he thought, and opening the door he let the boy pass in first.\n\nWhen the boy had entered the hut, Petya sat down at a distance from him,\nconsidering it beneath his dignity to pay attention to him. But he\nfingered the money in his pocket and wondered whether it would seem\nridiculous to give some to the drummer boy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nThe arrival of Dolokhov diverted Petya's attention from the drummer boy,\nto whom Denisov had had some mutton and vodka given, and whom he had had\ndressed in a Russian coat so that he might be kept with their band and\nnot sent away with the other prisoners. Petya had heard in the army many\nstories of Dolokhov's extraordinary bravery and of his cruelty to the\nFrench, so from the moment he entered the hut Petya did not take his\neyes from him, but braced himself up more and more and held his head\nhigh, that he might not be unworthy even of such company.\n\nDolokhov's appearance amazed Petya by its simplicity.\n\nDenisov wore a Cossack coat, had a beard, had an icon of Nicholas the\nWonder-Worker on his breast, and his way of speaking and everything he\ndid indicated his unusual position. But Dolokhov, who in Moscow had worn\na Persian costume, had now the appearance of a most correct officer of\nthe Guards. He was clean-shaven and wore a Guardsman's padded coat with\nan Order of St. George at his buttonhole and a plain forage cap set\nstraight on his head. He took off his wet felt cloak in a corner of the\nroom, and without greeting anyone went up to Denisov and began\nquestioning him about the matter in hand. Denisov told him of the\ndesigns the large detachments had on the transport, of the message Petya\nhad brought, and his own replies to both generals. Then he told him all\nhe knew of the French detachment.\n\n\"That's so. But we must know what troops they are and their numbers,\"\nsaid Dolokhov. \"It will be necessary to go there. We can't start the\naffair without knowing for certain how many there are. I like to work\naccurately. Here now--wouldn't one of these gentlemen like to ride over\nto the French camp with me? I have brought a spare uniform.\"\n\n\"I, I... I'll go with you!\" cried Petya.\n\n\"There's no need for you to go at all,\" said Denisov, addressing\nDolokhov, \"and as for him, I won't let him go on any account.\"\n\n\"I like that!\" exclaimed Petya. \"Why shouldn't I go?\"\n\n\"Because it's useless.\"\n\n\"Well, you must excuse me, because... because... I shall go, and that's\nall. You'll take me, won't you?\" he said, turning to Dolokhov.\n\n\"Why not?\" Dolokhov answered absently, scrutinizing the face of the\nFrench drummer boy. \"Have you had that youngster with you long?\" he\nasked Denisov.\n\n\"He was taken today but he knows nothing. I'm keeping him with me.\"\n\n\"Yes, and where do you put the others?\" inquired Dolokhov.\n\n\"Where? I send them away and take a weceipt for them,\" shouted Denisov,\nsuddenly flushing. \"And I say boldly that I have not a single man's life\non my conscience. Would it be difficult for you to send thirty or thwee\nhundwed men to town under escort, instead of staining--I speak bluntly--\nstaining the honor of a soldier?\"\n\n\"That kind of amiable talk would be suitable from this young count of\nsixteen,\" said Dolokhov with cold irony, \"but it's time for you to drop\nit.\"\n\n\"Why, I've not said anything! I only say that I'll certainly go with\nyou,\" said Petya shyly.\n\n\"But for you and me, old fellow, it's time to drop these amenities,\"\ncontinued Dolokhov, as if he found particular pleasure in speaking of\nthis subject which irritated Denisov. \"Now, why have you kept this lad?\"\nhe went on, swaying his head. \"Because you are sorry for him! Don't we\nknow those 'receipts' of yours? You send a hundred men away, and thirty\nget there. The rest either starve or get killed. So isn't it all the\nsame not to send them?\"\n\nThe esaul, screwing up his light-colored eyes, nodded approvingly.\n\n\"That's not the point. I'm not going to discuss the matter. I do not\nwish to take it on my conscience. You say they'll die. All wight. Only\nnot by my fault!\"\n\nDolokhov began laughing.\n\n\"Who has told them not to capture me these twenty times over? But if\nthey did catch me they'd string me up to an aspen tree, and with all\nyour chivalry just the same.\" He paused. \"However, we must get to work.\nTell the Cossack to fetch my kit. I have two French uniforms in it.\nWell, are you coming with me?\" he asked Petya.\n\n\"I? Yes, yes, certainly!\" cried Petya, blushing almost to tears and\nglancing at Denisov.\n\nWhile Dolokhov had been disputing with Denisov what should be done with\nprisoners, Petya had once more felt awkward and restless; but again he\nhad no time to grasp fully what they were talking about. \"If grown-up,\ndistinguished men think so, it must be necessary and right,\" thought he.\n\"But above all Denisov must not dare to imagine that I'll obey him and\nthat he can order me about. I will certainly go to the French camp with\nDolokhov. If he can, so can I!\"\n\nAnd to all Denisov's persuasions, Petya replied that he too was\naccustomed to do everything accurately and not just anyhow, and that he\nnever considered personal danger.\n\n\"For you'll admit that if we don't know for sure how many of them there\nare... hundreds of lives may depend on it, while there are only two of\nus. Besides, I want to go very much and certainly will go, so don't\nhinder me,\" said he. \"It will only make things worse...\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nHaving put on French greatcoats and shakos, Petya and Dolokhov rode to\nthe clearing from which Denisov had reconnoitered the French camp, and\nemerging from the forest in pitch darkness they descended into the\nhollow. On reaching the bottom, Dolokhov told the Cossacks accompanying\nhim to await him there and rode on at a quick trot along the road to the\nbridge. Petya, his heart in his mouth with excitement, rode by his side.\n\n\"If we're caught, I won't be taken alive! I have a pistol,\" whispered\nhe.\n\n\"Don't talk Russian,\" said Dolokhov in a hurried whisper, and at that\nvery moment they heard through the darkness the challenge: \"Qui vive?\" *\nand the click of a musket.\n\n\n* \"Who goes there?\"\n\nThe blood rushed to Petya's face and he grasped his pistol.\n\n\"Lanciers du 6-me,\" * replied Dolokhov, neither hastening nor slackening\nhis horse's pace.\n\n\n* \"Lancers of the 6th Regiment.\"\n\nThe black figure of a sentinel stood on the bridge.\n\n\"Mot d'ordre.\" *\n\n\n* \"Password.\"\n\nDolokhov reined in his horse and advanced at a walk.\n\n\"Dites donc, le colonel Gerard est ici?\" * he asked.\n\n\n* \"Tell me, is Colonel Gerard here?\"\n\n\"Mot d'ordre,\" repeated the sentinel, barring the way and not replying.\n\n\"Quand un officier fait sa ronde, les sentinelles ne demandent pas le\nmot d'ordre...\" cried Dolokhov suddenly flaring up and riding straight\nat the sentinel. \"Je vous demande si le colonel est ici.\" *\n\n\n* \"When an officer is making his round, sentinels don't ask him for the\npassword.... I am asking you if the colonel is here.\"\n\nAnd without waiting for an answer from the sentinel, who had stepped\naside, Dolokhov rode up the incline at a walk.\n\nNoticing the black outline of a man crossing the road, Dolokhov stopped\nhim and inquired where the commander and officers were. The man, a\nsoldier with a sack over his shoulder, stopped, came close up to\nDolokhov's horse, touched it with his hand, and explained simply and in\na friendly way that the commander and the officers were higher up the\nhill to the right in the courtyard of the farm, as he called the\nlandowner's house.\n\nHaving ridden up the road, on both sides of which French talk could be\nheard around the campfires, Dolokhov turned into the courtyard of the\nlandowner's house. Having ridden in, he dismounted and approached a big\nblazing campfire, around which sat several men talking noisily.\nSomething was boiling in a small cauldron at the edge of the fire and a\nsoldier in a peaked cap and blue overcoat, lit up by the fire, was\nkneeling beside it stirring its contents with a ramrod.\n\n\"Oh, he's a hard nut to crack,\" said one of the officers who was sitting\nin the shadow at the other side of the fire.\n\n\"He'll make them get a move on, those fellows!\" said another, laughing.\n\nBoth fell silent, peering out through the darkness at the sound of\nDolokhov's and Petya's steps as they advanced to the fire leading their\nhorses.\n\n\"Bonjour, messieurs!\" * said Dolokhov loudly and clearly.\n\n\n* \"Good day, gentlemen.\"\n\nThere was a stir among the officers in the shadow beyond the fire, and\none tall, long-necked officer, walking round the fire, came up to\nDolokhov.\n\n\"Is that you, Clement?\" he asked. \"Where the devil...?\" But, noticing\nhis mistake, he broke off short and, with a frown, greeted Dolokhov as a\nstranger, asking what he could do for him.\n\nDolokhov said that he and his companion were trying to overtake their\nregiment, and addressing the company in general asked whether they knew\nanything of the 6th Regiment. None of them knew anything, and Petya\nthought the officers were beginning to look at him and Dolokhov with\nhostility and suspicion. For some seconds all were silent.\n\n\"If you were counting on the evening soup, you have come too late,\" said\na voice from behind the fire with a repressed laugh.\n\nDolokhov replied that they were not hungry and must push on farther that\nnight.\n\nHe handed the horses over to the soldier who was stirring the pot and\nsquatted down on his heels by the fire beside the officer with the long\nneck. That officer did not take his eyes from Dolokhov and again asked\nto what regiment he belonged. Dolokhov, as if he had not heard the\nquestion, did not reply, but lighting a short French pipe which he took\nfrom his pocket began asking the officer in how far the road before them\nwas safe from Cossacks.\n\n\"Those brigands are everywhere,\" replied an officer from behind the\nfire.\n\nDolokhov remarked that the Cossacks were a danger only to stragglers\nsuch as his companion and himself, \"but probably they would not dare to\nattack large detachments?\" he added inquiringly. No one replied.\n\n\"Well, now he'll come away,\" Petya thought every moment as he stood by\nthe campfire listening to the talk.\n\nBut Dolokhov restarted the conversation which had dropped and began\nputting direct questions as to how many men there were in the battalion,\nhow many battalions, and how many prisoners. Asking about the Russian\nprisoners with that detachment, Dolokhov said:\n\n\"A horrid business dragging these corpses about with one! It would be\nbetter to shoot such rabble,\" and burst into loud laughter, so strange\nthat Petya thought the French would immediately detect their disguise,\nand involuntarily took a step back from the campfire.\n\nNo one replied a word to Dolokhov's laughter, and a French officer whom\nthey could not see (he lay wrapped in a greatcoat) rose and whispered\nsomething to a companion. Dolokhov got up and called to the soldier who\nwas holding their horses.\n\n\"Will they bring our horses or not?\" thought Petya, instinctively\ndrawing nearer to Dolokhov.\n\nThe horses were brought.\n\n\"Good evening, gentlemen,\" said Dolokhov.\n\nPetya wished to say \"Good night\" but could not utter a word. The\nofficers were whispering together. Dolokhov was a long time mounting his\nhorse which would not stand still, then he rode out of the yard at a\nfootpace. Petya rode beside him, longing to look round to see whether or\nnot the French were running after them, but not daring to.\n\nComing out onto the road Dolokhov did not ride back across the open\ncountry, but through the village. At one spot he stopped and listened.\n\"Do you hear?\" he asked. Petya recognized the sound of Russian voices\nand saw the dark figures of Russian prisoners round their campfires.\nWhen they had descended to the bridge Petya and Dolokhov rode past the\nsentinel, who without saying a word paced morosely up and down it, then\nthey descended into the hollow where the Cossacks awaited them.\n\n\"Well now, good-by. Tell Denisov, 'at the first shot at daybreak,'\" said\nDolokhov and was about to ride away, but Petya seized hold of him.\n\n\"Really!\" he cried, \"you are such a hero! Oh, how fine, how splendid!\nHow I love you!\"\n\n\"All right, all right!\" said Dolokhov. But Petya did not let go of him\nand Dolokhov saw through the gloom that Petya was bending toward him and\nwanted to kiss him. Dolokhov kissed him, laughed, turned his horse, and\nvanished into the darkness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nHaving returned to the watchman's hut, Petya found Denisov in the\npassage. He was awaiting Petya's return in a state of agitation,\nanxiety, and self-reproach for having let him go.\n\n\"Thank God!\" he exclaimed. \"Yes, thank God!\" he repeated, listening to\nPetya's rapturous account. \"But, devil take you, I haven't slept because\nof you! Well, thank God. Now lie down. We can still get a nap before\nmorning.\"\n\n\"But... no,\" said Petya, \"I don't want to sleep yet. Besides I know\nmyself, if I fall asleep it's finished. And then I am used to not\nsleeping before a battle.\"\n\nHe sat awhile in the hut joyfully recalling the details of his\nexpedition and vividly picturing to himself what would happen next day.\n\nThen, noticing that Denisov was asleep, he rose and went out of doors.\n\nIt was still quite dark outside. The rain was over, but drops were still\nfalling from the trees. Near the watchman's hut the black shapes of the\nCossacks' shanties and of horses tethered together could be seen. Behind\nthe hut the dark shapes of the two wagons with their horses beside them\nwere discernible, and in the hollow the dying campfire gleamed red. Not\nall the Cossacks and hussars were asleep; here and there, amid the\nsounds of falling drops and the munching of the horses near by, could be\nheard low voices which seemed to be whispering.\n\nPetya came out, peered into the darkness, and went up to the wagons.\nSomeone was snoring under them, and around them stood saddled horses\nmunching their oats. In the dark Petya recognized his own horse, which\nhe called \"Karabakh\" though it was of Ukranian breed, and went up to it.\n\n\"Well, Karabakh! We'll do some service tomorrow,\" said he, sniffing its\nnostrils and kissing it.\n\n\"Why aren't you asleep, sir?\" said a Cossack who was sitting under a\nwagon.\n\n\"No, ah... Likhachev--isn't that your name? Do you know I have only just\ncome back! We've been into the French camp.\"\n\nAnd Petya gave the Cossack a detailed account not only of his ride but\nalso of his object, and why he considered it better to risk his life\nthan to act \"just anyhow.\"\n\n\"Well, you should get some sleep now,\" said the Cossack.\n\n\"No, I am used to this,\" said Petya. \"I say, aren't the flints in your\npistols worn out? I brought some with me. Don't you want any? You can\nhave some.\"\n\nThe Cossack bent forward from under the wagon to get a closer look at\nPetya.\n\n\"Because I am accustomed to doing everything accurately,\" said Petya.\n\"Some fellows do things just anyhow, without preparation, and then\nthey're sorry for it afterwards. I don't like that.\"\n\n\"Just so,\" said the Cossack.\n\n\"Oh yes, another thing! Please, my dear fellow, will you sharpen my\nsaber for me? It's got bl...\" (Petya feared to tell a lie, and the saber\nnever had been sharpened.) \"Can you do it?\"\n\n\"Of course I can.\"\n\nLikhachev got up, rummaged in his pack, and soon Petya heard the warlike\nsound of steel on whetstone. He climbed onto the wagon and sat on its\nedge. The Cossack was sharpening the saber under the wagon.\n\n\"I say! Are the lads asleep?\" asked Petya.\n\n\"Some are, and some aren't--like us.\"\n\n\"Well, and that boy?\"\n\n\"Vesenny? Oh, he's thrown himself down there in the passage. Fast asleep\nafter his fright. He was that glad!\"\n\nAfter that Petya remained silent for a long time, listening to the\nsounds. He heard footsteps in the darkness and a black figure appeared.\n\n\"What are you sharpening?\" asked a man coming up to the wagon.\n\n\"Why, this gentleman's saber.\"\n\n\"That's right,\" said the man, whom Petya took to be an hussar. \"Was the\ncup left here?\"\n\n\"There, by the wheel!\"\n\nThe hussar took the cup.\n\n\"It must be daylight soon,\" said he, yawning, and went away.\n\nPetya ought to have known that he was in a forest with Denisov's\nguerrilla band, less than a mile from the road, sitting on a wagon\ncaptured from the French beside which horses were tethered, that under\nit Likhachev was sitting sharpening a saber for him, that the big dark\nblotch to the right was the watchman's hut, and the red blotch below to\nthe left was the dying embers of a campfire, that the man who had come\nfor the cup was an hussar who wanted a drink; but he neither knew nor\nwaited to know anything of all this. He was in a fairy kingdom where\nnothing resembled reality. The big dark blotch might really be the\nwatchman's hut or it might be a cavern leading to the very depths of the\nearth. Perhaps the red spot was a fire, or it might be the eye of an\nenormous monster. Perhaps he was really sitting on a wagon, but it might\nvery well be that he was not sitting on a wagon but on a terribly high\ntower from which, if he fell, he would have to fall for a whole day or a\nwhole month, or go on falling and never reach the bottom. Perhaps it was\njust the Cossack, Likhachev, who was sitting under the wagon, but it\nmight be the kindest, bravest, most wonderful, most splendid man in the\nworld, whom no one knew of. It might really have been that the hussar\ncame for water and went back into the hollow, but perhaps he had simply\nvanished--disappeared altogether and dissolved into nothingness.\n\nNothing Petya could have seen now would have surprised him. He was in a\nfairy kingdom where everything was possible.\n\nHe looked up at the sky. And the sky was a fairy realm like the earth.\nIt was clearing, and over the tops of the trees clouds were swiftly\nsailing as if unveiling the stars. Sometimes it looked as if the clouds\nwere passing, and a clear black sky appeared. Sometimes it seemed as if\nthe black spaces were clouds. Sometimes the sky seemed to be rising\nhigh, high overhead, and then it seemed to sink so low that one could\ntouch it with one's hand.\n\nPetya's eyes began to close and he swayed a little.\n\nThe trees were dripping. Quiet talking was heard. The horses neighed and\njostled one another. Someone snored.\n\n\"Ozheg-zheg, Ozheg-zheg...\" hissed the saber against the whetstone, and\nsuddenly Petya heard an harmonious orchestra playing some unknown,\nsweetly solemn hymn. Petya was as musical as Natasha and more so than\nNicholas, but had never learned music or thought about it, and so the\nmelody that unexpectedly came to his mind seemed to him particularly\nfresh and attractive. The music became more and more audible. The melody\ngrew and passed from one instrument to another. And what was played was\na fugue--though Petya had not the least conception of what a fugue is.\nEach instrument--now resembling a violin and now a horn, but better and\nclearer than violin or horn--played its own part, and before it had\nfinished the melody merged with another instrument that began almost the\nsame air, and then with a third and a fourth; and they all blended into\none and again became separate and again blended, now into solemn church\nmusic, now into something dazzlingly brilliant and triumphant.\n\n\"Oh--why, that was in a dream!\" Petya said to himself, as he lurched\nforward. \"It's in my ears. But perhaps it's music of my own. Well, go\non, my music! Now!...\"\n\nHe closed his eyes, and, from all sides as if from a distance, sounds\nfluttered, grew into harmonies, separated, blended, and again all\nmingled into the same sweet and solemn hymn. \"Oh, this is delightful! As\nmuch as I like and as I like!\" said Petya to himself. He tried to\nconduct that enormous orchestra.\n\n\"Now softly, softly die away!\" and the sounds obeyed him. \"Now fuller,\nmore joyful. Still more and more joyful!\" And from an unknown depth rose\nincreasingly triumphant sounds. \"Now voices join in!\" ordered Petya. And\nat first from afar he heard men's voices and then women's. The voices\ngrew in harmonious triumphant strength, and Petya listened to their\nsurpassing beauty in awe and joy.\n\nWith a solemn triumphal march there mingled a song, the drip from the\ntrees, and the hissing of the saber, \"Ozheg-zheg-zheg...\" and again the\nhorses jostled one another and neighed, not disturbing the choir but\njoining in it.\n\nPetya did not know how long this lasted: he enjoyed himself all the\ntime, wondered at his enjoyment and regretted that there was no one to\nshare it. He was awakened by Likhachev's kindly voice.\n\n\"It's ready, your honor; you can split a Frenchman in half with it!\"\n\nPetya woke up.\n\n\"It's getting light, it's really getting light!\" he exclaimed.\n\nThe horses that had previously been invisible could now be seen to their\nvery tails, and a watery light showed itself through the bare branches.\nPetya shook himself, jumped up, took a ruble from his pocket and gave it\nto Likhachev; then he flourished the saber, tested it, and sheathed it.\nThe Cossacks were untying their horses and tightening their saddle\ngirths.\n\n\"And here's the commander,\" said Likhachev.\n\nDenisov came out of the watchman's hut and, having called Petya, gave\norders to get ready.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nThe men rapidly picked out their horses in the semidarkness, tightened\ntheir saddle girths, and formed companies. Denisov stood by the\nwatchman's hut giving final orders. The infantry of the detachment\npassed along the road and quickly disappeared amid the trees in the mist\nof early dawn, hundreds of feet splashing through the mud. The esaul\ngave some orders to his men. Petya held his horse by the bridle,\nimpatiently awaiting the order to mount. His face, having been bathed in\ncold water, was all aglow, and his eyes were particularly brilliant.\nCold shivers ran down his spine and his whole body pulsed rhythmically.\n\n\"Well, is ev'wything weady?\" asked Denisov. \"Bwing the horses.\"\n\nThe horses were brought. Denisov was angry with the Cossack because the\nsaddle girths were too slack, reproved him, and mounted. Petya put his\nfoot in the stirrup. His horse by habit made as if to nip his leg, but\nPetya leaped quickly into the saddle unconscious of his own weight and,\nturning to look at the hussars starting in the darkness behind him, rode\nup to Denisov.\n\n\"Vasili Dmitrich, entrust me with some commission! Please... for God's\nsake...!\" said he.\n\nDenisov seemed to have forgotten Petya's very existence. He turned to\nglance at him.\n\n\"I ask one thing of you,\" he said sternly, \"to obey me and not shove\nyourself forward anywhere.\"\n\nHe did not say another word to Petya but rode in silence all the way.\nWhen they had come to the edge of the forest it was noticeably growing\nlight over the field. Denisov talked in whispers with the esaul and the\nCossacks rode past Petya and Denisov. When they had all ridden by,\nDenisov touched his horse and rode down the hill. Slipping onto their\nhaunches and sliding, the horses descended with their riders into the\nravine. Petya rode beside Denisov, the pulsation of his body constantly\nincreasing. It was getting lighter and lighter, but the mist still hid\ndistant objects. Having reached the valley, Denisov looked back and\nnodded to a Cossack beside him.\n\n\"The signal!\" said he.\n\nThe Cossack raised his arm and a shot rang out. In an instant the tramp\nof horses galloping forward was heard, shouts came from various sides,\nand then more shots.\n\nAt the first sound of trampling hoofs and shouting, Petya lashed his\nhorse and loosening his rein galloped forward, not heeding Denisov who\nshouted at him. It seemed to Petya that at the moment the shot was fired\nit suddenly became as bright as noon. He galloped to the bridge.\nCossacks were galloping along the road in front of him. On the bridge he\ncollided with a Cossack who had fallen behind, but he galloped on. In\nfront of him soldiers, probably Frenchmen, were running from right to\nleft across the road. One of them fell in the mud under his horse's\nfeet.\n\nCossacks were crowding about a hut, busy with something. From the midst\nof that crowd terrible screams arose. Petya galloped up, and the first\nthing he saw was the pale face and trembling jaw of a Frenchman,\nclutching the handle of a lance that had been aimed at him.\n\n\"Hurrah!... Lads!... ours!\" shouted Petya, and giving rein to his\nexcited horse he galloped forward along the village street.\n\nHe could hear shooting ahead of him. Cossacks, hussars, and ragged\nRussian prisoners, who had come running from both sides of the road,\nwere shouting something loudly and incoherently. A gallant-looking\nFrenchman, in a blue overcoat, capless, and with a frowning red face,\nhad been defending himself against the hussars. When Petya galloped up\nthe Frenchman had already fallen. \"Too late again!\" flashed through\nPetya's mind and he galloped on to the place from which the rapid firing\ncould be heard. The shots came from the yard of the landowner's house he\nhad visited the night before with Dolokhov. The French were making a\nstand there behind a wattle fence in a garden thickly overgrown with\nbushes and were firing at the Cossacks who crowded at the gateway.\nThrough the smoke, as he approached the gate, Petya saw Dolokhov, whose\nface was of a pale-greenish tint, shouting to his men. \"Go round! Wait\nfor the infantry!\" he exclaimed as Petya rode up to him.\n\n\"Wait?... Hurrah-ah-ah!\" shouted Petya, and without pausing a moment\ngalloped to the place whence came the sounds of firing and where the\nsmoke was thickest.\n\nA volley was heard, and some bullets whistled past, while others plashed\nagainst something. The Cossacks and Dolokhov galloped after Petya into\nthe gateway of the courtyard. In the dense wavering smoke some of the\nFrench threw down their arms and ran out of the bushes to meet the\nCossacks, while others ran down the hill toward the pond. Petya was\ngalloping along the courtyard, but instead of holding the reins he waved\nboth his arms about rapidly and strangely, slipping farther and farther\nto one side in his saddle. His horse, having galloped up to a campfire\nthat was smoldering in the morning light, stopped suddenly, and Petya\nfell heavily on to the wet ground. The Cossacks saw that his arms and\nlegs jerked rapidly though his head was quite motionless. A bullet had\npierced his skull.\n\nAfter speaking to the senior French officer, who came out of the house\nwith a white handkerchief tied to his sword and announced that they\nsurrendered, Dolokhov dismounted and went up to Petya, who lay\nmotionless with outstretched arms.\n\n\"Done for!\" he said with a frown, and went to the gate to meet Denisov\nwho was riding toward him.\n\n\"Killed?\" cried Denisov, recognizing from a distance the unmistakably\nlifeless attitude--very familiar to him--in which Petya's body was\nlying.\n\n\"Done for!\" repeated Dolokhov as if the utterance of these words\nafforded him pleasure, and he went quickly up to the prisoners, who were\nsurrounded by Cossacks who had hurried up. \"We won't take them!\" he\ncalled out to Denisov.\n\nDenisov did not reply; he rode up to Petya, dismounted, and with\ntrembling hands turned toward himself the bloodstained, mud-bespattered\nface which had already gone white.\n\n\"I am used to something sweet. Raisins, fine ones... take them all!\" he\nrecalled Petya's words. And the Cossacks looked round in surprise at the\nsound, like the yelp of a dog, with which Denisov turned away, walked to\nthe wattle fence, and seized hold of it.\n\nAmong the Russian prisoners rescued by Denisov and Dolokhov was Pierre\nBezukhov.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nDuring the whole of their march from Moscow no fresh orders had been\nissued by the French authorities concerning the party of prisoners among\nwhom was Pierre. On the twenty-second of October that party was no\nlonger with the same troops and baggage trains with which it had left\nMoscow. Half the wagons laden with hardtack that had traveled the first\nstages with them had been captured by Cossacks, the other half had gone\non ahead. Not one of those dismounted cavalrymen who had marched in\nfront of the prisoners was left; they had all disappeared. The artillery\nthe prisoners had seen in front of them during the first days was now\nreplaced by Marshal Junot's enormous baggage train, convoyed by\nWestphalians. Behind the prisoners came a cavalry baggage train.\n\nFrom Vyazma onwards the French army, which had till then moved in three\ncolumns, went on as a single group. The symptoms of disorder that Pierre\nhad noticed at their first halting place after leaving Moscow had now\nreached the utmost limit.\n\nThe road along which they moved was bordered on both sides by dead\nhorses; ragged men who had fallen behind from various regiments\ncontinually changed about, now joining the moving column, now again\nlagging behind it.\n\nSeveral times during the march false alarms had been given and the\nsoldiers of the escort had raised their muskets, fired, and run\nheadlong, crushing one another, but had afterwards reassembled and\nabused each other for their causeless panic.\n\nThese three groups traveling together--the cavalry stores, the convoy of\nprisoners, and Junot's baggage train--still constituted a separate and\nunited whole, though each of the groups was rapidly melting away.\n\nOf the artillery baggage train which had consisted of a hundred and\ntwenty wagons, not more than sixty now remained; the rest had been\ncaptured or left behind. Some of Junot's wagons also had been captured\nor abandoned. Three wagons had been raided and robbed by stragglers from\nDavout's corps. From the talk of the Germans Pierre learned that a\nlarger guard had been allotted to that baggage train than to the\nprisoners, and that one of their comrades, a German soldier, had been\nshot by the marshal's own order because a silver spoon belonging to the\nmarshal had been found in his possession.\n\nThe group of prisoners had melted away most of all. Of the three hundred\nand thirty men who had set out from Moscow fewer than a hundred now\nremained. The prisoners were more burdensome to the escort than even the\ncavalry saddles or Junot's baggage. They understood that the saddles and\nJunot's spoon might be of some use, but that cold and hungry soldiers\nshould have to stand and guard equally cold and hungry Russians who\nfroze and lagged behind on the road (in which case the order was to\nshoot them) was not merely incomprehensible but revolting. And the\nescort, as if afraid, in the grievous condition they themselves were in,\nof giving way to the pity they felt for the prisoners and so rendering\ntheir own plight still worse, treated them with particular moroseness\nand severity.\n\nAt Dorogobuzh while the soldiers of the convoy, after locking the\nprisoners in a stable, had gone off to pillage their own stores, several\nof the soldier prisoners tunneled under the wall and ran away, but were\nrecaptured by the French and shot.\n\nThe arrangement adopted when they started, that the officer prisoners\nshould be kept separate from the rest, had long since been abandoned.\nAll who could walk went together, and after the third stage Pierre had\nrejoined Karataev and the gray-blue bandy-legged dog that had chosen\nKarataev for its master.\n\nOn the third day after leaving Moscow Karataev again fell ill with the\nfever he had suffered from in the hospital in Moscow, and as he grew\ngradually weaker Pierre kept away from him. Pierre did not know why, but\nsince Karataev had begun to grow weaker it had cost him an effort to go\nnear him. When he did so and heard the subdued moaning with which\nKarataev generally lay down at the halting places, and when he smelled\nthe odor emanating from him which was now stronger than before, Pierre\nmoved farther away and did not think about him.\n\nWhile imprisoned in the shed Pierre had learned not with his intellect\nbut with his whole being, by life itself, that man is created for\nhappiness, that happiness is within him, in the satisfaction of simple\nhuman needs, and that all unhappiness arises not from privation but from\nsuperfluity. And now during these last three weeks of the march he had\nlearned still another new, consolatory truth--that nothing in this world\nis terrible. He had learned that as there is no condition in which man\ncan be happy and entirely free, so there is no condition in which he\nneed be unhappy and lack freedom. He learned that suffering and freedom\nhave their limits and that those limits are very near together; that the\nperson in a bed of roses with one crumpled petal suffered as keenly as\nhe now, sleeping on the bare damp earth with one side growing chilled\nwhile the other was warming; and that when he had put on tight dancing\nshoes he had suffered just as he did now when he walked with bare feet\nthat were covered with sores--his footgear having long since fallen to\npieces. He discovered that when he had married his wife--of his own free\nwill as it had seemed to him--he had been no more free than now when\nthey locked him up at night in a stable. Of all that he himself\nsubsequently termed his sufferings, but which at the time he scarcely\nfelt, the worst was the state of his bare, raw, and scab-covered feet.\n(The horseflesh was appetizing and nourishing, the saltpeter flavor of\nthe gunpowder they used instead of salt was even pleasant; there was no\ngreat cold, it was always warm walking in the daytime, and at night\nthere were the campfires; the lice that devoured him warmed his body.)\nThe one thing that was at first hard to bear was his feet.\n\nAfter the second day's march Pierre, having examined his feet by the\ncampfire, thought it would be impossible to walk on them; but when\neverybody got up he went along, limping, and, when he had warmed up,\nwalked without feeling the pain, though at night his feet were more\nterrible to look at than before. However, he did not look at them now,\nbut thought of other things.\n\nOnly now did Pierre realize the full strength of life in man and the\nsaving power he has of transferring his attention from one thing to\nanother, which is like the safety valve of a boiler that allows\nsuperfluous steam to blow off when the pressure exceeds a certain limit.\n\nHe did not see and did not hear how they shot the prisoners who lagged\nbehind, though more than a hundred perished in that way. He did not\nthink of Karataev who grew weaker every day and evidently would soon\nhave to share that fate. Still less did Pierre think about himself. The\nharder his position became and the more terrible the future, the more\nindependent of that position in which he found himself were the joyful\nand comforting thoughts, memories, and imaginings that came to him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nAt midday on the twenty-second of October Pierre was going uphill along\nthe muddy, slippery road, looking at his feet and at the roughness of\nthe way. Occasionally he glanced at the familiar crowd around him and\nthen again at his feet. The former and the latter were alike familiar\nand his own. The blue-gray bandy legged dog ran merrily along the side\nof the road, sometimes in proof of its agility and self-satisfaction\nlifting one hind leg and hopping along on three, and then again going on\nall four and rushing to bark at the crows that sat on the carrion. The\ndog was merrier and sleeker than it had been in Moscow. All around lay\nthe flesh of different animals--from men to horses--in various stages of\ndecomposition; and as the wolves were kept off by the passing men the\ndog could eat all it wanted.\n\nIt had been raining since morning and had seemed as if at any moment it\nmight cease and the sky clear, but after a short break it began raining\nharder than before. The saturated road no longer absorbed the water,\nwhich ran along the ruts in streams.\n\nPierre walked along, looking from side to side, counting his steps in\nthrees, and reckoning them off on his fingers. Mentally addressing the\nrain, he repeated: \"Now then, now then, go on! Pelt harder!\"\n\nIt seemed to him that he was thinking of nothing, but far down and deep\nwithin him his soul was occupied with something important and\ncomforting. This something was a most subtle spiritual deduction from a\nconversation with Karataev the day before.\n\nAt their yesterday's halting place, feeling chilly by a dying campfire,\nPierre had got up and gone to the next one, which was burning better.\nThere Platon Karataev was sitting covered up--head and all--with his\ngreatcoat as if it were a vestment, telling the soldiers in his\neffective and pleasant though now feeble voice a story Pierre knew. It\nwas already past midnight, the hour when Karataev was usually free of\nhis fever and particularly lively. When Pierre reached the fire and\nheard Platon's voice enfeebled by illness, and saw his pathetic face\nbrightly lit up by the blaze, he felt a painful prick at his heart. His\nfeeling of pity for this man frightened him and he wished to go away,\nbut there was no other fire, and Pierre sat down, trying not to look at\nPlaton.\n\n\"Well, how are you?\" he asked.\n\n\"How am I? If we grumble at sickness, God won't grant us death,\" replied\nPlaton, and at once resumed the story he had begun.\n\n\"And so, brother,\" he continued, with a smile on his pale emaciated face\nand a particularly happy light in his eyes, \"you see, brother...\"\n\nPierre had long been familiar with that story. Karataev had told it to\nhim alone some half-dozen times and always with a specially joyful\nemotion. But well as he knew it, Pierre now listened to that tale as to\nsomething new, and the quiet rapture Karataev evidently felt as he told\nit communicated itself also to Pierre. The story was of an old merchant\nwho lived a good and God-fearing life with his family, and who went once\nto the Nizhni fair with a companion--a rich merchant.\n\nHaving put up at an inn they both went to sleep, and next morning his\ncompanion was found robbed and with his throat cut. A bloodstained knife\nwas found under the old merchant's pillow. He was tried, knouted, and\nhis nostrils having been torn off, \"all in due form\" as Karataev put it,\nhe was sent to hard labor in Siberia.\n\n\"And so, brother\" (it was at this point that Pierre came up), \"ten years\nor more passed by. The old man was living as a convict, submitting as he\nshould and doing no wrong. Only he prayed to God for death. Well, one\nnight the convicts were gathered just as we are, with the old man among\nthem. And they began telling what each was suffering for, and how they\nhad sinned against God. One told how he had taken a life, another had\ntaken two, a third had set a house on fire, while another had simply\nbeen a vagrant and had done nothing. So they asked the old man: 'What\nare you being punished for, Daddy?'--'I, my dear brothers,' said he, 'am\nbeing punished for my own and other men's sins. But I have not killed\nanyone or taken anything that was not mine, but have only helped my\npoorer brothers. I was a merchant, my dear brothers, and had much\nproperty. 'And he went on to tell them all about it in due order. 'I\ndon't grieve for myself,' he says, 'God, it seems, has chastened me.\nOnly I am sorry for my old wife and the children,' and the old man began\nto weep. Now it happened that in the group was the very man who had\nkilled the other merchant. 'Where did it happen, Daddy?' he said. 'When,\nand in what month?' He asked all about it and his heart began to ache.\nSo he comes up to the old man like this, and falls down at his feet!\n'You are perishing because of me, Daddy,' he says. 'It's quite true,\nlads, that this man,' he says, 'is being tortured innocently and for\nnothing! I,' he says, 'did that deed, and I put the knife under your\nhead while you were asleep. Forgive me, Daddy,' he says, 'for Christ's\nsake!'\"\n\nKarataev paused, smiling joyously as he gazed into the fire, and he drew\nthe logs together.\n\n\"And the old man said, 'God will forgive you, we are all sinners in His\nsight. I suffer for my own sins,' and he wept bitter tears. Well, and\nwhat do you think, dear friends?\" Karataev continued, his face\nbrightening more and more with a rapturous smile as if what he now had\nto tell contained the chief charm and the whole meaning of his story:\n\"What do you think, dear fellows? That murderer confessed to the\nauthorities. 'I have taken six lives,' he says (he was a great sinner),\n'but what I am most sorry for is this old man. Don't let him suffer\nbecause of me.' So he confessed and it was all written down and the\npapers sent off in due form. The place was a long way off, and while\nthey were judging, what with one thing and another, filling in the\npapers all in due form--the authorities I mean--time passed. The affair\nreached the Tsar. After a while the Tsar's decree came: to set the\nmerchant free and give him a compensation that had been awarded. The\npaper arrived and they began to look for the old man. 'Where is the old\nman who has been suffering innocently and in vain? A paper has come from\nthe Tsar!' so they began looking for him,\" here Karataev's lower jaw\ntrembled, \"but God had already forgiven him--he was dead! That's how it\nwas, dear fellows!\" Karataev concluded and sat for a long time silent,\ngazing before him with a smile.\n\nAnd Pierre's soul was dimly but joyfully filled not by the story itself\nbut by its mysterious significance: by the rapturous joy that lit up\nKarataev's face as he told it, and the mystic significance of that joy.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\n\"A vos places!\" * suddenly cried a voice.\n\n\n* \"To your places.\"\n\nA pleasant feeling of excitement and an expectation of something joyful\nand solemn was aroused among the soldiers of the convoy and the\nprisoners. From all sides came shouts of command, and from the left came\nsmartly dressed cavalrymen on good horses, passing the prisoners at a\ntrot. The expression on all faces showed the tension people feel at the\napproach of those in authority. The prisoners thronged together and were\npushed off the road. The convoy formed up.\n\n\"The Emperor! The Emperor! The Marshal! The Duke!\" and hardly had the\nsleek cavalry passed, before a carriage drawn by six gray horses rattled\nby. Pierre caught a glimpse of a man in a three-cornered hat with a\ntranquil look on his handsome, plump, white face. It was one of the\nmarshals. His eye fell on Pierre's large and striking figure, and in the\nexpression with which he frowned and looked away Pierre thought he\ndetected sympathy and a desire to conceal that sympathy.\n\nThe general in charge of the stores galloped after the carriage with a\nred and frightened face, whipping up his skinny horse. Several officers\nformed a group and some soldiers crowded round them. Their faces all\nlooked excited and worried.\n\n\"What did he say? What did he say?\" Pierre heard them ask.\n\nWhile the marshal was passing, the prisoners had huddled together in a\ncrowd, and Pierre saw Karataev whom he had not yet seen that morning. He\nsat in his short overcoat leaning against a birch tree. On his face,\nbesides the look of joyful emotion it had worn yesterday while telling\nthe tale of the merchant who suffered innocently, there was now an\nexpression of quiet solemnity.\n\nKarataev looked at Pierre with his kindly round eyes now filled with\ntears, evidently wishing him to come near that he might say something to\nhim. But Pierre was not sufficiently sure of himself. He made as if he\ndid not notice that look and moved hastily away.\n\nWhen the prisoners again went forward Pierre looked round. Karataev was\nstill sitting at the side of the road under the birch tree and two\nFrenchmen were talking over his head. Pierre did not look round again\nbut went limping up the hill.\n\nFrom behind, where Karataev had been sitting, came the sound of a shot.\nPierre heard it plainly, but at that moment he remembered that he had\nnot yet finished reckoning up how many stages still remained to\nSmolensk--a calculation he had begun before the marshal went by. And he\nagain started reckoning. Two French soldiers ran past Pierre, one of\nwhom carried a lowered and smoking gun. They both looked pale, and in\nthe expression on their faces--one of them glanced timidly at Pierre--\nthere was something resembling what he had seen on the face of the young\nsoldier at the execution. Pierre looked at the soldier and remembered\nthat, two days before, that man had burned his shirt while drying it at\nthe fire and how they had laughed at him.\n\nBehind him, where Karataev had been sitting, the dog began to howl.\n\"What a stupid beast! Why is it howling?\" thought Pierre.\n\nHis comrades, the prisoner soldiers walking beside him, avoided looking\nback at the place where the shot had been fired and the dog was howling,\njust as Pierre did, but there was a set look on all their faces.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nThe stores, the prisoners, and the marshal's baggage train stopped at\nthe village of Shamshevo. The men crowded together round the campfires.\nPierre went up to the fire, ate some roast horseflesh, lay down with his\nback to the fire, and immediately fell asleep. He again slept as he had\ndone at Mozhaysk after the battle of Borodino.\n\nAgain real events mingled with dreams and again someone, he or another,\ngave expression to his thoughts, and even to the same thoughts that had\nbeen expressed in his dream at Mozhaysk.\n\n\"Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves and that\nmovement is God. And while there is life there is joy in consciousness\nof the divine. To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than\nall else is to love this life in one's sufferings, in innocent\nsufferings.\"\n\n\"Karataev!\" came to Pierre's mind.\n\nAnd suddenly he saw vividly before him a long-forgotten, kindly old man\nwho had given him geography lessons in Switzerland. \"Wait a bit,\" said\nthe old man, and showed Pierre a globe. This globe was alive--a\nvibrating ball without fixed dimensions. Its whole surface consisted of\ndrops closely pressed together, and all these drops moved and changed\nplaces, sometimes several of them merging into one, sometimes one\ndividing into many. Each drop tried to spread out and occupy as much\nspace as possible, but others striving to do the same compressed it,\nsometimes destroyed it, and sometimes merged with it.\n\n\"That is life,\" said the old teacher.\n\n\"How simple and clear it is,\" thought Pierre. \"How is it I did not know\nit before?\"\n\n\"God is in the midst, and each drop tries to expand so as to reflect Him\nto the greatest extent. And it grows, merges, disappears from the\nsurface, sinks to the depths, and again emerges. There now, Karataev has\nspread out and disappeared. Do you understand, my child?\" said the\nteacher.\n\n\"Do you understand, damn you?\" shouted a voice, and Pierre woke up.\n\nHe lifted himself and sat up. A Frenchman who had just pushed a Russian\nsoldier away was squatting by the fire, engaged in roasting a piece of\nmeat stuck on a ramrod. His sleeves were rolled up and his sinewy,\nhairy, red hands with their short fingers deftly turned the ramrod. His\nbrown morose face with frowning brows was clearly visible by the glow of\nthe charcoal.\n\n\"It's all the same to him,\" he muttered, turning quickly to a soldier\nwho stood behind him. \"Brigand! Get away!\"\n\nAnd twisting the ramrod he looked gloomily at Pierre, who turned away\nand gazed into the darkness. A prisoner, the Russian soldier the\nFrenchman had pushed away, was sitting near the fire patting something\nwith his hand. Looking more closely Pierre recognized the blue-gray dog,\nsitting beside the soldier, wagging its tail.\n\n\"Ah, he's come?\" said Pierre. \"And Plat-\" he began, but did not finish.\n\nSuddenly and simultaneously a crowd of memories awoke in his fancy--of\nthe look Platon had given him as he sat under the tree, of the shot\nheard from that spot, of the dog's howl, of the guilty faces of the two\nFrenchmen as they ran past him, of the lowered and smoking gun, and of\nKarataev's absence at this halt--and he was on the point of realizing\nthat Karataev had been killed, but just at that instant, he knew not\nwhy, the recollection came to his mind of a summer evening he had spent\nwith a beautiful Polish lady on the veranda of his house in Kiev. And\nwithout linking up the events of the day or drawing a conclusion from\nthem, Pierre closed his eyes, seeing a vision of the country in\nsummertime mingled with memories of bathing and of the liquid, vibrating\nglobe, and he sank into water so that it closed over his head.\n\nBefore sunrise he was awakened by shouts and loud and rapid firing.\nFrench soldiers were running past him.\n\n\"The Cossacks!\" one of them shouted, and a moment later a crowd of\nRussians surrounded Pierre.\n\nFor a long time he could not understand what was happening to him. All\naround he heard his comrades sobbing with joy.\n\n\"Brothers! Dear fellows! Darlings!\" old soldiers exclaimed, weeping, as\nthey embraced Cossacks and hussars.\n\nThe hussars and Cossacks crowded round the prisoners; one offered them\nclothes, another boots, and a third bread. Pierre sobbed as he sat among\nthem and could not utter a word. He hugged the first soldier who\napproached him, and kissed him, weeping.\n\nDolokhov stood at the gate of the ruined house, letting a crowd of\ndisarmed Frenchmen pass by. The French, excited by all that had\nhappened, were talking loudly among themselves, but as they passed\nDolokhov who gently switched his boots with his whip and watched them\nwith cold glassy eyes that boded no good, they became silent. On the\nopposite side stood Dolokhov's Cossack, counting the prisoners and\nmarking off each hundred with a chalk line on the gate.\n\n\"How many?\" Dolokhov asked the Cossack.\n\n\"The second hundred,\" replied the Cossack.\n\n\"Filez, filez!\" * Dolokhov kept saying, having adopted this expression\nfrom the French, and when his eyes met those of the prisoners they\nflashed with a cruel light.\n\n\n* \"Get along, get along!\"\n\nDenisov, bareheaded and with a gloomy face, walked behind some Cossacks\nwho were carrying the body of Petya Rostov to a hole that had been dug\nin the garden.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nAfter the twenty-eighth of October when the frosts began, the flight of\nthe French assumed a still more tragic character, with men freezing, or\nroasting themselves to death at the campfires, while carriages with\npeople dressed in furs continued to drive past, carrying away the\nproperty that had been stolen by the Emperor, kings, and dukes; but the\nprocess of the flight and disintegration of the French army went on\nessentially as before.\n\nFrom Moscow to Vyazma the French army of seventy-three thousand men not\nreckoning the Guards (who did nothing during the whole war but pillage)\nwas reduced to thirty-six thousand, though not more than five thousand\nhad fallen in battle. From this beginning the succeeding terms of the\nprogression could be determined mathematically. The French army melted\naway and perished at the same rate from Moscow to Vyazma, from Vyazma to\nSmolensk, from Smolensk to the Berezina, and from the Berezina to Vilna-\n-independently of the greater or lesser intensity of the cold, the\npursuit, the barring of the way, or any other particular conditions.\nBeyond Vyazma the French army instead of moving in three columns huddled\ntogether into one mass, and so went on to the end. Berthier wrote to his\nEmperor (we know how far commanding officers allow themselves to diverge\nfrom the truth in describing the condition of an army) and this is what\nhe said:\n\nI deem it my duty to report to Your Majesty the condition of the various\ncorps I have had occasion to observe during different stages of the last\ntwo or three days' march. They are almost disbanded. Scarcely a quarter\nof the soldiers remain with the standards of their regiments, the others\ngo off by themselves in different directions hoping to find food and\nescape discipline. In general they regard Smolensk as the place where\nthey hope to recover. During the last few days many of the men have been\nseen to throw away their cartridges and their arms. In such a state of\naffairs, whatever your ultimate plans may be, the interest of Your\nMajesty's service demands that the army should be rallied at Smolensk\nand should first of all be freed from ineffectives, such as dismounted\ncavalry, unnecessary baggage, and artillery material that is no longer\nin proportion to the present forces. The soldiers, who are worn out with\nhunger and fatigue, need these supplies as well as a few days' rest.\nMany have died these last days on the road or at the bivouacs. This\nstate of things is continually becoming worse and makes one fear that\nunless a prompt remedy is applied the troops will no longer be under\ncontrol in case of an engagement.\n\nNovember 9: twenty miles from Smolensk.\n\nAfter staggering into Smolensk which seemed to them a promised land, the\nFrench, searching for food, killed one another, sacked their own stores,\nand when everything had been plundered fled farther.\n\nThey all went without knowing whither or why they were going. Still less\ndid that genius, Napoleon, know it, for no one issued any orders to him.\nBut still he and those about him retained their old habits: wrote\ncommands, letters, reports, and orders of the day; called one another\nsire, mon cousin, prince d'Eckmuhl, roi de Naples, and so on. But these\norders and reports were only on paper, nothing in them was acted upon\nfor they could not be carried out, and though they entitled one another\nMajesties, Highnesses, or Cousins, they all felt that they were\nmiserable wretches who had done much evil for which they had now to pay.\nAnd though they pretended to be concerned about the army, each was\nthinking only of himself and of how to get away quickly and save\nhimself.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nThe movements of the Russian and French armies during the campaign from\nMoscow back to the Niemen were like those in a game of Russian\nblindman's bluff, in which two players are blindfolded and one of them\noccasionally rings a little bell to inform the catcher of his\nwhereabouts. First he rings his bell fearlessly, but when he gets into a\ntight place he runs away as quietly as he can, and often thinking to\nescape runs straight into his opponent's arms.\n\nAt first while they were still moving along the Kaluga road, Napoleon's\narmies made their presence known, but later when they reached the\nSmolensk road they ran holding the clapper of their bell tight--and\noften thinking they were escaping ran right into the Russians.\n\nOwing to the rapidity of the French flight and the Russian pursuit and\nthe consequent exhaustion of the horses, the chief means of\napproximately ascertaining the enemy's position--by cavalry scouting--\nwas not available. Besides, as a result of the frequent and rapid change\nof position by each army, even what information was obtained could not\nbe delivered in time. If news was received one day that the enemy had\nbeen in a certain position the day before, by the third day when\nsomething could have been done, that army was already two days' march\nfarther on and in quite another position.\n\nOne army fled and the other pursued. Beyond Smolensk there were several\ndifferent roads available for the French, and one would have thought\nthat during their stay of four days they might have learned where the\nenemy was, might have arranged some more advantageous plan and\nundertaken something new. But after a four days' halt the mob, with no\nmaneuvers or plans, again began running along the beaten track, neither\nto the right nor to the left but along the old--the worst--road, through\nKrasnoe and Orsha.\n\nExpecting the enemy from behind and not in front, the French separated\nin their flight and spread out over a distance of twenty-four hours. In\nfront of them all fled the Emperor, then the kings, then the dukes. The\nRussian army, expecting Napoleon to take the road to the right beyond\nthe Dnieper--which was the only reasonable thing for him to do--\nthemselves turned to the right and came out onto the highroad at\nKrasnoe. And here as in a game of blindman's buff the French ran into\nour vanguard. Seeing their enemy unexpectedly the French fell into\nconfusion and stopped short from the sudden fright, but then they\nresumed their flight, abandoning their comrades who were farther behind.\nThen for three days separate portions of the French army--first Murat's\n(the vice-king's), then Davout's, and then Ney's--ran, as it were, the\ngauntlet of the Russian army. They abandoned one another, abandoned all\ntheir heavy baggage, their artillery, and half their men, and fled,\ngetting past the Russians by night by making semicircles to the right.\n\nNey, who came last, had been busying himself blowing up the walls of\nSmolensk which were in nobody's way, because despite the unfortunate\nplight of the French or because of it, they wished to punish the floor\nagainst which they had hurt themselves. Ney, who had had a corps of ten\nthousand men, reached Napoleon at Orsha with only one thousand men left,\nhaving abandoned all the rest and all his cannon, and having crossed the\nDnieper at night by stealth at a wooded spot.\n\nFrom Orsha they fled farther along the road to Vilna, still playing at\nblindman's buff with the pursuing army. At the Berezina they again\nbecame disorganized, many were drowned and many surrendered, but those\nwho got across the river fled farther. Their supreme chief donned a fur\ncoat and, having seated himself in a sleigh, galloped on alone,\nabandoning his companions. The others who could do so drove away too,\nleaving those who could not to surrender or die.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nThis campaign consisted in a flight of the French during which they did\nall they could to destroy themselves. From the time they turned onto the\nKaluga road to the day their leader fled from the army, none of the\nmovements of the crowd had any sense. So one might have thought that\nregarding this period of the campaign the historians, who attributed the\nactions of the mass to the will of one man, would have found it\nimpossible to make the story of the retreat fit their theory. But no!\nMountains of books have been written by the historians about this\ncampaign, and everywhere are described Napoleon's arrangements, the\nmaneuvers, and his profound plans which guided the army, as well as the\nmilitary genius shown by his marshals.\n\nThe retreat from Malo-Yaroslavets when he had a free road into a well-\nsupplied district and the parallel road was open to him along which\nKutuzov afterwards pursued him--this unnecessary retreat along a\ndevastated road--is explained to us as being due to profound\nconsiderations. Similarly profound considerations are given for his\nretreat from Smolensk to Orsha. Then his heroism at Krasnoe is\ndescribed, where he is reported to have been prepared to accept battle\nand take personal command, and to have walked about with a birch stick\nand said:\n\n\"J'ai assez fait l'empereur; il est temps de faire le general,\" * but\nnevertheless immediately ran away again, abandoning to its fate the\nscattered fragments of the army he left behind.\n\n\n* \"I have acted the Emperor long enough; it is time to act the general.\"\n\nThen we are told of the greatness of soul of the marshals, especially of\nNey--a greatness of soul consisting in this: that he made his way by\nnight around through the forest and across the Dnieper and escaped to\nOrsha, abandoning standards, artillery, and nine tenths of his men.\n\nAnd lastly, the final departure of the great Emperor from his heroic\narmy is presented to us by the historians as something great and\ncharacteristic of genius. Even that final running away, described in\nordinary language as the lowest depth of baseness which every child is\ntaught to be ashamed of--even that act finds justification in the\nhistorians' language.\n\nWhen it is impossible to stretch the very elastic threads of historical\nratiocination any farther, when actions are clearly contrary to all that\nhumanity calls right or even just, the historians produce a saving\nconception of \"greatness.\" \"Greatness,\" it seems, excludes the standards\nof right and wrong. For the \"great\" man nothing is wrong, there is no\natrocity for which a \"great\" man can be blamed.\n\n\"C'est grand!\" * say the historians, and there no longer exists either\ngood or evil but only \"grand\" and \"not grand.\" Grand is good, not grand\nis bad. Grand is the characteristic, in their conception, of some\nspecial animals called \"heroes.\" And Napoleon, escaping home in a warm\nfur coat and leaving to perish those who were not merely his comrades\nbut were (in his opinion) men he had brought there, feels que c'est\ngrand, *(2) and his soul is tranquil.\n\n\n* \"It is great.\"\n\n* (2) That it is great.\n\n\"Du sublime (he saw something sublime in himself) au ridicule il n'y a\nqu'un pas,\" * said he. And the whole world for fifty years has been\nrepeating: \"Sublime! Grand! Napoleon le Grand!\" Du sublime au ridicule\nil n'y a qu'un pas.\n\n\n* \"From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step.\"\n\nAnd it occurs to no one that to admit a greatness not commensurable with\nthe standard of right and wrong is merely to admit one's own nothingness\nand immeasurable meanness.\n\nFor us with the standard of good and evil given us by Christ, no human\nactions are incommensurable. And there is no greatness where simplicity,\ngoodness, and truth are absent.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nWhat Russian, reading the account of the last part of the campaign of\n1812, has not experienced an uncomfortable feeling of regret,\ndissatisfaction, and perplexity? Who has not asked himself how it is\nthat the French were not all captured or destroyed when our three armies\nsurrounded them in superior numbers, when the disordered French, hungry\nand freezing, surrendered in crowds, and when (as the historians relate)\nthe aim of the Russians was to stop the French, to cut them off, and\ncapture them all?\n\nHow was it that the Russian army, which when numerically weaker than the\nFrench had given battle at Borodino, did not achieve its purpose when it\nhad surrounded the French on three sides and when its aim was to capture\nthem? Can the French be so enormously superior to us that when we had\nsurrounded them with superior forces we could not beat them? How could\nthat happen?\n\nHistory (or what is called by that name) replying to these questions\nsays that this occurred because Kutuzov and Tormasov and Chichagov, and\nthis man and that man, did not execute such and such maneuvers...\n\nBut why did they not execute those maneuvers? And why if they were\nguilty of not carrying out a prearranged plan were they not tried and\npunished? But even if we admitted that Kutuzov, Chichagov, and others\nwere the cause of the Russian failures, it is still incomprehensible\nwhy, the position of the Russian army being what it was at Krasnoe and\nat the Berezina (in both cases we had superior forces), the French army\nwith its marshals, kings, and Emperor was not captured, if that was what\nthe Russians aimed at.\n\nThe explanation of this strange fact given by Russian military\nhistorians (to the effect that Kutuzov hindered an attack) is unfounded,\nfor we know that he could not restrain the troops from attacking at\nVyazma and Tarutino.\n\nWhy was the Russian army--which with inferior forces had withstood the\nenemy in full strength at Borodino--defeated at Krasnoe and the Berezina\nby the disorganized crowds of the French when it was numerically\nsuperior?\n\nIf the aim of the Russians consisted in cutting off and capturing\nNapoleon and his marshals--and that aim was not merely frustrated but\nall attempts to attain it were most shamefully baffled--then this last\nperiod of the campaign is quite rightly considered by the French to be a\nseries of victories, and quite wrongly considered victorious by Russian\nhistorians.\n\nThe Russian military historians in so far as they submit to claims of\nlogic must admit that conclusion, and in spite of their lyrical\nrhapsodies about valor, devotion, and so forth, must reluctantly admit\nthat the French retreat from Moscow was a series of victories for\nNapoleon and defeats for Kutuzov.\n\nBut putting national vanity entirely aside one feels that such a\nconclusion involves a contradiction, since the series of French\nvictories brought the French complete destruction, while the series of\nRussian defeats led to the total destruction of their enemy and the\nliberation of their country.\n\nThe source of this contradiction lies in the fact that the historians\nstudying the events from the letters of the sovereigns and the generals,\nfrom memoirs, reports, projects, and so forth, have attributed to this\nlast period of the war of 1812 an aim that never existed, namely that of\ncutting off and capturing Napoleon with his marshals and his army.\n\nThere never was or could have been such an aim, for it would have been\nsenseless and its attainment quite impossible.\n\nIt would have been senseless, first because Napoleon's disorganized army\nwas flying from Russia with all possible speed, that is to say, was\ndoing just what every Russian desired. So what was the use of performing\nvarious operations on the French who were running away as fast as they\npossibly could?\n\nSecondly, it would have been senseless to block the passage of men whose\nwhole energy was directed to flight.\n\nThirdly, it would have been senseless to sacrifice one's own troops in\norder to destroy the French army, which without external interference\nwas destroying itself at such a rate that, though its path was not\nblocked, it could not carry across the frontier more than it actually\ndid in December, namely a hundredth part of the original army.\n\nFourthly, it would have been senseless to wish to take captive the\nEmperor, kings, and dukes--whose capture would have been in the highest\ndegree embarrassing for the Russians, as the most adroit diplomatists of\nthe time (Joseph de Maistre and others) recognized. Still more senseless\nwould have been the wish to capture army corps of the French, when our\nown army had melted away to half before reaching Krasnoe and a whole\ndivision would have been needed to convoy the corps of prisoners, and\nwhen our men were not always getting full rations and the prisoners\nalready taken were perishing of hunger.\n\nAll the profound plans about cutting off and capturing Napoleon and his\narmy were like the plan of a market gardener who, when driving out of\nhis garden a cow that had trampled down the beds he had planted, should\nrun to the gate and hit the cow on the head. The only thing to be said\nin excuse of that gardener would be that he was very angry. But not even\nthat could be said for those who drew up this project, for it was not\nthey who had suffered from the trampled beds.\n\nBut besides the fact that cutting off Napoleon with his army would have\nbeen senseless, it was impossible.\n\nIt was impossible first because--as experience shows that a three-mile\nmovement of columns on a battlefield never coincides with the plans--the\nprobability of Chichagov, Kutuzov, and Wittgenstein effecting a junction\non time at an appointed place was so remote as to be tantamount to\nimpossibility, as in fact thought Kutuzov, who when he received the plan\nremarked that diversions planned over great distances do not yield the\ndesired results.\n\nSecondly it was impossible, because to paralyze the momentum with which\nNapoleon's army was retiring, incomparably greater forces than the\nRussians possessed would have been required.\n\nThirdly it was impossible, because the military term \"to cut off\" has no\nmeaning. One can cut off a slice of bread, but not an army. To cut off\nan army--to bar its road--is quite impossible, for there is always\nplenty of room to avoid capture and there is the night when nothing can\nbe seen, as the military scientists might convince themselves by the\nexample of Krasnoe and of the Berezina. It is only possible to capture\nprisoners if they agree to be captured, just as it is only possible to\ncatch a swallow if it settles on one's hand. Men can only be taken\nprisoners if they surrender according to the rules of strategy and\ntactics, as the Germans did. But the French troops quite rightly did not\nconsider that this suited them, since death by hunger and cold awaited\nthem in flight or captivity alike.\n\nFourthly and chiefly it was impossible, because never since the world\nbegan has a war been fought under such conditions as those that obtained\nin 1812, and the Russian army in its pursuit of the French strained its\nstrength to the utmost and could not have done more without destroying\nitself.\n\nDuring the movement of the Russian army from Tarutino to Krasnoe it lost\nfifty thousand sick or stragglers, that is a number equal to the\npopulation of a large provincial town. Half the men fell out of the army\nwithout a battle.\n\nAnd it is of this period of the campaign--when the army lacked boots and\nsheepskin coats, was short of provisions and without vodka, and was\ncamping out at night for months in the snow with fifteen degrees of\nfrost, when there were only seven or eight hours of daylight and the\nrest was night in which the influence of discipline cannot be\nmaintained, when men were taken into that region of death where\ndiscipline fails, not for a few hours only as in a battle, but for\nmonths, where they were every moment fighting death from hunger and\ncold, when half the army perished in a single month--it is of this\nperiod of the campaign that the historians tell us how Miloradovich\nshould have made a flank march to such and such a place, Tormasov to\nanother place, and Chichagov should have crossed (more than knee-deep in\nsnow) to somewhere else, and how so-and-so \"routed\" and \"cut off\" the\nFrench and so on and so on.\n\nThe Russians, half of whom died, did all that could and should have been\ndone to attain an end worthy of the nation, and they are not to blame\nbecause other Russians, sitting in warm rooms, proposed that they should\ndo what was impossible.\n\nAll that strange contradiction now difficult to understand between the\nfacts and the historical accounts only arises because the historians\ndealing with the matter have written the history of the beautiful words\nand sentiments of various generals, and not the history of the events.\n\nTo them the words of Miloradovich seem very interesting, and so do their\nsurmises and the rewards this or that general received; but the question\nof those fifty thousand men who were left in hospitals and in graves\ndoes not even interest them, for it does not come within the range of\ntheir investigation.\n\nYet one need only discard the study of the reports and general plans and\nconsider the movement of those hundreds of thousands of men who took a\ndirect part in the events, and all the questions that seemed insoluble\neasily and simply receive an immediate and certain solution.\n\nThe aim of cutting off Napoleon and his army never existed except in the\nimaginations of a dozen people. It could not exist because it was\nsenseless and unattainable.\n\nThe people had a single aim: to free their land from invasion. That aim\nwas attained in the first place of itself, as the French ran away, and\nso it was only necessary not to stop their flight. Secondly it was\nattained by the guerrilla warfare which was destroying the French, and\nthirdly by the fact that a large Russian army was following the French,\nready to use its strength in case their movement stopped.\n\nThe Russian army had to act like a whip to a running animal. And the\nexperienced driver knew it was better to hold the whip raised as a\nmenace than to strike the running animal on the head.\n\nBOOK FIFTEEN: 1812 - 13\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nWhen seeing a dying animal a man feels a sense of horror: substance\nsimilar to his own is perishing before his eyes. But when it is a\nbeloved and intimate human being that is dying, besides this horror at\nthe extinction of life there is a severance, a spiritual wound, which\nlike a physical wound is sometimes fatal and sometimes heals, but always\naches and shrinks at any external irritating touch.\n\nAfter Prince Andrew's death Natasha and Princess Mary alike felt this.\nDrooping in spirit and closing their eyes before the menacing cloud of\ndeath that overhung them, they dared not look life in the face. They\ncarefully guarded their open wounds from any rough and painful contact.\nEverything: a carriage passing rapidly in the street, a summons to\ndinner, the maid's inquiry what dress to prepare, or worse still any\nword of insincere or feeble sympathy, seemed an insult, painfully\nirritated the wound, interrupting that necessary quiet in which they\nboth tried to listen to the stern and dreadful choir that still\nresounded in their imagination, and hindered their gazing into those\nmysterious limitless vistas that for an instant had opened out before\nthem.\n\nOnly when alone together were they free from such outrage and pain. They\nspoke little even to one another, and when they did it was of very\nunimportant matters.\n\nBoth avoided any allusion to the future. To admit the possibility of a\nfuture seemed to them to insult his memory. Still more carefully did\nthey avoid anything relating to him who was dead. It seemed to them that\nwhat they had lived through and experienced could not be expressed in\nwords, and that any reference to the details of his life infringed the\nmajesty and sacredness of the mystery that had been accomplished before\ntheir eyes.\n\nContinued abstention from speech, and constant avoidance of everything\nthat might lead up to the subject--this halting on all sides at the\nboundary of what they might not mention--brought before their minds with\nstill greater purity and clearness what they were both feeling.\n\nBut pure and complete sorrow is as impossible as pure and complete joy.\nPrincess Mary, in her position as absolute and independent arbiter of\nher own fate and guardian and instructor of her nephew, was the first to\nbe called back to life from that realm of sorrow in which she had dwelt\nfor the first fortnight. She received letters from her relations to\nwhich she had to reply; the room in which little Nicholas had been put\nwas damp and he began to cough; Alpatych came to Yaroslavl with reports\non the state of their affairs and with advice and suggestions that they\nshould return to Moscow to the house on the Vozdvizhenka Street, which\nhad remained uninjured and needed only slight repairs. Life did not\nstand still and it was necessary to live. Hard as it was for Princess\nMary to emerge from the realm of secluded contemplation in which she had\nlived till then, and sorry and almost ashamed as she felt to leave\nNatasha alone, yet the cares of life demanded her attention and she\ninvoluntarily yielded to them. She went through the accounts with\nAlpatych, conferred with Dessalles about her nephew, and gave orders and\nmade preparations for the journey to Moscow.\n\nNatasha remained alone and, from the time Princess Mary began making\npreparations for departure, held aloof from her too.\n\nPrincess Mary asked the countess to let Natasha go with her to Moscow,\nand both parents gladly accepted this offer, for they saw their daughter\nlosing strength every day and thought that a change of scene and the\nadvice of Moscow doctors would be good for her.\n\n\"I am not going anywhere,\" Natasha replied when this was proposed to\nher. \"Do please just leave me alone!\" And she ran out of the room, with\ndifficulty refraining from tears of vexation and irritation rather than\nof sorrow.\n\nAfter she felt herself deserted by Princes Mary and alone in her grief,\nNatasha spent most of the time in her room by herself, sitting huddled\nup feet and all in the corner of the sofa, tearing and twisting\nsomething with her slender nervous fingers and gazing intently and\nfixedly at whatever her eyes chanced to fall on. This solitude exhausted\nand tormented her but she was in absolute need of it. As soon as anyone\nentered she got up quickly, changed her position and expression, and\npicked up a book or some sewing, evidently waiting impatiently for the\nintruder to go.\n\nShe felt all the time as if she might at any moment penetrate that on\nwhich--with a terrible questioning too great for her strength--her\nspiritual gaze was fixed.\n\nOne day toward the end of December Natasha, pale and thin, dressed in a\nblack woolen gown, her plaited hair negligently twisted into a knot, was\ncrouched feet and all in the corner of her sofa, nervously crumpling and\nsmoothing out the end of her sash while she looked at a corner of the\ndoor.\n\nShe was gazing in the direction in which he had gone--to the other side\nof life. And that other side of life, of which she had never before\nthought and which had formerly seemed to her so far away and improbable,\nwas now nearer and more akin and more comprehensible than this side of\nlife, where everything was either emptiness and desolation or suffering\nand indignity.\n\nShe was gazing where she knew him to be; but she could not imagine him\notherwise than as he had been here. She now saw him again as he had been\nat Mytishchi, at Troitsa, and at Yaroslavl.\n\nShe saw his face, heard his voice, repeated his words and her own, and\nsometimes devised other words they might have spoken.\n\nThere he is lying back in an armchair in his velvet cloak, leaning his\nhead on his thin pale hand. His chest is dreadfully hollow and his\nshoulders raised. His lips are firmly closed, his eyes glitter, and a\nwrinkle comes and goes on his pale forehead. One of his legs twitches\njust perceptibly, but rapidly. Natasha knows that he is struggling with\nterrible pain. \"What is that pain like? Why does he have that pain? What\ndoes he feel? How does it hurt him?\" thought Natasha. He noticed her\nwatching him, raised his eyes, and began to speak seriously:\n\n\"One thing would be terrible,\" said he: \"to bind oneself forever to a\nsuffering man. It would be continual torture.\" And he looked searchingly\nat her. Natasha as usual answered before she had time to think what she\nwould say. She said: \"This can't go on--it won't. You will get well--\nquite well.\"\n\nShe now saw him from the commencement of that scene and relived what she\nhad then felt. She recalled his long sad and severe look at those words\nand understood the meaning of the rebuke and despair in that protracted\ngaze.\n\n\"I agreed,\" Natasha now said to herself, \"that it would be dreadful if\nhe always continued to suffer. I said it then only because it would have\nbeen dreadful for him, but he understood it differently. He thought it\nwould be dreadful for me. He then still wished to live and feared death.\nAnd I said it so awkwardly and stupidly! I did not say what I meant. I\nthought quite differently. Had I said what I thought, I should have\nsaid: even if he had to go on dying, to die continually before my eyes,\nI should have been happy compared with what I am now. Now there is\nnothing... nobody. Did he know that? No, he did not and never will know\nit. And now it will never, never be possible to put it right.\" And now\nhe again seemed to be saying the same words to her, only in her\nimagination Natasha this time gave him a different answer. She stopped\nhim and said: \"Terrible for you, but not for me! You know that for me\nthere is nothing in life but you, and to suffer with you is the greatest\nhappiness for me,\" and he took her hand and pressed it as he had pressed\nit that terrible evening four days before his death. And in her\nimagination she said other tender and loving words which she might have\nsaid then but only spoke now: \"I love thee!... thee! I love, love...\"\nshe said, convulsively pressing her hands and setting her teeth with a\ndesperate effort...\n\nShe was overcome by sweet sorrow and tears were already rising in her\neyes; then she suddenly asked herself to whom she was saying this. Again\neverything was shrouded in hard, dry perplexity, and again with a\nstrained frown she peered toward the world where he was. And now, now it\nseemed to her she was penetrating the mystery.... But at the instant\nwhen it seemed that the incomprehensible was revealing itself to her a\nloud rattle of the door handle struck painfully on her ears. Dunyasha,\nher maid, entered the room quickly and abruptly with a frightened look\non her face and showing no concern for her mistress.\n\n\"Come to your Papa at once, please!\" said she with a strange, excited\nlook. \"A misfortune... about Peter Ilynich... a letter,\" she finished\nwith a sob.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nBesides a feeling of aloofness from everybody Natasha was feeling a\nspecial estrangement from the members of her own family. All of them--\nher father, mother, and Sonya--were so near to her, so familiar, so\ncommonplace, that all their words and feelings seemed an insult to the\nworld in which she had been living of late, and she felt not merely\nindifferent to them but regarded them with hostility. She heard\nDunyasha's words about Peter Ilynich and a misfortune, but did not grasp\nthem.\n\n\"What misfortune? What misfortune can happen to them? They just live\ntheir own old, quiet, and commonplace life,\" thought Natasha.\n\nAs she entered the ballroom her father was hurriedly coming out of her\nmother's room. His face was puckered up and wet with tears. He had\nevidently run out of that room to give vent to the sobs that were\nchoking him. When he saw Natasha he waved his arms despairingly and\nburst into convulsively painful sobs that distorted his soft round face.\n\n\"Pe... Petya... Go, go, she... is calling...\" and weeping like a child\nand quickly shuffling on his feeble legs to a chair, he almost fell into\nit, covering his face with his hands.\n\nSuddenly an electric shock seemed to run through Natasha's whole being.\nTerrible anguish struck her heart, she felt a dreadful ache as if\nsomething was being torn inside her and she were dying. But the pain was\nimmediately followed by a feeling of release from the oppressive\nconstraint that had prevented her taking part in life. The sight of her\nfather, the terribly wild cries of her mother that she heard through the\ndoor, made her immediately forget herself and her own grief.\n\nShe ran to her father, but he feebly waved his arm, pointing to her\nmother's door. Princess Mary, pale and with quivering chin, came out\nfrom that room and taking Natasha by the arm said something to her.\nNatasha neither saw nor heard her. She went in with rapid steps, pausing\nat the door for an instant as if struggling with herself, and then ran\nto her mother.\n\nThe countess was lying in an armchair in a strange and awkward position,\nstretching out and beating her head against the wall. Sonya and the\nmaids were holding her arms.\n\n\"Natasha! Natasha!...\" cried the countess. \"It's not true... it's not\ntrue... He's lying... Natasha!\" she shrieked, pushing those around her\naway. \"Go away, all of you; it's not true! Killed!... ha, ha, ha!...\nIt's not true!\"\n\nNatasha put one knee on the armchair, stooped over her mother, embraced\nher, and with unexpected strength raised her, turned her face toward\nherself, and clung to her.\n\n\"Mummy!... darling!... I am here, my dearest Mummy,\" she kept on\nwhispering, not pausing an instant.\n\nShe did not let go of her mother but struggled tenderly with her,\ndemanded a pillow and hot water, and unfastened and tore open her\nmother's dress.\n\n\"My dearest darling... Mummy, my precious!...\" she whispered\nincessantly, kissing her head, her hands, her face, and feeling her own\nirrepressible and streaming tears tickling her nose and cheeks.\n\nThe countess pressed her daughter's hand, closed her eyes, and became\nquiet for a moment. Suddenly she sat up with unaccustomed swiftness,\nglanced vacantly around her, and seeing Natasha began to press her\ndaughter's head with all her strength. Then she turned toward her\ndaughter's face which was wincing with pain and gazed long at it.\n\n\"Natasha, you love me?\" she said in a soft trustful whisper. \"Natasha,\nyou would not deceive me? You'll tell me the whole truth?\"\n\nNatasha looked at her with eyes full of tears and in her look there was\nnothing but love and an entreaty for forgiveness.\n\n\"My darling Mummy!\" she repeated, straining all the power of her love to\nfind some way of taking on herself the excess of grief that crushed her\nmother.\n\nAnd again in a futile struggle with reality her mother, refusing to\nbelieve that she could live when her beloved boy was killed in the bloom\nof life, escaped from reality into a world of delirium.\n\nNatasha did not remember how that day passed nor that night, nor the\nnext day and night. She did not sleep and did not leave her mother. Her\npersevering and patient love seemed completely to surround the countess\nevery moment, not explaining or consoling, but recalling her to life.\n\nDuring the third night the countess kept very quiet for a few minutes,\nand Natasha rested her head on the arm of her chair and closed her eyes,\nbut opened them again on hearing the bedstead creak. The countess was\nsitting up in bed and speaking softly.\n\n\"How glad I am you have come. You are tired. Won't you have some tea?\"\nNatasha went up to her. \"You have improved in looks and grown more\nmanly,\" continued the countess, taking her daughter's hand.\n\n\"Mamma! What are you saying...\"\n\n\"Natasha, he is no more, no more!\"\n\nAnd embracing her daughter, the countess began to weep for the first\ntime.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nPrincess Mary postponed her departure. Sonya and the count tried to\nreplace Natasha but could not. They saw that she alone was able to\nrestrain her mother from unreasoning despair. For three weeks Natasha\nremained constantly at her mother's side, sleeping on a lounge chair in\nher room, making her eat and drink, and talking to her incessantly\nbecause the mere sound of her tender, caressing tones soothed her\nmother.\n\nThe mother's wounded spirit could not heal. Petya's death had torn from\nher half her life. When the news of Petya's death had come she had been\na fresh and vigorous woman of fifty, but a month later she left her room\na listless old woman taking no interest in life. But the same blow that\nalmost killed the countess, this second blow, restored Natasha to life.\n\nA spiritual wound produced by a rending of the spiritual body is like a\nphysical wound and, strange as it may seem, just as a deep wound may\nheal and its edges join, physical and spiritual wounds alike can yet\nheal completely only as the result of a vital force from within.\n\nNatasha's wound healed in that way. She thought her life was ended, but\nher love for her mother unexpectedly showed her that the essence of\nlife--love--was still active within her. Love awoke and so did life.\n\nPrince Andrew's last days had bound Princess Mary and Natasha together;\nthis new sorrow brought them still closer to one another. Princess Mary\nput off her departure, and for three weeks looked after Natasha as if\nshe had been a sick child. The last weeks passed in her mother's bedroom\nhad strained Natasha's physical strength.\n\nOne afternoon noticing Natasha shivering with fever, Princess Mary took\nher to her own room and made her lie down on the bed. Natasha lay down,\nbut when Princess Mary had drawn the blinds and was going away she\ncalled her back.\n\n\"I don't want to sleep, Mary, sit by me a little.\"\n\n\"You are tired--try to sleep.\"\n\n\"No, no. Why did you bring me away? She will be asking for me.\"\n\n\"She is much better. She spoke so well today,\" said Princess Mary.\n\nNatasha lay on the bed and in the semidarkness of the room scanned\nPrincess Mary's face.\n\n\"Is she like him?\" thought Natasha. \"Yes, like and yet not like. But she\nis quite original, strange, new, and unknown. And she loves me. What is\nin her heart? All that is good. But how? What is her mind like? What\ndoes she think about me? Yes, she is splendid!\"\n\n\"Mary,\" she said timidly, drawing Princess Mary's hand to herself,\n\"Mary, you mustn't think me wicked. No? Mary darling, how I love you!\nLet us be quite, quite friends.\"\n\nAnd Natasha, embracing her, began kissing her face and hands, making\nPrincess Mary feel shy but happy by this demonstration of her feelings.\n\nFrom that day a tender and passionate friendship such as exists only\nbetween women was established between Princess Mary and Natasha. They\nwere continually kissing and saying tender things to one another and\nspent most of their time together. When one went out the other became\nrestless and hastened to rejoin her. Together they felt more in harmony\nwith one another than either of them felt with herself when alone. A\nfeeling stronger than friendship sprang up between them; an exclusive\nfeeling of life being possible only in each other's presence.\n\nSometimes they were silent for hours; sometimes after they were already\nin bed they would begin talking and go on till morning. They spoke most\nof what was long past. Princess Mary spoke of her childhood, of her\nmother, her father, and her daydreams; and Natasha, who with a passive\nlack of understanding had formerly turned away from that life of\ndevotion, submission, and the poetry of Christian self-sacrifice, now\nfeeling herself bound to Princess Mary by affection, learned to love her\npast too and to understand a side of life previously incomprehensible to\nher. She did not think of applying submission and self-abnegation to her\nown life, for she was accustomed to seek other joys, but she understood\nand loved in another those previously incomprehensible virtues. For\nPrincess Mary, listening to Natasha's tales of childhood and early\nyouth, there also opened out a new and hitherto uncomprehended side of\nlife: belief in life and its enjoyment.\n\nJust as before, they never mentioned him so as not to lower (as they\nthought) their exalted feelings by words; but this silence about him had\nthe effect of making them gradually begin to forget him without being\nconscious of it.\n\nNatasha had grown thin and pale and physically so weak that they all\ntalked about her health, and this pleased her. But sometimes she was\nsuddenly overcome by fear not only of death but of sickness, weakness,\nand loss of good looks, and involuntarily she examined her bare arm\ncarefully, surprised at its thinness, and in the morning noticed her\ndrawn and, as it seemed to her, piteous face in her glass. It seemed to\nher that things must be so, and yet it was dreadfully sad.\n\nOne day she went quickly upstairs and found herself out of breath.\nUnconsciously she immediately invented a reason for going down, and\nthen, testing her strength, ran upstairs again, observing the result.\n\nAnother time when she called Dunyasha her voice trembled, so she called\nagain--though she could hear Dunyasha coming--called her in the deep\nchest tones in which she had been wont to sing, and listened attentively\nto herself.\n\nShe did not know and would not have believed it, but beneath the layer\nof slime that covered her soul and seemed to her impenetrable, delicate\nyoung shoots of grass were already sprouting, which taking root would so\ncover with their living verdure the grief that weighed her down that it\nwould soon no longer be seen or noticed. The wound had begun to heal\nfrom within.\n\nAt the end of January Princess Mary left for Moscow, and the count\ninsisted on Natasha's going with her to consult the doctors.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nAfter the encounter at Vyazma, where Kutuzov had been unable to hold\nback his troops in their anxiety to overwhelm and cut off the enemy and\nso on, the farther movement of the fleeing French, and of the Russians\nwho pursued them, continued as far as Krasnoe without a battle. The\nflight was so rapid that the Russian army pursuing the French could not\nkeep up with them; cavalry and artillery horses broke down, and the\ninformation received of the movements of the French was never reliable.\n\nThe men in the Russian army were so worn out by this continuous marching\nat the rate of twenty-seven miles a day that they could not go any\nfaster.\n\nTo realize the degree of exhaustion of the Russian army it is only\nnecessary to grasp clearly the meaning of the fact that, while not\nlosing more than five thousand killed and wounded after Tarutino and\nless than a hundred prisoners, the Russian army which left that place a\nhundred thousand strong reached Krasnoe with only fifty thousand.\n\nThe rapidity of the Russian pursuit was just as destructive to our army\nas the flight of the French was to theirs. The only difference was that\nthe Russian army moved voluntarily, with no such threat of destruction\nas hung over the French, and that the sick Frenchmen were left behind in\nenemy hands while the sick Russians left behind were among their own\npeople. The chief cause of the wastage of Napoleon's army was the\nrapidity of its movement, and a convincing proof of this is the\ncorresponding decrease of the Russian army.\n\nKutuzov as far as was in his power, instead of trying to check the\nmovement of the French as was desired in Petersburg and by the Russian\narmy generals, directed his whole activity here, as he had done at\nTarutino and Vyazma, to hastening it on while easing the movement of our\narmy.\n\nBut besides this, since the exhaustion and enormous diminution of the\narmy caused by the rapidity of the advance had become evident, another\nreason for slackening the pace and delaying presented itself to Kutuzov.\nThe aim of the Russian army was to pursue the French. The road the\nFrench would take was unknown, and so the closer our troops trod on\ntheir heels the greater distance they had to cover. Only by following at\nsome distance could one cut across the zigzag path of the French. All\nthe artful maneuvers suggested by our generals meant fresh movements of\nthe army and a lengthening of its marches, whereas the only reasonable\naim was to shorten those marches. To that end Kutuzov's activity was\ndirected during the whole campaign from Moscow to Vilna--not casually or\nintermittently but so consistently that he never once deviated from it.\n\nKutuzov felt and knew--not by reasoning or science but with the whole of\nhis Russian being--what every Russian soldier felt: that the French were\nbeaten, that the enemy was flying and must be driven out; but at the\nsame time he like the soldiers realized all the hardship of this march,\nthe rapidity of which was unparalleled for such a time of the year.\n\nBut to the generals, especially the foreign ones in the Russian army,\nwho wished to distinguish themselves, to astonish somebody, and for some\nreason to capture a king or a duke--it seemed that now--when any battle\nmust be horrible and senseless--was the very time to fight and conquer\nsomebody. Kutuzov merely shrugged his shoulders when one after another\nthey presented projects of maneuvers to be made with those soldiers--\nill-shod, insufficiently clad, and half starved--who within a month and\nwithout fighting a battle had dwindled to half their number, and who at\nthe best if the flight continued would have to go a greater distance\nthan they had already traversed, before they reached the frontier.\n\nThis longing to distinguish themselves, to maneuver, to overthrow, and\nto cut off showed itself particularly whenever the Russians stumbled on\nthe French army.\n\nSo it was at Krasnoe, where they expected to find one of the three\nFrench columns and stumbled instead on Napoleon himself with sixteen\nthousand men. Despite all Kutuzov's efforts to avoid that ruinous\nencounter and to preserve his troops, the massacre of the broken mob of\nFrench soldiers by worn-out Russians continued at Krasnoe for three\ndays.\n\nToll wrote a disposition: \"The first column will march to so and so,\"\netc. And as usual nothing happened in accord with the disposition.\nPrince Eugene of Wurttemberg fired from a hill over the French crowds\nthat were running past, and demanded reinforcements which did not\narrive. The French, avoiding the Russians, dispersed and hid themselves\nin the forest by night, making their way round as best they could, and\ncontinued their flight.\n\nMiloradovich, who said he did not want to know anything about the\ncommissariat affairs of his detachment, and could never be found when he\nwas wanted--that chevalier sans peur et sans reproche * as he styled\nhimself--who was fond of parleys with the French, sent envoys demanding\ntheir surrender, wasted time, and did not do what he was ordered to do.\n\n\n* Knight without fear and without reproach.\n\n\"I give you that column, lads,\" he said, riding up to the troops and\npointing out the French to the cavalry.\n\nAnd the cavalry, with spurs and sabers urging on horses that could\nscarcely move, trotted with much effort to the column presented to them-\n-that is to say, to a crowd of Frenchmen stark with cold, frost-bitten,\nand starving--and the column that had been presented to them threw down\nits arms and surrendered as it had long been anxious to do.\n\nAt Krasnoe they took twenty-six thousand prisoners, several hundred\ncannon, and a stick called a \"marshal's staff,\" and disputed as to who\nhad distinguished himself and were pleased with their achievement--\nthough they much regretted not having taken Napoleon, or at least a\nmarshal or a hero of some sort, and reproached one another and\nespecially Kutuzov for having failed to do so.\n\nThese men, carried away by their passions, were but blind tools of the\nmost melancholy law of necessity, but considered themselves heroes and\nimagined that they were accomplishing a most noble and honorable deed.\nThey blamed Kutuzov and said that from the very beginning of the\ncampaign he had prevented their vanquishing Napoleon, that he thought of\nnothing but satisfying his passions and would not advance from the Linen\nFactories because he was comfortable there, that at Krasnoe he checked\nthe advance because on learning that Napoleon was there he had quite\nlost his head, and that it was probable that he had an understanding\nwith Napoleon and had been bribed by him, and so on, and so on.\n\nNot only did his contemporaries, carried away by their passions, talk in\nthis way, but posterity and history have acclaimed Napoleon as grand,\nwhile Kutuzov is described by foreigners as a crafty, dissolute, weak\nold courtier, and by Russians as something indefinite--a sort of puppet\nuseful only because he had a Russian name.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nIn 1812 and 1813 Kutuzov was openly accused of blundering. The Emperor\nwas dissatisfied with him. And in a history recently written by order of\nthe Highest Authorities it is said that Kutuzov was a cunning court\nliar, frightened of the name of Napoleon, and that by his blunders at\nKrasnoe and the Berezina he deprived the Russian army of the glory of\ncomplete victory over the French. *\n\n\n* History of the year 1812. The character of Kutuzov and reflections on\nthe unsatisfactory results of the battles at Krasnoe, by Bogdanovich.\n\nSuch is the fate not of great men (grands hommes) whom the Russian mind\ndoes not acknowledge, but of those rare and always solitary individuals\nwho, discerning the will of Providence, submit their personal will to\nit. The hatred and contempt of the crowd punish such men for discerning\nthe higher laws.\n\nFor Russian historians, strange and terrible to say, Napoleon--that most\ninsignificant tool of history who never anywhere, even in exile, showed\nhuman dignity--Napoleon is the object of adulation and enthusiasm; he is\ngrand. But Kutuzov--the man who from the beginning to the end of his\nactivity in 1812, never once swerving by word or deed from Borodino to\nVilna, presented an example exceptional in history of self-sacrifice and\na present consciousness of the future importance of what was happening--\nKutuzov seems to them something indefinite and pitiful, and when\nspeaking of him and of the year 1812 they always seem a little ashamed.\n\nAnd yet it is difficult to imagine an historical character whose\nactivity was so unswervingly directed to a single aim; and it would be\ndifficult to imagine any aim more worthy or more consonant with the will\nof the whole people. Still more difficult would it be to find an\ninstance in history of the aim of an historical personage being so\ncompletely accomplished as that to which all Kutuzov's efforts were\ndirected in 1812.\n\nKutuzov never talked of \"forty centuries looking down from the\nPyramids,\" of the sacrifices he offered for the fatherland, or of what\nhe intended to accomplish or had accomplished; in general he said\nnothing about himself, adopted no pose, always appeared to be the\nsimplest and most ordinary of men, and said the simplest and most\nordinary things. He wrote letters to his daughters and to Madame de\nStael, read novels, liked the society of pretty women, jested with\ngenerals, officers, and soldiers, and never contradicted those who tried\nto prove anything to him. When Count Rostopchin at the Yauza bridge\ngalloped up to Kutuzov with personal reproaches for having caused the\ndestruction of Moscow, and said: \"How was it you promised not to abandon\nMoscow without a battle?\" Kutuzov replied: \"And I shall not abandon\nMoscow without a battle,\" though Moscow was then already abandoned. When\nArakcheev, coming to him from the Emperor, said that Ermolov ought to be\nappointed chief of the artillery, Kutuzov replied: \"Yes, I was just\nsaying so myself,\" though a moment before he had said quite the\ncontrary. What did it matter to him--who then alone amid a senseless\ncrowd understood the whole tremendous significance of what was\nhappening--what did it matter to him whether Rostopchin attributed the\ncalamities of Moscow to him or to himself? Still less could it matter to\nhim who was appointed chief of the artillery.\n\nNot merely in these cases but continually did that old man--who by\nexperience of life had reached the conviction that thoughts and the\nwords serving as their expression are not what move people--use quite\nmeaningless words that happened to enter his head.\n\nBut that man, so heedless of his words, did not once during the whole\ntime of his activity utter one word inconsistent with the single aim\ntoward which he moved throughout the whole war. Obviously in spite of\nhimself, in very diverse circumstances, he repeatedly expressed his real\nthoughts with the bitter conviction that he would not be understood.\nBeginning with the battle of Borodino, from which time his disagreement\nwith those about him began, he alone said that the battle of Borodino\nwas a victory, and repeated this both verbally and in his dispatches and\nreports up to the time of his death. He alone said that the loss of\nMoscow is not the loss of Russia. In reply to Lauriston's proposal of\npeace, he said: There can be no peace, for such is the people's will. He\nalone during the retreat of the French said that all our maneuvers are\nuseless, everything is being accomplished of itself better than we could\ndesire; that the enemy must be offered \"a golden bridge\"; that neither\nthe Tarutino, the Vyazma, nor the Krasnoe battles were necessary; that\nwe must keep some force to reach the frontier with, and that he would\nnot sacrifice a single Russian for ten Frenchmen.\n\nAnd this courtier, as he is described to us, who lies to Arakcheev to\nplease the Emperor, he alone--incurring thereby the Emperor's\ndispleasure--said in Vilna that to carry the war beyond the frontier is\nuseless and harmful.\n\nNor do words alone prove that only he understood the meaning of the\nevents. His actions--without the smallest deviation--were all directed\nto one and the same threefold end: (1) to brace all his strength for\nconflict with the French, (2) to defeat them, and (3) to drive them out\nof Russia, minimizing as far as possible the sufferings of our people\nand of our army.\n\nThis procrastinator Kutuzov, whose motto was \"Patience and Time,\" this\nenemy of decisive action, gave battle at Borodino, investing the\npreparations for it with unparalleled solemnity. This Kutuzov who before\nthe battle of Austerlitz began said that it would be lost, he alone, in\ncontradiction to everyone else, declared till his death that Borodino\nwas a victory, despite the assurance of generals that the battle was\nlost and despite the fact that for an army to have to retire after\nwinning a battle was unprecedented. He alone during the whole retreat\ninsisted that battles, which were useless then, should not be fought,\nand that a new war should not be begun nor the frontiers of Russia\ncrossed.\n\nIt is easy now to understand the significance of these events--if only\nwe abstain from attributing to the activity of the mass aims that\nexisted only in the heads of a dozen individuals--for the events and\nresults now lie before us.\n\nBut how did that old man, alone, in opposition to the general opinion,\nso truly discern the importance of the people's view of the events that\nin all his activity he was never once untrue to it?\n\nThe source of that extraordinary power of penetrating the meaning of the\nevents then occuring lay in the national feeling which he possessed in\nfull purity and strength.\n\nOnly the recognition of the fact that he possessed this feeling caused\nthe people in so strange a manner, contrary to the Tsar's wish, to\nselect him--an old man in disfavor--to be their representative in the\nnational war. And only that feeling placed him on that highest human\npedestal from which he, the commander-in-chief, devoted all his powers\nnot to slaying and destroying men but to saving and showing pity on\nthem.\n\nThat simple, modest, and therefore truly great, figure could not be cast\nin the false mold of a European hero--the supposed ruler of men--that\nhistory has invented.\n\nTo a lackey no man can be great, for a lackey has his own conception of\ngreatness.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nThe fifth of November was the first day of what is called the battle of\nKrasnoe. Toward evening--after much disputing and many mistakes made by\ngenerals who did not go to their proper places, and after adjutants had\nbeen sent about with counterorders--when it had become plain that the\nenemy was everywhere in flight and that there could and would be no\nbattle, Kutuzov left Krasnoe and went to Dobroe whither his headquarters\nhad that day been transferred.\n\nThe day was clear and frosty. Kutuzov rode to Dobroe on his plump little\nwhite horse, followed by an enormous suite of discontented generals who\nwhispered among themselves behind his back. All along the road groups of\nFrench prisoners captured that day (there were seven thousand of them)\nwere crowding to warm themselves at campfires. Near Dobroe an immense\ncrowd of tattered prisoners, buzzing with talk and wrapped and bandaged\nin anything they had been able to get hold of, were standing in the road\nbeside a long row of unharnessed French guns. At the approach of the\ncommander-in-chief the buzz of talk ceased and all eyes were fixed on\nKutuzov who, wearing a white cap with a red band and a padded overcoat\nthat bulged on his round shoulders, moved slowly along the road on his\nwhite horse. One of the generals was reporting to him where the guns and\nprisoners had been captured.\n\nKutuzov seemed preoccupied and did not listen to what the general was\nsaying. He screwed up his eyes with a dissatisfied look as he gazed\nattentively and fixedly at these prisoners, who presented a specially\nwretched appearance. Most of them were disfigured by frost-bitten noses\nand cheeks, and nearly all had red, swollen and festering eyes.\n\nOne group of the French stood close to the road, and two of them, one of\nwhom had his face covered with sores, were tearing a piece of raw flesh\nwith their hands. There was something horrible and bestial in the\nfleeting glance they threw at the riders and in the malevolent\nexpression with which, after a glance at Kutuzov, the soldier with the\nsores immediately turned away and went on with what he was doing.\n\nKutuzov looked long and intently at these two soldiers. He puckered his\nface, screwed up his eyes, and pensively swayed his head. At another\nspot he noticed a Russian soldier laughingly patting a Frenchman on the\nshoulder, saying something to him in a friendly manner, and Kutuzov with\nthe same expression on his face again swayed his head.\n\n\"What were you saying?\" he asked the general, who continuing his report\ndirected the commander-in-chief's attention to some standards captured\nfrom the French and standing in front of the Preobrazhensk regiment.\n\n\"Ah, the standards!\" said Kutuzov, evidently detaching himself with\ndifficulty from the thoughts that preoccupied him.\n\nHe looked about him absently. Thousands of eyes were looking at him from\nall sides awaiting a word from him.\n\nHe stopped in front of the Preobrazhensk regiment, sighed deeply, and\nclosed his eyes. One of his suite beckoned to the soldiers carrying the\nstandards to advance and surround the commander-in-chief with them.\nKutuzov was silent for a few seconds and then, submitting with evident\nreluctance to the duty imposed by his position, raised his head and\nbegan to speak. A throng of officers surrounded him. He looked\nattentively around at the circle of officers, recognizing several of\nthem.\n\n\"I thank you all!\" he said, addressing the soldiers and then again the\nofficers. In the stillness around him his slowly uttered words were\ndistinctly heard. \"I thank you all for your hard and faithful service.\nThe victory is complete and Russia will not forget you! Honor to you\nforever.\"\n\nHe paused and looked around.\n\n\"Lower its head, lower it!\" he said to a soldier who had accidentally\nlowered the French eagle he was holding before the Preobrazhensk\nstandards. \"Lower, lower, that's it. Hurrah lads!\" he added, addressing\nthe men with a rapid movement of his chin.\n\n\"Hur-r-rah!\" roared thousands of voices.\n\nWhile the soldiers were shouting Kutuzov leaned forward in his saddle\nand bowed his head, and his eye lit up with a mild and apparently ironic\ngleam.\n\n\"You see, brothers...\" said he when the shouts had ceased... and all at\nonce his voice and the expression of his face changed. It was no longer\nthe commander-in-chief speaking but an ordinary old man who wanted to\ntell his comrades something very important.\n\nThere was a stir among the throng of officers and in the ranks of the\nsoldiers, who moved that they might hear better what he was going to\nsay.\n\n\"You see, brothers, I know it's hard for you, but it can't be helped!\nBear up; it won't be for long now! We'll see our visitors off and then\nwe'll rest. The Tsar won't forget your service. It is hard for you, but\nstill you are at home while they--you see what they have come to,\" said\nhe, pointing to the prisoners. \"Worse off than our poorest beggars.\nWhile they were strong we didn't spare ourselves, but now we may even\npity them. They are human beings too. Isn't it so, lads?\"\n\nHe looked around, and in the direct, respectful, wondering gaze fixed\nupon him he read sympathy with what he had said. His face grew brighter\nand brighter with an old man's mild smile, which drew the corners of his\nlips and eyes into a cluster of wrinkles. He ceased speaking and bowed\nhis head as if in perplexity.\n\n\"But after all who asked them here? Serves them right, the bloody\nbastards!\" he cried, suddenly lifting his head.\n\nAnd flourishing his whip he rode off at a gallop for the first time\nduring the whole campaign, and left the broken ranks of the soldiers\nlaughing joyfully and shouting \"Hurrah!\"\n\nKutuzov's words were hardly understood by the troops. No one could have\nrepeated the field marshal's address, begun solemnly and then changing\ninto an old man's simplehearted talk; but the hearty sincerity of that\nspeech, the feeling of majestic triumph combined with pity for the foe\nand consciousness of the justice of our cause, exactly expressed by that\nold man's good-natured expletives, was not merely understood but lay in\nthe soul of every soldier and found expression in their joyous and long-\nsustained shouts. Afterwards when one of the generals addressed Kutuzov\nasking whether he wished his caleche to be sent for, Kutuzov in\nanswering unexpectedly gave a sob, being evidently greatly moved.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nWhen the troops reached their night's halting place on the eighth of\nNovember, the last day of the Krasnoe battles, it was already growing\ndusk. All day it had been calm and frosty with occasional lightly\nfalling snow and toward evening it began to clear. Through the falling\nsnow a purple-black and starry sky showed itself and the frost grew\nkeener.\n\nAn infantry regiment which had left Tarutino three thousand strong but\nnow numbered only nine hundred was one of the first to arrive that night\nat its halting place--a village on the highroad. The quartermasters who\nmet the regiment announced that all the huts were full of sick and dead\nFrenchmen, cavalrymen, and members of the staff. There was only one hut\navailable for the regimental commander.\n\nThe commander rode up to his hut. The regiment passed through the\nvillage and stacked its arms in front of the last huts.\n\nLike some huge many-limbed animal, the regiment began to prepare its\nlair and its food. One part of it dispersed and waded knee-deep through\nthe snow into a birch forest to the right of the village, and\nimmediately the sound of axes and swords, the crashing of branches, and\nmerry voices could be heard from there. Another section amid the\nregimental wagons and horses which were standing in a group was busy\ngetting out caldrons and rye biscuit, and feeding the horses. A third\nsection scattered through the village arranging quarters for the staff\nofficers, carrying out the French corpses that were in the huts, and\ndragging away boards, dry wood, and thatch from the roofs, for the\ncampfires, or wattle fences to serve for shelter.\n\nSome fifteen men with merry shouts were shaking down the high wattle\nwall of a shed, the roof of which had already been removed.\n\n\"Now then, all together--shove!\" cried the voices, and the huge surface\nof the wall, sprinkled with snow and creaking with frost, was seen\nswaying in the gloom of the night. The lower stakes cracked more and\nmore and at last the wall fell, and with it the men who had been pushing\nit. Loud, coarse laughter and joyous shouts ensued.\n\n\"Now then, catch hold in twos! Hand up the lever! That's it... Where are\nyou shoving to?\"\n\n\"Now, all together! But wait a moment, boys... With a song!\"\n\nAll stood silent, and a soft, pleasant velvety voice began to sing. At\nthe end of the third verse as the last note died away, twenty voices\nroared out at once: \"Oo-oo-oo-oo! That's it. All together! Heave away,\nboys!...\" but despite their united efforts the wattle hardly moved, and\nin the silence that followed the heavy breathing of the men was audible.\n\n\"Here, you of the Sixth Company! Devils that you are! Lend a hand...\nwill you? You may want us one of these days.\"\n\nSome twenty men of the Sixth Company who were on their way into the\nvillage joined the haulers, and the wattle wall, which was about thirty-\nfive feet long and seven feet high, moved forward along the village\nstreet, swaying, pressing upon and cutting the shoulders of the gasping\nmen.\n\n\"Get along... Falling? What are you stopping for? There now...\"\n\nMerry senseless words of abuse flowed freely.\n\n\"What are you up to?\" suddenly came the authoritative voice of a\nsergeant major who came upon the men who were hauling their burden.\n\"There are gentry here; the general himself is in that hut, and you\nfoul-mouthed devils, you brutes, I'll give it to you!\" shouted he,\nhitting the first man who came in his way a swinging blow on the back.\n\"Can't you make less noise?\"\n\nThe men became silent. The soldier who had been struck groaned and wiped\nhis face, which had been scratched till it bled by his falling against\nthe wattle.\n\n\"There, how that devil hits out! He's made my face all bloody,\" said he\nin a frightened whisper when the sergeant major had passed on.\n\n\"Don't you like it?\" said a laughing voice, and moderating their tones\nthe men moved forward.\n\nWhen they were out of the village they began talking again as loud as\nbefore, interlarding their talk with the same aimless expletives.\n\nIn the hut which the men had passed, the chief officers had gathered and\nwere in animated talk over their tea about the events of the day and the\nmaneuvers suggested for tomorrow. It was proposed to make a flank march\nto the left, cut off the Vice-King (Murat) and capture him.\n\nBy the time the soldiers had dragged the wattle fence to its place the\ncampfires were blazing on all sides ready for cooking, the wood\ncrackled, the snow was melting, and black shadows of soldiers flitted to\nand fro all over the occupied space where the snow had been trodden\ndown.\n\nAxes and choppers were plied all around. Everything was done without any\norders being given. Stores of wood were brought for the night, shelters\nwere rigged up for the officers, caldrons were being boiled, and muskets\nand accouterments put in order.\n\nThe wattle wall the men had brought was set up in a semicircle by the\nEighth Company as a shelter from the north, propped up by musket rests,\nand a campfire was built before it. They beat the tattoo, called the\nroll, had supper, and settled down round the fires for the night--some\nrepairing their footgear, some smoking pipes, and some stripping\nthemselves naked to steam the lice out of their shirts.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nOne would have thought that under the almost incredibly wretched\nconditions the Russian soldiers were in at that time--lacking warm boots\nand sheepskin coats, without a roof over their heads, in the snow with\neighteen degrees of frost, and without even full rations (the\ncommissariat did not always keep up with the troops)--they would have\npresented a very sad and depressing spectacle.\n\nOn the contrary, the army had never under the best material conditions\npresented a more cheerful and animated aspect. This was because all who\nbegan to grow depressed or who lost strength were sifted out of the army\nday by day. All the physically or morally weak had long since been left\nbehind and only the flower of the army--physically and mentally--\nremained.\n\nMore men collected behind the wattle fence of the Eighth Company than\nanywhere else. Two sergeants major were sitting with them and their\ncampfire blazed brighter than others. For leave to sit by their wattle\nthey demanded contributions of fuel.\n\n\"Eh, Makeev! What has become of you, you son of a bitch? Are you lost or\nhave the wolves eaten you? Fetch some more wood!\" shouted a red-haired\nand red-faced man, screwing up his eyes and blinking because of the\nsmoke but not moving back from the fire. \"And you, Jackdaw, go and fetch\nsome wood!\" said he to another soldier.\n\nThis red-haired man was neither a sergeant nor a corporal, but being\nrobust he ordered about those weaker than himself. The soldier they\ncalled \"Jackdaw,\" a thin little fellow with a sharp nose, rose\nobediently and was about to go but at that instant there came into the\nlight of the fire the slender, handsome figure of a young soldier\ncarrying a load of wood.\n\n\"Bring it here--that's fine!\"\n\nThey split up the wood, pressed it down on the fire, blew at it with\ntheir mouths, and fanned it with the skirts of their greatcoats, making\nthe flames hiss and crackle. The men drew nearer and lit their pipes.\nThe handsome young soldier who had brought the wood, setting his arms\nakimbo, began stamping his cold feet rapidly and deftly on the spot\nwhere he stood.\n\n\"Mother! The dew is cold but clear.... It's well that I'm a\nmusketeer...\" he sang, pretending to hiccough after each syllable.\n\n\"Look out, your soles will fly off!\" shouted the red-haired man,\nnoticing that the sole of the dancer's boot was hanging loose. \"What a\nfellow you are for dancing!\"\n\nThe dancer stopped, pulled off the loose piece of leather, and threw it\non the fire.\n\n\"Right enough, friend,\" said he, and, having sat down, took out of his\nknapsack a scrap of blue French cloth, and wrapped it round his foot.\n\"It's the steam that spoils them,\" he added, stretching out his feet\ntoward the fire.\n\n\"They'll soon be issuing us new ones. They say that when we've finished\nhammering them, we're to receive double kits!\"\n\n\"And that son of a bitch Petrov has lagged behind after all, it seems,\"\nsaid one sergeant major.\n\n\"I've had an eye on him this long while,\" said the other.\n\n\"Well, he's a poor sort of soldier...\"\n\n\"But in the Third Company they say nine men were missing yesterday.\"\n\n\"Yes, it's all very well, but when a man's feet are frozen how can he\nwalk?\"\n\n\"Eh? Don't talk nonsense!\" said a sergeant major.\n\n\"Do you want to be doing the same?\" said an old soldier, turning\nreproachfully to the man who had spoken of frozen feet.\n\n\"Well, you know,\" said the sharp-nosed man they called Jackdaw in a\nsqueaky and unsteady voice, raising himself at the other side of the\nfire, \"a plump man gets thin, but for a thin one it's death. Take me,\nnow! I've got no strength left,\" he added, with sudden resolution\nturning to the sergeant major. \"Tell them to send me to hospital; I'm\naching all over; anyway I shan't be able to keep up.\"\n\n\"That'll do, that'll do!\" replied the sergeant major quietly.\n\nThe soldier said no more and the talk went on.\n\n\"What a lot of those Frenchies were taken today, and the fact is that\nnot one of them had what you might call real boots on,\" said a soldier,\nstarting a new theme. \"They were no more than make-believes.\"\n\n\"The Cossacks have taken their boots. They were clearing the hut for the\ncolonel and carried them out. It was pitiful to see them, boys,\" put in\nthe dancer. \"As they turned them over one seemed still alive and, would\nyou believe it, he jabbered something in their lingo.\"\n\n\"But they're a clean folk, lads,\" the first man went on; \"he was white--\nas white as birchbark--and some of them are such fine fellows, you might\nthink they were nobles.\"\n\n\"Well, what do you think? They make soldiers of all classes there.\"\n\n\"But they don't understand our talk at all,\" said the dancer with a\npuzzled smile. \"I asked him whose subject he was, and he jabbered in his\nown way. A queer lot!\"\n\n\"But it's strange, friends,\" continued the man who had wondered at their\nwhiteness, \"the peasants at Mozhaysk were saying that when they began\nburying the dead--where the battle was you know--well, those dead had\nbeen lying there for nearly a month, and says the peasant, 'they lie as\nwhite as paper, clean, and not as much smell as a puff of powder\nsmoke.'\"\n\n\"Was it from the cold?\" asked someone.\n\n\"You're a clever fellow! From the cold indeed! Why, it was hot. If it\nhad been from the cold, ours would not have rotted either. 'But,' he\nsays, 'go up to ours and they are all rotten and maggoty. So,' he says,\n'we tie our faces up with kerchiefs and turn our heads away as we drag\nthem off: we can hardly do it. But theirs,' he says, 'are white as paper\nand not so much smell as a whiff of gunpowder.'\"\n\nAll were silent.\n\n\"It must be from their food,\" said the sergeant major. \"They used to\ngobble the same food as the gentry.\"\n\nNo one contradicted him.\n\n\"That peasant near Mozhaysk where the battle was said the men were all\ncalled up from ten villages around and they carted for twenty days and\nstill didn't finish carting the dead away. And as for the wolves, he\nsays...\"\n\n\"That was a real battle,\" said an old soldier. \"It's the only one worth\nremembering; but since that... it's only been tormenting folk.\"\n\n\"And do you know, Daddy, the day before yesterday we ran at them and, my\nword, they didn't let us get near before they just threw down their\nmuskets and went on their knees. 'Pardon!' they say. That's only one\ncase. They say Platov took 'Poleon himself twice. But he didn't know the\nright charm. He catches him and catches him--no good! He turns into a\nbird in his hands and flies away. And there's no way of killing him\neither.\"\n\n\"You're a first-class liar, Kiselev, when I come to look at you!\"\n\n\"Liar, indeed! It's the real truth.\"\n\n\"If he fell into my hands, when I'd caught him I'd bury him in the\nground with an aspen stake to fix him down. What a lot of men he's\nruined!\"\n\n\"Well, anyhow we're going to end it. He won't come here again,\" remarked\nthe old soldier, yawning.\n\nThe conversation flagged, and the soldiers began settling down to sleep.\n\n\"Look at the stars. It's wonderful how they shine! You would think the\nwomen had spread out their linen,\" said one of the men, gazing with\nadmiration at the Milky Way.\n\n\"That's a sign of a good harvest next year.\"\n\n\"We shall want some more wood.\"\n\n\"You warm your back and your belly gets frozen. That's queer.\"\n\n\"O Lord!\"\n\n\"What are you pushing for? Is the fire only for you? Look how he's\nsprawling!\"\n\nIn the silence that ensued, the snoring of those who had fallen asleep\ncould be heard. Others turned over and warmed themselves, now and again\nexchanging a few words. From a campfire a hundred paces off came a sound\nof general, merry laughter.\n\n\"Hark at them roaring there in the Fifth Company!\" said one of the\nsoldiers, \"and what a lot of them there are!\"\n\nOne of the men got up and went over to the Fifth Company.\n\n\"They're having such fun,\" said he, coming back. \"Two Frenchies have\nturned up. One's quite frozen and the other's an awful swaggerer. He's\nsinging songs....\"\n\n\"Oh, I'll go across and have a look....\"\n\nAnd several of the men went over to the Fifth Company.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nThe fifth company was bivouacking at the very edge of the forest. A huge\ncampfire was blazing brightly in the midst of the snow, lighting up the\nbranches of trees heavy with hoarfrost.\n\nAbout midnight they heard the sound of steps in the snow of the forest,\nand the crackling of dry branches.\n\n\"A bear, lads,\" said one of the men.\n\nThey all raised their heads to listen, and out of the forest into the\nbright firelight stepped two strangely clad human figures clinging to\none another.\n\nThese were two Frenchmen who had been hiding in the forest. They came up\nto the fire, hoarsely uttering something in a language our soldiers did\nnot understand. One was taller than the other; he wore an officer's hat\nand seemed quite exhausted. On approaching the fire he had been going to\nsit down, but fell. The other, a short sturdy soldier with a shawl tied\nround his head, was stronger. He raised his companion and said\nsomething, pointing to his mouth. The soldiers surrounded the Frenchmen,\nspread a greatcoat on the ground for the sick man, and brought some\nbuckwheat porridge and vodka for both of them.\n\nThe exhausted French officer was Ramballe and the man with his head\nwrapped in the shawl was Morel, his orderly.\n\nWhen Morel had drunk some vodka and finished his bowl of porridge he\nsuddenly became unnaturally merry and chattered incessantly to the\nsoldiers, who could not understand him. Ramballe refused food and\nresting his head on his elbow lay silent beside the campfire, looking at\nthe Russian soldiers with red and vacant eyes. Occasionally he emitted a\nlong-drawn groan and then again became silent. Morel, pointing to his\nshoulders, tried to impress on the soldiers the fact that Ramballe was\nan officer and ought to be warmed. A Russian officer who had come up to\nthe fire sent to ask his colonel whether he would not take a French\nofficer into his hut to warm him, and when the messenger returned and\nsaid that the colonel wished the officer to be brought to him, Ramballe\nwas told to go. He rose and tried to walk, but staggered and would have\nfallen had not a soldier standing by held him up.\n\n\"You won't do it again, eh?\" said one of the soldiers, winking and\nturning mockingly to Ramballe.\n\n\"Oh, you fool! Why talk rubbish, lout that you are--a real peasant!\"\ncame rebukes from all sides addressed to the jesting soldier.\n\nThey surrounded Ramballe, lifted him on the crossed arms of two\nsoldiers, and carried him to the hut. Ramballe put his arms around their\nnecks while they carried him and began wailing plaintively:\n\n\"Oh, you fine fellows, my kind, kind friends! These are men! Oh, my\nbrave, kind friends,\" and he leaned his head against the shoulder of one\nof the men like a child.\n\nMeanwhile Morel was sitting in the best place by the fire, surrounded by\nthe soldiers.\n\nMorel, a short sturdy Frenchman with inflamed and streaming eyes, was\nwearing a woman's cloak and had a shawl tied woman fashion round his\nhead over his cap. He was evidently tipsy, and was singing a French song\nin a hoarse broken voice, with an arm thrown round the nearest soldier.\nThe soldiers simply held their sides as they watched him.\n\n\"Now then, now then, teach us how it goes! I'll soon pick it up. How is\nit?\" said the man--a singer and a wag--whom Morel was embracing.\n\n\"Vive Henri Quatre! Vive ce roi valiant!\" sang Morel, winking. \"Ce\ndiable a quatre...\" *\n\n\n* \"Long live Henry the Fourth, that valiant king! That rowdy devil.\"\n\n\"Vivarika! Vif-seruvaru! Sedyablyaka!\" repeated the soldier, flourishing\nhis arm and really catching the tune.\n\n\"Bravo! Ha, ha, ha!\" rose their rough, joyous laughter from all sides.\n\nMorel, wrinkling up his face, laughed too.\n\n\"Well, go on, go on!\"\n\n\n\"Qui eut le triple talent, De boire, de battre, Et d'etre un vert\ngalant.\" *\n\n\n* Who had a triple talent For drinking, for fighting, And for being a\ngallant old boy...\n\n\"It goes smoothly, too. Well, now, Zaletaev!\"\n\n\"Ke...\" Zaletaev, brought out with effort: \"ke-e-e-e,\" he drawled,\nlaboriously pursing his lips, \"le-trip-ta-la-de-bu-de-ba, e de-tra-va-\nga-la\" he sang.\n\n\"Fine! Just like the Frenchie! Oh, ho ho! Do you want some more to eat?\"\n\n\"Give him some porridge: it takes a long time to get filled up after\nstarving.\"\n\nThey gave him some more porridge and Morel with a laugh set to work on\nhis third bowl. All the young soldiers smiled gaily as they watched him.\nThe older men, who thought it undignified to amuse themselves with such\nnonsense, continued to lie at the opposite side of the fire, but one\nwould occasionally raise himself on an elbow and glance at Morel with a\nsmile.\n\n\"They are men too,\" said one of them as he wrapped himself up in his\ncoat. \"Even wormwood grows on its own root.\"\n\n\"O Lord, O Lord! How starry it is! Tremendous! That means a hard\nfrost....\"\n\nThey all grew silent. The stars, as if knowing that no one was looking\nat them, began to disport themselves in the dark sky: now flaring up,\nnow vanishing, now trembling, they were busy whispering something\ngladsome and mysterious to one another.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nThe French army melted away at the uniform rate of a mathematical\nprogression; and that crossing of the Berezina about which so much has\nbeen written was only one intermediate stage in its destruction, and not\nat all the decisive episode of the campaign. If so much has been and\nstill is written about the Berezina, on the French side this is only\nbecause at the broken bridge across that river the calamities their army\nhad been previously enduring were suddenly concentrated at one moment\ninto a tragic spectacle that remained in every memory, and on the\nRussian side merely because in Petersburg--far from the seat of war--a\nplan (again one of Pfuel's) had been devised to catch Napoleon in a\nstrategic trap at the Berezina River. Everyone assured himself that all\nwould happen according to plan, and therefore insisted that it was just\nthe crossing of the Berezina that destroyed the French army. In reality\nthe results of the crossing were much less disastrous to the French--in\nguns and men lost--than Krasnoe had been, as the figures show.\n\nThe sole importance of the crossing of the Berezina lies in the fact\nthat it plainly and indubitably proved the fallacy of all the plans for\ncutting off the enemy's retreat and the soundness of the only possible\nline of action--the one Kutuzov and the general mass of the army\ndemanded--namely, simply to follow the enemy up. The French crowd fled\nat a continually increasing speed and all its energy was directed to\nreaching its goal. It fled like a wounded animal and it was impossible\nto block its path. This was shown not so much by the arrangements it\nmade for crossing as by what took place at the bridges. When the bridges\nbroke down, unarmed soldiers, people from Moscow and women with children\nwho were with the French transport, all--carried on by vis inertiae--\npressed forward into boats and into the ice-covered water and did not,\nsurrender.\n\nThat impulse was reasonable. The condition of fugitives and of pursuers\nwas equally bad. As long as they remained with their own people each\nmight hope for help from his fellows and the definite place he held\namong them. But those who surrendered, while remaining in the same\npitiful plight, would be on a lower level to claim a share in the\nnecessities of life. The French did not need to be informed of the fact\nthat half the prisoners--with whom the Russians did not know what to do-\n-perished of cold and hunger despite their captors' desire to save them;\nthey felt that it could not be otherwise. The most compassionate Russian\ncommanders, those favorable to the French--and even the Frenchmen in the\nRussian service--could do nothing for the prisoners. The French perished\nfrom the conditions to which the Russian army was itself exposed. It was\nimpossible to take bread and clothes from our hungry and indispensable\nsoldiers to give to the French who, though not harmful, or hated, or\nguilty, were simply unnecessary. Some Russians even did that, but they\nwere exceptions.\n\nCertain destruction lay behind the French but in front there was hope.\nTheir ships had been burned, there was no salvation save in collective\nflight, and on that the whole strength of the French was concentrated.\n\nThe farther they fled the more wretched became the plight of the\nremnant, especially after the Berezina, on which (in consequence of the\nPetersburg plan) special hopes had been placed by the Russians, and the\nkeener grew the passions of the Russian commanders, who blamed one\nanother and Kutuzov most of all. Anticipation that the failure of the\nPetersburg Berezina plan would be attributed to Kutuzov led to\ndissatisfaction, contempt, and ridicule, more and more strongly\nexpressed. The ridicule and contempt were of course expressed in a\nrespectful form, making it impossible for him to ask wherein he was to\nblame. They did not talk seriously to him; when reporting to him or\nasking for his sanction they appeared to be fulfilling a regrettable\nformality, but they winked behind his back and tried to mislead him at\nevery turn.\n\nBecause they could not understand him all these people assumed that it\nwas useless to talk to the old man; that he would never grasp the\nprofundity of their plans, that he would answer with his phrases (which\nthey thought were mere phrases) about a \"golden bridge,\" about the\nimpossibility of crossing the frontier with a crowd of tatterdemalions,\nand so forth. They had heard all that before. And all he said--that it\nwas necessary to await provisions, or that the men had no boots--was so\nsimple, while what they proposed was so complicated and clever, that it\nwas evident that he was old and stupid and that they, though not in\npower, were commanders of genius.\n\nAfter the junction with the army of the brilliant admiral and Petersburg\nhero Wittgenstein, this mood and the gossip of the staff reached their\nmaximum. Kutuzov saw this and merely sighed and shrugged his shoulders.\nOnly once, after the affair of the Berezina, did he get angry and write\nto Bennigsen (who reported separately to the Emperor) the following\nletter:\n\n\"On account of your spells of ill health, will your excellency please be\nso good as to set off for Kaluga on receipt of this, and there await\nfurther commands and appointments from His Imperial Majesty.\"\n\nBut after Bennigsen's departure, the Grand Duke Tsarevich Constantine\nPavlovich joined the army. He had taken part in the beginning of the\ncampaign but had subsequently been removed from the army by Kutuzov. Now\nhaving come to the army, he informed Kutuzov of the Emperor's\ndispleasure at the poor success of our forces and the slowness of their\nadvance. The Emperor intended to join the army personally in a few days'\ntime.\n\nThe old man, experienced in court as well as in military affairs--this\nsame Kutuzov who in August had been chosen commander-in-chief against\nthe sovereign's wishes and who had removed the Grand Duke and heir--\napparent from the army--who on his own authority and contrary to the\nEmperor's will had decided on the abandonment of Moscow, now realized at\nonce that his day was over, that his part was played, and that the power\nhe was supposed to hold was no longer his. And he understood this not\nmerely from the attitude of the court. He saw on the one hand that the\nmilitary business in which he had played his part was ended and felt\nthat his mission was accomplished; and at the same time he began to be\nconscious of the physical weariness of his aged body and of the\nnecessity of physical rest.\n\nOn the twenty-ninth of November Kutuzov entered Vilna--his \"dear Vilna\"\nas he called it. Twice during his career Kutuzov had been governor of\nVilna. In that wealthy town, which had not been injured, he found old\nfriends and associations, besides the comforts of life of which he had\nso long been deprived. And he suddenly turned from the cares of army and\nstate and, as far as the passions that seethed around him allowed,\nimmersed himself in the quiet life to which he had formerly been\naccustomed, as if all that was taking place and all that had still to be\ndone in the realm of history did not concern him at all.\n\nChichagov, one of the most zealous \"cutters-off\" and \"breakers-up,\" who\nhad first wanted to effect a diversion in Greece and then in Warsaw but\nnever wished to go where he was sent: Chichagov, noted for the boldness\nwith which he spoke to the Emperor, and who considered Kutuzov to be\nunder an obligation to him because when he was sent to make peace with\nTurkey in 1811 independently of Kutuzov, and found that peace had\nalready been concluded, he admitted to the Emperor that the merit of\nsecuring that peace was really Kutuzov's; this Chichagov was the first\nto meet Kutuzov at the castle where the latter was to stay. In undress\nnaval uniform, with a dirk, and holding his cap under his arm, he handed\nKutuzov a garrison report and the keys of the town. The contemptuously\nrespectful attitude of the younger men to the old man in his dotage was\nexpressed in the highest degree by the behavior of Chichagov, who knew\nof the accusations that were being directed against Kutuzov.\n\nWhen speaking to Chichagov, Kutuzov incidentally mentioned that the\nvehicles packed with china that had been captured from him at Borisov\nhad been recovered and would be restored to him.\n\n\"You mean to imply that I have nothing to eat out of.... On the\ncontrary, I can supply you with everything even if you want to give\ndinner parties,\" warmly replied Chichagov, who tried by every word he\nspoke to prove his own rectitude and therefore imagined Kutuzov to be\nanimated by the same desire.\n\nKutuzov, shrugging his shoulders, replied with his subtle penetrating\nsmile: \"I meant merely to say what I said.\"\n\nContrary to the Emperor's wish Kutuzov detained the greater part of the\narmy at Vilna. Those about him said that he became extraordinarily slack\nand physically feeble during his stay in that town. He attended to army\naffairs reluctantly, left everything to his generals, and while awaiting\nthe Emperor's arrival led a dissipated life.\n\nHaving left Petersburg on the seventh of December with his suite--Count\nTolstoy, Prince Volkonski, Arakcheev, and others--the Emperor reached\nVilna on the eleventh, and in his traveling sleigh drove straight to the\ncastle. In spite of the severe frost some hundred generals and staff\nofficers in full parade uniform stood in front of the castle, as well as\na guard of honor of the Semenov regiment.\n\nA courier who galloped to the castle in advance, in a troyka with three\nfoam-flecked horses, shouted \"Coming!\" and Konovnitsyn rushed into the\nvestibule to inform Kutuzov, who was waiting in the hall porter's little\nlodge.\n\nA minute later the old man's large stout figure in full-dress uniform,\nhis chest covered with orders and a scarf drawn round his stomach,\nwaddled out into the porch. He put on his hat with its peaks to the\nsides and, holding his gloves in his hand and walking with an effort\nsideways down the steps to the level of the street, took in his hand the\nreport he had prepared for the Emperor.\n\nThere was running to and fro and whispering; another troyka flew\nfuriously up, and then all eyes were turned on an approaching sleigh in\nwhich the figures of the Emperor and Volkonski could already be\ndescried.\n\nFrom the habit of fifty years all this had a physically agitating effect\non the old general. He carefully and hastily felt himself all over,\nreadjusted his hat, and pulling himself together drew himself up and, at\nthe very moment when the Emperor, having alighted from the sleigh,\nlifted his eyes to him, handed him the report and began speaking in his\nsmooth, ingratiating voice.\n\nThe Emperor with a rapid glance scanned Kutuzov from head to foot,\nfrowned for an instant, but immediately mastering himself went up to the\nold man, extended his arms and embraced him. And this embrace too, owing\nto a long-standing impression related to his innermost feelings, had its\nusual effect on Kutuzov and he gave a sob.\n\nThe Emperor greeted the officers and the Semenov guard, and again\npressing the old man's hand went with him into the castle.\n\nWhen alone with the field marshal the Emperor expressed his\ndissatisfaction at the slowness of the pursuit and at the mistakes made\nat Krasnoe and the Berezina, and informed him of his intentions for a\nfuture campaign abroad. Kutuzov made no rejoinder or remark. The same\nsubmissive, expressionless look with which he had listened to the\nEmperor's commands on the field of Austerlitz seven years before settled\non his face now.\n\nWhen Kutuzov came out of the study and with lowered head was crossing\nthe ballroom with his heavy waddling gait, he was arrested by someone's\nvoice saying:\n\n\"Your Serene Highness!\"\n\nKutuzov raised his head and looked for a long while into the eyes of\nCount Tolstoy, who stood before him holding a silver salver on which lay\na small object. Kutuzov seemed not to understand what was expected of\nhim.\n\nSuddenly he seemed to remember; a scarcely perceptible smile flashed\nacross his puffy face, and bowing low and respectfully he took the\nobject that lay on the salver. It was the Order of St. George of the\nFirst Class.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nNext day the field marshal gave a dinner and ball which the Emperor\nhonored by his presence. Kutuzov had received the Order of St. George of\nthe First Class and the Emperor showed him the highest honors, but\neveryone knew of the imperial dissatisfaction with him. The proprieties\nwere observed and the Emperor was the first to set that example, but\neverybody understood that the old man was blameworthy and good-for-\nnothing. When Kutuzov, conforming to a custom of Catherine's day,\nordered the standards that had been captured to be lowered at the\nEmperor's feet on his entering the ballroom, the Emperor made a wry face\nand muttered something in which some people caught the words, \"the old\ncomedian.\"\n\nThe Emperor's displeasure with Kutuzov was specially increased at Vilna\nby the fact that Kutuzov evidently could not or would not understand the\nimportance of the coming campaign.\n\nWhen on the following morning the Emperor said to the officers assembled\nabout him: \"You have not only saved Russia, you have saved Europe!\" they\nall understood that the war was not ended.\n\nKutuzov alone would not see this and openly expressed his opinion that\nno fresh war could improve the position or add to the glory of Russia,\nbut could only spoil and lower the glorious position that Russia had\ngained. He tried to prove to the Emperor the impossibility of levying\nfresh troops, spoke of the hardships already endured by the people, of\nthe possibility of failure and so forth.\n\nThis being the field marshal's frame of mind he was naturally regarded\nas merely a hindrance and obstacle to the impending war.\n\nTo avoid unpleasant encounters with the old man, the natural method was\nto do what had been done with him at Austerlitz and with Barclay at the\nbeginning of the Russian campaign--to transfer the authority to the\nEmperor himself, thus cutting the ground from under the commander in\nchief's feet without upsetting the old man by informing him of the\nchange.\n\nWith this object his staff was gradually reconstructed and its real\nstrength removed and transferred to the Emperor. Toll, Konovnitsyn, and\nErmolov received fresh appointments. Everyone spoke loudly of the field\nmarshal's great weakness and failing health.\n\nHis health had to be bad for his place to be taken away and given to\nanother. And in fact his health was poor.\n\nSo naturally, simply, and gradually--just as he had come from Turkey to\nthe Treasury in Petersburg to recruit the militia, and then to the army\nwhen he was needed there--now when his part was played out, Kutuzov's\nplace was taken by a new and necessary performer.\n\nThe war of 1812, besides its national significance dear to every Russian\nheart, was now to assume another, a European, significance.\n\nThe movement of peoples from west to east was to be succeeded by a\nmovement of peoples from east to west, and for this fresh war another\nleader was necessary, having qualities and views differing from\nKutuzov's and animated by different motives.\n\nAlexander I was as necessary for the movement of the peoples from east\nto west and for the refixing of national frontiers as Kutuzov had been\nfor the salvation and glory of Russia.\n\nKutuzov did not understand what Europe, the balance of power, or\nNapoleon meant. He could not understand it. For the representative of\nthe Russian people, after the enemy had been destroyed and Russia had\nbeen liberated and raised to the summit of her glory, there was nothing\nleft to do as a Russian. Nothing remained for the representative of the\nnational war but to die, and Kutuzov died.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nAs generally happens, Pierre did not feel the full effects of the\nphysical privation and strain he had suffered as prisoner until after\nthey were over. After his liberation he reached Orel, and on the third\nday there, when preparing to go to Kiev, he fell ill and was laid up for\nthree months. He had what the doctors termed \"bilious fever.\" But\ndespite the fact that the doctors treated him, bled him, and gave him\nmedicines to drink, he recovered.\n\nScarcely any impression was left on Pierre's mind by all that happened\nto him from the time of his rescue till his illness. He remembered only\nthe dull gray weather now rainy and now snowy, internal physical\ndistress, and pains in his feet and side. He remembered a general\nimpression of the misfortunes and sufferings of people and of being\nworried by the curiosity of officers and generals who questioned him, he\nalso remembered his difficulty in procuring a conveyance and horses, and\nabove all he remembered his incapacity to think and feel all that time.\nOn the day of his rescue he had seen the body of Petya Rostov. That same\nday he had learned that Prince Andrew, after surviving the battle of\nBorodino for more than a month had recently died in the Rostovs' house\nat Yaroslavl, and Denisov who told him this news also mentioned Helene's\ndeath, supposing that Pierre had heard of it long before. All this at\nthe time seemed merely strange to Pierre: he felt he could not grasp its\nsignificance. Just then he was only anxious to get away as quickly as\npossible from places where people were killing one another, to some\npeaceful refuge where he could recover himself, rest, and think over all\nthe strange new facts he had learned; but on reaching Orel he\nimmediately fell ill. When he came to himself after his illness he saw\nin attendance on him two of his servants, Terenty and Vaska, who had\ncome from Moscow; and also his cousin the eldest princess, who had been\nliving on his estate at Elets and hearing of his rescue and illness had\ncome to look after him.\n\nIt was only gradually during his convalescence that Pierre lost the\nimpressions he had become accustomed to during the last few months and\ngot used to the idea that no one would oblige him to go anywhere\ntomorrow, that no one would deprive him of his warm bed, and that he\nwould be sure to get his dinner, tea, and supper. But for a long time in\nhis dreams he still saw himself in the conditions of captivity. In the\nsame way little by little he came to understand the news he had been\ntold after his rescue, about the death of Prince Andrew, the death of\nhis wife, and the destruction of the French.\n\nA joyous feeling of freedom--that complete inalienable freedom natural\nto man which he had first experienced at the first halt outside Moscow--\nfilled Pierre's soul during his convalescence. He was surprised to find\nthat this inner freedom, which was independent of external conditions,\nnow had as it were an additional setting of external liberty. He was\nalone in a strange town, without acquaintances. No one demanded anything\nof him or sent him anywhere. He had all he wanted: the thought of his\nwife which had been a continual torment to him was no longer there,\nsince she was no more.\n\n\"Oh, how good! How splendid!\" said he to himself when a cleanly laid\ntable was moved up to him with savory beef tea, or when he lay down for\nthe night on a soft clean bed, or when he remembered that the French had\ngone and that his wife was no more. \"Oh, how good, how splendid!\"\n\nAnd by old habit he asked himself the question: \"Well, and what then?\nWhat am I going to do?\" And he immediately gave himself the answer:\n\"Well, I shall live. Ah, how splendid!\"\n\nThe very question that had formerly tormented him, the thing he had\ncontinually sought to find--the aim of life--no longer existed for him\nnow. That search for the aim of life had not merely disappeared\ntemporarily--he felt that it no longer existed for him and could not\npresent itself again. And this very absence of an aim gave him the\ncomplete, joyous sense of freedom which constituted his happiness at\nthis time.\n\nHe could not see an aim, for he now had faith--not faith in any kind of\nrule, or words, or ideas, but faith in an ever-living, ever-manifest\nGod. Formerly he had sought Him in aims he set himself. That search for\nan aim had been simply a search for God, and suddenly in his captivity\nhe had learned not by words or reasoning but by direct feeling what his\nnurse had told him long ago: that God is here and everywhere. In his\ncaptivity he had learned that in Karataev God was greater, more infinite\nand unfathomable than in the Architect of the Universe recognized by the\nFreemasons. He felt like a man who after straining his eyes to see into\nthe far distance finds what he sought at his very feet. All his life he\nhad looked over the heads of the men around him, when he should have\nmerely looked in front of him without straining his eyes.\n\nIn the past he had never been able to find that great inscrutable\ninfinite something. He had only felt that it must exist somewhere and\nhad looked for it. In everything near and comprehensible he had only\nwhat was limited, petty, commonplace, and senseless. He had equipped\nhimself with a mental telescope and looked into remote space, where\npetty worldliness hiding itself in misty distance had seemed to him\ngreat and infinite merely because it was not clearly seen. And such had\nEuropean life, politics, Freemasonry, philosophy, and philanthropy\nseemed to him. But even then, at moments of weakness as he had accounted\nthem, his mind had penetrated to those distances and he had there seen\nthe same pettiness, worldliness, and senselessness. Now, however, he had\nlearned to see the great, eternal, and infinite in everything, and\ntherefore--to see it and enjoy its contemplation--he naturally threw\naway the telescope through which he had till now gazed over men's heads,\nand gladly regarded the ever-changing, eternally great, unfathomable,\nand infinite life around him. And the closer he looked the more tranquil\nand happy he became. That dreadful question, \"What for?\" which had\nformerly destroyed all his mental edifices, no longer existed for him.\nTo that question, \"What for?\" a simple answer was now always ready in\nhis soul: \"Because there is a God, that God without whose will not one\nhair falls from a man's head.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nIn external ways Pierre had hardly changed at all. In appearance he was\njust what he used to be. As before he was absent-minded and seemed\noccupied not with what was before his eyes but with something special of\nhis own. The difference between his former and present self was that\nformerly when he did not grasp what lay before him or was said to him,\nhe had puckered his forehead painfully as if vainly seeking to\ndistinguish something at a distance. At present he still forgot what was\nsaid to him and still did not see what was before his eyes, but he now\nlooked with a scarcely perceptible and seemingly ironic smile at what\nwas before him and listened to what was said, though evidently seeing\nand hearing something quite different. Formerly he had appeared to be a\nkindhearted but unhappy man, and so people had been inclined to avoid\nhim. Now a smile at the joy of life always played round his lips, and\nsympathy for others, shone in his eyes with a questioning look as to\nwhether they were as contented as he was, and people felt pleased by his\npresence.\n\nPreviously he had talked a great deal, grew excited when he talked, and\nseldom listened; now he was seldom carried away in conversation and knew\nhow to listen so that people readily told him their most intimate\nsecrets.\n\nThe princess, who had never liked Pierre and had been particularly\nhostile to him since she had felt herself under obligations to him after\nthe old count's death, now after staying a short time in Orel--where she\nhad come intending to show Pierre that in spite of his ingratitude she\nconsidered it her duty to nurse him--felt to her surprise and vexation\nthat she had become fond of him. Pierre did not in any way seek her\napproval, he merely studied her with interest. Formerly she had felt\nthat he regarded her with indifference and irony, and so had shrunk into\nherself as she did with others and had shown him only the combative side\nof her nature; but now he seemed to be trying to understand the most\nintimate places of her heart, and, mistrustfully at first but afterwards\ngratefully, she let him see the hidden, kindly sides of her character.\n\nThe most cunning man could not have crept into her confidence more\nsuccessfully, evoking memories of the best times of her youth and\nshowing sympathy with them. Yet Pierre's cunning consisted simply in\nfinding pleasure in drawing out the human qualities of the embittered,\nhard, and (in her own way) proud princess.\n\n\"Yes, he is a very, very kind man when he is not under the influence of\nbad people but of people such as myself,\" thought she.\n\nHis servants too--Terenty and Vaska--in their own way noticed the change\nthat had taken place in Pierre. They considered that he had become much\n\"simpler.\" Terenty, when he had helped him undress and wished him good\nnight, often lingered with his master's boots in his hands and clothes\nover his arm, to see whether he would not start a talk. And Pierre,\nnoticing that Terenty wanted a chat, generally kept him there.\n\n\"Well, tell me... now, how did you get food?\" he would ask.\n\nAnd Terenty would begin talking of the destruction of Moscow, and of the\nold count, and would stand for a long time holding the clothes and\ntalking, or sometimes listening to Pierre's stories, and then would go\nout into the hall with a pleasant sense of intimacy with his master and\naffection for him.\n\nThe doctor who attended Pierre and visited him every day, though he\nconsidered it his duty as a doctor to pose as a man whose every moment\nwas of value to suffering humanity, would sit for hours with Pierre\ntelling him his favorite anecdotes and his observations on the\ncharacters of his patients in general, and especially of the ladies.\n\n\"It's a pleasure to talk to a man like that; he is not like our\nprovincials,\" he would say.\n\nThere were several prisoners from the French army in Orel, and the\ndoctor brought one of them, a young Italian, to see Pierre.\n\nThis officer began visiting Pierre, and the princess used to make fun of\nthe tenderness the Italian expressed for him.\n\nThe Italian seemed happy only when he could come to see Pierre, talk\nwith him, tell him about his past, his life at home, and his love, and\npour out to him his indignation against the French and especially\nagainst Napoleon.\n\n\"If all Russians are in the least like you, it is sacrilege to fight\nsuch a nation,\" he said to Pierre. \"You, who have suffered so from the\nFrench, do not even feel animosity toward them.\"\n\nPierre had evoked the passionate affection of the Italian merely by\nevoking the best side of his nature and taking a pleasure in so doing.\n\nDuring the last days of Pierre's stay in Orel his old masonic\nacquaintance Count Willarski, who had introduced him to the lodge in\n1807, came to see him. Willarski was married to a Russian heiress who\nhad a large estate in Orel province, and he occupied a temporary post in\nthe commissariat department in that town.\n\nHearing that Bezukhov was in Orel, Willarski, though they had never been\nintimate, came to him with the professions of friendship and intimacy\nthat people who meet in a desert generally express for one another.\nWillarski felt dull in Orel and was pleased to meet a man of his own\ncircle and, as he supposed, of similar interests.\n\nBut to his surprise Willarski soon noticed that Pierre had lagged much\nbehind the times, and had sunk, as he expressed it to himself, into\napathy and egotism.\n\n\"You are letting yourself go, my dear fellow,\" he said.\n\nBut for all that Willarski found it pleasanter now than it had been\nformerly to be with Pierre, and came to see him every day. To Pierre as\nhe looked at and listened to Willarski, it seemed strange to think that\nhe had been like that himself but a short time before.\n\nWillarski was a married man with a family, busy with his family affairs,\nhis wife's affairs, and his official duties. He regarded all these\noccupations as hindrances to life, and considered that they were all\ncontemptible because their aim was the welfare of himself and his\nfamily. Military, administrative, political, and masonic interests\ncontinually absorbed his attention. And Pierre, without trying to change\nthe other's views and without condemning him, but with the quiet,\njoyful, and amused smile now habitual to him, was interested in this\nstrange though very familiar phenomenon.\n\nThere was a new feature in Pierre's relations with Willarski, with the\nprincess, with the doctor, and with all the people he now met, which\ngained for him the general good will. This was his acknowledgment of the\nimpossibility of changing a man's convictions by words, and his\nrecognition of the possibility of everyone thinking, feeling, and seeing\nthings each from his own point of view. This legitimate peculiarity of\neach individual which used to excite and irritate Pierre now became a\nbasis of the sympathy he felt for, and the interest he took in, other\npeople. The difference, and sometimes complete contradiction, between\nmen's opinions and their lives, and between one man and another, pleased\nhim and drew from him an amused and gentle smile.\n\nIn practical matters Pierre unexpectedly felt within himself a center of\ngravity he had previously lacked. Formerly all pecuniary questions,\nespecially requests for money to which, as an extremely wealthy man, he\nwas very exposed, produced in him a state of hopeless agitation and\nperplexity. \"To give or not to give?\" he had asked himself. \"I have it\nand he needs it. But someone else needs it still more. Who needs it\nmost? And perhaps they are both impostors?\" In the old days he had been\nunable to find a way out of all these surmises and had given to all who\nasked as long as he had anything to give. Formerly he had been in a\nsimilar state of perplexity with regard to every question concerning his\nproperty, when one person advised one thing and another something else.\n\nNow to his surprise he found that he no longer felt either doubt or\nperplexity about these questions. There was now within him a judge who\nby some rule unknown to him decided what should or should not be done.\n\nHe was as indifferent as heretofore to money matters, but now he felt\ncertain of what ought and what ought not to be done. The first time he\nhad recourse to his new judge was when a French prisoner, a colonel,\ncame to him and, after talking a great deal about his exploits,\nconcluded by making what amounted to a demand that Pierre should give\nhim four thousand francs to send to his wife and children. Pierre\nrefused without the least difficulty or effort, and was afterwards\nsurprised how simple and easy had been what used to appear so\ninsurmountably difficult. At the same time that he refused the colonel's\ndemand he made up his mind that he must have recourse to artifice when\nleaving Orel, to induce the Italian officer to accept some money of\nwhich he was evidently in need. A further proof to Pierre of his own\nmore settled outlook on practical matters was furnished by his decision\nwith regard to his wife's debts and to the rebuilding of his houses in\nand near Moscow.\n\nHis head steward came to him at Orel and Pierre reckoned up with him his\ndiminished income. The burning of Moscow had cost him, according to the\nhead steward's calculation, about two million rubles.\n\nTo console Pierre for these losses the head steward gave him an estimate\nshowing that despite these losses his income would not be diminished but\nwould even be increased if he refused to pay his wife's debts which he\nwas under no obligation to meet, and did not rebuild his Moscow house\nand the country house on his Moscow estate, which had cost him eighty\nthousand rubles a year and brought in nothing.\n\n\"Yes, of course that's true,\" said Pierre with a cheerful smile. \"I\ndon't need all that at all. By being ruined I have become much richer.\"\n\nBut in January Savelich came from Moscow and gave him an account of the\nstate of things there, and spoke of the estimate an architect had made\nof the cost of rebuilding the town and country houses, speaking of this\nas of a settled matter. About the same time he received letters from\nPrince Vasili and other Petersburg acquaintances speaking of his wife's\ndebts. And Pierre decided that the steward's proposals which had so\npleased him were wrong and that he must go to Petersburg and settle his\nwife's affairs and must rebuild in Moscow. Why this was necessary he did\nnot know, but he knew for certain that it was necessary. His income\nwould be reduced by three fourths, but he felt it must be done.\n\nWillarski was going to Moscow and they agreed to travel together.\n\nDuring the whole time of his convalescence in Orel Pierre had\nexperienced a feeling of joy, freedom, and life; but when during his\njourney he found himself in the open world and saw hundreds of new\nfaces, that feeling was intensified. Throughout his journey he felt like\na schoolboy on holiday. Everyone--the stagecoach driver, the post-house\noverseers, the peasants on the roads and in the villages--had a new\nsignificance for him. The presence and remarks of Willarski who\ncontinually deplored the ignorance and poverty of Russia and its\nbackwardness compared with Europe only heightened Pierre's pleasure.\nWhere Willarski saw deadness Pierre saw an extraordinary strength and\nvitality--the strength which in that vast space amid the snows\nmaintained the life of this original, peculiar, and unique people. He\ndid not contradict Willarski and even seemed to agree with him--an\napparent agreement being the simplest way to avoid discussions that\ncould lead to nothing--and he smiled joyfully as he listened to him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nIt would be difficult to explain why and whither ants whose heap has\nbeen destroyed are hurrying: some from the heap dragging bits of\nrubbish, larvae, and corpses, others back to the heap, or why they\njostle, overtake one another, and fight, and it would be equally\ndifficult to explain what caused the Russians after the departure of the\nFrench to throng to the place that had formerly been Moscow. But when we\nwatch the ants round their ruined heap, the tenacity, energy, and\nimmense number of the delving insects prove that despite the destruction\nof the heap, something indestructible, which though intangible is the\nreal strength of the colony, still exists; and similarly, though in\nMoscow in the month of October there was no government and no churches,\nshrines, riches, or houses--it was still the Moscow it had been in\nAugust. All was destroyed, except something intangible yet powerful and\nindestructible.\n\nThe motives of those who thronged from all sides to Moscow after it had\nbeen cleared of the enemy were most diverse and personal, and at first\nfor the most part savage and brutal. One motive only they all had in\ncommon: a desire to get to the place that had been called Moscow, to\napply their activities there.\n\nWithin a week Moscow already had fifteen thousand inhabitants, in a\nfortnight twenty-five thousand, and so on. By the autumn of 1813 the\nnumber, ever increasing and increasing, exceeded what it had been in\n1812.\n\nThe first Russians to enter Moscow were the Cossacks of Wintzingerode's\ndetachment, peasants from the adjacent villages, and residents who had\nfled from Moscow and had been hiding in its vicinity. The Russians who\nentered Moscow, finding it plundered, plundered it in their turn. They\ncontinued what the French had begun. Trains of peasant carts came to\nMoscow to carry off to the villages what had been abandoned in the\nruined houses and the streets. The Cossacks carried off what they could\nto their camps, and the householders seized all they could find in other\nhouses and moved it to their own, pretending that it was their property.\n\nBut the first plunderers were followed by a second and a third\ncontingent, and with increasing numbers plundering became more and more\ndifficult and assumed more definite forms.\n\nThe French found Moscow abandoned but with all the organizations of\nregular life, with diverse branches of commerce and craftsmanship, with\nluxury, and governmental and religious institutions. These forms were\nlifeless but still existed. There were bazaars, shops, warehouses,\nmarket stalls, granaries--for the most part still stocked with goods--\nand there were factories and workshops, palaces and wealthy houses\nfilled with luxuries, hospitals, prisons, government offices, churches,\nand cathedrals. The longer the French remained the more these forms of\ntown life perished, until finally all was merged into one confused,\nlifeless scene of plunder.\n\nThe more the plundering by the French continued, the more both the\nwealth of Moscow and the strength of its plunderers was destroyed. But\nplundering by the Russians, with which the reoccupation of the city\nbegan, had an opposite effect: the longer it continued and the greater\nthe number of people taking part in it the more rapidly was the wealth\nof the city and its regular life restored.\n\nBesides the plunderers, very various people, some drawn by curiosity,\nsome by official duties, some by self-interest--house owners, clergy,\nofficials of all kinds, tradesmen, artisans, and peasants--streamed into\nMoscow as blood flows to the heart.\n\nWithin a week the peasants who came with empty carts to carry off\nplunder were stopped by the authorities and made to cart the corpses out\nof the town. Other peasants, having heard of their comrades'\ndiscomfiture, came to town bringing rye, oats, and hay, and beat down\none another's prices to below what they had been in former days. Gangs\nof carpenters hoping for high pay arrived in Moscow every day, and on\nall sides logs were being hewn, new houses built, and old, charred ones\nrepaired. Tradesmen began trading in booths. Cookshops and taverns were\nopened in partially burned houses. The clergy resumed the services in\nmany churches that had not been burned. Donors contributed Church\nproperty that had been stolen. Government clerks set up their baize-\ncovered tables and their pigeonholes of documents in small rooms. The\nhigher authorities and the police organized the distribution of goods\nleft behind by the French. The owners of houses in which much property\nhad been left, brought there from other houses, complained of the\ninjustice of taking everything to the Faceted Palace in the Kremlin;\nothers insisted that as the French had gathered things from different\nhouses into this or that house, it would be unfair to allow its owner to\nkeep all that was found there. They abused the police and bribed them,\nmade out estimates at ten times their value for government stores that\nhad perished in the fire, and demanded relief. And Count Rostopchin\nwrote proclamations.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nAt the end of January Pierre went to Moscow and stayed in an annex of\nhis house which had not been burned. He called on Count Rostopchin and\non some acquaintances who were back in Moscow, and he intended to leave\nfor Petersburg two days later. Everybody was celebrating the victory,\neverything was bubbling with life in the ruined but reviving city.\nEveryone was pleased to see Pierre, everyone wished to meet him, and\neveryone questioned him about what he had seen. Pierre felt particularly\nwell disposed toward them all, but was now instinctively on his guard\nfor fear of binding himself in any way. To all questions put to him--\nwhether important or quite trifling--such as: Where would he live? Was\nhe going to rebuild? When was he going to Petersburg and would he mind\ntaking a parcel for someone?--he replied: \"Yes, perhaps,\" or, \"I think\nso,\" and so on.\n\nHe had heard that the Rostovs were at Kostroma but the thought of\nNatasha seldom occurred to him. If it did it was only as a pleasant\nmemory of the distant past. He felt himself not only free from social\nobligations but also from that feeling which, it seemed to him, he had\naroused in himself.\n\nOn the third day after his arrival he heard from the Drubetskoys that\nPrincess Mary was in Moscow. The death, sufferings, and last days of\nPrince Andrew had often occupied Pierre's thoughts and now recurred to\nhim with fresh vividness. Having heard at dinner that Princess Mary was\nin Moscow and living in her house--which had not been burned--in\nVozdvizhenka Street, he drove that same evening to see her.\n\nOn his way to the house Pierre kept thinking of Prince Andrew, of their\nfriendship, of his various meetings with him, and especially of the last\none at Borodino.\n\n\"Is it possible that he died in the bitter frame of mind he was then in?\nIs it possible that the meaning of life was not disclosed to him before\nhe died?\" thought Pierre. He recalled Karataev and his death and\ninvoluntarily began to compare these two men, so different, and yet so\nsimilar in that they had both lived and both died and in the love he\nfelt for both of them.\n\nPierre drove up to the house of the old prince in a most serious mood.\nThe house had escaped the fire; it showed signs of damage but its\ngeneral aspect was unchanged. The old footman, who met Pierre with a\nstern face as if wishing to make the visitor feel that the absence of\nthe old prince had not disturbed the order of things in the house,\ninformed him that the princess had gone to her own apartments, and that\nshe received on Sundays.\n\n\"Announce me. Perhaps she will see me,\" said Pierre.\n\n\"Yes, sir,\" said the man. \"Please step into the portrait gallery.\"\n\nA few minutes later the footman returned with Dessalles, who brought\nword from the princess that she would be very glad to see Pierre if he\nwould excuse her want of ceremony and come upstairs to her apartment.\n\nIn a rather low room lit by one candle sat the princess and with her\nanother person dressed in black. Pierre remembered that the princess\nalways had lady companions, but who they were and what they were like he\nnever knew or remembered. \"This must be one of her companions,\" he\nthought, glancing at the lady in the black dress.\n\nThe princess rose quickly to meet him and held out her hand.\n\n\"Yes,\" she said, looking at his altered face after he had kissed her\nhand, \"so this is how we meet again. He spoke of you even at the very\nlast,\" she went on, turning her eyes from Pierre to her companion with a\nshyness that surprised him for an instant.\n\n\"I was so glad to hear of your safety. It was the first piece of good\nnews we had received for a long time.\"\n\nAgain the princess glanced round at her companion with even more\nuneasiness in her manner and was about to add something, but Pierre\ninterrupted her.\n\n\"Just imagine--I knew nothing about him!\" said he. \"I thought he had\nbeen killed. All I know I heard at second hand from others. I only know\nthat he fell in with the Rostovs.... What a strange coincidence!\"\n\nPierre spoke rapidly and with animation. He glanced once at the\ncompanion's face, saw her attentive and kindly gaze fixed on him, and,\nas often happens when one is talking, felt somehow that this companion\nin the black dress was a good, kind, excellent creature who would not\nhinder his conversing freely with Princess Mary.\n\nBut when he mentioned the Rostovs, Princess Mary's face expressed still\ngreater embarrassment. She again glanced rapidly from Pierre's face to\nthat of the lady in the black dress and said:\n\n\"Do you really not recognize her?\"\n\nPierre looked again at the companion's pale, delicate face with its\nblack eyes and peculiar mouth, and something near to him, long forgotten\nand more than sweet, looked at him from those attentive eyes.\n\n\"But no, it can't be!\" he thought. \"This stern, thin, pale face that\nlooks so much older! It cannot be she. It merely reminds me of her.\" But\nat that moment Princess Mary said, \"Natasha!\" And with difficulty,\neffort, and stress, like the opening of a door grown rusty on its\nhinges, a smile appeared on the face with the attentive eyes, and from\nthat opening door came a breath of fragrance which suffused Pierre with\na happiness he had long forgotten and of which he had not even been\nthinking--especially at that moment. It suffused him, seized him, and\nenveloped him completely. When she smiled doubt was no longer possible,\nit was Natasha and he loved her.\n\nAt that moment Pierre involuntarily betrayed to her, to Princess Mary,\nand above all to himself, a secret of which he himself had been unaware.\nHe flushed joyfully yet with painful distress. He tried to hide his\nagitation. But the more he tried to hide it the more clearly--clearer\nthan any words could have done--did he betray to himself, to her, and to\nPrincess Mary that he loved her.\n\n\"No, it's only the unexpectedness of it,\" thought Pierre. But as soon as\nhe tried to continue the conversation he had begun with Princess Mary he\nagain glanced at Natasha, and a still-deeper flush suffused his face and\na still-stronger agitation of mingled joy and fear seized his soul. He\nbecame confused in his speech and stopped in the middle of what he was\nsaying.\n\nPierre had failed to notice Natasha because he did not at all expect to\nsee her there, but he had failed to recognize her because the change in\nher since he last saw her was immense. She had grown thin and pale, but\nthat was not what made her unrecognizable; she was unrecognizable at the\nmoment he entered because on that face whose eyes had always shone with\na suppressed smile of the joy of life, now when he first entered and\nglanced at her there was not the least shadow of a smile: only her eyes\nwere kindly attentive and sadly interrogative.\n\nPierre's confusion was not reflected by any confusion on Natasha's part,\nbut only by the pleasure that just perceptibly lit up her whole face.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\n\"She has come to stay with me,\" said Princess Mary. \"The count and\ncountess will be here in a few days. The countess is in a dreadful\nstate; but it was necessary for Natasha herself to see a doctor. They\ninsisted on her coming with me.\"\n\n\"Yes, is there a family free from sorrow now?\" said Pierre, addressing\nNatasha. \"You know it happened the very day we were rescued. I saw him.\nWhat a delightful boy he was!\"\n\nNatasha looked at him, and by way of answer to his words her eyes\nwidened and lit up.\n\n\"What can one say or think of as a consolation?\" said Pierre. \"Nothing!\nWhy had such a splendid boy, so full of life, to die?\"\n\n\"Yes, in these days it would be hard to live without faith...\" remarked\nPrincess Mary.\n\n\"Yes, yes, that is really true,\" Pierre hastily interrupted her.\n\n\"Why is it true?\" Natasha asked, looking attentively into Pierre's eyes.\n\n\"How can you ask why?\" said Princess Mary. \"The thought alone of what\nawaits...\"\n\nNatasha without waiting for Princess Mary to finish again looked\ninquiringly at Pierre.\n\n\"And because,\" Pierre continued, \"only one who believes that there is a\nGod ruling us can bear a loss such as hers and... yours.\"\n\nNatasha had already opened her mouth to speak but suddenly stopped.\nPierre hurriedly turned away from her and again addressed Princess Mary,\nasking about his friend's last days.\n\nPierre's confusion had now almost vanished, but at the same time he felt\nthat his freedom had also completely gone. He felt that there was now a\njudge of his every word and action whose judgment mattered more to him\nthan that of all the rest of the world. As he spoke now he was\nconsidering what impression his words would make on Natasha. He did not\npurposely say things to please her, but whatever he was saying he\nregarded from her standpoint.\n\nPrincess Mary--reluctantly as is usual in such cases--began telling of\nthe condition in which she had found Prince Andrew. But Pierre's face\nquivering with emotion, his questions and his eager restless expression,\ngradually compelled her to go into details which she feared to recall\nfor her own sake.\n\n\"Yes, yes, and so...?\" Pierre kept saying as he leaned toward her with\nhis whole body and eagerly listened to her story. \"Yes, yes... so he\ngrew tranquil and softened? With all his soul he had always sought one\nthing--to be perfectly good--so he could not be afraid of death. The\nfaults he had--if he had any--were not of his making. So he did\nsoften?... What a happy thing that he saw you again,\" he added, suddenly\nturning to Natasha and looking at her with eyes full of tears.\n\nNatasha's face twitched. She frowned and lowered her eyes for a moment.\nShe hesitated for an instant whether to speak or not.\n\n\"Yes, that was happiness,\" she then said in her quiet voice with its\ndeep chest notes. \"For me it certainly was happiness.\" She paused. \"And\nhe... he... he said he was wishing for it at the very moment I entered\nthe room....\"\n\nNatasha's voice broke. She blushed, pressed her clasped hands on her\nknees, and then controlling herself with an evident effort lifted her\nhead and began to speak rapidly.\n\n\"We knew nothing of it when we started from Moscow. I did not dare to\nask about him. Then suddenly Sonya told me he was traveling with us. I\nhad no idea and could not imagine what state he was in, all I wanted was\nto see him and be with him,\" she said, trembling, and breathing quickly.\n\nAnd not letting them interrupt her she went on to tell what she had\nnever yet mentioned to anyone--all she had lived through during those\nthree weeks of their journey and life at Yaroslavl.\n\nPierre listened to her with lips parted and eyes fixed upon her full of\ntears. As he listened he did not think of Prince Andrew, nor of death,\nnor of what she was telling. He listened to her and felt only pity for\nher, for what she was suffering now while she was speaking.\n\nPrincess Mary, frowning in her effort to hold back her tears, sat beside\nNatasha, and heard for the first time the story of those last days of\nher brother's and Natasha's love.\n\nEvidently Natasha needed to tell that painful yet joyful tale.\n\nShe spoke, mingling most trifling details with the intimate secrets of\nher soul, and it seemed as if she could never finish. Several times she\nrepeated the same thing twice.\n\nDessalles' voice was heard outside the door asking whether little\nNicholas might come in to say good night.\n\n\"Well, that's all--everything,\" said Natasha.\n\nShe got up quickly just as Nicholas entered, almost ran to the door\nwhich was hidden by curtains, struck her head against it, and rushed\nfrom the room with a moan either of pain or sorrow.\n\nPierre gazed at the door through which she had disappeared and did not\nunderstand why he suddenly felt all alone in the world.\n\nPrincess Mary roused him from his abstraction by drawing his attention\nto her nephew who had entered the room.\n\nAt that moment of emotional tenderness young Nicholas' face, which\nresembled his father's, affected Pierre so much that when he had kissed\nthe boy he got up quickly, took out his handkerchief, and went to the\nwindow. He wished to take leave of Princess Mary, but she would not let\nhim go.\n\n\"No, Natasha and I sometimes don't go to sleep till after two, so please\ndon't go. I will order supper. Go downstairs, we will come immediately.\"\n\nBefore Pierre left the room Princess Mary told him: \"This is the first\ntime she has talked of him like that.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVII\n\nPierre was shown into the large, brightly lit dining room; a few minutes\nlater he heard footsteps and Princess Mary entered with Natasha. Natasha\nwas calm, though a severe and grave expression had again settled on her\nface. They all three of them now experienced that feeling of awkwardness\nwhich usually follows after a serious and heartfelt talk. It is\nimpossible to go back to the same conversation, to talk of trifles is\nawkward, and yet the desire to speak is there and silence seems like\naffectation. They went silently to table. The footmen drew back the\nchairs and pushed them up again. Pierre unfolded his cold table napkin\nand, resolving to break the silence, looked at Natasha and at Princess\nMary. They had evidently both formed the same resolution; the eyes of\nboth shone with satisfaction and a confession that besides sorrow life\nalso has joy.\n\n\"Do you take vodka, Count?\" asked Princess Mary, and those words\nsuddenly banished the shadows of the past. \"Now tell us about yourself,\"\nsaid she. \"One hears such improbable wonders about you.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Pierre with the smile of mild irony now habitual to him.\n\"They even tell me wonders I myself never dreamed of! Mary Abramovna\ninvited me to her house and kept telling me what had happened, or ought\nto have happened, to me. Stepan Stepanych also instructed me how I ought\nto tell of my experiences. In general I have noticed that it is very\neasy to be an interesting man (I am an interesting man now); people\ninvite me out and tell me all about myself.\"\n\nNatasha smiled and was on the point of speaking.\n\n\"We have been told,\" Princess Mary interrupted her, \"that you lost two\nmillions in Moscow. Is that true?\"\n\n\"But I am three times as rich as before,\" returned Pierre.\n\nThough the position was now altered by his decision to pay his wife's\ndebts and to rebuild his houses, Pierre still maintained that he had\nbecome three times as rich as before.\n\n\"What I have certainly gained is freedom,\" he began seriously, but did\nnot continue, noticing that this theme was too egotistic.\n\n\"And are you building?\"\n\n\"Yes. Savelich says I must!\"\n\n\"Tell me, you did not know of the countess' death when you decided to\nremain in Moscow?\" asked Princess Mary and immediately blushed, noticing\nthat her question, following his mention of freedom, ascribed to his\nwords a meaning he had perhaps not intended.\n\n\"No,\" answered Pierre, evidently not considering awkward the meaning\nPrincess Mary had given to his words. \"I heard of it in Orel and you\ncannot imagine how it shocked me. We were not an exemplary couple,\" he\nadded quickly, glancing at Natasha and noticing on her face curiosity as\nto how he would speak of his wife, \"but her death shocked me terribly.\nWhen two people quarrel they are always both in fault, and one's own\nguilt suddenly becomes terribly serious when the other is no longer\nalive. And then such a death... without friends and without consolation!\nI am very, very sorry for her,\" he concluded, and was pleased to notice\na look of glad approval on Natasha's face.\n\n\"Yes, and so you are once more an eligible bachelor,\" said Princess\nMary.\n\nPierre suddenly flushed crimson and for a long time tried not to look at\nNatasha. When he ventured to glance her way again her face was cold,\nstern, and he fancied even contemptuous.\n\n\"And did you really see and speak to Napoleon, as we have been told?\"\nsaid Princess Mary.\n\nPierre laughed.\n\n\"No, not once! Everybody seems to imagine that being taken prisoner\nmeans being Napoleon's guest. Not only did I never see him but I heard\nnothing about him--I was in much lower company!\"\n\nSupper was over, and Pierre who at first declined to speak about his\ncaptivity was gradually led on to do so.\n\n\"But it's true that you remained in Moscow to kill Napoleon?\" Natasha\nasked with a slight smile. \"I guessed it then when we met at the\nSukharev tower, do you remember?\"\n\nPierre admitted that it was true, and from that was gradually led by\nPrincess Mary's questions and especially by Natasha's into giving a\ndetailed account of his adventures.\n\nAt first he spoke with the amused and mild irony now customary with him\ntoward everybody and especially toward himself, but when he came to\ndescribe the horrors and sufferings he had witnessed he was\nunconsciously carried away and began speaking with the suppressed\nemotion of a man re-experiencing in recollection strong impressions he\nhas lived through.\n\nPrincess Mary with a gentle smile looked now at Pierre and now at\nNatasha. In the whole narrative she saw only Pierre and his goodness.\nNatasha, leaning on her elbow, the expression of her face constantly\nchanging with the narrative, watched Pierre with an attention that never\nwandered--evidently herself experiencing all that he described. Not only\nher look, but her exclamations and the brief questions she put, showed\nPierre that she understood just what he wished to convey. It was clear\nthat she understood not only what he said but also what he wished to,\nbut could not, express in words. The account Pierre gave of the incident\nwith the child and the woman for protecting whom he was arrested was\nthis: \"It was an awful sight--children abandoned, some in the flames...\nOne was snatched out before my eyes... and there were women who had\ntheir things snatched off and their earrings torn out...\" he flushed and\ngrew confused. \"Then a patrol arrived and all the men--all those who\nwere not looting, that is--were arrested, and I among them.\"\n\n\"I am sure you're not telling us everything; I am sure you did\nsomething...\" said Natasha and pausing added, \"something fine?\"\n\nPierre continued. When he spoke of the execution he wanted to pass over\nthe horrible details, but Natasha insisted that he should not omit\nanything.\n\nPierre began to tell about Karataev, but paused. By this time he had\nrisen from the table and was pacing the room, Natasha following him with\nher eyes. Then he added:\n\n\"No, you can't understand what I learned from that illiterate man--that\nsimple fellow.\"\n\n\"Yes, yes, go on!\" said Natasha. \"Where is he?\"\n\n\"They killed him almost before my eyes.\"\n\nAnd Pierre, his voice trembling continually, went on to tell of the last\ndays of their retreat, of Karataev's illness and his death.\n\nHe told of his adventures as he had never yet recalled them. He now, as\nit were, saw a new meaning in all he had gone through. Now that he was\ntelling it all to Natasha he experienced that pleasure which a man has\nwhen women listen to him--not clever women who when listening either try\nto remember what they hear to enrich their minds and when opportunity\noffers to retell it, or who wish to adopt it to some thought of their\nown and promptly contribute their own clever comments prepared in their\nlittle mental workshop--but the pleasure given by real women gifted with\na capacity to select and absorb the very best a man shows of himself.\nNatasha without knowing it was all attention: she did not lose a word,\nno single quiver in Pierre's voice, no look, no twitch of a muscle in\nhis face, nor a single gesture. She caught the unfinished word in its\nflight and took it straight into her open heart, divining the secret\nmeaning of all Pierre's mental travail.\n\nPrincess Mary understood his story and sympathized with him, but she now\nsaw something else that absorbed all her attention. She saw the\npossibility of love and happiness between Natasha and Pierre, and the\nfirst thought of this filled her heart with gladness.\n\nIt was three o'clock in the morning. The footmen came in with sad and\nstern faces to change the candles, but no one noticed them.\n\nPierre finished his story. Natasha continued to look at him intently\nwith bright, attentive, and animated eyes, as if trying to understand\nsomething more which he had perhaps left untold. Pierre in shamefaced\nand happy confusion glanced occasionally at her, and tried to think what\nto say next to introduce a fresh subject. Princess Mary was silent. It\noccurred to none of them that it was three o'clock and time to go to\nbed.\n\n\"People speak of misfortunes and sufferings,\" remarked Pierre, \"but if\nat this moment I were asked: 'Would you rather be what you were before\nyou were taken prisoner, or go through all this again?' then for\nheaven's sake let me again have captivity and horseflesh! We imagine\nthat when we are thrown out of our usual ruts all is lost, but it is\nonly then that what is new and good begins. While there is life there is\nhappiness. There is much, much before us. I say this to you,\" he added,\nturning to Natasha.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" she said, answering something quite different. \"I too should\nwish nothing but to relive it all from the beginning.\"\n\nPierre looked intently at her.\n\n\"Yes, and nothing more,\" said Natasha.\n\n\"It's not true, not true!\" cried Pierre. \"I am not to blame for being\nalive and wishing to live--nor you either.\"\n\nSuddenly Natasha bent her head, covered her face with her hands, and\nbegan to cry.\n\n\"What is it, Natasha?\" said Princess Mary.\n\n\"Nothing, nothing.\" She smiled at Pierre through her tears. \"Good night!\nIt is time for bed.\"\n\nPierre rose and took his leave.\n\nPrincess Mary and Natasha met as usual in the bedroom. They talked of\nwhat Pierre had told them. Princess Mary did not express her opinion of\nPierre nor did Natasha speak of him.\n\n\"Well, good night, Mary!\" said Natasha. \"Do you know, I am often afraid\nthat by not speaking of him\" (she meant Prince Andrew) \"for fear of not\ndoing justice to our feelings, we forget him.\"\n\nPrincess Mary sighed deeply and thereby acknowledged the justice of\nNatasha's remark, but she did not express agreement in words.\n\n\"Is it possible to forget?\" said she.\n\n\"It did me so much good to tell all about it today. It was hard and\npainful, but good, very good!\" said Natasha. \"I am sure he really loved\nhim. That is why I told him... Was it all right?\" she added, suddenly\nblushing.\n\n\"To tell Pierre? Oh, yes. What a splendid man he is!\" said Princess\nMary.\n\n\"Do you know, Mary...\" Natasha suddenly said with a mischievous smile\nsuch as Princess Mary had not seen on her face for a long time, \"he has\nsomehow grown so clean, smooth, and fresh--as if he had just come out of\na Russian bath; do you understand? Out of a moral bath. Isn't it true?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" replied Princess Mary. \"He has greatly improved.\"\n\n\"With a short coat and his hair cropped; just as if, well, just as if he\nhad come straight from the bath... Papa used to...\"\n\n\"I understand why he\" (Prince Andrew) \"liked no one so much as him,\"\nsaid Princess Mary.\n\n\"Yes, and yet he is quite different. They say men are friends when they\nare quite different. That must be true. Really he is quite unlike him--\nin everything.\"\n\n\"Yes, but he's wonderful.\"\n\n\"Well, good night,\" said Natasha.\n\nAnd the same mischievous smile lingered for a long time on her face as\nif it had been forgotten there.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVIII\n\nIt was a long time before Pierre could fall asleep that night. He paced\nup and down his room, now turning his thoughts on a difficult problem\nand frowning, now suddenly shrugging his shoulders and wincing, and now\nsmiling happily.\n\nHe was thinking of Prince Andrew, of Natasha, and of their love, at one\nmoment jealous of her past, then reproaching himself for that feeling.\nIt was already six in the morning and he still paced up and down the\nroom.\n\n\"Well, what's to be done if it cannot be avoided? What's to be done?\nEvidently it has to be so,\" said he to himself, and hastily undressing\nhe got into bed, happy and agitated but free from hesitation or\nindecision.\n\n\"Strange and impossible as such happiness seems, I must do everything\nthat she and I may be man and wife,\" he told himself.\n\nA few days previously Pierre had decided to go to Petersburg on the\nFriday. When he awoke on the Thursday, Savelich came to ask him about\npacking for the journey.\n\n\"What, to Petersburg? What is Petersburg? Who is there in Petersburg?\"\nhe asked involuntarily, though only to himself. \"Oh, yes, long ago\nbefore this happened I did for some reason mean to go to Petersburg,\" he\nreflected. \"Why? But perhaps I shall go. What a good fellow he is and\nhow attentive, and how he remembers everything,\" he thought, looking at\nSavelich's old face, \"and what a pleasant smile he has!\"\n\n\"Well, Savelich, do you still not wish to accept your freedom?\" Pierre\nasked him.\n\n\"What's the good of freedom to me, your excellency? We lived under the\nlate count--the kingdom of heaven be his!--and we have lived under you\ntoo, without ever being wronged.\"\n\n\"And your children?\"\n\n\"The children will live just the same. With such masters one can live.\"\n\n\"But what about my heirs?\" said Pierre. \"Supposing I suddenly marry...\nit might happen,\" he added with an involuntary smile.\n\n\"If I may take the liberty, your excellency, it would be a good thing.\"\n\n\"How easy he thinks it,\" thought Pierre. \"He doesn't know how terrible\nit is and how dangerous. Too soon or too late... it is terrible!\"\n\n\"So what are your orders? Are you starting tomorrow?\" asked Savelich.\n\n\"No, I'll put it off for a bit. I'll tell you later. You must forgive\nthe trouble I have put you to,\" said Pierre, and seeing Savelich smile,\nhe thought: \"But how strange it is that he should not know that now\nthere is no Petersburg for me, and that that must be settled first of\nall! But probably he knows it well enough and is only pretending. Shall\nI have a talk with him and see what he thinks?\" Pierre reflected. \"No,\nanother time.\"\n\nAt breakfast Pierre told the princess, his cousin, that he had been to\nsee Princess Mary the day before and had there met--\"Whom do you think?\nNatasha Rostova!\"\n\nThe princess seemed to see nothing more extraordinary in that than if he\nhad seen Anna Semenovna.\n\n\"Do you know her?\" asked Pierre.\n\n\"I have seen the princess,\" she replied. \"I heard that they were\narranging a match for her with young Rostov. It would be a very good\nthing for the Rostovs, they are said to be utterly ruined.\"\n\n\"No; I mean do you know Natasha Rostova?\"\n\n\"I heard about that affair of hers at the time. It was a great pity.\"\n\n\"No, she either doesn't understand or is pretending,\" thought Pierre.\n\"Better not say anything to her either.\"\n\nThe princess too had prepared provisions for Pierre's journey.\n\n\"How kind they all are,\" thought Pierre. \"What is surprising is that\nthey should trouble about these things now when it can no longer be of\ninterest to them. And all for me!\"\n\nOn the same day the Chief of Police came to Pierre, inviting him to send\na representative to the Faceted Palace to recover things that were to be\nreturned to their owners that day.\n\n\"And this man too,\" thought Pierre, looking into the face of the Chief\nof Police. \"What a fine, good-looking officer and how kind. Fancy\nbothering about such trifles now! And they actually say he is not honest\nand takes bribes. What nonsense! Besides, why shouldn't he take bribes?\nThat's the way he was brought up, and everybody does it. But what a\nkind, pleasant face and how he smiles as he looks at me.\"\n\nPierre went to Princess Mary's to dinner.\n\nAs he drove through the streets past the houses that had been burned\ndown, he was surprised by the beauty of those ruins. The picturesqueness\nof the chimney stacks and tumble-down walls of the burned-out quarters\nof the town, stretching out and concealing one another, reminded him of\nthe Rhine and the Colosseum. The cabmen he met and their passengers, the\ncarpenters cutting the timber for new houses with axes, the women\nhawkers, and the shopkeepers, all looked at him with cheerful beaming\neyes that seemed to say: \"Ah, there he is! Let's see what will come of\nit!\"\n\nAt the entrance to Princess Mary's house Pierre felt doubtful whether he\nhad really been there the night before and really seen Natasha and\ntalked to her. \"Perhaps I imagined it; perhaps I shall go in and find no\none there.\" But he had hardly entered the room before he felt her\npresence with his whole being by the loss of his sense of freedom. She\nwas in the same black dress with soft folds and her hair was done the\nsame way as the day before, yet she was quite different. Had she been\nlike this when he entered the day before he could not for a moment have\nfailed to recognize her.\n\nShe was as he had known her almost as a child and later on as Prince\nAndrew's fiancee. A bright questioning light shone in her eyes, and on\nher face was a friendly and strangely roguish expression.\n\nPierre dined with them and would have spent the whole evening there, but\nPrincess Mary was going to vespers and Pierre left the house with her.\n\nNext day he came early, dined, and stayed the whole evening. Though\nPrincess Mary and Natasha were evidently glad to see their visitor and\nthough all Pierre's interest was now centered in that house, by the\nevening they had talked over everything and the conversation passed from\none trivial topic to another and repeatedly broke off. He stayed so long\nthat Princess Mary and Natasha exchanged glances, evidently wondering\nwhen he would go. Pierre noticed this but could not go. He felt uneasy\nand embarrassed, but sat on because he simply could not get up and take\nhis leave.\n\nPrincess Mary, foreseeing no end to this, rose first, and complaining of\na headache began to say good night.\n\n\"So you are going to Petersburg tomorrow?\" she asked.\n\n\"No, I am not going,\" Pierre replied hastily, in a surprised tone and as\nthough offended. \"Yes... no... to Petersburg? Tomorrow--but I won't say\ngood-by yet. I will call round in case you have any commissions for me,\"\nsaid he, standing before Princess Mary and turning red, but not taking\nhis departure.\n\nNatasha gave him her hand and went out. Princess Mary on the other hand\ninstead of going away sank into an armchair, and looked sternly and\nintently at him with her deep, radiant eyes. The weariness she had\nplainly shown before had now quite passed off. With a deep and long-\ndrawn sigh she seemed to be prepared for a lengthy talk.\n\nWhen Natasha left the room Pierre's confusion and awkwardness\nimmediately vanished and were replaced by eager excitement. He quickly\nmoved an armchair toward Princess Mary.\n\n\"Yes, I wanted to tell you,\" said he, answering her look as if she had\nspoken. \"Princess, help me! What am I to do? Can I hope? Princess, my\ndear friend, listen! I know it all. I know I am not worthy of her, I\nknow it's impossible to speak of it now. But I want to be a brother to\nher. No, not that, I don't, I can't...\"\n\nHe paused and rubbed his face and eyes with his hands.\n\n\"Well,\" he went on with an evident effort at self-control and coherence.\n\"I don't know when I began to love her, but I have loved her and her\nalone all my life, and I love her so that I cannot imagine life without\nher. I cannot propose to her at present, but the thought that perhaps\nshe might someday be my wife and that I may be missing that\npossibility... that possibility... is terrible. Tell me, can I hope?\nTell me what I am to do, dear princess!\" he added after a pause, and\ntouched her hand as she did not reply.\n\n\"I am thinking of what you have told me,\" answered Princess Mary. \"This\nis what I will say. You are right that to speak to her of love at\npresent...\"\n\nPrincess Mary stopped. She was going to say that to speak of love was\nimpossible, but she stopped because she had seen by the sudden change in\nNatasha two days before that she would not only not be hurt if Pierre\nspoke of his love, but that it was the very thing she wished for.\n\n\"To speak to her now wouldn't do,\" said the princess all the same.\n\n\"But what am I to do?\"\n\n\"Leave it to me,\" said Princess Mary. \"I know...\"\n\nPierre was looking into Princess Mary's eyes.\n\n\"Well?... Well?...\" he said.\n\n\"I know that she loves... will love you,\" Princess Mary corrected\nherself.\n\nBefore her words were out, Pierre had sprung up and with a frightened\nexpression seized Princess Mary's hand.\n\n\"What makes you think so? You think I may hope? You think...?\"\n\n\"Yes, I think so,\" said Princess Mary with a smile. \"Write to her\nparents, and leave it to me. I will tell her when I can. I wish it to\nhappen and my heart tells me it will.\"\n\n\"No, it cannot be! How happy I am! But it can't be.... How happy I am!\nNo, it can't be!\" Pierre kept saying as he kissed Princess Mary's hands.\n\n\"Go to Petersburg, that will be best. And I will write to you,\" she\nsaid.\n\n\"To Petersburg? Go there? Very well, I'll go. But I may come again\ntomorrow?\"\n\nNext day Pierre came to say good-by. Natasha was less animated than she\nhad been the day before; but that day as he looked at her Pierre\nsometimes felt as if he was vanishing and that neither he nor she\nexisted any longer, that nothing existed but happiness. \"Is it possible?\nNo, it can't be,\" he told himself at every look, gesture, and word that\nfilled his soul with joy.\n\nWhen on saying good-by he took her thin, slender hand, he could not help\nholding it a little longer in his own.\n\n\"Is it possible that this hand, that face, those eyes, all this treasure\nof feminine charm so strange to me now, is it possible that it will one\nday be mine forever, as familiar to me as I am to myself?... No, that's\nimpossible!...\"\n\n\"Good-bye, Count,\" she said aloud. \"I shall look forward very much to\nyour return,\" she added in a whisper.\n\nAnd these simple words, her look, and the expression on her face which\naccompanied them, formed for two months the subject of inexhaustible\nmemories, interpretations, and happy meditations for Pierre. \"'I shall\nlook forward very much to your return....' Yes, yes, how did she say it?\nYes, 'I shall look forward very much to your return.' Oh, how happy I\nam! What is happening to me? How happy I am!\" said Pierre to himself.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIX\n\nThere was nothing in Pierre's soul now at all like what had troubled it\nduring his courtship of Helene.\n\nHe did not repeat to himself with a sickening feeling of shame the words\nhe had spoken, or say: \"Oh, why did I not say that?\" and, \"Whatever made\nme say 'Je vous aime'?\" On the contrary, he now repeated in imagination\nevery word that he or Natasha had spoken and pictured every detail of\nher face and smile, and did not wish to diminish or add anything, but\nonly to repeat it again and again. There was now not a shadow of doubt\nin his mind as to whether what he had undertaken was right or wrong.\nOnly one terrible doubt sometimes crossed his mind: \"Wasn't it all a\ndream? Isn't Princess Mary mistaken? Am I not too conceited and self-\nconfident? I believe all this--and suddenly Princess Mary will tell her,\nand she will be sure to smile and say: 'How strange! He must be deluding\nhimself. Doesn't he know that he is a man, just a man, while I...? I am\nsomething altogether different and higher.'\"\n\nThat was the only doubt often troubling Pierre. He did not now make any\nplans. The happiness before him appeared so inconceivable that if only\nhe could attain it, it would be the end of all things. Everything ended\nwith that.\n\nA joyful, unexpected frenzy, of which he had thought himself incapable,\npossessed him. The whole meaning of life--not for him alone but for the\nwhole world--seemed to him centered in his love and the possibility of\nbeing loved by her. At times everybody seemed to him to be occupied with\none thing only--his future happiness. Sometimes it seemed to him that\nother people were all as pleased as he was himself and merely tried to\nhide that pleasure by pretending to be busy with other interests. In\nevery word and gesture he saw allusions to his happiness. He often\nsurprised those he met by his significantly happy looks and smiles which\nseemed to express a secret understanding between him and them. And when\nhe realized that people might not be aware of his happiness, he pitied\nthem with his whole heart and felt a desire somehow to explain to them\nthat all that occupied them was a mere frivolous trifle unworthy of\nattention.\n\nWhen it was suggested to him that he should enter the civil service, or\nwhen the war or any general political affairs were discussed on the\nassumption that everybody's welfare depended on this or that issue of\nevents, he would listen with a mild and pitying smile and surprise\npeople by his strange comments. But at this time he saw everybody--both\nthose who, as he imagined, understood the real meaning of life (that is,\nwhat he was feeling) and those unfortunates who evidently did not\nunderstand it--in the bright light of the emotion that shone within\nhimself, and at once without any effort saw in everyone he met\neverything that was good and worthy of being loved.\n\nWhen dealing with the affairs and papers of his dead wife, her memory\naroused in him no feeling but pity that she had not known the bliss he\nnow knew. Prince Vasili, who having obtained a new post and some fresh\ndecorations was particularly proud at this time, seemed to him a\npathetic, kindly old man much to be pitied.\n\nOften in afterlife Pierre recalled this period of blissful insanity. All\nthe views he formed of men and circumstances at this time remained true\nfor him always. He not only did not renounce them subsequently, but when\nhe was in doubt or inwardly at variance, he referred to the views he had\nheld at this time of his madness and they always proved correct.\n\n\"I may have appeared strange and queer then,\" he thought, \"but I was not\nso mad as I seemed. On the contrary I was then wiser and had more\ninsight than at any other time, and understood all that is worth\nunderstanding in life, because... because I was happy.\"\n\nPierre's insanity consisted in not waiting, as he used to do, to\ndiscover personal attributes which he termed \"good qualities\" in people\nbefore loving them; his heart was now overflowing with love, and by\nloving people without cause he discovered indubitable causes for loving\nthem.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XX\n\nAfter Pierre's departure that first evening, when Natasha had said to\nPrincess Mary with a gaily mocking smile: \"He looks just, yes, just as\nif he had come out of a Russian bath--in a short coat and with his hair\ncropped,\" something hidden and unknown to herself, but irrepressible,\nawoke in Natasha's soul.\n\nEverything: her face, walk, look, and voice, was suddenly altered. To\nher own surprise a power of life and hope of happiness rose to the\nsurface and demanded satisfaction. From that evening she seemed to have\nforgotten all that had happened to her. She no longer complained of her\nposition, did not say a word about the past, and no longer feared to\nmake happy plans for the future. She spoke little of Pierre, but when\nPrincess Mary mentioned him a long-extinguished light once more kindled\nin her eyes and her lips curved with a strange smile.\n\n\nThe change that took place in Natasha at first surprised Princess Mary;\nbut when she understood its meaning it grieved her. \"Can she have loved\nmy brother so little as to be able to forget him so soon?\" she thought\nwhen she reflected on the change. But when she was with Natasha she was\nnot vexed with her and did not reproach her. The reawakened power of\nlife that had seized Natasha was so evidently irrepressible and\nunexpected by her that in her presence Princess Mary felt that she had\nno right to reproach her even in her heart.\n\nNatasha gave herself up so fully and frankly to this new feeling that\nshe did not try to hide the fact that she was no longer sad, but bright\nand cheerful.\n\nWhen Princess Mary returned to her room after her nocturnal talk with\nPierre, Natasha met her on the threshold.\n\n\"He has spoken? Yes? He has spoken?\" she repeated.\n\nAnd a joyful yet pathetic expression which seemed to beg forgiveness for\nher joy settled on Natasha's face.\n\n\"I wanted to listen at the door, but I knew you would tell me.\"\n\nUnderstandable and touching as the look with which Natasha gazed at her\nseemed to Princess Mary, and sorry as she was to see her agitation,\nthese words pained her for a moment. She remembered her brother and his\nlove.\n\n\"But what's to be done? She can't help it,\" thought the princess.\n\nAnd with a sad and rather stern look she told Natasha all that Pierre\nhad said. On hearing that he was going to Petersburg Natasha was\nastounded.\n\n\"To Petersburg!\" she repeated as if unable to understand.\n\nBut noticing the grieved expression on Princess Mary's face she guessed\nthe reason of that sadness and suddenly began to cry.\n\n\"Mary,\" said she, \"tell me what I should do! I am afraid of being bad.\nWhatever you tell me, I will do. Tell me....\"\n\n\"You love him?\"\n\n\"Yes,\" whispered Natasha.\n\n\"Then why are you crying? I am happy for your sake,\" said Princess Mary,\nwho because of those tears quite forgave Natasha's joy.\n\n\"It won't be just yet--someday. Think what fun it will be when I am his\nwife and you marry Nicholas!\"\n\n\"Natasha, I have asked you not to speak of that. Let us talk about you.\"\n\nThey were silent awhile.\n\n\"But why go to Petersburg?\" Natasha suddenly asked, and hastily replied\nto her own question. \"But no, no, he must... Yes, Mary, He must....\"\n\nFIRST EPILOGUE: 1813 - 20\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nSeven years had passed. The storm-tossed sea of European history had\nsubsided within its shores and seemed to have become calm. But the\nmysterious forces that move humanity (mysterious because the laws of\ntheir motion are unknown to us) continued to operate.\n\nThough the surface of the sea of history seemed motionless, the movement\nof humanity went on as unceasingly as the flow of time. Various groups\nof people formed and dissolved, the coming formation and dissolution of\nkingdoms and displacement of peoples was in course of preparation.\n\nThe sea of history was not driven spasmodically from shore to shore as\npreviously. It was seething in its depths. Historic figures were not\nborne by the waves from one shore to another as before. They now seemed\nto rotate on one spot. The historical figures at the head of armies, who\nformerly reflected the movement of the masses by ordering wars,\ncampaigns, and battles, now reflected the restless movement by political\nand diplomatic combinations, laws, and treaties.\n\nThe historians call this activity of the historical figures \"the\nreaction.\"\n\nIn dealing with this period they sternly condemn the historical\npersonages who, in their opinion, caused what they describe as the\nreaction. All the well-known people of that period, from Alexander and\nNapoleon to Madame de Stael, Photius, Schelling, Fichte, Chateaubriand,\nand the rest, pass before their stern judgment seat and are acquitted or\ncondemned according to whether they conduced to progress or to reaction.\n\nAccording to their accounts a reaction took place at that time in Russia\nalso, and the chief culprit was Alexander I, the same man who according\nto them was the chief cause of the liberal movement at the commencement\nof his reign, being the savior of Russia.\n\nThere is no one in Russian literature now, from schoolboy essayist to\nlearned historian, who does not throw his little stone at Alexander for\nthings he did wrong at this period of his reign.\n\n\"He ought to have acted in this way and in that way. In this case he did\nwell and in that case badly. He behaved admirably at the beginning of\nhis reign and during 1812, but acted badly by giving a constitution to\nPoland, forming the Holy Alliance, entrusting power to Arakcheev,\nfavoring Golitsyn and mysticism, and afterwards Shishkov and Photius. He\nalso acted badly by concerning himself with the active army and\ndisbanding the Semenov regiment.\"\n\nIt would take a dozen pages to enumerate all the reproaches the\nhistorians address to him, based on their knowledge of what is good for\nhumanity.\n\nWhat do these reproaches mean?\n\nDo not the very actions for which the historians praise Alexander I (the\nliberal attempts at the beginning of his reign, his struggle with\nNapoleon, the firmness he displayed in 1812 and the campaign of 1813)\nflow from the same sources--the circumstances of his birth, education,\nand life--that made his personality what it was and from which the\nactions for which they blame him (the Holy Alliance, the restoration of\nPoland, and the reaction of 1820 and later) also flowed?\n\nIn what does the substance of those reproaches lie?\n\nIt lies in the fact that an historic character like Alexander I,\nstanding on the highest possible pinnacle of human power with the\nblinding light of history focused upon him; a character exposed to those\nstrongest of all influences: the intrigues, flattery, and self-deception\ninseparable from power; a character who at every moment of his life felt\na responsibility for all that was happening in Europe; and not a\nfictitious but a live character who like every man had his personal\nhabits, passions, and impulses toward goodness, beauty, and truth--that\nthis character--though not lacking in virtue (the historians do not\naccuse him of that)--had not the same conception of the welfare of\nhumanity fifty years ago as a present-day professor who from his youth\nupwards has been occupied with learning: that is, with books and\nlectures and with taking notes from them.\n\nBut even if we assume that fifty years ago Alexander I was mistaken in\nhis view of what was good for the people, we must inevitably assume that\nthe historian who judges Alexander will also after the lapse of some\ntime turn out to be mistaken in his view of what is good for humanity.\nThis assumption is all the more natural and inevitable because, watching\nthe movement of history, we see that every year and with each new\nwriter, opinion as to what is good for mankind changes; so that what\nonce seemed good, ten years later seems bad, and vice versa. And what is\nmore, we find at one and the same time quite contradictory views as to\nwhat is bad and what is good in history: some people regard giving a\nconstitution to Poland and forming the Holy Alliance as praiseworthy in\nAlexander, while others regard it as blameworthy.\n\nThe activity of Alexander or of Napoleon cannot be called useful or\nharmful, for it is impossible to say for what it was useful or harmful.\nIf that activity displeases somebody, this is only because it does not\nagree with his limited understanding of what is good. Whether the\npreservation of my father's house in Moscow, or the glory of the Russian\narms, or the prosperity of the Petersburg and other universities, or the\nfreedom of Poland or the greatness of Russia, or the balance of power in\nEurope, or a certain kind of European culture called \"progress\" appear\nto me to be good or bad, I must admit that besides these things the\naction of every historic character has other more general purposes\ninaccessible to me.\n\nBut let us assume that what is called science can harmonize all\ncontradictions and possesses an unchanging standard of good and bad by\nwhich to try historic characters and events; let us say that Alexander\ncould have done everything differently; let us say that with guidance\nfrom those who blame him and who profess to know the ultimate aim of the\nmovement of humanity, he might have arranged matters according to the\nprogram his present accusers would have given him--of nationality,\nfreedom, equality, and progress (these, I think, cover the ground). Let\nus assume that this program was possible and had then been formulated,\nand that Alexander had acted on it. What would then have become of the\nactivity of all those who opposed the tendency that then prevailed in\nthe government--an activity that in the opinion of the historians was\ngood and beneficent? Their activity would not have existed: there would\nhave been no life, there would have been nothing.\n\nIf we admit that human life can be ruled by reason, the possibility of\nlife is destroyed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nIf we assume as the historians do that great men lead humanity to the\nattainment of certain ends--the greatness of Russia or of France, the\nbalance of power in Europe, the diffusion of the ideas of the\nRevolution, general progress, or anything else--then it is impossible to\nexplain the facts of history without introducing the conceptions of\nchance and genius.\n\nIf the aim of the European wars at the beginning of the nineteenth\ncentury had been the aggrandizement of Russia, that aim might have been\naccomplished without all the preceding wars and without the invasion. If\nthe aim was the aggrandizement of France, that might have been attained\nwithout the Revolution and without the Empire. If the aim was the\ndissemination of ideas, the printing press could have accomplished that\nmuch better than warfare. If the aim was the progress of civilization,\nit is easy to see that there are other ways of diffusing civilization\nmore expedient than by the destruction of wealth and of human lives.\n\nWhy did it happen in this and not in some other way?\n\nBecause it happened so! \"Chance created the situation; genius utilized\nit,\" says history.\n\nBut what is chance? What is genius?\n\nThe words chance and genius do not denote any really existing thing and\ntherefore cannot be defined. Those words only denote a certain stage of\nunderstanding of phenomena. I do not know why a certain event occurs; I\nthink that I cannot know it; so I do not try to know it and I talk about\nchance. I see a force producing effects beyond the scope of ordinary\nhuman agencies; I do not understand why this occurs and I talk of\ngenius.\n\nTo a herd of rams, the ram the herdsman drives each evening into a\nspecial enclosure to feed and that becomes twice as fat as the others\nmust seem to be a genius. And it must appear an astonishing conjunction\nof genius with a whole series of extraordinary chances that this ram,\nwho instead of getting into the general fold every evening goes into a\nspecial enclosure where there are oats--that this very ram, swelling\nwith fat, is killed for meat.\n\nBut the rams need only cease to suppose that all that happens to them\nhappens solely for the attainment of their sheepish aims; they need only\nadmit that what happens to them may also have purposes beyond their ken,\nand they will at once perceive a unity and coherence in what happened to\nthe ram that was fattened. Even if they do not know for what purpose\nthey are fattened, they will at least know that all that happened to the\nram did not happen accidentally, and will no longer need the conceptions\nof chance or genius.\n\nOnly by renouncing our claim to discern a purpose immediately\nintelligible to us, and admitting the ultimate purpose to be beyond our\nken, may we discern the sequence of experiences in the lives of historic\ncharacters and perceive the cause of the effect they produce\n(incommensurable with ordinary human capabilities), and then the words\nchance and genius become superfluous.\n\nWe need only confess that we do not know the purpose of the European\nconvulsions and that we know only the facts--that is, the murders, first\nin France, then in Italy, in Africa, in Prussia, in Austria, in Spain,\nand in Russia--and that the movements from the west to the east and from\nthe east to the west form the essence and purpose of these events, and\nnot only shall we have no need to see exceptional ability and genius in\nNapoleon and Alexander, but we shall be unable to consider them to be\nanything but like other men, and we shall not be obliged to have\nrecourse to chance for an explanation of those small events which made\nthese people what they were, but it will be clear that all those small\nevents were inevitable.\n\nBy discarding a claim to knowledge of the ultimate purpose, we shall\nclearly perceive that just as one cannot imagine a blossom or seed for\nany single plant better suited to it than those it produces, so it is\nimpossible to imagine any two people more completely adapted down to the\nsmallest detail for the purpose they had to fulfill, than Napoleon and\nAlexander with all their antecedents.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nThe fundamental and essential significance of the European events of the\nbeginning of the nineteenth century lies in the movement of the mass of\nthe European peoples from west to east and afterwards from east to west.\nThe commencement of that movement was the movement from west to east.\nFor the peoples of the west to be able to make their warlike movement to\nMoscow it was necessary: (1) that they should form themselves into a\nmilitary group of a size able to endure a collision with the warlike\nmilitary group of the east, (2) that they should abandon all established\ntraditions and customs, and (3) that during their military movement they\nshould have at their head a man who could justify to himself and to them\nthe deceptions, robberies, and murders which would have to be committed\nduring that movement.\n\nAnd beginning with the French Revolution the old inadequately large\ngroup was destroyed, as well as the old habits and traditions, and step\nby step a group was formed of larger dimensions with new customs and\ntraditions, and a man was produced who would stand at the head of the\ncoming movement and bear the responsibility for all that had to be done.\n\nA man without convictions, without habits, without traditions, without a\nname, and not even a Frenchman, emerges--by what seem the strangest\nchances--from among all the seething French parties, and without joining\nany one of them is borne forward to a prominent position.\n\nThe ignorance of his colleagues, the weakness and insignificance of his\nopponents, the frankness of his falsehoods, and the dazzling and self-\nconfident limitations of this man raise him to the head of the army. The\nbrilliant qualities of the soldiers of the army sent to Italy, his\nopponents' reluctance to fight, and his own childish audacity and self-\nconfidence secure him military fame. Innumerable so-called chances\naccompany him everywhere. The disfavor into which he falls with the\nrulers of France turns to his advantage. His attempts to avoid his\npredestined path are unsuccessful: he is not received into the Russian\nservice, and the appointment he seeks in Turkey comes to nothing. During\nthe war in Italy he is several times on the verge of destruction and\neach time is saved in an unexpected manner. Owing to various diplomatic\nconsiderations the Russian armies--just those which might have destroyed\nhis prestige--do not appear upon the scene till he is no longer there.\n\nOn his return from Italy he finds the government in Paris in a process\nof dissolution in which all those who are in it are inevitably wiped out\nand destroyed. And by chance an escape from this dangerous position\npresents itself in the form of an aimless and senseless expedition to\nAfrica. Again so-called chance accompanies him. Impregnable Malta\nsurrenders without a shot; his most reckless schemes are crowned with\nsuccess. The enemy's fleet, which subsequently did not let a single boat\npass, allows his entire army to elude it. In Africa a whole series of\noutrages are committed against the almost unarmed inhabitants. And the\nmen who commit these crimes, especially their leader, assure themselves\nthat this is admirable, this is glory--it resembles Caesar and Alexander\nthe Great and is therefore good.\n\nThis ideal of glory and grandeur--which consists not merely in\nconsidering nothing wrong that one does but in priding oneself on every\ncrime one commits, ascribing to it an incomprehensible supernatural\nsignificance--that ideal, destined to guide this man and his associates,\nhad scope for its development in Africa. Whatever he does succeeds. The\nplague does not touch him. The cruelty of murdering prisoners is not\nimputed to him as a fault. His childishly rash, uncalled-for, and\nignoble departure from Africa, leaving his comrades in distress, is set\ndown to his credit, and again the enemy's fleet twice lets him slip\npast. When, intoxicated by the crimes he has committed so successfully,\nhe reaches Paris, the dissolution of the republican government, which a\nyear earlier might have ruined him, has reached its extreme limit, and\nhis presence there now as a newcomer free from party entanglements can\nonly serve to exalt him--and though he himself has no plan, he is quite\nready for his new role.\n\nHe had no plan, he was afraid of everything, but the parties snatched at\nhim and demanded his participation.\n\nHe alone--with his ideal of glory and grandeur developed in Italy and\nEgypt, his insane self-adulation, his boldness in crime and frankness in\nlying--he alone could justify what had to be done.\n\nHe is needed for the place that awaits him, and so almost apart from his\nwill and despite his indecision, his lack of a plan, and all his\nmistakes, he is drawn into a conspiracy that aims at seizing power and\nthe conspiracy is crowned with success.\n\nHe is pushed into a meeting of the legislature. In alarm he wishes to\nflee, considering himself lost. He pretends to fall into a swoon and\nsays senseless things that should have ruined him. But the once proud\nand shrewd rulers of France, feeling that their part is played out, are\neven more bewildered than he, and do not say the words they should have\nsaid to destroy him and retain their power.\n\nChance, millions of chances, give him power, and all men as if by\nagreement co-operate to confirm that power. Chance forms the characters\nof the rulers of France, who submit to him; chance forms the character\nof Paul I of Russia who recognizes his government; chance contrives a\nplot against him which not only fails to harm him but confirms his\npower. Chance puts the Duc d'Enghien in his hands and unexpectedly\ncauses him to kill him--thereby convincing the mob more forcibly than in\nany other way that he had the right, since he had the might. Chance\ncontrives that though he directs all his efforts to prepare an\nexpedition against England (which would inevitably have ruined him) he\nnever carries out that intention, but unexpectedly falls upon Mack and\nthe Austrians, who surrender without a battle. Chance and genius give\nhim the victory at Austerlitz; and by chance all men, not only the\nFrench but all Europe--except England which does not take part in the\nevents about to happen--despite their former horror and detestation of\nhis crimes, now recognize his authority, the title he has given himself,\nand his ideal of grandeur and glory, which seems excellent and\nreasonable to them all.\n\nAs if measuring themselves and preparing for the coming movement, the\nwestern forces push toward the east several times in 1805, 1806, 1807,\nand 1809, gaining strength and growing. In 1811 the group of people that\nhad formed in France unites into one group with the peoples of Central\nEurope. The strength of the justification of the man who stands at the\nhead of the movement grows with the increased size of the group. During\nthe ten-year preparatory period this man had formed relations with all\nthe crowned heads of Europe. The discredited rulers of the world can\noppose no reasonable ideal to the insensate Napoleonic ideal of glory\nand grandeur. One after another they hasten to display their\ninsignificance before him. The King of Prussia sends his wife to seek\nthe great man's mercy; the Emperor of Austria considers it a favor that\nthis man receives a daughter of the Caesars into his bed; the Pope, the\nguardian of all that the nations hold sacred, utilizes religion for the\naggrandizement of the great man. It is not Napoleon who prepares himself\nfor the accomplishment of his role, so much as all those round him who\nprepare him to take on himself the whole responsibility for what is\nhappening and has to happen. There is no step, no crime or petty fraud\nhe commits, which in the mouths of those around him is not at once\nrepresented as a great deed. The most suitable fete the Germans can\ndevise for him is a celebration of Jena and Auerstadt. Not only is he\ngreat, but so are his ancestors, his brothers, his stepsons, and his\nbrothers-in-law. Everything is done to deprive him of the remains of his\nreason and to prepare him for his terrible part. And when he is ready so\ntoo are the forces.\n\nThe invasion pushes eastward and reaches its final goal--Moscow. That\ncity is taken; the Russian army suffers heavier losses than the opposing\narmies had suffered in the former war from Austerlitz to Wagram. But\nsuddenly instead of those chances and that genius which hitherto had so\nconsistently led him by an uninterrupted series of successes to the\npredestined goal, an innumerable sequence of inverse chances occur--from\nthe cold in his head at Borodino to the sparks which set Moscow on fire,\nand the frosts--and instead of genius, stupidity and immeasurable\nbaseness become evident.\n\nThe invaders flee, turn back, flee again, and all the chances are now\nnot for Napoleon but always against him.\n\nA countermovement is then accomplished from east to west with a\nremarkable resemblance to the preceding movement from west to east.\nAttempted drives from east to west--similar to the contrary movements of\n1805, 1807, and 1809--precede the great westward movement; there is the\nsame coalescence into a group of enormous dimensions; the same adhesion\nof the people of Central Europe to the movement; the same hesitation\nmidway, and the same increasing rapidity as the goal is approached.\n\nParis, the ultimate goal, is reached. The Napoleonic government and army\nare destroyed. Napoleon himself is no longer of any account; all his\nactions are evidently pitiful and mean, but again an inexplicable chance\noccurs. The allies detest Napoleon whom they regard as the cause of\ntheir sufferings. Deprived of power and authority, his crimes and his\ncraft exposed, he should have appeared to them what he appeared ten\nyears previously and one year later--an outlawed brigand. But by some\nstrange chance no one perceives this. His part is not yet ended. The man\nwho ten years before and a year later was considered an outlawed brigand\nis sent to an island two days' sail from France, which for some reason\nis presented to him as his dominion, and guards are given to him and\nmillions of money are paid him.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nThe flood of nations begins to subside into its normal channels. The\nwaves of the great movement abate, and on the calm surface eddies are\nformed in which float the diplomatists, who imagine that they have\ncaused the floods to abate.\n\nBut the smooth sea again suddenly becomes disturbed. The diplomatists\nthink that their disagreements are the cause of this fresh pressure of\nnatural forces; they anticipate war between their sovereigns; the\nposition seems to them insoluble. But the wave they feel to be rising\ndoes not come from the quarter they expect. It rises again from the same\npoint as before--Paris. The last backwash of the movement from the west\noccurs: a backwash which serves to solve the apparently insuperable\ndiplomatic difficulties and ends the military movement of that period of\nhistory.\n\nThe man who had devastated France returns to France alone, without any\nconspiracy and without soldiers. Any guard might arrest him, but by\nstrange chance no one does so and all rapturously greet the man they\ncursed the day before and will curse again a month later.\n\nThis man is still needed to justify the final collective act.\n\nThat act is performed.\n\nThe last role is played. The actor is bidden to disrobe and wash off his\npowder and paint: he will not be wanted any more.\n\nAnd some years pass during which he plays a pitiful comedy to himself in\nsolitude on his island, justifying his actions by intrigues and lies\nwhen the justification is no longer needed, and displaying to the whole\nworld what it was that people had mistaken for strength as long as an\nunseen hand directed his actions.\n\nThe manager having brought the drama to a close and stripped the actor\nshows him to us.\n\n\"See what you believed in! This is he! Do you now see that it was not he\nbut I who moved you?\"\n\nBut dazed by the force of the movement, it was long before people\nunderstood this.\n\nStill greater coherence and inevitability is seen in the life of\nAlexander I, the man who stood at the head of the countermovement from\neast to west.\n\nWhat was needed for him who, overshadowing others, stood at the head of\nthat movement from east to west?\n\nWhat was needed was a sense of justice and a sympathy with European\naffairs, but a remote sympathy not dulled by petty interests; a moral\nsuperiority over those sovereigns of the day who co-operated with him; a\nmild and attractive personality; and a personal grievance against\nNapoleon. And all this was found in Alexander I; all this had been\nprepared by innumerable so-called chances in his life: his education,\nhis early liberalism, the advisers who surrounded him, and by\nAusterlitz, and Tilsit, and Erfurt.\n\nDuring the national war he was inactive because he was not needed. But\nas soon as the necessity for a general European war presented itself he\nappeared in his place at the given moment and, uniting the nations of\nEurope, led them to the goal.\n\nThe goal is reached. After the final war of 1815 Alexander possesses all\npossible power. How does he use it?\n\nAlexander I--the pacifier of Europe, the man who from his early years\nhad striven only for his people's welfare, the originator of the liberal\ninnovations in his fatherland--now that he seemed to possess the utmost\npower and therefore to have the possibility of bringing about the\nwelfare of his peoples--at the time when Napoleon in exile was drawing\nup childish and mendacious plans of how he would have made mankind happy\nhad he retained power--Alexander I, having fulfilled his mission and\nfeeling the hand of God upon him, suddenly recognizes the insignificance\nof that supposed power, turns away from it, and gives it into the hands\nof contemptible men whom he despises, saying only:\n\n\"Not unto us, not unto us, but unto Thy Name!... I too am a man like the\nrest of you. Let me live like a man and think of my soul and of God.\"\n\nAs the sun and each atom of ether is a sphere complete in itself, and\nyet at the same time only a part of a whole too immense for man to\ncomprehend, so each individual has within himself his own aims and yet\nhas them to serve a general purpose incomprehensible to man.\n\nA bee settling on a flower has stung a child. And the child is afraid of\nbees and declares that bees exist to sting people. A poet admires the\nbee sucking from the chalice of a flower and says it exists to suck the\nfragrance of flowers. A beekeeper, seeing the bee collect pollen from\nflowers and carry it to the hive, says that it exists to gather honey.\nAnother beekeeper who has studied the life of the hive more closely says\nthat the bee gathers pollen dust to feed the young bees and rear a\nqueen, and that it exists to perpetuate its race. A botanist notices\nthat the bee flying with the pollen of a male flower to a pistil\nfertilizes the latter, and sees in this the purpose of the bee's\nexistence. Another, observing the migration of plants, notices that the\nbee helps in this work, and may say that in this lies the purpose of the\nbee. But the ultimate purpose of the bee is not exhausted by the first,\nthe second, or any of the processes the human mind can discern. The\nhigher the human intellect rises in the discovery of these purposes, the\nmore obvious it becomes, that the ultimate purpose is beyond our\ncomprehension.\n\nAll that is accessible to man is the relation of the life of the bee to\nother manifestations of life. And so it is with the purpose of historic\ncharacters and nations.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nNatasha's wedding to Bezukhov, which took place in 1813, was the last\nhappy event in the family of the old Rostovs. Count Ilya Rostov died\nthat same year and, as always happens, after the father's death the\nfamily group broke up.\n\nThe events of the previous year: the burning of Moscow and the flight\nfrom it, the death of Prince Andrew, Natasha's despair, Petya's death,\nand the old countess' grief fell blow after blow on the old count's\nhead. He seemed to be unable to understand the meaning of all these\nevents, and bowed his old head in a spiritual sense as if expecting and\ninviting further blows which would finish him. He seemed now frightened\nand distraught and now unnaturally animated and enterprising.\n\nThe arrangements for Natasha's marriage occupied him for a while. He\nordered dinners and suppers and obviously tried to appear cheerful, but\nhis cheerfulness was not infectious as it used to be: on the contrary it\nevoked the compassion of those who knew and liked him.\n\nWhen Pierre and his wife had left, he grew very quiet and began to\ncomplain of depression. A few days later he fell ill and took to his\nbed. He realized from the first that he would not get up again, despite\nthe doctor's encouragement. The countess passed a fortnight in an\narmchair by his pillow without undressing. Every time she gave him his\nmedicine he sobbed and silently kissed her hand. On his last day,\nsobbing, he asked her and his absent son to forgive him for having\ndissipated their property--that being the chief fault of which he was\nconscious. After receiving communion and unction he quietly died; and\nnext day a throng of acquaintances who came to pay their last respects\nto the deceased filled the house rented by the Rostovs. All these\nacquaintances, who had so often dined and danced at his house and had so\noften laughed at him, now said, with a common feeling of self-reproach\nand emotion, as if justifying themselves: \"Well, whatever he may have\nbeen he was a most worthy man. You don't meet such men nowadays.... And\nwhich of us has not weaknesses of his own?\"\n\nIt was just when the count's affairs had become so involved that it was\nimpossible to say what would happen if he lived another year that he\nunexpectedly died.\n\nNicholas was with the Russian army in Paris when the news of his\nfather's death reached him. He at once resigned his commission, and\nwithout waiting for it to be accepted took leave of absence and went to\nMoscow. The state of the count's affairs became quite obvious a month\nafter his death, surprising everyone by the immense total of small debts\nthe existence of which no one had suspected. The debts amounted to\ndouble the value of the property.\n\nFriends and relations advised Nicholas to decline the inheritance. But\nhe regarded such a refusal as a slur on his father's memory, which he\nheld sacred, and therefore would not hear of refusing and accepted the\ninheritance together with the obligation to pay the debts.\n\nThe creditors who had so long been silent, restrained by a vague but\npowerful influence exerted on them while he lived by the count's\ncareless good nature, all proceeded to enforce their claims at once. As\nalways happens in such cases rivalry sprang up as to which should get\npaid first, and those who like Mitenka held promissory notes given them\nas presents now became the most exacting of the creditors. Nicholas was\nallowed no respite and no peace, and those who had seemed to pity the\nold man--the cause of their losses (if they were losses)--now\nremorselessly pursued the young heir who had voluntarily undertaken the\ndebts and was obviously not guilty of contracting them.\n\nNot one of the plans Nicholas tried succeeded; the estate was sold by\nauction for half its value, and half the debts still remained unpaid.\nNicholas accepted thirty thousand rubles offered him by his brother-in-\nlaw Bezukhov to pay off debts he regarded as genuinely due for value\nreceived. And to avoid being imprisoned for the remainder, as the\ncreditors threatened, he re-entered the government service.\n\nHe could not rejoin the army where he would have been made colonel at\nthe next vacancy, for his mother now clung to him as her one hold on\nlife; and so despite his reluctance to remain in Moscow among people who\nhad known him before, and despite his abhorrence of the civil service,\nhe accepted a post in Moscow in that service, doffed the uniform of\nwhich he was so fond, and moved with his mother and Sonya to a small\nhouse on the Sivtsev Vrazhek.\n\nNatasha and Pierre were living in Petersburg at the time and had no\nclear idea of Nicholas' circumstances. Having borrowed money from his\nbrother-in-law, Nicholas tried to hide his wretched condition from him.\nHis position was the more difficult because with his salary of twelve\nhundred rubles he had not only to keep himself, his mother, and Sonya,\nbut had to shield his mother from knowledge of their poverty. The\ncountess could not conceive of life without the luxurious conditions she\nhad been used to from childhood and, unable to realize how hard it was\nfor her son, kept demanding now a carriage (which they did not keep) to\nsend for a friend, now some expensive article of food for herself, or\nwine for her son, or money to buy a present as a surprise for Natasha or\nSonya, or for Nicholas himself.\n\nSonya kept house, attended on her aunt, read to her, put up with her\nwhims and secret ill-will, and helped Nicholas to conceal their poverty\nfrom the old countess. Nicholas felt himself irredeemably indebted to\nSonya for all she was doing for his mother and greatly admired her\npatience and devotion, but tried to keep aloof from her.\n\nHe seemed in his heart to reproach her for being too perfect, and\nbecause there was nothing to reproach her with. She had all that people\nare valued for, but little that could have made him love her. He felt\nthat the more he valued her the less he loved her. He had taken her at\nher word when she wrote giving him his freedom and now behaved as if all\nthat had passed between them had been long forgotten and could never in\nany case be renewed.\n\nNicholas' position became worse and worse. The idea of putting something\naside out of his salary proved a dream. Not only did he not save\nanything, but to comply with his mother's demands he even incurred some\nsmall debts. He could see no way out of this situation. The idea of\nmarrying some rich woman, which was suggested to him by his female\nrelations, was repugnant to him. The other way out--his mother's death--\nnever entered his head. He wished for nothing and hoped for nothing, and\ndeep in his heart experienced a gloomy and stern satisfaction in an\nuncomplaining endurance of his position. He tried to avoid his old\nacquaintances with their commiseration and offensive offers of\nassistance; he avoided all distraction and recreation, and even at home\ndid nothing but play cards with his mother, pace silently up and down\nthe room, and smoke one pipe after another. He seemed carefully to\ncherish within himself the gloomy mood which alone enabled him to endure\nhis position.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nAt the beginning of winter Princess Mary came to Moscow. From reports\ncurrent in town she learned how the Rostovs were situated, and how \"the\nson has sacrificed himself for his mother,\" as people were saying.\n\n\"I never expected anything else of him,\" said Princess Mary to herself,\nfeeling a joyous sense of her love for him. Remembering her friendly\nrelations with all the Rostovs which had made her almost a member of the\nfamily, she thought it her duty to go to see them. But remembering her\nrelations with Nicholas in Voronezh she was shy about doing so. Making a\ngreat effort she did however go to call on them a few weeks after her\narrival in Moscow.\n\nNicholas was the first to meet her, as the countess' room could only be\nreached through his. But instead of being greeted with pleasure as she\nhad expected, at his first glance at her his face assumed a cold, stiff,\nproud expression she had not seen on it before. He inquired about her\nhealth, led the way to his mother, and having sat there for five minutes\nleft the room.\n\nWhen the princess came out of the countess' room Nicholas met her again,\nand with marked solemnity and stiffness accompanied her to the anteroom.\nTo her remarks about his mother's health he made no reply. \"What's that\nto you? Leave me in peace,\" his looks seemed to say.\n\n\"Why does she come prowling here? What does she want? I can't bear these\nladies and all these civilities!\" said he aloud in Sonya's presence,\nevidently unable to repress his vexation, after the princess' carriage\nhad disappeared.\n\n\"Oh, Nicholas, how can you talk like that?\" cried Sonya, hardly able to\nconceal her delight. \"She is so kind and Mamma is so fond of her!\"\n\nNicholas did not reply and tried to avoid speaking of the princess any\nmore. But after her visit the old countess spoke of her several times a\nday.\n\nShe sang her praises, insisted that her son must call on her, expressed\na wish to see her often, but yet always became ill-humored when she\nbegan to talk about her.\n\nNicholas tried to keep silence when his mother spoke of the princess,\nbut his silence irritated her.\n\n\"She is a very admirable and excellent young woman,\" said she, \"and you\nmust go and call on her. You would at least be seeing somebody, and I\nthink it must be dull for you only seeing us.\"\n\n\"But I don't in the least want to, Mamma.\"\n\n\"You used to want to, and now you don't. Really I don't understand you,\nmy dear. One day you are dull, and the next you refuse to see anyone.\"\n\n\"But I never said I was dull.\"\n\n\"Why, you said yourself you don't want even to see her. She is a very\nadmirable young woman and you always liked her, but now suddenly you\nhave got some notion or other in your head. You hide everything from\nme.\"\n\n\"Not at all, Mamma.\"\n\n\"If I were asking you to do something disagreeable now--but I only ask\nyou to return a call. One would think mere politeness required it....\nWell, I have asked you, and now I won't interfere any more since you\nhave secrets from your mother.\"\n\n\"Well, then, I'll go if you wish it.\"\n\n\"It doesn't matter to me. I only wish it for your sake.\"\n\nNicholas sighed, bit his mustache, and laid out the cards for a\npatience, trying to divert his mother's attention to another topic.\n\nThe same conversation was repeated next day and the day after, and the\nday after that.\n\nAfter her visit to the Rostovs and her unexpectedly chilly reception by\nNicholas, Princess Mary confessed to herself that she had been right in\nnot wishing to be the first to call.\n\n\"I expected nothing else,\" she told herself, calling her pride to her\naid. \"I have nothing to do with him and I only wanted to see the old\nlady, who was always kind to me and to whom I am under many\nobligations.\"\n\nBut she could not pacify herself with these reflections; a feeling akin\nto remorse troubled her when she thought of her visit. Though she had\nfirmly resolved not to call on the Rostovs again and to forget the whole\nmatter, she felt herself all the time in an awkward position. And when\nshe asked herself what distressed her, she had to admit that it was her\nrelation to Rostov. His cold, polite manner did not express his feeling\nfor her (she knew that) but it concealed something, and until she could\ndiscover what that something was, she felt that she could not be at\nease.\n\nOne day in midwinter when sitting in the schoolroom attending to her\nnephew's lessons, she was informed that Rostov had called. With a firm\nresolution not to betray herself and not show her agitation, she sent\nfor Mademoiselle Bourienne and went with her to the drawing room.\n\nHer first glance at Nicholas' face told her that he had only come to\nfulfill the demands of politeness, and she firmly resolved to maintain\nthe tone in which he addressed her.\n\nThey spoke of the countess' health, of their mutual friends, of the\nlatest war news, and when the ten minutes required by propriety had\nelapsed after which a visitor may rise, Nicholas got up to say good-by.\n\nWith Mademoiselle Bourienne's help the princess had maintained the\nconversation very well, but at the very last moment, just when he rose,\nshe was so tired of talking of what did not interest her, and her mind\nwas so full of the question why she alone was granted so little\nhappiness in life, that in a fit of absent-mindedness she sat still, her\nluminous eyes gazing fixedly before her, not noticing that he had risen.\n\nNicholas glanced at her and, wishing to appear not to notice her\nabstraction, made some remark to Mademoiselle Bourienne and then again\nlooked at the princess. She still sat motionless with a look of\nsuffering on her gentle face. He suddenly felt sorry for her and was\nvaguely conscious that he might be the cause of the sadness her face\nexpressed. He wished to help her and say something pleasant, but could\nthink of nothing to say.\n\n\"Good-bye, Princess!\" said he.\n\nShe started, flushed, and sighed deeply.\n\n\"Oh, I beg your pardon,\" she said as if waking up. \"Are you going\nalready, Count? Well then, good-by! Oh, but the cushion for the\ncountess!\"\n\n\"Wait a moment, I'll fetch it,\" said Mademoiselle Bourienne, and she\nleft the room.\n\nThey both sat silent, with an occasional glance at one another.\n\n\"Yes, Princess,\" said Nicholas at last with a sad smile, \"it doesn't\nseem long ago since we first met at Bogucharovo, but how much water has\nflowed since then! In what distress we all seemed to be then, yet I\nwould give much to bring back that time... but there's no bringing it\nback.\"\n\nPrincess Mary gazed intently into his eyes with her own luminous ones as\nhe said this. She seemed to be trying to fathom the hidden meaning of\nhis words which would explain his feeling for her.\n\n\"Yes, yes,\" said she, \"but you have no reason to regret the past, Count.\nAs I understand your present life, I think you will always recall it\nwith satisfaction, because the self-sacrifice that fills it now...\"\n\n\"I cannot accept your praise,\" he interrupted her hurriedly. \"On the\ncontrary I continually reproach myself.... But this is not at all an\ninteresting or cheerful subject.\"\n\nHis face again resumed its former stiff and cold expression. But the\nprincess had caught a glimpse of the man she had known and loved, and it\nwas to him that she now spoke.\n\n\"I thought you would allow me to tell you this,\" she said. \"I had come\nso near to you... and to all your family that I thought you would not\nconsider my sympathy misplaced, but I was mistaken,\" and suddenly her\nvoice trembled. \"I don't know why,\" she continued, recovering herself,\n\"but you used to be different, and...\"\n\n\"There are a thousand reasons why,\" laying special emphasis on the why.\n\"Thank you, Princess,\" he added softly. \"Sometimes it is hard.\"\n\n\"So that's why! That's why!\" a voice whispered in Princess Mary's soul.\n\"No, it was not only that gay, kind, and frank look, not only that\nhandsome exterior, that I loved in him. I divined his noble, resolute,\nself-sacrificing spirit too,\" she said to herself. \"Yes, he is poor now\nand I am rich.... Yes, that's the only reason.... Yes, were it not for\nthat...\" And remembering his former tenderness, and looking now at his\nkind, sorrowful face, she suddenly understood the cause of his coldness.\n\n\"But why, Count, why?\" she almost cried, unconsciously moving closer to\nhim. \"Why? Tell me. You must tell me!\"\n\nHe was silent.\n\n\"I don't understand your why, Count,\" she continued, \"but it's hard for\nme... I confess it. For some reason you wish to deprive me of our former\nfriendship. And that hurts me.\" There were tears in her eyes and in her\nvoice. \"I have had so little happiness in life that every loss is hard\nfor me to bear.... Excuse me, good-by!\" and suddenly she began to cry\nand was hurrying from the room.\n\n\"Princess, for God's sake!\" he exclaimed, trying to stop her.\n\"Princess!\"\n\nShe turned round. For a few seconds they gazed silently into one\nanother's eyes--and what had seemed impossible and remote suddenly\nbecame possible, inevitable, and very near.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nIn the winter of 1813 Nicholas married Princess Mary and moved to Bald\nHills with his wife, his mother, and Sonya.\n\nWithin four years he had paid off all his remaining debts without\nselling any of his wife's property, and having received a small\ninheritance on the death of a cousin he paid his debt to Pierre as well.\n\nIn another three years, by 1820, he had so managed his affairs that he\nwas able to buy a small estate adjoining Bald Hills and was negotiating\nto buy back Otradnoe--that being his pet dream.\n\nHaving started farming from necessity, he soon grew so devoted to it\nthat it became his favorite and almost his sole occupation. Nicholas was\na plain farmer: he did not like innovations, especially the English ones\nthen coming into vogue. He laughed at theoretical treatises on estate\nmanagement, disliked factories, the raising of expensive products, and\nthe buying of expensive seed corn, and did not make a hobby of any\nparticular part of the work on his estate. He always had before his\nmind's eye the estate as a whole and not any particular part of it. The\nchief thing in his eyes was not the nitrogen in the soil, nor the oxygen\nin the air, nor manures, nor special plows, but that most important\nagent by which nitrogen, oxygen, manure, and plow were made effective--\nthe peasant laborer. When Nicholas first began farming and began to\nunderstand its different branches, it was the serf who especially\nattracted his attention. The peasant seemed to him not merely a tool,\nbut also a judge of farming and an end in himself. At first he watched\nthe serfs, trying to understand their aims and what they considered good\nand bad, and only pretended to direct them and give orders while in\nreality learning from them their methods, their manner of speech, and\ntheir judgment of what was good and bad. Only when he had understood the\npeasants' tastes and aspirations, had learned to talk their language, to\ngrasp the hidden meaning of their words, and felt akin to them did he\nbegin boldly to manage his serfs, that is, to perform toward them the\nduties demanded of him. And Nicholas' management produced very brilliant\nresults.\n\nGuided by some gift of insight, on taking up the management of the\nestates he at once unerringly appointed as bailiff, village elder, and\ndelegate, the very men the serfs would themselves have chosen had they\nhad the right to choose, and these posts never changed hands. Before\nanalyzing the properties of manure, before entering into the debit and\ncredit (as he ironically called it), he found out how many cattle the\npeasants had and increased the number by all possible means. He kept the\npeasant families together in the largest groups possible, not allowing\nthe family groups to divide into separate households. He was hard alike\non the lazy, the depraved, and the weak, and tried to get them expelled\nfrom the commune.\n\nHe was as careful of the sowing and reaping of the peasants' hay and\ncorn as of his own, and few landowners had their crops sown and\nharvested so early and so well, or got so good a return, as did\nNicholas.\n\nHe disliked having anything to do with the domestic serfs--the \"drones\"\nas he called them--and everyone said he spoiled them by his laxity. When\na decision had to be taken regarding a domestic serf, especially if one\nhad to be punished, he always felt undecided and consulted everybody in\nthe house; but when it was possible to have a domestic serf conscripted\ninstead of a land worker he did so without the least hesitation. He\nnever felt any hesitation in dealing with the peasants. He knew that his\nevery decision would be approved by them all with very few exceptions.\n\nHe did not allow himself either to be hard on or punish a man, or to\nmake things easy for or reward anyone, merely because he felt inclined\nto do so. He could not have said by what standard he judged what he\nshould or should not do, but the standard was quite firm and definite in\nhis own mind.\n\nOften, speaking with vexation of some failure or irregularity, he would\nsay: \"What can one do with our Russian peasants?\" and imagined that he\ncould not bear them.\n\nYet he loved \"our Russian peasants\" and their way of life with his whole\nsoul, and for that very reason had understood and assimilated the one\nway and manner of farming which produced good results.\n\nCountess Mary was jealous of this passion of her husband's and regretted\nthat she could not share it; but she could not understand the joys and\nvexations he derived from that world, to her so remote and alien. She\ncould not understand why he was so particularly animated and happy when,\nafter getting up at daybreak and spending the whole morning in the\nfields or on the threshing floor, he returned from the sowing or mowing\nor reaping to have tea with her. She did not understand why he spoke\nwith such admiration and delight of the farming of the thrifty and well-\nto-do peasant Matthew Ermishin, who with his family had carted corn all\nnight; or of the fact that his (Nicholas') sheaves were already stacked\nbefore anyone else had his harvest in. She did not understand why he\nstepped out from the window to the veranda and smiled under his mustache\nand winked so joyfully, when warm steady rain began to fall on the dry\nand thirsty shoots of the young oats, or why when the wind carried away\na threatening cloud during the hay harvest he would return from the\nbarn, flushed, sunburned, and perspiring, with a smell of wormwood and\ngentian in his hair and, gleefully rubbing his hands, would say: \"Well,\none more day and my grain and the peasants' will all be under cover.\"\n\nStill less did she understand why he, kindhearted and always ready to\nanticipate her wishes, should become almost desperate when she brought\nhim a petition from some peasant men or women who had appealed to her to\nbe excused some work; why he, that kind Nicholas, should obstinately\nrefuse her, angrily asking her not to interfere in what was not her\nbusiness. She felt he had a world apart, which he loved passionately and\nwhich had laws she had not fathomed.\n\nSometimes when, trying to understand him, she spoke of the good work he\nwas doing for his serfs, he would be vexed and reply: \"Not in the least;\nit never entered my head and I wouldn't do that for their good! That's\nall poetry and old wives' talk--all that doing good to one's neighbor!\nWhat I want is that our children should not have to go begging. I must\nput our affairs in order while I am alive, that's all. And to do that,\norder and strictness are essential.... That's all about it!\" said he,\nclenching his vigorous fist. \"And fairness, of course,\" he added, \"for\nif the peasant is naked and hungry and has only one miserable horse, he\ncan do no good either for himself or for me.\"\n\nAnd all Nicholas did was fruitful--probably just because he refused to\nallow himself to think that he was doing good to others for virtue's\nsake. His means increased rapidly; serfs from neighboring estates came\nto beg him to buy them, and long after his death the memory of his\nadministration was devoutly preserved among the serfs. \"He was a\nmaster... the peasants' affairs first and then his own. Of course he was\nnot to be trifled with either--in a word, he was a real master!\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nOne matter connected with his management sometimes worried Nicholas, and\nthat was his quick temper together with his old hussar habit of making\nfree use of his fists. At first he saw nothing reprehensible in this,\nbut in the second year of his marriage his view of that form of\npunishment suddenly changed.\n\nOnce in summer he had sent for the village elder from Bogucharovo, a man\nwho had succeeded to the post when Dron died and who was accused of\ndishonesty and various irregularities. Nicholas went out into the porch\nto question him, and immediately after the elder had given a few replies\nthe sound of cries and blows were heard. On returning to lunch Nicholas\nwent up to his wife, who sat with her head bent low over her embroidery\nframe, and as usual began to tell her what he had been doing that\nmorning. Among other things he spoke of the Bogucharovo elder. Countess\nMary turned red and then pale, but continued to sit with head bowed and\nlips compressed and gave her husband no reply.\n\n\"Such an insolent scoundrel!\" he cried, growing hot again at the mere\nrecollection of him. \"If he had told me he was drunk and did not see...\nBut what is the matter with you, Mary?\" he suddenly asked.\n\nCountess Mary raised her head and tried to speak, but hastily looked\ndown again and her lips puckered.\n\n\"Why, whatever is the matter, my dearest?\"\n\nThe looks of the plain Countess Mary always improved when she was in\ntears. She never cried from pain or vexation, but always from sorrow or\npity, and when she wept her radiant eyes acquired an irresistible charm.\n\nThe moment Nicholas took her hand she could no longer restrain herself\nand began to cry.\n\n\"Nicholas, I saw it... he was to blame, but why do you... Nicholas!\" and\nshe covered her face with her hands.\n\nNicholas said nothing. He flushed crimson, left her side, and paced up\nand down the room. He understood what she was weeping about, but could\nnot in his heart at once agree with her that what he had regarded from\nchildhood as quite an everyday event was wrong. \"Is it just\nsentimentality, old wives' tales, or is she right?\" he asked himself.\nBefore he had solved that point he glanced again at her face filled with\nlove and pain, and he suddenly realized that she was right and that he\nhad long been sinning against himself.\n\n\"Mary,\" he said softly, going up to her, \"it will never happen again; I\ngive you my word. Never,\" he repeated in a trembling voice like a boy\nasking for forgiveness.\n\nThe tears flowed faster still from the countess' eyes. She took his hand\nand kissed it.\n\n\"Nicholas, when did you break your cameo?\" she asked to change the\nsubject, looking at his finger on which he wore a ring with a cameo of\nLaocoon's head.\n\n\"Today--it was the same affair. Oh, Mary, don't remind me of it!\" and\nagain he flushed. \"I give you my word of honor it shan't occur again,\nand let this always be a reminder to me,\" and he pointed to the broken\nring.\n\nAfter that, when in discussions with his village elders or stewards the\nblood rushed to his face and his fists began to clench, Nicholas would\nturn the broken ring on his finger and would drop his eyes before the\nman who was making him angry. But he did forget himself once or twice\nwithin a twelvemonth, and then he would go and confess to his wife, and\nwould again promise that this should really be the very last time.\n\n\"Mary, you must despise me!\" he would say. \"I deserve it.\"\n\n\"You should go, go away at once, if you don't feel strong enough to\ncontrol yourself,\" she would reply sadly, trying to comfort her husband.\n\nAmong the gentry of the province Nicholas was respected but not liked.\nHe did not concern himself with the interests of his own class, and\nconsequently some thought him proud and others thought him stupid. The\nwhole summer, from spring sowing to harvest, he was busy with the work\non his farm. In autumn he gave himself up to hunting with the same\nbusiness-like seriousness--leaving home for a month, or even two, with\nhis hunt. In winter he visited his other villages or spent his time\nreading. The books he read were chiefly historical, and on these he\nspent a certain sum every year. He was collecting, as he said, a serious\nlibrary, and he made it a rule to read through all the books he bought.\nHe would sit in his study with a grave air, reading--a task he first\nimposed upon himself as a duty, but which afterwards became a habit\naffording him a special kind of pleasure and a consciousness of being\noccupied with serious matters. In winter, except for business\nexcursions, he spent most of his time at home making himself one with\nhis family and entering into all the details of his children's relations\nwith their mother. The harmony between him and his wife grew closer and\ncloser and he daily discovered fresh spiritual treasures in her.\n\nFrom the time of his marriage Sonya had lived in his house. Before that,\nNicholas had told his wife all that had passed between himself and\nSonya, blaming himself and commending her. He had asked Princess Mary to\nbe gentle and kind to his cousin. She thoroughly realized the wrong he\nhad done Sonya, felt herself to blame toward her, and imagined that her\nwealth had influenced Nicholas' choice. She could not find fault with\nSonya in any way and tried to be fond of her, but often felt ill-will\ntoward her which she could not overcome.\n\nOnce she had a talk with her friend Natasha about Sonya and about her\nown injustice toward her.\n\n\"You know,\" said Natasha, \"you have read the Gospels a great deal--there\nis a passage in them that just fits Sonya.\"\n\n\"What?\" asked Countess Mary, surprised.\n\n\"'To him that hath shall be given, and from him that hath not shall be\ntaken away.' You remember? She is one that hath not; why, I don't know.\nPerhaps she lacks egotism, I don't know, but from her is taken away, and\neverything has been taken away. Sometimes I am dreadfully sorry for her.\nFormerly I very much wanted Nicholas to marry her, but I always had a\nsort of presentiment that it would not come off. She is a sterile\nflower, you know--like some strawberry blossoms. Sometimes I am sorry\nfor her, and sometimes I think she doesn't feel it as you or I would.\"\n\nThough Countess Mary told Natasha that those words in the Gospel must be\nunderstood differently, yet looking at Sonya she agreed with Natasha's\nexplanation. It really seemed that Sonya did not feel her position\ntrying, and had grown quite reconciled to her lot as a sterile flower.\nShe seemed to be fond not so much of individuals as of the family as a\nwhole. Like a cat, she had attached herself not to the people but to the\nhome. She waited on the old countess, petted and spoiled the children,\nwas always ready to render the small services for which she had a gift,\nand all this was unconsciously accepted from her with insufficient\ngratitude.\n\nThe country seat at Bald Hills had been rebuilt, though not on the same\nscale as under the old prince.\n\nThe buildings, begun under straitened circumstances, were more than\nsimple. The immense house on the old stone foundations was of wood,\nplastered only inside. It had bare deal floors and was furnished with\nvery simple hard sofas, armchairs, tables, and chairs made by their own\nserf carpenters out of their own birchwood. The house was spacious and\nhad rooms for the house serfs and apartments for visitors. Whole\nfamilies of the Rostovs' and Bolkonskis' relations sometimes came to\nBald Hills with sixteen horses and dozens of servants and stayed for\nmonths. Besides that, four times a year, on the name days and birthdays\nof the hosts, as many as a hundred visitors would gather there for a day\nor two. The rest of the year life pursued its unbroken routine with its\nordinary occupations, and its breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and suppers,\nprovided out of the produce of the estate.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nIt was the eve of St. Nicholas, the fifth of December, 1820. Natasha had\nbeen staying at her brother's with her husband and children since early\nautumn. Pierre had gone to Petersburg on business of his own for three\nweeks as he said, but had remained there nearly seven weeks and was\nexpected back every minute.\n\nBesides the Bezukhov family, Nicholas' old friend the retired General\nVasili Dmitrich Denisov was staying with the Rostovs this fifth of\nDecember.\n\nOn the sixth, which was his name day when the house would be full of\nvisitors, Nicholas knew he would have to exchange his Tartar tunic for a\ntail coat, and put on narrow boots with pointed toes, and drive to the\nnew church he had built, and then receive visitors who would come to\ncongratulate him, offer them refreshments, and talk about the elections\nof the nobility; but he considered himself entitled to spend the eve of\nthat day in his usual way. He examined the bailiff's accounts of the\nvillage in Ryazan which belonged to his wife's nephew, wrote two\nbusiness letters, and walked over to the granaries, cattle yards and\nstables before dinner. Having taken precautions against the general\ndrunkenness to be expected on the morrow because it was a great saint's\nday, he returned to dinner, and without having time for a private talk\nwith his wife sat down at the long table laid for twenty persons, at\nwhich the whole household had assembled. At that table were his mother,\nhis mother's old lady companion Belova, his wife, their three children\nwith their governess and tutor, his wife's nephew with his tutor, Sonya,\nDenisov, Natasha, her three children, their governess, and old Michael\nIvanovich, the late prince's architect, who was living on in retirement\nat Bald Hills.\n\nCountess Mary sat at the other end of the table. When her husband took\nhis place she concluded, from the rapid manner in which after taking up\nhis table napkin he pushed back the tumbler and wineglass standing\nbefore him, that he was out of humor, as was sometimes the case when he\ncame in to dinner straight from the farm--especially before the soup.\nCountess Mary well knew that mood of his, and when she herself was in a\ngood frame of mind quietly waited till he had had his soup and then\nbegan to talk to him and make him admit that there was no cause for his\nill-humor. But today she quite forgot that and was hurt that he should\nbe angry with her without any reason, and she felt unhappy. She asked\nhim where he had been. He replied. She again inquired whether everything\nwas going well on the farm. Her unnatural tone made him wince\nunpleasantly and he replied hastily.\n\n\"Then I'm not mistaken,\" thought Countess Mary. \"Why is he cross with\nme?\" She concluded from his tone that he was vexed with her and wished\nto end the conversation. She knew her remarks sounded unnatural, but\ncould not refrain from asking some more questions.\n\nThanks to Denisov the conversation at table soon became general and\nlively, and she did not talk to her husband. When they left the table\nand went as usual to thank the old countess, Countess Mary held out her\nhand and kissed her husband, and asked him why he was angry with her.\n\n\"You always have such strange fancies! I didn't even think of being\nangry,\" he replied.\n\nBut the word always seemed to her to imply: \"Yes, I am angry but I won't\ntell you why.\"\n\nNicholas and his wife lived together so happily that even Sonya and the\nold countess, who felt jealous and would have liked them to disagree,\ncould find nothing to reproach them with; but even they had their\nmoments of antagonism. Occasionally, and it was always just after they\nhad been happiest together, they suddenly had a feeling of estrangement\nand hostility, which occurred most frequently during Countess Mary's\npregnancies, and this was such a time.\n\n\"Well, messieurs et mesdames,\" said Nicholas loudly and with apparent\ncheerfulness (it seemed to Countess Mary that he did it on purpose to\nvex her), \"I have been on my feet since six this morning. Tomorrow I\nshall have to suffer, so today I'll go and rest.\"\n\nAnd without a word to his wife he went to the little sitting room and\nlay down on the sofa.\n\n\"That's always the way,\" thought Countess Mary. \"He talks to everyone\nexcept me. I see... I see that I am repulsive to him, especially when I\nam in this condition.\" She looked down at her expanded figure and in the\nglass at her pale, sallow, emaciated face in which her eyes now looked\nlarger than ever.\n\nAnd everything annoyed her--Denisov's shouting and laughter, Natasha's\ntalk, and especially a quick glance Sonya gave her.\n\nSonya was always the first excuse Countess Mary found for feeling\nirritated.\n\nHaving sat awhile with her visitors without understanding anything of\nwhat they were saying, she softly left the room and went to the nursery.\n\nThe children were playing at \"going to Moscow\" in a carriage made of\nchairs and invited her to go with them. She sat down and played with\nthem a little, but the thought of her husband and his unreasonable\ncrossness worried her. She got up and, walking on tiptoe with\ndifficulty, went to the small sitting room.\n\n\"Perhaps he is not asleep; I'll have an explanation with him,\" she said\nto herself. Little Andrew, her eldest boy, imitating his mother,\nfollowed her on tiptoe. She did not notice him.\n\n\"Mary, dear, I think he is asleep--he was so tired,\" said Sonya, meeting\nher in the large sitting room (it seemed to Countess Mary that she\ncrossed her path everywhere). \"Andrew may wake him.\"\n\nCountess Mary looked round, saw little Andrew following her, felt that\nSonya was right, and for that very reason flushed and with evident\ndifficulty refrained from saying something harsh. She made no reply, but\nto avoid obeying Sonya beckoned to Andrew to follow her quietly and went\nto the door. Sonya went away by another door. From the room in which\nNicholas was sleeping came the sound of his even breathing, every\nslightest tone of which was familiar to his wife. As she listened to it\nshe saw before her his smooth handsome forehead, his mustache, and his\nwhole face, as she had so often seen it in the stillness of the night\nwhen he slept. Nicholas suddenly moved and cleared his throat. And at\nthat moment little Andrew shouted from outside the door: \"Papa! Mamma's\nstanding here!\" Countess Mary turned pale with fright and made signs to\nthe boy. He grew silent, and quiet ensued for a moment, terrible to\nCountess Mary. She knew how Nicholas disliked being waked. Then through\nthe door she heard Nicholas clearing his throat again and stirring, and\nhis voice said crossly:\n\n\"I can't get a moment's peace.... Mary, is that you? Why did you bring\nhim here?\"\n\n\"I only came in to look and did not notice... forgive me...\"\n\nNicholas coughed and said no more. Countess Mary moved away from the\ndoor and took the boy back to the nursery. Five minutes later little\nblack-eyed three-year-old Natasha, her father's pet, having learned from\nher brother that Papa was asleep and Mamma was in the sitting room, ran\nto her father unobserved by her mother. The dark-eyed little girl boldly\nopened the creaking door, went up to the sofa with energetic steps of\nher sturdy little legs, and having examined the position of her father,\nwho was asleep with his back to her, rose on tiptoe and kissed the hand\nwhich lay under his head. Nicholas turned with a tender smile on his\nface.\n\n\"Natasha, Natasha!\" came Countess Mary's frightened whisper from the\ndoor. \"Papa wants to sleep.\"\n\n\"No, Mamma, he doesn't want to sleep,\" said little Natasha with\nconviction. \"He's laughing.\"\n\nNicholas lowered his legs, rose, and took his daughter in his arms.\n\n\"Come in, Mary,\" he said to his wife.\n\nShe went in and sat down by her husband.\n\n\"I did not notice him following me,\" she said timidly. \"I just looked\nin.\"\n\nHolding his little girl with one arm, Nicholas glanced at his wife and,\nseeing her guilty expression, put his other arm around her and kissed\nher hair.\n\n\"May I kiss Mamma?\" he asked Natasha.\n\nNatasha smiled bashfully.\n\n\"Again!\" she commanded, pointing with a peremptory gesture to the spot\nwhere Nicholas had placed the kiss.\n\n\"I don't know why you think I am cross,\" said Nicholas, replying to the\nquestion he knew was in his wife's mind.\n\n\"You have no idea how unhappy, how lonely, I feel when you are like\nthat. It always seems to me...\"\n\n\"Mary, don't talk nonsense. You ought to be ashamed of yourself!\" he\nsaid gaily.\n\n\"It seems to be that you can't love me, that I am so plain... always...\nand now... in this cond...\"\n\n\"Oh, how absurd you are! It is not beauty that endears, it's love that\nmakes us see beauty. It is only Malvinas and women of that kind who are\nloved for their beauty. But do I love my wife? I don't love her, but...\nI don't know how to put it. Without you, or when something comes between\nus like this, I seem lost and can't do anything. Now do I love my\nfinger? I don't love it, but just try to cut it off!\"\n\n\"I'm not like that myself, but I understand. So you're not angry with\nme?\"\n\n\"Awfully angry!\" he said, smiling and getting up. And smoothing his hair\nhe began to pace the room.\n\n\"Do you know, Mary, what I've been thinking?\" he began, immediately\nthinking aloud in his wife's presence now that they had made it up.\n\nHe did not ask if she was ready to listen to him. He did not care. A\nthought had occurred to him and so it belonged to her also. And he told\nher of his intention to persuade Pierre to stay with them till spring.\n\nCountess Mary listened till he had finished, made some remark, and in\nher turn began thinking aloud. Her thoughts were about the children.\n\n\"You can see the woman in her already,\" she said in French, pointing to\nlittle Natasha. \"You reproach us women with being illogical. Here is our\nlogic. I say: 'Papa wants to sleep!' but she says, 'No, he's laughing.'\nAnd she was right,\" said Countess Mary with a happy smile.\n\n\"Yes, yes.\" And Nicholas, taking his little daughter in his strong hand,\nlifted her high, placed her on his shoulder, held her by the legs, and\npaced the room with her. There was an expression of carefree happiness\non the faces of both father and daughter.\n\n\"But you know you may be unfair. You are too fond of this one,\" his wife\nwhispered in French.\n\n\"Yes, but what am I to do?... I try not to show...\"\n\nAt that moment they heard the sound of the door pulley and footsteps in\nthe hall and anteroom, as if someone had arrived.\n\n\"Somebody has come.\"\n\n\"I am sure it is Pierre. I will go and see,\" said Countess Mary and left\nthe room.\n\nIn her absence Nicholas allowed himself to give his little daughter a\ngallop round the room. Out of breath, he took the laughing child quickly\nfrom his shoulder and pressed her to his heart. His capers reminded him\nof dancing, and looking at the child's round happy little face he\nthought of what she would be like when he was an old man, taking her\ninto society and dancing the mazurka with her as his old father had\ndanced Daniel Cooper with his daughter.\n\n\"It is he, it is he, Nicholas!\" said Countess Mary, re-entering the room\na few minutes later. \"Now our Natasha has come to life. You should have\nseen her ecstasy, and how he caught it for having stayed away so long.\nWell, come along now, quick, quick! It's time you two were parted,\" she\nadded, looking smilingly at the little girl who clung to her father.\n\nNicholas went out holding the child by the hand.\n\nCountess Mary remained in the sitting room.\n\n\"I should never, never have believed that one could be so happy,\" she\nwhispered to herself. A smile lit up her face but at the same time she\nsighed, and her deep eyes expressed a quiet sadness as though she felt,\nthrough her happiness, that there is another sort of happiness\nunattainable in this life and of which she involuntarily thought at that\ninstant.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nNatasha had married in the early spring of 1813, and in 1820 already had\nthree daughters besides a son for whom she had longed and whom she was\nnow nursing. She had grown stouter and broader, so that it was difficult\nto recognize in this robust, motherly woman the slim, lively Natasha of\nformer days. Her features were more defined and had a calm, soft, and\nserene expression. In her face there was none of the ever-glowing\nanimation that had formerly burned there and constituted its charm. Now\nher face and body were often all that one saw, and her soul was not\nvisible at all. All that struck the eye was a strong, handsome, and\nfertile woman. The old fire very rarely kindled in her face now. That\nhappened only when, as was the case that day, her husband returned home,\nor a sick child was convalescent, or when she and Countess Mary spoke of\nPrince Andrew (she never mentioned him to her husband, who she imagined\nwas jealous of Prince Andrew's memory), or on the rare occasions when\nsomething happened to induce her to sing, a practice she had quite\nabandoned since her marriage. At the rare moments when the old fire did\nkindle in her handsome, fully developed body she was even more\nattractive than in former days.\n\nSince their marriage Natasha and her husband had lived in Moscow, in\nPetersburg, on their estate near Moscow, or with her mother, that is to\nsay, in Nicholas' house. The young Countess Bezukhova was not often seen\nin society, and those who met her there were not pleased with her and\nfound her neither attractive nor amiable. Not that Natasha liked\nsolitude--she did not know whether she liked it or not, she even thought\nthat she did not--but with her pregnancies, her confinements, the\nnursing of her children, and sharing every moment of her husband's life,\nshe had demands on her time which could be satisfied only by renouncing\nsociety. All who had known Natasha before her marriage wondered at the\nchange in her as at something extraordinary. Only the old countess with\nher maternal instinct had realized that all Natasha's outbursts had been\ndue to her need of children and a husband--as she herself had once\nexclaimed at Otradnoe not so much in fun as in earnest--and her mother\nwas now surprised at the surprise expressed by those who had never\nunderstood Natasha, and she kept saying that she had always known that\nNatasha would make an exemplary wife and mother.\n\n\"Only she lets her love of her husband and children overflow all\nbounds,\" said the countess, \"so that it even becomes absurd.\"\n\nNatasha did not follow the golden rule advocated by clever folk,\nespecially by the French, which says that a girl should not let herself\ngo when she marries, should not neglect her accomplishments, should be\neven more careful of her appearance than when she was unmarried, and\nshould fascinate her husband as much as she did before he became her\nhusband. Natasha on the contrary had at once abandoned all her witchery,\nof which her singing had been an unusually powerful part. She gave it up\njust because it was so powerfully seductive. She took no pains with her\nmanners or with delicacy of speech, or with her toilet, or to show\nherself to her husband in her most becoming attitudes, or to avoid\ninconveniencing him by being too exacting. She acted in contradiction to\nall those rules. She felt that the allurements instinct had formerly\ntaught her to use would now be merely ridiculous in the eyes of her\nhusband, to whom she had from the first moment given herself up\nentirely--that is, with her whole soul, leaving no corner of it hidden\nfrom him. She felt that her unity with her husband was not maintained by\nthe poetic feelings that had attracted him to her, but by something\nelse--indefinite but firm as the bond between her own body and soul.\n\nTo fluff out her curls, put on fashionable dresses, and sing romantic\nsongs to fascinate her husband would have seemed as strange as to adorn\nherself to attract herself. To adorn herself for others might perhaps\nhave been agreeable--she did not know--but she had no time at all for\nit. The chief reason for devoting no time either to singing, to dress,\nor to choosing her words was that she really had no time to spare for\nthese things.\n\nWe know that man has the faculty of becoming completely absorbed in a\nsubject however trivial it may be, and that there is no subject so\ntrivial that it will not grow to infinite proportions if one's entire\nattention is devoted to it.\n\nThe subject which wholly engrossed Natasha's attention was her family:\nthat is, her husband whom she had to keep so that he should belong\nentirely to her and to the home, and the children whom she had to bear,\nbring into the world, nurse, and bring up.\n\nAnd the deeper she penetrated, not with her mind only but with her whole\nsoul, her whole being, into the subject that absorbed her, the larger\ndid that subject grow and the weaker and more inadequate did her powers\nappear, so that she concentrated them wholly on that one thing and yet\nwas unable to accomplish all that she considered necessary.\n\nThere were then as now conversations and discussions about women's\nrights, the relations of husband and wife and their freedom and rights,\nthough these themes were not yet termed questions as they are now; but\nthese topics were not merely uninteresting to Natasha, she positively\ndid not understand them.\n\nThese questions, then as now, existed only for those who see nothing in\nmarriage but the pleasure married people get from one another, that is,\nonly the beginnings of marriage and not its whole significance, which\nlies in the family.\n\nDiscussions and questions of that kind, which are like the question of\nhow to get the greatest gratification from one's dinner, did not then\nand do not now exist for those for whom the purpose of a dinner is the\nnourishment it affords; and the purpose of marriage is the family.\n\nIf the purpose of dinner is to nourish the body, a man who eats two\ndinners at once may perhaps get more enjoyment but will not attain his\npurpose, for his stomach will not digest the two dinners.\n\nIf the purpose of marriage is the family, the person who wishes to have\nmany wives or husbands may perhaps obtain much pleasure, but in that\ncase will not have a family.\n\nIf the purpose of food is nourishment and the purpose of marriage is the\nfamily, the whole question resolves itself into not eating more than one\ncan digest, and not having more wives or husbands than are needed for\nthe family--that is, one wife or one husband. Natasha needed a husband.\nA husband was given her and he gave her a family. And she not only saw\nno need of any other or better husband, but as all the powers of her\nsoul were intent on serving that husband and family, she could not\nimagine and saw no interest in imagining how it would be if things were\ndifferent.\n\nNatasha did not care for society in general, but prized the more the\nsociety of her relatives--Countess Mary, and her brother, her mother,\nand Sonya. She valued the company of those to whom she could come\nstriding disheveled from the nursery in her dressing gown, and with\njoyful face show a yellow instead of a green stain on baby's napkin, and\nfrom whom she could hear reassuring words to the effect that baby was\nmuch better.\n\nTo such an extent had Natasha let herself go that the way she dressed\nand did her hair, her ill-chosen words, and her jealousy--she was\njealous of Sonya, of the governess, and of every woman, pretty or plain-\n-were habitual subjects of jest to those about her. The general opinion\nwas that Pierre was under his wife's thumb, which was really true. From\nthe very first days of their married life Natasha had announced her\ndemands. Pierre was greatly surprised by his wife's view, to him a\nperfectly novel one, that every moment of his life belonged to her and\nto the family. His wife's demands astonished him, but they also\nflattered him, and he submitted to them.\n\nPierre's subjection consisted in the fact that he not only dared not\nflirt with, but dared not even speak smilingly to, any other woman; did\nnot dare dine at the club as a pastime, did not dare spend money on a\nwhim, and did not dare absent himself for any length of time, except on\nbusiness--in which his wife included his intellectual pursuits, which\nshe did not in the least understand but to which she attributed great\nimportance. To make up for this, at home Pierre had the right to\nregulate his life and that of the whole family exactly as he chose. At\nhome Natasha placed herself in the position of a slave to her husband,\nand the whole household went on tiptoe when he was occupied--that is,\nwas reading or writing in his study. Pierre had but to show a partiality\nfor anything to get just what he liked done always. He had only to\nexpress a wish and Natasha would jump up and run to fulfill it.\n\nThe entire household was governed according to Pierre's supposed orders,\nthat is, by his wishes which Natasha tried to guess. Their way of life\nand place of residence, their acquaintances and ties, Natasha's\noccupations, the children's upbringing, were all selected not merely\nwith regard to Pierre's expressed wishes, but to what Natasha from the\nthoughts he expressed in conversation supposed his wishes to be. And she\ndeduced the essentials of his wishes quite correctly, and having once\narrived at them clung to them tenaciously. When Pierre himself wanted to\nchange his mind she would fight him with his own weapons.\n\nThus in a time of trouble ever memorable to him after the birth of their\nfirst child who was delicate, when they had to change the wet nurse\nthree times and Natasha fell ill from despair, Pierre one day told her\nof Rousseau's view, with which he quite agreed, that to have a wet nurse\nis unnatural and harmful. When her next baby was born, despite the\nopposition of her mother, the doctors, and even of her husband himself--\nwho were all vigorously opposed to her nursing her baby herself, a thing\nthen unheard of and considered injurious--she insisted on having her own\nway, and after that nursed all her babies herself.\n\nIt very often happened that in a moment of irritation husband and wife\nwould have a dispute, but long afterwards Pierre to his surprise and\ndelight would find in his wife's ideas and actions the very thought\nagainst which she had argued, but divested of everything superfluous\nthat in the excitement of the dispute he had added when expressing his\nopinion.\n\nAfter seven years of marriage Pierre had the joyous and firm\nconsciousness that he was not a bad man, and he felt this because he saw\nhimself reflected in his wife. He felt the good and bad within himself\ninextricably mingled and overlapping. But only what was really good in\nhim was reflected in his wife, all that was not quite good was rejected.\nAnd this was not the result of logical reasoning but was a direct and\nmysterious reflection.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nTwo months previously when Pierre was already staying with the Rostovs\nhe had received a letter from Prince Theodore, asking him to come to\nPetersburg to confer on some important questions that were being\ndiscussed there by a society of which Pierre was one of the principal\nfounders.\n\nOn reading that letter (she always read her husband's letters) Natasha\nherself suggested that he should go to Petersburg, though she would feel\nhis absence very acutely. She attributed immense importance to all her\nhusband's intellectual and abstract interests though she did not\nunderstand them, and she always dreaded being a hindrance to him in such\nmatters. To Pierre's timid look of inquiry after reading the letter she\nreplied by asking him to go, but to fix a definite date for his return.\nHe was given four weeks' leave of absence.\n\nEver since that leave of absence had expired, more than a fortnight\nbefore, Natasha had been in a constant state of alarm, depression, and\nirritability.\n\nDenisov, now a general on the retired list and much dissatisfied with\nthe present state of affairs, had arrived during that fortnight. He\nlooked at Natasha with sorrow and surprise as at a bad likeness of a\nperson once dear. A dull, dejected look, random replies, and talk about\nthe nursery was all he saw and heard from his former enchantress.\n\nNatasha was sad and irritable all that time, especially when her mother,\nher brother, Sonya, or Countess Mary in their efforts to console her\ntried to excuse Pierre and suggested reasons for his delay in returning.\n\n\"It's all nonsense, all rubbish--those discussions which lead to nothing\nand all those idiotic societies!\" Natasha declared of the very affairs\nin the immense importance of which she firmly believed.\n\nAnd she would go to the nursery to nurse Petya, her only boy. No one\nelse could tell her anything so comforting or so reasonable as this\nlittle three-month-old creature when he lay at her breast and she was\nconscious of the movement of his lips and the snuffling of his little\nnose. That creature said: \"You are angry, you are jealous, you would\nlike to pay him out, you are afraid--but here am I! And I am he...\" and\nthat was unanswerable. It was more than true.\n\nDuring that fortnight of anxiety Natasha resorted to the baby for\ncomfort so often, and fussed over him so much, that she overfed him and\nhe fell ill. She was terrified by his illness, and yet that was just\nwhat she needed. While attending to him she bore the anxiety about her\nhusband more easily.\n\nShe was nursing her boy when the sound of Pierre's sleigh was heard at\nthe front door, and the old nurse--knowing how to please her mistress--\nentered the room inaudibly but hurriedly and with a beaming face.\n\n\"Has he come?\" Natasha asked quickly in a whisper, afraid to move lest\nshe should rouse the dozing baby.\n\n\"He's come, ma'am,\" whispered the nurse.\n\nThe blood rushed to Natasha's face and her feet involuntarily moved, but\nshe could not jump up and run out. The baby again opened his eyes and\nlooked at her. \"You're here?\" he seemed to be saying, and again lazily\nsmacked his lips.\n\nCautiously withdrawing her breast, Natasha rocked him a little, handed\nhim to the nurse, and went with rapid steps toward the door. But at the\ndoor she stopped as if her conscience reproached her for having in her\njoy left the child too soon, and she glanced round. The nurse with\nraised elbows was lifting the infant over the rail of his cot.\n\n\"Go, ma'am! Don't worry, go!\" she whispered, smiling, with the kind of\nfamiliarity that grows up between a nurse and her mistress.\n\nNatasha ran with light footsteps to the anteroom.\n\nDenisov, who had come out of the study into the dancing room with his\npipe, now for the first time recognized the old Natasha. A flood of\nbrilliant, joyful light poured from her transfigured face.\n\n\"He's come!\" she exclaimed as she ran past, and Denisov felt that he too\nwas delighted that Pierre, whom he did not much care for, had returned.\n\nOn reaching the vestibule Natasha saw a tall figure in a fur coat\nunwinding his scarf. \"It's he! It's really he! He has come!\" she said to\nherself, and rushing at him embraced him, pressed his head to her\nbreast, and then pushed him back and gazed at his ruddy, happy face,\ncovered with hoarfrost. \"Yes, it is he, happy and contented...\"\n\nThen all at once she remembered the tortures of suspense she had\nexperienced for the last fortnight, and the joy that had lit up her face\nvanished; she frowned and overwhelmed Pierre with a torrent of\nreproaches and angry words.\n\n\"Yes, it's all very well for you. You are pleased, you've had a good\ntime.... But what about me? You might at least have shown consideration\nfor the children. I am nursing and my milk was spoiled.... Petya was at\ndeath's door. But you were enjoying yourself. Yes, enjoying...\"\n\nPierre knew he was not to blame, for he could not have come sooner; he\nknew this outburst was unseemly and would blow over in a minute or two;\nabove all he knew that he himself was bright and happy. He wanted to\nsmile but dared not even think of doing so. He made a piteous,\nfrightened face and bent down.\n\n\"I could not, on my honor. But how is Petya?\"\n\n\"All right now. Come along! I wonder you're not ashamed! If only you\ncould see what I was like without you, how I suffered!\"\n\n\"You are well?\"\n\n\"Come, come!\" she said, not letting go of his arm. And they went to\ntheir rooms.\n\nWhen Nicholas and his wife came to look for Pierre he was in the nursery\nholding his baby son, who was again awake, on his huge right palm and\ndandling him. A blissful bright smile was fixed on the baby's broad face\nwith its toothless open mouth. The storm was long since over and there\nwas bright, joyous sunshine on Natasha's face as she gazed tenderly at\nher husband and child.\n\n\"And have you talked everything well over with Prince Theodore?\" she\nasked.\n\n\"Yes, capitally.\"\n\n\"You see, he holds it up.\" (She meant the baby's head.) \"But how he did\nfrighten me... You've seen the princess? Is it true she's in love with\nthat...\"\n\n\"Yes, just fancy...\"\n\nAt that moment Nicholas and Countess Mary came in. Pierre with the baby\non his hand stooped, kissed them, and replied to their inquiries. But in\nspite of much that was interesting and had to be discussed, the baby\nwith the little cap on its unsteady head evidently absorbed all his\nattention.\n\n\"How sweet!\" said Countess Mary, looking at and playing with the baby.\n\"Now, Nicholas,\" she added, turning to her husband, \"I can't understand\nhow it is you don't see the charm of these delicious marvels.\"\n\n\"I don't and can't,\" replied Nicholas, looking coldly at the baby. \"A\nlump of flesh. Come along, Pierre!\"\n\n\"And yet he's such an affectionate father,\" said Countess Mary,\nvindicating her husband, \"but only after they are a year old or so...\"\n\n\"Now, Pierre nurses them splendidly,\" said Natasha. \"He says his hand is\njust made for a baby's seat. Just look!\"\n\n\"Only not for this...\" Pierre suddenly exclaimed with a laugh, and\nshifting the baby he gave him to the nurse.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nAs in every large household, there were at Bald Hills several perfectly\ndistinct worlds which merged into one harmonious whole, though each\nretained its own peculiarities and made concessions to the others. Every\nevent, joyful or sad, that took place in that house was important to all\nthese worlds, but each had its own special reasons to rejoice or grieve\nover that occurrence independently of the others.\n\nFor instance, Pierre's return was a joyful and important event and they\nall felt it to be so.\n\nThe servants--the most reliable judges of their masters because they\njudge not by their conversation or expressions of feeling but by their\nacts and way of life--were glad of Pierre's return because they knew\nthat when he was there Count Nicholas would cease going every day to\nattend to the estate, and would be in better spirits and temper, and\nalso because they would all receive handsome presents for the holidays.\n\nThe children and their governesses were glad of Pierre's return because\nno one else drew them into the social life of the household as he did.\nHe alone could play on the clavichord that ecossaise (his only piece) to\nwhich, as he said, all possible dances could be danced, and they felt\nsure he had brought presents for them all.\n\nYoung Nicholas, now a slim lad of fifteen, delicate and intelligent,\nwith curly light-brown hair and beautiful eyes, was delighted because\nUncle Pierre as he called him was the object of his rapturous and\npassionate affection. No one had instilled into him this love for Pierre\nwhom he saw only occasionally. Countess Mary who had brought him up had\ndone her utmost to make him love her husband as she loved him, and\nlittle Nicholas did love his uncle, but loved him with just a shade of\ncontempt. Pierre, however, he adored. He did not want to be an hussar or\na Knight of St. George like his uncle Nicholas; he wanted to be learned,\nwise, and kind like Pierre. In Pierre's presence his face always shone\nwith pleasure and he flushed and was breathless when Pierre spoke to\nhim. He did not miss a single word he uttered, and would afterwards,\nwith Dessalles or by himself, recall and reconsider the meaning of\neverything Pierre had said. Pierre's past life and his unhappiness prior\nto 1812 (of which young Nicholas had formed a vague poetic picture from\nsome words he had overheard), his adventures in Moscow, his captivity,\nPlaton Karataev (of whom he had heard from Pierre), his love for Natasha\n(of whom the lad was also particularly fond), and especially Pierre's\nfriendship with the father whom Nicholas could not remember--all this\nmade Pierre in his eyes a hero and a saint.\n\nFrom broken remarks about Natasha and his father, from the emotion with\nwhich Pierre spoke of that dead father, and from the careful, reverent\ntenderness with which Natasha spoke of him, the boy, who was only just\nbeginning to guess what love is, derived the notion that his father had\nloved Natasha and when dying had left her to his friend. But the father\nwhom the boy did not remember appeared to him a divinity who could not\nbe pictured, and of whom he never thought without a swelling heart and\ntears of sadness and rapture. So the boy also was happy that Pierre had\narrived.\n\nThe guests welcomed Pierre because he always helped to enliven and unite\nany company he was in.\n\nThe grown-up members of the family, not to mention his wife, were\npleased to have back a friend whose presence made life run more smoothly\nand peacefully.\n\nThe old ladies were pleased with the presents he brought them, and\nespecially that Natasha would now be herself again.\n\nPierre felt the different outlooks of these various worlds and made\nhaste to satisfy all their expectations.\n\nThough the most absent-minded and forgetful of men, Pierre, with the aid\nof a list his wife drew up, had now bought everything, not forgetting\nhis mother--and brother-in-law's commissions, nor the dress material for\na present to Belova, nor toys for his wife's nephews. In the early days\nof his marriage it had seemed strange to him that his wife should expect\nhim not to forget to procure all the things he undertook to buy, and he\nhad been taken aback by her serious annoyance when on his first trip he\nforgot everything. But in time he grew used to this demand. Knowing that\nNatasha asked nothing for herself, and gave him commissions for others\nonly when he himself had offered to undertake them, he now found an\nunexpected and childlike pleasure in this purchase of presents for\neveryone in the house, and never forgot anything. If he now incurred\nNatasha's censure it was only for buying too many and too expensive\nthings. To her other defects (as most people thought them, but which to\nPierre were qualities) of untidiness and neglect of herself, she now\nadded stinginess.\n\nFrom the time that Pierre began life as a family man on a footing\nentailing heavy expenditure, he had noticed to his surprise that he\nspent only half as much as before, and that his affairs--which had been\nin disorder of late, chiefly because of his first wife's debts--had\nbegun to improve.\n\nLife was cheaper because it was circumscribed: that most expensive\nluxury, the kind of life that can be changed at any moment, was no\nlonger his nor did he wish for it. He felt that his way of life had now\nbeen settled once for all till death and that to change it was not in\nhis power, and so that way of life proved economical.\n\nWith a merry, smiling face Pierre was sorting his purchases.\n\n\"What do you think of this?\" said he, unrolling a piece of stuff like a\nshopman.\n\nNatasha, who was sitting opposite to him with her eldest daughter on her\nlap, turned her sparkling eyes swiftly from her husband to the things he\nshowed her.\n\n\"That's for Belova? Excellent!\" She felt the quality of the material.\n\"It was a ruble an arshin, I suppose?\"\n\nPierre told her the price.\n\n\"Too dear!\" Natasha remarked. \"How pleased the children will be and\nMamma too! Only you need not have bought me this,\" she added, unable to\nsuppress a smile as she gazed admiringly at a gold comb set with pearls,\nof a kind then just coming into fashion.\n\n\"Adele tempted me: she kept on telling me to buy it,\" returned Pierre.\n\n\"When am I to wear it?\" and Natasha stuck it in her coil of hair. \"When\nI take little Masha into society? Perhaps they will be fashionable again\nby then. Well, let's go now.\"\n\nAnd collecting the presents they went first to the nursery and then to\nthe old countess' rooms.\n\nThe countess was sitting with her companion Belova, playing grand-\npatience as usual, when Pierre and Natasha came into the drawing room\nwith parcels under their arms.\n\nThe countess was now over sixty, was quite gray, and wore a cap with a\nfrill that surrounded her face. Her face had shriveled, her upper lip\nhad sunk in, and her eyes were dim.\n\nAfter the deaths of her son and husband in such rapid succession, she\nfelt herself a being accidentally forgotten in this world and left\nwithout aim or object for her existence. She ate, drank, slept, or kept\nawake, but did not live. Life gave her no new impressions. She wanted\nnothing from life but tranquillity, and that tranquillity only death\ncould give her. But until death came she had to go on living, that is,\nto use her vital forces. A peculiarity one sees in very young children\nand very old people was particularly evident in her. Her life had no\nexternal aims--only a need to exercise her various functions and\ninclinations was apparent. She had to eat, sleep, think, speak, weep,\nwork, give vent to her anger, and so on, merely because she had a\nstomach, a brain, muscles, nerves, and a liver. She did these things not\nunder any external impulse as people in the full vigor of life do, when\nbehind the purpose for which they strive that of exercising their\nfunctions remains unnoticed. She talked only because she physically\nneeded to exercise her tongue and lungs. She cried as a child does,\nbecause her nose had to be cleared, and so on. What for people in their\nfull vigor is an aim was for her evidently merely a pretext.\n\nThus in the morning--especially if she had eaten anything rich the day\nbefore--she felt a need of being angry and would choose as the handiest\npretext Belova's deafness.\n\nShe would begin to say something to her in a low tone from the other end\nof the room.\n\n\"It seems a little warmer today, my dear,\" she would murmur.\n\nAnd when Belova replied: \"Oh yes, they've come,\" she would mutter\nangrily: \"O Lord! How stupid and deaf she is!\"\n\nAnother pretext would be her snuff, which would seem too dry or too damp\nor not rubbed fine enough. After these fits of irritability her face\nwould grow yellow, and her maids knew by infallible symptoms when Belova\nwould again be deaf, the snuff damp, and the countess' face yellow. Just\nas she needed to work off her spleen so she had sometimes to exercise\nher still-existing faculty of thinking--and the pretext for that was a\ngame of patience. When she needed to cry, the deceased count would be\nthe pretext. When she wanted to be agitated, Nicholas and his health\nwould be the pretext, and when she felt a need to speak spitefully, the\npretext would be Countess Mary. When her vocal organs needed exercise,\nwhich was usually toward seven o'clock when she had had an after-dinner\nrest in a darkened room, the pretext would be the retelling of the same\nstories over and over again to the same audience.\n\nThe old lady's condition was understood by the whole household though no\none ever spoke of it, and they all made every possible effort to satisfy\nher needs. Only by a rare glance exchanged with a sad smile between\nNicholas, Pierre, Natasha, and Countess Mary was the common\nunderstanding of her condition expressed.\n\nBut those glances expressed something more: they said that she had\nplayed her part in life, that what they now saw was not her whole self,\nthat we must all become like her, and that they were glad to yield to\nher, to restrain themselves for this once precious being formerly as\nfull of life as themselves, but now so much to be pitied. \"Memento\nmori,\" said these glances.\n\nOnly the really heartless, the stupid ones of that household, and the\nlittle children failed to understand this and avoided her.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIII\n\nWhen Pierre and his wife entered the drawing room the countess was in\none of her customary states in which she needed the mental exertion of\nplaying patience, and so--though by force of habit she greeted him with\nthe words she always used when Pierre or her son returned after an\nabsence: \"High time, my dear, high time! We were all weary of waiting\nfor you. Well, thank God!\" and received her presents with another\ncustomary remark: \"It's not the gift that's precious, my dear, but that\nyou give it to me, an old woman...\"--yet it was evident that she was not\npleased by Pierre's arrival at that moment when it diverted her\nattention from the unfinished game.\n\nShe finished her game of patience and only then examined the presents.\nThey consisted of a box for cards, of splendid workmanship, a bright-\nblue Sevres tea cup with shepherdesses depicted on it and with a lid,\nand a gold snuffbox with the count's portrait on the lid which Pierre\nhad had done by a miniaturist in Petersburg. The countess had long\nwished for such a box, but as she did not want to cry just then she\nglanced indifferently at the portrait and gave her attention chiefly to\nthe box for cards.\n\n\"Thank you, my dear, you have cheered me up,\" said she as she always\ndid. \"But best of all you have brought yourself back--for I never saw\nanything like it, you ought to give your wife a scolding! What are we to\ndo with her? She is like a mad woman when you are away. Doesn't see\nanything, doesn't remember anything,\" she went on, repeating her usual\nphrases. \"Look, Anna Timofeevna,\" she added to her companion, \"see what\na box for cards my son has brought us!\"\n\nBelova admired the presents and was delighted with her dress material.\n\nThough Pierre, Natasha, Nicholas, Countess Mary, and Denisov had much to\ntalk about that they could not discuss before the old countess--not that\nanything was hidden from her, but because she had dropped so far\nbehindhand in many things that had they begun to converse in her\npresence they would have had to answer inopportune questions and to\nrepeat what they had already told her many times: that so-and-so was\ndead and so-and-so was married, which she would again be unable to\nremember--yet they sat at tea round the samovar in the drawing room from\nhabit, and Pierre answered the countess' questions as to whether Prince\nVasili had aged and whether Countess Mary Alexeevna had sent greetings\nand still thought of them, and other matters that interested no one and\nto which she herself was indifferent.\n\nConversation of this kind, interesting to no one yet unavoidable,\ncontinued all through teatime. All the grown-up members of the family\nwere assembled near the round tea table at which Sonya presided beside\nthe samovar. The children with their tutors and governesses had had tea\nand their voices were audible from the next room. At tea all sat in\ntheir accustomed places: Nicholas beside the stove at a small table\nwhere his tea was handed to him; Milka, the old gray borzoi bitch\n(daughter of the first Milka), with a quite gray face and large black\neyes that seemed more prominent than ever, lay on the armchair beside\nhim; Denisov, whose curly hair, mustache, and whiskers had turned half\ngray, sat beside countess Mary with his general's tunic unbuttoned;\nPierre sat between his wife and the old countess. He spoke of what he\nknew might interest the old lady and that she could understand. He told\nher of external social events and of the people who had formed the\ncircle of her contemporaries and had once been a real, living, and\ndistinct group, but who were now for the most part scattered about the\nworld and like herself were garnering the last ears of the harvests they\nhad sown in earlier years. But to the old countess those contemporaries\nof hers seemed to be the only serious and real society. Natasha saw by\nPierre's animation that his visit had been interesting and that he had\nmuch to tell them but dare not say it before the old countess. Denisov,\nnot being a member of the family, did not understand Pierre's caution\nand being, as a malcontent, much interested in what was occurring in\nPetersburg, kept urging Pierre to tell them about what had happened in\nthe Semenovsk regiment, then about Arakcheev, and then about the Bible\nSociety. Once or twice Pierre was carried away and began to speak of\nthese things, but Nicholas and Natasha always brought him back to the\nhealth of Prince Ivan and Countess Mary Alexeevna.\n\n\"Well, and all this idiocy--Gossner and Tatawinova?\" Denisov asked. \"Is\nthat weally still going on?\"\n\n\n\"Going on?\" Pierre exclaimed. \"Why more than ever! The Bible Society is\nthe whole government now!\"\n\n\"What is that, mon cher ami?\" asked the countess, who had finished her\ntea and evidently needed a pretext for being angry after her meal. \"What\nare you saying about the government? I don't understand.\"\n\n\"Well, you know, Maman,\" Nicholas interposed, knowing how to translate\nthings into his mother's language, \"Prince Alexander Golitsyn has\nfounded a society and in consequence has great influence, they say.\"\n\n\"Arakcheev and Golitsyn,\" incautiously remarked Pierre, \"are now the\nwhole government! And what a government! They see treason everywhere and\nare afraid of everything.\"\n\n\"Well, and how is Prince Alexander to blame? He is a most estimable man.\nI used to meet him at Mary Antonovna's,\" said the countess in an\noffended tone; and still more offended that they all remained silent,\nshe went on: \"Nowadays everyone finds fault. A Gospel Society! Well, and\nwhat harm is there in that?\" and she rose (everybody else got up too)\nand with a severe expression sailed back to her table in the sitting\nroom.\n\nThe melancholy silence that followed was broken by the sounds of the\nchildren's voices and laughter from the next room. Evidently some jolly\nexcitement was going on there.\n\n\"Finished, finished!\" little Natasha's gleeful yell rose above them all.\n\nPierre exchanged glances with Countess Mary and Nicholas (Natasha he\nnever lost sight of) and smiled happily.\n\n\"That's delightful music!\" said he.\n\n\"It means that Anna Makarovna has finished her stocking,\" said Countess\nMary.\n\n\"Oh, I'll go and see,\" said Pierre, jumping up. \"You know,\" he added,\nstopping at the door, \"why I'm especially fond of that music? It is\nalways the first thing that tells me all is well. When I was driving\nhere today, the nearer I got to the house the more anxious I grew. As I\nentered the anteroom I heard Andrusha's peals of laughter and that meant\nthat all was well.\"\n\n\"I know! I know that feeling,\" said Nicholas. \"But I mustn't go there--\nthose stockings are to be a surprise for me.\"\n\nPierre went to the children, and the shouting and laughter grew still\nlouder.\n\n\"Come, Anna Makarovna,\" Pierre's voice was heard saying, \"come here into\nthe middle of the room and at the word of command, 'One, two,' and when\nI say 'three'... You stand here, and you in my arms--well now! One,\ntwo!...\" said Pierre, and a silence followed: \"three!\" and a rapturously\nbreathless cry of children's voices filled the room. \"Two, two!\" they\nshouted.\n\nThis meant two stockings, which by a secret process known only to\nherself Anna Makarovna used to knit at the same time on the same\nneedles, and which, when they were ready, she always triumphantly drew,\none out of the other, in the children's presence.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XIV\n\nSoon after this the children came in to say good night. They kissed\neveryone, the tutors and governesses made their bows, and they went out.\nOnly young Nicholas and his tutor remained. Dessalles whispered to the\nboy to come downstairs.\n\n\"No, Monsieur Dessalles, I will ask my aunt to let me stay,\" replied\nNicholas Bolkonski also in a whisper.\n\n\"Ma tante, please let me stay,\" said he, going up to his aunt.\n\nHis face expressed entreaty, agitation, and ecstasy. Countess Mary\nglanced at him and turned to Pierre.\n\n\"When you are here he can't tear himself away,\" she said.\n\n\"I will bring him to you directly, Monsieur Dessalles. Good night!\" said\nPierre, giving his hand to the Swiss tutor, and he turned to young\nNicholas with a smile. \"You and I haven't seen anything of one another\nyet... How like he is growing, Mary!\" he added, addressing Countess\nMary.\n\n\"Like my father?\" asked the boy, flushing crimson and looking up at\nPierre with bright, ecstatic eyes.\n\nPierre nodded, and went on with what he had been saying when the\nchildren had interrupted. Countess Mary sat down doing woolwork; Natasha\ndid not take her eyes off her husband. Nicholas and Denisov rose, asked\nfor their pipes, smoked, went to fetch more tea from Sonya--who sat\nweary but resolute at the samovar--and questioned Pierre. The curly-\nheaded, delicate boy sat with shining eyes unnoticed in a corner,\nstarting every now and then and muttering something to himself, and\nevidently experiencing a new and powerful emotion as he turned his curly\nhead, with his thin neck exposed by his turn-down collar, toward the\nplace where Pierre sat.\n\nThe conversation turned on the contemporary gossip about those in power,\nin which most people see the chief interest of home politics. Denisov,\ndissatisfied with the government on account of his own disappointments\nin the service, heard with pleasure of the things done in Petersburg\nwhich seemed to him stupid, and made forcible and sharp comments on what\nPierre told them.\n\n\"One used to have to be a German--now one must dance with Tatawinova and\nMadame Kwudener, and wead Ecka'tshausen and the bwethwen. Oh, they\nshould let that fine fellow Bonaparte loose--he'd knock all this\nnonsense out of them! Fancy giving the command of the Semenov wegiment\nto a fellow like that Schwa'tz!\" he cried.\n\nNicholas, though free from Denisov's readiness to find fault with\neverything, also thought that discussion of the government was a very\nserious and weighty matter, and the fact that A had been appointed\nMinister of This and B Governor General of That, and that the Emperor\nhad said so-and-so and this minister so-and-so, seemed to him very\nimportant. And so he thought it necessary to take an interest in these\nthings and to question Pierre. The questions put by these two kept the\nconversation from changing its ordinary character of gossip about the\nhigher government circles.\n\nBut Natasha, knowing all her husband's ways and ideas, saw that he had\nlong been wishing but had been unable to divert the conversation to\nanother channel and express his own deeply felt idea for the sake of\nwhich he had gone to Petersburg to consult with his new friend Prince\nTheodore, and she helped him by asking how his affairs with Prince\nTheodore had gone.\n\n\"What was it about?\" asked Nicholas.\n\n\"Always the same thing,\" said Pierre, looking round at his listeners.\n\"Everybody sees that things are going so badly that they cannot be\nallowed to go on so and that it is the duty of all decent men to\ncounteract it as far as they can.\"\n\n\"What can decent men do?\" Nicholas inquired, frowning slightly. \"What\ncan be done?\"\n\n\"Why, this...\"\n\n\"Come into my study,\" said Nicholas.\n\nNatasha, who had long expected to be fetched to nurse her baby, now\nheard the nurse calling her and went to the nursery. Countess Mary\nfollowed her. The men went into the study and little Nicholas Bolkonski\nfollowed them unnoticed by his uncle and sat down at the writing table\nin a shady corner by the window.\n\n\"Well, what would you do?\" asked Denisov.\n\n\"Always some fantastic schemes,\" said Nicholas.\n\n\"Why this,\" began Pierre, not sitting down but pacing the room,\nsometimes stopping short, gesticulating, and lisping: \"the position in\nPetersburg is this: the Emperor does not look into anything. He has\nabandoned himself altogether to this mysticism\" (Pierre could not\ntolerate mysticism in anyone now). \"He seeks only for peace, and only\nthese people sans foi ni loi * can give it him--people who recklessly\nhack at and strangle everything--Magnitski, Arakcheev, and tutti\nquanti.... You will agree that if you did not look after your estates\nyourself but only wanted a quiet life, the harsher your steward was the\nmore readily your object might be attained,\" he said to Nicholas.\n\n\n* Without faith or law.\n\n\"Well, what does that lead up to?\" said Nicholas.\n\n\"Well, everything is going to ruin! Robbery in the law courts, in the\narmy nothing but flogging, drilling, and Military Settlements; the\npeople are tortured, enlightenment is suppressed. All that is young and\nhonest is crushed! Everyone sees that this cannot go on. Everything is\nstrained to such a degree that it will certainly break,\" said Pierre (as\nthose who examine the actions of any government have always said since\ngovernments began). \"I told them just one thing in Petersburg.\"\n\n\"Told whom?\"\n\n\"Well, you know whom,\" said Pierre, with a meaning glance from under his\nbrows. \"Prince Theodore and all those. To encourage culture and\nphilanthropy is all very well of course. The aim is excellent but in the\npresent circumstances something else is needed.\"\n\nAt that moment Nicholas noticed the presence of his nephew. His face\ndarkened and he went up to the boy.\n\n\"Why are you here?\"\n\n\"Why? Let him be,\" said Pierre, taking Nicholas by the arm and\ncontinuing. \"That is not enough, I told them. Something else is needed.\nWhen you stand expecting the overstrained string to snap at any moment,\nwhen everyone is expecting the inevitable catastrophe, as many as\npossible must join hands as closely as they can to withstand the general\ncalamity. Everything that is young and strong is being enticed away and\ndepraved. One is lured by women, another by honors, a third by ambition\nor money, and they go over to that camp. No independent men, such as you\nor I, are left. What I say is widen the scope of our society, let the\nmot d'ordre be not virtue alone but independence and action as well!\"\n\nNicholas, who had left his nephew, irritably pushed up an armchair, sat\ndown in it, and listened to Pierre, coughing discontentedly and frowning\nmore and more.\n\n\"But action with what aim?\" he cried. \"And what position will you adopt\ntoward the government?\"\n\n\"Why, the position of assistants. The society need not be secret if the\ngovernment allows it. Not merely is it not hostile to government, but it\nis a society of true conservatives--a society of gentlemen in the full\nmeaning of that word. It is only to prevent some Pugachev or other from\nkilling my children and yours, and Arakcheev from sending me off to some\nMilitary Settlement. We join hands only for the public welfare and the\ngeneral safety.\"\n\n\"Yes, but it's a secret society and therefore a hostile and harmful one\nwhich can only cause harm.\"\n\n\"Why? Did the Tugendbund which saved Europe\" (they did not then venture\nto suggest that Russia had saved Europe) \"do any harm? The Tugendbund is\nan alliance of virtue: it is love, mutual help... it is what Christ\npreached on the Cross.\"\n\nNatasha, who had come in during the conversation, looked joyfully at her\nhusband. It was not what he was saying that pleased her--that did not\neven interest her, for it seemed to her that was all extremely simple\nand that she had known it a long time (it seemed so to her because she\nknew that it sprang from Pierre's whole soul), but it was his animated\nand enthusiastic appearance that made her glad.\n\nThe boy with the thin neck stretching out from the turn-down collar--\nwhom everyone had forgotten--gazed at Pierre with even greater and more\nrapturous joy. Every word of Pierre's burned into his heart, and with a\nnervous movement of his fingers he unconsciously broke the sealing wax\nand quill pens his hands came upon on his uncle's table.\n\n\"It is not at all what you suppose; but that is what the German\nTugendbund was, and what I am proposing.\"\n\n\"No, my fwiend! The Tugendbund is all vewy well for the sausage eaters,\nbut I don't understand it and can't even pwonounce it,\" interposed\nDenisov in a loud and resolute voice. \"I agwee that evewything here is\nwotten and howwible, but the Tugendbund I don't understand. If we're not\nsatisfied, let us have a bunt of our own. That's all wight. Je suis\nvot'e homme!\" *\n\n\n* \"I'm your man.\"\n\nPierre smiled, Natasha began to laugh, but Nicholas knitted his brows\nstill more and began proving to Pierre that there was no prospect of any\ngreat change and that all the danger he spoke of existed only in his\nimagination. Pierre maintained the contrary, and as his mental faculties\nwere greater and more resourceful, Nicholas felt himself cornered. This\nmade him still angrier, for he was fully convinced, not by reasoning but\nby something within him stronger than reason, of the justice of his\nopinion.\n\n\"I will tell you this,\" he said, rising and trying with nervously\ntwitching fingers to prop up his pipe in a corner, but finally\nabandoning the attempt. \"I can't prove it to you. You say that\neverything here is rotten and that an overthrow is coming: I don't see\nit. But you also say that our oath of allegiance is a conditional\nmatter, and to that I reply: 'You are my best friend, as you know, but\nif you formed a secret society and began working against the government-\n-be it what it may--I know it is my duty to obey the government. And if\nArakcheev ordered me to lead a squadron against you and cut you down, I\nshould not hesitate an instant, but should do it.' And you may argue\nabout that as you like!\"\n\nAn awkward silence followed these words. Natasha was the first to speak,\ndefending her husband and attacking her brother. Her defense was weak\nand inapt but she attained her object. The conversation was resumed, and\nno longer in the unpleasantly hostile tone of Nicholas' last remark.\n\nWhen they all got up to go in to supper, little Nicholas Bolkonski went\nup to Pierre, pale and with shining, radiant eyes.\n\n\"Uncle Pierre, you... no... If Papa were alive... would he agree with\nyou?\" he asked.\n\nAnd Pierre suddenly realized what a special, independent, complex, and\npowerful process of thought and feeling must have been going on in this\nboy during that conversation, and remembering all he had said he\nregretted that the lad should have heard him. He had, however, to give\nhim an answer.\n\n\"Yes, I think so,\" he said reluctantly, and left the study.\n\nThe lad looked down and seemed now for the first time to notice what he\nhad done to the things on the table. He flushed and went up to Nicholas.\n\n\"Uncle, forgive me, I did that... unintentionally,\" he said, pointing to\nthe broken sealing wax and pens.\n\nNicholas started angrily.\n\n\"All right, all right,\" he said, throwing the bits under the table.\n\nAnd evidently suppressing his vexation with difficulty, he turned away\nfrom the boy.\n\n\"You ought not to have been here at all,\" he said.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XV\n\nThe conversation at supper was not about politics or societies, but\nturned on the subject Nicholas liked best--recollections of 1812.\nDenisov started these and Pierre was particularly agreeable and amusing\nabout them. The family separated on the most friendly terms.\n\nAfter supper Nicholas, having undressed in his study and given\ninstructions to the steward who had been waiting for him, went to the\nbedroom in his dressing gown, where he found his wife still at her\ntable, writing.\n\n\"What are you writing, Mary?\" Nicholas asked.\n\nCountess Mary blushed. She was afraid that what she was writing would\nnot be understood or approved by her husband.\n\nShe had wanted to conceal what she was writing from him, but at the same\ntime was glad he had surprised her at it and that she would now have to\ntell him.\n\n\"A diary, Nicholas,\" she replied, handing him a blue exercise book\nfilled with her firm, bold writing.\n\n\"A diary?\" Nicholas repeated with a shade of irony, and he took up the\nbook.\n\nIt was in French.\n\nDecember 4. Today when Andrusha (her eldest boy) woke up he did not wish\nto dress and Mademoiselle Louise sent for me. He was naughty and\nobstinate. I tried threats, but he only grew angrier. Then I took the\nmatter in hand: I left him alone and began with nurse's help to get the\nother children up, telling him that I did not love him. For a long time\nhe was silent, as if astonished, then he jumped out of bed, ran to me in\nhis shirt, and sobbed so that I could not calm him for a long time. It\nwas plain that what troubled him most was that he had grieved me.\nAfterwards in the evening when I gave him his ticket, he again began\ncrying piteously and kissing me. One can do anything with him by\ntenderness.\n\n\"What is a 'ticket'?\" Nicholas inquired.\n\n\"I have begun giving the elder ones marks every evening, showing how\nthey have behaved.\"\n\nNicholas looked into the radiant eyes that were gazing at him, and\ncontinued to turn over the pages and read. In the diary was set down\neverything in the children's lives that seemed noteworthy to their\nmother as showing their characters or suggesting general reflections on\neducational methods. They were for the most part quite insignificant\ntrifles, but did not seem so to the mother or to the father either, now\nthat he read this diary about his children for the first time.\n\nUnder the date \"5\" was entered:\n\nMitya was naughty at table. Papa said he was to have no pudding. He had\nnone, but looked so unhappily and greedily at the others while they were\neating! I think that punishment by depriving children of sweets only\ndevelops their greediness. Must tell Nicholas this.\n\nNicholas put down the book and looked at his wife. The radiant eyes\ngazed at him questioningly: would he approve or disapprove of her diary?\nThere could be no doubt not only of his approval but also of his\nadmiration for his wife.\n\nPerhaps it need not be done so pedantically, thought Nicholas, or even\ndone at all, but this untiring, continual spiritual effort of which the\nsole aim was the children's moral welfare delighted him. Had Nicholas\nbeen able to analyze his feelings he would have found that his steady,\ntender, and proud love of his wife rested on his feeling of wonder at\nher spirituality and at the lofty moral world, almost beyond his reach,\nin which she had her being.\n\nHe was proud of her intelligence and goodness, recognized his own\ninsignificance beside her in the spiritual world, and rejoiced all the\nmore that she with such a soul not only belonged to him but was part of\nhimself.\n\n\"I quite, quite approve, my dearest!\" said he with a significant look,\nand after a short pause he added: \"And I behaved badly today. You\nweren't in the study. We began disputing--Pierre and I--and I lost my\ntemper. But he is impossible: such a child! I don't know what would\nbecome of him if Natasha didn't keep him in hand.... Have you any idea\nwhy he went to Petersburg? They have formed...\"\n\n\"Yes, I know,\" said Countess Mary. \"Natasha told me.\"\n\n\"Well, then, you know,\" Nicholas went on, growing hot at the mere\nrecollection of their discussion, \"he wanted to convince me that it is\nevery honest man's duty to go against the government, and that the oath\nof allegiance and duty... I am sorry you weren't there. They all fell on\nme--Denisov and Natasha... Natasha is absurd. How she rules over him!\nAnd yet there need only be a discussion and she has no words of her own\nbut only repeats his sayings...\" added Nicholas, yielding to that\nirresistible inclination which tempts us to judge those nearest and\ndearest to us. He forgot that what he was saying about Natasha could\nhave been applied word for word to himself in relation to his wife.\n\n\"Yes, I have noticed that,\" said Countess Mary.\n\n\"When I told him that duty and the oath were above everything, he\nstarted proving goodness knows what! A pity you were not there--what\nwould you have said?\"\n\n\"As I see it you were quite right, and I told Natasha so. Pierre says\neverybody is suffering, tortured, and being corrupted, and that it is\nour duty to help our neighbor. Of course he is right there,\" said\nCountess Mary, \"but he forgets that we have other duties nearer to us,\nduties indicated to us by God Himself, and that though we might expose\nourselves to risks we must not risk our children.\"\n\n\"Yes, that's it! That's just what I said to him,\" put in Nicholas, who\nfancied he really had said it. \"But they insisted on their own view:\nlove of one's neighbor and Christianity--and all this in the presence of\nyoung Nicholas, who had gone into my study and broke all my things.\"\n\n\"Ah, Nicholas, do you know I am often troubled about little Nicholas,\"\nsaid Countess Mary. \"He is such an exceptional boy. I am afraid I\nneglect him in favor of my own: we all have children and relations while\nhe has no one. He is constantly alone with his thoughts.\"\n\n\"Well, I don't think you need reproach yourself on his account. All that\nthe fondest mother could do for her son you have done and are doing for\nhim, and of course I am glad of it. He is a fine lad, a fine lad! This\nevening he listened to Pierre in a sort of trance, and fancy--as we were\ngoing in to supper I looked and he had broken everything on my table to\nbits, and he told me of it himself at once! I never knew him to tell an\nuntruth. A fine lad, a fine lad!\" repeated Nicholas, who at heart was\nnot fond of Nicholas Bolkonski but was always anxious to recognize that\nhe was a fine lad.\n\n\"Still, I am not the same as his own mother,\" said Countess Mary. \"I\nfeel I am not the same and it troubles me. A wonderful boy, but I am\ndreadfully afraid for him. It would be good for him to have companions.\"\n\n\"Well it won't be for long. Next summer I'll take him to Petersburg,\"\nsaid Nicholas. \"Yes, Pierre always was a dreamer and always will be,\" he\ncontinued, returning to the talk in the study which had evidently\ndisturbed him. \"Well, what business is it of mine what goes on there--\nwhether Arakcheev is bad, and all that? What business was it of mine\nwhen I married and was so deep in debt that I was threatened with\nprison, and had a mother who could not see or understand it? And then\nthere are you and the children and our affairs. Is it for my own\npleasure that I am at the farm or in the office from morning to night?\nNo, but I know I must work to comfort my mother, to repay you, and not\nto leave the children such beggars as I was.\"\n\nCountess Mary wanted to tell him that man does not live by bread alone\nand that he attached too much importance to these matters. But she knew\nshe must not say this and that it would be useless to do so. She only\ntook his hand and kissed it. He took this as a sign of approval and a\nconfirmation of his thoughts, and after a few minutes' reflection\ncontinued to think aloud.\n\n\"You know, Mary, today Elias Mitrofanych\" (this was his overseer) \"came\nback from the Tambov estate and told me they are already offering eighty\nthousand rubles for the forest.\"\n\nAnd with an eager face Nicholas began to speak of the possibility of\nrepurchasing Otradnoe before long, and added: \"Another ten years of life\nand I shall leave the children... in an excellent position.\"\n\nCountess Mary listened to her husband and understood all that he told\nher. She knew that when he thought aloud in this way he would sometimes\nask her what he had been saying, and be vexed if he noticed that she had\nbeen thinking about something else. But she had to force herself to\nattend, for what he was saying did not interest her at all. She looked\nat him and did not think, but felt, about something different. She felt\na submissive tender love for this man who would never understand all\nthat she understood, and this seemed to make her love for him still\nstronger and added a touch of passionate tenderness. Besides this\nfeeling which absorbed her altogether and hindered her from following\nthe details of her husband's plans, thoughts that had no connection with\nwhat he was saying flitted through her mind. She thought of her nephew.\nHer husband's account of the boy's agitation while Pierre was speaking\nstruck her forcibly, and various traits of his gentle, sensitive\ncharacter recurred to her mind; and while thinking of her nephew she\nthought also of her own children. She did not compare them with him, but\ncompared her feeling for them with her feeling for him, and felt with\nregret that there was something lacking in her feeling for young\nNicholas.\n\nSometimes it seemed to her that this difference arose from the\ndifference in their ages, but she felt herself to blame toward him and\npromised in her heart to do better and to accomplish the impossible--in\nthis life to love her husband, her children, little Nicholas, and all\nher neighbors, as Christ loved mankind. Countess Mary's soul always\nstrove toward the infinite, the eternal, and the absolute, and could\ntherefore never be at peace. A stern expression of the lofty, secret\nsuffering of a soul burdened by the body appeared on her face. Nicholas\ngazed at her. \"O God! What will become of us if she dies, as I always\nfear when her face is like that?\" thought he, and placing himself before\nthe icon he began to say his evening prayers.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XVI\n\nNatasha and Pierre, left alone, also began to talk as only a husband and\nwife can talk, that is, with extraordinary clearness and rapidity,\nunderstanding and expressing each other's thoughts in ways contrary to\nall rules of logic, without premises, deductions, or conclusions, and in\na quite peculiar way. Natasha was so used to this kind of talk with her\nhusband that for her it was the surest sign of something being wrong\nbetween them if Pierre followed a line of logical reasoning. When he\nbegan proving anything, or talking argumentatively and calmly and she,\nled on by his example, began to do the same, she knew that they were on\nthe verge of a quarrel.\n\nFrom the moment they were alone and Natasha came up to him with wide-\nopen happy eyes, and quickly seizing his head pressed it to her bosom,\nsaying: \"Now you are all mine, mine! You won't escape!\"--from that\nmoment this conversation began, contrary to all the laws of logic and\ncontrary to them because quite different subjects were talked about at\none and the same time. This simultaneous discussion of many topics did\nnot prevent a clear understanding but on the contrary was the surest\nsign that they fully understood one another.\n\nJust as in a dream when all is uncertain, unreasoning, and\ncontradictory, except the feeling that guides the dream, so in this\nintercourse contrary to all laws of reason, the words themselves were\nnot consecutive and clear but only the feeling that prompted them.\n\nNatasha spoke to Pierre about her brother's life and doings, of how she\nhad suffered and lacked life during his own absence, and of how she was\nfonder than ever of Mary, and how Mary was in every way better than\nherself. In saying this Natasha was sincere in acknowledging Mary's\nsuperiority, but at the same time by saying it she made a demand on\nPierre that he should, all the same, prefer her to Mary and to all other\nwomen, and that now, especially after having seen many women in\nPetersburg, he should tell her so afresh.\n\nPierre, answering Natasha's words, told her how intolerable it had been\nfor him to meet ladies at dinners and balls in Petersburg.\n\n\"I have quite lost the knack of talking to ladies,\" he said. \"It was\nsimply dull. Besides, I was very busy.\"\n\nNatasha looked intently at him and went on:\n\n\"Mary is so splendid,\" she said. \"How she understands children! It is as\nif she saw straight into their souls. Yesterday, for instance, Mitya was\nnaughty...\"\n\n\"How like his father he is,\" Pierre interjected.\n\nNatasha knew why he mentioned Mitya's likeness to Nicholas: the\nrecollection of his dispute with his brother-in-law was unpleasant and\nhe wanted to know what Natasha thought of it.\n\n\"Nicholas has the weakness of never agreeing with anything not generally\naccepted. But I understand that you value what opens up a fresh line,\"\nsaid she, repeating words Pierre had once uttered.\n\n\"No, the chief point is that to Nicholas ideas and discussions are an\namusement--almost a pastime,\" said Pierre. \"For instance, he is\ncollecting a library and has made it a rule not to buy a new book till\nhe has read what he had already bought--Sismondi and Rousseau and\nMontesquieu,\" he added with a smile. \"You know how much I...\" he began\nto soften down what he had said; but Natasha interrupted him to show\nthat this was unnecessary.\n\n\"So you say ideas are an amusement to him....\"\n\n\"Yes, and for me nothing else is serious. All the time in Petersburg I\nsaw everyone as in a dream. When I am taken up by a thought, all else is\nmere amusement.\"\n\n\"Ah, I'm so sorry I wasn't there when you met the children,\" said\nNatasha. \"Which was most delighted? Lisa, I'm sure.\"\n\n\"Yes,\" Pierre replied, and went on with what was in his mind. \"Nicholas\nsays we ought not to think. But I can't help it. Besides, when I was in\nPetersburg I felt (I can say this to you) that the whole affair would go\nto pieces without me--everyone was pulling his own way. But I succeeded\nin uniting them all; and then my idea is so clear and simple. You see, I\ndon't say that we ought to oppose this and that. We may be mistaken.\nWhat I say is: 'Join hands, you who love the right, and let there be but\none banner--that of active virtue.' Prince Sergey is a fine fellow and\nclever.\"\n\nNatasha would have had no doubt as to the greatness of Pierre's idea,\nbut one thing disconcerted her. \"Can a man so important and necessary to\nsociety be also my husband? How did this happen?\" She wished to express\nthis doubt to him. \"Now who could decide whether he is really cleverer\nthan all the others?\" she asked herself, and passed in review all those\nwhom Pierre most respected. Judging by what he had said there was no one\nhe had respected so highly as Platon Karataev.\n\n\"Do you know what I am thinking about?\" she asked. \"About Platon\nKarataev. Would he have approved of you now, do you think?\"\n\nPierre was not at all surprised at this question. He understood his\nwife's line of thought.\n\n\"Platon Karataev?\" he repeated, and pondered, evidently sincerely trying\nto imagine Karataev's opinion on the subject. \"He would not have\nunderstood... yet perhaps he would.\"\n\n\"I love you awfully!\" Natasha suddenly said. \"Awfully, awfully!\"\n\n\"No, he would not have approved,\" said Pierre, after reflection. \"What\nhe would have approved of is our family life. He was always so anxious\nto find seemliness, happiness, and peace in everything, and I should\nhave been proud to let him see us. There now--you talk of my absence,\nbut you wouldn't believe what a special feeling I have for you after a\nseparation....\"\n\n\"Yes, I should think...\" Natasha began.\n\n\"No, it's not that. I never leave off loving you. And one couldn't love\nmore, but this is something special.... Yes, of course-\" he did not\nfinish because their eyes meeting said the rest.\n\n\"What nonsense it is,\" Natasha suddenly exclaimed, \"about honeymoons,\nand that the greatest happiness is at first! On the contrary, now is the\nbest of all. If only you did not go away! Do you remember how we\nquarreled? And it was always my fault. Always mine. And what we\nquarreled about--I don't even remember!\"\n\n\"Always about the same thing,\" said Pierre with a smile. \"Jealo...\"\n\n\"Don't say it! I can't bear it!\" Natasha cried, and her eyes glittered\ncoldly and vindictively. \"Did you see her?\" she added, after a pause.\n\n\"No, and if I had I shouldn't have recognized her.\"\n\nThey were silent for a while.\n\n\"Oh, do you know? While you were talking in the study I was looking at\nyou,\" Natasha began, evidently anxious to disperse the cloud that had\ncome over them. \"You are as like him as two peas--like the boy.\" (She\nmeant her little son.) \"Oh, it's time to go to him.... The milk's\ncome.... But I'm sorry to leave you.\"\n\nThey were silent for a few seconds. Then suddenly turning to one another\nat the same time they both began to speak. Pierre began with self-\nsatisfaction and enthusiasm, Natasha with a quiet, happy smile. Having\ninterrupted one another they both stopped to let the other continue.\n\n\"No. What did you say? Go on, go on.\"\n\n\"No, you go on, I was talking nonsense,\" said Natasha.\n\nPierre finished what he had begun. It was the sequel to his complacent\nreflections on his success in Petersburg. At that moment it seemed to\nhim that he was chosen to give a new direction to the whole of Russian\nsociety and to the whole world.\n\n\"I only wished to say that ideas that have great results are always\nsimple ones. My whole idea is that if vicious people are united and\nconstitute a power, then honest folk must do the same. Now that's simple\nenough.\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"And what were you going to say?\"\n\n\"I? Only nonsense.\"\n\n\"But all the same?\"\n\n\"Oh nothing, only a trifle,\" said Natasha, smilingly still more\nbrightly. \"I only wanted to tell you about Petya: today nurse was coming\nto take him from me, and he laughed, shut his eyes, and clung to me. I'm\nsure he thought he was hiding. Awfully sweet! There, now he's crying.\nWell, good-by!\" and she left the room.\n\nMeanwhile downstairs in young Nicholas Bolkonski's bedroom a little lamp\nwas burning as usual. (The boy was afraid of the dark and they could not\ncure him of it.) Dessalles slept propped up on four pillows and his\nRoman nose emitted sounds of rhythmic snoring. Little Nicholas, who had\njust waked up in a cold perspiration, sat up in bed and gazed before him\nwith wide-open eyes. He had awaked from a terrible dream. He had dreamed\nthat he and Uncle Pierre, wearing helmets such as were depicted in his\nPlutarch, were leading a huge army. The army was made up of white\nslanting lines that filled the air like the cobwebs that float about in\nautumn and which Dessalles called les fils de la Vierge. In front was\nGlory, which was similar to those threads but rather thicker. He and\nPierre were borne along lightly and joyously, nearer and nearer to their\ngoal. Suddenly the threads that moved them began to slacken and become\nentangled and it grew difficult to move. And Uncle Nicholas stood before\nthem in a stern and threatening attitude.\n\n\"Have you done this?\" he said, pointing to some broken sealing wax and\npens. \"I loved you, but I have orders from Arakcheev and will kill the\nfirst of you who moves forward.\" Little Nicholas turned to look at\nPierre but Pierre was no longer there. In his place was his father--\nPrince Andrew--and his father had neither shape nor form, but he\nexisted, and when little Nicholas perceived him he grew faint with love:\nhe felt himself powerless, limp, and formless. His father caressed and\npitied him. But Uncle Nicholas came nearer and nearer to them. Terror\nseized young Nicholas and he awoke.\n\n\"My father!\" he thought. (Though there were two good portraits of Prince\nAndrew in the house, Nicholas never imagined him in human form.) \"My\nfather has been with me and caressed me. He approved of me and of Uncle\nPierre. Whatever he may tell me, I will do it. Mucius Scaevola burned\nhis hand. Why should not the same sort of thing happen to me? I know\nthey want me to learn. And I will learn. But someday I shall have\nfinished learning, and then I will do something. I only pray God that\nsomething may happen to me such as happened to Plutarch's men, and I\nwill act as they did. I will do better. Everyone shall know me, love me,\nand be delighted with me!\" And suddenly his bosom heaved with sobs and\nhe began to cry.\n\n\"Are you ill?\" he heard Dessalles' voice asking.\n\n\"No,\" answered Nicholas, and lay back on his pillow.\n\n\"He is good and kind and I am fond of him!\" he thought of Dessalles.\n\"But Uncle Pierre! Oh, what a wonderful man he is! And my father? Oh,\nFather, Father! Yes, I will do something with which even he would be\nsatisfied....\"\n\nSECOND EPILOGUE\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER I\n\nHistory is the life of nations and of humanity. To seize and put into\nwords, to describe directly the life of humanity or even of a single\nnation, appears impossible.\n\nThe ancient historians all employed one and the same method to describe\nand seize the apparently elusive--the life of a people. They described\nthe activity of individuals who ruled the people, and regarded the\nactivity of those men as representing the activity of the whole nation.\n\nThe question: how did individuals make nations act as they wished and by\nwhat was the will of these individuals themselves guided? the ancients\nmet by recognizing a divinity which subjected the nations to the will of\na chosen man, and guided the will of that chosen man so as to accomplish\nends that were predestined.\n\nFor the ancients these questions were solved by a belief in the direct\nparticipation of the Deity in human affairs.\n\nModern history, in theory, rejects both these principles.\n\nIt would seem that having rejected the belief of the ancients in man's\nsubjection to the Deity and in a predetermined aim toward which nations\nare led, modern history should study not the manifestations of power but\nthe causes that produce it. But modern history has not done this. Having\nin theory rejected the view held by the ancients, it still follows them\nin practice.\n\nInstead of men endowed with divine authority and directly guided by the\nwill of God, modern history has given us either heroes endowed with\nextraordinary, superhuman capacities, or simply men of very various\nkinds, from monarchs to journalists, who lead the masses. Instead of the\nformer divinely appointed aims of the Jewish, Greek, or Roman nations,\nwhich ancient historians regarded as representing the progress of\nhumanity, modern history has postulated its own aims--the welfare of the\nFrench, German, or English people, or, in its highest abstraction, the\nwelfare and civilization of humanity in general, by which is usually\nmeant that of the peoples occupying a small northwesterly portion of a\nlarge continent.\n\nModern history has rejected the beliefs of the ancients without\nreplacing them by a new conception, and the logic of the situation has\nobliged the historians, after they had apparently rejected the divine\nauthority of the kings and the \"fate\" of the ancients, to reach the same\nconclusion by another road, that is, to recognize (1) nations guided by\nindividual men, and (2) the existence of a known aim to which these\nnations and humanity at large are tending.\n\nAt the basis of the works of all the modern historians from Gibbon to\nBuckle, despite their seeming disagreements and the apparent novelty of\ntheir outlooks, lie those two old, unavoidable assumptions.\n\nIn the first place the historian describes the activity of individuals\nwho in his opinion have directed humanity (one historian considers only\nmonarchs, generals, and ministers as being such men, while another\nincludes also orators, learned men, reformers, philosophers, and poets).\nSecondly, it is assumed that the goal toward which humanity is being led\nis known to the historians: to one of them this goal is the greatness of\nthe Roman, Spanish, or French realm; to another it is liberty, equality,\nand a certain kind of civilization of a small corner of the world called\nEurope.\n\nIn 1789 a ferment arises in Paris; it grows, spreads, and is expressed\nby a movement of peoples from west to east. Several times it moves\neastward and collides with a countermovement from the east westward. In\n1812 it reaches its extreme limit, Moscow, and then, with remarkable\nsymmetry, a countermovement occurs from east to west, attracting to it,\nas the first movement had done, the nations of middle Europe. The\ncounter movement reaches the starting point of the first movement in the\nwest--Paris--and subsides.\n\nDuring that twenty-year period an immense number of fields were left\nuntilled, houses were burned, trade changed its direction, millions of\nmen migrated, were impoverished, or were enriched, and millions of\nChristian men professing the law of love of their fellows slew one\nanother.\n\nWhat does all this mean? Why did it happen? What made those people burn\nhouses and slay their fellow men? What were the causes of these events?\nWhat force made men act so? These are the instinctive, plain, and most\nlegitimate questions humanity asks itself when it encounters the\nmonuments and tradition of that period.\n\nFor a reply to these questions the common sense of mankind turns to the\nscience of history, whose aim is to enable nations and humanity to know\nthemselves.\n\nIf history had retained the conception of the ancients it would have\nsaid that God, to reward or punish his people, gave Napoleon power and\ndirected his will to the fulfillment of the divine ends, and that reply\nwould have been clear and complete. One might believe or disbelieve in\nthe divine significance of Napoleon, but for anyone believing in it\nthere would have been nothing unintelligible in the history of that\nperiod, nor would there have been any contradictions.\n\nBut modern history cannot give that reply. Science does not admit the\nconception of the ancients as to the direct participation of the Deity\nin human affairs, and therefore history ought to give other answers.\n\nModern history replying to these questions says: you want to know what\nthis movement means, what caused it, and what force produced these\nevents? Then listen:\n\n\"Louis XIV was a very proud and self-confident man; he had such and such\nmistresses and such and such ministers and he ruled France badly. His\ndescendants were weak men and they too ruled France badly. And they had\nsuch and such favorites and such and such mistresses. Moreover, certain\nmen wrote some books at that time. At the end of the eighteenth century\nthere were a couple of dozen men in Paris who began to talk about all\nmen being free and equal. This caused people all over France to begin to\nslash at and drown one another. They killed the king and many other\npeople. At that time there was in France a man of genius--Napoleon. He\nconquered everybody everywhere--that is, he killed many people because\nhe was a great genius. And for some reason he went to kill Africans, and\nkilled them so well and was so cunning and wise that when he returned to\nFrance he ordered everybody to obey him, and they all obeyed him. Having\nbecome an Emperor he again went out to kill people in Italy, Austria,\nand Prussia. And there too he killed a great many. In Russia there was\nan Emperor, Alexander, who decided to restore order in Europe and\ntherefore fought against Napoleon. In 1807 he suddenly made friends with\nhim, but in 1811 they again quarreled and again began killing many\npeople. Napoleon led six hundred thousand men into Russia and captured\nMoscow; then he suddenly ran away from Moscow, and the Emperor\nAlexander, helped by the advice of Stein and others, united Europe to\narm against the disturber of its peace. All Napoleon's allies suddenly\nbecame his enemies and their forces advanced against the fresh forces he\nraised. The Allies defeated Napoleon, entered Paris, forced Napoleon to\nabdicate, and sent him to the island of Elba, not depriving him of the\ntitle of Emperor and showing him every respect, though five years before\nand one year later they all regarded him as an outlaw and a brigand.\nThen Louis XVIII, who till then had been the laughingstock both of the\nFrench and the Allies, began to reign. And Napoleon, shedding tears\nbefore his Old Guards, renounced the throne and went into exile. Then\nthe skillful statesmen and diplomatists (especially Talleyrand, who\nmanaged to sit down in a particular chair before anyone else and thereby\nextended the frontiers of France) talked in Vienna and by these\nconversations made the nations happy or unhappy. Suddenly the\ndiplomatists and monarchs nearly quarreled and were on the point of\nagain ordering their armies to kill one another, but just then Napoleon\narrived in France with a battalion, and the French, who had been hating\nhim, immediately all submitted to him. But the Allied monarchs were\nangry at this and went to fight the French once more. And they defeated\nthe genius Napoleon and, suddenly recognizing him as a brigand, sent him\nto the island of St. Helena. And the exile, separated from the beloved\nFrance so dear to his heart, died a lingering death on that rock and\nbequeathed his great deeds to posterity. But in Europe a reaction\noccurred and the sovereigns once again all began to oppress their\nsubjects.\"\n\nIt would be a mistake to think that this is ironic--a caricature of the\nhistorical accounts. On the contrary it is a very mild expression of the\ncontradictory replies, not meeting the questions, which all the\nhistorians give, from the compilers of memoirs and the histories of\nseparate states to the writers of general histories and the new\nhistories of the culture of that period.\n\nThe strangeness and absurdity of these replies arise from the fact that\nmodern history, like a deaf man, answers questions no one has asked.\n\nIf the purpose of history be to give a description of the movement of\nhumanity and of the peoples, the first question--in the absence of a\nreply to which all the rest will be incomprehensible--is: what is the\npower that moves peoples? To this, modern history laboriously replies\neither that Napoleon was a great genius, or that Louis XIV was very\nproud, or that certain writers wrote certain books.\n\nAll that may be so and mankind is ready to agree with it, but it is not\nwhat was asked. All that would be interesting if we recognized a divine\npower based on itself and always consistently directing its nations\nthrough Napoleons, Louis-es, and writers; but we do not acknowledge such\na power, and therefore before speaking about Napoleons, Louis-es, and\nauthors, we ought to be shown the connection existing between these men\nand the movement of the nations.\n\nIf instead of a divine power some other force has appeared, it should be\nexplained in what this new force consists, for the whole interest of\nhistory lies precisely in that force.\n\nHistory seems to assume that this force is self-evident and known to\neveryone. But in spite of every desire to regard it as known, anyone\nreading many historical works cannot help doubting whether this new\nforce, so variously understood by the historians themselves, is really\nquite well known to everybody.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER II\n\nWhat force moves the nations?\n\nBiographical historians and historians of separate nations understand\nthis force as a power inherent in heroes and rulers. In their narration\nevents occur solely by the will of a Napoleon, and Alexander, or in\ngeneral of the persons they describe. The answers given by this kind of\nhistorian to the question of what force causes events to happen are\nsatisfactory only as long as there is but one historian to each event.\nAs soon as historians of different nationalities and tendencies begin to\ndescribe the same event, the replies they give immediately lose all\nmeaning, for this force is understood by them all not only differently\nbut often in quite contradictory ways. One historian says that an event\nwas produced by Napoleon's power, another that it was produced by\nAlexander's, a third that it was due to the power of some other person.\nBesides this, historians of that kind contradict each other even in\ntheir statement as to the force on which the authority of some\nparticular person was based. Thiers, a Bonapartist, says that Napoleon's\npower was based on his virtue and genius. Lanfrey, a Republican, says it\nwas based on his trickery and deception of the people. So the historians\nof this class, by mutually destroying one another's positions, destroy\nthe understanding of the force which produces events, and furnish no\nreply to history's essential question.\n\nWriters of universal history who deal with all the nations seem to\nrecognize how erroneous is the specialist historians' view of the force\nwhich produces events. They do not recognize it as a power inherent in\nheroes and rulers, but as the resultant of a multiplicity of variously\ndirected forces. In describing a war or the subjugation of a people, a\ngeneral historian looks for the cause of the event not in the power of\none man, but in the interaction of many persons connected with the\nevent.\n\nAccording to this view the power of historical personages, represented\nas the product of many forces, can no longer, it would seem, be regarded\nas a force that itself produces events. Yet in most cases universal\nhistorians still employ the conception of power as a force that itself\nproduces events, and treat it as their cause. In their exposition, an\nhistoric character is first the product of his time, and his power only\nthe resultant of various forces, and then his power is itself a force\nproducing events. Gervinus, Schlosser, and others, for instance, at one\ntime prove Napoleon to be a product of the Revolution, of the ideas of\n1789 and so forth, and at another plainly say that the campaign of 1812\nand other things they do not like were simply the product of Napoleon's\nmisdirected will, and that the very ideas of 1789 were arrested in their\ndevelopment by Napoleon's caprice. The ideas of the Revolution and the\ngeneral temper of the age produced Napoleon's power. But Napoleon's\npower suppressed the ideas of the Revolution and the general temper of\nthe age.\n\nThis curious contradiction is not accidental. Not only does it occur at\nevery step, but the universal historians' accounts are all made up of a\nchain of such contradictions. This contradiction occurs because after\nentering the field of analysis the universal historians stop halfway.\n\nTo find component forces equal to the composite or resultant force, the\nsum of the components must equal the resultant. This condition is never\nobserved by the universal historians, and so to explain the resultant\nforces they are obliged to admit, in addition to the insufficient\ncomponents, another unexplained force affecting the resultant action.\n\nSpecialist historians describing the campaign of 1813 or the restoration\nof the Bourbons plainly assert that these events were produced by the\nwill of Alexander. But the universal historian Gervinus, refuting this\nopinion of the specialist historian, tries to prove that the campaign of\n1813 and the restoration of the Bourbons were due to other things beside\nAlexander's will--such as the activity of Stein, Metternich, Madame de\nStael, Talleyrand, Fichte, Chateaubriand, and others. The historian\nevidently decomposes Alexander's power into the components: Talleyrand,\nChateaubriand, and the rest--but the sum of the components, that is, the\ninteractions of Chateaubriand, Talleyrand, Madame de Stael, and the\nothers, evidently does not equal the resultant, namely the phenomenon of\nmillions of Frenchmen submitting to the Bourbons. That Chateaubriand,\nMadame de Stael, and others spoke certain words to one another only\naffected their mutual relations but does not account for the submission\nof millions. And therefore to explain how from these relations of theirs\nthe submission of millions of people resulted--that is, how component\nforces equal to one A gave a resultant equal to a thousand times A--the\nhistorian is again obliged to fall back on power--the force he had\ndenied--and to recognize it as the resultant of the forces, that is, he\nhas to admit an unexplained force acting on the resultant. And that is\njust what the universal historians do, and consequently they not only\ncontradict the specialist historians but contradict themselves.\n\nPeasants having no clear idea of the cause of rain, say, according to\nwhether they want rain or fine weather: \"The wind has blown the clouds\naway,\" or, \"The wind has brought up the clouds.\" And in the same way the\nuniversal historians sometimes, when it pleases them and fits in with\ntheir theory, say that power is the result of events, and sometimes,\nwhen they want to prove something else, say that power produces events.\n\nA third class of historians--the so-called historians of culture--\nfollowing the path laid down by the universal historians who sometimes\naccept writers and ladies as forces producing events--again take that\nforce to be something quite different. They see it in what is called\nculture--in mental activity.\n\nThe historians of culture are quite consistent in regard to their\nprogenitors, the writers of universal histories, for if historical\nevents may be explained by the fact that certain persons treated one\nanother in such and such ways, why not explain them by the fact that\nsuch and such people wrote such and such books? Of the immense number of\nindications accompanying every vital phenomenon, these historians select\nthe indication of intellectual activity and say that this indication is\nthe cause. But despite their endeavors to prove that the cause of events\nlies in intellectual activity, only by a great stretch can one admit\nthat there is any connection between intellectual activity and the\nmovement of peoples, and in no case can one admit that intellectual\nactivity controls people's actions, for that view is not confirmed by\nsuch facts as the very cruel murders of the French Revolution resulting\nfrom the doctrine of the equality of man, or the very cruel wars and\nexecutions resulting from the preaching of love.\n\nBut even admitting as correct all the cunningly devised arguments with\nwhich these histories are filled--admitting that nations are governed by\nsome undefined force called an idea--history's essential question still\nremains unanswered, and to the former power of monarchs and to the\ninfluence of advisers and other people introduced by the universal\nhistorians, another, newer force--the idea--is added, the connection of\nwhich with the masses needs explanation. It is possible to understand\nthat Napoleon had power and so events occurred; with some effort one may\neven conceive that Napoleon together with other influences was the cause\nof an event; but how a book, Le Contrat Social, had the effect of making\nFrenchmen begin to drown one another cannot be understood without an\nexplanation of the causal nexus of this new force with the event.\n\nUndoubtedly some relation exists between all who live contemporaneously,\nand so it is possible to find some connection between the intellectual\nactivity of men and their historical movements, just as such a\nconnection may be found between the movements of humanity and commerce,\nhandicraft, gardening, or anything else you please. But why intellectual\nactivity is considered by the historians of culture to be the cause or\nexpression of the whole historical movement is hard to understand. Only\nthe following considerations can have led the historians to such a\nconclusion: (1) that history is written by learned men, and so it is\nnatural and agreeable for them to think that the activity of their class\nsupplies the basis of the movement of all humanity, just as a similar\nbelief is natural and agreeable to traders, agriculturists, and soldiers\n(if they do not express it, that is merely because traders and soldiers\ndo not write history), and (2) that spiritual activity, enlightenment,\ncivilization, culture, ideas, are all indistinct, indefinite conceptions\nunder whose banner it is very easy to use words having a still less\ndefinite meaning, and which can therefore be readily introduced into any\ntheory.\n\nBut not to speak of the intrinsic quality of histories of this kind\n(which may possibly even be of use to someone for something) the\nhistories of culture, to which all general histories tend more and more\nto approximate, are significant from the fact that after seriously and\nminutely examining various religious, philosophic, and political\ndoctrines as causes of events, as soon as they have to describe an\nactual historic event such as the campaign of 1812 for instance, they\ninvoluntarily describe it as resulting from an exercise of power--and\nsay plainly that that was the result of Napoleon's will. Speaking so,\nthe historians of culture involuntarily contradict themselves, and show\nthat the new force they have devised does not account for what happens\nin history, and that history can only be explained by introducing a\npower which they apparently do not recognize.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER III\n\nA locomotive is moving. Someone asks: \"What moves it?\" A peasant says\nthe devil moves it. Another man says the locomotive moves because its\nwheels go round. A third asserts that the cause of its movement lies in\nthe smoke which the wind carries away.\n\nThe peasant is irrefutable. He has devised a complete explanation. To\nrefute him someone would have to prove to him that there is no devil, or\nanother peasant would have to explain to him that it is not the devil\nbut a German, who moves the locomotive. Only then, as a result of the\ncontradiction, will they see that they are both wrong. But the man who\nsays that the movement of the wheels is the cause refutes himself, for\nhaving once begun to analyze he ought to go on and explain further why\nthe wheels go round; and till he has reached the ultimate cause of the\nmovement of the locomotive in the pressure of steam in the boiler, he\nhas no right to stop in his search for the cause. The man who explains\nthe movement of the locomotive by the smoke that is carried back has\nnoticed that the wheels do not supply an explanation and has taken the\nfirst sign that occurs to him and in his turn has offered that as an\nexplanation.\n\nThe only conception that can explain the movement of the locomotive is\nthat of a force commensurate with the movement observed.\n\nThe only conception that can explain the movement of the peoples is that\nof some force commensurate with the whole movement of the peoples.\n\nYet to supply this conception various historians take forces of\ndifferent kinds, all of which are incommensurate with the movement\nobserved. Some see it as a force directly inherent in heroes, as the\npeasant sees the devil in the locomotive; others as a force resulting\nfrom several other forces, like the movement of the wheels; others again\nas an intellectual influence, like the smoke that is blown away.\n\nSo long as histories are written of separate individuals, whether\nCaesars, Alexanders, Luthers, or Voltaires, and not the histories of\nall, absolutely all those who take part in an event, it is quite\nimpossible to describe the movement of humanity without the conception\nof a force compelling men to direct their activity toward a certain end.\nAnd the only such conception known to historians is that of power.\n\nThis conception is the one handle by means of which the material of\nhistory, as at present expounded, can be dealt with, and anyone who\nbreaks that handle off, as Buckle did, without finding some other method\nof treating historical material, merely deprives himself of the one\npossible way of dealing with it. The necessity of the conception of\npower as an explanation of historical events is best demonstrated by the\nuniversal historians and historians of culture themselves, for they\nprofessedly reject that conception but inevitably have recourse to it at\nevery step.\n\nIn dealing with humanity's inquiry, the science of history up to now is\nlike money in circulation--paper money and coin. The biographies and\nspecial national histories are like paper money. They can be used and\ncan circulate and fulfill their purpose without harm to anyone and even\nadvantageously, as long as no one asks what is the security behind them.\nYou need only forget to ask how the will of heroes produces events, and\nsuch histories as Thiers' will be interesting and instructive and may\nperhaps even possess a tinge of poetry. But just as doubts of the real\nvalue of paper money arise either because, being easy to make, too much\nof it gets made or because people try to exchange it for gold, so also\ndoubts concerning the real value of such histories arise either because\ntoo many of them are written or because in his simplicity of heart\nsomeone inquires: by what force did Napoleon do this?--that is, wants to\nexchange the current paper money for the real gold of actual\ncomprehension.\n\nThe writers of universal histories and of the history of culture are\nlike people who, recognizing the defects of paper money, decide to\nsubstitute for it money made of metal that has not the specific gravity\nof gold. It may indeed make jingling coin, but will do no more than\nthat. Paper money may deceive the ignorant, but nobody is deceived by\ntokens of base metal that have no value but merely jingle. As gold is\ngold only if it is serviceable not merely for exchange but also for use,\nso universal historians will be valuable only when they can reply to\nhistory's essential question: what is power? The universal historians\ngive contradictory replies to that question, while the historians of\nculture evade it and answer something quite different. And as counters\nof imitation gold can be used only among a group of people who agree to\naccept them as gold, or among those who do not know the nature of gold,\nso universal historians and historians of culture, not answering\nhumanity's essential question, serve as currency for some purposes of\ntheir own, only in universities and among the mass of readers who have a\ntaste for what they call \"serious reading.\"\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IV\n\nHaving abandoned the conception of the ancients as to the divine\nsubjection of the will of a nation to some chosen man and the subjection\nof that man's will to the Deity, history cannot without contradictions\ntake a single step till it has chosen one of two things: either a return\nto the former belief in the direct intervention of the Deity in human\naffairs or a definite explanation of the meaning of the force producing\nhistorical events and termed \"power.\"\n\nA return to the first is impossible, the belief has been destroyed; and\nso it is essential to explain what is meant by power.\n\nNapoleon ordered an army to be raised and go to war. We are so\naccustomed to that idea and have become so used to it that the question:\nwhy did six hundred thousand men go to fight when Napoleon uttered\ncertain words, seems to us senseless. He had the power and so what he\nordered was done.\n\nThis reply is quite satisfactory if we believe that the power was given\nhim by God. But as soon as we do not admit that, it becomes essential to\ndetermine what is this power of one man over others.\n\nIt cannot be the direct physical power of a strong man over a weak one--\na domination based on the application or threat of physical force, like\nthe power of Hercules; nor can it be based on the effect of moral force,\nas in their simplicity some historians think who say that the leading\nfigures in history are heroes, that is, men gifted with a special\nstrength of soul and mind called genius. This power cannot be based on\nthe predominance of moral strength, for, not to mention heroes such as\nNapoleon about whose moral qualities opinions differ widely, history\nshows us that neither a Louis XI nor a Metternich, who ruled over\nmillions of people, had any particular moral qualities, but on the\ncontrary were generally morally weaker than any of the millions they\nruled over.\n\nIf the source of power lies neither in the physical nor in the moral\nqualities of him who possesses it, it must evidently be looked for\nelsewhere--in the relation to the people of the man who wields the\npower.\n\nAnd that is how power is understood by the science of jurisprudence,\nthat exchange bank of history which offers to exchange history's\nunderstanding of power for true gold.\n\nPower is the collective will of the people transferred, by expressed or\ntacit consent, to their chosen rulers.\n\nIn the domain of jurisprudence, which consists of discussions of how a\nstate and power might be arranged were it possible for all that to be\narranged, it is all very clear; but when applied to history that\ndefinition of power needs explanation.\n\nThe science of jurisprudence regards the state and power as the ancients\nregarded fire--namely, as something existing absolutely. But for\nhistory, the state and power are merely phenomena, just as for modern\nphysics fire is not an element but a phenomenon.\n\nFrom this fundamental difference between the view held by history and\nthat held by jurisprudence, it follows that jurisprudence can tell\nminutely how in its opinion power should be constituted and what power--\nexisting immutably outside time--is, but to history's questions about\nthe meaning of the mutations of power in time it can answer nothing.\n\nIf power be the collective will of the people transferred to their\nruler, was Pugachev a representative of the will of the people? If not,\nthen why was Napoleon I? Why was Napoleon III a criminal when he was\ntaken prisoner at Boulogne, and why, later on, were those criminals whom\nhe arrested?\n\nDo palace revolutions--in which sometimes only two or three people take\npart--transfer the will of the people to a new ruler? In international\nrelations, is the will of the people also transferred to their\nconqueror? Was the will of the Confederation of the Rhine transferred to\nNapoleon in 1806? Was the will of the Russian people transferred to\nNapoleon in 1809, when our army in alliance with the French went to\nfight the Austrians?\n\nTo these questions three answers are possible:\n\nEither to assume (1) that the will of the people is always\nunconditionally transferred to the ruler or rulers they have chosen, and\nthat therefore every emergence of a new power, every struggle against\nthe power once appointed, should be absolutely regarded as an\ninfringement of the real power; or (2) that the will of the people is\ntransferred to the rulers conditionally, under definite and known\nconditions, and to show that all limitations, conflicts, and even\ndestructions of power result from a nonobservance by the rulers of the\nconditions under which their power was entrusted to them; or (3) that\nthe will of the people is delegated to the rulers conditionally, but\nthat the conditions are unknown and indefinite, and that the appearance\nof several authorities, their struggles and their falls, result solely\nfrom the greater or lesser fulfillment by the rulers of these unknown\nconditions on which the will of the people is transferred from some\npeople to others.\n\nAnd these are the three ways in which the historians do explain the\nrelation of the people to their rulers.\n\nSome historians--those biographical and specialist historians already\nreferred to--in their simplicity failing to understand the question of\nthe meaning of power, seem to consider that the collective will of the\npeople is unconditionally transferred to historical persons, and\ntherefore when describing some single state they assume that particular\npower to be the one absolute and real power, and that any other force\nopposing this is not a power but a violation of power--mere violence.\n\nTheir theory, suitable for primitive and peaceful periods of history,\nhas the inconvenience--in application to complex and stormy periods in\nthe life of nations during which various powers arise simultaneously and\nstruggle with one another--that a Legitimist historian will prove that\nthe National Convention, the Directory, and Bonaparte were mere\ninfringers of the true power, while a Republican and a Bonapartist will\nprove: the one that the Convention and the other that the Empire was the\nreal power, and that all the others were violations of power. Evidently\nthe explanations furnished by these historians being mutually\ncontradictory can only satisfy young children.\n\nRecognizing the falsity of this view of history, another set of\nhistorians say that power rests on a conditional delegation of the will\nof the people to their rulers, and that historical leaders have power\nonly conditionally on carrying out the program that the will of the\npeople has by tacit agreement prescribed to them. But what this program\nconsists in these historians do not say, or if they do they continually\ncontradict one another.\n\nEach historian, according to his view of what constitutes a nation's\nprogress, looks for these conditions in the greatness, wealth, freedom,\nor enlightenment of citizens of France or some other country. But not to\nmention the historians' contradictions as to the nature of this program-\n-or even admitting that some one general program of these conditions\nexists--the facts of history almost always contradict that theory. If\nthe conditions under which power is entrusted consist in the wealth,\nfreedom, and enlightenment of the people, how is it that Louis XIV and\nIvan the Terrible end their reigns tranquilly, while Louis XVI and\nCharles I are executed by their people? To this question historians\nreply that Louis XIV's activity, contrary to the program, reacted on\nLouis XVI. But why did it not react on Louis XIV or on Louis XV--why\nshould it react just on Louis XVI? And what is the time limit for such\nreactions? To these questions there are and can be no answers. Equally\nlittle does this view explain why for several centuries the collective\nwill is not withdrawn from certain rulers and their heirs, and then\nsuddenly during a period of fifty years is transferred to the\nConvention, to the Directory, to Napoleon, to Alexander, to Louis XVIII,\nto Napoleon again, to Charles X, to Louis Philippe, to a Republican\ngovernment, and to Napoleon III. When explaining these rapid transfers\nof the people's will from one individual to another, especially in view\nof international relations, conquests, and alliances, the historians are\nobliged to admit that some of these transfers are not normal delegations\nof the people's will but are accidents dependent on cunning, on\nmistakes, on craft, or on the weakness of a diplomatist, a ruler, or a\nparty leader. So that the greater part of the events of history--civil\nwars, revolutions, and conquests--are presented by these historians not\nas the results of free transferences of the people's will, but as\nresults of the ill-directed will of one or more individuals, that is,\nonce again, as usurpations of power. And so these historians also see\nand admit historical events which are exceptions to the theory.\n\nThese historians resemble a botanist who, having noticed that some\nplants grow from seeds producing two cotyledons, should insist that all\nthat grows does so by sprouting into two leaves, and that the palm, the\nmushroom, and even the oak, which blossom into full growth and no longer\nresemble two leaves, are deviations from the theory.\n\nHistorians of the third class assume that the will of the people is\ntransferred to historic personages conditionally, but that the\nconditions are unknown to us. They say that historical personages have\npower only because they fulfill the will of the people which has been\ndelegated to them.\n\nBut in that case, if the force that moves nations lies not in the\nhistoric leaders but in the nations themselves, what significance have\nthose leaders?\n\nThe leaders, these historians tell us, express the will of the people:\nthe activity of the leaders represents the activity of the people.\n\nBut in that case the question arises whether all the activity of the\nleaders serves as an expression of the people's will or only some part\nof it. If the whole activity of the leaders serves as the expression of\nthe people's will, as some historians suppose, then all the details of\nthe court scandals contained in the biographies of a Napoleon or a\nCatherine serve to express the life of the nation, which is evident\nnonsense; but if it is only some particular side of the activity of an\nhistorical leader which serves to express the people's life, as other\nso-called \"philosophical\" historians believe, then to determine which\nside of the activity of a leader expresses the nation's life, we have\nfirst of all to know in what the nation's life consists.\n\nMet by this difficulty historians of that class devise some most\nobscure, impalpable, and general abstraction which can cover all\nconceivable occurrences, and declare this abstraction to be the aim of\nhumanity's movement. The most usual generalizations adopted by almost\nall the historians are: freedom, equality, enlightenment, progress,\ncivilization, and culture. Postulating some generalization as the goal\nof the movement of humanity, the historians study the men of whom the\ngreatest number of monuments have remained: kings, ministers, generals,\nauthors, reformers, popes, and journalists, to the extent to which in\ntheir opinion these persons have promoted or hindered that abstraction.\nBut as it is in no way proved that the aim of humanity does consist in\nfreedom, equality, enlightenment, or civilization, and as the connection\nof the people with the rulers and enlighteners of humanity is only based\non the arbitrary assumption that the collective will of the people is\nalways transferred to the men whom we have noticed, it happens that the\nactivity of the millions who migrate, burn houses, abandon agriculture,\nand destroy one another never is expressed in the account of the\nactivity of some dozen people who did not burn houses, practice\nagriculture, or slay their fellow creatures.\n\nHistory proves this at every turn. Is the ferment of the peoples of the\nwest at the end of the eighteenth century and their drive eastward\nexplained by the activity of Louis XIV, XV, and XVI, their mistresses\nand ministers, and by the lives of Napoleon, Rousseau, Diderot,\nBeaumarchais, and others?\n\nIs the movement of the Russian people eastward to Kazan and Siberia\nexpressed by details of the morbid character of Ivan the Terrible and by\nhis correspondence with Kurbski?\n\nIs the movement of the peoples at the time of the Crusades explained by\nthe life and activity of the Godfreys and the Louis-es and their ladies?\nFor us that movement of the peoples from west to east, without leaders,\nwith a crowd of vagrants, and with Peter the Hermit, remains\nincomprehensible. And yet more incomprehensible is the cessation of that\nmovement when a rational and sacred aim for the Crusade--the deliverance\nof Jerusalem--had been clearly defined by historic leaders. Popes,\nkings, and knights incited the peoples to free the Holy Land; but the\npeople did not go, for the unknown cause which had previously impelled\nthem to go no longer existed. The history of the Godfreys and the\nMinnesingers can evidently not cover the life of the peoples. And the\nhistory of the Godfreys and the Minnesingers has remained the history of\nGodfreys and Minnesingers, but the history of the life of the peoples\nand their impulses has remained unknown.\n\nStill less does the history of authors and reformers explain to us the\nlife of the peoples.\n\nThe history of culture explains to us the impulses and conditions of\nlife and thought of a writer or a reformer. We learn that Luther had a\nhot temper and said such and such things; we learn that Rousseau was\nsuspicious and wrote such and such books; but we do not learn why after\nthe Reformation the peoples massacred one another, nor why during the\nFrench Revolution they guillotined one another.\n\nIf we unite both these kinds of history, as is done by the newest\nhistorians, we shall have the history of monarchs and writers, but not\nthe history of the life of the peoples.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER V\n\nThe life of the nations is not contained in the lives of a few men, for\nthe connection between those men and the nations has not been found. The\ntheory that this connection is based on the transference of the\ncollective will of a people to certain historical personages is an\nhypothesis unconfirmed by the experience of history.\n\nThe theory of the transference of the collective will of the people to\nhistoric persons may perhaps explain much in the domain of jurisprudence\nand be essential for its purposes, but in its application to history, as\nsoon as revolutions, conquests, or civil wars occur--that is, as soon as\nhistory begins--that theory explains nothing.\n\nThe theory seems irrefutable just because the act of transference of the\npeople's will cannot be verified, for it never occurred.\n\nWhatever happens and whoever may stand at the head of affairs, the\ntheory can always say that such and such a person took the lead because\nthe collective will was transferred to him.\n\nThe replies this theory gives to historical questions are like the\nreplies of a man who, watching the movements of a herd of cattle and\npaying no attention to the varying quality of the pasturage in different\nparts of the field, or to the driving of the herdsman, should attribute\nthe direction the herd takes to what animal happens to be at its head.\n\n\"The herd goes in that direction because the animal in front leads it\nand the collective will of all the other animals is vested in that\nleader.\" This is what historians of the first class say--those who\nassume the unconditional transference of the people's will.\n\n\"If the animals leading the herd change, this happens because the\ncollective will of all the animals is transferred from one leader to\nanother, according to whether the animal is or is not leading them in\nthe direction selected by the whole herd.\" Such is the reply historians\nwho assume that the collective will of the people is delegated to rulers\nunder conditions which they regard as known. (With this method of\nobservation it often happens that the observer, influenced by the\ndirection he himself prefers, regards those as leaders who, owing to the\npeople's change of direction, are no longer in front, but on one side,\nor even in the rear.)\n\n\"If the animals in front are continually changing and the direction of\nthe whole herd is constantly altered, this is because in order to follow\na given direction the animals transfer their will to the animals that\nhave attracted our attention, and to study the movements of the herd we\nmust watch the movements of all the prominent animals moving on all\nsides of the herd.\" So say the third class of historians who regard all\nhistorical persons, from monarchs to journalists, as the expression of\ntheir age.\n\nThe theory of the transference of the will of the people to historic\npersons is merely a paraphrase--a restatement of the question in other\nwords.\n\nWhat causes historical events? Power. What is power? Power is the\ncollective will of the people transferred to one person. Under what\ncondition is the will of the people delegated to one person? On\ncondition that that person expresses the will of the whole people. That\nis, power is power: in other words, power is a word the meaning of which\nwe do not understand.\n\nIf the realm of human knowledge were confined to abstract reasoning,\nthen having subjected to criticism the explanation of \"power\" that\njuridical science gives us, humanity would conclude that power is merely\na word and has no real existence. But to understand phenomena man has,\nbesides abstract reasoning, experience by which he verifies his\nreflections. And experience tells us that power is not merely a word but\nan actually existing phenomenon.\n\nNot to speak of the fact that no description of the collective activity\nof men can do without the conception of power, the existence of power is\nproved both by history and by observing contemporary events.\n\nWhenever an event occurs a man appears or men appear, by whose will the\nevent seems to have taken place. Napoleon III issues a decree and the\nFrench go to Mexico. The King of Prussia and Bismarck issue decrees and\nan army enters Bohemia. Napoleon I issues a decree and an army enters\nRussia. Alexander I gives a command and the French submit to the\nBourbons. Experience shows us that whatever event occurs it is always\nrelated to the will of one or of several men who have decreed it.\n\nThe historians, in accord with the old habit of acknowledging divine\nintervention in human affairs, want to see the cause of events in the\nexpression of the will of someone endowed with power, but that\nsupposition is not confirmed either by reason or by experience.\n\nOn the one side reflection shows that the expression of a man's will--\nhis words--are only part of the general activity expressed in an event,\nas for instance in a war or a revolution, and so without assuming an\nincomprehensible, supernatural force--a miracle--one cannot admit that\nwords can be the immediate cause of the movements of millions of men. On\nthe other hand, even if we admitted that words could be the cause of\nevents, history shows that the expression of the will of historical\npersonages does not in most cases produce any effect, that is to say,\ntheir commands are often not executed, and sometimes the very opposite\nof what they order occurs.\n\nWithout admitting divine intervention in the affairs of humanity we\ncannot regard \"power\" as the cause of events.\n\nPower, from the standpoint of experience, is merely the relation that\nexists between the expression of someone's will and the execution of\nthat will by others.\n\nTo explain the conditions of that relationship we must first establish a\nconception of the expression of will, referring it to man and not to the\nDeity.\n\nIf the Deity issues a command, expresses His will, as ancient history\ntells us, the expression of that will is independent of time and is not\ncaused by anything, for the Divinity is not controlled by an event. But\nspeaking of commands that are the expression of the will of men acting\nin time and in relation to one another, to explain the connection of\ncommands with events we must restore: (1) the condition of all that\ntakes place: the continuity of movement in time both of the events and\nof the person who commands, and (2) the inevitability of the connection\nbetween the person commanding and those who execute his command.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VI\n\nOnly the expression of the will of the Deity, not dependent on time, can\nrelate to a whole series of events occurring over a period of years or\ncenturies, and only the Deity, independent of everything, can by His\nsole will determine the direction of humanity's movement; but man acts\nin time and himself takes part in what occurs.\n\nReinstating the first condition omitted, that of time, we see that no\ncommand can be executed without some preceding order having been given\nrendering the execution of the last command possible.\n\nNo command ever appears spontaneously, or itself covers a whole series\nof occurrences; but each command follows from another, and never refers\nto a whole series of events but always to one moment only of an event.\n\nWhen, for instance, we say that Napoleon ordered armies to go to war, we\ncombine in one simultaneous expression a whole series of consecutive\ncommands dependent one on another. Napoleon could not have commanded an\ninvasion of Russia and never did so. Today he ordered such and such\npapers to be written to Vienna, to Berlin, and to Petersburg; tomorrow\nsuch and such decrees and orders to the army, the fleet, the\ncommissariat, and so on and so on--millions of commands, which formed a\nwhole series corresponding to a series of events which brought the\nFrench armies into Russia.\n\nIf throughout his reign Napoleon gave commands concerning an invasion of\nEngland and expended on no other undertaking so much time and effort,\nand yet during his whole reign never once attempted to execute that\ndesign but undertook an expedition into Russia, with which country he\nconsidered it desirable to be in alliance (a conviction he repeatedly\nexpressed)--this came about because his commands did not correspond to\nthe course of events in the first case, but did so correspond in the\nlatter.\n\nFor an order to be certainly executed, it is necessary that a man should\norder what can be executed. But to know what can and what cannot be\nexecuted is impossible, not only in the case of Napoleon's invasion of\nRussia in which millions participated, but even in the simplest event,\nfor in either case millions of obstacles may arise to prevent its\nexecution. Every order executed is always one of an immense number\nunexecuted. All the impossible orders inconsistent with the course of\nevents remain unexecuted. Only the possible ones get linked up with a\nconsecutive series of commands corresponding to a series of events, and\nare executed.\n\nOur false conception that an event is caused by a command which precedes\nit is due to the fact that when the event has taken place and out of\nthousands of others those few commands which were consistent with that\nevent have been executed, we forget about the others that were not\nexecuted because they could not be. Apart from that, the chief source of\nour error in this matter is due to the fact that in the historical\naccounts a whole series of innumerable, diverse, and petty events, such\nfor instance as all those which led the French armies to Russia, is\ngeneralized into one event in accord with the result produced by that\nseries of events, and corresponding with this generalization the whole\nseries of commands is also generalized into a single expression of will.\n\nWe say that Napoleon wished to invade Russia and invaded it. In reality\nin all Napoleon's activity we never find anything resembling an\nexpression of that wish, but find a series of orders, or expressions of\nhis will, very variously and indefinitely directed. Amid a long series\nof unexecuted orders of Napoleon's one series, for the campaign of 1812,\nwas carried out--not because those orders differed in any way from the\nother, unexecuted orders but because they coincided with the course of\nevents that led the French army into Russia; just as in stencil work\nthis or that figure comes out not because the color was laid on from\nthis side or in that way, but because it was laid on from all sides over\nthe figure cut in the stencil.\n\nSo that examining the relation in time of the commands to the events, we\nfind that a command can never be the cause of the event, but that a\ncertain definite dependence exists between the two.\n\nTo understand in what this dependence consists it is necessary to\nreinstate another omitted condition of every command proceeding not from\nthe Deity but from a man, which is, that the man who gives the command\nhimself takes part in the event.\n\nThis relation of the commander to those he commands is just what is\ncalled power. This relation consists in the following:\n\nFor common action people always unite in certain combinations, in which\nregardless of the difference of the aims set for the common action, the\nrelation between those taking part in it is always the same.\n\nMen uniting in these combinations always assume such relations toward\none another that the larger number take a more direct share, and the\nsmaller number a less direct share, in the collective action for which\nthey have combined.\n\nOf all the combinations in which men unite for collective action one of\nthe most striking and definite examples is an army.\n\nEvery army is composed of lower grades of the service--the rank and\nfile--of whom there are always the greatest number; of the next higher\nmilitary rank--corporals and noncommissioned officers of whom there are\nfewer, and of still-higher officers of whom there are still fewer, and\nso on to the highest military command which is concentrated in one\nperson.\n\nA military organization may be quite correctly compared to a cone, of\nwhich the base with the largest diameter consists of the rank and file;\nthe next higher and smaller section of the cone consists of the next\nhigher grades of the army, and so on to the apex, the point of which\nwill represent the commander-in-chief.\n\nThe soldiers, of whom there are the most, form the lower section of the\ncone and its base. The soldier himself does the stabbing, hacking,\nburning, and pillaging, and always receives orders for these actions\nfrom men above him; he himself never gives an order. The noncommissioned\nofficers (of whom there are fewer) perform the action itself less\nfrequently than the soldiers, but they already give commands. An officer\nstill less often acts directly himself, but commands still more\nfrequently. A general does nothing but command the troops, indicates the\nobjective, and hardly ever uses a weapon himself. The commander-in-chief\nnever takes direct part in the action itself, but only gives general\norders concerning the movement of the mass of the troops. A similar\nrelation of people to one another is seen in every combination of men\nfor common activity--in agriculture, trade, and every administration.\n\nAnd so without particularly analyzing all the contiguous sections of a\ncone and of the ranks of an army, or the ranks and positions in any\nadministrative or public business whatever from the lowest to the\nhighest, we see a law by which men, to take associated action, combine\nin such relations that the more directly they participate in performing\nthe action the less they can command and the more numerous they are,\nwhile the less their direct participation in the action itself, the more\nthey command and the fewer of them there are; rising in this way from\nthe lowest ranks to the man at the top, who takes the least direct share\nin the action and directs his activity chiefly to commanding.\n\nThis relation of the men who command to those they command is what\nconstitutes the essence of the conception called power.\n\nHaving restored the condition of time under which all events occur, we\nfind that a command is executed only when it is related to a\ncorresponding series of events. Restoring the essential condition of\nrelation between those who command and those who execute, we find that\nby the very nature of the case those who command take the smallest part\nin the action itself and that their activity is exclusively directed to\ncommanding.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VII\n\nWhen an event is taking place people express their opinions and wishes\nabout it, and as the event results from the collective activity of many\npeople, some one of the opinions or wishes expressed is sure to be\nfulfilled if but approximately. When one of the opinions expressed is\nfulfilled, that opinion gets connected with the event as a command\npreceding it.\n\nMen are hauling a log. Each of them expresses his opinion as to how and\nwhere to haul it. They haul the log away, and it happens that this is\ndone as one of them said. He ordered it. There we have command and power\nin their primary form. The man who worked most with his hands could not\nthink so much about what he was doing, or reflect on or command what\nwould result from the common activity; while the man who commanded more\nwould evidently work less with his hands on account of his greater\nverbal activity.\n\nWhen some larger concourse of men direct their activity to a common aim\nthere is a yet sharper division of those who, because their activity is\ngiven to directing and commanding, take less part in the direct work.\n\nWhen a man works alone he always has a certain set of reflections which\nas it seems to him directed his past activity, justify his present\nactivity, and guide him in planning his future actions. Just the same is\ndone by a concourse of people, allowing those who do not take a direct\npart in the activity to devise considerations, justifications, and\nsurmises concerning their collective activity.\n\nFor reasons known or unknown to us the French began to drown and kill\none another. And corresponding to the event its justification appears in\npeople's belief that this was necessary for the welfare of France, for\nliberty, and for equality. People ceased to kill one another, and this\nevent was accompanied by its justification in the necessity for a\ncentralization of power, resistance to Europe, and so on. Men went from\nthe west to the east killing their fellow men, and the event was\naccompanied by phrases about the glory of France, the baseness of\nEngland, and so on. History shows us that these justifications of the\nevents have no common sense and are all contradictory, as in the case of\nkilling a man as the result of recognizing his rights, and the killing\nof millions in Russia for the humiliation of England. But these\njustifications have a very necessary significance in their own day.\n\nThese justifications release those who produce the events from moral\nresponsibility. These temporary aims are like the broom fixed in front\nof a locomotive to clear the snow from the rails in front: they clear\nmen's moral responsibilities from their path.\n\nWithout such justification there would be no reply to the simplest\nquestion that presents itself when examining each historical event. How\nis it that millions of men commit collective crimes--make war, commit\nmurder, and so on?\n\nWith the present complex forms of political and social life in Europe\ncan any event that is not prescribed, decreed, or ordered by monarchs,\nministers, parliaments, or newspapers be imagined? Is there any\ncollective action which cannot find its justification in political\nunity, in patriotism, in the balance of power, or in civilization? So\nthat every event that occurs inevitably coincides with some expressed\nwish and, receiving a justification, presents itself as the result of\nthe will of one man or of several men.\n\nIn whatever direction a ship moves, the flow of the waves it cuts will\nalways be noticeable ahead of it. To those on board the ship the\nmovement of those waves will be the only perceptible motion.\n\nOnly by watching closely moment by moment the movement of that flow and\ncomparing it with the movement of the ship do we convince ourselves that\nevery bit of it is occasioned by the forward movement of the ship, and\nthat we were led into error by the fact that we ourselves were\nimperceptibly moving.\n\nWe see the same if we watch moment by moment the movement of historical\ncharacters (that is, re-establish the inevitable condition of all that\noccurs--the continuity of movement in time) and do not lose sight of the\nessential connection of historical persons with the masses.\n\nWhen the ship moves in one direction there is one and the same wave\nahead of it, when it turns frequently the wave ahead of it also turns\nfrequently. But wherever it may turn there always will be the wave\nanticipating its movement.\n\nWhatever happens it always appears that just that event was foreseen and\ndecreed. Wherever the ship may go, the rush of water which neither\ndirects nor increases its movement foams ahead of it, and at a distance\nseems to us not merely to move of itself but to govern the ship's\nmovement also.\n\nExamining only those expressions of the will of historical persons\nwhich, as commands, were related to events, historians have assumed that\nthe events depended on those commands. But examining the events\nthemselves and the connection in which the historical persons stood to\nthe people, we have found that they and their orders were dependent on\nevents. The incontestable proof of this deduction is that, however many\ncommands were issued, the event does not take place unless there are\nother causes for it, but as soon as an event occurs--be it what it may--\nthen out of all the continually expressed wishes of different people\nsome will always be found which by their meaning and their time of\nutterance are related as commands to the events.\n\nArriving at this conclusion we can reply directly and positively to\nthese two essential questions of history:\n\n(1) What is power?\n\n(2) What force produces the movement of the nations?\n\n(1) Power is the relation of a given person to other individuals, in\nwhich the more this person expresses opinions, predictions, and\njustifications of the collective action that is performed, the less is\nhis participation in that action.\n\n(2) The movement of nations is caused not by power, nor by intellectual\nactivity, nor even by a combination of the two as historians have\nsupposed, but by the activity of all the people who participate in the\nevents, and who always combine in such a way that those taking the\nlargest direct share in the event take on themselves the least\nresponsibility and vice versa.\n\nMorally the wielder of power appears to cause the event; physically it\nis those who submit to the power. But as the moral activity is\ninconceivable without the physical, the cause of the event is neither in\nthe one nor in the other but in the union of the two.\n\nOr in other words, the conception of a cause is inapplicable to the\nphenomena we are examining.\n\nIn the last analysis we reach the circle of infinity--that final limit\nto which in every domain of thought man's reason arrives if it is not\nplaying with the subject. Electricity produces heat, heat produces\nelectricity. Atoms attract each other and atoms repel one another.\n\nSpeaking of the interaction of heat and electricity and of atoms, we\ncannot say why this occurs, and we say that it is so because it is\ninconceivable otherwise, because it must be so and that it is a law. The\nsame applies to historical events. Why war and revolution occur we do\nnot know. We only know that to produce the one or the other action,\npeople combine in a certain formation in which they all take part, and\nwe say that this is so because it is unthinkable otherwise, or in other\nwords that it is a law.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER VIII\n\nIf history dealt only with external phenomena, the establishment of this\nsimple and obvious law would suffice and we should have finished our\nargument. But the law of history relates to man. A particle of matter\ncannot tell us that it does not feel the law of attraction or repulsion\nand that that law is untrue, but man, who is the subject of history,\nsays plainly: I am free and am therefore not subject to the law.\n\nThe presence of the problem of man's free will, though unexpressed, is\nfelt at every step of history.\n\nAll seriously thinking historians have involuntarily encountered this\nquestion. All the contradictions and obscurities of history and the\nfalse path historical science has followed are due solely to the lack of\na solution of that question.\n\nIf the will of every man were free, that is, if each man could act as he\npleased, all history would be a series of disconnected incidents.\n\nIf in a thousand years even one man in a million could act freely, that\nis, as he chose, it is evident that one single free act of that man's in\nviolation of the laws governing human action would destroy the\npossibility of the existence of any laws for the whole of humanity.\n\nIf there be a single law governing the actions of men, free will cannot\nexist, for then man's will is subject to that law.\n\nIn this contradiction lies the problem of free will, which from most\nancient times has occupied the best human minds and from most ancient\ntimes has been presented in its whole tremendous significance.\n\nThe problem is that regarding man as a subject of observation from\nwhatever point of view--theological, historical, ethical, or\nphilosophic--we find a general law of necessity to which he (like all\nthat exists) is subject. But regarding him from within ourselves as what\nwe are conscious of, we feel ourselves to be free.\n\nThis consciousness is a source of self-cognition quite apart from and\nindependent of reason. Through his reason man observes himself, but only\nthrough consciousness does he know himself.\n\nApart from consciousness of self no observation or application of reason\nis conceivable.\n\nTo understand, observe, and draw conclusions, man must first of all be\nconscious of himself as living. A man is only conscious of himself as a\nliving being by the fact that he wills, that is, is conscious of his\nvolition. But his will--which forms the essence of his life--man\nrecognizes (and can but recognize) as free.\n\nIf, observing himself, man sees that his will is always directed by one\nand the same law (whether he observes the necessity of taking food,\nusing his brain, or anything else) he cannot recognize this never-\nvarying direction of his will otherwise than as a limitation of it. Were\nit not free it could not be limited. A man's will seems to him to be\nlimited just because he is not conscious of it except as free.\n\nYou say: I am not free. But I have lifted my hand and let it fall.\nEveryone understands that this illogical reply is an irrefutable\ndemonstration of freedom.\n\nThat reply is the expression of a consciousness that is not subject to\nreason.\n\nIf the consciousness of freedom were not a separate and independent\nsource of self-consciousness it would be subject to reasoning and to\nexperience, but in fact such subjection does not exist and is\ninconceivable.\n\nA series of experiments and arguments proves to every man that he, as an\nobject of observation, is subject to certain laws, and man submits to\nthem and never resists the laws of gravity or impermeability once he has\nbecome acquainted with them. But the same series of experiments and\narguments proves to him that the complete freedom of which he is\nconscious in himself is impossible, and that his every action depends on\nhis organization, his character, and the motives acting upon him; yet\nman never submits to the deductions of these experiments and arguments.\nHaving learned from experiment and argument that a stone falls\ndownwards, a man indubitably believes this and always expects the law\nthat he has learned to be fulfilled.\n\nBut learning just as certainly that his will is subject to laws, he does\nnot and cannot believe this.\n\nHowever often experiment and reasoning may show a man that under the\nsame conditions and with the same character he will do the same thing as\nbefore, yet when under the same conditions and with the same character\nhe approaches for the thousandth time the action that always ends in the\nsame way, he feels as certainly convinced as before the experiment that\nhe can act as he pleases. Every man, savage or sage, however\nincontestably reason and experiment may prove to him that it is\nimpossible to imagine two different courses of action in precisely the\nsame conditions, feels that without this irrational conception (which\nconstitutes the essence of freedom) he cannot imagine life. He feels\nthat however impossible it may be, it is so, for without this conception\nof freedom not only would he be unable to understand life, but he would\nbe unable to live for a single moment.\n\nHe could not live, because all man's efforts, all his impulses to life,\nare only efforts to increase freedom. Wealth and poverty, fame and\nobscurity, power and subordination, strength and weakness, health and\ndisease, culture and ignorance, work and leisure, repletion and hunger,\nvirtue and vice, are only greater or lesser degrees of freedom.\n\nA man having no freedom cannot be conceived of except as deprived of\nlife.\n\nIf the conception of freedom appears to reason to be a senseless\ncontradiction like the possibility of performing two actions at one and\nthe same instant of time, or of an effect without a cause, that only\nproves that consciousness is not subject to reason.\n\nThis unshakable, irrefutable consciousness of freedom, uncontrolled by\nexperiment or argument, recognized by all thinkers and felt by everyone\nwithout exception, this consciousness without which no conception of man\nis possible constitutes the other side of the question.\n\nMan is the creation of an all-powerful, all-good, and all-seeing God.\nWhat is sin, the conception of which arises from the consciousness of\nman's freedom? That is a question for theology.\n\nThe actions of men are subject to general immutable laws expressed in\nstatistics. What is man's responsibility to society, the conception of\nwhich results from the conception of freedom? That is a question for\njurisprudence.\n\nMan's actions proceed from his innate character and the motives acting\nupon him. What is conscience and the perception of right and wrong in\nactions that follows from the consciousness of freedom? That is a\nquestion for ethics.\n\nMan in connection with the general life of humanity appears subject to\nlaws which determine that life. But the same man apart from that\nconnection appears to be free. How should the past life of nations and\nof humanity be regarded--as the result of the free, or as the result of\nthe constrained, activity of man? That is a question for history.\n\nOnly in our self-confident day of the popularization of knowledge--\nthanks to that most powerful engine of ignorance, the diffusion of\nprinted matter--has the question of the freedom of will been put on a\nlevel on which the question itself cannot exist. In our time the\nmajority of so-called advanced people--that is, the crowd of\nignoramuses--have taken the work of the naturalists who deal with one\nside of the question for a solution of the whole problem.\n\nThey say and write and print that the soul and freedom do not exist, for\nthe life of man is expressed by muscular movements and muscular\nmovements are conditioned by the activity of the nerves; the soul and\nfree will do not exist because at an unknown period of time we sprang\nfrom the apes. They say this, not at all suspecting that thousands of\nyears ago that same law of necessity which with such ardor they are now\ntrying to prove by physiology and comparative zoology was not merely\nacknowledged by all the religions and all the thinkers, but has never\nbeen denied. They do not see that the role of the natural sciences in\nthis matter is merely to serve as an instrument for the illumination of\none side of it. For the fact that, from the point of view of\nobservation, reason and the will are merely secretions of the brain, and\nthat man following the general law may have developed from lower animals\nat some unknown period of time, only explains from a fresh side the\ntruth admitted thousands of years ago by all the religious and\nphilosophic theories--that from the point of view of reason man is\nsubject to the law of necessity; but it does not advance by a hair's\nbreadth the solution of the question, which has another, opposite, side,\nbased on the consciousness of freedom.\n\nIf men descended from the apes at an unknown period of time, that is as\ncomprehensible as that they were made from a handful of earth at a\ncertain period of time (in the first case the unknown quantity is the\ntime, in the second case it is the origin); and the question of how\nman's consciousness of freedom is to be reconciled with the law of\nnecessity to which he is subject cannot be solved by comparative\nphysiology and zoology, for in a frog, a rabbit, or an ape, we can\nobserve only the muscular nervous activity, but in man we observe\nconsciousness as well as the muscular and nervous activity.\n\nThe naturalists and their followers, thinking they can solve this\nquestion, are like plasterers set to plaster one side of the walls of a\nchurch who, availing themselves of the absence of the chief\nsuperintendent of the work, should in an access of zeal plaster over the\nwindows, icons, woodwork, and still unbuttressed walls, and should be\ndelighted that from their point of view as plasterers, everything is now\nso smooth and regular.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER IX\n\nFor the solution of the question of free will or inevitability, history\nhas this advantage over other branches of knowledge in which the\nquestion is dealt with, that for history this question does not refer to\nthe essence of man's free will but its manifestation in the past and\nunder certain conditions.\n\nIn regard to this question, history stands to the other sciences as\nexperimental science stands to abstract science.\n\nThe subject for history is not man's will itself but our presentation of\nit.\n\nAnd so for history, the insoluble mystery presented by the\nincompatibility of free will and inevitability does not exist as it does\nfor theology, ethics, and philosophy. History surveys a presentation of\nman's life in which the union of these two contradictions has already\ntaken place.\n\nIn actual life each historic event, each human action, is very clearly\nand definitely understood without any sense of contradiction, although\neach event presents itself as partly free and partly compulsory.\n\nTo solve the question of how freedom and necessity are combined and what\nconstitutes the essence of these two conceptions, the philosophy of\nhistory can and should follow a path contrary to that taken by other\nsciences. Instead of first defining the conceptions of freedom and\ninevitability in themselves, and then ranging the phenomena of life\nunder those definitions, history should deduce a definition of the\nconception of freedom and inevitability themselves from the immense\nquantity of phenomena of which it is cognizant and that always appear\ndependent on these two elements.\n\nWhatever presentation of the activity of many men or of an individual we\nmay consider, we always regard it as the result partly of man's free\nwill and partly of the law of inevitability.\n\nWhether we speak of the migration of the peoples and the incursions of\nthe barbarians, or of the decrees of Napoleon III, or of someone's\naction an hour ago in choosing one direction out of several for his\nwalk, we are unconscious of any contradiction. The degree of freedom and\ninevitability governing the actions of these people is clearly defined\nfor us.\n\nOur conception of the degree of freedom often varies according to\ndifferences in the point of view from which we regard the event, but\nevery human action appears to us as a certain combination of freedom and\ninevitability. In every action we examine we see a certain measure of\nfreedom and a certain measure of inevitability. And always the more\nfreedom we see in any action the less inevitability do we perceive, and\nthe more inevitability the less freedom.\n\nThe proportion of freedom to inevitability decreases and increases\naccording to the point of view from which the action is regarded, but\ntheir relation is always one of inverse proportion.\n\nA sinking man who clutches at another and drowns him; or a hungry mother\nexhausted by feeding her baby, who steals some food; or a man trained to\ndiscipline who on duty at the word of command kills a defenseless man--\nseem less guilty, that is, less free and more subject to the law of\nnecessity, to one who knows the circumstances in which these people were\nplaced, and more free to one who does not know that the man was himself\ndrowning, that the mother was hungry, that the soldier was in the ranks,\nand so on. Similarly a man who committed a murder twenty years ago and\nhas since lived peaceably and harmlessly in society seems less guilty\nand his action more due to the law of inevitability, to someone who\nconsiders his action after twenty years have elapsed than to one who\nexamined it the day after it was committed. And in the same way every\naction of an insane, intoxicated, or highly excited man appears less\nfree and more inevitable to one who knows the mental condition of him\nwho committed the action, and seems more free and less inevitable to one\nwho does not know it. In all these cases the conception of freedom is\nincreased or diminished and the conception of compulsion is\ncorrespondingly decreased or increased, according to the point of view\nfrom which the action is regarded. So that the greater the conception of\nnecessity the smaller the conception of freedom and vice versa.\n\nReligion, the common sense of mankind, the science of jurisprudence, and\nhistory itself understand alike this relation between necessity and\nfreedom.\n\nAll cases without exception in which our conception of freedom and\nnecessity is increased and diminished depend on three considerations:\n\n(1) The relation to the external world of the man who commits the deeds.\n\n(2) His relation to time.\n\n(3) His relation to the causes leading to the action.\n\nThe first consideration is the clearness of our perception of the man's\nrelation to the external world and the greater or lesser clearness of\nour understanding of the definite position occupied by the man in\nrelation to everything coexisting with him. This is what makes it\nevident that a drowning man is less free and more subject to necessity\nthan one standing on dry ground, and that makes the actions of a man\nclosely connected with others in a thickly populated district, or of one\nbound by family, official, or business duties, seem certainly less free\nand more subject to necessity than those of a man living in solitude and\nseclusion.\n\nIf we consider a man alone, apart from his relation to everything around\nhim, each action of his seems to us free. But if we see his relation to\nanything around him, if we see his connection with anything whatever--\nwith a man who speaks to him, a book he reads, the work on which he is\nengaged, even with the air he breathes or the light that falls on the\nthings about him--we see that each of these circumstances has an\ninfluence on him and controls at least some side of his activity. And\nthe more we perceive of these influences the more our conception of his\nfreedom diminishes and the more our conception of the necessity that\nweighs on him increases.\n\nThe second consideration is the more or less evident time relation of\nthe man to the world and the clearness of our perception of the place\nthe man's action occupies in time. That is the ground which makes the\nfall of the first man, resulting in the production of the human race,\nappear evidently less free than a man's entry into marriage today. It is\nthe reason why the life and activity of people who lived centuries ago\nand are connected with me in time cannot seem to me as free as the life\nof a contemporary, the consequences of which are still unknown to me.\n\nThe degree of our conception of freedom or inevitability depends in this\nrespect on the greater or lesser lapse of time between the performance\nof the action and our judgment of it.\n\nIf I examine an act I performed a moment ago in approximately the same\ncircumstances as those I am in now, my action appears to me undoubtedly\nfree. But if I examine an act performed a month ago, then being in\ndifferent circumstances, I cannot help recognizing that if that act had\nnot been committed much that resulted from it--good, agreeable, and even\nessential--would not have taken place. If I reflect on an action still\nmore remote, ten years ago or more, then the consequences of my action\nare still plainer to me and I find it hard to imagine what would have\nhappened had that action not been performed. The farther I go back in\nmemory, or what is the same thing the farther I go forward in my\njudgment, the more doubtful becomes my belief in the freedom of my\naction.\n\nIn history we find a very similar progress of conviction concerning the\npart played by free will in the general affairs of humanity. A\ncontemporary event seems to us to be indubitably the doing of all the\nknown participants, but with a more remote event we already see its\ninevitable results which prevent our considering anything else possible.\nAnd the farther we go back in examining events the less arbitrary do\nthey appear.\n\nThe Austro-Prussian war appears to us undoubtedly the result of the\ncrafty conduct of Bismarck, and so on. The Napoleonic wars still seem to\nus, though already questionably, to be the outcome of their heroes'\nwill. But in the Crusades we already see an event occupying its definite\nplace in history and without which we cannot imagine the modern history\nof Europe, though to the chroniclers of the Crusades that event appeared\nas merely due to the will of certain people. In regard to the migration\nof the peoples it does not enter anyone's head today to suppose that the\nrenovation of the European world depended on Attila's caprice. The\nfarther back in history the object of our observation lies, the more\ndoubtful does the free will of those concerned in the event become and\nthe more manifest the law of inevitability.\n\nThe third consideration is the degree to which we apprehend that endless\nchain of causation inevitably demanded by reason, in which each\nphenomenon comprehended, and therefore man's every action, must have its\ndefinite place as a result of what has gone before and as a cause of\nwhat will follow.\n\nThe better we are acquainted with the physiological, psychological, and\nhistorical laws deduced by observation and by which man is controlled,\nand the more correctly we perceive the physiological, psychological, and\nhistorical causes of the action, and the simpler the action we are\nobserving and the less complex the character and mind of the man in\nquestion, the more subject to inevitability and the less free do our\nactions and those of others appear.\n\nWhen we do not at all understand the cause of an action, whether a\ncrime, a good action, or even one that is simply nonmoral, we ascribe a\ngreater amount of freedom to it. In the case of a crime we most urgently\ndemand the punishment for such an act; in the case of a virtuous act we\nrate its merit most highly. In an indifferent case we recognize in it\nmore individuality, originality, and independence. But if even one of\nthe innumerable causes of the act is known to us we recognize a certain\nelement of necessity and are less insistent on punishment for the crime,\nor the acknowledgment of the merit of the virtuous act, or the freedom\nof the apparently original action. That a criminal was reared among male\nfactors mitigates his fault in our eyes. The self-sacrifice of a father\nor mother, or self-sacrifice with the possibility of a reward, is more\ncomprehensible than gratuitous self-sacrifice, and therefore seems less\ndeserving of sympathy and less the result of free will. The founder of a\nsect or party, or an inventor, impresses us less when we know how or by\nwhat the way was prepared for his activity. If we have a large range of\nexamples, if our observation is constantly directed to seeking the\ncorrelation of cause and effect in people's actions, their actions\nappear to us more under compulsion and less free the more correctly we\nconnect the effects with the causes. If we examined simple actions and\nhad a vast number of such actions under observation, our conception of\ntheir inevitability would be still greater. The dishonest conduct of the\nson of a dishonest father, the misconduct of a woman who had fallen into\nbad company, a drunkard's relapse into drunkenness, and so on are\nactions that seem to us less free the better we understand their cause.\nIf the man whose actions we are considering is on a very low stage of\nmental development, like a child, a madman, or a simpleton--then,\nknowing the causes of the act and the simplicity of the character and\nintelligence in question, we see so large an element of necessity and so\nlittle free will that as soon as we know the cause prompting the action\nwe can foretell the result.\n\nOn these three considerations alone is based the conception of\nirresponsibility for crimes and the extenuating circumstances admitted\nby all legislative codes. The responsibility appears greater or less\naccording to our greater or lesser knowledge of the circumstances in\nwhich the man was placed whose action is being judged, and according to\nthe greater or lesser interval of time between the commission of the\naction and its investigation, and according to the greater or lesser\nunderstanding of the causes that led to the action.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER X\n\nThus our conception of free will and inevitability gradually diminishes\nor increases according to the greater or lesser connection with the\nexternal world, the greater or lesser remoteness of time, and the\ngreater or lesser dependence on the causes in relation to which we\ncontemplate a man's life.\n\nSo that if we examine the case of a man whose connection with the\nexternal world is well known, where the time between the action and its\nexamination is great, and where the causes of the action are most\naccessible, we get the conception of a maximum of inevitability and a\nminimum of free will. If we examine a man little dependent on external\nconditions, whose action was performed very recently, and the causes of\nwhose action are beyond our ken, we get the conception of a minimum of\ninevitability and a maximum of freedom.\n\nIn neither case--however we may change our point of view, however plain\nwe may make to ourselves the connection between the man and the external\nworld, however inaccessible it may be to us, however long or short the\nperiod of time, however intelligible or incomprehensible the causes of\nthe action may be--can we ever conceive either complete freedom or\ncomplete necessity.\n\n(1) To whatever degree we may imagine a man to be exempt from the\ninfluence of the external world, we never get a conception of freedom in\nspace. Every human action is inevitably conditioned by what surrounds\nhim and by his own body. I lift my arm and let it fall. My action seems\nto me free; but asking myself whether I could raise my arm in every\ndirection, I see that I raised it in the direction in which there was\nleast obstruction to that action either from things around me or from\nthe construction of my own body. I chose one out of all the possible\ndirections because in it there were fewest obstacles. For my action to\nbe free it was necessary that it should encounter no obstacles. To\nconceive of a man being free we must imagine him outside space, which is\nevidently impossible.\n\n(2) However much we approximate the time of judgment to the time of the\ndeed, we never get a conception of freedom in time. For if I examine an\naction committed a second ago I must still recognize it as not being\nfree, for it is irrevocably linked to the moment at which it was\ncommitted. Can I lift my arm? I lift it, but ask myself: could I have\nabstained from lifting my arm at the moment that has already passed? To\nconvince myself of this I do not lift it the next moment. But I am not\nnow abstaining from doing so at the first moment when I asked the\nquestion. Time has gone by which I could not detain, the arm I then\nlifted is no longer the same as the arm I now refrain from lifting, nor\nis the air in which I lifted it the same that now surrounds me. The\nmoment in which the first movement was made is irrevocable, and at that\nmoment I could make only one movement, and whatever movement I made\nwould be the only one. That I did not lift my arm a moment later does\nnot prove that I could have abstained from lifting it then. And since I\ncould make only one movement at that single moment of time, it could not\nhave been any other. To imagine it as free, it is necessary to imagine\nit in the present, on the boundary between the past and the future--that\nis, outside time, which is impossible.\n\n(3) However much the difficulty of understanding the causes may be\nincreased, we never reach a conception of complete freedom, that is, an\nabsence of cause. However inaccessible to us may be the cause of the\nexpression of will in any action, our own or another's, the first demand\nof reason is the assumption of and search for a cause, for without a\ncause no phenomenon is conceivable. I raise my arm to perform an action\nindependently of any cause, but my wish to perform an action without a\ncause is the cause of my action.\n\nBut even if--imagining a man quite exempt from all influences, examining\nonly his momentary action in the present, unevoked by any cause--we were\nto admit so infinitely small a remainder of inevitability as equaled\nzero, we should even then not have arrived at the conception of complete\nfreedom in man, for a being uninfluenced by the external world, standing\noutside of time and independent of cause, is no longer a man.\n\nIn the same way we can never imagine the action of a man quite devoid of\nfreedom and entirely subject to the law of inevitability.\n\n(1) However we may increase our knowledge of the conditions of space in\nwhich man is situated, that knowledge can never be complete, for the\nnumber of those conditions is as infinite as the infinity of space. And\ntherefore so long as not all the conditions influencing men are defined,\nthere is no complete inevitability but a certain measure of freedom\nremains.\n\n(2) However we may prolong the period of time between the action we are\nexamining and the judgment upon it, that period will be finite, while\ntime is infinite, and so in this respect too there can never be absolute\ninevitability.\n\n(3) However accessible may be the chain of causation of any action, we\nshall never know the whole chain since it is endless, and so again we\nnever reach absolute inevitability.\n\nBut besides this, even if, admitting the remaining minimum of freedom to\nequal zero, we assumed in some given case--as for instance in that of a\ndying man, an unborn babe, or an idiot--complete absence of freedom, by\nso doing we should destroy the very conception of man in the case we are\nexamining, for as soon as there is no freedom there is also no man. And\nso the conception of the action of a man subject solely to the law of\ninevitability without any element of freedom is just as impossible as\nthe conception of a man's completely free action.\n\nAnd so to imagine the action of a man entirely subject to the law of\ninevitability without any freedom, we must assume the knowledge of an\ninfinite number of space relations, an infinitely long period of time,\nand an infinite series of causes.\n\nTo imagine a man perfectly free and not subject to the law of\ninevitability, we must imagine him all alone, beyond space, beyond time,\nand free from dependence on cause.\n\nIn the first case, if inevitability were possible without freedom we\nshould have reached a definition of inevitability by the laws of\ninevitability itself, that is, a mere form without content.\n\nIn the second case, if freedom were possible without inevitability we\nshould have arrived at unconditioned freedom beyond space, time, and\ncause, which by the fact of its being unconditioned and unlimited would\nbe nothing, or mere content without form.\n\nWe should in fact have reached those two fundamentals of which man's\nwhole outlook on the universe is constructed--the incomprehensible\nessence of life, and the laws defining that essence.\n\nReason says: (1) space with all the forms of matter that give it\nvisibility is infinite, and cannot be imagined otherwise. (2) Time is\ninfinite motion without a moment of rest and is unthinkable otherwise.\n(3) The connection between cause and effect has no beginning and can\nhave no end.\n\nConsciousness says: (1) I alone am, and all that exists is but me,\nconsequently I include space. (2) I measure flowing time by the fixed\nmoment of the present in which alone I am conscious of myself as living,\nconsequently I am outside time. (3) I am beyond cause, for I feel myself\nto be the cause of every manifestation of my life.\n\nReason gives expression to the laws of inevitability. Consciousness\ngives expression to the essence of freedom.\n\nFreedom not limited by anything is the essence of life, in man's\nconsciousness. Inevitability without content is man's reason in its\nthree forms.\n\nFreedom is the thing examined. Inevitability is what examines. Freedom\nis the content. Inevitability is the form.\n\nOnly by separating the two sources of cognition, related to one another\nas form to content, do we get the mutually exclusive and separately\nincomprehensible conceptions of freedom and inevitability.\n\nOnly by uniting them do we get a clear conception of man's life.\n\nApart from these two concepts which in their union mutually define one\nanother as form and content, no conception of life is possible.\n\nAll that we know of the life of man is merely a certain relation of free\nwill to inevitability, that is, of consciousness to the laws of reason.\n\nAll that we know of the external world of nature is only a certain\nrelation of the forces of nature to inevitability, or of the essence of\nlife to the laws of reason.\n\nThe great natural forces lie outside us and we are not conscious of\nthem; we call those forces gravitation, inertia, electricity, animal\nforce, and so on, but we are conscious of the force of life in man and\nwe call that freedom.\n\nBut just as the force of gravitation, incomprehensible in itself but\nfelt by every man, is understood by us only to the extent to which we\nknow the laws of inevitability to which it is subject (from the first\nknowledge that all bodies have weight, up to Newton's law), so too the\nforce of free will, incomprehensible in itself but of which everyone is\nconscious, is intelligible to us only in as far as we know the laws of\ninevitability to which it is subject (from the fact that every man dies,\nup to the knowledge of the most complex economic and historic laws).\n\nAll knowledge is merely a bringing of this essence of life under the\nlaws of reason.\n\nMan's free will differs from every other force in that man is directly\nconscious of it, but in the eyes of reason it in no way differs from any\nother force. The forces of gravitation, electricity, or chemical\naffinity are only distinguished from one another in that they are\ndifferently defined by reason. Just so the force of man's free will is\ndistinguished by reason from the other forces of nature only by the\ndefinition reason gives it. Freedom, apart from necessity, that is,\napart from the laws of reason that define it, differs in no way from\ngravitation, or heat, or the force that makes things grow; for reason,\nit is only a momentary undefinable sensation of life.\n\nAnd as the undefinable essence of the force moving the heavenly bodies,\nthe undefinable essence of the forces of heat and electricity, or of\nchemical affinity, or of the vital force, forms the content of\nastronomy, physics, chemistry, botany, zoology, and so on, just in the\nsame way does the force of free will form the content of history. But\njust as the subject of every science is the manifestation of this\nunknown essence of life while that essence itself can only be the\nsubject of metaphysics, even the manifestation of the force of free will\nin human beings in space, in time, and in dependence on cause forms the\nsubject of history, while free will itself is the subject of\nmetaphysics.\n\nIn the experimental sciences what we know we call the laws of\ninevitability, what is unknown to us we call vital force. Vital force is\nonly an expression for the unknown remainder over and above what we know\nof the essence of life.\n\nSo also in history what is known to us we call laws of inevitability,\nwhat is unknown we call free will. Free will is for history only an\nexpression for the unknown remainder of what we know about the laws of\nhuman life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XI\n\nHistory examines the manifestations of man's free will in connection\nwith the external world in time and in dependence on cause, that is, it\ndefines this freedom by the laws of reason, and so history is a science\nonly in so far as this free will is defined by those laws.\n\nThe recognition of man's free will as something capable of influencing\nhistorical events, that is, as not subject to laws, is the same for\nhistory as the recognition of a free force moving the heavenly bodies\nwould be for astronomy.\n\nThat assumption would destroy the possibility of the existence of laws,\nthat is, of any science whatever. If there is even a single body moving\nfreely, then the laws of Kepler and Newton are negatived and no\nconception of the movement of the heavenly bodies any longer exists. If\nany single action is due to free will, then not a single historical law\ncan exist, nor any conception of historical events.\n\nFor history, lines exist of the movement of human wills, one end of\nwhich is hidden in the unknown but at the other end of which a\nconsciousness of man's will in the present moves in space, time, and\ndependence on cause.\n\nThe more this field of motion spreads out before our eyes, the more\nevident are the laws of that movement. To discover and define those laws\nis the problem of history.\n\nFrom the standpoint from which the science of history now regards its\nsubject on the path it now follows, seeking the causes of events in\nman's freewill, a scientific enunciation of those laws is impossible,\nfor however man's free will may be restricted, as soon as we recognize\nit as a force not subject to law, the existence of law becomes\nimpossible.\n\nOnly by reducing this element of free will to the infinitesimal, that\nis, by regarding it as an infinitely small quantity, can we convince\nourselves of the absolute inaccessibility of the causes, and then\ninstead of seeking causes, history will take the discovery of laws as\nits problem.\n\nThe search for these laws has long been begun and the new methods of\nthought which history must adopt are being worked out simultaneously\nwith the self-destruction toward which--ever dissecting and dissecting\nthe causes of phenomena--the old method of history is moving.\n\nAll human sciences have traveled along that path. Arriving at\ninfinitesimals, mathematics, the most exact of sciences, abandons the\nprocess of analysis and enters on the new process of the integration of\nunknown, infinitely small, quantities. Abandoning the conception of\ncause, mathematics seeks law, that is, the property common to all\nunknown, infinitely small, elements.\n\nIn another form but along the same path of reflection the other sciences\nhave proceeded. When Newton enunciated the law of gravity he did not say\nthat the sun or the earth had a property of attraction; he said that all\nbodies from the largest to the smallest have the property of attracting\none another, that is, leaving aside the question of the cause of the\nmovement of the bodies, he expressed the property common to all bodies\nfrom the infinitely large to the infinitely small. The same is done by\nthe natural sciences: leaving aside the question of cause, they seek for\nlaws. History stands on the same path. And if history has for its object\nthe study of the movement of the nations and of humanity and not the\nnarration of episodes in the lives of individuals, it too, setting aside\nthe conception of cause, should seek the laws common to all the\ninseparably interconnected infinitesimal elements of free will.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER XII\n\nFrom the time the law of Copernicus was discovered and proved, the mere\nrecognition of the fact that it was not the sun but the earth that moves\nsufficed to destroy the whole cosmography of the ancients. By disproving\nthat law it might have been possible to retain the old conception of the\nmovements of the bodies, but without disproving it, it would seem\nimpossible to continue studying the Ptolemaic worlds. But even after the\ndiscovery of the law of Copernicus the Ptolemaic worlds were still\nstudied for a long time.\n\nFrom the time the first person said and proved that the number of births\nor of crimes is subject to mathematical laws, and that this or that mode\nof government is determined by certain geographical and economic\nconditions, and that certain relations of population to soil produce\nmigrations of peoples, the foundations on which history had been built\nwere destroyed in their essence.\n\nBy refuting these new laws the former view of history might have been\nretained; but without refuting them it would seem impossible to continue\nstudying historic events as the results of man's free will. For if a\ncertain mode of government was established or certain migrations of\npeoples took place in consequence of such and such geographic,\nethnographic, or economic conditions, then the free will of those\nindividuals who appear to us to have established that mode of government\nor occasioned the migrations can no longer be regarded as the cause.\n\nAnd yet the former history continues to be studied side by side with the\nlaws of statistics, geography, political economy, comparative philology,\nand geology, which directly contradict its assumptions.\n\nThe struggle between the old views and the new was long and stubbornly\nfought out in physical philosophy. Theology stood on guard for the old\nviews and accused the new of violating revelation. But when truth\nconquered, theology established itself just as firmly on the new\nfoundation.\n\nJust as prolonged and stubborn is the struggle now proceeding between\nthe old and the new conception of history, and theology in the same way\nstands on guard for the old view, and accuses the new view of subverting\nrevelation.\n\nIn the one case as in the other, on both sides the struggle provokes\npassion and stifles truth. On the one hand there is fear and regret for\nthe loss of the whole edifice constructed through the ages, on the other\nis the passion for destruction.\n\nTo the men who fought against the rising truths of physical philosophy,\nit seemed that if they admitted that truth it would destroy faith in\nGod, in the creation of the firmament, and in the miracle of Joshua the\nson of Nun. To the defenders of the laws of Copernicus and Newton, to\nVoltaire for example, it seemed that the laws of astronomy destroyed\nreligion, and he utilized the law of gravitation as a weapon against\nreligion.\n\nJust so it now seems as if we have only to admit the law of\ninevitability, to destroy the conception of the soul, of good and evil,\nand all the institutions of state and church that have been built up on\nthose conceptions.\n\nSo too, like Voltaire in his time, uninvited defenders of the law of\ninevitability today use that law as a weapon against religion, though\nthe law of inevitability in history, like the law of Copernicus in\nastronomy, far from destroying, even strengthens the foundation on which\nthe institutions of state and church are erected.\n\nAs in the question of astronomy then, so in the question of history now,\nthe whole difference of opinion is based on the recognition or\nnonrecognition of something absolute, serving as the measure of visible\nphenomena. In astronomy it was the immovability of the earth, in history\nit is the independence of personality--free will.\n\nAs with astronomy the difficulty of recognizing the motion of the earth\nlay in abandoning the immediate sensation of the earth's fixity and of\nthe motion of the planets, so in history the difficulty of recognizing\nthe subjection of personality to the laws of space, time, and cause lies\nin renouncing the direct feeling of the independence of one's own\npersonality. But as in astronomy the new view said: \"It is true that we\ndo not feel the movement of the earth, but by admitting its immobility\nwe arrive at absurdity, while by admitting its motion (which we do not\nfeel) we arrive at laws,\" so also in history the new view says: \"It is\ntrue that we are not conscious of our dependence, but by admitting our\nfree will we arrive at absurdity, while by admitting our dependence on\nthe external world, on time, and on cause, we arrive at laws.\"\n\nIn the first case it was necessary to renounce the consciousness of an\nunreal immobility in space and to recognize a motion we did not feel; in\nthe present case it is similarly necessary to renounce a freedom that\ndoes not exist, and to recognize a dependence of which we are not\nconscious."